2. The purchase of books and magazines at frequent intervals to keep
the library from going to seed.
3. Such regulations that the doors of the institution shall be open at
least as often and as long every week as they are allowed to remain
closed.
To effect these desiderata, the library boards should be given
sufficient funds, with due regard to economy of administration. It
is coming to be recognized that a librarian is expected to do more
than hand out books over a counter and take them in again--that the
up-to-date librarian must study the social, commercial and intellectual
interests of the community so as to make the library a vital force
by providing the facilities for expansion of these interests. The
public schools educate the average person during an average period
representing five years of his life; the public library should afford
facilities to persons of every age and in every condition of life for
continuing one's education indefinitely. The public officer desirous
of ascertaining the best methods for paving streets, the housewife
in search of receipts for the most wholesome dishes for her table,
the mechanic seeking to better his condition by studying the latest
improvements in his craft, the foreign-born reader anxious for
literature bearing on the duties of citizenship, the young man engaged
in serious study of current questions--these and every other man,
woman or child in quest of information, should have the facilities
offered in the public libraries to secure it fully, not only by
personal search along the shelves, but through the ready, helpful and
suggestive assistance of a librarian trained to find in a multitude
of print the essential facts which are wanted. Individual cases could
be cited by the score to demonstrate what a public library can do for
the people of its community. One that came to my attention recently
may be mentioned. A boy who gave promise of no virtues and many
vices engendered by idleness, was the despair of his parents and the
annoyance of the neighbors. By chance he wandered into the reference
room of the library in his town, carelessly picked up a book dealing
with inventions, became interested, came again, asked for and received
more books on the same topic and studied them with increasing interest.
From that day he became a changed boy. He had found a purpose in
life. Today, through his own efforts, he is taking the engineering
course in a college, he has secured a patent from the government for
a valuable invention, and he gives promise of becoming a leader in
his chosen profession. In a certain city of this state which need not
be designated by name, there are large manufacturing interests. There
is a public library magnificently housed, but until lately without an
appropriation for keeping the book purchases up-to-date. Workmen were
eager to get books on electricity, on general mechanics and useful arts
effecting their daily labor, but there were no funds with which to
purchase them; naturally, they soon ceased their visits to the library.
When the Free Library Commission called the attention of the heads of
these great industrial enterprises to the condition of affairs, they
immediately saw the advantage of adequately supporting the library. It
did not take them long to figure out that no cheaper method could be
devised for improving the product of their establishments and to create
an interest among their workmen that would make for greater industry,
better workmanship and consequently increased profits. On their part
the workmen were quick to see their own advantage in increased wages in
proportion to increase in skill and output. As an economic proposition
the net result is greater stability in the industrial life of the
community--decreased labor troubles and increased confidence between
employer and employed. A sociologist who made a systematic study of
a group of villages largely populated by workingmen, reported that
the one which showed greatest evidence of prosperity, cleanliness and
attractiveness of homes generally, was one conspicuous by reason of its
well-managed public library.
There is no channel of human usefulness which appeals so forcefully
to the modern spirit of philanthropy as the public library. This
generosity would, I doubt not, be greatly multiplied were there any
assurance that the communities to be benefited would properly maintain
the institution given to it. Purely as a matter of business, it pays
to support a library decently. But deeper than this lies the motive
that should actuate any city or town to erect within its midst an
institution that must stand as the exponent of its intellectual and to
some extent its social life.
"The problem before us," said Lowell many years ago, "is to make a
whole of many discordant parts, our many foreign elements; and I know
of no way in which this can better be done than by providing a common
system of education, and a common door of access to the best books by
which that education may be continued, broadened and made fruitful."
These words are as true today as when they were uttered.