The Wm. Filene's Sons Company of Boston are retailers of men's,
women's, children's and infants' wearing apparel and employ at present
about 900, but in a few months will employ 2000 employees. Among other
innovations they have made provision for a Business Reference Library
in their new building, which they are to occupy this coming fall, and
which is, so far as we know, the first in this line of business.
It is planned to have on file all information relating to the business
and such other information as may be helpful to the management and all
other employees in the discharge of their duties, such as daily papers,
technical and general reference books, trade journals, newspaper
clippings, and typewritten material.
The library was created because there was a definite need for a
central clearing house of information on the latest and best in retail
distribution and because it was urgent that one department should be
responsible to care for safely and mobilize the valuable information,
books and pamphlets scattered throughout the various offices of the
organization.
Now what will the earning power of this special reference library be?
It will be in exact proportion to its use and efficiency, based on just
how well and how often it can make or save a dollar for the business.
It will depend largely on how aggressive the library policy will be in
creating needs and meeting the needs for its material, and although it
may not be able to show quite as tangible a profit and loss statement
as a merchandise department, still there should be the same effort and
desire to know the stock on hand the first of the month, the purchases,
the expenses of the department, the stock on hand at the end of the
month (having in mind depreciation) and the sales, which would be
services rendered.
The more efficiently and oftener the reference library serves the
organization, the more time it saves high-priced executives, and helps
the rank and file, the more certain it will become a permanent paying
department of the business and make itself indispensable. This is in
general how the earning value will be determined. However, if the
library is to succeed, such general statements will not be sufficient.
The chances for service and making definite contributions toward
business efficiency in a large retail establishment are innumerable,
and especially in a progressive house like the one with which I have
the honor to be associated.
But such service and such contribution must be made very definite,
must be made very specific and must be applied to every member of the
organization.
For some years past our company has been experimenting with profit
sharing agreements, and one of the difficulties has been for general
profit sharers, men and women in non-selling departments, working for
the whole store, to show what has been his or her contribution toward
profits.
Therefore, if a reference librarian, who would be termed a general
profit sharer, fails to study, position by position, just how he or she
can contribute to the needs of the men and women connected with the
organization, the library will not be recognized and felt as a money
making investment. It is, therefore, along these lines that the Filene
reference library will be operated.
In all the initial steps and preparatory work of organizing, the
methods of the legislative reference libraries are as far as possible
being applied.
The work of some of the successful legislative reference libraries
is divided into three main divisions--comparative, critical and
constructive, and in analyzing the store material on hand, it is found
that pretty nearly all of these main divisions of reference work have
in the past been practically ignored. In isolated cases, comparative
work has been attempted, as for instance, furnishing specific
information from some other store on some store policy for some one
manager, but it has not been disseminated and placed at the service of
all. The need of having this work done has been recognized and in the
future will be done through the library.
Retail distribution has its laws and policies, but the laws and
policies are, to a large degree, empirical. They are the result of
years of effort and experience, and what was good five years ago, may
not be good today. All policies are constantly changing.
Therefore, the first work, and at present in hand, before the library
can start on its aggressive mission is to tabulate, classify, index and
fit for use the present valuable information scattered throughout the
offices of the management, destroying everything obsolete or whatever
has become a permanent part of the store organization.
For it is imperative in a fast growing business employing an
increasing number of executives, that new employees should profit
to the fullest extent by the experience of past years and how other
people have handled problems new to us, and the library can assist
very definitely by placing in their hands brief summaries on important
subjects connected with the business, revised copies of duties of
various positions, bibliographies on important subjects related to the
business, and any other material that will help them absorb in the
shortest possible time the fundamentals of the business.
Perhaps it may be of interest to mention briefly what special subjects,
both general and technical, the library must watch out for. The best
way is, with apologies, to give you an idea of the personnel of
the management. The Filene brothers and their partners are public
spirited citizens; one brother, Mr. Edward A. Filene, with a few
other men, organized the present successful Boston City Club and was
largely responsible for the amalgamation of the numerous commercial
organizations of the city into the present Boston Chamber of Commerce,
and was chairman of the recent Metropolitan Plan Commission of
Massachusetts. The other brother, Mr. A. Lincoln Filene, served for
three years on the State Commission for Industrial Education and is
now a member of the Executive Board of the National Society for the
Promotion of Industrial Education, and also contributed largely in
time and money to the Boston Vocational Bureau. The other partners are
also serving on special committees of various organizations and are
all, with the Filenes, very keenly interested in labor problems, the
relations of employers to employees, and each has on his desk the best
books on scientific management, as Taylor's, Gantt's, Emerson's and
Brandeis'.
Therefore, first of all the business reference library will have on its
shelves six or seven of the best books on scientific management, also
books on organization and finance. Then will be added special books on
bookkeeping, auditing, insurance, statistics, advertising, decorating,
buying, selling, materials, and subjects of interest to the Filene
Co-operative Association (an organization consisting of all employees
and members of the corporation, each member having a single vote) such
as pensions, arbitration, compulsory insurance, co-operative housing,
etc.
Perhaps it might also be well to add that this association has
maintained a library of all the popular fiction for the past twelve
years, and no fiction will be placed in the new business reference
library.
The librarian is also custodian of all the private contracts, leases
and corporation records, and is expected to prepare digests of any
important papers at any time.
This is what the Filene library expects to do and must arrange for
resources to actually obtain and devise ways and means for the
dissemination of information needed.
The VICE-PRESIDENT:--We have with us today Miss E. V. Dobbins, who is
librarian of the Edward Accounting library of the American Telegraph &
Telephone Company, New York City, and she will add to the discussion.
Miss DOBBINS: I desired not to write a paper, because I might write one
too long and not say much in the end, so I thought perhaps it would
be interesting just to tell you why our immense corporation found it
necessary to have a library. We have a large engineering library; that
is, we have a very fine collection of technical books--unfortunately,
as yet, no librarian; we have a splendid legal library, and I represent
the accounting library. Two years ago our comptroller, who is an
authority on accounting in the United States and has some reputation
abroad, decided that it was necessary to get together the material,
and they were good enough to offer me the position, which I was very
glad to accept. So we collected what few books we had. We didn't have
much. We bought largely. All our men are authorities on the particular
subjects with which they deal, so, consequently, in buying books for
our library we cannot select, as we used to in the public library, with
due respect to the library, any and all books on a particular subject.
We have to have the last word upon it. Accounting is a peculiar subject
inasmuch as there are only about four or five authorities--I may be
wrong, that is all I could ever find. If anybody knows of any more I
should be more than glad of the information.
We go largely into economics. We also take up public utilities and
reports of county and state governments and city reports. We do some
little work in scientific management. I do not think the sympathies
of the officials lie very largely in the direction of scientific
management, however. Everybody there is supposed to know his job and
do it. We are very fortunate in not being handicapped for money. We
can buy whatever is out, just as soon as it is out, and as many copies
as we find it necessary to have. We deal primarily with the accounting
department, which includes the statistician's department too, and the
executive department. Those are two very big departments and they keep
us pretty busy all the time. We have quite a file of pamphlets. We do
not give as much care to the pamphlets as we do to the books. When
we came to the question of cataloging I realized that we had a very
big piece of work on our hands, and we were short of help, and it was
essential that we have everything up to date just as quickly as we
possibly could. So I bought Library of Congress cards, and it was a
very happy inspiration, for we had everything done by sub-headings
and everything assigned in about two weeks, and of course that helped
considerably.
The library is used frequently and primarily by the officials and the
directors. The employees of the company have the privilege of coming,
and they come often and freely. The comptroller has told me time and
time again that he could not measure in actual money value the service
the library has given the house and himself primarily. We take all
the leading economic and scientific journals and they circulate. I
have a list of the names of the various men to whom they go. I tried
to have a specified time for their return, but I am sorry to say it
did not work out. Our desks are all equipped with telephones, so we
telephone, and if they can find them they return them. When they cannot
find them the oldest office boy, Joseph, is enlisted. I think he was
the leader of the Boy Scouts. He knows generally where to get them. I
think he says they are generally behind the desks, but in any event
we get them, and if they are very badly torn, mutilated or marked, we
buy other copies to bind. The leading magazines we bind as soon as the
volume is completed. They form the largest part of our reference work.
I go over those magazines very carefully and find what I would like to
bring out more prominently than in a bound magazine, and we catalog
those particular subjects, buy extra copies, put them in the pamphlet
file, catalog them and put them in the pamphlet catalog, so that if
by any chance the bound volume is out and a particular article is
sought, we have it. We find in those two places we can generally meet
all the needs of the library. I do not think any of the people of the
corporation have really ever become familiar with the actual library
side of it. They look upon a shelflist as something fearful and awful,
and they do not understand it, but as long as they get what they want
when they want it, they seem thoroughly happy. Speaking in a quite
impersonal way, I think our library is quite a business asset, because
I can candidly say that the men who are at the head of our corporation
would not tolerate it five minutes if it were not.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: We were to have a paper by Miss Abbott of the
reference department of the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend, Ind.
She was hindered, however, in the preparation of this paper, and also
from coming to this meeting, but the paper will be furnished later and
printed in "Special Libraries."
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I would like to inquire whether Mr. Pack, Secretary
and Comptroller of the Toronto Electric Light Company is here.
Mr. LAPP: Mr. Chairman, I have a letter from Mr. Pack which I wish to
read. When Mr. Pack was asked to be present at this meeting he said he
would write his views at least, if he could not come. He has written a
general statement of his belief in the special library.
(Mr. Lapp here read the letter which is available at the office of
Secretary.)
Mr. MARION: May I ask whether Miss Tutt, who is present, I think,
might not have something to say in relation to the automobile library,
inasmuch as she is actively representing Miss Elizabeth Abbott here?
Miss TUTT: Mr. Chairman, I scarcely feel prepared to say anything
about her library, particularly as an automobile library, for I do not
know that she has done anything especially in the automobile work of
her library, her work taking up all lines. Her work has grown to such
an extent that she told me just a day or two before I left that she
really did not know but that they would have to get another name for
it; she had not as yet found anything in the corporation that she had
not been called upon to do, so that she was at a loss to know just what
it was that she was expected to do. It has developed wonderfully and
very satisfactorily. It has been up-hill work, as you all know. The
corporation has changed hands, gone into various companies, come back
again, and she had it all to meet and arrange. All that work and all
the papers and records have just simply piled up, are all being sorted
out now, indexed and put in order. She is doing a wonderful work. The
other institutions there in South Bend are watching very closely her
work and I think it will be but a short time before the other factories
will be following suit; but so far as the automobile part is concerned,
there is nothing any more special in that than in any other line of
work that she has done; that is to say, nothing that I know of.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I am going to ask Mr. Marion, our secretary, who is
at the head of a technical library, to take part in this discussion.
Mr. MARION: I must say, as one of the other speakers, that I have not
prepared a paper, believing that in such an assemblage of essayists and
discussers it would not be impossible to find some very good material
from which to talk extemporaneously. I have not been disappointed.
Two or three points I will mention in what may be only a rambling
discussion, but they may be worth while to some of you.
Mr. Handy mentioned in a passing way only the entrance of a large
number of college men into business today. I do not think he put the
matter nearly strong enough. It is this very entrance of well-educated
men into business, rather than coming in through the long process of
experience, entering, that is, half way up the scale of life, equipped
with a fine technical training, making them already professional men,
as the physician steps into the community a professional man, that
has forced business to equip itself along a little different line. It
seems to me this is one of the great telling reasons why more and more
special libraries are going to be built up in manufacturing concerns
and industrial plants; for with these men coming in, they do not come
as mechanics wanting a plane, a saw or a hammer; they come primarily
wanting books and nothing else. They have been trained to the ample use
of books for four and sometimes six years previous to their entrance
to business, and to take books away from them would be like taking
the plane or saw or hammer away from the carpenter. So these men must
be provided for, and I think that is one of the chief causes that is
compelling business to adopt libraries.
Regarding the type of librarian that is required for administering this
sort of a library, I think enough emphasis has not been put upon the
keen aliveness which is required in these people, if I may be pardoned
for saying so, in comparison to those who are employed in public
institutions, where the term of office is likely to run anyway for a
year. In business, we have to make good, and to make good seriously,
daily. Our reputation is at stake every time a question is asked.
Then it seems to me there is no opportunity for the quiet type of
librarian who would like short hours and the freedom to come and go at
leisure. It requires primarily some one of tireless vitality and one
who is ready to sacrifice himself to build up not only the efficiency
of his own department, but to support other departments when they may
be overworked.
This brings me to the point of the preparation for special
librarianship. I question very much whether the librarian who is
prepared through the regular source of supply, the library school,
today, is going to become just the type of person to take up this
special library work. It seems to me the more I consider it that a
great many of the most successful special librarians are those who
have grown up through business, at least to a certain degree, and have
taken on the library training in their own quiet moments. If this is
the case, would it be worth while for the library schools to consider
a list of special libraries where candidates for their certificates
or diplomas might go to spend a fraction of their summer vacation in
actual special library work and receive credit in their schools toward
their diplomas? I think that that might be worked out with more careful
thought.
Mr. Morton mentioned the fact that the statistics of the library do not
show up against the operating department, the manufacturing department,
etc. I want to say that with the Arthur D. Little, Inc., Library, we
are now obliged to pass in time slips. In other words, the library has
been put upon a par with the other departments, the chemical, the
research and the engineering departments, and at the end of every month
we are given an opportunity to show what we have done in the way of
results.
If there has been a quiet month of course there will be little put in
the way of service, in time, but the time slips show and it is up to
the library to maintain its standing, to show just what it has done
during the month in actual time, because with a concern of the nature
of ours, which is a consulting and engineering corporation, time is a
great element. Mr. Handy touched upon that, but not half emphatically
enough. In the insurance library I am sure he does not appreciate it.
The monthly report is based primarily on the time spent on different
problems, and these time slips are all assorted and tabulated against
special pieces of work which are generally known in an engineering
organization by what is called a job number; and so the librarian's
time is now being accounted for in the same way that that of the head
of the research department is being accounted for. It seems to me that
that is a step in advance and indicates progress.
It occurred to me to say to you that while I have been here at this
conference I have received application for another membership, so that
while we came with 224, we now have 225 members. The Metropolitan Life
Insurance Company have requested their librarian to become a member of
this association, so that we grow daily.
Mr. Brigham has called my attention to the fact that it ought to be
brought out forcibly here how necessary it is for every one of you
people, no matter what part of the country you may go to, to bring
to the attention of this association officially, either through the
secretary or the president, the birth of every such library that you
may know of. Business does not know us. We know business of course, but
until this association has had a much wider publicity campaign than we
have been able with our meager means to give it, business cannot come
to us and cannot get the help that we can give it. If, then, when you
go to your respective places, you would be alive to the creation of
every special library in your part of the country, and when you know of
a collection of books where a librarian might be necessary, you would
bring it to our attention, we would write them and tell them of the
service that we can render them.
I think the thing that has impressed me most in the discussion that
has gone on just now is the fact that the company that employs Miss
Dobbins has three special libraries. That is unique, it seems to me,
that one corporation should employ three special libraries; not merely
one, but a library for the legal department, another for the accounting
department and a third for the engineering department. That it seems to
me represents a pretty high development of the special library idea.
Miss DOBBINS: May I just interrupt a moment to say that I too submit
a report at the end of every month. It was my own suggestion, for I
wanted the company to know that we were doing something, and we would
possibly be lost sight of in such an enormous place. So I sent in a
report, very brief, just giving the number of books circulated in the
various departments, the number of pamphlets and the reference work
done. They said they were very glad to get it, and that it put us on a
working basis.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Before opening a more general discussion I would
like to have the secretary make a few announcements regarding certain
things of interest.
Mr. MARION: I have here a bound volume of "Special Libraries" that all
may see everything that has been published to date. I think it would
be of interest to some of you who are not familiar with its contents.
We also have for sale, if any one cared to purchase them, three copies
of Volume 2 complete. Then we have for distribution to any who might
care for it, "The earning power of chemistry," which is written by Mr.
Little, the president of the concern which I serve. As you know, Mr.
Little is, today, one of the foremost industrial chemists in this
country, if not in the world. He is also this year, by a very fortunate
circumstance, it seems to me, president of the American Chemical
Society. I say fortunate because this year America is entertaining the
International Congress of Applied Chemistry that meets in Washington
and New York in September. This is a review to convince the business
man of the usefulness of chemistry in solving his everyday problems. It
is a reprint of a free public lecture delivered to the business men of
Indianapolis last June. It is simply a talk upon business from another
angle. In the same way Mr. Handy's talk is equally strong, it seems to
me, from the library standpoint.
We have also for sale here, should any one care to purchase it, the
city planning bibliography which was published as the May issue of
"Special Libraries." It is 25 cents a copy. This was compiled by
Harvard university and the Library of Congress.
I have a few copies left of "The library as an adjunct to industrial
laboratories," a paper which I submitted originally to the American
Chemical Society at its Boston meeting, and describing in minute detail
my own personal library. It may be of interest to some and you are
welcome to it if any of you wish to take it away.
Mr. HANDY: I was particularly interested in Mr. Marion's discussion,
and in one suggestion more especially, that the library school might
specialize somewhat more along the lines of special library work.
While I think that might well be brought up as a subject of discussion
this evening, I should like to say just now that it seems to me, in
the first place, that there is a great dearth of properly prepared
assistants to do the kind of work that is needed in the special
library. I think the libraries that specialize in business library
work have found that to be true, and that these library schools in
general are not particularly adapted to meet that requirement. It
occurs to me, then, that it might be possible for special libraries,
possibly through the co-operation of the American Library Association,
to get the library schools of the country, at some time in their
course, to offer a more specialized course which could be taken by
those students who intend to specialize in library work, and that
in that course an attempt be made to develop the special library
attitude, which is absolutely and wholly different from the general
library attitude, toward the subjects handled. It seems to me that
several exceedingly good things could come of it. In the first place,
if the library schools would do for special libraries as they do for
general libraries, that is, if they would select a certain number
of libraries, which measure up to certain standards, throughout the
country, and assign pupils to those libraries, with the understanding
that before they could be qualified they would have to measure up to
a certain standard; then a student who spent a certain amount of time
in such a library would receive credit for special library work in
the library course, exactly the same as students do now in general
library work. Then I think you would find that you would get, in the
first place, more specialized students; in the second place, I think
you would lift the plane of special library work immensely, you would
lift it to a much higher plane of professionalism and you would find
that your directors and your people who pay the money to support these
libraries would vie with one another to be qualified by the leading
library schools in the country, and I think that in itself would be an
inducement to a good many halting business concerns to support, as they
are not supporting now, their libraries; they would see the advertising
value of being endorsed by the leading library schools in the country,
if they did not see anything else, and they would pay the money
necessary to bring their own libraries up to that degree of efficiency.
On the other hand, it seems to me that the special library is offering
an exceptionally interesting field to young women going into library
work, and that the library schools as at present organized are not
pointing the way to them as they should; and possibly the library
schools are not in a position to do it. I did not mean to consider
this at this point, but I do think that is one of the subjects that
might be seriously considered now or this evening, and, if necessary,
a committee appointed to go over the whole subject, and possibly
co-operate with the American Library Association or the library
schools, whichever might be necessary, to bring it to a focus.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: It might be of interest to know that in Simmons we
have a library school which appoints special courses with a view to
fitting women especially for economic and business library work.
Do you desire, Mr. Handy, to put your suggestion in the form of a
motion now or later?
Mr. HANDY: My motion, then, would be this, that the subject of
co-operation between the library schools and the special libraries,
with the aim of preparing students especially for special library work,
be taken up at the conference this evening. (Carried)
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Before we take up any further discussion, out of
respect to the Chairman of the Municipal Year Book Committee, I wish
to ask for a report from that joint committee, of which Mr. Ranck is
chairman.
Mr. RANCK: I can only report progress again. I had hoped to be
able to report something very definite at this time. Our committee
had a meeting in New York in June, after the Pasadena meeting, at
which time there were present Mr. Baker, the editor of "Engineering
News;" Professor Hart of Harvard; Professor Rowe of the University
of Pennsylvania; Mr. Woodruff of the National Municipal League, Dr.
Whitten of the New York Public Service Library and myself. I think that
includes all of the persons who were present.
The committee discussed first of all what should be included in a
municipal year book, and as a result of that discussion, which lasted
three hours, in the City Club, Mr. Woodruff was delegated to take
up with certain publishing houses the project of putting this thing
through. I have had several letters from Mr. Woodruff within the last
few months, or weeks, on this subject, and he hoped to have a definite
announcement ready for this meeting. The delay has been on account of
the fact that the head of one of the publishing houses, the one that
seemed most favorable toward this project, and a publishing house
that is in the business of making year books and encyclopedias, was
in Europe, and so Mr. Woodruff could not get that thing put through.
However, he is in hopes that it may be put through almost any day.
I may say that thus far the prospects of our having for the cities
of the United States and Canada an American municipal year book, are
altogether favorable.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Do you wish the committee to be continued?
Mr. RANCK: I think we have this in hand and that perhaps we might
continue it.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: This committee has rather a unique function anyway.
It speaks for both the State Libraries and the Special Libraries
associations, a joint committee.
Mr. RANCK: And there was brought into it the National Municipal League
and several others.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Doubtless the National Municipal Review will
contain in time notes of the proceedings of that committee, so that the
members will be informed. Could it not be done that way?
Mr. RANCK: As soon as the thing is definitely decided I will notify the
secretary.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Yes, but I mean it would be available for any one
to read in the National Municipal Review which appears from time to
time.
Mr. RANCK: Probably, yes. If I may be permitted, I should like to
say a word about another matter that was under discussion this
afternoon. I was very much interested in what was said about present
engineering training and the kind of training of men who are going
into business, in their use of books, and their demand on libraries.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of going through one of the
largest electric lamp factories in the country, one of whose branches
has 2000 people employed, and I was particularly interested in the
corps of professional men. I went there to visit a friend of mine
who is a physical engineer. He was a professor at the University of
Pennsylvania, was afterward at the head of the department of physics
in one of our state institutions, and was taken from that into this
concern, and within the last three years that concern has engaged,
I think, four or five doctors of philosophy, four or five men who
have been professors in technical schools, and they are going at that
business altogether different from the rule of thumb method; and
that type of men who are accustomed to use books and who do use them
are coming into demand more and more. One thing my friend said, that
impressed me very much, was this, that in going about to a number of
engineering schools, Cornell, the State College of Pennsylvania and
several others, he has been talking to the boys taking engineering
courses, of the chances and opportunities for going into that sort
of work. These companies are after technically trained men from the
colleges and universities and they send men like him out to talk to the
boys and try to get them to come into their works. Another thing he
emphasized, and which I think we must keep in our mind all the time--it
is a thing we emphasize as librarians of the public libraries, but it
has a bearing in the work of this organization as well--he said he was
telling the boys at Cornell and those other engineering schools that
while engineers have to deal with things, they have to know science;
yet that more than half of the problems of the average engineer are
problems of men rather than problems of things. In other words, that
the humanities must be studied; that you must know sociology--that
was referred to here this afternoon--and economics, just as much as
chemistry and business and all that sort of thing. In short the two
must go together.
Mr. G. W. LEE: Mr. Chairman, you have a question box there which has
been forgotten all about, and I am not very sorry.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: No, I haven't. I am going to put it in for
discussion, the whole thing.
Mr. LEE: There were no questions, I think, except the question box. I
should like to question that. There ought to be some machinery at these
conferences for introducing the new members; some method by which we
can all let it be known what we especially want to know; some way to
meet the people that have this information.
Now, what I want to say about the question box is that it seems to me
that the Special Libraries Association might introduce a circular that
tells about the next conference of the American Library Association,
and could put in a little slip saying, "Please send to headquarters a
statement of what you want to know, what is your specialty." It would
help immensely. People come here to get some information; they want to
know about filing photographs, about dry-goods libraries and so on,
and we ought to make it possible for them to get something out of the
convention without trying too hard.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I think Mr. Lee has raised a very natural question.
I have talked with some of the older members of the American Library
Association, and it seems to be the feeling that we have lost something
since we have grown so large. With eight hundred members, it is almost
impossible to know every one personally, as it was when there were only
a couple of hundred in attendance at the meetings. The New York library
meeting in September will bring together as many people as used to come
to the American Library Association meetings ten or fifteen years ago.
I do not see any way out of it except to follow some definite method
from headquarters so that the American Library Association itself can
arrange the matter. It is not a matter of hospitality necessarily, but
oftentimes the stranger within our gates is the one that suffers in
these respects. After you have been to three or four conventions you
enjoy yourself, but the first year it is difficult to know people.
Mr. MORTON: I should like to offer a suggestion with regard to the
difficulty of the newer members getting to know the older ones. I find
out that the way to get acquainted is to pitch in and do some work.
Then they have to know you. I would therefore suggest putting the
younger members on the various committees and make them work and work
hard; then they will come to know people.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: You have brought up a very important point, and
that is what we might call the committee system. The system has often
failed by being limited to three members. The chairman does the work
and sends around to the other members to sign up; or they live at
various points of the country and the chairman forgets to do the
work or for various reasons fails to report. The way to get the best
results is to appoint a committee of one and get the work done by
that committee, and if he does not do the work, discharge him and get
another person in his place who will do the work. We are suggesting now
a re-arrangement of that method by which we can get, I think, better
results, in answer to your remarks.
Mr. MARION: I wonder if Mr. Handy would develop a little the idea that
was brought out in a conversation that he held with me some little time
ago in Boston, in which he pointed out the sort of large opportunities
that come to the special librarian, that do not come to the public
librarian, and cannot from the very nature of things.
Mr. HANDY: I had in mind especially when I was talking with Mr. Marion
a man who at present holds the position of assistant manager in New
York of the Fire Insurance Exchange. I think his salary is between
six and seven thousand a year. It happens that he is a very bright
fellow, and he is taking charge also of evening classes in the New
York University school of commerce and accounts, which adds another
thousand dollars a year to his salary. I am speaking, in this, simply
from the standpoint of salary. He started in as a special librarian.
He came into opportunities solely through the close personal contact
with superiors who were looking for exactly this kind of advisory and
expert service that I tried to emphasize in my paper. Of course, he
made good in the smaller position, and through making good there got
the opportunity to go to New York in the first place, in a position,
which while not particularly better than the one he had occupied as
librarian, was better in opportunities and much beyond anything that
any special library would be likely to offer; and he has so far made
good in New York that he has come into the opportunity that I spoke
of, and he has the present salary, which of course carries with it
responsibilities; but it seems to me it will be a great many years
before in general library work one would find an opportunity like
that for advancement, because it was all done in about seven or eight
years. It is that possibility of getting in close contact with the
heads of great industrial organizations and great enterprises, and by
making one's self extremely serviceable and valuable there, that makes
the special library a particularly promising field either for bright
men or bright women. It is not the library service in itself but it
is the opportunity of getting into close contact with men who have
made great successes in business, and that opportunity, I think, does
not come to the general librarian. The person entering the general
library must expect that the top of the work is simply the library
opportunities themselves, and, of course, they are somewhat limited. A
person entering special library work feels that the top is the whole
vast industrial or commercial enterprise in which he is engaged, and if
he has the adaptability--and that is precisely the thing which we have
been trying to emphasize as necessary in library work,--he naturally,
as time goes on, sees the field of opportunity broadening, and the
opportunity comes for him to step out of the more restricted into the
larger, more active field.
I know another person who received a very interesting offer, with a
considerably larger salary and greater executive responsibilities, due
entirely to the fact that he had made good in special library work;
to the fact that that work brought him into contact with superiors who
were able to help him into a broader opportunity. I think that is well
worth emphasizing for either men or women interested in this meeting.
Mr. LAPP: Just that fact is the reason why we should have some means
of training special librarians. The good men are being drawn off so
rapidly that it is impossible for the demand to be supplied, and I
am glad that the question of training librarians is coming up, and I
hope that when it does come up we shall have some provision made for a
committee that will work out a complete scheme in co-operation with the
American Library Association and the library schools for the training
of special librarians. But right there we should also emphasize the
fact that it is not merely the librarians that should be trained, but
we should train the directors of the establishments, and it ought to be
emphasized in all special library work that there is a difference. I
would agree with many who have spoken before, that the director of an
establishment need not necessarily be a person trained in library work,
although a person trained in library wok could make a good success of
it if he also had an insight into the business. But I would emphasize
the fact that we need a training for directors of establishments and
we also need a special training for librarians and assistants. It is
a great deal in the library world as it is in the college world, that
the men who become really worth while as college professors, in the
commercial departments at least, and in the engineering departments,
unless they have a taste for the teaching work which would prevent
their leaving it, do not stay very long in the business of teaching,
and the college must continually recruit new men, and that is a
difficulty that is going to confront the Special Libraries Association
and people who are establishing special libraries, more and more. I
believe that if the number of concerns today that ought to have special
libraries and would profit wonderfully by them, were to attempt to
get special librarians or directors of departments, they would fail
completely and the whole movement would go to the bad, simply because
you could not supply the people who would be competent for the work.
The same thing is true of municipal reference departments. It is
unfortunate if they are established and men who are not qualified
are put in charge. The same thing is true of legislative reference
departments. We might better wait for years rather than establish them
before we can put them in charge of people who appreciate the work to
be done, and who have the ability to do it. So that I think our big
problem is to keep the special library movement from growing too fast
for us to supply the men and women who can do the work; and I would
emphasize again that we need two or three different kinds of training;
one for those who are to have general direction of the work, for those
who are to do the actual work on the library side, and also for the
assistant side.
Mr. LEE: One difference is that in the public library you are being
asked questions all the time, and in the special library you are being
asked questions two-thirds of the time, and the other third you ask
questions yourselves, so you get the benefit of variety; part of the
time you are a student, and the rest of the time you are a librarian,
and there is that stimulating, broadening effect, and to me it has been
a very uplifting effect.
Mr. MORTON: Mr. Marion spoke of the training of the librarian, also
Mr. Lapp and one or two others. I do not know whether our position
is particularly unique, but some months ago I lost my assistant,
and instead of going to a library man I considered myself extremely
fortunate to get a man who was a graduate chemist, a civil engineer, a
mining engineer and a man who had had wide experience in all of those
branches. It seems to me that for technical business the practical
training in the particular line of business is of far greater value
than training in any library system, simply on account of the nature of
the information that they are called upon to produce.
Miss LINDHOLM: I wish to add a word to what Mr. Lapp has said, to point
out the fact that even if we should try to give courses in special
library work in the library school, there would not be any teachers in
the library school qualified to give these courses, because they would
not have the special library experience, and we ourselves are too busy
running our special libraries to give the courses, so that it is really
a matter quite far in the future, I should think. Last spring I read
in the Library Journal a very good article on a course for legislative
reference librarians, but that is the first article of the kind I have
ever seen, although I had often thought about it myself.
Another thing that would help out in trying to give some idea of
special library methods to new people, would be for those of us who
have gotten our libraries well in hand, our systems, etc., to get up a
series of little handbooks on how to organize a financial library, a
public utilities library, a legislative reference library and so on,
those who are perhaps library school students could use these pamphlets
as text-books. This would necessitate our starting in the publishing
business and having a publishing board, like the American Library
Association.
Miss HOAGLAND: I think we should fail in our whole duty toward the
library profession, and especially to the profession of the special
librarian, if we did not take some account of this growing demand for
training in special library work. I think that we appreciate the great
difficulty of combination of the technical work that is necessary in
library training and the special library field that each might wish to
occupy. It has seemed to me that it was possible to make a combination
by giving a minimum of library training, and then for students to
specialize in some business lines and learn the bibliography of that
trade. Of course, that is a very difficult operation in the ordinary
library school, but I believe there are places in the country where
that might be acquired, where many businesses are present, capable
of furnishing the libraries, and where students can take, say, three
months of technical training, which would include typewriting of
records, and then can be sent into the field to learn that field, the
school to furnish them the special bibliography for that special work.
In that way I believe we could develop a series of libraries that would
train for special librarianship.
Miss MILLER: There is already one school, the Wisconsin school,
which gives regular instruction to such students as wish to take up
legislative reference work. They are given from one to two months
library experience during those two months in the winter when the other
members of the class go to the public libraries. They at least get the
principles of legislative reference work.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: If there is no further discussion, we will take up
the reports of committees, and the first will be Mr. Lapp's report, as
editor of the publication.
Mr. LAPP: There is very little to report in regard to the publication.
It has been issued regularly since January, 1910, and the third
volume is now nearly completed. The growth of subscriptions has been
gratifying, and the publication has been able to do what was done
on the membership which we have had. We hope to have an increased
membership, because there are a number of things which we can do. We
have now regularly established several sources of information, we are
going to have others, and out of those we will publish, I think, a
better, more useful magazine the coming year than we have in the past.
We have a connection with the Library of Congress by which a special
bibliography is furnished every month upon some obscure question. We
have a connection with the New York public library by which we receive
municipal documents. We have a connection with the Public Utilities
Committee by which we will have public utility references and the
others, insurance references and so on. The publication will issue
also some special bibliographies such as the one that was issued
recently on city planning. It will take up certain others and publish
them as means permit.
The main thing I want to ask as editor of "Special Libraries" is that
the editor should receive co-operation from persons connected with the
association. This is a co-operative enterprise and every one should
co-operate. Whenever you know of anything which has happened in your
community in the special library interest, or of any publication that
does not get into the ordinary sources, furnish that to the editor and
it will be scattered over the country through "Special Libraries."
A new system will be organized following this meeting, we hope, by
which the country will be divided into districts in each of which
there will be one person who will be responsible for that district,
and we hope in that way to keep in closer touch. We will also have a
representative in the different classes of special libraries so that no
one will be left out, and we will get reports from all persons who are
representing the different departments in the special libraries, which
now number perhaps seven or eight that are active different classes of
libraries.
I want to ask for suggestions also from the members of the association
about things that we want published. I would be glad to receive
letters. I do not receive enough of them; and, another thing, I do not
receive criticisms. There are many things we would like to know about
the publication, many things we would like to learn. We would like to
hear from you either one way or the other on the publication.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I will call for the report of the Committee on
Public Utilities, Mr. Morton.
(Mr. Morton rendered a brief report which is available in the
secretary's office to those who may be interested to see it.)
The session then adjourned.