(_See_ p. 16.)
Mr. ILES: I may add, that when I was in England three years ago and
talked about this scheme, one or two asked me, "Who is going to meet
your libel suits?" I explained that there was already a very large body
of responsible critics who contribute in this country, especially in
this field; as, for instance, the critics of the _American Historical
Review_, and the notes that I have in mind are very much of the color of
the notes one reads in such reviews--not many of them very black, not
many of them very white; most of them a whitey brown. I have never heard
yet of any libel suits against the editors of the _American Historical
Review_, even when their reviews have not been particularly amiable. I
do not think we need to dread any litigation. Mr. Larned went to work in
organizing his staff of contributors with great caution and good
judgment. He did not choose them from any one particular university, but
when he heard that at University "A" there was a man who was
acknowledged to know the literature of the Columbian period of American
history better than anybody else, he sought to enlist that man. And Mr.
Larned has been limited, of course, in various ways that you can readily
understand, as for instance when sometimes a contributor has given him
notes which he has felt obliged to discard. And let me say also that in
the main the most important work has been done by the professors of
history in the colleges and universities, except for the period of the
Civil War, where the late General Cox, who had made a special study of
that field, was his contributor. Mr. Larned's idea is simply to find
throughout this country in any particular field--the Civil War period,
or the pre-Columbian period, or the settlement of the Northwest period,
or the war of 1812--the most authoritative and trustworthy man and
enlarge his audience to take in all the readers and students in this
country, instead of having him speak merely to the students of a
particular university or to the readers of a particular review.
Dr. RICHARD T. ELY read a paper on the same subject.
(_See_ p. 22.)
Mr. BOWKER: Can't we have a word from Mr. Thwaites on this question?
R. G. THWAITES: I do not suppose I ought to speak on this matter, for I
am one of Mr. Larned's contributors. I have done a good deal of
annotation, or evaluation, of this sort, upon request; I have a fair
acquaintance with reviewers, and have done a good deal of reviewing
myself. I know the limitations of reviewers, and there is, I think, a
great deal of truth in what Dr. Ely says. I always want to know, when I
read a review, who wrote the review; after I know the individual who has
written the review, I make up my mind more or less regarding its
verdict. Often, in writing annotations for this work of Mr. Larned's I
have felt the very serious responsibility which rested upon me as an
individual contributor, in seeming to crystallize judgment for
generations perhaps--if this book is to be used for generations--and the
possible harm that might result from such crystallization. I know that
my point of view will be entirely different from another man's point of
view. You take four or five men and ask them to write a note on the same
book for this annotated list, and you will have four or five different
judgments--absolutely, radically different. It is perhaps, a dangerous
thing to crystallize these judgments; and yet, after all, I sympathize
very greatly with Mr. Iles' position. I think the thing should be done.
Librarians are asked for such judgments all the time. All of us who
write text-books are continually asked for annotated bibliographies for
students to follow, and we are always passing judgments--other people
might call them "snap" judgments--upon various books. Great wisdom is
necessary in this matter. For instance, the other day Mr. Larned sent a
note to two of us who are contributing to this annotated bibliography.
It happened through some editorial mistake that two notes, asking for
comment on a certain book, were written to different individuals. It was
Dr. Davis Dewey, of the Institute of Technology, who happened to cross
my path and wrote a note on the same book. Now we had two absolutely
different opinions about this book. And yet it was very natural. I had
looked at this book as the story of an exploring tour down the
Mississippi valley; he had looked at it as a study in sociology from an
economic standpoint. It was exceedingly interesting from my standpoint;
it was filled with fallacies and whims from the standpoint of an
economist and sociologist. Well, I threw up my note and let his stand.
What are we going to do about it? Some work of this kind ought to be
done, because it is most useful; but after all, I think Dr. Ely's word
of warning is one that we should take to heart very thoroughly.
Personally I really don't know whether we ought to "evaluate" literature
or not; and yet I am doing it all the time.
Mr. ILES: We expect that this bibliography of Mr. Larned's, and any
others in the same series which may follow, will appear also in card
form, and I very much desire when the central bureau finds that a
particular note can be replaced by a better one, in the light of further
developments, that that particular note should be withdrawn, and a
better and more nearly just note be substituted; all gratuitously to the
subscribing libraries.
F. M. CRUNDEN: I realize the force of what Dr. Ely has said, but I still
believe that this work is worth doing, because it is exceedingly
valuable to us. We have got to have some guide. We cannot all of us read
in all lines and so far as the contradictory notes referred to go, it
seems to me that all that was necessary was for the editor to apply to
those two divergent notes just the remark that Mr. Thwaites made--that
one was written from the standpoint of the sociologist and economist,
the other from that of the historian and geographer. From one side it
was a good book; from the other side a bad book.
Mr. PUTNAM: I speak on such a subject as this with very great
reluctance, and yet, as a librarian who has had occasion in times past
to select--I do not have so much occasion now, because so much matter
comes to us without inspection--I wish to draw a distinction between
selection and exclusion. Now, when Dr. Ely speaks of an _index librorum
prohibitorum_ or an _index expurgatorius_, the implication is that the
libraries of this country, on advice or of their own motion without
advice, are deliberately excluding from their collection books of which
they disapprove. The librarian, however, approaches the matter in an
entirely different way. He has at his disposal, for purchase, a very
limited sum of money; a very limited sum of money, no matter how large
his library, for the amount of literature put upon the market is
practically limitless. Men of science themselves, after contending for
liberty of expression, do not always use that liberty with discretion or
to the advantage of the community. Now, there must be a selection. That
is the point we start from as librarians; that is the duty laid upon
us--to get, with the means at our command, the books that will be most
useful to our constituents. Now, that means choice. How are we to make a
choice? I do not believe there is a librarian in the United States who
would set himself up as an arbiter or an expert in every department of
literature; who would claim to determine the value of doctrine, either
in religion or in economics, the two departments of literature as to
which the discrimination must be most difficult and most dangerous; and
yet even in those departments we must choose. That means a selection.
What is the alternative, in case we have no guide? What would Dr. Ely
offer us? Dr. Ely, of course, as any university professor, has his
students, who are studying not merely one subject in which they wish to
get the best and final opinion, but all opinions, from which they are to
draw conclusions. Now, the duty of the librarian is simply to represent
all opinions, and not his own opinion, or his notion of the best
opinion, or somebody else's notion of the best opinion; but, given a
doctrine which is important, which is attracting attention, he assumes
that this doctrine must be represented in his collection. It is only a
question of what represents this doctrine best--not whether the doctrine
is right or wrong. If there is a book regarding which there are two
opinions, the appraisal may give the two opinions, as all appraisals
should, so far as it can be done. The substance of what I wish to say is
this: our duty is not one of exclusion; it is one of selection, and that
fact is as little understood as any element in library administration
to-day--and I am sorry to say that the misunderstanding is apt to be
countenanced by the librarian. Take for instance the case of the Boston
Public Library, berated all over the country for excluding certain books
from its collection. Now, the Boston Public Library deliberately
excludes, to my knowledge, almost no book. Its process is of selection.
It receives about seven hundred volumes of recent fiction a year, to
consider for purchase. It believes that it is for the best interests of
its constituents to buy less than two hundred titles and multiply
copies. Now, how is it going to dispose of the other five hundred? They
are neither rebuked, disapproved of or placed in an index. They are
simply left out, because in the process of selection, the first two
hundred seem most useful for the purpose of the library.
Dr. ELY: I was not thinking about the librarians in my remarks. They
must, of course, make their selections of books, but what I had in mind
was the bringing, especially in the form of a card catalog, these
judgments and these appraisals before the reading public all over the
entire country, and so possibly forming opinion, along one line.
Formerly librarians have had a great many facilities to aid them in
making this selection of which Mr. Putnam has spoken. They have had the
various periodicals with their reviews; they could read these and base
their selections upon these. I had especially in mind the objections to
crystallizing opinion and bringing a one-sided opinion, or one kind of
an opinion, before the entire United States, instead of having opinions
of one sort in one place and opinions of another sort in another place.
Also, it is the impartial nature, or the apparently impartial nature, of
the proposed "evaluations" which seems to me especially objectionable.
Of course, in our college classrooms, we give our estimates of books,
but Professor A will give one estimate, and then the students go to
Professor B's class-room, and they hear another estimate, so that they
soon learn the personal inclinations and preferences of the various
professors, and can soon offer some explanation of the conditions and
the circumstances under which these estimates are formed. And the views
expressed in one university are criticised very largely by another
university. Not so I take it with the person who ordinarily consults the
card catalog of a public library.
R. R. BOWKER: May I take a moment from my own paper to say just a word
on this subject? Questions are asked of the librarians, and they must be
answered. To answer them in the fullest light instead of the scantiest
is, as I understand, the purpose of what Mr. Iles calls "evaluation." If
Miss Smith--I think there are six of her, so that my remarks are not
personal--comes from the library school, or after the library school
training, to a public library desk, she is sure to be asked questions,
we will say, in American history. There may be an information clerk to
refer them to, or there may not; but, as I understand, this work of Mr.
Iles is intended, not to exclude other sources of information, but to
give Miss Smith opportunity to inquire and obtain the best and widest
available information as to the character of a particular book, or as to
its rating. If this book were to be the sole and exclusive authority,
then of course we might have a censorship in literature, but I do not
understand that in the minds of the promotors of this plan there is any
such design to make an exclusive and solely authoritative work.