At my first A. L. A. conference, that of Waukesha, now eleven years
ago, I heard discussed that topic ever fruitful of discussion: the
librarian's attitude toward those books which are technically known
as 'off-color.' The Indignant resentment of that part of the public
which failed to appreciate the censorious solicitude of the librarian
was vividly set forth, and there were those who felt that the only
permanent way out was, in the words of George Ade, to "give the public
what it thinks it wants." But the Librarian of Congress, in defending
the library's point of view, uttered a remark which, as his remarks
have a habit of doing, clarified the atmosphere as a Chicago lake
breeze lifts a fog, and we settled back again serene in the knowledge
that our orthodoxy had once more been vindicated and set upon its firm
foundations.
He said, in effect, that the duty of the librarian was not exclusion
but selection and that in the full consciousness of his responsibility
to the entire community he, the librarian, must exercise fully and
freely his prerogative of selecting, out of the multitude of books,
those which best suited his purpose and served his ends.
The phrase "not exclusion but selection" struck at least one in that
audience as so clear and telling a characterization of the librarian's
business that he has kept it in mind, and well within reach for instant
use, ever since. Many times it has served to confound the irate patron
who combatively insisted that he was old enough to judge for himself
what was good for him. Not a few times has it been the stone offered
the facetious newspaper man who came seeking for bread in the form of
a "story" on the "barring out" of the latest shady novel. Today it
recurs again as a fitting text upon which to base a plea for the more
effective advertising of books as to subject and scope, and I trust
that my exegesis may not prove too violent to establish the relation
between my text and my topic, which to my mind is close and intimate.
A library, of the kind with which we are now concerned, is first of
all--and after all--a collection of books, selected and assembled by
the librarian. It may be so administered as to become a great civic
force, a social instrument, an educational agency, but first of all
it is a collection of units, brought together upon certain principles
as they operate in the mind of the library's administrator. Now, the
word "administer" is a transitive verb, one definition of which is: "to
manage, to conduct, as in public affairs," and another, "to serve, to
dispense, as in medicine." We may so administer--manage, conduct--the
library as to render it a power for the advancement of humanity, and
when we do that we are responding to the impulse which is generated in
the very air which we in this age of advancement breathe.
Or we may administer--serve, dispense--the books, as in medicine;
knowing the powers and the virtues of each; perceiving the stimulating
effects of one, the acceleration of heart action induced by another;
this one as an emollient and an anodyne, that one as a vesicatory or an
excitant; here a bromide, there a sulphite, yonder a tincture blandly
dissolved in a vehicle of simple syrup, next a pill, sugar-coated,
but none the less a stern and bitter dose. And when we do that we are
returning to the habits and practices of that "old librarian" so useful
to use now as a horrible example and a subject for humorous divagation,
but we are also returning to the faith once delivered to the saints,
for after all, the Fathers believed with Lord Bacon that "some books
are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and
digested" and they did love to administer them "as in medicine."
It is far from my intention to imply that the new librarian does not
know his books. Certainly he has not surrendered one ounce of his faith
in their potency. Rather does he impute to them, collectively, greater
powers than ever before, regarding his library as a moral unit of large
influence and seeking to extend its operation to the uttermost limits
of his jurisdiction. But is it not thus collectively that he prefers
to regard and administer it; as a great, powerful moral force which
shall permeate the community and envelop it so that, by a sort of
intellectual pantheism, we may all be in tune with the Infinite if we
but open the windows of the soul? Is he not being borne along in the
modern trend in therapeutics which is replacing doses and cordials,
tinctures and bitter pills with a state of mind?
Creating the library habit by such methods: by putting the library in
the way of the public and making it a familiar and consuetudinal part
of the environment; pervading the civic fabric and injecting itself
into the daily life of the citizen, is one thing. It is a very great
and glorious thing. To the multitude it has opened new channels of
relaxation, of stimulation, of mental growth and moral adjustment. Its
possibilities have not been overstated even by the librarian himself.
And on the day when librarians discovered the means and perfected
the methods which set the library in that commanding and strategic
position, on that day they set themselves in their rightful place as
public educators and added a powerful impulse to that divine momentum
by which humanity is being driven forward toward the goal of perfection
which must be its destiny. But creating the reading habit--well, is
that quite the same thing? And if it be not quite the same thing, are
librarians still concerned as much as formerly with promoting the
generation of the reading habit as a part--say the lesser half--of
their task? And if librarians are so concerned, are they--are we--using
the most effective methods to advance that part of our task? And is
advertising the library just the same thing as advertising the books?
It is by the consideration of these questions that I hope to expound my
text and deal with the topic assigned to me.
The library habit is akin to the museum habit, the public conservatory
habit and the menagerie habit, and differs from the reading habit as
visits to these institutions differ from cultivating your own garden
patch or rearing your own pets. Perhaps the logical conclusion of
these comparisons would seem to be that one must own one's books, but
happily one does not have to own a book's body in order to possess
its soul. Our present library machinery is admirably adapted to the
nurture of the library habit. Open shelves, book display racks,
branches in which all visible barriers and restrictions have become
as obsolete as the "keep off the grass" signs in the parks, all these
invite the promiscuous and profuse handling of books, the sipping and
skipping, the skimming and returning for more. Our card catalogs with
their stern noncommittalness and deadly monotony make it necessary
for the reference patron to call for whole armfuls of books which
he fumbles hastily, scouring the index and tables of contents, and
laying them aside for the next dip into the grab bag. Our monthly
bulletins, presenting in serried ranks the accessions of the month,
severely marshalled by the rules of the decimal classification, and
with one title closely followed by the next, so that the roaming eye
is constantly caught by new and ever more attractive possibilities
for skipping and skimming--what could be devised more effectively to
promote that species of gluttony which is indicated by long lists of
call numbers of books which we simply must see before next month's
bulletin appears with another long list? All these things conduce to
high circulation statistics and are therefore grateful to our senses.
But how many of them are calculated to impart the reading habit, are
effective in instilling "much love and some knowledge of books" as a
distinguished librarian has paraphrased it in a recent lecture? How far
does any of this machinery go in advertising books as to their subject
and scope, as the program has it?
The science of advertising claims a psychological basis all its
own. Perhaps it is no psychology at all but only a functioning of
instinct that causes us to respond, and often capitulate in the end,
to the ceaseless reiteration and ever-present insistence upon a given
assertion. But whatever it is, it reacts upon the volition in so
compelling a manner as to justify, even in the final acid test of the
cash book, the enormous outlay of money poured forth in arousing it.
And the keynote of it all is, not the fact of the reiteration, though
that is important, but the overpowering irresistible confidence with
which the assertion is put forth. The advertiser who would go before
his public with the guarded statement that "our soap seems to be a very
good soap and barring certain blemishes, a very desirable article,"
or would quote somebody else's testimonials (a practice now employed
only by those Ishmaelites of commerce, the patent medicines) might
spread his placards in a solid wall across the country, with no other
result than that of obliterating the landscape which now he only makes
hideous. Yet I ask whether the foregoing does not fairly represent the
general style of book annotations in library publications, when we
treat ourselves to the luxury of annotations at all?
Yet the business man and the librarian both need publicity, and that
which each should secure varies from the other only in degree, not in
kind nor in the object primarily to be attained by it, namely, the
patronage of the public. The merchant seeks this patronage for his own
ends of private gain; the librarian, for ends which he knows to be of
higher value and of greater consequence to the life of the community.
The former offers for sale an article which he has manufactured or
purchased, and to the use of which he sets out to convert the public by
methods which have been found effective, though they are expensive. The
latter buys his goods, not, let us hope, with quite the same purpose
of securing only such as are likely to appeal to the passing fancy of
his constituency. His aim being higher than the mere gratification of
tastes and desires, he applies higher standards to his purchases. His
business is selection. Every book that he adds to the library he first
selects out of all that are offered, and each selection is fortified
and backed by his deliberate judgment that that particular book will be
a good one for his public. He knows why it is so, and now it becomes
his business to convince his patrons that it is so, and to induce them
to profit by the selection which he has made. How does he go about it?
His task is both easier and more difficult than that of the merchant.
Easier, because he asks nothing more intrinsically valuable than time
and thought; more difficult, because to most people the use of a
book is not yet so proximate a need as a safety razor or even a cake
of soap. In common with the merchant he is striving to secure that
indispensable element upon which every human transaction between two
parties must rest, namely, the confidence of those with whom he seeks
to deal: confidence in his motives, in his judgment, and in the value
of the service which he offers to perform. And while the merchant
constantly faces the danger of losing the faith of the public through
the easily aroused distrust of the value of that which he offers, the
librarian finds even greater difficulty in overcoming the fear that his
design is the philanthropic one of uplifting and improving their mental
condition instead of merely amusing them. While the one must combat the
lurking suspicion of his customers that he may be "doing" them, the
other must dissimulate lest he be discovered in the act of "doing them
good."
Each, then, is under the same necessity of securing the attention of
the public, and ultimately for the same end: that of ensuring the
prosperity and consistent growth of his enterprise. We know how the
merchant advertises. Now, how does the librarian advertise? By means
of catalogs, bulletins, reading lists, occasionally by space in the
newspapers, when that can be had free. Very good means, these,--for
advertising the library; for implanting the library habit. But very
poor and weak means, indeed, for advertising the books or instilling
the reading habit. Books are not advertised in library publications,
except incidentally, for you cannot advertise a book merely by
mentioning its name, or copying its title page.
In his spacious and optimistic way the librarian, when speaking ex
cathedra, in library publications, vests himself, without intending to,
in a sort of cloak of infallibility as unbecoming as it is unnatural,
saying: "Behold, I bring you the books of the month; they are good
books or they would not be here. That is enough for you to know. I have
spoken!" And yet he has at his command twice over the chief essential
ingredient of all good advertising, namely, confidence. Confidence
in the righteousness of his mission and confidence in the merit and
integrity of his book selection, and in the conscientious methods
employed in making it. Why does he not try to do a little of that which
the merchant spends millions in trying to do--transmit that confidence
to his patron? Why, when his business is book selection, and he knows
he prosecutes it faithfully, is he so afraid of being caught at it?
The monthly bulletins of our public libraries, with a few shining
exceptions, are bare and bald author and title lists employing
that deadliest of all monotonous forms, the catalog entry. Now, I
have been too long apprenticed to the trade of the cataloger to
find it in my heart to cavil at his art and the carefully evolved,
scientifically derived principles upon which it rests. But when the
cataloger is "a-cataloging" he is not writing advertising copy. He is
making a permanent record, and he is following certain rules which
long experience has established and vindicated as good and necessary
for that purpose. He finds it necessary to establish, beyond the
possibility of confusion, the absolute identity of an author, and he
does this by giving that author his full and correct name, stripping
him of all disguises and never heeding the fact that the author himself
may have been trying through all his years of discretion to live down
the indiscretions of his baptismal record. This practice of employing
full names in a card catalog can still be defended, though with much
labor. But when an author is made to appear thus full-panoplied in a
monthly bulletin, which should have the freshness and attractiveness
of a news-sheet--which is all it is--he is more often disguised and
concealed from, than revealed to, the view of him who is expected to
read as he runs. Again, the cataloger rightly confines himself to
rendering an accurate transcript of the title page, neither adding
thereto, nor, if he be wise, subtracting one jot or tittle therefrom.
But title pages, like human faces, are often but a poor index to
character, and many a book which might upon closer acquaintance prove
a very good friend indeed, if only some one had been near to speak the
few formal words of introduction required in good society, is passed
by because of a forbidding and austere, or otherwise misleading,
countenance. And so the monthly record becomes a stern and monotonous
affair, requiring to be furbished up and trimmed with all sorts of side
issues by way of supplying what the city editor calls human interest,
all of them well contrived to advertise the library, but using up the
space which should be given over to advertising the books--of which,
first of all, and after all the library is composed.
Mr. Dana, in his pamphlet on booklists, makes a statement, from the
experience of his own library, but which must have found an echo in
many a heart, to the effect that the monthly list did not supply any
definite demand and was very little used. Exactly! So might a monthly
list of additions to the city directory be very little used; so does
the periodical revision of the telephone directory supply a definite
demand only to those who are looking for something--and the average
citizen is spending very little of his time looking for books. They
must be shown to him, and then he must be shown why it will be to his
advantage, pleasurable or profitable, to make their closer acquaintance.
Open shelf rooms, or, wanting these, display racks and tables are in
themselves a mighty stride forward in shortening the distance between
the reader and the books. But do they always go the whole distance?
Is it enough to turn a man loose in a roomful of books, all beckoning
to him and standing in rows expectant to be chosen, like children in
a game? They cannot speak, the attendants, gracious and hospitable
and expert though they be, cannot speak to everyone. They often have
enough to do to give attention to those that have the courage to speak
to them. But placards could speak. Small groups of books, taken out of
their tactical formation on the shelves and brought together because
of some bond of common interest not always convertible in terms of
the decimal classification, could become eloquent. And eloquent,
indeed, and welcome to the dazed explorer of unfamiliar precincts,
would be a bulletin, many of them, plenty of them--for a belief in
signs of the right sort is a mark of wisdom--which would tell him in
an authoritative, confident, and confidential way what he wishes to
know, namely, something about the books, or only about a few of them,
that surround him. We do these things, sometimes, on rare occasions,
on special days, by means of special bulletins. But it is mostly in
the children's room. In fact we take great pains that the children
should receive the benefit of our expert judgment and ministrations.
But to their elders, to most of whom we might well apply a reverent
adaptation of the words of the precept, beginning: "Except ye become as
a little child ...," to their elders we pay the subtle and misdirected
compliment of assuming that they know as much as we do about what is,
after all, our chief business, the selection and proper employment and
enjoyment of books.
It begins to appear, then, I hope, that what I am driving at is that
the way to convey information as to subject and scope of books is to
talk about them, and to talk about them in such a way as to transmit
not only the information, but our own interest in them, our confidence
in them, and our point of view--which is not different from that of the
people we seek to serve, though it may be more clearly defined when it
comes to books. We are all human beings together and our chief common
interest is human interest. When we can establish that bond between
ourselves and those whom we desire to reach the task is done.
Why is it that the Chicago Evening Post, three weeks ago today,
devoted 500 words in its editorial columns to comment upon the shelf
of classics and the illuminating explanatory legend accompanying it,
in the Springfield, Mass., library? Why is it that when we receive the
St. Louis bulletin, we turn first to the page of "Books I like and why
I like them?" Why do the pleasant little informal chats in the Chicago
book bulletin about the troubles of the reference department meet with
so wide a response? Why is Mr. Wellman's charming booklet about "Some
modern verse" still kept in every librarian's little private file of
things really worth keeping? Because in all of these, in one form or
another, there appears the common bond of sympathy, the common note of
human nature, which finds its complement wherever nature is human; the
common ground of interest in the self-revelation of human beings which
these little isolated and intrinsically unimportant enterprises bring
to light. The book bulletin that would report upon the books of the
month in the same pleasant, informal fashion, that would embody a page
or two of book-chat in the same style of sprightly, intimate, personal
causerie, think you that such a book bulletin would stand in great
danger of being suspended because "it was very little used?"
Let us, then, talk more about our books: by word of mouth, in print, by
placards, by whatever means ideas may be conveyed, so that the means be
effective and the ideas--our own! When we annotate, and so breathe the
breath of life into the dry bones of a catalog entry, let us honestly
assume responsibility for the presence of the books in the list, by
giving our own appraisal, and not always by quoting from some organ
of orthodoxy whose very name connotes oppressive solemnity to the man
in the street. We have our own collective opinion ready made for us
every month in the A. L. A. Booklist, concisely put, simply worded, and
the result of the combined judgment of a body of collaborators of the
highest respectability. But this we mostly keep to ourselves, as a sort
of trade secret, instead of giving the public at large the benefit of
this most admirable product of co-operative skill.
And let us do these things not by way of pretending to oracular gifts
or the possession of omniscience, but as a means of revealing ourselves
and so of establishing a channel of communication between ourselves
and our people through which the clear stream of human nature, which
is common to us all, may flow unobstructed. And upon that stream we
may confidently launch our several ships, freighted with wisdom and
joy, profit and pleasure, inspiration and growth and life itself, safe
in the knowledge that they will be wafted straight down the stream to
their destinations, the hearts and minds of our patrons.
Perhaps this is one of the things in the mind of the president when she
laid down the following query as the point of departure for this week's
program: "Should not the library, neglecting no other known service,
make very certain that it fulfills its own unique task, that is, to
provide and to make known the sources of joy?"
The PRESIDENT: I think it is quite evident from several references in
Mr. Roden's very delightful paper why the president went to Springfield
for a paper on making known the charm of books. The librarian at
Springfield was by "royal command" compelled either to write a paper
himself or produce some one who could write it, and Mr. Wellman has
produced Miss Grace Miller's manuscript, which he will read to us.
Mr. WELLMAN: Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very sorry
that Miss Miller could not be here to present her paper in person. She
is known to some of you through the notes which she writes for the
Springfield Bulletin.
Mr. Wellman read the following paper, prepared by Miss GRACE MILLER, of
the Springfield city library.