of books, the reference use, and the books outstanding at any particular
time. Hall use is very difficult to keep in a free access library, but
an attempt should be made to do so. It is not quite synonymous with
reference use. If a man sits down in your library and actually reads a
novel without taking it home, that is hall or library use, but not
reference use. If he merely refers to the same book to find out about
some character, that is reference use. It is evidently hard to separate
these and many libraries do not attempt to do so. In others, where there
is a separate reference room, any use of books in this room is recorded
as “reference use.” The number of books outstanding should be taken at
least once a month, simply by counting the cards in the circulation
tray. This item is very easy to ascertain, very accurate, and is
interesting and useful in more than one way.
Last in the list of the necessary items of statistics comes that of
readers or users of the library--the most interesting in some ways, and
the most disappointingly vague. Presumably your users fill out some
kind of blank form of application and have their names entered in a
book. It is therefore easy to give, as is usually done, the total
registration and its annual increase. But this is evidently not the
number of actual users of the library. Who are the “actual users”? The
expression itself is vague. To be complete you should have the numbers
of those who have used the library within one, two, and three days, and
so on back indefinitely. There is no place where the line may be drawn
between “live” and “dead” cards. But such statistics are too elaborate
to collect regularly, so that the ordinary library leaves this subject
in its pristine mistiness. There are some pretty variations of it,
however, which may be gone into if there is time. For instance, how are
your users divided, according to occupation? This you can ascertain from
your applications provided the applicant is required to state his
occupation. Here again the result is for registered users, not actual
users. Again, how are your users distributed topographically? The result
of this inquiry may be shown graphically on a map, and it is
particularly valuable when one is thinking of moving or of establishing
a branch; but it takes more time than is at the disposal of most
librarians.
Here, I believe, ends the enumeration of necessary kinds of statistics.
In each kind the collection may be reduced to a minimum; but the
librarian must, if the library is to be maintained at all, keep a cash
account, count the books, and make some kind of a list of them. Also, if
at all possible she or he must be able to tell how many books are
circulated and how many users’ names are on the books. This is the
minimum; the maximum is fixed only by considerations of time and
usefulness. First among the kinds of statistics that are not absolutely
necessary, but interesting and often useful, is that of routine work
done--letters written, visits made, cards written. This may easily be
carried to excess. Then there is the enormous class in which the data
are obtained not directly, but by comparison of other data. To this
class belong the financial comparisons already noted. For instance, by
comparing the circulation of separate classes with the total we get
class percentages--a very useful type of statistics; by comparing
circulation with books on shelves we get the average circulation of each
book, etc. There is no end to the varieties of this class of statistics,
and they may be rated all the way from “very valuable” to “useless” or
even “nonsensical”. The whole class would require a separate paper to
discuss.
Let all these statistics tell the truth. Let them be clear. Tell exactly
what they mean. Otherwise they will certainly mislead and are worse than
useless. It is well to accompany every table with an explanatory note
telling exactly how the data were obtained and whether they are of a
high or a low degree of accuracy. In case you do not know, for instance,
whether the word “juvenile” as generally used means the entire
circulation among children, or the circulation in the children’s room,
or is merely short for “juvenile fiction,” decide what it shall mean in
your case and then state distinctly what it means. Read over other
library reports critically and when you find any statistics that are
vague, see to it that that particular kind of vagueness does not occur
in your own tables.
And after it is all over, ask yourself, Now what shall I do with all
this? In this paper only a few suggestions can be made. Take first, the
financial data. If you find that your town is giving less per capita or
less per book circulated than the average, let it be your business to
make it give more. There is a task that will fill up your spare moments.
If you are paying for books more per book than other libraries, try to
buy more cheaply. If your inventory shows a great loss of books by
theft, try to reduce it next year by greater vigilance. If your
circulation is decreasing ask the reason why. Get at it if you can and
remedy it if possible. If your circulation shows a sudden increase in a
particular class, investigate that and meet it, if proper, by increased
purchases in that class. If a class that should circulate well has
fallen, try to find out why. Is your collection in this class small and
poor? Make it richer and larger. Has interest in the subject fallen off?
Try to stimulate it.
In short, instead of regarding your work in connection with statistics
as done when they have been collected, think that it has not yet begun.
So far as your own work is concerned, let them serve only as an
indication of the weak spots that must be strengthened and of the
promising growths that must be encouraged. There are statistics and
statistics. Some are dead; some are alive--vitalised and vitalizing. Not
all of the library’s work can be stated in figures. The largest part,
the best part, you cannot put into statistical tables at all. Yet
rightly used, your statistics may so guide and direct you along the
lines of least resistance, even in this broader and finer work, that
your energies may be put forth in it to the best effect--that you may
aim right and that your shots may not go astray.
OLD PROBABILITIES IN THE LIBRARY--HIS MODEST VATICINATIONS[6]
“Don’t never prophsey onles ye know,” says Hosea Bigelow. I beg to call
attention to the fact that this means “Don’t prophesy at all”--perhaps
it was so meant by the shrewd Hosea. We never can know--and yet we
continue to prophesy. The best we can do, of course, is to estimate
probabilities. Probabilities! That is a good word. They have dropped it
from the weather reports and call their estimate a “forecast.” I like
the old word better. Let us see, then, what some of the probabilities
are in library work.
“Everything flows,” said the Greek philosopher. Nothing in the world is
stable; change is the order of the day. But note the word he uses. That
which flows is in a state of orderly change in a definite direction.
Everything progresses; and the library and its work are being borne
along in the general current. Now the writers on hydro-dynamics, who are
experts on blow, tell us that there are two ways of studying a current,
which they name the “historical” and the “statistical”: In the former
the attention is fixed on a definite particle of the moving fluid whose
change of velocity and direction is noted as it passes along; in the
latter a definite locality of the stream is selected and the fluid’s
changes of form and density at that particular place are observed. In
like manner we may study the library movement historically or we can
select a definite point in its course--the present time--and note the
conditions and their alteration. The latter plan, I venture to think,
is the more favorable one for the would-be prophet.
Let us, then, take a few of the salient features of library work as they
exist to-day and inquire: (1) What is the present situation with regard
to each; (2) Is that situation changing; and whither and how fast; (3)
Is its rate of change altering, and (4) are the conditions that affect
it and its alteration, likely to remain as they are. If we can answer
all these questions we can at least make an attempt at estimating the
probable situation at a given future time. We must bear in mind,
however, that in the library world, as elsewhere, there are sudden or
abrupt changes, or catastrophes, and that these generally defy
prediction. And this is equally true of unexpected aids or beneficient
influences. The library benefactions of Mr. Carnegie would have upset
the most careful and logical estimate of library progress made twenty
years ago.
First let us take up the status of our stock in trade--our supply of
books. President Eliot warned us two years ago that our books are piling
up too fast. His warning has met with scant heed because experience has
not brought it home to most of us. Malthus warned us long ago that the
progress of population was toward overcrowding the world. We laugh at
him because there is still plenty of room and means of utilizing it
unknown in his time. Yet population increases, and it will overcrowd the
world some day unless something occurs to prevent. In like manner our
stock of books increases faster and faster. The ordinary American public
library is a thing of yesterday; small wonder that it does not yet begin
to feel plethoric. Our oldest large libraries are those of our
universities, and Harvard’s president has told us that to them the evil
day is within sight. Librarians have not received with favor President
Eliot’s plea for getting us out of our future difficulty but this is
neither here nor there. To judge by our present attitude either our
library buildings must increase indefinitely in size or our stock must
be weeded out. It must be remembered, however, that our books are
perishable, and are growing more so. I do not regard this as an unmixed
evil. Rather than to make our books unwieldy for the purpose of
preserving them we prefer to make them usable and to rely on reprinting
for their perpetuation. Thus what is not wanted will pass away. Perhaps
this will solve our problem for us. But in any case it looks as if the
future library building and its contents were to be greatly larger than
those of to-day.
What are to be the style and arrangement of the future library building?
The present situation can hardly be described in general terms. As in
all building operations, there is a strife between the architect,
representing aesthetics, and the administrator, representing utility. At
present the architect seems to be having his way outside and the
librarian his way inside. But why this contest? Is it not the
architect’s business to make utility more beautiful but not less useful?
And should not the administrator wish his surroundings to please the
eye? Apparently the two are drawing a little closer together of late. We
are having fewer temples of art that have to be made over to fit them
for use as libraries and fewer buildings that are workable but offensive
to the eye. The tendency seems to be toward simple dignity, although we
certainly have some surprising departures from it. Probably the library
of the future will be a simple and massive structure of much greater
size than at present, with its decorations largely structural, and
combining ample open-shelf and reading facilities with greatly increased
capacity for book-storage.
There is one particular in which the architect has been specially out of
touch with the administrator. The open-shelf is now all but universal,
but many architects seem not to have heard of it. Many buildings,
actually intended for administration on the free access system, seem yet
to have been planned as closed-shelf libraries and opened to the public
as an afterthought. A library without a special stack-room for
book-storage is an unthinkable thing to most architects. And yet in many
small libraries book-storage is not necessary, and in most branch
libraries, where only books in general use are to be placed, it will
never be necessary. To get the maximum advantage from open shelves, with
a minimum of risk, the books should be placed on the walls as far as
possible and such book-cases as stand on the floor should be as low as
an ordinary table, so as to be easily overseen. A stack-room, it seems
to me, is distinctly a closed-shelf arrangement. I believe this is
coming to be recognized and that in the future library the books will be
on or near the walls.
But how about the open-shelf system itself? At present there are few
libraries that do not have it in some form, and some of these are
libraries that continued strongly to disapprove of it even after it had
become well and widely established. The indications are nearly all that
it has come to stay. I say nearly all; for there is still a feeling
among many people that it is not good administration to abandon so large
a percentage of our books to thieves. In libraries in small communities
where the loss is small, this question does not arise; but in New York,
for instance, where we lost 5000 books last year, it is serious. We
librarians may say and believe that the advantages far outweigh the
disadvantages, but trustees and municipal authorities are hard to
convince. In New York we have taken what many will consider a backward
step, by partially closing, as an experiment, the shelves of two of our
branches. So that although we may safely say that free access has come
to stay, I do not look to see it applied very generally to large
collections. One thing seems to me clear. Library administration is
becoming increasingly business-like, and it is not business-like to
accept a large annual loss without an attempt to minimize it. We must at
least investigate regularly and rigidly the sources and character of
this loss.
As for the other features that we have become accustomed to regard as
distinguishing the new library era from the old--special work with
children, co-operation with schools, travelling libraries, etc.--it is
evident that these, too, have come to stay. Their spheres are widening
and their aims are diversifying, however, so that he who should venture
to predict their precise status in the future would be rash.
In fact, the library idea itself is beginning to suffer a sort of
restless change that is quite distinct from its orderly progress. The
activities of the library are at present a good deal like those of the
amoeba--stretching out a tentacle here, withdrawing one there;
improvising a mouth and then turning it into a stomach; shifting and
stretching about; somewhat vague and formless, yet instinct with life,
appetite and caution, and vitalized with at least the germ and promise
of intelligence. Such a state is an unpromising one for prophecy. Is
this or that new development of activity the beginning of an orderly
march in a straight line, or is it to be withdrawn or reversed
to-morrow? Is our work with children to include much that now seems to
belong to the kindergarten, the museum, and the art gallery? Are our
travelling library departments to sell books in the future as well as
lend them? Are we to deliver books free at our user’s homes? Are our
Boards of Education to turn over to us the superintendence of all such
work as deals with books and their use? Many questions like these would
have been answered in the affirmative yesterday but in the negative
to-day. I might be inclined to say “yes” to some of them now, when
to-morrow would prove them out of the question. But there is one
assertion that we can make boldly. Whatever the library has tried to do
or to be, whether success or failure has attended it, it has never
ceased to be a library--a keeper and purveyor of books. Whatever else it
may undertake, we may be sure that this will continue to be its chief
reason for existence, and that its other activities, if such there be,
will grow out of this and group themselves around it. Is the library to
grow into a bookstore? I do not know, but if so its commercial functions
are likely to be subsidiary. Certain libraries have already added to
their duties as free institutions the functions of pay-libraries, and
the commercial feature has thus been introduced. It seems to be
spreading, and it may prove an entering wedge for a system of actual
sales to supplement that of paid loans. A powerful deterrent, however,
will be the influence of the book-trade. Following the line of least
resistance, the activity of the library as an aid to the ownership as
well as the reading of books is perhaps more likely to manifest itself
in advice than in actual trade. Some libraries are now making special
effort to give their readers information about book-prices, and about
places and methods of purchase; and it seems likely that this kind of
aid, since it can arouse no opposition, will increase.
The position in which we find ourselves, of opposition to those who make
and sell books, is unfortunate. The situation has been growing more and
more tense and it may continue so to grow, perhaps up to the point where
all discount will be withheld from libraries and where new legislation
may discourage importation, but I do not believe that it will keep on
indefinitely. No one who looks into the matter closely can help
believing that in the long run libraries advertise the book-trade and
help it by promoting general interest in literature. This view of the
matter was taken by a majority of the New York Booksellers’ League at a
recent dinner at which the question was discussed. Even purely as a
matter of business, the library deserves special privileges and it will
doubtless continue in some measure to receive them.
It does not, however, seem probable that the average cost of books to a
public library will ever be as low again as it was, say, ten years ago.
In fact this may be said of all library expenses. Salaries are rising
and ought to rise higher; our buildings are larger and finer and demand
more expensive care. We are heating them with more costly apparatus and
lighting them with electricity. The library of the future will doubtless
cost more to maintain in every item than the library of the past--but
the public will receive more than the difference.
As regards children’s work there seem to be at present two
tendencies--one toward complete isolation and one in the opposite
direction. Will our grandchildren, when they go to the public library,
be segregated in a separate room, perhaps in a separate building; or
will they be treated as a distinct class only so far as may be
absolutely necessary for good administration? Probably complete
separation is best for the library and best for the adults; I hesitate
to say that it is best for the children. After all, childhood is but a
stage and not a resting state at that--rather restless and progressive.
Any special conditions that we provide for it must themselves be subject
to constant change. In our schools the child passes from grade to grade.
In our libraries the grades are only two; let us not make the leap from
one to the other too great. I look to see special library work for
children increase in importance, but with due recognition of the fact
that some of the needs and aspirations of a “grown-up” are present in
many a twelve-year-old and that it is better that the clothes of a
growing child should be a size too large than an exact fit.
The travelling library deserves a special word, because its success is
indicative of the tendency to bring the book and its user into closer
contact. In New York we began, only seven years ago, to circulate a few
hundred books monthly in this way among half a dozen schools. Now we
give out nearly half a million a year from nearly 500 different points.
We hear the same tale from all sides. And the cost of circulation per
book is surprisingly small. In New York the circulation through
travelling libraries is equal to that of three branches of the first
class, while the number of assistants employed is about half the number
required in one of those branches. The cost of operating three large
branches in Carnegie buildings is about $40,000 yearly, whereas our
travelling libraries for the last fiscal year cost us but $6400. Of
course it must be remembered that a very large amount of the work of
circulation in this case is done by volunteer assistants and that the
users of the books have not the facilities and resources of a branch
library--the number and variety of books, the pleasant surroundings, the
trained aid. Of course the travelling library can never take the place
of the fully equipped branch, but in supplementing branch work and in
reaching those who live in sparsely settled communities its capabilities
are great and it may be expected that its use will increase.
The broadening of library work illustrated by the successive appearance
of the reference library, the circulating library, the delivery station,
the branch and the travelling library suggests the thought that this
series may be carried further in the future by the addition of some
working plan that will bring the book still closer to its user. Such a
plan would be the system in which books are delivered free of charge at
the houses of those who use them, or the provision of a real library on
wheels--a van supplied with shelving for a thousand books or more from
which selection can be made as it moves about from house to house. It
does not seem probable that any such device as this will be generally
adopted for districts adequately provided with regular libraries, but
for thinly settled regions they may supplement or take the place of our
present travelling or home libraries. I believe for instance, that a
moving library of 1000 books, calling once a week at each house in a
farming district would be preferable to four travelling libraries of 250
books each, stationed at points in the same district, although, of
course, the cost would be correspondingly greater.
The library’s status as an educational institution seems now to be well
established. No one disputes it, and as this appears to be the chief
ground on which its support by public funds is justified we may regard
it as settled that the library is to continue to play its part in public
instruction. This part, though not so definite and positive as that of
the school, extends over a far longer period. While the library’s work
is parallel and supplementary to that of the school in the case of those
of school age, it must continue its work alone after its users have left
school. Here it may settle its methods for itself, but in its earlier
work when it deals with pupils, it has the teacher to reckon with. The
necessity for constant consultation and co-operation between the
authorities of two public institutions, whose work is so similar and can
so easily result in wasteful duplication or still more wasteful
conflict, is obvious. We need not be surprised that librarians and
teachers are getting nearer together and we may confidently predict that
the _rapprochement_ will be closer in the future. But although the
school is ceasing to look upon its younger sister as an interloper in
the pedagogical family, there is still plenty of room for the definition
of their respective spheres. And we have no right to complain that the
school is still doing much library work, when we have ourselves
sometimes tried to do school work. I look in the future for the
definition of two clearly separated spheres of activity, one filled by
the library and the other by the school, and for the closest
co-operation between the two that is consistent with confining each to
its own work. It is probably too much to expect that the school will
give up the custodianship of books. It must at least control its own
text books, and its collection of reference works should be complete
enough to constitute a thorough guide and aid to proper study. But the
distribution of supplementary reading should be the part of the public
library. This and other related points are to be settled, if at all, in
the future by two kinds of mutual understandings; namely, between the
governing boards of library and school and between librarian and
teacher. The due definition of spheres of work can come only from an
official agreement between library board and school board; helpful aid
on both sides can come only from an official agreement between library
board and school board; helpful aid on both sides can come only from
personal contact and acquaintance between teachers and library
assistants--such a degree of acquaintance between teachers and library
assistants--such a degree of acquaintance that each comes to have a
practical knowledge of the other’s problems, trials and limitations.
Most librarians have made more or less effort in this direction; some
have met with distinguished success. We may safely predict further
progress along this line.