The ideal qualifications for a trustee of a public library (a fair
education and love of books being taken for granted) might be summarized
somewhat thus:--
Sound character; good judgement and common-sense; public spirit;
capacity for work; literary taste; representative fitness.
Men of character and position in the community are usually selected as
trustees; but it may be assumed somewhat too confidently that, because a
man has been prominent in political or business or social circles, he
will make a good trustee. It is a mistake to put in such a position any
man who has outlived his public spirit and energy.
Library taste is placed low on this list of qualifications, because in
any administrative position, even in connection with a library, capacity
and willingness to work, united with common-sense and a fair education,
are much more useful than a taste for literature without the practical
qualities. And of the different grades of literary taste, general
culture and a wide range of reading are generally more serviceable to a
public library than the knowledge of the scholar or the specialist.
In selecting men of prominence for trustees, there is danger of
excluding too rigidly the younger men who might contribute to the
strength and efficiency of the board. There is so much activity and
progress in the library work of this generation, that the adage "Old men
for counsel, young men for action" is not wholly inapplicable to the
choice of trustees, whose work requires counsel and action in nearly
equal degrees.
With a large board it would seem wise to select members with some
reference to representation of different sections of the town, and
different occupations, interests, or nationalities among the
inhabitants. This tends to prevent dissatisfaction, and to adapt the
purchase of books and the general policy of the library to the needs of
the whole community, rather than to the wishes of special classes.
Neither politics nor religious opinion should of course enter into the
choice of library trustees, except so far as it is unwise to constitute
a board exclusively from one party or one denomination.