subjects than those brought forward at the first Conference of our
Association. A brief enumeration, however, of some of the additional
subjects discussed at ensuing meetings, to within the ten years
immediately preceding our last meeting, will be serviceable as showing
the extent of its activity, and, did time permit, it would be possible
to show that satisfactory progress has been made in many of the
directions indicated. At Oxford, in 1878, besides recurring to many of
the themes previously treated, the Conference discussed the condition of
cathedral and provincial libraries, printing and printers in provincial
towns, size-notation, and, most interesting of all, the salaries of
librarians. At Manchester, in 1883, it considered the consolidation and
amendment of the Public Libraries Acts, the grouping of populous places
for library purposes, the free library in the connection which it has or
should have with the Board School, the extent to which novels should be
permitted in free libraries, and security against fire. In 1880, at
Edinburgh, the libraries of Scotland, and early printing in Scotland,
were the subjects of valuable communications, as were press and shelf
notation; copyrights, the disposal of duplicates, and the subject which
may be said to lie at the root of all the rest, "The Librarian and his
Work." In 1881, at London, besides important subjects previously
discussed, we heard of law libraries and library buildings. In 1882, at
Cambridge, a meeting ever to be remembered for the hospitality and
kindness of our distinguished and lamented President—Henry
Bradshaw—the Association heard for the first time of progress actually
made in printing the British Museum Catalogue, and papers were read on
the all-important subject of librarianship as a profession; on the work
of the nineteenth-century librarian for the librarian of the twentieth;
on public documents and their supply to public libraries; on local
bibliography; on the cataloguing of periodicals and academical
publications; and on electric lighting.
Here I suspend my survey, but I think quite enough has been said to
indicate the number and importance of the subjects taken up by the
Association, while the present condition of some of them, compared with
that which they held before they had become subjects of public
discussion, proves that the Association's labours have not been in vain
in the past, and the rapid development of library work on all sides
proves equally that there need be no apprehension of the failure of
material for its discussions in the future.
I may fitly conclude my address with some notice of this decided
increase of interest in libraries, especially as it relates to free
libraries; of the effect which it may be expected to produce upon the
status of our profession, and of the claims encouraged and the duties
imposed in consequence. Before coming to this division of my subject,
however, I ought, as this address is mainly retrospective, to record
briefly some exceedingly gratifying occurrences which the historian of
libraries will have to note. First among them I place two munificent
benefactions—Mr. Carnegie's gift of fifty thousand pounds to the people
of Edinburgh towards the formation of a public library, and Mrs.
Rylands' establishment of the Spencer Library, worth probably nearly a
quarter of a million, in the city of Manchester. The first is an
instance of that public spirit not unknown here, but I fear less known
than in the United States, which in that country frequently takes the
form of library donation or endowment, but here seldom enters that
channel except when a generous employer, like Mr. Brunner of Northwich,
builds a library mainly for his work-people. The second instance is
almost unprecedented. Donations of money for library purposes are not
infrequent, but that a public benefactor like Mrs. Rylands should
purchase a famous library at an enormous expense only to make it a
public library immediately afterwards, and should moreover take upon
herself the entire cost of the requisite buildings, and provide it with
a staff and funds for its further extension, are indeed an unprecedented
series of occurrences. I need not say that had Mrs. Rylands purchased
Lord Spencer's Library solely for herself, we should still have been
under deep obligation to her for preventing the books from going out of
the country. As it is, she has not only laid Britain under infinite
obligation, but I hope will prove to have in the long run raised the
standard of bibliographical research throughout the country, both by
bringing together so many bibliographical treasures, and by her
eminently judicious choice of a librarian. In this connection I may pass
on to another event of moment—the recent foundation of a
Bibliographical Society through the untiring exertions of Mr. Copinger.
It is very gratifying to find that the constituents of such a society
exist in a country where exact bibliography has been so little
cultivated, and there can be no doubt of the extent and interest of the
field which is open to such a body.
The spread of a taste for bibliography is further illustrated by the
fact that an enterprising publisher has found it worth while to produce
a series of bibliographical manuals under the able editorship of Mr.
Alfred Pollard, and that these have amply repaid him. I may further
notice the recent appearance of two works of great importance to English
bibliography: Professor Arber's transcripts of the registers of the
Stationers' Company, now on the point of completion, and the supplement
to Allibone's Dictionary of English Authors. Two great advances in
library construction also call for a word of recognition; the
introduction of the sliding press at the British Museum, which
indefinitely adjourns the ever-pressing question of additional space
both in this and in every other library to which it can be adapted; and
the general employment of the electric light, which insures libraries
against the worst enemy of all. While touching on library construction,
I must briefly allude to a very remarkable recent publication, the
article "Bibliotheca" in the German Cyclopædia of Architecture. This
exhaustive disquisition is illustrated with a number of views of
libraries in all parts of the world; not merely of their plans and
elevations, their stately saloons and commodious reading rooms, but of
the most humble details of library furniture. It ought to be
translated.[27:1]
I have now to offer some concluding observations on the present
prospects of the library movement, as it affects our country and
ourselves. In both points of view there is, I think, much matter for
congratulation. We have progressed very decidedly since the period to
which I have been carrying you back in retrospect. As is often the case,
the foundation of this Association was both a symptom and a cause. It
indicated the existence of a feeling that libraries had not hitherto
occupied that position in public esteem which they ought to have; it
further powerfully contributed to secure this due position for them. I
think they are obtaining it. We cannot but be conscious of a wave of
public feeling slowly rising, the action of which is visible in the
establishment of new libraries, in the adoption of the Free Libraries
Act by communities which had long resisted it, in improved library
buildings and appliances, in acts of munificence like Mr. Carnegie's and
Mrs. Rylands's, and as a natural consequence, in the improved salaries
and status of librarians. I am aware that very much remains to be done
in this latter respect. No one can more earnestly desire that the
librarian's position were better than it is. It would not only be a boon
to the individual, but a sign full of hope for the community. We are
progressing, but we must progress much further. The key of the position
seems to me the restrictions imposed upon rates for library purposes.
If we could obtain more freedom for the ratepayers in this respect, and,
which would be much more difficult, persuade them to use it when they
had it, our free libraries might be in general what some of the more
favoured actually are. It is discouraging indeed to observe in a not
very wealthy community, when all necessary expenses have been met,
including the librarian's very inadequate salary, what a ridiculous
trifle remains for the acquisition of books.
There is only one way to obtain the desired end—to convince the public
that they are getting value for their money. The utility of the public
library must be visible to all men. It must be recognised as an
indispensable element of culture, and it must be shown, which is
unfortunately more difficult, that it is actually subserving this end,
not only for a few persons here and there, but for a considerable
proportion of the population. I am not opposing the admission of fiction
into public libraries, but it is evident that if fiction constitutes the
larger portion of the literature in request, the average ratepayer will
not think, nor ought he to think, that any case has been made out for
his inserting his hands more deeply into his pockets. I am quite aware,
of course, that librarians individually can do but little in this
direction. Whatever can be done should be done, for the entire case of
the librarian in claiming respect from the community and the material
advantages concatenated therewith is that he is, in however humble a
measure, a priest of literature and science; as truly, though not as
ostensibly, a public instructor as if he occupied the chair of a
professor. Let him endeavour to live up to this character, and in
proportion as the community itself becomes conscious of its shortcomings
and its needs, the librarian's estimation will rise and his position
improve. We need not despair; like Wordsworth's imprisoned patriot, "we
have great allies." The library movement itself is merely the fringe of
a great intellectual upheaval, most visibly personified in the School
Boards which now cover the country, but also obvious in many other
directions. This upheaval will elevate libraries along with it, if they
really are the instruments of intellectual culture we firmly believe
them to be. Let us ally ourselves with those concerned in the diffusion
of these educational agencies. Many of them feel, I know, that schools
ought to be the highway to something better, and that even if public
school instruction could be accepted as sufficient for the citizen, much
of it is inevitably lost from the divorce from all intellectual life
which too commonly supervenes when the boy leaves school. But, if the
school have but instilled a love of reading, the library steps in to
take its place:—
"Chalice to bright wine
Which else had sunk into the thirsty earth."
Let the librarian but recognise his true position, and eventually he
must find his true level. I do not think that librarians as a body are
chargeable with insensibility to their duties in this respect; but it
does need to be kept before their fellow-citizens, whose ideas of the
profession—derived from tradition, and from personal experience among
some of its inferior branches—are naturally different from those which
obtain among ourselves. The librarian will therefore do well to interest
himself in useful and philanthropic movements, avoiding, of course,
anything tinged with party spirit, political or religious. If he is a
vegetarian, or a theosophist, or anything that begins with _anti_, let
him be so unobtrusively.
I must not conclude without mentioning an incident connected with our
profession, which has recently given me great pleasure—the acquaintance
I was enabled to make with the students of the Library School, mostly
young assistants in provincial libraries, on their visit to London last
summer. I received a most favourable impression of their modesty,
intelligence, eagerness to learn, and general interest in their calling.
This bodes well for the librarians of the future. I trust that they and
all of us, and all whom the profession may receive into their ranks from
other sources, will labour to preserve that high ideal of the librarian
as a minister of culture, and no less that other possession, which our
Association—if it did not actually create—has so greatly fostered that
it may almost be looked upon as its creation, the feeling of fellowship
and _esprit de corps_. We do not meet merely to read papers and exchange
ideas, and provide for our administrative arrangements, but to
encourage and renovate something "better than all treasures that in
books are found"—the consciousness of mutual interest, and the feeling
of mutual regard, which will, I trust, be found reflected in the harmony
and business-like conduct of our present meeting.
FOOTNOTES:
[1:1] Aberdeen, September 1893.
[27:1] It has since been used in Mr. Burgoyne's volume on Library
Architecture.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THEIR CATALOGUES[32:1]
"At the laundress's at the Hole in the Wall, Cursitor's Alley, up three
pairs of stairs, the author of my Church History—you may also speak to
the gentleman who lies by him in the flock bed—my index-maker." Thus
Mr. Edmund Curll, _apud_ Dean Swift, and the direction certainly does
not convey an exalted idea of the social status of the gentleman who
shared the hole of the ecclesiastical historian.
It is gratifying to remark the augmented consideration, in our day, of
this despised fraternity. There is no omission for which an author of
serious pretensions is now more frequently taken to task than that of an
index; and if on the one hand it is unsatisfactory that the offence
should be so frequent, it is on the other encouraging that its
obnoxiousness should be so generally recognised. "Every author,"
sententiously observes an American sage, "every author should write his
own index. Anybody can write the book." Without going quite to this
length, very many are disposed to affirm of a book without an index what
the Rev. Dr. Folliott, in "Crotchet Castle," affirms of a book without
matter for a quotation, namely, that it is no book at all. Now, what Mr.
Curll's index-maker was to Mr. Curll, librarians are to the general
republic of letters. Every visitor to the Reading Room of the British
Museum who is guided by the mere light of nature persists in styling the
catalogue "the index": their promotion in public consideration has
accordingly kept pace with that of their humbler allies, or rather
exceeded it, for if not starting originally from a point quite so
depressed, they have attained one much more exalted. The cause, however,
is the same in both cases—the enormous increase of knowledge, the need
of a rigorous classification of its accumulated stores, and the
development of a specialised class of workers to discharge this
function. Next to the importance of information existing at all is that
of its being garnered, classified, registered, made promptly available
for use. A good public library has been aptly compared to a substantial
bank, where drafts presented are duly honoured; and librarians, as such,
occupy much the same relation to the republic of letters as the
commissariat to the rest of the army—their business is not to fight
themselves, but to put others into a condition to do it. As a
consequence, their collective organisation is much more complete than of
yore; and their calling assumes more and more the character of a
distinct profession requiring special training, with a distinct tendency
to gravitate towards the Civil Service. Time has been when a
librarianship was most probably a sinecure, or at best a "Semitic
department," created for the express benefit of desert too angular and
abnormal to fit into recognised grooves. Lessing was a typical specimen
of this class of librarian, installed at Wolfenbüttel nominally to
catalogue books but in reality to write them. This type is now nearly
extinct in England, except here and there in one of those colleges which
Mr. Bagehot thought existed to prevent people from over-reading
themselves, or some cathedral, where the functions of librarian are
entrusted to a church dignitary or a church mouse. Elsewhere the
professional character of the librarian's pursuits is pretty generally
recognised; the need of special training and special qualifications is
commonly admitted; and the result has been a general improvement in the
status and consideration of librarians, the more satisfactory as it is
in no degree due to quackery or self-assertion, but has come about by
the mere force of circumstances. It may not be uninteresting briefly to
trace the steps by which librarianship has become a recognised
profession, and the public library an acknowledged branch of the State
service.
"Prior to the year 1835," says Mr. Winter Jones, in his inaugural
address before the first Conference of Librarians, "there had been
little discussion, if any, about public libraries." In that year—the
year of the publication of the epoch-making works of Strauss and De
Tocqueville, and of the removal of Copernicus and Galileo from the
_Index Expurgatorius_—the complaints of a discharged clerk led, _more
Britannico_, to an inquiry into the state of the British Museum, which
would at that time hardly have been granted upon public grounds. From
that inquiry dates everything that has since been done. Some not very
judicious changes in the administrative machinery of the Museum were the
chief ostensible results, but the real service rendered was to create a
consciousness in the public mind of the deficiencies of the national
library—strengthened no doubt by the contemporaneous disclosures of the
condition of the public records. The way was then prepared for the truly
great man who assumed office as Keeper of the Printed Books in 1837, and
whose evidence had mainly created the impression to which we have
referred. To the administration of the British Museum, Sir Anthony
Panizzi brought powers that might have governed an Empire. Sir Rowland
Hill is not more thoroughly identified with the penny post than Sir A.
Panizzi with the improvements which have made the Museum what it is, and
not merely those affected immediately by himself, but those which owe,
or are yet to owe, their existence to the impulse originally
communicated by him. In 1839 the Museum received from Sir A. Panizzi and
his assistants its code of rules for the catalogue—the Magna Charta of
cataloguing. In 1846 the enormous deficiencies of the Library, as
ascertained by prodigious labour on the part of the librarian and his
staff, were fairly brought to the knowledge of the nation. In 1849 Sir
A. Panizzi's multitudinous reforms were tested and sanctioned by one of
the most competent royal commissions that ever sat, whose report offers
at this day a mass of most amusing and instructive reading. We may note
in its minutes of evidence, as subsequently in the yet more remarkable
instance of President Lincoln, how little able Mr. Carlyle is to
recognise his hero when he has got him, and may obtain a new insight
into the extraordinary powers of the late Professor De Morgan. In 1857
Sir A. Panizzi's exertions received their visible consummation in the
erection of the new Reading Room and its appendages, capable of
accommodating a million volumes; and about the same time his political
and social influence raised the Museum grant to an amount capable of
filling this space within thirty years. Such an example could not fail
to elevate the standard of librarianship all over the country, and it
was now to be supplemented by the movement with which the name of Mr.
Ewart is chiefly associated. The comparative failure of the Mechanics'
Institutes, from which so much had been expected, had led the friends of
popular education to take up the subject of free libraries. Mr. Ewart's
Act (1850) forms another era in library history, and its operation,
while slowly but surely covering the country with libraries supported
out of the rates, has tended more than anything else to elevate the
profession by making it a branch of the public service, and offering
some real, though as yet hardly adequate, inducement to men of ability
and culture to follow it. The recent library conferences have shown what
an admirable body of public servants England possesses in these
administrators of her free libraries. The next great era in library
history dates from 1876, when the practical genius of the Americans led
them to perceive the benefit of giving bibliothecal science a visible
organisation. The Philadelphia Conference of that year resulted in the
foundation of the American Library Association, the prototype of our
own. About the same time the _American Library Journal_—now the organ
of the library associations of both countries—was established, and the
Bureau of Education issued its volume of reports, the most valuable
collection, not merely of statistics, but of close and sagacious
discussion of library questions, that has yet been produced anywhere.
That the American example should have been so promptly imitated in this
country is mainly due to Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson, the librarian of the
London Institution. Mr. Nicholson conceived the idea of an English
conference on the American model. Messrs. Tedder, Harrison, Overall, and
other distinguished metropolitan librarians, contributed their time and
their marked capacity for business towards carrying it out. Mr. Winter
Jones, as Principal Librarian of the British Museum, gave the conference
_éclat_ by accepting the office of President, and the welcome presence
of a strong deputation of American librarians, together with some
distinguished representatives of the profession from the Continent,
imparted the international character which it alone needed to ensure
success. The second conference, held at Oxford, was equally successful,
and the present year is to witness a similar gathering at Manchester.
An English Library Association has been called into being, and the
_Library Journal_, the organ of this Association, equally with the
American, indicates and records the active development of library
science in both countries. One thought clearly underlies all these
various undertakings—that library administration actually is a science
and a department of the public service, and that it is only by these
matters being thus generally regarded that the librarian can render full
service to the public, or the public full justice to the librarian.
We now propose to offer a few observations on some of the points of
principal national concern connected with the administration of
libraries in general, and, as from this point of view is inevitable, of
the national library in particular. In so doing we must acknowledge our
special obligations to the following works, and recommend them to the
study of all interested in library subjects; 1. The Transactions and
Proceedings of the Conference of Librarians held in London, October
1877, edited by E. B. Nicholson and H. R. Tedder: Chiswick Press. 2. The
_Library Journal_, official organ of the Library Associations of America
and of the United Kingdom: Trübner. 3. Public Libraries in the United
States of America; Special Report. Washington: Bureau of Education. To
these may be added Mr. Axon's able article on the Public Libraries of
America in the last number of the "Companion to the Almanac."