BY HERBERT PUTNAM, _Librarian of Congress_.
You have had suggestions as to what may be done for libraries by the
city and what by the state. Whatever is left over--if there is anything
left over--I am to treat as something that may be done by the
nation--the nation not as an aggregate of its parts, but as a unit,
acting through its central authority. There is a disposition to contend
that _everything_ which may be more effectively or more economically
done by a central authority for the larger area should be undertaken by
that authority. I am not prepared to go so far. There may be a value in
local effort that will repay its greater cost. But in an educational
work which involves the accumulation of material some of which is
exceedingly costly, only part of which is constantly in use, and little
of which perishes by use; a work whose processes are capable of
organization on a large scale and the application of co-operative
effort: there must be certain undertakings which, relatively speaking,
are possible only if assumed by a central authority. It is such
undertakings, for the largest area, that I am asked to discover and set
forth.
To do so involves consequences which may be inconvenient. For a possible
service means a correlative duty. And as I myself to a degree represent
here the central authority in question, whatever I state as a service
appropriate for that authority, I shall have to admit as a duty in which
I must share. I shall try to be candid. But under the circumstances I
cannot be expected to be more than candid.
In some respects the Federal Government of the United States has already
influenced the constitution, resources and service of our public
libraries. It has enacted laws which, having for their primary purpose
the protection of authors and publishers, benefit libraries by
encouraging the manufacture of books soundly, substantially and honestly
made. It has favored public libraries by exempting from tariff duty
books imported for their use. It has encouraged the study of the
classics by laying a penalty upon the general importation of books less
than twenty years old. In its executive capacity it is itself
investigator, author, publisher, manufacturer, distributor,
statistician, bibliographer, and librarian. It maintains at Washington,
with a generosity not paralleled by any other government, bureaus for
scientific research; it compiles, publishes, and freely distributes the
results of this research. It is the greatest publisher in the world, and
the largest manufacturer of books. In a single publication, repeated
each year, it consumes over a million pounds of paper stock; and it
maintains a bureau whose purpose is to replenish the forests which as
publisher it thus depletes. It distributes gratuitously to the libraries
of the United States each year over 300,000 volumes, embodying the
results of its research, its legislative proceedings, and an account of
its administrative activities. It maintains a bureau for the
investigation of problems in education, for the accumulation and
dissemination of information concerning the work of educational
institutions; and it has included the public libraries of this country
among such educational institutions. This bureau has issued three
reports tabulating statistics concerning them, one also (in 1876)
summarizing their history and two (in 1876 and in 1893) containing
essays which embody the best contemporary opinion as to library
equipment and methods. It has published as a document the A. L. A. list
of best books to form the basis of a public library.
Through its bureau of documents it is seeking to index and adequately to
exhibit its own publications, to facilitate their distribution to
libraries and to afford to libraries as to federal documents a clearing
house for duplicates.
All such services are obviously appropriate for the national authority
and may doubtless be continued and extended. If the interchange of books
among libraries is to be facilitated by special postal regulations this
can be accomplished by the national authority alone.
But in the case of a state a service has been described which is to be
rendered to local libraries by the library which the state itself owns
and maintains. Now the federal government also owns and maintains
libraries. What may be demanded of these? Certain precedents have
already been established. The library of the Surgeon General's
office--the most comprehensive in the world within its special
field--sends its books to members of the medical profession throughout
the United States, relieving just so much the burden upon local
libraries; and it has issued a catalog which is not merely in form and
method efficient, but is so nearly an exhibit of the entire literature
of the medical sciences that it renders unnecessary duplication of
cataloging and analytical work within the field which it covers. This
catalog has conferred a general benefit not equalled by any
bibliographic work within any other department of literature. It is
perhaps the most eminent bibliographic work yet accomplished by any
government. The cost of its mere publication--which is the cost
chargeable to the general benefit--has already exceeded $250,000.
But this library is but one of several collections maintained by the
Federal Government; the aggregate of which is already nearly two million
volumes. In each federal department and bureau there is a library. And
there is a central collection which in itself is already the largest on
the western hemisphere. It was created as a legislative library--for the
use of both Houses of Congress. It is still called the Library of
Congress. But it is now being referred to as something more. The
government has erected for it a building which is the largest, most
elaborate, and most costly yet erected for library purposes. The seven
million dollars which it cost has been paid not by the District of
Columbia, but by the country at large. No such sum would have been
requisite for a building to serve Congress alone. It seems to intend a
library that shall serve the country at large, if there is any such
thing possible. In fact the library is already being referred to as the
National Library of the United States. What does this mean? or rather,
what _may_ this mean? One naturally looks abroad--to the foremost of
national libraries.
The British Museum is a huge repository of material. In scope it is
universal. Its purpose is accumulation, preservation, and the aid of
research by accredited persons, upon its own premises. Its service is
purely responsive. It has printed catalogs of its own collections, but
does not undertake bibliographic work general in nature, nor engage in
co-operative bibliographic undertakings. It lends no books.
But I fear you will hardly be satisfied with the analogy. The British
Museum, you will say, is placed in a city which is not merely the
capital of the British Empire, but the metropolis; the literary
metropolis also of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Library of Congress is at
the capital of the United States. But this capital is not itself a
metropolis. No student in Great Britain has to travel over 500 miles to
reach the British Museum. A student in the United States may have to
travel as much as 3000 miles to reach the Library of Congress. The area
which supports the national library of Great Britain is but 100,000
square miles; that which supports the National Library of the United
States is ever 3,000,000 square miles. The conditions differ, and
therefore, you will say, the obligation. If there is any way in which
our National Library may "reach out" from Washington it should reach
out. Its first duty is no doubt as a legislative library--to Congress.
Its next is as a federal library to aid the executive and judicial
departments of the government and the scientific undertakings under
governmental auspices. Its next is to that general research which may be
carried on at Washington by resident and visiting students and scholars:
which in American history, political and social science, public
administration, jurisprudence and international law is likely to make
Washington its center, and which, under the auspices of the Washington
Memorial Institution--that new project for post graduate study involving
the use of the scientific collections and scientific experts at
Washington--is likely to be organized in various branches of the natural
and physical sciences as well. But this should not be the limit. There
should be possible also a service to the country at large: a service to
be extended through the libraries which are the local centers of
research involving the use of books. That claim may be made. Now what at
Washington might be useful to these libraries?
(A lively imagination is not requisite.) Suppose there could be a
collection of books universal in scope, as no local library with limited
funds and limited space can hope to be: a collection that shall contain
also particularly (1) original sources, (2) works of high importance for
occasional reference, but whose cost to procure and maintain precludes
their acquisition by a local library pressed to secure the material of
ordinary and constant need, and (3) the "useless" books; books not
costly to acquire, but of so little general concern as not to justify
cataloging, space and care in each local library if only they are known
to be preserved and accessible somewhere.
Such a collection must include also the general mass of books sought and
held by local libraries--the books for the ordinary reader; the daily
tools of research. Its maintenance will involve processes--of
classification and cataloging--highly costly. Suppose the results of
these processes could be made generally available, so as to save
duplication of such expenditure upon identical material held by local
libraries?
A collection universal in scope will afford opportunity for
bibliographic work not equalled elsewhere. Such work centered there
might advance the general interest with the least aggregate effort. The
adequate interpretation of such a collection will involve the
maintenance of a corps of specialists. Suppose these specialists could
be available to answer inquiries from all parts of the country as to
what material exists on any particular subject, where it is, how it may
be had, how most effectively it may be used?
There are special collections already existent in various localities in
the United States and likely to come into being through special local
advantage or incentive, or the interest of private collectors, or
private endowment--which cannot be duplicated at Washington. Suppose
there could be at Washington a bibliographic statement of that which is
peculiar to each of these collections; in brief, a catalog of the books
in the United States--not of every library, not of every copy of every
book, but of every _book_ available for an investigator?
There are various bibliographic undertakings which may be co-operative.
Suppose there could be at Washington a central bureau--with approved
methods, standard forms, adequate editorial capacity, and liberal
facilities for publication--which could organize and co-ordinate this
work among the libraries of the United States and represent them in such
of it as--like the new Royal Society index--is to be international?
There is the exchange of material duplicated in one library, needed by
another. Suppose there could be at Washington a bureau which would serve
as a clearing house for miscellaneous duplicates as the Bureau of
Documents serves for documents? It might accomplish much without
handling a single article; it might, like a clearing house proper as it
were, set debit against credit, _i. e._, compare the deficiencies in one
library with the surplus in another and communicate the results to the
institutions interested. It might do this upon slip lists sent in by
each--of duplicates and of particular deficiencies--in sets, for
instance. One of my associates has been guilty of this very suggestion.
It is likely to bring something upon his head. He may have his choice
between live coals and the ashes of repentance.
Now those are some of the things which might be asserted as the duty of
Washington to the country at large. I have touched them as lightly as
possible: but there they are. And we may not be able to avoid them. Nay,
we seem to be drifting toward them. To some of them we are apparently
already committed.
There is the building: that in itself seems to commit us. There is
equipment. There are books. As regards any national service the federal
libraries should be one library. They contain nearly two million
volumes. The Library of Congress contains net some 700,000 books and a
half million other items. It has for increase (1) deposits under the
copyright law, (2) documents acquired through distribution of the
federal documents placed at its disposal for exchange--formerly 50
copies of each, now 100, (3) books and society publications acquired by
the Smithsonian through its exchanges, (4) miscellaneous gifts and
exchanges, and, (5) purchases from appropriations. These have increased
from $10,000 a year prior to 1897 to $70,000 for the year 1901-2.
Such resources are by no means omnipotent. _No_ resources can make
absolutely comprehensive a library starting its deliberate accumulations
at the end of the 19th century. Too much material has already been
absorbed into collections from which it will never emerge.
But universality in scope does not mean absolute comprehensiveness in
detail. With its purchasing funds and other resources the Library of
Congress bids fair to become the strongest collection in the United
States in bibliography, in Americana (omitting the earliest), in
political and social science, public administration, jurisprudence. If
any American library can secure the documents which will exhibit
completely legislation proposed and legislation enacted it should be
able to. As depository of the library of the Smithsonian it will have
the most important collection--perhaps in the world--of the transactions
and proceedings of learned societies; and, adding its own exchanges and
subscriptions, of serials in general. With theology it may not
especially concern itself nor with philology to the degree appropriate
to a university library. Medicine it will leave as a specialty to the
library of the Surgeon-General's office, already pre-eminent, Geology to
the library of the Geological Survey. Two extremes it may have to
abstain from--so far as deliberate purchase is concerned: (1) the books
merely popular, (2) the books merely curious. Of the first many will
come to it through copyright; of the second many should come through
gift. (Perhaps in time the public spirit of American collectors and
donors may turn to it as the public spirit of the British turns to the
National Library of Great Britain.) Original sources must come to it, if
at all, chiefly by gift. Manuscript material relating to American
history it has, however, bought, and will buy.
Otherwise, chiefly printed books. Of these, the useful books; of these
again, the books useful rather for the establishment of the fact than
for the mere presentation of it--the books for the advancement of
learning, rather than those for the mere diffusion of knowledge.
Lastly there is an organization. Instead of 42 persons, for all manner
of service, there are now 261, irrespective of printers, binders, and
the force attending to the care of the building itself.
The copyright work is set off and interferes no longer with the energies
of the library proper. There is a separate division having to do with
the acquisition of material, another--of 67 persons--to classify and
catalog it. There are 42 persons attending to the ordinary service of
the reading room as supplied from the stacks, and there are eight
special divisions handling severally the current newspapers and
periodicals, the documents, manuscripts, maps, music, prints, the
scientific publications forming the Smithsonian deposit, and the books
for the blind. There is a Division of Bibliography whose function is to
assist in research too elaborate for the routine service of the reading
room, to edit the library publications, and to represent the library in
co-operative bibliographic undertakings. There is now within the
building, besides a bindery, with a force of 45 employees, a printing
office, with a force of 21. The allotment for printing and binding, in
1896 only $15,000, is for the coming year $90,000.
The immediate duty of this organization is near at hand. There is a huge
arrear of work upon the existing collection--necessary for its effective
use, and its intelligent growth. It must be newly classified throughout;
and shelf listed. The old author slip catalog must be revised and
reduced to print. There must be compiled a subject catalog, of which
none now exists. Innumerable gaps--that which is crooked can be made
straight, but that which is wanting cannot be numbered--innumerable gaps
are to be ascertained and filled. A collection of reference books must
be placed back at the Capitol, with suitable apparatus, to bring the
library once more into touch with Congress and enable it to render the
service to Congress which is its first duty. The other libraries of the
District must be brought into association--not by gathering their
collections into the Library of Congress, but by co-ordinating processes
and service. The Library of Congress as the center of the system can aid
in this. It can strengthen each departmental library by relieving it of
material not necessary to its special work. It can aid toward
specialization in these departmental libraries by exhibiting present
unnecessary duplication. (It is just issuing a union list of serials
currently taken by the libraries of the District which has this very
purpose.) It can very likely print the catalog cards for all the
government libraries--incidentally securing uniformity, and a copy for
its own use of each card--which in time will result in a complete
statement within its own walls of the resources of every departmental
library in Washington. It will supply to each such library a copy of
every card which it prints of a book in its own collections relating to
the work of the bureau which such library serves.
To reduce to order the present collection, incorporating the current
accessions, to fill the most inconvenient gaps, to supply the most
necessary apparatus in catalogs and to bring about a relation among the
libraries of Washington which shall form them into an organic _system_:
this work will of itself be a huge one. I have spoken of the equipment
of the Library of Congress as elaborate, the force as large, and the
appropriations as generous. All are so in contrast to antecedent
conditions. In proportion to the work to be done, however, they are not
merely not excessive, but in some respects far short of the need. To
proceed beyond those immediate undertakings to projects of general
service will require certain equipment, service, and funds not yet
secured, and which can be secured only by a general effort. But the
question is not what can be done, but what _may_ be done--in due time,
eventually.
A general distribution of the printed cards: That has been suggested. It
was suggested a half century ago by the Federal Government through the
Smithsonian Institution. Professor Jewett's proposal then was a central
bureau to compile, print and distribute cards which might serve to local
libraries as a catalog of their own collections. Such a project is now
before this Association. It may not be feasible: that is, it might not
result in the economy which it suggests. It assumes a large number of
books to be acquired, in the same editions, by many libraries, at the
same time. In fact, the enthusiasm for the proposal at the Montreal
meeting last year has resulted in but sixty subscriptions to the actual
project.
It may not be feasible. But if such a scheme can be operated at all it
may perhaps be operated most effectively through the library which for
its own uses is cataloging and printing a card for every book currently
copyrighted in the United States, and for a larger number of others than
any other single institution. Such must be confessed of the Library of
Congress. It is printing a card for every book currently copyrighted,
for every other book currently added--for every book reached in
re-classification--and thus in the end for every book in its collection.
It is now printing, at the rate of over 200 titles a day--60,000 titles
a year. The entry is an author entry, in form and type accepted by the
committee on cataloging of the A. L. A. The cards are of the standard
size--3 × 5 inches--of the best linen ledger stock. From 15 to 100
copies of each are now printed. It would be uncandid to say that such a
number is necessary for the use of the library itself, or of the
combined libraries at Washington. The usefulness of copies of them to
any other library for incorporation in its catalogs must depend upon
local conditions: the style, form, and size of its own cards, the number
of books which it adds yearly, the proportion of these which are
current, and other related matters. On these points we have sought
statistics from 254 libraries. We have them from 202. With them we have
samples of the cards in use by each, with a complete author entry.
Having them we are in a position really to estimate the chances. I will
not enter into details. Summarily, it appears that our cards might
effect a great saving to certain libraries and some saving to others,
and would entail a mere expense without benefit to the remainder--all of
which is as might have been guessed.
The distribution suggested by Professor Jewett and proposed by the A. L.
A. had in view a saving to the recipient library of cataloging and
printing on its own account. It assumed a subscription by each
recipient to cover the cost of the extra stock and presswork. There is
conceivable a distribution more limited in range, having another
purpose. The national library wishes to get into touch with the local
libraries which are centers for important research. It wishes the
fullest information as to their contents; it may justifiably supply them
with the fullest information as to its own contents. Suppose it should
supply them with a copy of every card which it prints, getting in return
a copy of every card which they print? I am obliged to disclose this
suggestion: for such an exchange has already been begun. A copy of every
card printed by the Library of Congress goes out to the New York Public
Library: a copy of every card printed by the New York Public Library
comes to the Library of Congress. In the new building of the New York
Public Library there will be a section of the public card catalog
designated The Catalog of the Library of Congress. It will contain at
least every title in the Library of Congress not to be found in any
library of the metropolis. In the Library of Congress a section of the
great card catalog of American libraries outside the District will be a
catalog of the New York Public Library.
I have here a letter from the librarian of Cornell University forwarding
a resolution of the Library Council (composed in part of faculty
members) which requests for the university library a set of these cards.
Mr. Harris states that the purpose would be to fit up cases of drawers
in the catalog room, which is freely accessible to any one desiring to
consult bibliographical aids, and arrange the cards in alphabetical
order by authors, thus making an author catalog of the set. He adds "The
whole question has been rather carefully considered and the unanimous
sense of the council was that the usefulness of the catalog to us would
be well worth the cost of the cases, the space they would occupy, and
the time it would take to arrange and keep in order the cards."
There is a limit to such a distribution. But I suspect that it will not
stop with New York and Ithaca.
There is some expense attendant on it. There is the extra stock, the
presswork, the labor of sorting and despatching. No postage, however,
for the Library of Congress has the franking privilege, in and out. The
results however: one cannot deny them to be attractive. At Washington a
statement of at least the distinctive contents of every great local
collection. At each local center of research a statement of the
distinctive contents of the national collection. An inquirer in
Wisconsin writes to Washington: is such a book to be had in the United
States; must he come to Washington for it, or to New York?--No, he will
find it in Chicago at the Newberry or the Crerar.
If there can be such a thing as a bibliographic bureau for the United
States, the Library of Congress is in a way to become one; to a degree,
in fact, a bureau of information for the United States. Besides routine
workers efficient as a body, it has already some expert bibliographers
and within certain lines specialists. It has not a complete corps of
these. It cannot have until Congress can be made to understand the need
of them. Besides its own employees, however, it has within reach by
telephone a multitude of experts. They are maintained by the very
government which maintains it. They are learned men, efficient men,
specially trained, willing to give freely of their special knowledge.
They enter the government employ and remain there, not for the pecuniary
compensation, which is shamefully meagre, but for the love of the work
itself and for the opportunity for public service which it affords. Of
these men, in the scientific bureaus at Washington, the National Library
can take counsel: it can secure their aid to develop its collections and
to answer inquiries of moment. This will be within the field of the
natural and physical sciences. Meantime within its walls it possesses
already excellent capacity for miscellaneous research, and special
capacity for meeting inquiries in history and topography, in general
literature, and in the special literature of economics, mathematics and
physics. It has still Ainsworth Spofford and the other men, who with
him, under extraordinary disadvantages, for thirty-five years made the
library useful at the Capitol.
The library is already issuing publications in book form. In part these
are catalogs of its own contents; in part an exhibit of the more
important material in existence on some subject of current interest,
particularly, of course, in connection with national affairs. Even
during the period of organization fifteen such lists have already been
issued. They are distributed freely to libraries and even to individual
inquirers.
But there may be something further. The distribution of cards which
exhibit its own contents or save duplication of expense elsewhere, the
publication of bibliographies which aid to research, expert service
which in answer to inquiry points out the best sources and the most
effective methods of research: all these may have their use. But how
about the books themselves? Must the use of this great collection be
limited to Washington? How many of the students who need some book in
the Library of Congress--perhaps there alone--can come to Washington to
consult it at the moment of need? A case is conceivable: a university
professor at Madison or Berkeley or San Antonio, in connection with
research important to scholarship, requires some volume in an unusual
set. The set is not in the university library. It is too costly for that
library to acquire for the infrequent need. The volume is in the
National Library. It is not at the moment in use at Washington. The
university library requests the loan of it. If the National Library is
to _be_ the national library----?
There might result some inconvenience. There would be also the peril of
transit. Some volumes might be lost to posterity. But after all we are
ourselves a posterity. Some respect is due to the ancestors who have
saved for _our_ use. And if one copy of a book possessed by the federal
government and within reasonable limits subject to call by different
institutions, might suffice for the entire United States--what does
logic seem to require--and expediency--and the good of the greater
number?
The Library of Congress is now primarily a reference library. But if
there be any citizen who thinks that it should never lend a book--to
another library--in aid of the higher research--when the book can be
spared from Washington and is not a book within the proper duty of the
local library to supply--if there be any citizen who thinks that for the
National Library to lend under these circumstances would be a misuse of
its resources and, therefore, an abuse of trust--he had better speak
quickly, or he may be too late. Precedents may be created which it would
be awkward to ignore.
Really I have been speaking of the Library of Congress as if it were the
only activity of the federal government of interest to libraries. That,
however, is the fault of the topic. It was not what might be done for
science, for literature, for the advance of learning, for the diffusion
of knowledge. It was merely what might be done for _libraries_; as it
were, not for the glory of God, but for the advancement of the church.
We have confidence in the mission of libraries and consider anything in
aid of it as good in itself.
Their most stimulating, most fruitful service must be the direct
service. The service of the national authority must in large part be
merely indirect. It can meet the reader at large only through the local
authority. It can serve the great body of readers chiefly through the
local libraries which meet them face to face, know their needs, supply
their most ordinary needs. Its natural agent--we librarians at least
must think this--is its own library--the library which if there is to be
a national library not merely of, but _for_ the United States--must be
that library.
_Must become_ such, I should have said. For we are not yet arrived. We
cannot arrive until much preliminary work has been done, and much
additional resource secured from Congress. We shall arrive the sooner in
proportion as you who have in charge the municipal and collegiate
libraries of the United States will urge upon Congress the advantage to
the interests you represent, of undertakings such as I have described.
To this point we have not asked your aid. In the equipment of the
library, in the reconstruction of its service, in the addition of more
expert service, in the improvement of immediate facilities, our appeal
to Congress has been based on the work to be done near at hand. I have
admitted to you the possibility of these other undertakings of more
general concern. If they commend themselves to you as proper and
useful--the appeal for them must be primarily your appeal.