In conversing one day with the superintendent of one of our local
industries where the library is maintaining a station, I learned
something of the many provisions devised by the welfare department of
the organization as conducted by the social secretaries of the company.
From my tour of inspection I have a vivid recollection of attractive
dining rooms, an indoor gymnasium with an up-to-date swimming pool,
office or laboratory for a medical attendant to administer first aid
and attend to accidents of more or less serious nature, architectural
plans, free of charge, for prospective home builders, a well selected
book collection of popular and technical character, presided over
by a representative of the public library, which institution also
arranges for biweekly noon lectures on popular and instructive topics.
On my commending the humanitarian spirit animating the management of
the company the prompt response came: "That element enters only as
incidental in our policy. It is all a matter of business. We must hold
our organization intact. It is important to retain our skilled workmen
and we must make it worth their while to remain with us."
If it has been found to be good policy to provide for the contentment
and welfare of the human units in an organization where, after all,
a large part of the day's work is rather mechanical and of fixed
standards, how vastly more important it must be to give a close,
generous consideration to the happiness and comfort of the personnel in
a library system where the personal service is of paramount importance,
where the physical and mental vitality is under constant pressure,
where improvement in the day's work is always exacted and where
the result yielded to the individual effort is uncertain and often
undemonstrable.
In the case of library service, humanitarian regard should weigh
equally with considerations of statistics and output, inasmuch as
library work is a service for humanity and its welfare. Those entrusted
with the management of libraries may well remember the maxim that "as
we do we teach," which, applied to library conditions, may lead us to
conclude that whatsoever is done to promote the happiness and best
instincts of the rank and file in a library organization, will result
directly in instilling in the public service, rendered by them, a
spirit of sympathy, ready regard of the rights and needs of the public
and an eagerness to serve loyally. Any library management conceived and
executed in this spirit may be depended upon for achievements in what
is really _library economy_.
I'll endeavor to formulate some suggestions toward effecting such
results and I can harbor but feelings of satisfaction, should I be
advised later that they have already been practically realized in some
institutions.
The question of how to maintain and increase the efficiency of the
staff might well be approached from two angles, the physical and the
mental conservation of forces.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick makes the statement, that "there are conditions
for each individual under which he can do the most and the best work.
It is the business of those in charge of others to ascertain these
conditions and to comply with them."
We hear so much in our day about scientific management that we may be
led to begin inquiring skeptically if its value is not exaggerated in
the interests of professional organizers, systematizers, etc.
No working chart for computing the energy of a mental effort or for the
increase of its productiveness has as yet been devised but none of us
will deny the need of a working plan for the day's work. Else we drift.
According to the new doctrine as laid down by Mr. H. N. Casson,
"there is no such thing as unskilled labor, there is an intelligent
method for every accomplishment. Scientific management does not mean
frenzied production. On the contrary, it individualizes the workman, it
means the better ordering of the work for the best interests of both
individual and the service. Consequently, it provides for recreation as
well as for work. It insists that the individual shall not sag so far
down at the end of the day's work that he will not recuperate." This
concerns not only expended energy but misdirected energy.
The day's schedule should be so arranged that work requiring the
highest mental effort be assigned to the most fruitful hours of the
individual, the work so distributed that each individual performs the
task he can best do and is most worthy of his highest skill.
Pride in the work under your hand, the sense of doing something worth
while, generates the spirit of loyalty and happiness which reckons, not
so much with the written library regulations, as with the unwritten law
of the service to stand by cheerfully as long as needed.
During the recent years I spent in the East, it was my privilege
to become intimately acquainted with one of the most distinguished
engineers our country produced during the last half-century. One day
when I had occasion to call upon this gentleman, I was directed to
proceed from his office to one of the noisiest departments of his
extensive mills. There I finally located him seated on an anvil,
watching taciturnly the moving throng of busy mechanics. I learned
afterwards that the lifelong habit of this philosophic engineer was
to emerge from his secluded office and enter the quarters where the
"wheels turn around." There he would in his quiet manner ask shrewd
questions and enter into conversation with any one whose task or skill
attracted him. It is on behalf of the rank and file in the library
world that I draw upon this recollection of an industrial organization
noted for its resources and efficiency. Invite the confidence of
every member of the staff, welcome suggestions, allow your assistants
to voice the conclusions their experience and service bring home to
them, listen with sympathy to suggestions prompted by loyalty and
daily pondering. There are times when we may well forget our official
gradings, when it will prove profitable to learn from the members of
the crew how our theories stand the test.
The question of hours, salaries and vacations can be answered only in
a general way. The gauge by which we examine the running of the human
machinery entrusted to us should be read with sympathy, and we should
set a pace that we can hold the entire day or the working period of a
normal life. Speaking for our own institution, we adhere to the 42-hour
weekly schedule with provision for a weekly half-holiday. Evening work
should certainly never exceed the number three in any one week and
personally I'm leaning toward the more desirable two evenings a week.
Where a special evening force is employed the recommendation of course,
does not apply.
The restroom and the kitchenette are now so generally established as to
be past the stage of argument. These restrooms should be well equipped
and no niggardly considerations should stand in the way of making them
neat, airy and inviting in order to afford comfort and relaxation. The
appearance and atmosphere of the restroom should banish the dull sense
of drudgery and evoke the gentler side of life.
The half-holiday and vacation should be provided, not so much because a
faithful servant has earned a rest, but because without it life means
living at a low level, with the certain result of deadening one's
faculties, ambition and alertness, whereas these should all grow with
one's experience and work. Certainly a month's vacation in the course
of a year is a minimum respite in any professional activity of confined
nature and mental concentration. We must consider the weight of the
statement made by Luther H. Gulick that, "growth is predominantly a
function of rest and that the best work that most of us do is not in
our offices or at our desks, but when we are wandering in the woods, or
sitting quietly with undirected thoughts." Those who are entrusted with
the responsibility of supervising the daily toil of others should so
govern that each individual remains "master of his own work and not its
slave."
Just a few words as to the rate of compensation prevailing in the
library profession today. In so far as the city of Detroit is
concerned, the scale of wages now in operation and adopted some three
years ago, was based on the salaries paid in the public schools which
seems a fitting arrangement inasmuch as our public library is an
outgrowth of, and, as to appointment of trustees, still under the
control of the Municipal Board of Education. The professional training
and executive skill required in a librarian of today make it seem
reasonable that his or her compensation should be fairly at par with
the salaries paid in other city departments where professional training
is among the requisites, such as Department of City Engineer, City
Attorney, Municipal Museum, Superintendent of Public Instruction,
Principal of a High School, etc. Our salary schedule based upon the
schedule applying to principals and teachers in our local public
schools operates in parts as follows:
Heads of departments to receive the same pay as principals of eight
room schools.
Branch librarians to receive the same pay as principals of seven
room schools.
First assistants to heads of departments to receive a salary
corresponding with that of assistants to principals of schools.
In the same manner the schedule applies to the rank and file,
promotions being given semi-annually, based on seniority and
service record.
That this regulation would apply satisfactorily in other municipalities
is questionable, as may be deduced from a statement made by one
congressman, who, in discussing the salaries paid the school teachers
in the city of Washington remarked with blunt sympathy that "the
policemen were paid more to crash the skulls of the children in
Washington than the teachers were paid for putting something into them."
To maintain the efficiency of the library staff it is necessary not
only to consider the welfare of the individual during his working
hours but to provide such material regard for his day's toil that his
vitality and enjoyment of life may be conserved by having the means
to afford the necessary comfort and social status consistent with our
profession.
To consider the importance of personal appearance, neatness in dress in
our service with the public is simply to recognize the point of view
of the library patron whose opinion is worth while, and how are we to
exact this showing of "fine front" if we do not defray the cost thereof?
It is difficult, if not physiologically unsound, to speak about the
mental conservation of the library staff apart from its physical
maintenance, but in considering the former I would invite your
attention to what Mr. P. W. Goldsbury so aptly calls "the recreation
through the senses." Mr. Goldsbury remarks, "the importance of our
understanding, the wide range of the functions of our senses, the
influence of our surroundings and the manner in which they react on
our minds." He illustrates his point by quoting the saying that "for
horses the hardest road out of London is the most level one. There
are no hills to climb and descend, and the tired horse has no chance
to rest one set of muscles while another works. Monotony produces
fatigue; and because this particular road is one dead, monotonous
level, more horses give out on it than on any other road leading out
of London." Irresistibly the moral of the canvas before us breaks in
upon our individual sense of self-preservation and our responsibility
for the welfare of others. For economic as well as for humanitarian
reasons it behooves us to so apportion the day's work that one's
senses are exercised one after another and through interchange of
duties and tasks, not only one's body but one's mind is given a variety
of exercise and impressions. The rotation of duties every two hours
in departments where direct service with the public is given, will, I
believe, be found to afford some relaxation and wholesome change to
attendants on duty, especially so, if the change afford the alternative
of stationary position and moving about.
We all know how one's mind, spirit, aye, even nerves are affected by
objects within our vision, the feeling of depression that benumbs us
when our eyes rest on dingy colors and ugly outlines, when we dwell in
gloomy quarters or poorly ventilated rooms. Architects and librarians
will find that the efficiency of the human machinery housed within the
library walls will be maintained at its best if beautiful effects in
color and design of interior decorations are features of the library
equipment, if daylight is abundant, furnishings tasteful, atmospheric
conditions invigorating--let us sometimes have even the fragrance
and color-play of flowers. The capacity of our senses for higher
development is nourished by the stimulus from the outside world which
brings to us, often unconsciously, mental and physical refreshment and
recreation. The occasional relaxation in the day's work contributes
to a reasonable mental and physical balance, even the occasional
conversation during working hours may well be tolerated, certainly any
undue restriction thereof will do more harm than good.
I trust that in siding with the authority just quoted and submitting to
you these considerations I will not be charged with implying that "work
is to take secondary place." To the contrary:--it is by consideration
of the little things, by modulating adverse factors, by dealing in a
common sense manner with the conditions surrounding our physical and
mental field of daily toil, that we may be able to restore the energy
that we expend and not only maintain, but increase, our efficiency.
Our stock in trade, our best assets in library work are the joy of the
work and the happiness of the individual. The response from each one of
us to the call for ever more faithful and efficient service will come
with a hearty good will if our strength be protected--our altruistic
visions given time and leisure to go woolgathering.
* * * * *
The CHAIRMAN: It is well known to all of us that the Province of
Ontario has done notable library work in recent years. Under the
guidance of a corps of educational and library officials this work
has been stimulated and intensified. A great aid too in the work has
been the Ontario library association, with a membership, organization,
meetings and committee work that correspond favorably with any other
library organization anywhere. The conference has not up to this moment
had an opportunity to hear in an official way from the Ontario library
association, which must of course be numbered among the hosts of this
meeting. Dr. C. R. Charteris, its president, is in the room, and the
chair is very certain that the conference will not be content without
a few words of greeting from the president of the Ontario library
association.
Dr. Charteris expressed pleasure at bringing greetings from the Ontario
library association, saying they were backed by about one hundred
representatives from the province. He was sure that all, whether
trustees or librarians would return home with renewed energy and
endeavor to increase interest in library work.
The CHAIRMAN: As this point, ladies and gentlemen, the program
naturally divides, and we are brought to that portion of it prepared by
the Professional training section of the association. The gavel will be
turned over to the chairman of that section, Mr. Matthew S. Dudgeon,
secretary of the Wisconsin free library commission.
(Mr. Dudgeon takes the chair.)
The CHAIRMAN: Those of us who are interested directly in library
schools, as well as those of you who are more indirectly, but none
the less vitally, interested in library schools, feel that we are
fortunate that the next subject, "What library schools can do for the
profession," should be presented by a man who has not only seen the
inside of library schools as a student, but also, as secretary of a
state commission, as secretary of the American Library Association, and
as librarian of a public library, has seen the needs of the library and
has seen what the capacities of the library school graduate are to meet
those needs. I will call upon, but not introduce, Mr. CHALMERS HADLEY,
librarian of the Denver public library.