(_See_ p. 31.)
R. R. BOWKER: There is, or should be, I take it, a large purpose common
to all who have to deal with books, as intermediaries between the author
and the reader, whether from the altruistic side, as the librarian, or
from the commercial side, as the publisher and bookseller. We are
familiar with one expression of that purpose, to get "the best reading
for the largest number at the least cost"; and I, for one, am firmly of
the opinion that that function is properly shared by the two classes of
whom I have spoken, that they are not in competition but in
co-operation; I mean the librarian and the bookseller. It is a narrow
view, it would seem, which puts the two in opposition, or even in the
position of competitors. And just as it seems that the bookseller is
wrong in feeling that the librarian is interfering with his business, so
I think it is wrong for the librarian to feel that the bookseller should
in any way be limited or hampered or belittled in his kind of work of
getting books to the people. It seems to me a truism, indeed, that there
is one thing better than a book loaned, and that is a book owned. The
ideal library community is, after all, one in which the people are so
well supplied with books in their own homes that the function of the
library is not so much a great circulation, however fine that may look
in the statistics, but rather that of guide and helper to readers in the
selection, and, if you please, in the "evaluation" of books. The board
of health in a city or in a state is, perhaps, a fair illustration of
the final function of the librarian; a health board, in its ideal, is a
body to promote sanitation, to warn people against errors, to get rid of
the mistake that tuberculosis is a hereditary disease from which people
have to suffer, instead of one which is communicated and which can be
avoided; rather than a body to furnish free medical attendance like a
dispensary. So I start with the proposition, that it is desirable for
librarians, for public librarians, as such, to encourage most of all the
formation and owning of private libraries throughout their bailiwicks.
Now, there has been one difficulty of late years in bringing about this
result, in the most effective way, and that difficulty has been felt not
only in this country, but throughout most countries--the fact that
competition, not in quality but in "cut rate" price, has practically
taken away the living of the commercial intermediary in the
distribution of books, the hire of the laborer who is working in that
particular vineyard. That has been true in Germany, in France, in
England, and in this country. It has not prevented the sale of books; it
_seems_ not to have limited the sale of books; but it is probably true
that the dissemination of the best literature among the mass of the
people, in private libraries, while it has been immensely improved by
the library system, has not been promoted by the bookselling system
under present conditions as it should be. In Germany, a movement has
been on foot for a few years past, and has been quite successful, to
give that particular kind of librarian, the bookseller, a fee more
worthy of his function; a profit which makes it possible for him to keep
that sort of library which is distributed into private libraries,
_i.e._, the book store. In France a very curious difficulty is in
illustration. There the price of books had come to be very low, so low
that when a rise in the price of paper came, the publisher's business
was found to be almost impossible. The remedy naturally took the shape
of a general rise in price, a considerable rise in price in cheaper
books, sufficient to meet that particular difficulty and to make
possible at the same time a better recompense, a living wage, to the
intermediary. Now, the whole tendency of modern industrial development
is to get rid of the intermediary as much as possible; _i. e._, to have
as few steps, of person and of cost, between the producer and the
consumer as is practicable. This we may take as fundamental to-day. It
remains true, nevertheless, that there must, as a rule, be somebody
between the producer and the consumer, between the person in the great
manufacturing center and the remote distributing points on the
circumference to bring the thing wanted to the person who wants it; and
it is only in view of that requirement that the bookseller is to be
considered. In that sense, as I have said, he seems a complement of the
librarian, and the book store the complement of the library. Now, a
librarian cannot live without salary, though many live on very small
salaries, in the hope of better things--and one of the accomplishments
of the American Library Association has been to bring better things to
the librarian. Both the dignity and the emolument of the library
profession have been, I believe, increased greatly by the existence of
this Association. The librarian receives a salary, and it is not true,
as we all know, that books can be circulated freely from public
libraries in the sense of their being circulated without cost. Indeed,
we have occasion to lament often that the cost of circulating a single
volume is so great. It is a fair question whether the cost of shelving,
preparing for the public, and in many cases, of circulating a volume, is
not greater than the fee which the bookseller asks as his profit, his
wage in transferring that volume from the publisher to the reader.
Therefore it seems to me that the suggestion of which Mr. Dewey is the
apostle, that the public library should take the place of the book
store, that it should exhibit recent books to the public and take the
public's orders for those books, rests both on an economic and on a
social fallacy. In a word, work cannot be done for nothing, and whether
that work is paid for by the public in the shape of salaries or by the
private buyer in the shape of profits is a matter of comparison.
About the time at which the A. L. A. was organized, in 1876, there was
an attempt on the part of the book trade to deal with this question, and
at Philadelphia, in 1876, a meeting was held at which a reform plan was
initiated. That plan, it seemed to me then as it seems to me now,
involved a fundamental mistake, in that it did not deal with the
question of published prices. It is evident that books cannot be
increased in price, unless there is a specific reason in the price of
paper or some such reason, without interference with their sale and wide
distribution. It is poor policy for the publisher to limit the sale of
his ware by putting a higher price on it than the traffic will bear. At
that meeting it was proposed not to alter the published prices of books,
but to recognize formally the custom of giving twenty per cent. discount
to the retail buyer. The reform proceeded upon that basis, and the
system presently broke down. Within a year past there have been shaped
two organizations, the American Publishers' Association and the American
Booksellers' Association, which are working in harmony on another plan.
That plan is that new books, new copyright books (fiction and some
special classes excepted for the time), should be published at a price
which recognizes the fact that the published price hitherto has not been
the real or standard price. In other words, a book which was priced at
$1.50 it is expected to publish at twenty per cent., more or less, below
that price, and to make a $1.50 book, say, $1.25 or $1.20; a $2 book
$1.60 or $1.50, and a $1 book 75 or 80 cents. This plan recognizes the
existing situation, and the proposal is that the plan shall be enforced
by the publishers declining to supply books to booksellers who fail to
maintain those standard prices. The plan has worked out with other
classes of specially owned articles, in that respect similar to books,
and it has worked with fair success.
There is only one exception which the bookseller is permitted under the
proposed regulations to make, and that is a discount to the library.
That discount is limited to ten per cent., and I think it should fairly
be stated that this may increase, perhaps by five or ten per cent., the
actual prices which some libraries, at least, have been paying for their
books. That is a disadvantage from the library point of view which must
be faced. I do not know that it will increase the price in the case of
libraries generally. In the case of the public, it has been true that
while many have paid the lower price for the books, others have been
asked the full published price, so that there has been an inequality of
price where the person best equipped in one sense, least equipped in
another, has had the advantage of the lower price. In other words, the
person who had most books and knew most about them, got the book at a
very low price, and the person who was really most in need of the book,
because he knew less, had to pay the full price for it. I do not believe
myself that that is the right or a good way of doing business. It would
not be the method which you would permit in libraries, of treating one
person differently from another, because the fundamental proposition of
this Association is that the public should be treated equally and
justly. Take it altogether, I for one believe that although in some
cases there may be this slight rise in cost to the library, the whole
library situation, or, I should say, the whole book situation, would be
so much improved by the proposed change that it would be to the general
advantage of the libraries to suffer that specific disadvantage.
Nevertheless, there is a good deal of grasping in human nature, and it
might be very wise for the American Library Association, in one sense
representing the public, to come into official relation with this matter
and be the guardian of the buying interests, to the extent of making
sure that there is a real reduction in the prices of books on this
scheme. The large-minded publishers will doubtless see their interests
in making the reduction throughout on the copyright books which are to
be published on this plan. There are others who may not see this
advantage, and who may attempt, under the new plan, to set as high a
price on the book as under the old plan. If we had a committee of this
Association on relations with the book trade, it might be possible for
such a committee, known to be on the alert, to prevent or remedy cases
of that sort, and I trust such a committee will be appointed by this
body, or by its Council, as I shall take the liberty of moving.
I should feel some hesitancy in speaking to this Association from the
two points of view, of relation with the book trade and of relation with
the library interests; _i.e._, of speaking as the editor of the
_Publishers' Weekly_ and as the editor of the _Library Journal_, but for
the fact that I believe the interests to be one. I may, however, make
the personal explanation that while it seems to me that a journalist
cannot write that in which he does not believe, on the other hand, a
journalist who is responsible for the conduct of a representative
journal cannot interpolate his own opinion to the exclusion of the
opinion of the class whom he is supposed to represent; for that reason I
have taken the position in my own office that in case the library
interests should come in conflict with the publishing interests, I will
give over that particular subject to some librarian, who, using the
editorial columns of the _Library Journal_, will represent
distinctively, free from any interest in the book trade, the views of
the Library Association and of the library interests at large. I take
this opportunity to say that in case the opinion of this Association is
adverse to the plan which I have been outlining, the _Library Journal_
will take that course in presenting fairly and fully the views of the
profession. When the whole question is threshed out; when such a
committee has discussed, perhaps with the publishers' association
itself, whether there should not be a somewhat greater discount to the
librarian, to equalize the old rates; when such a committee expostulates
with individual publishers against an abuse of this plan, I believe that
the result will be, on the whole, to promote the wide and useful
dissemination of books, and I trust that any action which is taken, if
action should be taken by the Association or by its Council, will be in
view of the wider co-operation in which these two interests should work.
Let me remind you that the bookseller cannot live without earning his
living any more than the librarian, and it is not quite fair perhaps for
those of us who are protected by salaries to impeach the fair living
which the bookseller earns in another way. The book store should exist
in every community, alongside the library. We know as a matter of fact
that even our large cities, certainly our small cities, even more our
towns, are very ill equipped with book stores; that in many places they
are notable for their absence rather than for their presence. This
element of active work in the distribution of books should, I believe,
come back more to our American life. It cannot come back, apparently,
under present conditions, and any movement, it seems to me, should have
the helping hand of the A. L. A. that tends to put the American
bookseller on a plane with the librarian as an agent for the
dissemination of the best books at the least cost to the most people,
and I emphasize "at the least cost," meaning the least cost at which the
service can be rightfully performed.
Adjourned at 12.45 p.m.
_SIXTH SESSION._
(FOUNTAIN SPRING HOUSE, TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 9.)
The meeting was called to order at 2.15 p.m. by President CARR, who
announced that the discussion would be continued from the morning
session, on the subject