One of the first clear statements of the Public Library as a
business enterprise, involving certain amounts invested by a
city with the expectation of certain definite returns. The
paper refers particularly to the San Francisco Public
Library, of which the author, Frederic Beecher Perkins, was
then librarian but its conclusions are general, and hold
good to-day. It was read at the Lake George Conference of
the American Library Association, in September, 1885.
Frederic Beecher Perkins was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept.
27, 1828, a grandson of Lyman Beecher. He left Yale in
sophomore year to study law and was admitted to the bar in
1851, but graduated at the State Normal School in 1852 and
devoted himself to literary and educational work. In 1880-87
he was librarian of the San Francisco Public Library. He
died in Morristown, N.J., Jan. 27, 1899. He was the father
of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
There are in the United States about 5,000 public libraries of 300
volumes or more. Returns of their present conditions are very imperfect,
and must therefore be summed in the following crude way:--
Annual cost much more than $1,500,000
The books in them are many more than 13,000,000
Books added yearly are many more than 500,000
Books used yearly are many more than 10,000,000
These institutions, therefore, represent a large money investment, and
a very extensive and active educational agency. Not all of them by any
means are "free public libraries,"--_i.e._, libraries supported by taxes
or endowments for the use of all. But a considerable portion of them
are. It may now be justly said that no town of importance is respectably
complete without a free public library any more than any town whatever
without a school.
The San Francisco Free Public Library was founded in 1879, and was
advancing with creditable speed towards a size and usefulness
corresponding to the position of San Francisco, among American cities,
until the present city government suddenly cut down its annual
appropriation to bare running expenses, leaving no allowance for buying
new books, or even for replacing old ones worn out.
This library is not a collection of mummies of deceased learning, which
will be no drier in a thousand years than they are now. It has thus far
consisted of live books for live people. But a library of this
practically useful kind, if it stops buying new books, quickly becomes
dead stock,--unattractive, obsolete, useless. In _belles-lettres_,
literature, history, mechanic arts, engineering, applied science, all
alike, it is equally indispensable to have the new books. The
photographer, the druggist, the electrician, the machinist, the
manufacturing chemist, as much as or more than the reader of novels,
poetry, travels, or history, want this year's discoveries, for last
year's are already obsolete. Next year it will not be Mr. Blaine's book
that will be most called for,--that will be a year old,--but General
Grant's book. But a thousand examples would not make the case clearer.
This prohibition of new books, perhaps on pretence of economy, would be
the natural first step of shrewd opponents intending to close the
library entirely as soon as the books are dead enough. It is girdling
the tree now, so as to destroy it more early next year. It is understood
that at least two prominent members of the present city government
(Supervisor Pond and Auditor Strother) are distinctly opposed to the
library, and to free public libraries, on principle. It is not known
that any member of it is a particularly energetic friend of the
institution. The library staff is small in number (seven boys and eight
adults); the salaries (omitting the librarian's) exceptionally scanty,
and even this small patronage and expenditure is wholly controlled by
the Board of Trustees, and wholly out of reach of the Board of
Supervisors. When this is remembered it is easy to understand both the
probable firmness of any opposition, and the probable lukewarmness of
any friendship to the library in the latter body. This is perfectly
natural. All governing bodies try to keep and increase their authority
over persons and payments. They never let go of them when they can help
it. And, accordingly, the Supervisors insisted on controlling all the
expenditure and management of the library, until a decision of the
Supreme Court of the State forced the control out of their hands.
Whether the actual closing of the library is intended or not, the
obvious first step towards it has been taken, and its closing will
follow in due season, if the policy is continued. If the voters of San
Francisco choose to have it so, there is no more to be said, for it is
their library. Probably they could lawfully divide up the books among
themselves, and so close out the enterprise. The dividend, now, would be
not far from one volume to each household in the city. But, if they wish
the library to continue, this early notice is due them.
Further: the custom here, in respect to the contents of municipal public
documents, prevents such discussions of library questions as are usual
in the annual reports of other city libraries; so that, if a view of
principles and practices in and about such institutions as a class, and
of their application in this instance, is to be laid before the public
at all, it must be submitted, as in this paper, unofficially.
The following table shows the financial, and some of the literary,
relations between public libraries and cities in San Francisco, in four
other large cities, and in six small cities. The cases were taken
promiscuously as they came to hand, of the latest dates available, but
all are within a few years. New York has no free public library;
movements to establish one there have repeatedly been contemplated, but
have been abandoned, because the men who could have set up the library
would not encounter the practical certainty of its becoming one more
corruptionist engine in the hands of the city rulers. Philadelphia has
none, for reasons not known to the present writer, but, very likely, the
same as in New York. St. Louis has none now, although its excellent
Public School Library may, very likely, become one. New Orleans has
none, apparently, because it doesn't want any. Louisville has none,
because the devil cannot set up a true church; the enormous lottery
swindle which was worked off there a few years ago was ostensibly to
establish and endow one, but where did the money go?
Assessed Being,
Population Value in Whole Gives its of
Cities (1880) Millions City Library whole
(1880) Tax tax
Boston 362,000 $613 $7,261,741 $120,000 1/60
Chicago 503,000 118 3,776,451 54,330 1/75
Cincinnati 255,139 169 1/3 4,070,225 49,016 1/82
Lynn 38,274 22 1/2 332,481 5,730 1/58
Milwaukee 115,587 55 3/4 902,537 17,697 1/51
New Bedford 26,875 25 3/4 390,208 5,148 1/76
Newburyport 13,537 7 1/2 105,686 1,661 1/64
Springfield, Mass. 33,340 29 1/2 307,434 8,231 1/37
Taunton 21,213 15 3/4 213,912 5,195 1/41
Worcester 58,291 39 1/2 557,193 14,860 1/38
San Francisco 233,959 225 2,252,000 18,000 1/125
Vols. Being And per
Vols. per Circulation per $1.00 Volumes
Cities in soul per year soul of added
Library (about) (about) salaries yearly
Boston 438,594 1 1/5 1,056,906 3 14 16,478
Chicago 111,621 1/5+ 664,867 1 1/3 23 1/4 5,280
Cincinnati 153,870 3/5+ 730,544 3 26 1/6 4,120
Lynn 32,006 4/5 90,330 2 1/3 36 1,264
Milwaukee 24,481 1/5 83,052 3/4 16 2,778
New Bedford 45,000 1 4/5 71,798 3 ... 2,448
Newburyport 17,828 1 1/3 ... ... ... 441
Springfield, Mass. 48,832 1 1/2 57,152 1 3/4 14 3/4 1,797
Taunton 21,197 1 58,920 2 9/10 31 1/2 1,971
Worcester 61,204 1+ 194,321 3 1/3 26 6/7 3,105
San Francisco 62,647 1/4+ 326,000 1 1/4 36 [3]3,883
[TN: Table split for text version]
[3] Next year NONE except gifts.
The six small cities tabulated are all in Massachusetts, because the
latest and fullest reports came to hand from them.
Of various comparisons which could be formulated from the above figures,
the following are the most pertinent now:--
(1) Of the five large cities listed, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and
Milwaukee give from one fifty-first part to one eighty-second part of
their tax levies for their libraries; San Francisco, one one-hundred and
twenty-fifth part.
(2) Of the actual sums so set apart by these cities, Boston, with half
as many more people, gives nearly seven times as much; Chicago, with
twice as many, gives three times as much; Cincinnati, with one-tenth
more gives two and two-thirds times as much; Milwaukee, with one-half as
many, gives nearly as much ($300 less).
(3) Accordingly, San Francisco would expend every year for its library,
if it were as liberal as Boston, about $84,000; if as liberal as
Chicago, $27,000; and so on.
(4) The actual comparative size of their libraries is: Boston seven
times as large as San Francisco; Chicago nearly twice; Cincinnati twice
and a half; Milwaukee only is smaller, being somewhat more than
one-third as large.
(5) The rate of increase is: from 16,478 volumes a year at Boston, to
2,778 at Milwaukee; and in San Francisco, for the coming year none (for
the loss in worn-out volumes will more than equal any probable total of
gifts), none at all.
(6) The number of volumes circulated in a year for each dollar of
salaries paid is in San Francisco more than twice as great as in Boston
or Milwaukee, and decidedly larger than in Chicago or Cincinnati. It may
be added, although the figures are not in this table, that a much more
striking evidence of the stringent economy of the library administration
here is the fact that there is paid at the Boston Public Library in
salaries, in the cataloging department alone, without allowing anything
for printing, nearly as much as the whole of this year's library
appropriation by the city of San Francisco.
(7) Similar comparisons with the six smaller cities listed would give
results generally similar, but showing a still more liberal rate per
head and dollar of expenditure for libraries.
In addition to this exposition of comparative parsimony a feature of it
should be remembered which might easily escape notice: that, while the
money for running expenses is all gone at the end of the year, nearly
all of the allowance above running expenses remains represented by
valuable property. Thus, if the year's allowance for this library had
been $28,000, instead of $18,000, it would not have cost a cent more to
run the library and at the year's end about $10,000 worth of books would
remain added to the permanent property of the city.
Another result of this policy is to prevent printing any catalogue of
the recent additions to the library; so that there is practically no
access, and there will, for the present, continue to be none, even for
the public who own the books, to all additions to this library since
June, 1884, being several thousand titles. It is needless to point out
that if there were to be the hypothesis of an unfriendly purpose
entertained against the library, that purpose would be served as
directly by suppressing the names of books in the library as by
preventing the addition of new ones, or by the replacing of those worn
out.
These brief statements sufficiently show what our city is doing, and
what other cities are doing, for or against public libraries. It is not
within the scope of this paper to inquire after the real reason for the
stop put to the progress of the San Francisco Free Public Library. One
hypothesis is, that, instead of any unfriendly intention against the
library itself, the step was taken to help in persuading the public that
the "dollar limit" to the rate of city taxation is too low, and that our
citizens must submit to a higher rate. As the money saved is only
$6,000, the economy is not great in itself, being about one
four-hundredth part of the city tax levy. If the proposed effect was
expected to be produced by continuously annoying and dissatisfying the
citizens there is more reason in the scheme; for the library is
frequented by more than a thousand persons daily; between 26,000 and
27,000 cards have been issued to authorize the home use of books; and
there are always at any given moment from 5,900 to 6,000 volumes from
the library in use in as many homes all over the city. To inconvenience
and disoblige so large a constituency as this may naturally produce some
effect. This paper need not attempt to decide whether that effect would
naturally be approval or disapproval of the treatment of the library,
enthusiasm in favor of, or against, the proposed increase of taxation,
unpopularity or popularity of the institution itself, or of those whose
action so effectually cripples its usefulness. Nor will it discuss the
still larger question of the "dollar limit" itself,[4] however
decisively important all these inquiries are for the future of the
library, and however interesting and clear the arguments and conclusions
on those subjects may be. But what it may properly do is, to state,
without any pretence of novelty, but simply in order to refresh the
public memory, the chief heads of a doctrine of her public libraries
from a practical point of view.
First (to limit the discussion). What a free public library is _not_
for.
It is not for a nursery; a lunch-room; a bed-room; a place for meeting a
girl in a corner and talking to her; a conversation-room of any kind; a
free dispensary of stationery, envelopes, and letter-writing; a free
range for loiterers; a campaigning field for mendicants, or for
displaying advertisements; a haunt for loafers and criminals. Indeed,
not to specify with inelegant distinctness, a free public library, like
any other similarly commodious place of free public resort, would, if
permitted, be used for any purpose whatever, no matter how private or
how vicious, which could be served there more conveniently than by going
to one's own home, or than by having any home at all. It would be so
used systematically, constantly, and to a degree of intolerable
nuisance; and its purification from such uses, if they have been set up,
will be met with clamor, abuse, and with any degree and kind of even
violent resistance which may be thought safe, or likely to succeed. Let
it not be supposed that this is an imaginary picture. It is in every
point taken from actual and numerous instances, and could be illustrated
by a sufficiently ridiculous series of single adventures, by any
librarian of large experience. Open public premises for some of the
purposes above specified might conceivably be properly supplied by the
public. What is here affirmed is, that public libraries are not at
present proper for them.
[4] San Francisco is at present taxed on a precise scale of one dollar
to the hundred dollars of value, and on an annual total valuation of
$200,000,000, which is, however, in practice somewhat, but not
largely, exceeded.
Second. What such a library _is_ for.
Its first object is to supply books to persons wishing to improve their
knowledge of their occupations. Such books as Nicholson's, Burns',
Riddell's, Tredgold's, Dwyer's, Waring's, Holly's, and others, on
practical architecture, building, or departments of them; the numerous
collections of plans and details of domestic and other architecture;
Masury's house-painting; Kittredge's metal-worker's pattern-book;
Percy's, Phillips', and other books on metallurgy and mining; Dussance,
Piesse, and others on soap-making, perfumery, and other branches of
applied chemistry; Lock on sugar-refining; many manuals of brewing and
distilling; Noad, Hospitalier, Preece, etc., on applications of
electricity; Burgh's, Roper's, and other hand-books and more advanced
works on steam engineering generally, locomotives, marine engines, etc.;
Gaskell's, Hill's, and other business manuals; hand-books of
correspondence, book-keeping, phonography; in short, text-books, both
elementary and advanced, in all sorts of commercial and industrial
occupations, are of the first importance in a free public library, and
are constantly and eagerly used in this one. The study of such books
puts money directly into the student's pocket, promotes his success in
life, and the prosperity of the city. A good and active public library
raises the value of every piece of real estate in the city, by thus
making the city more profitable (in dollars) to live in; because it
enables the intelligent and studious to earn more.
Second in importance is the supply of books to those who wish to acquire
or pursue an education, or to complete or continue a knowledge of
general literature; and, third, the accommodation of students working
out special lines of research.
Fourth. Such is the more solid usefulness of a public library. The rest
of its distributing work, whatever its intrinsic usefulness, is at least
as indispensable, and is always numerically the most popular. This is
the supply of light literature to readers for rest or amusement. Whether
books of this class constitute one-half the library or (as in this one)
one-tenth of it, it may be depended on that from one-half to four-fifths
of all the reading done will be done from that part. The justification
of the supply of such books by a free public library is, that it is
important also, if not likewise, to afford mental relaxation, as it is
to feed mental effort; that even light reading is a very important
improvement over and safe-guard from street life and saloon life; that
such books introduce to a more useful class of books by forming the
habit of reading; and that the public, who pay for the library, choose
to have books of this sort as much as, if not even rather more than, the
more useful sort.
Fifth. There is another department of usefulness for public libraries,
quite unknown until within a few years, which makes them actual and
vital members of the public-school system, and additionally justifies
the term "People's Universities," which has often been applied to them.
This is the arrangement at the library of courses of illustrative study
and reading for teachers or pupils, or both. A series of such books as
relate to one or another part of the school course is laid out at the
library; the teachers, and perhaps sometimes one of the higher classes,
examine them along with the librarian, and such information as they
afford is used to fill out and illustrate the outline in the school-book
for the fuller information of the pupils.
This practice is perhaps easiest in history and geography. It is easy to
see how a capable teacher could intensify the interest and enrich the
minds of a class about the geography of the East Indian archipelago, by
introducing them to the vivid narrative and abundant illustrations of
Wallace's most entertaining and instructive book on that region. How,
for instance, Palgrave's "Year in Arabia," Palmer's "Desert of the
Exodus," Lady Duff Gordon's "Letters from Egypt," O'Donovan's "Merv
Oasis," Atkinson's and Kennan's books on Siberia, Huc's "Travels in
Tartary and in China," and hundreds of other books, each for its
locality, all over the world, could be used to give a child clear
notions and strong impressions of savage or civilized landscapes and
people. It is not too much to say that the study of geography in the
public schools of San Francisco, illustrated as it could easily be from
books of travel now in the public library, could be made from beginning
to end as fascinating as any romance, while it would store the
children's minds with a kind and quantity of distinct knowledge about
the earth and its people as much beyond the results of ordinary
geographical study as gold is better than mud. It would be easy to
furnish similar specifications for the study of history, of natural
science, and other branches. This is no mere speculation. This system of
instruction is regularly practised by Mr. Green, of the Worcester Free
Library (the originator and pioneer in it); by Mr. Poole at Chicago, and
elsewhere, and with complete success. Besides its immediate result in
vivifying and enriching the pupil's minds, this method affords a
training in habits of reading of the very best kind, by teaching
research, the habit of selecting books, and the practice of comparative
thinking.