Advice to a librarian
[From Public Libraries, June, 1897]
As a matter of fact the position of librarian is more of an executive
business affair than a literary one. Let me give you fair warning--it
is in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may
or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume
such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon
yourself a thankless and uncalled-for task.
Frankly, do you know what is good for me to read? Are you not very
much in doubt what is best for yourself? Isn't there a doubt in the
best and most candid minds upon this same subject? Let the board of
directors assume the responsibilities, work carefully and cautiously
for the things that are considered best by persons of some authority,
the people with sound, healthy bodies and clean minds, and thoroughly
distrust the literary crank. Don't be too sure of your own judgment;
the other fellow may be right, especially as to what he wants and
needs.
Hang on to your tastes and prejudices for yourself, but don't impose
them upon others. Cultivate your own tastes carefully by reading but
little, and that little of the best; avoid the latest sensation until
you are quite sure it is more than a sensation; if you have to buy
it to please the patrons, have some convenient (literary) dog of good
appetite and digestive organs, and try it on him or her and watch
the general effect. You will be astonished how much you will find out
about a book, its morals and manners, by the things they don't say.
Our mutual friend's father, Mr D----, used to utterly damn a book to
me when he said it was Just fair, and his It's a likely story, put
things in the front ranks. Just get the confidence of as many readers
as you can, grapple some of the most divergent minds with hooks of
steel; and in finding out how little you know that is of any real
value to anyone else, you will begin to be of some little value to
yourself. Don't try to direct. The fellow that wants your direction
will cause you to ooze out the information he needs, and you will
hardly know that you have told him anything.
I may be, and doubtless am, saying much that is quite unnecessary, but
I have tried to bear in mind some of my own mistakes, and of others
around me. I have been impressed with the fact that librarians seem
to think that they must or ought to know everything, and get to think
they do know. It is a delusion. One can't know it all, and only a
hopeless case tries.
Be more than content to be ignorant on many things. Look at your
position as a high-grade business one, look after the working details,
have things go smoothly, know the whereabouts and classification of
the books, and let people choose their own mental food, but see to it
that all that is put before them is wholesome.