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Title: Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association Held at Ottawa, Canada June 26-July 2, 1912
Author: Various
Language: English
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PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
HELD AT
OTTAWA, CANADA
JUNE 26-JULY 2, 1912
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 78 E. WASHINGTON STREET CHICAGO, ILL. 1912
CONTENTS
General sessions: PAGE
Addresses of welcome and response 57
Address Herbert Putnam 59
President's address: The public library: a
leaven'd and prepared choice Mrs. H. L. Elmendorf 67
Publicity for the sake of information: The
public's point of view W. H. Hatton 72
Secretary's report George B. Utley 75
Treasurer's report Carl B. Roden 81
Reports of boards and committees:
Finance committee C. W. Andrews 81
A. L. A. Publishing Board Henry E. Legler 83
Trustees of endowment funds W. C. Kimball 91
Bookbinding A. L. Bailey 93
Bookbuying W. L. Brown 95
Co-ordination C. H. Gould 96
Co-operation with the N. E. A M. E. Ahern 101
Federal and state relations B. C. Steiner 102
Library administration A. E. Bostwick 102
Library training A. S. Root 113
Library work with the blind Emma N. Delfino 114
Public documents George S. Godard 115
Preservation of newspapers Frank P. Hill 116
Publicity for the sake of support Carl H. Milam 120
Breadth and limitations of bookbuying W. L. Brown 124
Open door through the book and the library C. E. McLenegan 127
What do the people want? Jessie Welles 132
Assistant and the book Mary E. Hazeltine 134
Type of assistants Edith Tobitt 138
Efficiency of the library staff and
scientific management Adam Strohm 143
What library schools can do for the
profession Chalmers Hadley 147
Address Sir Wilfrid Laurier 159
Conservation of character J. W. Robertson 161
Address George E. Vincent 170
Book advertising: information as to subject
and scope of books Carl B. Roden 181
Book advertising: illumination as to the
attractions of real books Grace Miller 187
Report of Executive Board 192
Report of Council 195
Report of resolutions committee 201
Memorial to Frederick Morgan Crunden 203
Report of tellers of election 204
Social side of the conference R. G. Thwaites 205
Day in Toronto M. E. Ahern 208
Day in Montreal Carl B. Roden 209
Post-conference trip Julia Ideson 211
Sections:
Agricultural libraries 213
Catalog 227
Children's librarians' 247
College and reference 268
Professional training 295
Trustees' 302
Public documents round table 307
Affiliated organizations:
American association of law libraries 312
League of library commissions 316
Special libraries association 329
Attendance summaries 354
Attendance register 355
Index 367
Note: The minutes of the National association of state libraries have
not been received in time to be included in this volume. They will be
separately printed by that association.
OTTAWA CONFERENCE
JUNE 26-JULY 2, 1912
PRELIMINARY SESSION
(Wednesday evening, June 26, 1912, Russell Theatre)
The association convened in a preliminary session on Wednesday
evening, June 26, with Dr. James W. Robertson, C. M. G., chairman of
the Canadian royal commission on industrial training and technical
education, presiding as acting chairman of the Ottawa local committee.
Hon. George H. Perley, acting prime minister of Canada, was introduced
and welcomed the association to Canada on behalf of the Dominion
government. The speaker called attention to the hundred years of
peace between the two countries and the plans being formulated for
celebrating it, and said that international conferences such as this
were the best guarantees of peace; that the more we know of each other
the less liable we were to get into trouble.
In Canada schools and libraries are growing apace, particularly in
the new regions of the far west, very much the same as in the United
States. Exchange of ideas as in this convention is the very best kind
of reciprocity and will help both nations in their aims and aspirations
for the good of civilization.
Comptroller E. H. Hinchey, the acting mayor of Ottawa, spoke the city's
welcome, calling attention to Ottawa as a convention city and its
growing claims for being considered the Washington of the North.
The association was graciously welcomed in behalf of the Women's
Canadian Club of Ottawa by the president, Mrs. Adam Shortt, who also
voiced the welcome from the Women's National Council of Canada. She
said the preachers, the teachers, the writers and the librarians are
four great standing armies, standing to protect us and to dispel the
hydra-headed enemy Ignorance, but that she thought of librarians as
captains of individual garrisons scattered here and there through
towns and cities, who are sending out emissaries among the people and
moulding and forming the mental and moral fibre of each community.
The CHAIRMAN: The Women's Canadian historical society was most kind
in pressing forward its desire to have this convention held here. The
president, however, desires not to speak to-night.
I have now the pleasure of asking Hon. John G. Foster, United States
Consul-General, to speak, as one of ourselves. He is a good citizen,
and though of you, with us--we count him almost one of ourselves.
Mr. Foster said he could have assured that portion of the delegates who
were his fellow countrymen and countrywomen that they would feel very
much at home in this country, whose people, institutions and traditions
are so similar to those of the United States.
The CHAIRMAN: Many other representative bodies joined in the effort
to secure this meeting for Ottawa and are represented on the platform
to-night, but the only other speaker who I shall ask to voice for
them or for himself welcoming sentiments is the Hon. Martin Burrell,
Minister of agriculture, and, if I may say in parenthesis, also
Minister of copyrights, since that comes within his department.
Minister Burrell spoke enthusiastically of the value of books and the
habit of good reading and the greater ease with which books could now
be secured than formerly. Continuing he said:
"I have heard it said by some skeptical gentlemen that it is true
that a librarian never reads a book; in fact, that he cannot be a
perfect librarian and read, because he is immediately lost. I do not
like to hold that view. I rather hold to the view that the ordinary
librarian, perhaps I should say the model librarian, should be a guide,
philosopher and friend, and I do not doubt that many of you are very
real guides, philosophers and friends to those who are seeking for
perhaps they know not what and whom you can direct in right channels
with incalculable good to their after life. It is absolutely true that
in our modern life we need that guidance. I do not know that I could
put it better than in the words of another great book lover, and good
library lover too, our friend Robert Louis Stevenson of imperishable
memory, who said once there was a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people
in the world who if they were not engaged in a conventional occupation
were in a state of coma; that the few hours they did not dedicate to
a furious toiling in the gold mill were an absolute blank. It is your
high privilege to supply that blank; it is your priceless privilege to
fill the hours of life which have to be a blank because we cannot train
ourselves for them in this more material age,--to fill them up with a
companionship and with an influence of the great thoughts of the great
writers of all ages."
Concluding, he expressed his pleasure at the prospect of entertaining
the delegates at the Experimental Farm on the following Saturday.
The CHAIRMAN: The real president of the Canadian Club found it
impossible to be in Ottawa to-night, and I am the poor substitute for
Dr. Otto J. Klotz, who has been a great pillar of strength in Ottawa to
those who love books and use books. He deputed me to say that he was
exceedingly sorry he could not meet so many old friends of his as would
surely be in attendance, and still more sorry because he was deprived
of the joy of thus paying a little more back to those who love books
and use books for all that books and learning have done for him. He is
one of our good men. I am sorry he is not here.
We are delighted to have a woman as your president; and in calling on
Mrs. Elmendorf to respond may I say--this comes to me after meeting
her yesterday and today--that she is altogether a woman of whom it may
be said in relation to her office as president of the American Library
Association, "thy gentleness has helped to make it great."
The PRESIDENT: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the
American Library Association,--I am sure that I but express what you
are all feeling in saying that this royal welcome to the Dominion of
Canada makes us not only happy but very much honored. Some members of
the association are already at home in their own capital, being keepers
of "kings' treasuries" of Canada itself. Others of us are librarians
from hither and yon in the country beyond the border, but we have all
come with "joy and goodly gree" to sit in council in the very capital
of the lovely land which is so loyally and affectionately
"Daughter in her Mother's house."
A small party of us came across the border, as William Morris's heroes
are wont to move, "by night and cloud," and when we reached the
boundary line a sudden inspiration took us and we stooped down and
silently, gently gathered that boundary line in our hands and brought
its firm lengths with us. I hold what might represent its shining links
here in my hands. Therefore, while we visit here with you, in the very
capital of the Dominion, while we hold that boundary line thus in our
possession, from Boston Harbor down the coast through New York and
Charleston to Key West, along the Gulf to New Orleans, across the great
West to Pasadena, up the Pacific coast line to Seattle, from East to
West, from North to South, there is no let or hindrance to the lines
of influence which go forth. Those lines of influence run free without
chance for knot or tangle or any such thing.
I hope you will not need to try whether "the King's writ runs" but I
am sure that you will find that Shakespeare reigns in our realm, that
Tennyson and Bobby Burns touch our hearts in song, and he who writes
the songs of a people need not care who writes their laws.
Just one small story and then I shall have finished, for thanks must
needs be brief if they come from the heart, and there is one to come
after who will say to you with grace and directness and clear precision
much that I might envy but never approach.
My tall brother happened by good fortune to be in London Town the night
that the great city went nearly wild in her glad rejoicing at the
relief of Ladysmith. It was a sight to see and join in, and he and his
wife went on such progress through the streets as a cab could make for
them. In his hand, at the full length of his long arm, he waved from
the front of the cab a Union Jack and a Stars and Stripes to indicate
his sympathy and good feeling. All went well until in one of the many
enforced pauses a rough chap jumped for his hand crying, "Aw, sir! One
flag'll do!"
We are very happy to be here and are just a little happier to see by
these beautiful draped banners that you have not felt that One flag
need to do!
The CHAIRMAN: Those of us who have gone to Washington have sometimes
thought we should revise our boyhood's interpretation of the New
Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation. Nothing I had ever imagined from
St. John's description was quite a match for the glory and magnificence
of the beautiful Library of Congress. I have found it delightful to
think of a nation of great wealth providing such a fitting home for its
literary treasures. Books are the friends and ministers of the mind and
the soul of the people. The Washington building is the expression in
materials of their aspirations for what is best and most beautiful. It
is a wonderful building, leaving impressions of wonder on the casual
visitor, and still more on those who linger in its chaste corridors
and see something of the working of the library itself. I think of the
sweet and stately beauty of the place, I think of the institution and
its services, and I think also of the man who is more than a match for
the magnificence of the home of those books. We will now hear from the
man, Dr. HERBERT PUTNAM.
ADDRESS BY DR. PUTNAM
Our acknowledgments as visitors having now been made by the highest
authority among us, it is not for the purpose of merely enlarging
them that I am assigned a place upon the program. It is rather, I
understand, with the view to an expression in behalf of the community
of interest represented by this gathering as a whole; and some
definition as to what we are, what we aim at, and wherein, if at all,
we differ from our predecessors.
Our aim is in terms a simple one. It is to bring a book to a reader, to
lead a reader to a book. The task may indeed vary in proportion as the
book is obvious or obscure, the reader expert or a novice, so that our
service may be as the shortest distance between two simple points; or
as the readiest point between two distances. But its main and ultimate
end is the same.
And it remains so in spite of organization grown elaborate, apparatus
and mechanism grown complex. For the organization is merely to respond
to a larger and more varied demand, and with a view to a more ample and
diversified response.
What then is the difference between the library of today and the
library of a few centuries--a single century--ago?--Is it merely
in the development of this organization, the introduction of this
apparatus and mechanism?--Is it to such matters that our efforts are
directed?--Is it they which require incessant gatherings such as this
for explanation, exploitation and discussion, and the innumerable
reams of written contribution in our professional journals? They are
indeed accountable for a large percentage of it: but back of them,
beneath them, is a change which is fundamental, a change in attitude
which is essential as no mere form or method can be. It consists in the
birth and development--not indeed of a new characteristic in either
book or reader, or the discovery of new potencies in the one or new
sensibilities in the other--but of a new sense of responsibility on the
part of the library in the utilization of the one for the benefit of
the other. It is an incident of democracy.
Now, so far as democracy means the participation of the community as a
whole in the conduct of its affairs the _form_ of it has existed with
us in the United States for generations; and the substance of it has
existed throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. But democracy ought to mean
something more: it ought to mean the participation of every individual
in its opportunities. And a constitution of society which still left
the resources for power and intellectual direction in the hands of the
few was in effect an aristocracy, and no complete democracy. Among
these resources a chief is education. And the practical monopoly of
education--and of books as an element in it--meant a monopoly of
influence also,--a monopoly which survived after limitations of caste
were removed and the opportunities for wealth became widely diffused.
Against it the free public school, the easily available college, the
cheaply procurable newspaper and magazine, and the free public library
fought and are fighting their fight in the interest of the prerogative
of the individual, in the endeavor to equip him as an independent and
co-equal unit, so that the actual constitution of society shall accord
with its political form, and indeed assure the efficiency and the
permanence of the form.
So, having provided for the mass the interest has of late centred upon
the individual.
Meantime, with the evolution from homogeneity to heterogeneity the
individual himself has become more and more diversified in trait,
aptitude and need; so that the treatment of him by the agencies acting
for the community as a whole has also had to become varied. Not merely
that, but pursuing its responsibilities, to become affirmative, where
before, so far as it existed, it was merely responsive.
Now the service of school and college furnishing definite instruction
and perhaps training, to an organized body of youth, within a
limited age, and under control, can be reasonably systematized and
standardized. But the library is to furnish not merely education but
enlightenment, and even culture, to the community at large--without
respect to age, and without subordination to control. It cannot impose,
it does not control. It may recommend, but it cannot direct. It must
still respond to a need voluntarily expressed; but its duty is held to
go further: it must remind that the need exists,--it must even inspire
the need,--that is to say, the consciousness of it. In this way it is
engaged in creating the very demand which later it seeks to satisfy.
Now this duty upon it accounts for the prodigious energy in the
effort itself, and the activity and range of the discussion, which
are the characteristics of the modern library movement, particularly
in English speaking America. It accounts for the incessant repetition
of explanation, of exhortation, of recited experience, which give to
a present-day library conference something of the aspect of a revival
meeting.
To librarians of the older school these are somewhat distasteful;
to librarians of the more modern school already convinced and
experienced, they may be tedious; but they seem necessary still for
the enlightenment and encouragement of others newly entering upon the
problem, of a public not yet fully familiar with the relations of it to
their own welfare, and to the helpful solution of local problems where
the idea meets conditions still impeding: for the field is vast and
conditions are still very unequal.
The efforts, still inchoate, include also many devices which are crude
and of doubtful expediency: especially many designed chiefly to
attract--in which the library seems to compete with other enterprises
courting popularity in a way scarcely dignified for a public
institution maintained by government. They shock the conservative in
somewhat the same way as an advertisement by a lawyer or physician
shocks the traditions of those reticent professions: and they include
not merely schemes of advertising--which might seem to impair the
dignity of the book, but auxiliaries for attracting attention such as
savor of the devices of a business house in exploiting its goods. The
ultimate aim is, of course, the commendation of the book itself,--and
the justification lies--or is sought--in this. But the means,--well,
the means often afflict the conservatives in the profession, and even
cause uneasiness to certain of us among the progressives.
The compensating assurance is that they are the promptings of an
enthusiasm in itself meritorious; that they are experiments; that they
may prove to be expedients merely temporary, and that later they may
be dispensed with after they have served their purpose. They are to
rouse the dormant, stir the stagnant: but there are also other agencies
at work to rouse and to stir; and the time may well come when the
operation of these in combination will have achieved the creation of a
spirit in the community safe to act upon its own initiative.
Apart from the portions of our programs devoted to the discussion
of such methods and devices--which concern the direct action of a
particular library upon its own constituents, is the portion--a
large one--devoted to schemes of co-operation among our institutions
as such in the interest of economy and therefore of efficiency--in
their administration. These are necessarily technical, and their
immediate interest is to the librarian rather than to the reader.
But their ultimate benefit is to reach the reader,--particularly in
freeing to his use a larger measure of the direct personal service of
the administration, in interpreting the collections to his need. In
proportion as they succeed in this they will achieve a reversion to
that service held precious in the library of the older type,--which,
lacking the modern apparatus, and with an imperfect collection, at
least put the reader into direct contact with what it had, and gave him
also the inspiring personal touch with an enthusiast already saturated
with its contents: and which accordingly sent him forth with a grateful
glow, too little, alas! evident in one relegated to the mere mechanism
of modern library practice.
The mechanism became inevitable: the increase of the collections,
the increase of the constituency, the greater diversity of the need,
and the demand that this should be met promptly, have required it.
This isn't so apparent to the public, who think of the problem--of
getting the right book to the individual reader--in only its simplest
terms. But to us librarians it is not merely apparent but urgent. And
accordingly we expend upon it a length and a zest of discussion that
quite mystify the portions of our audiences outside of the craft.
What impels us is that the mechanism is not merely elaborate: it
is expensive. It is the more so in proportion as it is variant in
form and involves a multiplication of expense by each library acting
independently in its own behalf. Our effort, and the purpose of our
discussions, is therefore to promote a standardization of the form
and a co-operative centralization of the work itself, in which our
libraries as a whole may secure a participating benefit.
Now the mechanism consists of certain apparatus necessarily independent
with each library--administrative records, charging systems, etc.; but
also of classification, catalog and bibliography. All of these may be
standardized,--but the opportunity for a co-operation which may save
expense occurs chiefly in the three last named. The extravagance, the
needless extravagance, of an absence of it represented by the old
conditions was little apparent to the general public or to boards
of control. It becomes obvious when one considers that thousands of
libraries receiving hundreds of identical books,--and hundreds of
libraries receiving thousands of identical books--were each undertaking
independently the expense of cataloging and classifying these: thus
multiplying by exactly their number the total cost of the community.
As against this, the economy of a system under which a particular
book shall be cataloged--and perhaps classified--at some central
point once for all, and the result made available in multiple form
to all libraries receiving copies of it--needs only to be stated to
be convincing. A condition of it is, in the case of classification,
identity in the basic scheme and notation, in the case of catalog
identity in the form, and uniformity in the practice. The general
availability of bibliographic lists does not depend upon either, though
convenienced by both.
Identity in classification seems still remote, nor does the undoubted
vogue of the Decimal scheme assure it: for this is chiefly among the
smaller libraries. In the larger, the Decimal scheme, where adopted,
is apt to be accompanied by variations of detail, which mean a
variation in the place and symbol assigned to a particular book, and
thus bar the general adoption of a decision in the classification of
it made at any central bureau. So far as this variance affects the
direct administration of a particular library it may be unimportant:
for the arrangement of its own books upon its own shelves--provided
this is based on a subject scheme, consistently carried out--may
be sufficiently effective for its own purposes, even though purely
individual with itself. What it implies, however, in multiplication
of an expense that might be avoided by the adoption of an identical
scheme, is of an import very serious. The construction of a scheme
which should suit equally all libraries and all librarians is not to
be expected. The best that can be hoped for is a scheme sound in its
fundaments and upon which the concessions of individual preference
necessary will be only as to detail. The reluctance--of librarians--to
make such concessions is due, I think, to an exaggerated estimate
of the importance of classification as such--that is to say, of
the precise location of a particular book in a given collection; a
failure to realize--what experience should have taught--that in many
groups no location can be absolutely permanent, owing to changes in
the literary output and in the subject relation of that group to the
rest. This reluctance is, I fear, one of the conservatisms least
creditable to the profession. It induces tenacity in adhesion to
systems adopted, and it leads to the adoption of new systems devised
to accord with supposed idiosyncrasies of a particular collection--or
pursuant to the ingenious inventiveness of a particular librarian. I
can express myself the more frankly because in this latter respect the
Library of Congress has itself been a sinner;--and one not yet come
to repentance. For at the outset of its problem it found the Decimal
classification in considerable vogue, the Expansive in considerable
favor. And it adopted neither, but proceeded to devise a scheme of
its own. It did this out of declared necessity, with regard to its
supposed interests; and considering those interests alone the results
have seemed a justification. They are even being utilized in certain
other institutions, and though not proffered as a model for general
adoption, they render even now a general service in proving the economy
of centralizing the process of classification, as well as that of
cataloging, at some central point or points from which the decisions
may radiate.
The general availability of a catalog entry depends of course upon
uniformity in cataloging practice as well as identity in size and form
of the card itself,--if the result takes the form of a card. Agreement
in this has fortunately been rapid, and we have now in English speaking
American a set of decisions, embodied in a code of rules--substantially
accepted among our own libraries and even substantially acceptable to
the libraries of Great Britain. Between continental practice and our
own variances still exist, and bar the complete interchange of results.
One cannot doubt, however, that time will eradicate, or adjust these
also.
Between bibliography as distinguished from classification and
cataloging, there exist, however, no such impediments; and the
centralization of bibliographic work--co-operation in it--is
progressing apace.
The prospect is, therefore, fairly cheerful that librarians will be
able in the near future to free themselves and their funds from undue
attention to the mere mechanism of their craft, and more completely to
devote their resources and personal service to the book as literature,
and the reader as a human being.
The spirit for this is ardent. It is manifest in our two countries
as nowhere else in like degree. As regards the reader it calls
itself proudly "the missionary spirit"; it seeks him, appraises him,
sympathizes with him, counsels him. It does not doubt its duty in
this to be an affirmative one. But as regards the book itself it is
not yet so decisive. For in the selection of what it is to offer it
still concedes much to what is called the "popular taste"--which
means the popular fancy of the moment, ignoring in doing so its
prerogative as an "educational" institution to assert standards, and
to abide by them. Its hope is to improve the taste itself; and the
need of this--its appropriateness as a function of the library, and
the means of effecting it--are to be a main feature of the program of
this conference. They are justly so,--even though they are matters
of concern chiefly for that type of library which is engaged in
serving the public at large. It is, however, precisely that type
of library with which also the duty should lie of representing the
standards established by time, and the taste represented by the more
refined rather than by the average instincts of the community. And as
the temptation--to make concessions is also peculiarly theirs--the
responsibility is particularly upon them, their librarians, their
trustees, and the conservative in public opinion--to assert this duty
and to conform to it. The assertion of it may cause resentment; but
this will prove merely individual; it is not likely to organize into
formidable resistance. And in time it will become merely sporadic. It
will tend to diminish in proportion as associations such as this, in
conferences such as this, declare solidly for the authority of the
library in such decisions--while clearly distinguishing it from any
censorship of literature as such.
The temptation to court "popularity"--natural in institutions
maintained at the public expense and therefore dependent upon the
favor of city councils--has another phase which I hope may prove but
transitory. It is in the exploitation of the service done by the books
which are the "tools of trade" as against those making for general
information, or general culture. The supposition is that the service of
the first named is one which will convince certain important opinion as
a "practical" service, and particularly that it will appeal to those
who are just now insistent upon vocational studies as the studies to
be given right of way in the education of youth. The temptation is the
greater because the service of a book of this sort is a service whose
results are readily demonstrable, it is concrete and objective;--while
that of general literature is but subjective.
Its importance cannot be questioned, nor the duty of the library to
perform it, nor the success of our public libraries in the actual
performance of it. The only criticism might be lest in the emphasis
upon it, our libraries may seem to underestimate, if not to disparage,
that other service which in its ulterior benefit to the community may
prove of even greater importance; that service which reminds the public
that livelihood is not the main purpose of life, nor the present,
the local and the particular, the only era, the only place, the only
thing worthy of consideration and regard. The books which achieve
this may have their greatest value in offsetting the tendencies of
mere industry. This is not to say, however, that they may not advance
industry itself; for though they may not improve the mere dexterity
of a particular individual in a profession, art or trade, they may aid
to that sense of proportion, that larger view of a worldwide relation
which will advance the art itself; and they cultivate the imagination
which is the essential of modern industry in its larger relations.
As, therefore, our colleges still stand for the utility of the general
studies even in a career looking to vocation, so our libraries may well
stand for the utility of the general literature. Particularly is this
duty upon them since the opportunity--in its relation to the community
at large--is uniquely theirs: for no other agency--not even the museum,
or the art gallery, or the theatre, the opera house, or the concert
hall--potent as may be the influence of these--matches the book in
power and availability in this service of quickening the sensibilities,
refining the taste, enlarging the understanding, diversifying the
experience, warming the heart and clarifying the soul.
And this service--understood everywhere--is nowhere--save perhaps
in England--quite so completely followed into its consequences as
in Canada and the United States. The conviction of it grounds our
libraries upon a public opinion assuring permanent support; and
inspires among individuals enthusiasm for gift and endowment. The
greater, therefore, the responsibility of librarians and trustees to
see to it that this conviction, this enthusiasm and the resources which
they provide shall be so utilized as to effect not merely the most
showy but the most substantial results.
And the responsibility should include not merely a zeal for the general
reader, but a regard for the scholar: since a benefit to the general
reader may end with himself, but a benefit to the scholar becomes
amplified and diffused through him. He is not, be it understood,
a class by himself. He includes the specialist whose vocation is
research in a particular field; but he includes also the reader for
whom research is but an avocation. He is the unusual man, but he is
also the usual man in his unusual moments. What is the conscious aim
of the one may be the incidental achievement of the other--to advance
knowledge. And the aid rendered by the library to either may be of a
consequence to the community more far reaching than the mere diffusion
of ascertained knowledge among a multitude of individuals.
If the effort of our libraries in this direction has not kept pace with
their efforts in the others, the explanation is obvious in the emphasis
necessary upon the others during the past fifty years. But the time has
come when the obligation to the scholar should resume its due place--in
our programs, as well as in our practice.
And with the resumption of that interest may we not hope for a
recognition--a recognition--in our organizations also of that type
which gave personality to the libraries of old?--I mean the type
represented by the Panizzis, the Garnetts, the Winsors, Pooles, Cutters
and Spoffords. For however indifferent such men may have been, or might
be today, to the mere mechanism which of late we have been exalting,
and which we must hold to be necessary under modern conditions, they
succeeded in producing an atmosphere which had a potency of its own,
which no mere mechanism can reproduce, and for which the zeal of
routine personal service, however "missionary" in spirit, cannot be
a substitute. For the mechanism gives the impression of intervening
between the reader and the book; and the routine personal service
fails from the very nature of its effort. The reader reached out to
may be pleased and aided: but he loses the lesson and the penetrating
suggestion afforded by the mere absorption of the old-time librarian
in the book itself. It was that which once took the visitor out of
himself, away from affairs, and gave him touch with a different world,
a sense of different values. Does he not miss it now? I think he does;
and that, however he may respect the mere efficiency of the modern
librarian, as administrator, his really affectionate admiration turns
back to the librarian of the old school whose soul was lifted above
mere administration, or the method of the moment, or the manner of
insistent service, and whose passionate regard was rather for the
inside of a book than for the outside of a reader,--even the librarian
to whom a reader seemed indeed but an interruption to an abstraction
that was privileged.
I for one, should be sorry to think that this type has passed finally.
There is need for it; there should be a place. I trust that it will be
restored to us; and I deplore the influence upon the younger generation
in our profession of referring to it with condescension if not with
contempt.
"Our profession." I use the term because it is current. We have
assumed it, and no one has challenged it. There are grounds on which
it might, I suppose, be challenged. "The word implies," according to
the Century Dictionary, "professed attainments in special knowledge,
as distinguished from mere skill; a practical dealing with affairs,
as distinguished from mere study or investigation; and an application
of such knowledge to uses for others as a vocation, as distinguished
from its pursuit for one's own purposes." The latter two requirements
are certainly met: we are engaged in practical affairs, and to the
use of others. But the "professed attainments in special knowledge,
as distinguished from mere skill," while certainly represented in
individuals among us, are not with us conditions of librarianship as
a vocation or as an office, nor have we in America, as they have in
Germany, the conventional preparation, the preliminary examination
as to qualifications, and the license which by law or usage are
requirements in the professions strictly so-called. A profession should
imply uniform standards in such qualifications: but the qualifications
of persons accepted among us for library posts of importance,--even
among persons who have made notable successes in such posts, vary
extraordinarily in both kind and degree. A profession should imply a
certain homogeneity in ideals, methods and relations; while among us
there is still a notable diversity. The modern library with its large
establishment and organization, and the responsibility of large funds,
has, like the modern university, created a demand in its administrators
for the traits necessary in business rather than characteristic of the
professions or expected of them. (This demand, and the vogue of woman
in our work--a vogue which finds its completest recognition at this
meeting--are indeed the most notable of recent phenomena affecting
our personnel.) As yet the conventional training has not attracted a
sufficiency of men and women with such traits to meet the need; nor
has it, on the other hand, attracted a sufficient number of men and
women grounded in special branches of the sciences and the arts to
fill the positions in our research libraries which administer, and
should interpret, the literature of these. The actual personnel of our
association includes therefore the utmost diversity in trait, education
and experience.
A considerable such diversity exists among teachers, and does not
disentitle them to the claim of constituting a profession; and we are
sometimes called educators. But we cannot claim to be, for we lack the
didactic authority, purpose and method.
The final characteristic of a profession is its influence upon the
community as such. Now, our lack of such an influence as a body is
in part due to the lack of that homogeneity in ideal method and
personnel--but in part also to the necessary limitations of our
office. We are necessarily non-partisan. We are to furnish impartially
the ammunition for both sides of every issue. The moment we become
identified with a single side merely, we lose our influence and our
authority. And it matters not whether the issue be political, or
theological or economic or social. If it be scientific, or merely
literary, we have more freedom, since the subject matter is more nearly
academic and less emotional. But even here we must avoid the charge of
faddism. In a contest of morality we may indeed take side against the
baser, because with this we have no influence and no need to court one.
But there are today few moral issues clearly distinguishable as such in
which there is need or temptation for us to engage.
The result of this neutrality is an attitude which to the world at
large must seem somewhat colourless; but also a habit of mind which
insensibly in itself becomes neutral. We are content to be observers.
We avoid becoming contestants. Such characteristics do not go to the
solidification of opinion in a profession, nor to the assertion of it
in an aggressive way.
The sum total of all of which (observations upon us) is that in
spite of our numbers, in spite of the momentous aggregate that our
"establishment" represents, in spite of the assured place which it
occupies in the community and the social system, we are at present,
and in many ways must continue to be, an aggregate of individuals
rather than a body politic. But even as the Devil's advocate I would
not so conclude in a deprecatory sense, for we may find and show many
reasons for complacency--and special opportunities for service--in the
relations which this situation implies.
* * * * *
My original invitation was a large one: no less than to estimate the
place of the library in English-speaking America. I have not attempted
to comply with it: for it seemed too large for my fraction of this
program. But as a theme it was enticing. And so would have been the
reverse of it,--that is, the place of English-speaking America in
the development of the library. That also will perhaps be worthy of
treatment at some large opportunity. One particular aspect of it is
suggested by a letter of Francis Lieber to General Halleck, fifty-seven
years ago. It runs--
"... Have you laid the foundation of a great public library in
California? Your state, above all others, ought largely to provide
public funds for a library,--say $20,000 a year for the first
five years, and then, permanently so much a year. We cannot do in
our days without large public libraries, and libraries are quite
as necessary as hospitals or armies. Libraries are the bridges
over which Civilization travels from generation to generation
and from country to country, bridges that span over the widest
oceans; and California will yet be the buttress of the bridge over
which encircling civilization will pass to Asia, whence it first
came...."[1]
[1] From "Life and letters of Francis Lieber." Edited by Thomas
Sergeant Perry. Boston. 1882.
If California may be such a buttress, what may we not propound
of English-speaking America as a whole--from which through its
universities and colleges occidental ideals and methods are already
being transmitted to the Orient through the effective medium of
students sent here for their education?
* * * * *
Such are some of the thoughts with which some of us at least approach
this conference. They are thoughts, even if, as yet, only in part
satisfactions. There is a satisfaction, however, which is dominant with
those of us who come from over the border. It is that this conference
is to be held on Canadian soil; and that here, with the broad welcome
extended to us, with a common subject matter, and with purposes in
connection with it that can awaken neither cavil nor suspicion, we are
free to indulge in reciprocities that will be complete, mutual, and
enduring.
Mr. Lawrence J. Burpee read the following telegram from the private
secretary of the Duke of Connaught, which was received with hearty
applause:
The Governor-General wishes meeting of American Library
Association every success and His Royal Highness regrets
exceedingly that it is impossible for him to be present at your
annual meeting tomorrow.
Mr. BURPEE: Similar letters of regret have been received from the Right
Honorable Prime Minister and several members of the cabinet and from
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and we are yet in hopes that Sir Wilfrid will be
able to be with us on Dominion Day.
I have been asked by the Dominion Archivist and by the Director of the
Victoria museum and the Custodian of the National gallery to extend to
you a most hearty welcome to visit those institutions, and I have also
been asked by the president of the Ottawa Electric Railway to say that
the railway would like you to consider yourselves guests of the company
while here, and that the A. L. A. button will identify us sufficiently.
The CHAIRMAN: The work of the local committee has been done largely by
two men,--Dr. Otto Klotz and Mr. Lawrence J. Burpee,--and perhaps at a
later session we will have occasion to give thanks to Mr. Burpee, who
behind the scenes has made our official tasks come so lightly and so
easily.
The secretary read a cablegram bearing greetings from the New Zealand
Libraries Association, through the secretary, Mr. Herbert Baillie,
librarian of the Wellington (N. Z.) public library.
Adjourned.
FIRST GENERAL SESSION
(Russell Theatre, Thursday, June 27, 9:30 a. m.)
The PRESIDENT: I have the honor to announce that the Thirty-fourth
Annual Conference of the American Library Association is now open. It
seems to me, with the welcome given us this morning, in the beautiful
sunshiny weather, nearly as bright and genial as the welcome that we
were given last night, we open under very happy auspices indeed, and I
hope that when you hear the speakers as they shall take up the matters
on the program, you will feel that the auspices have been very well
carried out.
I shall have the pleasure to talk to you for a very few moments on the
subject as printed on the program.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS
The Public Library: "A Leaven'd and Preparéd Choice"
Last evening's jesting pretense that the party from the States had
stopped on the border and removed the boundary line to bring it with
them here, into the very Canadian capital, was not quite all a jest.
The American Library Association is itself a witness that though the
boundary line firmly and clearly defines the limits of rule of the two
countries in some great and essential things, some
"Glories of our blood and state,"
it need not, it does not, even divide, still less alienate, the two
peoples.
It is one of the worthiest, most auspicious foundations of the American
Library Association that it is, and has ever been, continental not
national in its sympathy and membership. Within its circle "all who
profess and call themselves" English-speaking may unite their best
thought and their best endeavor for this important public service.
There are many fundamental library principles that are common to both
countries and your Program Committee has intended to arrange the
program and discussions to take account of these, leaving to other and
minor meetings such things as are national or local in their bearing.
The committee has wished to transcend all division by boundary lines.
By so much the jest was fact.
The attempt has been made to stand away from detail of all sorts so far
that it may be possible to see the library world as "a world" indeed,
"a whole of parts," as a system of members, each member distinct yet,
by virtue of the very peculiarities which constitute its distinctness,
contributing to the unity of the whole.
We shall fail to see the library world thus, as a world, as a
whole unless, amid the mass of facts, of experiences, of needs, of
adaptations involved, we can finally discern and seize upon the true
center, the truly dominant thing.
If we could once see the true center as the center, and the mass of
detail taking ordered place about it; if we could once perceive the
dominant that should surely rule, and lesser matters in due subjection
to that rule, then from the obvious things ever before our eyes,
and only too familiar, by that very familiarity made difficult to
apprehend, the library might all at once appeal as an entity, as a
clear conception. So the forest becomes visible to the artist's eyes,
the forest, formed of trees, but never really seen until all at once in
the vision of the forest the trees are lost to sight.
Some modes of thought, some phrases of expression which have been used
are those which the philosopher has weighed and clarified for his own
carefully measured statements. Do not smile at my temerity, and on the
other hand do not be in the least alarmed. I ventured but a little way
and you will not be called to go far into the philosopher's country
under my lead. Even if one be no swimmer it is an experience to venture
out, with careful balance, feeling for secure foothold upon the solid
bed, even a little way into a mighty stream whose full mid-current
would sweep over one's head. One gets, out of even so limited an
adventure, a sense of the sweep of the river, feels the embrace and
pull of the current, stoops to drink a little of the clear, bright,
deep waters, ever thereafter to thirst for deeper draughts and to long
for strength and mastery to plunge into and breast the full stream.
In trying to find warrant for my own thoughts and ordered and lucid
statement for them, I have sought and consulted certain books and
some of them were too hard for my full reading. I shall not further
acknowledge my debt now but, once more departing from precedent, I
shall list them for print at the end of the address.
In the wish to find the center or dominant of the library world it
would be presumptuous for me to dogmatize and say "Lo here! this is
the point," or "Behold! this is the principle." In the very name of
the institution which we are talking about there are two elements
joined--Public, and Library--and it seems quite obviously proper to try
the first as the center.
Perhaps the application which follows might repel some as narrow,
as exclusive of any but a single type of libraries. The principle
itself may, however, be made to apply to the entire library world by
recognizing as "public" all libraries which are not private, and by
defining public anew as applied to each group or type of libraries,
always letting it include all those individuals for whose use and
pleasure the library is maintained.
What does "public" signify in Canada and the United States? What
but all the people of these two great experiments in democratic
society? Pray note that I say society not government. An excursion
into discussion of the latter might involve dabbling in the stream of
politics which would threaten dangers far more imminent, for me, than
philosophy promised. To consider democratic society for a few moments
very simply is a less hazardous matter.
What is any society but "a world" again, a whole, in which the great
thing that matters is the level and fullness of mind that is reached
through the diversities of complete development and perfection of the
individual members which compose it?
The level of value and happiness for the whole can only be raised by
raising the condition of the individuals and, on the other hand, that
individuality is the most complete, of most real, felt value to itself,
which contributes to the perfection of the whole, because it is only
thus that the individual is conscious of having done his utmost.
Why try to say it again when the philosopher has said it so exactly?
"What a man really cares about--so it seems to me--may be
described as making the most of the trust he has received. He does
not value himself as a detached and purely self-identical subject.
He values himself as the inheritor of the gifts and surroundings
which are focussed in him and which it is his business to raise
to their highest power. The attitude of the true noble, one
in whom noblesse oblige is a simple example of what, mutatis
mutandis, all men feel. The man is a representative, a trustee for
the world, of certain powers and circumstances. And this cannot
fail to be so. For suffering and privation are also opportunities.
The question for him is how much he can make of them. This is
the simple and primary point of view, and also, in the main,
the true and fundamental one. It is not the bare personality or
the separate destiny that occupies a healthy mind. It is the
thing to be done, known and felt; in a word, the completeness of
experience, his contribution to it, and his participation in it.
"At every point the web of experience is continuous; he cannot
distinguish his part from that of others, and the more he
realizes the continuity the less he cares about the separateness
of the contribution to it.... It is impossible to overrate the
co-operative element in experience."
Does it not appear then that the highest possible service to the public
is service to the individual, in giving to the individual stimulus and
opportunity for the fullest, most diverse, most perfect development,
creating thus a world the more enriched, the more unified, in that each
of its members has rich powers, functions and experience of his own?
But the crux is to come. A people, a society, is made up of individuals
of diverse tastes and powers, but it includes very many who are far
short of being fully alive to the powers which they may possess. If the
span of such lives passes thus, if no stimulus, no illumination reaches
them, life will be uninspired, unfruitful of much service, or much joy.
It will not be life at its full, nor "the soul at its highest stretch."
It is not always afar from our own doors that such things happen.
President Eliot says, "Do we not all know many people who seem to
live in a mental vacuum--to whom, indeed, we have great difficulty in
attributing immortality, because they have so little life except that
of the body?"
From such conditions not only individuals but all society suffers. As
a spot of unnourished, inactive tissue in a human body is a host ready
to receive any one of many forms of disease, so, in the body politic,
individuals not fulfilling their utmost best are soil made ready for
all manner of social and political ills.
The time may come when society will recognize that many social and
political ills are partly caused by its own neglect, and call not for
more restrictions, for more stringent laws and severer sentences, but
rather for more carefully and universally given opportunity.
Listen once more to the philosopher.
"The more highly differentiated the individuals composing a
society, the more complete becomes the social bond between them. A
man who feels that he is rendering to the community a service at
once indispensable and only to be performed by himself, will have
come near to fulfilling his part in the highest attainable scheme
of social harmony."
If this be true, then there seems clear warrant for saying that the
community, for its own sake, has a vital interest in trying to secure
for each individual the most effective opportunity not only for
discovering what his distinct contribution may be made, but also for
developing his power to render that contribution most completely.
Does the community anywhere concern itself to give such opportunities?
Democratic society has recognized its necessity to give a certain
amount of knowledge and training by means of its schools. It is
beginning to make the experiment of giving a certain amount of skill to
earn a livelihood. This teaching is done in classes and a class is made
up of individuals of similar knowledge and attainments, and to them is
given general and identical information which tends to produce like
results. The community has need for unlikeness, for individuals who can
render unique service.
The community can never decide what the special individual aptitude may
be. No living soul can discover for another. The "power to become" is
innate and must make its own response to the stimulus which is capable
of affecting it.
It is true that the universe is a great battery incessantly sending
an infinity of calls of infinitely varied messages. But the receiving
operator may be asleep, he may never come within range. The universe is
very wide. The range of experience of all is narrow, of some pitifully
narrow.
Because of lack of opportunity to see, to do, to know, to feel, it is
not exaggeration to say that multitudes live a half-alive existence,
never useful to their possible limit, never happy to their full, for
happiness is "felt perfection."
From the beginning of time, some men have received their messages,
found their work, given their service, lived life to the full and laid
it down with a will. The record of these men and their accomplishment,
of man's great adventure to find himself, has been written by many
hands, and that record is literature.
Arnold says, "To know ourselves and the world we have, as a means to
this end, to know the best that has been thought or said in the world,"
and "Literature may mean everything written or printed in a book."
The library is the reservoir of literature, a collection of books, but
it is something more, it comes to have identity, a self of its own
beyond the sum of all its books, when, by the fusing of the whole under
the vital power of the minds that gather and order it, it becomes, in
the Shakespearian phrase embodied in my title, "A leaven'd and preparéd
choice."
The library is the one place where time and space are set at naught. It
is the microcosm of the universe.
Here all the wonders of nature are flashed back from the mirrors of
eyes that have beheld them.
Here India, and the Arctic and the isles of the sea are as close at
hand as Niagara.
Here Archimedes' lever, Giotto's circle, Newton's apple, Palissy's
furnace, Jacquard's loom, Jamie Watt's tea-kettle, Franklin's kite are
cheek by jowl with the last Marconigram.
Here the fate of Aristides, of Columbus, of Gordon is as clear to read
as the doings of yesterday in Chicago.
The record of what happened at Thermopylæ, at Lucknow, at the Alamo
receives beside it the tale of the courage that rose as the Titanic
sank.
What Buddha and Socrates and Jesus taught answers the cry and
strengthens the heart of doubt and pain today.
The library is the great whispering gallery of noble deeds and,
catching a whisper,
"The youth replies, I can"
and goes forth.
The library is haunted with visions of beauty that Plato, that Michael
Angelo, that Shelley saw--the youth exclaims "I see!" and follows his
lure.
Here Clotho sits twirling her "thread-running spindle" and the youth,
catching the clue, fares forth whither the fateful thread leads.
The library is almost never the goal but to many it may be the starting
point whence they go forth "to strength and endeavor, love and
sacrifice, the making and achievement of souls."
The public for whom the library exists has little conception or
comprehension of its power. How shall such publicity as will give this
knowledge of it be given?
Such publicity should make clear the larger aspects of the library's
service, showing that the life of any society is "an indivisible
inheritance" and the welfare of all made or marred by the condition and
service of each one, therefore the library should be equipped to be
universal in its appeal and service, a public necessity for individual
use.
The public for whom the library exists gives it support insufficient
for the task it should perform. If the library commanded respect would
it not receive funds?
Books are the treasure to be gathered for its work. What shall be the
principles of buying? How create the "leaven'd and preparéd choice?"
Books are the medium of appeal, the stuff of human knowledge,
experience and wisdom stored by means of the printed leaf. The
extent to which each individual shares in the stored treasure of the
race-mind, is, in its sum, the measure of public safety and happiness
and the starting-point for service. How show, how make known the
attraction and stored power of books?
Every individual must choose his own path. How leave him free to choose
in a wide field?
Service, but not authority, must be at hand. What shall the tests of
fitness for such service be?
The staff fit for such service must be of rare material and quality.
The members of the staff are instruments of the highest elaboration and
most delicate adjustment. The requisite quality of service can only
be rendered under fit conditions. It is not a matter of knowledge,
conscience and will solely, it is a matter of these things plus
insight, sympathy and response. Exhaustion, or an approach to it,
discouragement from lack of appreciation, are like a ground wire for
loss of power. Body, mind and spirit are all involved in this service.
How conserve their strength, well-being and joy?
Unskilled people cannot render fit service. What are the things that
matter in training? How far can training be effective.
These are the subjects that your Program Committee has thought it might
interest all to consider. Certain leaders will discuss them, each
according to his own will and way. In their wisdom and in that of the
discussions with which you will follow them will lie all the value of
this conference.
=Books Consulted: A Short List=
=Bosanquet=, Bernard. The principle of individuality and value.
Macmillan. 1912.
=Bryce=, James. The American Commonwealth. Vol. 2, p. 828, and chapter
CII. Macmillan. 1910.
=Chesterton=, G. K. Manalive. Lane. 1912.
=Douglas=, Robert. The choice. Macmillan. 1911.
=Eliot=, C. W. The function of education in democratic society. In his
Educational reform. Century. 1908.
=Goldmark=, Josephine. Fatigue and efficiency. Charities Pub. Co. 1912.
=Hobhouse=, L. T. The individual and the state. In his Social evolution
and political theory. Columbia Univ. Press. 1911.
--Liberalism. Holt. 1911.
=Jones=, Henry. Idealism as a personal creed. Macmillan. 1909.
--Working faith of the social reformer. Macmillan. 1910.
=Macdonald=, Greville. The child's inheritance: its scientific and
imaginative meaning. Smith, Elder. 1910.
=Mark=, Thiselton. The unfolding of personality as the chief aim of
education. Univ. of Chicago Press. 1911.
=Sidis=, Boris. Philistine and genius. Moffatt. 1911.
=Woodberry=, G. E. The torch: eight lectures on race power in
literature. McClure. 1905.
* * * * *
The PRESIDENT: I have very great pleasure in presenting one who in
truth needs no introduction to you; one who has not for some time
appeared on our platform but whom I know you will all welcome with
pleasure, Miss TESSA L. KELSO.
Miss Kelso, of the Baker and Taylor Co., New York City, spoke
informally from notes only on the topic, "Publicity for the sake of
information: the librarian's point of view," and has been unable to
furnish a copy of her remarks for publication.
The PRESIDENT: I think you may have seen it mentioned once or twice
in the course of your reading, that there was such a thing as the
"Wisconsin idea." Now, I would not for a moment, having been born in
that lovely state, have you get any notion that that "Wisconsin idea"
is singular. We have therefore asked to come and talk to us this
morning a gentleman who, those closest to him say, is a repository of
"Wisconsin ideas," and I have great pleasure in introducing to you Mr.
WILLIAM H. HATTON,--"Mr." Hatton by request, though he is ordinarily
known in his own country as Senator Hatton.
PUBLICITY FOR THE SAKE OF INFORMATION: THE PUBLIC'S POINT OF VIEW
When man first discovered that his hands would respond to the command
of his brain and that he could use a club to defend himself from his
enemy, and that he could through combined mental and physical effort,
react upon his environment, the gateway on the road to continuous
progress was opened to mankind.
The potential power of man cannot be measured. The Creator, in so far
as we are able to judge, has fixed no limits to man's progress. The
only limitations are his lack of knowledge and his lack of power to
discern the true relations of the forces which surround him.
Mankind is a social organism, not a collection of separate and
independent parts. Where any part is neglected and fails to develop
so as to discharge efficiently its function, the whole organization
suffers. Therefore society is not only deeply interested in education
during childhood and adolescence, but it is concerned in the education
of man throughout his whole life. The public is as much concerned
in the education of the man of forty years of age as it is in the
education of the boy of five years. One of the chief functions of the
state is to secure justice, equity and equality of opportunity. Dr.
Lester F. Ward says, "There can be no equality, no justice, not to
speak of equity, so long as society is composed of members, equally
endowed by nature, a few of whom only possess the social heritage of
truth and ideas resulting from laborious investigation and profound
meditations of all past ages, while the mass are shut out from all the
light that human achievement has shed upon the world."
What shall be done that this "light of human achievement" shall
penetrate the cloud of ignorance and cause the lamp of wisdom to burn
in every home? Your reply doubtless will be, "The formal training of
the schools." Yes; that is a step in the right direction, but all
will agree that the training of the schools is only and can be only
a beginning, a learning how to acquire and assimilate knowledge and
develop power. There must be other institutions and agencies which
shall carry forward the work of education, if we are to have that
continuous and universal development which is possible and desirable.
The library is peculiarly suited for this work and its power and future
influence are not fully appreciated even by those engaged in library
work. It is not necessary to say to this audience that the public
library is an essential part of a complete educational system and that
there should be harmony within the system.
The training in the schools should be such as shall make a beginning
at least in the preparation for social life and social service, in
the broad sense. The students should be shown that the library is a
social mirror, a record of the social activities of mankind. If for
any cause students leave school, they should be in such close relation
to the library and be so familiar with library methods that they will
be encouraged to continue studying; thus we shall find the book in
the hand of the worker, the ideal condition, assisting him in solving
his problems and opening to him visions of life of which he had never
dreamed.
The school authorities should never overlook the fact that the average
time which the individual student attends school is short; but be it
short or long, pupils should be trained in the use of the library, and
taught how to find in books answers to their questions. Questions which
shall require students to go to the library should be regularly given
them. In the higher grades and in the high schools emphasis should be
placed on library work. Students should not only be required to read
certain specified books, as supplementary reading, but there should be
regular assignments of topics for investigation, which will require
them to use the library and other sources of information, thus training
them in research methods and developing their power of original
investigation. By this method their school work will become a living
motive-force in their lives.
The colleges and universities offer a great number of courses. So
many subjects are open for study that the most that can be done
during the college years is to select a few and concentrate effort
upon those selected and leave the great field of knowledge for future
exploration and conquest. Therefore, if a student leaves college
with high ideals and an ambition to explore still further the field
of knowledge and develop his individuality, his immediate need is
a good library. Therein is the crystallized wisdom of ages held in
"magic preservation." Here he may find freedom for the development of
his individuality and be able to increase his power to react on his
environment, enabling him to find profit, pleasure and culture in the
various activities of life.
But has he learned how to use the library? Let us take the testimony
of Dr. Harper, former president of the University of Chicago. "It is
pitiable," he said, "to find that many graduates of our very best
colleges are unable, after taking up the more advanced work of the
divinity school or other graduate courses, to make use of books.
They find nothing; they do not know how to proceed in order to find
anything. No more important, no more useful training can be given men
in college than that which relates to the use of books. Why do so many
men give up reading when they leave college? Because in college they
have never learned the use of books."
This is the testimony of a man of wide experience. A college librarian
should be a person of strong personality and broad culture, and
the example of some of the universities and colleges of making the
librarian a member of the faculty should be followed by all colleges.
The most important work for schools and colleges is to arouse in the
students the spirit of research, train them in research methods, and
develop their powers of independent investigation. Impress upon them
the fact that education cannot be received but must be acquired, and
that the acquisition of knowledge is a process co-extensive with life.
President Hibben of Princeton says, "It is the nature of education that
it does not result in a complete and finished product, but rather a
progressive process. There is nothing final about it. Its achievements
always mark new beginnings. Education must always be defined in terms
of life, of growth, of progress."
It will be readily seen that those who complete the regular courses
of the schools, colleges and universities need the library. It is
well known that the majority do not take advantage fully of the
opportunities offered by the schools, but for various reasons they
drop out all along the line. For these we need the library. We have
a large immigration of adults from foreign lands. These people come
here to make homes and to take part in our government. Self-government
requires knowledge and understanding. Great questions are constantly
arising which demand intelligent action. Ignorance, whether it be the
ignorance of the rich or of the poor, is a menace. One of our grave
social problems is the ignorance and indifference of the ostentatious
rich. Rich in material things, but poor in the things which make life
rich. They have not learned that every man owes a debt to society that
can be paid only in service. Complex our social organization is and
it is becoming more complex each year. Grave questions are before us
for solution. The people in general have no adequate conception of the
possibilities of the library, when properly organized, as an effective
force for dealing with these conditions; and it is doubtful if the most
optimistic librarians appreciate what may be, and will be done in the
future with this great instrument of education. A community without a
public library lacks an essential of a well organized community.
Let us have in the library men and women of broad culture who have
had special training in psychology and sociology, who are sincerely
and sympathetically devoted to humanity. Let this great educational
institution be directed by people of commanding power, trained for
public service, who have entered the profession as a life work,
salaries to correspond, with qualifications required and services
rendered. We say services rendered because all service must be rendered
before it can be measured. The library will thus become the center of
intellectual activities of the community, a continuation school, a
local university.
Society is under obligation to furnish every means possible for the
development of human capacity. There is in the world latent talent and
capacity beyond measure. For the development of this latent talent,
society is in a measure responsible. If opportunity is offered,
capacity will develop.
Great forces surround us pressing for admission to our lives,
telephones, electric light, printing, anæsthesia, antiseptics,
synthetic chemistry, wireless telegraphy, etc. These things have always
been possible but the cloud of ignorance obscured man's vision, and
kept him from realizing his power.
The degree to which a community discharges its obligation can be
measured by the opportunities it offers for the development of the
members of that community. To offer better opportunities for those who
wish to continue their studies and to bring together those of like
tastes and desires, let there be opened seminar rooms in the library
building, or in other buildings which shall be under the control of the
library authorities. To these seminar rooms bring students, from every
walk of life, to study under competent direction and to investigate
subjects in which they are interested either from a material or
cultural point of view. Only a small percentage of those who complete
the high school course go to college. There should be provided graduate
courses for the high school graduates, and other students of like
qualifications in these seminar rooms, directed by the library staff.
The school teachers and library staff can meet in these seminar rooms
and discuss questions of common interest; and also pursue advanced
studies. These rooms should be the centers for university extension
work.
People can be brought together here for study and discussion of
questions of citizenship, government, civic betterment, and all
questions pertaining to social adjustment. Study groups can be formed
for regular and systematic study under the direction of competent
teachers. People of all ages can be brought together for study, which
is impossible under our present system of education. In these groups
the mature man and woman of high ideals will exert a powerful influence
upon the young. Through this system regular and systematic reading
under competent direction can be encouraged. Teachers and parents can
meet in these seminar rooms and discuss school questions.
Continuation schools should be maintained. Bring the people from their
vocations to these continuation schools; out of these schools organize
classes for special work in the library seminar rooms; thus may be
secured the union of instruction and practical application which make
for increased efficiency, cultivates the whole man, and brightens his
life.
John Stuart Mill said, "The business of life is an essential part of
the practical education of a people without which book and school and
instruction, though most necessary and salutary, does not suffice
to qualify them for conduct and for adaptation of means to ends.
Instruction is only one of the desiderata of mental improvement.
Another indispensable, is vigorous exercise of active energies."
It matters not how highly we value the formal training of the colleges
we must never overlook the fact that a very large majority do not
have the full benefit of such training. We must therefore deal with
conditions as they exist. When we call to mind the names and careers
of such men as Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Hugh Miller, Herbert
Spencer, Richard Baxter, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Faraday, Sir Humphrey
Davey, Horace Greeley, Sir William Herschel, we come to realize that
many of the brightest stars in the world's constellation have been cut
and polished by forces other than the formal training of the schools.
Wide is the field and great is the opportunity.
The question may be raised, "How shall we secure the money for this
great work?" We are expending in the United States more than two-thirds
of our national income for wars past and for military purposes,
educating men to destroy. Let this fact come to the knowledge of our
people and a demand will be made to cut down the appropriations for
educating men to destroy and increase the appropriations for educating
men to construct.
A hundred years of peaceful intercourse between two great nations,
Canada and the United States, with over three thousand miles of
boundary without a gunboat or a soldier, is the best answer to the
militarist who would spent the money for instruments of destruction
that should be used for instruments of construction.
How shall we bring to the knowledge of the people information relating
to this great work? There are more than twenty millions of students
in the schools of Canada and the United States. These students touch
directly or indirectly every home. With libraries at various local
centers correlated with the schools, we have what may be called the
nervous system of education of these great nations. Through this system
the people may be reached more uniformly and regularly than in any
other way. Here is a great body of people seeking information coming
into direct contact with the homes.
Therefore we put the schools in the first place as a means of publicity
for the sake of information. Let us bring the library and the schools
into closer relation. Render service to mankind wherever mankind is.
The best publicity is secured through services rendered. The patronage
of the lawyer and physician depends largely on the quality of service
rendered. The business man secures custom when he establishes a
reputation for fair dealing. May not the library expect good measure
of publicity from the reputation it has for real accomplishment? Study
the problem, do things that are worth while. Bring the whole power of
the organization to bear on the subject of social adjustment. This will
lead to various fields of activity. Produce results which shall compel
attention. Do things that will be considered news. Having done, having
produced, do not hesitate to make known. Give your reports what the
newspaper man calls the "news turn."
Every librarian should have training in psychology and sociology
and should continue to study. Study man individually, in groups, in
communities and mankind as a whole.
The PRESIDENT: The next in order will be the secretary's report.
SECRETARY'S REPORT
The close of another conference year finds the executive office
still enjoying the hospitality of the Chicago public library in the
commodious, convenient and well equipped rooms in the Chicago public
library building. Heat, light and janitor service have also been
supplied gratuitously as in previous years. The association has now
held headquarters offices in Chicago for nearly three years and it is a
pleasure for the secretary to report that the prospects for continuance
and permanence of headquarters were never brighter than they are now.
The income from membership fees is steadily increasing. In 1909 the
amount raised from this source was $4,557.50; in 1910, $4,888.48; in
1911, $5,325.46; and the receipts thus far for 1912 warrant us in
hoping that the total amount from membership fees will be at least
$6,200. While the finances of the association even yet do not permit us
to do many things that are very much worth doing and which are in the
legitimate field of activities, we seem gradually to be approaching the
time when excursions can be made into new avenues.
Although the work of the headquarters office varies from day to day so
that no two days are alike the year's work in the aggregate so closely
resemble that for last year that much repetition of last year's report
would be made if a detailed statement were presented. The routine work
has of course been performed, such as editing the bulletin, attending
to the correspondence, advertising for the publishing board and sale
of its publications which in the last year has been the heaviest
in its history, the payment of bills, the keeping of books, the
printing of publications for the publishing board, with the attendant
work of making contracts for printing and the reading of proof, the
arrangements for the midwinter meetings and the annual conference. The
volume of this routine work has been very great and is still increasing
so that often for days at a time there is little chance for doing
anything else.
Since November 1, 1911, a record has been kept of mail sent out
from the office. From November 1, to May 31, 1912, 11,818 pieces of
first-class mail have been dispatched, or an average of about 67
pieces a day. In addition to this 15,794 pieces of circular matter
were mailed either in the interest of the A. L. A. or its publishing
board during the same period. No record of mail received has been kept
but it runs from 50 to 70 letters a day, and frequently reaches 150 a
day at certain seasons and on certain days of the week. Of course not
all of this requires the personal attention of the secretary, a large
share being orders for publications, or remittances for the same,
payment of membership dues, and various inquiries, which are entirely
handled by the office assistants. The headquarters office, however,
continues to be, we are pleased to say, a clearing house for general
library information. The Chicago public and John Crerar libraries are
frequently consulted by the secretary, and occasionally the Newberry
and other libraries, and I desire to express at this time my hearty
appreciation of the cordial assistance given me by the reference
librarians of these various institutions. Thanks to their kind offices
we have been able in most instances either to give the desired
information or tell where it may be found. To those seeking advice
regarding establishment of libraries, selection or purchase of books or
policy of administration we have gladly helped so far as we were able
but always make it a point to try to put the inquirer in touch with the
library commission of his state or the state library. We have taken
particular pleasure in corresponding with certain towns in New Mexico,
Florida, Mississippi and Montana where a public library is either
being organized or where a campaign to secure one is being conducted.
Notwithstanding the systematic efforts of the various commissions to
cover thoroughly the library work of their respective states many small
libraries and library boards seem blissfully ignorant of the existence
of such an institution as a state library commission, and we consider
it no small service to be able to enlighten them on this point. The
commissions, on the other hand, are constantly putting the small
libraries in touch with the A. L. A. The state library commissions can
always be counted on to co-operate with the A. L. A. to publish our
news notes and notices regarding publications in their bulletins, to
recommend membership and A. L. A. publications and to respond quickly
and efficiently to any special call. This is thoroughly appreciated
by the secretary and the executive office. During the past year the
secretary has made several demands on the time of the secretaries of
the various state library associations and has found response in most
cases prompt, intelligent and willing.
The library interests of the country are making progress towards a
harmony of effort that is good to see and that will bring its sure
result in better and more intelligent service to the people.
We have endeavored to keep the value and importance of publicity
steadily before us and have accomplished as much in this direction
as time and funds permitted. Multigraphed articles have been sent
out to about 175 of the leading papers of the country several times
during the year and from marked copies sent to the office and from
reports from librarians who have seen the articles in their local
papers we know that these contributions have been pretty generally
used. Several special articles on either the work of the A. L. A.
or the Publishing Board have been written for particular papers. A
publicity committee has, at the request of the secretary, recently been
appointed in the hope of securing still greater publicity. The work of
the executive office, however, does not lend itself to the making of
"stories" interesting to those outside the profession. Nearly every
live and up-to-date library, on the other hand, is every week living
out experiences which, if written up in a breezy and popular style of
which many of our library folk are masters, would make capital articles
acceptable not only to the daily press but to the more exclusive
magazines as well. It appears, therefore, that the executive office
can perhaps best promote publicity for the profession, by urging the
preparation of these contributions from the reference librarians, the
children's librarians, the loan desk people, the municipal reference
workers, these people who, as Kipling puts it, have
"lived more stories
Than Zogbaum or I can invent."
The secretary has written four or five articles on the A. L. A. for
various encyclopedias and year books, and has endeavored to get the
association listed in all the leading reference almanacs and annuals.
Lectures before library schools by the secretary regarding the A. L. A.
and its work, and official representation at the state meetings have
also given publicity to the association.
During the past year twelve persons have received library appointments
through recommendations of the secretary. This is a somewhat smaller
number than the year before when about fifteen were helped to positions
through the executive office. With two or three exceptions the
secretary has made recommendations only when requested to do so.
The work of the publishing board occupies practically three-quarters
of the time of the assistant secretary, at least half of the time of
the stenographer and order assistant and probably a quarter of the
time of the secretary. In consideration of this the publishing board
appropriates $2,000 a year to the operating expenses of the office.
The work of the publishing board is heavier than ever before in its
history; the receipts from sales for the calendar year 1911 being
$8,502.88, and for the first five months of 1912 $6,090.16. Further
notice of this feature of the work of the office can be found in the
report of the A. L. A. publishing board presented in print at this
conference.
The secretary wishes here to commend most heartily the faithful
services of his fellow-workers at the executive office, Miss Clara
A. Simms and Miss Gwendolyn I. Brigham. Their capable and willing
service has been a large factor in the work of the association and
its publishing board and without such intelligence and loyal help
the results of the year could not have been attained. For the active
co-operation and good will of the officers and other members of the
executive board the secretary is deeply grateful. It has been a
pleasure to work under such congenial conditions.
=Membership=--There are more members in the A. L. A. at the present
time than ever before in the history of the association. The secretary
has conducted as vigorously as possible a steady campaign for new
members, this work not only being the duty of the office but directly
in line with the conviction of the secretary who has recommended
membership in the national association to all library workers in
the earnest belief that this action is fully as beneficial to the
individual as to the association.
When the January membership bills were mailed we enclosed in each
envelope an appeal for the member addressed to secure at least one new
member for the association. This resulted directly in the addition of
over one hundred new members and the secretary wishes to take this
opportunity to thank most sincerely and heartily those members who
aided in this work. Besides the pleasure of securing these new members
it was gratifying to feel that so many old members took such practical
interest in aiding the association. In April membership appeals were
sent to 1854 members of state library associations who were not members
of the A. L. A. This has resulted in a fair increase of membership.
In December the secretary sent letters requesting membership to 232
library people who had, according to the news columns of library
periodicals, recently changed their positions assumably for the better.
In addition to these more or less impersonal appeals the secretary
has written a large number of personal letters to those with whom he
is either personally acquainted or else with whom he has conducted an
office correspondence. As in all other lines of business it is this
personal appeal that has been the most effective and has brought the
largest percentage of returns.
When the 1911 Handbook went to press last August there were 2046
members in the A. L. A. Of this number 13 have since died and 26 have
resigned. Since last August 351 new members have been received making
the present total net membership 2,358. Assuming that the usual number,
or about 150 persons, will discontinue their membership this summer the
net membership in the 1912 Handbook will be approximately 2,208. Of the
present total membership 332 are library or institutional members, 24
of whom have joined since last August.
=A. L. A. Representatives at Other Conferences=--The practice of having
an officer or officially appointed delegate represent the association
at the state library association meetings has been followed the past
year with success fully equal to that in previous years. Since the
Pasadena conference there have been 39 state or provincial library
meetings, and a speaker representing the A. L. A. has been present at
16 of these. The A. L. A. at present has too small a budget to meet the
traveling expenses of these speakers, which have been met either by the
state association or by the delegates personally.
The joint conference of Michigan and Ohio at Cedar Point, Ohio, Sept.
2-8, was attended by Mrs. H. L. Elmendorf, president of the American
library association, who delivered an address on "Joy Reading," and by
the secretary, who spoke informally on the work of the A. L. A. The New
York state meeting in New York City, Sept. 25-30, was also attended by
both the president and secretary, Mrs. Elmendorf giving her address on
"Joy Reading," and the secretary speaking on "What the American Library
Association Stands For."
Mrs. Elmendorf was the official delegate to the Keystone State library
association meeting at Saegertown, Pa., Oct. 19-21, giving an address
on "Joy Reading;" at the District of Columbia library association
conference, at Washington, November 8, where she gave a talk on some
of the recent books; and at the New York state teachers' association
meeting at Albany, Nov. 27-29, speaking on the subject, "School and
library co-operation; a concrete example and a little theory."
Mr. J. I. Wyer, Jr., represented the A. L. A. at the state meetings of
Iowa, at Mason City, Oct. 10-12; of Illinois, at Joliet, Oct 11-13;
and of Missouri at Hannibal, Oct. 18-19; delivering at each meeting an
address on the subject, "What Americans Read."
Mr. Chalmers Hadley, librarian of the Denver public library, and
ex-secretary of the A. L. A., was the representative of the American
library association at the meeting of the Pacific northwest library
association, at Victoria, B. C., Sept. 4-6, giving an address on "The
Library and the Community."
The secretary attended the Minnesota meeting, at Lake Minnetonka, Sept.
20-22, the Nebraska meeting at Omaha, Oct. 18-19, and the North Dakota
state meeting at Jamestown, Oct. 20-21, giving at each conference an
address on "Reaching the People." He also gave an address at the joint
session of the Indiana library association and the Indiana library
trustees' association, at Indianapolis, Nov. 8th, on "The Legal and
Moral Requirements of a Library Trustee."
Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick, librarian of the St. Louis public library, and
ex-president of the A. L. A., was the principal out-of-state speaker
at the Alabama library association conference, at Tuscaloosa, and at
the State University, November 21, 22 and 23. Dr. Bostwick gave two
addresses; the first on "The Companionship of Books;" and the second on
"The Message of the Library."
Miss Clara F. Baldwin, secretary of the Minnesota public library
commission, attended, as A. L. A. delegate, the joint meeting of the
Montana state teachers' association and Montana library association, at
Great Falls, December 27-29, 1911, and spoke on "The work of a library
commission."
Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites, secretary of the Wisconsin State Historical
Society, and an ex-president of the A. L. A., officially represented
the association at the inauguration of Dr. George E. Vincent, as
president of the University of Minnesota, October 18.
Mr. Carl B. Roden, of the Chicago public library, and treasurer of
the A. L. A., represented the association and gave an address on "The
library as a paying investment," at the Wisconsin library association
meeting at Janesville, February 21-23.
The secretary has lectured during the year before the Iowa summer
library school, the New York public library school, and the University
of Illinois library school. He also addressed the summer library
conference at Madison, Wisconsin, on the work of the A. L. A.
=Changes in Officers and Committees=--Following his election as first
vice-president, Mr. Henry E. Legler resigned as non-official member of
the executive board and Miss Alice S. Tyler was elected by the board to
fill the unexpired term ending in 1912.
Mr. Harrison W. Craver was unable to accept re-appointment as chairman
of committee on library administration and Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick was
appointed in his place.
Miss Margaret W. Brown resigned from the committee on bookbinding and
Miss Rose G. Murray was appointed to succeed her.
=Necrology=--The association has lost heavily by death during the past
year. Our losses include the senior ex-president of the association,
who was a life member, two other life members, and several who were, by
their regular attendance through many years, familiar figures at our
annual conferences. In all 13 members and 4 former members have passed
away since we last met in conference. The roll is as follows:
Emma Helen Blair, for several years a member of the staff of the
Wisconsin State Historical Library, died September 26, 1911. Miss Blair
had performed valuable and important work as an editor and professional
indexer, assisting among other things in editing "Jesuit Relations"
and the long series of historical documents in Spanish entitled "The
Philippine Islands." She had been a member of the A. L. A. continuously
since 1896 (No. 1524), and attended the conferences of 1896, 1900 and
1904. See Library journal, 36:603.
Isaac S. Bradley, for many years librarian and assistant superintendent
of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, died April 22, 1912. He
joined the A. L. A. in 1890, (No. 790) and had taken great interest
in the work of the association. Few faces were more familiar at the
conferences than his, as he attended sixteen of the annual meetings,
those of 1890, '92, '93, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 1900, '01, '02, '03,
'04, '06, '07 and '08.
Frederick Morgan Crunden, senior ex-president of the A. L. A., life
member, and librarian of the St. Louis public library, from 1877
to 1909, died October 28, 1911. He was president of the A. L. A.
1889-90, presiding over the Fabyans conference of the latter year, and
vice-president of the International Library Conference at London in
1897. He joined the A. L. A. in 1878 (No. 129) and became a life member
about 1889. To record Mr. Crunden's services to the American library
world and to the A. L. A. would be practically to give a history of the
association for the past 30 years. He participated in many programs
and conference discussions and was one of the best known and beloved
of American librarians. Mr. Crunden attended the conferences of 1883
and 1886 to 1905 inclusive, twenty in all, without an absence, except
at the San Francisco conference of 1891. He also attended the London
international conference in 1897. See A. L. A. Bulletin 6:3; Library
journal, 33:569-70; Public libraries, 16:436-38.
Irene Gibson, chief assistant in the publication section of the Library
of Congress, died July 9, 1911. She joined the association in 1893 (No.
1114), and became a life member in 1910. She attended the conferences
of 1893, '97, 1903, '08, '10. See Library journal, 36:439.
Jessie Sherburne Gile, assistant in charge of the work with schools
in the public library of Haverhill, Mass., died October 22, 1911. She
joined the A. L. A. in 1902, (No. 2555), and attended the conferences
of 1902 and '06.
David L. Kingsbury, assistant librarian of the Minnesota Historical
Society of St. Paul, died January 24, 1912. He joined the A. L. A. in
1904 (No. 3079), and attended the conferences of 1904, '08 and '11.
Mrs. Evelyn N. Lane, head of the circulating department of the
Springfield (Mass.) City Library, died August 30, 1911. She had been a
member of the A. L. A. since 1902 (No. 2454), but so far as recorded
attended only the conference of that year.
Robbins Little, for twenty years superintendent of the Astor Library,
New York City, died April 13, 1912. He joined the A. L. A. in 1880 (No.
389), and later became a life member. So far as recorded he attended
none of the conferences.
Stella Lucas, librarian of the Tainter Memorial Library of Menominee,
Wis., died July 30, 1911. She joined the A. L. A. in 1901 (No. 2252),
and attended the conferences in 1901, '05 and '08.
Adolph L. Peck, librarian of the Gloversville (N. Y.) Free Library
since its foundation in 1880, died October 9, 1911. He joined the
A. L. A. in 1883 (No. 466), and was a familiar figure at the annual
conferences, having attended those of 1883, '85, '86, '87, '90, '92,
'93, '94, '96, '98, 1900 and 1906.
Mrs. Minerva A. Sanders, for many years librarian of the Deborah
Cook Sayles Memorial Library, Pawtucket, R. I., died March 20, 1912.
Although Mrs. Sanders was an enthusiastic attendant on A. L. A.
conferences she never personally joined the association, but was
officially entitled to a seat in the conferences by virtue of the
institutional membership of her library. She had attended fifteen
conferences and was well known to the veterans of the association, who
well remember her early advocacy of open shelves and work for children.
L. W. Sicotte, president of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, of
Montreal, died September 5, 1911. He joined the A. L. A. in 1900 (No.
1947). So far as recorded he attended only the conference of 1900 held
in his home city.
T. Guilford Smith, of Buffalo, regent of the University of the State
of New York, died Feb. 20, 1912. He had been a member of the A. L. A.
continuously since 1893 (No. 1193), and attended the conferences of
1897 and 1903.
The following persons at various times were members of the association
but were not at the time of their death:
Zu Adams, for many years connected with the Kansas State Historical
Society, died April, 1911. She was a member of the A. L. A. for the
year 1904 (No. 3203), and attended the St Louis conference.
Caroline A. Farley, formerly librarian of Radcliffe College, Cambridge,
Mass., died March 14, 1912. She joined the association in 1896 (No.
1394), and was a member continuously until 1909. So far as recorded she
attended none of the conferences.
Stephen B. Griswold, for many years law librarian of the New York state
library, died May 4, 1912. He joined the A. L. A. in 1892 (No. 943),
and remained a member until 1904. So far as recorded he attended no
conferences.
William E. Parker, treasurer of Library Bureau, Cambridge, Mass., died
November 2, 1911. He was a member of the A. L. A. continuously from
1889 (No. 757), to 1909, and was secretary of the association in 1890.
He attended the conferences of 1889, '90 and '96.
The secretary's report was accepted on motion of Mr. J. I. Wyer, Jr.,
seconded by Dr. C. W. Andrews.
The treasurer's report which had been previously printed, was read by
title, and accepted.
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
=Report of the Treasurer, Jan. 1st to May 31st, 1912.=
=Receipts=
Balance, Union Trust Company, Chicago, January 1, 1912 $2,005.66
Trustees Endowment Fund Interest 175.00
Trustees Carnegie Fund Interest 1,524.33
George B. Utley, Headquarters collections 4,815.50
A. L. A. Publishing Board, Installment on Hdqrs. expense 1,000.00
Interest on bank balance Jan. to May 17.34 $9,537.83
--------- ---------
=Expenditures=
Checks No. 28-32 (Vouchers No. 437-505)
Distributed as follows:
Bulletin $ 187.90
Conference 15.50
Committees 54.17
Headquarters:
Salaries 2,103.10
Miscellaneous 308.33
Trustees Endowment Fund (Life mem.) 150.00
A. L. A. Pub. Bd. Carnegie Fund interest 1,524.33
--------- ---------
Balance Union Trust Company, June 1, 1912 $5,194.50
George B. Utley, National Bank of Republic 250.00
---------
Total balance $5,444.50
Respectfully submitted,
C. B. RODEN, Treasurer.
Chicago, June 1, 1912.
The following report of the finance committee was read by Dr. C. W.
Andrews, chairman, and accepted.
REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE.
To the American Library Association:
In accordance with the provisions of the constitution the finance
committee submit the following report:
They have duly considered the probable income of the association for
the current year and have estimated it at $19,450, and have approved
appropriations made by the Executive Board to that amount. The details
of the estimated income and of the appropriations are given in the
January number of the Bulletin. The committee have also approved the
appropriation to the use of the Publishing Board to any excess of
sales over the amount estimated. The receipts and expenditures of the
Publishing Board have been included in the figures given, so that they
now exhibit the total financial resources and expenditures of the
association.
On behalf of the committee the chairman has audited the accounts of the
treasurer and of the secretary as assistant treasurer. He has found
that the receipts as stated by the treasurer agree with the transfer
checks from the assistant treasurer, and with the cash accounts of
the latter. The expenditures as stated are accounted for by properly
approved vouchers. The bank balance and petty cash, as stated, agree
with the bank books and petty cash balances. The accounts of the
assistant treasurer have been found correct as cash accounts.
On behalf of the committee Mr. E. H. Anderson has examined the accounts
of the trustees for 1911, has checked the securities now in their
custody, and certifies to the correctness of the figures, to the bonds
on hand, and the balance in bank. He finds that at par value the bonds
and securities amount to $102,500 for the Carnegie fund, and $7,000 for
the Principal account.
He has examined the vouchers for the amounts transmitted to the
treasurer and has compared the reports of the treasurer and trustees in
regard to the number of new life memberships. He certifies that to the
best of his knowledge and belief all of the accounts as submitted to
him are correct.
All of which is respectfully submitted for the committee.
CLEMENT W. ANDREWS, Chairman.
The following reports which had been previously printed, were read by
title and accepted.
A. L. A. PUBLISHING BOARD
With the issuance of the A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, which is now in
press, the Publishing Board practically completes an important group
of bibliographical aids which has been in process of compilation or
publication during the past five years. The chief publications embrace
the following:
A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, to be issued in 1912.
List of subject headings for use in dictionary catalogs, 3rd
edition revised by Mary Josephine Briggs. 1911.
Small library buildings; a collection of plans with introduction
and notes by Cornelia Marvin. 1908.
Guide to the study and use of reference books, by Alice B.
Kroeger. 1908.
Supplement to the above, compiled by Isadore G. Mudge. 1911.
Foreign book lists, embracing to date German, French, Hungarian,
Norwegian and Danish, and Swedish.
550 Children's books; a purchase list for public libraries, by
Harriet H. Stanley. 1910.
Selected list of music and books about music for public libraries,
by Louisa M. Hooper. 1909.
Hints to small libraries, by Mary W. Plummer, 4th edition. 1911.
This list does not include a number of new tracts and handbooks, nor
the tentative chapters of an A. L. A. Manual of library economy which
it is proposed upon completion to assemble in book form. An index
to annual library reports, which is well under way, will probably
be put into type before the expiration of the calendar year. In
addition, during the quintennial period now closing, the Board has been
instrumental in securing the publication of the following important
bibliographical aids bearing the imprints of other organizations: Index
of economic material in documents of the states of the United States,
prepared by Adelaide R. Hasse; A. L. A. Portrait index, edited by W. C.
Lane and Nina E. Browne.
New chapters of the Manual of library economy are noted in another
paragraph.
Directions for the librarian of a small library (3000 copies), by
Zaidee Brown was reprinted for the League of library commissions from
the type used by the Free public library commission of Massachusetts.
The library and social movements; a list of material obtainable free
or at small expense (1250 copies), compiled by Ono Mary Imhoff, of the
Wisconsin free library commission, was reprinted for the League from
the type used for the edition of the Wisconsin free library commission.
Subject index to vol. 7 of the A. L. A. Booklist (2500 copies) was
printed in June, 1911. Although proportionately valuable to vols. 1-6
the sale has been very unsatisfactory and is not an encouragement to
prepare future yearly indexes.
During the past year the following publications have been reprinted:
A. L. A. Index to general literature, edited by W. I. Fletcher, 1905
edition (500 copies); Cataloging for small libraries, by Theresa
Hitchler (Handbook No. 2) (1000 copies); Binding for small libraries,
compiled by the A. L. A. Committee on Bookbinding (Handbook No. 5)
(1500 copies); Guide to reference books, by Alice B. Kroeger (1000
copies); and Cutter's Notes from the art section of a library (Tract
No. 5) (1000 copies). A new edition of Miss Stearns' Essential in
library administration (2000 copies) is now in press. It has been
brought up to date by the author.
=Publications out of Print=--Several publications for which plates were
not made have recently become out of print. Magazines for the small
library, by Katharine MacDonald Jones, and Graded list of stories for
reading aloud, by Harriot E. Hassler were both League publications
which had been turned over to the Board. There is a steady demand for
them and they should be either brought up to date and reprinted or
something else issued on the same subject.
=Questions of Policy=--The work now nearing an end has engaged the
attention and absorbed the resources of the Publishing Board to
an extent that precluded entry into new fields calling for large
expenditures. The editorial work involved in the compilation of the
third edition of Subject headings, extending over a period of several
years, and the editorial expenses incident to the publication of the A.
L. A. Booklist have practically exhausted the current funds available
for such service. Beginning with the new fiscal year, the funds derived
from sales will doubtless care for all outstanding obligations, and the
income from the Carnegie endowment can be devoted to maintain and to
further strengthen the Booklist, and to undertake new enterprises.
Out of the great labor involved, and time required in the preparation
of Subject headings, and of the A. L. A. Catalog, has developed the
suggestion that work for new editions of the former compilation should
be continuous, and that the Booklist bears a logical relationship to
the A. L. A. Catalog. While the members of the Publishing Board are not
fully prepared at this time to urge a definite permanent policy in this
connection, an interesting suggestion comes from Mrs. Elmendorf, which
well merits consideration in having an important bearing on future
development. Her suggestion, in her own words, is this:
"Would it not be well to consider the publication of the A. L.
A. Catalog in loose-leaf form on something the same principle as
Nelson's Cyclopedia? Different parts of it might then be revised
from time to time and the parts or pages might be for sale
separately.
"It could be so printed that the pages might be mounted and
arranged in a vertical file, headings being suggested at the
bottom for arrangement as any library preferred, in regular
classed order or in alphabetico-classed. A card index to the
vertical file might be made to minimize the difficulties of the
classed arrangement. The notes should be attractive notes, letting
the presence of the book in this "Choice Catalog" vouch for its
worth and in a general way for the treatment, for the choice
should be guided by the best popular, readable treatment. I am
more and more thinking that effective helps to awakened personal
interest are needed and are lacking. The A. L. A. Catalog has
always been too bulky, too costly, too much directed to the buyer
for effective personal service. I have long been convinced that
the greatest popular service can be performed even in the large
libraries with quite a limited number of books, I think not more
than 20,000, perhaps not more than 10,000. I should like to
advertise that many adequately and attractively and watch the
results.
"I know that there are many objections and difficulties to be met,
and yet I believe that there is the germ of a workable scheme
present."
=List of Subject Headings=--The chief publication of the year has
been the new List of subject headings, revised and edited by Mary
Josephine Briggs, cataloger of the Buffalo public library. After
nearly five years of labor this third edition appeared October
1st, 1911 and has met with a most appreciative reception. 3000
copies were printed as a first edition. 1312 copies have already
been sold (to June 1), and a steady demand continues. The reviews
have been almost uniformly favorable.
=A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11=--The new A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11,
although not yet off the press as this report is written, will be
distributed we hope about the date of the Ottawa meeting. It contains
a selection of about 3000 of the best books published since the A.
L. A. Catalog of 1904, with a list of books now out of print which
appeared in that Catalog, and also of new editions. Children's books
are listed separately. Five thousand copies are being printed as a
first edition, of which nearly 3000 have been subscribed for in advance
of publication. From the preface written by the editor, Miss Elva L.
Bascom, the following extracts are selected:
"The general plan of the Catalog and the routine of co-operation in
the selection of titles practically coincide with those of the original
work except that the whole routine, from the preliminary selection to
the final preparation for printing, has remained in the hands of one
person.
"All titles have been submitted to the publishers for latest
information, so that the list should be dependable for prices.
"The sixth edition (1899) of the Decimal Classification has been
followed. This decision was made on the information that the smaller
libraries had not to any extent adopted the seventh edition. It is to
be hoped that when the time comes to revise the 1904 Catalog there may
be at hand a complete revised edition of the "D. C." simplified for the
requirements of the smaller libraries.
"The addition of subject headings (not given with the titles in the
1904 Catalog) was determined on before the decision to print only a
class list was made. It has been a frequent request from the librarians
of smaller libraries, who need help in this matter and who found it
difficult to find the headings chosen for the Dictionary list in the
1904 Catalog. The new edition of the List of subject headings has been
followed with some additions. Where the subjects of analytics are
easily ascertainable, they are only recommended.
"While in the beginning the attempt was made to adhere fairly closely
to the proportion of titles to each subject given in the 1904 Catalog,
it was found impossible to do so without impairing the usefulness of
the list. The output of books in the subjects grouped under Sociology
has been so great, and the demand for them so heavy, that it seemed
better to include a larger number than was originally planned rather
than risk weakening the usefulness of the section. The greatest
increase has been in Useful Arts, and this was intentional, since there
is no division where the average librarian is more in need of help, nor
where it is more difficult to find the "best book" on short notice.
"Two special lists are incorporated in the Catalog, both in answer to
definite requests. One is a selection of about 50 titles of religious
books specially chosen for Catholic readers. Two preliminary selections
were made, one by an assistant in the St. Louis public library at the
request of the librarian, Dr. A. E. Bostwick, and a second by the Rev.
W. J. McMullen of Pittsburgh, at the request of the librarian of the
Carnegie library of Pittsburgh, Mr. H. W. Craver. Both lists were then
incorporated into a much more extensive one, covering all subjects,
compiled by Mr. William Stetson Merrill, of the Newberry library.
The final selection, limited to religious books, was submitted to
Archbishop Ireland, and at his request was examined by the Rev. J. A.
Ryan, of the St. Paul Seminary, St. Paul, Minn."
The second list consists of 50 titles of modern drama and books about
it. It was impossible to get any unanimity of opinion on such a brief
selection and the editor is aware that it will satisfy a very small
proportion of libraries. It is allowed to stand, however, for the
suggestion it may give to the perplexed librarian of the smaller
library.
"It is hardly to be imagined that any one ever prepared a list of this
character and extent without wishing to ask the indulgence of possible
critics and to explain why it is so much farther from perfect than
it was expected to be. It seems a fairly simple task to select 3000
titles from the books published in eight years, but a list based on the
co-operation of about 75 librarians and 100 experts, all fully engaged
with their own work, and selected, edited and prepared for printing in
the intervals between work having a prior claim, is bound to progress
but slowly and to suffer many changes of fortune. One needs to be this
sort of clearing house of opinion but once to realize how far apart our
libraries are in the matter of book selection. In many cases what is
one library's meat seems to be another's poison, and one soon reaches
the conviction that there are no "best books" on any subject for a
library of any size--if librarians alone are to be consulted. Happily,
professors, special students and experts in general are less at
variance. It is only fair to say that the Fiction and Children's lists
represent librarians' votes only. It is to be doubted if the Fiction,
at least, would have retained the proper amount of "light reading"
if it had passed through the hands of literature professors. If it
does not prove a good "working" selection the editor will be greatly
disappointed, for it was on that ground alone that many titles escaped
the deleting pencil."
=A. L. A. Booklist=--With the current number of the A. L. A. Booklist,
volume 8 is completed. Since the initial number appeared in January,
1905, the Booklist has come to be regarded as an indispensable tool in
every library. There has been no deviation from the original policy
of furnishing to the libraries, and the numerous small libraries
particularly, an unbiased guide in selection of books currently
published. The number of titles listed from the 2500 annually examined,
has been expanded from time to time, but the general character of the
publication has been retained. Suggestions have come to the Board for
change of name, for change of form and size, and for other changes
that might lead to a larger use of the list by the general public.
While the members of the Board have given careful consideration to the
arguments presented, they have deferred reaching a final conclusion
until practical unanimity can be arrived at as to the wisdom of the
changes sought. A total of 7729 titles has been included in the 2456
pages which comprise the eight volumes of the Booklist:
A. L. A. BOOKLIST
Volume No. of Titles No. of Pages Nos. in Vol.
1 500 144 8
2 690 256 8
3 681 238 8
4 643 317 9
5 739 197 6
6 1,417 424 10
7 1,583 456 10
8 1,476 424 10
----- -----
Total 7,729 2,456
=Manual of Library Economy=--Six chapters of the Manual were printed
and ready for distribution previous to the Pasadena conference, namely:
1. American library history, by C. K. Bolton.
2. Library of Congress, by W. W. Bishop.
4. The college and university library, by J. I. Wyer, Jr.
17. Order and accession department, by F. F. Hopper.
22. Reference department, by E. C. Richardson.
26. Bookbinding, by A. L. Bailey.
During the latter half of 1911 the four following chapters were
printed, also each in a separate pamphlet, appearing in the order here
named:
20. Shelf department, by Josephine A. Rathbone.
15. Branch libraries and other distributing agencies, by Linda A.
Eastman.
9. Library legislation, by W. F. Yust.
12. Library administration, by A. E. Bostwick.
Since their publication the following number of copies of each chapter
have been sold (to March 31):
Chapter 1 528 copies
2 473
4 589
9 251
12 267
15 475
17 591
20 474
22 617
26 671
-----
Total 4,936
Manuscripts for two more chapters, The library building, by W. R.
Eastman, and Proprietary and subscription libraries, by C. K. Bolton,
are ready and in the secretary's possession, but funds for printing are
not in hand at present, owing to the heavy obligation incurred by the
printing of Subject headings and the A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, within
so short a time of each other. It is hoped, however, to print these
and perhaps some others before the end of the year.
=Periodical Cards=--The shipments of periodical cards sent out since
the close of the last report of the Board (May 1, 1911) have comprised
3,009 titles and 180,241 cards, not including reprints of cards in
which errors have been discovered after the cards have been distributed.
Copy is received regularly by the editor, Mr. William Stetson Merrill,
every two weeks, on the fifth and twentieth of the month from the
following libraries:--Columbia, Harvard, John Crerar, New York and
Yale. This copy is edited promptly and prepared for the printer.
=Advertising=--The Board's publications have been regularly advertised
in Library Journal and Public Libraries and in one special number of
The Dial. For the rest circularization and correspondence from the
headquarters office has been relied upon. During the year over 15,000
pieces of circular matter have been mailed from headquarters office in
the interest of our publications.
Particular effort has been made to advertise widely the new List of
subject headings and the A. L. A. Catalog. For the latter in addition
to circularizing the libraries descriptive postal cards were addressed
to 7,000 high school and normal school principals. From these circulars
only about 100 orders for the Catalog can be directly traced. It seems
plain that it does not pay to advertise our publications among the high
schools. Slips advertising the Catalog were sent to the librarians of
all the leading colleges, requesting that these slips be distributed
to members of the faculty interested in book selection. This resulted
in getting orders from many college libraries addressed, but very few
from the teaching staff. Experience would indicate that libraries and
librarians are the only classes to which advertising can profitably be
addressed. We have endeavored to keep the state library commissions
regularly informed on all our publications and all of them which issue
monthly or quarterly bulletins list our new publications therein,
generally with appreciative annotations and descriptions. Exhibits of
publications have been made at several state library meetings visited
by the secretary.
During the past year the principal libraries of England, Scotland and
Ireland have been circularized with lists of our publications, and a
very gratifying number of orders have been received as a result. When
the revised edition of Subject headings appeared copies were sent to
nearly all the library periodicals of the various countries of Europe
with the result that they reviewed the book and quite a number of
continental orders have been directly traceable to these reviews.
Copies of Subject headings and the new A. L. A. Catalog have been
ordered from almost every important country in the world.
This report would be incomplete without hearty acknowledgment of the
excellent work of the Secretary, Mr. George B. Utley. To his good
business judgment and careful and judicious management is due in great
measure the splendid financial showing recorded in the accompanying
fiscal statement. The affairs of the Board have never been in better
shape than now. The sales are increasing encouragingly, the inventory
shows a salable stock with less "dead" material than at any time for
years back, and the office organization is now well systematized and
effective.
HENRY E. LEGLER, Chairman.
FINANCIAL REPORT
=Cash Receipts June 1, 1911, to May 31, 1912.=
Balance, June 1, 1911 $2,337.70
Interest on Carnegie Fund 4,524.33
Receipts from publications:
Cash sales $3,781.47
Payments on account 7,690.89 11,472.36
Interest on bank deposits 4.53
Sundries 1.98 $18,340.90
--------- ----------
=Payments June 1, 1911, to May 31, 1912.=
Cost of publications:
A. L. A. Booklist $1,940.35
Library and social movements
(1250 copies) 25.50
Supplement to Guide to reference books,
1909-10 (3000 copies) 220.12
Subject headings, second edition reprint
(200 copies) 132.30
Subject index to Booklist Vol. 7
(2500 copies) 223.00
Copyright on Hints to small libraries 1.03
Copyright on Supplement to Guide 1.03
Directions to librarian of a small library
(3000 copies) 76.49
Government documents in small libraries,
reprint (1000 copies) 25.50
Manual of library economy, Chap. 1,
2, 4, 17, 22, 26 376.55
Manual of library economy, Chap. 20 48.80
Manual of library economy, Chap. 15 62.80
Manual of library economy, Chap. 9 43.40
Manual of library economy, Chap. 12 37.55
Binding for small libraries, reprint
(1500 copies) 29.00
Reprints from Bulletin 40.91
Cataloging for small libraries,
reprint (1000 copies) 64.00
Library statistics tables 2.25
A. L. A. Index to general literature
(part of reprint) 108.00
Notes on the art section of a library,
reprint (1000 copies) 20.00
Guide to the use of reference books,
reprint (1000 copies) 259.08
Subject headings, third edition
(3000 copies) 3,518.96
Periodical cards 1,516.38 $8,773.00
Addressograph machine supplies 21.84
Furniture and fixtures 103.00
Advertising 282.15
Postage and express 631.49
Rent at Madison office 300.00
Travel 281.35
Salaries 3,670.00
Expense at headquarters 2,000.00
Supplies and incidentals 1,066.36
Printing (stationery, etc.) 43.25
Balance on hand, May 31, 1912 1,168.46 $18,340.90
SALES OF A. L. A. PUBLISHING BOARD PUBLICATIONS
=April 1, 1911, to March 31, 1912.=
A. L. A. Booklist, regular subscriptions 1115 $1,115.00
Additional subs, at reduced rate of 50c 141 70.50
Bulk subscriptions paid 1,083.65
Extra copies 1659 242.78 $2,511.93
Handbook 1, Essentials in library administration 492 71.63
Handbook 2, Cataloging for small libraries 677 89.15
Handbook 3, Management of traveling libraries 88 12.73
Handbook 4, Aids in book selection 42 6.23
Handbook 5, Binding for small libraries 139 21.35
Handbook 6, Mending and repair of books 602 78.21
Handbook 7, U. S. Government documents 652 84.87 364.17
Tract 2, How to start a library 80 4.00
Tract 3, Traveling libraries 26 1.30
Tract 8, A village library 219 7.65
Tract 9, Library school training 196 9.55
Tract 10, Why do we need a public library? 390 13.50 36.00
Foreign Lists, German 100 42.25
Foreign Lists, French 150 26.09
Foreign Lists, French fiction 130 4.25
Foreign Lists, Hungarian 95 9.70
Foreign Lists, Norwegian and Danish 98 16.71
Foreign Lists, Swedish 105 18.56 117.56
Reprints, Arbor day list 30 1.50
Reprints, Bird books 33 3.30
Reprints, Christmas Bulletin 65 3.25
Reprints, Library buildings 139 13.78
Reprints, National library problem today 26 1.30
Reprints, Rational library work with children 64 3.20 26.33
Periodical cards, subscriptions 1,197.45
Periodical cards, Old South Leaflets 15.75
Periodical cards, Reed's Modern Eloquence sets 9 22.50
Periodical cards, Smithsonian reports set 1 15.00 1,250.70
A. L. A. Manual of library economy:
Chap. I. American library history 528 46.73
Chap. II. Library of Congress 473 34.60
Chap. IV. College and university library 589 52.67
Chap. IX. Library legislation 251 18.96
Chap. XII. Administration of a public library 267 20.44
Chap. XV. Branch libraries 475 32.71
Chap. XVII. Order and accession department 591 46.25
Chap. XX. Shelf department 474 34.65
Chap. XXII. Reference department 617 55.54
Chap. XXVI. Bookbinding 671 53.78 396.33
A. L. A. Index to general literature 31 177.00
Catalog rules 486 271.06
Children's reading (now out of print) 6 1.48
Girls and women and their clubs 57 13.55
Guide to reference books 686 888.25
Guide to reference books, Supplement 761 181.50
Hints to small libraries 203 136.69
Larned, Literature of American history 29 160.47
Larned, Literature of American history, Supplement 79 64.21
List of music and books about music 82 20.12
List of editions selected for economy in
bookbuying 126 30.99
List of 550 children's books 346 55.85
List of subject headings, 2nd edition 218 397.45
List of subject headings, 3rd edition 1125 2,717.00
Plans of small library buildings 98 120.52
Reading for the young 9 6.61
Reading for the young, Supplement 16 3.94
Subject index to A. L. A. Booklist, v. 1-6 260 66.23
Subject index to A. L. A. Booklist, v. 7 961 84.49 5,397.40
League publications:
Anniversaries and holidays 13 3.25
Directions for librarian of a small library 1186 54.53
Graded list of stories for reading aloud 335 32.71
Library and social movement 1000 31.63
Magazines for the small library 313 29.38 151.50
A. L. A. Bulletin and Proceedings 258 87.96
A. L. A. Bulletin, Hopper reprint 462 11.85 99.81
----- ------- ----------
Total sale of publications $10,351.73
REPORT OF THE CARNEGIE AND ENDOWMENT FUNDS
To the President and Members of the American Library Association:
The Trustees of the Endowment Funds in presenting their annual report
for the year ending January 15, 1912, desire to say that there has been
no change in the securities held by the Board. The market price of most
of them remaining about the same, changes could not be made to the
advantage and desired betterment of the fund.
The Trustees are pleased to state that all interest has been promptly
paid.
Mr. E. H. Anderson of the New York public library was again deputed
to audit the accounts of the Board and inspect the securities, and he
gives to the Trustees, as the result of that examination, the following
letter:
Dear Mr. Appleton:
Enclosed herewith are the vouchers from Mr. Roden, Treasurer of
the American Library Association, and the receipt for the rent of
the safety deposit box in the vaults of the Union Trust Company.
I have written the chairman of the Finance Committee that I have
examined these vouchers and found them in accordance with your
type written statement.
The four type written sheets which you gave me yesterday I have
checked as correct as to the bonds in your custody, as to the
vouchers referred to above, and as to the cash balance on hand. I
have certified to Mr. Andrews, the chairman of the Committee on
Finance, that to the best of my knowledge and belief the reports
contained on these sheets are correct.
Very sincerely,
(Signed) E. H. ANDERSON.
The General Endowment Fund has been increased during the year by the
taking of seven life memberships by the persons named, adding to the
Fund, $175.00.
Respectfully submitted,
W. C. KIMBALL,
WM. W. APPLETON,
W. T. PORTER.
Trustees of A. L. A. Endowment Fund.
CARNEGIE FUND, PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT
Cash donated by Mr. Andrew Carnegie $100,000.00
=Invested as follows:=
June 1, 1908 5,000 4% Am. Tel. & Tel. Bonds 96-1/2 $ 4,825.00
June 1, 1908 10,000 4% Am. Tel. & Tel. Bonds 94-3/8 9,437.50
June 1, 1908 15,000 4% Cleveland Terminal 100 15,000.00
June 1, 1908 10,000 4% Seaboard Air Line 95-1/2 9,550.00
June 1, 1908 15,000 5% Western Un. Tel. 108-1/2 15,000.00
June 1, 1908 15,000 3-1/2% N. Y. Cen. 90 13,500.00
(Lake Shore Col)
June 1, 1908 15,000 5% Mo. Pacific 104-7/8 15,000.00
May 3, 1909 15,000 5% U. S. Steel 104 15,000.00
Aug. 6, 1909 1,500 U. S. Steel 106-7/8 1,500.00
July 27, 1910 1,000 U. S. Steel 102-1/2 1,000.00
------ ---------
102,500 99,812.50
Jan. 15, 1912 Union Trust Co. on deposit 187.50
-----------
$100,000.00
In addition to the above we have on hand at the Union Trust Company
$150 profit on the sale of the Missouri Pacific Bonds, which we have
carried to a special surplus account.
CARNEGIE FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT
=1911=
January 15, Balance $2,487.76
February 15, Int. N. Y. Central 262.50
March 1, Int. Missouri Pacific 375.00
March 1, Int. Seaboard Line 200.00
May 2, Int. U. S. Steel 437.50
May 2, Int. Cleveland Terminal 300.00
July 5, Int. Amer. Tel. & Tel. Co. 300.00
July 5, Int. Western Union Tel. Co. 375.00
August 9, Int. N. Y. Central 262.50
September 1, Int. Seaboard Line 200.00
September 1, Int. Missouri Pacific 375.00
November 1, Int. U. S. Steel 437.50
November 1, Int. Cleveland Terminal 300.00
December 31, Int. Union Trust Co. 54.33
=1912=
January 2, Int. Western Union Tel. Co. 375.00
January 2, Int. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co. 300.00 $7,042.09
-------- ---------
=Disbursements:=
=1911=
March 2, Carl B. Roden, Treas. $2,487.76
August 15, Carl B. Roden, Treas. 2,000.00
October 6, Carl B. Roden, Treas. 1,000.00
December 27, Rent Safe Deposit Co. 30.00
January 15, 1912 Cash on hand 1,524.33 $7,042.09
--------- ---------
ENDOWMENT FUND, PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT
=1911=
January 15, On hand, Bonds and Cash $7,111.84
April 1, Life membership Mary E. Hawley 25.00
April 1, Life membership Mary F. Isom 25.00
May 1, Life membership H. W. Craver 25.00
August 9, Life membership M. S. Dudgeon 25.00
August 28, Life membership F. K. Walter 25.00
October 4, Life membership R. G. Thwaites 25.00
November 1, Life membership R. B. Stern 25.00 $7,286.84
--------- ---------
=Invested as follows:=
=1908=
June 1, 2 U. S. Steel Bonds 98-1/2 $1,970.00
October 19, 2 U. S. Steel Bonds 102-5/8 2,000.00
November 5, 1-1/2 U. S. Steel Bonds 101 1,500.00
=1910=
July 27, 1-1/2 U. S. Steel Bonds 102-1/2 1,500.00
January 15, 1912 Cash on hand, Union
Trust Co. 316.84 $7,286.84
--------- ---------
ENDOWMENT FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT
=1911=
January 15, Cash on hand $448.41
May 2, Int. U. S. Steel 175.00
November 1, Int. U. S. Steel 175.00 $798.41
------- -------
=Disbursements:=
=1911=
February 15, C. B. Roden, Treas. $448.41
July 5, C. B. Roden, Treas. 175.00
January 15, 1912 Cash on hand 175.00 $798.41
COMMITTEE ON BOOKBINDING
During the year the special library edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, mentioned in last year's report, and at various times in
the library periodicals, was placed on the market under considerable
difficulty. As planned at first, three special library editions
were all to be bound in England and imported for libraries by the
publishers. Unfortunately, it was discovered after orders had been
taken that the publishers could not, under the copyright law, import
any copies, and notices to that effect were sent to libraries that had
ordered these editions. The publishers then found that the cloth bound
set, according to the A. L. A. specifications, could be manufactured
in this country and again librarians received communications from the
publishers. Owing to these various communications from the publishers,
together with notices from this committee, many librarians remained
without knowledge as to the real state of affairs.
At the present time the committee understands that the cloth bound
set, with special reinforcements, can be obtained directly from the
publishers in this country, and that sets bound by Mr. Chivers can be
obtained directly from him. Several complaints of the new bindings have
come to the committee, but upon investigation, it was found in every
case that the complaints were due to imperfect or torn pages and not
to defective binding. Undoubtedly many imperfect sheets were passed in
the first copies that were sold. We have reason to believe, however,
that later sets have been more carefully collated. Complaints about
the cloth binding have also been received from large libraries. As a
matter of fact this edition was not intended for large libraries. From
the beginning it has been stated that the cloth edition was for the use
of small libraries. Large libraries were expected to get one of the
leather editions.
It is quite evident that publishers are beginning to realize that good
binding, especially of reference books, is an asset of considerable
value when dealing with libraries. During the year the committee has
several times been called upon for specifications and suggestions for
the binding of large reference books. Perhaps the most noteworthy
instance was that of the Century Company, which submitted samples of
binding for the new edition of the Century Dictionary. The Century
Company and the J. F. Tapley Company, of New York, which did the
binding, adopted various methods of strengthening the volumes, and
the samples submitted included not only all of the committee's
specifications, but several others. The samples were so good and the
honesty of purpose of the Century Company and the J. F. Tapley Company
so evident that the committee felt no hesitation in stating that the
result was the best piece of commercial (machine bound) binding ever
brought to its attention. Visits of two members of the committee to
the bindery showed that the specifications in every case were being
lived up to. The committee, furthermore, obtained full description and
specifications of this binding, which, with certain modifications, can
be used as a standard for this kind of work.
Specifications for strong binding were also submitted to H. W. Wilson
Company for the binding of the new volume of U. S. Catalog; to Robert
Glasgow, of Toronto, for a set entitled "Makers of Canada"; and to the
Review of Reviews Company for the "Photographic history of the Civil
war." The specifications, as submitted, were adopted by the Robert
Glasgow Co., and the Review of Reviews Co. The H. W. Wilson Co. adopted
them with some slight modifications which met with the approval of the
committee.
So far as the reinforcing of fiction and juvenile books by publishers
is concerned, matters stand about the same as they have been for
the past two years. The plan has practically been dropped by all
publishers. In a few cases, books which the publishers have discovered
are in constant demand by libraries, are kept in stock in special
binding. Examples of these are the Little Cousin Series, published by
Page, and the Peter Rabbit Series, by Warne. The number of titles of
such books is very few.
It must not be supposed, however, that because the publishers have
stopped doing this, such books are unobtainable. On the contrary, it
is easier to get reinforced publishers' covers than ever before, and
with the surety that the work is well done, which was not always the
case when they were bound by the publishers. Those who wish to use the
attractive publishers' covers, and at the same time have a book which
will outlast the period of extreme popularity, can do so by ordering
from one of the several firms which do work of this kind. In most
cases the increased cost is greater than was the case when the books
were done by the publishers, but the work is far better done and in
the opinion of the committee the increased value more than compensates
for the increased cost. Furthermore, the books are not injured for
rebinding. In fact, in some cases the sewing of the book is designed to
last during its lifetime. When the first cover wears out, all that is
necessary is to re-case it.
While discussing the question of reinforced bindings it may not be
amiss again to call attention to the special binding of the Everyman's
Library. Experience in the use of these volumes only emphasizes their
serviceability, attractiveness and cheapness. Whenever possible all
replacements should be made from this collection.
During the year the publishers of two periodicals, Everybody's and
World's Work, adopted a scheme of binding which necessitated cutting
off the backs of signatures. It was apparent at once that this scheme
made it necessary for libraries which bound these periodicals to have
them overcast in sewing. Since few binders understand the proper
method of oversewing and moreover generally charge extra for it, many
libraries were put to much inconvenience and added expense. Protests
from this committee to the publishers were promptly heeded, and as a
result all libraries now receive the regular edition with folded sheets.
The correspondence of the committee has largely increased. Inquiries
are frequently received from publishers, from binders and from
librarians. Inquiries from librarians cover all phases of binding, and
not infrequently the committee is asked for opinions as to the work of
certain binders. In answering these questions about individual binding
the committee has been at a disadvantage, because, except in the case
of a very few binders, it has no definite knowledge of their work. To
remedy this difficulty the committee has, with some hesitation, planned
to establish a collection which shall include samples of the work of
all binders which make a specialty of library binding. These samples
are to be four in number and will show methods of binding fiction,
juvenile books and periodicals. In addition to these samples binders
are asked to answer 24 questions which cover methods, materials, and
prices. It is hoped that, with these samples and answers to these
questions, the committee will be in a position to form more definite
opinions about the work of any binder, and librarians who ask for
opinions will receive answers based on actual knowledge.
The scheme is yet in its infancy but already samples have been received
from several binders, and letters from some of them express approval.
The committee realizes that good binding may be done in several ways,
and while members of the committee may have individual preferences,
every effort will be made to give impartial opinions. Certainly no
binder who does good work need fear unjust criticism. Librarians can
help in this work by,
1. Sending names of library binders.
2. Urging binders to comply with the requests of the committee.
3. Asking for opinions when the collection is complete.
In view of the facts outlined above, it seems reasonable to suppose
that one of the committee's most valuable functions is to act in an
advisory capacity, not only to librarians, but to publishers and
binders. For this reason all librarians are urged to submit their
binding problems to the committee.
=Magazine Binders=
During the year a number of varieties of magazine binders have been
examined. Several firms failed to respond to a request for a sample
or did so too late. Others doubtless exist of which the committee has
not heard. The result of study of this subject during the past three
years, aided by the chapter dealing with it in Dana's "Book binding for
libraries," Edition 2, is here set forth.
Of course no one binder is best for all libraries or for all
requirements of one library. Each must decide for itself by noting the
condition of its magazines when they are ready for the bindery whether
any binder at all is needed. A library which has no money to spend on
the more durable covers or dislikes them for any reason may use one
of the methods described in the chapter in Dana referred to above. A
method, used to some extent by the Brooklyn public library, consists,
in brief, of putting on a brown paper cover and securing it by paste or
brass staples to a bunch of advertising pages at front and back.
The best inexpensive binder is that known as the "Springfield." It
can be made in any bindery, consisting simply of a cover with a stiff
strip at the back in which are three eyelet holes, one at each end and
one in the middle. The magazine is laced in with tape or shoe string.
This method damages the magazine much less than others similar, some of
which require drilling holes through from side to side. In principle
the binder made by Cedric Chivers, Brooklyn, N. Y., is a more durable
form of the Springfield and is heartily recommended.
Some libraries desire a binder from which a magazine cannot readily be
stolen. This is a matter of local opinion. The best for this purpose
appear to be the new "Bull dog" binder just put on the market by
Gaylord Brothers, Syracuse, N. Y., and the "Buchan" binder mentioned by
Mr. Dana. All such binders are heavy, clumsy, and slow in operation.
For those magazines deceitfully put together without sewing or staples
the "Bull dog" and the "Buchan" binder will both give satisfaction.
Among a multitude of other binders the best type is that whose
mechanism consists of a stout rod firmly fastened though playing free
at one end, and fastened at the other by a simple catch. Many built on
this principle are too clumsy. A few are needlessly flimsy. Of those
examined the best are the following:--
"Universal" made by J. J. Ralek, New York City.
"A. L. B." made by American Library Bindery, Philadelphia.
"Torsion" made by Barrett Bindery Co., Chicago.
For covering binders various materials have been used. For long service
and good appearance we recommend pig skin back and keratol sides. Cow
hide and buckram are cheaper and will not last as long. Canvas is ill
suited for this purpose.
Respectfully submitted,
A. L. BAILEY, Chairman.
ROSE G. MURRAY,
N. L. GOODRICH,
Committee.
COMMITTEE ON BOOK BUYING
During the past year the A. L. A. Committee on Book buying has been
negotiating with a Committee of the American Booksellers' Association
with a view to bringing about a better understanding between the
booksellers and the libraries.
Upon the request of the Committee of the Booksellers' Association, your
committee made a statement of the situation, which was delivered to
them in October, 1911. The booksellers' committee prepared a reply to
this statement, which was delivered to your committee in April, 1912.
A meeting of the two committees was held on Thursday, May 6th, 1912, in
Cleveland, but it was without any definite result. It was agreed that
the two committees report progress to their respective associations and
that they submit to their executive committee the statement and reply
referred to, with a report upon the present situation and to ask to be
allowed to continue the negotiations if the executive committee thought
it wise to do so.
WALTER L. BROWN, Chairman,
C. B. RODEN,
C. H. BROWN.
COMMITTEE ON CO-ORDINATION
The following report is the result, in part, of a question referred to
the Committee on Co-ordination by a meeting at the Pasadena conference.
The question was, Whether libraries are justified in making a moderate
charge in connection with every volume lent, sufficient in the long
run, to cover the administrative expense involved in looking up and
sending the volume asked for: not as payment for the use of the book,
but to relieve the lender of an undue burden of expense, unavoidably
attendant upon the system of lending with some freedom to other
libraries.
In the opinion of the committee this question could be most profitably
discussed only in connection with the whole subject of inter-library
loans. It is clear, both from past and present developments, and from
the direction these developments are taking that inter-library loans
are, as yet, merely in their infancy. It is clear, too, that such
loans increase the efficiency of libraries which participate in them.
Finally, it is evident that there is a marked tendency not simply
to multiply library loans, but to enlarge the field within which it
is considered appropriate to effect them--taking "field" both in a
geographical sense, and as relating to different classes of borrowers.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that additional machinery and new
methods should be required, and that some at least, should already have
been devised. Also, it is safe to predict that this growth in machinery
and in methods will continue.
Therefore, the Committee on Co-ordination has thought that it might
be helpful, at the present time, to attempt a discussion (which will
partake of the character of a symposium) in regard to the purpose and
scope of inter-library loans. It is hoped that, as a result of this
and subsequent discussion, it may become practicable to formulate some
general rules for the conduct of inter-library loans. If a code of such
rules could be framed, even granting that the provisions would, of
course, bind no library against its will, one more step would yet have
been taken in the direction of systematizing and extending a process
which has already produced excellent results, and bids fair in the near
future, to modify library practice in important particulars.
While the purpose of inter-library loans is uniform in the main, it
varies to some extent, with the nature and duties of the participating
libraries.
Neglecting minor differences, such libraries fall into two groups:
Reference libraries, including libraries of colleges and universities;
and libraries whose work is of a more popular character; or, to state
the matter in terms of readers: Libraries, most of whose readers are
"serious," and libraries, some, at least, of whose readers are not so
very serious.
This distinction is not a sharp one, yet it produces wide divergence
in the point of view, and in the practice of these two classes of
libraries. A comparison of the third contribution to this symposium
with the first and second will make this matter evident. Both points
of view are accurate, and varieties of practice, provided only that
they exist among the members of a comprehensive system, are the best
guarantees of the ultimate achievement of great results.
C. H. GOULD,
Chairman.
I.
The purpose of inter-library loans is to make available the unusual
material in one library to an enquirer who cannot visit it in person
and does not find available the identical material in some institution
nearer at hand or which has a nearer constitutional duty to serve
him. The service to him must be subject to the convenience of the
constituency of the lending library and can be expected only if the
risk and expense of it shall be met by the borrowing library in his
behalf.
1. It is not to be expected therefore that a library will lend either
(1) books which if not in the applicant library, are within the
ordinary duty of the latter to supply; or (2) books in constant use
among its own readers; or (3) books for the general reader as against
the investigator.
2. It is not to be expected that material will be sought the
transportation of which, even with the best precautions, involves a
necessary injury,--as for instance, by strain,--or a contingent injury
in its use outside of the walls of the institution owning it by persons
over whose use it has no supervision. A stipulation for its use within
the walls of the borrowing library, while entirely reasonable, may not
cover the case completely, as the responsibility for the care of the
material cannot, by a mere stipulation for care, be transferred from
the owning to the borrowing library.
3. Subject to 2, the important service in inter-library loans being to
make generally available the unusual book for the unusual need of the
serious investigator, the fact that the book needed is either rare, or
part of a set which may be marred by the loss of a single volume, or
that it is even unique, as for instance a manuscript, ought not to be
conclusive against the loan, for it is just through such material that
the inter-library loans may render their most important service.
4. The applicant library should refrain from applying (a) for ordinary
books which are within its constitutional duty to supply to its
immediate readers, or (b) for unusual books requested for a purpose
which it knows to be trivial, or by a person of whose discretion and
seriousness it is not assured, or (c) for books which, within the
legitimate provisions of a loan are to be had from some institution
nearer at hand, or having a nearer constitutional duty to it and to the
constituency which it serves, or (d) for books which upon their face
must be in constant use in any library possessing them.
5. The lending library may reasonably stipulate: (a) That the entire
cost of the service shall be met by the borrowing library, and may
look to this library alone as responsible both for the safety and
prompt return of the material and for the replacement of the material
if lost or damaged, and (b) it may reasonably include as part of the
expense: (1) packing; (2) carriage; (3) insurance; (4) the fraction,
if estimable, which the particular loan should bear of the expense of
administering the service. (c) As to the duration of the loan: that
it shall not exceed the period of its local loans, with an allowance
added for the transit both ways; and the lender may reasonably couple
with this a right of summary recall. It may also impose penalties for
delays in returning material, or for carelessness in its use or in
repacking. It may of course reserve the right to decline further loans
to a library which has shown indifference in these regards, or whose
applications have been incessantly frivolous. (d) It may of course
limit the number of volumes lent to any one library or for the use of
any one investigator at any one time. (e) It may, without prejudicing
applications from other institutions, deny the application of any
particular library, because of lack of assurance as to the safety or
intelligent use of the material if lent. Its decisions in this regard
resting often upon the impressions of a general experience, ought to be
unembarrassed. It should not therefore be called upon to explain them.
HERBERT PUTNAM.
II
=A statement of general policy in regard to inter-library loans=
The primary purpose of inter-library loans is the promotion of
scholarship by placing books not commonly accessible and not in use in
one library, temporarily at the service of a scholar who has access
to some other library. It should not be allowed to interfere with the
reasonable and customary use of books by home readers, and the extent
to which sending can be carried depends on the local conditions of
the lending library, the importance of the service to be rendered, the
character of the books desired, the distance to which they are to be
sent, and a number of other circumstances.
The larger university libraries, having large numbers of professors,
advanced students and other professional scholars immediately dependent
on them, may find it necessary to restrict the scope of their loans in
justice to their local constituency, while others may rightly extend
the system beyond the limits indicated, so as to meet the wants of
readers in public libraries, teachers in high schools, and others.
Libraries should not be expected to lend text-books for general class
use, popular manuals or books for the general reader, inexpensive books
and those which can easily be procured through the book-trade, books
to assist in school or college debates, or books for ordinary purposes
of school or undergraduate study. Neither should they lend books which
are likely to be in frequent demand by their own readers, or books
which they do not lend at home on the ground that they ought always to
be accessible on the shelves. In this respect practice will naturally
differ widely, one library being ready to lend books which another
would consider it necessary to keep always at hand.
Caution should be exercised in lending volumes of newspapers,
periodicals or society transactions and parts of expensive sets, since
such volumes, if lost, are disproportionately expensive and sometimes
practically impossible to replace. Moreover, periodicals and society
publications are often unexpectedly wanted for the purpose of verifying
references, etc., and students may justly expect that they will always
be accessible with a minimum of delay.
The borrowing library should bear the expense of transportation both
ways, and additional charges, if required, for the insurance of
specially valuable books. It should be financially responsible for the
replacement of books lost or injured in transit.
Borrowing libraries should take pains to borrow from sources nearest at
hand or most naturally under obligation to lend.
Titles of books wanted should be given with all practicable precision,
both to insure getting the very thing asked for and to make the labor
of finding the book as light as possible for the lending library.
Applications for loans should always be made through the librarian of
the borrowing library and not directly by the professor or student
for whose advantage the loan is desired. If books are lent on direct
request of the individual, not transmitted through the library with
which he is associated, this library cannot be held responsible for
the prompt and safe return of the books or for replacing them if lost
in transit. Librarians are therefore justified in declining to lend on
direct request and in insisting that application must be made through
the librarian.
A library is justified in placing a limit on the number of
volumes which it may be expected to lend at one time to a single
institution--say five or ten volumes.
Loans should be made for a definite period, but the length of this
period naturally varies with the occasion. The period begins with the
despatch of the book from the lending library and ends with the day on
or before which the book should be sent off by the borrowing library.
If an extension of time is desired, it should be asked for long enough
in advance of the book's being due to enable an answer to be received.
Books may always be recalled by the lending library in advance of the
date originally named if needed for the reasonable service of its home
readers.
In lending rare books, large volumes, portfolios of plates, etc., a
library may be expected to insist that they must be used only within
the building of the borrowing library. In some cases, it may be
advisable to put the same restriction on all books lent.
Fines may properly be charged and collected for books detained beyond
the allotted time without request for extension. Repeated failure
to return books promptly, or negligence in packing them safely is
sufficient ground for declining to make further loans. When books
are sent out or returned, separate notice of the fact should be
sent by mail, stating date of shipment, mode of conveyance, etc. It
is recommended that blank forms prepared for this purpose be used.
Applications for loans may also most conveniently be made on suitable
blanks.
Libraries that are called upon for frequent loans are justified
in making a moderate charge in connection with every volume lent,
sufficient in the long run to cover the administrative expense involved
in looking up and sending off volumes asked for. This charge is not to
be considered as a payment for the use of the book, but is intended
simply to relieve the lending library of an undue burden of expense
unavoidably attendant upon the system of lending with some freedom to
other libraries.
It is recommended that libraries arrange so that the services of some
competent person may be regularly available at a moderate charge for
looking up information, verifying references, etc., when the time and
labor involved in such inquiries seem to exceed what may reasonably
be demanded of the library staff. The employment of such a person to
obtain specific information will also occasionally serve in place of
making a loan.
It is also suggested that the possession of a cameragraph, for making
rotary bromide prints, or other similar device by which facsimile
copies can be made inexpensively, would often enable a library to send
a satisfactory copy of portions of a rare book or manuscript in place
of lending the original.
WILLIAM COOLIDGE LANE.
III
=Inter-library loans=
I. Purpose.
(1) Prompt service. (a) The book, if purchased, might have to come from
a greater distance and so cause delay. (b) The book, if out of print,
would take time to find or might not be possible for an agent to locate
for a very long time, if at all.
(2) Economical service. (a) The library that loans the book. Rather
than have a book, that has cost time and money, stand idle on the
shelves, the library owning it would be better repaid for the
expenditure if the book were used by more people. (b) The library that
borrows the book. Rather than purchase a book which would seldom be
requested, it would be better to borrow it, and use one's funds and
time and shelf room for books that would be in constant demand. For
example: take two special lines of library service here in California
at the present time.
(1) Books for the blind. Aside from a small collection in the San
Francisco reading room and library for the blind for the local blind,
and the small collection for the students in the Berkeley California
institute for the education of the blind and the deaf, the state
library has almost all the books and magazines used by the blind of the
state. It would not be economical for other libraries or individuals
to undertake to carry on this work, so the state library discourages
anyone else buying such books and undertakes to furnish them to
anyone needing them. If many want to read certain periodicals they
are duplicated several times and sent in order to the various blind
borrowers.
(2) Medical books and periodicals. The Lane medical library in San
Francisco and the Barlow medical library in Los Angeles have perhaps
the best medical collections in the state. The state library of course
has and is building up a collection in this line for the use of the
whole state, but it often borrows from the first two mentioned.
II. Scope.
There will be no limit, apparently, to the scope of inter-library loans
in California. Each library at present makes an effort to loan anything
asked of it by any other library. For example, the state library buys
no fiction, but from the union catalogs of the county free libraries
which is located at the state library, it is possible to tell where
a certain book is located and to direct one to the other for a rush
request of fiction.
Rare books are loaned by library to library and used by the borrower at
the library.
Newspapers it is not necessary now to loan as by cameragraphing the
needed extract from them, the expense, wear and tear, and risk of such
loans are avoided. The same applies to articles in unbound or bound
periodicals. Cameragraphing an article in a periodical also makes
unnecessary the duplicating of certain periodicals because of some
especially needed article. Cameragraphing is also economical in that it
keeps the files in the library and so more material is always available
for reference use.
Even reference books, however, are loaned or borrowed frequently to
meet certain needs. So the scope is of necessity a matter of judgment
of the particular case in question.
III. Extent of borrower's financial responsibility.
When a library borrows, it takes the financial responsibility, in case
of loss or injury, and if the borrower is an individual, he takes it.
The State library pays transportation on all loans to and from the
county free libraries, and the county free library on all loans within
the county. Loans to other libraries are usually paid--sending charge
by the library sending the book and returning charge by the library
returning the book.
The expense of administering the service of inter-library loans is not
being considered here in California, and we believe that question will
never arise here, no matter how great the demands on each other grow to
be.
The spirit of co-operation is growing so rapidly here that the rivalry
seems to be more who has and can give more rather than who can take
more.
IV. Order in which libraries should be applied to for a loan.
There is no order here in California except that almost all libraries
apply first to the State library and the State library being naturally
the best informed on the special lines of strength in the various
libraries in California, can request the library that is either known
to have it or is likely to have it, to forward it to the library
needing it. This is already possible for periodical files as there is
at the State library a union list of periodical files in California
libraries. Periodicals which are not in any California library, are
borrowed with least loss of time, from the Library of Congress or
Surgeon General's library.
V. Average duration of loans.
It would not be economical to plan a time limit on loans, as usually
the library requesting it states the time the book will be needed and
it is, if possible, loaned for that period. As soon as the library
borrowing it is through with it, even if sooner than the time it
expected to need it, the book is returned. Any book must of necessity
be subject to recall by the library loaning it. There cannot well be
a limit to the number of volumes loaned at any one time. That would
naturally depend upon the need. No fines or other penalties for
negligence in returning loans are necessary where there is a spirit of
perfect co-operation, as librarians all understand the necessity of
system, and in California at least, show great consideration for each
other.
VI. Forms of application for loans; notice of shipment, etc.
The forms used by the State library and county free libraries in
California have been found to be perfectly satisfactory. Requests are
sent in to the State library in duplicate. One is returned with the
disposition made of it written on it and the duplicate is kept on file
as a record at the State library. If not in the State library a similar
duplicated request is sent to some other library.
VII. Inter-library loans in California.
We in California find that a request is never refused and that
requesting such loans in itself makes a library proud of its strength
and of its place in the system and builds up in this way a strong
feeling for co-operation.
The rules to be adopted for inter-library loans in California will be
those that experience shows are necessary, and are likely to give the
best results for California conditions.
J. L. GILLIS.
COMMITTEE ON CO-OPERATION WITH THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
The Committee on Co-operation with the National Education Association
is in a position to report that an appointment has been made by
the executive board of the National Education Association of a
representative of the American Library Association to speak at the
third general session of its meeting in Chicago on the place of the
library in educational movements. The committee feels that this
recognition of the work of the library on the part of the National
Education Association is a decided victory, as for many years the
authorities of the National Education Association have courteously but
constantly turned away from the request made by the American Library
Association committee for a representative on their program.
A selection was made of Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick, librarian of the St.
Louis public library, to present the library cause before the National
Education Association. It is needless to add with full assurance, that
the matter is safe in his hands.
At the invitation of the president of the library department of the
National Education Association, Mr. E. W. Gaillard of New York, the
committee has endeavored as best it could in the short time allowed,
owing to the lateness of the invitation, to make an exhibit of American
Library Association material, booklists and material illustrative of
the relations between libraries and schools, to be in place at the
National Education Association meeting to be held in Chicago.
It seems, therefore, that the work of the past year is one that should
afford satisfaction in the recognition that the American Library
Association has received from the National Education Association.
President George E. Vincent, of the University of Minnesota, who will
deliver an address at the Ottawa conference, at the invitation of the
American Library Association program committee, has been invited to
present the official greetings of the National Education Association to
the American Library Association.
The committee through its chairman has advised with several groups of
school librarians, but it has been the policy to confine action to
affairs in which the national organizations as individual units were
concerned.
MARY EILEEN AHERN, Chairman,
GENEVIEVE M. WALTON,
IRENE WARREN,
GEORGE H. LOCKE,
J. C. DANA.
The PRESIDENT: The next report is that of the committee on catalog
rules for small libraries.
The SECRETARY: The chairman of this committee, Miss Theresa Hitchler,
wrote me that she hoped to make a report through some other member of
the committee, and that it was the hope of the committee to have that
work finished by fall.
The PRESIDENT: Then the chair will accept that as a report of
information.
Adjourned.
SECOND GENERAL SESSION
(Russell Theatre, Friday, June 28, 9:30 a. m.)
First Vice-President Henry E. Legler presided.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: It has always been a moot question as to
what vice-presidents were for. Mrs. Elmendorf has undertaken the
very doubtful experiment of endeavoring to find out, and so she has
designated the respective vice-presidents in their order to preside
over the meetings of the conference.
We shall reverse the order of the program and call for the committee
reports first.
The following reports were presented and received, all having been
previously printed, with the exception of the supplement to the report
of the committee on library administration and that on work with the
blind. The committee on international relations stated that they had no
report to make.
COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL AND STATE RELATIONS
Your committee's chief activity has been along the line of a parcels
post, as we have felt that was the most feasible measure for obtaining
lower postal rates. The chairman of the committee had personal
interviews with the chairmen of the House and Senate committees on Post
Office, and filed with the latter a formal endorsement of the parcels
post, as well as the resolution looking in that direction, passed by
the Council at its meeting in January last. The committee recommends
that the continuance of this advocacy be authorized by the association.
We also recommend that the association endorse a movement for the
better safeguarding of the national archives and rendering them
accessible to students, feeling that the preservation of these
governmental records is one of considerable importance, and one in
which librarians have an especial interest, inasmuch as they have under
their care manuscripts as well as printed books.
The attention of depository libraries is called to the report of
Senator Smoot, on the revision of printing laws (62nd Congress, second
session. Report 414, p. 33 and following) which discusses the proposed
amendments to the laws with reference to depository libraries.
BERNARD C. STEINER.
COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION
Your committee has not been active during the whole year, the present
chairman having been appointed to fill a vacancy. What it has done
has been in the way of a small beginning toward a general survey of
methods in public libraries, which it is hoped may be carried forward
to completion in future years.
The scientific position that the first thing to do, in making an
investigation, is to find out the facts, has only recently been taken
in work of this kind. It has generally been assumed by those who have
desired to better conditions of any sort that the existing conditions
were well known to all. The fact is that no one person or group of
persons is in a position to know all the conditions thoroughly and that
the elementary task of ascertaining them and stating them is usually
by no means easy. It is now generally recognized that we must have
a Survey--an ascertainment and plain statement of the facts as they
are--as a preliminary to action or even to discussion.
It has seemed to your committee that the general feeling, shared by
the educational and industrial worlds, that methods are not always
efficiently adjusted to aims should find some place also in the
library. We are spending large sums of public money, and investigations
by "economy committees," "efficiency bureaus" and the like are
taking place all around us. It will be well for us to take a step in
advance of these and get for ourselves some sort of a birds-eye view
of our work, from the standpoint of its possible lack of complete
efficiency--adaptation of end to aim. In order to do this we must first
have a survey, which we conceive to involve in this case a statement of
just what libraries are trying to do and just how, in some minuteness
of detail, they are trying to do it. Comparison and discussion of
methods will naturally follow later.
The method of taking up this matter was suggested by some very
preliminary work done in the St. Louis public library. The head of each
of the various branches and departments was asked to make a detailed
written list of the various operations performed by the assistants in
that particular department, dividing them into purely mechanical acts
and those involving some thought or judgment. This in itself proved to
be an interesting task and both information and stimulation resulted
from it. Certain operations, common to the largest number of kinds of
work, were then selected and tests were made, involving both speed of
performance and efficiency of result. From a large number of such tests
it is expected that some standardization of operations may result, or
at any rate the cutting out of useless details and the saving of time
for needed extensions of work. The object of an investigation of this
kind is of course not to discover ways of making assistants work harder
and faster but to find out whether the same amount of work, or more of
it, may not be done with less effort.
To extend this bit of experimental work, which has not progressed
beyond its first steps, to all the libraries of the United States is
of course impossible without modification. Your committee has not the
machinery to handle detailed lists of operations from thousands of
different libraries. Fortunately it is easy to select operations that
are common to very large numbers of libraries of divers sizes and kinds
and in all parts of the country. As examples of such operations, and
as a small beginning, we selected those of accessioning, charging and
discharging, and counting issue. Even with a narrowing of the field
to two operations, however, it was impossible to investigate these in
all our libraries, or even in a large number. After a discussion by
correspondence, revealing some difference of opinion, we decided to
select about twenty-five libraries, as representative as possible of
different sizes, different institutions and different localities. The
list as finally made up was as follows:--
Public Libraries
New York
St. Louis
Pratt Institute
East Orange, N. J.
Atlanta, Ga.
State Libraries
New York
Iowa
California
Connecticut
Virginia
University Libraries
Harvard
Syracuse
Oberlin
Kansas University
Shurtleff College
Alton, Ill.
Trinity College
Hartford, Conn.
Tulane University
New Orleans, La.
Reference Libraries
Grosvenor, Buffalo.
Newberry, Chicago.
Subscription Libraries
Mercantile, N. Y.
Athenaeum, Boston.
Mercantile, St. Louis.
Special Libraries
Bar Association, N. Y.
Academy of Medicine, N. Y.
Engineering societies, N. Y.
John Crerar, Chicago.
To the librarians of each of these libraries was then sent the
following letter:--
To the Librarian:--
The Committee on Library Administration of the A. L. A. is
beginning a survey of simple operations common to all sorts of
libraries, especially with a view to finding out whether there
is much diversity of detail in them, and ultimately of noting
particular methods that seem likely to result in time-saving or in
better results. For the moment, however, a mere survey, involving
a detailed description of the method of performing certain kinds
of work is all that is aimed at. The Committee has selected 26
libraries of very different sizes and types, and yours is one of
these. If you are willing to co-operate, will you kindly send
at once to the chairman a description, in as minute detail as
possible, of the following operations:
Accessioning
The counting of issue
The charging of books
The discharging of books
Please describe each step of these operations seriatim and in
detail, not omitting such as are purely mechanical, and noting
points where different assistants would be apt to act in different
ways. A description of the operation of accessioning in the New
York public library (Reference department) is enclosed as a sample.
If you can not do this, please notify us immediately, that another
library may be put on the list in your place.
Yours truly,
ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chairman,
HARRY M. LYDENBERG,
ETHEL F. McCOLLOUGH,
A. L. A. Com. on Administration.
Sooner or later we obtained the desired data from 20 of the 26
libraries to which this letter was sent. Only one, the Grosvenor
Library of Buffalo, returned no answer. Five declined on various
grounds. The California State library wrote to us: "We do not feel
satisfied with our present arrangements and do not believe we are
in a position to offer any suggestions that would be of service in
connection with this investigation." The Mercantile library of New York
wrote: "We regret that we find ourselves unable to co-operate with
your committee in this undertaking." The librarian of Trinity college,
Hartford, writes that "with the exception of student assistants the
librarian is the entire staff." The senior regent of Shurtleff college,
Alton, Ill., writes: "Our building is not yet complete and in the
management of the old, we are so nearly without a system that I hardly
feel it worth while to try to reply to these questions." The librarian
of the New York Engineering Societies writes: "This library * * * has
no charging system. Its system of accessioning will be abandoned as
soon as possible. I suggest that you enter another library on your
list."
Replies such as these seem to imply a misconception of the nature and
purposes of a survey. Our object is to ascertain facts, not to gather a
selected number of ideal cases.
For these five libraries the following were substituted:
Westminster College, Fulton, Mo.
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
Washington State Library.
New York Society Library.
Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.
These furnished that data for which we asked, with the exception of the
Washington State library, which declined. We have material, therefore,
from 24 libraries altogether.
The last of this body of data comes to hand just as this preliminary
report goes to press, but it is being digested and tabulated and
some of the results, at least, will be ready for the Ottawa meeting,
although there will not be time for any study of these results or for
recommendations based thereon.
The reports from the various libraries will be on file at headquarters
at Ottawa and will be accessible to all members of the association who
desire to consult them.
Regarding the question of the counting of circulation through traveling
libraries, deposits and the like, which has been referred to your
committee, we beg to report as follows:--
The sending of books from a library to a school, a club, or some other
place where they are to be used or circulated may be regarded in two
ways by librarians. It may be held that the sending of the books from
the library is itself an act of circulation or that the place to which
they are sent for use or distribution is a temporary station of the
library, and that sending books thereto is no more circulation than
if they were sent to a library branch or delivery station. Obviously,
if the former view is accepted, no use that is made of the book after
it reaches the station can be recorded by the library. When we have
lent a book to a reader we do not inquire how many persons in the
family use it or whether a neighbor borrows it. The library borrower
is responsible for it and it simply counts as one in the issue. But if
the place to which it goes is to be treated as a station, then the use
of the book at or from that station is part of the library record. If
it is used in the school, club, or other place where it is deposited,
such use is not circulation, however, but hall or library use, as if it
had been used in a branch library. If it is issued from the station for
home use, such issues, and every such issue, is properly counted with
the circulation.
It seems to your committee that the second of these alternatives is
the one that should be recognized, both from theoretical and practical
reasons. The sending of a collection of books to a place where it is
to be used resembles much more closely the temporary transfer of such
collection to a branch than it does ordinary circulation. Practically
also, it is desirable to take account of whatever use is made of the
books in such places and logically this can be done only on the second
theory.
On neither of the theories is it allowable to count the original
sending as one issue and then to count or estimate issues from the
station; or to count uses in the station as home issues.
Some libraries report that they are unable to secure proper statistics
of use at the station and that they must therefore either count the
original issue or guess at the use in some way, or fail to report it at
all. In cases of this kind, whatever is done should be made plain by a
note in connection with the published statistics.
To recapitulate, we recommend:
(1) That the act of sending books from the library to a station of
any kind, no matter how temporary, be not regarded as an issue to be
counted in the circulation, although separate account of books thus
sent should be kept and may be published if desired.
(2) That books used in the station be counted as hall or library use
and that books issued from the station be counted as home use.
(3) That where it is found necessary to depart from this method in any
way, such departure be plainly stated in a foot note to the published
report.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chairman.
ETHEL F. McCOLLOUGH,
HARRY M. LYDENBERG.
=(Supplementary Report)=
As a supplement to that portion of its report which has already been
presented, your committee now submits the following preliminary
tabulation and discussion of results. As is usual, in such
investigations, our questions have not been interpreted in the same way
by all to whom they have been addressed. Supplementary questions must
therefore be sent out in many cases and these must be framed separately
for each case. This will be the next work of this committee, should you
see fit to continue it as at present constituted.
Your committee trusts that it is clearly understood that it does not
desire to infer from the extremely small proportion of cases discussed
anything that should be properly inferred only from a large number of
cases. Facts are stated numerically, but no numerical conclusions are
or can be drawn. At this stage of the investigation no recommendations
at all can be made.
=Accessioning=
The material received varies so much in respect to the items reported
upon, and the fullness with which each step is treated, that a second
questionnaire must be sent out before there can be any uniformity of
tabulation. For example:--
One librarian writes us, "We keep no accession book for ordinary
circulating books, only for expensive art books" and fails to state
what items are entered.
Another reports that "the books are accessioned, each separate volume
being given a separate accession number" but does not say whether an
accession book is used or not.
Two librarians write that "the Standard A. L. A. Accession book is
used" and leave us to infer that every column is filled in.
And two assure us that the promised material will be sent in soon.
It is interesting to note, however, that only two libraries, the Boston
Athenaeum and the Forbes library, use the Bill Method of accessioning.
The other libraries all use an accession book, but differ widely in the
number of items entered; for example, one library enters only author,
title, source and price, and another has an accession book printed
for its own use, including columns for the following: Date of entry,
accession number, place of publication, publisher, date of book, size,
class, additions classified (including a column for each of the main
classes in the D. C. system, one for fiction, and one for juvenile
books), volumes bought, volumes received as gifts, periodicals bound,
pamphlets bound, the language of the book (4 separate columns marked
Eng. Ger. Fr. and Other), source, publisher's price, discount, net
price, binding, remarks.
The majority of libraries reporting, use the A. L. A. standard
accession book or the condensed form of the same.
=Libraries Using Book Method=
Atlanta.
Bar Association of N. Y.
East Orange.
Iowa State Library.
John Crerar Library.
Kansas State University.
Kings County Medical.
N. Y. City Circulating Department.
N. Y. City Reference Department.
N. Y. State Library.
N. Y. Society Library (accessions only expensive art books).
Newberry Library.
Oberlin College.
Pratt Institute Free Library.
St. Louis Mercantile Library.
St. Louis Public Library.
Syracuse University.
Tulane University.
Virginia State University.
Wesleyan University.
Westminster College.
=Libraries Using Bill Method=
Boston Athenaeum.
Forbes Library.
=Charging and Discharging=
The data contributed on this subject are so uneven and varying that any
accurate and minute comparison is impossible at present. The functions
that constitute a charge or discharge are variously regarded by
different libraries. The eighteen libraries forming the basis of this
study, with a note of their charging systems, may be roughly arranged
in the following groups:
=College or University Libraries=
Oberlin. Double file. Borrowers' file and book file under date.
Syracuse. Double file. Borrowers' file and book file under call-number.
University of Kansas. Double file. Borrowers' file and book file under
date.
Tulane. Single file. Book file under class.
Wesleyan. Double file. Borrowers' file under date and book file.
Westminster. Single file. Book file under date.
=Public or Circulating Libraries=
Boston Athenaeum (Subscription). Double record. Borrowers' file and
book record under date.
Carnegie Library of Atlanta. Newark System (no details).
East Orange Public Library. Newark System (many variations).
Forbes Library. Browne System.
New York Public Library. Newark System.
Pratt Institute Free Library. Newark System.
St. Louis Mercantile Library (subscription). Browne System.
St. Louis Public Library. Newark System.
=State Libraries=
Iowa State. Reference. (Uses temporary slip when a book is issued for
home use filed under date.)
Virginia State. Double file. Borrowers' file and book file by titles.
=Reference Libraries=
Newberry Library.
No attempt has been made to study the charge or discharge of books for
library use.
=Society Library=
Medical Society of King's County. Borrowers' record.
Reversing this arrangement and grouping under charging systems, we have:
=Newark System--6.=
Carnegie Library of Atlanta.
East Orange Public Library.
New York Public Library.
Pratt Institute Free Library.
St. Louis Public Library.
Syracuse University (modified).
=Browne System--2.=
Forbes Library.
St. Louis Mercantile Library.
=Double File--Borrower and Book--6.=
Boston Athenaeum.
Oberlin College.
Syracuse.
University of Kansas.
Virginia State Library.
Wesleyan University.
=Single File--Book File under Date or Class--3.=
Iowa State Library.
Tulane University.
Westminster College.
=Borrowers' Record--1.=
Medical Society of County of Kings.
It is evident from this tabulation that libraries of the same character
use the same systems--identical in their essentials but different in
detail. College libraries and those whose use corresponds to that
of a college library find with but two exceptions a double file
useful--one of borrower and one of books--the latter varying greatly in
arrangement, owing to the distinctions between students and faculty.
A résumé of the college and state systems studied follows:
=Iowa State.= When book is issued, assistant copies the call number
from the book plate upon a manila charge slip, then adds the name of
borrower and her date of loan. Charge slips are deposited temporarily
in a drawer, and next morning are arranged by call-number and filed
in the charging tray. There are no fines; books are issued subject to
call. The first of each month the tray is examined; all slips bearing a
date a month old are taken out, compared with the shelves to ascertain
if the books have been returned, and shelved without being discharged,
and with the shelf list, to verify the call number; at which time
the author and title are copied on the reverse side of slip. Notices
requesting the return of books are filled in with the author, title
and date of loan, and sent to borrowers. Date of notice is placed on
charge slips with colored pencil, and the slips refiled in tray. In
discharging books, the slips bearing corresponding call numbers are
taken from tray and destroyed.
=Oberlin College.= Charge. Book pocket contains two cards, one white,
one pink with author's name, title of book and call number and
accession number. Borrower signs name on both and leaves on desk.
Dating slip with date of issue is put in book pocket. Assistant stamps
both cards with date of issue--filing white cards by call number under
date and pink card alphabetically with borrower's card under borrower's
name. These are ultimately divided into two files, the "day file" and
the "long file," the latter including books drawn by professors and
others privileged to retain them more than two weeks. When book is
returned dating slip is taken out and saved for future use. Book is
checked off by finding book card in file and borrower's name is checked
from that. Pink card is then withdrawn from borrower's file.
=Syracuse University.= Borrower's cards are kept on file by serial
number. When a book is issued its call number is written on borrower's
card and date of issue stamped on it and on dating slip. Book card is
stamped with borrower's number and date of issue. Borrower's card is
filed under number and book card filed by call number. When book is
returned book is checked off, date on borrower's card stamped with date
of return and the card put in regular file of borrower's cards. (The
book card system itself seems to be the Newark).
=Tulane University.= Borrower makes out a temporary book card which is
filled out with the book data, his name and address and date and is
filed by class. When book is returned temporary book card is destroyed.
=University of Kansas.= Corresponds to Oberlin except that book card
filed with borrower's card is not signed or dated and that the single
file is by class. Has two files--one for students under date and one
for faculty under name. Books are discharged at students' leisure by
checking off.
=Virginia State.= Borrowers' file and book file of temporary book cards
alphabetically under title.
=Wesleyan.= When book is issued a manilla slip is written giving name
of borrower, call number, author and title. The date due is stamped on
dating slip in book. Slip is placed in box and next morning a second
slip is made from it giving call number first, then author, title
and name of borrower. Date due is then stamped on both cards. First
card (borrower's slips) are filed (by date if student, by name, if
professor). The other slips (book cards) are filed alphabetically under
author. Book is discharged by checking off--both slips being withdrawn
from issue and presumably destroyed.
=Westminster.= No students' cards. Permanent book card--stamped with
date and borrower's name. Date stamped on book pocket. Cards filed
under date. Assistant discharges at leisure by checking off.
Public or circulating libraries prefer the Newark or Browne system--the
majority the Newark:
=Boston Athenaeum.= Corresponds to Oberlin save that day of year
instead of day of month is used for dating. That one slip is filed in
borrowers' case with information relating to borrower's assessments,
etc., instead of with borrower's card, and that the single file is by
author. When book is returned date of return is stamped on book slips
when book is checked off.
=Carnegie Library of Atlanta.= Newark system, using slots in desk to
sort cards. No details of checking off.
=East Orange.= Newark system, using colored bookcards to distinguish
classes. Magazines and four weeks' books not stamped on reader's cards.
In children's room non-fiction not stamped on reader's card. Books
checked off near charging desk.
=Forbes Library.= Browne system. Borrower's pockets filed numerically
under each letter of alphabet in order of registration. Fiction and
non-fiction pockets kept in separate file. When book is issued borrower
gives his number by which his pocket is found. Book card is taken from
book pocket and put in borrower's pocket and date of return is stamped
on book pocket. Book record is kept by arranging under date, book
cards in pockets alphabetically under author and title. (Details of
information on book card not given). Book is discharged by withdrawing
book card from borrower's pocket and transferring to book pocket.
Recent books (last two years) are evidently discharged and shelved at
once. Others three times a day. Empty borrower's pockets are filed
throughout the day.
=New York Public.= Newark system. Book card has author's surname, title
of book, class number and accession number. Variously colored book
cards are used to indicate various classes. Assistant makes hurried
examination of book to be issued and copies borrower's card number
on book card and stamps date with dating pencil on reader's card,
book pocket and book card--the latter to be done at leisure if there
is a rush. Puts borrower's card in pocket and gives books to reader.
Book card is dropped in proper slot in desk (ten slots indicating the
ten classes). Book cards filed under date of issue by class author
and accession number. Book cards for foreign books are arranged
alphabetically after book cards in English. When book is discharged,
assistant checks off book comparing date of card with that of book,
examines book for damage and then cancels date on reader's card,
restoring card to reader. (Note. It hardly seems that this checking off
before cancelling date on reader's card can be done except in a very
slack hour, and must cause annoying delay to reader). Books are then
placed on truck to right of assistant, later revised and shelved.
System has many exceptions, one of which is to write reader's card
number on dating slip as well as book card. Others are the writing
of Special or Sp. on book card, opposite card number to indicate the
privilege of extended time to special cardholder, as well as on dating
slip. In this case, call number or accession number is written on card
(presumably reader's card) and the use of branch initial on reader's
card to show card issued from a branch other than that from which book
is borrowed.
This library uses a reader's receipt file for books returned without
card--a slip giving name, address, card number, class number, date of
issue and return. This system with variations is also in use in the St.
Louis public library (called the "write-ups") and also in the Pratt
Institute free library and supposedly many others.
=Pratt Institute Free Library.= Newark System. Uses different ink pads
for fiction and non-fiction, and dating pencils. Puts book cards into
slots in desk; fiction, non-fiction and teachers. Stamps dates first
and then writes card number. Uses different ink pad for discharging.
Charging and discharging (including checking off done at same desk)
done by same assistant except in a rush hour. Checking off however is
done at assistant's leisure--that is, the reader's card is stamped off
before book card is found. Book cards are filed by class under date.
Keeps a separate renewal file.
=St. Louis Mercantile Library.= Browne system, with separate reader's
identification card, seldom used. Uses blue reader's pocket for
fiction, salmon color for non-fiction, and manilla pockets for pay
duplicates. Book card corresponds in color, except in case of regular
books issued as extras. Book card has Cutter class number, author and
title. Assistant stamps date due on dating slip and book card which
is placed in reader's pocket. Pockets are put temporarily in tray
near issue desk and later filed by class, under date due. Books are
discharged by charging assistant at charging desk, by taking book card
from pocket and slipping it into book. Empty reader's pockets are
constantly being filed in regular reader's file.
=St. Louis Public Library.= Newark system. Different colored ink-pads
for seven day and fourteen day books and for discharging. Reader's
number first written on bookcard, then book card, dating slip and
reader's card stamped. Reading-room books charged on slips filled out
by reader. Two books generally are issued on one card but "Additional
Books" stamped on reader's card entitles cardholder to a greater number
of volumes, of non-fiction, usually six. This privilege is granted to
educators, social workers and others engaged in serious study, at the
discretion of the head of the circulation department.
Discharging is done at a separate desk in the usual way, receipts being
filed for books returned without reader's card. Books are placed on a
truck and checked off by a special assistant.
=Society Library=
=The Medical Society of the County of Kings=--Uses a borrower's
receipt, giving author, title, accession number and borrower's
signature. These receipts are filed by borrower's name. When book is
returned, it is discharged by stamping date of return on receipt and
placing in file of cancelled loans.
The libraries using colored book cards to denote the classes are:
East Orange Public Library.
New York Public Library.
St. Louis Mercantile Library--colors simply indicating fiction or
non-fiction.
Those using colored book cards for their double file (borrower's and
book) are:
Boston Athenaeum.
Oberlin College.
At the time of book's issue bookcards are dropped into a drawer
through slots designating classes of the books issued by the following
libraries:
Carnegie Library of Atlanta.
New York Public Library.
Pratt Institute Free Library--designates fiction, non-fiction and
teachers.
Libraries using temporary bookcards, filled out at time of book's
issue by borrower or assistant:
Iowa State.
Tulane University.
Virginia State.
Wesleyan University.
Libraries using a borrower's record for privileged classes (professors,
etc.) and a time record for students:
Kansas University.
Oberlin University.
Syracuse University.
Wesleyan University.
Cards identifying the readers appear to be required by all the
libraries save Westminster. These vary--those of the Boston Athenaeum,
Medical Society of County of Kings, apparently taking the form of a
subscription entry while the St. Louis Mercantile Library issues one as
an identification card, which is seldom called into use.
Libraries using borrowers' cards in a file at the library to indicate
what the reader has out, are:
Oberlin.
Syracuse--call numbers of books are written on students' cards.
University of Kansas.
Virginia.
Wesleyan.
Tulane.
Those using a borrower's card which remains in the possession of the
borrower, while he has books from the library, to indicate number of
books out, date either of issue or when due, and a date of return are
those employing the Newark system:
Carnegie Library of Atlanta.
East Orange Library.
New York Public Library.
Pratt Institute Free Library.
St. Louis Public Library.
Syracuse uses the Newark system but retains cards in borrower's file
(under borrower's number) at library.
As regards the discharge of books, the use of the Browne system
presupposes a complete discharge of the book, in case of a borrower
taking another at the time of its return.
Libraries retaining borrowers' cards at the library discharge at their
leisure.
Where the Newark system is used (with the exception of the New York
public library) an incomplete discharge is made at the time of the
book's return--consisting of the stamping of the date of return on
reader's card. It is obviously impossible to delay a reader while book
is checked off. Checking off is then done at leisure either at charging
desk by desk assistant or special assistant appointed for that work.
=Counting of Issue=
The eighteen libraries reporting on this subject may be grouped under
the following heads:
=Public or Circulating=
Boston Athenaeum (subscription).
Carnegie Library of Atlanta.
East Orange Library.
Forbes Library.
New York Public Library.
Pratt Institute Free Library.
St. Louis Mercantile Library (subscription).
St. Louis Public Library.
=College or University=
Oberlin College.
Syracuse University.
Tulane University.
University of Kansas.
Wesleyan University.
Westminster College.
=State Libraries=
Iowa State.
Virginia State.
=Reference Library=
Newberry Library.
=Society Library=
Library of the Medical Society of the County of Kings.
Eight of these libraries record statistics of reference use:
Newberry.
New York.
St. Louis Public.
Syracuse.
Tulane.
Virginia State.
Wesleyan.
Westminster.
The following do not include reference use on their statistics sheets,
although in some cases it is probably kept separately:
Boston Athenaeum.
Carnegie Library of Atlanta.
East Orange.
Forbes.
Pratt Institute.
St. Louis Mercantile.
The Medical Society of the County of Kings and Oberlin College library
make no record of reference use, but the latter records daily and
monthly attendance.
Four libraries keep no record by class:
Boston Athenaeum.
Medical Society of Kings.
Wesleyan.
Westminster.
The following count the circulation on the day of issue:
Boston Athenaeum.
Newberry.
Pratt Institute.
St. Louis Public.
Virginia State.
Westminster.
In all the other libraries it is counted next morning, save in Kings
County Medical, where only an annual count is made.
East Orange and New York use colored bookcards to indicate the various
classes; St. Louis Mercantile uses different colors for fiction,
non-fiction and pay-duplicates, and Tulane uses a colored slip for
reference requests.
Two libraries, Iowa State and University of Kansas, report that no
record of issue is made.
=Public or Circulating Libraries=
=Boston Athenaeum.= The manilla cards forming the author record are
counted at night and the number is entered in a book. There is no entry
by class and reference use is not reported.
=Carnegie Library of Atlanta.= Issue is kept in three groups for
fiction, rent or pay collection and classed books. The latter are
arranged under class numerically or alphabetically. Fiction and rent
collection are alphabeted and all are counted on the following morning
and entered on a daily sheet, juvenile issue being counted separately.
No report on reference issue.
=East Orange.= Colored bookcards are used here to indicate different
classes. The issue is counted on the following morning and arranged
according to the Dewey Classification and entered in a statistics book.
No report on reference issue.
=Forbes.= Counted by groups of classes.
=New York Public.= Colored bookcards are used here. Adult and juvenile
issue are counted separately on the following morning:
1. By Dewey classes, issues in each class being added together to
obtain the total issue in each group and the two groups then added for
the grand total of the day.
2. By language.
3. Poetry, periodicals and music are counted separately as well as with
their respective classes.
Reference books are charged on slips, signed by the reader, the number
of volumes issued being noted on the upper right hand corner. At the
close of the day these slips are counted twice, first by readers and
second by volumes.
=Pratt Institute Free Library.= The daily issue is counted on the day
of issue and arranged in four groups--fiction, non-fiction, teachers
and renewals, and entered on manilla slips which are divided into
spaces for the ten Dewey classes and also for languages, duplicate
pay collection, summer issue, delta and double star, the last two
being special collections. These totals are all transferred to a
daily statistics sheet. A reference record is not reported on, but is
undoubtedly kept in some form.
=St. Louis Mercantile.= The issue is kept in seven and fourteen day
trays and arranged by class, salmon colored cards being used for
non-fiction and blue for fiction. Before the library opens in the
morning the issue is counted and entered in a book under classes
(Cutter). Reference record is not reported.
=St. Louis Public.= Issue is kept in trays, separated into groups for
seven and fourteen-day fiction, the ten Dewey classes and (in summer)
vacation issue. At night it is counted and entered on a statistic
sheet, under the same heads. Reading-room issue is entered on the
same sheet, also by class. The home issue is then separated by date,
seven-days in one alphabet and fourteen-days in another, and arranged
by author and accession number not class. This arrangement, by
affording but one alphabet in which to search for a book due on a given
date, reduces the opportunity for mistakes to a minimum. Three-day
magazines are inserted with seven-day cards under the correct date.
In the morning the circulation is revised for errors in alphabeting
and also for illegible charges which are traced by means of a number,
assigned to each assistant.
Reference use is entered on a form divided into four columns for main
reference room, art room, technical department and totals. The entries
are by class and the number of volumes given to each reader noted. All
records are transferred the following morning to a permanent statistics
book.
=College or University Libraries=
=Oberlin.= The author cards are arranged at night under date of issue
by classes, fastened together with a rubber band and placed in the
issue tray ahead of all previous circulation. In the morning they are
counted and entered on a statistics sheet under class, then filed in
the issue tray. Statistics of reference use are not kept.
=Syracuse University.= Statistics are recorded for home issue, reading
room issue and attendance. When the books are charged they are divided
into over-night and two week circulation; in the morning these are
subdivided into twelve classes and again recorded as charged to
students, faculty or departments. Methods of reporting reference use
are not outlined but a record of some sort is made, probably at the
discretion of the various reading-room attendants. One of the colleges
(Applied Science) reports to the general library only once a year and
others monthly. Other departments report only attendance.
=Tulane University.= Every morning charging slips are grouped into
classes and counted. Yellow slips, indicating library use are counted
in the same manner and then destroyed. Entry is made in a record book
under class, library use being recorded in pencil and home issue in red
ink directly beneath it.
=University of Kansas.= No record of issue is kept.
=Wesleyan University.= The issue is counted each morning in four
groups; bound and unbound (issued to individuals), reserve, or books
placed on reserve shelves and seminar, or volumes sent to seminars for
temporary use. The last two groups are counted only at the time of
issue, their reference use not being noted. Entry is made in a day book
under these heads; no count is taken by classes.
Book cards are counted each evening for home circulation, reference
books as they are given out during the day. There is apparently no
record by class and the method of entry is not stated.
=Westminster.= Counted by class each evening. Reference books counted
as issued.
=State Libraries=
=Iowa State.= No record of issue is kept.
=Virginia State.= A blank form spaced for fourteen classes is used for
keeping the daily record of books given out both for reference and home
use, the distinction being presumably indicated by the use of pen and
pencil, although this point is somewhat obscure. At night these totals
are added.
=Reference Library=
=Newberry Library.= There are six reference departments, each keeping
statistics for men and women, morning and evening visitors and books
used, the latter being entered by classes. These reports are drawn up
at night and taken next morning to the accessions clerk who enters the
figures in a permanent statistical record.
=Society Library=
=Medical Society of the County of Kings.=
No record is here maintained of reference use. Home use slips are filed
and counted annually to determine the circulation for the year but
there is no record by class.
It is evident from the preceding tabulations that the reports of the
various libraries are too uneven to admit of accurate comparison.
Many points of interest, as the record of reference use, are omitted,
although in many cases this record is doubtless preserved.
In closing your committee desires to acknowledge valuable assistance in
the tabulation and discussion of the above results, rendered by three
members of the St. Louis public library staff, Mrs. H. P. Sawyer, chief
of the department of instruction, Miss Mary Crocker, chief of the open
shelf department, Miss Jessie Sargent, first assistant in the issue
department, and Miss Amelia Feary, of the catalog department.
ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chairman,
ETHEL F. McCOLLOUGH,
HARRY M. LYDENBERG,
Committee on Administration.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY TRAINING
After correspondence, it was decided at the beginning of the year to
make another effort to obtain from the Executive Board an appropriation
which would make possible the repeatedly suggested inspection of
library schools. Accordingly, such a request was made at the meeting of
the Executive Board at Chicago last January, and an appropriation of
$200 was obtained.
About the same time, a request was presented to the chairman of the
Committee on library training, signed by representatives of nearly all
the library schools, requesting that the committee recommend a minimum
standard admission, length of course, and curriculum for library
schools.
To this the chairman replied, calling attention to the reports of 1905
and 1906, in which an endeavor had been made to meet a part of the
request, and requesting that the schools indicate in what respects
these reports should be modified or supplemented. The replies to this
request are most interesting and will be of great service to the
committee. When all the schools have answered this inquiry, the replies
will be manifolded and the committee will give the request careful
consideration. A thoroughly satisfactory recommendation, however, will
naturally follow, rather than precede, the contemplated inspection of
schools.
A tentative scheme of points to be observed in the proposed inspection
has been prepared, and is being considered by persons interested. When
their criticisms and suggestions have been received, the committee will
consider the scheme. When approved by the members of the committee, and
when the committee has found a suitable person to make the inspection,
the library schools will be given the opportunity to ask for such
inspection, and to the extent of the funds available for the purpose,
the inspection will be made.
In the light of the facts obtained in such a careful study of the
library schools, it is hoped to make some recommendations which will be
of service to the schools, and to the profession.
On account of the absence of the chairman of the committee from the
country since the first of February, the work has progressed slowly.
For the same reason, this report is submitted without being first
considered and approved by the other members of the committee.
AZARIAH S. ROOT,
Chairman.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON WORK WITH THE BLIND
The committee on library work with the blind notes with satisfaction
the progress which has been made in the past year towards increasing
the production of new embossed literature. The installation of
stereotype-makers operated by electricity and of power presses in some
of the printing offices means a constantly increasing stock of books
for circulation. Most important of all there seem to be indications
that a new era is dawning when all America can unite on one point type.
The eleventh convention of the American association of workers for the
blind, held at Overbrook, Pa., June, 1911, was marked by one session
unparalleled in the history of type discussions, when, during the
report of the uniform type committee, the blind themselves contributed
$1800.00 towards the creation of a fund to be used in making scientific
tests and experiments to determine upon a uniform system of embossed
point print. With the completion of the fund of $3,000 and the
co-operation of certain printing offices, members of the committee have
been hard at work preparing tests and making experiments. An outline of
the work of this committee appears in the "Outlook for the blind" for
April, 1912, (v. 6, no. 1).
Lists of new publications in embossed type as well as lists of magazine
articles referring to the blind are published from time to time in the
"Outlook for the blind," which is the only magazine in this country
especially helpful to workers for the blind. Librarians are urged to
place the "Outlook for the blind" on reading tables and among the
current magazines and to encourage its reading by the general public,
who need educating concerning the best methods of helping the blind.
Helen Keller has said, "I follow with keen interest your efforts to
make the 'Outlook for the blind' a success. Nothing is more useful to
the sightless than an intelligent magazine in their interest, setting
forth their needs, making known what they can do to earn a living, and
advocating movements of the right sort in their behalf. The 'Outlook
for the blind' is just such a publication. The fact that influential
and wise persons who have the welfare of the blind at heart favor the
magazine makes it all the more valuable. It deserves liberal support
from philanthropists and practical workers for humanity."
The Samuel Gridley Howe Society has been organized in Cleveland, Ohio,
with headquarters at 612 St. Clair Avenue, N. E. "The plan of this
society is to raise funds from local sources to defray the cost of the
presswork, the paper and the very simple binding used," in the work of
adding to the list of books in tactile print.
The list of publications already issued, in American Braille without
contractions, includes titles by Deland, Davis, John Fox, Jr., Van Dyke
and others.
The Michigan school for the blind, at Lansing, now publishes a magazine
in American Braille, with contractions, entitled the "Michigan herald
for the blind," issued monthly except July and August. The subscription
price is 25 cents per year.
The Xavier Braille publication society for the blind, 824 Oak Avenue,
Chicago, which was organized in 1911, has since issued the "Catholic
review," a monthly magazine in American Braille, with contractions,
subscription $1.00 per year.
The Society for the promotion of church work among the blind announces
that volumes 1 and 2 of the music of the Hymnal of the Protestant
Episcopal Church have been finished and are ready for distribution.
Copies may be obtained from Mr. John Thomson, treasurer, 13th and
Locust Streets, Philadelphia.
Since the fire in March, 1911, when the New York state library for the
blind was almost totally destroyed, the new collection has grown with
rapidity and is now nearly as large as at the time of the fire. Miss
Mary C. Chamberlain, the librarian, writes, "We hope soon to make the
collection larger than it has ever been."
The circulation of embossed books from the public library of
Cincinnati, Ohio, "increased during the past year from 1,400 during
1910 to 3,900 during 1911, which was attributed to the fact that the
library society for the blind has provided a catalog in point print,
which is sent out."
The reading room for the blind in Washington, D. C., which was
discontinued in 1911, has been reopened in the Library of Congress.
During the past year the Perkins institution for the blind has given
away about 2,000 volumes in line type to libraries and schools,
retaining a sufficient stock of duplicates for use in the circulating
library of the school. The new library of the institution, now in
course of construction at Watertown, Massachusetts, will be very
large and commodious; it will be capable of holding 20,000 volumes,
with provision for an extra gallery for 10,000 additional volumes if
necessary.
In commemoration of the Dickens centenary, "Great Expectations" has
been embossed in American Braille.
The committee plans a full report of libraries which are doing work for
the blind and will endeavor to secure from them an outline of the work
they are doing at present. In addition the special needs of readers
will be sought with a view to having the books desired brought to the
notice of one or more of the publishing houses. Efforts will be made to
secure the establishment of additional libraries of embossed books in
states where no such libraries are now maintained.
Respectfully submitted,
EMMA R. NEISSER DELFINO,
Chairman.
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC DOCUMENTS
Your Committee on Public Documents respectfully reports that two
important reports relating to the printing, binding and distribution of
government publications have been made and are now before Congress.
The first is the report of the Special Commission on Economy and
Efficiency, appointed by President Roosevelt, and transmitted February
5, 1912, in a special message approving the same by President
Taft, which "recommends that the work of distributing documents be
centralized in the office of Superintendent of public documents in
the Government Printing Office as a substitute for the present method
of distribution by each of the departments, offices, and bureaus
issuing such documents. The plan does not contemplate any change in
the authority which determines the persons to whom documents shall be
sent, but only that the physical work of wrapping, addressing, and
mailing the documents shall be done at one place, and that the place of
manufacture."
The second report is that made by the Congressional Committee on
Printing of which Senator Smoot is chairman. This committee was
appointed under an act of Congress approved March 3, 1905, and was
directed to revise and codify the laws relating to public printing,
binding and distribution of government publications. After seven
years of investigations and hearings this committee has formulated
and presented to Congress a new bill (Senate Bill 4239) covering this
entire subject. This bill which makes radical changes in the general
printing act approved January 12, 1895, has passed the Senate and is
now before the House.
While both reports embody many recommendations and suggestions made by
our association and by the librarians of our larger libraries, your
Committee on public documents has thought best to delay its formal
report until after the discussion at the sessions of the government
documents round table, at which time a paper by Superintendent of
Documents, August Donath, will be read, and possibly also one from
Senator Smoot, who has written that other engagements will prevent him
from being present and speaking.
* * * * *
As copies of the proposed bill and the special reports relating to
the same have been sent to several librarians, it is hoped there will
be a full and free discussion in order that any desirable changes or
omissions in the proposed bill may be called to the attention of the
Congressional Committee while there is an opportunity.
Respectfully submitted,
GEO. S. GODARD, Chairman.
* * * * *
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: No doubt all of you have very carefully and
thoroughly read the printed report of the Publishing Board, which was
distributed at the first session of this conference. It will therefore
be unnecessary for me to point out to you some of the very important
recommendations, or suggestions, which appear therein, and I mention
it at this time merely for the purpose of adding that since the former
session, through the generosity of Mr. Walter L. Brown of the Buffalo
library, the Publishing Board is enabled to distribute in connection
therewith a list which illustrates one of the very strong suggestions,
as we think, which appears in that report. You will find this list for
distribution at the entrance, and those of you who may care for it, may
help yourselves as you pass out.[2]
[2] The list referred to was a reading list of selected books on
Greece, prepared with annotated notes in the form advocated by Mrs.
Elmendorf in the report of the Publishing Board.
We will now hear from the committee on deterioration of newspaper
paper. We have had for the last two years some exceptionally
interesting and important reports on that very important subject,
and we are glad to know that Dr. Hill will at this time present a
supplemental report covering the investigations which he has made
during the last year, additional to the facts which he has reported
heretofore. Dr. Hill will please report for this committee.
PRESERVATION OF NEWSPAPERS
Two years ago a report on the "Deterioration of newspapers" was
presented to the American Library Association at the Mackinac
conference, and as a consequence the executive board appointed Messrs.
Frank P. Hill, Brooklyn public library, Horace G. Wadlin, Boston public
library, and Cedric Chivers, bookbinder, a committee to consider the
subject further and report back to the association. As stated at the
Pasadena conference last year, the committee was appointed too late to
make any satisfactory report at that time. This year the report can be
only one of progress.
In order to bring the matter more clearly to your minds liberal
quotations are made from the 1910 report.
"An examination of old Brooklyn and Manhattan papers showed that in
many instances papers published within the last forty years had begun
to discolor and crumble to such an extent that it would hardly pay to
bind those which had been folded for any length of time. Upon further
investigation it was found that practically all of these newspapers
were printed on cheap wood pulp paper, which carries with it the seeds
of early decay, and that the life of a periodical printed on this
inferior stock is not likely to be more than fifty years.
"This is a serious matter and demands the attention of publishers and
librarians throughout the country. It means that the material for
history contained in the newspapers will not be available after the
period mentioned, and that all such historical record will eventually
disappear unless provision is made for reprinting or preserving the
volumes as they exist at present. The historian depends to such an
extent upon the newspapers for his data that it will mean a serious
loss if some preservative cannot be found.
"As soon as the condition of the files of the Brooklyn public library
was discovered a circular was sent to some of the prominent newspaper
publishers asking (1) the result of their experience; (2) whether a
better grade of paper was being used for running off extra copies for
their own files; (3) what, if any, means were being taken to preserve
the files in their own offices. It was hoped as a result of this
circular that definite measures of improvement would be suggested. From
responses received it is evident that there is a desire on the part
of the publishers to meet the requirements of librarians and others
on this subject; and it is likely that a conference of publishers and
librarians will be held in the near future to consider the feasibility
of printing some copies on better paper, but the answers showed that
no special paper was used and that no means were taken to preserve (by
reprinting or by chemical process) those in the worst condition.
"Inquiries were also sent to various manufacturers of paper with no
better result. No encouragement was received from this source except
that one manufacturer thought that some newspapers were using a better
grade, and another, that he had just the paper which ought to be used.
It was stated that two New York publishers used a better grade of paper
for a few additional copies, but returns from these papers indicate
that no difference is made at the present time."
During the past six months the members of the committee have been in
correspondence with publishers regarding the possibility of striking
off a few extra copies on a better quality of paper, and Mr. Chivers
has taken upon himself the duty and responsibility of experimenting
with a "cellit" solution prepared especially for the preservation of
newsprint paper.
Early in June of this year the committee invited representatives of
the leading New York and Brooklyn papers to meet in conference on the
subject. The following papers were represented: The Brooklyn Daily
Eagle by H. F. Gunnison, the New York American by Jerome Buck, the New
York World by E. D. Carruthers, and the Publishers' Weekly by John
A. Holden. The object of the conference was stated to be: 1st. The
consideration of method of preserving bound volumes of newspapers; and
2nd. The possibility of publishers printing extra copies of the current
issue on a better grade of paper for binding purposes.
Mr. Chivers stated that he had not used "celestron" the German product,
but had made successful experiments with "cellit," an American
solution. His investigation proved that the deterioration was due in a
large measure to the exposure of the paper to light and air and that by
covering the paper with a coating of "cellit" or "celestron" the pores
were filled and oxidation prevented. He was afraid, however, that the
question of expense would deter most librarians and publishers from
dipping the volume page by page in the solution, as suggested in the
earlier report of this committee, but expressed the hope that some
method would be devised by which it could be used less expensively.
Mr. Chivers was of the opinion that since oxidation begins at the
edges the life of the paper may be extended from 50 to 75 years if the
edges of the bound volume are painted with the solution, and that this
treatment could be repeated with the same result. He called special
attention to the necessity of binding newspapers as soon as possible
after publication so that they need not be long exposed to the air. The
desirability of this practice was emphasized by some of the publishers
and by Mr. Arthur D. Little, the Boston chemist.
Considerable discussion arose over the question of printing extra
copies of current issues on a better grade of paper, and the conclusion
arrived at was that there was no practical objection to it, and that it
could be done without very much extra cost of time, labor or paper.
The conference developed the fact that there was another drawback to
the preservation of newspapers, namely, the poor quality of ink, and
that nothing would be gained by using the better quality of paper
unless a better quality of ink was used.
Mr. Carruthers, of the New York World, drew attention to the fact that
the colored sections of the Metropolitan Sunday papers were destroyed
by worms within a short time after publication.
So far as the committee was advised the first and only newspaper in the
country to print extra copies on better paper was and is The Red Wing
(Minn.) Republican, which furnishes copies of its publication to the
State historical society for filing purposes.
Considerable publicity has been given the subject since the meeting
through the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, and several
valuable suggestions have been received.
Mr. Gunnison of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle writes:
"I have given considerable thought to the matter of the better grade of
paper and have come to the conclusion that the only feasible way is to
have rolls of good paper and use that after the regular edition of the
paper is run off. As Mr. Carruthers of the World said, this would be
almost impossible for some of the larger papers to carry out. The Eagle
could do it very nicely because we have a different system of handling
the paper and we shall try to put this into operation beginning with
the first of the year."
As is well known the Eagle is one of the best newspapers in the United
States, so that if anyone is particularly interested in securing for
filing purposes a paper which will last for 100 years or more he should
subscribe to the Eagle.
Miss Jane Roberts, of Newark, N. J., states that she uses a preparation
put up by a Newark chemist and has met with success in its application.
Mr. Conde Hamlin of the New York Tribune sent in the following:
"I did think of one method which seemed to me would be less expensive
than the use of a special grade of paper for the printing of a few
copies. That would be to take a fine grade of French tissue paper and
after separating the sheets which composed the paper to be preserved,
covering both sides of the printed matter with this tissue and a fine
grade of paste. This, of course, would make the bound volume much
thicker but would preserve the paper itself.
"I doubt whether this suggestion is of any value but take the liberty
of making it."
It was decided that the subject was of sufficient interest and
importance to warrant further investigation and the conference
adjourned to meet in September. We therefore recommend that the
Committee be continued.
FRANK P. HILL, Chairman,
HORACE G. WADLIN,
CEDRIC CHIVERS.
* * * * *
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: Inasmuch as the report of the committee
contains a recommendation, that recommendation is now before you for
action. Unless there are objections, the report will be referred to
the executive board for consideration of the recommendations contained
therein.
Dr. HILL: Mr. President, I hope we may hear from Mr. Chivers for a
moment if he is here.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: With characteristic thoroughness Mr. Chivers
has proceeded with his experiments as outlined by Dr. Hill, and we
shall be very glad to hear from him at this time as to what he has
found out.
Mr. CHIVERS: The report you have heard deals pretty fully with the
subject, and I think the association may be congratulated upon the
fact that the publishers of the more or less national newspapers, who
would be required to print quite a number of copies, are willing to do
it, but that is not the whole of the problem. The difficulty of bad
paper and newspaper files will be felt in the future rather with local
newspapers, because only a few copies would be required for filing
purposes, and the printer would find special printing too troublesome
and expensive.
As you have heard, there is a substance called cellit, a solution
of cellulose and spirit, into which the paper may be dipped, and
thoroughly saturated. The spirit quickly evaporating leaves the paper
quite tough. The result is a very satisfactory paper. It is, however,
practically impossible to dip so large a surface as a newspaper into
this solution. The fibre when wet is too weak to handle; also the
spirit in the solution quickly evaporates, leaving a glutinous mass,
impracticable to deal with. We understand that oxidation of the paper
resulted from the action of light, air and deleterious atmosphere. If
the newspaper for filing were not allowed to be used in the reading
room but were set aside on the morning of publication, kept from the
light and air, and a board or weight placed upon it, and if the volume
were bound directly it was complete, very little mischief would happen.
Again, if the edges of the volume were frayed out and this solution of
cellit, which is comparatively cheap and quite practical to use in this
way, should be painted upon the edges, you would have a newspaper file
which would last for a great number of years. How many, I do not know,
but the chemist who accompanied me to the British Museum, in conducting
the examination of newspapers under the instructions of your committee,
could see no reason why the paper should not last indefinitely.
We discovered there--because in the British Museum there are more
newspapers brought together than in any other place in the world--that
newspapers which were left lying about before binding were in a very
bad condition in the course of four or five years, while newspapers
which had been bound some fifteen or twenty years, of the same kind of
paper, were in thoroughly good condition, proving that if you could
take care of the paper and not allow it to be exposed to the air there
is no reason why even bad paper should not last a very long time. The
rule should be made as I have suggested it. In the British Museum there
had been no rule, but the exigencies of the binding shop had been
consulted, and here and there a newspaper had been bound quickly, and
it was all right; and if it had been left about, as some of them were,
it was all wrong. That is my practical contribution to the discussion.
Dr. BOSTWICK: I would like to ask Dr. Hill if his committee
investigated the newspaper report that it is now possible, or will be
shortly possible, to obtain a thin, tough metallic sheet which can be
printed upon. It was reported that that had been done.
Dr. HILL: Nothing of that nature came before the committee, Mr.
Chairman, but I am sure that at the next conference some publisher or
some commercial house will give us that desired information. I would
say for the benefit of those who are interested in this subject, and a
great many of us ought to be, that there are extra copies of the first
report of the committee on the table for distribution.
Dr. BOSTWICK: I would like to ask Mr. Chivers if he proposes, in
applying the cellit to the edges of the sheets, to apply it to the
bound volume as a whole, and whether in that case the edges of the
sheets would not stick together?
Mr. CHIVERS: No. The spirit very quickly evaporates and leaves a
coating upon the edge of the paper. Last year at Pasadena I was able to
show the edge of a piece of paper before and after treatment, and dealt
with quickly it is not glutinous in any way, and the application is
perfectly successful.
Mr. BOWKER: I would like to ask Mr. Chivers if it would not be
practical to dip the newspapers by some such process as is used in the
development of moving picture films or kodak films. They have rollers
which carry the paper quickly through the solution.
Mr. CHIVERS: That occurred to me, but, if you will remember, I said the
substance is a solution in spirit, which very quickly evaporates. The
rollers might get clogged up in the course of a minute or two.
Dr. ANDREWS: Has the committee ever investigated the process used by
the New York State library for the restoration of its manuscripts
which came so near total destruction. The result there seemed to be
admirable, but the process might be too expensive.
Mr. HILL: I would say, Mr. Chairman, that the committee had two or
three letters from Mr. Wyer, the director of the library, but I do not
think he mentioned that. He may be able to answer the question himself.
Mr. RANCK: I would like to ask if the committee gave any consideration
to the temperature and humidity of the rooms in which the newspapers
were kept, as having some bearing on the life of the paper.
Mr. CHIVERS: Some attention was given to that in the British Museum.
The papers are carefully kept. The temperature there does not vary as
it does in America. Sometimes it is humid more or less, but it does not
vary so much. It is the action, not of the humidity, but of light and
air itself upon the paper which produces early decomposition.
May I say in reply to Dr. Andrews that we certainly took into
consideration the covering of the newspaper with other paper or some
other material, and it is altogether too expensive. The report that
I was able to give of the action of cellit meets the difficulty in a
better way, and for a fraction of the cost and trouble.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: On behalf of the executive board the chair
is requested to announce the appointment of the following committee on
resolutions: Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites, chairman; Miss Mary W. Plummer,
Mr. Judson T. Jennings.
The dainty bit of literature which appeared in connection with the
first issue of the program and bulletin, bearing the signature of the
president of this association, strong and persuasive as it was dainty,
renders unnecessary any introduction by the present chairman to the
program of this morning. The topics, as you will note, are attractive,
they are in the hands of those competent to speak upon them, they
grow out of the forceful keynote address at the initial meeting of
this association; like the branches from a tree, they are consistent
parts of the whole. We will begin by listening to MR. CARL H. MILAM,
secretary of the Indiana public library commission, who will speak on
PUBLICITY FOR THE SAKE OF SUPPORT
In every community there are scores of intelligent men--men who are
well-informed on most subjects--who do not know what the modern
public library does, whose conception of it is what might have been
expected a generation or two ago. The word "library" to them means
such a collection of books as they have in their homes, or the library
they used while in college. There is no thought in their minds of the
aggressive, civic and educational force that we believe the American
public library to be.
These men are not found in any one particular class. Business men and
public officials may seem to head the list, but there are college
professors and presidents, and well educated professional men who
are quite as uninformed and indifferent as any others. I could point
to dozens of men and women in my own state, high up in educational
affairs, and some of whom are officially in close touch with libraries,
who do not realize at all what place a public library can hold in
community life.
Perhaps the best evidence on this proposition, if evidence is needed,
is found in the recent books dealing with civic and educational
affairs. In many of them the authors speak forcibly and unmistakably in
favor of the public library, and exhibit a knowledge of current library
practice that is gratifying to the library profession, but there are
other books--not few in number--in which the writers show an entire
lack of appreciation of the public library movement.
It is very easy for us to say, when such a condition is brought to
mind, that it is the other fellow's fault, that there is no excuse in
these days for anybody's being ignorant of the public library movement.
Perhaps that is true; but, for my part, I am inclined to wonder if the
fault is not with the librarians themselves. They have been so busy
working out their own administrative problems that they have not taken
the trouble to keep the public informed on the progress made. They have
pushed the establishment of libraries--that has been comparatively
easy--but they have not yet, to any very great extent, created a public
sentiment that insists enthusiastically on generous appropriations.
There is need for some advertising that will take care of this
situation. It might emanate from different sources: from the state and
national library associations and departments working on the public
generally; and from the libraries themselves, individually working on
their own communities. Most of the library association publications
are professional literature; most of the speeches made under the
auspices of the associations are made to librarians and others already
interested.
What is needed now, if my reasoning is correct, is a publicity campaign
that will cover a wider range. Let its purpose be to give concrete,
up-to-date information about the public library to every man and woman
who reads, to every individual who is interested in any way in civic
improvement or educational affairs. Surely no better way can be found
of laying a foundation for liberal library appropriations.
One great need is for popular books and pamphlets on public library
work. Dr. Bostwick's "The American public library," is the one
available volume of this character; there is room yet for several other
publications, shorter, for the most part, and dealing with special
phases of library work rather than with all phases. Many people will
have to read a short article or pamphlet before they will acquire
sufficient interest to undertake a whole book.
The different lines of library work that offer subjects for popular
treatment are many. Most of them have been written about for
librarians; why can't we have them written about now for the general
public? Properly printed and attractively illustrated, a series of
books and pamphlets of the sort I have in mind could be used to a good
advantage all over the country. Of course, a good deal of the material
distributed would never be read, but the fact that little advertising
booklets are widely used by business men would indicate that in the
long run they do have a good effect.
Perhaps the most promising field is that of the magazines, for
practically all intelligent Americans read some monthly or weekly
periodical. Some would be reached by the good literary magazines, some
by the so-called family magazines; others read only the trade journals,
and a few only religious. All together they offer a medium of publicity
that would reach nearly everybody. If we could successfully emulate the
people who have pushed some of the great movements like conservation
or industrial education we should soon have everybody believing that
the public library is a live issue. No other movement offers better
opportunities for such publicity, for there is no other institution
quite so broad in its interests as the public library.
Why cannot the library associations have a publicity man whose business
it would be to get such articles into the magazines, to prepare little
booklets such as I have described for the information of the general
public, and to do whatever else he can to interest influential men and
the world at large in public libraries? This man might also be made
responsible for getting library news articles and feature stories into
the newspapers. Such articles would undoubtedly do a great deal to
educate newspaper readers to a knowledge of library work as it now is,
but if they did nothing more than to keep the subject before the people
they would be worth while.
There is also a large field open for public speakers. A publicity man,
representing a national or state organization, could make himself
very useful as a speaker at public gatherings. He could easily secure
a place on the programs of many civic, scientific and educational
organizations, and by a popular presentation of the public library's
service along the line that particularly interested the members, could
undoubtedly make scores of new friends for public libraries.
Such a person would be welcome also as a lecturer on librarianship at
college, academy and high school gatherings, at chapel and convocation
exercises, etc. These talks would have a double value in that they
would help to bring good people into the library profession and at
the same time give information about library affairs to students and
instructors.
So far as I know, the library profession has never indulged in paid
newspaper or magazine advertising. This may be due to the fact that
we can usually get all the space we want in the regular news columns
free of charge; but I suspect it is due partly to our conservatism,
to our fear that paid advertising would be considered undignified.
Certainly if the newspapers and magazines are willing to print without
pay all that we wish, we need not consider the paid "ad." But if it
is impossible to secure the desired space in any periodical free of
charge, it might be worth while to buy it.
The paid library advertisement need not be similar to the ordinary
commercial advertisement. It could be modeled after the "talks"
sometimes used by large corporations and promoters which are meant to
create a sentiment favorable toward the company. They should be done
in newspaper English and should, of course, be short and to the point.
Charles Stelzle, in his "Principles of successful church advertising,"
says that "One denomination in the U. S. has made a selection of a
group of newspapers throughout the country which print regularly an
editorial on some doctrinal or ethical theme and which is paid for by
the national body." If it is not undignified for a church to do these
things, surely it would not be out of place for the public library.
So much for the advertising methods that might be followed by
the A.L.A., the League of Library Commissions, or the various
state associations and commissions. By such means the attitude of
friendliness toward libraries in general would undoubtedly be fostered
and an interest in their establishment and maintenance greatly
increased. But the librarian of a public library could not rest on
this. The proper "taste" for library expenditures--if we may so express
it--in his particular town will depend largely on his particular
library and his own methods of advertising.
Of course we shall all agree that the best advertisement is satisfied
patrons and lots of them, and that without the backing of such patrons,
the advertising will do little good; also that special work for the
special classes who have most to do with tax levies and appropriations
will bring good results.
* * * * *
Almost as important as satisfactory service is a business-like
administration. The library management ought to be such that it will
command the respect of business men. No amount of mere talk about the
need for more money or of the wonderful advantages that will accrue
to the city in case an extra thousand dollars be appropriated, will
count for anything unless the librarian knows how to talk business.
In fact it does not seem surprising that some libraries are poorly
supported when one realizes that there are hundreds of librarians who
know nothing about their library finances, who leave the money matters
entirely to the library board.
* * * * *
Unfortunately, the librarians who are ignorant of the financial
condition of their libraries, except their own salaries and the fines,
are not all found in the country towns and are not all without library
school training.
* * * * *
I know of one librarian in a city of nearly one hundred thousand
population who never knows the amount of the library income, for either
the current or the past year.
* * * * *
I know of another library, this one in a small town, that has been
running for several years on a very limited income although the board
has absolute power to more than double the library levy. Recently the
librarian, a library school graduate, resigned, because, she said,
there was no future. A few weeks later a candidate for the position
met with the board to talk things over. She went armed with a p-slip
full of figures. She knew the assessed valuation of the town, and
the present and possible library income. She knew something about
the city finances and whether the town could afford an increase for
the library. She had similar figures for the adjoining townships
and was prepared to tell how township support might be secured. In
fact, she went to the board meeting prepared to discuss the financial
possibilities of the library in a business-like way, to tell what ought
to be done, how much it would cost to do it and finally, what she would
take to shoulder the proposition.
Of course, she was employed. She was employed at her own salary
and on her own conditions, and the board agreed to follow out her
recommendations.
Such a librarian is a perpetual advertisement for the library of the
very best sort. His reputation for a good business administration will
win the business men, and his knowledge of city finances will win the
respect of public officials and others interested in city government.
The library and the librarian also need a reputation for being
interested in all civic improvement societies and other organizations
that have for their business the public welfare. Agreeable professional
relations with the men and women who are members of these societies
will make friends for the library of the best and most active people of
the city. The librarian can without difficulty, secure an invitation to
address such organizations on matters pertaining to the library and if
he is the right sort, he will be allowed to present his cause when he
is asking for more money.
The librarian who does all these things ought not to have any great
difficulty in securing the money necessary to run his library properly.
It will be an added advantage, however, to keep the name of the library
before the people. We ought not to be satisfied until everybody knows
that there is such a thing as the public library and that it is
situated at a certain place. The mere fact that a man knows a thing
exists will make him approachable when the time comes to ask his
support.
In order that people who do not use the library may nevertheless know
something about it and be prepared to play the part of intelligent
citizens when appropriations are discussed, there is need for a
continuous series of newspaper articles that will tell, frankly and
fully, what the library is doing. These articles should appear as news
items whenever possible and should be readable. The librarian who does
the largest part of the reporter's and editor's work is likely to get
the best results. If the papers are accustomed to getting something
from the library regularly, they will be willing to print financial
reports and budgets with explanations when the time comes. If for any
reason the library cannot get its items printed as news, then the same
material can be used in paid "talks" to the public.
Just before time for making the appropriation, comparative statistics
can be used to a good advantage, especially if graphically shown with
cuts. They can show the smallness of the library income as compared
with incomes of other city departments, the lack of growth in library
income as compared with the growth of the city, and the appropriation
for the library in question as compared with other libraries in cities
of equal size.
The newspaper is the recognized medium for all sorts of local
advertising. It reaches more people than any other medium and many
people who could not be reached in any other way. In advertising the
needs of the library, however, where only a comparatively small number
of people must be reached, it seems reasonable to assume that the
circular letter might accomplish good results. It should be carefully
written to catch the attention, beginning with some statement in which
the reader is interested, proceeding rapidly to the business in hand,
and, above all things, stating clearly at the end, the exact action
desired.
It is possible now to get up perfect imitations of individual
typewritten letters. Such letters with the name and salutation inserted
on a machine, and with personal signature, ought to bring results.
Those or actual personal letters are the last word.
Any man who has in the background of his mind a knowledge of what the
library stands for, a good opinion of the library based on good service
and continued publicity, ought to be influenced to definite action by a
good personal letter.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: It is not given to many of us to approach
a subject from so many directions as Mr. WALTER L. BROWN, librarian
of the Buffalo public library, in grappling with the subject of "The
breadth and limitations of bookbuying." His all-around experience will
make this next paper one of exceptional value to us.
Dr. Thwaites has kindly consented to read the paper for Mr. Brown.
BREADTH AND LIMITATIONS OF BOOK BUYING
One of the first principles of public library management is that of
adjusting it to the needs of its public, by whom and for whose benefit
and pleasure it is supported by the municipality. Upon this proposition
there has been no disagreement, as it is self-evident.
Questions of general policy arise when we attempt to decide what is
beneficial and what is detrimental, just how far we may go to supply
books for special and limited use, and just how far we may respond to
the popular taste in the demand for the expenditure of public funds for
pleasure.
The breadth and limitation of book buying should be determined by the
needs of the public rather than from the ratings of the books which are
being published. We should find the books that are best fitted for the
people who are to use them, rather than to try to fit the people to
the books which we may consider as the most desirable. The questions
so often raised as to the admittance to the library shelves of some
books of fiction of doubtful morals or the latest piece of erotic
literature seem very trivial when we consider the problems that face us
in the broad field of library work. The library is a public enterprise
for public good, and not merely a coöperative scheme for the purpose
of obtaining cheap reading, nor a bibliographical storehouse. The
important question is whether the books we are asked to buy will serve
any legitimate end of library service.
Most of our American cities resemble each other in the exceedingly
complex character of their population, each of whose varied elements
has more or less claim on the services of the public library. While
it is not possible to classify definitely the residents of a city for
library purposes, there are certain large groups which we may recognize.
In the first place, the public library has to serve, as libraries
of all times have served, those who have had all the advantages
of systematic education--those in the learned professions and in
other walks of life who have had given to them, through college and
university training, a wider vision than that of the average citizen;
those who have had given to them at least the knowledge of the
existence of the store of accumulated thought and of the records of
the past. Upon these more fortunate ones rests the responsibility, in
a large measure, of carrying the torch of knowledge and civilization
a little farther with each generation. The public library does not
pretend to act as a guide to this part of the community, but it must
serve as its laboratory and as its source of supply.
A second group which includes a large part of our population is made up
of those who have had the advantage of the full course of the grammar
school, with the smaller number who have had that of the high school.
From this group come not only the clerks in our stores and offices, but
men in the more skilled occupations, and also many business men and
employers of labor. Some of these are existing through gray, narrow,
uneventful, toilsome lives, while others take a large and leading part
in all that concerns the life of the community and in the moulding
of public opinion. It includes men of many creeds and civilizations,
prejudices, desires and ambitions; of many degrees of culture and
taste, high and low; influenced by very different inheritance,
associations and opportunities.
Some gain through application most of the advantages of the best
training, while others not only fail to make use of, but often
practically lose the education the city has given them. For the larger
number of this group there are great possibilities for good in the
means of education and cultivation which are now being provided by the
municipality.
How may the public library best meet the needs of these people, so many
and so diverse? How may it give to those who lack it that which will
enliven, improve, stimulate and cultivate, creating not only the desire
for what is best in life, but supplying the essence so far as it may
be gained from the stimulus and inspiration of books? How may we give
others the practical knowledge that is needed by them in their varied
occupations and activities?
Probably the most potential group in our cities is that large one
made up of the children of the immigrants. If they can be lifted by
education, if their taste can be guided and directed toward better
desires, the help which the library is able to give will act as a
tremendous force for good. If these children are left alone to indulge
in what is vicious and demoralizing in the life of the crowded sections
of the cities, they will become a menace to the municipal life. Their
parents have little to give them. The schools have on an average a
brief five years in which to influence these children, but they do send
them out with the power to read English. The public library may exert
its influence not only during their school life, but if it acquires a
hold upon them at that time, it will continue to be an influence for
good upon these future rulers of the city.
Is it not possible, in a small way at least, to cultivate their taste
and give them some desire to read what is worth while?
The broad base upon which city life rests is still another group made
up usually of the newcomers from many lands. A very large number have
little or no education excepting such as their toil has brought them.
Many are able to read their native tongue, but all their traditions and
all their lore is that of other lands and literatures. We find that
many of the more intelligent among them have brought, in addition to
their muscular strength, much that might enrich their adopted country
if it could find means of expression. They constitute a danger in our
life only when lacking the knowledge of our tongue, our ways and our
ideals, and when in ignorance of the adjustment of our government by
the popular will, they become the prey of the demagogue. He easily
gains a blind following among the ignorant by preaching class hatred
and a kind of discontent which is unrighteous.
Library work among these people should not only act as a safeguard, but
may prove an opportunity for some at least to attain a broader life by
awakening the desire for knowledge and the ability to grow which comes
with the reading habit and the knowing how to use books.
The public library has not only to carry out its mission to the
individuals of these groups as its part in social advancement, but it
has to coöperate in the work of betterment with the schools, and with
clubs and "movements" and with all manner of philanthropic and social
endeavor.
There is no lack of appreciation of this function of the public library
and we need not emphasize it any more than the service which it renders
promptly and liberally to the scholars and other leaders of the mental
life of the community. If we should fail to recognize our duty in
either respect, objection would be promptly expressed.
The real value of a public library as a municipal institution can be
best measured by its service toward building up a more intelligent,
hopeful and happier citizenship.
It is possible to help the immigrant through the writers of his native
tongue which bring him pleasure and pastime. We may even now help
him in his material progress in his new home by giving him elementary
books in English, from which he may acquire some knowledge of American
institutions and American life, and the time may come when we will
be able to do far more with great effect by having American books
translated into other tongues for this purpose.
We need to help by far the greater proportion of foreigners to acquire
English, because it is a tool which all must have in this country for
intelligent bread-winning purposes. We need to study the race history
of those represented in the population, and we should know something of
their conditions before coming to America; something of their education
and their mental development. Many sections of our large cities have
different problems in the amalgamation of the population and the
library should do what it can to help solve them.
A library agency in the neighborhood of these newcomers is a center
of real service and helpfulness. No work shows more definite results,
or is appreciated more than that which we do among the immigrants and
their children, who are often used as go-betweens by the parents and
the library.
While there are many agencies at work upon the children of the
immigrant, the library has a very important place and much
responsibility. No matter what the other demands may be, we cannot
afford to neglect these children, and we must make generous provision
to get them interested in good books through the schools and the
library.
Between the immigrants and their children at one extreme, and the
educational institutions and the scholar at the other, there is that
very large group of the community made up of the more or less educated
people, concerning whose needs and desires most of the questions on
bookbuying are raised. This is a reading group. A certain part of it
consumes tons and tons of newspapers and cheap magazines, the very
names of which are strange in libraries. This is the reading--perhaps
the only reading--of many of them, and we find that they go to the
newspapers for the stirring and morbid records of crime, for scandal,
for gambling news and other sensational matter, and they are reading
the magazines for stories of much the same character.
Such readers crave excitement; they seldom read a book for pleasure,
and they have never used the printed page for the purpose of obtaining
information since their school days. It seems vital that the public
library should find some meeting place with this section of the
community. The plane of the cultivated reader has no temptation
whatever. One must get down to earth to start growth, and the danger of
bending down is far less than that of keeping aloof by reason of too
high a standard. It is possible to do this without wholly giving up
our demand for good quality, and we may find popular books free from
vulgarity and from any pernicious influence, which, if properly used,
may create a zest for better books when they are offered.
In selecting books of different grades for the purpose of leading
readers from the poorer books to the better, we do, of course, put
before the readers of the better books a selection of descending
quality. Fortunately, however, there is little danger in this, for
there is a safeguard in the fact that a taste for the better books
carries with it a dislike to those of inferior quality.
It is well to remember also that even the lightest fiction selected by
the library is free from most of the objectionable qualities of the
reading indulged in by many readers whom we hope to reach.
As we advance in the scale of our readers, the demands upon the library
increase. More and more the library is becoming of commercial use. Not
only men of the various industries are finding use for the recorded
experiences and the advice of experts in their own lines, but business
men are beginning to find great possibilities in the use of books as
time-savers and as a help to efficiency. The use of the book as a tool
is becoming constantly greater, and the public library, as a matter
of course, is to supply all books which may be so used. It is the
plain duty of the public library to make known its ability to help its
community in these practical ways.
It would seem that wise book buying would result more often through a
study of the city rather than from the searching of book catalogs. The
public library perhaps more than any other educational institution may
receive help from social surveys, social engineering, and the records
of commercial organizations.
If a social survey has not been made of our city, we should at least
ascertain the elements which go to make up its population. Let us know
the types of people to be reached and their numbers. How many Americans
of native stock? How many residents of foreign birth? How many children
of foreign born parents? What are the races represented--English
speaking, Germanic, Slavic, Latin, etc.? What are the social and
economic conditions? What are their occupations? What of their
education and æsthetic development? These are pertinent questions for
the library.
Then let a search be made for the most attractive books for each group,
always remembering that there is a place for sound, clear, elementary
books on all subjects, and that these should be duplicated freely.
Let the business of the community be analyzed. Are there textile,
steel or wood industries? What manufacturing is done, and what raw
materials are used? What of its markets? What of its transportation?
What authoritative material may we find on all these subjects, and how
may we make it of valuable use? What is being done in our city for
the fine arts; for natural science; for the study of literature; for
religious and ethical teaching? How may we coöperate in all this work
by supplying the necessary books? Let there be a thorough understanding
of how and where good books may be used, and then let us consider the
breadth and limitation of our book buying.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: One is tempted to linger over the flavor
which has been given to the wording of the next topic, "The open door,
through the book and the library; opportunity for comparison and
choice; unhampered freedom of choice," and if we do not linger longer
on this it is because we know that that flavor will be made permanent
after listening to the address itself of the speaker, Mr. CHARLES E.
McLENEGAN, librarian of the Milwaukee public library.
THE OPEN DOOR, THROUGH THE BOOK AND THE LIBRARY; OPPORTUNITY FOR
COMPARISON AND CHOICE; UNHAMPERED FREEDOM OF CHOICE
A professor in one of our large universities recently complained that
college students of the present day are so woefully ignorant of many
things that they could reasonably be expected to know. The exciting
cause of the professor's outburst was an attempt to get from his class
some information about Chanticleer. He was met by conservative and
judicious silence until one youth, who was not quite sure, ventured
the opinion that it was a popular song sung by Jane Addams. Of course
such an answer would irritate a Chicago man, and justly too, when we
consider that Miss Addams is what made Chicago famous.
But the wail of the professor provokes the question: Where do all the
scholars and thinkers of the world come from? What keeps up the breed?
What is it that fills in the ramshackle, ill-jointed, unpromising
frame of much of our school product, and returns us so much of fine
manhood and womanhood, and so much of the sound learning and ability
of the working world? We must, I think, admit that the world is fairly
furnished with men and women, intelligent and useful, whom no college
can claim. And every college has its quota of dunces who may never
be anything else. My professor made no discovery of an alarming
decadence, for what he complains of has always been true. We should not
be pessimistic about youth, and we must be fair to our schools. They
make better what we send them, but they have no science of alchemy.
Many men and women find their inspiration in schools. But after the
largest measure of allowance, it will be conceded that the amount of
scholarship and efficiency in the world far exceeds the output of
our scholastic plants. There are more of such people than schools
produce, and the surplus must be accounted for in some other way. This
surplus comes, somehow, from that vast throng who are, in a sense, the
forgotten children of modern education--those hundreds of thousands
who fall out of the ranks in school days, and yet who persist and
find themselves without the help of the schools. It is very fortunate
that this is so, for otherwise we might have to abandon some of our
weightiest political maxims. The world is governed by proverbs, but
as a rule of action, a proverb is as dangerous as dynamite. It is as
useful as a club in a political campaign. But Dr. Holmes was right:
proverbs should be sold in pairs so that one may correct the other as a
counter irritant.
One of the most venerable and mossy of these narcotic saws is that our
school systems are the bulwark of democracy. Undoubtedly presidents
could be elected on this platform alone, if you could find an opposing
party foolish enough to deny it. Yet schools can be the bulwark of
democracy only by a confusion of terms, by which we mean that education
and intelligence are the bulwarks of democracy. This we may grant;
but we are now speaking of something besides the three R's and things
that children learn in school. By education and intelligence, we mean
the resultant of many forces acting on one point. We may readily
admit that democracies like ours have only intelligence with which to
oppose the powers that tend to gather at the center or to fly off the
circumference.
It seems to me that what we call the education of our schools is a very
imperfect instrument for the work it is supposed to do. What do we say
first to that fifty per cent of the population who drop out of grammar
schools with only the most elementary and inadequate knowledge of the
three R's? What has the school given them with which to fight the
battles of democracy? It is not only the spur of necessity which drives
youth to labor so early. That is undoubtedly one cause. There are also
the profound weariness and distaste which come of forever seeking from
the text-book page, from the teacher's voice, and from the gradgrind
drill for something to awaken the mind where the mind has no interest.
Germany has been the first to see this failure of the common school
to equip the majority; the killing effect of one sort of training for
every type of mind. Witness the system of continuation schools for
those who find themselves after beginning the bread and butter work
of life. Witness the compulsion of the employer to devote part of the
apprentice time to special instruction in the chosen craft. Even the
unused moments of garrison life in the army are not wasted. Everywhere
the progress of Germany is prolonging the school day in the discovery
of aptitude, and in the cultivation of it after it has been discovered.
In our English-speaking world we are trying to find the same thing in
our trade schools, in our manual training, in our vocational education,
in the many things which we perhaps hastily call fads in education.
They all indicate a reaching after something which is not now attained;
a search for an awakening influence on minds that are now dormant; for
something to light the inward eye. In all there is the implication
of a need which has not been met. These things are the evidence that
the diet of public education is not varied enough to nourish all the
children of the commonwealth, to awaken the dormant power for SOME
THING that lies somewhere in most of humanity.
"The hungry sheep look up and are not fed."
Public education has given long and careful thought to those who
remain in school. It is just becoming conscious of the great majority
who do not remain--the great majority whom necessity, choice, or lack
of adaptation of the school to the child drive yearly into the rough
school of life. At present the best that schools do for these is to
provide each child with the means of self education--the ability to
read. But we are to remember that this is only one of the instruments
of education; it is not education itself. It is no discovery, and
it needs little observation to point out, that with this instrument
of reading, the newspaper, the magazine and the book are the potent
educators of our day. They are, or should be, the bulwark of democracy.
I am not concerned to discuss this further than to show that what we
have vaguely depended solely upon our schools to do, is not done by
them, and never has been done by them. For the great mass, our schools
give each child the one open sesame--reading. There they leave him to
open what doors he can and will.
Before I suffer as a heretic, let me quote a really thoughtful man,
Thomas Carlyle, called by a breezy miss in our last civil service
examination "the great English apostle of hope." You remember that, in
speaking of the origin of universities, Carlyle in his Heroes said,
"If we think of it, all that a university or final highest school can
do for us is still but what the first school began doing--teach us to
read. The place where we are to get knowledge is the books themselves.
It depends on what we read after all manner of professors have done
their best for us. The true university of these days is a collection
of books." Possibly there is a little something "proverbial" about
this, and perhaps it should be mixed with a trifle of Mark Hopkins on
the end of a log. But a collection of books, be it large or small, is
a library. That definition still holds, though we may have to include
"skittles and beer" after awhile. It is quite clear that this aspect
of a library as a distinct and active factor in education has only of
late impressed itself upon the public mind. It marks the library as a
vitalized public utility, from which we are to expect more than has yet
been received. Even the best of schools has its limitations because
of the inflexibility of its courses of study, and it may fail, often
does fail, to touch with any spark of living fire. But the library may
provide something for every type of mind. The library cannot create
mind or the will and disposition to use it, any more than the school
can. But where the desire to feed any mental craving exists, it would
be a very poor library indeed that cannot satisfy it in some degree.
This power of the right book to supplement the school, or even to take
the place of it, is not yet comprehended in any fullness in our public
education. But it is just in this power of the book that a library has
one of its best reasons for being, and it is for this reason that, when
the library comes into its own, it will be a most important factor in
education. Let us see to it that one door is kept open for those who
discover themselves after school days are gone. There are thousands
who fail to grasp their opportunities in the way and at the time that
schools prescribe that they should. Some of these find themselves by
living, by working, by accident it may be, or by any of the infinite
ways in which humanity adjusts itself to its surroundings. For them the
library is a path into fields of learning, into avenues of power that
make all things possible. Here is the college of our self-educated man.
There is no mystery about it. It is the natural result of following the
inward light. We know that the better part of education is what we give
ourselves.
One should not use a single instance to prove a principle. It is not
merely bad logic; it is not logic. Yet the fact that everyone who deals
either with people or with books knows many such cases shows that
the experience is universal. One day not long ago, as I sat alone
in the office, a lad came in. "Mister, do you buy the books here?" I
admitted complicity. "Will you buy one that I want?" I asked what it
was. "Chickens." To cut the story short, I asked him to sit down and
we talked about chickens, for I am something of a farmer. I found that
he had read everything in the library on poultry and was hungry for
more. He knew the hen intimately. He had mastered the genealogy, the
sociology, the psychology, and the "Why" of hens. Furthermore, while he
was doing time in school, he was also carrying on a successful chicken
business on a city lot, from which business he had wrung two thousand
hard dollars, which he had safely in the bank. He had already marked
down a little farm near the city which would be his as soon as he had
"completed his education" in the grammar school, and then he would make
the feathers fly. I am glad to say he got his book, and I added another
lesson to the many my boys have taught me.
What is our concern with this lad? He is a type of what I have in
mind. I do not value him for his ability to make money. Men make money
who aren't worth a cent. I measure him by his value as a producer, by
his value to humanity as an example, and by his value to a library as
a walking delegate for free and unrestricted choice in books. He is
an educated man, joyfully occupied in something which engages every
faculty of his mind, which he loves, understands, and has mastered for
himself. Your country and mine will be the better the more they can
grow of that sort of man. He has made good; he has arrived. And to
arrive somewhere, under your own steam, is a great thing in life. You
might not get the answer you were looking for, but you could not get a
foolish answer, if you asked him of Chanticleer.
Lest I be misunderstood, I repeat for a moment. Schools must be
systematized. They must follow a course of study. Unhappily, what is
called economy dictates that the young must be herded together in
droves, graded by their ability to do one or two things into groups of
presumptively equal power, equal ability to comprehend and to labor,
and of similar tastes. It is the best that modern education has been
able to do in the schools. Yet every one of these presumptions of
equality is false. In spite of the Declaration of Independence, no two
people on earth are equal except in their right to live, move and have
their being. But on this educational bed of Procrustes each soul of our
Anglo-Saxon race lays him down to pleasant dreams. Alas for him whose
mental legs are too long, or too short, to fit the couch! Dreams? For
some they are nightmares! Just because of this narrowness of public
education, because of its inability to touch all types of mind, we have
that endless procession, out and ever out, from our schools.
It is not my wish to take a hopeless view of education. There is no
reason for taking such a view. I wish merely to emphasize a fact
which has always been true, but a fact of which we are just becoming
conscious. The problem of education in the days that are coming is to
adjust our machinery so that these lost products shall be lessened. In
this readjustment the library will have its place as a recognized and
systematic factor in "the greatest business of the state."
The open door through the library and the book has a pleasant sound.
Yet probably the most surprising fact in actual experience is the
helplessness of even intelligent people in using books. The address
of Prof. Chamberlain, delivered before this association a year ago,
did not overstate the case of the schools. But schools are beginning
to meet the issue, and in time they will remedy the conditions for
those who are fortunate enough to remain in schools. But always for
us will remain that contingent who drop out of school, in days before
the school can reach them with this gospel of the book. The school has
lost them, and, if ever they find the open door through the book, it
will be by chance, or because the library itself opens the door. It
rests with us to proclaim our mission to them. Of course every good
library has always taught those insistent ones who knocked at its
doors. But the library has been a passive agent of this education, not
an active one. A public library, in my judgment, should be equipped
with the necessary apparatus to conduct this work systematically, to
propagate its own use, to spread the gospel of the open door among the
people whom it serves. If this seems a violent innovation, I beg you
to consider it from the schoolmaster's point of view, as well as from
the librarian's. Here is a great body of people in every community
whom other agencies have taught to read, who depend upon reading to
return service to the state and to promote their own welfare. On
the other side, the library, with the admitted duty of furthering
education through the book. Does it not rest with the library to teach
persistently, systematically, and by every practicable means, how
and where to find what to read? The means of doing this is another
matter, but for the expediency of it, and the need of it, examine in
any considerable community, the roster of the great correspondence
schools, and reflect how many people are groping their way out of
darkness toward the light. What people pay for, as they do for this
instruction, they want; and what these learners get for their money,
they should have for nothing in any public library. When we teach how
and where to find what to read, the open door through the library and
the book will have some meaning for every man, woman and child who can
simply read. All the artificial barriers that stand between the reader
and his book will go; the barrier in the book itself will largely be
removed, and the library will reach through intelligent choice many of
those who are counted down and out by the schools: the thoughtful man
who has come to realize the possibilities of his work: the one who has
waited long to find his aptitude; the timid; the hesitant; the shy and
distrustful; the misunderstood; those who see the "dawn of a tomorrow."
The procession is endless, and each has his human need, which runs the
gamut from utility to the highest joys of life. We talk so much about
the struggle for existence that we forget that the best thing in life
is just to live. Not all reading is for material profit; some of it is
for happiness, and that happiness is purest and most complete which we
find for ourselves. It is the discovery of one's own light that brings
the abiding joy. What man or woman cannot look back to the inspiration
of some finding of his own for which he owes no one but his Creator?
These are the finest moments of life.
"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken."
So said Keats upon first looking into Chapman's Homer. To express the
rapture of the poet is given only to the poet. But the pure joy of
finding for ourselves some of the true and beautiful with which we are
in harmony, is reward enough. Whether we look upon our library as a
source of recreation, of happiness or profit (and it is all of these)
this army, who have fallen out of the ranks in the onward march of
education in the school, seem to be our especial wards. To open the
door through the book for them is a work worth doing, not as a means of
salvation, but as a means of sowing more efficiency and more happiness
among men. Ours is not the schoolmaster's task of teaching things: it
is the nobler task of showing humanity how to teach itself.
And, while we speak of missions, the library need not take itself too
seriously. The world is not looking to us for the salvation of mankind.
When all is done that can be done, there will still be those who will
not read, and who will follow the primrose path after their natures.
There are many agencies in life that work for good and the library is
one, not the only one. Our field is clear-cut and well-defined--to
extend the use of books. There seems to be a sort of nervous notion
abroad that one of the chief ends of libraries is to draw a crowd
and put a nice book into every hand. I do not know about all these
enrichments of our libraries as I read of them. Have books any
compelling power over those who merely come into their presence, unless
such people love the books or at least wish to read them? Of this I
have no doubt: There are enough who care to use our libraries, if we
can take away that helpless bewilderment which overcomes those who are
cast adrift, without rudder or compass, upon a sea of books. Teach them
the ways in which books may be made to yield their treasures. Open
that door in youth if possible, and it will be the best possession
which youth carries into manhood. But open it sometime, for the real
harvest time is when he who wishes to read, reads what he wants. It
might be more soul-satisfying to me to hand out to my chicken boy books
that minister to more attenuated needs--but what about the boy? Is he
not better that he finds for himself in the book what feeds his mind?
The glory and power of the library is that he who can merely read,
may there find what the in-dwelling spirit asks for. It is good that
there should be one place in education where there is no brimstone and
treacle, no Mr. Squeers, and no Smikes. "For books are not absolutely
dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active
as the soul whose progeny they are."
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: A curiosity which has existed since libraries
were first started is about to be gratified. We are to get the answer
to the question, "What do the people want?" from MISS JESSIE WELLES, of
the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh.
WHAT DO THE PEOPLE WANT?[3]
If we are to believe the voices in the air the people want some big
things, for it is a notable fact that the things most loudly demanded
are wanted by a few people for all the people. The socialistic group
wants a coöperative industrial system for everybody, another familiar
group in no uncertain voice demands votes for all, whether we want them
or not, and there is a third group to which our president has referred,
the members of which think that they see in universal education a
panacea for the ills of state and society. Of this group all librarians
must be at least ex-officio members while librarians in public
libraries must work definitely toward the end which it avows.
[3] Abstract.
How are we doing this? It will not serve to take refuge back of the
statement that our only hope for universal education is with the child.
We have a duty toward the adult as well as toward the child, and our
aim must be not to get people to read books but to get all the people
to read the right books, the books best adapted for their individual
development.
Are we supplying the right books? For book selection, a well nigh
perfect technique has been established, but is technique enough?
Knowledge of books and of technique are imperative but the librarian
who supplies the right books to all the people must know and understand
his fellowmen.
Who are the people whom we are to serve? Do we perchance throw them
into one great group and call them the public as distinguished from
librarians? Who are we but "the public" to the actor, the artist, the
man in the railway office? No, a wise providence has endowed men with a
great variety of characters and temperaments, and when environment has
further complicated matters, we must try to understand them all. For
our present purpose let us group the people on the basis of a taste for
knowledge.
Some people are born with a thirst for knowledge, some acquire a taste
for it through early training and environment and some must have
knowledge thrust upon them if they are to have it at all. Of book
selection for the educated in any of these groups this paper does not
deal. The subject has been discussed often and well, and while we have
by no means reached the point where we no longer need to study how to
serve them, the question is not a gravely puzzling one.
The elimination of the educated brings us down to a study of book
selection for the under-educated and the indifferent in the interest of
universal education for the benefit of state and society.
Some of these uneducated ones may be found in each of the three groups.
Many from the first two groups come to our libraries and should be
served thoughtfully and wisely. In many cases the only indication of
a thirst for knowledge is an omnivorous appetite for exceedingly poor
novels. If they have already devoured many, their taste is probably
hopelessly perverted and about all we can hope to do is to hold
their interest and eliminate the yellow horror with its debilitating
influence by supplying free, easily accessible books of even the
lightest grade found upon our library shelves. This is a very slight
advance, but it is a step forward. Others of this class if "caught
young" can be interested in better literature, and are worthy of our
careful thought and the wisest service.
There come also to libraries many in whom the real desire to know is
awake but still rubbing its eyes. They must not be confused with that
class of people, difficult to deal with in every sphere, who seek
to appear wiser than they are, and some personal knowledge of the
individual is imperative in order to avoid this mistake. They usually
ask for assistance in book selection and great care should be taken
in giving it, as it serves well the future of our race to help one of
these "derive education," as one such borrower has expressed it.
And now we come to the most difficult group of all, those who must have
knowledge thrust upon them if they are to have it at all. These do not
come to our libraries, but we go out to them by means of various forms
of extension work. We are inclined to take this branch of work lightly,
but it is full of potential good for the commonwealth. Here we have the
citizen at our mercy, why not see what we can do with him to help the
cause of universal education?
Extension work can be carried on with a small staff, but every worker
should be of the best, strong in knowledge of books and of human
nature. The book selection for these smaller centers can be based upon
some personal knowledge of the individual, and the collection may be
made a powerful educational tool. The individual can best be reached
through his personal tastes, for the developing of which he does not
dream that books exist.
This personal work must be devoid of sentimentality. The worker's
motive must be a desire for fair play, and he must not approach the
people in a missionary spirit. They do not want to be uplifted by a
missionary nor surveyed by a social worker. The only spirit in which we
can study their needs is the spirit of good fellowship, with the honest
desire to share with others what we ourselves enjoy. We can reach only
a few of the people who need help most and books can give then only a
small part of the awakening and training and broadening that the state
desires for them, but our effort should not be gauged by what we can
accomplish. We have to thank previous generations for many benefits
which result from their aiming high above their power of achievement,
and if by personal study of the under-educated we can raise the
standard of their reading in the slightest degree, the general standard
of intelligence of the next generation will advance in the same ratio,
and this the state finds worth while.
After this paper the session adjourned.
THIRD GENERAL SESSION
(Russell Theatre, Saturday, June 29, 9:30 a. m.)
Joint session with the Professional training section. Mr. James I.
Wyer, Jr., director of the New York state library, and ex-president of
the A. L. A., occupied the chair.
The CHAIRMAN: Your temporary chairman for the morning has but one
compunction in accepting this pleasant privilege, and that is that
it inevitably deprives you of the gracious presence of your rightful
presiding officer, even though it be only for a few minutes.
Miss MARY E. HAZELTINE, preceptor of the University of Wisconsin
library school, will speak to us on
THE ASSISTANT AND THE BOOK
The library movement is no longer a crusade, it is a movement of
peaceful education. In truth, the library movement is not a movement
at all, it is an achievement. The library has come to be a center of
personal interest. People, one by one, are the object of our labors.
They are to be brought, through the personalities of those who preside
over books, into touch with the personalities that dwell within books.
There are many militant movements today, those for universal peace
(strange paradox), equal suffrage, labor reform, and for human
betterment in crowded cities--great social movements that are being
promoted through the vigorous propaganda and the emphatic zeal of
their leaders. Over against these dynamic social movements, the
library operates as a quiet force, at once personal, intellectual,
educational, persuasive but powerful, studying community interests,
serving community needs it is true, but accomplishing the work through
the individual. These other movements will, after their first victories
are won, likewise take on an educational aspect, but they will become
strong and far-reaching only as people are touched and served by them.
No cause can be greater than the personality which interprets it. It
matters little how proud the ideals of the leaders, or how great the
possibilities of the work itself, nothing can really be accomplished
except through the vision, ability, and knowledge of those who have
actual contact with the public. Technique and method in library work
are of less importance than the personality of the assistant, his
preparation for the work, his continued renewing of himself in interest
and knowledge, his immediate contact with affairs of the day, and his
ability to share his interest and information with others.
If this be true, behind the library must lie a personal force. This
must be secured, first, through the personality of those who labor
within its walls; then, through the personalities of the books
themselves that are ready if permitted, to answer every human need.
The vital connection between these depends upon the person that can
stimulate a love of books, or arouse a feeling for their need. Are our
libraries today manned by such assistants?
The plain matter of fact is that we are still over-technical. For petty
details in devotion to routine and technique, we crucify personality;
we kill the love of books among our library workers, for there is no
time to read, no opportunity to make or keep a real acquaintance with
books. Schemes to induce others to read are constantly being devised,
red tape is ever being wound around our system of details, professional
duties are allowed almost brutally to shut us out from contact with
the best in literature. There are too many meetings to attend; too
many papers to write; have you ever been obliged to forego an open-air
performance of Electra at your very door that would have brought
interpretation and understanding, because you had to rival Euripides
and prepare a paper for the American Library Association? Librarians,
alas, take their work too seriously, and too painfully do their duty.
"For each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word."
The librarian of the older days was a crabbed and positively forbidding
guardian of books. Then for a period of years--and there are traces
of this time still with us,--the library worker had the attitude of
the clerk, so important seemed the details of library service. Now we
are approaching the time when the librarian shares in the spirit of
the social worker. The one big blessed thing that we all want to do
(and we are all assistants to the public) is to get people to love the
human messages in books, for "Books are not dead things and do contain
a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny
they were." The only way to do this is to make sure that the person who
deals with the public knows books--is fairly radiant with book lore. He
should not be a rapt scholar absorbed in his own research, nor on the
other hand a spiritless, lifeless, or flippant clerk.
Within a decade there has come a change in the tenor of most library
reports, most noticeable within the last five years. The emphasis is
now largely on the myriad things that are done for the public which
require a knowledge of books and the ability to use them for people.
This new library service can only be carried forward by assistants
who know both books and people. The library assistant is now rapidly
becoming a constructive social worker and has the most potent spiritual
forces of all the ages at his command.
But in addition to personality there must be education. This is a
primary requisite for an assistant. Nothing can supply the lack of
knowledge. Where nothing is, nothing results. It is evident that our
libraries are recognizing educated assistants.
Mr. Anderson H. Hopkins in his report to the Board of trustees of the
Carnegie library of Pittsburgh, said in 1908:
"Near the beginning of the report appears a statement of the names
of members of the staff, in an arrangement showing the positions
that they occupy. I have long felt that this is not adequate,
although it is in accord with the custom of large public libraries
in this country. A number of the members of our staff have not
only academic degrees, but also degrees or certificates from
professional schools, and I believe it would be a good plan for
us to set these forth in our statement, as is commonly done in
the calendars of colleges. There can be no question that the work
done by the staff compares favorably with that done by any similar
professional body and I believe that it would be well to take this
step in recognition of the fact."
In the report of the Cleveland public library for 1909 this statement
is made:
"An analysis of the preparation of the various members of the
staff for their work gives this interesting showing: college
graduates, 47; partial college courses, 24; library school
graduates, 46."
From the report of the Boston public library for 1909 the following is
quoted:
"Three grades of educational qualifications are required. The
lowest grade, which includes a comparatively small number of
pages, sub-assistants, etc., requires a training equivalent to a
grammar school course. The middle grade requires qualifications
equivalent to a high school training and familiarity with one
foreign language. The third grade, including seventy-seven of
these persons, requires qualifications equivalent to those
obtained by a college course, and familiarity with two foreign
languages. The proper cataloging and classifying of books and
the reference work necessary to aid those using the library also
requires in many positions much higher qualifications than those
which could be obtained by the ordinary college course."
Libraries should secure more assistants with academic training, whose
minds have come in contact with the many subjects that reveal the
past and interpret the present. We must rely on the colleges for the
production of such assistants, that they shall come to us already
knowing the sweep of literature on the library shelves, already loving
books and knowledge, and filled with their power. Such workers can not
help radiating a passion for books. They will make the library a living
institution, a center of glowing personality. Of some it can be said:
"Who reads and reads and does not what he knows,
Is one that plows and plows and never sows."
It can never be said of the college bred assistant who has been fired
with the message of books that he is such an one, but rather, he will
sow day in and out that priceless seed of the love of books in the
living soil of human hearts. Because such workers have seen the vision,
have walked in its light, they will continue to make books a part of
their daily living, never losing the habit of systematic reading,
despite the routine and immediate demands of the library.
We have said that the responsibility for supplying this knowledge and
love of books a part of their daily living, never answer, however,
that they cannot bring to their students in four years this literary
culture if they do not come to college with some previous acquaintance
with books; and that, if the student must study all the practical,
social, utilitarian, and commercially valuable things demanded today,
the reading of books is crowded out. Is not then, the responsibility
for awakening the love of books for their own sake thrown back upon
libraries, and upon the book knowledge of those that serve within their
walls? Our book service, of which we have been boasting for many years,
ought surely by this time to show results among those whom we have been
serving. If the colleges claim that there are few among their students
who have any real knowledge of books, should not we count the failure
partly ours?
And what is the reason? The assistant who has given the book to the
growing boy or girl has done it mechanically, has done it as a clerk
has done it without knowledge of its message, and as a result has
failed to arouse a love of books, a love of reading. The failure is in
the library assistant. We have substituted for training in book values,
for appreciation of their literary content, for knowledge of their true
worth among assistants a mechanical skill in the handling of books.
The trained assistant must ever keep alert in himself the spirit of
knowledge that is in him. In this same spirit and by this same habit,
the reading of trained members of the staff must become a contagion and
quicken the love of books in the untrained. The library looks then to
the trained assistant to come with a knowledge and love of books that
shall be retained as his birthright, and used as a talent not hid in a
napkin.
Library assistants cannot all be college bred. Many library workers are
recruited locally, among those for whom the library itself has been
a university. These make up a large body of the assistants who fill
important positions in all types of libraries. For their book knowledge
and love of learning the colleges cannot be held responsible. The end
desired must be secured by the library itself. First, by choosing for
an assistant today one who has appreciated the environment of books;
second, by encouraging and aiding him to a fuller knowledge of books
through systematic reading; third, by creating an atmosphere of books
in which future assistants may grow up.
To the average assistant who feels her importance because she is
working in a library, librarianship means an ability to do things with
the hand, rather than with head and heart. Many seek a library position
because they think it involves only neat and easy work, having in mind
the purely mechanical and technical side, without a thought of its
meaning and strength. The line should be drawn very sharply between
those who know books, can think about them, and who can express the
reason that is within them about their values, and those who only know
their outside, their mechanical care, and the keeping of their records.
So we find the responsibility for the book shortcomings of even our
best educated assistants at our own door.
It is said that librarians do not know the great life interests, the
pervading charm of music, the thraldom of art, the abiding realities
of religion, the solace of the out-of-doors; have never sensed the
author's heart-throbs which have gone into the books they lightly
handle, or gloried in the transcendent mysteries which lie in poetry.
How many library assistants really do read books for the joy of it?
In how many has this joy been killed; in how many has it never been
created? For these is not the library responsible?
Some libraries are already seriously caring for the training of
their assistants. In the large city libraries positions are filled
chiefly from the training class conducted by the library itself where
a graded service has been established and promotion depends upon
examination. But much of this training, like all library training, is
of necessity technical and professional, rather than cultural. Many
libraries further report staff meetings for general discussion of
library matters, while a few report such meetings for the general book
knowledge of the staff.
From the Dayton, Ohio, public library the report comes that monthly
staff meetings have been held since January, 1908, for various stated
library purposes, and that the members contribute anything of interest
from personal reading which would be suggestive to other members for
their own reading, or helpful to them in dealing with the public.
Library time is allowed for these meetings.
In 1906, Mr. Dana reported that members of the staff met once a week
to discuss library matters in general and to have a report by one
of the class on the literature of some assigned subject. Among the
subjects reported on were, photography, history of literature, French
revolution, French history, travel in Japan, opera, etc.
In 1907, Mr. Brown, of the Buffalo public library reports:
"We have done more staff training this year than was possible
before. Round tables are now held in nearly every department, at
which methods and books are discussed. To this we can trace habits
of greater carefulness and accuracy, a more comprehensive view of
the work as a whole, and happier, better service."
In 1908, the report says:
"The staff round tables--'the part of our work which keeps us keen
and alive' as one member expresses it--have been held as usual. At
these meetings methods of work and books are discussed and frank
talks upon the best means of helping borrowers are given; but the
spirit of sympathy and comradeship which results from meeting
together as library workers and talking over the work, its purpose
and ideals, is really the most valuable and important result of
these meetings."
From Cedar Rapids, 1905, comes the report:
"A meeting of the staff has been held on Thursday mornings for
the discussion of current events and library problems." In 1908:
"The Thursday morning hour has been given to the reading aloud of
poems suggested in Dawson's 'Makers of English poetry.' Some time
was devoted to Browning and Milton. New books were discussed and
current events were considered." In 1909: "The staff has taken up
the study of Brander Matthews' 'Development of the drama,' and has
read several of the Greek tragedies. Current events and new books
were also discussed." In 1910: "The weekly staff meetings have
been continued and are most helpful."
The Cleveland report for 1910 says:
"The staff round table continues to meet; this year, more than
ever, emphasis has been laid upon a broader and less superficial
knowledge of books on the part of the staff, and it is believed
that some progress has been made in this direction. * * * All this
shows a flexibility of mind on the part of our staff which has
made them grow with their work. There has also been the ability
of the older members to train and inspire younger and newer
assistants."
Constant study is required among those who have attained academic
distinction, evidenced in advanced degrees, in record of profound
research, in contributions to learned societies and journals, and in
published monographs and books. Even teachers in the grades must pass
examinations to hold their positions, and excel in order to secure
promotion. No one employs a physician who does not keep abreast of
scientific and medical discoveries by graduate courses or private
study; few listen long to a preacher who does not keep in touch with
the spirit of the times. Can it be that the library profession is the
only one in which a systematic progression is not generally demanded?
A definite amount of reading should be required of all library
assistants. They must not be allowed to stagnate, nor to think that
because they live in an atmosphere of books they are exempt from
reading. There should be on the part of the librarian a keener
feeling of responsibility for his assistants and for their growth
in the knowledge and love of books. Whether this shall be brought
about through organized classes, whether it shall be through weekly
reading with required reports, or whether it shall be through the
subtle influence of the librarian's personality and love of books
which inspires him; or whether it shall be a combination of all these,
remains to be worked out by each local institution,--but worked out
it must be, unless with our boasted free books, we are to become the
by-word and the laughing stock of future generations.
We all acknowledge that the assistant is a most important individual.
Have we looked well to his necessary book qualifications and to his
continued opportunities for improvement while serving the library? And
have we analyzed what these opportunities should be? We say frankly:
First, the librarian is brother's keeper of all the assistants. Second,
the educated library assistant in creating a love for books, owes as
much to his fellow assistants, who have been less fortunate in the
matter of education, as he does to the public. Third, that the library
itself should become a progressive training school for love of books
and reading.
It is the assistant who has caught the message of books, who has heard
the gods calling him to celestial heights, who realizes what Robert
Louis Stevenson expressed when he said that he felt like thanking God
that he had a chance to earn his bread upon such joyful terms--it is
such an assistant who makes the library a place where people want to
read. And that is the true library whose books are read.
No one has a richer opportunity to be a public servant in all the fine
significance of that word, than the assistant to the public in the
public library. He may unlock the treasures of the past, for those
treasures are committed unto him not for keeping but for sharing
freely. This public servant may extend the knowledge of the discoveries
and innovations of the present, and thus become an interpreter of the
scholar's message. This public servant may match the answering book
with the inquiring mind, the responsive page with the hungry soul. This
public servant may lead out the spirit of youth, lift the burdens of
middle life, may speak solace to old age through the thoughts and songs
of poet and prophet, dramatist and seer. This public servant must be a
great personality, either an achieved personality, or a personality in
the making; this public servant must be a lover of people, a lover of
life, and therefore a lover of books.
The CHAIRMAN: The next paper on the program is by Miss EDITH TOBITT,
librarian of the Omaha public library. Miss Tobitt herself, I regret to
say, is detained, but she has sent her paper and it will be read by Mr.
Frank K. Walter, of the New York state library school.
TYPE OF ASSISTANTS: ABILITY TO DISCERN QUALITY AND ESSENTIALS OF BOOKS
AND POWER TO GIVE INFORMATION RATHER THAN ADVICE
When gathering the material for my part of this discussion of "Type of
assistants," my inclination turned constantly to another wording of the
title, that is, "the value of the book to the public dependent upon the
intelligent discrimination of the assistant," so while I shall try to
adhere more closely to the original subject than this would indicate, I
hope that you will pardon me if I now and then talk on the second title.
"Efficiency in business" has received so much discussion of late that
it is a brave person who dares assume the privilege of continuing the
subject, but having seen the statement that "the more books of the
right kind are read, the more efficient a nation becomes," a librarian
naturally believes that the discussion has no end but may be continued
indefinitely, for this means not only a supply of the right kind of
books but also an efficient distribution of these books.
When speaking of the efficiency of the employees in a library, it would
seem that the same general rule would hold as in other occupations,
but this is scarcely true. The people who are served by an institution
maintained at public expense expect a higher grade of service than when
served by the employees of some private institution or business. No
doubt, this is because a higher grade of honor or integrity is expected
in the occupant of the office which is maintained for the public good,
at the public expense, than one which is maintained for private gain.
Naturally the same general rules regarding adaptability, politeness,
industry, and various other attributes should be applied to the
occupant of any position but in the case of the public servant only the
very highest standards should be tolerated.
Aside from the public the librarian's first interest should be in the
employees of the library. Again and again the statement has been made
to the effect that the "work of getting the right book to the right
person falls upon the desk assistant chiefly," but as almost all of
the employees of a library are desk assistants at some time during
each day, it follows that all of the employees bear almost equal
responsibility.
It would seem that the selection of books for the library should have
first attention, but books are easy of selection compared to employees,
and easily disposed of if not found to be useful, while the assistant
must be carefully placed in the department for which she is the best
fitted. For taking all of the valuable characteristics of all of the
assistants into consideration, there are to be found as many grades of
value as there are books in the library. To be able to do the subject
of "the library assistant" justice, the writer should have a very
thorough knowledge of human nature, a knowledge generally possessed
by successful teachers and sociological workers, but not often by the
librarian. Such knowledge comes from a kind of experience not easily
obtained by a librarian. It is more to a librarian's credit to know
thoroughly the members of the staff and consequently be just to all
than it is to have succeeded with any other one piece of work, because
perfect justice toward employees will produce the best work for the
library.
While the actual work of getting the right book to the right person
may fall chiefly upon the desk assistant, the manner in which this is
done emanates from those who decide the policy of the library. If those
who are at the head of affairs have forgotten or have never realized
that the library exists for the people, and that it is maintained at
public expense for that purpose, and because of this lack of knowledge
maintain an attitude of arrogance toward the people, the assistants
will do the same. It is true that an indifferent and unsympathetic
librarian cannot always prevent a capable and efficient assistant from
doing her work well, yet the lack of efficiency at the head will often
discourage capable assistants and will never better the work of poor
ones.
In a library of medium size having thirty employees or less it is a
comparatively easy matter for the librarian to keep in close touch with
the work of the members of the staff and by personal effort maintain a
definite standard, while in a large library this duty must of necessity
be detailed to others. But whatever the means adopted, every library
must have a definite standard of efficiency which bears directly
upon the service to the public and although a full knowledge of the
technical details of the work of the library are without question
necessary, a proper knowledge of the right attitude toward the public
is a greater necessity and should receive from the librarian much
greater emphasis than the technical side.
The characteristic most to be desired in a library employee, in no
matter what position, is that of the self-disciplined and well trained
servant who understands the rights of others and what they should
expect of him in his position, and who attempts to respond to this
demand. These characteristics, if they exist, are inherent but may be
more fully developed by experience.
It may be well to try to outline in a general way what should be
expected of the occupants of some of the important positions in a
library, for the final outcome of the work will depend upon the
librarian's ability to discriminate in the selection of the right
persons to fill these positions. For the children's librarian, the
first requirement is a knowledge of children and the ability to feel
and show sympathy and affection without being sentimental. Many
attractions may be introduced into the children's department but the
vital things are to know the children and the books. A mistake in the
appointment to this position might be more nearly fatal than a mistake
in any one of the other departments, for the ability of the children's
librarian to discern intelligently those qualities in a book which
are right for the child may permanently settle that child's taste in
literature. The future well being of the library often depends upon the
wise choice of the children's librarian.
A knowledge and love of people may also be put as the first requisite
for the head of the circulation department, extending not only to the
people who are generally called "the public" but also to the employees
of the library. This position may well be considered the most important
in the library, next to the librarian and assistant, for from this
source the other employees will instinctively acquire the standard
for their treatment of the public and obtain their ideas of what is
the amount of knowledge of books which should be expected of a desk
assistant. The personality of the head of the circulation department
and her ability to be helpful and to teach those in her department to
be helpful, can do more toward increasing the usefulness of a library
than any other one characteristic. The employee given to much detail
is not generally a success here. Rather that employee who, by strength
of personality, leads others to do good work, is the best. The head of
the circulation department has the best opportunity of any one in the
library for making a direct path from the borrower to the book.
Scholarship, without question, must be considered the first requirement
for the reference librarian, and if the public is to learn to have
confidence in the library as an educational institution, no mistake
must be made here. But the scholarship must always be allied with the
desire to do service.
Frequently the cataloger appears to the other members of the staff
to be so far removed from direct contact with people that it is
assumed she cannot intelligently know what the public wants. Except
in very rare instances this is a mistake, as has been proved by some
of our great catalogs, the makers of which probably rarely waited
upon the public. It is the ability to put oneself in the place of the
questioner, to have a sympathetic interest in the people, that counts,
and also to realize seriously that only by means of the catalog can the
public have a true knowledge of what is in the library.
The same general rules may be followed all through the library.
Different positions require different qualifications and it rests with
the librarian to see that the employee fits the position. If this is
not done it will make little difference how good the collection of
books may be, the contents of the library will not reach the public in
a direct way. The library is what the librarian and assistants make it
by their intelligent use of the material supplied.
This may all seem very commonplace. If it is, then why have we not
profited more by what we already know? It must be granted that many
libraries inherit employees who are not particularly well fitted for
the place they are expected to fill. The only thing to do in this case
is to put them where they will do the least harm. We cannot expect to
maintain an all star cast, but by studying carefully the people in the
employ of the library the librarian can generally so manipulate things
that eventually the right person will be in the right place.
The program makers asked to have discussed "the ability to discern
quality and essentials in books." For this we must have first the
student and careful reader who, through the study of various subjects
is able to judge the literature of those subjects. It cannot reasonably
be expected that library employees will be able to have a first hand
knowledge of all classes of literature, but all employees may become
reasonably familiar with the names of the best writers on many subjects
and the character of their work. It is by means of the various literary
tools provided and the ability to acquire a more general knowledge of
many subjects by much reading that the library employee increases in
value. In this particular part of the work the library assistant gains
more by much reading than she does by experience.
It is not my duty to discuss the kind or the extent of the education
possessed by those who become library employees. We all agree that this
should be the broadest and the most general possible with emphasis
placed on literature and history. Most of our assistants enter the
library training classes at the close of a high school course, and,
generally speaking, librarians do not expect more than this because
the salaries which are offered will not attract people of higher
education. Therefore, if an assistant is to learn to discern quality
and essentials in books some provision should be made by which this
knowledge may be acquired in the library after entering as an employee.
Just as the librarian is responsible for the attitude of the assistants
toward the public so are the librarian and heads of departments
responsible for the growth of the efficiency of the employees in this
particular phase of library work.
A standard of efficiency must be maintained along this line of
education as well as personal treatment of the public, therefore it
is impossible to emphasize too strongly the necessity of continuing
the education of the library employees after finishing the work of the
training class and after having become an employee of the library. It
can scarcely be considered advisable to attempt to give much practice
work in all departments to all employees but it should be one of the
requirements of the library that provision be made whereby all of the
employees in a department shall learn to know the general character and
the value of most of the books in that department.
From the library periodicals of England one may gather that there
is some rather severe criticism of the assistants in libraries, the
general feeling being that a lack of efficiency deprives the public of
their proper share of service. I should like to quote from a paper by
Mr. John Bar, which appeared in the Library world (vol. 13).
"If the library would only adopt a policy whereby a guarantee could
be had that the assistants in the library would be taught their
profession in a thorough manner, I am positive that the now prevalent
lament regarding the apathy and carelessness of assistants would be
reduced to a vanishing point, because from observation, I believe
that the assistant is the product of his environment; he is what the
conditions in the library make him. The policy of the library should
be to provide the staff with every opportunity for improvement in
general, literary, and technical knowledge. In order to meet the first
part of the proposal, the time of the staff should be so arranged as
to allow a reasonable portion for private study as well as recreation.
And in order to fulfil the latter part--that relating to technical
knowledge--the work of the library should be so organized as to ensure
that every assistant shall, in a series of progressive steps, obtain
an adequate and thorough knowledge of all the practical details of
librarianship."
The people of America cannot offer quite as severe criticism of their
library employees as this would imply has been offered in England, but
the suggestions regarding further education after entering the library,
are such as we might well follow.
The second item suggested by the program makers reads "the power to
give information rather than advice." This naturally would come
through the ability of the employee to eliminate his own opinion and to
put forward instead the opinions of those who are qualified to know.
Here again the employee may, by much reading, become more efficient.
There is nothing so offensive to patrons of a free institution as to
have unsolicited opinions and advice offered by employees. And yet this
is a characteristic of the new employee and is prompted not by conceit
but by a desire to be helpful and to please. The best way to be helpful
in a library, as elsewhere, is to help people to help themselves. In
this as in all of the work of the library the standard must be that
established by those highest in authority, and ways and methods must be
put forward whereby the assistant may know what plan she is to follow.
The ability to be helpful comes by much experience, both personal
experience and the experience of others. To quote, "experience is the
force which makes life possible ... and books alone give permanence
to the facts of experience." Therefore to busy people in need of the
experiences of others, the greatest help comes by much reading.
We may attempt in every way possible to make general rules governing
the efficiency of the library staff, and attempt to maintain certain
definite standards, both for the sake of the public and in order to
keep down the expense of maintenance, but with all this we shall never
be able to reach a perfect system, partly because many employees give
promise of much, but soon reach the limit of their capacity and cease
to grow, and also because of the frequent unavoidable changes.
There is some variance in the minds of librarians regarding the place
of the library in a city, but without discussion we must all agree
that first of all the free public library is a collection of books
maintained for the use of the public. In order that these books may be
available the employees must not only give efficient service, but they
must also have a clear understanding of the public.
It has been said many times that a few books in the hands of an
intelligent and discriminating employee are of greater value than a
large collection poorly handled. The employees constitute the medium
by which the books reach the public and it rests with the buyer,
the cataloger, the desk assistant, the reference librarian, and the
children's librarian to see that these get into the hands of the right
people at the right time. It is here that the careful discrimination of
the librarian and assistants is necessary.
The average library is much too large to be well used by the public
and the employees of the library. In most libraries of 100,000 volumes
there are possibly not more than 10,000 which are of real value. If
the employees could know the authors, titles, and something of the
contents of most of these it is quite as much as may be expected. If
the assistant comes to the library with a reasonably good education and
something of a desire to add to what she has, and will read regularly
of books which are of general interest there is no reason why she
should not learn to discriminate quite as carefully in the selection
of books for the individual borrower as the assistant who has made a
special study of the criticism of literature.
No mention has been made of requirements for special positions in a
library. This can only be settled after the employee has shown some
fitness for special work. As the library is what the librarian and
assistants make it, it rests with the librarian and those in the
highest positions in the library to decide definitely on a policy, the
result of which shall be prompt and efficient service from the time of
the purchase of the books to their final distribution into the hands of
the people.
The CHAIRMAN: Next upon the program occurs the paper, "The efficiency
of the library staff and scientific management," by ADAM STROHM,
assistant librarian Detroit public library.
THE EFFICIENCY OF THE LIBRARY STAFF AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
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.
WHAT LIBRARY SCHOOLS CAN DO FOR THE PROFESSION
For nearly thirty years an invigorating influence has come to library
work through the library schools. During that time hundreds of young
men and women, selected for personal and educational qualifications,
have been given training in the mechanics of library work and have
been placed in touch with the best library thought. As a result, fewer
libraries have been converted into laboratories for experimental work
in technique.
The library schools have been commended repeatedly by this association
and their services are too obvious for comment. In considering,
however, what they can do for the profession today, we shall assume the
role of the devil's advocate and endeavor to point out how they may
serve more fully in what they are doing and what they should do that
perhaps is not being done. In the time available we can do little more
than summarize.
The first library school was founded and conducted in connection with
a university library and for several years at least, its curriculum
showed the strong influence of university demands. The curricula of
the later schools have been modified somewhat, but changes have been
unimportant as compared to the traditions retained. These were carried
from the pioneer school to those established later with certain general
basic principles which doubtless always will be kept.
For several years a feeling has been sensed, although vaguely
expressed that changes and modifications in library school courses
were needed. There have been convictions that the schools were not as
closely in touch with certain growing activities in library work as
libraries themselves were with growing demands and new fields open
to them. These convictions have been most pronounced in the schools
themselves. As stated by one library school director,--"In some way,
the library school should train its students to meet the vital demands
that humanity makes upon all who come regularly in communication with
people." The aim of the school seems more clearly realized than the
means of attaining it, but efforts are seen in the shifts and changes
in curricula. In preparing its students to meet the vital demands that
humanity will make, it is evident the schools have concluded this can
best be done by additions rather than eliminations from courses of
study. The training conducted by the oldest school began with a three
months' course which in the second year was increased to seven months
and then to two years. Another school, typical of several, has never
increased the time period over one year, but has so increased the
work required that in eight and one-half months, including vacations
and holidays, instruction and examinations are given in forty-three
subjects, a minimum of three hundred and seventy-seven hours of
practice work is required, and a trip of six hundred miles in ten
days is taken when some fifteen to twenty libraries are inspected and
reported on.
In these crowded courses of study, the schools should be expected by
the profession to prevent its ideals from being smothered in the stress
of technical work. The usual incentive to enter library work comes from
a love of books but this love will avail little if it be unaccompanied
by a consuming desire that the community also share it. Generalities
and pseudo-sentiment concerning ideals have invited ridicule, but
no librarian, however reticent or how unrecognized his actuating
principles may be, can carry on his work successfully without following
the vision which vitalizes his professional life. From 1876 to the
present day, this association has cherished its aims and our schools
can do no greater service than imparting those guiding principles that
the means of work may not become the end.
No institution can create qualities lacking in a student and library
schools will concern themselves mainly with the mechanics of
library work, which is most difficult to obtain elsewhere. But this
instruction may either strengthen or weaken indispensable qualities
for librarianship and the profession reasonably can expect the schools
to foster such. Three related qualities which should be developed in
prospective librarians are: a sense of proportion in library work,
initiative and judgment.
When we consider the importance of a proper sense of proportion,
should we not congratulate ourselves that the schools are devoting
less attention to a particular handwriting and other incidentals, the
insistence on which always seemed to belittle the dignity of a great
work. Legibility in a medical prescription is more important than on
a catalog card, but medical colleges and library schools alike can
concentrate their strength on more vital needs.
In expecting the schools to develop initiative and good judgment in a
student, it is not suggested that students be encouraged to attempt
changes in systems of classification, cataloging and other technical
processes which have been perfected by the best library thought of two
generations. In such a course as book selection, however, after general
principles are presented, cannot students be thrown more fully on their
own judgment and their practice work be confined to evaluating current
publications? Their conclusions could then be verified by comparison
with selections in the order department. A year's work confined to
sitting in judgment on books from five to fifty years old, when these
books are known to be desirable through their presence on the shelves,
deadens initiative and judgment and makes routine of what should be one
of the refreshing pleasures of the work.
One of the profession's needs today is more men--men whose abilities
would qualify them for the highest positions in any work, and these
the library schools should attract. While many of the most useful
and talented library workers are women, the fact remains that the
demand for good men far exceeds the supply, yet we find an astonishing
shortage in the schools. Even the school most largely attended by
men, reports a decrease since the year 1903. More than one school has
attracted so few that the presence of a man is noteworthy and there
seem to be schools connected with universities where hundreds of young
men are preparing for professional life, that have yet to enroll one
man student.
Should we not expect the schools to supply more men? Can they not
co-operate with the American library association in presenting the
claims and rewards of librarianship to young men in the universities?
Not only would such presentations interest both men and women, but they
would help to dispel many existing mediaeval conceptions of library
work which still survive. Our shortage in men cannot be due entirely
to the financial returns in library work. The average salary of men
in that work exceeds the average in several crowded professions, and
yet our greatest rewards are not in money returns. Men may regard
the school courses simply as means to an end, and if so, perhaps the
means could be made to appeal more strongly to men. It is rash in
these days to compare attributes of the masculine and feminine mind,
but may we venture to say women, as a rule, have more patience and
enjoyment than men in work requiring sustained attention to details.
Do not library school courses, as now arranged, appeal largely to the
house-wifely instincts and cannot courses be devised for men who never
intend to fill library positions where the exercise of these instincts
will ever play so important a part in their work as will problems of
administration and questions of library policy. We shall admit that all
students should have sufficient training in cataloging for instance, to
know good or poor cataloging when met with. But personally I fail to
see why a man destined for administrative work should necessarily have
to do expert cataloging in order to appreciate it, any more than he
would first have to write a book before his judgment in book selection
for his library could be relied on.
* * * * *
During the last ten years the library has undergone phenomenal
development in its relations with other educational and social forces.
Today we must co-operate not only with the public school, but with
the social settlement, the juvenile court, and various other special
municipal activities. The profession should expect the schools to
provide their students with a working knowledge of what the relations
of a library to these activities should be, what methods employed
bring best results and what some of the problems and possibilities are
from such relations. And most important of all, the schools should
be expected to provide candidates for library work with a proper
appreciation at least of the importance of the library's public
relations in general. No mastery of technique or high endeavor greatly
avails if the library's public relations be not handled intelligently
and skillfully. Rules and regulations are but the written creeds
of institutions in the details of loaning books, but back of all
of them are the great unwritten laws and principles of procedure,
more important than all the printed regulations in existence. Great
policies in public relations are being tried and tested today and
light on them should be focused through the schools so prospective
librarians can see ahead more clearly. Questions of relations with
the public are confronting all who, in the words quoted before, have
to meet the vital demands that come through constant communication
with people. In the Public service magazine of April, 1912, under the
heading "Public relations--the vital problem," the following is taken
from the president's address before the Illinois Association of Gas
Manufacturers:
"Slowly probably, but surely, the majority of owners and operators
of public utilities are coming to the realization that the most
important,--the most vital subject with which they have to deal in the
management of their properties today, is that of public relations. It
used to be that the man who could put the most gas in the holders at
the lowest cost, or could generate the most power at the electric or
street car plant, was the most important in the whole organization.
"It is different now. The basis of organization has changed and the man
who has made a study of public relations--the man who can create and
conserve the public good will is given the reins of control."
But should a man wish to make a particular study of the library's
public relations before he is compelled to assume the responsibilities
accompanying them, he may have difficulty. One school makes provision
for special students, but on account of the extra work each additional
student makes on the faculty, it is often impossible to enter.
Admission depends on available desk room and on condition that the
regular classes are not so large as to occupy the entire time of the
faculty.
The theory at present seems to be,--give every student a little of
everything he may need, as the process of forgetting what he will
not use is easier than the work of acquiring it should he need
it. We therefore see men destined for control of large libraries,
women planning for positions as catalogers in university libraries,
candidates for small public institutions, those who will specialize in
bibliographical work--all of them differing in natural inclinations,
special preliminary training and professional aims in library
life, being introduced to forty-three phases of library work, with
instruction in all of them varying from 2 to 101 hours, according to
the subject, with at least 377 hours of practice work and a library
trip--through all of which the student emerges in eight and one-half
months, possibly somewhat bewildered by the process but groping for the
ladder up which he is determined to climb.
Cannot the schools do the greatest service to the student and to the
profession by abandoning the plan of putting all students through the
same square hole? Instead of giving a little of everything, cannot
the school give much of what the student will use and nothing of what
he can dispense with or what can be got easily outside of the school?
Cannot the courses be simplified somewhat to permit this? Entrance
examinations are conducted early in June for admission to the school
in September. Cannot a study of the history of libraries, the history
of books and printing, the reading of library literature on publishing
houses and other non-technical work be required of the student
during the intervening three months? The literature would gladly be
provided by libraries over the country and the three months' reading
and intelligent observation in the library by the student before
beginning his technical training would be advantageous. Three months'
acquaintance and observation of the student by the librarian would make
his recommendations valuable to the school.
But school courses as at present outlined cannot be made sufficiently
flexible to provide specific training for specific work. Therefore,
cannot the schools divide the instructional field between them and
concentrate their individual efforts on special lines. This division of
work is done most successfully by libraries in large cities.
Such a division would have several advantages. A man loving
responsibility and the management of affairs could secure a maximum of
definite training for administrative work and a minimum of work less
important in his professional career. A woman under appointment as head
of a small public library, would receive a maximum of training for this
work and a minimum in the methods and features of work in a college
library. One of promise as a cataloger would receive a maximum of
technical training made possible through a minimum of time and effort
required in studying the problems of a children's librarian.
The objection can be raised that neither the school nor the student can
determine his future work and therefore a minimum number of hours in
as many as forty-three subjects is preferable as a foundation. But in
these general courses as outlined today, there is a great preponderance
of work in certain lines. In speaking of the time devoted to
cataloging, one school director said, "There is, however, much reason
for this, as a large number of the graduates become catalogers and many
others enter positions where a knowledge of cataloging is essential."
We shall agree that an expert knowledge of cataloging is essential in
many positions, but has not the large number of graduates from this
school who have become catalogers, been due partly at least to the fact
that twice the time in school was devoted to this work than to any
other, the aggregate equaling the combined hours of seventeen other
branches.
The fact that one's special training largely determines one's field of
work, is seen in another library school where a maximum of children's
work is made possible by a minimum in some other departments. The
result is that of the 148 graduates of this school, 107 were, last
year, engaged in children's work, principally as heads of departments.
The remaining 41 graduates were represented in other fields of library
work.
The division of the field between the various schools would have
another advantage of the student. At present, a school's geographical
location, or its entrance requirements largely decides a student
in selecting a school. But would it not be better if the student's
selection were based on what the school could offer in special lines of
work.
It may be thought that a prospective student lacks the self-knowledge
to determine his qualifications for special work. Many students have
and more should have library experience before schools are entered
and these will know their intentions and qualifications. Even if an
occasional mistake were made, the student still would have instruction
in the various lines of library work.
In the school referred to before, the 41 graduates who are not filling
positions for which special training was given, are successfully
occupying positions of honor and responsibility in other library fields.
Again, the law of supply and demand makes no exception to library work,
and with a division of the field, a student could receive the fullest
training in the work for which there was the greatest demand.
In conclusion, the profession should not expect the schools to turn out
finished products. Librarianship is not merely a process. It is also a
habit of mind--an attitude towards public affairs which seeks activity
through the medium of books. But in inculcating the principles toward
this attitude, the profession must rely and can rely with confidence on
the schools.
* * * * *
The CHAIRMAN: The paper just presented, and other phases of the
subject, will be discussed by Mr. William H. Brett of the Cleveland
public library.
Mr. BRETT: My good friend Mr. Hadley has stated so clearly the
problems, the purposes and the difficulties of the library school, and
I am so heartily in accord with so much that he has said, that I regret
that I must differ from some of his conclusions. In considering these
questions we must bear in mind that a majority of the students are in
schools giving only a one year's course, and only a minority are so
fortunate as to be able to attend the schools giving courses of two or
more years. Now, the problem and the difficulty in a one year school is
to arrange a course of study which shall be best for students entering
school with widely differing preparation, some with, others without,
library experience, and with differing aptitudes, abilities, ambitions
and plans for the future. To arrange a course which will best meet the
needs of such an aggregation of students is a serious problem.
The criticisms on the work of the schools in the paper, seem to be
mainly, first, that too much of the routine work, the technical work,
is unnecessary for those who may be so fortunate in the future as to
fill administrative or other important positions, in which they will
not need to do such work, and that routine work of that sort tends to
deaden those more important things, sense of proportion, initiative,
judgment, ability to deal with the larger problems of life. While I
fully agree as to the importance of these things, I believe there is
little occasion to fear that a solid technical course will lessen these
qualities in any one who is so fortunate as to have them in any eminent
degree. It seems to me that those qualities are rather the gift of God
to their fortunate possessors than the work of the library schools.
My own conviction is that whether it be had in the first year of one
of the larger schools, or in a school giving a one year course, a
definite, solid basis of technical training is an absolutely essential
foundation for good library work. I believe that any specialization
in library work should be built on such a foundation, just as
specialization in law, in medicine and in the technical professions, is
based on a general professional training.
We should have, I think, in our library training, the opportunity for
specializing when the students are ready for it, but I believe that
whatever position one is to occupy, whatever work in the library one
may be fortunate enough to do, the solid, general training of one year
in a library school is none too much as an introduction and basis.
So that I believe that specialization in a one year course is not
desirable, even if it were practicable, which it is not for at least
two reasons: The time is too short and the expense too great. Such a
suggestion reminds me of something which I heard President Eliot of
Harvard say once upon a time at a meeting of school superintendents, on
the subject of enriching and broadening the course in grammar schools.
He argued in a very strong and interesting way for greater freedom
for the brighter child to pass along more rapidly by means of special
instruction. It was answered in various ways by the school men, but to
me the answer was very clear, namely, that what Harvard university,
with one instructor for eight or nine students, could do is not
practicable in grade schools with one instructor for fifty students.
So any attempt to specialize in a one year course would require an
increase of cost for instruction greater than the result would be
likely to justify. An important co-operation has been at various times
suggested and discussed as follows: If the courses of the one year
schools could be so closely approximated to the first year's work
in the larger schools that students having completed the one year's
course might afterwards, if able to meet the requirements, complete
their work, specializing, if they chose, in the second and third years'
work of the larger schools, this would seem a perfectly feasible and
desirable thing.
Another co-operation which I think would be of great value might be
arranged with the colleges if they would give credit for work in the
library school. A large part of the work in the library school, such
as book selection, the subject headings, classifications, the use of
reference books, and some other subjects, have a definite and high
educational value, equal I believe, we may fairly say, to that of
the average value of the college curriculum. If the college would be
willing to give credit for a fair share of this work, the student might
by some overtime work, graduate from college and from a library school
giving one year courses, in four years, or by adding another year, from
college and a two year library school. This would, of course, require
co-operation through the course. In one instance such a co-operation
has been planned and will be put into operation, the college proposing
to give a credit of six-tenths of one year for one year's work in the
library school. The initiative in that case came from the college. It
is true as we all know that we are trying to secure for the service a
preparation in college and in library school which is out of proportion
to the salaries paid. This is the inevitable condition of a new
profession. Adequate recognition will not be given to a profession
until it has by long service demonstrated its importance, nor will
individual members receive adequate salaries until they prove their
efficiency. This is as true in the library as it is in business. In
business salaries are usually based on the proven value of services
already rendered. No young man in a mercantile house is likely to
receive a salary in 1913 larger than he has shown his ability to earn
in 1912. In other words, the man or the woman who grows in business
relations must keep the work ahead of the salary. Keep the work away
beyond the compensation and the compensation will follow it along even
though it may not overtake it.
To bring about the best results the library schools should co-operate
with each other and with the colleges to bring up and maintain high
standards and to insist on a good, solid, general and technical
foundation, upon which specialization may be built.
The CHAIRMAN: I am not sure but that there should have been a second
paper, upon the subject of "What the library schools can not do for the
profession." I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that a medical
school confines a student for four years before he is permitted to go
at large. I wonder if you have ever put to yourselves the question,
how many medical students, in their first, or second, or third, or
fourth year after graduation, you have been ready to employ in vital
matters in your own family. I am quite sure that were any of the young
ladies here seeking to employ a lawyer in a breech of promise suit
against any of the young men, they would not go to the law graduate
in the first year of his experience. It seems to me, therefore, that
it is not surprising at all that we do not find in the library school
graduate, during the early years of his actual work, all the business
ability, the diplomatic qualities and the personality, book knowledge
and tact that we might expect. We cannot do everything in one year, I
think we all agree. What we do wish to know, and what we welcome very
definitely, I am sure, from the standpoint of the schools, is that you
let us know, in any way possible, what we can do that has not been done.
The discussion will be carried on further by Mr. Edwin H. Anderson, of
the New York public library.
Mr. E. H. ANDERSON: I find myself in such general agreement with
Mr. Hadley's excellent paper that I fear I can do little to stir up
interest by discussion.
His point that in the first library school the influence of the
university library was too marked and that university demands have had
too much influence on the curricula of all schools, seems to me well
taken. It is only natural that it should be so; but since most of the
schools are now directly connected with, or closely related to, public
libraries, I think their courses of instruction are more and more
losing the marks of university influence. This influence should still
hold with the schools connected with universities. But these schools,
it seems to me, should frankly specialize and prepare students for
university library work.
Mr. Hadley very properly emphasizes the need for more men students
in the schools. I am sure all the existing schools are glad to have
as many good men as they can get. The difficulty seems to be to find
enough men of the right sort who are sufficiently interested in library
work to take a course of formal training for it. If the schools could,
as Mr. Hadley suggests, coöperate with the American Library Association
in presenting the claims and rewards of librarianship to young men
in the universities, I think the results would justify the effort. I
would suggest therefore that the A. L. A. Committee on professional
training consider this suggestion and arrange to act upon it as soon
as possible. There is a crying demand for more men from the schools.
The only remedy for the present condition is to induce more men of the
right sort to enter the schools. Mr. Hadley has suggested one method of
accomplishing this. Another and more direct method is for librarians
themselves to call to the attention of young men of the right sort the
opportunities which the schools open to them for professional library
work. I think the heads of the schools will agree with me when I say
that in general their best students are those who are sent to them by
librarians. Now if these same librarians would make a special point of
urging upon educated young men the advantages of the school training,
both the schools and the profession would profit by it. Nothing is so
effective as personal suggestion and explanation; and a librarian who
likes his work should have little difficulty in arousing the interest
of university men of his acquaintance who are not attracted by the
older professions.
Mr. Hadley seems to think that much of the instruction in the schools
at present is wasted upon one "destined" for administrative work. The
difficulty is to tell when a man or a woman is destined for work of
this sort. The inclination for it is not always accompanied by the
necessary qualifications. How are we to determine who is destined for
administrative work and who for work of another sort? A student might
enter a library school expecting to prepare for administrative duties
and find after a term's study that he preferred, or was better fitted
for, some other kind of work. Personally I can say that few of the
things I studied at the library school have proved useless to me in
administrative work.
Mr. Hadley makes one suggestion which has often been under discussion
in library school alumni associations, and which I happen to know was
very seriously considered by the faculty of one library school some
five years ago. This suggestion is that the schools provide courses
of instruction in general library administration for those who look
forward to administrative positions. Most of the schools have lectures
each year from librarians of various sorts of libraries--large, small,
public, university, etc.,--in which they are asked to tell in general
terms how their libraries are administered. The question is, can the
schools go further than this? Is there a science of administration
which can be taught? The qualities needed for administrative work,
library or other, are the gift of the gods, not of the schools. The
schools can give the students a firsthand knowledge of the various
phases of library work, and this is important. But they cannot give
breadth of view to a mind naturally narrow; nor can they endow the
student with personal force and poise, tact, _savoir-faire_, sympathy,
a sense of justice,--in a word with gumption. Now a course of formal
instruction in administrative gumption is one that no librarian with
any gumption would attempt to give. The whole school of life is devoted
to this course, and few degrees are conferred. He would be a god-like
instructor indeed who could impart to his students the gifts of the
gods as developed and perfected by the great school of experience.
Anything less than the thunders of Sinai would be an inadequate
introduction to such a course. What I am trying to emphasize is that
the essential qualities for administrative work are too general and
intangible to be taught formally in any kind of school. The schools
cannot give their students a knowledge and love of books; these, for
the most part, they must bring with them. Neither can they give them
a knowledge of life. Are they not, therefore, by the very nature of
the case, restricted to teaching chiefly the technique, I had almost
said the mechanics, of library work? A knowledge of the technique is
necessary to the administrator; but the ability to make the best use
of this technique is a natural endowment developed by experience and
environment through the course of years. Have we any right to expect
a library school to provide more than a small part of that experience
and environment? Are we not asking of the library schools what no other
profession expects from its special schools? Do we get our bankers from
business colleges, or the managers and presidents of our railroads from
schools of engineering?
Some one has said that knowledge is the material with which wisdom
builds. The library schools can impart a knowledge of library methods.
They can hardly teach the wise use of those methods. They can suggest
and illustrate it; but courses of instruction in administrative wisdom
are, I fear, an iridescent dream.
The CHAIRMAN: This subject is open to discussion if there is any one
who feels moved to contribute to our wisdom.
Mrs. ELMENDORF: Mr. Chairman, may I put in one straw from the outside
world to show that other technical concerns are taking up this point
of view also. One of the great universities is about to establish a
technical school. They have called to the aid of the faculty three
men very high in the technical world, all of them having attained
great practical success. Those three men have agreed in recommending
to the faculty that they reduce the technical hours in the schools,
as compared to other technical schools, and devote more time to the
humanities.
Dr. BOSTWICK: May I say just a word from the standpoint of one who is
interested in the product of the library school, as making use of that
product? I do not think this point has been alluded to at all this
morning, which is my excuse for intruding it upon you for a moment.
I want to emphasize the value of library schools as selectors, which
it seems to me is very great, transcending even, perhaps, their great
value as trainers. I know a great many persons who use library school
students, who, if they were asked why they preferred one library school
to another, would say it was not because the training in that school
was so much better, or because the instructors in that school were so
much better, but simply because they always got better people from
that library school. Why? Because those persons, who exist in great
numbers, who are congenitally unfit to become librarians, are not
allowed to get into such schools, and, if they do, they are not allowed
to graduate. Consequently, if you choose graduates of those particular
schools you are always sure of getting good persons. Therefore,
I regard the selective function of a library school as extremely
valuable. No matter how good the training you give, no matter how good
the instructors you have, if you allow people in your schools who are
unfitted for library work, your product will be worth little.
* * * * *
Miss RATHBONE: The cap that Mr. Hadley has constructed, fits so well
that I could not forbear putting it on. I want to assure you all,
however, that its conical shape is not the result of inheritance but of
evolution. The curriculum of the particular school I have the honor to
be associated with has been a growth, and a growth very largely made up
from suggestions, the solicited suggestions, of its own graduates who
have worked in the library field. Subjects have been added, others have
been omitted, others have been reduced in time given to them, according
as our students have found in their practical work that they needed
things they did not get, or that certain things that we gave them were
not of the greatest practical value. Again and again we have sent
out circular letters, and have requested in personal interviews, the
frankest possible criticism from our graduates of the preparation that
they received in the school. I have seen a great many such letters,
and have talked with a great many people. I must confess, however,
that I have never yet had the criticism from any of the graduates that
too much time was devoted in the school curriculum to cataloging. That
criticism may come, and when it does we shall be glad to meet it, but I
have not yet happened to receive it.
* * * * *
One other point I want to make, and that is that I think the
libraries depend upon library schools for general assistants. That
is one reason why a one year school, I think, should give all of its
students experience in all of the different departments of library
work, because, though after they go out into the field, some become
catalogers, some children's librarians, some reference librarians, and
a few, administrators of large libraries, the average graduate that
goes out, three-fourths of our product certainly goes at first into
a public library as a general assistant. The heads of such libraries
want assistants who can go one week into the children's room; who, if
a shortage occurs in the reference room, can be put there; and if in
the meantime the work has piled up in the cataloging department, can be
transferred from the children's room, or the reference department, to
that department. I think that kind of all-round instruction, and the
flexibility that results from it, is one of the most valuable assets
that the trained librarian can take with him into general library work.
Dr. HILL: Mr. Chairman, in the first place, I would like to ask Mr.
Brett if he will give us the name of the college which is allowing the
library course to be taken as part of the rating.
Mr. BRETT: It is the College for Women of the Western Reserve
university of Cleveland, and the school that co-operates with it is the
Western Reserve library school.
Dr. HILL: In the second place, Mr. Chairman, the note in Mr. Hadley's
paper which attracted and arrested my attention, related to men,
naturally. Now, I want to say that as mere men we are not afraid
of anything, we are not afraid that we are going to be crowded out
of the library profession by our women friends, but we are looking
around to see that we do not get crowded too much; and this subject
of bringing into the profession more men and better men--although I
would say to the ladies that there are a good many good men among
us still available,--was taken up by the American Library Institute
last fall, and presented very clearly by Dr. Dewey. He said in a
paper which was submitted to the Institute that it was the duty of
the American Library Association to interest the universities so
that the work of our association might be brought to the attention of
the students, and that we ought to arrange to have lectures given by
librarians at the various universities. I became interested in this
subject and last winter, talking with a president of one of the Eastern
universities, asked if such lectures would be acceptable. He said that
he would be very glad as president of that university to extend an
invitation to the library association to send representatives there
to place before students the advantages of the library profession,
and to carry on a course which would enable interested students to
direct their work along library lines. He said, further, that he had
no doubt but what every college and university in the land would
welcome such co-operation. Such being the feeling of the president
of one university, it seems to me that it is time for the committee
named by Mr. Anderson to take some active measure to have the country
divided in such way that librarians in the neighborhood of the various
universities will arrange to lecture before the students. I think the
matter should be given immediate attention.
Miss KELSO: Mr. Chairman, I have made a study also this last winter,
not with college presidents, but with certain members of the graduating
class of Columbia university and Harvard university. In the dogma
expressed here it seems to me you treat the university graduate, who
has had four years' earnest study, as if he were in kilts, and the girl
in short skirts. Those men and women have wrested from the college
tradition the right to say what they are going to do, in their junior,
if not their sophomore year, and to come out after their graduation
from economical and sociological courses and to be presented to the
curriculum you have, is little short of absurd. Go to the professors
at the head of the economics departments of our universities, men or
women, and they will tell you that their students have known for two
years what they were going to be. I know several undergraduates that,
before their graduation, had opportunities of national importance, as
executive secretaries, to go in and organize a national office. To ask
those fellows, who have been taking volunteer practice work, as numbers
of them do, in health department work, in tuberculosis and a thousand
and one things, to go and take up this library school curriculum,--they
will not. Bring an undergraduate who is in his senior year to talk to
you; go to the professor at the head of one of these departments and
ask him to send you a young woman or a young man to talk to you about
what the aims of their classes and fraternities have been.
I do believe there is a way out, and that is to admit frankly that
the library schools can select, as Dr. Hill has well said, and send
students to the libraries for the trying-out process, and above all to
have the library association show very much more interest and attention
to what the library schools are doing. And I can say to you, as an old
librarian, that you are reaping what it seemed to me was a whirlwind
sowed some years ago. For a long time past, and when we first had
the schools, we shut the door on the possible entrance of politics
into libraries,--a very serious menace, as we all know. We all rushed
forward and talked about the library school, and if a community had
a man or woman who could fill the place, who had special literary
ability, had been well educated and was proved to have some executive
ability, we all roared, "You're lost if you don't take some one who
has gone through a library school training." You know we did. And the
poor old committee succumbed and got a library school candidate. We
cannot prepare librarians unless we relate them to the great field of
human endeavor and social affairs to which the library belongs, if it
is used in a proper way, and we must find other means in the library
association to evolve some system to afford the trying-out process.
Mr. WALTER: Although we get at the matter from different points of
view, I am quite certain that Miss Rathbone, Miss Kelso and I are in
exact accord on some points. One is in the recognition of the real
responsibility for the curricula of library schools. The library school
courses are what they are because the libraries want them so. Miss
Kelso may probably not be quite so familiar with the special demands
of libraries as those who are on library school faculties are. A great
demand exists at present along two lines. The most frequent demand,
I think, is for college or university graduates, who are masters of
every branch of library technic, and who possess as well a wide and
extensive knowledge of all subjects, which will make them valuable in
varied lines of work and in different departments; in other words,
universal specialists. This demand comes repeatedly from the smaller
libraries and not infrequently from the larger ones. The library school
is forced in many ways to make a concession to that demand and to teach
many things rather than a few specialties. I am not sure that the
concession is always as great or as harmful as has been asserted, and
one reason why I am not so sure of this is because I have been studying
the curricula of several schools of philanthropy (whose practical
character has just been commended) in order to make some improvements
in a proposed course in the institution with which I am connected, and
the differences in the general plans of the two kinds of schools are
so far from being radical that we have been able to take over many of
their specialized ideas and put them in our curriculum, with so little
change that I defy you to find where the joints are.
Another demand is for real specialists to put in charge of special
departments of large libraries. I believe that demand is growing. But
you must remember, if you are going to have them, that two things are
necessary. If you want specialists trained in different subjects, you
must give them time to get their training and you must pay them enough
to attract them and to keep them when you get them.
In an engineering school you have lengthy courses full of engineering
technic, because you demand engineers. No good school would cut out
that technic simply because you needed an engineering student in your
technology department and couldn't afford to wait or to pay for a
graduate. Why should we have to stop doing what experience, and the
experience of years, has proved necessary, what most of the people
who go out of the library schools say is necessary--why should we
cut out general subjects simply because of a temporary or limited
demand for short-cut semi-specialists? You do not give time to prepare
specialists. You are prone to send in a letter on Saturday saying you
must have a man in charge of a special department next Tuesday, that he
must be a graduate of one of the best technical schools of the country
and that he must also have a thorough knowledge of library technic. At
present I do not believe there is enough demand for those people to
attract many of them, because, these specialists, in most cases, are
obliged to come into general library work and to keep in general work
until the special positions for which they are particularly fitted
become vacant or are created.
I believe thoroughly in the missionary spirit. I believe every
librarian ought to have in him the spirit of St. Francis, to enable
him, if need be, to go barefoot and get along with almost no food at
all, but I do not believe in the right of the public to demand that
he work for a salary so small that he must wear the habit and eat the
food of St. Francis. If you expect to find these exceptional men you
must pay for them and have places ready for them. You cannot expect
the impossible. The question of technic is a serious one but it is not
going to be solved entirely by omissions and short-cuts.
I might also say that the institution with which I happen to be
connected depends very largely, so far as the changes in its curriculum
are concerned, on the suggestions of the people who have gone out from
the school and who are working in libraries, and it often plans its
courses in accordance with what they suggest, as the result of their
own experiences. What is more,--and I am not speaking for ourselves
only, for similar conditions exist in other schools--in this way we
have (among others) the experience of more than thirty men and women
who are at the head of libraries in cities of the United States in
either the first or the second class.
Mr. JOSEPHSON: It may well be that the present library schools cannot
train both librarians and assistants; and perhaps, in consequence, we
must have two kinds of school, one school for assistants and one for
librarians. However that may be, either school must teach bibliography,
and by that I mean the knowledge of the records of books and the art of
describing books, so that the one who reads the description may know
what the book is. Description includes, of course, not only cataloging
but classification and annotation as well.
I would like to supplement Mr. Strohm's paper in one particular. I
think it would be well if chief librarians would do something to
encourage the continuation of professional studies among the members of
their staffs, particularly among the younger members, both those who
come from library schools and those who do not. We cannot expect them
to study too hard after a full day's work, but I think in most cases we
would find that such encouragement would be appreciated. The assistants
who are ambitious to go forward would be willing to spend a couple of
hours a week on further studies, and it might not be entirely out of
the way for the library to allow some time for such work.
Mr. GEORGE: It seems to me that in our discussion today a means of
practical relief has been missed by each of the speakers, and that
is that the ordinary, customary method of universities be adopted by
these library schools, and instead of attempting in a year's time to
issue a diploma of doubtful value at best, as representing anything
in particular, they should adopt the certificate plan, and allow
their course to extend over a sufficient time to guarantee something;
have their courses divided up in such a way that a certificate will
represent something definite to those of us who want to use library
school students. It seems to me in that way we can get some practical
value from the schools and get efficient aids and assistants in the
library service. The great difficulty about the whole thing is that
most library school graduates lack a sufficient background and there is
not time in one year's course, naturally, for them to acquire anything
of that kind, or an experience that can be of practical value to us. I
merely throw this out as a practical hint, because I have been waiting
for it to come from some of the speakers. By having a certificate
covering part of the ground, either cataloging or some other branch of
library service undoubtedly we would be perfectly willing to recognize
that as an authoritative guarantee from the schools, rather than a
diploma that, as I say, is doubtful at best as representing anything,
because of the varying courses and requirements of the different
schools.
At the conclusion of this discussion the session adjourned.
FOURTH GENERAL SESSION
(Monday, July 1, 9:30 a. m.)
=Dominion Day Program=
Dr. James W. Robertson, C.M.G., took the chair, on behalf of the Ottawa
local committee, and called the meeting to order.
The CHAIRMAN: Your president has in her genial and successful way
insisted that the acting chairman of the local committee should preside
on this occasion.
Of most men one might say when they are forty-five they are middle-aged
and mature. This is the forty-fifth anniversary of the birth of this
Dominion; and Canada is still but a youth, a sturdy, growing, promising
youth among the nations. She is a people of great heritages, of lofty
aspirations and of fine ideals, and she has in Sir Wilfrid Laurier a
son worthy of herself. He will speak to us this morning.
SIR WILFRID LAURIER:[4] Though I have no claim whatever to be here
on this present occasion, still if my presence on this platform can
further convince our American visitors how welcome they are amongst us,
I can assure them that I would have traveled many and many a long mile
to swell the greeting with the seal and hand of the Canadian government
and the Canadian people. Welcome you are, not only for the good work
in which you are engaged, not only for the intellectual labors which
are your daily vocation, but also because whenever you cross our
borders, and whenever the Canadian members of this association cross
your borders, you and they are real missionaries of peace, apostles of
civilization, and those visits tend further to improve our relations,
to dispel old prejudices and to make us appreciate the blessings of
the peace which hath prevailed between your country and my country for
nearly a hundred years.
[4] Printed only in part.
May I take advantage of the present opportunity to remind you of the
fact, which has been twice already brought to your attention, that
today is the national holiday of Canada. We celebrate our national
holiday on the first of July, you celebrate yours on the fourth of
July,--but the resemblance goes no further. The day you celebrate on
the fourth of July recalls the fact that your forefathers wrenched and
violently tore asunder the tie which had bound them to the motherland.
I think I can call upon your memory to confirm that history attests
that this step was not taken lightly, that it tore the heart strings of
many and many of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, but
that it was forced upon them by the vicious policy that was followed
toward the colonists by the British government.
Our history is a very different one. The day that we celebrate in
Canada recalls no violence. On the contrary we celebrate the day when
the authorities of England, King, Lords and Commons, delivered unto
us a charter of union, of liberty and of local independence. Thus at
the very start our courses were cast in different directions. You
are a republic, we are a monarchy. We have kept the old monarchy of
England. As to the merits of respective forms of government, republican
institutions or monarchical institutions, I would not say a word on
this or any other occasion, because this has always seemed to be
an idle speculation. We know that the form of government is after
all a matter of indifference; we know that there must be a virtue
in republicanism, and we Canadians are here to testify that in the
monarchy of England there is as ample liberty as there is in any part
of the world, not excepting even the American republic.
Proud as I am to say that you have your democratic institutions, we are
blessed with institutions more democratic, and we have what Abraham
Lincoln called the government of the people, by the people and for the
people. I do not mean to say by this, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the
people never make mistakes. I speak for my country, not for yours.
But speaking for my country, I would say that at that we must not be
surprised nor angry, because it is an attribute of mankind, after all,
to err.
Though, Ladies and Gentlemen, as I have told you, our lots have been
cast apart, though you are one country and we are another, still, after
all, we can say with some pride that we have been friends, and better
friends we ought to be. Men there are in this country, I am sorry to
say, who are rather afraid of you American people. They believe that
you have some hostile design upon us; and some of your men have perhaps
harbored that thought themselves. But if these views are scattered
amongst some of my countrymen, they have not at all scared me; I have
no fear at all of the American people. I am not afraid of contact with
you. I would not be afraid to trade with you, to sell to you and buy
from you, because I believe that after all, proud as you have reason
to be of your own nation, we Canadians are just as good as you are.
But, if we cannot trade, if we cannot sell and buy,--and I would not
enlarge on this, because I would perhaps trespass on politics,--if we
cannot trade and buy from one another, at least we can exchange ideas,
sentiments, principles, and this is the very thing which you have been
doing in Canada during this last week. To this nobody can object. Ideas
and principles can travel freely across the line, and I believe that
everybody would be all the better for this interchange. So I have no
fear whatever that there should be an absorption of this country by
your country. And may I say what is my own ideal?
It seems to me that there is a greater future for Canada, and for
the United States. You have your problems and we have enough of our
own problems. We can afford to share the continent and we can be,
you Americans and we Canadians, the pioneers of a new civilization,
a civilization representative of the twentieth century. We can give
to the world this example of friendship without hesitation and with
perfect confidence in one another. The bane of Europe today is
militarism. All the nations of Europe are distrustful of one another;
they spend one-half their income for war, in military preparation one
against the other. Thank heaven, on this continent, we never think of
war with one another. We have the longest frontier that separates two
nations, and I thank God there is not a fortress to be found upon it,
nor a gun nor a cannon to frown across it. This is the example which we
give to the rest of the world. It is certainly an achievement of which
we have every reason to be proud; and when you, Ladies and Gentlemen,
come over to our country, as you have, you are further instilling the
truth of that sentiment, and my last word to you will be, as the first.
Come again, come often, and the more often you come the more cordial
and warm will be the welcome.
President ELMENDORF: I am quite certain that this audience would be
unwilling that some reply should not come from itself. May I ask Mr. R.
R. Bowker, whom I see in the box, to reply for the audience?
Mr. BOWKER said, that as he rose to propose on the part of the United
States members of the American Library Association a vote of thanks, he
wished to express the equal gratification of our fellow members that
we have received the hospitality, so unbounded, of the administration
of Canada, and especially that we had been thus welcomed by the man
whose presence personifies and whose name is a synonym not only for
his own party but for United Canada. He said the United States members
took only one exception to what he had said, and that was that they
used the word "American" in a broader sense than he. The American
Library Association means, not the United States, not Canada, but
both. We have no United States library association. We may almost hope
that there shall be no Canada library association, but we hope that
Ontario, with its library association, will be the pioneer to lead its
sister provinces into the fellowship and affiliation in which our other
associations stand in the American library association.
The speaker said it was not only in the brilliant and eloquent pages of
Parkman that the history of the two sister nations was interwoven; that
a man from Woburn, Massachusetts, was the first to see what the site of
Ottawa meant; that our own Thwaites had brought anew to life the deeds
of the Jesuit fathers and early explorers, and that Miss Plummer had
personally conducted many thousands of boys and girls of the children's
rooms through Canada with her "Roy and Ray."
Mr. Bowker said he supposed we did not rightly recognize Canadian
writers in the United States libraries because they were so thoroughly
a part of English literature, and that it would be very grateful if
some one so good as Mr. Hardy, the secretary of the Ontario library
association, could before the close of the meetings give a bird's-eye
view of Canadian writers.
"It is a significant coincidence that on this very day there goes into
operation throughout the British Empire a law which, if not for the
first time, at least most explicitly, recognizes the relationship of
the several English nations to the motherland, for the new copyright
code which today goes into operation states in so many words that
the self-governing dominions of Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa may adopt the imperial act, or modify it to
meet their own judicial process, or legislate independently. It is
interesting to some of us that this recognition should be so explicitly
made in the field of letters."
In closing, the speaker proposed that we express our thanks to our
Canadian brethren, our hosts who have been so hospitable, by a rising
vote.
Amid hearty applause the entire audience arose.
The CHAIRMAN: Before it became necessary for Dr. Otto Klotz, who was
and is chairman of the local committee, to be absent from the city, I
had agreed to deliver an address to the convention on Conservation in
Canada. The time having come, on the program, for that event, I propose
now to tell you a little of what we in Canada are doing to conserve the
best we have.
CONSERVATION OF CHARACTER
We are all concerned for the good name of our community, for its
reputation and its character. Most of us are concerned for the welfare
of our nation, for its place of honor and influence and power among
the nations of the earth. Canada is one of the youngest among the
self governing peoples. It is only forty-five years since we became a
Dominion, and we begin only now to find ourselves as a nation. A people
who gain self-government become in reality a nation only when they are
animated by some dominant purpose to preserve their ideals by further
achievement. The preservation of whatever we have found to be worthy
in the past,--the good, the true, and the beautiful,--by using them
in everyday life for further accomplishment and attainment,--that is
conservation. There have been rotations of nations and of civilizations
on the face of the earth, as there have been rotations of crops on the
fields of the farm. This year's crop is for its own harvest and also
to prepare the land for the crop to follow it. The far foresight which
peers thoughtfully into eternity while planning for tomorrow is also a
part of conservation.
In common use the word "conservation" becomes a bland and comprehensive
expression into which we put all our scattered convictions and
aspirations and gropings after what is best for the largest number
of people for the longest stretch of time. It took on a new meaning
when Theodore Roosevelt used his megaphone on it. And because it is an
omnibus with room always for one more,--for one more idea, one more
suggestion, one more policy, it becomes mightily popular.
The first concern of conservation is necessarily with natural
resources, but it does give a significant purpose to all the activities
of a nation and of an individual. The large, inclusive aim of Canada
in conservation is that Canada shall be great in the character of
her people, great enough to match the matchless heritage that has
come to her in blood and ideals, in possessions and institutions, in
opportunities and obligations. Canada's contribution to humanity in a
large, uplifting way will be in the perfection by a composite people,
diverse in origin of race, language and religion,--the perfection by
such a people of the finest of all fine arts, the fine art of living
happily and prosperously together, while working with intelligent skill
and unfaltering will for ends believed to be for the common good.
These large ends include the improvement of the material and social
setting of every home, the refinement of the inherited quality of life
of every child and the reformation from generation to generation of
the habits, standards and ideals of the people. All to the end that we
may find satisfactions, large, broad and lasting, through invigorating
labor, social service and abiding good will amongst ourselves and also
extended to all our neighbors.
Let me give you a very brief glimpse, merely an indication, a
suggestion, here and there, of what we are trying to do. First of all,
a word on what we have in possessions to conserve; then a glimpse or
two of what we are doing with our estate; afterwards a glance at what
we are seeking for ourselves; and finally a look in on what we stand
for as a young people among other kindly and competing nations.
=On What We Have=
We have a great deal. Never before in the history of the race did
seven millions of people have such a heritage come into their free
possession. Half a continent wide and a whole continent long,--that
is our estate. We are happy in the setting of our national life. A
very brief survey of what it means to us and what it is in itself must
suffice this morning. Who knows it? I hear people speak of Canada as
a red patch on the map, as a stretch of prairies where wheat grows,
as the northern fringe of the glorious free republic of the United
States. These hardly shed a candle power of light on our estate. Half
a continent wide and one-sixth of the way around the globe! If Europe
were eleven in area, we are twelve, and much of it habitable, destined
to be the setting of fine homes of a robust people.
Let us take Canada in four areas, in thousand-mile stretches. We can
afford to speak of ourselves in those dimensions. A thousand miles in
from the Atlantic,--where else do you find a better place for homes
for a dominant people whose purpose it is to pull up by strength and
intelligence and justice and good will, and not to crush down and hold
back? Dominant because the human race can be at its best in physique,
in endurance, in tenacity, in capacity, in aspiration, where apple
trees grow in beauty and bounty and the summer air is full of the
fragrance of clover blossoms. Think back through your books, and over
the globe, and into the lives of the people. Recall the old stories,
the apple trees of Eden and the land flowing with milk and honey. After
all, physical setting means much for the glory of human life. This is a
fine stretch of a thousand miles for homes, of apple trees and clover
blossoms with plenty of running water, with skies decked in beauty by
clouds, with showers and sunshine in alternate abundance, and farm
houses with yards full of children rolling on the grass picking flowers
and climbing the apple trees. That is worth while,--to have a thousand
miles filling up with homes, willing for more to come and share their
joy.
Then we have a thousand miles of wilderness, a great reservoir north
of the Great Lakes. It tempts the adventurous to seek gold and silver;
great areas for trees, and lakes to refresh the thirsty land on both
sides by the genial droppings from the rains gathered from the wastes.
Then come a thousand miles of prairies, stretching out to the foothills
of the Rocky Mountains. It took a thousand times a thousand years
to make that place fit for our possession and habitation now. The
frugality of prodigal nature was storing in the soil plant food for
crops for thousands of years, not that men might ship wheat, but that
boys and girls should have the finest chance that the race had known
hitherto to be a strong, dominant, lovely and loving people. A thousand
miles of prairies! Why do your people flock over to those prairies? Not
for greed of money. I have been enough in the States to know that you
libel yourselves in one unkind way. You say the American worships the
almighty dollar. Chase the charge down and he wants the dollar for the
sake of a home, for the pleasure of conquest, for the worship of some
boy or girl, to give him and her a better footing and a better start.
The call of Canada is not merely from property and a chance to get
it. The call of Canada is the call of a wide chance for possessions,
for a piece of good land to own for oneself. It is also the call of
the land where law is respected, as well as obeyed. It is most loudly
and convincingly the call of a land with chances for children. That is
what pulls them here, the chances for children; and these newcomers are
amongst the foremost of those who see that the biggest and best and
best-sustained building in the place is the public school.
Then we have five hundred miles, half a thousand, going over the
mountains to the Pacific Ocean. It is a piece of the great Creator's
fine art in the rough, with the impressiveness of nature's majesty and
the instability which endures. Tucked in between the mountains are
fertile valleys with peaches and plums and wheat and all good things
to sustain the homes. A great asset is that five-hundred mile strip,
the mountains pregnant with coal and gold and silver, and the streams
teeming with fish from the inexhaustible feeding places of the north.
That is a glimpse, merely the head-lines, of our national home, our
real estate; and we believe the people will be quite a match for it. We
come to feel the responsibility for that now.
Only a word or two of detail. We have forests in vast areas, some of
them as yet unsurveyed, and a climate and soil which lets nature far
more than restore the lumberman's cut. Our forests are inexhaustible
in the abundance of their serving power for coming generations; now
that we have begun to conserve them by preventing fires, by providing
patrols, and also by diffusing knowledge, training and conviction
throughout the common schools. Then we have fisheries. Many of you
come up here and regale your friends for evenings afterwards by fish
stories. I speak of the great value to Canada of fish and fishing.
When I go to the coasts, how I glory in the conservation of life by
fishing! I fish a little. One of my pawky friends once gave me a book
called "Fishin' Jimmy." It had one sentence with which I comfort myself
when I feel disposed to fish when I should be otherwise diligently
employed. It was this, "Young man, the good Lord, when He needed
fellows to help Him for the biggest job ever taken up, picked out chaps
who caught fish." Think of Nova Scotia, the fishing smacks, the men
who are not afraid, those who go down to the deep in ships, they see
the wonders of the Lord while they do their duty for their families.
There is conservation of the quality of life by the un-boasting and
the uncomplaining, heroic commonplaces of daily toil. With quiet
tenacity, against conditions of discomfort which cannot be escaped, and
carelessness of personal ease such men teach us how to live. Then we
have waterways, and water powers, not merely to illuminate houses and
run cars, but to enlarge leisure by having our heaviest tasks done by
man's further alliance with the electric current. Then we have minerals
and lands. Each of these merits more than a discourse for itself. I
feel the incompleteness, the insufficiency, of my statements of our
resources and our efforts towards conservation. However, just a word
about lands, good land and fertile land.
Take an example, one only. Seager Wheeler lives north of Regina. How
our hearts go out in sympathy to those people who suffer from nature's
inhuman manifestation of her strength. (A reference to the Regina
cyclone of the day before.) I have not learned to look up through
nature's devastations to nature's God, but I have learned to look
through human life to man's God,--Whose tender mercies are over all
His other works. Seager Wheeler lives north of Regina. Out at the
Experimental Farm, where we were on Saturday, Dr. Saunders, patiently,
quietly, modestly, brought together a strain of wheat from Calcutta
and a strain of wheat from the North-West. A new child is born unto
us in Wheatland. Seager Wheeler gets some of that wheat and begins
the process of selection on his own farm, "the best out of the best
for the best." Last autumn I was in New York at the back-to-the-land
exposition. A thousand dollar prize in gold was there for the man who
would bring the best bushel of wheat from anywhere on the continent.
The judges were expert men from the United States, and Seager Wheeler
from the middle of our North-West plains won the thousand dollar prize
for his bushel of wheat from that part of our land. More than that,
I have a photograph of the plot from which this bushel of wheat was
taken, and it measured up 80 2-3 bushels to the acre. No wonder we
think well of our land, and you folks want to get some of it.
One other sentence only, otherwise I should be beguiled into talking
far too long about our lands. In these days, dangerous in their clamors
for bigness and swiftness and luxury, one needs to remind himself that
satisfactions do not come from these things, but from honest labor
whereby one conserves the strength and beauty of some part of nature
and man, and develops power and joy in another unit of nature and
man, making the earth and man rejoice together. Truly a nation's life
consisteth not in the abundance of the things it possesseth.
=On What We Are Doing=
We in Canada are happy in the occupations of the people, as well as in
the setting of our lives. What has occupation to do with conservation?
Occupation conserves the best that humanity has achieved in human
beings themselves. Not books? It would be a loss if all the books were
taken from us,--it would be a loss somewhat modified by the advantages.
But whosoever will offend one of these little ones in whom is conserved
all the achievements and attainments of the race to this day, it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck. The menace
of books is that they sometimes crush down and crush out the aspiration
of young life for joy in constructive, creative, co-operative labor,
through merely selfish, silent reading for gratification. We are
happy in the occupations of our people that minister to greatness
in character. A new country like ours needs the constructing and
conquering qualities, more than the sedentary, absorbing, remembering
capacities. The farmer follows one of the conquering, constructive
occupations, gathering wealth out of the otherwise chaos. His labor
creates wealth and conserves the health and virility of the people.
What a grudge I have against the modern factory that, in making things,
debases men. I do my thinking aloud in a meeting like this. Therefore
I do not flatter. I will warrant we should not have women, as I have
seen them, working in factories, with poor air and little sunshine amid
the infernal rattle of machinery, if we believed in our heart of hearts
that things were for homes and that good homes for all the people was
the dominant object of a strong nation. Why should I have cloth in my
house because it is cheap--when it is transfused by the blood of women
in Leeds? Why should I want a coat on my back that carries with it the
stain of tears from children who have had no chance? Why should I walk
easily in boots, factory-made in order that they may be a dollar a pair
cheaper, when I have seen women atrophied by the monotonous poverty
of their job who should have been mothering a family and nursing the
aspirations of young people? We do not want to have things, things,
things as our idols and our end in life.
The fundamental occupations which engage the large majority of our
people are farming, making homes and teaching and training the young.
The farm, the rural home and the rural school together provide the
opportunities and means of culture in forms which children and grown
people can turn into power--power of knowledge, of action and of
character. Farming is much more than moving soil, sowing grain,
destroying weeds and harvesting crops. It is taking care of part of
the face of Mother Earth as a home for her children. Making homes is
much more than building houses and providing furniture, food, clothing
and things. It is creating a temple, not made with hands, as a place
of culture for the Divine in us. Those who live by agriculture are not
all of the earth earthy, and the rural home is a fine school for the
soul. Teaching and training the young is much more than instructing
children in the arts of reading, writing and reckoning--those flexible,
useful tools of the intellect. Much of the time of the school has been
consumed in these tasks; but now we come to a happier day when those
arts can be acquired joyfully in less than a year and a half, instead
of painfully, reluctantly and with difficulty as spread over six years.
The main portion of the school time will soon be devoted to caring for
the health, the habits and the standards of the pupils while watching
and directing the development of their powers of body, mind and spirit.
These three fundamental mothering occupations in Canada nourish and
sustain all the others, such as commerce, manufacturing, transportation
and the professions. By means of them, followed as well as they can be
by an educated and cultured people, the country will be kept prosperous
and fertile. It can be made beautiful only by radiant homes, whence
youth will go forth from generation to generation to refine life by
their characters, to exalt it by their ideals and to improve its
conditions by intelligent labor.
I must say a word or two as to whence we got the impetus, the stimulus,
towards conservation. Intelligent, conscious, planned and organized
effort for conservation came to us from Washington. We are the
Washington of the North in more ways than one, and I think I express,
if I may venture to do so, the hope and conviction of my friend Sir
Wilfrid Laurier when I say that, a hundred years hence and less, the
Washington of the North will be more than abreast of the Washington
of the South because of the influence, the moulding influence, of
climate and homes and schools such as we in this country will have.
But the Washington of the South had a great gathering in 1908, when
the Governors of all the States and others were assembled to consider
conservation. I read the report of the proceedings with some care. Then
I turned more than once to read, right after it, an old classic about a
gathering in the time of King Ahasuerus, the gathering of the governors
of 127 provinces. And I laid down the Bible with the conviction that
that Ahasuerus assembly was no higher in its essence and in its fruits
than a pow-wow debauch of Indian chiefs on the plains. Take the setting
and the spirit of the Ahasuerus crowd--self-seeking, careless of human
rights, neglectful of children's claims. That story was worth recording
as a great exhibition of monstrous selfishness, the thing itself--worth
avoiding, worth opposing, worth smiting to the death every time it
rears its ugly greedy head. On the other hand, consider Washington. The
governors of sovereign states come together, for what? Not to consider
how they might enrich themselves at the expense of the weak and those
in their care, but how they might conserve for all the people, the
property of all the people, for the benefit of all the people, for
the longest stretch of time. That was a great gathering. It will go
down in history as marking a new epoch in human activity and endeavor.
And whatever may be said amid the transient controversies of party
politics, the name of Theodore Roosevelt will stand out illustrious
for leadership in a new effort for conservation that saves, not merely
forests and material resources, but that saves moral earnestness among
the people. I have no sympathy, myself, with your own harsh criticism
of these political conventions you are holding now in the States. Not
being a politician, I can speak of politics without fear. May I tell
you what my thinking has been? Perhaps only twice before did the United
States ever get such service, such an awakening--when you had the
struggle for liberty, and, afterwards, the war for freedom. What means
the present commotion which bursts through conventional conventions
of polite speech? Is it not that you shall be saved from a supine
sense of satisfaction with having only things--from the loss of great
concepts of justice and right aflame in moral earnestness? I rejoice
with you that we are indebted to Washington for impetus and stimulus
in moral earnestness regarding forests and other resources. That is
Gifford Pinchot's contribution--not to make lumber cheap, but to make
the land fertile and prosperous, that boys and girls may be beautiful
and strong and glad. Worth while is the moral earnestness that uses
materials only as the mechanism of its efforts for the improvement of
life.
Then Canadians attended officially another meeting in Washington in
1909, came back and Parliament instituted a Commission of Conservation.
That Commission has been at work for three years seeking to serve our
people by showing how they could improve themselves as well as their
circumstances through effort to conserve their resources.
On the Provincial experimental farm in Wellington County, Ont.,
Professor Zavitz works. He took thin, light grains from a variety of
oats, and sowed those by themselves; and, from the same variety, he
took plump, heavy, dark grains, and sowed these by themselves. For
twelve years he followed that plan on the same soil, under the same
climate, with the same management. At the end of twelve years the crop
from this plump seed rose by twenty-six bushels more to the acre and
ten and a half pounds more to the bushel than the crop from the poor
seed. That was conservation secured by intelligent application and good
management. You can do that with life as well as with seed and with
land. The long distance aim as well as the local object of conservation
is to make Canada a better country to live in and a more beautiful
country to love; and to make Canadians a people of greater vigor, finer
texture and nobler character.
=On What We Are Seeking=
We in Canada are a composite sample of life. We have come to us
Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Gallic, Teutonic, Slavonic and others. All these
streams of blood flow over Canada and mingle in us. It is not any
longer with us merely a toleration of an individual or of an idea
from Russia--or the States--but an appreciation of the person and the
idea, to make them serve our people better. There is conservation in
that. The best we have inherited is the quality of life. Our more
immediate ancestors loved liberty, prized intelligence and cherished
justice. These they had won by courage, by struggle, by patience and by
privation. They left them to us to be improved by education. Concepts
such as these are what count in the great issues of life.
Let me without any offense or bad taste be personal and speak of one
of my ancestors. He has been dead a long time. I didn't know him. But
not infrequently I can feel the thrill and the efforts at domination
of his convictions and his habits. I remember a dog biting me. I could
have strangled the creature with my hands. I did not learn that in
school, but I had the instinct in me from that old ancestor. I can
think of him in a cave, living a bare coarse life. But he conserved the
chance for the babies; and the lion and the wolf and the bear could not
stand against the club and the fire which he used for the protection
of his wife and children. Coarse! Of course he was. A thing of paws
and claws and jaws! But he conserved his concepts of duty, his ideals
of protection for the young and the weak. His concepts and the labors
and struggles they involved by and by refined his body. Then, ages
afterwards, 20,000 or 30,000 years afterwards, we had Lord Lister. Two
hundred and fifty thousand women saved annually through the service
of his refined brain and his trained hands, and his large concepts of
duty. And we had Florence Nightingale; and you had Abraham Lincoln.
And we all have everybody and anybody that conserves concepts of joy
and glory through duty discharged by constructive, contributing labor,
social service and abiding good will. In these and others innumerable
we have a heritage, not made with hands.
Time fails me even to name all our other heritages which are not in
material resources. There are customs, institutions, laws, manners,
ideas, traditions, standards, ideals, art, songs, language and books.
Books are more than material things. They are material humanized into
food for the mind and spirit as soil and air may be glorified into
apples and flowers for the senses. Sometimes produced with immense
pains, they bring infinite joys. The Kingdom hath come to us for such a
time as this when a new day dawns for happiness and well-being on earth.
Some of the means under modern conditions through which further
advances in the formation and conservation of character are to be
looked for are,--first those which lead young people to the achievement
of joy through the processes of labor as distinguished from its wages
or other rewards. Every child who is given a fair chance can manage
that. In this a little child may lead us. Secondly, those which produce
the pleasure of working together for some end believed to be good for
all. Will not school pupils and older students work themselves into
social efficiency, by co-operating in productive labor, as well as
play themselves into ability by means of team games? Both together are
better than twice as much of either alone. Thirdly, those which yield
gladness through creative work whereby each individual strives to
give expression to his own concepts of utility and beauty in concrete
things as well as in words and other symbols. The insistence, by
school and college, upon passive receptiveness for prolonged periods
may have disciplined the mind for the perception of symbols, and
the understanding of theories and rules. But has not the heaping of
instruction upon enforced passivity led to an atrophy of the love of
constructive creative labor? Immobility in classes all day long is
not goodness. That sort of thing is the one persisting attribute of
the dead or the nearly moribund. Every man who actively conserves
these constructive, co-operative, creative powers, and achieves joy
and satisfaction through their exercise, saves himself and becomes a
saving factor in his community. In doing these things he transfuses the
routine of life by a spirit of trained intelligence, cultured ability
and habitual good will. The use of books and book-information are a
helpful aid to the growth of mental power, the development of moral
ideas and the progress of education. Books furnish some of the food and
stimulus to thought. But when these are not turned into service through
action, they become so much cloying debris upon vitality.
I have happily seen enough in the last few years to bring me to the
conclusion, that, in less than ten years on this continent, all
children from rural homes will come to the schools at 6 or 7 years of
age able to speak better than they speak now, and able to write and
read and to figure up to division. They will come to school able to do
all that, having played themselves into ability. We have been on wrong
lines in making a child take up a book at six, and so far as schooling
is concerned, stay under the domination of a book until he is sixteen.
Then he has been liberated into a laboratory, or into life, and says,
"Thank the Lord that book business is done!" That is not wise, that is
not safe. How the book has menaced humanity in recent years, on all
sides, by its insistence that reading is the end of education, the main
means and object of culture, instead of being merely a contributing
means toward the larger end of living. You people concerned with books
must take the bread of life in your hands and minister to life, not
under the guise of book-learning, but for the formation of habits and
standards and fine ideals.
Put into the language of everyday life the main steps in every complete
educational experience are: observing, thinking, feeling and managing
towards and into some form of expression. It appears to me that the
closer in point of time the steps are taken together, the greater the
growth of power and the surer the formation of habits. Frequency of
experience is what forms habits and not repetitions of instructions or
information. In so far as these experiences can have close relation
to the threefold activities demanded by life, so much the better for
the culture of the student, even if not so complimentary to a subject
or its professor. I mean the activities which we explain as those of
body, mind and spirit in the individual's capacity as an earner, a
member of society and a trustee in the scheme of life. No doubt this
runs counter to the common notion that culture--even real culture as a
process and as a result--develops and implies a certain aloofness from
the practical work done by men and women to earn their living, and a
sweet, or sour, sense of superiority to utilitarian questions of bread
and butter. But we must not forget that invigorating toil--invigorating
bodily toil--is the only known road to health, strength and happiness.
Nowadays culture is becoming a term almost as elusive as education
itself. Agriculture was doubtless the root, the root word as well as
the fundamental process, of human culture. The man on the farm gets
some light on its intrinsic nature from his occupation. To him culture
stands for crops, the best in quality and the largest in quantity that
can be obtained, for the suppression of weeds, insects and disease,
and for the increase of beauty and fertility. Culture has no origin
in idleness, indolence or sloth. These make for the corrosion of all
the vigors of the physical and mental and moral nature. Culture means
plowing and harrowing and sowing and hoeing. It means labor and sorrow
as well as play and flowers. It means the ripping of the iron share as
well as the genial affection of the sun. Culture is far deeper than the
polite polish on the skin of manners and speech. It is not gained by
the mere learning of languages, living or dead, or the acquisition of
knowledge, scientific or superstitious, in the poetic meaning of that
word. It is the residuum, the leftover, such as it is, in character--in
body, in mind and in spirit--after every completed educational
experience. From actual practice comes skill in the finest of all fine
arts, the fine art of living happily together while working for some
good end. Alike in school and college, on farm and in factory, in
shop and office, in home duties and public affairs, that kind of life
develops a quick sense of responsibility, it establishes good standards
close by which are understood, it nourishes conscience and strengthens
the will-energy towards further culture, better work and happier
living. These things we seek to conserve, using our material resources
for the enrichment of the quality of life we have inherited, in order
to pass it on undiminished and unimpaired.
=On What We Stand For=
This end of an educated people, cultured in character, which itself is
only a means towards the largest end, is worth striving for and worth
living for. All life is an unceasing struggle. The point is to choose
the right objects and means. In the past, humanity has been winning
all along the line with an occasional setback such as threatens the
present. Its warfare is ever against ignorance, helplessness, poverty,
disease, vice and ill-wills. Education is to train individuals for that
warfare. Its endeavors are most successful when the experiences which
it provides for each individual are in themselves a vital part of the
hard campaign. It must ever vary its strategy and tactics and weapons,
as the field of operations is moved forward. Times change and we change
with them. The need of the times is education to qualify us all to
achieve satisfaction through labor and service and good will.
Finally, I present to you the more excellent graces of conservation as
earnestness, cheerfulness and the habit of cherishing and following
high ideals. At first these are rather traits of character in embryo
than fixed attitudes or habits of mind. The particular and specific
disciplines of life and of good books are to correct softness, to
promote gentleness and to develop a capacity for enduring and enjoying
hardness as a good soldier of truth, beauty and goodness in everyday
life. In reality, each individual disciplines himself in liberty, by
self-government, by diligence, by rational obedience to authority and
by co-operation. The discipline which develops character and power is
administered from within; external regulations are like the finger
posts to indicate the open path and also the place where trespassing
is forbidden. In the choice and in the action is discipline. "Choose
ye this day whom ye will serve" is at the parting of the ways every
morning, and is seldom displayed in prominence at the dramatic crises
of life. Habits are grown in quiet ways, like the shapes of trees and
the budding and ripening of fruit. They become the destiny "which
shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." The librarian and every
other citizen who lives and moves and has his being in an atmosphere
of earnestness, cheerfulness and high ideals, is ready for his best
work. Such men and women go through life with open minds, with broad
sympathies, and appreciative respect for all the worthy achievements
and attainments of men and women, of boys and girls. Their patriotism,
their humanity, in brief, their conservation of character, finds its
best accomplishment in making and leaving a better place, with a better
path, for better children, to carry the torch of life onward and
upward, clearer and stronger, because of what they have been and done.
From one of yourselves (Ella Wheeler Wilcox) we have beautifully
expressed one of the great dominating purposes which I think animates
all Canada today:
"Build on resolve and not upon regret
The structure of thy future: do not grope
Among the shadows of old sins, but let
The light of truth shine on the path of hope
And dissipate the darkness: waste no tears
Upon the blotted record of lost years;
But turn the leaf, and smile, oh smile, to see
The fair white pages that remain for thee."
At the conclusion of Dr. Robertson's address a brief paper was read by
Sir James Grant on some of the literary products of Canada. Following
this paper Professor John Macnaughton, of McGill university, delivered
an address on "The value of literature." He protested vigorously
against the present day tendency toward pure utilitarianism in
education and pleaded for a large place for the great and ennobling
literature of the past in our educational systems.
* * * * *
The CHAIRMAN: I have the pleasure of asking Sir Wilfrid Laurier to
serve the Canadian libraries and librarians in presenting a little gift
to the president.
SIR WILFRID LAURIER: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am entrusted
with a very pleasant duty. The Canadian members of the American Library
Association are desirous of presenting to its president some expression
of their respect and esteem, and they have chosen to convey it in the
shape of a gavel which they want to present to you, Madam President. It
is of Canadian wood and Canadian silver, and I hope you will carry it
with you as a token adding pleasure to your sojourn here, pleasant at
all events for all of us, and, I hope, for you also.
President ELMENDORF: Sir Wilfrid. Mr. Chairman and Canadian friends:
This beautiful gift to the association is made, I am told, of Canadian
wood inlaid with Canadian silver. Of course Canadian wood means the
wood of the maple and how does that wonderful close fiber come into
being? The maple leaf reaches upward into the free air and there
it gathers sunshine and the gases of the atmosphere and combining,
converting and solidifying these impalpable things into fiber stores
them away as this beautiful wood.
What is literature and how does it come into being? By means of the
printed leaf, out of human life, are gathered individual knowledge,
experience and emotion and combined and converted these individual
contributions pass as wisdom into the race mind there to be stored
forever to
"Help such men as need."
You have thus given us fit symbol indeed of our profession.
Just one thought more. I come from the border line where there is much
hope that some permanent memorial of the hundred beautiful years of
peace may be built. In the same spirit, I hope that this gavel may be
the only weapon ever raised to enforce order between Canadians and
Americans.
Mr. BOWKER: Let us remember "kindness in another's trouble" and that
even a closer bond than the common work in our profession, is the bond
of sympathy in time of loss.
I move, in view of the partial destruction of the public library at
Regina and the great catastrophe that has come to her people, that
the president of the American Library Association be authorized and
requested to send the sympathy of this conference to the public library
and the people of Regina.
The motion was agreed to unanimously, and the message ordered sent.
Adjourned.
FIFTH GENERAL SESSION
(Russell Theatre, Monday, July 1, 8:30 p. m.)
President Elmendorf occupied the chair.
The SECRETARY: It was our hope that Dr. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of
Education, would be with us at this conference, but he was unable to
come and so sends us this greeting:
Mrs. H. L. Elmendorf, President, American Library Association,
Ottawa.
"Convey to association my greetings and best wishes for successful
meeting.
P. P. CLAXTON."
The PRESIDENT: Ladies and Gentlemen, my introduction to-night is to be
very short indeed, that you may the sooner reach the treat in store.
Our honored speaker of the evening has his own message for us. He
also bears a message from the National Education Association. He is
the honored son of his great and beloved father Bishop Vincent, he
has been dean of the University of Chicago, he is still president of
the Chautauqua Institution, he is the president of the University of
Minnesota, more than all, he is himself, Dr. GEORGE EDGAR VINCENT.
ADDRESS BY DR. VINCENT
Dr. VINCENT said, in opening his address, that he brought the greetings
of the National Education Association, being an "uninstructed
delegate," and he firmly believed "that with your tact, with your
boundless energy, with your irresistible enthusiasm, you will
ultimately sweep away into the vortex of your aggressive enterprise
even the school teachers of the United States and Canada."
Continuing Dr. Vincent said:
I find some difficulty in deciding just what analogy I shall use this
evening. This is a subject which has exhausted almost all the forms
of metaphor, simile and analogy. Librarians have been likened to
almost everything under the sun. There are three metaphors which have
survived from the old days. You are all familiar with these. You use
them ironically, to describe that condition of affairs which prevailed
in libraries before you supplanted those archaic people who used so
thoroughly to misinterpret the functions of the librarian.
One is the analogy of the museum, the library as a museum of books, a
museum carefully guarded, a museum to which the public is not to be
admitted except under conditions which make resort to the place so
irksome that only a few persist. You remember the old story of the man
in Philadelphia who had committed a crime. To escape detection and go
where nobody would look for him, he resorted to the reading room of the
Philadelphia library.
Then there is the other analogy--I do not know that this has been, so
far, insisted upon, but it is a very good one, it seems to me--the
analogy of the penitentiary of books, with the librarian as a jailer.
Just why these people should have been put in prison as they were in
the old days, just why their friends should not be permitted to visit
them, it is hard to say. This is akin to another analogy, the library
as a mausoleum of books, a place where books are buried, and the
librarian is a bibliotaph.
These old analogies, these figures of another day, serve pleasantly
to flatter a little your complacency over things as they are. But we
have no time to devote to the dead past. Let us consider some of the
analogies which are still living. I have been a little bewildered by
that analogy this morning, the maple leaf and the gavel. I have not
been quite able to work it out. It seems to me, with all deference
to the delightfully poetic figure, which took everybody by storm,
including myself, it is a mistake to try to analyze these sentiments.
There was something about preserving the light in the maple leaves
and the leaves of the book. Now, as a matter of fact, leaves are put
away in a library very much as they are in an herbarium. There is no
botanical relation to the trunk of a tree after they have been folded
and put away. So I don't see how that works out--but that doesn't make
any difference. An analogy never goes on four legs. This one just
happened to have about two and a half feet upon the ground. But that
is Mrs. Elmendorf's analogy; I propose to leave it alone. There may
be an explosive possibility about it which she will explain some time
when she has a chance to work it out. She had very short notice and she
did it beautifully, and I know so little about botany that it gave me
practically no intellectual difficulty.
Then there is the analogy that we are all very fond of, the analogy
of the library as a department store. There you have your efficient
business manager. The library is a place where it is no trouble to
show goods, where you have your various departments and the goods are
up to date; where you have all sorts of advertising methods, where you
advertise in the daily papers, send out bulletins, get up circulars
and posters and attract attention by illustrations, where you have
an elevator and all that sort of thing. Just think of the sacrifice
that librarians are making, the mere pittances they are receiving,
when they might be running these great emporia in our large cities.
The department store offers a good analogy if you do not press it too
far. There is not very much money in the business. It doesn't pay very
well in dollars and cents, but think of the intellectual advantages it
offers, the psychic dividends that a business of that sort pays!
Then there is a figure I worked out myself a while ago, the library
as a social memory. That seems to me capital. I think, so far as I
know, I have a copyright on that figure. It was a good address, by the
way, in which I used this trope. I wish I had remembered it; I should
have brought it along and read it to-night instead of making this
carefully set address. Yes, the social memory idea is a good analogy.
It reduces the librarian to a medulla oblongata, so far as I am able to
understand the psychology of the situation. Yet that is an honorable
function, although largely automatic. It is a good thing to control the
resources of the social memory, to be able to put these at the service
of the public mind--decidedly a fruitful analogy, but I do not care to
elaborate it this evening.
Another figure is an hydraulic image--the library as a reservoir--a
reservoir of the world's refreshing, stimulating, energizing,
fructifying influences. The librarian becomes a gate keeper and an
irrigator. It is a beautiful thought, that you are letting out these
fertilizing floods over the plains of human ignorance and stupidity. No
wonder you think well of yourselves.
Then there is another that appealed to me this morning--you are a
center of radioactivity, of intellectual and moral radioactivity, you
are social and psychological physicists. The library as a center of
psychic radioactivity strikes me as something satisfying, fascinating,
delightful.
Another figure has appealed to my imagination. It is the library as
an inn of books. Had you thought about that? Of course, you had--and
that makes you hotel keepers. You see, being hotel keepers you would
naturally be interested in all kinds of equipment; you would have the
rooms prepared for your guests in the very best way, you would have a
fireproof hotel, the rooms rather narrow, if you please, but plenty
large enough and fairly well lighted and ventilated. The trouble is
when you are running a big hotel to have the register carefully kept.
You know, almost none of our best hotels can ever tell you whether a
man is in or out. They are always uncertain about it, and in the old
days before libraries and hotels became so efficient you could never be
sure the clerk knew his business. You have changed all that, you are
the most competent of hotel keepers and know how to build hotels and
equip them. You furnish lobbies and parlors in which to meet guests,
or if one likes he may take them home with him. I wish I had time to
elaborate this idea of the Inn of Books. I am getting fond of it as the
imagination plays with it. You can fancy Socrates coming in, looking
about cautiously, with a certain apprehension, a little nervous for
fear that _she_ might be there. You can imagine him hanging about the
corridors, listening to the gentlemen as they talk, coming up behind
them, listening a little while, then saying in that calm way of his,
that dangerously calm way, "I beg your pardon, but just what do you
mean by 'progressive?' Precisely what significance do you give to
'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?'" Oh, it would be dreadful
if Socrates were to come around and ask what we meant by the things we
say. No wonder they gave him the hemlock cup. You couldn't permit him
in your hotel. People would not understand him and would not associate
with him in these days when we so much resent being asked to analyze
and explain our automatic phrases.
You can see Horace coming in. He wouldn't be at all anxious to avoid
the ladies. He would soon catch sight of the pretty stenographer. What
pleasure he would take in dictating to her a clever ode. Yes, Horace
would like the modern hotel. Then picture Pepys coming in, registering
and then buying a yellow journal. How dismayed he would be! Pepys
would have no chance whatever with Mr. Hearst. Then you can see the
entrance of Lord Bacon. He would reveal his dual character, insist upon
having the state suite all to himself, then hasten to discover how the
electric lights and the elevator worked. You can image this sort of
thing and can draw from it any analogy you please, but I have not time
to do more than merely suggest it. It would make an admirable address
for somebody who will be invited to address you next year.
I am not going to talk about these analogies, I am going to talk on
the psychology of pictures. You know these are psychological days. We
have now the psychology of almost everything. We have the psychology of
infancy, the psychology of childhood, the psychology of adolescence and
the psychology of senility; we have the psychology of advertising, we
have the psychology of salesmanship--and we have Henry James. Therefore
one need make no apology--in fact, one would apologise for not talking
upon a psychological theme. I am going to try to see whether psychology
has anything to say to librarians. Of course, it must have something
to say. You are all psychologists. Anybody that knows how to give
some one a book he does not want and make him think he likes it, is a
psychologist. It is perfectly obvious that a psychological theme will
be appropriate for a company like this.
When we try to describe what is going on in our minds we are
immediately forced to use some sort of imagery, ideas made familiar
in some other field. So when anybody reads psychological literature
nowadays he is sure to come across the phrase "the threshold of
consciousness." Here is a simple picture--a two-room house. One is the
conscious room, the other is the unconscious room. There is a door
between, and when an idea goes from the conscious to the unconscious
room it goes over that threshold, and when it goes back it necessarily
has to go over that threshold again. Then James has given us that
fine figure, "the stream of consciousness." How good it is! Your
thoughts and feelings flow on day after day and year after year like
a stream. Practical questions arise at once. What sort of a stream
of consciousness have I? Is the stream going steadily on, or is it
rather like a babbling brook, making a pleasant murmur but with little
power? Or like the River Platte, spreading out and disappearing in
the sands of stupidity, or like a turgid stream, so muddy that it is
almost impossible to see anything beneath the surface? Or is it a
strong, clear, on-sweeping current to which new ideals and feelings are
contributed day by day, so that as the years go on it becomes a mighty
energy to turn the wheels of the world? A very good figure, and we may
very well put such questions to ourselves.
Professor Cooley, of Michigan, has suggested another figure which
I think would sufficiently antagonize Professor Macnaughton if he
were here. Let us imagine a room, the walls and ceiling of which are
incrusted thickly with incandescent lights. Near the door let us
imagine a box containing a lot of switches. You turn on a switch and
that immediately lights up a line across that wall, over the ceiling
and down the other wall. You can stand there and turn on and off these
switches and light up those circuits of electric lights at will. In
similar fashion you have brain cells and these brain cells are like
incandescent electric lights, the filaments of which connect with one
another into circuits of association. When some one turns on a switch,
by a visual image, or by an odor, or by a sound, there suddenly lights
up in your mind one of these circuits of memory. When you look at the
turrets of that beautiful Chateau Laurier, what do you see? Are you not
in the valley of the Loire? Can't you see the frowning front of Chinon,
the gracious facade of Asay-le-Rideau, the lacelike stairway of Blois,
the massive turrets of Amboise? It is a fine thing to have one's mind
well-wired, to have the circuits in good condition. A personal question
you can put to yourself is "What sort of mental lights have I? Are they
four candle power or thirty-two Tungsten? Are my switches in perfect
working order, or are my circuits crossed, and fuses melted so that my
mind is in semi or complete darkness?" This is a very practical way of
applying these figures; and this address would be of no value if it did
not now and then sound the homiletic note.
There is another figure to which I call your attention. It is the
figure of the stereopticon lecture. We all go to stereopticon lectures.
Many of us are fond of moving pictures. We may say we are not, we may
take high ground, but we sneak in to see them. We all like pictures,
we are like children in this regard; and when we go to a stereopticon
lecture we know that no matter how stupid the lecturer may be, once
in two minutes we are going to get a slide. The laws of physics work
in our interests, for if the lecturer keeps a slide in the lantern
longer than two minutes the heat is likely to break it. Therefore
cupidity thwarts the passion for speech. We are all the while attending
stereopticon lectures. We all have screens in our minds, and on these
screens pictures are passing constantly. Our mental life can be
described accurately and vividly in terms of these pictures, these
slides of memory and imagination. Then, too, there is a spectator
within us looking at the pictures, commenting upon them and having
feelings about them. The character of the individual is revealed by
the pictures he fondly holds on the screen of his mind. How curiously
mental pictures are related to one another, and what strange slides
some of them are! Let us examine them for a little.
In the first place, it is important to notice that some pictures are
very vague. That means they are not well focused. You have been to
a stereopticon lecture when the man could not work the lantern and
when there were most unseemly altercations between the gentleman on
the platform and the unfortunate person who was trying to run the
lantern. It is bad enough to have the slides put in upside down; it
is bad enough to have them start at the end of the lecture instead of
the beginning; it is bad enough to have one of your favorite colored
slides drop on the floor, but the worst thing is to have a slide so
badly focused that you cannot tell what it is. Do you realize that in
these mental panoramas, in these stereopticon exhibitions that we are
attending, there are some pictures that are not well focused? Think of
the ideas we have that are vague and hazy. Attention is the power which
focuses pictures on the screen of the mind. You haven't possession of
a picture until you can see it in its clear outlines. What a deal of
vagueness there is in the world! How many ideas that, as a friend of
mine says, "are fuzzy around the edges." The only mental picture that
is to be trusted is the slide which is precise and clear and definite
and accurately focused.
Then another thing to note about these pictures is the way in which
they are related to one another. We may have a passive or an active
attitude toward the show that is going on. When you are in a passive
condition, you know how oddly these pictures come on, what an absurd
relation sometimes they have to one another. They seem to have no
logical connection whatever. Some pictures always appear together,
although they may have no connection except that they were originally
associated in that way, and you can never get one of them without
the other turning up. It is amusing, sometimes grotesque, sometimes
absurd, the way these pictures are grouped. Some come in what we call
a logical series; that is, they have some connection with one another,
one brings up another, and you go through the series from one point to
another. Oh, how promiscuously these pictures come on the screen of
the mind, some without the slightest premonition of their coming. It
is fascinating to recall the process by which one picture suggested
another, and that one a third. At times the spectator within us takes
control and says, "I won't have that picture any longer, I will
have another." He has the power to summon pictures. There lies the
control. If there be in this world anything like self-control, that
self-control is in the control of mental imagery. That control is the
secret of personality. In terms of mental imagery can we define the
individual and his power over himself, for mental pictures control our
lives. Habit is merely a mental picture which has become automatic.
Just because you can do the thing although you are conscious of the
picture no longer, it does not mean that that image was not there
once. When I want you to do something, I tell you to do it. If I have
authority over you I put the picture of that act in your mind and I
hold it there until it has worked itself out in conduct. Of course,
I should not go about it in that way, with you, as an association of
librarians. Not at all. I should attempt it in quite another way.
I should sneak the picture into your mind by what we call indirect
suggestion. If you were somebody I could browbeat into doing what I
told you to do, I could order you to do it. In other words, I could
jam the picture right into your mind, hold it there and say, "Now, you
do that thing." But, with you, I couldn't do it that way. But I think
I could manage some of you at any rate. When you were not watching,
I should slip the picture into your mind. You wouldn't know where it
came from. It would come on naturally. You would think you thought of
it yourself. That is the gentle art of suggestion, to slip a picture
on the screen of a person's mind without letting him know how it got
there. He naturally, then, supposes it is the result of those deceptive
processes which he identifies with personal thinking. You cannot cram
ideas down the throat of a free-born American citizen. Of course, you
can't. Moreover, what is the use of cramming them down his throat when
you can squirt them into him with a psychological hypodermic? That is
the charming thing about suggestion. All control, then, is control
through mental imagery. You have had this experience, for example. As
you stood in a railroad station and a locomotive came thundering in,
you have had, for a moment, an impulse--not only an impulse,--you have
had the picture in your mind of throwing yourself under the locomotive.
From a casual inspection of the company I should suppose that none had
tried that experiment as yet. Why? Because you were able to remove that
picture from your mind and substitute for it another--a picture of the
presumable appearance of things in a very short time after you had made
the experiment, or the vista of a long and happy life stretching out
before you, or of obligations to family and friends. Any one of these
pictures will serve the purpose. But if the time ever comes when that
picture of going under that locomotive gets firmly fixed in your mind,
nothing except physical force from without can prevent your going under
the wheels. Every motor idea that comes into our minds tends to work
itself out into action. That is the secret of the hypnotic sleep, in
which the person who is under your control, through pictures produced
in his mind, automatically carries these things out into action. Mental
imagery is the secret of life, and control of mental imagery means the
control of mankind. Self-control is the control of one's own imagery.
The personality, the self, is revealed in this imagery and in the
attitude of the spectator within us. You know those different
attitudes. There are some pictures that come upon the screen of
your mind, and the spectator within you is immediately interested.
For example, here comes a picture on the screen of your mind of the
day when that board that you had been working with so long, that
unintelligent board, that board made up of reactionary people that
you had so long been nursing, came to the point where you were able
to tell them of that scheme of yours which must inevitably, logically
and remorselessly lead to putting the library in your community on a
modern basis. When the picture of your triumph on that occasion comes
upon the screen of your mind, the spectator within you claps her hands
and says: "You were very clever about that; you waited a long time,
you worked it skillfully, you certainly are a capable person." You all
get pictures of that kind. You can't help looking at them. Here is
another slide--a reception. Of course, when they said that yours was
an extremely becoming gown, you were quite delighted; and you talked
well; you did say a lot of brilliant things. To be sure they were not
original--nobody expects that--but you were very fortunate in your
anthology that afternoon. I can see by the broad and amiable smiles all
of you are wearing, that pictures of a similarly agreeable kind are by
suggestion appearing on the screens of your minds.
But you have pictures of a very different sort. How could you?--of
course, you were just from the library school, it was only your first
position, but, at the same time, how could you?--you cannot imagine how
you could have mistaken Sir Thomas More, in the sixteenth, for Thomas
Moore in the nineteenth century. How could you have done it? Yet you
did. When that picture comes on the screen of your mind the spectator
within you shrinks and says: "Why must we look at that? Take it off at
once." It would be very piquant if I could take other illustrations
from your own experience, but I cannot do that. I shall have to take
one out of mine. I have a number which my spectator dislikes. Here is a
recent one:
At our experimental farm we have a very beautiful new saddle horse.
As I pretend to be something of a rider I went to ride this horse.
There was a sort of celebration that afternoon, and I thought it would
be pleasant for the president of the University to ride one of these
blooded horses to give _eclat_ to the =affair=. I went out and rode
this mare about. Everything went well until I encountered several
traction engines in active operation and a number of automobiles. I
was in a very narrow place. There being almost no other direction
for the mare to go, she began to take a vertical course. She was in
good condition and rather rotund, and the laws of physics worked out
their inevitable result. At forty-five degrees I held on admirably. At
sixty-five degrees, I began to feel some little distress. At eighty
degrees I looked behind me, and at 89-1/2 degrees I slid off. Now, such
is the admirable press organization in the great state of Minnesota
that every newspaper, I think, in the commonwealth--I haven't found
one yet that skipped the item--called attention to the fact that the
president of the University had come a cropper--or, if not strictly
a cropper, the effect of it was the same. One of the papers was kind
enough to say that, being an expert rider, I landed on my feet. If I
did, my fundamental ideas of anatomy have been entirely erroneous. As
I have been traveling about the state in the last few weeks, I haven't
met a man, woman or child who has not sooner or later worked that
back-sliding into the conversation. This is a picture of which, when
it comes on the screen of my mind, the spectator within me says, "I
suppose we have got to stand this, but it is certainly getting to be
slightly tiresome." We all get slides of that sort in our collection.
Then there are pictures of another sort, beautiful pictures, inspiring
pictures, yet for some reason the spectator within us is left cold and
unaffected by these images. It is the very tragedy of human nature that
we may intellectually know beautiful, noble, inspiring things, may
have uplifting visions, and yet the spectator within us may look at
these things and never so much as feel a flutter of the pulse. We do
not incorporate ideas until these things have become not only a part
of our intellectual apprehension, but until they have become a part
of our emotional nature, until we make them into the very fabric of
ourselves. We define the self, therefore, in terms of mental pictures,
and the control of self is the control of mental pictures. Let me know
the pictures to which you constantly revert, let me know the pictures
that come steadily to the screen of your mind, let me know the pictures
that the spectator within you gloats over and feels a loyalty to, and
I will reveal to you your character. Whatsoever a man thinketh in his
heart, whatsoever pictures he makes his own, whatsoever pictures he
gloats over with joy and satisfaction, these things reveal the true
personality.
Consider another thing: the content of these pictures, the kind of
pictures. How are they determined? They are determined by our social
relationships. Do you think the same sort of pictures are in the mind
of the Englishman as are in the mind of the American? Do you think the
same kind of pictures come into the mind of the Frenchman as come into
the mind of the German? There are certain universal pictures, the same
for all educated people, but most pictures take on a group character.
What are the pictures that come into your minds as librarians? Pictures
of your active calling. These pictures are very definite. You have
your own phrases, your own language. These phrases and these forms
of speech are themselves the labels of mental imagery. Every social
group is held together by its phrases. Oh, how we love these phrases
and how glibly we repeat them! So too, college professors have their
own phrases. What a sesquipedalian terminology it is with which they
bewilder the lay mind and overpower the student! How would lawyers get
on but for their monopoly of archaic forms of speech? Think of the
doctors' terminations, so many of them fatal, in _itis_, which they
have invented in the last few years. So every social group determines
very largely the conduct of its members by cleverly putting into their
minds the imagery that it wishes to have carried out. Why do you dress
as you do? Do your clothes represent your individual taste? In some
measure, but for the most part you dress as you do because society puts
fashion pictures into your heads. You ladies dress as you do because
these fashion plates and the women you see upon the street leave a
deposit in your mind, a composite picture, and that composite picture
works itself out in your own charming and becoming wardrobe. To be
sure, as librarians, you have individuality; as librarians, you have a
certain personal distinction, but it is, after all, only a variation
upon the common modes which you share with all your sisters everywhere.
These standards, these ideals, these types, that we talk about are put
into our minds by the social groups of which we are members, and we are
to a very large extent dominated by these pictures. Do you doubt it?
Just examine your mental imagery. How much of that mental imagery have
you secured as a result of your own first hand experience? How much
of that mental imagery represents original thinking? How much of that
psychic panorama have you received ready-made from the society to which
you belong?
The pictures come quickly upon the screen of the mind. How readily they
are summoned by suggestion! If I had time I could bore you almost to
extinction by calling up in your minds images that are common to all
of us. We all have large collections of slides. The depressing fact
is that for the most part they are identical. How refreshing it is to
meet an original person. Who is the original person? Just the person
that has some slides that were made at home. Most of us have the same
old, tiresome slides. When we have to make conversation, what do we
do? Go to the pigeon-hole, take out a slide, put it into our minds and
then reflect it to our friends. We have to be able to talk on a great
variety of subjects. In the nature of things we could not think out
these things for ourselves. Society has provided the slides. There they
are, like a well-organized collection, a card catalog, with a topical
index. To suppose that we make the slides ourselves is a grateful
illusion. There may be a few who do, but most of us get ours from the
stock houses in New York and Chicago.
Was there ever a time when pictorial imagery was presented to the
public as in these days? These are the days when people's minds are
filled with visual imagery as never before in the history of mankind.
And never before was the same imagery spread over so wide an area.
Think, for example, of what cartoons do. Cartoons are a substitute
for thinking. Cartoons are ready-made slides. Cartoons are arguments
ready to serve. Cartoons demand no intellectual effort. They would
not be successful as cartoons if they did. A cartoon which you have
to analyze is in the nature of things a mistake and a disappointment.
A cartoon tells the story instantly. It is a slide put into the minds
of millions of people in a single week. Then consider the imagery sent
out by the illustrated magazines. There is only one magazine, I think,
now, that does not have illustrations. Some of us take it just for that
reason. It has a kind of distinction on that account. The _Atlantic
Monthly_ has no illustrations except in the advertising pages--some of
those are very good--but it has that sense of uniqueness, that kind
of snobbishness, which is appreciated even in a democracy like our
glorious democracy, where we are all free and equal, as contrasted
with the social distinctions of this monarchy under which we are so
hospitably received this evening. It is a mistake to suppose that the
visual is suggested merely by drawings and photographs. When we go to a
lecture on "Mother, Home and Heaven" we expect the speaker in lieu of
lantern slides to supply "word pictures." The Sunday supplement is the
absolute symbol of our state of mind.
As we haven't time to think--i. e., to make our own slides--naturally
we haven't time to bring our collection together to see whether it is
consistent. We are going about with a most extraordinary selection
of slides. The only reason we get along with peace of mind is that
we do not take our slides out of the different boxes at the same
time. You keep your religious slides in one box, your moral slides in
another, your business slides in another, your professional slides in
another--and never take anything out of two pigeon-holes at once. For
that reason you go through life without knowing what an extraordinary
collection of hopelessly contradictory and mutually destructive ideas
you are carrying about under that hat of yours. It is only by keeping
these things in their boxes that we have anything like peace of mind.
A few people, of course, are constantly going through their boxes,
sifting, reorganizing and unifying their collections. These are the
men and women who think, who have courage, and for the most part they
represent genuine leadership. But most of us are satisfied to get our
slides ready made, to get them in quantities and to have them remain a
most heterogeneous accumulation.
There is a vast popular demand for ready-made slides. In every possible
way these substitutes for thought are being sent out. Political slides
are industriously distributed. You notice the difficulty that you have
just now in talking about the political situation in our glorious
country. We do not yet know what to say. You see, the slides haven't
yet been sent out for this week. We have to wait until the slide makers
put them on the market. We are all waiting to know what to say; we are
all waiting for a new set of slides which shall be adjusted to the new
conditions. If you bring out that old slide about the Republican party
that saved the country--No! You don't want to say anything about that.
You see at once, even though it has saved the country for years--you
can see that that slide won't do. It is cracked.
Pardon a digression which enforces the point that in these days
everything has to be pictorial. You see, when I am addressing a
group of librarians in a jaded condition, I have to use pictorial
illustrations. It is true, I should like to be didactic and pedagogic
on an occasion like this, but you are in a psychological condition
which makes it absolutely impossible. Even the thought of listening to
these songs that are coming afterward, would not keep you if I were not
constantly pictorial and keeping your minds filled with this beguiling
imagery.
Imagery, then, is absolutely essential; self-control and social control
are dependent upon the distribution of appropriate mental slides.
The very life of the nation depends upon this. Here we are, nearly a
hundred million people--we always include children--whose slides must
be supplied and in some fashion unified. The imagination breaks down
at the thought of this vast task. This national like-mindedness is a
glorious achievement. It has never been equaled anywhere on the face
of the earth. To keep these millions of people, who are scattered over
three million square miles, with the same fundamental pictures in their
heads is a marvelous triumph.
That we are the most progressive, the most mighty, the most highly
civilized country on the face of the world--that is a gorgeous
colored slide, which we keep on hand all the time. There are a lot of
slides like that, that are common to everybody. True, we have slides
specialized for the use of various social groups, but the fundamental
slides that preserve our nationality, are common to millions.
We have to have institutions that keep these slides vivid in the minds
of our people. It is the greatest attempt at social control that has
ever been conceived.
But the national slide industry is by no means perfected. On the
whole, there is an appalling number of these pictures that are vulgar
slides, cheap slides, commonplace slides, uninteresting slides. It is
your business--for now I come to my analogy--it is your business, as
the people who are running the moving-picture concerns of the United
States, to see to it that better pictures are put into the minds of
your fellow citizens. You have the responsibility of superseding in
the mental collections of millions of our citizens slides that are
cheap and unworthy and inaccurate and misleading, with mental pictures
that are clean-cut, trustworthy, informing and inspiring. That is
your business. You are in competition with the moving-picture houses.
There are nine thousand of these moving-picture concerns working night
and day in the United States, filling the minds of people with mental
imagery. But every library is full of potential mental pictures which
can be made interesting, ennobling and uplifting to millions of people.
It is your privilege to get these slides out into circulation, a mighty
appealing thing to do, a splendidly stirring thing to do. I hope you
are thoroughly alert as members of this mental picture syndicate. You
know what you have to do. You must advertise and you must capture
the public in every possible way; you must not be ashamed to put out
posters describing the wonderful pictures.
And what rare pictures you have! What is a novel? It is a film of
moving pictures. What is a great novel? It is a series of great
pictures--and what lovely pictures they may be; what interesting, what
inspiring pictures they may be! What a great collection of such mental
pictures you have in your libraries! And when people read George Barr
McCutcheon, try to get that film away from them and give them George
Meredith. You laugh at that, but how about "Harry Richmond?" Isn't it
as good a story as ever Anthony Hope or as ever George Barr McCutcheon
wrote? It is a good slide, a good film. When people come and want
to read Laura Jean Libbey--of course you wouldn't have her on the
premises--but if that is their standard try to work off Robert Louis
on them. You know, there are some of Robert Louis' that are fairly
sensational. You can get people started on the right road with Robert
Louis if you go about it in a clever way to pull the cheap slides out
of people's minds.
But, you say, there are a lot of people whose mental apparatus, if I
may modify the figure a little bit,--no, it is not a modification,
it is an amplification, it is a perfectly logical development of the
figure,--you say that for a good many people you want a magic lantern
in their mind that will focus properly. That is the business of
education. That is what Dr. Robertson and I are trying to do, to make
the minds of the young focus properly, on the right sort of things.
You must get a great deal of inaccurate information made accurate and
definite. You know, one of the great troubles with our educational
system is that our ideas are so haphazard, so untrustworthy.
The scientific slides need looking after carefully. They are changed
every few minutes, but we have to do the best we can to run the latest
and most trustworthy slides into the minds of the people. Then think of
the literary slides. I was very much interested in the discussion this
morning. I fear it will go on indefinitely as long as the gentlemen do
not define their terms. But I think if they were to do this they would
discover that they both believe about the same thing.
But here at hand is the real application of this figure. What is it
that makes life interesting? It is to be able to associate with the
ordinary, commonplace experiences of life an illuminating, inspiring,
fascinating imagery. Do you realize that the books in your library
give no pleasure whatever except as they interpret life to people who
bring the experience of life to the books? A book is a mere dead symbol
until it becomes vital in the life of a living man or woman. You have
books in your library in foreign languages. These books are sealed to
people who do not know those foreign languages. You would not think of
offering a French or German book, say, to an average college graduate.
You must have people who understand the language in which books are
written. So when you give a book of history or a book of science or
a book of poetry to a man or woman, that man or woman must bring a
little bit of life, a little gleam of life experience, in order to get
into any kind of relationship with that book. Then the book reacts
and becomes a guide for the further investigation and interpretation
of life. And so the book and life together go on enriching human
experience.
I wish we had more accurate slides about history, especially about
the French Revolution. We mostly get our slides on the French
Revolution from the Sunday evening sermons of eminent divines who are
proving that the French Revolution was completely parallel with our
times, and that France went to the bad largely because the Church was
temporarily disestablished. Now, if we get our slides of the French
Revolution from popular pulpits and from stump speakers we shall get
some curious pictures. We want to put into the minds of the people the
slides from men like Morse Stephens and von Holst before we introduce
those lurid and beautifully colored slides from Carlyle and those
rather melodramatic slides from "A tale of two cities." Then there
is the fall of Rome, for example. Anybody can explain the fall of
Rome, and we are always upon the brink of a French revolution. What
we need is an accurate picture of what caused Rome to fall. Then as
for Greece--Greece, that magic word! We need a lot of pictures about
Greece. I have a good deal of interest in classic culture if it can
be, for a large number of people, divorced from the classic languages.
To suppose that there is an identity between Greek grammar and Greek
life, its social institutions and its aspirations and their lessons
for us, is to make a very serious blunder. You have noticed that an
eminent Greek scholar from England has been lecturing at Amherst. Did
he talk about grammar? No. He talked about the philosophy of Greece,
the politics of Greece, the social history of Greece. These are things
we need; for, my friends, you know, and you need to preach this
doctrine, that modernity defeats itself. To suppose that reading the
daily newspaper and having the mind filled with contemporary events
gives any one a right to judge of those events, is absurdity itself. We
can understand the present only as we can connect that present with the
past. Therefore, if we are to have an intelligent population many men
must have a vivid and accurate panorama of human history; they must be
able to see the present in the light of the past, and then to predict
with some little degree of certainty what we are to have in the future.
Look, for example, at our present crisis. I am not going to interpret
it, I do not understand it; but we cannot possibly see beneath the
surface of it unless we try to interpret it in the light of the
experience of other nations. What have all the great nations of Western
Europe done? When we ask that question, and when we see how parties are
aligned in this Dominion where we meet to-night, we cannot fail to get
a little light upon what is going on at home. There the same social
forces are at work, under different conditions, to be sure, but working
themselves out inevitably.
So it is our business to fill the minds of our fellow citizens with
accurate pictures, with definite pictures, with pictures of reality,
with pictures which shall illumine every department of life. If there
is any aim in education, it seems to me it is to make man a citizen
of the world, to make him at home in nature, at home with mankind,
at home with all the great forces which play a part in his personal
development, which sweep through him into the lives of generations yet
unborn. When his mind is filled with such pictures, when the spectator
within him goes out to the best and finest and truest of these pictures
with genuine appreciation, then you have the development of personality
and the development of a great civilization.
You, my friends, are the keepers of these films and slides. It is your
business to see that they are well chosen, to see that they are made
available, to see that the people are stimulated, that the people
are made to realize vividly what it means to have their minds filled
with these true, these beautiful, these inspiring pictures which will
enable them to interpret life, to enter into it more richly, to get
out of it more joy, the joy of intelligent appreciation, the joy of
work well done, scientifically done, the joy of comradeship, the joy of
association in great enterprises. When these pictures fill the mind,
when the spectator within is loyal to them, then there is richness of
personal life, then there is genuine advancement of civilization.
Imagery is the clue to conduct. Without mental imagery there can be
no development of character. Without mental imagery there can be no
social progress. This mental imagery comes from the experience of life.
You are not the sole purveyors of it. Books, as I have said, are dead
and inert things until men with some experience of life come to them
for further insight and for guidance as they go their way trying to
understand life and to interpret it more truly and to get out of it
greater richness.
There is a delight in mental pictures. May our pictures be interesting
and true and ennobling, may they increase in number as the years go on,
may they open up to us vistas of personal satisfaction, give us keener
insight into the meaning of life and stir us to larger loyalties and to
truer service. May we pledge ourselves to this great work and to the
furthering and fostering of those things which Watson has so finely
called "the things that are more excellent."
"The grace of friendship, mind and heart
Linked with their fellow heart and mind,
The gains of science, gifts of art,
The sense of oneness with our kind,
The thirst to know and understand,
A large and liberal discontent,
These are the goods in life's rich hand,
The things that are more excellent."
At the conclusion of President Vincent's address, Mr. Lawrence J.
Burpee announced that M. Amedee Tremblay, organist of the Basilica,
would accompany a number of Canadian folk songs which M. Normandin, of
Montreal, would sing. They were given in three groups of three, and
between each group was given one of Dr. Drummond's poems in character,
by Mr. Heney, of Ottawa, a most excellent interpreter of these sketches
of the French-Canadian habitant.
These unique, interesting and well rendered contributions to the
exercises of the evening were much appreciated by all present, and at
their conclusion the session closed with a brief but hearty expression
of acknowledgment from President Elmendorf.
SIXTH GENERAL SESSION
(Russell Theatre, Tuesday, July 2, 3 p. m.)
President Elmendorf occupied the chair.
Mr. CARR: Many of us appreciate the work done in days past by Frederick
W. Faxon, in personally conducting our post-conference tours. Business
obliged him to take another course this year and cross the water. It
has been suggested that we send him a wireless despatch of appreciation
and felicitation in the name of the association. Madam President, I
move the authorization of such a telegram.
The motion was carried unanimously, and the cablegram ordered sent.
The PRESIDENT: Now, we will proceed with the regular program, which
brings us to the last of our series growing out of the idea of service
to the individual, and we shall take pleasure in hearing Mr. CARL B.
RODEN, assistant librarian, Chicago public library, on
BOOK ADVERTISING: INFORMATION AS TO SUBJECT AND SCOPE OF BOOKS
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.
BOOK ADVERTISING: ILLUMINATION AS TO ATTRACTIONS OF REAL BOOKS
The reputation of the American people as a nation of readers evokes
a pleasurable sensation of pride in the patriotic heart. But when we
pause to ask, "What do they read?" that pride is destined to fall.
Newspapers, periodicals, novels, the popular books of the hour--yes,
but how many of the books of all time? It may be doubted if the present
generation, with all its opportunities, reads as many of these as did
its fathers.
Two traits seem forcibly to impress the cultivated foreigner as
characteristic of our men and, to a lesser degree, of our women--a
hard materialism and a lack of interest in the finer things of life.
Is there any relation between this dearth of idealism and the reading
habits of the nation? Ideals are the greatest force in life, and
what a man's ideals are is largely determined by what he reads. The
power of great literature to awaken noble ambitions, to cultivate the
imagination, to impart the ability "to see life steadily and see it
whole" is undisputed. In face of all this, where does the library of
today stand?
It has been pointed out that the modern library movement is of recent
growth. We look with amazement at all that has been accomplished in
the last quarter-century. There seems little to connect the library of
the present with the library of the past. But one link remains--the
book. Sometimes it seems as if that was the one thing we were leaving
out of our thought--the book, not as a material object, paper,
printing, binding, to all of which we pay much attention, but the
book as literature. Is the library, too, becoming materialized? As
the authorized custodians of the wisdom of the past, we stand in an
important and dignified relation to the present. How can we share our
treasures with a public that too often fails to appreciate its need for
them?
First of all--above all mere schemes and devices however good--must
come a real love and enthusiasm for books, and a knowledge of them
among library workers. It is impossible to awaken an interest in other
people in a subject in which you are not interested yourself. There
has been more or less good-natured raillery among librarians over
that time-honored recommendation for one who wishes to enter library
work, that he is "fond of reading." In the long list of qualifications
which, we are told, the library assistant should possess--a list so
comprehensive that one is reminded of the old jest about expecting
all the virtues for four dollars a week--love of books seems to be
ranked very low. It may be questioned if this is not a mistaken policy.
After all, books are the basis of all library work and the attitude of
the workers toward the books, cannot be unimportant. One of the most
scathing indictments ever brought against library assistants was made
when Gerald Stanley Lee accused them of being "book chambermaids."
We like to judge our profession--if I may be allowed that disputed
term--by its leaders; but the public judges us by the people who answer
their questions in our delivery rooms and at our information desks and
in our reference departments. And it is no use trying to evade the
issue, as some libraries do, by requesting people not to ask questions
at the delivery desk. Two-thirds of our public never get any farther
and, even when referred to some other department, show an inexplicable
unwillingness to go there.
A few years ago the following communication appeared in a well-known
paper: "Will you kindly inform me through the columns of the Saturday
Review of Books where I can find the story of 'Gil Blas'? I inquired at
one of the public libraries and the attendant said she had never heard
of it." Incidents like this, and we must in all honesty admit that
they are liable to occur in any library, may be one reason for the too
prevalent impression that the library is merely a place where one can
get a new novel. If we wish to promote the reading of the best books
in our communities, we must have literary taste and a familiarity with
books in the members of our library staffs.
The power of the viva voce, personal opinion is apt to be
underestimated. "It's great," says the little cash-girl in the
department store, and her word settles the matter for the hesitating
purchaser. With the public at large, your recommendation of a book goes
farther than a learned review by a real authority. Here is where our
opportunity lies, not only inside the library, but outside. A librarian
who recently read "Eothen" and found it thoroughly delightful, casually
spoke of it among his friends and, as a result, knows of no less than
seventeen people who read the book and twelve who bought it. This
incident is typical. Why did you choose the last book you read? Even if
you are a librarian and in the habit of looking over endless numbers of
book reviews, it is more than likely it was because someone spoke of it
in a way to arouse your interest.
In our professional capacity we all expect to be called upon for advice
in selecting books, but even outside the library we are probably
alike in finding that people assume we can help them to discover the
"something interesting" for which they are looking. Accordingly, the
advantage of a broad range of literary likings is obvious. The world
of literature is wide and there is something in it for every taste. If
your personal preference happens to be for the moderns, if you enjoy
Ibsen and Shaw and Maeterlinck--don't look askance on that other type
of mind that finds happiness in Scott and Browning and Tennyson. The
mental breadth that can sympathize with a point of view that it does
not share, is nowhere more desirable than in library work.
Much effort is being expended by libraries at the present time in
promoting the reading of their books. It is being more and more
recognized that a smaller number of books more widely read fulfills
the real purpose for which the library exists better than a larger
number standing on the shelves. This is now so much of a commonplace
that we are liable to forget how new the idea is. It was not so long
ago that the annual report pointed with pride to the large proportion
of income spent on books and the small amount on administration. The
whole movement expressed by the term, "publicity," is the growth of a
few years. So far most of our work along this line has been devoted
to promoting the reading of new books and technical works. Gratifying
success has crowned our various schemes. But every library worker
knows that the easiest class of books for which to find readers is new
books. The reasons for this are so apparent that we need not dwell
upon them. To circulate the great books, the classics, the books which
constitute literature in the restricted sense is another and a far more
difficult undertaking, and on this we have hardly made a beginning.
Yet if the library is to stand--and we all believe it should--for the
highest, for true culture and refinement, if it is to be a source of
ideals, as well as ideas, here is a side of our work which must not be
neglected.
We may be inclined at times to underrate the library's ability to
secure the reading of specific books. An experiment tried some years
ago may serve as an object lesson. Van Vorst's "The woman who toils"
and "The souls of black folk," by Du Bois, were selected for this
experiment. Under ordinary conditions the first of these books would
have enjoyed a fair degree of popularity, while the second would
have had a rather small circulation. The library bought a number of
copies of each, sent notices to all the papers, had book-notes in its
bulletin, put up publishers' advertisements on its bulletin-boards,
and (note this last) discussed the books in staff-meeting so that
every assistant was able to talk about them intelligently. The results
surpassed expectations. For months it was impossible to meet the calls
for them, and reserves came in steadily; most remarkable of all, after
eight years the circulation of one is eight and the other three times
above the average. So much for what a library can do in determining
what its constituency shall read.
One reason why the best books are not read is that many people do not
know how readable they are. In the vocabulary of the great public
the word classic is synonymous with dry. It frightens people. How
much the schools are responsible for this through their use of great
literary masterpieces as text-books is a disputed question. If we can
only succeed in making people understand that the reason these works
are classics is because their inherent interest is so great that it
has kept them living and vital through the years that have brought
oblivion to hordes of weaker writings, we shall have accomplished
something truly worth while. But if to many of our patrons the classic
is something to be feared and avoided, there are others who really wish
the best, but either do not know it or are so busy that they neglect
it, taking the book that comes first to hand. Like those daughters of
time--the hypocritic days, books too bring diadems and fagots.
"To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars and sky that holds them all."
How often have we, wearied and hurried, hastily taken a few herbs and
apples, only to feel later the solemn scorn of a wasted opportunity.
There are probably few libraries today, outside the very small ones,
that do not employ book lists, more or less elaborate in form, to call
attention to their resources. These can be used to good advantage to
recommend the purely literary attractions of the library's collection.
But there are book lists and book lists. To some librarians a book list
is a list of books, and nothing more. The newest member of the staff
can take his subject, a pencil and a pad, and look in the card catalog
under the proper heading, and lo! the list is made! And it is worth
just about the amount of work put into it. A successful list requires
far more than this. The books must be carefully selected by some one
who knows them. If there are annotations, they must really annotate.
If your brief note adds nothing that the public wishes to know, it
is wasted. The number of entries, the title, the arrangement, the
paper, and the print, all are important in deciding the popularity of
a list. A distinction needs to be drawn between the list for students
and the list for popular reading. The former may be very full, but
experience tends to show that the latter should be brief--twenty-five
entries at the longest; and many times, ten would be better. Ten
great autobiographies, ten world-famous dramas, ten literary
masterpieces--the very titles hint at that multum in parvo which gives
popularity to collections like Dr. Eliot's five-foot library. To read
five feet of books and find oneself simply but sufficiently armed and
equipped to hold one's own with any university giant, how enticing it
sounds! and how simple. The public dearly loves superlatives--"the
best," "the most famous," "the greatest." If any librarian doubts
the drawing power of these phrases, let him make a trial of them. A
knowledge of psychology may be a great aid in library work.
To be successful, the compiler of a book list should thoughtfully
consider whom he hopes to reach by it and then take measures to see
that it reaches them. Advertise your list, and do not for a moment
think that great literature, because it is great, needs no advertising.
If your local paper will say that the library is distributing a
fine list on the immortal Greek tragedies, far more people will be
interested in that list than if you merely hand it out at your delivery
desk.
The most encouraging thought in regard to the promoting of the reading
of the best books by means of lists is the broad field from which the
books can be selected. The true book-lover in library work often feels
like Tantalus--seeing all the time so much he would like to read and
cannot. And so he turns with avidity to preparing for more fortunate
mortals lists, not only of the things he has read and loved, but of
the things he would love to read. Poetry, drama, essays, biography,
letters, travel--here is a world from which to choose.
Supplementing the lists and adding to their attractiveness are
collections of the books themselves. In large libraries most people
are more or less at sea. Who has not seen them wandering aimless and
bewildered from shelf to shelf, and who has not noted the relief
with which they turn to almost any small selection of books. Many
libraries have kept statistics showing the circulation of books placed
on special shelves, and it is invariably found that it is much higher
than that of the books kept in their regular places. This has passed
the experimental stage. Today we know that we can in this way increase
the use of any books we select. There are just as good books in the
stack, but they will not be read to anything like the same extent. A
library has in its delivery room certain shelves on which appear all
the new books that are bought, regardless of class. The circulation
from these shelves is notably large. After a varying length of time
these books are sent to the regular shelves. Immediately the use of
them decreases. Books that were read almost continuously while they
were on the special shelves only go out occasionally. But take them
back to one of the small miscellaneous collections in the delivery
room and they immediately begin to circulate again. The merchants
learned long ago that people buy what they see, and so in all the
stores a large amount of stock is on the counters for inspection.
Librarians have learned that people also read what they see. In both
cases, however, the methods adopted to secure patrons are influenced by
the natural limitation as to the amount that can profitably be seen.
The experienced clerk does not show the prospective buyer too many
different kinds of cloth, lest he should become confused, be unable
to decide, and refrain from buying. So with the reader. He can select
something satisfactory from a single case of books, when row after row
of them gives him mental vertigo. So do not say to him, "Here is all
Greek literature--choose." But bring together on a table or a shelf a
few books and say, "Here are a dozen of the greatest tragedies in the
Greek language. All of them are worth reading. Take one."
But when you have brought together this little collection and called
attention to it, never think your work is done. After a little while
change it for something else. The wonted soon becomes out-worn.
When the collection is new, it is regarded with interest. Leave it
too long, and people cease to see it. They walk past the shelf with
a subconscious feeling that they know what is there. The thing to
cultivate in them is a delightful uncertainty as to what they will
find, coupled with the expectation that it will be something different
from what they saw last time. Change we must have. Here again we may
take a lesson from the merchant. Time, thought, and money are spent
on preparing a beautiful window display. Does the proprietor settle
back and say, "This is the high-water mark. We cannot arrange a better
window than this; therefore we will make it permanent." Not at all. He
realizes that while at first it will draw crowds, after a bit it will
become an old story. He must offer something fresh. So get together a
collection of the best books; call attention to them; get your public
in the habit of looking for them; but change them frequently. The
infinite variety of literature is such that its presentation need never
become stale.
One method of introducing people to the best literature seems
comparatively little used in this country, though common in England,
and that is the lecture course. It is generally affirmed that the
American people no longer care for lectures. Forms of popular
entertainment wax and wane. The New Englander of the middle nineteenth
century was an enthusiastic attendant of lectures and there can be no
doubt that he owed much in an intellectual way to the habit. Almost all
of the best-known literary and public men of that period either went on
lecturing tours or gave readings from their works. Their influence was
thus greatly extended and an interest awakened in things worth while
to an extent otherwise impossible. The old-fashioned lecture certainly
compares favorably in its results with many methods of entertainment in
vogue today. It is to be feared that the latter, far from stimulating
mental life, are conducive to inertia of thought. It would be an
interesting experiment for the libraries to attempt a series of
lectures on literary lines and see if their old popularity could be
revived.
* * * * *
Another way of calling attention to the best in literature seems wholly
neglected by libraries; and, surprising as it seems, this is through
their bulletins. Nearly all large, and many small, libraries publish a
bulletin, but little has been done to develop this important library
agency. Here is a field that may well be cultivated. Most publications
have to put much money and work into the task of securing readers.
Our clientele is already provided by the patrons of our institutions.
Because the bulletin gives a list of new books, and because many of the
reading public are interested in new books, they read our bulletins.
Why do we not give them something more than a bare list of accessions?
If we wish to make our influence felt in the character of the reading
in our communities, this is our opportunity. The work may be difficult,
but it is certainly worth attempting.
All librarians have viewed with mingled feelings of wonder and
amusement those ingenious literary ladders, by which the unsuspecting
reader is triumphantly led from Mary J. Holmes to Thackeray. During
the library experience extending over a number of years, the present
writer has hopefully watched for an instance of some individual reader
climbing this amazing structure, but she has watched in vain. It is
not my aim to show how the reader of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems may
be induced to change to Milton; or how a devoted lover of Gaboriau
may follow a blazed trail that shall lead via Münsterburg's study
of criminal psychology to William James; or by what methods Jack
London's "Call of the wild" might eventually end in Darwin's "Origin of
species." This puzzling task must be left to some more ambitious soul.
But in every community there is a class of people, be it smaller or
larger, to whom an attractive presentation of the stimulating qualities
of real literature would appeal; and if such a presentation was rightly
made, they would respond. Will not some library make trial of this
method? Let it publish in its bulletin a series of brief articles
about the great books, telling what they have meant in the past,
what they mean today; showing them as sources of inspiration and of
consolation; making it clear that any one who has made himself master
of their treasures can never be mentally poor. Then let that library
report the outcome and tell us whether, in its opinion, it paid. The
trouble with too many library experiments is that the experimenters
never seem to follow them up and tabulate their results. The schemes
sound fine, but as to their actual working there is much haziness.
Librarians are notably ready and anxious to learn from one another, and
a plan reported as being tried in one place is likely to be immediately
started in many others. If libraries would carefully investigate the
actual results achieved by their various devices, and report their
failures as well as their successes, much wasted effort might be
avoided.
Another untried scheme that might be suggested is a series of readings.
The wealth of English poetry commends that form of literature as
well suited to this purpose, though of course there is no dearth of
material along many lines from which to choose. The theory of this
method is the same as that of the story-hour for children, and the same
question would present itself--whether the auditor would merely enjoy
the entertainment or whether sufficient interest would be awakened to
induce him to pursue the subject farther. Most libraries have small
lecture rooms, and this plan has the recommendation that it can be
tried at slight expense.
But after everything possible has been said for schemes of one kind and
another, we shall come back in the end to the supreme importance of
personality. No amount of advertising, no number of lists and special
collections can ever take the place of the cultivated and enthusiastic
book-lover in promoting the reading of the best books.
The PRESIDENT: It all pretty nearly amounts to saying that our public
are our friends, our books are our friends, and we wish to help the
friends of the first part to the pleasure of knowing the friends of the
second part.
The next order of business is the report of the Executive board and the
report of the Council, which the secretary will read.
The SECRETARY: There have been two meetings of the Executive board, and
two meetings of the Council, during this conference.
EXECUTIVE BOARD
At the first meeting of the Executive board ordinary routine business
was first transacted, and, later, Mr. Henry E. Legler, as chairman
of the committee appointed to draft a by-law stating definitely what
person or persons are entitled to cast votes for institutional members,
reported that the committee recommended that the by-laws be amended by
adding the following section:
Sec. 11. The vote of institutional members shall be cast by the
duly designated representative whose credentials are filed with
the secretary. In the absence of such designation or of such
delegate the vote may be cast by the chief librarian or ranking
executive officer in attendance at the meeting.
Consideration was given to the recommendations adopted by the Council
from the Committee on relation of the A. L. A. and State library
associations and on motion of Dr. Andrews, it was voted to recommend
to the association that Section 14 of the Constitution be amended by
inserting the following clause, after the words "and twenty-five by the
Council itself;"
"and one member from each state, provincial and territorial
library association (or any association covering two or more such
geographical divisions) which complies with the conditions for
such representation set forth in the by-laws."
Also that Sec. 3a be added to the By-laws as follows:
"Each state, territorial and provincial library association (or
any association covering two or more such geographical divisions)
having a membership of not less than fifteen members, may be
represented in the Council by the president of such association,
or by an alternate elected at the annual meeting of the
association. The annual dues shall be $5.00 for each association
having a membership of fifty or less, and ten cents per additional
capita where membership is above that number. The privileges and
advantages of the A. L. A. Conferences shall be available only to
those holding personal membership or representing institutional
membership in the Association."[5]
[5] As this by-law would be meaningless until the above recommended
amendment to the Constitution is in force, action on the by-law was
postponed by the Association until the next annual conference.
Adjourned, subject to the call of the chair.
The second meeting was held after the election of officers. Mr. Legler
presided.
Mr. George T. Settle, acting assistant librarian of the Louisville
free public library, appeared before the board and in behalf of the
library board and various officials and organizations of Louisville and
Kentucky invited the association to meet in Louisville in 1913.
A letter was read from Mr. George F. Bowerman, librarian of the
District of Columbia public library, in which was expressed a desire
that the association meet in Washington in 1913 and, if found
practicable and desirable, to adopt the policy of holding recurrent
meetings in that city.
Invitations for the conference of 1913 were also received and read from
the convention bureaus of Chicago, Buffalo and San Francisco. All of
these invitations were tabled for due consideration.
After general discussion it was voted as the opinion of the Executive
board that the next conference should be held at some summer resort in
the eastern section of the country and the secretary was instructed to
investigate places of this nature, and report to the board.
A report of considerable length was received from the Bookbuying
Committee relative to negotiations between the respective committees
appointed by the A. L. A. and the American Booksellers' Association,
upon which it was voted that this report be sent to the respective
members of the Executive board and their opinions and suggestions
thereon be filed with the secretary to be later considered by the board.
A communication from the secretary of the Catalog section was received
stating that the following resolution had been unanimously adopted by
that section:
RESOLVED, that the A. L. A. Executive board be asked to appoint
a committee to investigate the cost and method of cataloging
in accordance with the suggestions in Mr. Josephson's paper,
"What is cataloging?"[6] Mr. Josephson's paper accompanied the
communication. It was voted that the president appoint a committee
of three for this purpose and that an appropriation of $15 be
made for the necessary expenses of the committee. The president
appointed as this committee Mr. A. G. S. Josephson, Miss Agnes Van
Valkenburgh and Miss Emma V. Baldwin.
[6] For Mr. Josephson's paper, see page 245.
A communication was considered from Mr. Asa Don Dickinson, addressed to
the secretary, relative to a campaign for a library clearing house for
periodicals. It was taken by consent that such a campaign would not be
practical for the A. L. A. to undertake under present conditions.
Mr. Wellman, as special committee of one from the Publishing board,
to investigate the advisability of the appointment of a committee to
work upon the compilation of a code for classifiers, reported favorably
on the plan and recommended that the Executive board take the matter
in hand and appoint a committee as requested. On motion it was voted
that the following committee be named: W. S. Merrill, J. C. Bay, W. S.
Biscoe, W. P. Cutter, J. C. M. Hanson, Charles Martel and P. L. Windsor.
* * * * *
On motion of Dr. Andrews it was voted that the secretary secure data
relating to the library careers of the members of the association, this
information either to be incorporated in the annual Handbook or filed
at the headquarters office for use of the membership.
On motion of Dr. Andrews it was voted that the president suggest to the
members of the Executive board any changes he deems desirable in the
membership of the standing committees and to ask for such suggestions
and that the secretary inform the members of any changes suggested by
the committees themselves.
On motion of Miss Eastman it was voted that C. W. Andrews and A. E.
Bostwick be re-elected members of the Publishing board for terms of
three years each.
Voted, that at its January meeting the Council be requested to define
the policy of the association as to the number of general sessions
advisable at the annual conference.
On motion of Dr. Andrews it was voted that the program committee be
asked to consult the wishes of the affiliated organizations regarding
the closer grouping of their respective sessions at the annual
conference.
Voted, that at future conferences of the association the ensign of the
United States and the British union jack be placed side by side to
signify the international nature of the association.
Adjourned.
Note: The standing committees for the year 1912-13 were later
appointed as follows and although these appointments were not a
part of the Ottawa conference business, the list is here given for
convenience of reference.
A. L. A. STANDING COMMITTEES, 1912-13
=Finance=
C. W. Andrews, The John Crerar library, Chicago.
F. F. Dawley, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Edwin H. Anderson, Public library, New York.
=Public Documents=
G. S. Godard, State library, Hartford, Conn.
A. J. Small, State library, Des Moines, Ia.
Ernest Bruncken, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
John A. Lapp, State library, Indianapolis, Ind.
M. S. Dudgeon, Wisconsin free library commission, Madison, Wis.
T. M. Owen, Department of archives and history, Montgomery, Ala.
S. H. Ranck, Public library, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Adelaide R. Hasse, Public library, New York.
C. B. Lester, State library, Albany, N. Y.
=Co-operation with the National Education Association.=
Mary Eileen Ahern, "Public Libraries," Chicago.
Marie A. Newberry, Public school library, Ypsilanti, Mich.
Irene Warren, School of Education, Chicago.
George H. Locke, Public library, Toronto, Ont.
Harriet A. Wood, Library association, Portland, Ore.
=Library Administration=
A. E. Bostwick, Public library, St. Louis, Mo.
Geo. F. Bowerman, Public library, Washington, D. C.
John S. Cleavinger, Public library, Jackson, Mich.
=Library Training=
A. S. Root, Oberlin college library, Oberlin, O.
Faith E. Smith, Public library, Chicago.
Mary W. Plummer, Library school, Public library, New York.
Adam Strohm, Public library, Detroit, Mich.
Caroline M. Underhill, Public library, Utica, N. Y.
Chalmers Hadley, Public library, Denver, Colo.
Cornelia Marvin, Oregon library commission, Salem.
Geo. O. Carpenter, trustee, Public library, St. Louis, Mo.
=International Relations=
Herbert Putnam, Library of Congress, Washington.
E. C. Richardson, Princeton university library, Princeton, N. J.
J. S. Billings, Public library, New York.
W. C. Lane, Harvard university library, Cambridge, Mass.
R. R. Bowker, "Library Journal," New York.
=Bookbuying=
Walter L. Brown, Public library, Buffalo, N. Y.
C. B. Roden, Public library, Chicago.
C. H. Brown, Public library, Brooklyn.
=Bookbinding=
A. L. Bailey, Wilmington Institute free library, Wilmington, Del.
Rose G. Murray, Public library, New York.
J. R. Patterson, Public library, Chicago.
=Federal and State Relations=
B. C. Steiner, Enoch Pratt free library, Baltimore, Md.
T. L. Montgomery, State library, Harrisburg, Pa.
Demarchus C. Brown, State library, Indianapolis, Ind.
Paul Blackwelder, Public library, St. Louis, Mo.
C. F. D. Belden, State library, Boston, Mass.
=Catalog Rules for Small Libraries=
Theresa Hitchler, Public library, Brooklyn.
Margaret Mann, Carnegie library, Pittsburgh.
Mary L. Sutliff, Library school, Public library, New York.
=Travel=
F. W. Faxon, Boston Book Co., Boston, Mass.
C. H. Brown, Public library, Brooklyn.
J. F. Phelan, Public library, Chicago.
=Co-ordination=
C. H. Gould, McGill university library, Montreal.
J. L. Gillis, State library, Sacramento, Cal.
N. D. C. Hodges, Public library, Cincinnati, O.
W. C. Lane, Harvard university library, Cambridge, Mass.
Herbert Putnam, Library of Congress, Washington.
T. W. Koch, University of Michigan library, Ann Arbor.
J. C. Schwab, Yale university library, New Haven, Conn.
=Work with the Blind=
Mrs. Emma Neisser Delfino, Free library, Philadelphia.
Laura M. Sawyer, Perkins Institution, Watertown, Mass.
Laura Smith, Public library, Cincinnati, O.
Miriam E. Carey, Public library commission, St. Paul, Minn.
Charles S. Greene, Free library, Oakland, Cal.
=Program=
Henry E. Legler, Public library, Chicago.
E. H. Anderson, Public library, New York.
George B. Utley, A. L. A. Executive office, Chicago.
COUNCIL
=First Meeting=
The first meeting, held June 27th, was called to order by President
Elmendorf, with 37 members present. First Vice-President Legler, at
request of the president, took the chair.
Voted that a committee of three be appointed by the chair to nominate
five members for Council to be elected by council for a term of five
years each. The chair appointed George H. Locke, R. G. Thwaites and
Mary L. Titcomb.
Mrs. Elmendorf, as chairman of committee on relations of the A. L. A.
and certain other national associations, made a report of progress,
stating that the committee had formulated a letter setting forth the
desire for closer co-operation, which letter had been transmitted by
the secretary to 35 associations. Replies had been received from 23,
all of which expressed a desire for closer co-operation between their
association and the A. L. A. Voted that the report be received as
report of progress and the committee continued.
In the absence of Mr. W. C. Lane, chairman of the special committee to
promote and co-operate in the development of printed cards in relation
with international arrangements, Dr. C. W. Andrews made an informal
report on his own work as a member of the committee, stating that the
John Crerar library was testing the time required to order printed
cards from the Royal Library of Berlin to see whether such orders would
reach their destination in time to be filled. He expressed the hope
that a majority of such orders would be received in time. Mr. Bowker
spoke of the work as seen by him on a recent trip abroad. Dr. Putnam
spoke informally of the Leipzig exhibit of book arts planned for two
years hence.
The committee on ventilation and lighting reported informally through
the chairman, Mr. Samuel H. Ranck, who stated that a formal report had
been prepared and would be presented at a later session.
Miss Alice S. Tyler, chairman of the Committee on relation of the A. L.
A. and State library associations, presented the following report:
The Committee on relation of the A. L. A. and State library
associations reports to the Council the further consideration of
the report which was referred back to the Committee at the January
meeting of the Council and makes the following recommendation:
That Council recommends that the Executive board consider the
advisability of amending Section 14 of the Constitution and
Section 3 of the By-laws to include representation of state,
territorial and provincial library associations in the Council and
the conditions of such membership.
The Committee further suggests that the By-laws be amended to
provide that the privileges and advantages of the A. L. A.
conferences shall be available only to those holding personal, or
representing institutional, membership in the association.
Voted that this report be adopted.
The Committee appointed to consider the government of American
libraries and their relation to the municipal authorities, presented
a report through the chairman, Dr. A. E. Bostwick, upon which it was
voted that the report be recommitted to Committee for consideration as
to minor changes and further report.
On motion it was voted that the Committee be continued and that
membership be increased to five. The president named M. S. Dudgeon and
Adam Strohm as additional members.
Adjourned, subject to call of the chair.
=Second Meeting=
At the second meeting, held June 29th, 24 members were present.
Vice-President Legler presided at the request of President Elmendorf,
who was present.
Dr. Andrews, as a member of the Committee on conditions governing
affiliation of other than local, state and provincial associations,
reported orally, recommending that a by-law be framed to include as
one feature that a membership fee of $25.00 a year be assessed on such
affiliated organizations, stating that three at least of the already
affiliated organizations had expressed their willingness to such fee,
and that the remaining association has been received on condition that
it accept such terms of affiliation as might be determined by the A. L.
A.
On motion of Mr. Bowker it was voted that the report be received and
that the Committee be continued but that at the request of Dr. Putnam
he be relieved and Mr. J. I. Wyer, Jr., be appointed as a member of the
Committee.
At this meeting Council elected the following persons as members of
the council for a term of five years each: Josephine A. Rathbone, Mrs.
Percival Sneed, Mrs. Harriet P. Sawyer, M. S. Dudgeon and W. O. Carson.
The report of the Committee on government of American libraries, Dr.
Bostwick, chairman, which was presented at a previous meeting and
recommitted to the Committee for certain minor changes, was again
presented and it was voted that the report as amended be received and
the resolution adopted. The report, including the resolution referred
to, is as follows:
=Report of Committee on Relation of the Library to the Municipality=
To the American Library Association:
Your special committee to whom was referred the matter of drafting a
report on what the association regards as fundamental in the relation
of the public library to the municipality, submits herewith its report.
This whole subject is of such great importance that your committee
believes it should receive further consideration, especially if it
is desired that there should be submitted the draft of what may be
termed a model library article, chapter, or title in a city charter,
particularly a charter in a state operating under a so-called home rule
law, whereby each city may make its own charter within the limitations
fixed by the state constitution and a general state law.
Your committee believes that the association is practically unanimous
in its conviction that the public library should be regarded as a part
of the educational machinery of the community, and that the functions
of the educational organization are generally separate and distinct
from those of the local government organization. In the very nature
of things it is therefore impossible for the public library to get
the kind of administration it deserves when it is administrated as a
part of the city's system of parks, or under the supervision of its
board of public works. It may be stated that in some of our states
the state constitution recognizes this distinction by providing for
two corporations with the same geographical boundaries, the one
dealing with the questions of local government and the other with
education,--the public schools. This constitutional distinction is
based on the principle that education is a matter of state concern,
that the interests of the state in education are paramount, and
therefore that the state should exercise greater control in educational
affairs than in local government affairs. In line with this thought,
your committee submits the following resolution, which it recommends to
the association for adoption at this time:
RESOLVED: That the American Library Association calls the
attention of municipal governments, and of public bodies
engaged in the preparation of new or amended charters for such
governments, to the necessity for securing independence of action
of the public library as an educational agency co-ordinate with
the schools. Radical changes in forms of municipal government have
sometimes left the library's position insecure or doubtful, and
charters providing the so-called "commission form" of government
have in particular often failed to define adequately the position
of public libraries and their governing boards. Where there is
classification of municipal functions, this association feels
very strongly that the public library should be grouped with
educative agencies such as the public schools rather than with
departments that have little or nothing to do with its work. While
it is desirable to keep the control of the library in independent
hands and not to place it and the schools under the same direct
management, we believe that a city charter should contain no
provision grouping the library otherwise than with educative
agencies.
If the foregoing resolution is adopted, we recommend that a committee
be appointed to study this subject further and to submit the draft of
what might be termed a library chapter for a city charter.
For the purpose of discussion and to clarify the thought of the
association on this subject your committee submits the following
tentative points which it believes should be considered for such
proposed model library chapter.
First, the charter should provide for a library board which should have
power to administer and control the public library of the city, and at
the same time administer all libraries municipally owned in the city.
This would include the municipal legislative reference library in the
city hall, libraries in public schools, high schools, and possibly
such others as libraries in municipal art galleries, museums, etc.
This board should consist of not less than five or more than nine
members, excluding ex-officio members, the number of which should not
exceed one half of the appointive or elected members. A sufficiently
small proportion of the board should be elected or appointed each year
to make its membership fairly continuous so that it may develop a
constructive policy, something that is impossible where the membership
is likely to change materially at brief intervals. In no case should
the terms of more than half of the members expire at one time.
In our smaller cities or towns it would seem advisable to consider
whether the municipal art gallery and museum should be administered by
the same board which administers the library. It has been suggested
that in such places it would be possible to carry on this work with
very much less expense under one management than under several
managements, and experience apparently demonstrates that having the
library, art gallery, and museum interests in the city in the same
building, or in a group of related buildings, adds immensely to the
public service of each at a minimum expenditure of money. In other
words, having all these interests under one roof or in buildings
closely adjoining each other makes it possible for each institution to
strengthen the other, and at the same time makes it possible for the
best coöperation and coördination; and furthermore many more people
will use each of these institutions when they are together than when
they are widely separated. In larger cities where it may seem desirable
to have the art and museum interests under separate boards the charter
should provide for official (ex-officio) representatives of each of
these institutions on the boards of the others as well as with the
board of education of the city, so as to insure the greatest amount of
coöperation and coördination. It is the conviction of this committee
that the educational interests of the community in many of our cities
today should be coördination to a greater extent than they are now, not
only for the purpose of eliminating duplication of work and effort but
also for the mutual strengthening of the work and effort of each.
In many small cities and some larger ones it has been the practice
for the public library to be managed by the board of education. The
disadvantage of this, however, is that the library interests are
usually turned over to a committee and that the membership of this
committee is likely to change from year to year, so that there is no
constructive policy; and where there is no constructive policy the
interests in the library on the part of other members of the board
is likely to be small. However, many of the difficulties with the
management of a public library by a board of education have frequently
grown out of the method of appointment or election of the school board.
If the school board is in politics and therefore more or less partisan,
the library is apt to suffer by this arrangement even more than the
schools themselves. Possibly, where public opinion is sufficiently
alive to the value and importance of education a single board might
manage all the educational interests of a city, just as the board of
regents of one of our large state universities administers its varied
activities.
Another point to be considered is whether the library board should be
elected by the citizens at large, or appointed by the mayor or selected
by the board of education. Election by the citizens of members to
such a board should be absolutely non-partisan. Women should have the
right to vote and should be eligible to the board. The board should
have power to fill vacancies which may occur by death or resignation,
until the next general election, in case the board is elected by the
citizens at large. Of course, if the members are elected by the board
of education, vacancies could be filled at any time by that board, and
if they are appointed by the mayor he could fill a vacancy.
Your committee believes that it is unwise for a public library to be
governed by a board which elects its own members, or a majority of its
own members: in other words, a "close corporation" is not the form of
governing board that is best for a library belonging to all the people
of the community. This would not apply where cities make a terminable
contract with an existing institution. It is generally unwise for the
corporate name of a municipal public library to bear the name of an
individual. It should bear the name of the city, and the charter should
fix its name.
The charter should provide for the organization of the library board by
the election of a president and vice-president, with the city treasurer
as the ex-officio treasurer of the board and the city comptroller as
the auditor of the board's accounts. It should also provide for a
secretary or clerk, who should be an employee of the board rather than
a member of the board, and it is highly desirable that this officer
should be the librarian. In any case his powers should not conflict
with those of the librarian.
The charter should give the library board full power to hold trust
funds which may be placed in its hands, to administer the same, and
to accept and to hold gifts of real and personal property for the
general purposes for which the board was created. The charter should
provide, if the state law does not do so, that the library should
not receive less than a minimum fund for its maintenance, based on
the assessed valuation of the city. It ought never to be possible
for a council so to cut a library's budget that it is necessary to
close branch libraries or abandon established work for a year or
more, thereby cutting off for the time being all normal growth and
sometimes crippling the library so that it takes years to recover.
This has happened in more than one American city. The whole idea of
a minimum tax for the maintenance of a library is in line with the
thought expressed in many of our state constitutions: namely, that the
educational interests of the community are paramount.
The library board should have full legal rights for defense in the
courts, etc. The charter should provide that the chief law officer of
the city should be its legal representative.
The library board should be given the power to render library service
by contract to communities outside of the city limits, such as towns,
townships, or counties. In short, it should be given liberal powers for
extending its usefulness into similar or related unoccupied fields.
The library board should be given absolute power and responsibility
over its employees, their appointment, promotion, salaries, removal,
etc., within the general limitations of the charter. It should provide
that all employment should be given on the basis of merit alone, but
that a civil service system should not be imposed upon it from the
outside any more than a municipal civil service should be imposed
upon a board of education in the employment of teachers in the public
schools. Your committee has yet to learn of a single American city
where a municipal civil service commission, which deals mainly with the
employment of clerks in offices, policemen, firemen, etc., has been
able satisfactorily to select or promote employees for educational work.
The library board should also have power to draft and enforce
regulations governing the reasonable use of the library under the
general limitations of the city charter or state law.
And, finally, the charter should provide that the library board should
submit annually to the mayor or the legislative or tax levying body
of the city a report of its receipts and expenditures together with a
general account of its work and trusts.
As stated above, your committee offers all of this to serve as a basis
for discussion if it is desired that a model library section for a
charter should be drafted.
All of which is,
Respectfully submitted,
ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chairman,
JUDSON T. JENNINGS,
SAMUEL H. RANCK.
The Committee on ventilation and lighting of library buildings, Samuel
H. Ranck, chairman, made a verbal report of progress, stating that
a lengthy written report covering the investigations and results of
correspondence had been prepared. The Committee stated that certain
commercial companies proposed to make experiments along the lines of
the Committee's investigation and it was taken by consent that the
Council express its gratification that these experiments are to be
undertaken by the respective companies and that the results will be
watched with interest. On motion of Dr. Steiner it was voted that the
report be accepted as a report of progress and Committee continued.
Mr. Charles S. Greene informed Council that the California library
association had unanimously passed a resolution to invite the A.
L. A. to meet in California in 1915. The statement was received as
information and ordered transmitted to the Executive board.
Adjourned, subject to call of the chair.
The PRESIDENT: You have heard the reports. If there is no objection
they will be received, but there are certain recommendations
incorporated in them that need action. Will the secretary please read
once more the recommendations from the report of the Executive board?
The secretary read again the proposed amendment to Section 14 of the
Constitution.
The PRESIDENT: What is your pleasure? It should be remembered that this
amendment to the Constitution will require an affirmative vote for two
successive sessions of the association.
On motion of Mr. Samuel H. Ranck, duly seconded, the amendment received
an affirmative vote.
The secretary read again the proposed Section 11 of the By-laws,
recommended by the Council, and on motion of Dr. Bostwick, seconded by
Dr. Andrews, this amendment to the By-laws was adopted.
The secretary here read again the resolution incorporated in the report
of the Committee on government of American libraries and their relation
to the municipal authorities.
Dr. BOSTWICK: Madam President, in moving the adoption of this
resolution, I would suggest that opportunity be given for its
discussion by the association.
Mr. RANCK: I second the motion for the adoption of that resolution,
Madam President.
The resolution was adopted.
The PRESIDENT: Here is a matter of news from the outside world.
The bulletins have announced that Governor Woodrow Wilson has been
nominated on the forty-sixth ballot by acclamation. I think this is the
first time that a woman ever made that kind of an announcement.
There is a matter of business from the Public documents committee, on
which we should like to hear from Mr. Godard.
Mr. GODARD: This resolution which comes from the Committee on public
documents, comes before you in a little irregular manner, because
the government documents round table was not held until yesterday
afternoon, and there has been no meeting of the Council since, and will
not be to the end of the conference; but the purpose of the resolution
is simply to convey to the Congressional committee on printing, at
Washington, the thanks of this association for the efforts that
committee has made to embody in the bill which has been passed by the
Senate the several recommendations made from time to time during the
seven years' existence of the committee, relating to the printing,
binding and distribution of documents. The bill as a whole has met with
the approval of the various librarians, as manifested at the government
documents round table yesterday afternoon. While some minor suggestions
were made, it was thought best that these suggestions should go to the
committee in the form of suggestions rather than be embodied in the
resolutions.
If in order, I should be pleased to read the resolutions.
WHEREAS the Congressional Committee on printing, appointed
under an Act passed March 3, 1905, has after seven years of
investigations and hearings, formulated and presented to Congress
a new bill relating to public printing, binding and distribution
of government publications, which embodies so many of the
suggestions and recommendations upon these subjects, made from
time to time by this association and its several committees,
RESOLVED, that we, the members of the American Library
Association, assembled at our Thirty-fourth Annual Conference
at Ottawa, Canada, June 26th to July 2nd, 1912, express our
appreciation to the Senate and House Committees on Printing, and
to the Superintendent of Documents, for the uniform courtesy
and careful consideration extended, and the hope that the Bill
(S 4339) may be enacted into law substantially as passed by the
Senate.
The PRESIDENT: You have heard the resolution as presented from the
public documents committee. What is your pleasure?
Dr. ANDREWS: I hope the association will by three-fourths vote approve
this resolution. I can testify that Mr. Godard did not understate
the approval which the draft of the bill met with at the government
documents round table.
The resolution was adopted unanimously.
The PRESIDENT: The next business in order is the report of the
Resolutions committee, of which Dr. Thwaites is chairman. I want to
say just one word before those formal resolutions are read, to express
my own personal appreciation of the efforts of our Canadian hosts. It
seems to me that in their welcome to us, in their kindly courtesy,
in every attitude which they have taken toward us, they have made an
atmosphere of good cheer and hospitality in which all our business has
been done; it has been an atmosphere of the greatest acceptance and
delight, and has been like the sunshine out of doors. We will hear the
report of the Resolutions committee.
Dr. Thwaites, chairman of the committee, read the following report:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS
Your committee beg leave to recommend the adoption of the following
minute, to be spread upon the records of the conference, and that
copies thereof be forwarded by the secretary to the several bodies and
persons mentioned therein.
In its membership and its sympathies, the American Library Association
is broadly American. It aims to secure among the librarians of the
continent that practical reciprocity in ideals and interests that
should everywhere prevail among those engaged in undertakings for the
moral and intellectual betterment of humanity.
The association is deeply gratified in being able to hold its 34th
annual conference within the Dominion of Canada, whose representatives
have for many years prominently participated in the management and
deliberations of the association. Since its meeting in Montreal,
twelve years ago, the membership of the association has increased from
nine hundred to twenty-three hundred. Toward this expansion (itself
a visible sign of that quickening of popular concern in educational
affairs which has been so marked a feature of the past decade),
Canada has contributed a goodly share. It is hoped and believed by
the association that this conference will still further inspire and
strengthen those public-spirited men and women, who, in various
capacities, are conducting the public and institutional libraries of
the Dominion.
Of the fine temper and professional zeal of its Canadian membership,
the association has had frequent evidence; but the experiences of the
past eight days have brought to the members from the United States a
new, although by no means unexpected, sense of the abundant hospitality
of their Canadian colleagues. Any vote of thanks that may be adopted by
this association, can seem to the visitors south of the international
boundary, but cold recognition of the warm sincerity of their greeting
in the capital of the great Dominion. It is hoped, however, that
between the lines of this fraternal salutation from the men and women
of the south, their confreres of the north may read such sympathy and
love as words cannot convey.
The association begs to place on record its heartfelt thanks to all of
those many Canadians who, in whatever measure, have contributed towards
the success of this delightful meeting and to the entertainment of its
participants. But to the following men and women who, either officially
or personally, have been intimately concerned in preparations for and
in the management of the many charming hospitalities that have made
this conference so notable in the history of American librarianship,
the association unanimously expresses its especial appreciation.
At Toronto, entertaining the western delegation: The Government of
the province of Ontario, represented by Sir James Whitney, premier,
the Hon. R. A. Pyne, minister of education, and Mr. Walter R. Nursey,
inspector of public libraries; Professor Needler, librarian of the
University of Toronto, and Professor Lang, librarian of Victoria
college; the Ontario Library Association and its officers: the members
of the Toronto public library board, and their chief librarian, Dr.
George H. Locke.
At Ottawa, the Government of the Dominion, represented by the Hon.
George H. Perley, acting premier, and the Hon. Martin Burrell, minister
of agriculture; His Worship the Mayor of the Corporation of the City
of Ottawa; the local Committee of Ottawa, the chairman of which, Dr.
Otto Klotz, was represented by Dr. James W. Robertson, C. M. G.;
particularly Mr. Lawrence J. Burpee and Mr. D. P. Cruikshank, together
with the lady members of the committee; the Ottawa public library board
represented by Alderman Ainslie W. Greene, chairman; the Canadian Club
of Ottawa; the Women's Canadian Club of Ottawa; the Ottawa Electric
Railway represented by its president, Mr. Thomas Ahearn; Mr. John
F. Watson of the Dominion Central Experimental Farm; United States
Consul-General and Mrs. J. G. Foster; Manager F. W. Bergman of the
Chateau Laurier; and Manager Mulligan of the New Russell.
In addition to its acknowledgment of the foregoing the association
wishes to express most sincere appreciation of the cordial message
which it received from the Governor-General, H. R. H. the Duke of
Connaught, who unfortunately was detained at Montreal because of the
illness of H. R. H. the Duchess, whose subsequent recovery is a source
of international gratification; of the great kindness of Sir Wilfrid
Laurier, in consenting to address the conference upon Dominion day;
of the excellent addresses by Dr. George E. Vincent, president of the
University of Minnesota and by Professor John Macnaughton, of McGill
university; and of the admirable arrangements for the post-conference
tour made by one of the ex-presidents of the association, Professor
Charles H. Gould, librarian of McGill university, Montreal.
R. G. THWAITES,
MARY W. PLUMMER,
J. T. JENNINGS,
Committee on Resolutions.
The PRESIDENT: You have heard the report of the Resolutions committee.
Let us pass it by a rising vote.
The resolutions were adopted unanimously, by a rising vote.
Dr. THWAITES: I have another resolution, Madam President, to offer from
the committee,--a resolution, not a minute:
RESOLVED, that the American Library Association, as an
international organization, has viewed with profound satisfaction
the project for the establishment of a National Library in and
for the Dominion of Canada, and takes pleasure in joining the
Royal society, the Ontario library association, and other learned
societies in Canada, in respectfully urging upon the government
of the Dominion the vital importance of such an institution in
the fostering and conservation of the intellectual resources
and national spirit of Canada; and further, in urging upon the
government the desirability of effecting such establishment at the
earliest possible moment.
The resolution was adopted unanimously.
* * * * *
The PRESIDENT: We have one more resolution, which is a tribute of
love and respect that we shall pay with all our hearts. Dr. Andrews
will report for the special committee appointed to draft a suitable
memorial concerning our late friend Frederick M. Crunden.
Dr. ANDREWS: First let me express my regret that Mr. Henry M. Utley,
chairman of the committee appointed by the board to draw up this
memorial, is not present in person; secondly, to state for the
committee that we have departed from the usual custom of offering
a resolution, and have placed before you a brief statement of Mr.
Crunden's life and character, which we hope will convey to those who
have come into the association since the time when he had to give up
active connection with it, a record of his services.
FREDERICK MORGAN CRUNDEN
Frederick Morgan Crunden was born at Gravesend, England, September 1,
1847, the son of Benjamin Robert and Mary (Morgan) Crunden. Coming to
St. Louis while a child, he was educated in the public schools of that
city and graduated from its high school in 1865, with a scholarship in
Washington university. In the latter institution he took a course in
the arts and sciences, graduating in 1868 with the degree of bachelor
of arts. Teaching in the public schools of St. Louis before graduation,
and later in the college faculty of the same university, he received
the degree of master of arts in 1872.
His marriage to Miss Kate Edmondson was in 1889. During his college
course Mr. Crunden took a vital interest in library work, and in
January, 1877, he became secretary and librarian of the St. Louis
public (then public school) library, continuing as such until 1909.
Equally identified with many other societies, local and national,
he had been a contributor to leading magazines upon educational and
sociological subjects, and had attained international fame before
he was stricken in 1906 with the malady which resulted in his death
October 28, 1911.
Mr. Crunden's public services were by no means confined to the
distinctively library interests of his community and the country. He
was particularly interested in the mutual relations of schools and
libraries, developing them in St. Louis in a manner which served as
a model for others, and contributing largely to the evolution of the
present official relations of the National Education Association and
the American Library Association.
In his public writing he has expressed most clearly and happily the
fundamental principles of these relations, and it is a great pleasure
to his friends, as it was to him in the last days of his life, to know
that his statement of the value of recorded thought has been carved
in granite on the walls of his cherished institution. Nevertheless
it was to library work that the greater part of his time and thought
was given, and it is the success of his work as a constructive
librarian that naturally we most fully recognize. He combined high
executive ability with a comprehensive knowledge of the contents of the
collections under his charge. He had that sense of the real librarian,
which has been said to be "an intensive perception of the needs of the
present, and a prophetic insight into the needs of the future."
He worked zealously and unceasingly, first for the broadening of the
work of the St. Louis public schools library, then for its conversion
into a free public library, and finally for its development into a
strong institution ranking among the great libraries of the land. It is
pleasant to know that even in the last years he was able at times to
follow its course along the lines forecast by him, and that he could
realize the high appreciation of his services so generally felt by his
fellow citizens.
Almost in the beginning of his library career, he began also his
services to the American Library Association, which were secondary only
to the work he did for St. Louis.
He attended first the Boston conference of 1879, and rarely after
that did he miss a meeting. Elected councillor in 1882, he served
the association almost continuously until his illness. He was
vice-president in 1887-88, and under his presidency the Fabyans
conference of 1890 took rank as the largest and one of the most
successful meetings held up to that time. When the association met at
St. Louis, in 1889, and again in 1904, he was a most thoughtful host,
whose care for our welfare contributed largely to the success of those
meetings. He served also as one of the vice-presidents of the Chicago
conference in 1893, and as vice-president of the international library
conference at London in 1897, and was one of the chief spokesmen of the
association party. This list of offices by no means measures the debt
of the association to him. The much longer list of committees on which
he served would indicate better the character and breadth of his work,
but even this would leave unexpressed the professional knowledge and
the personal pleasure gained from his companionship by the individual
members.
This sense of personal loss must be felt by all who met him in
the other library circles in which he was interested, especially
the Missouri state library association, of which he was the first
president, and the New York state library association, whose annual
meetings he so often attended.
No member of the A. L. A. of his day had a wider and closer personal
acquaintance among the membership than Mr. Crunden. He had a spirit
of friendliness and human sympathy which prompted him to take hold
upon the hearts of those with whom he was brought into contact in his
profession. He had no ambition which inclined him to self-seeking,
but was always quick to recognize the merits of others and to give
acknowledgment freely and heartily. He was naturally of a modest
and retiring disposition, but wholly without self-consciousness or
reserve. He looked upon every question with frankness, unbiased by any
consideration outside of its true merits as approved by his mature
judgment. He held his views firmly, but he never undertook to force
them upon others. His many fine qualities of mind and heart are a
source of joy to all who recall the memory of him as he was in the
midst of his long and brilliant career. His more intimate friends
recall with wonder the patience with which he bore the strain of the
years of ill health which preceded the final breakdown, and remember
with gratitude his gracious hospitality.
The PRESIDENT: What is your pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen?
Dr. BOSTWICK: I move that this memorial be spread upon the minutes
of the association, that it be printed in the proceedings of this
conference, and that copies of it be sent to Mrs. Crunden and to Mr.
Frederick M. Crunden's brother, Mr. F. P. Crunden of St Louis.
The motion was unanimously adopted.
The PRESIDENT: The chair would like the support of the first
vice-president on the platform, and in the meantime, while he comes
forward, after the report of the tellers of the association, we have
one additional treat which when the time comes I shall ask Mr. Burpee
to announce. The report of the tellers of election is in order, which
will be read by the secretary.
The SECRETARY: The report of the tellers states that you have elected
the following officers:
REPORT OF THE TELLERS OF ELECTION.
No. of
Votes
For President
Henry E. Legler, Librarian, Chicago Public Library 151
For First Vice-President
E. H. Anderson, Assistant Librarian, New York Public Library 143
For Second Vice-President
Mary F. Isom, Librarian, Portland (Ore.) Library Association 145
For Members of Executive Board (for three years)
H. C. Wellman, Librarian, Springfield City Library Association 145
T. W. Koch, Librarian, University of Michigan 148
For Members of the Council (for five years)
F. K. Walter, Vice-Director, New York State Library 145
Margaret Mann, Chief Cataloger, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 144
W. W. Bishop, Supt. of Reading Room, Library of Congress 147
E. R. Perry, Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library 141
Caroline Burnite, Director of Children's Work, Cleveland
Public Library 146
For Trustee of Endowment Fund (for three years)
W. C. Kimball, Chairman, New Jersey Public Library Commission,
Trenton, N. J. 146
JOHN F. PHELAN
LLOYD W. JOSSELYN
Tellers of Election.
The PRESIDENT: I have had this beautiful gavel but a very little
while, but it nevertheless gives me great pleasure to transfer it. Do
you remember that Miss Kelso said that we should be able to produce
evidence in the way of results for the value of our work? I am going
to make a very distinguished, a very large claim: I think you owe the
presence of the president-elect not here only but in the profession to
the interest which was originally aroused in his mind in the Milwaukee
public library.
Mr. Legler, I have great pleasure in presenting the gavel for the
meeting of 1913 to you as president-elect and in asking you to take
charge for the remainder of this meeting.
The PRESIDENT-ELECT: Madam President, Members of the American Library
Association,--For the personal good-will which you have expressed, I
give to you my thanks. In so far as your action attests confidence, it
must be received as a call to service, and--if I may be so presumptuous
as to represent in what I say those who have been grouped by you for
the ensuing year into one official family--in that spirit we receive
this gavel, not as a symbol of authority but of service. Without
venturing upon the uncharted sea of prophecy, we shall endeavor to
interpret in terms of action those mental images which have been
crystallized for us by the strong, virile papers, fortified by the
abounding interest and the contagious enthusiasm of all participants in
this conference. The modern library movement, recent as has been its
inception, has progressed through two strongly marked stages, and is
entering upon a third. The first era was that of pioneering, the sowing
of seed. The second may perhaps be termed the era of experimentation,
out of which grew a few mistakes and some splendid results. But we have
entered upon a third era, the period of constructive work, of careful
patient planning, of building enduringly. If a year hence, when we
yield into other hands the high commission which you have entrusted to
us, we shall be able to say that some advancement has been made, we
shall be proud and happy; and we hope that your work, which, of course,
must be our work, will yield some realization of our high hopes and
aims and aspirations.
What is the pleasure of this conference?
I am advised that Mr. Burpee has another pleasure in store for us, and
we shall be glad to hear from him.
Mr. BURPEE: Mr. President and friends of the American Library
Association: On behalf of the local committee I have asked our friend
Mrs. Herbert Ault, of Ottawa, to try to express to you our feelings in
bidding you farewell. Mrs. Ault will sing the old Scotch song, that you
all know so well, "Will ye no come back again."
After the singing of this fine old song, Mrs. Ault led the audience in
the singing of "Auld Lang Syne," whereupon the president-elect declared
the Thirty-fourth Annual Conference of the American Library Association
adjourned.
THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE CONFERENCE
Throughout the eight days which we officially spent within the confines
of the Dominion, cordial appreciation of our presence was constantly
in evidence. Twelve years had passed since a gathering of the
association had been held among our hospitable co-laborers north of the
international boundary; I think we all were convinced that in so long
delaying our second visit, we of "the states" had been the losers. No
doubt there will hereafter be a greater frequency of Canadian meetings.
The western delegation was the first to experience the sincere
and unaffected warmth of Canada's greeting. Ontario's capital and
metropolis was reached by the Chicago special at noon of Tuesday, June
25. The Toronto committee of arrangements was composed not only of
librarians, but representatives of the provincial government, prominent
educators, and professional and business men and women. Their program
of entertainment had included a morning automobile ride through the
many parks and charming residence quarters of the city; but the ride
was abandoned, for the hour at which the guests were tardily delivered
to them by the railway managers spelled luncheon, a British institution
that brooks no delay.
The scene of the spread was the attractive refectory of Victoria
College, one of the considerable group of educational institutions
comprising Toronto University. The customary welcome was voiced by Sir
James Whitney, premier of the province, the Hon. R. A. Pyne, provincial
minister of education, and Dr. George H. Locke, chief librarian of the
Toronto public library. Each of these local speakers expressed the hope
that the Association might at some early date honor Toronto with one of
its annual conferences. Dr. Andrews of John Crerar gracefully responded
for the visitors.
Luncheon over, the spacious and well-equipped buildings of the
university were visited and admired, and in due time afternoon tea was
charmingly served on the smooth-shaven lawn of one of the delightful
quads. Dinner followed not long after, in the beautiful new public
library building, so admirably administered by Dr. Locke, to whose
kindly activity we owed a large share of the day's greetings; and here
the guests tarried and rested amid familiar surroundings until the
departure of their train for Ottawa, close upon ten o'clock.
Arriving at Ottawa towards noon of Wednesday, the westerners soon
were commingling with their fellows from other parts of the Union and
Canada, forgetful of geographical sections and national boundary lines.
Before nightfall, all of us realized that we simply were members of
a household of co-workers gathered under the family roof-tree of the
citizens of Ottawa and the members of the government of the great
Dominion. A peculiarity of Canada's hospitality, as we experienced
it, was that the government itself, both in Toronto and in Ottawa,
was quite as active and as informally cordial in arranging for our
entertainment, as were individual or associated bodies of its citizens.
Fortunately our week included both Sunday and Dominion Day. The morning
of the former was largely devoted to visits to the many large and
sumptuous churches. Especially favored were those who witnessed the
fine ante-pilgrimage parade of those French Catholic societies that
have for their name-giver St. Jean Baptiste, the patron saint of all
French Canadians. The afternoon was spent in driving or trolleying to
the numerous parks and several interesting suburbs, and in taking the
many walks wherein the stately panoramic view of three commingling
rivers (Ottawa, Rideau, and Chaudière) caused us all to envy the lot of
those who dwell with this array of mountains and waterfalls at their
very doors.
The patriotic exercises of Dominion Day (July 1) reminded us strongly
of the historical origin of modern Canada, which owes a large share of
her prosperity to the grit and enterprise of the Loyalist pioneers.
Driven forth from the American colonies because they failed to
sympathize with the movement whose culmination we observe with such
enthusiasm, three days later each July, they carried to the wilds of
the north those same sturdy Anglo-Saxon qualities of mind and heart and
brawn that have erected and maintained the American Union. That Canada
had at last become a powerful, self-conscious, and justly-proud nation,
only sentimentally linked with the parent isle and her sister dominions
over seas, was a fact borne home to the visitors, with a forcefulness
novel to many of them. It is not likely that any American librarian
present at the Russell Theatre during Dominion Day, will again
flippantly discuss the possibility of our annexation of Canada--the day
for that sort of talk has passed, and happily for both sides of the
border.
Of course Sir Wilfrid Laurier, no longer premier, but now "leader
of His Majesty's Opposition" in Canada, was the chief attraction in
the day's program. Foremost of French Canadians, one of the most
accomplished of orators, and in every way a world character, Sir
Wilfrid's appearance attracted a crowded house; and his graceful
speech and charming manner, so characteristic of his race, deserved
such recognition. But some other features of the program were no less
entertaining in their way--the vigorous, thoughtful, but strictly
practical views of Dr. Robertson, as he graphically described Canada's
almost boundless resources, and with large vision outlined his plans
for their conservation; and the equally clear and insistent, yet
delicately humorous, protest of Professor Macnaughton, against such
materialistic tendencies of modern education as had been expressed
by his friend and predecessor. The day was admirably closed by
President Vincent of Minnesota, whose marshalling of the possibilities
of librarianship in the furnishing of mental pictures for the
entertainment and instruction of humanity, resembled the falls of
Chaudière in sparkle and velocity.
Not content with representation on the program and in honorary seats on
the platform, the government of the Dominion took a considerable hand
in the social activities of the week. Among the attractions of Ottawa
is the central experimental farm of Canada, with its broad, well-kept
acres, in which the astronomical observatory is in close touch with
the silos, and pastures and barns are attractive features of the
landscape gardening, and up-to-date poultry-runs are charmingly mingled
with evidences of floral and horticultural experimentation. In this
interesting environment, a garden party was given under the auspices
of the minister of agriculture, the Hon. Martin Burrell, ably seconded
by Mr. John F. Watson of the farm staff. There were tents and lawn
chairs, a very British-looking band, military-like policemen as ushers,
brilliantly-green foliage, and the socially élite of Ottawa acted
as cicerones to the varied activities of farm and observatory. Thus
the librarians (who had autoed to the scene, through miles of drives
along the park-like banks of the Rideau Canal) were made paradoxically
to feel not only at home, but quite as though the scene of their
entertainment were four thousand miles eastward, in the motherland
itself. Another governmental activity, especially attractive to the
young folk of the conference (there are, however, no old librarians),
was an informal ball in the parliament building itself. Because of
these things, the bibliographical fraternity from the states almost
unanimously came to the conclusion that thenceforth they would, in all
courtesy, forget all about the recent unpleasantness over reciprocity,
and be stout supporters of the present Dominion government. A division
on the question, at the close of the conference would, I fancy, have
revealed few members of the A. L. A. in the opposition lobby.
The representatives of our own government were not to be outdone in
these matters. Consul-General and Mrs. J. G. Foster were informally
"at home" on Sunday afternoon. Scores of American librarians,
especially those concerned officially in the association's affairs,
were much pleased for a short hour to be entertained as guests on what
constructively is American soil.
But while official "functions" necessarily stood out with prominence,
there was ever on the tapis a succession of unofficial attentions to
the visiting throng. Dr. Robertson was the life of the enterprising
local committee. Around this body clustered several effective agencies
of welcome and entertainment--his worship the mayor (every Canadian
mayor is "his worship," but this title of genuine respect would be a
serious misfit in some of our cities south of the boundary), the public
library board, the local Canadian Club, and the Woman's Canadian Club,
all were actively and omnipresently enlisted in our behalf. And wonder
of wonders! our little identification button meant free trolley rides
within the corporation limits--a much-appreciated premium for wearing
the badge. In short, every door was open to us; at every turn, right
glad we were made to feel that we had come to Ottawa.
Curiously enough to those of us who think of the A. L. A. in the
oft-quoted classification of the hotel agency, as an institution
"mostly women," the Ottawa newspapers appeared never to recover from
their astonishment in this regard. The preponderating numbers of
"lady librarians" was the cause for daily editorial comment. But it
was noticeable that the head-lines persistently referred to the event
as "Library men in council"--painful evidence of the fact that the
prevalent American evil of head-line inaccuracy has at last spread to
the northland.
The practice of holding state, library school, and library staff
dinners in the course of the conference, is increasing. These
gatherings form an interesting and welcome feature of our social
activities during conference week. At Ottawa they were more numerous
and noticeable than heretofore, and gave rise to much good-natured
rivalry as to enthusiasm, numbers, and table decorations. It is evident
that the library schools are gathering traditions with age; and their
alumni associations are growing in pardonable self-consciousness. A new
feature was the exchange of rival "yells." One director was heard to
express her intention of offering prizes in the next school year, for
appropriate class songs and collegiate battle-cries, that her school
might not be outdone in this respect by the vociferous young women of
Pratt and Wisconsin. One heard more or less at Ottawa, of "the girls
of our class," "dear old Pratt," "the way we do it at Albany," the
"traditions of Wisconsin" (five years old!), and the like. It is thus
that the profession is looking up.
Socially, the Canadian conference was eminently successful, both at
Toronto and Ottawa. This feature was, in its way, quite as good as
the literary program itself, and that is saying much. As for Madame
President, she sweetly and dignifiedly looked and acted her part,
socially as well as behind the gavel, and the Dominion folk fairly
worshipped her. I fancy, when all is said, that that perhaps is a good
share of the secret of our undoubted success in Canada.
REUBEN G. THWAITES.
A DAY IN TORONTO
A most cordial invitation from the Toronto public library, through
the librarian, Dr. Locke, had been received for a day's visit in that
city en route to the A. L. A. meeting at Ottawa, and the party which
assembled at Chicago to take the special train looked forward with
great expectation. Needless to say these expectations were fully met.
As this was the first hospitality offered, the zest for enjoyment was
at full height when the party from the middle-west reached Toronto,
Tuesday morning, June 25. Most of the company had left their various
posts of duty only the day before and were ready to enter a new land
with a joyful spirit.
The special train was nearly two hours late in arriving at Toronto and
thereby lost to the visitors the pleasure of an automobile ride which
had been arranged by the City Council. Still, as no one had anticipated
it, the pleasant street car ride, which took its place, was a welcome
change from the confines of the sleeping car. The ride around the
business part of the city on the special cars ended at Victoria
college. A local committee consisting of Dr. A. H. U. Colquhoun, Deputy
Minister of Education, Prof. A. E. Lang, librarian of Victoria college,
Prof. G. H. Needler, librarian of University of Toronto, with Dr. G.
H. Locke as chairman, received the party at Victoria college, where a
luncheon was served to 175 persons, the hosts of the occasion being
the Education Department of the Province of Ontario and the Senate and
Board of Governors of the Victoria college. The Hon. Dr. Pyne, minister
of education, presided over the occasion and speeches were made on
behalf of Victoria college by Hon. Justice MacLaren, on behalf of the
Government by Chairman Dr. Locke and on behalf of the University by
Prof. Alfred Baker. Each in turn expressed the appreciation of the
ideas cherished by the A. L. A. and were most cordial in invitation
to the association to hold a future meeting in Toronto. Response for
the visitors was made by Dr. C. W. Andrews of the John Crerar library,
Chicago, who complimented Ontario on the progress which had been made
in library development and particularly the city of Toronto in its new
work under the new librarian, Dr. Locke, whom Dr. Andrews claimed as a
Chicagoan in view of the fact that he had been so valued a part of the
faculty of the University of Chicago, at one time, for six years.
After the luncheon the new library at Victoria college was thrown open
for inspection. Prof. Lang and his assistants were most courteous in
showing the visitors through and displayed for their inspection some
of the rare volumes and manuscripts, especially specimens of ancient
papyri which are unique.
Later the Premier of the Province of Ontario, Sir James P. Whitney,
received the librarians in the legislative chambers, Parliament
Buildings, and made an address of welcome. From the Parliament
Buildings the librarians visited the library of the University of
Toronto, which they found exceedingly interesting, and well up to date.
Regret was felt by many at the absence of Mr. Langton of the library,
who was in Europe in search of health. A most delightful occasion was
the garden party in the university quadrangle tendered by the Board of
Governors of the university. The ivy covered walls, the greensward,
the perfect day, delightful company and the most cordial hospitality
accompanying the refreshments left an impression of the greatest
pleasure on all who were present. The large number of Toronto citizens
who were present, the faculty with the members of their families, were
most courteous in making the occasion one of great delight.
At six o'clock dinner was served by the public library Board in the art
room of the reference library building. There were 229 at the dinner
which deserved far greater consumption than the hospitality of the
day had left room for, but "the feast of reason and the flow of soul"
were much in evidence. The chairman of the occasion was the President
of the public library Board, Mr. Turnbull. A most hearty address of
welcome was made by Chief Librarian Locke and was responded to in kind
by Mr. Legler of the Chicago public library. After dinner the building
was thrown open for inspection and the visitors enjoyed greatly seeing
the magnificent reading room as well as the other departments of the
library. Of special interest was the J. Ross Robertson historical
collection of 1,000 Canadian pictures, representing various phases of
Canadian life from the earliest period.
It was a happy, if tired party that left on the special train at 10 p.
m. for Ottawa with most grateful memories of cordial hospitality and
pleasant company in the day spent in Toronto.
M. E. AHERN.
THE DAY AT MONTREAL
One's capacity for receiving bounteous acts of hospitality may be
never so unconfined; one's pleasure in accepting them may be never
so untrammelled by thoughts of unworthiness or of the hopelessness of
ever making an adequate return for all this charming thoughtfulness and
lavish entertainment; yet there comes a time when one's vocabulary of
appreciative acknowledgments merely and abjectly fails from overwork,
and collapses with nothing more articulate than a gasp left to signify
an impotent desire to do justice to the occasion. With many of the
librarians this unhappy condition became acute in the course of the
day at Montreal. Leaving Ottawa on Wednesday morning, July 3rd, by
special train, a goodly company--comprising the Post-Conference party,
reenforced by numerous "trippers" whose return passage made Montreal
the point of departure--was received, on arriving at the latter city,
by a local committee, headed by the librarian of McGill University,
and was promptly transferred to a long line of comfortable vehicles
which were soon moving up town through the broad streets and past the
stately buildings of Canada's largest city. To the traveller from the
western plains the upward direction of the journey was especially
noticeable and much sympathy and some solicitude was expressed for
the stocky horses in their long pull through the warmth of the midday
sun. But they plodded sturdily on, conscious of the pitiless grade of
those rock-ribbed streets only as part of the day's work. And soon
they came to the shady drives and beautiful banks of Mount Royal
Park and so onward and upward to the summit, whence the unparalleled
outlook over the city, the majestic St. Lawrence and the country beyond
unrolled before the admiring eyes of the visitors. After an all too
brief enjoyment of this superb spectacle, the party re-entered the
waiting carriages and was quickly conveyed down hill and deposited on
the beautiful campus of McGill University, where, to the accompaniment
of noonday whistles and bells, luncheon was served under the trees.
These Canadian garden affairs, how they impress the visitors from over
the line! The dignified beauty of the setting rendered complete by the
invariably benevolent co-operation of the weather; the profusion and
variety of appetizing and daintily served viands, and the unobtrusive
yet efficient service--truly the stoutest jingo was led to exclaim with
unfeigned heartiness: "They do these things so much better in Canada!"
After luncheon a brief inspection was made of several of the college
buildings, notably of the charming library, with its delightful reading
room, which was visited by some in order to study its architecture or
its administration, but by many more for the purpose of paying their
respects to the official home of the librarian of the University, their
cordial host and the ubiquitous chairman of the committee to whom the
entertainment at Montreal was due. Mr. Gould won the hearts of his
guests completely and earned their lasting gratitude and perpetual
wonderment, the former through the generous hospitality he provided
for them; the latter through the calm, simple, self-effacing yet
all pervading way in which he dominated the situation and acquitted
himself of his arduous task. And still there was more to come, for on
reassembling on the lawn the visitors found a long and inviting line of
motor cars in waiting, and in these a tour of the city was made, ending
at the pretty new public library in the suburb of Westmount, where they
met with a pleasant welcome by Miss Saxe, the librarian, and--with more
refreshments! From here the guests dispersed and made their way back
to town in small groups at their own convenience. An invitation from
the White Star Line to join in the festivities on the new steamship
Megantic to mark its impending maiden voyage, attracted some of the
librarians during the evening. The Post-Conference party reassembled
on board the steamer Saguenay and left for its pleasure trip at nine
o'clock, while the others went each his own way, some homeward, some
by circuitous routes prolonging their holiday, but all with regret
that the delightful Canadian days had come to an end, and with deep
gratitude and appreciation of the cordial hospitality and gracious
good-fellowship of their Canadian brethren and indefatigable hosts.
C. B. RODEN.
POST CONFERENCE TRIP
"Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticism,
Strong and content, I travel the open road."
So the librarians assembled aboard the "Saguenay." The day in
Montreal had been a full and pleasant one and its evening found the
post-conference party tired but tranquilly expectant of the joys the
boat's departure was to bring. To this some excitement was lent by
the dash on board, just as the gangplank was going in, of the New
Jersey Library Commission contingent who had lingered too long at the
reception tendered the A. L. A. on the White Star liner "Megantic."
Many friendly farewells were waved by the A. L. A. members whose
official travels ended at Montreal. As the boat started for Quebec,
deck chairs were soon filled by those who wished to watch the noble
sweep of the river and the graceful skyline of the city with its
myriads of lights.
During the short stop at Quebec the next morning only a few strenuous
ones ventured ashore. The majority were content with the splendid view
of the city with its frowning precipice crowned by the Citadel and the
graceful pile of the Chateau Frontenac, below which were spread the
picturesque roofs of the Lower Town. It was the Fourth of July and
after the flags flourished by the patriotic members of the party had
been duly saluted, everyone settled down to the calm enjoyment of a
safe and sane fourth. The boat glided past the falls of Montmorency,
the lovely Isle of Orleans, the wooded shores of the river where in
one place forest fires raged, showing a thin tongue of flame under a
hovering cloud of smoke, and on from the stately grandeur of the St.
Lawrence to the wild beauty of the Saguenay. It was here that the real
business of travel began. Baedekers made their unblushing appearance,
most of them bearing on their backs the mystic symbols 917.1. The maps
and guidebooks provided by the company were studied while the really
"litry" were turning the pages of "A chance acquaintance" or "The
golden dog."
At half past six, a landing was made at L'Anse St. Jean but word was
given that the real village was some distance beyond, a nice walk--from
British standards! A gay start was made but the muddiness of the road
and the "recedingness" of the village combined with the ravages of
the black fly, which Van Dyke has truly said is "at the bottom of the
moral scale of insects," caused even the most valiant to turn back.
There were a few who with true Yankee enterprise chartered the only
vehicles in sight and came back with glowing tales of the quaintness
and charm of the village, but for the majority, it must remain the fair
Carcassonne of dreams.
The great Capes of Trinity and Eternity, towering up through the gloom,
were passed after nightfall. A searchlight thrown on them from the boat
brought out their craggy inaccessibility and made weirdly impressive
the statue of the Virgin on one of the terraces of Trinity. At Ha Ha
Bay few were up in time for exploring but the view of the charming
Bay was to be had from the deck or even from conveniently located
staterooms. It had been suggested that here opportunity would be given
anglers to make the acquaintance of the "unsophisticated fish" of the
region, but if any wonderful catches were made, no stories of them
floated to the ears of the feminine contingent. Turning back from here
the boat passed through the most striking part of the journey, stopping
for some time around the capes of Trinity and Eternity. To attempt
to describe the scenic beauties of the trip would be to attempt what
was admirably done by the chronicler of the post conference of 1900
(see Proceedings A. L. A. 1900, pp. 174-182.) The pleasing pastime of
trying to hit the sides of the capes with rocks thrown from the boat
was indulged in by a few of the passengers. Howells tells us that his
uninspired hero actually did it. And that was forty years ago! The
origin of this custom might be an interesting question for a class in
library economy to investigate.
The hours spent at Tadousac will be pleasantly enshrined in the book
of memory. The air was fresh and cool and many came and went visiting
the salmon hatcheries, and the ancient chapel, strolling through the
picturesque streets where they were met with kindly hospitality by the
_habitants_, or driving through the balsam scented woods.
Leaving these pleasant shores, a few hours brought the boat to Murray
Bay, where the night was spent. Every one started out for a walk in
the morning, but the road led past the shops dealing in homespun, and
there was a general halt. These characteristic raids sometimes cause
one to pause and wonder whether the greater pleasure of traveling comes
from adding new and beautiful slides to our mental collection or new
articles of vertu to our domestic equipment. Those who did get beyond
the shops were rewarded by a walk through a straggling French village
with quaint views and picturesque glimpses most enticing to the amateur
photographer. A number also with true tourist thoroughness visited the
former summer home of the President of the United States and even took
snap-shots on his front steps.
All met for luncheon at the Manoir Richelieu, a meal well served and
good. A round of applause was given Captain Koenig as he joined the
party and another was given Mr. Gould, the perfect host, whose kindness
and thoughtfulness will long be remembered by those whom he personally
conducted.
After luncheon vehicles of all kinds, including that most fascinating
of all, the calèche, waited to take the party to the Falls. The drive
through a beautiful country with fields of clover and daisies and
hedges of wild pink roses ended at a pulp mill, where the interesting
process of converting the virgin forest into wood pulp was viewed.
Beginning at the front door where the bales of pulp were taking their
departure, the party went back step by step. To achieve the last a
steep chute had to be ascended and the perils of descent seemed so
great that nearly all preferred to go around and cross back by some
stepping stones. The water was not deep but the stepping stones were
small. There may have been other falls but if there were, no one seems
to have seen them.
That night was a gay one on board the "Saguenay." It was the
culmination of the delightful evenings spent around the piano with
music, songs and story telling. At the command of Mr. Bowker who,
with his charming wife, made admirable masters of ceremonies on these
occasions, in accordance with the precedent set twelve years before by
the A. L. A. post conference, all purchases of homespun, coverlets,
rugs, and dress patterns were brought out and hung over the gallery
rail for a loan exhibit. After they had been duly inspected a war
dance was led by Miss Askew, the participants being each clad in his
respective purchases. Stories, songs and charades followed and the
evening ended in singing the following choice composition to the tune
of the "Little Brown Jug."
The A. L. A.'s started one day,
To explore the Saguenay,
Young and old, gay and grim
Twenty-five hers to every him.
Ha Ha Bay, A. L. A.,
Sailing up the Saguenay,
Ha Ha Bay, A. L. A.,
Each from his own library!
Oh, Mr. Gould from Montreal,
Our genial host, beloved of all,
We'll rue the day when we must say
Farewell to you and Saguenay.
During the next two days in Quebec, librarians circulated themselves
freely, the torrid heat seeming to cause no appreciable falling off.
On Sunday morning various church services were attended, many going
to the Basilica. Nearly every one found opportunity to visit the
principal sights,--Dufferin Terrace, the Plains of Abraham (where early
impressions gathered from school histories of the hazard of Wolfe's
climb were somewhat modified), and the lower town, and many, like true
"debtors of their profession" visited the library of Laval University.
Luncheon was enjoyed on both days at the Chateau Frontenac.
On Sunday afternoon, a much appreciated hospitality was extended the
American Library Association by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Porteous, seigneurs
of the Isle of Orleans, who entertained with a delightful garden party
in their beautiful grounds and gardens. In the evening many found
their way to Dufferin Terrace to listen to the music and watch Quebec
promenade by.
Monday morning the party was received by Alderman Collier, in the
absence of the Mayor, who extended a courteous welcome and after that a
street car ride around the city was enjoyed by the party as guests of
the City of Quebec.
In the afternoon a special train was chartered to take the party to the
church of St. Anne de Beaupré. A courteous priest acted as guide and
carefully explained all the wonders of this miraculous shrine. On the
return trip the falls of Montmorency and Kent House were visited.
It was with great regret in spite of the heat, that farewell was said
to this most picturesque of cities. Good-byes were said the next
morning in Montreal and each went on his separate way with the feeling
that the past week had been one of pleasure and rich experience long to
be remembered.
JULIA IDESON.
AGRICULTURAL LIBRARIES SECTION
The first meeting since organization was held on the evening of June
27. Mr. James I. Wyer, Jr., presided. In his opening remarks Mr. Wyer
gave a brief account of the events leading up to the formation of the
section. He also spoke of the various kinds of agricultural libraries
and of their growth and influence.
An address of welcome was delivered by the Hon. Martin Burrell,
Canadian minister of agriculture.
WM. M. HEPBURN, librarian of Purdue university presented a paper on
LIBRARY EXTENSION WORK OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES
Extension work is now a name to conjure with. Its most popular
aspects, the corn train, the wheat special, the farmers' short course,
where a thousand or more men and women from the farms gather for a
week's instruction, have all been exploited in the newspapers to
such an extent that they are well known everywhere. The new methods
of extension work were developed in the agricultural colleges or
agricultural departments of universities. It seems now as though
many of these methods were to be applied in other fields. The moving
cause for all this activity is the desire to bring opportunities
for education to every man, woman and child in the state who
has sufficient energy and ambition to desire them. Along purely
agricultural lines the extension work carried on by the State college
of agriculture at Cornell, is typical. The December number of the
"Announcer" outlining this work contained eight quarto pages giving
information under twenty-five separate heads. The work carried on
by a university as a whole is best illustrated by Wisconsin, whose
university extension division has carried this work further than any
other similar department. The phrase, "The university that goes to
the people," applied to Wisconsin, and the slogan, "If you can't come
to the college, the college will come to you," used by North Dakota
agricultural college, illustrate the aims of the workers in this field.
Of course much of this extension work is altogether outside of the
sphere of the library, but there are signs that the libraries of
agricultural colleges, and of the land grant colleges especially are
waking up to the fact that there are public needs which they are best
fitted to supply. The extension departments of the various colleges
have found a number of problems confronting them in which they need
the help of the college library, such for instance as matters relating
to the use of books for special study, and the general problem of
awakening in the farm community an interest in books and reading. I
shall attempt briefly to characterize the various phases which this
library extension work has taken, or may take, without more than
passing reference to the work of specific institutions.
The first letter of enquiry sent by a farmer to his state college
or experiment station, might be said to have originated the entire
extension work, and the growth of correspondence between farmers and
the college, with its professors and experts, indicates the nature
of the demand on the part of the public, and the success of the
work of the stations and colleges in arousing this interest. This
correspondence forms and always will form a very important phase
of university extension work. To get in touch with individuals, to
have them take the trouble to write you concerning their needs is a
sure indication of their interest. Just as the correspondence of the
commercial house is systematized, and form letters used where possible,
so the growth of this extension work has led to the publication of
brief bulletins, or circulars in place of the elaborate and lengthy
bulletins so often issued by the experiment stations on the same
subjects.
One of the needs which was soon felt in correspondence was that for a
brief list of books on agriculture, which could be sent in response
to inquiries from individuals and libraries. This list is sometimes
a simple mimeographed list, or a short printed list, or even a more
elaborate bulletin, such as the Cornell publication, "What shall the
farmer read" or the more recent one, "Reading in the farm home." There
is real need for these lists, and every college library or extension
department should have such a list available for distribution. There
is room perhaps for some co-operation here in order to secure greater
uniformity and the opinions of many who are in close touch with the
needs of the farming community.
One of the outcomes of the extension work in agricultural colleges, was
the forming of reading and study clubs and clubs for social and civic
purposes, and the publishing of study outlines for reading courses,
which might be taken up individually or by groups. In some cases all
the reading necessary was included in the bulletins published, such
as the Cornell reading courses. In others special books were assigned
which could be purchased from the extension department, or borrowed
from it. Thus began the lending of material from the college library or
some department of the college, a practice which I believe is destined
to grow to large proportions, especially when we secure parcels or book
post. In several states this work is now well organized. The University
of Wisconsin, the North Dakota agricultural college and perhaps
others are prepared to send out what they call package libraries to
individuals, clubs, societies or schools for a certain fixed period of
time. These package libraries consist of pamphlets, speeches, newspaper
clippings, articles clipped from magazines, bulletins issued by the
university and other miscellaneous matter.
North Dakota gives a list of subjects on which they are prepared with
package libraries in agriculture, biography, education, science,
municipal affairs, etc. They will even lend typewritten copies of
declamations, dialogues, orations and printed copies of amateur plays.
Wisconsin in addition to its package libraries issues bibliographical
bulletins on subjects of general interest, as does the University of
Texas. If these package libraries are made more elaborate including
larger pamphlets and books, they can be dignified by the name of
traveling libraries. So far as is known by the writer, this work is
not carried on by the college library except in one instance, the
library of Massachusetts agricultural college, where Prof. Charles R.
Green has this work in charge. In other colleges it is managed by the
extension division or department with, however, the co-operation of the
college library and other library interests, as in Wisconsin. It will
readily be seen that this work duplicates to some extent, the work of
the public library, or at least the work that the public library should
be doing. It is evident too, that this work would have its best field
in states where there were few public libraries in the smaller towns
and villages.
The looking up of references on domestic science, the boy scouts,
or the fireless cooker and other similar subjects is supposed to be
the work of the public library. It may be that notwithstanding the
emphasis placed by the public library on its reference work, and work
with schools, the college by its extension service is going to enter
this field and do at long range what the public library is not doing
for its own local community. If there is sufficient demand from the
rural districts for the service given by the public discussion and
information divisions of the extension work (as it is often called) it
is certainly a strong argument in favor of the extension of the public
library service over the counties or townships as is now being done in
several states. There is a good field here for co-operation between
the local library, the organized library interests of the state, the
college library and the extension service of the college or university.
An interesting feature of the work of the extension department at
Purdue university is the combination of the printed list of books,
the sample library, and the actual sale of books to the farmers. Some
months ago by consultation with members of the station staff and actual
examination of many volumes, a list of about 75 titles relating to
agriculture, was compiled and printed. Several sets of these volumes
were then obtained from the publishers, and arrangements made with them
for mail orders of these books at certain discounts. The printed lists
and sample volumes were taken to county fairs, institutes, farmers
short courses, and on special trains. The lists were distributed, the
books shown to the farmer, and his order taken on the spot at list
price. Many orders come in later by mail. There is good psychology in
this method of getting the book to the farmer. He can examine the book
for himself, give the necessary weight to the recommendation of the man
in charge, and having confidence in the university as represented by
the extension department, he trusts it with his money.
During the year and a half that this plan has been in operation 1,350
volumes have been placed in the hands of farmers in the state and the
sales have been as high as $475 in a month. Some may see objections to
this method of book distribution and there are dangers that must be
guarded against, but in Indiana it is regarded as firmly established.
There are problems that can only be briefly referred to here connected
with the distribution of agricultural literature, that are partly
extension and partly library problems. Many tons of printed matter are
being distributed every year by the various colleges and experiment
stations. To insure the best use of this material some "follow-up"
system and some instruction to the farmer in its care and preservation
would seem to be essential. The small circular or bulletin is taking
the place of the more elaborate publications formerly issued on the
same subject and these are being sent only to those who request them
and have a real need for them.
The college should be willing and able to lend books to institute
workers, lecturers, clubs, and to other libraries unless this service
is already well done by some other agency.
It should also be a clearing house for information relating to
agricultural literature and should co-operate wherever possible with
the other departments of the institution whose work looks toward the
betterment of rural life. The value of books to both young and old in
the farm home, may be overlooked by the other departments organized for
more practical and perhaps more well defined ends, and in this matter
the librarian has both an opportunity and a duty.
Dr. James W. Robertson, chairman of the Canadian royal commission on
industrial training and technical education, delivered an address on
economic and agricultural conditions in Canada.
Mr. Wyer read a paper prepared by Dr. A. C. TRUE, director, U. S.
office of experiment stations, U. S. Department of Agriculture on the
subject
SUGGESTIONS AS TO A POLICY OF ADMINISTRATION OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
AND EXPERIMENT STATION LIBRARIES
Dr. True said in part:
Fifty years ago next Tuesday, the 2nd of July, the act was passed which
authorized the establishment in each state of a college "to teach such
branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic
arts," and it was just twenty-five years ago this year that the act
was passed which created the agricultural experiment station as a
department of the agricultural college.
It seems, therefore, peculiarly fitting that on this jubilee
anniversary we should be discussing the relation to each other of these
two institutions which have done so much for the agricultural interests
of our country, and we believe are destined to do much more.
The agricultural or land-grant colleges authorized by the Morrill act
of 1862 were the direct outcome of a persistent demand for an education
better suited to the needs of an age of progress than the classical
form then in exclusive use. Interest in experimental work grew rapidly
and culminated in the passage by Congress and signing by President
Cleveland in 1887 of the bill introduced by Wm. H. Hatch, of Missouri,
which provided for the establishment of an agricultural experiment
station at each of the agricultural colleges, as a department of
the college. This act provided the sum of $15,000 annually for the
establishment and maintenance of the experiment station. It was later
supplemented by the Adams act passed in 1906, which provided for an
increased annual appropriation, bringing the sum total of federal
appropriation for each station up to $30,000.
In the Hatch act establishing the experiment stations the wording of
the law clearly sets forth the fact that the station is a department of
the college.
It would seem obvious, therefore, that, since the station is a
department of the college, the station library should be considered a
part of the college library and thus come under the general direction
and control of the college librarian. This involves the presumption
that the college authorities appreciate the importance of a well
managed library and therefore employ a well-trained and efficient
librarian, and have a good library organization.
The work of the experiment station may be broadly grouped under the
two heads research and the dissemination of the results of that
research. A necessary preliminary to all successful research work
is the examination of the records of similar or allied work. These
records are contained in books and periodicals, and a moment's thought
reveals the fact that the station library lies at the very heart of the
station's work and is second to nothing in importance. Even the records
of hypotheses tested and found untenable are valuable, as they may save
much useless effort and consequent loss of time. The equipment of the
station library should, therefore, be one of the first considerations
in the organization of the station, and not merely a desirable adjunct
if better advocated activities permit.
The function of the agricultural college library is primarily to serve
the interests of the professors and students who compose the college,
whereas the mission of the experiment station library is to serve the
investigators and scientific workers who constitute the station staff.
For the college library to accomplish the best results there should
be direct and constant intercourse between the professors and the
librarian. The latter should be cognizant of the broad outlines of the
courses being given and should be specifically informed of theme work
about to be assigned and theses subjects when chosen. If the librarian
does not know these things before the call for material comes, it
may be very difficult to supply just what is wanted. Even with every
care there will sometimes be a conflict of interests, but a system
of co-operation between the teaching force and the librarian should
reduce these conflicts to a minimum, should work for the benefit of
all concerned, and make the library a constantly increasing aid in the
process of education.
The experiment station library, being designed for the use of
scientific investigators, is really a reference collection. It should
consist of the records of agricultural investigations the world over
and such books of reference in each branch of the station's work as the
investigator in charge of that work thinks necessary.
The co-ordination of the interests of the two constituencies,--the
investigator on the one hand and the teaching force and student body
on the other, is one of the most important problems of the librarian
of the agricultural library. It is a task which will require his best
ability as an administrator, and will be accomplished only by the
exercise of boundless patience and unlimited tact, combined with an
impartial sense of justice to everybody. Only when the investigator,
professor and student each realizes fully that the librarian's chief
concern is to be of service to him, will the ideals of the library be
realized.
The vital concern of experiment station workers and the officers of the
agricultural colleges in the library and its activities was evinced by
the fact that a session of the Association of American agricultural
colleges and experiment stations which met in Columbus, Ohio, November,
1911, was devoted to this subject. Nobody knows better than the workers
themselves how useful the library may be to them, and their discussion
of different phases of its problems was full of suggestions for the
improvement of the service.
In the development of the libraries of the agricultural colleges and
experiment stations in the various states there have grown up three
distinct types of libraries.
The first type is the experiment station library which is kept separate
from the college library but under its control and which is devoted
somewhat exclusively to the use of the station workers. An example of
this type of library is found at the State college of Washington.
The second type is the agricultural college and experiment station
libraries combined into a single agricultural library and kept
separate from the university library, as at Wisconsin. This type may
be considered as belonging to the departmental type of library. Other
states which have adopted this plan are California, Iowa, Minnesota,
Missouri, Nebraska and Virginia.
In the third type the collections of agricultural literature including
the experiment station collections, are consolidated with the college
or university collections and administered as one unit. Examples of
this type are the libraries of the University of Illinois, the Oregon
agricultural college and the Kansas agricultural college.
Under certain conditions the advantages of one type may far outweigh
the disadvantages and leave little doubt that this is the best for the
particular institution concerned.
In the library of the first type,--namely, the experiment station
library kept separate from the college library but under its control,
the collections are composed principally of the following classes of
literature:
1. As complete a collection as can be had of publications (a) of the
U. S. Department of agriculture; (b) of state experiment stations in
the United States; (c) of agricultural, horticultural, dairy and
live stock and kindred societies; (d) the publications of departments
of agriculture, of agricultural schools and societies in foreign
countries, all of which literature may be designated as the "official
agricultural literature."
(2) Files, at least current ones, of the leading agricultural
periodicals of the United States, together with the best of those
published in the interest of each of the special branches of
agriculture,--live stock, dairying, horticulture, etc.
(3) A collection of reference works both general and agricultural, as
well as standard works on agriculture and its various branches and
allied sciences.
Few if any of the separate experiment station libraries can be said
to have notably complete collections, aside from the "official
agricultural literature." Scientific books and periodicals are
expensive and most of the agricultural colleges have not felt able to
duplicate expensive sets of periodicals and scientific reference works.
Therefore, since the college needs such works as well as the stations,
the result has been in most cases that they have been filed in the
college or university library and the station collections have been
limited principally to the "official agricultural literature" described
above.
That the experiment station workers should have readily available
as complete a collection as possible of the "official agricultural
literature," both American and foreign, seems most desirable if not
imperative. Whether this material should be filed in the station
library or in the college library and to what extent it should be
duplicated is a matter for each institution to decide, according to
its needs and local conditions. In the case of an experiment station
located on the college campus and near enough to the college or
university for the station workers to use the general library, there
is still much to be said in favor of a separate reference and reading
room for the experiment station staff with an assistant in charge,
the collection consisting principally of the "official agricultural
literature," a selected list of current periodicals and a good
selection of reference books of special interest in experiment station
work. The ideal plan would be for this room to adjoin the university
library like a seminar room. If it is not feasible on account of
distance for the experiment station workers to have the collection next
to the general library, then it should of course be in the experiment
station building or agricultural hall.
Libraries of the second or departmental type,--namely, where the
college of agriculture and the experiment station collections are
combined, contain in general all the library resources of the
institution along purely agricultural lines, including the "official
agricultural literature," and in addition a fairly complete collection
in the sciences relating to agriculture. Such libraries have a
two-fold purpose. They must supply the needs of the professors and
scientists in connection with their investigations and in addition
must serve the students of the agricultural college. If the college
of agriculture and the experiment station are some distance from the
university,--so far as to make frequent consultation of the university
library impracticable, there is no question but that the college of
agriculture and the experiment station ought to have a separate library
for their especial needs. If on the other hand they are near enough
to the university library to make it feasible for the professors and
scientists to use it frequently, it is an open question whether it is
wise to separate the agricultural collections. It is then a question of
a central library versus a departmental or special library. The nearer
the college of agriculture library is to the university library, the
more intensive should its collections become.
There is much to be said in favor of the third type of agricultural
library,--namely, where the agricultural collections are incorporated
with the college or university collections. When the topography of
the campus and the location of the buildings are such as to make it
feasible for the station workers and the agricultural professors to
use the college or university library, the balance of the arguments
seems to be in favor of this arrangement, both as regards economy of
funds and efficiency of service, if the special needs of the station
workers can be and are given proper consideration by providing the
really necessary duplicates and an assistant especially qualified to
aid in the bibliographical research connected with the investigations
of the experiment station. There is a decided tendency toward unity
in modern science. This is especially true in the sciences relating
to agriculture. The entomologist needs to use botanical books, the
botanist must use chemical books, etc., etc. This has an important
bearing on library problems and as far as agricultural libraries are
concerned, is an argument for centralized collections.
As it is probable that it will be a long time in the future, if ever,
before the experiment stations will have sufficient funds to build
up complete collections for their special use, independent of the
colleges, and since it is a question whether, if funds were actually
available, it would be wise to expend them in duplicating to such an
extent the college library collections, it seems evident that some
compromise arrangement is inevitable. In attempting to work out a
satisfactory library plan, every institution should make a careful
survey of local conditions, such as the size of the collections, the
size of the library staff, funds available, location and architecture
of the college and experiment station buildings, and then attempt
to work out the best possible policy under its peculiar conditions.
In working out such a policy, there are three important points to
consider,--the question of administration, the question of convenience
and the economy of funds.
As regards administration, attention has already been called to the
fact that the station is by law a department of the college and under
its control. If fully lived up to, this fact would seem to decide many
vexed questions of administration. Sooner or later, it is believed, the
colleges and experiment stations will find that there is less to be
gained by standing alone than they had supposed and they will realize
the advantages of a unified library administration for the institution
as a whole.
In considering the question of convenience, distance is the most
important factor. This difficulty can, however, to a great extent
be minimized by an adequate telephone and messenger service between
the library and the various departments of the college. Even for the
sake of convenience, it is a question whether any institution is
justified in separating its agricultural collections from the college
or university library, unless it is prepared to provide an efficient
assistant to look after the collection. Because books are near at hand
does not mean that they are more accessible.
If an institution is limited in funds and if its total resources in
books do not exceed 30,000 volumes, there seems little doubt but
that the interests of the station and college can best be served by
combining forces and resources in one strong library with adequate
service, unless the topographical conditions make this plan impossible.
Such a combination certainly husbands the finances, since separate
libraries involving a duplication of catalogs and reference books
necessitates a considerable outlay of funds.
But whatever the details of the library arrangement for the institution
may be, the station should by all means have if possible the services
of some person, call him what you will,--librarian, bibliographer,
or reference assistant, who may give his time and energy quite
fully to the special requirements of the station,--for example, in
keeping the official literature complete and up to date, in looking
up references, making excerpts, making and taking care of indexes,
preparing bibliographical lists, and in doing bibliographical work of
a miscellaneous character. There is unquestionably need for librarians
trained along agricultural lines. It would seem as though the library
training schools of the universities of Wisconsin and Illinois were
peculiarly well situated to make a specialty of training librarians for
agricultural work.
One of the important duties of such an assistant, regardless of
whether the agricultural collections are maintained as a separate
library or incorporated with the general library, should be the care
and collection of agricultural publications obtainable by gift or
exchange. There is now a great accumulation of public and miscellaneous
documents, American and foreign, which may be obtained at little or
no expense as regards purchase, but the collection, safeguarding
and general care of this material is a very considerable task. Too
many of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations have not
sufficiently regarded the importance of collecting this material and
of keeping their files complete and in a readily available form. A
large portion of this material is never noted in the bibliographies
of the book trade. It must be sought for in catalogs and book lists,
in reviews, second-hand catalogs, and in many less obvious places.
Much of the material is not for sale and is only obtainable by gift
or exchange. It is therefore an important matter that there should be
close co-operation between the experiment station and the library in
arranging such exchanges. The station bulletins and reports, published
by each state, should be the means of obtaining for the station or
college library many valuable exchanges from this country and abroad.
In regard to the accessions to the library, whether obtained by
purchase or gift, there are certain definite principles which should be
followed: first, it is most desirable that all the purchases of books
and periodicals for all the collections included in the university
and experiment station should be made by the central general library,
even the books purchased from the Adams fund, in connection with
some definite project; second that all the records in regard to the
resources of the library be kept in the general library. Furthermore,
all the collections, whether obtained by gift or purchase, should be
regarded as the unquestioned property of the institution at large, and
under the custody of the librarian.
In regard to the purchase of books from the Adams fund, the fact that
the experiment station worker needs in connection with an investigation
certain books not already in the library, which books he is allowed
to purchase from the Adams fund, is not, in the opinion of the
office of experiment stations, reason for assuming that the books
should not be purchased through the library or that they shall not
be regarded as the property of the library. Therefore, in a library
efficiently administered, there would be no inflexible rules which
would make it impossible for any experiment station worker to retain
in his laboratory for an indefinite period while he is carrying on
his investigations, the books which he especially needs to have at
hand, regardless of the fact that they were purchased through the
library. As far as the office of experiment stations is concerned in
the supervision of the accounts of the purchases made by the state
experiment stations from the Adams fund, it has interpreted the law
to mean that the funds can be used in part for the purchase of books
needed to carry on a special experiment in progress but it does not
hold that books so purchased must be held as the property of the
department. On the contrary, it is inclined to believe that the funds
will be safeguarded fully as well if not better, by the purchase of
books through the library.
As regards the assignment of funds for the library, there is lacking
in many of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations any well
matured policy. A hard and fast allotment of funds to departments is
of doubtful wisdom. It would be better to be guided more by the use
likely to be made of the books by the various departments than to
attempt any impartial division among them. In all but a few of the
state agricultural colleges and experiment stations the funds available
for books are pitiably small. They need to be greatly increased. In
some instances the purchase of scientific books seems unduly restricted
as compared with expensive apparatus. As long as the funds are meagre,
there is the more need for a well equipped, progressive librarian, with
a knowledge of the resources of other libraries, who will co-operate
with other libraries, and by exchanges and inter-library loans be able
to supplement the resources of his own library. The library of the U.
S. Department of Agriculture has been glad to lend its books to state
agricultural colleges and experiment stations as freely as possible
without interfering with the work of the department. The borrowing of
a book needed for the special use of an investigator will often avoid
the necessity of purchasing it and leave the funds available for the
purchase of books of more general use.
The answers to the questionnaire sent out by the Agricultural libraries
section disclosed the fact that a large number of the agricultural
colleges, but none of the experiment stations, have library committees,
and that the college library committee's activities do not, except in
a few instances, extend to the stations. It is not the purpose of this
paper to discuss general library problems except so far as they touch
upon the problems of the agricultural library. No arguments pro or con
will therefore be brought to bear upon the desirability of library
committees. If, however, it is thought best by an institution to have
a library committee, it should by all means be a committee for the
whole institution. As already emphasized, the station is a department
of the college and there would seem to be no reason for excluding
it in the consideration of the library problems of the college, for
there is no department of the college whose interest in the library
is more vital. It was interesting to note that in one of the state
agricultural college libraries, whose growth in the last few years has
been remarkable, there is no library committee. In another college
with a growing and progressive library, the library committee was
referred to as not much help and no hindrance. In some colleges the
powers of the library committee are described as merely advisory as to
library policies; in others, it evidently has considerable power, the
decision in regard to the purchase of books being left largely to the
library committee. It is a question whether this latter arrangement
is altogether wise. There are certain dangers connected with it. If
the librarian cannot be trusted to make a wise selection of books for
the college, with the help of recommendations of the members of the
faculty and station staff, then the disadvantages connected with a
library committee empowered to decide on the purchase of books should
be minimized as far as possible by having the library committee rotate
in office, in order to insure a fair representation of the needs of all
departments of the institution.
In the case of the experiment stations, the decision in regard to the
purchase of books in most instances rests entirely with the director or
the heads of the departments. This plan, too, has its disadvantages.
The ambitious specialist allowed to have his own way without regard to
the needs of his fellow workers is apt to purchase books of service
only to himself. If there is a library committee for the institution,
it would be far better to have the book purchases for the station
considered by the committee on the basis of a general policy taking
into account the special requirements of the station's work and funds.
If there is no library committee, then the librarian of the college
should by all means be consulted in regard to the purchase of all
books for the station as well as the college. It should, of course,
be understood by the librarian, as well as by other officers of the
institution, that purchases of books and periodicals for the experiment
station under the Hatch Act should be strictly confined to those
required in connection with the work of the station and under the Adams
act to those directly relating to the approved project of research. It
will, therefore, be necessary for the station director to pass on the
extent of the library purchases from station funds and the character of
the books and periodicals to be thus purchased.
Among the functions, problems and opportunities of the librarians of
our agricultural colleges, extension work remains to be considered.
The extension work of the agricultural college is now one of its vital
activities and is every year enlarging its scope. Leaders are needed
for every phase of this work,--for correspondence schools, for farmers'
institutes, for movable schools of agriculture, for work on practice
farms, and in many other of the activities which are being used in
carrying the improved methods of modern agriculture to the farmer
himself. The experiment station is an organized effort of science
to improve agriculture, and the extension work of the agricultural
college is the practical means of reaching the farmer with useful
information. The rural problem is one of the burning public questions
of the day and upon its proper solution depends much of the progress
which we confidently expect. The farmer must himself co-operate in the
solution of this problem and the leadership is of a very high order
that recognizes as an absolute essential to success, and succeeds in
enlisting, an active participation on the part of the farmer in the
work of bringing about an improved practice of agriculture. If then
the library is as important in all the phases of the work of the
agricultural college as we deem it to be, the work of the library
should by all means be represented in all the extension work activities.
In conclusion, the above suggestions regarding the administration of
the agricultural college and experiment station libraries and their
opportunities for service to the investigator, the student and the
farmer, may be briefly summarized as follows:
First: The libraries of the agricultural colleges and experiment
stations should always be in charge of well-trained and efficient
librarians.
Second: The books and periodicals should be selected with reference to
the well-considered needs of the various branches of the institution,
having regard for the vast amount of literature which may be secured by
gift and exchange.
Third: The experiment station collection, even when separately housed,
should be considered and administered as an integral part of the
college or university library, under the direction of the college or
university librarian.
Fourth: The needs of the experiment station staff should be met by
the employment of a librarian, bibliographer or reference assistant
especially qualified to serve the station in all its interests.
Fifth: In the extension work activities of the college for the more
direct benefit of the farmer, the library should have its share.
It is realized that there may be a wide difference of opinion as to
the methods to be employed, but the object of this paper will be in
part accomplished if it directs attention to the principles upon
which a policy of administration should be built. The problems of the
library need the combined thought and efforts of librarians, faculties
and experiment station staffs in order that it may by its efficiency
promote to the fullest extent the work of the agricultural colleges and
experiment stations.
Several papers were presented on
SOME TYPES OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AND EXPERIMENT STATION LIBRARIES
The first was by CLARENCE S. HEAN, librarian of the college of
agriculture of the University of Wisconsin, on the type
=(a) Agricultural College and Experiment Station Libraries Combined and
Separate from the University Library but under its Control.=
Mr. Hean said in part:
The administrative officers of the University of Wisconsin believe
thoroughly in the theory that teaching and research should go hand in
hand. That theory practically applied in our college of agriculture
and agricultural experiment station virtually combines the two
organizations into one.
This agricultural department of the university is housed in a group
of buildings at the extreme western end of the campus. The general
university library is situated at the extreme eastern end, a full half
mile away. It therefore seemed advisable to establish a departmental
library for the convenience of our agricultural workers.
In our college the funds received from the United States are not nearly
sufficient to finance all of the station work, or research work as
we call it. The budget is made up by adding together the income from
all sources and apportioning this whole amount among the departments
according to their needs and talents. Orders may then be issued by
each department, subject to the dean's approval, to the extent of its
allotment. When bills are received the head of the department marks
with an "R" all items ordered for research (i. e. station) work. The
bookkeeper enters items so marked against United States funds until
they are exhausted. The library being a department of the college its
funds are treated in this same manner. This marking of research items
in the bills with an "R" is the only distinction ever made between
books purchased for station or for college purposes.
All of the books purchased are classified, cataloged and filed as one
collection. It is understood throughout the college that books for the
Adams or Hatch investigations are to be purchased by the library. Such
books when received are given the right of way in all library processes
and forwarded immediately to the investigator who requested them.
The selection of books rests with the library committee. This committee
consists of five members of the faculty appointed by the dean for a
term of one year, and the librarian, an ex officio member. The chairman
of the committee has been reappointed for many consecutive terms.
The other members are rotated among the different departments. Lists
of books for consideration at their monthly meetings are made up by
the librarian. Any member of the faculty, or student either for that
matter, may recommend books to go on the list.
The selections having been made, the list is forwarded to the
university librarian. It is then checked with the university catalog.
Items already available anywhere on the campus are reported back for
further consideration. If it is the judgment of the committee that an
additional copy is needed in our library it is so ordered, but all
needless duplication is avoided. The actual order is made out by the
university librarian who has at hand the bibliographical data for such
work.
The books are received, accessioned and plated at the general library.
They are then forwarded to our college library to be classified and
cataloged. All our books are permitted to circulate not only among
the students and professors of our own college but among those of any
college of the university. In return the same privilege is granted to
us by the other colleges. Having a well developed delivery system and
a liberal loaning policy, we encourage the policy of a strong central
library.
The next paper, prepared by ASA DON DICKINSON, librarian State college
of Washington, treated type
=(b) The experiment station library separate from the college library
but under its control.=
Mr. Dickinson said in part:
In the state college of Washington, the experiment station library
is said to be separate from the college, but under its control. Our
college library building occupies a central position on the campus,
not over two hundred yards from the offices of most of the members of
the station staff. Part of the lowest tier of the college library book
stack is set aside for the accommodation of the station library, the
point of division being marked by a gate. A specially designated member
of the college library staff acts as station librarian, under the
direction of the college librarian. Her salary is paid largely but not
wholly out of the station funds. Her duties as station librarian occupy
about one-third of her time, but these duties have precedence over her
college library work. In the absence of the station librarian, members
of the station staff are served by the college library staff.
Our station library is made up almost entirely (1) of publications of
the U. S. Department of agriculture; (2) of publications of the state
experiment stations, and departments of agriculture and horticulture;
(3) of the agricultural, horticultural and kindred periodicals. The
college library contains duplicate collections of the first two classes
of material. The third class in our experience is relatively of less
importance, as it consists chiefly of the popular "farm-papers." The
station library, like the college library, has its own card-catalog of
U. S. Department of agriculture publications, and its own card-index of
experiment station literature.
Students and practitioners of the science of agriculture seem to be
specially fortunate in that so much of the valuable material on their
subject is published and freely distributed by the federal and state
governments. There is perhaps no other science in which the unofficial
literature is so relatively unimportant. It is true, the technical
journals of the allied sciences contain much that is of value to the
experiment station worker. But so far as my experience goes, the use of
this is not constant and continuous, as is the case with governmental
material. Let us have separate and distinct sets of state and federal
"Bulletins," for our college workers and for our station workers, as
both classes need to refer to them so frequently. But is not this going
far enough? Is it not the wisest policy to confine our station library
collection principally to these well-thumbed publications, and to place
the less constantly used and more expensive unofficial material in the
college library, where it can be of service to a larger public?
MISS MARGARET HUTCHINS, of the reference department of the University
of Illinois library described type
=(c) Experiment station library consolidated with the university
library.=
Until 1897 the library of the Illinois experiment station and the
university library were separately housed, cared for and supported. In
that year the state erected a library building for the university and
in it the experiment station deposited its collection of nearly five
thousand titles. From that time the station ceased buying books from
the Hatch fund, with the possible exception of a very few books for
laboratory equipment, and it has never bought any from the Adams fund.
The books deposited by the experiment station in the university library
were classified and cataloged and became a part of the library. The
only difference in treatment from books otherwise acquired was that
the experiment station books were accessioned separately so that it
would be possible to take them out of the library again if desired. All
books and periodicals bought or exchanged for the experiment station
since 1897 have been dealt with like those bought or exchanged for the
university. The questions of administration come therefore for the most
part under the general library policy.
Books are purchased for the university either out of the legislative
appropriation for the library or the appropriations for the university
and its different colleges and departments of investigation.
=1. Library funds.=
The library funds are assigned to the various departments in the
colleges of the university by a committee on the apportionment of
library funds, consisting of the president, the librarian and the
deans of the colleges, who act on the recommendations of a senate
library committee. This is composed of the president and the librarian
and seven members representing the following interests; Agriculture,
Engineering, Science, Graduate school, Library, The languages,
literature and arts, and The philosophical and social sciences. Besides
preparing for the first mentioned committee on apportionment, detailed
estimates of the library needs of the various colleges, schools and
departments, the library committee acts as an advisory board to the
librarian in matters of library administration and policy. The college
of agriculture, which in Illinois is of course intimately connected
with the agricultural experiment station, receives its share of the
library funds for the purchase of books selected by its professors and
investigators.
=2. Maintenance Funds, called Equipment funds in the Library to
distinguish from Library funds.=
Books are also purchased out of the legislative appropriations for the
support of certain colleges and out of allotments made by the trustees
from the general university funds for colleges not specifically
provided for by the legislature. In the case of agricultural books
these funds have the two purposes: the maintenance fund for the
college of agriculture and the experiment station and, second, the
appropriations for special departments of investigation in the
experiment station.
The general policy of the faculty of the college of agriculture (or the
staff of the experiment station) as to purchase of books out of these
two different funds for college and experiment station is to buy books
for special investigations out of station funds unless they clearly
would be of use also to the students and instructors of the college
at large. Books needed by the special investigator and the college
in general at the same time are duplicated. When books are no longer
needed in the laboratory or office for the special work for which they
were bought, they are returned for general circulation to the main
library by whose staff they were ordered and cataloged. Books already
in the library, whether bought out of library funds or equipment funds
for any college may be sent to a laboratory, office, or reading room
from the main library unless they are needed for reference or class use
in the main library or any branch of it.
Exchange.
The library and experiment station also work together in the matter of
exchanges. The library exchange assistant arranges for the exchange of
experiment station publications the same as for other publications of
the university, while the station attends to the actual mailing of its
publications, as it has better facilities for this than the library.
In this way the library receives from the exchange of the agricultural
experiment station publications alone between four and five hundred
publications, of which more than one-half are from foreign countries,
seventy agricultural periodicals and the publications of ninety learned
societies being obtained in addition to the publications of state
universities and stations and universities and libraries all over the
world. Besides these, the library receives by the exchange of other
University of Illinois publications many hundred more publications,
some of which are of interest to agricultural scientists and economists.
=Advantages of the Consolidation of Station and University Libraries=
1. Economy of administration.
No staff of agriculturists or any other specialists trained for
scientific or literary research can be expected to order, catalog and
care for books as quickly and efficiently as can the well organized
library staff of forty, with its order department, gifts, exchange and
periodical assistants, and cataloging, binding, loan, and reference
departments, whose whole time and attention is devoted to these special
lines of library work. The library, too, which handles some thirty
thousand new books a year can afford to have more elaborate equipment
in the way of trade bibliographies of various countries, catalogs
of other libraries, mechanical means for duplicating catalog cards,
shelving books, etc., than can such an institution as an experiment
station whose money should be spent mostly on salaries of specialists
and laboratory and field equipment.
2. Security in preservation of valuable books.
While the majority of agricultural departments at Illinois favor
departmental libraries, they all make it conditional--"If we had a
proper and secure place for them." All with whom I have talked have
also emphasized the advisability, almost the necessity, of keeping all
books on the campus, whether in departmental libraries, laboratories or
main library, under the central administration and the supervision of
the librarian of the university.
=3. Opportunity to use books and periodicals purchased by other
colleges of the university.=
It can readily be seen that books and periodicals purchased especially
by the College of Science may also be of use to the Agricultural
experiment station. The agricultural faculty also benefit by the
periodicals, university publications, etc., received in exchange for
publications of other colleges in the university.
=4. Greater educational opportunities.=
The agricultural experiment station, while receiving the benefits thus
enumerated from its close connection with the university library,
is able also to extend its circle of influence through the library,
which naturally reaches more people than the station could by itself.
Not only do the students and faculty of the other colleges of the
university have an opportunity to use the agricultural books, but
people throughout the state can and do borrow them from the library.
Discussion on the same type of library administration was continued
in a paper prepared by Mrs. IDA A. KIDDER, librarian of the Oregon
Agricultural College library.
She said in part:
Our policy of one central library was rather thrust upon us by the
exigency of our situation than deliberately chosen, for we began with
a single librarian and one part time student assistant, but after
four years' experience I should pursue the same general course. It is
evident, however, that in libraries growing at the almost incredible
rate of many of our western libraries, one must have principles of
organization and administration, rather than a fixed policy, or
inflexible plans.
At the Oregon agricultural college we have the advantage of having all
our class room and laboratory buildings located near each other.
We have had no difficulty or complication as to funds, since nearly
all our station funds have been used for experiments and laboratory
equipment. At first we had almost no college funds for the purchase
of books and periodicals, having only such portion of the general
equipment fund as could be spared after equipping our rapidly growing
laboratories, but at the last session of our legislature the library
was granted a fund of $15,000 for the biennium for books, periodicals
and binding, and of the Crop Pest fund of $15,000 a year, granted for
investigation, ten per cent could be spent for books and periodicals.
This has been used and the library has therefore had this biennium,
$9,000 a year. Most of the Crop Pest fund has been spent for books
directly useful to the station investigator. Of the regular college
library fund, the station departments have received their share along
with the strictly instructional departments. The library fund is
apportioned by the president of the college, after consultation with
the librarian, the basis of judgment being the need of the department
together with its present equipment. The books purchased from station
funds are usually for some specific investigation and are kept in the
laboratory collection of the department purchasing. A record is kept of
the books purchased under each different fund.
The head of each department is responsible for the books in his
laboratory collection, and once a year an inventory is taken. In our
general catalog we have the cards of every book kept in a department
stamped, under the call number, with the name of that department;
thus it is possible to locate from the catalog all books except those
out on loan. All our freshmen have one semester's instruction in the
use of the library, that is, one lecture and one practical problem a
week, with one college credit allowed. During this period we urge the
students to feel at liberty to go to any laboratory to consult any book
needed for their work, but with all the encouragement we can give them,
I feel convinced that the books kept in the laboratory collections do
not have the general use from the students which they would have if
they were located in the general library.
We expect soon to place in our agricultural building duplicate catalogs
of the publications of the United States Department of agriculture and
of the state experiment stations. This will be a great accommodation to
the men working in the station.
We keep our duplicate reports and bulletins arranged so that at a
moment's notice any duplicates may be found. We have one department
whose work it is to secure and care for the continuations of value to
an agricultural college. This is one of the most valuable features of
our organization, and though it was difficult to give the service for
such a definite department, from our small library force, it seemed
imperative and has proved a wise step. The reference librarian of the
college does the reference work for the station as far as called upon.
She borrows for the use of the station from a number of other libraries.
It seems to me that the problem of administering the college and the
experiment station library, whether separately or combined must always
present a number of almost insurmountable difficulties; men engaged in
research demand all material for their work closely and immediately
at hand, instructional work requires that all the material on the
campus shall be easily accessible to its use. To meet these so often
conflicting demands without extravagant duplication requires of the
librarian a broad-minded impartiality of judgement.
The next topic was a symposium of recent reference books and new
periodicals of special interest to agricultural libraries, which
was treated under the following heads: (a) New periodicals, by E.
Lucy Ogden, Library of Congress; (b) Agricultural reference books,
by Elizabeth S. Ingersoll, of Cornell university library, and (c)
Reference books in sciences relating to agriculture, by Emma B. Hawks,
of the U. S. Department of agriculture library.
Miss Claribel R. Barnett, librarian of the U. S. Department of
agriculture library was re-elected chairman for the coming year.
CATALOG SECTION
FIRST SESSION
(Thursday, June 27, 8:15 p. m.)
The first session of the Catalog section was held Thursday evening,
June 27, the chairman, Miss Laura A. Thompson, of the Library of
Congress, presiding. The reading of the minutes of the last meeting was
dispensed with and they stand approved as printed.
The topic of the evening, "Subject headings," was introduced in a paper
by Miss MARY JOSEPHINE BRIGGS, cataloger of the Buffalo public library,
and editor of the "A. L. A. list of subject headings." In the absence
of Miss Briggs, this paper was read by Miss Sula Wagner, of the St.
Louis public library.
THE A. L. A. LIST OF SUBJECT HEADINGS
Every cataloger, at least at the beginning of her career, has an ideal
of the catalog which she would like to make: a catalog conforming to
the most approved rules, accurate in bibliographical detail; consistent
in form, in method of entry and in arrangement.
She realizes from the first that the task of achieving this ideal will
be difficult; she soon begins to fear that it will be impossible. After
perhaps years of endeavor, she questions if it is even desirable.
Absolute consistency in the matter of author entry may be attained
by strict adherence to the A. L. A. rules, and the divergences from
these rules necessary to adapt them to the varying conditions of
public circulating, reference and university libraries are slight and
unimportant. But who can frame a code of rules or formulate principles
through which consistency in subject headings may be attained? And is
consistency so absolutely necessary or desirable? Is not the ideal
catalog the one which is best adapted to the needs of the majority
of its users; which is so arranged that the reader can find what he
wants in the shortest possible time, even at the sacrifice of absolute
consistency?
When the work of revising the Subject headings was begun, an effort was
made to learn the wishes of all interested in regard to the principles
upon which the new edition should be based.
Many of you remember the list of questions that was published in the
Library journal and in Public libraries. Some of you sent answers
to those questions. They were questions of scope, of principle of
selection, and of arrangement. The answers received from librarians,
catalogers and reference workers, the opinions of members of the
advisory committee upon these and other problems, the ideas expressed
by library workers consulted by Miss Crawford in the various libraries
which she visited, the suggestions gleaned from correspondence with
other library workers and with experts upon various subjects, were
all carefully noted by Miss Crawford, and in some instances tabulated
so that the varying opinions could be seen at a glance. These notes,
together with lists of headings from many libraries, large and small,
made up the material from which the third edition of the Subject
headings was compiled.
The most casual examination of this material revealed the fact that
while on some points there was practical unanimity of opinion, upon
others there was the greatest diversity.
The following are not exact quotations, as I no longer have the
correspondence at hand; but they fairly indicate the opposing views of
some of the writers:
"Expand the list by the addition of necessary new headings, but
make few if any changes. The A. L. A. headings are in very general
use, and the possible advantage of changes would not compensate for
the inconvenience and expense of wholesale alterations in existing
catalogs."
"The old headings are antiquated. Do not hamper libraries yet to be by
perpetuating phraseology that no longer conforms to modern usage."
"For the sake of uniformity, adopt the Library of Congress headings,
even if not always entirely satisfactory for a public library."
"The Library of Congress headings are not at all adapted for use in
popular libraries. Disregard them."
"The public library is for the plain people,--use headings they will
understand."
"If the public does not understand scientifically accurate headings it
should be taught. Do not lower the standard of scientific cataloging."
To choose headings that should offend as little as possible these
widely differing advisers, to steer a course between ultraconservatism
and iconoclastic radicalism, was the difficult task that confronted me
in undertaking the compilation of the new list of Subject headings.
A special effort was made to formulate a principle that should govern
the choice of adjective phrase; inversion; or noun, subdivided. Is
it better to enter under Chemistry, Physiological, or Physiological
chemistry? Under Psychology, Educational, or Educational psychology?
Under Negro suffrage or Negroes--Suffrage?
A strict rule for this sort of heading would be a boon to catalogers,
but surely not to the users of the catalog. The average reader
does not reason concerning the principles upon which the catalog
is constructed. The fact that he today finds what he seeks entered
under Chemistry, Organic, will not prevent his turning to Electric
engineering rather than Engineering, Electric, tomorrow. The adoption
of either form of entry to the exclusion of the others would lead to
absurdities. Because it is satisfactory to subdivide Railroads, would
it be desirable to abandon headings beginning Electric and substitute
subdivisions of Electricity for Electric conductors, Electric lighting
and Electric power? Or because Botany, Structural, is preferable to
Structural botany, should we use Physics, Agricultural, instead of
Agricultural physics?
In the end, all efforts to frame the desired rule resolved themselves
into something like this: It is necessary to use all three forms of
heading; noun with subdivision, adjective phrase, and inversion. Each
case must be decided upon its own merits, and that form used under
which it is believed that the majority of readers will look,--the
majority of readers in each particular library, be it understood. A
university library will use many subdivisions because it is convenient
for professors and students to have much of the material brought
together under large subjects. A medical library will use few, if any,
headings beginning Medical, because Medical is understood.
As was stated in the introduction, no radical changes from the second
edition were made except in response to what seemed to be a very
general demand. There were few dissenting votes to the proposition to
abandon the headings Arts, Fine, and Arts, Useful. The majority in
favor of Government instead of Political science was less decisive, but
still a majority, and the confession heard more than once, "I never
can remember the difference between political science and political
economy," was a straw that helped to turn the scale. Trade union is
no longer a comprehensive term when organizations of teachers and
of others outside the trades must be included. The phrase Domestic
economy is being superseded in recent books by Home economics or by
Domestic science. It is impossible to mention the changes in detail or
to give the reasons for each, but no changes were made without careful
consideration.
Just how far it is advisable to alter existing catalogs in order to
conform to the new headings is a problem that each cataloger must
decide for herself. If in your opinion the heading already in use is
better than the new one suggested, by all means retain it. If, while
admitting a slight advantage in the new heading, you think that the
gain is not sufficient to justify the labor of changing, it is much
easier to alter your copy of the Subject headings than to erase or
re-write catalog cards. But if you are convinced that the new heading
is one that will be more readily found by the users of your library,
and by the desk attendants who have not catalog training, then make
the change, even at the expense of considerable time and labor. And
by all means consult the attendants in the circulating and reference
departments if in doubt as to the advisability of making a change.
They know how books are called for. They know how they themselves look
for them; and "see" references are irritating when there is a line of
impatient borrowers reaching from the request window to the door.
Such changes as have already been made in the catalog of the Buffalo
public library have met with general approval from the loan desk.
Recitations and readings; Grammar, English; Spelling, English; Corn
instead of Maize; Humor instead of Wit and humor; the transfer of the
subheading Best books from Bibliography to Books and reading; and the
removal of Immigration from under country, have received especial
approbation. The necessity for the latter change was made apparent when
it was discovered that the half dozen cards under Immigration were so
soiled as to be almost illegible, while those under U. S. Immigration
bore no evidence of use; either because the "See also" reference had
been overlooked, or because readers were daunted or confused by the
complex arrangement of the cards under United States.
In all these cases the new heading differs from both the old A. L. A.
heading and from the Library of Congress heading.
Starting with the intention of retaining all headings upon which
the A. L. A. list and the Library of Congress were agreed, I soon
found that some of these very headings had occasioned the greatest
dissatisfaction. If the new list was to be acceptable to any
considerable number of those who had taken sufficient interest in the
subject to answer Miss Crawford's questions, I must endeavor to get
closer to the point of view of the users of the catalog, rather than be
governed by theory or established precedent.
The Library of Congress headings are admittedly devised to meet
conditions in the Library of Congress,--certainly very different
conditions from those of a public library. Moreover, the Library of
Congress headings have been, and still are, in a state of development.
Many changes have been made in the last dozen years, and as it is
plainly impracticable to reprint immediately all cards bearing a
discarded heading, libraries purchasing cards printed several years ago
will often find headings suggested that are no longer in use by the
Library of Congress. Sometimes cards for two editions of the same book
bear altogether different headings.
The varying headings adopted by the departmental libraries, whose cards
are printed and issued by the Library of Congress, cause still further
apparent inconsistency. We cannot be sure that any particular heading
was ever approved by the Library of Congress unless the card bears the
Library of Congress serial number. The Department of Education, for
example, uses Secondary education and Art education, while the Library
of Congress uses Education, Secondary, and Art--Study and teaching.
The Department of Agriculture has adopted Botany, Agricultural; Fruit
and fruit trees; and U. S.--Forestry; while the Library of Congress
enters the same material under Botany, Economic; Fruit culture; and
Forests and forestry--U. S. Such variations make it impossible for
any cataloger using the printed cards to follow blindly the headings
suggested thereon, and emphasize the fact that no list of headings can
be satisfactory to all kinds of libraries.
Most of the headings for the new A. L. A. list were decided upon before
the Library of Congress began to issue its printed lists. On comparing
the lists first received, I found cases where the Library of Congress
had changed its practice, and as each instalment was issued I made
changes in the manuscript already prepared, in order to bring the two
lists into closer agreement. Doubtless in the Library of Congress lists
yet to be issued there will be many headings different from those in
use five years ago, at the time the list which was my guide was copied
from the Library of Congress catalog.
Conformity in general to the Library of Congress headings was my aim,
and in most cases of doubt the usage of the Library of Congress, if
known, was the determining factor in the decision. But when, fortified
by the approval of such advisers as were available, including in
important cases the member of the Publishing Board who is now president
of the American Library Association, I was convinced that some other
form of entry would be more helpful to the users of a public library,
I adopted that form, even though inconsistent--as in the treatment of
English language,--or not altogether accurate--as in the substitution
of Corn and Rubber for Maize and India-rubber. I may add that in no
case did I decide in opposition to the majority of the members of the
advisory committee, though only a few specific headings were submitted
to them.
The list, being prepared for moderately large libraries, contains
many headings that may well be ignored by the smaller libraries.
Not only are most of the subdivisions unnecessary, but so also are
many distinctions which would result in separation of material that
might better be kept together if the entries are few, such as Charity
organization, Infants (Children being a sufficient entry), Soil
absorption, Soil moisture.
The list is not intended as a guide to be followed blindly, but to be
adapted to individual needs, by the exercise of common sense--perhaps
the most necessary part of a cataloger's equipment.
Consideration of cost and weight of the book necessitated limitation of
the scope. There was a strong plea for the inclusion of geographical
terms, at least in cases of disputed spelling. A list of such names
was prepared by Miss Crawford, with full references and definitions.
It was estimated that this list would add perhaps one hundred pages to
the book, and the Publishing Board did not feel that it was advisable
to include them. Very many headings that might be considered as falling
within the scope of the book were omitted because their use would be
infrequent, and it was thought better that the occasional cataloger
should write these headings on the blank pages, rather than that all
should be required to pay for an unnecessarily long and correspondingly
heavy list.
Just a word in regard to the actual amount of material in the book. The
statement of the Publishing Board that the third edition contains about
three times the material in the second edition has been questioned
on the score that the new edition is printed on one side of the leaf
only. It should be remembered, however, that only the printed pages are
numbered, so that the list of headings in the third edition occupies
397 pages, double column, while the second edition contained but 193
half pages and 12 full pages. That is, the printed matter in the third
edition occupies nearly four times the space filled in the second
edition. Moreover, the type is smaller, so that the new page contains
twelve lines more than the old one. Therefore, allowing for the blank
space occasioned by the disparity of the lists of "See also" and "Refer
from" references, it is believed that the estimate of three times the
material of the second edition is conservative.
The subject was continued in a paper by Miss MARY W. MACNAIR, of the
Library of Congress on
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LIST OF SUBJECT HEADINGS
The list of subject headings issued by the Library of Congress is used
also, for reference and comparison, by many other libraries throughout
the country. It has been suggested that a statement in regard to the
purpose, scope, and manner of printing of the list, might be useful to
the librarians receiving it, and possibly valuable as well to others
who are interested in the undertaking, and who may be, to some extent,
unfamiliar with the Library of Congress catalog.
The printing of the list of subject headings was begun in the summer
of 1909. Up to that time, the second edition of the A. L. A. subject
headings had been used as a basis for the subjects assigned in the
Library of Congress catalog. But so many additions and alterations had
been made in our interleaved copies of the A. L. A. list, that the need
of an entirely new list of headings began to be urgently felt, although
the difficulty had been partially obviated by the printing of lists of
additions to the old A. L. A. list, for distribution to the catalogers
at the Library of Congress. At this date the third edition of the A.
L. A. list was already in preparation, yet it was considered wiser
to print a list of the Library of Congress headings, rather than to
co-operate in the A. L. A. undertaking, as the headings needed in our
catalog differed to such an extent from those required for the average
public library.
The distribution of the list to other libraries was not, at first,
contemplated. The printing of the subject headings was undertaken to
facilitate the work of the catalogers in the Library of Congress,
and it was believed that, if supplied to other libraries in its
preliminary form, the list would give rise to many queries in regard
to unavoidable omissions and inconsistencies. It had not progressed
far, however, before many libraries intimated that it would be useful
to them to receive the letters as they were issued, and when requests
became too urgent for refusal, it was decided to supply copies at a
price insuring that only those libraries should order them which had
serious use for them. It was considered that 50 copies for distribution
outside the Library of Congress would surely be sufficient, but it
turned out that the estimate was too small, and, in consequence, there
has had to be much reprinting of the early letters of the alphabet. The
edition of the letter P, just issued, was 500 copies.
The scope of the list of headings is largely inclusive in its
character, covering subjects in all branches of knowledge as far as
they have been adopted in the Library of Congress catalog. The names
of persons and places are, however, omitted, also names of societies,
institutions, and bodies of various kinds, names of treaties and
conventions, and systematic names of genera and species in botany and
zoology.
The classes theology, and military and naval science are only partially
represented in the list, as these sections are not yet re-cataloged.
The classes language, literature, and philology, which are now in
the process of recataloging, are more fully, but not yet wholly,
represented. In the earlier letters of the alphabet, few headings in
law were introduced (as it has only been during the past few months
that the law headings have been systematically considered), but they
are now included in the list, and many of those omitted in the earlier
letters are being entered in the lists of additions to the subject
headings issued in connection with the main list.
We include in the list the more important subdivisions under a subject.
These subdivisions are printed in italics, and separated from the
main subject by a dash. One point to which I would especially call
the attention of librarians using the list is that ordinarily only
those subdivisions are printed under a subject which are distinctive,
or peculiar to that subject. General form subdivisions, such as
Directories, Periodicals, Societies, etc., which may properly be used
under any subject requiring them, are, as a rule, omitted from the
list. (A list of these form subdivisions can be found on p. 19 of the
"Preliminary list of subject subdivisions," issued by the library in
1910.) Under names of countries only the history subdivisions are
included.
Turning now from the consideration of the subdivisions, a few words may
be useful in regard to the cross-references from subject headings to
related subjects. In general, it may be said that references are made
from the more inclusive to the smaller subjects, and not ordinarily
back from smaller to larger. We should refer from Grain to Maize and
Rye, but not from Maize and Rye back again to Grain. Where practicable,
references are made from the most inclusive to somewhat more limited
subjects, and from these latter to subjects still more specific, rather
than from the inclusive to the specific subjects. We refer from Art
to Engraving, from Engraving to Stipple-engraving, not directly from
Art to Stipple-engraving. These general principles have been departed
from where it has seemed expedient, the desire being to render the list
useful and practical, rather than to make it adhere too strictly to
rigid rules of procedure.
The seeming incompleteness of references from many subjects, references
which obviously are needed to round out the various aspects of subjects
is due to the fact that certain headings are not as yet introduced in
the Library of Congress catalog. We have been very conservative about
introducing new headings until called for by the books in hand, judging
that the headings should be made to conform to the literature, rather
than the literature to the headings.
The printing of a subject in antique type indicates that, in the
library catalog, the subject has country subdivision, as in Education,
Labor and laboring classes, Insurance, etc. It may be helpful to add
here that the country is subordinated to the subject in our catalog,
when it seems desirable to keep the material on a topic together,
rather than to distribute it under the country headings. This includes
many subjects in technology, science, art, and the social sciences.
The numbers which follow the subject headings indicate where the
material dealing with those subjects is classified in the Library of
Congress. The explanatory words following these numbers serve merely
to guide those interested in the classification scheme. They are in
different form from the subject headings, and should not be confused
with them. In the matter of hyphens, the Century dictionary has been
used as an authority.
At the present time the list of headings has been completed through the
letter P. Q and R are now ready for the press, and will probably be
issued in the course of a few weeks. The editor of the list sometimes
feels it to be a cause for gratitude that the English alphabet is
composed of only 26 letters. Should it contain as many letters as some
other alphabets, the Sanskrit for example, the day of completion of the
list might indeed be far away.
A few words in regard to the printing of the lists known as "Additions
and corrections" will, I think, be needed for a full understanding of
the subject headings. I have already spoken of the lists of additions
issued in connection with the old A. L. A. list, before the Library
of Congress list of headings began to be printed. When letter A of
our new list was ready for press, there had been four of these lists
issued, the additions being cumulated in each successive number. The
corrections in the lists appeared but once, and were carried over by
the catalogers to copies of the A. L. A. list. The headings in these
early supplementary lists have, of course, been incorporated in the
Library of Congress list, as far as the letters have been printed.
Even after the new list was begun, it was found impossible to dispense
with the "Additions and corrections" lists, as the library catalog grew
and expanded. We have continued to issue them from time to time, as
occasion has demanded, and have included in them new headings in the
section of the alphabet not yet printed, as well as additions to the
letters which have already appeared in print.
Each "Additions and corrections" list is cumulative, as far as the
additions are concerned, so that a library possessing the main list and
the latest supplementary list has a complete record of all the Library
of Congress headings which have been printed. As was the case in the
lists supplementary to the A. L. A. headings, the corrections noted
appear but once, and should be carried over by catalogers to the main
list of subject headings.
The classification numbers, and cross references to related
subjects, known as the "See also" references, are not included in
the supplementary lists. Direct "See" references from one subject to
another, or from one form of name to another, are, however, usually
included, that the cataloger may avoid the pitfalls lurking for the
unwary.
Including the early supplementary lists, there have been, up to the
present time, eight lists of "Additions and corrections" issued, and
number 9 is ready for the press.
Having now touched upon some general features in regard to the issuing
of the list of subject headings, with its supplementary lists, I will
conclude with a word as to a later and fuller edition. The list now
being issued is a preliminary list, printed as manuscript, and, to some
extent, experimental in its nature. While it is being made as complete
and inclusive as present conditions seem to warrant, the intention
has been to reissue it later in book form, wider in its scope and
more inclusive in its references. Concerning the date of issue of the
fuller edition, should this desired consummation be brought about, it
is impossible at this time to make a statement. Probably it will be
best to wait until the remaining classes of books in the library are
reclassified and re-cataloged, before any definite decision as to date
is reached.
It has been suggested that the next edition of the list might be put
into loose-leaf form, with a view to keeping it to date by inserting
new leaves, when necessary, in place of old ones. Experiments may
be tried along this line, and the relative merits of the various
loose-leaf binders investigated. The advocate of this plan suggests
that the Linotype slugs be kept standing, and that once a month the
sheets on which changes have been made be reprinted, and distributed to
the catalogers at the Library of Congress, and to subscribers to the
list.
The subject matter of a later list would doubtless agree with the
present list in general features, but some minor changes might be found
to be desirable. One point to which our attention has been called is
the possible advantage of entering subjects in zoology and botany in
the plural form rather than in the singular, as most of them have been
entered in the present list. Another matter which merits consideration
is the substitution of subdivided headings for the inverted forms now
in use in certain classes of subjects, as in the headings Oxygen,
Physiological effect of, and Man, Origin of. Some other questions to be
considered are as to whether it would be advisable to distinguish in
the list those subjects which are divided by country and then by city,
from the subjects which have direct local subdivision; whether certain
classes of headings now included could be advantageously dispensed
with; and whether the main subdivisions of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms are a valuable feature of the list.
Doubtless other matters will suggest themselves for consideration as
time goes on, and we shall hope eventually to publish a list which
may commend itself as a valuable tool to library workers. Borrowing
the words of Mr. Charles A. Cutter in the preface to his "Rules for a
dictionary catalogue" we may say with him: "It is to be expected that a
first attempt will be incomplete, and we shall be obliged to librarians
for criticisms, objections, or new problems, with or without solutions."
It had been hoped that Mr. J. C. M. Hanson would personally supplement
this paper by an informal account of the early practice and
experimentation of the Library of Congress. In his unavoidable absence,
brief extracts from a personal letter were read by Miss Thompson,
who then called upon DR. E. C. RICHARDSON, librarian of Princeton
university, to open the discussion with some previously prepared notes
on
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF CATALOGING
This discussion by the direction of proper authority is a discussion of
the alphabetic subject catalog as suggested by the A. L. A. and Library
of Congress subject heads. It is confined to general principles and
general principles, of course, always have exceptions. This discussion
is, however, free in considering these so far as it pleases.
Some of the fundamental principles may seem more like rules than
principles at first sight but it is believed that they are all well
principled. However, it is not pretended that they are all the
principles in sight; quite the contrary, there is quite a pocket-full
of these left each with the memorandum of some principle, big or
little, and there are but twenty-one here enumerated. This being a
discussion rather than a systematic paper properly refers to matters
of recent personal experience. Since the first page of the new subject
index contains subjects down to the name "Absolute," there has been
drawn a synopsis of all the subject headings used by the A. L. A.,
Library of Congress, Harvard, Sydney, Princeton and the indexes of the
Expansive Classification and Decimal Classification.
This will illustrate the variety of usages which have to be dealt with
in attempting to systematize this matter so as to get uniformity and
may be regarded as illustrations of the principles enumerated.
1. A catalog is a name list of concrete or specific objects as
distinguished from classes of objects; a list of plants in a botanical
garden, of mineral specimens in a museum or books in a library, but
a list of kinds of plants, minerals or books apart from concrete
specimens is not. In the case of books such a list is a bibliography.
The book catalog is a directory or guide book to certain concrete
books, the bibliography is a list of books in the abstract, applying
equally whether its books exist in one place or another, or even if
they no longer exist at all.
2. A library catalog is a directory or guide book to books for use.
The immediate object to publishers, new book dealers, book auctioneers
or antiquarians is sale, the object to the librarian is use. This
difference affects both the form of the catalog and the description of
the books.
3. Library catalogs in turn may be distinguished into catalogs for
the administration (which include chiefly accession catalog and the
shelf list) and those for direct use of readers (which include author,
subject, title, imprint, etc., catalogs)--the special use in every case
modifying the form of the catalog.
4. Catalogs for readers differ according to the two needs of readers
which the catalogs try to meet. These needs are (1) To find a given
book; (2) to find a book or group of books of a given character. It
is not quite exact to say under this second head, that the object is
to find information on a given subject or topic, for it may be that
the object is to find special forms such as incunabula or Venetian
imprints, association books, fiction, poetry, drama, essays, orations,
ballads, encyclopedias, dictionaries, periodicals, classes of rarities,
books on vellum, etc.
5. The prime object of a library catalog or directory to books for use
resolves itself into a matter of the economy of time and of attention.
Where there are only two or three books in a man's library there is
obviously little need of catalog. As soon as there are many the guide
book is needed. Whether, therefore, the catalog is author or subject,
the controlling thought in its making is the economy of attention of
the user.
6. The alphabetic order is on the whole the quickest reference order.
The economic solution for these two needs proves, therefore, to be, the
two alphabetical catalogs (1) the author and title catalog, (2) the
alphabetical subject catalog. Title catalogs and the like are simply
supplementary practical devices to aid inexperienced or forgetful
readers.
The author and title catalog is distinguished from the author and
catch-word catalog by the entry of anonymous titles under the first
word rather than under the most significant word.
6b. Following a natural evolution, the systematic library catalog and
the alphabetical classed catalog are practically extinct species,
overwhelmed in the struggle for existence by the alphabetical subject
catalog's quick and ready reference. This economy is, to be sure,
effected for the average use, at a very great expense to the use of a
good many readers who wish to consider all related aspects of a topic,
but with the growing habit of classification of libraries, there is in
fact a handy substitute, for these readers, in the classification, its
index, and the shelf list. The alphabet subject catalog has thus become
the recognized sole form of subject catalog for users in general.
7. The nature and origin of the alphabetical subject catalog is the
same as that of the alphabetical encyclopedia, the alphabetical index
to books and alphabetical index to a system of classification. Its
rules and applications may, therefore, be guided by experience and
practice in these three fields as well as direct experience in the
alphabetical subject catalog.
8. Habit being a chief factor in quick reference, it is important that
the name of the subject should be that of common usage. By this is not
meant necessarily the use of the common people, but the form generally
used in book indexes, encyclopaedias, and library classifications.
It is greatly to be desired that all encyclopedias, classifications,
indexes and alphabetical subject catalogs should use just the same
terms--the same form among synonyms, the same practice as to singular
or plural, adjectives or substantive entry.
9. At least the names of the subjects in the alphabetical subject
catalog should be identical with those of the alphabetical index to the
systematic catalog if there is any or the classification of its own
library.
10. Whatever names are used must be clearly defined. This is the
first principle of subject cataloging, whether the arrangement is
alphabetical or systematic, that the subject word shall be so clearly
defined that there is no mistaking what is to go under it. It is hard
to lay too much stress on this matter. It is the Alpha and Omega of
subject cataloging of every sort, besides which even uniform names and
the question of arrangement are quite secondary.
11. In choosing the names for classes, the most specific should be
used. This is a very important aid indeed to clear definition. The only
objection is the splitting of kindred subjects--the same idea which
leads to the alphabetical classed or systematic catalog.
Many cautions are issued warning against being too specific--some well
founded, but the danger lies almost wholly in the other direction.
There may be a limit but the principle is one of the clearest and most
important in the whole matter and even the encyclopedias--even the
Britannica itself--are getting further and further away from the old
Britannica type.
12. The names of subjects so far as they are identical with author
catalog entries should be determined by the same rules as in the author
catalog. This is another important aid to uniform names which should be
strictly insisted on.
13. The alphabetical subject catalog should have a classed index,
as the classed catalog or the shelf list must have an alphabetical
index. Note that the index to the new Britannica by its alphabetical
index recognizes itself as an alphabetical classed encyclopedia
rather than an alphabetical subject encyclopedia. Note also that it
has the systematic index--the idea which in the end must be applied
to every alphabetical subject catalog and which will be fully served
automatically if the names of the classification index are identical
with the subject headings and the class number attached to each of the
subject catalog headings.
14. Sub-headings and sub-sub-headings should be alphabetically
arranged. They should not be systematic or chronological.
15. Sub-headings should be chosen by the same rules and principles as
main headings and thus make a duplicate list. There may be practical
limits to this but principle is clear.
16. The arrangements of titles under main subject or sub-headings need
not be alphabetical. Much is to be said for the chronological order of
authorship or publication, but almost the only use for alphabetical
arrangement by authors under heading is a poor duplication of author
catalog use. It might be a real advantage to break the bad habit of
using subject catalog for author purposes and on the other hand, the
chronological arrangement of titles in the vast number of cases would
save turning all the cards as required in the alphabetical order.
Nevertheless the alphabetical is now the common method.
17. Complex books may be analyzed for the subject catalog. This is
the distinctive advantage of the subject catalog over the shelf list
that it can put different articles in the same volume or various
subjects involved in one title under all their effective headings. It
is obvious, however, that this principle must be limited--to apply in
a wooden way would involve all periodicals and essays, a rock on which
more than one attempt at subject cataloging has been wrecked.
18. The subject catalog should not be overloaded with references. The
principle of economy of attention requires this. Few things are more
aggravating in working under subjects than to have to finger over a
large number of irrelevant cards. Some of the remedies for this are
subdivision, the arrangement in chronological order of publication as
above suggested, limiting analysis by excluding all works analyzed in
accessible indexes and, where there is more than one edition of the
same work, indicating one only and referring to the author catalog for
the others.
19. The card should not be overloaded with details. The principle
of economy of attention involves reducing the amount of material
in a title to its lowest terms (whether on card or printed book) a
matter greatly helped by typographical distinctions or corresponding
distinction in the breaking of written lines, the location of certain
details on certain lines or certain fixed places on the card, the use
of red ink, underscoring, and similar details enabling the user to get
the essential facts as to the identity of the work and its location in
the building in the shortest possible time.
20. The indications on the cards of either catalog should be as brief
as may consist with clearness and so displayed on the card as to catch
the eye quickly.
21. Subject cataloging is a practical art, not a science. Names will be
changed from time to time and a part of the art is therefore to develop
a method of record on cards which shall cost the least possible effort
for making changes.
Dr. G. E. Wire, of Worcester, continued the discussion of subject
headings, with special reference to medical headings in the third
edition of the A. L. A. List of subject headings.
Dr. Wire said a lack of knowledge of medical and surgical terms had led
the compilers of nearly all the library catalogs into using erroneous
headings, "Sees" and "See alsos" and that these errors had been
continued in the third edition of A. L. A. subject headings.
A cataloger of good preliminary education, with experience gained in
a large library, and with the opportunities to be found in a large
library, college, reference or circulating, of consulting books, or
people or both, can in time produce a fairly logical system of "Sees
alsos" and "Sees," and subject headings in almost any subject except
medicine.
Among the changes suggested by Dr. Wire are the following:
=Abdomen.= The rational references and cross references are:
See also, Intestines, Viscera.
Cross reference should be simply Viscera.
=Anatomy.= Why refer to Glands and not to Liver, the biggest gland in
the body? Why to Chest and not to Lungs? Autopsy should not be referred
to; that reference should come from Pathology.
=Appendicitis.= This is a surgical disease and should be put under
Surgery, Practice of, instead of Medicine, Practice of.
=Contagion and contagious diseases.= Contagion and Infection seem to be
confused. We are referred from Infection to Contagion as if they were
synonymous terms.
=Homeopathy.= "See also Medicine" should be used for polemical
treatises only. These headings show a bias against Homeopathy which is
common in some classifications.
=Hygiene.= Has 54 "See alsos," most of which are fair but one-half of
them could be omitted to the bettering and clearing of the list.
=Hygiene, Public.= This is better on the whole than Hygiene (plain),
more consistent and logical in their references and cross references,
thus confirming our contention that it is from lack of medical and
surgical knowledge that these lapses occur.
=Medicine.= I should omit the following special headings, leaving only
the general: Allopathy; Anatomy; Anæsthetics; Antiseptics; Autopsy;
Bacteriology; Dentistry; Diagnosis; Histology; Homeopathy; Hospitals;
Inoculation; Narcotics; Pathology; Pharmacy; Physiology; Stimulants;
Surgery; Therapeutics; Vaccination.
From =Medicine, Practice of=, I should omit all the surgical headings
as follows: Appendicitis; Bones, Diseases; Cancer; Erysipelas; Eye,
Diseases and Defects; Obstetrics; Surgery; Tumors.
Dr. Wire recommended that a medical mind with suitable library training
should have been consulted about these headings before a final printing.
Miss Anna M. Monrad, of Yale university library, outlined the
principles and scheme of subject headings for philology and literature
applied in the catalog of Yale university library.
SECOND SESSION
(Friday, June 28, 8:15 p. m.)
The second session of the Catalog section was held in the ballroom of
the Chateau Laurier on the evening of Friday, June 28, Miss Thompson
presiding.
Mr. Keogh, Miss Van Valkenburgh and Miss Mann were appointed by the
chairman as nominating committee.
The first paper was by Miss ONO MARY IMHOFF of the Wisconsin
legislative reference library, on
CATALOGING IN LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE WORK
The state which studies the laws and experience of other states and
countries in order to bring to its own statute books the best features
of each, combined with the results of original work, confronts a
problem of no small dimensions. The mass of laws put forth by the
forty-eight states of this country is so overwhelming that it is
practically impossible for one man thoroughly to comprehend their
merits and disadvantages. The legislative reference library, therefore,
must be of service in helping to select that which is worthy of
imitation, at the same time discarding the impractical features.
The reasons for the success or failure of such laws, and the
differences in economic or local conditions in two communities must
always receive serious consideration by those who are endeavoring to
meet the advancing economic demands for properly constructed and better
laws. The comparative element of this vast accumulation of material
must always be remembered, not only in the care, but also in the
gathering of material, if the library is to serve its highest purpose.
Because of this and other well known characteristics of a library of
this type, the demands are of a peculiar nature and cannot be met by
the ordinary library material treated in the usual library method. It
is more or less of a quasi-library, requiring an adaptation of library
processes to a combination of office and library work. As a result
of this difference, the general library rules for cataloging must be
decidedly modified. One is justified in making the catalog of such a
library a law unto itself, for each and every one of its class has
its own particular problems, environment and limitations, which will
probably be met in its own particular way.
Since the problem becomes so largely one of individuality and
circumstances, it might be well to consider for a moment some of
the essential differences in purpose and treatment of material,
and to realize the desirable points to be attained as well as the
non-essentials, or things actually to be avoided.
The processes and methods of this kind of a library must in their
nature be conducive to rapidity and conciseness of service. Time
saving devices are unusually important, not only in the acquisition
of material and the actual technical work, but in the delivery of
material. The speedy availability of the most serious treatises on the
most profound subjects is absolutely necessary. Between sessions many,
many hours of the most earnest and serious efforts must be spent in
investigation, study and research in order to relieve the pressure of
heavy research work as much as possible during the session.
The library deals with business men who are seeking an answer to some
special need. They have a definite reason for seeking the information
and a definite point of view and they expect the library to answer
their questions in a business-like manner. Too much emphasis cannot
be placed upon _efficiency_ of service as shown through _rapidity_
of service. The legislator is a busy man and any time saved through
devices which quicken delivery of material, or shorten the time devoted
by the patron himself, is well worth while. If two hours is necessary
on the part of the library worker between sessions to put material
into such shape that it may be delivered ten minutes sooner during the
legislative session, it should be given cheerfully.
Condensations, digests, and briefs may be prepared during the interval
between sessions which will save hours of time during the actual high
pressure season of the session itself. Any sort of short-cut brought
about by analyticals, or any other devices known to the cataloger,
should be used. Shrewdness of judgment and a general discrimination as
to what is really valuable is not only highly desirable but absolutely
essential.
Since time is such an important element, it might be well to call
attention to the fact, that the legislative reference library may
be adequately maintained without many of the records which are
favored in libraries in general. Do away with as much "red tape" as
possible. Simplicity of material, simplicity in service, simplicity
in the whole department is to be commended above almost any other one
characteristic. Among those records which can be abandoned with perfect
propriety in such a department, are the accession book, gift book and
withdrawal book. So much of the material is ephemeral in its value that
the cost of maintenance outweighs the value received in actual results.
The serial list may be exceedingly simple. Records of the number of
books cataloged, or circulation statistics are of very doubtful value
in this work.
Since the loss of material is inevitably rather large, an inventory
is almost essential. However, material is easily replaced, much
of it is free and because of this fact, a biennial inventory will
prove satisfactory in most cases. There is no need of a complicated
charging system. In truth, establish no records of any kind within the
library until convinced that its efficiency will be hampered without
them. Emphasis is put upon this point, because of the fact that all
legislative reference departments have small appropriations in the
beginning, and it is during this early period that the library must
justify its existence by showing results in active service rather than
in catalogs and records. At first there are never enough assistants
to do both efficiently. Therefore, let the tendencies be toward those
things which will bring into evidence vital things rather than mere
good housekeeping.
It might be well to state that the term "catalog" will be used in the
broadest possible sense. The definition of the term as it will be used
in this paper, might be given as "a record of sources and of material,"
and not merely a record of material to be found upon the shelves of any
one library or institution.
The catalog should be kept as simple as possible in its essentials.
Conciseness of title, brevity of treatment, and above all clearness,
must always be borne in mind. Sacrifice library school rules if
necessary. Let there be no hesitation in enlarging or changing the
title if by so doing greater clearness is gained. It must be remembered
always that the catalog is made not for librarians with technical
knowledge, but for men whose use of it will be that of an untrained
student. Let it be such that your constituency may use it without
help. Be exceedingly generous with notes, never failing in the case of
bills to show whether such bills became laws or failed in passage. If
a bill became a law, give the citation. If reports or cases are known
by special names, be sure to note that fact. Let there be no ambiguity
either in title, subject or note. Annotations as to the substance
of material are also highly desirable, particularly when they show
whether a given article is favorable or antagonistic, or state the
reliability of the author concerned.
The material itself falls into three distinct classes which influence
the cataloging treatment; books, pamphlets, and clippings. The books
and pamphlets show comparatively little variation from regular
cataloging methods. Clippings in the Wisconsin legislative reference
department are mounted upon manila sheets, eight by ten, arranged
chronologically under classification number, marked with a book number
Z and treated as a single pamphlet. They have no author card, being
entered merely under the subject-heading necessary, with the author
line left blank. This procedure is convenient in some other cases,
such as certain extracts from the Congressional record, containing
discussions in which various members take part and where it is
difficult to enter under any individual or even joint authors.
Since the author phase of the catalog is of less interest than the
subject phase which acquires unusual importance, secondary cards may
be very largely omitted. Joint author cards are really of very little
service. Series and title cards are the exception rather than the rule.
Whenever possible it is advisable to make continuation cards instead
of entering new compilations or new editions on separate cards. In the
case of continuation cards, it is advisable to choose a brief title
and pay no attention to such variations as may be given in different
editions. For instance, a 1907 compilation of state tax laws might be
entitled, "Laws relating to assessment and taxation," and the 1909
one simply "Taxation laws," and the 1911 one "Revenue and taxation
laws." These may all be entered upon one card under the simple title,
"Tax laws," and the three volumes added as continuations. In short,
do not attempt to show the exact detail by means of cataloging, such
as is advisable in public libraries. What your patron wishes to know
is whether you have the tax laws of that state and what is the date
of their compilation. These are the facts which interest him and the
number of pages or the particular form of the title, is of absolutely
no value to him. This is a good example of that freedom in condensation
and changing of titles which is somewhat heretical in its nature, but
which after all leads to that saving of time and patience which is so
necessary. Use only such imprint as is absolutely essential; omitting
on the whole, illustrations, maps, portraits, and plates. In cases of
excerpts from periodicals the name of the magazine with the date of
that particular issue is usually deemed sufficient.
Because the ordinary patron of the legislative reference library is
unfamiliar with library methods, it has been found convenient to file
"see also" cards at the beginning of the subjects rather than at the
end. For this same reason, the guide cards should be much more numerous
than in other libraries, and it is of great advantage to have the main
headings brought out upon thirds with the subdivisions of these main
headings on fifths of a different color. Blue and manila form a good
color contrast for such a scheme.
As has been said before, the comparative feature of this work is one
which is worthy of special consideration. Its value can scarcely be
over-estimated. The efficiency of the library can be greatly increased
by a constant lookout for such material. Every book, pamphlet or
clipping, passing through the hands of the cataloger must be most
carefully reviewed, not only for its general material, but for
any comparative statement which shows either conditions, laws, or
tendencies in two or more communities, states, or countries. It may
take form as a tabulated statement, a chapter, a paragraph, or even
a mere foot-note, but at some future time it may serve as a starting
point for an investigation, or give instantaneous help in the question
as to "what states or countries have laws similar to this." The
advisability of listing such comparative material in a separate catalog
must be determined by each library. When it is buried in the regular
catalog it requires much longer to answer such questions than when kept
in a separate file. If made into a catalog by itself, there should
always be a note showing exactly what states or countries are included
in the comparison and the dates covered by such material. In other
words the comparative entry must be justified either by the title or
a note showing that it really is a comparison. Probably two-thirds of
such material is analytical in character.
The question of analyticals will be greatly influenced by the subject
matter under consideration. Upon certain subjects there are practically
no book treatises, and most of the material will be found in the form
of analyticals. The amount to be analyzed, the choice of form and the
relative value of the material concerned must be determined by shrewd
judgment on the part of the cataloger. The entire library will be
greatly enhanced by a careful selection of analyticals, but the bulk of
the catalog must not be increased unless with good reason.
The percentage of analyticals will be in most cases much higher than
in the ordinary library, because so often a few pages are worthy of
special notice on account of their comparative nature, the particular
view point of the author, or sometimes merely because of the scarcity
of material on that subject. As to the cataloging form for analyticals,
there is no reason why it should not follow the general rules of the
library as a whole. My own preference is for the long form, because
oftentimes the short form is not perfectly clear to the legislator.
Although advocating simplicity, as a general thing, it should not
require clearness to be sacrificed at any time. There is room for
discussion on this point and there is difference of opinion, but my
conclusion in the matter has been reached after some experimentation.
A little more work on the part of the librarian is preferable to the
slightest bit of doubt on the part of the legislator.
Since legislators are investigating specific problems, looking at them
from a single point of view, and not always considering a subject in
its broadest sense or in its relationship to knowledge in general,
the question of subject headings, outside of classification, becomes
practically the most important single proposition the cataloger has
to consider. In practically every case the popular rather than the
technical form of heading is desirable. The simple ordinary term should
be chosen, for it is under this type of heading that your reader
will be most certain to look. In his haste and absorption he fails
to realize that there is any possible viewpoint, other than his own.
Having but one thought in his mind, he naturally expects to find his
material under this subject. Most certainly he should find at least a
cross reference. Therefore, one recommendation is to be exceedingly
generous in the matter of cross references. Under such conditions it is
always wiser not to trust one's own judgment, but to call upon various
people asking under what heading they would look for material of a
certain type. In this way the cataloger may secure suggestions which
are unusually helpful and which put into the catalog the ideas of many
persons rather than of one.
For instance, a book or pamphlet relating to the extortion practiced by
usurers would be found under a heading such as "Interest" or "Usury."
However, there are various other headings under which individuals might
expect to find material of this kind, depending upon the particular
phase of the question which he had in mind at the time. A busy man,
wishing to draft a bill putting the loan shark under control, would
be thinking of a loan shark and not of the underlying principle of
interest. Another man approaching the question through interest in the
installment plan would expect to find material of use to him under
that subject. Another man taking a broader view of the subject might
look under "Interest." Each of these men would be justified in looking
under the particular subject he had in mind, expecting to find either
the material or a reference sending him to the chosen heading. Every
possible heading which suggests itself is worthy of consideration,
for such an investment of time will more than pay for itself in the
satisfaction it brings to those who use the catalog. The necessity for
painstaking effort and careful thought in this connection is verified
by experience.
Special and local names may well be noted on all main cards and cross
references made in every case from such forms. For instance, the law
governing the sale of stocks recently passed in Kansas, which is
popularly known as the "Blue sky law" should be noted as such in the
catalog. The "Mary Ann" bill may be called for by that name and if
there is no cross reference in the catalog the untrained assistant in
the library, or the stenographer, will never find it. The mechanical
part of the catalog should be so complete that it does not require
acquaintance with all phases of the subject in order that a person may
use it intelligently. Therefore, special and local names inevitably
need attention.
The contents of a legislative reference library are largely of either
an economic or a legal nature, and its patrons sometimes approach the
material from the legal side and sometimes from the economic side.
In assigning subject headings this fact must never be forgotten.
Consequently, the headings will sometimes take a legal turn and
sometimes an economic turn. At times it is necessary to compromise and
choose one halfway between the two.
Let us consider for a moment the relationship of the economic and
the legal material. Justice Holmes, in his book on the "Common law,"
expresses this relationship unusually well. He says in substance that
the growth of the law is legislative; it is legislative in its grounds;
that the secret root from which law draws all the juices of life is
consideration of what is expedient for the community.
The economic necessity for law precedes the legal expression. The need
for a statute is felt long before it is formulated. This is readily
recognized by political economists and lawyers. Judge Dicey, in his
book entitled, "Law and opinion in England," (Lond. 1905, p. 367) says:
"A statute * * * is apt to reproduce the public opinion, not so much of
today as of yesterday." Since a legislative reference library is busied
with the process of law-making, rather than with the administration or
interpretation of law, the trend will be toward the economic headings
rather than the legal. The tendency of law is to crystallize, and
subjects legal in aspect are likely to be complete in themselves, and
therefore less amenable to library purposes. As an example, a subject
heading such as "Eminent domain" is legal in its nature. This will be
used in the main body of the catalog without a doubt. It may have cross
references of both a legal and an economic nature. At the same time
"Eminent domain" may be used as a subdivision of economic headings,
such as "Railroads," "Street railways," "Telegraphs," and "Telephones."
This shows how the legal aspect of an economic question may be brought
directly in touch with the economic phase of the question. Another
example is "Liquor problem;" as it is used in the subject headings, it
is an economic question, yet we use the subdivision "Illegal traffic"
which includes purely a legal phase. "Discrimination," a legal term,
will cross refer to some specific form under an economic heading such
as "Railroads--Rebates." It is often necessary to refer from some
rather popular headings to legal forms, such as "Funeral expenses, see
Estates of deceased persons." Again it may be necessary to mix the two
with a heading such as "Ethics--Business and professional," with cross
references from legal headings, such as "Professional ethics," "Legal
ethics," "Medical ethics," etc. The general conclusion reached is that
there is likely to be either subdivisions or cross references back and
forth from any type of heading to any other type, with one exception,
namely, an economic subdivision of a legal heading. In our experience
in Wisconsin, we have not found this combination of headings either
necessary or advantageous. This fact but emphasizes what has already
been said, that law once established, becomes permanent and fixed in
character.
Geographical divisions as main headings should be used sparingly,
but geographical subdivisions of subjects are very helpful. Primary
election laws, road laws, tax laws, will all be more available if
divided by states, not only in the classification, but in the subject
heading. If clearness or rapidity of service demand subdivisions, they
should be made, even though there be few cards under each subdivision.
Many helpful suggestions for subject headings and cross references may
be obtained from law indexes, law encyclopedias, and the New York index
of legislation.
Not only is it necessary for the cataloger to know the material which
is in the library itself, but if efficient work is to be accomplished
it is decidedly necessary that material not within the four walls
should be made available. Let all kinds of knowledge be at the
cataloger's command, and make the mechanical devices carry as much
of this burden as possible. First of all, material which is in town
but which is not contained within your own library, should be noted.
Statutes and session laws of all the states should be obtainable
though not necessarily a part of the library itself. If a state or
law library is near at hand, it is far better to rely upon them as a
source of reference than to duplicate such a collection on your own
shelves. Articles in law magazines, reports large in bulk, but issued
only occasionally, may be noted, when not placed upon the shelves. In
Wisconsin we make a distinction between material in existence within
the city and that which is in existence elsewhere, such as in the
Library of Congress, the John Crerar library, or nearby institutions.
A manila catalog card tells us that the material may be found outside
of the city, whereas by stamping the name of the library in the place
of the call number on a white card, we indicate that the material is in
town. Subject entries only are made for material of this sort.
There are many indexes already in existence which will supplement the
catalog and call to the attention of the worker available material.
One of the most valuable sources of all is found in the experts of the
neighborhood. The librarian is too prone to think that all the most
useful knowledge is in books or printed form. Some of the best help
imaginable can be obtained from men. Every community has within its
borders specialists of various types; men who have given their lifetime
to the study of some particular question. Make such individuals a
portion of the catalog; use them as sources. The telephone is at your
command and oftentimes more valuable information can be obtained from
some person within telephone call than can be gotten from hours of work
with shelf material.
Furthermore, do not limit yourself to the talented man within the
community, but use the expert wherever he may be found. Correspondence
will often bring information to your door; mount the letters; put them
with the clippings or catalog them separately; in case of urgency,
telegraph. In fact, have some of the appropriation deliberately set
aside for supplementing the catalog by telegrams.
A record of sources, arranged both by places and subjects is of
service. Under your subject list enter the names and addresses of those
who are specialists. Experts throughout the country will thus be at
your command. In the geographical list, put the names of parties to
whom you may apply for material relating to a given community. Suppose
for instance, that your state is contemplating a Workmen's compensation
law and some state where there is no legislative reference department
is also considering the matter. This state passes a law on Tuesday, and
on Saturday the bill of your own state is coming up for consideration.
You need exact information as to which bill is passed, whether it
passed with or without amendments; in fact, you must have immediate and
full knowledge concerning that law. You may have within your mind some
possible source, but during the stress and pressure of the legislative
session such a list relieves one of the necessity of remembrance.
The catalog, through its mechanical devices, can carry this burden. The
catalog is not merely a record of sources within the four walls, but
must endure as a record of all possible available sources, so that time
and energy given to "the living part" of the catalog, is well expended.
In addition to the sources already mentioned, there are numerous
other possible indexes of value. When the bills are available in
printed form, a subject index indicating the final disposition of a
bill--whether killed, passed or vetoed--is of inestimable use. Such
indexes for the general laws and the local and temporary laws are
advantageous. A comparative index, apart from the regular catalog,
already noticed, may be mentioned again in this connection. An
index of the documents of the state is also a valuable asset, since
the publications of most states are rather poorly indexed and have
practically no centralized list of subjects. The decisions of the
attorney-generals quite often are of as much importance in law
conclusions as are the decisions of the courts. They have virtually
either vitalized or invalidated laws upon the statute books. In states
where statute revisions are rather infrequent, statute indexes may be
necessary. These indexes should be made supplementary to the regular
catalog. Some of them may be carried along as side issues at the same
time as the regular work, and others may be taken up in their entirety
to be accomplished as time permits.
Since the importance and value of such a library depends, not upon the
quantity, but upon the quality and efficiency of the collection, the
disposition of material which has become historical in its nature comes
prominently into the foreground. Unless there is constant supervision
and reduction, there is an unnecessary and useless accumulation.
The working library will never be a large one. After a state policy
relating to a given question is established, the library should, within
a reasonable time, dispose of the larger portion of the collection on
that subject. Its present usefulness from the legislator's standpoint
is over. Its future value is as a historical contribution. As a result,
there will be continual withdrawals as well as continual acquisitions.
After all, that which makes library work so stimulating and so
interesting is the human element. The progress which one may make
in its mechanical side, the service of all its books and pamphlets,
the importance and the value of the material, depend primarily upon
the human side of it. The mere fact that the scholar, as well as the
man with a hobby, the student along with the crank, the conservative
together with the radical, the theoretical and the practical man, are
all brought together in a common place, shows that the mechanical is
truly the lesser value in this field of work. However, it is in the
making of a more perfect apparatus, in the saving of time and energy,
in the additions to its efficiency, that the cataloger receives his
reward. The possibilities of this work are so far reaching, that every
reasonable device or idea is at least worthy of trial so that there
may be every possible advancement in every practical direction. It
is a new work and there are few guide posts. We cannot accept other
experiences unquestionably. What are virtues in another library may
be vices in the legislative reference work. What we most need is a
safe and sane balance of judgment, quickness of perception, a sense
of foresight, combined with all the special knowledge possible, great
discrimination, initiative and the ability to meet any situation, and
above all, the disposition to test every new conception or suggestion
which may lead to development; in fact, the more of these virtues which
the cataloger may possess, the more efficient will be the result, not
only in the catalog itself, but in the net results shown by the work in
its entirety.
In the discussion following the paper, Mr. W. H. Hatton, chairman
of the Wisconsin free library commission, spoke of the importance
of knowing not merely books but men and making a wise use of
correspondence.
Next on the program was Mr. A. G. S. JOSEPHSON'S query
WHAT IS CATALOGING?
In raising this question I am not concerned with the principles of
cataloging, with the difference between cataloging and bibliography,
or any problem of that kind. My problem is the much more practical:
What part of the work of a library staff is meant when cataloging is
spoken of in an annual report? What does it mean when a librarian
states that a certain number of assistants have during a certain period
cataloged a certain number of books? And, bringing the matter down to
a particularly practical point, what does he mean when he says that
it costs a certain sum of money to catalog a book? I am not going to
answer the question, I want it answered. I don't want it answered
right off. I would like to see this section go after the problem and
bring in the answer. In a word, I suggest that this section appoint
a committee for the purpose of investigating the method and cost of
cataloging in a number of representative libraries. I would not be much
concerned for the present with the methods of the small public and
college libraries, but only with such libraries as may be said to have
a special cataloging force; and I would not extend the inquiry to more
than a score of libraries at the most.
The following draft of a questionnaire will show succinctly enough what
I have in mind:
1. How many persons between the grades of head of department and
clerical attendants are connected with your cataloging force? In
how many grades are these divided?
2. How many of these are occupied with the actual writing of the
titles?
3. How many persons of the grades of clerical attendants and pages
are occupied with copying of cards, typewriting headings, filing
and other such more mechanical work?
4. Are any persons of a higher grade than clerical attendant doing
any of the above kinds of work, and why?
5. Are those of your assistants who write the titles occupied
with this all day, or do they change regularly to some other
kind of work? If the latter, is such other work treated merely
as relief from the drudgery of title writing, or does it occupy
a considerable part of the assistants' time? Or, are a certain
number of days a week devoted to cataloging (i.e. title writing)
all the time, and other days given up to other kinds of work?
6. Are the following items, or any of them, determined by the
assistants who write the titles, or by superior members of the
staff:
(a) general form and completeness of entry;
(b) author heading and added author headings and cross references;
(c) collation;
(d) subject headings;
(e) classification.
7. What is the average salary of the members of your cataloging
force?
There may likely be other questions to be included; some of the above
questions may be made more detailed or given a different formulation or
bearing. I believe that an inquiry of this kind, if carried out as it
should be done, would do much to show us where changes in our methods
might be introduced, to the increased efficiency of the cataloging
force and to the benefit of its members.
The ensuing discussion, participated in by C. B. Roden, W. S. Merrill,
C. W. Andrews and others resulted in the adoption, on motion of Mr.
Roden, of the following resolution:
=RESOLVED=, that the executive board be asked to appoint a
committee to investigate the cost and methods of cataloging in
accordance with the suggestions in Mr. Josephson's paper.
A report on uniformity in cataloging rules, made by Miss Helen Turvill,
instructor in cataloging in the Wisconsin library school, as chairman
of a committee appointed at the January, 1912, meeting of the library
schools instructors, was presented by Miss Mary E. Hazeltine.
In connection with this report, Miss Hazeltine submitted for inspection
a double file of printed rules on cards embodying the present usage
of the Wisconsin library school, which it was hoped might serve as a
basis for the further work of the committee. One file was arranged
numerically as given to the students for class work; the other,
alphabetically under topical guides, as the students would have them
filed with illustrative sample cards, at the end of the course.[7]
[7] These card rules may be obtained of the Democrat Printing Company,
Madison, Wis., $2.50 per set.
The report itself, which was merely one of progress, to be completed at
the midwinter meeting, was accompanied by a request for discussion at
Ottawa and a list of points on which an expression of the preference of
librarians was desired.
=Points for Discussion=
Call number--Position.
Heading--Second line indention.
Date.
Figures--When to be written out.
Edition--Spacing.
Omissions to be indicated.
Supplied information to be bracketed?
Collation
To include paging?
Author abbreviation--
Women's names.
Title card.
Imprint?
Initial article in curves.
Author's name.
Spacing after initials.
Spacing between name and titles.
Added entry cards.
Form of date.
Contents.
Form.
Punctuation.
Cross reference.
Form.
Joint author.
Analytic.
Form.
Position of paging.
Added edition.
Miss Gooch and Miss Van Valkenburgh, members of the committee, spoke in
explanation of its purpose and scope.
Mr. Merrill said that as editor of the A. L. A. periodical cards he was
glad to learn that a committee was working to secure greater uniformity
in catalog entries.
Among the libraries contributing the copy for the periodical card
work of the Publishing board, there is still variation in the mode of
entering authors' names: sometimes date of birth is given and sometimes
it is omitted; names unused by a writer are looked up and entered upon
the card by one library and disregarded by another library; periods
after initials are used or omitted; names of joint authors are both
given in the heading by one library and only first name is given by
another, while there is even diversity about filling out initials of
the second author's name.
These divergencies are not only theoretically inconsistent but
practically inconvenient, because the printed cards do not conform
entirely to the practice of any library. Mr. Merrill said he hoped that
agreement upon these points might soon be reached.
The question of methods of bringing the matter to the attention of
librarians was informally discussed by Miss Margaret Mann, Miss Bessie
Goldberg, Miss Bessie Sargeant Smith, and others, but as the chairman,
Miss Thompson, pointed out, the report was but a partial one and not
from a committee of the Catalog section. Therefore no action was
required.
Owing to the lateness of the hour, further consideration of this
subject and also problems of arrangement in a dictionary catalog, which
was scheduled in the program, were referred to the incoming section
officers.
The nominating committee submitted this ticket: Chairman, Miss Harriet
B. Gooch, instructor in cataloging, Pratt institute school of library
science; secretary, Miss Margaret Sutherland Mackay, head cataloger,
McGill university.
They were unanimously elected and the meeting adjourned.
CHILDREN'S LIBRARIANS' SECTION
FIRST SESSION
(Friday afternoon, June 28th)
The first session was held at the Chateau Laurier Friday afternoon,
June 28th. The chairman, Miss Mary de Bure McCurdy, presided. The
general topic was "Work of special libraries with children."
MISS MARY S. SAXE, of the Westmount public library of Montreal, read a
paper on the subject.
WITH THE CHILDREN IN CANADA
Miss Saxe said they had in Westmount the only properly equipped
children's room in any library in the province of Quebec, and that
the only library work for children in Montreal was done by the McGill
university settlement workers in the slums of that city. The best
children's work in the province of Ontario is now done by the public
libraries of Toronto, Ottawa, London, Collingwood, Berlin, Sarnia and
Fort William. Among the smaller libraries the work done at Galt is
particularly worthy of mention, the quality being due, as is generally
the case, to the unselfish and enthusiastic work of the librarian. At
Winnipeg, although they have a handsome library building and a room set
apart for the children, activities seemed at a low ebb when the speaker
visited the library two years ago.
"The Church of England in Canada has done a good work up there within
the Arctic circle with its Sunday school libraries. The Indian children
and the half-breed children, of whom there are many, get all their
reading from this source.
"Away out on the Pacific coast, a missionary of this same church became
interested in the logging camps that he found among the islands of the
gulf of Georgia. He returned to the Bishops of Columbia, and of New
Westminster, stating that he must have a boat built, which would be a
church, and also an ambulatory library. It was a beautiful scheme--it
was also an expensive one. But those of you who care to read of its
development in a little book entitled "Western Canada" can do so, and
you will learn with delight how well the idea has worked out.
"In the past two years the library movement in Canada, especially in
the Northwest, has expanded rapidly. Regina has opened a new public
library within the past six weeks, and the work for children is to be
well looked after. Calgary, New Westminster, Vancouver, Victoria, all
tell the same tale of a long struggle in crowded quarters--and now new
buildings and splendid promise of good work. It is most unfortunate
for us in Canada, that our distances are so great, our ties have to be
mostly railway ties.
"In Westmount we opened the Children's room in January, 1911. We began
agitating the dire need of such a department fully seven years before
the reality came."
The paper on County work with children prepared by Miss ALICE GODDARD,
head of children's department, Washington County free library,
Hagerstown, Maryland, was read by Miss Gertrude Andrus in Miss
Goddard's absence.
COUNTY WORK WITH CHILDREN
My subject, as announced on the program is "County work with children."
In the first place let me say that there is little or nothing to be
said about county work with children that does not apply equally
to work with adults in the same community. The experience of the
Washington County free library of Hagerstown, Maryland, during eleven
years of rural work, has been that the books that go into the country
homes are read by old and young alike. The reason for this is not far
to seek; the children are going to school, for a few months of the
year, at least, and are receiving an education that was, in many cases,
denied the parents. Before the installation of our library, books,
other than an occasional religious periodical, perhaps, were an unknown
quantity in the average farm house, so that, even if the farmer or his
wife had acquired the reading habit as a child, it had lapsed, through
disuse. Consequently, when our books were first brought to the door
the same books appealed to both parents and children. One mother told
us, with tears in her eyes, that we could never know how she enjoyed
hearing the children read the books aloud, for neither she nor her
husband could read or write.
At a farmers' institute in Ohio, an enlightened farmer once remarked
that the three things that had done most for the amelioration of the
lot of the farmer's wife were, rural free delivery, rural telephones
and Butterick patterns, and to that trilogy we add rural free delivery
of books. How to reach the country children, is, of course, the problem
that confronts a county library. The methods of the Washington County
free library of Hagerstown, Md., are:
First--The children's room of the central library. This is a large,
pleasant room, on the second floor, where the usual activities of
any children's room are carried on. Two story hours a week are held,
Friday nights for the older children, and Saturday mornings for the
younger ones; many of our regular Saturday morning visitors are from
the outlying districts; there are three little boys who come "four
mile," as they express it, nearly every week to hear the stories, they
have been known to be led into the extravagance of spending even their
return fare on the train--such are the temptations of city life!--and
having to walk home. One very small boy who is with us almost every
Saturday is the son of a stage driver, his father brings him in, and
leaves him with us for the morning, he is known among us as "sonny,"
because of characteristics similar to those of Ruth McEnery Stuart's
hero.
Any child in the county, so soon as he can write his name, may "join
liberry," regardless of "race, or previous condition of servitude," a
phrase not without meaning still, in Maryland. The same privileges are
extended to all, town and country children alike, two books at a time,
with privilege of renewal. Country books may, of course, be renewed by
telephone or mail, and frequent cards come to "Dear teacher," or even
"Dear friend."
The teachers draw to a practically unlimited extent upon the
circulating collection, as well as from the school duplicates, of which
more a little later. So much for the work of the main library.
Second--Branches throughout the county. These are deposit stations,
placed in the country store, the post office, the toll gates or, in
some cases, in private houses, the boxes contain about fifty books, and
are returned every two or three months for a fresh supply. A custodian
is appointed who keeps track of the books by means of an alphabetized
blank book, the book slips being kept at the library, filed by the
Browne system, under the name of the station, Shady Bower, Black Rock,
etc.
Third--The Boonesboro Reading Room. This village began with a deposit
station, and became so interested that a permanent reading room was
established, maintained entirely by the village, except for the books,
which are supplied by the library; a permanent collection was given,
which is supplemented by an exchange every ten days. A fortnightly
story hour is carried on here; during the past two years it has become
necessary to divide the children into two groups, to the older ones the
same series of stories is told as to the older group at the library,
Norse myths, Iliad and Odyssey, and, this winter, Chaucer, Spencer
and Shakespeare. The latter author, by the way, meets with special
approbation among our country friends.
Fourth--Schools. The country schools, as well as those in town, are
visited, and collections are sent; with the books are sent pictures,
prints of the masterpieces, mounted, and annotated with sufficient
fullness to serve as a lesson outline, if the teachers wish to use them
so.
Fifth--The book wagon, or to be strictly accurate, one must now say
book automobile. About six years ago it was discovered that thirty
of the stations were off the line of railroad, trolley or stage, and
the question of transportation arose; for a year a horse and wagon
filled the need, going out simply for the purpose of carrying cases
back and forth. Then the book wagon was built, so constructed as to
carry several cases for deposit stations, and at the same time, some
two hundred books on its shelves; thus began our rural free delivery
of books, and the wagon, with its driver, Mr. Joshua Thomas, became
one of the features of the county, until about two years ago, when a
most unfortunate accident deprived us of both. A stray engine, coming
round a curve, struck and completely demolished the wagon; happily,
Mr. Thomas and the horses were across the track, the horses escaped
uninjured, and Mr. Thomas, though thrown out and stunned, sustained no
injuries other than the shock, which, at his age, was naturally very
great. Mr. Thomas has now retired from active labors, and the wagon has
been succeeded by an automobile.
Perhaps I can best give you an idea of the work of the wagon if you
will come with me, in spirit, for a typical day in the country. The
new car is constructed very much as the old wagon was, with room for
two passengers, besides the chauffeur, one member of the staff goes on
the trips now, for our chauffeur is a chauffeur only, nor is he the
picturesque figure Mr. Thomas was.
Let us choose a morning in spring, when red bud and dogwood are in
bloom, and the fruit trees are fluffy masses of pink and white clouds,
and the tender green of new life is showing on hill side and forest,
and the "hills of Maryland" stand out like lapis lazuli against a
turquoise sky. It is a fair country, and one can understand why the
early settlers tarried in this valley in their march westward, over
the very National Road that we shall drive over today; a road full
of historic meaning, a road that has seen the covered wagons of the
emigrant tide, that has resounded to the tread of advancing and
retreating armies, and that is now a thoroughfare for motor cars. We
see little, or no actual poverty, occasionally the down-at-the-heels
farm of a "poor white," but thrift and comfort are the rule.
We spin gaily along in our motor wagon, stopping at the farm houses
along the way; occasionally horses shy at us, and children stick their
fingers in their mouths and stare, for automobiles are still somewhat
of a novelty on cross roads and lanes, and country horses and children
are not so sophisticated as their city brethren. Sometimes we go a
mile or more off the main road, to reach one house; we are rewarded in
one such case, for we find a girl of sixteen, who has never read Miss
Alcott, and we leave her with Little Women in her arms. A swarm of
"sunbonnet babies" greets us here, too, and we find a picture book for
the older sister to read to them.
At one house we have some difficulty in enticing the farmer's wife
out to look at our wares. "He" is out on the farm, and there is not
much time for reading. We discover a boy of twelve or thirteen,
however, lurking in the background, with a dog at his heels, the dog
is a convenient topic of conversation, and Beautiful Joe happens to
be in the wagon. An inquiry as to the family elicits the information
that this boy is all, except an "orphant boy we took." After some
difficulty the "orphant boy" is brought forth from the recesses of the
barn, where, we strongly suspect, he has had an eye at a crack all the
time, and proves to be the regulation "bound boy" of Mary E. Wilkins,
tattered straw hat, patched overalls and all; he, too, has a fondness
for animals, and so we drive away, leaving boys and dog looking after
us, with Seton-Thompson as a companion.
One wide detour, up a hilly lane, brings us to a house, commanding a
wonderful view of hills and valleys, and the Potomac, a winding silver
thread in the distance. Here we find the mistress of the house, and
a girl of sixteen or eighteen, who "lives there;" they used to get
books from the old wagon, they tell us, and it has seemed a long time
since they had any. Accordingly, we bid them help themselves, and as
we are preparing to drive away, one of them, hugging a huge pile of
heterogeneous literature, says to the other, "Law, Bess, we'll fergit
to listen on the 'phone!" an unconscious tribute both to us and the
rural telephone system.
And now we find that the dinner hour has arrived; sometimes there is a
country hotel at hand, but more often we have dinner at some hospitable
farm house, which gives us a golden opportunity to make friends with
our people. It is noticeable that the conversation is confined almost
entirely to us women, the men attending strictly to the business in
hand; the women, however, make the most of an unusual event, and
between serving and conversation, it often seems to us as though their
own wants must be entirely forgotten.
There is a country school on our way, and we stop there to get the key
to a church a little farther on, where we are to pick up a case of
books; the temptation to a story teller is too great to be resisted,
the wagon goes on, to come back a little later, the two rooms are put
together, and I have the pleasure of telling "Johnny Cake" and "Seven
little kids" to children who have never heard them before. When the
wagon appears we suggest a picture, and a grand stampede follows, all
the school commissioners and truant officers on earth could not have
kept a child in that building--the charm of the Pied Piper was no
greater!
"And what do your country children read?" We are often asked, and we
like to reply, with considerable pride, that they read good books. When
the wagon is being loaded for a trip a large proportion of the books
is from the shelves of the children's room, and of the fiction fully
75% bears the mystic symbol "J," showing, as I have said, that the
same books are read by parents and children; war stories are always
in demand, particularly of the Civil War; Henty is a prime favorite,
and of the better Hentys, With Clive in India, Beric the Briton, for
instance, we duplicate quite freely. Novels of a religious character,
such as Ben Hur are popular, and Pilgrim's progress is always in demand.
And so our day slips by, and before we know it evening is upon us;
by four o'clock we see preparations for the night going on in the
barn yard. We go home, tired, but with depleted shelves, and the
consciousness of a good day's work. May there be many more to come,
and may each one of you fare forth with us one day, on some such happy
library adventure.
Mr. Henry E. Legler read a paper prepared by Miss JEAN McLEOD, house
librarian, Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago, on
AN EMPLOYEES' LIBRARY--ITS SCOPE AND ITS POSSIBILITIES
I have been advised that there is only one thing more ruinous to one's
reputation than an absent debut to the American Library Association
conference, and that is to inflict a maiden paper upon someone else to
read. But after absorbing some of Mr. Legler's courage and optimism,
I cannot refrain from treading upon this dangerous ground and setting
forth a few pet theories. I do not know that Sears, Roebuck & Company
needs an introduction or an explanation, but as the character, combined
with the magnitude of the house, is quite unique, and is such a vital
part of the library work, the foundation of this paper, as well as of
the work itself, must of necessity be predicated upon some knowledge of
the house machinery.
We are dealing with a mail order retail house, and this paper will
be based upon the central plant only. The existence of the outlying
factories, not only in Chicago but throughout the country, all under
the control of one corporation, opens up a new field in commercial
library work, which to my knowledge has never been touched.
The house handles everything--that does not mean the usual stock of
a department store, but everything that can be bought and sold. New
opportunities arise as your eye wanders down the list of the various
departments. Our house directory lists over 200 departments, including
jewelry, baby clothes, and farm implements. In fact, a home can be
furnished complete from parlor to stables.
Besides the merchandise, we have the various administration and
utility departments, which include press rooms, bindery, machine
shops, shipping rooms, employment department, restaurant, green house,
hospital, barber shop, chemical laboratory, etc. With this cosmopolitan
center, condensed under one management, there is no limit to library
possibilities. My experience so far has been that everything in print
can find a congenial resting place somewhere in the house.
The central plant occupies three square blocks, including five
buildings and a sixth in the process of construction. The largest of
these, the merchandise building, is nine stories high and two blocks
long, and is a condensed village in population and activity. The
library is located next to one of the most popular sections in this
building, the employees' and house sales department. In this section
employees are obliged to call for their personal purchases. This is an
added convenience and a time saving arrangement. The printing building,
administration building, power house and paint factory complete the
group of this seething little city, and make one wish that a branch
library might be established in every corner.
Our library is primarily a deposit branch of the Chicago public
library. We have about 1600 books on deposit, which give us a
circulation of about 4000 a month. In addition to that, our daily
express service gives us the resources of the main library stock, and
makes it possible to send individual cards with specific requests
through the station department. This is a great help in making out
lists on special topics, as 25 or 30 books on a subject may be
listed and drawn one after the other without further reference. Our
circulation for these books runs from between 75 to 100 a day.
In addition to our public library books, we have about a thousand
of our own. About 75 per cent. of this collection is light fiction
and juvenile books; that is, stories for both boys and girls of the
intermediate age. Books of this character are, of course, in the
greatest demand, and it is for the right kind of this material that we
are constantly searching. This supplementary collection of our own does
not in any way detract from our public library books, but rather serves
as added bait and leads to the better books of the public library, upon
whose resources we depend for our existence.
We subscribe for about 40 monthly and weekly periodicals, both
technical and popular. In addition to these, we have several shelves
of miscellaneous magazines, composed of month-old copies sent out from
the main library, as well as our own old copies, and donations from
the employees. All of these magazines we circulate. In fact, we are in
no sense a reading room, as the very nature of a busy 8-hour day and
45-minute lunch period will prove. Our charging tray and a few pieces
of furniture are the only things we refuse to let go to the homes or
departments.
In taking charge of the library last fall, I realized that there were
two distinct phases of the work: the commercial or economic, and the
social--the first to be established, the second to be developed--both
sides equally interesting and offering equal possibilities.
The commercial value must be established not only by becoming familiar
with the policy of the house, but by co-operating with the heads of
departments and making the library felt as a live agent throughout the
house.
Co-operation is best established by the reference work which can to a
large extent be created. For instance: One of the buyers in the supply
department is dealing with two agents for rubber bands. The contract
is a big one. There is much discussion as to which make of rubber
band will live the longer. In self-defence, the buyer telephones the
library for any information on rubber. Right here is the librarian's
chance to make or mar. Perhaps this buyer has no library card, but at
the eleventh hour has thought of the library as a last resource. There
is one sure way to cure him of ever using the library again, and to
persuade this time-pressed business man that the library is a plaything
done up in red tape, and that is to send word to him that he must come
personally to the library, sign an application, and wait for the book
according to our library law. He will probably decide to take a chance
on the merits of the rubber bands, and condemn the library as an agent
of too slow blood for his purposes.
The point is to get the information and to get it at once to the right
man. If we can find something on our own shelves, a boy is sent with
the book at once, even if he carries an encyclopaedia with him. If, as
often happens, we are not so fortunate, a signal of distress is sent
over the 'phone to the reference librarian at the main library, and
she sends out material on the next delivery. Not only does this apply
to the buyer of rubber bands, but to the chemist who wants material on
fabrics, textiles, and lubricating oils; to the manager of the grocery
department, on the blending of coffee; to the furniture buyer, on
cabinet making and period furniture; to the head of the agricultural
department on the silo and the traction engine; to the clerk in the
shipping department, on parcels post; to the girl in the correspondence
department, on punctuation; to the boy in the automobile repair shop,
on the gas engine; and so on indefinitely. A memorandum of these
requests makes a busy day for the weekly visit to the reference room
at the main library. Books of interest on each particular subject are
listed, even to government bulletins. We have even had intrusted to our
care material from the public document department, and Mr. Legler's
liberality has given us an economic value that will be the stepping
stone to a new work, and make the library a factor to be reckoned with
by the progressive commercial house.
In our library, as well as in any other, the reference work is not
confined to the books alone. The value of magazine material is an old
story, but its worth is self-evident in a progressive business house
whose aim is to anticipate future contingencies as well as to meet
present needs. Before discarding magazines, all the usable material is
appropriated and sent to the man or woman interested. Not only does
this apply to the man's business, but to his hobbies--a little article
for instance, on poultry raising or photographic chemistry will often
create public opinion very favorable to the library. So far we have not
kept a clipping file of these articles, but that is one of the next
steps that could be made quite an important feature.
To keep in touch with the buyers and department heads, the newest books
on subjects of special interest stimulate not only the men in charge,
who are always ready to respond to new ideas, but arouse new interest
among all employees and indirectly lead to promotion through more
efficient work. These books are sent right to the department, either
to be examined with a view to buying, or, if already purchased, to be
circulated in the department. We find that in this way we lose few if
any books and our time-honored statistics do not suffer.
And so in many little ways it is possible to creep into the commercial
life of an immense concern; to develop gradually from a convenience to
a necessity.
The social side of our work is perhaps a misnomer. At least, it is an
intangible sort of thing that has no name. Our reason for existence
is the same as for any other public library--that is, for the common
good. To do any grade of work other than simply handing the books over
the counter, it is necessary first of all to become familiar with the
personnel of our employees. We have about 8500 employees, and to become
personally acquainted with each is, of course, impossible. However, a
surprisingly large number can be reached on this footing, and the rest
is a question of time combined with a sane democratic attitude. We do
not want our people to feel that reform through the library is one of
the rules on the application blank, or that the librarian's stamp of
approval must go out with every book. Advice, so labeled, is never
given.
Of our 8500 employees, one-half are girls varying in education from
grammar school to college graduates. One-fifth of this number are
under 18 years of age. The work with this last group is intensely
interesting, and can be developed in many ways. We have, of course, the
usual problem, in trying to direct from Mary J. Holmes and Southworth
to a better grade of reading. However, we are not working in the dark
to the same extent as is the usual public library. Our girls are all
banded together with a common interest, and we are at once on the same
big plane. We have access to them at any time of the day. We are a
part of the thing most vital to them--their daily work and means of
support. They come to the library during the noon hour for a change of
scene and to see the other girls, as well as to exchange their books.
We give them books for their parties and books for their night school
classes. A girl is told by her employer that she will lose her position
unless she learns to use good English. In desperation, she comes to the
library, and we give her a book, yes, even three books, if she needs
them, to help her keep her position. Another girl must be transferred
to a less desirable position unless she can increase her vocabulary in
order to take dictation more intelligently. She is advised to come to
the library, and we are there to see that she gets the right books. The
next time she may come without being sent. The girls come to us to find
out when the lake boats begin their trips, as well as to find desirable
places in which to spend vacations. And so we welcome them each time
they come, regardless of what their errand may be, for we want them
to feel that the library is theirs, and is a convenience as well as a
pleasure.
The work with the girls is so varied, and is such a study in itself,
that I have only touched upon its possibilities. However, a book on the
subject would not cover the field, but lack of time and consideration
for your feelings will prevent further comment, and I will simply
outline just a few of the ways in which we try to reach the boys,
one-third of whom are under 21 years of age. Aside from the eternal
vigilance to blot out all Alger traces, we have many really interesting
phases of the work with the boys. We first of all can and do have
confidence in the boys. We can get necessary information as to their
home conditions, if we wish it. We have, in common with them, as with
the girls, their vital interest, the beginning of their career. The
influence that can be exerted over these young boys, many of whom are
leaving home for the first time, and are, so to speak, "men among
men," is tremendous. Often a wavering ambition can be reinforced and a
chance for "making good" saved by showing a little unasked interest.
We try to give the boys material for both work and play. We post lists
of books on the bulletin boards in various departments, and so call
attention to books on "choosing a career," or "business efficiency."
Then we make up lists on athletic sports, interest in which is
stimulated by our athletic association, whose membership includes both
boys and girls.
Many times a department is discovered where little or no interest is
taken in the library. We find that the boys and girls from there never
come to the library, and so we take the library to them. In every case
the managers are very anxious to co-operate and are willing to have us
send a small collection of light fiction to the time clerk's desk. She
circulates these as she wishes. So far, we have lost no books in this
way, and in every instance new borrowers have been the direct result.
Many of the boys have been obliged to leave school before entering high
school or even the upper grades, and in many ways we can supplement
their lack of school training--especially if we can discover a gleam of
interest in any one subject, such as mechanics, electricity or history.
All our work, our aims, and our possibilities are crystalized in our
Library Bulletin, a home product in every sense of the word. The
direct object of this little publication is to attract all ages and
all classes of our employees. It is sent to every department, and from
there distributed personally. We try to have in each issue a section to
appeal to popular demand, as well as to promote some special feature.
We hope to make this bulletin a strong factor in our work, a lever
that will gauge not only the circulation of our books, but will be the
connecting link between the library and the employees, and make it the
medium of a new energy and a new enthusiasm radiating from our small
quarters to every activity of the plant.
And so, in these few pages, I have tried to show that the commercial
house library, although in its infancy, has come to stay. And as the
pioneering becomes more and more an established fact in library work,
more commercial houses will recognize the need. They will be more than
ready to respond to the progressive public libraries, whose efforts
to expand and to bring their resources to the very centers of civic
activity will thus establish a more intelligent relationship and
efficient co-operation with their very means of support.
Miss Grace A. Whare, of the Houghton, Mich., public library, was
present at the meeting and asked the privilege of presenting a very
attractive exhibit of colored slides and illustrations which she
used in telling Miss Lagerlöf's Story of Nils. Each of twenty-six
illustrations depicted an adventure of Nils.
=Business Meeting=
The regular business meeting of the section was held at Chateau
Laurier, June 29th at 9:30 a. m. Miss McCurdy presided.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and adopted. The chairman
announced that the terms of two of the five members on the advisory
board had expired and that only one member was appointed at the
last meeting, instead of two. This raised the question as to the
advisability of having an advisory board since none of the other
sections had such boards. It was urged that an executive committee be
formed consisting of the three officers of the section and two other
members to be appointed by the chairman, and that all the members of
this executive committee be actually engaged in some phase of library
work with children. It was finally decided, however, to continue the
advisory board as heretofore and the chairman was requested to appoint
members to fill the vacancies. Mr. Hill and Miss Titcomb were appointed
to serve for three years each. The chairman appointed the following
committee on nomination for officers: Annie S. Cutter, Gertrude Andrus
and Adah Whitcomb. The meeting then adjourned.
SECOND SESSION
(Monday afternoon, July 1st)
The second session of the section was held July 1, at 2 o'clock. The
general subject was "Work with high schools." Mr. FRANK K. WALTER, vice
director of the N. Y. State library school, read a paper on
TEACHING LIBRARY USE IN NORMAL AND HIGH SCHOOLS
Within the past few years the literature of this subject has become
so copious that any original discussion of basic principle has become
nearly out of the question. The excuse for papers like this one, which
is mostly mere reiteration, lies in the fact that outside of library
circles the matter has not been very seriously considered in spite
of the constant repetition, and relatively few teachers have as yet
attempted to give definite instruction in the use of books.
It is one of the characteristics of the present that we are learning
the necessity of saving time and effort by doing better the things
we can already do passably well. To this end vocational schools and
vocational courses are being established everywhere. If the use of
the tools of the trades must be taught in the interests of greater
individual development and greater efficiency, there certainly is need
of teaching the efficient use of books which are the already recognized
tools of the professions and which are more and more coming to be
recognized as necessary supplements to the tools of the handicrafts.
So far, it must be admitted, the response on the part of teachers has
not been very general or very enthusiastic when courses of instruction
in the use of books are advocated. At first sight this may seem
strange. The primary purpose of both school and library is educational
and many of the principles on which each line of work is based are
equally familiar to teachers and to librarians. Let me instance but a
few.
1. Education is a continuous process, started but not concluded in
school. This is generally accepted and correspondence schools, study
clubs, and similar activities are recognitions of its truth.
2. The complexity of modern life is lengthening the period of formal
school instruction and the rapid rise of new industrial processes and
the social problems arising in consequence, make after-school reliance
on either past instruction or individual personal experience unsafe.
3. Education is not confined to books but books of the right kind are
the best single aid to education.
4. Modern methods of teaching demand the comparative use of books,
not reliance on a single text-book. Modern courses of study emphasize
this by their lists of references to material for the use of teacher
and pupil. In a pamphlet of 40 pages on "The high school course in
agriculture," issued by the University of Wisconsin, 17-1/2 pages
are devoted to references to suggested reading. Children now study a
subject, not a single text-book or series of text-books.
5. The library is the only continuation school really practicable for
all the people at all times and for all subjects, and like any other
institution, its value increases in proportion to the intelligence
shown in its use.
Contrary to a rather hazy though somewhat general impression, there
are only a few choice spirits to whom it is given to love books
instinctively and to know them intimately without instruction. The
multitude, whatever their rank or fortune, handle them more or less
all the time without knowing much about them or caring much about
them. It is true that a knowledge of books comes more readily to
some than to others, but training will do much for even unpromising
people who, without training, would be practically helpless. The need
of this training was shown very clearly a decade or two ago when the
method of teaching changed rather generally from text-book mastery to
the so-called laboratory method. There were few more pathetic sights
than many of the older teachers, almost totally untrained in the
comparative use of books which the new method involved, and yet forced
to give up their reliance on the catechetical method and memorized
text-book which could be kept open by the teacher while the pupil
recited.
If the library and the school have so much common doctrine and if both
recognize in their precept and their practice the importance of books,
it seems obvious that some instruction along this line should be given
in the high school and, indeed, much earlier. Again, if pupils are to
be taught to use books, it seems equally obvious that the intelligent
use of books must first be learned by the teacher. That is, there
should be a "library course" in the normal school.
If library and school agree so far as to recognize the need of such a
course there still remain several general methods of attempting to get
the desired results.
(1) By experiment. This is the customary way; the empirical method or,
under certain conditions, the inductive method. "We learn to do by
doing" was a pedagogical maxim to conjure with some years ago and it
has not yet lost its siren's charm. Teachers are still assuming that
pupils will learn to use books well by using them without direction,
even though an excess of the experimental method has confessedly failed
in other directions. We do not often learn to do things in the best
way without some direction nor does mere handling of an object teach
us much about it. Infinitely more biology can be learned from two or
three angle worms studied in a laboratory than from quarts of them
used for fish bait. The _laissez-faire_ method and the experimental
method without a competent teacher to make it really inductive are both
uncertain in result and costly of time and effort.
(2) By sending pupils to the nearest library for all aid outside
the text-book and by handing over to the nearest librarian all
responsibility for teaching the use of books. Librarians often advocate
this method. It is only an application of the specialization which
is so common in high schools and by which each subject has its own
teacher who may or may not try to correlate his own work with that
of his colleagues. The librarian, who at least ought to know about
books, is the logical person to plan courses and to give formal
instruction and in any school which can possibly have a librarian
who devotes her entire time to the library this is the proper course
to follow. It happens, however, that many schools which greatly need
such a course have no one but the regular teachers to administer the
library and to teach its use. In such an emergency no school faculty
is complete without at least one teacher who can show the pupils--and
her fellow-teachers, if need be--something of the best methods of using
books. Moreover, teachers need to know how to use the books connected
with their own courses even if they need do little or nothing in the
way of general library work.
(3) A third general method remains: systematic training in regularly
scheduled classes in the high school and a systematic course in the
normal school for the future teachers of elementary and of high
schools. This is the plan generally adopted for other subjects and
the failure of the schools to provide in their curricula a place
for library training can reasonably be attributed only to the fact
that librarians have failed to impress on teachers the necessity
for such instruction. There are several reasons for the failure.
One of the fundamental principles of successful advertising is that
the prospective customer must be convinced that the value of the
advertised article exceeds its cost. Perhaps we librarians have not
always recognized the value of this principle in our own campaigns.
We use our library jargon and speak learnedly of "library methods,"
and "the library world" as though our work were based on some occult
secret (which it is not) and as though we who carry it on were a
peculiar people (which we sometimes are), and we plan elaborate courses
in "library economy" which would strike terror to the heart of any
teacher, were any teacher interested enough to look at them.
It is well to remember that, as far as its place in the school is
concerned, the library must always be an auxiliary, not an independent
affair--an auxiliary of the greatest importance which aids all courses
but interferes with none. This is what it is in the increasing number
of schools in which the use of the library is being successfully taught
and whenever teachers are shown that librarians are urging something
that is a time-saver, not a time-consumer, and that the course they
suggest is not an independent affair but something which, even in its
own lessons and problems can be made to bear directly on the daily
work of the school, there will not be much trouble in getting periods
in which to teach the use of the library. As we too often present
the matter, in the form of courses planned with little reference to
actual conditions in the school and with problems compiled from our
library-school note-books, or our training-class notes and not from
material selected for its direct relation to the subject matter of any
course in the school, we are seemingly asking the teacher to become
interested in _our_ work, not in a subject that is of importance to
teacher as well as to librarian.
No general can plan a successful campaign of invasion without a
knowledge of the topography and people of the country to be invaded and
no course of study can be successful unless based on sound pedagogy and
visibly related to the cultural or vocational need of the persons for
whom it is intended. It is also well to remember that in strategy an
officer counts for more than a private and that if official recognition
is to be secured for any subject, the interest of principals and
superintendents, who plan the curricula, is absolutely necessary. Work
with subordinate teachers alone will make slow progress.
Another point which we are just beginning to emphasize is the necessity
of getting articles in which we desire teachers to be interested,
into periodicals intended for teachers instead of confining them to
the columns of library periodicals. The advertiser who wants to reach
engineers will not send his advertisements exclusively to the "American
journal of theology."
Although the high school and the normal school are usually mentioned
together in discussions on the general subject of library instruction
in schools, there should be decided differences both in content and
in general purpose between the courses in the two kinds of schools.
In the high school, the purpose should be to teach the pupils to use
books efficiently in solving problems arising in their individual
experiences. The care and management of libraries can legitimately
be taught only in so far as such knowledge helps the pupil to use
libraries of all kinds more intelligently. There is no need of
detailed instruction in technique, though some elements of method are
necessary. The use of the catalog must be taught in order to overcome
the prejudices of most readers against card catalogs by teaching
the youth before he arrives at obstinate and benighted manhood,
that red headings, indentions and other conventions of the catalog
are as sensible and necessary as black ruling, red ruling and other
conventions of day-book and ledger. A little attention also to the
theory of the charging system will help later in preventing honest but
inaccurate thrusts at "red tape in libraries."
The general characteristics of reference books should be discussed
with the meaning and significance of those universal but little known
elements of all modern books, the title page, table of contents and
index. The growing popularity of bibliographies of all kinds suggests
instruction in their make-up and use while the growing importance of
periodicals of all kinds shows the need of knowing how to use the
general periodical indexes. In all this work there can be and should
be the closest relation to the other work of the school course and
the various teachers can easily suggest material of direct use to
them which will be quite as interesting and valuable for illustrating
the use of the library as set problems compiled exclusively by the
librarians. Moreover, such procedure will demonstrate conclusively both
to teacher and to pupil the direct value of the library in helping
school work to be done better and quicker. Though any teacher can
be of help in this way, English, geography, civics and history are
particularly good subjects with which to begin this co-operation.
It is doubtful whether the librarian should attempt much formal
instruction in book selection in the high school unless it is done
with the full knowledge and with the assistance of the other teachers.
Otherwise, such instruction will almost inevitably lead to duplication
and to conflict with the work regularly given in other courses. Tactful
suggestions to teachers on the value of material which they overlook
or know nothing about and personal attention to the voluntary reading
done by pupils outside the school-room and not connected with the
regular work of the school will furnish any school librarian plenty of
opportunity for missionary work.
Some description of the anatomy of a book will probably help cultivate
a greater respect for books as books and may lessen the tendency to use
books badly which is now so prevalent among school children furnished
with books paid for by the school board and not directly bought by
their parents.
All of this teaching should be very simple. What is perhaps the most
successful manual of the present on the subject of teaching the use
of books in schools (Ward's Practical use of books and libraries),
owes its success largely to its attention to the small details which
everybody, large and small, is supposed to know but of which nearly
everybody is quite ignorant.
No high school course of this kind is complete unless it cultivates
friendly relations with the public library and promotes the use of the
library after the pupils have left school, by calling on it for aid
while they are still in school. The best school librarians make every
possible use of the public library while they are at the same time
using to the utmost the resources of their own school libraries.
The amount of time required for such a course as that outlined here and
which is substantially the same as dozens of other courses outlined
elsewhere, depends considerably on whether any preliminary work of
the kind has been given in the lower grades, and, to some extent, on
the size and general character of the school's collection of books.
Something worth while has been done in five or six lessons, though
not much can be done in less than ten or twelve, and the twenty to
thirty periods which interested principals have sometimes granted are
none too many. The general plan will also depend partly on whether the
instruction is all given in one year or throughout the entire high
school course.
In the normal school the purpose of the library course should be
not only to teach the use of books, but to teach, in addition, the
principles of their proper selection and enough of the essentials of
library technique to enable the teacher to administer successfully
a small school library and to understand the methods used in larger
libraries. It should be not only for individual improvement, as in the
high school, but designed also to give skill in teaching others how to
use the library. It is necessary, of course, to supply any deficiencies
in training of the kind that was suggested for the high school, before
the administrative side of the work can profitably be taken up.
The technical side of the work, therefore, will be more in evidence
in the normal school course. The preparation, adaptation and use of
the important records such as the accession book, the shelflist, the
catalog and the charging system are necessary parts of the equipment of
any teacher who is likely to be put in charge of a school or class-room
library. A study of the most common trade lists and a few typical
booksellers' catalogs with some comment on trade discounts and the
purchase of second-hand books will save much time and trouble later
when the teacher is expected to advise as to what and where to buy.
Instruction in simple methods of book repair will yield large dividends
in the shape of better cared for and longer lived books.
Simplicity and direct relation to school work are the two things to
be insisted upon throughout. Though the subjects and, to some extent,
the treatment should be the same as that of the library school, there
is neither opportunity nor need of the same variety and extent of
instruction and practice which should characterize schools for the
professional training of librarians, nor should any school which can
afford special teachers in other subjects thrust technical library work
upon its regular teachers. To the teacher, the library is auxiliary to
her main work and insistence on elaborate administrative methods will
defeat its purpose.
This instruction in technique should be simple, but it does not follow
that a teacher who has learned merely these elements of technique is
fitted in turn to give satisfactory instruction to other teachers or
even to administer a school library in the best way. To do this a
librarian of wide training and experience is necessary,--one whose
knowledge of library theory and practice is wide enough to give
the perspective necessary to judge what is essential, and intimate
enough to determine what adaptations should be made to fit either
general library conditions or special contingencies of individual
libraries. Efficient simplicity is the result not of ignorance but
of trained judgment and the apparent simplicity obtained by reckless
or ignorant amputation of library manuals may be worse than none at
all. A well managed school must have a well-administered library
and a well-administered library implies a competent librarian, not
merely the regular presence of a teacher with rather fewer classes and
consequently more leisure than her colleagues.
Indeed, though considerable technique has been suggested as advisable,
I am very strongly of the opinion that technique, if by this term is
meant the processes of keeping library records, should be thrust upon
teachers only as a necessity, not as a desirability. In a school so
small that one teacher or a very few teachers at most must do all kinds
of work, it will be necessary and therefore it must be taught to these
teachers. In larger and better equipped schools there is no more reason
for teacher-librarians with a mere smattering of library training than
there is logic or justice in compelling the teacher of English or of
history to be the principal's secretary.
Of even more importance than technique is a careful study of important
reference books. Only a small proportion of the books which would be
useful can possibly be obtained and it is very important that the
teacher be able to use to the utmost such books as the school may
possess. The compilation of reading lists and lists of references,
whether for the use of the teacher or the guidance of the pupil,
implies the use of bibliographies, footnotes and appendixes and a
consideration of the bibliographic aids which are so common in modern
text-books and so little used by teachers.
Moreover, the teacher must know some of the principles of book
selection, must know a fair number of the best aids to book selection
and must know where to find and how to use good book reviews. No
approved list of library, library commission, or state department of
public instruction can take the place of independent knowledge, though
these approved lists are indispensable aids.
The proper relations of school and public library certainly must be
taught if any closer and more general co-operation of the two is to
be brought about. Both teacher and librarian must be parties to such
co-operation and each needs to know the point of view of the other.
There is no general agreement as to the amount of time which the
normal school ought to devote to library instruction. In a summary
compiled in 1909 by the Newark free public library (Public libraries
14:147), the number of hours devoted to such work in 28 normal schools
varied from one lesson to 60. Most of the schools which are recognized
as leaders in this work gave about 20 lessons. There is reason to
believe that the general situation has not materially changed except
that the shorter courses are being lengthened and more normal schools
are offering courses in library methods. The small number of lessons
in even the good courses makes directness and emphasis on essentials
imperative. If all normal school students had been taught to use books
before entering the normal school, considerable time which is now used
in teaching things which should already be known could be devoted to
the methodic and pedagogic side of the subject.
More and more normal schools are putting instruction in library methods
on a par with other subjects by giving credits for it. This is only
what all ought to do. No normal school is doing its work well if it
sends its students out unskilled in the use of the tools of their
own trade. A course in the use of books and libraries is no more of
a luxury in the general training of any teacher than a gas range and
a kitchen sink are luxuries in the equipment of a domestic science
department or planes and chisels in a manual training room.
It is not merely altruism that urges librarians to encourage this
work. It is highly commendable to increase the good feeling between
two members of the so-called "educational trinity," the church, the
school and the library, but the benefits to the library will be more
direct than mere pleasure in promoting the success of another line
of social welfare. To ensure its own permanence, the library must
have a reading public in the future as it has in the present and the
adult reader of the future is the child of the present. To ensure the
further development of the library, not only readers but more readers
are needed and the library will be sure of getting them only when
school room and children's room work together, and when not only those
who come to the library from choice, but all the children whom the
community entrusts to the school are taught in the school the latent
power in the books the library offers for their use and are taught by
trained teachers how best to make that latent power dynamic.
The discussion of this paper was led by Mr. W. J. Sykes, librarian of
the Ottawa public library, and formerly head of the English department
of the Collegiate institute of Ottawa, who read a paper prepared by Dr.
L. B. Sinclair, dean of the school for teachers, Macdonald college.
MISS MARY E. HALL, librarian of the Girl's high school, Brooklyn, N.
Y., read a paper on
THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY
Miss Hall said in part:
To those of us who are interested in the problem of guiding the reading
of boys and girls one of the most important recent developments of the
modern library movement is the new life which is coming into the high
school libraries throughout the country.
The high school library, although an old institution, is just beginning
to "find itself" in the library world of today. It not only has a right
to exist but has possibilities for doing important work in the future
which will fully justify its existence. It must serve not only as a
great laboratory for the work of all departments in the high school but
as an important experiment station for all our work with young people
of high school age and aid us in the public library's solution of the
problem of helping the thousands of boys and girls who leave grammar
school and the children's room and go out into the adult room of the
large public library with no one to guide them in their explorations
among the books, and no one to take the friendly personal interest in
them that the teacher and librarian of the children's room always
felt. Through the high school library and the public libraries' young
people's department of which we dream, we must undertake to "follow up"
the work begun in the children's room and build upon the foundations
which librarian and teacher have already laid.
What are some of the revelations which have been made to those of us
who reluctantly undertook this work some eight or ten years ago? In
the first place we are, as our high school debaters would say "firmly
convinced" of the need of a large carefully selected collection of
books within the high school building where they may be had at a
moment's notice for reference and reading. We are convinced that we
were wrong when in our first enthusiasm over the public library we
decreed that the high school library should be limited to books of
reference and "required" reading, and that all books to be read for the
pure joy of reading should be given over to the public library.
For four reasons I would plead today for a large, well equipped library
in every city high school, a library managed according to modern
library methods and in charge of a trained and experienced librarian
who shall be the equal of the high school teachers in broad education
and thorough professional training. This librarian must be able to
win the confidence and friendship of pupils and teachers and to enter
sympathetically into the life of the school. This library may be under
the control of the Board of Education or a joint undertaking of Board
of Education and public library as in Cleveland, Newark, Passaic,
Madison, Wis., and Portland, Oregon.
My first reason for this new high school library is found in the aims
and ideals of the modern high school. It is no longer content to serve
merely as a preparatory school for college. It realizes that for the
great majority of pupils it must be a preparation for life. As these
four years end their formal school education it must make the most of
the time. These four wonderful years of high school age are the time
when ideals are being formed, when boys and girls are hero worshippers,
and the personal contact with teacher and librarian or the reading
of good biography may do marvelous things in moulding character and
setting up standards. In aiming for social efficiency the modern high
school endeavors to prepare for intelligent citizenship, for interest
in and service for the various movements for social betterment.
My second reason for this larger and more efficient library in the high
school is the need created by modern methods of teaching. The text
book today is only a guide,--with its footnotes and bibliographies it
is a vade mecum to the interested student to the best books in school
and public library on the subject covered. The efficient teacher today
uses books, magazines, daily paper, pictures and lantern slides to
supplement the text book. Many of these must be at hand in the school
building and so classified and cataloged that they are available at
short notice. Unexpected questions arise in class discussions and must
be settled before the close of the recitation period by a student being
delegated to "look it up" in the school library and report to the
class while interest is keen. This could not be done in a library even
five minutes' walk from the school. There are odd minutes at the close
of a recitation when a book from the school library can be borrowed
and enough read to make the student eager to finish it. Pictures are
wanted to illustrate some topic and are loaned from one class-room
to another for every forty minutes of a school day when the teacher
finds they help to awaken interest. The whole method of the recitation
has changed. "It becomes," says one, "the social clearing house where
experiences and ideas are exchanged and new lines of thought and
inquiry are set up." One of the most interesting things in the school
library work is the use of books and magazines for the three minute
talks pupils have to give in English, French, German and Latin as
cultivation in the art of oral expression. They may chose anything
that interests them or would interest the class,--some interesting bit
of news in the morning's paper, some anecdote about a famous person, an
account in the Survey of the Camp-fire girls, etc.
The search for material for these three minute talks makes the school
library a busy place at times. Students vie with one another to bring
to class the most interesting contribution from history, biography,
literature, current events, etc. So interested are the students in this
kind of library work that some of them began making a rough index of
material in newspapers, magazines and books that would be good for such
talks. The use of the library depends not so much upon the subject as
upon the teacher,--a teacher of mathematics who is a constant reader
will get the students to make a better use of the library than the
English teacher who prides herself that she has taught Shakespeare's
"As you like it" so thoroughly "inch by inch" that her pupils cannot
possibly fail in the final examination. The biology teacher whose
one cry a few years ago was the need of cultivating the powers of
observation now acknowledges that the books in the school library or
public library are needed to make the laboratory and field work of
greatest value. Even the instructors in the gymnasium feel that books
may help. Interesting books such as Mrs. Richards' "Art of living," Dr.
Gulick's "Mind and work," Woods Hutchinson's practical talks on the
subject of health, etc., are placed on reserve shelves or tables and
read by pupils not as "required" reading but because they find them
interesting. Students interested in problems in chemistry or in the
work of physics come up to the school library for a free study period
to look over the books on the library shelves and to read them on the
suggestion of the teacher. School library reading is coming more and
more to be the result of suggestion rather than compulsion.
History teachers add to the interest of the recitation by suggesting
collateral reading which will appeal to the students,--biography,
historical fiction, orations, poetry, and drama are all called into
play, attention is called to articles in current periodicals and a
wise use of the daily paper is made in order to interest students
in history in the making. The history teacher posts on the bulletin
board interesting subjects for "special topics," brief oral reports to
the class on interesting material outside the text book and students
eagerly volunteer to look them up in the library and report to the
class. "How did the Romans tell the time of day?" "Describe the daily
life of a monk," "Methods of travel in the middle ages," etc. Debates
also are an important feature of the history recitation: "Which
contributed most to civilization, the Greeks or the Romans?"
In English there has been a great revolution recently. Aside from the
interesting work in oral expression already mentioned teachers are
beginning to realize that training in the power of expression and the
cultivation of taste and appreciation must come from extensive reading
of good books, rather than intensive reading of a few. Supplementary
reading is no longer an "assignment" of a standard work of literature
to be taken as a dose of medicine by the pupil with the comforting
assurance of the teacher that it "will do him good." With the best
English teachers supplementary reading is really an introduction to the
best books in school library and public library, books to be read not
for marks but for pleasure with the hope that it may mean a permanent
interest in good reading, a wise use of the public library and the
building up of home libraries. The supplementary reading list of today
is a list of many different kinds of interesting books, old and new,
which ought to appeal to the average high school boy or girl. There is
ample opportunity for each to find something which he will really like
and he may take his choice.
The skillful English teacher no longer spoils this reading by requiring
an examination as to plot, character development, climax, etc. Instead
of this dreaded written report which was warranted to dull the interest
in the most exciting novel as it haunted the reader all the way through
the book the recitation is occasionally given up to an informal talk
about the books the pupils have read and enjoyed--very much such a book
symposium as we librarians delight in. The enthusiasm of a pupil in his
report on a book will create an immediate demand for it. "I want that
book you talked about in class, it must be a dandy one," the librarian
hears one student say to another as they browse at noon among the books
of fiction. In the more intensive study of the masterpieces of English
literature the best English teachers make the study one of training in
appreciation and not an "exercise in mental gymnastics" or a process of
vivisection. They realize with Burroughs that "if you tear a thing all
into bits you haven't the thing itself any more." They have the pupils
read other works for comparison,--the Alcestis and Medea and compare
them with some of Shakespeare's plays they have been studying. If
reading Lycidas, then Theocritus, Shelley's Adonais, Arnold's Thyrsis
are read and discussed. In studying Burke, orations by Lord Chatham
and Mansfield are read and compared. Students find in this comparative
work a great delight and in this work as well as in the debates which
English teachers encourage some of them surprise us with their powers
of discrimination and their deep thinking. All of this calls for the
use of many kinds of books in school and public library.
My third plea for a school library is in the needs of individual
students for a guidance in their reading which can be better given by
the librarian in the school library than in the busy public library.
The school librarian has the teacher always close at hand and can know
the problems of these teachers in their work with pupils. Through
attendance at the teachers' meeting she can keep in close touch with
the school's methods of work and its ideals. She can unify the library
work which the school is urging upon the pupils as twenty branch
librarians working with groups of these same students cannot do. She
comes to know each of these hundreds or thousands of pupils better even
than some of the teachers in these large schools who have them in their
classes for only six months or a year while she has them in the library
every day for four years and comes in close personal touch with them.
She knows them through their parents, their teachers, and their friends
and can sometimes find the point of contact which certain teachers have
failed to find. We must make the school library do for the pupils what
the little home library used to do for many of us. In these days of
apartment houses and tenements, when families move about so constantly
there is little chance for the home library.
My fourth plea for a library within the high school building is that
it is absolutely necessary as a connecting link between the high
school and public library in our large cities. Wonderful things may
be accomplished by the high school librarian, who believes the most
important work of the school library is preparation for the best use
of the public library and who encourages the use of the public library
through all the four years. She can be an excellent "go between" not
only for pupils who do not use the public library, but between public
library and principals and teachers who have no idea what it can do
for them. She can enlighten them on the functions of this institution
of the people,--show them how much more it is than what they suppose
it to be, "a collection of fiction for those too poor to buy their own
books." She can enlighten teachers as to the necessity for giving the
reference librarian due notice when material is to be needed by classes
on a special topic, and the need for ascertaining whether there really
is any available material before requiring reports from students on
impossible subjects. She can bring about a personal acquaintance of
high school teachers and librarians in public libraries and invite the
library workers in public libraries to conferences with teachers in the
school library.
She can take a census of each entering class at high school and find
how many are not using the public library and why. Such a census shows
usually 30% who have no library cards. Some have their cards taken from
them by parents when they enter high school lest they read so many
books it interferes with their studies. This is a frequent occurrence.
In other cases a heavy fine has made a drain upon the purse of some
poor mother and she has vowed that not one of her children should have
a card in the public library. Many of this 30% have never cared enough
for books to have a card in the public library. The librarian who finds
these conditions early in the term explains to parents by personal
notes and interviews that library cards in the public library will be
an absolute necessity for high school work. Students who have never had
cards are urged to apply for them at once and they are sent to just the
right person in the public library who will take an interest in them,
often a personal note of introduction being given to the pupil to make
that first visit to the public library easy and pleasant.
In addition to the possibilities in high school library work already
mentioned the librarian has opportunities for doing many things not
possible or not done so easily in the public library.
1. Creating the right attitude towards the library reading called for
by the modern high school.
The old time school library was not a pleasant place. She can introduce
public library methods,--an attractive room, plants, pictures, bulletin
board, etc. Let them feel an atmosphere of friendliness from the start
and bring in the spirit of joy rather than stern duty by making the
first visit a delight. An informal "library reception" to each entering
class or to groups of 40 or more as they enter the school until all
have had this meeting with the librarian, makes a good start. Here the
students are shown the beautiful illustrated books, pictures, etc.,
and librarian and pupils talk over the books they have read and liked.
Teacher and librarian call attention to books they may like to read
during free study periods and pupils are made to feel that the library
reading is one of the pleasures of high school life.
2. The study period.
This has marvelous opportunities for the librarian. Here, every 40
minutes come from 60 to 100 pupils, filling every available seat.
Many come for definite reference work, special topics, required
reading,--many just to spend a free period in browsing. In our best
high school libraries there is as little red tape as possible, even
"library passes" being dispensed with at times. Pupils are free to use
books as they choose. They crowd around the library bulletin boards for
suggestions as to good books to read, interesting magazine articles, a
glimpse of the day's news as it had been clipped by seniors and posted
in the form of a "model newspaper" under heading, "Foreign affairs,
National, State, City, Art, Civic and social betterment, etc." The
bulletin boards call attention to special art exhibits in the city, to
musical opportunities in the way of opera and concerts, etc. Teachers
in the various departments make the department bulletin boards in the
library a constant means of awakening interest. The French department
posts post cards showing views of places mentioned in their reading.
Latin teachers post reading lists on life in the time of Cicero, and
pictures of Pompeian houses, furniture, cooking utensils, etc., to make
the life real. Often at the close of a study period if all are through
their regular work the librarian gives an informal three minute talk
on some interesting thing on the bulletin boards, urges the reading
of some poem or essay or new book of biography, such as Mary Antin,
calls attention to some unusually good magazine article, or to some
good edition of a book to buy and own,--Hugh Thomson's illustrated
Silas Marner in the Cranford series, Pride and Prejudice in Everyman's
series, library binding, as a good edition to take out into the country
for summer reading.
3. Instruction in use of books.
In the school library far better than by sending classes out to the
public library definite and systematic instruction can be given by
librarian on the uses of books. A regular schedule for this work is
prepared by principal or head of English department and lessons,
lectures, quizzes and problems are given by teacher or librarian as a
part of the school work. By working in this close touch with teachers,
problems will relate directly to their every day class work.
4. The library as a social center.
Here the librarian in the school finds boundless opportunities not
possible in public library work. Parents' receptions are held in the
evenings in the large and beautiful library room and the librarian acts
as hostess. Here come rich and poor of all nationalities,--learned and
unlearned and the librarian meets them all, talk over with them, the
boys and girls, shows them what the library tries to do for them and
goes over the parents' problems with those who read too much or those
who are reading trash,--and last but not least those who do not like to
read. The librarian suggests good books and good editions for parents
to buy and the number of note books and pencils at work show how eager
many are for this help--they delight in the beautiful illustrated books
almost as much as the boys and girls.
The noon hour offers great possibilities to the school librarian.
Here she is "at home" to all students who want to talk about books.
Around her desk is held a daily "book symposium." Absolute freedom and
frankness is encouraged. She is aided in her recommendations by the
pupils' own comments of approval and their word goes farther with a
doubting soul than any word of hers. If a pupil returns a book with "I
don't like it," the librarian tries to find where the trouble was. If
it was the first page or chapter which seemed uninteresting she points
out the place just ahead where it begins to be most interesting, gets
a student nearby who read and liked the book to tell just enough to
show the doubting pupil what he is missing by not reading it. Or, if on
talking with the pupil it seems he would not like that particular book
she assures him it is nothing to be ashamed of if one does not like all
great books,--that we have to grow up to some, that some may never be
interesting to us while absorbingly interesting to others. The personal
equation has to be considered.
Library reading clubs are a great power for influencing the reading
of high school pupils. It is the age of clubs and organizations. In
the books the pupils choose while browsing the librarian finds a point
of contact and by the reading clubs can direct the voluntary reading.
Interests unsuspected by teachers are revealed to the school librarian.
An interest in art by a pupil thought hopeless in mathematics and
physics and only a fair student in other things. The librarian in the
school has expert aid in this club work. For the library reading club
on art she selects the most inspiring and sympathetic art teacher on
the faculty. For those who are reading Darwin and Spencer and Huxley,
the finest teacher in biology who thoroughly knows the literature and
can make the reading mean much. For those interested in civic and
social questions, clubs for discussion and debate are formed with
English and history teachers for advisers, but all center in the
school library and meet there after school. After school, also where
the library is large or there are two rooms, students may stay to
study,--tenement homes and apartments are often difficult places for
quiet work. For our own school a biography reading club has been a
great success, the students reading interesting biographies of famous
women, Alice Freeman Palmer, Carla Wenckebach, Jane Addams, Florence
Nightingale, etc. Also lives of great explorers, artists, musicians,
statesmen, etc.
5. Vocational guidance.
This is coming to mean great possibilities. If the librarian is
sympathetic and has won the hearts of the students they will come
naturally to her as a source of information on what a boy or girl
can do to earn a living. It is a serious problem to the high school
pupil,--often there is no one at home to help. The librarian must be
ready with books, pamphlets, clippings to lay before the student the
many possibilities in choosing a vocation. The books on these subjects
are the most popular books in the library of a large boys high school.
Catalogs of technical and trade schools, etc., should be on file for
reference for students desiring to plan special courses in high school
to meet their entrance requirements. Where there is a committee of
teachers on vocational direction the librarian can be of great service
in aiding in collections of books, magazines and pamphlet material.
These possibilities of the high school library make it a most tempting
field for any one interested in work with the older boys and girls. The
librarian has the opportunity of making the school library: (1) A great
working laboratory for all departments which will meet their needs for
reference and serve to stimulate interest or awaken interest in the
work of class room or laboratory. (2) A preparatory school for the
best use of college or public library by training students in the use
of a library during the four years in school. (3) Compensation to the
students for the lack of a home library. Carefully selected, largely a
collection of the best books on the subjects which high school pupils
would be interested in and containing all the really great things in
the world's literature it affords a browsing place which should mean
that inspiring and stimulating contact with books which many have
felt in their home libraries, and it should mean also that personal
guidance of the reading of the individual which in more fortunate homes
parents give to their children. And perhaps quite as important as any
other is the possibility of opening up to the high school students
and teachers the great resources of the public library. The success
of the high school library of the future will depend largely upon its
relation to the public library. We are just at the beginning of things
today in this matter of co-operation and shall probably see important
developments along this line during the next five years.
Mr. Gilbert O. Ward, supervisor of high school branches, Cleveland
public library, led the discussion on Miss Hall's paper. He said in
part:
High school pupils after all are a very small proportion of the
school community. Why should a public library put an expensive
assistant into a high school, where, after all, the actual numbers
affected are small? One answer is this: High school students like
college students, though in a less degree, are a chosen few. They
are in a position to become naturally leaders in the community.
And it seems to me that public libraries which have the chance to
establish high school branches should consider the possibilities
of the indirect influence on the community as well as the direct
influence on the limited number of high school students.
In considering now the relation between high school library and public
library, let us first sum up the needs of the high school, the points
in which the public library fails to meet the situation, and the points
in which the independent high school library is liable to failure:
The high school needs:
1. Books, freely duplicated, including general reference books, books
relating to school work and selected general reading adapted to the
abilities and appreciation of high school students.
2. A trained librarian.
The progressive high school needs these in the building as it needs
a chemical laboratory in the building. There is no better reason for
making a student go to the public library for an ordinary bit of class
work, than for sending him to the Y. M. C. A. for his gymnasium work.
The public library fails with the high schools as follows:
1. It generally lacks official standing in the school plan, hence it
has to work with the individual teacher or principal as chance offers.
2. Teachers are often too indifferent, careless, or over-pressed by
work to come to the public library.
3. Visits to the public library for reference work, inside or
outside of school hours, takes up pupils' time, even if the school
is convenient to the public library. This difficulty gets worse as
reference work increases.
4. Library instruction should cover a number of periods, and if
given in the public library, the necessary number of visits deranges
schedules, wastes time and raises questions of discipline.
5. The public library is sometimes unable or unwilling to duplicate
books freely enough to meet school needs.
6. The public library is not on the spot to answer instant needs.
The independent high school library meets peculiar difficulties and
dangers in fulfilling its duty. It is right to say here that the
highest point of development in high school libraries has, to the best
of my knowledge, been reached in certain high schools in which the
library has no connection with the public library, but where it is
managed by a well-paid, trained and experienced librarian. Generally
speaking, however, especially in the case of high schools which do not
employ a trained librarian, I think I may say that the independent
high school library at present is likely to be narrow in scope, badly
administered, self centered and neglectful of co-operation with the
public library, and hampered by red tape getting books promptly through
boards of education.
Neither school library nor public library, it seems to me, can alone
meet high school needs. The school library needs the public library
because of the broadening influence of the usually larger institution.
It needs the resources of the usually larger collection. It can often
benefit by suggestion and aid in administrative details, especially
when in untrained hands.
The public library needs the school library, among other reasons,
to bring it into closer contact with the school system officially.
The public library, it seems to me, should require the high school
librarian to attend its regular staff meetings if she be a public
library official or invite her to attend them if she is not. The high
school librarian in many cases attends school faculty meetings, and by
regularly attending public library staff meetings she can intelligently
interpret school to public library and vice versa. The public library
needs the high school library so as to get earlier and more certain
information of books needed for class use, for the purpose of reserving
in the public library or of concentrating them in the school library.
Six copies of a title concentrated at call in the high school library
and lent from there for short loans, prevent a few students from
monopolizing books, and so do much more satisfactory work than twice
the number lent from the public library in the usual way. In general,
the public library by working through the high school library should
work more effectively by meeting the school on its own ground.
It is pretty clear, I think, that the school library and the public
library need each other. The questions remaining are: What kind of
co-operation is most effective? How can that co-operation be brought
about?
I doubt if there is a universal answer for either question. I think
that local conditions will have to be studied in each case, and under
local conditions I include the school situation, the public library
situation, personalities, local politics, etc.
Miss Hall has found a satisfactory answer for the library controlled
by the school. The solution which has come under my observation is the
administration of the school library by the public library, with a
division between school and public library, of the expense.
This plan in one form or another is now being tried with the high
school libraries in five cities--Cleveland, O.; Madison, Wis.; Newark,
N. J.; Passaic, N. J.; and Portland, Ore. This includes eleven
libraries actually in operation, and five others in contemplation. The
plan has also been adopted, I am informed, by a number of towns in New
Jersey.
In bringing about co-operation, the first step is to make a careful,
thorough study of conditions, not forgetting the questions, "What
is the attitude of the principal?" and, "Which can pay the higher
salary--public library or high school?"
The results under any plan, may we add, depend on the high school
librarian. She should have a college education to put her on a par
with the teaching staff. She must be adaptable. She must have solid
book knowledge, especially of English and history. She must be able
to manage a room full of students without fuss or strain. A raw high
school graduate with a smattering of technique will not do.
Finally, whatever the public library's part in the scheme of
co-operation, the public library must be willing to view the subject
from the school side, and be willing to adapt its methods to school
needs.
A short business session of the active members of the session followed
this meeting. Upon recommendation of the Nominating Committee the
following officers were elected: Chairman, Miss Effie L. Power,
supervisor of children's work, St. Louis public library; vice-chairman,
Miss Alice Goddard, head of children's department, Washington County
free library, Hagerstown, Md., and secretary, Miss Hannah M. Lawrence,
children's librarian, Buffalo public library.
COLLEGE AND REFERENCE SECTION
FIRST SESSION
(Friday, June 28, 8:15 p. m.)
The first session of the College and Reference section was held on the
evening of June 28, in the banquet room of the Chateau Laurier, about
75 people being present. In the absence of Dr. A. S. Root, chairman of
the section, and Miss Irene Warren, secretary, the meeting was called
to order by Mr. P. L. Windsor, who had at the request of Dr. Root and
of Mr. Utley, arranged the program; Mr. S. J. Brandenburg acted as
secretary.
Mr. THEODORE W. KOCH, librarian of the University of Michigan, read the
first paper entitled
SOME PHASES OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES[8]
The development of college and university libraries has been so rapid
during the past score of years that it may be worth while to turn
back for a moment and collect a few illustrations of early ideas of
library management from the history of the older universities. The most
interesting ones for this purpose are those of Oxford and Cambridge,
Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities.
[8] Abridged from an address delivered before the New York State
Library School and the University of Michigan Summer Library School.
The Bodleian in its reorganized form was opened in 1602 with a stock
of two thousand five hundred volumes--a fairly large collection for
those days. It had been established in Duke Humphrey's day in a suite
of rooms over the Divinity School "far removed" as the old university
records put it, "from any worldly noise." The first rules for the
government of the library were drafted by Bodley himself. While in
general they were wise ones, they reflected the spirit of the times
in which they were written. Sir Thomas objected to the inclusion
of belles-lettres as beneath the dignity of the institution he was
fostering. "I can see no good reason," said he, "to alter my rule for
excluding such books as Almanacks, Plays, and an infinite number that
are daily printed of very unworthy matters. Haply some plays may be
worthy the keeping--but hardly one in forty.... This is my opinion,
wherein if I err I shall err with infinite others; and the more I think
upon it, the more it doth distaste me that such kinds of books should
be vouchsafed room in so noble a library." Scholars were required to
leave a deposit in cash as a pledge of good faith when borrowing books,
but the deposit was usually a mere trifle compared with the value of
the loan. Unscrupulous borrowers willingly forfeited the money and kept
the manuscripts. Some volumes were stolen, while others were entered
in the catalog as "missing," a distinction with perhaps very little
difference. Tradition says that Polidore Virgil had stolen so many
books that the authorities were finally compelled to deny him access to
the library, whereupon he promptly obtained from Henry VIII a special
license to borrow whatever manuscripts he desired and the librarian had
to bow to the ruling of the King.
In a manuscript copy of the works of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose in
the Bodleian, is written, "This book belongs to St. Mary of Robert's
Bridge: Whosoever steals it, or sells it, or takes it away from this
house in any way, or injures it, let him be anathema maranatha."
Underneath another hand has written, "I, John, Bishop of Exeter, do not
know where the said house is: I did not steal this book, but got it
lawfully."
At one time folios in the Bodleian were chained to the shelves but the
custom was given up and the chains sold for old iron in 1769. That
the arrangements at the Bodleian were viewed with favor by library
benefactors can be seen from a letter which the worthy John Hollis
of London, second founder of Harvard College library, sent to the
authorities at Cambridge in 1735: "You want seats to sit and read in
and chains to your valuable books like our Bodleian library or Zion
College in London. You let your books be taken at pleasure to men's
houses and many are lost, your boyish students take them to their
chambers and tear out pictures and maps to adorn their walls."
Gibbon in his autobiography has commented upon the sloth of 18th
century Oxford and its absolute indifference to study. The records of
the Bodleian substantiate the low point to which the intellectual life
of the university had ebbed. The registers of books borrowed for the
decade 1730-1740 show that only rarely were more than one or two books
asked for in a day. In some cases a whole week is passed over without
a single entry being made. The indifference throughout the university
showed itself in the management of the library. For 92 years, that is,
from 1768-1860, the Bodleian was so unfortunate as to be in the hands
of only two men, the Reverend John Price, of Jesus College, who died
in his eightieth year, and Dr. Bulkeley Bandinel, his son-in-law, who
lived to be even a year older than his predecessor. As an illustration
of Price's ideas of librarianship we have it noted by Professor Beddoes
that "he discouraged readers by neglect and incivility, was very
careless in regard to the value or condition of the books he purchased,
and had little knowledge of foreign publications." When Captain
Cook's Voyages were first published there was quite a demand for the
work. Librarian Price promptly loaned it to the Rector of Lincoln
College, telling him that the longer he kept it out the better, for
as long as it was known to be in the library he would be perpetually
plagued by inquiries after it. Price has been compared to the verger
who sorrowfully complained that people were continually invading his
church and "praying all over the place." However, it must in justice
be said that Price's correspondence as printed by John Nichols in his
"Illustrations of the literary history of the 18th century," shows him
to have been helpful to some of the scholars of his day.
Bodleian's librarians in the eighteenth century were mostly clerks
in holy orders and it was not uncommon for them to fail to open the
library at all on a Saturday if they were "taking duty in the country,"
on the following day. There is preserved in the Bodleian a scrap of
paper which an angry scholar affixed to the door of the library in 1806
when he found it closed contrary to the statutes. On it were these
words in Greek: "Woe unto you who have taken away the key of knowledge!
Ye enter not yourself and hinder those who come."
How striking is the difference between the lax administration of
the 18th century and that of the 20th can be seen by a study of the
Bodleian staff-calendar, an annual of over 400 pages in which are
listed day by day the special duties of various members of the staff,
with all sorts of suggestions for the improvement of the service.
King George III in his famous interview with Dr. Johnson asked whether
there were better libraries at Oxford or at Cambridge. The sage replied
that he believed the Bodleian was larger than any library they had at
Cambridge, at the same time adding, "I hope whether we have more books
or not than they have at Cambridge we shall make as good use of them as
they do,"--a reply which I always like to associate with the remark of
Dr. Cogswell: "I would as soon tell you how many tons the Astor Library
weighs, as how many volumes it contains."
While the university library at Cambridge has never been the recipient
of such large and rich donations as has the Bodleian, it is today
one of the best stocked university libraries in the world. Its first
benefactor was Thomas Scott of Rotheram, archbishop of York, who
not only gave 200 books and manuscripts, but also the first library
building. Despite other benefactions the collection appeared "but mean"
in the eyes of John Evelyn when he visited it in 1654.
Among the earliest gifts to one of the college libraries at Cambridge
there are some volumes which raise curious questions. According to Dr.
Montague R. James, the provost of King's College, Cambridge, one book
has the Bury bookmark and evidently came from that source; another
belonged to the canons of Hereford, another to Worcester, and another
to Durham. How and under what conditions did the early collegiate
and monastic bodies part with these? "Was there not very probably
an extensive system of sale of duplicates? I prefer this notion,"
writes Dr. James, "to the idea that they got rid of their books
indiscriminately, because the study of monastic catalogs shows quite
plainly that the number of duplicates in any considerable library was
very large. On the other hand it is clear that books often got out of
the old libraries into the hands of quite unauthorized persons: so that
there was probably both fair and foul play in the matter."
The most famous librarian of Cambridge University library was Henry
Bradshaw, who not only left a strong impress upon the paleographers
and historians of his day, but did much for librarianship by his
contributions to bibliography and his work on the printed catalogs
issued by the Cambridge University library. He believed in making
the library as accessible as possible to those who were entitled
to its use. The watchwords of his administration were "liberty and
discretion," liberty for the people to go freely about the whole
library, examining and borrowing such books as they liked, and
discretion on the part of the administration in putting such extremely
moderate restrictions upon this freedom that the security of its most
precious books were safeguarded and the presence of the books most
constantly needed for reference was assured without undue interference
with freedom of access to the shelves or the borrowing of books from
the library.
His management of the university library was not in all respects
satisfactory, due mostly to the fact that the staff was very inadequate
to the task of the attempted reclassification of the large collection
of books, and also to the crowded condition of the building. Bradshaw
did not have a marked capacity for working through subordinates. "He
could not," said one of his assistants, "bring himself to allow any
one to answer letters for him." He used to carry large numbers of
unanswered letters in his coat pockets and would sometimes take them
out and show them with a certain mischievous glee and say in his droll
way, "I am too wicked. What shall I do?" No one knew this failing
better than himself. He once remarked to Thomas Buchanan Read, who
wanted some information from him, "You had better come and get what
you can by word of mouth. I offend lots of my friends by not answering
their letters, or by losing them like yours." One friend, to whom he
had long promised a visit and who could not get a definite answer to
his invitations, sent Bradshaw two post cards on one of which was
written "Yes," and on the other "No," asking him to post one or the
other. Bradshaw promptly posted both, although by the next mail he
wrote to say that he would come,--and he kept his promise.
Bradshaw used to say that whenever he was asked to send back an
interesting book he "suffered from a chronic paralysis of the will
and could not return it until the fit had passed away." In matters of
routine business he was, however, seldom behind time and his library
accounts were always accurately kept. He was very strict about the
observance of the library rules and could never tolerate seeing books
mishandled. Dr. Zupitza, a great friend and admirer of Bradshaw, tells
how one day he was making notes in ink from the famous manuscript of
Bede's "Ecclesiastical history," in the Cambridge University Library
when Bradshaw happened to notice him. "You Germans have no reverence,"
said the librarian as he rushed at the ink bottle and carried it away.
A manuscript of that character was not to be approached with anything
more dangerous than a lead pencil.
Bradshaw had no personal ambition and was only too eager to give away
such information as he possessed. He put his vast store of knowledge
at the disposal of his large group of friends and their books were all
the better for his bibliographical zeal. He himself left comparatively
little finished work. "My province," he once wrote, "is to give help on
certain details which most people don't care about."
Before leaving Oxford and Cambridge, a word must be said about the
individual college libraries. Many of these date from the 15th century
when it was the exception rather than the rule for university students
to own books. Books were rented from both booksellers and tutors.
The college libraries then, as today, did not have enough copies of
text-books to go around. The statutes of St. Mary's College, Oxford,
dating from 1446, forbade a scholar the continual use of a book in
the library for more than one hour or at most two hours, for fear
that others wanting the book might be hindered from the use of it.
Most of the two score colleges of Oxford and Cambridge have their own
libraries, many of them filled to overflowing with precious manuscripts
and old authors. While the manuscripts, like those of Corpus Christi,
naturally attract scholars from all over the world, the libraries are
now comparatively little used by the students of the universities
themselves. This is not surprising when it is known that to some of
them no books have been added for a century or more. There is no union
depository catalog in a central place showing what these libraries
contain and very little correlation, although there has been some
specialization, as in the dramatic collection at Trinity College,
Cambridge, or the modern history at Merton College, Oxford.
Several years ago when I visited the Bodleian Library, I was shown
around the portion known as "Duke Humphrey's library," and when I
admired the old parchment bound volumes in the alcoves my guide
remarked sententiously: "These books were on these shelves when the
Pilgrims sailed for America." That remark points to an essential
difference between many of the old world libraries and those of this
country. The museum feature which is so strong in the administration of
some of the European libraries is much less prominent in those of the
United States.
Illustrations of university library history in this country naturally
begin with Harvard. The library there was begun on the death of its
first benefactor in 1638 with his bequest of 320 volumes. The Mathers
were among the largest collectors of books in their day in New England
but few of their possessions passed into the college collection, most
of the Mather library having been destroyed in 1775 during the battle
of Bunker Hill. About the close of the 17th century Cotton Mather said
of the Harvard College Library that while it was "far from a Vatican
or Bodleian dimension" he considered it the "best furnished that can
be shown anywhere in the American regions." The fire of 1763 which
destroyed the first Harvard Hall destroyed also the entire college
library, housed in an upper room, with the exception of one volume:
Downame's "Christian Warfare," which was out in circulation at the
time. "May Harvard Library," wrote John Barnard of Marblehead, "rise
out of its ashes with new life and vigor, and be durable as the sun,
tho' the building is a nuisance." This contemptuous sounding phrase,
intended to describe the ruined building, can again almost be justified
in connection with the overcrowded and outgrown structure of today. The
first general catalog of the library, printed in 1790, containing 350
pages, devotes 100 pages to theological tracts, 50 to religious books,
3-1/2 to Bibles, 3/4 of a page to periodicals, 4 to books of travel,
and ten to Greek and Latin authors--all of which shows how closely the
college had held to its original purpose as a training school for the
ministry.
There was practically no change in the curriculum at Harvard College
during the first two centuries of its existence. The old classical
course as pursued by our forefathers required comparatively few books.
With the introduction of such studies as modern history and languages,
the sciences and economics, came the demand for access to many books,
both old and new.
That books were regarded as a first essential in the establishment
of colleges in the New World is shown not only by the terms of John
Harvard's will, which bequeathed one-half of his estate and all
his library "towards the erecting of a college," but also by the
picturesque founding of Yale College. Eleven ministers met in New Haven
in 1700 agreeing to form a college. Each member brought a number of
books and presented them to the body, and laying them on the table said
these words, or to this effect: "I give these books for the founding of
a college in this colony." Then the trustees as a body took possession
of them and appointed the Rev. Mr. Russel of Branford as keeper of
the library, which at that time consisted of about 40 folio volumes.
The library with the additions which came in was kept at Branford for
nearly three years, and was then carried to Killingworth. In 1765 the
library had grown to 4,000 volumes, showing a growth of only 60 volumes
a year through two generations.
Other American university libraries showed equally modest beginnings.
In a letter from President Manning to Dr. Llewellyn, 1752, is found the
following reference to the early efforts made on behalf of the library
of Brown University: "At present we have but about 250 volumes and
these not well chosen, being such as our friends could best spare," a
statement which was equally true of many other college libraries of
that period.
The vicissitudes of American university libraries in their early years
would seem to have been enough to discourage any but the stoutest
hearted librarian. Thus the King's College buildings in New York having
been required by the British for a military hospital, the books were
deposited in the City Hall or elsewhere. Three years later some 600
or 700 volumes were found in a room in St. Paul's Chapel. How they got
there is a mystery, but they were all that remained of the nucleus
of what is today the Columbia University Library. Mr. John Pintard,
the founder of the New York Historical Society used to say that he
remembered seeing the British soldiers carry away the books from the
college library in their knapsacks and barter them for grog. Horace
Walpole in his Memoirs sneers at the Prince of Wales, afterwards George
III, for presenting a collection of books to an American college during
the Revolutionary War, and says that, instead of books, his Royal
Highness ought to have sent arms and ammunition.
In his report as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for 1850,
Prof. C. C. Jewett wrote: "Our colleges are mostly eleemosynary
institutions. Their libraries are frequently the chance aggregation
of the gifts of charity; too many of them discarded, as well-nigh
worthless, from the shelves of donors. (But) among them are some
very important collections, chosen with care and competent learning,
purchased with economy and guarded with prudence."
In 1850 Marshall College at Mercersburg, Pa., reported that "the
college library is distributed among the professors--each professor
having charge of those books pertaining to his department." Until
comparatively recent years the periodicals subscribed to by one of
our western state universities were sent direct to the homes of the
professors interested and whether they were brought to the library
later for binding depended upon the whim of the professor.
One of the striking contrasts between the college library of today and
that of the middle of the last century is shown by a comparison of the
hours of opening. The Chinese character for "library" means "a place
for hiding books," and if some members of the present day faculties
think there is still justification for this pictograph, what would
they say of the apology for a library which their predecessors had
to contend with? In 1850 the libraries at Amherst and Trinity, for
example, were open once a week from 1 to 3 p. m., at Princeton one hour
twice a week, at the University of Missouri one hour every two weeks.
At the University of Alabama there was a rule that "the books shall
ordinarily be received at the door, without admitting the applicant
into the library room." Harvard with its 28 hours of opening per week
was as usual in the vanguard of progress, but contrast even those
liberal hours with present day schedules of 89 hours and even more per
week and you see that there has been considerable progress along this
line.
"A quarter of a century ago the library in most of our
institutions," said the late President Harper in an address
delivered in 1894, "even the oldest, was scarcely large enough, if
one were to estimate values, to deserve the name of library. So
far as it had location, it was the place to which the professor
was accustomed to make his way occasionally, the student almost
never. It was open for consultation during perhaps one hour a
day for three days a week. The better class of students, it was
understood, had no time for reading. It was only the 'ne'er do
well,' the man with little interest in the class-room text-book,
who could find time for general reading. Such reading was a
distraction, and a proposition that one might profit by consulting
other books which bore upon the subject or subjects treated in the
text-book would have been scouted. All such work was thought to
be distracting. The addition of one hundred volumes in a single
year was something noteworthy. The place, seldom frequented, was
some out-of-the-way room which could serve no other use. The
librarian--there was none. Why should there have been? Any officer
of the institution could perform the needed service without
greatly increasing the burden of his official duties."
That the college library of the middle of the last century was little
more than a storehouse for books, in which the undergraduate had very
little interest, is amply substantiated by the reminiscences of older
graduates. "To those of us who graduated thirty, or forty, or more
years ago," said the late William Frederick Poole, "books, outside
of text-books used, had no part in our education. They were never
quoted, recommended, or mentioned by instructors in the class-room.
As I remember it, Yale College library might as well have been in
Wetherfield, or Bridgeport, as in New Haven, so far as the students in
those days were concerned."
In the old days at Columbia College, freshmen and sophomores were
allowed to visit the library only once a month to gaze at the backs of
books; the juniors were taken there once a week by a tutor who gave
verbal information about the contents of the books, but only seniors
were permitted to open the precious volumes, which they could draw
from the library during one hour on Wednesday afternoons. In 1853,
the salary of the librarian of Columbia was raised to three hundred
dollars! Professor Brander Matthews, who graduated from Columbia in
1871, says that the library was at that time small and inconvenient
and that he never entered it to read a book and never drew one from it
during all the time he was an undergraduate.
The rules of the old days forbade the use of any lights in the Harvard
Library, "excepting only when the librarian is obliged to seal official
letters with wax he may with proper precautions use a lighted taper
for that purpose." This recalls an entry in the diary of John Langdon
Sibley, who records spending "four hours with a lantern and cloak in
the chilly cellar" where he found many books and pamphlets not in the
College Library.
Mr. Sibley, who spent 36 years in the service of the Harvard Library,
has frequently been pictured as typical of the old style collector and
custodian of books. The story is told of his having once completed
an inventory of the library and, when seen crossing the yard with
a particularly happy smile, was asked the reason for this pleased
expression. "All the books are in excepting two," said he. "Agassiz has
those and I am going after them." Exaggerated as this picture of him
undoubtedly is, it must be said that he did lay much more emphasis upon
the collecting and preservation of books than upon their use.
His successor, Justin Winsor, was the author of the remark which has
come to be regarded as one of the truisms of modern librarianship: "A
book is never so useful as when it is in use."
In his second annual report (1879) Mr. Winsor thus summed up his
idea of library management: "Diligent administration, considerate
forbearance, care that no rule is enforced for the sake of mere outward
uniformity, and the establishment of reciprocal confidence between
the government and the users of the library, open the way to many
relaxations of old established prohibitions, which could not be safely
allowed if a less conciliatory spirit prevailed. There should be no bar
to the use of books, but the rights of others, and it is to the credit
of the mass of library users that, when a librarian manifests that
single purpose, he can safely be liberal in the discharge of his trust."
Mr. Winsor had an exceptional faculty for organization and
administration. For some time after he left the service of the Boston
Public Library it was hardly noticeable that there was no librarian.
This was due to the fine organization which Mr. Winsor had effected and
did not prove, as Alderman O'Brien of Boston argued, that Mr. Winsor's
services could easily be dispensed with. He found time for writing
history during the years of his librarianship at Boston and at Harvard
because he knew how to administer. No doubt in his later years the
historian in him overshadowed the librarian.
The salient feature of Mr. Winsor's administration of the Harvard
College Library lay in the fact that he extended very materially the
use of books by students. He instituted the system of "reserved" books
by which the instructor is enabled to have gathered in an accessible
place the reading which he required of his classes,--a device
absolutely essential in the new method of teaching which substitutes
the reading of authorities for the old time study of text-books.
* * * * *
And what as to the buildings in which these libraries are housed? The
earlier ones like those of Harvard and Yale, were suggestive of Gothic
chapels, while the later ones, like Michigan, Illinois and Cornell, are
based upon an ecclesiastical motif, and have the questionable addition
of a clock tower, the usual accompanying chimes helping to break
into the quiet which it is so desirable to maintain in any library.
Harvard's Gore Hall was an attenuated copy of the chapel of St. John's
College, Cambridge, England, and necessarily ill adapted to the needs
of a library. It was poorly lighted, poorly ventilated, hard to warm
in winter, damp in parts during the spring and autumn. There were no
private rooms, no working room, no conversation room, and no reading
room worthy of the name. The only saving thing about the management was
that the advice of old John Hollis was not followed and both students
and professors were allowed to draw books for use in their rooms and
homes.
* * * * *
In some cases where the library building has been presented as a gift
or as a memorial, trouble has arisen from the proverbial difficulty
about examining too closely into the lines of the proposed gift.
Notable illustrations of this are found in the libraries of Columbia
University, the University of Pennsylvania and the late but not
lamented library of Leland Stanford University. The Columbia University
Library, the gift of ex-President Low in memory of his father, was
designed by McKim, Mead & White after the plan of the head of the firm,
the late Mr. Charles F. McKim. Some of you may be familiar with the
story of the visitor to Mr. McKim's studio asking how he was getting on
with the plans for the new library. "Oh, everything is going lovely,"
said he. "You see there on the wall the outline of the facade and the
layout of the building. I have worked up all the details of the reading
room and the large dome--but I don't know where to put the darned
books."
"Today," wrote President Harper, "the chief building in the college,
the building in which is taken the most pride, is the library. With the
stack for storage purposes, the reading room for reference books, the
offices for delivery, the rooms for seminary purposes, it is the center
of educational activity. The staff of assistants is often larger than
the entire faculty of the same institution thirty years ago."
The importance of the university library in the educational work of
the institution is being recognized more fully each year. "Much of the
usefulness and attractiveness of the university for its students,"
said President Eliot in his annual report for 1905-06, "depends on
the size of the library, on the promptness with which it obtains the
newest interesting books, and on the efficiency and liberality of its
administration. Any need of the library is therefore a need of the
whole university."
The second paper was then read by Mr. WILLARD AUSTEN, assistant
librarian of Cornell University. His paper, an abstract of which
follows, was entitled
RIGHTS OF THE USERS OF A COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND HOW TO
PRESERVE THEM
The problem of administering a college or university library with due
regard to the rights of all the users is far from simple. A college or
university community is not a democracy, where all have equal rights.
The natural division into two great classes, the mature teacher and
the immature student is the first apparent cause for the modification
of privileges. The need of materials for teaching as opposed to the
needs of the student suggests other modifications. The need for books
of research at home or in the laboratory that may also be wanted for
general reading, introduces a third factor that may disturb any set of
rules that may be framed.
Any reader should be allowed to use any book in the library when and
where it is most convenient to do so, so far as this can be done and
preserve the rights of other users and preserve valuable materials not
easily replaced for future generations of users. The ability to shift
any book from the place where it is little needed to the place where it
is much needed, at a moment's notice, is the ideal.
Users may be roughly grouped as follows:
1. Instructors of all grades, those whose need for books is primarily
for teaching.
2. Those doing research work, which class may include teachers,
graduate and undergraduate students.
3. Students needing books for collateral reading.
4. General readers of all classes, and all persons are general readers
when not reading for a definite purpose, but for general culture.
Obviously the rights of all these classes are not of equal importance.
To outline the means of protecting their rights, it is necessary to
classify users by certain of their characteristics which bear no
relation to the groups named above. First, the conscientious worker
who, while using many books, never retains one beyond his real need for
it, and who constantly bears in mind the possible need that others may
have for a book he is using. Library rules are not made for such. The
next and most difficult class to deal with are those who want to gather
about them all the books they can conveniently lay hands on, with the
thought, that they will "come handy some day." A large class, running
down to the lowest ranks of college students, comprise those who think
they must have all the material on a subject at hand at one time.
Another class, largely college students, is made up of those selfish
persons who, having a task, ride rough shod, if necessary, over the
rights of others in doing it. Then there is the small class that can be
designated by no other names than thieves and vandals, those who steal
books, and cut out text or illustrations.
An adequate code of rules and regulations should be drawn up, care
being taken that all rules should be made for the sole purpose of
preserving rights and property. Of first importance are the regulations
for getting books back into the library. A time limit of one month
on all books not in use for instruction or research has been fairly
successful. All bound volumes of periodicals may be limited to two
weeks or one month. A limit may be put on the number of volumes a user
may have out at any one time. A requirement that all books must come
back to the library, once a year, regardless of the use being made of
them, will keep in the library many books that have been left lying
around after being used.
Within the library the problem of making all books available for use
when needed is not a simple one. Reserve collections, and the recall
of books when needed are familiar practices; but when the demand for a
book is very great, its use by one person may be limited to one-half
or one hour as the case may call for. The failure to return a reserved
book when due interferes seriously with others' rights. In these cases
students must be made to respect the rights of others, even at the
cost of losing their own privileges which is often a more effective
discipline than a money fine. The library shares with other departments
of the college or university the duty of teaching students a due regard
for the rights of others. The problem of detecting the few thieves and
vandals who curse all used libraries, may require professional advice.
Few seem to be brought to justice, in spite of all efforts.
Whatever measures are employed to protect the users' rights and the
library property, they must have their foundation in a system of
classification and notation that clearly indicates in every record
the character of the book and its relation to other material in the
library; and in a system of record of use that tells not only where a
book is when out, how long it has been out, and who is responsible for
it, but also tells the life history of that book from the time it comes
into the library until it is worn out.
* * * * *
After the discussion of Mr. Austen's paper, Mr. F. K. W. DRURY,
assistant librarian of the University of Illinois, presented a paper on
DO WE NEED A SHORT STORY INDEX?
Is not this the day of the index? Have we not Poole, the Reader's
Guide, the Portrait and the Engineering Indexes, Granger's Index to
Poetry and Recitations, and the Index to Victrola Records? What Granger
is to poetry, may we not compile for the short story? For if this is
the day of the index, is it any less that of the short story?
* * * * *
If we agree to omit fairy stories and folk tales and most juveniles
what is the extent of short story literature? In a very brief survey
of the field did I not find 404 English and American authors and 37
foreign authors in English translation whose stories have attained book
form?
Let us credit each author with ten titles and we have at once 4,400
stories worthy of recognition. And these do not include the vast horde
of stories--literally thousands--that have appeared and are appearing
monthly, weekly, yea even daily, in the magazines of the hour.
How recent then shall we make our list? Shall we anticipate the
Get-rich-quick Wallingford tale announced for next month? Where shall
we draw our line?
How inclusive shall our list be made? Shall the Saturday Evening Post
and the two Sunday magazines be indexed? Or shall we stay within the
circle of the Readers' Guide and the Magazine subject index? How many
of the news-stand best sellers shall be admitted? Mr. Wyer shows us
the million circulation figures of the Woman's World, Comfort, the
Vickery and Hill list of three (Happy Hours, Hearth and Home, and Good
Stories), yet these are not taken by our libraries and if indexed could
be consulted with difficulty. Where shall we draw this line?
Again, how far abroad shall we go? Shall the short stories in foreign
tongues fraternize with their English cousins? Or shall they be aliens
and only admitted when really anglicized? Do we need an index? Let
us test our present resources. How do you find in which volume of
Kipling is printed "Thrawn Janet" or his "Man who would be king?" How
many copies of "The necklace" can you supply? Granger tells you it is
in Cody's "World's greatest short stories" and your catalog may show
it in De Maupassant's works, or his "Odd number." But how would you
find out that this classic is also in "Little French masterpieces,"
in Esenwein's book on the short story, and probably in several other
places.
Somebody comes in and asks for "Napoleon Jackson" and you do not find
it in the volumes you have by Ruth McEnery Stuart. Perhaps it is loaned
out. Would not such an index show that this story appeared in the
Century for January, 1902, under the title "The gentleman of the plush
rocker"?
Vainly have I searched through catalogs and bibliographies and even
biographies to find in which book of stories by "Adirondack" Murray may
be found "A busted ex-Texan." The book itself must be in hand to find
this information. Try to search down a particular title by Stockton, or
Bret Harte and you will soon despair.
Have we not then three distinct classes of publications which can be
indexed with profit?
(a) Collected stories of authors, of whom we have listed at least 4,400.
(b) Periodical sets, which Poole indexed by titles only, but since 1900
the Readers' Guide has by both author and title.
(c) Collections of stories, of which 73 at least are available today.
Can we not characterize or classify our short story by some such terms
as those used in the Philadelphia free library Catalog of Prose
Fiction, published in 1904?
Have you ever been disappointed in reading a story? Have you not often
wished to know if it were a "good" one or "worth while" before you
began it? Indeed, have you not often refrained from reading one for
fear of wasting your time?
How can we tell about these short stories? Are they good or bad?
Detective or amorous? Psychological or mysterious?
Have you ever seen a short story reviewed? Have you any way of knowing?
Must we read every one to find out?
Some may be characterized from the author. The Sherlock Holmes series
are obviously detective stories. We can be pretty sure of Ambrose
Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe. So stories in Harper's have a general tone
quite characteristic.
Here at once is a most important and a most difficult part of such
an index. Is not the value of Granger immensely increased by the
topical index? Are we not laboring patiently to classify our novels by
subjects? Why not also the short story?
We may now ask ourselves: What would be the scope of the entries? For
discussion, we suggest:
1. Author list; giving author, title, number of words, location,
character.
2. Title index.
3. Subject or character index.
You will readily see the elements of a dictionary catalog here, and it
is debatable whether to separate the entries in the three groups as
above, or to alphabet them together. Shall we double star the 100 best
and star the 500 next?
Are not these questions too perplexing, is not the labor of compilation
too arduous, and is not life too short for the reading and classifying
all these titles, for one person to attempt this task alone? It has
seemed so. Hence this question mark rampant, hence this interrogational
presentation, hence this request for co-operation. Without the subject
characterization one man could do it, but would not one of the most
valuable features be omitted?
With definite assignments, under an editor-in-chief, is not this index
possible? Is it not needed?
In the discussion it was brought out that the Chicago public library
had made a list of fairy tales, that the Cleveland public library had
begun a list of short stories not in periodicals, and that titles of
stories frequently occur in reference lists on subjects like, for
example, Hallowe'en.
After a discussion of Mr. Drury's paper, Mr. ROBERT KENDALL SHAW,
librarian of the Worcester (Mass.) free public library, spoke on the
subject
IS THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A CENTRAL REFERENCE BUREAU DESIRABLE?[9]
This subject has been so fully treated in recent years, notably by Mr.
Lane in an address at Oberlin college in June, 1908, and in several
reports of the Association of college librarians, that only an outline
will be attempted here.
[9] Abstract.
A natural preliminary inquiry presents itself: Is reference work in
all its phases adequately performed already? With a well trained
library staff, whose work may be supplemented by the inter-library
loan; by writing letters; by the use of the priceless though incessant
telephone; or by seeking the aid of some such bureau of inquiry as that
of Thos. Nelson's Sons, The Boston Transcript, The New York Times or
Notes and Queries, are we keeping our public satisfied, and the voice
of conscience still?
If not, and if the question of creating some central agency for
auxiliary reference service is to be discussed, shall this central
agency take the form of a central lending library, with its permanent
building, book reservoir and staff to administer it, or of a central
reference bureau, which will receive all kinds of inquiries, and
answer them, as far as possible, by consultation in libraries already
existing, or in other institutions which may possess the desired
information?
That a central lending library, equipped and maintained under the
auspices of the A. L. A. is today or even tomorrow impracticable, can
scarcely be denied by intelligent librarians. The writer believes
that no adequate endowment could be secured; that if any funds were
obtained for this purpose, years would be required to build up a useful
collection; that such a collection would, to a great extent, duplicate
existing material; that running expenses would be far greater than
for an information bureau, and that there are, in short, other more
pressing needs.
If a central reference bureau is to be established, what form shall it
take? Shall it be attached to some institution already in operation
or exist independently? The latter seems preferable, as it could
then maintain a consistent policy, unhampered by political or other
undesirable influences; proceed unhampered with singleness of aim and
method; be governed by persons disinterested and none others; and
restrict its collections exclusively to the purposes which its founders
intended it to pursue.
Where should such an agency be established? At some library center like
Boston, New York, Philadelphia or St. Louis? At A. L. A. headquarters?
At the Library of Congress or under the auspices of some active state
library commission? The two institutions specifically mentioned are
already doing a large work in this direction.
The duties and opportunities of this bureau would be: to collect and
co-ordinate the public-service records of American libraries and
cognate institutions (e. g. supply information on special collections,
subject bibliographies, reading lists, etc.); by questionnaires, visits
and in other ways obtain supplementary information along these and
similar lines; to get results printed and disseminated; to furnish
definite information on lending conditions now obtaining in American
libraries, and, when possible, to improve them; and to serve as a
free registration and employment agency for librarians and library
assistants. Although this last suggestion has not been proposed, to the
writer's knowledge in earlier schemes, its importance as a practical
measure, is obvious. To the large body of faithful and efficient
workers who have not enjoyed the benefits of a library school training
such an agency would render signal service.
The unfortunate but frequently recurring repetition of reference
research would, in large measure, be prevented if librarians were
enabled to derive prompt assistance, in case of knotty problems, from
a competent central agency. Their duty to dispatch to this agency
solutions to such questions of probably common interest as they had
themselves discovered, would be equally obvious.
The trend of library thought in the thinking world today is toward
centralisation and co-ordination of effort; witness the sense of the
Brussels conference of 1910 that central information bureaus should be
established in all countries of progressive library spirit; the success
and practical value of the gigantic Gesammtkatalog; and the expected
benefits from the youthful Boston co-operative information bureau.
That American librarians are looking toward a fuller development of
inter-library loans, and away from a central reference bureau, is the
consensus of the recent (1910, March and May) symposium conducted
by the Library Journal. Our duty now is, by sympathy, interest and
contribution, to forward the work of the Library of Congress and the
A. L. A. headquarters, and to make our own lending conditions the most
generous in our power.
Mr. C. H. Gould, chairman of the committee on co-ordination, stated
that the subject just presented had a close relation to several matters
before his committee, and gave a résumé of their report submitted in
print to a general session of the conference.
Dr. Andrews, as a member of the Committee, added that in his opinion
photographic reproductions might prove a satisfactory substitute for
many inter-library loans. The installation of a cameragraph in the John
Crerar library had proved of much more use than had been anticipated,
not only in regard to the number of copies made, but also in regard to
the scope of the material thus copied. It had been found in many cases
that these photographic reproductions could be furnished for less than
the cost of transportation of the volume, and that besides they gave a
permanent record to the borrower. The only obvious limitation was the
impossibility of reproducing copyright material.
After further discussion, the chairman asked Dr. W. K. Jewett,
librarian of the University of Nebraska, to serve as chairman of the
nominating committee and to select two others to serve with him. The
session then adjourned.
SECOND SESSION
(Monday, July 1, 2:30 p. m.)
The second session was held Monday afternoon, July 1, in the ballroom.
The first paper was by Mr. J. C. M. HANSON, associate director of
libraries, University of Chicago, and was read in his absence by Mr. M.
G. Wyer, librarian of the State University of Iowa. The paper follows.
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE DEPARTMENTAL LIBRARY PROBLEM IN UNIVERSITIES,
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
=List of references=
Departmental arrangement of college libraries, by Edith E. Clarke.
Library journal vol. 11, 1899, p. 340-343; vol. 16, 1891, p.
264-268.
Reference, seminary, and departmental libraries at Cornell
university, by W. Austen. Library journal, vol. 18, 1893, p.
181-183.
Function of a university library, by H. L. Koopman. Library journal
vol. 19, 1894, p. 24-30 of Conference Report.
The departmental libraries of the University of Chicago, by Z. A.
Dixson. Library journal vol. 20, 1895, p. 375-377.
Notes on the government and control of college libraries, by G. W.
Harris. Library journal vol. 22, 1897, p. 55-57 of Conference
Report.
Relation of seminary and departmental libraries to the general
university library, by George H. Baker. Library journal vol. 23,
1898, p. 103-106 of Conference Report.
First Report of W. C. Lane, librarian of Harvard university, 1898, p.
2-5. Compare also his 5th Report, p. 215.
The Problems of the departmental system in university libraries, by
W. W. Bishop. Library journal vol. 26, 1901, p. 14-18.
Report of College and reference section, 1902. Library journal vol.
27, p. 172-178 of Conference Report.
Relation of the departmental or group libraries to the main library,
by Dr. E. D. Burton. Library journal vol. 28, 1903, p. 19-23 of
Conference Report.
Discussion in College and reference section, 1903. Library journal
vol. 28, 1903, p. 170-175 of Conference Report.
The future university library, by B. Ranel. Nation vol. 84, March 21,
1907, p. 263.
The university branch library, by W. Austen. Library journal vol. 28,
1908, p. 220-222.
Plea for the central library, by J. Bascom. Educational review, vol.
38, Sept. 1909, p. 139-149.
Departmental libraries, by F. C. Hicks. Columbia university
quarterly, vol. 13, March, 1911, p. 185-195.
Departmental libraries in universities and colleges, by Henry E.
Bliss. Educational review, April, 1912, p. 387-409.
Ueber die Bibliotheken der Preussischen Universitätsinstitute, von
Dr. Naetebus. Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, vol. 23. 1906, p.
341-367.
Allgemeine Grundsätze für die Vermehrung der Preussischen
Staatsbibliotheken, von W. Erman. Zentralblatt für
Bibliothekswesen, vol. 25, 1908, p. 429-433.
Bemerkungen zu dem Ermanschen Entwurf "Allgemeine Grundsätze für die
Vermehrung der Preussischen Staatsbibliotheken," von J. Franke.
Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, vol. 26, 1909, p. 12-22.
Für die Seminarbibliotheken, von F. Behrend. Zentralblatt für
Bibliothekswesen, vol. 26, 1909, p. 23-25.
Erlauterung und Begründung der Allgemeinen Grundsätze für die
Vermehrung der Preussischen Staatsbibliotheken, von W. Erman.
Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, vol. 26, 1909, p. 97-121.
Universitätsbibliothek und Institutsbibliotheken, von Karl Bücher,
1910.
Zentralization der Bibliotheken, von Hugo Zimmer. Zentralblatt für
Bibliothekswesen, 28. jahrg. 1911, p. 446-469.
The pros and cons of the departmental system have been summarized
in several of the articles mentioned above. In his annual report as
librarian of Harvard college for 1898 Mr. Lane calls attention, on the
one hand to the more convenient use of books in a small collection, and
in case of scientific subjects, the possibility of having the books in
or near the laboratory. On the other hand he emphasizes the increased
difficulty of consultation on the part of persons not immediately
connected with the department, less careful supervision, increase
in expense of administration, less security from fire, lack of that
reinforcement which every department of a general library receives from
all related departments, tendency to narrowness, and growth of special
collections beyond a convenient size.
On September 28, 1900, Professor E. D. Burton, the present director
of the libraries of the University of Chicago, and Professor H. P.
Judson, now president of the university, presented before the faculty
briefs for and against the following proposition: That a limit should
be placed in the near future to the development of the departmental
library system. The affirmative urged that it was for the advantage
of the departments whose interests and relationships are widespread,
notably of philosophy, history, political economy, political science,
and sociology, that all the library resources of the university should
be gathered in one building and brought under one administration and
catalog system. The convenience of scholars coming from a distance
demanded concentration also facilitated the practical administration of
the libraries. As departments grew and the number of books increased,
the departmental library system became unwieldy.
In the negative the following advantages of the departmental system
were emphasized: The importance of close connection with the
classrooms, especially the seminar rooms. For the departments which
have laboratories the retention of the libraries in connection with the
laboratories was indispensable. Granting the importance of serving the
convenience of visiting investigators, their convenience must always be
subordinated to that of the large number of students and professors of
the university. Practically all the valuable results of concentration
could be secured by a catalog of all the departments in the general
library and a system of underground book railways and telephone
communication.
The latest summary which has come to my attention is one by Mr. Hicks
in the Columbia university quarterly for March, 1911.
There is little that can be added to the arguments presented in these
statements. Perhaps the following points in favor of the departmental
system might be emphasized:
(1) Books in the same room with the reader and free access to them
is a great inducement to study. It increases the use of books, makes
it easier for the investigator to consult books in use by others,
and also to consult with colleagues in regard to questions which
arise during the investigation. The student feels more at home, less
subject to inspection and observation by officials. This adds to the
pleasure which he may take in his work and to the feeling of personal
responsibility for the collection of books with which he is working.
(2) The ability of a departmental library to make collections of minor
publications in the line of its special investigation to an extent
difficult or even impossible for the general library may also be
conceded.
Against the system more emphasis should be placed on the following:
(1) As Mr. Lane points out segregation of books in departments tends
to narrowness. While seminary methods of instruction should lead the
student to avail himself of the entire resources of the university
library, the departmental system as carried out in many universities
tempts him to limit his investigations to the departmental library. The
narrowing influence of this must be obvious to those who have observed
how various subjects and classes overlap and intertwine, how material
of importance is found in unexpected places, in general collections,
transactions and proceedings of societies and institutions, government
reports, and encyclopedic works, not in the departmental library, the
loss therefore of that reinforcement which each department should
receive from all other related departments.
(2) The use of the departmental library is often limited to students
of a particular department. It becomes difficult therefore for others
to gain access. If admitted, they are hampered by special rules and
arrangements unfamiliar to them. Books are as a rule not allowed to
circulate and their withdrawal for use in connection with other related
works becomes difficult.
(3) Many valuable books of reference which cannot well be duplicated
are placed beyond the reach of the majority of students and professors.
(4) It increases the liability to loss, because when there are many
departmental libraries open many hours a day it becomes practically
impossible to provide in all of them adequate supervision at all times.
(5) The growth of the departmental libraries beyond a convenient size
and the incidental disadvantages of inadequate shelf space, disorder,
lack of accommodation for students, the relegation of less used books
to garrets and cellars.
(6) To provide fairly complete catalogs, author, title, and subject,
for a large library is becoming more and more difficult as the
collections increase in size. To provide these catalogs also for a
number of departments, or to furnish copies of the sections likely to
interest a given department, would require an expenditure of time and
money quite beyond the means of any university, and entirely out of
proportion to the advantages to be gained therefrom. The absence of
satisfactory catalogs in departmental libraries will therefore have
to be reckoned with and must be emphasized as one of the most serious
disadvantages of the system.
I realize that no argument is likely to change the conviction of
certain professors and departments, that the departmental system is
the only one which merits consideration, or the view on the other
hand of other professors and students, perhaps also the librarian,
that a strong general library with small working collections in the
departments, largely duplicating books in the general library, is in
the interest of the great majority and offers the only reasonable
solution. It may, nevertheless, be convenient to have at hand a summary
of the question with references to the literature on the subject,
especially if governing bodies should be called upon to regulate the
issue as has been the case in Italy and Prussia.
The development of the departmental, problem in university libraries
dates back to about 1870. While a great many seminar collections,
especially in Germany, were started prior to that year, they had not as
yet reached a size which called for funds, special administration, or
space, to a degree sufficient to embarrass the general library and the
university.
It may have its interest to give a brief outline of the development
of the system in Prussia. It should prove suggestive as furnishing a
parallel to our own situation.
In his "Eine Reise durch die Grösseren Bibliotheken Italiens,"[10]
Dziatzko speaks of the Italian government regulations of 1885-1889
governing the relation of the departmental libraries to the general
university library. The Italian regulations specified among other
points the following:
[10] Beiträge zur Theorie und Praxis des Buch--und Bibliothekswesens.
Sammlung Bibliothekswissenschaftlicher Arbeiten. 6. heft. p. 106-109.
Departmental collections are to be considered as part of the university
library. The library commission of the university is to superintend the
departmental libraries through the director of the university library.
Second copies of books already in the university are to be purchased
only in case of the most pressing necessity, and periodicals are not
to be duplicated. Books are to be transferred from one library to
another according to definite agreement. Books are to be accessioned
in the university library and to be entered in its author catalog
and stamped with the university library stamp. The approval of book
appropriations on the part of the ministry depends on compliance with
these regulations. The library commission had apportioned the annual
book appropriations as follows: six-tenths to departmental libraries,
laboratories, clinics, collections, etc., four-tenths to the general
library.
Whether the Prussian ministerial regulations adopted soon after were
based on the Italian is not known; but the similarity of the problem
has undoubtedly led to considerable uniformity in the measures adopted.
It was in 1891 that the situation in the Prussian universities had
reached a point where some government intervention seemed called for
in order to regulate the relations between the university libraries
and the so-called institutsbibliotheken. The regulations formulated
(printed in the Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1897) specified in
part as follows: Departmental libraries cannot dispose of their books;
when no longer needed they are to be turned over to the university
library. They are reference libraries and no books can be loaned except
by order of the university council, or at Berlin which has no council,
by the ministry. All students of the university are admitted to the
use of the departmental libraries. The university library shall make
an author catalog of the books in the departments, one copy for the
departmental library, the other for the union catalog in the general
library. The university library can loan books to the departmental
library for a semester, provided they can be spared.
While the government passed the regulations it neglected to provide
sufficient appropriations to carry them out, the result being that the
union catalog referred to was begun at only two universities, Berlin
and Bonn, and at the former lack of help soon caused a considerable
accumulation of arrears. The experience gained showed that, an
indication in the catalog of the general library, that a given book can
be found in a department is of little value. The general library has
not on that account been able to dispense with the purchase of a copy,
the distance to the departmental library and the difficulty of securing
access making it necessary to duplicate. Occasionally a student has
been referred to a departmental library, but it has not happened
frequently enough to warrant the extra expenditure, or the duplication
of catalogs. It has on the other hand proved of great assistance to the
departmental library, and in Bonn its continuance is strongly urged
by the departments. The same holds true of Berlin, although instances
have been recorded where a department has refused to accept the catalog
prepared by the general library.
In other respects the departments have neglected to follow the
regulations. It has been said, for instance, that instead of turning
duplicates over to the university library certain departments have
disposed of them through exchange or have sold them outright to book
dealers.
In his report before the Versammlung Deutscher Bibliothekare, 1896, Dr.
Naetebus gives an excellent survey of the departmental libraries of the
Prussian universities, reporting in all on 367 different collections. A
perusal of his report and of the discussion which followed shows that
the problem in Prussia is in most respects similar to our own.
In the Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1909, p. 103, et seq.,
Dr. Erman criticizes the regulations of 1891 for not specifying
or providing means for enforcing them. Incidentally he says with
reference to the development of the departmental libraries, that
while the original plan had been to make the books most urgently
needed by students in seminars and laboratories more convenient of
access than was possible in the overworked and overcrowded university
libraries, various circumstances had co-operated towards gradually
making these collections more comprehensive than they were intended
to be, to include in fact almost all the literature in a given field
or in related and overlapping fields of knowledge, thus making the
departmental libraries quite independent of the university library.
While the original plan had seemed to furnish welcome relief to the
university libraries, its recent extension had threatened seriously to
cripple them.
It was perhaps the lack of funds on the part of the university
libraries which had caused the difficulty in the first place. The
departments finding that certain expensive books could not be obtained
through the university library began to purchase them for their
own use. As the funds of the departments were too small to permit
of extensive purchases, every effort was made to increase them by
special and extra appropriations, this being so much the easier as the
directors of the departments were frequently the most influential and
powerful men in the faculties, and funds which otherwise would have
fallen to the university library were thus diverted to the departments,
extending the size and scope of their working collections far beyond
the bounds originally intended.
Dr. Erman states that many professors have according to his own
experience sought to secure practically all new accessions of value
for the departmental library, leaving for the general library only the
books seldom or never asked for. To discontinue the university library
altogether and divide its collections among the departments would seem
a far simpler and more logical plan, and there should be no hesitation
in considering its realization provided there seemed any hope that
forty departmental libraries would replace the university library
and perform its functions in a satisfactory manner. Unfortunately,
such a solution seems out of the question. It would prove disastrous
to the university in various ways. There would be lost to it the one
department alike common to all members of the faculty and to the
student body. Very few work in so narrow a field that they would be
served by consulting only one of the departmental libraries. The
younger instructors and students who might not have any department,
would be at a great disadvantage. If the university libraries were
ever discontinued Dr. Erman thinks that there would soon arise an
irresistible demand for their restoration. He also thinks that the
increase in the administrative expense resulting from a departmental
system would be so great as to be practically prohibitive.
In Germany as with us, the desirability of some modus vivendi by
which university libraries and the departments could be made to work
in harmony and mutually assist one another, has repeatedly been
emphasized. As it is, the professor to whom a general library was once
a vital question, but who has now at hand a well equipped departmental
collection, is likely to lose all interest in the former and devote
himself entirely to the development of the latter. Here in America
the separation may not as yet have reached the point where, as in a
case cited by Dr. Erman, a professor on being elected to the library
council said to him that this was the first intimation he had had of
the existence of a university library. At the same time, we have here
and there evidence of a strong drift in this direction, particularly
so in universities where the departmental system has been most fully
developed.
Another eminent German librarian who touches on this problem is Dr.
Milkau. In Kultur der Gegenwart, Abt. 1, p. 579, he states that in
certain universities the total appropriation of all departmental
libraries sometimes equals or even exceeds that of the general
library. Originally intended as collections of reference books to be
used in connection with instruction, they have gradually grown to
considerable size, so that their supervision and regulation is year
by year becoming more difficult. Dr. Milkau would not abolish the
departmental libraries; on the contrary he freely grants their great
value and superiority in some respects to the university library. There
must, however, be co-operation between the departmental libraries one
with another, and with the university library. Purchase of sets and
expensive books must not be decided upon regardless of what is already
in the university. Each department must limit itself strictly to its
own particular field and omit all works not urgently needed, or of some
permanent value. He offers as a remedy for the problem the following:
To limit the size of the departmental collection, setting a maximum
number of volumes not to be exceeded, a cure which seems a little too
radical to find favor with all parties concerned.
In the discussion on the report of Dr. Naetebus referred to above, Dr.
Gerhard, of Halle, insisted that the only way to secure relief would
be through radical measures on the part of the government, viz., to
cut down the departmental appropriations to a point where they would
be forced to restrict purchases to the books most urgently needed for
use in connection with instruction, the appropriations thus saved to be
turned over to the university library. Dr. Roth, of Halle, complained
of the lack of system in the development of the departmental libraries
due to the frequent change of directors. He, however, considered
the power of departments to secure books through gift and exchange
an important and valuable factor, one not to be underestimated. Dr.
Erman, Breslau, agreed with Dr. Gerhard and stated that there must be
a readjustment of the funds appropriated for the purchase of books for
the university and departmental libraries. There could be no complaint
with the development of large and comprehensive collections in the
departments, if at the same time the university libraries received
enough to secure at least a small part of the books needed to keep
their collections up to date. There would never have been so large a
development of the departmental libraries if the university libraries
had been in a position to answer the demands made on them. As it is,
when an expensive book is wanted and the university library has not
the funds to secure it, there immediately appear from two to three
copies in as many departmental libraries, while there is no copy in the
university library. The situation which results is intolerable. If in
Breslau instead of 31,000 marks a year for the university library and
31,000 for the departmental libraries, the former had 40,000 and the
latter 20,000, it would mean an immense improvement for all concerned.
Dr. Geiger, Tübingen, and Dr. Frankfurter of Vienna, reported that
essentially the same or even a worse state of affairs exists in
Wurtemburg and in Austria.
The radical measures recommended by Dr. Gerhard and others were not
approved by Dr. Naetebus, especially on account of the ability of
departmental libraries to secure gifts and exchanges not within the
reach of the university library.
Since this discussion took place I understand that the book funds of
the Prussian university libraries have been materially increased,
thus somewhat relieving the situation. After this brief survey of the
conditions existing in certain European universities it may be of
interest to turn to one of the two American universities in which the
building up of departmental collections has preceded the development of
a strong general library.
=Departmental Libraries at the University of Chicago=
The extraordinary development of the departmental library system at
the University of Chicago is due largely to a number of causes and
conditions, many of them accidental and peculiar to the university.
The main reason was probably the lack of a general library worthy of
the name; also the fact that some of the strongest men on the faculty
favored the departmental system.
In the president's report (Decennial Publications, first series, 1903,
vol. 1, p. 266-290) is found an "Outline history of the legislation
of university bodies on the question of departmental libraries and
their relation to the general library." The first sentence reads: "The
system of departmental libraries for research work, supplementing the
general library of the university, dates from the organization of the
university itself." This would indicate that the departmental libraries
were considered supplementary to the general library. However this
may have been at the outset, later developments show that the general
library has been so entirely outstripped and overshadowed by the
departmental collections that in 1910, at any rate, when the writer had
his first opportunity to observe conditions at close hand, the general
library was found to consist of some 75,000 volumes of odds and ends, a
mere conglomerate which would have been of little service, except for
the fact that it was the only collection on the campus from which books
could be drawn somewhat freely and to which undergraduates had general
access. Appropriations for books amounted to $25,265, of which the
general library had only $1550; the departmental libraries, $23,715.
(See above, Dr. Gerhart's complaint about the situation at Halle,
31,000 marks for the general library, 31,000 for the departments).
While the original plan had no doubt intended that departments should
abstain from ordering books of interest to several departments, that
books of general interest therefore should be purchased only by the
general library, the latter was unfortunately prevented by lack of
funds and equipment from meeting these demands, the inevitable result
being that the departments soon ceased to look to the general library
and ordered for their own use any book to which a professor might have
occasion to refer in his courses, regardless of whether it was in the
general library or in another departmental library. Whether in placing
orders he was intruding on the domains of a related department may or
may not have been considered. At any rate books on exactly the same
subject are now found in a number of departmental libraries, editions
of the same book are separated and there is duplication of copies to an
extent hitherto unheard of, as far as I know, in any university library.
That the president and faculty have been aware of the situation and
have tried to find a solution, of that there is evidence enough.
Mr. Bishop in his articles in the Library journal, vol. 28, has given a
survey of the discussion which took place at the University of Chicago
in 1898-1901. A full report is found in the Decennial Publications,
first series vol. 1 quoted above, and in the University record vol.
5. It has been referred to also by Mr. Henry E. Bliss in his recent
article in the Educational review, April 1912.
The solution attempted, perhaps the only one possible at the time,
consisted in a grouping of related departmental collections. The
following group libraries were formally approved by the library board
in 1899: Classical, Modern Languages, and Historical. In 1900 the
university senate approved the general plan that all departments having
laboratories should retain their libraries in the same building
with the laboratory, those not having laboratories should as a rule
be transferred to the general library building when one was erected.
I have already referred to the briefs presented by Dr. Burton and
Dr. Judson in October, 1900, on the proposition that a limit should
be put in the near future to the development of the departmental
library system. The University Congress after discussing them adopted
two resolutions: (1) That it is the judgment of this body that the
departmental library system should be retained. (2) That a committee
of three for each of the several groups of departments recognized
by the Board of libraries, laboratories and museums be appointed,
the committee to consider and to recommend, respecting the group
represented, what is best for it and the university in general. The
report of this committee appeared in the University record Nov. 9 and
16, 1900. These reports from the different groups and departments
are of interest in showing the sentiment in the various departments
of the teaching body. They were briefly as follows: Of the Classical
Department five favored the departmental system, two a general library.
The Modern Language group was unanimous in favor of centralization. The
Haskell group (Divinity School, Semitics, and Comparative Religion)
proposed the maintenance of branch libraries of books likely to be
in constant use by students in connection with the ordinary class
work to be kept in the lecture hall building, that no books should
be permanently assigned to these branch libraries of which there was
not another copy in the general library. The Historical group held
to the departmental library system, but was not so particular about
the control of the libraries. Like the Divinity School, it preferred
locating the departmental collection in one building with the general
library and related departmental libraries. The Philosophical group
recognized the great value of location of related departments in
the same building, but held strongly to departmental control of
the library and free access of students to books in which they are
interested. If these two things could be granted, they would advocate
a single building for all departments. The Mathematical group was
non-committal, it emphasized however that Astronomy and Mathematics
must be kept together and that books in these libraries are used
almost exclusively by students of the two departments named.[11] The
Biology group recommended that upon erection of a suitable library
building a separate room be assigned to the Biology library. That
arrangements be made for telephone communication and speedy transfer
of books to laboratories, that special books and periodicals needed
by the department for constant use be kept in each laboratory
building as a branch of the departmental library, that books in such
branch libraries be rendered easily accessible at all hours, and
that provision for adequate supervision of these branch libraries be
considered an indispensable preliminary to their establishment. The
Chemical group wished the Chemical library to be retained in Kent
Chemical Laboratory, but preferred to see the proceedings of academies
and journals of general scientific interest kept in the general
library, also that a reference shelf containing books of interest to
those who are taking undergraduate work in chemistry be maintained
in the general reading room of the general library, and that special
books needed for consultation in connection with laboratory work be
kept in the laboratory. Physics considered the departmental library
as indispensable to the department. The Geology group reported most
unqualifiedly in favor of departmental or group libraries that should
embrace essentially all the literature pertaining to the group so
far as practical considerations would permit. The full statement of
this group deserves to be read. It is a most emphatic defense of the
departmental system. The statement of the Modern Language group and
of Professor Hendrickson of the Classical group contain the strongest
statements on the other side of the question.
[11] NOTE--Later on Mathematics decided that their library must be kept
in the Mathematical building.
On November 4, 1900, these reports were referred by the library board
to a committee of three, one of whom was the Associate Librarian,
Mrs. Dixson. The committee reported on March 16, 1901 (see University
record March 22, 1901) in favor of maintaining the departmental system,
but recommended the centralization as far as possible at one point
in a central building of the administration of the libraries, and
of the books of the university not in use in the departments. After
much discussion of the report and a later modification of it, it was
decided to refer the matter to a commission consisting of professors
and trustees appointed for the purpose of making a thorough study of
the entire problem. The outcome of the work of this commission was a
decision to place in buildings connecting with the general library
the following departmental or group libraries: Philosophy, History
and Social Sciences, Classics, Modern Languages, Oriental Languages,
the Divinity School, the Law School. That further, the departmental
libraries of Chemistry, Physics, Geology, and the Biological sciences,
be retained in the department buildings of these departments, it
being understood that these departments may place such books as they
desire in the general library building. The library of Mathematics and
Astronomy should be associated with the library of Physics.
Time will not permit any detailed consideration of the report of the
commission. It was approved by the Congregation, August 28th, 1902, and
adopted by the Board of trustees September 12th of the same year. It is
the plan laid down in this report that has in the main been followed
in the location and erection of the Harper Memorial library, dedicated
on June 11, 1912, and which it is also proposed to follow in the
separate buildings to be provided for the Historical Group, Philosophy,
Modern Languages and Classics. When completed this plan will bring the
Humanities, with the exception of Geography into buildings adjoining
the General Library, connected with it or with one another by bridges.
Since the adoption of the report nearly ten years have elapsed during
which there has been some progress in the direction of centralization,
at any rate of management and control of libraries. A somewhat uniform
system of rules and regulations was adopted in 1911. In the same year a
common system of catalogs and classification was finally approved.
The catalogs will include:
(1) A dictionary catalog for the public in the general library,
duplicated in part in the catalog department (Official catalog).
(2) Classed catalog for the public in the general library,
duplicated in part in the catalog department (Shelf-list on
cards).
(3) Author catalog and shelflist on cards for the departmental
libraries located in buildings not connecting with the general
library.
(4) Author catalog only for departmental libraries located in the
general library, or in buildings connecting with it.
N. B. Catalogs in the departmental libraries will not according to the
present plan include analyticals or other added entries which may be
provided in the dictionary and classed catalogs of the general library.
Even with the limitations here indicated the catalog plan as outlined
may seem a little ambitious and likely to prove expensive and
difficult to maintain. In view of the present situation, as well as
the outlook for the future, even assuming that departments which in
1900 favored a departmental system should be indisposed to change
their attitude, it seemed nevertheless the safest plan to adopt. The
general library aims to build up a strong central reference collection.
This collection should be classified and cataloged so as to yield
the best possible results. Merged with the catalog of the general
library will be one covering all the departmental libraries. It would,
of course, be desirable to provide every departmental library with
as exhaustive a catalog as the one proposed for the general library.
The expense however, even in this day of printed cards would, I fear,
be practically prohibitive. Moreover, it is doubtful if many of the
departments would find the expected relief in an elaborate author and
subject catalog of their collections as they stand. This last statement
may seem to require some further substantiation, and I shall in the
following endeavor to present the necessary proofs and illustrations.
It is no doubt true that heads of departments and their associates
frequently take a personal pride in their departmental library and feel
a certain responsibility for its growth and development. I have known
cases where a department would resent any suggestion that a part of its
books might to good advantage be transferred to the general library
or to another department in exchange for material in these libraries
bearing more directly on the special line of study which the department
is supposed to represent. The fact remains, nevertheless, that these
libraries frequently show in their development a lack of that strong
coordinating influence so essential to systematic growth. A detailed
examination of their collections soon reveals the fact that books have
been ordered principally with reference to their use in connection
with courses given in a department, no one apparently questioning the
right of one department to poach on the premises of another or on that
of the general library. There has resulted, therefore, a situation
which cannot be remedied by any catalog, no matter how exhaustive
or how perfect. This leads me to go a step further and to venture
the assertion that the lack of a strong central library can not be
compensated by merely bringing together related departmental libraries
into the same or adjoining buildings. It is even doubtful if it would
be worth while to prepare an exhaustive union catalog of such libraries
without considerable migration of books from one department to another.
A few illustrations taken at random from the books which have come
under my observation during the past month or two in connection with
the recataloging, will, I think, bear me out in this statement.
General works on science are in a number of libraries, mainly in
Geology, Biology, and the general library, but also in a number of
other departmental libraries.
The History library includes many books which deal solely with
Education, Medicine, Music, Art, Religion, Technology, and other
subjects, overlapping, therefore, practically with all other
departments. The main duplication, however, seems to be in Church
History with the Divinity library, in History and Topography with
Geography, in Ancient History with Classics and in Education and other
subjects with the general library.
The Modern Language library duplicates chiefly material in the
libraries of History and Geography, besides of course the general
library. It is, however, the one department which strongly favors
consolidation of books on the same subject, and if the other
departments in or connecting with the general library will agree
to such consolidation, its duplication, except with Geography and
the Classical Department, should cease after the transfer of its
books to the general library building. The fact that this library
has on its shelves works like Alumni Oxoniensis, Catalogue of the
Advocates Library, "Ersch and Gruber," La Grande Encyclopedie, Dante's
Dictionnaire biographique et bibliographique des hommes les plus
remarquables, Haebler's Typographia Iberica, etc., will therefore prove
an advantage.
The Classical library presents one of the most vexing problems of
our library situation, one not solved by a most liberal duplication.
Its collections overlap mainly with those of History, Sociology,
Science, Political Science, Economics, Literature, Divinity, and the
general library. I am not now referring to texts and translations of
classical authors, but to modern books on ancient history, government,
administration, and the like. What tends to aggravate the situation is
the fact that this library possesses also the only set on the campus of
certain important general, literary and bibliographical periodicals,
e.g., Revue critique. Although this department is in the near future to
occupy a building connecting with the general library, it has always
taken a strong stand against any merging of its collections with those
of other libraries. There is, therefore in this case little hope of
relief through consolidation.
Books on Education have been a source of particular trouble inasmuch
as they have been purchased extensively by a number of departmental
libraries. Mediaeval literature and the history of the middle ages is
again a field which has been developed by the Classical library, Modern
Languages, History and the general library. General books on Literature
may be found in Philosophy, History, Modern Languages, and the general
library, and likely also in the Classical department. Books on
Evolution treating the question strictly from the biological standpoint
may be in Philosophy and History, but not in Biology. Whether the
reverse holds true, I have not as yet been able to verify by an actual
examination of the Biology library. Naturally books on Experimental and
Physiological Psychology may be found in Philosophy, Psychology, and
also in the Biology library.
Books on Metallurgy while chiefly in Geology are also represented in
the library of Commerce and Administration. This holds true also of
Engineering, Shop Management, and Agriculture. The latter subject
is freely represented also in Botany, Economics, and in the general
library.
Geography, which is connected with the departmental library of Geology
in a building not to connect with the general library, buys extensively
in History, also in Economics, Natural conservation of resources,
Soils, Economics, Botany, Plant Industries, etc., etc.
Meteorology is represented in Geology, in Physics, Astronomy, and in
the general library. Books on Water Supply, Irrigation and the like
are in Geology and Geography, Chemistry, Economics, and the general
library. Books on Fisheries, Whaling, and related subjects may be
found in Geography, Biology, and the general library. Commerce is
largely represented in Geography, Economics, the general library,
Commerce and Administration, and the Classical library. Canals,
Waterways, and Railroads, are mainly in Geography and Economics, but
also in the general library. Mining is in Geography and Geology, and
also in Economics. Marine Biology will be found in Geography and
Geology as well as in Biology. Geology has a considerable number of
books on Physics and Chemistry. Books on various industries are found
in Economics, in Geology, and in the general library. Commercial
Geography is somewhat evenly divided between Geography and Commerce and
Administration.
Another great difficulty is the separation of volumes of the same work.
For instance, there is in no library a complete set of the Statesman's
Year Book or the Almanach de Gotha, but partial sets in at least two
or three libraries. This holds true also of several bibliographical
periodicals and annuals, e.g., Le Soudier's Annuaire de la Librarie
française.
The instances here cited consider only the duplicating and overlapping
of independent books or monographs treating the same subject, or the
same phase of a subject; it does not take note of the duplication
common to all libraries because of the inclusion in encyclopedias,
general periodicals, and other comprehensive works, of material on a
special subject; neither does it refer to the duplication which may
be proper in such subjects as Railroads, Waterways, etc., where one
department takes up the technical and another the economic phase of a
subject.
It would be possible to go on citing hundreds of illustrations
similar to the above, but time will not permit. When the work which
practically took its beginning in October, 1911, viz., reclassification
and recataloging of the libraries, has been completed I dare say that
anyone connected with the work who may have had time to make notes by
the way, would be in a position to furnish valuable information as
regards the practical workings of a departmental system similar to the
one which has grown up at the University of Chicago.
I have stated that the bringing together of related departmental
libraries under one roof and the thorough cataloging of all the books
on the campus in the manner indicated above, will not furnish a
satisfactory solution of our problems. This I believe can only come
about through some exchange of books between departmental libraries
which shall bring together, not necessarily all books on the same
subject, but at any rate the bulk of the material which deals with a
special phase of a subject, and the various volumes of a periodical,
annual, or similar work which I trust all are agreed should stand
together.
It resolves itself then into a question of reclassification or rather
relocation of a part of the book resources of the university, and
a partial surrender of the right on the part of the departments to
determine absolutely the physical location of every book purchased
on their recommendation. Personally, I feel rather hopeful that when
the cataloging of a number of libraries has been completed and their
resources brought together in a common catalog, the members of the
various departments will see for themselves the advantage to all
concerned of a partial redistribution.
In a small way the general library has inaugurated such redistribution
by indirect purchase of general bibliographies and reference works
from the departmental libraries, a sum equal to the cost of the work
at the time of original purchase being transferred from the book
appropriation of the general library to that of the department. Some
of the departments have been most willing to agree to such transfers.
If it can be put into effect in the libraries which are now to be
brought under the same roof, i.e., the Humanities with the exception
of Classics and Geography, it will go far toward the establishment of
what it is hoped may prove a fairly efficient central library. The
centralization of catalogs and reference books alone would in time make
it desirable for the departments more and more to consult the general
library. A real consolidation of the resources of the Historical
Group, Modern Languages and Literatures, Religion and Theology with
the present general library will, it is hoped, prove to be even more
effective.
I have already stated that Geography would remain outside of this
consolidation and probably also the Classical department, in spite of
the fact that the latter is soon to occupy a building connecting with
the general library. It is hoped that in both cases arrangements can
in time be devised which, while satisfactory to the departments, shall
prove effective in checking the almost unrestricted duplication of
material in other libraries which now obtains.
It is true that ten years ago other departments of the Humanities also
held that while related libraries might to good advantage be brought
under one roof, there should be no merging of their possessions.
Considering, however, the lack of co-ordination in the development
of the same libraries, the overlapping and intertwining of their
respective fields, it is difficult to believe that this view can
prevail for any length of time.
I have endeavored in the above notes to show that the departmental
problem is practically the same in various countries. In Italy,
Germany, and Austria as well as in America the development of
departmental collections to a point where they have become a perplexing
and troublesome problem to government and university authorities is
due primarily to the inability of the general university library to
provide books and conveniences desired by the departments. Neither a
union catalog nor the most exhaustive duplication of books, service,
and equipment has so far served to offset the weakening of the central
library which has been an inevitable result of the rapid growth of
departmental collections.
Possibly Mr. L. N. Wilson of Clark university may have pointed out
a partial solution to some of our perplexities. He states that at
Clark university not only is the drafting of the classification
schedules attended to by the professors, but also the actual
classification of the books. Where the faculty is willing to undertake
these duties the librarian is naturally relieved of a great and
difficult responsibility. While the plan has evidently worked out in
a satisfactory manner at Clark, it would seem a difficult or even
impossible expedient for certain other universities, particularly the
largest ones. There would be difficulty in securing the necessary
volunteer service. Then the librarian would no doubt have to exercise
infinite tact in his efforts to co-ordinate and harmonize the work of
so many volunteer classifiers. That some coordinating influence would
be required we may take for granted. Personally, I see little relief
in the direction here indicated. As for the University of Chicago, I
imagine that we are, in common with most university libraries destined
to have the departmental problem with us in some form or other as long
as there are collections of books to be administered in connection
with departments and courses of instruction. We shall watch with great
interest the development of the plans of sister universities, a number
of which are said to contemplate the strengthening and extension of at
least a part of their departmental collections.
I may say in conclusion that judging by observations at Chicago I
should be disposed to agree entirely with Dr. Gerhard of Halle, and
others of our German colleagues, when they state that there can be no
objection to the building up of strong departmental libraries, provided
this can be achieved without crippling the general library. But where
the departmental libraries are developed at the expense of the general
library, and where willingness to co-operate, or to observe the most
necessary restrictions as regards the fields to be covered is lacking,
there the interest of the great majority both of faculty and students
are made to suffer for the convenience of the few, a convenience which
is, besides, in many cases only imaginary, and based on a lack of
knowledge and appreciation of the possibilities of a general library,
and no doubt also of the limitations of departmental libraries. As
previously stated, the general library is the one department common
to the whole university, the department which should have no ax to
grind, and which under normal conditions might, therefore, be trusted
to preserve an impartial attitude and to safeguard the interests of all
departments alike without fear or favor.
In closing this paper it is difficult to refrain from expressing the
opinion that whatever the policy adopted with reference to its library
system, a university owes it to its constituency to see that a strong
and well balanced general library constitutes an integral part of the
scheme. The establishment of the latter should, when possible, take
precedence over that of large departmental collections. When it becomes
necessary to organize the latter, they should be considered distinctly
a part of the general library and be placed under its control. A
partial or nominal control on the part of the general library is not
likely to prove effective or to furnish the best possible service for
the greatest possible number.
Dr. W. K. JEWETT then presented a paper on
THE PROPORTION OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARY INCOME WHICH SHOULD BE SPENT ON
ADMINISTRATION
The college librarian, like every other department head in the
institution, is anxious to spend as much as possible for the
development of his department and is consequently seeking to get
his appropriation increased as often as possible. It is usually
of assistance to him in securing the favorable attention of the
authorities to be able to show that the prevailing tendency among
institutions of similar rank is to do that which he requests in his own
case. Sometimes the librarian is asking more money for books, sometimes
more money for administration and frequently more money for everything.
While preparing an estimate for the authorities of our own institution,
I recently collected data from 25 representative college and university
libraries in different parts of the country and was interested to
compare the data and draw what conclusions I could from the examination
and from my own knowledge of the standard of accomplishment in the
respective institutions. All but one of these libraries have over
60,000 volumes. I was able to separate them into three groups with
reference to their book expenditures; those spending $5,000 a year or
less, those spending between $5,000 and $20,000, and those spending
$20,000 or more.
Six of the 25 libraries were in the first group, spending not to exceed
$5,000. In all of these the expenditure for library administration
exceeded that for books, in some cases by more than 100%. By amount
spent for library administration I mean the amount spent for salaries
and wages of persons employed in library work. In other words I mean to
include student assistants and to exclude janitors.
Twelve of the 25 libraries were in the second group, spending more than
$5,000 and less than $20,000 for books. Ten of these spent less for
administration than for books, one spent more and the remaining library
spent the same for administration as for books.
Two libraries in the group receive gifts of considerable sums each year
for the purchase of books, the buying of which is done through the
library so that for all purposes of comparison it is as though their
book funds were increased just so much. I have regarded the gift money
as equivalent to part of the book fund, although the actual payment is
made by the giver without its passing through the hands of the college
treasurer. Aside from these two, only one library in the second group
receives any great number of volumes by gift. The average number of
volumes received by gift is about one-third of the number received by
purchase. The proportion of income used for salaries ranges from 35% to
45% leaving out the two libraries above mentioned which spent 50% and
52% for salaries.
Seven libraries made up the third group composed of those spending
$20,000 or more for books. I omitted to obtain any figures from
Harvard, Yale or Chicago as they are known to be making extraordinary
expenditures at present in reorganizing or recataloging. Of the seven,
two spent less for salaries than for books, two spent the same for each
and two spent more for salaries than for books. The seventh library
like two of those in the preceding group has considerable sums placed
at its disposal each year for book buying but the disbursement is
made by the donor and not by the university treasurer so that exact
figures for calculating percentages are not available in its case. The
proportion of income employed for salaries by the other six ranges from
40% to 60%.
From this brief comparison of data it is possible to draw the
conclusion that with the smaller libraries a certain minimum of
administration cost is necessary in order to operate the library at all
and that this does not necessarily increase with the growth of the book
fund. Where the book fund is less than $5,000, it is no reflection on
the capacity of the librarian if his salary expense exceeds that amount
although it is evidently his duty to devote his principal efforts
to securing increased book appropriations. After the book fund has
passed the $5,000 mark, the librarian should be prepared to give most
excellent reasons for letting his salary roll exceed or even equal the
book fund in case his governing board should begin to make comparison
with the figures of other institutions. If his library is in what I
have called the second group and his salary expense exceeds 45% of the
total income, he ought to stand ready to show cause at short notice for
some one is likely to attract the attention of the president to the
fact any day.
If on the other hand his salary roll represents less than 45% of total
income, the librarian may well resist the suggestions of professors
to call for more book money and instead devote his annual appeals to
securing additional needed assistance and more adequate compensation
for the members of his present staff.
With the libraries of the great universities the case is different. An
institution that can spend upwards of $20,000 a year for books has more
complex needs and more varied activities than the smaller colleges and
universities. The quality of service demanded of the library is higher
and much less is forgiven by the ambitious holders of highly paid
chairs. The pressure of research work demands greater facilities for
the prompt purchase and cataloging of "rush" books. More accomplished
reference librarians must be had to meet the needs of clients in a
great institution with a large number of graduate students. Catalogers
of special qualifications must be provided to handle the books in
oriental and other languages not commonly encountered in the ordinary
college library. In the work of a large cataloging department there
is more opportunity for lack of uniformity to creep in, and the need
of accuracy in an enormous catalog is more vital than in a small one.
Therefore the work of the revisers has to be more painstaking and time
consuming than in a smaller collection where everything is simpler.
Reclassification of whole sections of books whose classification is now
out of date, must be undertaken. Bibliographies have to be compiled
for professors. The preparation of publications, like the catalog of
a special collection, is called for while the smaller library may
never print anything more extensive than a list of its Poole sets. The
duties of the shelf department in a great library are more complicated
than many persons dream of and in all the departments fuller and
more accurate records are needed. More extended routine in the order
department is required in order to prevent unintentional duplication.
Messenger service for the delivery of books in response to telephone
calls from other buildings may be furnished. The maintenance of an
efficient exchange bureau is needed in order to conduct the exchange of
university publications with the innumerable minor learned societies
all over the world. These publications are often called for in the
great universities, although one could not reasonably expect to find
them in the lesser institutions.
In fact for many reasons the proportion of income required for
administration in libraries of the first rank increases with the size
of the collection itself. It is a fair inference therefore that a
university library with a book fund of more than $20,000 a year is
justified in maintaining a pay roll in excess of that sum without fear
of criticism.
The committee on nominations, reporting through Dr. W. K. Jewett,
chairman, recommended that the by-laws of the Section be so amended
that, instead of electing a chairman and a secretary each year as
heretofore, a committee on arrangements consisting of three members be
elected, the one first named by the committee this year to serve for
one year, the second to serve two years, and the third to serve three
years; one member to retire each year hereafter and his successor to be
then elected for a three year term.
On motion the recommendation was approved unanimously.
The committee then recommended that the following persons be elected as
the committee on arrangements: Mr. Andrew Keogh, Mr. N. L. Goodrich,
and Miss Sarah B. Askew. On motion the recommendation was adopted and
the three declared elected. The session then adjourned.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING SECTION
The meeting of the section was held at the Chateau Laurier, Tuesday
morning, July 2. Mr. M. S. Dudgeon, chairman of the section, presided.
Mr. FRANK K. WALTER gave an account of the new quarters and resources
of the New York state library school.
Mr. Walter said that the new quarters in the new State Education
building would probably be ready by October first of the present year,
and would provide the most spacious rooms belonging to any library
school. The present temporary quarters, however, are comfortable and
fairly commodious. A good working collection of reference books and
trade and subject bibliographies has already replaced that destroyed by
fire. When present orders have been filled the new collection will be
better than the old.
The collection of illustrative material, thanks to the untiring
industry of Miss Florence Woodworth, is growing by leaps and bounds.
About 4,000 administrative blanks and forms are mounted and classified
and a large number are as yet unmounted. About 1,400 pictures and plans
of library buildings (including post-cards) are mounted and filed.
There is an excellent collection of works on bookmaking, ancient and
modern, and a fair number of examples of printing of various periods
and of beautifully bound books. About 150 mounts show binding material,
book illustrations, type faces and other material illustrating printing
and binding processes.
Mention must be made of the "Alumni collection" which the New York
State Library Association is collecting for the school. Its aim is "to
cover all books, pamphlets, clippings, etc., written by students of the
school and biographical or professional material relating to them,"
together with portraits of the students and library buildings erected
under their supervision.
The "class work collection" numbers about 2,300 volumes and is intended
primarily for class use, particularly in cataloging, classification and
subject headings, in selection of books, and in printing and binding.
All of this material is listed in a separate dictionary catalog
prepared expressly for the school's use. More than 10,000 cards are
already included in this catalog which is growing rapidly as more
material becomes available for use.
The collections of the New York State library will be available as
soon as the new building is ready. Including such documents and other
volumes as can be temporarily shelved for use, upwards of 200,000
volumes will probably be available. These include an excellent set of
United States documents, a very fair collection of state documents,
many important foreign documents, and a good working collection of
statutes, law reports, legal periodicals and legal treatises.
Mention must also be made of the 700 annuals and serials (including
reports, bulletins, etc.), on various phases of library work which
are currently received and filed and of about 500 bound English and
American periodical sets (including most of those listed in the
various periodical indexes) besides the numerous foreign periodicals,
transactions, etc., currently received.
Miss AGNES VAN VALKENBURGH, instructor in cataloging at the library
school of the New York public library, read a paper on
TRAINING OR TEACHING
It may be well at the start to explain the terms used, to be sure that
we are looking at the matter in the same light. Teaching, in this
instance, I understand to mean that assistants shall have had library
school instruction, while training is the instruction which is given in
the library or department itself to fit the applicant for the special
work she is to do. When I say assistants, I also mean librarians of the
smaller libraries, such positions as the library school student has
been called upon to fill.
There are two points of view in looking at the question, that of the
assistant and that of the employer. On the first there can be little
discussion, as the same principles are here involved which underly all
education. It is certainly better for any person to have a view of the
whole field rather than of one small part of it. I was talking to the
head cataloger of a large department the other day, and she said that
one of her main troubles was in getting the assistant who has been
given a certain part of the work to do, to see that any other parts are
necessary or important. If the curriculum of our library schools does
not give our students this broader view, we are not living up to our
opportunities.
No library school, or any other school, for that matter, turns out a
finished product. I cannot say to you that the best pupil in my class
at the end of one or even two years is a first-rate cataloger. I can
only say that I hope and think that she understands the principles and
their relation to the rest of the work, and with experience will prove
competent, having shown capabilities which point in this direction. On
the other side, I have talked with many library people of experience
and they all say that, anxious as they are to give the persons under
their care all possible instruction, they are so busy with the pressure
of accomplishing so much work every day, that when they find a person
who does one kind of work well, they are very apt to keep her at that,
rather than to give her an opportunity to do all the kinds of work, for
the sake of her education.
I always have the greatest admiration, not unmixed with reverence, for
those who can conduct the business of a large department and a training
class at the same time, as either alone seems to me to take all the
energy of an ordinary person; also the more people you have to do work
which can be done by fewer, the greater the economic waste.
From the point of view of the employer there is something to be said on
both sides. Nowadays the old plea is seldom heard that library school
people know too much and have no idea that any method is feasible
but the one they have been taught. I did have once a graduate from a
so-called library school, to assist in my department while I was ill;
after she had been there about a week, she announced that she did not
like the way the library was classified and during my brief absence
she thought she would re-classify it. We had about 150,000 volumes at
that time and more than a million cards in our various catalogs. Thus
did ambition disqualify her, as we had regretfully to let her go, but
fortunately her kind is rare enough to be interesting.
The other objection to the employment of trained people is the
question of expense. The niece of the president of the board must have
occupation and is willing to work for her spending money, so as an
economical measure, it would be a good thing to employ her. This has
two fallacies: First, someone has to pay for the education of every
person and it is better from the point of efficiency to have this done
by the employee herself rather than by the institution. Secondly, we
should all be willing to pay for what we get, and you certainly get
more for your money in employing the skilled person than the amateur.
Miss Sutliff, after years of experience as a library school teacher,
and with both apprentices and graduates, said to me that she thought
that a person who was trained for a certain piece of work, at the end
of one year, did that work better than the school graduate, but at the
end of five years the second was a much better employee.
There is also this to be said on both sides of the question. There
are people constitutionally unfit for library work, training or no
training, just as there are people who can never run an aeroplane or
climb a greased pole or be a third-term president; they are not fitted
for it, and all of us have had more or less experience with these both
in school and out. They may be excellent people; in fact, it is exactly
this class of whom her friends say, "Isn't it too bad Mary never
married; she would make such a fine wife for some good man."
I have had a green girl who could never be taught to write a dozen
catalog cards correctly because she had no bump of accuracy; I also
had a library school graduate with the same failing, and when I mildly
suggested that the number of corrections seemed excessive, she replied,
"Oh yes, but, you see, I knew you were going to revise them, so I was
not more careful." She also did not remain with me.
There are many bright girls who will pick up knowledge of all parts
of the work on their own initiative and without any special effort on
your part, will be perfectly qualified to step into your place should
necessity arise. There is one danger which may be mentioned here and
that is the possible injustice done to this exceptional person when
library boards refuse to consider any person except library school
graduates. During the time students are at school, they and the faculty
are carefully considering for which branch of the work they are best
adapted, so the employer runs less risk in this respect also, than when
he takes an unknown quantity which he hopes may fit some particular
place. If the various library schools are not turning out people with
broader horizons and greater adaptability, they are not doing their
full duty; but if the students they have taught are better qualified
for the work, this fact should have due consideration in the selection
of assistants or librarians.
Miss JOSEPHINE A. RATHBONE, vice-director of the Pratt institute school
of library science, described a projected normal course.
A PROJECTED NORMAL COURSE AT PRATT INSTITUTE SCHOOL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE
Much has intervened, but possibly some of you may remember that some
thing was said on Saturday about specialization in the library school
course. Discussion among the library school directors present showed a
consensus of opinion that specialization is undesirable in the first
year of a two years' course and practically impossible in a one year
course, nor did any radical plan of differentiation of function among
the schools, other than that which has come about already by natural
causes, commend itself as possible at present at least.
The only practicable form of specialization therefore seems to be
along the line of advanced courses for those who have acquired the
fundamentals of technique and who have had sufficient experience to
determine clearly the direction in which their aptitudes lie. Such a
course we are making toward at Pratt Institute and it is of our plans
and aims for this normal course in library training that I have been
asked to speak today.
The inception of the course came about not as the result of a desire
to do some new thing, but as a solution of two pressing problems with
which I found myself confronted last summer; one of these problems is
common, I am sure, to all library school directors, the difficulty
of finding teachers for their faculties or of supplying from their
graduates demands of public libraries for directors of training
classes. The other problem was local and peculiar to ourselves, and by
reason of it a possible solution was indicated for the former. This was
the suggestion made by the librarian of the Brooklyn public library
that the Pratt Institute Library school take over the instruction of
the Brooklyn public library apprentices. As the professional school
of Brooklyn, it was clearly our duty to perform this function for the
public library of Brooklyn, and it only remained to find a way,--first,
that would satisfy the needs and requirements of the Brooklyn public
library system; second, that would so strengthen the Pratt Institute
school as to recommend the plan to our trustees; third, would help to
alleviate the professional situation of which I had become so acutely
concerned.
In response to this need, almost an answer to prayer, for the idea
occurred to me in church, came the conception of a normal course to
fit advanced students for teaching positions in the profession. Now
for a normal course three elements are requisite. Knowledge of the
subjects to be taught, training in pedagogical methods and directed
practice in teaching. The necessary knowledge of the subjects taught
could be obtained by admitting to the course only those who had already
acquired library technique. Pedagogical training could be given at
Pratt Institute where there already existed a splendidly organized
department of education and for the practice teaching there was the
apprentice class of the Brooklyn public library for which the normal
students could prepare and conduct the courses in library economy under
the direction and supervision of our instructor of proved success in
teaching. These two indispensable factors inherent in our situation
seems to mark the Pratt Institute library school as distinctly the
place of all others in which this experiment of training for teaching
positions in library work could be tried. Now, does the need exist for
librarians who are trained to teach? What is the situation?
There are ten or eleven library schools offering courses of one or
two years. There are probably twice that number of summer library
schools. There are training classes in all of the larger libraries and
many of the medium sized libraries. There are many normal schools in
which library courses are now given and the trend in this direction
is unmistakable. There are school departments in many of the larger
libraries in which more or less actual teaching is done, and in which
a librarian who was at the same time a teacher, who understands the
teachers' point of view would connect school and library the more
completely. Many of you know that these positions are not easy to
fill. But could a course be planned that would fit candidates for such
positions? I believe so.
I am not going to degrade pedagogic training for teachers. That battle
has already been fought out in the educational world. Of course, the
best teachers are born, not made, and some few heaven sent may teach
the better for not having learned how, but there are not enough of them
to go around and the greater majority teach the better for training in
tried and approved methods, applied under competent direction.
The normal course will therefore consist of two main parts--theoretical
training and practice teaching.
The first part embraces educational psychology, a forty-eight hours'
course, a thirty-six hours' course in the history of education,
a general survey with a supplemental course on American public
education--high schools, normal schools and colleges--a thirty-six
hours' course in the theory of education taking up the conduct of
recitations and giving the presentation of subjects, examinations,
etc. A study of public institutions, both civic and philanthropic,
will also be included. So much for the theoretical side. The practical
application of the theory of education to the teaching of library
technique will be made by the preparation of the courses for the
Brooklyn apprentices and the conduct of the classes. The plan for this
work is as follows: The normal students will spend a month before
the teaching of the apprentices begins in the study of the Brooklyn
public library system and in the preparation for the classes they are
to conduct under the direction of Miss Julia Hopkins who is to have
charge of this work. This work has been planned in consultation with
the Brooklyn public library librarian and staff and between us we hope
to work out the ideal apprentice course. I will go into this somewhat
fully in order to show its value as teaching experience for the normal
student.
1. There are to be two apprentice classes a year, beginning in October
and March respectively. To these classes four months of instruction
will be given. This gives each normal student the opportunity of
preparing and conducting different courses each term.
2. The four months of instruction will be followed by three months of
practical work in selected branches of the Brooklyn public library,
during which time the apprentices will learn the technical details of
branch work under the supervision of the branch librarian, thus freeing
the course of these details and making it possible to spend the class
room time on the broader professional and culture side of the subjects
taught.
3. 160 hours of instruction will be given to apprentices, on three days
of the week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the alternate days to be
devoted by them to study and preparation. Full library time will be
required of them, which will ensure three hours of preparation for each
hour of class room work or lecture. This means the compiling of full
reading lists by the normal students to accompany the instruction.
4. The subjects taught fall into three groups, cultural, technical
and professional, with strong emphasis on the first and an effort to
correlate the first two quite closely. Besides a review of the classics
of literature, there will be a study of the important literature of
different subjects--history, biography, sociology, science, and to
this study will be related as far as possible both parallel courses of
classification and reference books, the apprentices being thus required
to handle a great many books and to get at their subject contents
quickly. They will be required also to make a great many short reading
lists on related topics. In the course in children's work, which Miss
Clara Hunt will supervise, emphasis will also be laid on the book. Miss
Hunt will examine and criticize the lectures prepared by the normal
students. We wish to strengthen this phase of the work both because it
is needed by the apprentices and because it will be of the utmost value
to the normal students, especially to those who go into normal school
work later.
The technical courses will take up the usual subjects. In
classification the emphasis will be laid on the subject content of the
classes to add to the general information of the apprentices and the
course related, as I said before, to the study of the literature of the
subjects.
In cataloging the emphasis will be laid on an intelligent understanding
of the use of a catalog rather than on the details of cataloging. On
the professional side the course will be stronger than is usual in
apprentice courses.
Now of what value will this course be in providing teaching experience
to the normal student?
1. As preparation for directing apprentice classes in public libraries
I feel that it will be of direct utility.
2. For giving instruction to high school students in bibliography,
reference works, classification and the use of the catalog it would
seem to give adequate training.
3. For conducting courses in normal schools these mentioned subjects
plus the course in children's books and perhaps the history of
libraries would seem to be a good preparation.
4. The courses in classification, reference work, history of libraries,
work with children, loan desk work, compare favorably in length of time
given to them and in thoroughness with the average one year library
school course and the preparation, to say nothing of the conduct, of
such courses would be an excellent foundation for the teaching of the
same subjects in a library school.
In addition to these main features of the course, the pedagogic
training and the practice teaching, there will be lectures on normal
and high school library work and permission has been obtained from the
public school system for the normal students to have practical work in
the library of the buildings, training school and in some of the high
school libraries. Opportunity to study the organization and methods of
presentation of other library schools has been promised.
The first year or two will, of course, be experimental and experience
alone can show how the whole thing will work out, but we feel that the
opportunity is a great one and we mean to approach it open-mindedly and
to allow it to develop organically.
Its success will, of course, depend on our securing the right kind of
material for the class and for this we must look to the profession at
large and especially to the other library schools. We do not want large
classes, ten would be the outside limit, five or six the desirable
number. But our own school could not supply even so many, and if you
believe the plan a good one, the need real, and if the theory of
differentiation of function seems wise, I ask you to send us those
of your students who seem fitted for such work, and by coöperation,
council and support help us to make the course a benefit to the whole
profession.
There seems to be some misapprehension in the profession as to the
relation of the Brooklyn apprentice class and the general course of
our own school. So far as our one year course is concerned the only
connection is that the Brooklyn public library has graciously permitted
us to put our students in the branches of the Brooklyn public library
for practical work, while the apprentices are invited to attend the
course of lectures by librarians. There is no thought of combining the
two classes in class-room work, which would not be advantageous to
either group.
Miss Mary W. Plummer gave the following outline of the work done during
the past year at the library school of the New York public library and
the plans for the second year.
REPORT ON THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY SCHOOL
During the past year we have done four things: Trained thirty students
for the one year certificate; given partial training to members of
the library staff, to be continued or completed the coming year;
given the same to members of other library staffs, to be continued or
completed, both to be recognized by pass-cards; and tested three sets
of probationers for the lowest grade of the library service.
There is nothing especial to be said about the first class, except
that out of twenty-five who were able to do the full year's work, more
than twenty applied for the second year and the diplomas. Of these,
three asked for the unpaid practice, amounting to fifteen hours per
week, and taken as an equivalent for their tuition. These three will
probably take two courses of the three offered for the second year in
administration, advanced cataloging, and reference work, and in work
with children.
The remainder have applied for paid positions at not less than $50 per
month, with one course in the school. As members of the staff for the
time being, they will have no tuition to pay.
The second type of student we hope may increase in number as time goes
on. One branch librarian took about half the course, carrying on her
regular work and responsibilities, and seemed none the worse. Others
took single subjects in which they were interested. One assistant from
a suburban library did the same, commuting daily. These, of course,
were assigned only a nominal amount of practice, since they had their
regular work. For these as well as the probationers the entrance
examinations of the school were insisted on. The probationers being
usually too young for the school, were allowed three conditions, since
they have plenty of time to work them off before old enough to enter
the school. Others take the probation first, and if appointed to the
staff, serve six months or more, and can then enter the school as
staff members without tuition.
They understand that they are not in any sense a class, that they are
not being trained but merely tested, that the school is responsible
only for the original selection of the probationers, and though it may
take and does take an interest it has no real jurisdiction after this
selection is made.
Mr. Brett announced that the Cleveland public library would introduce
a training class for children's librarians in which the students would
be given practical work for five days and receive five-sixths of the
regular salary. The remainder of the time will be given to instructions
and lectures.
Mr. W. H. Kerr stated that the State normal school at Emporia, Kansas,
had a course in library work which required one-fourth of the time in
the four years.
Miss Hazeltine presented the card code of over five hundred cataloging
rules which had been prepared by the Wisconsin library school for
instruction in its school, after consultation with, and assistance from
many librarians.
In response to a question by Miss Mary E. Hall as to what was being
done to train librarians to take charge of school libraries, the
discussion turned to that subject.
Several of the schools mentioned that practical work in school
libraries was given their students. Emphasis was laid on the point
that high school students who had taken a course in the high school in
library methods were not qualified to have charge of school libraries.
A preliminary report was presented from the chairman of the committee
on the uniformity of forms of catalog cards in simplified cataloging.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON UNIFORMITY OF FORMS OF CATALOG CARDS
The committee on revision of cataloging practice appointed by the
library schools instructors at their meeting in January, 1912,
wishes to make a brief report of the work done.
As a preliminary step in securing opinions from the various
schools on the extent of the work and the forms that the code
should take, the following plan was tried. A sufficient number
of the galley proofs of a new edition of the rules compiled by
the Wisconsin library school were secured and, on May 6, sent
to all of the library schools; also to one or two individuals
whom the chairman thought might be interested in the project
from the teaching point of view. It was thought that this code,
which had proved a practical one, might at least serve as a basis
for comments. The schools were asked whether they desired to
co-operate in the attempt to secure uniformity in practice, and if
they approved of the form in which the Wisconsin code was to be
printed, that is, on cards; and lastly, to show by their comments
the points wherein their practice varied.
Replies have been received at this date from all of the schools,
and from them the following conclusions are reached:
First, there is a general interest in the subject of securing
unification in instruction; but there seems to be some doubt as
to whether we are to attempt to cover all of the points of a
complete cataloging code, or only matters of spacing, indention,
punctuation, etc.
Second, the majority of the schools returned the proofs fully
annotated for the changes which they desire. On the whole, these
comments showed that the differences are not great and that
uniformity on many at least can be secured, if so desired by the
schools.
Third, a general discussion of the subject will be helpful, before
any final decision can be reached in regard to a co-operative code.
The committee accordingly decided to ask that there be a
discussion of the matter at the Ottawa conference and a notice to
this effect was sent to each school.
A list of the points for discussion has been made out.[12] The
committee will hope to make a final report at the midwinter
meeting.
[12] See Catalog Section Minutes, page 246.
HELEN TURVILL, Chairman.
The membership committee, consisting of Miss Josephine A.
Rathbone, Miss June R. Donnelly and Mr. Paul Blackwelder, was
continued. The program committee, consisting of Miss Mary W.
Plummer, Miss Mary E. Hazeltine and Mr. Frank K. Walter, was also
continued.
Mr. Frank K. Walter was elected chairman for the coming year and
Miss Agnes Van Valkenburgh, secretary. Adjourned.
TRUSTEES' SECTION
(Friday, June 28, 8:15 p. m.)
The Trustees' section met on Friday evening, June 28, at the Chateau
Laurier. Mr. W. T. Porter, of Cincinnati, chairman of the section,
presided and Mr. T. L. Montgomery, librarian of the Pennsylvania State
library, acted as secretary.
The first item on the program was a paper prepared by Dr. OTTO J.
KLOTZ, trustee of the Ottawa public library, which was read in his
absence.
THE TRUSTEE'S DUTY TO THE LIBRARY
Dr. Klotz said in part:
It should be assumed that when one accepts the appointment as library
trustee he accepts therewith the duties and responsibilities of such
position. He who treats them with indifference is a source of weakness
to the board. There is no room on a library board for a man who accepts
the appointment "just for the honor of it." The trustee must be seized
with the fundamental idea and principle that the public library is
the people's university, that it is the fountain to which all have
access, whose wholesome waters shall give renewed life and intellectual
strength.
The trustee's first duty is to see that the library receives adequate
municipal support. This is seldom an easy matter. It generally requires
a good deal of missionary work,--through the newspapers, through
personal appeals to councillors, through public addresses before the
council or otherwise. The public must be told of its need, which it
frequently does not recognize. The trustee must exercise the influence
of an educator.
The work of the trustee is often discouraging and disheartening, and
may take years to attain a particular end. Our public libraries act
favors the carrying out of some definite plan, because an appointee
holds office for several years, giving him an opportunity of thoroughly
familiarizing himself with the whole range of library affairs to the
great advantage of the best interests of the public and of the library.
A further advantage of this tenure of office is that it permits of what
is in athletics called "team work." We know how effective it is in this
latter respect, and so it is too with a library board. I have reason to
refer to this, because all libraries in Ontario are not so constituted
that "team work" can be efficiently carried out. I allude to libraries
whose board has no fixed continuity. With a continuity to the board
definite plans may be formulated that one knows in advance will take
years to carry out, but if there is no continuity to the board, each
new board will have its own notion, using the term notion advisedly,
in contradistinction to the matured plan, for it is not to be expected
that new men, thrown into new surroundings, faced by problems wholly or
nearly wholly foreign to them, can act with that intelligence, with the
large-mindedness essential to the best interests of the community. The
fault lies not with the men, but with the system.
One of the first considerations is the public. The trustee should
know his public well, just as a physician can only treat his patient
intelligently after having made a thorough diagnosis. The people of
one town may differ from those of another town, their industries and
interests may be different so that a successful course adopted by a
board in one place may not meet with the same success in another,
and as the people, the citizens, are to be beneficiaries of a public
library, it is all-important that their needs be closely studied.
It must ever be the aim of the trustee to try to give the greatest
good to the greatest number, without however neglecting to provide
opportunities within reasonable limits commensurate with the funds
available to the exceptional artisan, mechanic or bright young man who
is anxious to pursue his work beyond the ordinary. It can be truly
said that even those who do not use the library are to a greater or
less extent benefited by it through the environment of those who do
use it. One of the functions of a library, and one that generally
appeals most to those that control the purse strings, is to increase
the industrial productiveness of the people of the respective town
or municipality. Take a town for example whose industries are almost
wholly those of cabinet making. It should be the duty of a trustee to
see that the library and reading room is especially rich and complete
in all that pertains to cabinet making; to carpentering; the different
kinds of wood; designing; drawing and everything that may further
the artisan's skill and thereby his productiveness. For we must ever
remember that the commercial success of a nation rests on the skill
and productiveness of its artisans. This function of the public
library is one that may be measured in dollars and cents, but the
other function--of making better men and women, of character-building,
of brightening homes by the perusal of good literature, of wholesome
fiction, of making better citizens, of appreciating the rights as
well as the responsibilities of citizenship, these things can not be
measured in coin, but they make for a nation's progress and stability.
The most important office is of course the librarian, and the success
of the library depends more upon him, or her, than upon any one else;
for a poor library board and a good librarian are preferable to a good
board and poor librarian.
Hence it is a most important duty of the trustee to see that the
services of a good librarian be obtained, not merely an automaton that
hands out books and checks off those returned. The day of utilizing
men or women whose usefulness in other fields has vanished is past and
such should be kept out of the library. What is wanted is a person
who has enthusiasm for the work, who has studied library work and
methods, who in an unostentatious and quiet way will be helpful to
the readers, who can guide particularly the younger readers in their
choice of literature, who can encourage the formation of reading clubs
and societies, who can make the library and reading room, especially
for small libraries, cheerful and attractive by little devices, and
by his or her own attitude to the users of the library add much to
its usefulness and influence for good. The next duty of the trustee
is to see that adequate remuneration be given for the services
rendered. The good librarian is in love with his work and is quite
willing to sacrifice something on that account to follow a chosen
vocation. But that is no reason why inadequate remuneration should
be accorded. Let the librarian feel that he is getting a fair reward
for his services, co-operate with him, assist him in his endeavors to
improve the usefulness of the library, let him feel that he has the
good-will of the board, and do not throw all the responsibility of the
whole management and its aims upon his shoulders. Do not dampen his
enthusiasm and zeal by indifference and simply perfunctory attendance
at meetings, or absence altogether. The library requires the undivided
attention of both librarian and trustees. Bear in mind that it is an
educational institution of the town with a larger attendance than that
of the schools. It cannot too strongly be urged upon the trustees and
board that a mere collection of books does not constitute a public
library, it requires the connecting link, the librarian, to bind those
two words more closely together--the public and the library, and the
more intimately will they be connected the more efficient the librarian
is.
A trustee should make a point of becoming somewhat acquainted with what
other libraries are doing, as found in reports and publications. He
may at times get thereby new ideas or pointers that may be applicable
in his own library. Again if he has occasion to travel and has an hour
or so to spare in a town or city where there is a public library, he
should go there, "nose" about, and he will find that the visit is
profitable. The trustees should within their means make the library and
room or rooms as cheerful and comfortable as possible. Let the rooms be
well lighted and the light so distributed as to be restful to the eyes.
Try to make the library the most attractive place in town. That in
itself is a standing temperance sermon, without being preached, which
many people do not like.
Believe in the library as an educational institution for all the
people, young and old; believe in the library as an aid for technical
education; believe in the library as a good thing for your town; and
believe in the library as making for a strong and progressive nation.
This paper was followed by one by Mr. WALTER R. NURSEY, inspector of
public libraries of the province of Ontario, on
THE TRUSTEE'S DUTY TO THE PUBLIC
Mr. Nursey said in part:
It is well for us all to remember, to whatever country we owe
allegiance, we should be stirred by one purpose only, a common purpose
that recognizes neither international barriers nor impalpable lines of
latitude; our great aspiration being to increase the spread of pure
literature, the democracy of letters through the coöperation of the
public library which as an educational factor is soon destined to be
recognized as of equal importance with university, college or school.
Before submitting to you my views on the trustee's duty to the public
let me briefly recite library conditions that at present prevail in
Ontario. Ontario, practically, is the only province in the Dominion
of Canada that has an aggregation of public libraries, 434 in all,
supported in part by the local legislature, under the fostering care of
a sympathetic minister of education and a very liberal government.
The first library organized in this province, then Upper Canada, was
at Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1800. In 1835, the first legislation dealing
in any way with the library movement was passed and the same year the
first government aid was granted. In 1851 a new act was introduced
creating what was known for many years as the Mechanics' Institute,
the authorities believing that technical books for the working classes
were not less important than those for the learned professions. At this
time only $2,000 per year was appropriated and this was found utterly
insufficient for the purpose. In 1869 general literature was recognized
in Upper Canada in this connection, in addition to the acquisition
of technical books. In 1882, the first free library was organized in
Canada, at Toronto.
In 1900, following upon the good example set by your organization,
the Ontario library association was instituted, but it was not until
1909 that the present Ontario public library act was passed by the
legislature, under which all public libraries, free and association,
are now organized and controlled. Today we have 140 free libraries
and 244 association libraries in this province operating under the
provisions of this act.
In Ontario, whether the library is free or association, the financial
and domestic affairs of both are under the supervision of a board of
trustees, the only difference in these two boards being that in the
case of the free library, the governing body is called a library board
and in the case of the association library, a board of management; the
financial responsibilities are not altogether the same, for while the
trustees of the free library are custodians and paymasters of an income
derived from the special rate levied yearly for library purposes by
the municipality, the board of the association libraries have no fixed
income to disburse, being supported largely by the fluctuating fees of
the members.
The rates levied to support a free library vary, and are based
principally, as in many instances in your own country, on population,
and range from a minimum rate of one-quarter of a mill on the dollar to
a maximum of three-quarters of a mill. In the case of both of these
classes of libraries, government aid, of course, is extended in the
form of a yearly grant based upon the annual report of the expenditure
of the library upon books and paid in conformity with the libraries
act, subject to departmental regulations.
Once a library in Ontario accepts a government grant, it automatically
becomes a public library. Thenceforward it is amenable to the
provisions of the statute and failure to keep open or render an annual
report to the department of education for two consecutive years, is
the signal for dissolution. In other words, it commits suicide. The
minister may then take possession of all its books, its magazines and
periodicals and dispose of them as he may deem best. Further, if a
library fails in any year to comply with the regulations, the minister
has power to withhold the whole or a portion of the government grant
for that year.
The Ontario act, as you have seen, provides for two classes of
libraries, both of which are public libraries; the business of both
classes being administered by a board of trustees, one of whom is
elected chairman, and while the responsibilities of these boards is
greater in the case of the free libraries, both have equal, if not
similar obligations as custodians in law of the people's interests.
Before proceeding to submit my own ideas of what appears to be the most
important, if perhaps the unwritten duties of a library trustee to the
public, and which I present with extreme diffidence in the presence
of so many experts, let me briefly enumerate what are the legal
obligations of a trustee in this Province as set forth in the statute
regulating the same at the present time.
These powers are vested in the mayor, or reeve, as the case may be,
with three other members appointed by the local municipal council,
three by the local public school board or board of education and two by
the separate school board representing the Roman Catholic section of
the community; nine trustees in all who elect their chairman and retire
annually in rotation. These trustees forfeit their position if they
absent themselves from three consecutive monthly meetings without leave.
The legal duties of these trustees consist in the general management,
regulation and control of the library and reading room entailing
the securing, erecting or renting of the necessary buildings for
the purpose of the library and reading room, and the purchase of
books, newspapers, magazines, maps, etc., illustrative of the
arts and sciences for the library reading room and museum. These
responsibilities are further increased by the necessity for keeping the
building and its contents in a proper state of preservation and repair
and to provide the necessary fuel, lighting and other necessaries and
accommodations and also the appointment or dismissal at pleasure of the
officers and servants of the board.
The board is also obliged to make rules for the use of the library
reading room and museum and for the admission of the public thereto and
for the general management of the library; its reading room, museum,
evening classes and art school, and of all property under its control.
For breaches of any of its rules, it may impose penalties not exceeding
$10.
At least two out of these nine trustees, should be women; women
who have won a record for activity and good common sense in their
departments of business.
It is also the duty of the faithful trustee to encourage the public
to realize that it is the librarian, not the trustee, who is the real
pilot of the ship, and jealously uphold the hands of that important
official. Unfortunately the library has sometimes been converted into
an asylum for the village derelict whose unfitness for any ordinary
business pursuits would seem to be the highest passport possible, his
incapacity emphasizing in the minds of some trustees his apparent
suitability for the position.
Summarizing the situation, we find the general importance of the
position of a trustee viewed from the "library act" point of view, to
be that
(1) He holds the property of the library in trust for the whole
community.
(2) That the board has the same standing as any other corporate public
body, town council, school board, board of education, etc.
(3) That the trustees alone can manage public library affairs and that
they have the exclusive authority to pay rent, to build or to sell
property, subject to the statutory provisions.
(4) That they have the power both to raise and expend money for library
purposes.
(5) That they can demand certain moneys from the municipal council,
ranging from a quarter of a mill up to three-quarters of a mill on the
dollar of the total annual assessment at the will of the ratepayers.
(6) That the trustees alone are empowered to employ or dismiss the
librarian and other members of the staff.
(7) And that they alone are responsible to the public.
Their importance, if further evidence was wanting, is established by
the development of the library movement in the Province of Ontario,
demonstrated by the fact that as individuals, they have been active in
founding and maintaining the Ontario library association. Hence it is
easy to understand that the hope for the real and lasting expansion of
library work largely depends upon the educating of the trustee up to
the sane realization of his responsibilities.
In order to have a fair understanding of the trustee's many
obligations, we must consider the duties he is called upon to perform
in connection with his own library. He should be present and assist
at the Easter meetings of the Ontario library association, and attend
the library institutes which are yearly held in each of the 14 library
districts into which the province has been carved for this purpose.
As an evidence of the material of which the ordinary trustee is made,
it is well to note that out of nine presidents who up to the present
time have filled that office in the Ontario library association,
between the years 1900 and 1912, six at one time or another have been
library trustees. Eighty trustees were active officers of these library
institutes in 1911, and of these at least 75 gave papers or addresses
during the year ending April, 1912.
Wonderful opportunities for extending the influence of clean literature
is held by every trustee in the hollow of his hand, and the literature
of the library, taken in all its bearings, forms the great line of
demarkation between the human and the animal kingdom. Hence, the
sound and intelligent coupling of morally well-balanced men and
women should be sought, not merely the professional educationist,
who, not infrequently is apt to be somewhat narrow in his vision;
"not the mere literary triflers or amateur reformers" nor the league
of superficial progressives who amuse themselves by lopping off the
branches of an evil, but rather the strong and impatient workers, the
real trail-makers who strike at the roots. Often in a rough and most
unpromising exterior we find the very elements and characteristics we
have long sought in vain.
In and out of season, first, last, and all the time in addition to
his statutory obligations the trustee should make the welfare of the
librarian his greatest concern. What the pilot is, what the sails
are, what the wheel and the propelling power are, individually and
collectively to the ship--so is the librarian to the library. It is
quite conceivable that a library could exist without a trustee, but
almost inconceivable that it could exist without a librarian.
In Ontario we are doing all we can to elevate the status of the
librarian, as well as her status in the army of intellectual workers.
We have summer schools and library institutes to encourage her in her
ambitions and to improve her knowledge. I am persuaded that on the
walls of every library might well be written in large characters, and
without any suspicion of disrespect, "God bless our Librarian." I refer
of course, to the faithful efficient librarian with a proper conception
of her own duties who should be honoured in the community by virtue of
her position entailing such profound responsibilities. Her smallest
act of official consideration, to her juvenile readers especially,
leaves a widening ripple of influence, the far-reaching effect of
which can scarcely be over-estimated. The librarian, unless it is
obviously inopportune, should also without doubt be invited to attend
every meeting of the trustees and share their undivided confidence,
and the importance of her position and her individuality should never
be dominated or overshadowed by the personality of the trustee. Her
suggestions wherever possible should be respected, deferred to and
acted upon, and every point strained to give her a living wage as
nearly commensurate as circumstances will permit, with a due and
extreme regard for the importance of her task,--at best, a somewhat
thankless one.
I am a strong advocate for Sunday opening wherever it can be
accomplished without interfering with the conscience or freedom of the
employee, and if exempt from hardship. I further believe that every
trustee should permit the purchase of books relating to any religious
belief providing that they are not of a controversial nature, and that
he should actively co-operate with the librarian in the selection of
the really best current literature, both books and periodicals, giving
fiction, say a 50% maximum at the most.
Last, but not least I maintain that it should be a man trustee's
greatest pleasure and manifest duty to secure the co-operation of
at least two capable women workers to share his responsibilities as
co-trustees.
Discussion brought out the interesting fact that the Ontario library
association included in its membership almost as many trustees as
librarians. Mr. Bowker suggested that those from the states interested
in library development should seek to follow the Canadian example
in this respect, and obtain more active participation from trustees
in the library association. Dr. C. R. Charteris, president of the
Ontario library association, gave further word on the relation of
trustees to the library organization in Canada, and Mr. T. W. Banton,
trustee of the Toronto public library, who had been present at the
Magnolia conference, spoke of his disappointment at finding so little
participation by trustees in that meeting. The officers of the section
were re-elected for another year: Chairman, W. T. Porter, trustee
Cincinnati public library; secretary, T. L. Montgomery, librarian
Pennsylvania State library.
PUBLIC DOCUMENTS ROUND TABLE
A Public Documents Round Table was held on July 1, Mr. George S.
Godard, State librarian of Connecticut, in the chair. Miss Elizabeth M.
Smith of New York state library was appointed secretary.
The preliminary report of the Committee on public documents already
printed was read, in order to bring briefly before the session the
status of the bills now before Congress relating to the printing,
binding and distribution of public documents.
The chairman reported his efforts to bring to the conference the
Superintendent of Documents, Mr. August Donath, to present in person a
paper on the new printing bill. A failure of Congress to provide in the
appropriations for traveling expenses for this and similar purposes,
made this impossible. The chairman, Mr. Godard, reported that he had
laid before the Senate Committee on appropriations the advisability
of appropriating funds to pay expenses of the Superintendent of
Documents, or some other competent official, while trying to get into
closer relations with the depository and other document libraries.
The secretary read a letter from the clerk of the Committee on
appropriations reporting that Mr. Godard's letter would be called to
the attention of the committee at the proper time. The following letter
from Mr. Donath on the subject of public documents, dealing especially
with the new printing bill, was read by Mr. Geo. N. Cheney of the Court
of Appeals library, Syracuse, N. Y.
Office of Superintendent of Documents,
Washington June 8, 1912.
My dear Mr. Godard:
Complying with your kind invitation to send to your committee a paper
dealing with the subject of public documents from a standpoint of
interest mutual to your association and to this office, I herewith
submit a few words covering the subject as briefly as its intelligent
discussion will permit. I deem it a privilege to be able to address
those to whom this is a live subject, and regret all the more that
Congress does not seem inclined to endorse recommendations, repeatedly
made, that would bring the members of your association and the official
in charge of this branch of the public service into more intimate
intercourse. This would surely be in the interest of better service on
the part of this office and a clearer interchange of expert opinion
that could not be otherwise than beneficial to the cause which the law
creating our connection was intended to serve.
The idea underlying the legislation that created "designated depository
libraries" was undoubtedly the intent to create five or six hundred
places throughout this broad land where the history of the country,
as expressed in the printed page, should be accessible to the public.
A very good intention, and one very largely impractical. When it
is remembered that the yearly output of public documents is nearly
a thousand, and that a steadily increasing amount of shelf room is
required to make all these accessible, even those who only have a
superficial acquaintance with the subject will see that to live up to
the requirement which accompanies the designation is beyond the ability
of perhaps the major number of the libraries now regularly supplied.
Only in the larger cities and the most prosperous communities are
there libraries able to cope with this "contract." Added to this cause
for failure to carry out the intent of thus creating permanent places
accessible to the student of the history of his country has been the
right of a Senator or Representative to change the designation at the
beginning of a Congress, thus leaving the discarded institution with
a partial supply of public documents, and starting the new selection
with a void that is never filled. Poor business, surely. And it is
this condition that the official now in charge of the Public Documents
Division has worked very hard to have amended.
I am glad to be able to state that light seems to have broken on this
matter. After repeated searching inquiries on the part of the Printing
Investigation Commission the true situation seems to be understood,
and the measure popularly known as the New Printing Bill, which deals
with the whole subject of the public printing, promises to establish a
connection between the libraries of the land and this office that shall
be of more benefit to the public and at much less expense than the
operation of the law of January 12, 1895, permitted. At present writing
this bill has passed the Senate, has been favorably reported, with
amendments, to the House, and appears to be in shape for speedy final
action. It contains many provisions that make for economy in the public
printing, but I will only mention what is of more immediate interest to
the libraries of the country.
To begin with, the law will permit selection, at stated intervals, of
the class of publications that a designated library is able or desirous
to handle. What a relief that will be can best be appreciated by the
officials in charge of the smaller libraries. It will serve them, and
it will likewise save money to the Government. The volume of literature
sent out from here that later is returned can only be realized from
personal observation. My personal acquaintance with it began on the day
I took charge of this office. There were mountains of it, and in a few
months, so the Public Printer informed me, he desired to lay before
the Committee on Printing his report recommending how much of the
accumulation seemed worth returning into stock, and how much should be
sold as waste paper. However, the subject has become so familiar to the
law-making body that remedial action is now apparently in sight.
The bill likewise assures that permanency to a designated library
without which the original intent, above fully stated, is defeated.
Once designated, no change in the political representation in Congress
from that particular locality will affect the library's status. Thus
the two causes that have operated to nullify the intent to create
permanent depositories of the country's history will be removed.
And while the question of selection may at first seem somewhat of a
problem to many librarians, I feel confident that this matter will
soon work smoothly and satisfactorily. I should not forget to mention
that besides the privilege of thus curtailing their receipts from this
office, libraries may also, in certain cases, receive duplicates that
they find desirable.
Among other provisions of the new bill that will appeal to your
committee I may mention that it goes a long distance in carrying out
the slogan, "one edition for one book," by taking out of the numbered
Congressional series all annual and serial publications and those of
which a Departmental edition has been printed, the only exception being
the Messages of the Presidents and the Annual Reports of the heads of
the nine Executive Departments. This elimination of document numbers
will materially reduce the size of what is commonly known as the "sheep
set," and I also expect that it will enable a speedier delivery of this
class of publications, besides permitting a return to the old custom of
placing the serial number on each volume.
I believe the foregoing covers in as condensed a form as the subject
admits the matters just now of greatest interest in the discussion of
the subject of public documents. I need not assure you, and through you
your associates, of the earnest desire on the part of this office to
co-operate to the fullest possible extent with the good work that the
libraries of the country are doing in advancing the intelligence of a
people whose will is the foundation of our Government. The greatest
menace to a government of the people is ignorance, and no agency is
superior to the libraries of the land in combating this foe of free
institutions.
In the hope that these remarks will be kindly received, and assuring
you of my personal regard, I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully,
AUGUST DONATH,
Superintendent of Documents.
GEO. S. GODARD, Esq., Chairman,
Committee on Public Documents,
American Library Association.
Before discussion was opened, the secretary of the meeting read a
courteous letter from Hon. Reed Smoot, Chairman of the Senate Committee
on Printing, expressing regret at his inability to deliver at the
Conference an address on the general topic of printing, binding
and distribution of Government publications, and referring with
appreciation to the intention of the A. L. A. Committee to deliver
to him a concise report of the suggestions made by the librarians
interested in Government publications. Discussions followed.
Mr. Henry J. Carr, a former president of the A. L. A. and a veteran
document librarian, advocated concentrating the efforts of the
association on getting the bill through in its present form, on the
ground that it was now so nearly satisfactory, and had already been so
long in preparation, that further delay would be unfortunate.
Mr. J. D. Thompson, formerly chief of the Department of Documents in
the Library of Congress, now librarian of the Columbia University Law
library, introduced the question of a limited distribution of bills.
The following suggestions were made:
By Mr. Thompson (1) that public and private bills form separate
numbered series, the former to be distributed to libraries requesting,
or, if necessary, subscribing through the Superintendent of Documents,
or (2) that the text of any bill under consideration should be included
in the printed report on the same.
By Mr. Thorvald Solberg, United States Registrar of Copyrights, that
every bill which has passed one house should be printed in a permanent
form convenient for library use.
By Mr. Clement W. Andrews, librarian of the John Crerar library of
Chicago, that bills not favorably acted upon should also be included in
any scheme to be suggested; that better provision be at the same time
recommended for supplying reports of hearings to interested libraries.
By Mr. William R. Reinick, chief of the Public Documents Department of
the Philadelphia Free library, in favor of Mr. Thompson's suggestion
of separate series for public and private bills, and of better
distribution of reports of hearings.
By Mr. Herbert S. Hirshberg, reference librarian, Cleveland public
library, that bills be printed in the Congressional Record.
By Miss Edith E. Clarke, now chief cataloger in the library of
Syracuse university and formerly on the staff of the Superintendent
of Documents, that the Superintendent of Documents be given a certain
specified number of copies of bills to be distributed to libraries on
request.
By Mr. R. R. Bowker, editor and publisher of the Publishers' weekly
and the Library journal, that bills favorably reported be included in
Committee reports; that reports of hearings be included in the document
series; that the Superintendent of Documents be given the power to
distribute, on request, copies of individual bills.
By Mr. Solberg, that texts of bills be included in committee reports
whether reported favorably or not.
In conclusion the following resolution was introduced by Mr. Thompson:
RESOLVED, that the Committee on Public Documents recommend to the
proper Congressional authorities that there be appended to each
Committee report on a public bill, when printed (1) the text of
the bill and (2) the testimony taken if stenographically reported
and not confidential.
This resolution was adopted.
Further suggestions regarding other provisions of the printing bill
were made as follows:
By Mr. Thompson: That unbound numbered documents be distributed in
advance of the bound volumes, and that librarians be given option as to
the form they prefer.
By Mr. Andrews: That some provision be introduced which should place in
the hands of some one higher in authority than the blanket clerk, the
power to place documents in the confidential non-distributable class
and thus keep out of that class documents of general library interest
which are not confidential.
The chairman then introduced the subject of daily lists of documents,
with a suggestion that lists be prepared in the Senate and Assembly
Document Room and printed daily in the Congressional Record, of all
documents received the day previous in the document rooms. Such a
list should meet with favor from Congress because prompt notice of
publication would be valuable to Congressmen as well as to libraries.
Doubts of its practicability were raised by Mr. Solberg and Mr.
Andrews. The latter referred to the difficulty rising from the fact
that the Congressional Record was published only during the sessions,
and suggested that the public printer furnish the lists. Miss Laura A.
Thompson considered the difficulty raised by Mr. Andrews a small one
because fewer documents and documents of less immediate interest were
issued when Congress was not in session.
Miss Clarke stated her opinion that the Superintendent of Documents
should issue the list as a daily bulletin. Mr. Ernest Bruncken of the
office of the United States Register of Copyrights, by letter advocated
this plan. Mr. Godard stated that the Superintendent of Documents was
unwilling to undertake it. Mr. Thompson stated that the necessity of
sending it out by mail daily made it impracticable. It was decided to
take no action on this particular matter. The following resolution,
however, was moved by Miss Clarke and carried:
WHEREAS: The reading public of the United States are looking
more and more to the libraries and especially to the depository
libraries, to supply to them and advise them about all the
publications of the United States Government, and
WHEREAS: The librarians must of necessity largely depend for
information as to these publications, upon the catalogs and
bibliographical aids issued by the office of the Superintendent of
Documents, and
WHEREAS: Promptness in the printing of these bibliographical
aids is most essential to the timely use of current government
material. Therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the librarians of the American Library Association
assembled at Ottawa, respectfully urge the Superintendent of
Documents to use all reasonable haste in the compilation, printing
and distribution to libraries, of the Monthly Catalog of United
States Public Documents and of the Document Catalog, so that
they may be available in libraries as soon as possible after the
periods covered by the same.
Mr. James I. Wyer, Jr., director of the New York state library,
Albany, called attention to the withdrawal of free distribution of the
specifications and drawings of United States patents, and moved the
following resolution, which was carried:
RESOLVED: That the librarians of the for a limited free
distribution of the bound volumes (or less desirable, the unbound
volumes) of the Specifications and Drawings of the United States
Patents, the Superintendent of Documents, perhaps, to designate or
determine such libraries upon presentation of good reasons.
Mr. Charles H. Hastings, chief of the card section in the Library of
Congress, expressed regret at the impossibility of printing on Library
of Congress printed cards the volume numbers of the documents in the
Congressional series, since the documents were not assigned to volumes
until some time after publication.
The following resolution, proposed by Mr. Thompson, was adopted;
RESOLVED: That the Committee on Public Documents recommend that
arrangements be made at the Government Printing office for the
assignment of bulletin or document numbers at a later stage than
at present, in order that they may correspond more nearly with the
order of publication, and that wherever possible, documents be
assigned to their volumes in the Congressional series at the time
of publication in order that the volume numbers may be used in
cataloging.
Mr. Solberg called attention to the unsatisfactory method of numbering
Treasury decisions and decisions of the Attorney General.
Attention was called to the House amendment making centralization
of distributors in the office of the Superintendent of Documents
obligatory to all departments. A similar provision was stricken out of
the Senate appropriation bill.
Mr. Thompson and Mr. Solberg opposed obligatory centralization and
suggested that the association register with the Senate Committee
on Printing its disapproval on the grounds both of economy and of
promptness of service.
Mr. Bowker expressed a hope that the association would strongly endorse
the attempt now being made to establish a legislative reference
department at the national capital.
Mr. Wyer moved that the Committee on Public Documents send a resolution
of thanks to the Senate and House Committees on Printing and to the
Superintendent of Documents, for their uniform courtesy and careful
consideration of the several suggestions made.
This motion was carried. The meeting then adjourned.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES
Seventh Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
FIRST SESSION
(June 27, 1912, 2:30 p. m., at the Chateau Laurier.)
The meeting was called to order by President Godard, forty-four being
present.
The president introduced Mr. H. H. Bligh, K.C., librarian of the
Supreme Court of the Dominion, who welcomed the association to Canada
and expressed the hope that the sessions would be profitable and that
the stay in Ottawa would be enjoyed. He invited the members of the
association to visit his library.
President Godard then addressed the association.
The report of the treasurer was read by the secretary, as follows:
To the American Association of Law Libraries:
Your treasurer respectfully reports the following receipts and
expenditures: on August 24th I received a statement from Mr. F. O.
Poole, former treasurer of the association, and a list of receipted
bills which total $943.71. These receipts are expenditures made by Mr.
Poole on behalf of the Association since the balancing of his books on
May 5, 1911.
For the period from Aug. 26, 1911, to June 24, 1912, the following
receipts and expenditures were made: It might be well to state
here that your treasurer was elected at the annual meeting of the
Association held at Pasadena in May, 1911, but the financial affairs
were not turned over to him until the above date.
=Receipts=
F. O. Poole, to balance account $ 88.58
Subscriptions for Index 666.50
Dues 316.00
Advertising 263.75
Overpayment of dues .26
Overpayment of subscriptions 4.00
--------
$1,335.09
=Expenditures=
Treasurer, printing & supplies $ 37.87
G. G. Glasier, express 3.96
H. L. Butler, typewriting for 1911 11.35
The Index
Composition, printing & binding
No. 2 & No. 4 and storage on back
number as per bills 447.45
Salary of Karl Ed. Steinmetz as
Mgr. Editor as per agreement
with Executive Committee 400.00
Salary of Frederick W. Schenk as
per agreement with the Executive
Committee 80.00
Printing the report of the
Committee on Sessions 1.75
Wrapping and shipping No. 2
of the Index 10.41
Wrapping and shipping No. 4
of the Index 12.52
Supplies furnished the Editor
of the Index, and express 19.05
Return of overpayment of dues .25
Refund of subscriptions 4.00 1,028.61
----------------------
Balance in First Nat'l.
Bank, Montpelier, Vt. $306.48
Your treasurer wishes to express at this time his appreciation of the
many favors of the different officers of the association.
Respectfully submitted,
E. LEE WHITNEY, Treasurer.
The secretary reported that aside from arranging the program of the
annual meeting, taking up details with reference to the election of
new members, and other routine matters, the Executive committee had
been obliged to meet the situation arising from the much regretted
resignation of Mr. Gilson G. Glasier, as editor of the Index, after the
publication of the first number of volume 4. It was finally decided
to engage Mr. Karl E. Steinmetz, as editor of the balance of volume
4 at slight increase in compensation over the amount he received
for indexing. The negotiations consumed so much time that after the
publication of No. 2 of volume 4. It was decided to omit the third
number, and to proceed forthwith with the preparation of the annual
number which was to contain all index material of the year, including
that which would have appeared in the third number.
At the meeting of the Committee in Cleveland, December 29-30, there
was received from Mr. Schenk a proposition for doing the indexing
and editing of volume 5 of the Index which was so favorable to the
association that the Committee decided to accept it. Arrangements were
effected which the Committee believed would place the work on a firm
basis.
Members were urged to do their best to secure new subscribers.
On motion by Mr. Small, the president was directed to appoint an
auditing committee, a nominating committee, and a committee on
resolutions, of three members each, which committees were directed
to report at a later session during the convention. The president
appointed the following committees:
Auditing Committee: Mrs. M. C. Klingelsmith, Miss Frances D. Lyon,
Harold L. Butler.
Nominating Committee: A. J. Small, E. A. Feazel, C. J. Babbitt.
Committee on Resolutions: E. M. Borchard, F. B. Crossley, F. O. Poole.
Dr. G. E. Wire, chairman, reported progress on behalf of the committee
on the Reprinting of Session Laws. This report, together with other
reports and papers not set out in this number, will be found in the Law
Library Journal published by this association in conjunction with the
Index to Legal Periodicals.
Mr. George N. Cheney, chairman, on behalf of the committee on the list
of law libraries and librarians, reported progress.
Mr. O. J. Field, chairman, on behalf of the committee on Latin American
Laws, reported that that committee had received but one response to
about thirty letters sent to various South American legal institutions.
This reply came from Brazil, and called attention to the fact that the
National Press of Rio de Janeiro had for sale the public laws of the
country. The committee hoped to report additional information at the
next annual meeting.
Mr. Poole, temporary chairman of the committee to confer with the
Library of Congress on shelf classifications for the law department,
reported that a series of questions had been propounded by the Library
of Congress, a copy of which had been sent to each member of the
committee, and that replies thereto had been received from Mr. Hewitt
and Mr. Babbitt, which replies had been transmitted to the Library of
Congress. No further action was taken by the committee pending further
word from the Library of Congress, which library since that time has
seemed to be fully occupied with other matters.
Mr. A. J. Small, chairman of the Committee on Bibliography of Bar
Association Proceedings, reported that a complete list, prepared by Mr.
Francis Rawle, of Philadelphia, had been received by the committee, but
that, in accordance with Mr. Rawle's request, details given in this
list--many of which were in very abbreviated form--would have to be put
into bibliographical shape before publication. It was further reported
that arrangements would be effected whereby this work might be done,
and publication secured.
Mr. Small, chairman of the Committee on the Bibliography of American
Statute law, reported progress.
On motion of Mr. H. L. Butler, it was voted to accept the reports
of the special committees so far received, and to continue all the
committees, subject to such change in personnel as might seem necessary
to the incoming president, and further, that all committees be directed
to report at the next annual meeting.
Mr. John B. Kaiser, librarian of the Department of economics and
sociology of the University of Illinois, read a paper on library school
training for employees of law libraries. This was followed by an
animated discussion.
On motion, it was voted to adjourn, to meet again on June 28th, at 9:30
a. m.
SECOND SESSION
(June 28, 1912, at 9:30 a. m., at the Chateau Laurier.)
President Godard called the meeting to order and stated that the first
matter to be taken up was the consideration of the "Tentative list of
subject headings for a law library catalog" prepared by the Library of
Congress.
Mr. Edwin M. Borchard introduced the matter. He stated that the list
had been prepared primarily for the use of the Library of Congress
in its own catalog and in the work of printing catalog cards for
distribution. It was hoped that the list in its final form would be
of help to law libraries throughout the country, and to this end
criticisms of the tentative list and suggestions were asked for.
Mr. Borchard then took up the headings in regard to which there might
be difference of opinion, and explained the decision reached by his
library. He pointed out several cases where changes had already been
made in the list.
Considerable discussion ensued on various points.
At the suggestion of Mr. Borchard, the president was, on motion,
directed to appoint a committee of three to confer with the Library of
Congress on the matter of these subject headings.
The president announced the committee as follows: George N. Cheney,
Luther E. Hewitt, J. David Thompson.
On motion, the resolutions committee was directed to draw up and
present at a later session of the convention, a resolution of thanks to
the Library of Congress for undertaking this work.
The president announced that the nominating committee was ready to make
its report.
The nominations presented by this committee were as follows: President,
Franklin O. Poole; 1st Vice-President, Frederick W. Schenk; 2nd
Vice-President, Mrs. M. C. Klingelsmith; Secretary, Miss G. E. Woodard;
Treasurer, E. Lee Whitney; Executive Committee, E. O. S. Scholefield,
O. J. Field, E. J. Lien.
On motion, the report was accepted and the president was directed to
cast one vote for the candidates mentioned.
The president announced that he had cast the vote and that the above
officers were elected to serve during the ensuing year.
On motion, the meeting adjourned until June 30, at 9 p. m.
THIRD SESSION
(June 30, 1912, 9 p. m., at the Chateau Laurier.)
Mr. Butler, of the auditing committee, presented a report on behalf of
the committee, as follows:
The auditing committee begs to report that it has audited the
books of the treasurer for the year ending June 24, 1912, and
finds same to be correct.
Respectfully submitted,
MARGARET C. KLINGELSMITH,
FRANCES D. LYON,
HAROLD L. BUTLER.
On motion, the report was accepted and the treasurer's report was
approved.
Mr. Poole, on behalf of the committee on resolutions, presented a
number of resolutions acknowledging the services to the profession
of the Massachusetts State library in publishing a list of American
statute law, and the catalog of foreign statute laws; of Mr. Francis
Rawle in presenting to the association for publication his list of
Bar Association proceedings; of the Library of Congress in compiling a
list of subject headings for law library catalogs, and the Guide to the
legal literature of Germany; and to all those who contributed to the
program of the meeting, and had been instrumental in making the stay
of the members in Ottawa so pleasant and profitable. There was also
presented a resolution in acknowledgment of the life work of William
J. C. Berry, one of the charter members, and formerly librarian of
the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and of Stephen B.
Griswold, the only honorary member of the association, and formerly
state law librarian of New York. All these resolutions were unanimously
adopted.
Mr. A. J. Small stated that he had received many requests for
information regarding shelf classifications of text books in his
library and moved that the president appoint a committee of three
to gather information regarding such classifications in the several
libraries and prepare the same for publication. After discussion the
motion, being seconded, was duly carried. On motion it was voted to
appropriate $25.00 for the expenses of the committee. The president
announced the committee as follows: Miss G. E. Woodard, G. N. Cheney,
E. A. Feazel.
The business of the association having been completed it was on motion,
voted that the meeting adjourn sine die.
In addition to the above sessions, the association met in conjunction
with other bodies in two joint sessions, the first with the National
Association of State Libraries and the Special Libraries Association,
and the second, with the Bibliographical Society of America and other
bodies.
LEAGUE OF LIBRARY COMMISSIONS
Ninth Annual Meeting at Ottawa, Canada, June 28-July 1, 1912
FIRST SESSION
(Friday, June 28, 2:30 p. m.)
The first session was called to order by the first vice-president, Mr.
C. H. Milam, of Indiana, in the absence of the president, Miss Cornelia
Marvin, of Oregon.
It was voted to waive the reading of the minutes of the last annual
meeting. The financial report of the secretary-treasurer was read and
accepted.
The chairman appointed as a nominating committee to report at the last
session, Charlotte Templeton, A. L. Bailey, and Mrs. Percival Sneed.
Miss Elizabeth B. Wales then presented the following report on charter
provisions for public libraries in cities having the commission form of
government.
REPORT ON CHARTER PROVISIONS FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN HOME RULE OR
COMMISSION GOVERNMENT CITIES
The present chairman took charge of the work about May 1st. The
committee found the time remaining so short that it was deemed
inadvisable to attempt to prepare material for the League at this
meeting. Therefore your committee begs leave to report progress and
submit an outline of its plans for criticism and suggestion.
The discussion of the subject seemed to indicate that the difficulties
might fall into two classes. Cases involving a satisfactory library
law in danger of change, and difficulties occasioned by attempt to
better the original law under the Commission government; and a further
division including cases where the commission law as passed was
inapplicable to the library government, or conflicted with the law. The
committee suggests dealing with the matter by statute law rather than
by city charter provision, and would suggest as a method, that:
(a) Two provisional sections be drafted, one to insure the continuing
in force of the state library law already on the books, to be used
in states where such continuance is for the interest of the library;
another to provide for the organization and control of the library
under commission government by a definite statement in the commission
law to override all former statutes, to be used in states where the
present law is not satisfactory.
(b) These sections be submitted to the heads of library commissions
for criticism, accompanied by a letter of explanation embodying the
question, "Would such state law meet the problems of libraries in
commission governed cities in your state?"
Another and perhaps better way of securing the result would be to write
to library commissions and ask these questions:
(1) What difficulties have arisen in the library administration of
commission governed cities in your state?
(2) What remedies would you suggest to meet these difficulties?
(3) Would you incorporate these suggestions in the laws of your state
or in the charters of your cities?
The committee also suggests that a letter be written to Mr. Richard
S. Childs, stating the main difficulties experienced and requesting
an opinion regarding the best method of meeting them. Mr. Child's
known interest would no doubt bring an enlightening answer to any
communication of reasonable length.
Miss Tyler has generously permitted the committee to use the letters
received by her in the preparation of her paper for the Pasadena
conference, and to these cities one or two questions might be sent
bearing upon the special conditions developed. This "second appeal"
may be made extremely valuable by careful treatment; for instance,
there are twelve cities which have experienced change in the number
of trustees representing the effect of the law in California, Iowa,
Illinois, Michigan, and S. Dakota; three report a board elected by the
Commission or council instead of appointed by the mayor; again the
Michigan law, and also that of Massachusetts and North Carolina; two
(Lewiston, Iowa, and Decatur, Ill.) report supervision of buildings
and grounds by city committees; two (Des Moines and Tacoma) mention
the value of increased publicity; one (Colorado Springs) reports civil
service; there were in this first inquiry between twenty and thirty "no
change" reports; some of these said no change "as yet." There were many
special points noted in the letters which would repay investigation by
the committee.
We shall hope for a generous coöperation from the members of the
League, if it be your pleasure to continue this committee.
Respectfully submitted,
ELIZABETH B. WALES, Chairman,
CARL H. MILAM,
M. S. DUDGEON,
ARTHUR L. BAILEY.
The report was accepted and the committee continued.
In view of the work being done by a committee of the A. L. A. Council
on library laws and charter provisions, the League committee on the
motion of Miss Tyler, was instructed to coöperate with the A. L. A.
Council committee.
Mr. M. S. Dudgeon reported the work of the Committee on Library post as
follows:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY POST
Your committee on library post reports as follows:
The present status of federal legislation is thus given in a letter
received from the Hon. John J. Esch, member of Congress from Wisconsin.
"The post office appropriation bill, as it passed the House
recently, provided for a rural parcels post with rates of 5 cents
per pound, and 1 cent for each additional pound up to eleven
pounds. These rates, however, are confined to parcels emanating in
the town from which the route runs, or along such route, with the
right of interchange of packages from route to route. As few books
exceed a pound in weight this would mean a charge of 5 cents. The
post office appropriation bill is now before the Senate. What
action it will take remains to be seen. The House bill contained a
provision for the appointment of a commission to investigate the
whole subject of a general parcels post, the commission to make
its report to Congress by the opening of the next regular session
in December."
Parcels Post vs. Library Post
Our League president forwards the following letter from a Washington
correspondent who is evidently perfectly familiar with the subject:
"I am in receipt of your letter of May 17th, asking me whether
there is any hope of getting a library post, and in reply will
say that if you mean a special act providing for a library post,
separate and distinct from other postal service, I do not think
that there is any hope of getting it in the near future.
"I do think, however, that the parcels post bill which Senator
Bourne has proposed, if passed at this Congress, will very rapidly
develop into a law which will be entirely satisfactory for library
purposes. The average library book weighs slightly over a pound,
but will come easily within two pounds. Under Senator Bourne's
bill the rate on rural routes would be 5 cents for the first
pound and 1 cent additional for each additional pound; within
the fifty mile zone, 6 cents for the first pound and 2 cents for
each additional pound; within the two hundred mile zone, 7 cents
for the first pound and 3 cents for each additional pound. These
rates were decided upon with a certain margin of profit to the
government so that there would be no possibility of the government
sustaining loss. It was believed that it would be disastrous to
the parcels post movement to have any loss at the beginning. Such
a loss would serve as an excuse for the abandoning of a parcels
post. I am very certain that if this bill should be passed one
year's experience would demonstrate that the rural rate could be
reduced to 4 and 1 cent, making 5 cents for a two pound package;
the 50 mile zone could be abolished and the rate for the 200 mile
zone fixed at 5 cents for the first pound and 1 cent for each
additional pound. The 200 mile zone, at that rate, ought to give
you as good a library post service as you can expect to have
within a number of years. I do not think that you can expect to
get a law enacted which will provide for the carrying of library
books at less than cost. It is no argument to say that the
government is now carrying newspapers at less than cost. It made a
mistake in establishing such a rate, but having made it, it cannot
easily increase the rate.
"You ask whether there is anything the library people can do to
forward this matter. My opinion is that the one thing you could
do would be to help get sentiment back of a general parcels post
so that a bill on a zone basis with rates varying according to
distance, will be passed by this Congress. When we once get a law
of that kind, its development will be very rapid. The trouble will
be to get the first law on the statute books."
=Senator Bourne's Bill=
The bill introduced by Senator Bourne seems to be all that we can hope
for at present. A summary of it follows:
Postal rates on parcels vary with distance, thus protecting local
merchants and competing with express companies.
Third and fourth classes of matter are combined.
A special rate of one cent an ounce up to four ounces is provided for
circulars and small packages of goods.
Rates are as follows:
Local, city and rural delivery only, 5cts for the first pound and one
cent for each additional pound.
Within 50 miles zone, 6cts for the first pound and 2cts for each
additional pound.
Within 200 miles zone, 7cts for the first pound and 3cts for each
additional pound.
Within 500 miles zone, 8cts for the first pound and 5cts for each
additional pound.
Within 1,000 miles zone, 9cts for the first pound and 5cts for each
additional pound.
Outside 2,000 miles zone, 12cts for the first pound and 10cts for each
additional pound.
These rates are based on a careful computation of the actual cost of
collecting, distributing and delivering packages, plus the actual cost
of transportation.
Weight limit, 11 pounds and maximum charge 12cts, the international
limit and rate.
=Committee Progress and Recommendations=
The committee has canvassed the situation carefully and corresponded
at some length with many persons. It has also suggested that the
various commissions take up and follow the matter with their respective
congressmen. Many commissions have done this. South Dakota, at its
annual library association meeting adopted a formal resolution to be
forwarded to senators and congressmen for the state.
The committee recommends:
1. That the secretary of each commission which has not already done so
immediately communicate in a personal letter as already suggested with
each senator and congressman from his state.
2. That each state commission at its next annual meeting adopt a
resolution endorsing a parcels post law similar to Senator Bourne's
measure, urging low rates on rural routes, and a zone system and
send such resolutions, signed if possible by all the members of the
commission, to each senator and congressman in the state.
3. That each state library association do the same.
4. That this League adopt such a resolution, and that the secretary
from each commission sees that such resolution reaches the senators and
congressmen in his state.
5. That efforts to secure a separate library post law be abandoned for
the present.
Respectfully submitted,
M. S. DUDGEON, Chairman.
The report was accepted and the committee continued and the secretary
of the League was instructed to place its recommendations before the
Council of the A. L. A., in order to secure the coöperation of that
body. The members of the League were particularly urged to assist the
committee in its efforts.
A report of the committee in state school library systems, in the
absence of Miss Martha Wilson, the chairman, was read by the secretary.
It consisted chiefly of a summary of the school library laws of the
different states. The report was accepted.
The report of the committee on study clubs outlines, prepared by Miss
Margaret Brown was read by Mr. Dudgeon. It was as follows:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON STUDY OUTLINE
The committee finds that the difficulties encountered by traveling
libraries in attempting to supply satisfactory and adequate reference
material to the many study clubs largely dependent upon them for books,
is chiefly because of the miscellaneous program, covering a wide
variety of subjects.
In addition to this, many traveling libraries receive requests for
study outlines or are asked to prepare them; hence it was decided by
the committee that a plan should be submitted for the preparation of
study outlines.
This plan once in use by traveling libraries preparing outlines, would
bring about a certain standardization, thus making an outline prepared
by one useful to all. Such a plan could not only be utilized by
traveling libraries but by other organizations concerned in providing
outlines for study clubs.
A plan was presented at the midwinter meeting of the middle-west
section of the League, which after discussion has been revised and is
herewith again presented with the following recommendations:
=First.= Plan for preparation of study outlines.
=Basis.=
=A. One book selected as foundation for outline.= If a single book
suitable for text cannot be found, outline to be based on fewest
number of books necessary for the purpose. Texts selected to be
authoritative, reasonable in price, readable and stimulating.
=B. Five to ten books as collateral reference.= Selected to cover
subject in study outline and amplify the text. Publisher and
price given for all books included, for use in purchase. A more
extended list of books can easily be prepared by any library where
additional material is available.
=Lessons should be outlined by:=
=C. Question method.= Five to ten definite questions on each
lesson.
=D. Or, Topical method.= Topics assigned under each lesson should
be those which present special phases of the general subject.
The two methods may sometimes be combined. Written papers, if
included under either Question or Topical form of study outline,
should be assigned only for subjects which require some degree of
original thought; all information to be derived from text books
and encyclopedias should be covered by the regular lesson for oral
discussion. Note. Number of meetings of study clubs vary. Probably
not less than sixteen or more than twenty-six lessons. Many
average two meetings a month. October to May.
=Second.= That this committee be authorized to draw upon the
League treasury for a definite sum for the employment of a capable
compiler to prepare outlines based on this plan.
=Third.= That if possible the coöperation of some publisher be
secured to print the outlines thus prepared, or others passed
upon by the committee, and furnish them at reasonable cost to the
various commissions operating traveling libraries and to club and
individuals desiring them.
=Fourth.= That the study outline committee be constituted a
sub-committee of the publications committee and be empowered to
select subjects, revise and pass upon all outlines submitted,
before printed.
MARGARET BROWN, Chairman.
=Explanatory Notes on the Plan of Preparation of Study Outlines=
=A.= The use of a few designated books (or a single book) as a basis
for common study of the same subject, or closely related topics,
provides the means by which the unity and co-ordination is secured,
which is essential for effective and satisfactory results.
Each member may, if she so desires, provide herself at nominal cost
with the source references necessary to cover the essential point
contained in the outline.
=B.= The books for collateral reading should be carefully evaluated and
selection based upon their real value in supplementing text, from the
standpoint of reliability, readableness and stimulative quality, also
that the price shall not be prohibitive of purchase by clubs, local
public libraries and duplication in traveling libraries of large number
of copies for use in supplying many different clubs.
Any local or traveling library may easily provide additional books
for collateral reading whenever the collection permits. It is not,
however, deemed advisable to have such extended lists incorporated in
the outlines; as a demand would then be created which could not be
supplied by the small library, and therefore would become a handicap
and embarrassment.
=C.= In outlining lessons by the question method, the questions should
be so formulated as to stimulate discussion; not simply to be answered
in the affirmative or negative.
The question method permits a free expression of individual opinions
based on personal reading. Such "discussion awakens the keenest
interest through the activity of different minds upon the same fact
or idea," as each member is expected to prepare herself to answer all
questions.
The question method is endorsed by many educational experts as a
desirable method for the conduct of study classes, and has been found
to be practical and satisfactory by many study clubs.
=D.= In outlining lessons by the Topical method, care should be taken
to include no more topics than can be thoroughly discussed, and such
phases of the subject assigned as topics as will amplify the general
subject which has been studied in common by all members from the text
upon which the outline is based.
The report was accepted. On the motion of Mr. Bliss it was voted that
the chairman of the committee be authorized to draw upon the treasurer
of the League for any amount not to exceed $100.00 to defray the
expenses of preparing some experimental outlines carrying out the plans
suggested in the report. It was moved by Mr. Dudgeon that the chairman
be instructed to enter into negotiations with some publisher to secure
coöperation in printing study outlines approved by the committee, to
be sold to study clubs and library commissions at reasonable cost.
Carried. On the motion of Mr. Bliss, it was voted to continue the study
outline committee, with Miss Brown as chairman, and to authorize the
committee to select subjects, revise and pass upon all outlines before
printed.
Adjourned.
SECOND SESSION
(Saturday, June 29, 8:30 p. m.)
As there were several important committee reports still to be received
it was voted to hold a meeting on Monday afternoon at 4:30 to complete
the transaction of business. Mr. Milam then turned the meeting over to
Miss Miriam E. Carey, of Minnesota, and the evening was devoted to the
consideration of libraries in institutions.
Miss E. KATHLEEN JONES, librarian of the McLean Hospital, Waverley,
Mass., read a paper on
LIBRARY WORK AMONG THE INSANE
I have been asked to talk about two things to-night,--our library
at McLean Hospital in Waverley, Massachusetts, and my idea for
organization among the state hospitals of the different states. By
dint of considerable money, much thought and labor and an unlimited
amount of interest and coöperation with the librarian on the part of
superintendent and trustees, we have been able to build up at the
McLean Hospital something which approaches pretty near our ideal of
what a library in a hospital for the insane should be. But in regard to
the second subject I feel a little diffident, since there are several
among you who have actually organized the institution libraries of
your different states and combined them under one head, while I have
only dreamed about it. Still, the dream and the vision must always be
forerunners of accomplishment, and you also must have dreamed before
you were able to build.
At McLean Hospital we have two libraries,--one for the use of the
patients, which was started in 1835 with 160 volumes and now numbers
over 7,000, and a medical library organized in 1887 and containing
over 5,000 volumes. The two are kept entirely distinct with separate
accession-book, catalog, classification and finances. The medical
library comprises a fairly good department in general medicine and a
very fine one in chemistry; but of course, its principal features are
books and periodicals in psychology and psychiatry. We take 85 medical
and chemical journals, most of them German, and the care of these
periodicals alone is no slight task for the librarian. I will just
say incidentally that, unable to find any classification for medical
books which seemed at all adequate to our needs we have evolved one
for ourselves, using the decimal idea in numbering. It is a thoroughly
satisfactory scheme for us and we hope some time to print it for the
benefit of the medical libraries in other hospitals for the insane.
Although our general library for the patients has been in existence
for seventy-five years and more, for the first six decades it was
conducted in a rather desultory manner, as indeed, most libraries were
at that time. It was not till 1895 that any attempt at classification
and cataloging was made, and not until 1904 was a trained librarian
installed and the whole department put on a business basis. The
expenditure of the annual appropriation was at that time put into the
librarian's hands with directions to build up the library at her own
discretion, subject, of course, to the approval of the superintendent
and trustees. That the business basis is the only successful one, these
figures show:--in 1904, after seventy years, the library numbered only
4,000 volumes, with few new books but a large assortment of old sermons
and evangelical biography, and its circulation was about 5,000. During
the eight years of the new regime, more than 3,000 volumes have been
added and the circulation has increased to over 8,500.
During its seventy-five years of service our library has exemplified
at least four important things:--first, as has been shown, that
one cannot get such good results from the old desultory method of
having a few books on the wards looked after by nurses, or even in a
central library run by a stenographer in her spare moments, as from
an organized, central library with a trained librarian at its head.
Second, that although the business basis is the only successful one,
the administration of it should be as simple and free from "red tape"
as possible. The nearer a hospital librarian can keep her library to
the idea of the private library and the more friendly and personal
relations she can establish with the patients the more good she can
accomplish. The third point I would make is that unless they are very
ill and destructive, books are treated as carefully by the insane as
by the users of the public libraries. Last year, out of 8,686 volumes
taken out by patients and nurses, only 9 were lost or destroyed, and
of these only two were charged to patients. It is the proud boast of
one of our head nurses who has under him the next to the most violent
and destructive ward on the men's side, that he has had out for his
patients over 450 volumes in the last two years, and has not lost or
had mutilated one single book!
The fourth and most important lesson we have learned is that the
value of a well-selected library can hardly be over-estimated as a
therapeutic agent. I do not mean by this that a cure can be effected
simply by reading the right books; that of course is absurd. But it
is a fact recognized by all psychiatrists and at the basis of the
treatment of the insane in all hospitals today, that whatever takes
a patient's mind off himself and his own troubles and directs his
thoughts into other and more wholesome channels, contributes to his
recovery. And when amusement pall, handicrafts tire and golf and
tennis are too strenuous, books and pictures will almost always help.
It is for this reason that we have to be so careful of the kind of
reading, especially of fiction, which we put into the hands of our
patients. They must be wholesome stories; anything dealing with suicide
or insanity is strictly tabu; also stories which are morbid or would
be apt to arouse a morbid train of thought. With these exceptions
the insane want and should have the same books which you and I read.
Moreover, and I wish I could say this loudly and emphatically enough to
be heard over the whole country, the insane are not imbeciles and they
are not children, and they resent it when they are treated as such just
as much as you or I would. If the old ladies like to reread the stories
they loved when they were young, so do old ladies everywhere, but they
do not want kindergarten stories. And they are as interested in what is
going on in the world and in keeping up with the times as anyone.
About once a week I go to Boston, look over the new books, select the
ones I like the looks of and have them sent out "on approval." Every
book of fiction is read by me, or if it is distinctly a man's book,
by someone of the staff in whose literary judgment I can rely. The
books which are kept are then classified and cataloged and either sent
directly to some patient or ward where I know they will be appreciated,
or else placed on the "new book shelves." Neither staff nor nurses
are allowed to have the new books until the patients have read them.
The patients come over four evenings a week to the library, the men
Mondays and Fridays and the women Wednesdays and Saturdays. Our library
consists of two large and very beautiful rooms with open shelves and
open fires. Some of the patients roam about and browse among the
books, others sit at the tables and look at pictures and magazines,
while still others join the ladies of the house who generally sit in
the front library in the evening with their fancy-work and the fire.
Sometimes we play cards with them.
Besides these four evenings, certain patients are sometimes allowed
to come over in the daytime, and the nurses come in at any time of
day to get books for some particular patient or for their ward. These
"traveling libraries" on the wards are our most successful means of
reaching those patients who are too feeble, or too ill, or who lack
the initiative to come to the library and select their own books, but
who will often get interested in a book which lies on the sitting-room
table of their ward.
I am often asked what kind of books aside from fiction the patients
call for. I suppose books with pictures would rank first, for patients
who are too ill to read will often look at these by the hour. These
picture-books comprise art books, of which we have a very fine
collection bought and added to each year with money from a bequest to
the hospital; Black's travel books; Country Life in America, etc. Next
come the nature and out-of-door books; then literature, especially
Longfellow, Whittier and Tennyson. History is seldom called for by the
patients,--sociology and economics never; yet our nurses, especially
our Canadian nurses who want to know about conditions in the States,
frequently ask for these, and we have books on all these subjects; for,
though our hospital motto is "Patients first," we find that whatever
increases the intelligence of the nurses increases their efficiency,
and we are glad to have them avail themselves of every opportunity for
reading and study.
Frankly humorous books I have learned never to give to a depressed
patient, and Miss Carey tells me she has had the same experience. If
a patient is much depressed he seems to resent being cheered up if
he knows it, and we all have realized in ourselves that unless we
are in the mood for it there is nothing in the world so dreary as an
avowedly funny story. Neither is there any call for collections like
the "International library of famous literature," and the "Library of
American literature," and in this matter too, Miss Carey agrees with
me. Short stories also are at a discount here. The patients want novels
which shall grip and hold their attention in spite of themselves. We
all know that the complete librarian is supposed to have an extra sense
of intuition, and I think I unconsciously say to myself in selecting
books for the patients, "If I felt the way that patient looks as if he
felt, what kind of books would I want?" Sometimes, though, one makes
mistakes. For instance,--we have one patient, a dear old lady, somewhat
prim, a little austere, a typical New England aristocrat of the old
school, with whom one immediately associates "Cranford" and "Oldfield"
and Mrs. de la Pasture. But this dear lady wants detective stories,
if you please, and the more gruesome and bloodier they are the more
she revels in them. In her estimation, "The Marathon mystery" and "The
Boule cabinet" and "The Mystery of the yellow room" totally eclipse
"Down our street" and "Queed" any day.
But while short stories are seldom called for, the "short story in
long dresses" and bound by itself, is very popular with patients who
are physically weak and unable to hold large volumes or to read very
long at a time. I always keep a collection of these little books
in a special bookrack so I can lay my hands on them at any moment.
They comprise such titles as "Pigs is pigs," "The good Samaritan,"
"Philosophy Four," "Stickeen," "The perfect tribute," "Songs from
Vagabondia," "The friendly craft," etc. Then I have other racks on
tables and window shelves which I keep filled with different books,
changing them often. And I find that shifting the books on the shelves
every little while brings into prominence some which have heretofore
been overlooked. In short, I try to keep something new in the library
all the time, even if only a new plant or arrangement of flowers, for
the patients in a hospital of this sort are very dependent on outside
agencies for diversion and interest, and their attention must be caught
and held by some means or other.
So much for the reality: now for the dream.
Because the library in our hospital has been such a success, because
it has so thoroughly proved its therapeutic value, I dream of the time
when one as efficient shall be in every hospital in the country. The
fact that ours is a private hospital means that we are not helped by
the state; it also means that most of our patients, but by no means
all, are on a paying basis; it most emphatically does not mean that
we have the monopoly of the educated class. While it is true that
there are many illiterates in the state hospitals, it is also true
that there are in them thousands of men and women as well educated, as
refined, as great lovers of books as those in our private hospital.
For the majority, it is the question of money, not of education, which
determines a patient's place in the state or the private institution.
If our people value our library so highly, what must be their
deprivation when because of lack of funds they have to go to state
institutions where there are no books and periodicals or at best only a
few old ones, never changed and seldom added to.
The state says it cannot afford to appropriate for each of its
hospitals and asylums an annual sum sufficient to build up such a
library as ours and maintain so many trained librarians, and the state
is justified. But I have dreamed of a coöperation by means of which
there shall be in every state one trained librarian who shall organize
into a library what books there already are in each institution,
advise and train in library methods those in charge, and buy from an
annual appropriation such as the state can afford, new books which
shall be sent from one hospital to another in the form of traveling
libraries, and after they have gone the round be divided up among the
individual institutions,--thus slowly building up each library. This
organizer should be in the employ either of the State Board of Insanity
(or its equivalent) or else of the State Library Commission. It would
seem that the former would be more satisfactory and less complicated,
as the state institutions already are under their control, but in
some states the library commission seems to have have been entirely
successful in co-operating with the state board. One thing seems
certain, that unless the state board and the hospital superintendents
can be interested in the scheme little can be done; while with their
interest and coöperation success is insured.
That this dream is practical has been proved in Iowa, Minnesota,
Nebraska and a few other states. In New York, most of the state
hospitals seem to have fairly good libraries, and the one at
Middletown, N. Y., ranks very nearly with McLean in the number of
volumes, and seems to be carried on very efficiently. In Trenton, N.
J., there is a state hospital which has a memorial library with a good
annual appropriation and which adds about one hundred and fifty books a
year. I have with me the figures of the hospital libraries in nineteen
states, if anyone cares to see them.
In my dream I see equal library advantages to every state hospital in
the country, and I hear from them all the words they will say to you
who are able to realize these dreams,--words our patients at McLean
have said to us over and over again,--"You don't know what this library
has meant to me!" This is an opportunity for intimate helpfulness and
real, practical usefulness which I hope everyone of you will try to
introduce into his state.
In the discussion that followed, Miss Jones said the McLean Hospital
library had an appropriation of about $300 a year for books alone for
the patients, but thought that a state hospital library could get on
nicely with less. Miss Templeton gave an account of state institutional
work in Nebraska where the policy has been to get library work in these
institutions under the control of the state library commission.
Mr. Dudgeon said that a list of simple industrial books had been
prepared with much care for the prisoners in the Wisconsin state
prison. Also that the chaplain helped in recommending reading for the
prisoners, those who expected to get out being especially anxious to
keep up with events and not be Rip Van Winkles when released.
Miss Carey, of Minnesota, said their state commission has made special
efforts to know what the libraries of the institutions were doing, how
many readers they had, and how many books they circulate. She said this
familiarized the institutions with the commission and so the officers
were glad to put the burden off on the commission. She thought it was
impossible to do anything until the officers of the institutions were
on your side; that this must be worked for until secured.
After discussion the session adjourned.
THIRD SESSION
(Monday, July 1, 4:30 p. m.)
The third session of the League opened with a report from Mr. F. F.
Hopper, of Tacoma, on the work of the Committee on federal prison
libraries. His report was as follows:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LIBRARIES IN FEDERAL PRISONS
The report of this committee made by Mr. Hadley at the Pasadena
meeting, outlined correspondence with the Department of Justice in
Washington, which Department has supervision of the penitentiaries
including their libraries. After repeated efforts by Mr. Hadley, the
department seemed to become interested in the libraries in the prisons,
and friendly to suggestions for improving them, but the officials
considered that proper library facilities were dependent upon the
provision by Congress of a system of education for the prisoners.
However, the department already had the authority to appropriate money
from its own funds for the purchase of books for the prison libraries.
In his report, Mr. Hadley recommended that a bill be introduced in the
next Congress for an annual appropriation for books and their care in
penitentiary libraries.
In 1911 catalogs of the libraries in the penitentiaries at Atlanta and
at McNeil Island were prepared by the prison librarians and printed.
After these were submitted to the Department of Justice, it seems to
have been decided to adopt a definite policy for the annual expenditure
of money for the purchase of books for one of these libraries, that at
McNeil Island. This decision was probably hastened by the disclosures
the catalogues made in regard to the kind of books already in the
libraries. It is evident that fiction constitutes almost the whole of
the collections. At any rate in January the attorney general wrote
the secretary of the American Library Association that the department
would spend $100 annually for the purchase of books for the library
at McNeil Island, and requested that a list of books be prepared,
none of the books to be fiction, but chiefly history, biography and
science. Mr. Utley asked the present chairman of your committee to
prepare the list since the Tacoma library is the nearest to McNeil
Island and the present chairman was somewhat acquainted with the
conditions and needs there. A list of 500 titles, with a first choice
of books to cost $100.00 was considered, but the list was reduced to
175 titles, since it was deemed best to provide only for purchase for
two years. Since the library already contained considerable fiction and
the public libraries of both Seattle and Tacoma frequently send the
prison selected books from their discards, it was fortunate that the
department wished no fiction on the list.
We have learned from the Department of Justice in the last few days
that similar purchases were not contemplated for the much larger
prisons at Atlanta and Leavenworth. No attempt was made to secure
the introduction of a bill in Congress providing for an annual
appropriation for books and their care in the penitentiary libraries,
since it was already so late in the present session; since the new
interest of the department under the present law appeared promising;
and since it seemed desirable first to secure the discussion and
coöperation of the American Prison Association and other societies
interested in prison administration and reform. It was hoped that a
member of this committee could present the subject of libraries in
the federal prisons at the meeting of the Conference of Charities and
Corrections in Cleveland during the present month, but it was not
possible to carry out the plan. The American Prison Association has
formally invited a member of the committee to discuss the same subject
at the annual meeting of the association at Baltimore in November, and
it is highly desirable that the invitation be accepted. It should be
possible to interest and secure the powerful backing of the American
Prison Association in securing the passage of any contemplated
legislation looking to the improvement of prison libraries.
The warden of the prison at McNeil Island secures some fifty magazines
as gifts by merely begging them from the publishers! At both Atlanta
and Leavenworth, the only new magazines the prisoners see are those
which they subscribe for themselves or which are sent by their friends.
In the Atlanta prison, a regular school is conducted, and whatever
books are purchased from the general funds are school books. A school
should be established at McNeil Island. At present there are no
facilities for such work there but with the example of the one at
Atlanta, it should be possible to urge effectively that the department
establish a school at McNeil Island.
In the coming year the commendable start which the Department of
Justice has made in purchasing books for the prison at McNeil Island,
should open the way for successful efforts in persuading the department
to undertake much more liberal purchases of books for the libraries of
the much larger prisons at Atlanta and at Leavenworth.
* * * * *
It is earnestly recommended that a vigorous presentation of the needs
of the prison libraries be made to the department by someone in person,
backed by all the influence obtainable. It is also urged that a list of
fiction suitable for prison libraries be co-operatively made with the
utmost care. The needs of the prisoner in his reading for recreation
are very special, and many books entirely suitable for the open shelf
room of a public library should be ruthlessly excluded from the prison.
Expert knowledge of the psychology of the prisoner should in some way
be obtained in preparing a list of fiction for reading in prison. It is
better that the prisoner read not at all than that he should be given
many of the books eminently fit for one in the normal conditions and
relations of life.
FRANKLIN F. HOPPER, Chairman.
* * * * *
Mrs. Sneed supplemented Mr. Hopper's report with a report of conditions
in the federal prison at Atlanta and of conferences which she had had
with officials from Washington. It was her opinion, based on advice
from the prison authorities that the only way to accomplish anything
is for some one to go to Washington, put the case plainly before
the Department of Justice and ask that an appropriation be made for
libraries in the federal prisons. Mr. Dudgeon moved that Mrs. Sneed,
Dr. Owen and Mr. Hopper act as a committee representing the League
with full power to act, and that the League pledge itself to hearty
coöperation. Carried. Miss Tyler moved that the secretary of the League
send a communication to the Council of the A. L. A., stating the
progress of the committee and asking for its coöperation. On the motion
of Mr. Dudgeon, $50.00 was placed at the disposal of the committee to
carry on its work.
The report of the publications committee was then presented by the
chairman, Mr. M. S. Dudgeon. At his suggestion the recommendations of
the committee were voted on as they were read.
The League adopted the first, second and third recommendation of the
committee; took no action on the fifth, and adopted the sixth. The
report of the committee was then accepted.
REPORT OF THE PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
Your committee respectfully reports the following:
1. A very definite demand has been presented to the committee from the
various commissions calling for the publication of a buying list of
about one thousand titles for use by small libraries. The committee
has investigated the matter and is glad to report that Miss Zaidee
Brown's list has been revised and brought up to date by Miss Webster
of New York, and that this will admirably meet the demand. After going
over the matter with Mr. Utley, it appeared that no advantage would
result should this committee handle this publication. The committee
recommends that the separate commissions deal directly with the New
York state library. The committee is informed that the commissions will
be circularized by the New York authorities for this purpose. The price
is exceedingly reasonable, probably not exceeding two cents each in
large quantities. It seems likely that arrangements can be made so that
each commission can stamp or print upon the title page such matter as
it sees fit.
We understand that copy of the list is now ready for the printer. When
printed this list will also contain a magazine list.
2. It was suggested by the president of the League that the committee
collect and print short paragraphs suitable for publication in
newspapers during local campaigns for a library. The committee
recommends that this be undertaken by one of the commissions as a
sub-committee, rather than by the publications committee.
3. Mr. Gillis of California, has suggested that each commission prepare
a list of the best material available treating of the history of its
state. This seems to the committee the function of the state library
rather than the commission and it recommends that this request be
referred to the National Association of State Libraries.
4. It was suggested that the committee reprint Moulton's "Aids to
Library Work with Foreigners." This matter was referred to the A. L. A.
Publishing Board, which has arranged for its publication.
5. The committee has been asked also to consider the publication of a
buying list for traveling libraries, to be followed by a periodical
supplement probably issued in mimeograph form. The questionnaire
submitted to the commissions indicates that there would be only a
limited use of such a list, many commissions maintaining that present
aids are sufficient. The commissions exhibited so little interest
in the matter that this question is submitted to the League without
recommendation.
6. The loss resulting from the susceptibility of the trustee or
librarian of many of the smaller libraries, to the subtle wiles of
the eloquent book-agent, calls for some authoritative pronouncement
upon the value, or lack of value, of subscription books. To make such
a pronouncement seems to be the function of the A. L. A. Publishing
Board. The committee therefore respectfully recommends that such board
be requested to make proper provision for such pronouncement.
Respectfully submitted,
M. S. DUDGEON, Chairman,
ZAIDEE BROWN,
MARY E. DOWNEY.
In the absence of the chairman of the committee on uniform financial
reports for library commissions, the following report was read by the
secretary:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON UNIFORM FINANCIAL REPORTS
The difficulties confronting the compiler of statistics of expenditures
of library commissions or library extension departments are obvious,
owing (1) to variations in organization and scope of work in different
states, (2) to variations in accounting systems which must conform
to the state accounting system, and (3) to variations in methods of
appropriations. For example, in some states definite appropriations
are made for certain departments of work, in others certain expenses
such as printing, binding and office supplies are paid from the
general state fund for all departments. In view of these facts, many
commissions are of the opinion that a uniform accounting system which
will meet the needs of every state is impracticable.
Your committee collected the financial reports of each library
commission, or other state department doing library extension work and
made a careful comparison of the items included.
It was found that these items could practically all be grouped under
a few general headings, as given in Table I. It was further suggested
that another summary giving approximate totals for various departments
be added, as outlined in Table II.
The committee therefore submits this summary of expenses, as a
tentative form, to be used in the annual report of the League for
purposes of comparison.
The work of the committee has shown that such a summary can readily
be made from the financial reports of the several commissions as they
are now published and it is believed that this table would be a useful
addition to the yearbook.
The outline here presented is not regarded as final, but is submitted
for your discussion and amendment.
CLARA F. BALDWIN, Chairman.
TABLE I.
=Summary of Expenditures=
Books and binding
Direct aid
Pamphlets for distribution
Express, freight and cartage
Office supplies and furniture
Periodical clearing house
Periodical subscriptions and memberships
Postage
Printing
Salaries
State institutions
Summer school
Traveling expenses
Traveling library boxes
Miscellaneous
Total
TABLE II.
=Summary of Expenses by Departments=
Field work
Instruction
Traveling library
Direct aid
Legislative reference
School library work (for Oregon)
Educational reference (for N. Dakota)
The report was accepted.
The secretary then presented the following report of what the League
Yearbook should contain.
LEAGUE OF LIBRARY COMMISSIONS' YEARBOOK
In accordance with the request of the president of the League, the
secretary has made the following outline of the matter which should be
included in the Yearbook to be published this coming autumn:
List of members of the League.
Officers.
Committees.
Constitution.
Report by states, giving under each the names of the executive staff,
a list of the publications in print, and new legislation pertaining to
library extension, any distinctly new phase of work taken up, and in
the case of a new commission a full account of its form of organization
and scope of activities.
Traveling libraries: Number of volumes in fixed groups; number of
volumes on open shelves; loans.
Number of requests in answer to which books have been sent; number of
volumes sent out.
Requests classified as follows: Groups of taxpayers, public libraries,
schools, institutions, study clubs, individuals, other organizations.
Summary of public library conditions by states: Population, number of
towns of over 2,000; number of libraries supported by tax; number of
libraries supported by associations; number of subscription libraries;
number of library buildings; number of trained librarians.
Financial report according to the recommendations of Miss Baldwin's
report.
The report was accepted.
The nominating committee then presented the following names as officers
of the League for the ensuing year:
For president, Mr. C. H. Milam, Indiana; for first vice-president,
Miss Elizabeth B. Wales, Missouri; for second vice-president, Dr.
Thomas M. Owen, Alabama; for secretary-treasurer, Miss Zaidee Brown,
Massachusetts; publications committee: M. S. Dudgeon, Wisconsin,
chairman; Miss Fannie C. Rawson, Kentucky; Miss Caroline F. Webster,
New York.
It was voted to instruct the secretary to cast the ballot for these
officers.
The meeting adjourned.
SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION
Fourth Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
FIRST (GENERAL) SESSION
(Thursday, June 27, 2:30 p. m.)
In the absence of the president, the vice-president, Herbert O.
Brigham, state librarian of Rhode Island, called the meeting to order
in, the ball room of the Chateau Laurier.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Ladies and Gentlemen, we will open the session this
afternoon with the consideration of a general topic, which will be
taken part in by Mr. Dudgeon and by other speakers who will discuss Mr.
Dudgeon's paper. It so happens that this year we have been so fortunate
as to have the article reprinted beforehand in the publication of
the Special Libraries Association, so that doubtless many of you are
already familiar with the paper.
I am going to appoint on the nominating committee Messrs. George W. Lee
of Boston, John A. Lapp of Indianapolis, and Miss E. V. Dobbins of New
York City.
We are very fortunate in having with us to take the main paper for this
opening session a man who has been actively engaged in special library
work for some time in the west, one who is very familiar with the
development of the "Wisconsin idea" of legislative reference work, and
closely associated with Dr. McCarthy in developing that idea.
I take great pleasure in introducing to you Mr. M. S. Dudgeon,
secretary of the Wisconsin library commission, who will talk upon the
subject of "The plan, scope and results of special libraries."
Mr. DUDGEON: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen--There are those who
maintain that there is no such thing as a special library in a class of
its own, but that what we call a special library is simply a general
reference library which by the needs of its patrons has become somewhat
specialized in its methods and in its equipment. On the other hand,
there are those who maintain that a special library has so distinctly
a different function and purpose, that its scope is so different,
that its equipment is so different, and that the equipment, the
qualities and the characteristics of those who man the library are so
different, as to entitle such an institution to an entirely different
classification; that it is not a general reference library, but a
special library, something entirely different. It seems to me to be
more or less a distinction without a difference, more or less a play
upon words. I have, at the request of the Program Committee, written
down what seemed to me the perfectly obvious things that might be said
about the scope and purposes of the special library. You have the paper
before you as printed in "Special Libraries," and will probably be
fortunate enough to escape some detail, as I will try to shorten this
somewhat in the reading.[13]
[13] Mr. Dudgeon's paper appeared in full in "Special Libraries," June,
1912, pp. 129-133.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I think we all have a clear understanding of
just what a special library means, and I think we should all notice
especially the allusion that Mr. Dudgeon made to the reference library
as compared to the public library, in the definition of the use of the
book.
I think one of the finest examples of a special librarian one can find
is in our absent president. Dr. Whitten is doubtless one of the best
authorities today on public utilities, and he has this month gone to
London, where he is spending the summer investigating public utilities
for the National Civic Federation. That, I think, accounts for his
absence, and we regret very much that he is not here.
I am going to ask Mr. Josephson of the John Crerar Library, Chicago, to
lead the discussion.
A. G. S. JOSEPHSON: I am afraid that you will not find my paper what
you expected it to be, a discussion of Mr. Dudgeon's paper. When Mr.
Lapp wrote me some time ago to ask if I would not discuss the question,
I began to try to make up my own mind as to what a special library was.
I had made my mental notes on that subject, and when Mr. Dudgeon's
paper came and I read it and undertook to discuss it, it happened that
my own ideas came first.[14]
[14] Mr. Josephson's discussion will appear in a later issue of
"Special Libraries."
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I am going to ask Mr. W. P. Cutter, librarian of
the Engineering Societies of New York City, to contribute either by a
paper or an oral discussion of Mr. Dudgeon's address.
Mr. CUTTER: I do not know that I have anything to offer as a
contribution to the discussion of Mr. Dudgeon's very interesting
paper and Mr. Josephson's very interesting discussion of it. I might,
perhaps, with my usual liking to express things briefly, say that I
consider a special library as one that serves people who are doing
things, and a reference library one which serves people who are
thinking things. The former are not thinking about doing things, they
are already doing them. I think that applies also to people who are
serving as legislators, who are making laws; to sociologists, who are
making attempts to handle crime and other sociological questions. I
believe that the development now in the public library world is in the
direction of service to the public. For twenty-five or twenty-six years
now we have been talking about, first, books, and then about places for
storing books, buildings to put them in, methods of cataloging them,
charging them, of making picture bulletins for children and all that,
and we have finally arrived at a discussion of the methods of serving
the people who are really doing things. It has taken about twenty-five
years to arrive at that point, and I think we are reaching that goal. I
noticed, although I was not present at the meeting this morning, that
in two reports of committees of the American Library Association, an
instrument was mentioned which has been used in one library, at least,
to my knowledge, for the reproduction of material for people who are
doing things, a reproduction of printed material, manuscripts, maps,
drawings, etc. This is the first time that has come up, I think, in a
report in the American Library Association on the reference side.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I hoped that Dr. McCarthy, the head of the
legislative reference department of the Wisconsin library, and Mr.
Galbreath, former state librarian of Ohio, who is now secretary of the
Constitutional Convention of Ohio, would be present today. In their
absence the discussion is now open to the members, and I hope there
will be a very general and free discussion.
JOHN A. LAPP: I have not very much to say except to emphasize one or
two points which Mr. Dudgeon brought out in his paper. One of those
points is the fact that the material which we deal with in special
libraries is not found in books. In a short experience of only four
years, I think, outside of those references to legal works, to law
periodicals and law books, I have not been able to do one-tenth of
my work from books or from published material. Most of the work, the
real work, which has been done by the legislative reference department
of Indiana has been done through work which we have prepared, which
we have drawn up from the general material scattered here and there
in obscure sources and from letters which we had written to experts
outside. I say scarcely one-tenth, and I do not know but perhaps
that is too liberal. One-tenth of the questions we have been able to
answer from published material. That would seem to me to be the most
distinguishing point about the special library. I believe that the
heads of the industrial libraries, the manufacturing libraries, the
commercial libraries, will agree with me on that point.
The subject of the training of special librarians is the one subject
here upon which there seems to be, thus far, a division of opinion.
I have always believed that the person who has a general knowledge
of the subject, with a library training, is the person who is best
qualified to do the work of a special library. I think that is true
particularly in legislative and municipal reference work; but, on the
other hand, it should be emphasized that if that person did not have a
pretty good knowledge of library work, or if he did not have a pretty
efficient librarian with him, he would make a sorry failure, as Mr.
Dudgeon has suggested. At the same time, I do not believe that the
librarian who is trained as a librarian merely, who loves books and
so on, can get hold of the real vital part of the work in a way that
the person who is using the special library demands. On the whole I am
inclined to believe that the best working arrangement is to have a man
in the library who has a knowledge of the subject matter and a person
who knows something about library work and library training, and then
to have him supplemented by some one who knows the library side of it,
with a bare knowledge of the other subjects, and, working together,
they can bring about a very efficient special library service. That
is the ideal of a special library combination. I think it has worked
out in most cases. But, again, speaking from personal knowledge, I
do not think that I could ever do very much in legislative reference
work if I were a librarian without the other training. Whatever I had
of librarian training, through the school, when I went into the work,
might be placed in very small compass--I haven't told this before
but I will confess now that when I began I knew very little about
librarianship. If my assistants knew that at the time, at any rate,
I have never told It before, but I have learned something about it
since that time. But I think I could have made a better success of
librarianship if I had had more library training. On the other hand,
I do not believe I could have gotten along if I had not had the other
side of the subject more largely. So I agree with Mr. Dudgeon on most
points as to that question; but I would suggest that the person who is
in charge, if he is not fairly well grounded in librarian skill and
librarian art, should have some one with him who would keep him off the
rocks, because he will go on the rocks if he does not have some one to
guide him.
The special library meets a very special need. That has been pointed
out many times. We deal with material that is not in print. We
manufacture it. Many times we must color it with our own opinions.
Some people say that in public affairs, in municipal and legislative
reference work, we should not allow our own personality or our judgment
to enter into the work. I should like to find a librarian who is able
to keep from doing that. If I have knowledge which to me seems certain,
if I know a certain fact and have the information right at hand, I
cannot refrain from telling the person who ought to know that fact; I
cannot refrain from telling him that a certain thing is right, or a
certain thing is wrong. While we must all do it diplomatically, it is
out of the question, I believe, for a man to be efficient as a special
librarian, even in dealing with the public affairs in libraries, to
avoid giving his own opinions on subjects. What is the use of his
getting a knowledge of the subject if he cannot really use it? But he
should use it very discreetly.
The special library was very well described by Mr. Cutter when he said
it was a library for those who do things, while the reference library
is for those people who think of things. This is the age of efficiency.
I believe that the librarian is the efficiency engineer, or ought to be
the efficiency engineer, of the educational world. I think the general
reference librarian ought to be that, and I think the librarian of
the special library, particularly of the manufacturing and industrial
library, can be to a large degree the efficiency expert of such a
concern.
GUY E. MARION: I think the people who are present here would take
a good deal of satisfaction in knowing who the people are that are
actually and most vitally interested in special library work, and
I have analyzed an up-to-date membership list which I hold here in
my hand, of which I should be glad to show copies to any who may
be interested. We have now grown to a group of 224 people who are
interested. That is a growth, roughly, of twenty-five per cent since
our last meeting in New York City. There are four insurance libraries
in the country. There are nineteen people who are interested in public
utilities. There are five financial libraries. There are among the
commercial, technical and scientific libraries (many of which are
in manufacturing concerns), forty-eight. Among the public affairs
libraries, which cover the legislative reference departments of
state libraries as well, there are something like thirty-six. It is
interesting to note that the public libraries have themselves been
sufficiently interested to know what we are doing, so that forty-five
of them have become members of this association, to be in touch, I
presume, with what we are aiming for. There are twenty-nine colleges
and universities interested; and of miscellaneous people whom we can
hardly classify, not knowing where they belong, there are thirty-eight.
In this connection I think it is worth while to say to you, many
of you who frequently change about the country, or are looking for
advancement, that it would not be amiss for you to fill out one of the
little blanks showing your qualifications, the things in which you are
interested. At the present moment I know of the largest automobile
concern in this country, the automobile trust, which is looking for
an active, wide-awake librarian, probably a man. Those opportunities
are coming to the attention of your secretary quite frequently, and we
shall always be glad to have you keep in touch with us by filling out
one of these little blanks. We may be able to readjust you.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The Secretary has an announcement to make in regard
to city planning.
Mr. MARION: I think it would not be amiss for me to speak of three or
four of our bibliographies. There has been one list published under the
direction of Mr. Meyer of the Library of Congress, called "Selected
list of references on the short ballot," which is easily obtainable at
our headquarters; also a list of references on street railway service
by Robert H. Whitten, our president. There was prepared by Mr. Dana,
"The social questions of today," which is a very useful compilation of
subjects, and institutions and people interested in social questions.
Then, in addition, our May number of "Special Libraries" has published
probably the most remarkable collection of city planning items that
has ever been gathered together. It was done co-operatively between
the Library of Congress and the Department of landscape architecture
of Harvard university. (Here the Secretary read a notice of a later
complete bibliography of City planning which will be published by the
Library of Congress in which a new complete classification scheme for
the arrangement of all the articles will be used.)
I think that the classification alone will be exceedingly useful to
you who ultimately, with the growth of American cities and their rapid
development, are going to be forced to take an interest in the subject
of their re-arrangement. This is going to become more and more a vital
problem, it seems to me, in the future here in America than it ever has
been in the past; and when the final list is published it will consider
not only American experience, but also European, appertaining to that
subject.
GEORGE W. LEE: I should think this might be a good chance for people
to express themselves as to the need of bibliographical matter to go
into "Special libraries," as members who receive "Special Libraries,"
whether they think the trend of articles is about right and to make
suggestions. Possibly it might be some guide to the editorial committee
to know whether the material they are putting in is about right, or
whether there are certain things that might with advantage be inserted.
Then the question comes, are you helping, yourself, to make up these
bibliographies?
The VICE-PRESIDENT: Perhaps Mr. Lapp can speak of the various ways in
which we made the bibliographies, working with the Library of Congress
methods and various others.
Mr. LAPP: That question might properly come up later, but I just
mention at this time that we should be thinking about it, and report
at a later session of this organization, this week. The matter is very
important to us, because we have some difficulty in selecting. We have
some difficulty in knowing just what the members of the association
desire most, and at the present time we have a working arrangement
with a number of people who are supplying things regularly. We should
be glad to enter into arrangements with others if the demand seems to
be great. Just now we have an arrangement with the Public Utilities
Committee, which supplies every two or three months a summary of the
best public utility references of the period before. We also have an
arrangement with the Library of Congress, through Mr. Meyer, by which
we receive a bibliography for every issue, a short bibliography on some
obscure subject, some subject that is not covered in any systematic
bibliography, or not covered adequately; and the desire is to get
questions which would be of the widest interest and at the same time
not conflict with something that has already been published, because
the whole purpose of the Special Libraries Association is to do those
things which nobody else does. If we find that we are doing something
now which somebody else can do better, we should be very glad to
transfer it to them, and merely undertake those things which nobody
else does. We have an arrangement also by which we are going to receive
some of the best references to material on city documents, beginning
with the next issue. That I think will add very materially to the value
of the publication, because city documents, as you know, are now almost
inaccessible for the reason that no one knows that they are published
until they are perhaps out of print, and they cannot be obtained.
I would like to take this opportunity of asking all our friends to
contribute whenever they know of anything that is done or that has
happened regarding a bibliography or in the way of a special locality
that you think should be mentioned, that you send a note to the
editors, or send us a copy of the publication itself. This is purely
a co-operative enterprise, and it is by co-operation that we get the
real value of the work. The hope is to cover the whole country, so that
if a man is working on a subject in Boston some one in San Francisco
can learn about it, and, if he is thinking of doing the same thing,
have him co-operate and perhaps get that thing done better; and any
information which can be given which will facilitate that plan will be
of very great value to the association and be a very great help to the
editors.
Mr. CUTTER: The first statement Mr. Marion made, about obtaining
assistants for the people who need them, is, I think, the most
searching question in connection with special libraries. It seems to me
it would be wise for this association to communicate with graduating
classes of some of our universities and suggest to the members of
those classes well enough in advance that the library profession is
a desirable thing for young men to enter. I think it would be a very
wise thing for this association to take that up, and tell them the
reasons why, and the demand for assistants. At the present time I have
knowledge of several positions, but the specification is made that men
are desired, as most of our business men are so ignorant that they do
not know how efficient women are.
I would say in regard to what Mr. Lapp mentioned, that I have some 250
bibliographies on engineering subjects, some of them too special, but
some of them would, I think, be of general interest, and I will take
the opportunity of sending him a list of these.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: It might be of interest to note what has already
been printed in connection with the Library of Congress, to show the
character of the publications received from that source. You will
recall, for instance, a bibliography on the drinking habit, the short
ballot, on anti-cigarette ordinances and laws, the open shop, public
utility rates, the pardoning power, compulsory voting, preferential
voting, and, finally, city planning, and, also, I might say, one on the
administration of charities and correction boards, a rather technical
subject, which appeared in the April number, 1911.
(There here followed a discussion led by Mr. C. A. George, of
Elizabeth, N. J., in which he asked for information as to the real
purpose of the Special Libraries movement. Mr. Josephson, the
vice-president, and Mr. G. W. Lee, of Stone & Webster, Boston, offered
replies to the questions asked.)
Mr. DUDGEON: My connection with this association was due to this
conception, that in my business, which was legislative work, etc., I
conceived that there was a great deal in books that ought to be brought
to the attention of the people who were doing the work, and I was glad
to join an association whose special function seemed to be to help
one another devise ways and means of getting book knowledge into the
hands of the actual workers. Now, that seems to me to be somewhat of
a distinct proposition. I think Mr. Cutter's definition justifies our
existence. We are specialized in getting knowledge out of books and out
of the experience of others into the hands of workers rather than into
the hands of people who are just thinking about working. It seems to me
that it is quite distinct although hard to distinguish.
Miss LINDHOLM: I believe in the effort to make the business public more
appreciative of the work we are doing, we should write more articles
about our work and our libraries. I think if there were articles
written for the different electrical, engineering, automobile and
manufacturing periodicals it would help a great deal.
Mr. CUTTER: I would suggest, Mr. President, that you can combine all
those periodicals the lady mentions by writing articles for the Wall
Street Journal. That is the place where the people read things.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The editor of the Wall Street Journal was with us
at our September meeting and gave us a very interesting description
of his own part of the work in connection with the business, and the
information bureau established by the Wall Street Journal. I sometimes
think we fail to note the speed with which that information must be
obtained, either in the reference department or the newspaper. They
will sometimes employ a mere mechanical device to save two minutes in
connection with the information given.
I think Miss Lindholm's suggestion is a very good one and possibly
can be worked out by getting more and more in touch with the trade
periodicals. Many of those trade periodicals are not taken by the
public libraries, are not listed in any indexes of periodicals, and
much of the material afforded there is of unusual value.
Mr. CUTTER: I would suggest that we have a committee on publicity for
the association.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The committee have a plan to advance for that which
I think they will bring out at the next meeting.
SECOND (FIRST JOINT) SESSION
(Friday, June 28, 2:30 p. m.)
The second session was a joint session held in conjunction with the
National Association of State Libraries, the American Association of
Law Libraries and the Bibliographical Society of America. Mr. George S.
Godard, acting secretary-treasurer of the National Association of State
Libraries, called the meeting to order and occupied the chair.
Before beginning the regular program, Mr. Beer, librarian of the Howard
Memorial library at New Orleans, called attention to a bibliography
of French fiction, which he had come across during his travels in
Europe last year. He said in part: "I discovered that there was being
published at Lisle on the borders of Belgium by a Roman Catholic
priest the most honest, the bravest review of fiction that exists
in any language. He does not fear to mention every book which is
published. He praises those which are good, and he scathes with the
most bitter sarcasm and truthfulness those that are absolutely bad.
He is the Abbé Bellian. If a young lady goes to buy a book she is
asked if that particular book is in the list of Abbé Bellian. If it is
not that store refuses to supply it to any one who is not of lawful
age. It has been supplemented by a monthly publication which is very
reasonable in price. It has been published since 1903." He urged that
all become familiar with this book in order that the supply of French
books generally throughout the United States in our libraries may be
much more carefully selected and be more representative of the great
French fiction. Dean Walton of the McGill University law school,
Montreal, prepared a paper entitled "Legal systems of Canada, with a
list of statutes and other legal papers of the Province of Quebec."
This paper opened the formal program and was read by Mr. Charles H.
Gould. This paper was followed by another entitled "Present Status of
legal bibliography" by Dean Wigmore of the Northwestern University
law school. This was read by Mr. Edwin M. Borchard, law librarian of
the Library of Congress, in connection with his own paper on "The
bibliography of international and foreign law, with an account of the
method of building up the collections of foreign and international
law in the Library of Congress." After reading Dean Wigmore's paper
and discussing the present literature in this field and existing
bibliographies, Mr. Borchard called attention to the effect which
the increase in foreign travel had had upon all law library problems
in America, bringing in as it had the wider international relations
from year to year. He said "There are three points of view that have
guided us" (in the formation of the Library of Congress collection)
"the practicing lawyer's necessity of knowing foreign law, the
legislator's necessity for knowing the solution of social and economic
problems, the scientific object, the students' need of developing
the science of law." He dwelt at some length upon the methods which
he had used in arriving at the best selection of foreign continental
law books. Through his connection as international law expert at the
Hague Fisheries Arbitration he was enabled to get first hand judgment
regarding the actual books by foreign lawyers. Further in the name of
the Government by correspondence he approached the law departments
of universities, judges of Supreme Courts, practicing lawyers, etc.,
of other countries. In Latin America he worked through the consuls
and ministers of the United States to get such information. By these
methods the books were ordered and many have now arrived. The question
now presents itself as to how to make available this new material. This
is being done by the publication of guides to the foreign law. "The
first guide, the guide of the law of Germany, appeared about a month
and a half ago.... It undertakes to furnish an introduction to the
German system as a whole, and to the principal leading institutions,
as parts of the system in some detail, mentioning particularly the
important literature and how to use it, what the American lawyer in
terms of his own law may expect to find in these European books....
The guide of the law of France is now in course of preparation, and
will probably appear about the first of next year. We hope then to
continue with Austria, Spain and Italy, which we consider the important
countries. Later we may publish Belgium and Switzerland in one volume,
perhaps including Scandinavia, and then one volume for the law of
Latin America. If we do not get to the publication of guides we will
publish the material that we have received, editing it with perhaps
bibliographic notes of such information as we can convey in order to
open up this bibliographic source to the general investigator....
We are getting many letters every week in Washington from lawyers
throughout the whole United States, asking for information on foreign
law.... Comparative law is a field which is now getting great impetus,
partly through the work of developing legal collections, partly through
the necessities of a case. We are no longer an insular nation. Growing
international relations are making necessary some knowledge of foreign
law and the desirability of its knowledge to legislators is admitted, I
think, without a question."
Mrs. Margaret C. Klingelsmith, librarian of the Biddle law library
of the University of Pennsylvania, followed with a paper upon "The
books of the beginnings." Prof. Archibald McGoun of McGill university
next presented a paper entitled "The bibliography of Canadian law."
Dr. G. E. Wire of the Worcester county law library of Massachusetts
opened the discussion. Speaking of the ordinary bar library for the
working lawyer, he urged that there was needed an extension of Mr.
Soule's Manual referred to in Dean Wigmore's article. He advocated
also a much shorter list of citations than that employed in Soule. He
further referred to the need of some publication on Spanish American
bibliography, which would cover such things as the number of Porto
Rican reports in a given series. He would like also some publication
which would give the various codes and compilations of laws, both
official and unofficial, in advance of "our law book friend" who comes
along to tell us about it. From the practical standpoint he said that
books on foreign laws were so much more useful when translated, that in
the average law library the same books in the original language would
be rarely used.
THIRD (SECOND GENERAL) SESSION
(Monday, July 1, 1912, 2:50 p. m.)
The third session was the second session for discussion of problems
peculiar to the special library and was called to order by
Vice-President Brigham.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: We have one paper which remains from our first
session, and I am going to call for that paper first.
That will be a paper by Mr. T. J. Homer, member of the Massachusetts
bar, on "The Boston co-operative information bureau." The development
of that bureau is interesting and is the first attempt, I think, in
this country co-operatively to work the libraries by exchange of
publications, and I think probably you can be supplied on application
with copies of their bulletins which some of us have here, and which
will show you the extent of the movement. I am going to ask Mr. Marion
to read Mr. Homer's paper.[15]
[15] This will be published in full in the Library journal and
reprinted in Special Libraries.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: We will now proceed to the regular program for the
day. We have a paper by Mr. D. N. HANDY. The topic has been changed
by the speaker so, that it reads, "The library as a business asset;
when and how?" and I introduce now Mr. Handy of the Insurance Library
Association of Boston.
THE LIBRARY AS A BUSINESS ASSET; WHEN AND HOW?[16]
I feel that this subject of the asset value of the special library is
one that is bound to be constantly growing in interest, because, of
course, the tendency of business is to scrutinize carefully the things
which it pays money for, and unless it can be shown that the library
has some asset value, naturally, the library will come in for the
first cuts in the budgets, and, later on, a complete cutting off. When
the subject was assigned me by Mr. Marion he put the subject as "The
library as a business asset." I have therefore discussed the subject
from that standpoint, and inasmuch as it seemed to me that the whole
thing resolved itself into a few very general and broad principles I
have not made any attempt to consider details at all, but have assumed
one or two things that it seemed to me must lie at the bottom of the
whole proposition and must decide for us whether the library is to find
a place among commercial assets and is to receive from business the
support to which as an asset it is entitled.
[16] Abstract. The full paper will appear in "Special Libraries."
An asset, in business, is a debt-satisfying possession. In determining
business solvency assets are set over against liabilities, and if the
former exceed the latter, the business is said to be solvent. The term
assets is applied technically to _material_ possessions. But there
are possessions other, and even more essential than material: these
are the _moral_, out of which assets grow. At the foundation of every
business lie courage, competency, integrity, perseverance. These cannot
be computed or averaged, but their commercial value is everywhere
recognized.
Wherefore, let us at the outset agree that when we speak of the library
as a business-asset, we speak not of its value as so many books and
pamphlets, but of its value as a contributing agency to those more
fundamental possessions to which material assets owe their existence.
What, then, has the library contributed and what may it in the future
hope to contribute that will add to business courage, integrity,
competency, perseverance In a word, to business efficiency?
The answer is found in a measure in our conception of a library and its
function. Shall we then describe what we have in mind when we speak of
the library that may become a business asset?
It certainly is not any collection of books and pamphlets under any
custodian and handled probably more often by the janitor than the
manager. That is not the kind of library that we have in mind. Our
library is a collection organized and planned for a definite end....
The measure of its value is to be sought in increasing efficiency
of personnel; wider outlook, clearer vision, firmer grasp, greater
fortitude.
It would be pleasant to think of the precise manner in which a library
might entrench itself in business favor, until it became admittedly
indispensable. Such an experience is not uncommon. Libraries there
are today--adjuncts of successful business houses--which stand on a
plane of equality with every other department; whose directors are in
every sense advisers; whose position in importance and dignity yields
precedence to none. They add efficiency to the entire staff, and by
breadth and merit bring distinction to the business they serve.
The asset value of a library is dependent upon a variety of conditions.
Foremost among them, I should say, must be a condition of receptivity
on the part of business itself.
Again, and only second in importance, is the attitude of the library
towards business. If the library shall cling to traditional aims;
shall overestimate the importance of conventional methods; shall hold
disdainfully aloof from those adaptations and changes which alone can
make it useful to business, then its asset value will never be large or
general.
Finally, assuming business and the library to agree as to their mutual
helpfulness, the lines along which they are to co-operate, if the
results are to be satisfying to both, must be susceptible of being
easily seen and followed....
At no time in the history of the modern business world has the
opportunity been so favorable for a lasting alliance between the
library and business. Business was never more complex, nor more moral.
Greater wisdom is required to develop it. It is more sensitive.
Results come quicker, failure follows more promptly on the heels of
error--success almost anticipates the footsteps of sound judgment.
Consequences are more far reaching. Disaster to one involves
many--while bankruptcy carries overthrow and panic to hundreds of
others.
The greater demands of business are seen not only in the enormous
growth of industrial enterprises, and the larger responsibilities of
management, but in the increasing numbers of college and university men
who are seeking business careers.
Again, an almost revolutionary change has taken place in the public
attitude towards business of every kind. It matters not what it is.
The idea now is that men live for service; that men organize socially,
commercially, and industrially for service. And if any organization
is unable to undergo this test it must reform, or stand aside and
let a better take its place. This I take it is the interpretation of
the great unrest which has possessed England and America in the last
decade....
All these--this increasing complexity, growing sense of social
responsibility, demand for an increasing inflow of college men into
business--spell opportunity for the library as an indispensable
adjunct for business enterprise. Answering for our first condition,
then, it may be said that business is in a receptive mood, and that it
stands ready today to welcome among its productive forces the library
organization.
But if the library is to be truly an asset to business enterprise,
the library itself must recognize not only its opportunity but its
responsibility. The failure of the general library to lead in this work
of aiding business in the solution of its problems has been inevitable.
Business wants its own technology; it wants pamphlets, clippings,
reports--all sorts of special things which no public library with all
its other obligations could ever hope to get and to classify.
Hence the need of specialized libraries and special methods. It is
evident that the special library has a whole field of methods yet to
amplify, systematize and unify. If the library is to help business
it must be organized as business is organized. To get everything
on a subject may be necessary for some purposes, and is always
interesting to the bibliographer; but to get the adequate thing is the
business-librarian's ideal of service, and if he misses it he may wake
up surprised to find his labor unappreciated.
Business is multiplying short-cuts, motion-savers, "efficiency" getters
in every department; it will tolerate nothing less from the library.
It is for the library to prove its value--to demonstrate its practical
worth by adjusting itself to the business environment. It must not
follow too closely the traditions of general library work. It ought
to be familiar with general library methods; but it should never lose
sight of the fact that general library methods were devised with an eye
single to general library problems. The problems of a business library
are different.
This, then, is the duty of the business library if the title to
asset-value is to go unchallenged. And the library may be certain that
business will not take it at its own appraisal but will demand to see
for itself whether its claims are justified.
Business libraries in many cities are justifying their existence and
are gradually making for themselves a secure place among the assets of
the enterprises which they represent.... Finally, how are the library
and business to co-operate for their mutual advantage?
It is evident that in this respect business has to perform a duty even
greater than we have laid upon the library itself. If the library is
under obligation to adapt itself to the needs of business, business is
under special obligation to place its resources more completely at the
disposal of the library. It must take the library seriously and plan
for it accordingly....
Business fails to appreciate the ally that it might have in the well
conducted library. It appreciates and at times is mildly grateful for
the library's service; but it has shown no great discernment when
it came to an understanding of the means by which the service was
rendered. It asks for and expects results; but has little appreciation
of the price at which results must be bought.
An indispensable requisite of a business library is a librarian
thoroughly conversant with the main facts of the business. He must know
its theory and history. He must be freed from routine at least to the
extent necessary to enable him to become an expert in the materials
which he handles. He must be treated as a literary adviser and given
the opportunity to develop literary discrimination and judgment in the
field which he covers. Then he becomes more than a custodian of books;
he is a counselor, impressing his personality upon a unique source of
business inspiration, namely, the business literature of his collecting
and bringing direct to his superiors the information which they will
know how to use for the good of the business as a whole.
Subordinates, working under him, will assemble, classify, card index,
bulletin and distribute, while the library itself will stand on a level
with manufacturing, accounting and selling. It will be a department of
the business, organized like other departments, for efficiency....
The library may adapt itself to business, but it is for business to
say whether the adaptation shall be thoroughgoing and effective. Is
the library, then, a business asset? My answer is that it is such just
in proportion as business is willing to let it be. When business shall
treat it as it treats other factors of business success, discerning
its possibilities of usefulness, encouraging and planning for its
development, adapting it to the requirements of business activity, then
it will justify itself unquestionably....
Business has already awakened to the possibilities of library help,
and wherever it has done so with insight and courage it has answered
for itself the question which we have here proposed. In banking, in
finance, in engineering, in applied chemistry, in insurance and in
numerous other fields, business has set itself to the task of adapting
library methods to business needs. Special collections administered
for special requirements are springing up in every large city, and the
liberality with which these are beginning to be supported is in some
respects an indication of business' own estimate of their value.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The matter is now open for discussion, and I will
ask Mr. Morton, librarian of the United Gas & Fuel Company, to be the
first speaker.[17]
[17] Mr. Morton's discussion will appear in "Special Libraries."
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The next speaker is Miss MARGARET E. MURRAY,
librarian of Wm. Filene's Sons, Boston, who will address us on the
subject
THE EARNING POWER OF A SPECIAL REFERENCE LIBRARY ON RETAIL DISTRIBUTION
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.
FOURTH (EXTRA) SESSION
(Monday, July 1, 8:15 p. m.)
After an informal interchange of ideas among a small group of people
who gathered in the private dining room, the business session,
continued from the afternoon, was called to order by Vice-President
Brigham. In view of the small attendance and in order to allow greater
publicity the meeting was adjourned to Tuesday, July 2, 9:30 a. m.
FIFTH (SECOND JOINT) SESSION
(Tuesday, July 2, 9:30 a. m.)
The second joint session was attended by the National Association of
State Libraries, the American Association of Law Libraries and the
Special Libraries Association delegates, and was presided over by Mr.
Brigham, vice-president of the Special Libraries Association. The
meeting was held in the ball room of the Chateau Laurier.
Mr. Charles J. Babbitt of the Massachusetts state library read the
first paper, entitled "Snags, stumbling blocks and pitfalls among the
session laws." During the course of his paper Mr. Babbitt touched upon
some very interesting phases of these questions. In the absence of Mr.
James MKirdy, Mr. Thomas Montgomery, state librarian of Pennsylvania,
presented his paper, entitled "Bill drafting." Following this, in the
absence of Dr. John H. Arnold, librarian of the Harvard Law School, Mr.
George S. Godard read his paper, entitled "The history of the growth
and development of the Harvard university law library." Great regret
was expressed at the absence of Dr. Arnold, who may now be looked upon
as the father of law libraries.
Following this Mr. Lapp discussed the question of co-operation between
legislative reference departments. This address also covered a report
upon the same subject as well as a report on legislative reference
service. Mr. Godard followed with general remarks, in which he called
attention to the great changes in our present social life, brought
about by improvements in our methods of transportation, so that now our
view point is so much broader that in the drawing of bills we can no
longer overlook what other states are doing, hence the great necessity
for co-operation and wider knowledge in this field. He reviewed
briefly the work of the Law Reporting Company and tried to point
out how service such as they had rendered might be made practical.
He appealed for a national legislative information bureau, and he
questioned whether this could ever be brought about by co-operation,
but rather insisted that it must be a definitely established service
run for profit or subsidized by government support. The chairman called
attention to the library law abstracts which are probably present in
every state library in one form or another. In these abstracts minute
subjects are touched upon which are difficult to get at. The material
usually exists only in carbon form. As a result of an interview with
a commercial concern, the chairman found that with the use of the
multigraph this firm would agree to furnish three hundred copies for
$1.00 a folio with $5.00 for composition and general work. This would
mean on a thirty folio, a total of $35.00 for an issue of three hundred
copies. He suggested that such material be sent to a central agency
and believed that such a scheme could be worked out successfully.
Mr. Babbitt called attention to several interesting instances
where the assistance of such a scheme would have been invaluable
in furthering greater publicity for material which was only found
through co-operation among the state libraries. Dr. Clement W. Andrews
believed that this sort of work should be done at the American Library
Association headquarters and thought with competent operators this
was the most practical way to have it done. He also called attention
to the fact that the Illinois State Bankers Association had asked the
John Crerar library to undertake an analysis of the State Banking
Association publications. He offered to send circulars covering that
work to any state or law libraries that might find them of usefulness.
Mr. D. N. Handy of the Insurance Library Association of Boston spoke
in regard to the recently organized legislative bureau of the National
Board of Fire Underwriters. One of the chief functions of this bureau
will be to bring together an abstract card index of the laws in the
various states in the country bearing on fire insurance. Recently the
Association of Life Insurance Presidents has completed a card index
abstract of the laws bearing on life insurance, comprising something
like four thousand cards. Mr. Godard offered further discussion which
he finally followed with a motion to the effect "that our committee on
resolutions prepare suitable resolution directed to Congress, endorsing
the bill now before Congress looking toward the permanent establishment
of a legislative bureau at Washington and expressing our hope that
it may be established in the very near future, and at the same time
expressing our willingness to co-operate in any way that we can." Mr.
Montgomery, as chairman of the Committee on resolutions then offered
several resolutions.[18]
[18] These resolutions will be found in full in the proceedings of the
National Association of State Libraries, which will be printed by that
association.
Mr. Johnson Brigham of Iowa then opened up the discussion of the
relation between state libraries and legislative reference bureaus,
to which Mr. Montgomery replied. General discussion followed in
which several told of the actual working relations between these two
jurisdictions in their several states. The meeting adjourned at 12:24
p. m.
SIXTH (BUSINESS) SESSION
(Tuesday, July 2, 12:25 p. m.)
At the close of the second joint session, a business meeting of the
Special Libraries Association was called to order by Vice-President
Herbert O. Brigham in the ball room of the Chateau Laurier.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The first business is the report of the
secretary-treasurer.
Mr. MARION: The membership has increased, from September, 1911, from
171 members, until June, 1912, to 224 members, which is an increase of
thirty per cent. The bulletin has increased in pages from 12 to 16.
The financial situation seems to be very satisfactory. We have a cash
balance of $292.15. There seems to be an increased call for special
librarians in heretofore unknown fields. The following statement
indicates the condition of the treasury as of the date given:
SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION
July 1, 1912.
Financial statement of the books as of the above date.
=Receipts=
Cash on hand Sept. 27, 1911 $119.07
Membership fees and subscriptions 415.80
Sale of back numbers 85.28
Sale of reprints, bibliographies, etc. 31.13
Advertising 12.00
------- -------
$663.28
=Expenditures=
Rent of hall at New York meeting 15.00
Stenographic work of New York meeting 15.00
Postage, telegrams, express, etc. 41.08
Storage cabinet for editor's office 13.25
Indexing of volume 1 10.00
Printing 275.50
Bank Exchange 1.30 371.13
------- -------
July 1, 1912, Cash on hand $292.15
Accounts Receivable 144.10
Accounts Payable no bills
rendered
GUY E. MARION, Treasurer.
On motion of Mr. Montgomery the report was received.
The CHAIRMAN: The report of the executive board of the Special
Libraries Association is brief. It is proposed during the coming year
to readjust as far as possible the committee system and substitute
therefor representatives for certain sections of the country, so that
the persons who represent those sections shall be responsible for the
part in which they are located. It is entirely a matter for the board.
I think that will be the extent of their report, in brief, and I will
now call for the report of the nominating committee, Mr. Lee.
Mr. LEE: The nominating committee respectfully submits the following
list of officers for the ensuing year:
President: D. N. Handy, Boston.
Vice-President: R. H. Johnston, Washington.
Secretary-Treasurer: G. E. Marion, Boston.
Executive Board: Officers ex-officio: O. E. Norman, Chicago;
Florence Spencer, New York.
There being no counter nominations, on motion, the secretary cast a
ballot for the association, and the chair declared the nominees elected
for their respective offices.
Mr HANDY: Will it be in order now to take up the matter of special
education for the special training of library assistants?
The CHAIRMAN: That comes under the head of new business, which we are
now taking up. You are quite in order.
Mr. HANDY: I would make a motion that a committee of three be appointed
by the President, upon the training of special librarians, with
instructions to report upon this matter at the next annual meeting.
The motion was seconded by Mr. Lapp and carried.
Upon motion of Dr. Andrews the meeting adjourned sine die.
ATTENDANCE SUMMARIES
=By Position and Sex=
Men Women Total
Trustees 21 O 21
Library Commissions representatives 9 12 21
Chief librarians 103 130 233
Assistants 50 191 241
Library schools 1 13 14
Editors of lib. periodicals 2 2 4
Commercial agents 24 3 27
Others 38 105 143
--- --- ---
Total 248 456 704
=By Geographical Sections=
6 of the 6 New England States sent 99
5 " 5 North Atlantic States and
District of Columbia sent 179
5 " 6 South-eastern States sent 12
7 " 7 North Central States " 203
3 " 6 South Central States " 23
7 " 11 Western States " 26
4 " 7 Pacific States " 16
5 " Canadian Provinces " 144
England " 1
Japan " 1
---
Total 704
=By States=
Alabama 1
California 8
Colorado 4
Connecticut 17
Delaware 1
District Columbia 20
Florida 1
Georgia 5
Illinois 82
Indiana 17
Iowa 10
Kansas 5
Kentucky 5
Louisiana 1
Maine 5
Maryland 6
Massachusetts 53
Michigan 34
Minnesota 9
Missouri 17
Nebraska 4
New Hampshire 7
New Jersey 13
New York 99
North Carolina 2
Ohio 45
Oklahoma 1
Oregon 1
Pennsylvania 40
Rhode Island 8
South Dakota 1
Texas 1
Utah 1
Vermont 9
Virginia 3
Washington 6
West Virginia 1
Wisconsin 15
=By Provinces=
Alberta 1
British Columbia 1
Manitoba 3
Ontario 125
Quebec 13
Saskatchewan 1
=Foreign Countries=
England 1
Japan 1
---
Total 704
=By Libraries=
Libraries having five or more representatives:
Brooklyn Public L. 8
Chicago Public L. 22
Cleveland Public L. 24
Detroit Public L. 8
Grand Rapids Public L. 6
Illinois, L. of Univ. of 10
Indiana State L. 5
John Crerar L. 7
Library of Congress 10
McGill Univ. L. 9
New York Public L. 7
New York State L. 12
Ottawa Public L. 11
Pittsburgh Carnegie L. 11
St. Louis Public L. 12
Toronto Public L. 10
=Note=: Those who participated in post-conference trip _only_ are not
counted in above statistics.
ATTENDANCE REGISTER
* Prefixed to a name indicates participation in post-conference
trip on the lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay Rivers.
** Prefixed to a name indicates participation in post-conference
trip only.
Abbreviations: F., Free; P., Public; L., Library; ln., Librarian;
asst., Assistant; trus., Trustee; ref., Reference; catlgr.,
Cataloger; Br., Branch; sch., School.
Abbot, Etheldred, asst. ln. P. L., Brookline, Mass.
Ahearn, Mrs. Thomas, Ottawa, Can.
*Ahern, Mary Eileen, editor "Public Libraries," Chicago, Ill.
*Alexander, W. H., asst. ln. Assn. of the Bar, New York City.
*Alexander, Mrs. W. H., New York City.
Allin, Eugenia, organizer Ill. L. Ex. Commission, Decatur, Ill.
*Anderson, Mrs. C. N., Detroit, Mich.
Anderson, Edwin H., asst. director P. L., New York City.
Anderson, John R., bookseller, New York City.
*Anderson, Margaret M., asst. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Anderson, Robert B., asst. ln. Harvard Law L., Cambridge, Mass.
Andrews, Clement W., ln. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Andrus, Gertrude E., supt. child. dept., Seattle, Wash.
*Anthony, Grace F., New York City.
Arbique, Georgette, asst. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Archer, Frances R., ln. P. L., Talladega, Ala.
Arms, Jessie L., 1st asst. catlgr., Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, Ia.
*Askew, Sarah B., organizer P. L. Commission, Trenton, N. J.
Ault, A. W., trus. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Austen, Willard, asst. ln. Cornell Univ. L., Ithaca, N. Y.
Austen, Mrs. Willard, Ithaca, N. Y.
Ayer, Clarence W., ln. P. L., Cambridge, Mass.
Babbitt, Charles J., asst. State L., Boston, Mass.
Baer, Harriet Irene, Hebrew Institute Br., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Bailey, Arthur L., ln. Wilmington Inst. F. L., Wilmington, Del.
Baker, Charlotte A., ln. State Agric. Coll., Fort Collins, Colo.
Baker, Herbert W., Ottawa, Can.
Baker, Mary N., ln. P. L., Elwood, Ind.
Ball, Fanny D., ln. Central High Sch., Grand Rapids, Mich.
*Banks, Mary, ln. P. Service L. of N. J., Newark, N. J.
Banton, T. W., trus. P. L., Toronto, Can.
Barickman, Mrs. Rena M., ln. P. L., Joliet, Ill.
*Barnett, Claribel R., ln. U. S. Dept. of Agric., Washington, D. C.
Barnett, J. Davis, sec'y-treas. P. L., Stratford, Ont.
Barnstead, Winifred G., asst. catalog dept. P. L., Toronto, Can.
Barry, May H., asst. Geological Survey L., Ottawa, Can.
*Bascom, Elva L., editor A. L. A. Booklist, Madison, Wis.
Bates, Helen C., chief order dept. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Bates, Mary R., asst. ln. Univ. of Vt., Burlington, Vt.
Baxter, Miss, asst. ln. P. L., London, Ont.
Beatty, Alma, ln. P. L., Pembroke, Ont.
Beer, William, ln. Howard Mem. L., New Orleans, La.
*Bell, Madelene M., senior asst. child. dept. F. P. L., Worcester,
Mass.
Bergman, F. W., mgr. Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Can.
Bergold, Bertha R., asst. Lincoln L., Springfield, Ill.
Bergold, Mrs. E., Springfield, Ill.
Berry, Ethel I., N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Billingsley, Mary P., asst. ln. State L., Topeka, Kas.
Black, Mary J. L., ln. P. L., Fort William, Ont.
Blackwelder, Paul, asst. ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
*Blanchard, Grace, ln. P. L., Concord, N. H.
Bligh, Harris H., ln. Supreme Court L., Ottawa, Can.
Bliss, Robert P., asst. sec'y F. L. Commission, Harrisburg, Pa.
Blodgett, Evelyn M., catlgr. State L., Montpelier, Vt.
Bogle, Sarah C. N., director Training Sch. for Children's Lns.,
Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Booth, Mary J., ln. State Normal Sch. L., Charleston, Ill.
Borchard, Edwin M., law ln. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Borresen, Lily M. E., ln. P. L., Two Harbors, Minn.
Bostwick, Andrew Linn, technical ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Bostwick, Arthur E., ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Bostwick, Mrs. A. E., St. Louis, Mo.
Bowerman, George F., ln. P. L., Washington, D. C.
*Bowker, R. R., editor "Library Journal," New York City.
*Bowker, Mrs. R. R., Stockbridge, Mass.
Boyd, Anne M., ln. James Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
Boyd, Edward J., mgr. Cassell Co. Ltd., Toronto, Can.
Boyd, Mrs. W. P., Arthur, Ill.
Boyle, Gertrude M., asst. catalog dept. P. L., Toronto, Ont.
Brandenburg, S. J., ln. Miami Univ. L., Oxford, O.
Brett, William H., ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Briggs, Walter B., ln. Trinity Coll., Hartford, Conn.
*Briggs, Mrs. Walter B., Hartford, Conn.
Brigham, Herbert O., ln. State L., Providence, R. I.
Brigham, Johnson, ln. State L., Des Moines, Ia.
*Brown, Alice Harris, ln. Kingsbridge Br., P. L., New York City.
Brown, Demarchus C., ln. State L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Brown, Geo. A., chairman Carnegie P. L., Campbellford, Ont.
Brown, Walter L., ln. P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Browning, Eliza G., ln. P. L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Brydone, William, trus. P. L., Clinton, Ont.
Bryson, Dr. Mary, Ottawa, Can.
Bucher, Mrs. E. A. Sherwood, asst. U. S. Dept. of Agric. L.,
Washington, D. C.
Bulmer, Jeanie N., ln. Y. W. C. A., New York City.
Burpee, Lawrence J., Ottawa, Can.
Burpee, Mrs. L. J., Ottawa, Can.
*Burr, Clara J., Rocky Hill, Conn.
Burrell, Hon. Martin, minister of agriculture, Ottawa, Can.
Burrell, Mrs. Martin, Ottawa, Can.
Butler, H. L., Am. Law L., New York City.
Butters, Mary T., ln. P. L., Niagara Falls, Ont.
Byam, C. A., chairman P. L., New Liskeard, Ont.
Calder, Mrs. Mary E., ln. P. L., Fenelon Falls, Ont.
Caldwell, Clara A., asst. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Caldwell, Lena E., ln. P. L., Flint, Mich.
*Calhoun, Alexander, ln. P. L., Calgary, Alta.
*Calhoun, Marion, asst. ln. Geological Survey L., Ottawa, Can.
*Calhoun, Mrs. R. C., Ottawa, Can.
Cameron, A. W., ex-pres. Ont. L. Assn., Woodstock, Ont.
Carey, Miriam E., organizer P. L. Com., St. Paul, Minn.
Carr, Henry J., ln. P. L., Scranton, Pa.
Carr, Mrs. Henry J., Scranton, Pa.
Carson, W. O., ln. P. L., London, Ont.
Carswell, F. Edina, Toronto, Can.
Carswell, R., law book publisher, Toronto, Can.
Carswell, Mrs. R., Toronto, Can.
Carter, Bertha, asst. catlg. dept. State L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Casey, Magdalen, ln. Archives L., Ottawa, Can.
Caswell, E. S., sec'y-treas. P. L., Toronto, Can.
Champion, Miss J. H., ln. P. L., Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Chapin, Artena M., ln. A. K. Smiley P. L., Redlands, Cal.
Chapman, Effie Louise, ln's sec'y, P. L., Seattle, Wash.
Charlton, Miss M. R., ln. Medical L., McGill Univ., Montreal, Can.
Charlton, Ruby, N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Charteris, Dr. C. R., pres. Ontario L. Assn., Chatham, Ont.
Chase, Kate B., asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Cheney, George N., ln. Court of Appeals L., Syracuse, N. Y.
Cheney, Mrs. George N., Syracuse, N. Y.
Chidester, Maud, children's ln. P. L., Evanston, Ill.
Chipman, Frank E., managing director Boston Book Co., Boston, Mass.
Chivers, Cedric, bookbinder, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Clapp, Clifford B., catlgr. Dartmouth Coll. L., Hanover, N. H.
*Clark, Mrs. George Edward, Skaneateles, N. Y.
Clark, Geo. L., State L., Lansing, Mich.
Clark, Mrs. G. L. Lansing, Mich.
Clarke, Edith E., head catlgr. Syracuse Univ. L., Syracuse, N. Y.
*Clarke, Elizabeth P., ln. Seymour L. Auburn, N. Y.
*Clayton, Reta, Ocean Grove, N. J.
Cleavinger, John S., ln. P. L., Jackson, Mich.
Cleland, Ethel, asst. & catlgr. leg. ref. dept., State L.,
Indianapolis, Ind.
*Clement, Caroline B., asst. P. L., Manchester, N. H.
Climie, Janet, asst. P. L., Listowel, Ont.
Climie, Lillie, ln. P. L., Listowel, Ont.
Cobb, Edith H., asst. F. P. L., New Bedford, Mass.
*Cochran, Mary R., ln. Walnut Hills Br., P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Colby, Adah M., supt. of branches and apprentices, P. L., Brooklyn,
N. Y.
Colegrove, Mrs. Mabel E., Heermance Mem. L., Coxsackie, N. Y.
*Cotter, Minnie B., ln. P. L., Derby, Conn.
*Craig, Jennie A., custodian English Seminar, Univ. of Ill., Urbana,
Ill.
Craver, Harrison W., ln. Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Craver, Mrs. H. W., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Crevecoeur, P. B. de, ln. Fraser Institute, Montreal, Can.
Crocker, Mary, chief open shelf dept. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
**Crosby, Caroline R., Milford, N. H.
Crossley, F. B., ln. Northwestern Univ. Law L., Chicago, Ill.
Cruikshank, D. P., mngr. Library Bureau, Ottawa, Ont.
Cruikshank, Mrs. D. P., Ottawa, Ont.
Cunningham, Jesse, municipal ref. ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Curtiss, Frances, asst. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Cutter, Annie S., supervisor sch. dept., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Cutter, W. P., ln. Engineering Societies L., New York City.
Cuttle, A. H., chairman L. board, Collingwood, Ont.
Cuttle, Mrs. M. A., Collingwood, Ont.
*Dakin, Maude I., asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Dale, Dorethea P., asst, P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Dame, Katharine, instructor N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Daout, Emilieu, vice-pres. Librarie Beauchemin, Montreal, Can.
Datz, H. R., Library Bureau, New York City.
Davis, Eva, asst. P. L., Toronto, Can.
*Davis, Georgia S., asst. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Davis, Mary I., 1st asst. Carnegie West Br., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Davis, Mary L., ln. P. L., Troy, N. Y.
Davis, Orlando C., ln. P. L., Waltham, Mass.
Davison, Mrs. Hannah P., ln. P. L., San Diego, Cal.
DeCelles, Alfred D., ln. of Parliament, Ottawa, Can.
Dewar, A. F., Ottawa, Can.
**Dewey, Mrs. Melvil, Lake Placid Club, N. Y.
Dice, J. Howard, N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
*Dickerson, L. L., ln. Iowa College L., Grinnell, Ia.
*Dill, Maude, Decatur, Ill.
Dinsmoor, Kate E., head catlgr. State L., Topeka, Kas.
*Dinsmore, Lucy C., ln. Walker Br., P. L., Minneapolis, Minn.
*Dobbins, Elizabeth V., ln. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., New York City.
Doren, Electra C., Dayton, O.
Dougan, Alice M., N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
*Dougherty, Anna R., chief art dept., F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Dougherty, Harold T., ln. Sayles Mem. L., Pawtucket, R. I.
*Dougherty, Helen R., Philadelphia, Pa.
Dow, Mary E., ln. P. L., Saginaw, Mich.
**Drury, Miss C. K., New Brunswick, N. J.
*Drury, F. K. W., asst. ln. Univ. of Ill., Urbana, Ill.
*Drury, Mrs. F. K. W., Urbana, Ill.
**Drury, Mrs. J. B., New Brunswick, N. J.
Drysdale, Sara E., head circ. dept., P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Dudgeon, M. S., sec'y Wis. F. L. Com., Madison, Wis.
Duefel, Jennie, P. L., Decatur, Ill.
Dunham, B. Mabel, ln. P. L., Berlin, Ont.
Durfee, Jennie T., Decatur, Ill.
Dwight, Edith C., ln. Ont. Agric. College L., Guelph, Ont.
Eakins, Wm. Geo., ln. Law Soc. of Upper Canada, Toronto, Can.
Eaman, Mabel, asst. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Eastman, Linda A., vice-ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Elliott, Caroline L., ref. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
*Elliott, Edith L., clerk Democrat Printing Co., Madison, Wis.
Elliott, Thos. E., trus. P. L., Kenora, Ont.
Ellis, Helen, asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
*Ellis, Victoria, ln. P. L., Long Beach, Cal.
Elmendorf, Mrs. H. L., vice-ln. P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Eno, Sara W., ln. Stetson Univ. L., DeLand, Fla.
Erb, Frederic W., supervisor loan div. and asst. ln., Columbia Univ.
L., New York City.
Erskine, Edith, ln. Mark White Sq. Br., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Estabrooke, Mrs. Kate C., Maine L. Commission, Orono, Me.
Evans, Mrs. Alice G., ln. P. L., Decatur, Ill.
Fatout, Nellie B., Pacific Br., P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Faxon, Frederick W., L. mgr., Boston Book Co., Boston, Mass.
Faxon, Mrs. F. W., Boston, Mass.
*Faxon, Mrs. Marcus, Boston, Mass.
Feazel, Ernest A., ln. Law L., Cleveland, O.
Fellows, Jennie D., instructor N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
*Fenton, Polly, catlgr. P. L., Milwaukee. Wis.
Field, O. J., chief clerk Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Field, Pearl I., sen. asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Field, Ruth K., asst. P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Fison, Herbert W., ln. P. L., Malden, Mass.
*Fix, Arminda L., Walla Walla, Wash.
Flexner, Jennie M., classifier F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Ford, Eva M., Chicago, Ill.
*Forstall, Gertrude, asst. catlgr. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Foster, Consul-General John G., Ottawa, Can.
Foster, Mrs. J. G., Ottawa, Can.
Fuller, George W., ln. P. L., Spokane, Wash.
*Furness, Margaret, sen. asst., John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Gamble, Wm. B., chief tech. div., P. L., New York City.
Gay, Helen K., ln. P. L., New London, Conn.
Gaylord, H. J., Gaylord Brothers, Syracuse, N. Y.
Geddes, Helen C., asst. Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
George, C. A., ln. P. L., Elizabeth, N. J.
George, Mrs. C. A., Elizabeth, N. J.
*George, Lillian M., catlgr. Purdue Univ. L., Lafayette, Ind.
Gerould, J. T., ln. Univ. of Minn., Minneapolis, Minn.
Gifford, Florence M., asst P. L., Cleveland, O.
Gill, Anna, asst. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Glasgow, Ellen, Richmond, Va.
*Gleason, Celia, asst. ln. P. L., Los Angeles, Cal.
Godard, Geo. S., ln. State L., Hartford, Conn.
Godard, Mrs. Geo. S., Hartford, Conn.
Goldberg, Bessie, head catlgr., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Gooch, Harriet B., instructor Pratt Inst., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Goodchild, F. D., publisher, Toronto, Can.
Goodchild, Mrs. F. D., Toronto, Can.
Goodrich, Nathaniel L., ln. Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, N. H.
Gosnell, R. E., Dom. Mss. Com., Victoria, B. C.
*Goss, Agnes C., ln. State Normal Sch. L., Athens, Ga.
*Gould, Charles H., ln. McGill Univ., Montreal, Can.
Grant, D. M., trus. P. L., Sarnia, Ont.
Grant, Sir James, Ottawa, Can.
Grasty, Katharine G., ln. Eastern High Sch. L., Baltimore, Md.
Greene, Ainslie W., chairman P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Greene, Chas. S., ln. F. L., Oakland, Cal.
Greene, Mrs. Chas. S., Oakland, Cal.
*Greenman, E. D., asst. U. S. Bur. of Educ. L., Washington, D. C.
**Greenman, Mrs. E. M., Albany, N. Y.
**Greenman, E. May, asst. State Educ. Dept., Albany, N. Y.
Griggs, Lillian, asst. Barr Br., P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Gymer, Rose C., ln. Perkins Br., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hadley, Chalmers, ln. P. L., Denver, Colo.
Hall, Bessie G., Trav. L. Dept., McGill Univ., Montreal, Can.
*Hall, Drew B., ln. P. L., Somerville, Mass.
**Hall, Mrs. Drew B., Somerville, Mass.
Hall, Ernest S., ln. P. L., Plattsburgh, N. Y.
Hall, Mary E., ln. Girl's High Sch. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hamilton, W. J., chairman P. L., Fort William, Ont.
Handy, D. N., ln. Insurance L. Assn., Boston, Mass.
Hardenberg, Bessie, asst. P. L., Scranton, Pa.
Hardy, Judge A. D., trus. P. L., Brantford, Ont.
Hardy, E. A., sec'y Ontario L. Assn., Toronto, Can.
*Hardy, Mary T., asst. ln. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Harris, Miss A. M., ln. P. L., Guelph, Ont.
Harrison, Joseph LeRoy, ln. Forbes L., Northampton, Mass.
Hartshorn, W. H., Maine L. Commission, Lewiston, Me.
Hasbrouck, Mary K., ln. P. L., Ogdensburg, N. Y.
Hastings, C. H., chief of card section, L. of Congress, Washington,
D. C.
Hatton, Wm. H., chairman Wis. F. L. Com., New London, Wis.
Hawkins, Eleanor E., head catlgr., P. L., Kansas City, Mo.
Hawkins, Mrs. W. M., Buffalo, N. Y.
Hawley, Mrs. Joseph R., Chicago, Ill.
*Hawley, Mary E., asst. catlgr. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
*Hay, Flora N., ref. ln. P. L., Evanston, Ill.
*Hayes, Ethel M., acting ln., Tufts College L., Tufts College, Mass.
Hazeltine, Mary E., preceptor L. Sch. of the Univ. of Wis., Madison,
Wis.
Henderson, Lucia T., ln. James Prendergast F. L., Jamestown, N. Y.
Henley, Lillian, asst. ref. ln., State L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Hepburn, William M., ln. Purdue Univ., Lafayette, Ind.
*Herrick, Cate E., New Haven, Conn.
Hewins, Caroline M., ln. P. L., Hartford, Conn.
Hewitt, Luther E., ln. Law Assn., Philadelphia, Pa.
Hildreth, Eugene W., Publisher, Boston, Mass.
*Hill, Edith M., 1st asst. St. Clair Br., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hill, Frank P., ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hill, Grace, N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y. (Ft. Dodge, Ia.)
*Hills, Elizabeth C., ln. Cobleigh L., Lyndonville, Vt.
Hinchey, Comptroller Edward H., Ottawa, Can.
Hirshberg, Herbert S., ref. ln., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hirshberg, Mrs. Herbert S., Cleveland, O.
Hoagland, Merica, director Indiana L. Sch., Indianapolis, Ind.
Hodge, Cordelia B., F. L. Com., Harrisburg, Pa.
Hodge, Mrs. J. M., Harrisburg, Pa.
Holmden, Kate, asst. P. L., Ottawa, Ont.
Honeyman, J. R. C., ln. P. L., Regina, Sask.
Hookstadt, Carl, asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Hooper, Louise M., ln. P. L., Brookline, Mass.
Hopkins, Jessica, ln. P. L., Paducah, Ky.
Hopper, Franklin F., ln. P. L., Tacoma, Wash.
*Horsfall, Elizabeth L., Br. ln., F. L., Newton, Mass.
Hough, Romeyn B., Lowville, N. Y.
Houston, Charlotte S., asst. McGill Univ. L., Montreal, Can.
Hubbard, Anna G., order ln., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hubbell, Jane P., ln. P. L., Rockford, Ill.
Huestis, A. E., trus. P. L., Toronto, Can.
*Hughes, Howard L., ln. P. L., Trenton, N. J.
Hunter, Adam, ln. P. L., Hamilton, Ont.
Huntting, Henry R., bookseller, Springfield, Mass.
Hutchins, Margaret, ref. asst. Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
*Hutchinson, Helen, ln. Am. Medical Assn., Chicago, Ill.
Hutchinson, Susan A., ln. Brooklyn Inst. Museum L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hyde, Sophie, head order dept., Univ. of Minn. L., Minneapolis, Minn.
*Ideson, Julia, ln. Carnegie L., Houston, Tex.
Iles, George, New York City. (Trustee Hackley School L., Tarrytown,
N. Y.)
Imai, K., director, P. L., Osaka, Japan.
Imhoff, Ono Mary, asst. ln. legislative ref. dept., Madison, Wis.
Imrie, William, ln. P. L., Tillsonburg, Ont.
Ingersoll, Elizabeth S., supt. order dept., Cornell Univ. L., Ithaca,
N. Y.
Inman, Grace E., 1st. asst. F. L., Olneyville, R. I.
Inman, Harris W., Providence, R. I.
*Jackson, Emeline, asst. P. L., Winnipeg, Man.
*Jackson, Henrietta, asst. ln. P. L., Winnipeg, Man.
Janvrin, Charles E., ln. Nat. Hist. L., Univ. of Ill., Urbana, Ill.
Jardine, Isabella, ln. P. L., Hespeler, Ont.
Jellinghaus, Carl L., asst. editor "Library Journal," New York City.
Jenkins, Frederick W., ln. N. Y. Sch. of Philanthropy, New York City.
Jenkins, Mrs. F. W., New York City.
Jennings, Judson T., ln. P. L., Seattle, Wash.
Jerome, Janet, asst. child. ln., P. L., Denver, Colo.
*Jessop, Edith, Columbus, Ga.
*Jewell, Agnes H., asst. ln. P. L., Adrian, Mich.
Johnson, Josephine M., asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Johnston, Louise, ln. P. L., Stratford, Ont.
Johnston, R. H., ln. Bur. of Railway Economics, Washington, D. C.
Jolicoeur, Marie E., asst. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Jones, E. Kathleen, ln. McLean Hospital, Waverly, Mass.
Jones, Mabel Delle, ln. P. L., Charleston, W. Va.
Jones, Mary L., ln. Bryn Mawr L., Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Josephson, Aksel G. S., chief catlgr. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Josephson, Mrs. Aksel G. S., Chicago, Ill.
Josselyn, Lloyd W., ln. Univ. Club, Chicago, Ill.
Jutton, Emma R., loan ln. Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
Kaiser, John B., ln. Dept. of Economics, Univ. of Ill., Urbana, Ill.
Kaiser, Mrs. John B., Urbana, Ill.
Keator, Alfred D., asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Keefer, Jessie G., asst. P. L., Scranton, Pa.
Keith, Kate, gen. asst. child. dept. Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Kelso, Tessa L., The Baker & Taylor Co., New York.
Kennedy, Annie A., ln. P. L., Kingston, Ont.
Kennedy, Ellen L., sec'y to ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Keogh, Andrew, ref. ln. Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Kerr, Mrs. Jessie, ln. P. L., Brussels, Ont.
Kerr, Willis H., ln. Kansas State Normal Sch., Emporia, Kas.
Kerr, Mrs. W. H., Emporia, Kas.
Kimball, W. C., chairman N. J. P. L. Com., Passaic, N. J.
King, Dr. W. F., Dominion Astronomer, Ottawa, Can.
Klingelsmith, Mrs. M. C., ln. Biddle Law L., Univ. of Pa.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Koch, Theodore W., ln. Univ. of Mich., Ann Arbor, Mich.
Koch, Mrs. T. W., Ann Arbor, Mich.
*Koerper, Anna C., asst. order div. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Kohler, Minnie M., ln. P. L., Moline, Ill.
Kopp, Adeline E., ln. P. L., Palmerston, Ont.
Krause, Louise B., ln. H. M. Byllesby & Co., Chicago, Ill.
Lagergren, Anna C. asst. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Lamprey, Mary L., ln. Ames F. L., North Easton, Mass.
Lane, Harriet, ln. P. L., Freeport, Ill.
Lapp, John A., leg. ref. ln., State L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Lapp, Mrs. John A., Indianapolis, Ind.
Larmouth, Mrs. L. P., Ottawa, Can.
Latham, Calhoun, ln. P. L., Bridgeport, Conn.
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, Ottawa, Can.
Law, Marie H., asst. Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Lawrence, Hannah M., child. ln. P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Le Sueur, Dr. W. D., Ottawa, Can.
Lease, Evelyn S., ln. Kellogg-Hubbard L., Montpelier, Vt.
Ledbetter, Mrs. Eleanor E., ln. Broadway Br., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Lee, George W., ln. Stone & Webster, Boston, Mass.
Legler, Henry E., ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Legler, Mrs. Henry E., Chicago, Ill.
*Lehman, Reba F., ln. P. L., Hazelton, Pa.
Leitch, Harriet E., ln. Edgewater Sub. Br., P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Leslie, Eva G., child. ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Lewis, Eleanor F., head of circ. & ref. depts. Northwestern Univ. L.,
Evanston, Ill.
Lewis, Sarah Virginia, 1st asst. circ. dept. P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Libbie, Frederick J., book auctioneer, Boston, Mass.
*Libbie, Mrs. Frederick J., Boston, Mass.
*Lindholm, Marie F., ln. P. Service Com., New York City.
*Ling, Katherine G., asst. ref. ln. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Locke, George H., chief ln., P. L., Toronto, Can.
Loeffler, Olive N., asst. child. dept., Carnegie
L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Lomer, D. A., asst. McGill Univ. L., Montreal, Can.
*Loomis, Nellie A., ln. P. L., Columbus, Wis.
Lovi, Henrietta, chief order div., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
*Lucht, Julius, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Lyman, Bertha H., ref. ln. P. L., Providence, R. I.
Lyman, Edna, story teller and lecturer on children's work, Oak Park,
Ill.
Lyon, Frances D., sub. ln. State Law L., Albany, N. Y.
McClelland, E. H., technology ln., Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
McCormick, M. C., asst. L. of Parliament, Ottawa, Can.
*McCrum, Blanche P., Lexington, Va.
McCurdy, Mary de Bure, supervisor of sch. div., Carnegie L.,
Pittsburgh, Pa.
McCurdy, R. M., ln. Mercantile L., Cincinnati, O.
Macdonald, Mrs. A. C., ln. P. L., St. Thomas, Ont.
*McDowell, Grace E., ln. Winthrop Station Br., P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
McElroy, Annie, asst. P. L., Ottawa, Ont.
MacEwen, Violet M., asst. P. L., Westmount, Que.
MacGuiness, Miss C. L., Assn. of the Bar L., New York City.
Mackay, Margaret S., head catlgr. McGill Univ. L., Montreal, Can.
McKellar, Janet C., ln. P. L., Ingersoll, Ont.
McKillop, Samuel A., ln. South Side Br., P. L., Milwaukee, Wis.
*McLachlan, Nancy C., ln. F. P. L., Hannibal, Mo.
McLenegan, Chas. E., ln. P. L., Milwaukee, Wis.
McLenegan, Mrs. Chas. E., Milwaukee, Wis.
*McLoney, Ella M., ln. P. L., Des Moines, Ia.
MacNair, Mary W., asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Macnaughton, Prof. John, McGill Univ., Montreal, Can.
Manche, Hellene, asst. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Mann, B. Pickman, bibliographer, Washington, D. C.
Mann, Mrs. B. Pickman, Washington, D. C.
Mann, Margaret, chief catlgr. Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Marion, Guy E., ln. Arthur D. Little, Inc., Boston, Mass.
Marquand, Fanny E., asst. catlgr. P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Martin, Mary P., ln. P. L. Assoc., Canton, O.
Martyn, A. E., Ottawa, Can.
Mason, Mrs. Anna P., asst. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Massee, May, head open shelf dept. P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Masson, Annie A., catlgr. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
*Matthews, Harriet L., ln. P. L., Lynn, Mass.
Mears, Igerna A., asst. P. L., Cleveland, O.
*Mell, Mildred, chief of Staff, Univ. of Ga. L., Athens, Ga.
Merrill, Wm. Stetson, chief classifier, Newberry L., Chicago, Ill.
Mettee, Andrew H., ln. L. Company of the Bar, Baltimore, Md.
Metz, Corinne A., ln. Brumback L., Van Wert, O.
Milam, Carl H., Sec'y P. L. Com., Indianapolis, Ind.
Milam, Mrs. Carl H., Indianapolis, Ind.
Millard, Alice G., ln. P. L., Galt, Ont.
Miller, Mrs. A. J., Muskegon, Mich.
Miller, Lulu F., ln. Hackley P. L., Muskegon, Mich.
*Miller, Zana K., ln. Wis. Tax Com., Madison, Wis.
*Moir, Elizabeth, ref. ln., P. L., Toronto, Can.
Monchow, Carrie M., ln. F. L., Dunkirk, N. Y.
Monrad, Anna M., asst. Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Montgomery, Thomas L., ln. State L., Harrisburg, Pa.
Montgomery, Mrs. Thomas L., Harrisburg, Pa.
Morningstern, Wm. B., head tech. dept. F. P. L., Newark, N. J.
Morningstern, Mrs. Wm. B., Newark, N. J.
Morse, Anna L., ln. Reuben Macmillan F. L., Youngstown, O.
Morton, F. B., Philadelphia, Pa.
*Moulton, John G., ln. P. L., Haverhill, Mass.
Murray, Margaret E., ln. Filene Ref. L., Boston, Mass.
*Myers, Frances E., child. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Naughton, Jane, Watertown, N. Y.
Nichols, Albert R., asst. ln. P. L., Providence, R. I.
Norman, O. E., ln. People's Gas Light & Coke Co., Chicago, Ill.
Norton, Mary K., ln. P. L., Proctor, Vt.
Nursey, Walter R., inspector of libraries, Dept. of Education,
Toronto, Can.
*Nutting, Geo. E., ln. P. L., Fitchburg, Mass.
*Nutting, Mrs. Geo. E., Fitchburg, Mass.
O'Flynn, Josephine, instructor of apprentices, P. L., Detroit, Mich.
*Ogden, E. Lucy, asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Oko, Adolph S., ln. Hebrew Union College L., Cincinnati, O.
O'Meara, Eva J., asst. McGill Univ. L., Montreal, Can.
O'Shaughnessy, Margaret, principal asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Owens, Alpha L., asst. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Palmer, Margaret, ln. P. L., Hibbing, Minn.
*Palmer, Mary Bell, ln. Carnegie L., Charlotte, N. C.,
Paoli, Mrs. Minnie B., loan ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Parent, Dr. R. H., Ottawa, Can.
Parker, John, acting ln. Peabody Institute, Baltimore, Md.
*Partch, Isa L., asst. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Patten, Katharine, ln. Minneapolis Atheneum, Minneapolis, Minn.
Pattengill, Henry R., Lansing, Mich.
Patterson, J. Ritchie, supt. binderies div., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Patterson, Mrs. J. R., Chicago, Ill.
*Patton, Adah, classifier, Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
Peacock, Joseph L., ln. Memorial & P. L., Westerly, R. I.
Peck, Nina A., asst. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Peoples, W. T., ln. Mercantile L., New York City.
Peoples, Mrs. W. T., New York City.
Perley, Hon. George H., Acting Prime Minister of Canada, Ottawa, Can.
*Peters, Mary G., ln. F. P. L., Bayonne, N. J.
*Petty, Annie F., ln. State Normal and Indust. Coll. L., Greensboro,
N. C.
Phelan, John F., supt. dept. of branches, P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Phelps, Edith Allen, ln. Carnegie L., Oklahoma City, Okla.
Phillips, E. C., Oneonta, N. Y.
Phillips, Mary E., ex-ln., Oneonta, N. Y.
Pillsbury, Olive E., ln. Davis Sq. Br., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Plummer, Mary W., director L. Sch., P. L., New York City.
Pollard, Annie Archer, 2nd asst ln., P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Poole, Franklin O., ln. Assn. of the Bar L., New York City.
Porter, W. T., trus. P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Potter, Mrs. Frederick W., Oakland, Cal.
Power, Effie L., supervisor of child. work, P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
*Pratt, Adelene J., Asbury Park, N. J.
*Pratt, Edna B., organizer P. L., Com., Trenton, N. J.
*Preston, Nina K., ln. Hall-Fowler L., Ionia, Mich.
Proulx, Adelard E., ref. asst. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Putnam, Herbert, ln. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Quinn, Florence, asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
*Rabardy, Etta L., asst. Boston Atheneum, Boston, Mass.
Ranck, Samuel H., ln. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
*Rand, Mrs. H. T., Boston, Mass.
Randall, Bertha T., ln. East Liberty Br., Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Raney, M. Llewellyn, ln. John Hopkins Univ. L., Baltimore, Md.
*Rankin, Eliza J., ln. P. L., Newark, O.
Rankin, H. M., Chatham, Ont.
Rankin, Ina, asst. P. L., New York City.
Rankin, M. S., Chatham, Ont
Rathbone, Josephine A., vice-director Pratt Inst. Sch. of L. Sci.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Rawson, Fannie C., Sec'y L. Com., Frankfort, Ky.
Read, Eva G., Hon. ln. Women's Can. Hist. Soc., Ottawa, Can.
Reece, Ernest J., Cleveland, O.
Reed, Amy L., ln. Vassar Coll. L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
**Reed, Edith.
Reed, Lois A., asst. ln. Univ. of Rochester L., Rochester, N. Y.
Reese, Rena, asst. ln., P. L., Denver, Colo.
Reid, Adelia, asst. ln. State L., Lansing, Mich.
Reid, Jennie S., ln. P. L., Chatham, Ont.
*Reid, Marguerite McQ., foreign dept., P. L., Providence, R. I.
Reinick, Wm. R., chief pub. doc. dept., F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Reque, Anna C., classifier P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Richardson, E. C., ln. Princeton Univ. L., Princeton, N. J.
Richardson, Mabel K., ln. Univ. of So. Dak., Vermillion, S. D.
Ritchie, Hazen, chairman P. L., Peterborough, Ont.
Robb, Miss M. I., ln. P. L., Woodstock, Ont.
Robbins, Mary E., ln. & chairman L. Faculty, Simmons College, Boston,
Mass.
Roberts, Mrs. Blanche W., ln. Bates College, Lewiston, Me.
*Roberts, Flora B., ln. P. L., Superior, Wis.
Roberts, Mary H., order asst. Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
Robertson, J. P., ln. Provincial L. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man.
Robertson, Dr. James W., C. M. G., Ottawa, Can.
*Robinson, Helen F., Divinity Sch. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Robinson, Rev. L. M., ln. Divinity Sch. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Roden, C. B., asst. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Roden, Mrs. C. B., Chicago, Ill.
*Rolland, Anna P., asst. ln. P. L., Dedham, Mass.
Rose, Grace D., ln. P. L., Davenport, Ia.
Ross, L. I., asst. McGill Univ. L., Montreal, Can.
Rowe, Carrie A., clerk of files, Office Specialty Co., Toronto, Can.
Rowell, W. C., rep. of H. W. Wilson Co., New York City.
Rule, Elizabeth E., asst. ln. P. L., Lynn, Mass.
Rush, Charles E., ln. P. L., St. Joseph, Mo.
*Russ, Nellie M., ln. P. L., Pasadena, Cal.
Ryan, M. Lillian, sen. asst. Br. dept., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Sanborn, Alice E., ln. Wells Coll., Aurora, N. Y.
Sanborn, Henry N., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Sanborn, W. F., ln. P. L., Cadillac, Mich.
Sanborn, Mrs. W. F., Cadillac, Mich.
Sargent, Abby L., ln. P. L., Medford, Mass.
Sargent, Jessie M., 1st asst. circ. dept., P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Saxe, Mary S., ln. P. L., Westmount, Que.
Scarth, Mrs. W. B., Ottawa, Can.
Schenk, Frederick W., law ln. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Schenk, Mrs. F. W., Chicago, Ill.
Scott, Mary McKay, Ottawa, Can.
Scott, Victoria, ln. P. L., Owen Sound, Ont.
*Secombe, Annabell C., ln. P. L., Milford, N. H.
Seemann, Samuel, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Settle, Geo. T., acting asst. ln. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
*Sewall, W. F., ln. P. L., Toledo, O.
*Sewall, Mrs. W. F., Toledo, O.
Seward, Wm. F., ln. P. L., Binghamton, N. Y.
Seymour, May, Lake Placid Club, N. Y.
Shattuck, Helen B., ln. Univ. of Vt., Burlington, Vt.
Shaw, Robert K., ln. F. P. L., Worcester, Mass.
Sheaf, Edith M., ln. F. L., Herkimer, N. Y.
Shearman, Edna M., Dept. of Labor, Ottawa, Can.
Sheetz, A. Coleman, 2nd asst. State L., Harrisburg, Pa.
*Sheldon, Philena R., asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Shepard, Rhoda C., asst. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Sherwood, Kittie W., Cincinnati, O.
Shortt, Mrs. Adam, Ottawa, Can.
*Sibley, Mrs. Mary J., acting ln. and director L. Sch., Syracuse
Univ., Syracuse, N. Y.
Silverthorn, Bessie B., asst. ln. Kellogg-Hubbard L., Montpelier, Vt.
Simms, Clara A., asst. sec'y A. L. A., Chicago, Ill.
Simpson, Mrs. J. B., Ottawa, Can.
Sine, Clifford, sec'y P. L., Gananoque, Ont.
Small, A. J., law ln. State L., Des Moines, Ia.
Smith, Adam F., Office Specialty Mfg. Co., Toronto, Can.
Smith, Arthur B., ln. State Agric. Coll., Manhattan, Kan.
Smith, Bessie Sargeant, P. L., Cleveland, O.
Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth, ln. P. L., Chadron, Neb.
Smith, Elizabeth M., ref. asst. N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Smith, Elizabeth W., Portland, Me.
Smith, Frances, Chadron, Neb.
Smith, Rev. G. L., ln. P. L., Forest, Ont.
Smith, Geo. Dana, ln. Fletcher F. L., Burlington, Vt.
Smith, Jessie F., Forest, Ont.
Smith, M. E., trus. P. L., Niagara Falls, Ont.
*Smith, Robert L., asst. ref. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Sneed, Mrs. Percival, prin. Atlanta L. Sch., Carnegie L., Atlanta, Ga.
Snyder, Mary B., ln. Nelson Br., P. L., Queens Borough, N. Y.
*Solberg, Thorvald, reg. of copyrights, Washington, D. C.
*Speck, Mrs. Laura, asst. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Spencer, Lois A., ln. Spies P. L., Menominee, Mich.
Spereman, Patricia, catlgr., Dept. of Educ., Toronto, Can.
Sperry, Helen, ln. Silas Bronson L., Waterbury, Conn.
*Sperry, Ruth, Waterbury, Conn.
Sprague, Joanna H., ln. P. L., Salt Lake City, Utah.
Sprague, Katherine T., Buffalo, N. Y.
Sproule, Jessie, asst. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Staton, Frances M., asst. ref. dept. P. L. Toronto, Can.
Steele, Elizabeth K., ln. P. L., Lorain, O.
Steiner, Bernard C., ln. Enoch Pratt F. L., Baltimore, Md.
Stetson, Willis K., ln. F. P. L., New Haven, Conn.
Stevens, W. F., ln. Carnegie L., Homestead, Pa.
Stevenson, Luella M., 1st asst. Carnegie F. L., Braddock, Pa.
Stewart, Mrs. McLeod, Ottawa, Can.
Stewart, Margaret M., ln. P. L., Brockville, Ont.
Stimson, Florence, loan desk asst. Univ. of Cincin. L., Cincinnati, O.
Streeter, Margaret E., ln. P. L., Muncie, Ind.
Strohm, Adam, asst. ln. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Strong, George F., ln. Adelbert Coll. L., Cleveland, O.
Stuart, W. H., bookseller, Philadelphia, Pa.
Stuart, Mrs. W. H., Philadelphia, Pa.
Sutherland, Elizabeth M., Ottawa, Can.
Sutton, Edith, ln. P. L., Smith's Falls, Ont.
*Swezey, Anne D., ln. P. L., East Chicago, Ind.
*Sykes, W. J., ln. P. L., Ottawa, Can.
Sykes, Mrs. W. J., Ottawa, Can.
Talcott, Mary K., ln. Conn. Soc. of Colonial Dames, Hartford, Conn.
Tamblyn, W. W., Bowmanville, Ont.
Templeton, Charlotte, sec'y P. L. Com., Lincoln, Neb.
Templeton, Mrs. Robert, Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
Thain, Mabel A., ln. P. L., Oak Park, Ill.
Thayer, Maude, ln. State L., Springfield, Ill.
Thomas, Herbert I., Ottawa, Can.
Thomas, Mrs. Herbert I., Ottawa, Can.
Thompson, H. F., representative of B. F. Stevens & Brown, London, Eng.
Thompson, J. David, law ln. Columbia Univ., N. Y. City.
Thompson, Laura A., asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Thompson, Laura E., asst. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Thuman, Jane E., child. ln. F. P. L., New Bedford, Mass.
Thurston, Elizabeth P., ln. F. L., Newton, Mass.
Thwaites, Reuben G., supt. Wis. Hist. Soc., Madison, Wis.
Tilton, Edward L., architect, New York City.
Tinkham, Mabel, catlgr. and ref. ln. P. L., Gary, Ind.
Titcomb, Mary L., ln. Washington Co. F. L., Hagerstown, Md.
Tobitt, Edith, ln. P. L., Omaha, Neb.
Tracey, Angie E., asst. ln. P. L., Lewiston, Me.
Tremblay, Amedee, Ottawa, Can.
Turnbull, John, trus. P. L., Toronto, Can.
*Turner, Louise G., asst. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
*Tutt, Virginia M., ln. P. L., South Bend, Ind.
Tyler, Alice S., sec'y Iowa L. Com., Des Moines, Ia.
*Underhill, Adelaide, assoc. ln. Vassar Coll. L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
*Underhill, Ethel P., child. ln. F. P. L., Worcester, Mass.
*Utley, George B., sec'y A. L. A., Chicago, Ill.
*Utley, Mrs. George B., Chicago, Ill.
Van Benschoten, Miss M. M., ref. ln. L. Assn., Portland, Ore.
Van Duzee, Edward P., ln. Grosvenor L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Van Valkenburgh, Agnes, instructor L. Sch., A. P. L., New York City.
Vincent, Dr. George E., president Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
Minn.
Wadlin, Horace G., ln. P. L., Boston, Mass.
*Wagner, Eva K., Dedham, Mass.
*Wagner, Sula, chief catlgr. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Wales, Elizabeth B., sec'y Mo. L. Com., Jefferson City, Mo.
Walker, A. R., ln. P. L., Belleville, Ont.
Walker, Mrs. A. R., Belleville, Ont.
Walter, Frank K., vice-dir. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Walter, Mrs. Frank K., Albany, N. Y.
Ward, Gilbert O., supervisor of high sch. branches, P. L., Cleveland,
O.
*Ward, Helen M., ln. Scripps Br., P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Warner, Mrs. Cassandra W., asst. in charge of loan desk, Bryn Mawr
Coll. L., Bryn Mawr, Pa.
*Warner, Nannie M., asst. F. P. L., New Haven, Conn.
Watts, Irma A., leg. ref. bur., State L., Harrisburg, Pa.
Weaver, A. B., Buffalo, N. Y.
*Webber, Anna Louise, ln. Silsby L., Charlestown, N. H.
Weber, Jessie Palmer, ln. Ill. State Hist. L., Springfield, Ill.
Webster, Caroline F., L. organizer, N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
*Welles, Jessie, supt. of circulation, Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Wellman, Harold O., asst. to chief of circulating dept. P. L., New
York.
Wellman, Hiller C., ln. City L. Assn., Springfield, Mass.
Whalen, Gladys E., Hay Mem. L., Sacket's Harbor, N. Y.
Whare, Grace A., ln. P. L., Houghton, Mich.
Wheeler, Sumner York, treas. Essex Co. Law L. Assn., Salem, Mass.
Whitcomb, Adah F., ln. Hiram Kelly Br., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
*White, Anne R., ln. Washington & Lee Univ. L., Lexington, Va.
Whitmore, F. H., ln. P. L., Brockton, Mass.
Wilcox, Helen C, Mt. Vernon, N. Y.
*Wildman, Bertha S., Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
*Wilkins, Lydia K., Washington, D. C.
Wilkinson, O. A., rep. Globe-Wernicke Co., Cincinnati, O.
Wilkinson, Mrs. O. A., Cincinnati, O.
*Williams, Carrie L., asst. F. L., Newton, Mass.
Williams, Lizzie A., ex-ln., Cambridge, Mass.
Wilson, Mrs. Cora McDevitt, bookseller, New York City.
Wilson, H. W., president H. W. Wilson Co., Publishers, Minneapolis
Minn.
Wilson, Mary Augusta, child. ln. Blackstone Br., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
*Winchell, F. Mabel, ln. P. L., Manchester, N. H.
Windsor, P. L., ln. Univ. of Ill., Urbana, Ill.
Wink, Mrs. J. S., ln. P. L., Port Arthur, Ont.
Wire, Dr. G. E., dep. ln. Worcester Co. Law L., Worcester, Mass.
Wire, Mrs. G. E., Worcester, Mass.
Wise, Flora E., asst. F. L., Newton, Mass.
Wolter, Peter, manager L. dept. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, Ill.
Wood, Mable J., Herkimer, N. Y.
Wood, Mary W., ln. Blackstone Br., P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Woodard, Gertrude E., law ln. Univ of Mich., Ann Arbor, Mich.
*Woodman, C. Belle, Springfield, Mass.
*Wootten, Katharine H., ln. Carnegie L., Atlanta, Ga.
Wright, Charles E., ln. Carnegie F. L., Duquesne, Pa.
Wright, Ida F., asst. ln. Lincoln L., Springfield, Ill.
*Wright, Rebecca W., sec'y Vt. L. Com., Montpelier, Vt.
Wyer, James I., jr., director N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Wyer, Malcolm G., ln. Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City, Ia.
Wyer, Mrs. Malcolm G., Iowa City, Ia.
Wyse, Cornelia, asst. catlg. dept. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Yust, William F., ln. P. L., Rochester, N. Y.
Zachert, Adeline B., director of child. work F. P. L., Louisville,
Ky.
INDEX
Accessioning (of books), rpt. of com. on lib. administration on,
105-6.
Adams, Zu, died, 81.
Affiliation of other than local, state and provincial associations,
rpt. of com. on conditions governing, 196.
Affiliation of state library assns. with A. L. A., recommended
amendment to constitution affecting, 192-3; rpt. of com., 196.
Agricultural libraries section, proceedings of, 213-27.
Ahern, Mary Eileen, chrm. com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 194;
"Day in Toronto," 208-9.
American Association of Law Libraries, proceedings of, 312-5.
American Library Association, president's address (Elmendorf), 67-71;
secretary's rpt. (Utley), 75-81; treasurer's rpt. (Roden), 81; rpt.
of trustees of Carnegie and Endowment fund, 91-2; rpt. of Executive
board, 192-4; rpt. of Council, 195-200; election of officers,
204-5; attendance summaries and register, 354-66.
A. L. A. and certain other national associations, relations between,
rpt. of com. on, 195-6.
A. L. A. Booklist. Rpt. of Publishing board on, 86.
A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, suggestions regarding (Elmendorf), 84;
rpt. on (Bascom), 84-6.
A. L. A. changes in officers and committees (rpt. of secretary), 79.
A. L. A. committees on blind. See Blind. bookbinding. See
Bookbinding. bookbuying. See Bookbuying. co-operation with N.
E. A. See National Education Association. co-ordination. See
Co-ordination. federal and state relations. See Federal and state
relations. finance. See Finance. international relations. See
International relations. library administration. See Library
administration. library training. See Library training. newspaper
paper. See Newspapers. program. See Program. public documents. See
Public documents. resolutions. See Resolutions. travel. See Travel.
A. L. A. Constitution, recommended amendment to, and by-law to,
adopted, 192-3.
A. L. A. Council, amendment to constitution relative to election of
members to, proposed, 192-3; rpt. of, 195-200.
A. L. A. Executive board, rpt. of, 192-4.
A. L. A. membership (rpt. of secretary), 77-8.
A. L. A. necrology (rpt. of secretary), 79-81.
A. L. A. publishing board, rpt. of (Legler), 83-90; recent
publications, 83-4; policy of, 84; periodical cards, 87;
advertising, 87; financial rpt., 88; sales, 89-90.
A. L. A. representatives at other conferences (rpt. of secretary),
78-9.
Anderson, Edwin H., discusses paper on library schools by Hadley,
153-4; member finance com., 194; member program com., 195; first
vice-pres., A. L. A., 204.
Andrews, Clement W., rpt. of finance com., 81-2; re-elected member
Publishing board, 194; chrm. finance com., 194; informal rpt. as
member com. to promote printed cards in relation with international
arrangements, 196; reports for com. governing affiliation of other
than local, state and provincial assns., 196; presents rpt. of com.
on memorial to F. M. Crunden, 203; reports on use of cameragraph,
279-80; addresses public documents round table, 310.
Andrus, Gertrude, reads paper by Alice Goddard, 247.
Arnold, John H., "History of the growth and development of the
Harvard university law library," 351.
Askew, Sarah B., member com. on arrangements College and ref.
section, 294.
"Assistant and the book" (Hazeltine), 134-8.
Assistants, type of (Tobitt), 138-42; "Efficiency of the library
staff and scientific management" (Strohm), 143-6.
Attendance summaries and register. See American Library Association.
Ault, Mrs. Herbert, 205.
Austen, Willard, "Rights of the users of a college and university
library and how to preserve them," 275-7.
Babbitt, Charles J., "Snags, stumbling blocks and pitfalls among the
session laws," 351.
Bailey, Arthur L., rpt. com. on bookbinding, 93-5; chrm. com. on
bookbinding, 195.
Baldwin, Clara F., represents A. L. A. at Montana assn., 79; rpt. of
com. on uniform financial reports, 327-8.
Baldwin, Emma V., member com. to investigate cost and method of
cataloging, 193.
Banton, T. W., addresses Trustees' section, 307.
Barnett, Claribel R., chrm. Agricultural libraries section, 227.
Bascom, Elva L., rpt. on A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, 84-6.
Bay, J. C., member com. on code for classifiers, 193.
Beer, William, participates in discussion, 334-5.
Belden, C. F. D., member com. on federal and state relations, 195.
Berry. W. J. C., 315.
Billings, J. S., member com. on international relations, 195.
Biscoe, W. S., member com. on code for classifiers, 193.
Bishop, W. W., member of Council, 205.
Blackwelder, Paul, member com. on federal and state relations, 195;
member membership com. Professional training section, 301.
Blair, Emma H., died, 79.
Bligh, H. H., welcomes Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 312.
Blind, rpt. of com. on work with the (Delfino), 114-5; com. on, 195.
"Book advertising: information as to subject and scope of books"
(Roden), 181-7; "B. a.: illumination as to attractions of real
books" (Miller), 187-92.
Bookbinding, rpt. of com. on (Bailey), 93-5; com. on, 195.
Bookbuying, rpt. of com. on (Brown), 95-6; "Breadth and limitations
of" (Brown), 124-7; com. on, 195.
Books, knowledge of, among lib. assistants (Hazeltine), 134-8;
(Tobitt), 138-42.
Borchard, E. M., addresses Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 314; reads
paper by Wigmore, 335; participates in discussion, 335.
Bostwick, Arthur E., speaker at Ala. lib. conference, 79; chrm. com.
on lib. administration, 79; rpt. of com. on lib. administration,
102-13; discusses library schools, 154-5; re-elected member
Publishing board, 194; chrm. com. on library administration, 194;
rpt. of com. on gov. of Am. libraries, 196-9.
Bowerman, George F., letter from, regarding meeting in Washington,
193; member com. on library administration, 194.
Bowker, R. R., responds to welcome by Laurier, 160-1; member com. on
international relations, 195; speaks on printed card work abroad,
196; addresses Trustees' section, 307; addresses public documents
round table, 310.
Bradley, Isaac S., died, 79.
Brett, Wm. H., discusses paper on library schools by Hadley, 151-2.
Briggs, Mary J., "A. L. A. list of subject headings," 227-31.
Brigham, Herbert O., presides Special Libraries Association, 329.
Brigham, Johnson, participates in discussion, 352.
Brown, C. H., member com. on bookbuying, 195; member travel com., 195.
Brown, Demarchus C., member com. on federal and state relations, 195.
Brown, Margaret, rpt. of com. on study outlines, 319-20.
Brown, Walter L., rpt. of com. on bookbuying, 95-6; "Breadth and
limitations of bookbuying," 124-7; chrm. com. on bookbuying 195.
Brown, Zaidee, secretary-treasurer League of Library Commissions, 328.
Bruncken, Ernest, member public documents com., 194.
Burnite, Caroline, member of Council, 205.
Burpee, Lawrence J., reads messages of greeting, 66-7; 181, 205.
Burrell, Hon. Martin, address, 57-8; addresses Agricultural libraries
section, 213.
Butler, H. L., 313, 314.
California Library Association, resolution to invite A. L. A. to
California for 1915, 200.
Cameragraph, use in John Crerar library (Andrews), 279-80.
Canada, conservation in (Robertson), 161-9.
Canada, resolution relative to a national library for, 202.
Cards, Printed Catalog, informal rpt. by C. W. Andrews on work of
special com. to co-operate in development of, in relation with
international arrangements, 196.
Carey, Miriam E., member com. on work with blind, 195; presides at
session of League of Library Commissions, 320.
Carpenter, George O., member com. on library training, 194.
Carr, Henry J., moves message of greeting be sent to F. W. Faxon,
181; addresses public documents round table, 309.
Carson, W. O., member of Council, 196.
Catalog rules for small library, rpt. from com. on, 101; com. on, 195.
Catalog section, proceedings of, 227-47; resolution from, 193.
Central reference bureau, Is the establishment of a, desirable
(Shaw), 278-9.
Charging systems and methods, rpt. of com. on lib. administration,
106-13.
Charter provisions for public libraries in commission governed
cities, rpt. on (Wales), 316-7.
Charteris, C. R., addresses assn., 146; addresses Trustees' section,
307.
Cheney, George N., addresses Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 313; member
com. on subject headings, 314; member com. on classification, 315.
Children's librarians' section, proceedings of, 247-68.
Chivers, Cedric, discusses preservation of newspaper paper, 118-20.
Clarke, Edith E., addresses public documents round table, 310.
Classifiers, code for, proposed and committee appointed, 193.
Claxton, P. P., telegram of greetings from, 170.
Cleavinger, John S., member com. on library administration, 194.
College and reference section, proceedings of, 268-94.
Commission governed cities, rpt. on charter provisions for public
libraries in (Wales), 316-7.
Connaught, Duke of, telegram from, 66.
Constitution, See A. L. A. Constitution.
Co-ordination, rpt. of com. on (Gould, Putnam, Lane, Gillis), 96-101;
com. on, 195.
Crunden, Frederick M., died, 80; memorial on life and services, 203-4.
Cutter, W. P., member com. on code for classifiers, 193; participates
in discussion, 330, 333, 334.
Dawley, F. F., member finance com., 194.
Delfino, Emma R. N., rpt. of com. on work with blind, 114-5; chrm.
com. on work with blind, 195.
Departmental library problem in universities. Some observations on
(Hanson), 280-92.
Dickinson, Asa Don, proposes clearing house for periodicals, 193;
addresses Agricultural libraries section, 223-4.
Dobbins, Miss E. V., participates in discussion, 341-2, 343.
Donath, August, letter from, 308-9.
Donnelly, June R., member membership com. Professional training
section, 301.
Drury, F. K. W., "Do we need a short story index?" 277-8.
Dudgeon, M. S., presides third general session, 146 ff; member public
documents com., 194; member com. on gov. of Am. libraries, 196;
member of Council, 196; presides Professional training section,
295; rpt. of com. on library post, 317-8; rpt. of publications
com., 326-7; chrm. publications com., 328; addresses Special
Libraries Assn., 329.
Education through the library: "Open door, through the book and the
library" (McLenegan), 127-32.
"Efficiency of the library staff and scientific management" (Strohm),
143-6.
Election of officers. See American Library Association.
Elmendorf, Mrs. H. L., president A. L. A., responds to welcome, 58-9;
president's address, 67-71; represents A. L. A. at conferences in
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, D. C. 78; suggestion regarding A.
L. A. Catalog, 84; participates in discussion on library schools,
154; accepts gavel in behalf of A. L. A., 169-70.
Executive board. See A. L. A. Executive board.
Farley, Caroline A., died, 81.
Faxon, Frederick W., message of greeting to, 181; chrm. travel com.,
195.
Feazel, E. A., member com. on classification, 315.
Federal and state relations, rpt. of com. on (Steiner), 102; com. on,
195.
Federal prisons. See Libraries in federal prisons.
Field, O. J., addresses Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 313; member
Executive com. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 314.
Finance, rpt. of com. on (Andrews), 81; com. on, 194.
Financial reports, rpt. of com. on uniform (Baldwin), 327-8.
Foster, Hon. J. G., welcomes assn., 57.
George, C. A., discusses library schools, 158.
Gibson, Irene, died, 80.
Gile, Jessie S., died, 80.
Gillis, J. L., rpt. of com. on co-ordination, 99-101; member com. on
co-ordination, 195.
Godard, George S., rpt. com. on public documents, 115-6; chrm. public
documents com., 194; presents res. from public documents com., 200;
presides public documents round table, 307; presides Am. Assn. of
Law Libraries, 312; presides joint session, 334; participates in
discussion, 351-2.
Goddard, Alice, "County work with children," 247-50; vice-chrm.
Children's librarians' section, 268.
Gooch, Harriet B., chrm. Catalog section, 247.
Goodrich, N. L., member com. on arrangements College and ref.
section, 294.
Gould, Charles H., rpt. com. on co-ordination, 96; chrm. com. on
co-ordination, 195; reads paper by Walton, 335.
Grant, Sir J., addresses assn., 169.
Greene, Charles S., member com. on work with blind, 195.
Griswold, Stephen B., died, 81; resolution concerning, 315.
Hadley, Chalmers, represents A. L. A. at Pacific N. W. Lib. Assn.,
78-9; "What library schools can do for the profession," 147-51;
member com. on library training, 194.
Hall, Mary E., "Possibilities of the high school library," 260-6.
Handbook, biographical data for, 193.
Handy, D. N., "Library as a business asset; when and how?" 336-9;
participates in discussion, 345-6, 348-9, 352; pres. Special
Libraries Assn., 353.
Hanson, J. C. M., member com. on code for classifiers, 193; "Some
observations on the departmental library problem in universities,
with special reference to the University of Chicago," 280-92.
Harvard university law library, History of (Arnold), 351.
Hasse, Adelaide R., member public documents com., 194.
Hastings, C. H., addresses public documents round table, 311.
Hatton, Wm. H., "Publicity for the sake of information," 72-5.
Hawks, Emma B., addresses Agricultural libraries section, 227.
Hazeltine, Mary E., "Assistant and the book," 134-8; presents card
code for catalog rules, 301; member program com. Professional
training section, 301.
Hean, C. S., "Some types of agricultural college and experiment
station libraries," 222-3.
Heney, Mr., presents Drummond's poems in character, 181.
Hepburn, Wm. M., "Library extension work of agricultural colleges,"
213-6.
Hewitt, L. E., member com. on subject headings, 314.
High school library, Possibilities of (Hall), 260-6.
High schools, Teaching library use in normal and (Walter), 255-60.
Hill, Frank P., rpt. of com. on preservation of newspapers, 116-8;
discusses library schools, 155-6.
Hinchey, E. H., welcomes assn. to Ottawa, 57.
Hirshberg, H. S., addresses public documents round table, 310.
Hitchler, Theresa, chrm. com. on catalog rules for small libraries,
195.
Hoagland, Merica, participates in discussion, 350.
Hodges, N. D. C, member com. on co-ordination, 195.
Homer, T. J., "Boston co-operative information bureau," 336.
Hopper, F. F., rpt. of com. on library work in federal prisons, 324-6.
Hutchins, Margaret, addresses Agricultural libraries section, 224-6.
Ideson, Julia, "Post-conference trip," 211-3.
Imhoff, Ono M., "Cataloging in legislative reference work," 238-45.
Ingersoll, Elizabeth S., addresses Agricultural libraries section,
227.
Insane, Library work among the (Jones), 320-4.
Institutional membership, by-law regulating vote of, 192.
Inter-library loans, rpt. com. on co-ordination, 96-101.
International relations, com. on, state they have no rpt., 102; com.
on, 194-5.
Isom, Mary F., second vice-pres. A. L. A., 204.
Jennings, J. T., member com. on gov. of Am. libraries, 199; member
com. on resolutions, 202.
Jewett, W. K., "Proportion of university library income which should
be spent on administration," 292-4.
Johnston, R. H., vice-pres. Special Libraries Assn., 353.
Jones, E. Kathleen, "Library work among the insane," 320-4.
Josephson, A. G. S., discusses library schools, 158; chrm. com.
to investigate cost and method of cataloging, 193; "What is
cataloging?" 245-6; discusses paper by Dudgeon, 329.
Josselyn, L. W., teller of election, 205.
Kaiser, John B., 314.
Kelso, Tessa L., addresses assn., 71; discusses library schools, 156.
Keogh, Andrew, member com. on arrangements College and ref. section,
294.
Kidder, Mrs. Ida A., addresses Agricultural libraries section, 226-7.
Kimball, W. C., trustee of Endowment fund, 205.
Kingsbury, David L., died, 80.
Klingelsmith, Mrs. M. C., second vice-pres. Am. Assn. of Law
Libraries, 314; member auditing com. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries,
314; reads paper at joint session, 336.
Klotz, Otto J., message from, 58; "Trustee's duty to the library,"
302-4.
Koch, T. W., member com. on co-ordination, 195; member Executive
board, 204; "Some phases of the administrative history of college
and university libraries," 268-75.
Lane, Evelyn N., died, 80.
Lane, Wm. C., rpt. com. on co-ordination, 97-9; member com. on
international relations, 195; member com. on co-ordination, 195.
Lapp, John A., member public documents com., 194; participates in
discussion, 330-1, 333, 349, 350, 351.
Laurier, Sir W., addresses assn., 159-60; presents gavel on behalf of
Canadian librarians, 169.
Lawrence, Hannah M., sec'y Children's librarians' section, 268.
League of Library Commissions, proceedings of, 316-28.
Lee, George, W., participates in discussion, 332, 347, 349.
Legislative reference work, cataloging in (Imhoff), 238-45.
Legler, Henry E., rpt. A. L. A. publishing board, 83-90; presides
second general session, 101; chrm. program com., 195; president of
A. L. A., 204, 205; reads paper by Jean McLeod, 250.
Lester, C. B., member public documents com., 194.
Librarianship, aim and definition of (Putnam), 59-66.
Libraries, government of, and their relation to the municipal
authorities, rpt. of com. on (Bostwick), 196-9.
Libraries in federal prisons, rpt. of com. on (Hopper), 324-6.
Library, Public: "a leaven'd and preparéd choice:" president's
address (Elmendorf), 67-71.
Library administration, rpt. of com. on (Bostwick), 102-13; com. on,
194; "Proportion of university income which should be spent on"
(Jewett), 292-4.
Library extension work of agricultural colleges (Hepburn), 213-6.
Library post, rpt. of com. on (Dudgeon), 317-8.
Library schools, proposed inspection of, 113; "What l. s. can do for
the profession" (Hadley), 147-51; discussion of above paper (Brett,
Anderson and others), 151-8.
Library training, rpt. of com. on (Root), 113; com. on, 194.
Lien, E. J., member Executive com. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 314.
Lighting and ventilation of libraries, rpt. of com. on (Ranck), 196,
199-200.
Lindholm, Marie F., participates in discussion, 334, 350.
Little, Robbins, died, 80.
Locke, George H., member com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 194.
Louisville, invitation from, 193.
Lucas, Stella, died, 80.
Lyon, Frances D., member auditing com. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries,
314.
McCurdy, Mary de B., presides Children's librarians' section, 247.
McGoun, Archibald, "Bibliography of Canadian law," 336.
Mackay, Margaret S., sec'y Catalog section, 247.
McLenegan, Charles E., "Open door, through the book and the library,"
127-32.
McLeod, Jean, "Employees' library--its scope and its possibilities,"
250-4.
MacNair, Mary W., "Library of Congress list of subject headings,"
231-4.
Macnaughton, John, addresses assn., 169.
Magazine binders, rpt. on, 95.
Mann, Margaret, member com. on catalog rules for small libraries,
195; member Council, 204.
Manual of library economy. Rpt. of Publishing board on, 86.
Marion, Guy E., participates in discussion, 331-2, 343-4, 345;
presents rpt. as sec-treas. Special Libraries Assn., 353;
sec.-treas. Special Libraries Assn., 353.
Martel, Charles, member com. on code for classifiers, 193.
Marvin, Cornelia, member com. on library training, 194.
Merrill, W. S., chrm. com. on code for classifiers, 193; discusses
uniformity in catalog entries, 246.
Milam, Carl H., "Publicity for the sake of support," 120-4; presides
League of Library Com., 316; pres. League, 328.
Miller, Grace, "Book advertising: illumination as to attractions of
real books," 187-92.
Miller, Zana K., participates in discussion, 350.
MKirdy, James, "Bill drafting," 351.
Monrad, Anna M., discusses subject headings, 238.
Montgomery, T. L., member com. on federal and state relations, 195;
secy. Trustees' section, 307; participates in discussion, 352.
Montreal, day in (Roden), 209-11.
Morton, F. B., participates in discussion, 339, 347-8, 349.
Municipal yearbook, rpt. on (Ranck), 346.
Murray, Margaret E., "Earning power of a special reference library on
retail distribution," 339-41.
Murray, Rose G., member com. on bookbinding, 79; member com. on
bookbinding, 195.
National education association, rpt. of com. on co-operation with
(Ahern), 101; official greetings from, 170; com. on, 194.
Necrology. See A. L. A. necrology.
New York public library school, rpt. on (Plummer), 300-1.
New York State library school, account of new quarters and resources
(Walter), 295.
New Zealand Libraries Assn., greetings from, 67.
Newberry, Marie A., member com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 194.
Newspapers, rpt. of com. on preservation of (Hill), 116-8; discussion
on subject, 118-20.
Normal and high schools, Teaching library use in (Walter), 255-60.
Normal course at Pratt Institute, proposed (Rathbone), 297-300.
Norman, O. E., member Executive board Special Libraries Assn., 353.
Normandin, Monsieur, sings Canadian folk songs, 181.
Nursey, Walter R., "Trustee's duty to the public," 304-7.
Ogden, E. Lucy, addresses Agricultural libraries section, 227.
Ontario, history and condition of libraries in, 304-7.
Ontario Library Association, greeting from president of, 146.
"Open door, through the book and the library" (McLenegan), 127-32.
Owen, T. M., member public documents com., 194; second vice-pres.
League, 328.
Paper, rpt. of com. on preservation of newspaper (Hill), 116-8.
Parker, William E., died, 81.
Patterson, J. R., member com. on bookbinding, 195.
Peck, Adolph L., died, 80.
Perley, Hon. Geo. H., welcomes assn. to Canada, 57.
Perry, E. R., member of Council, 205.
Phelan, J. F., member travel com., 195; teller of election, 205.
Plummer, Mary W., member com. on library training, 194; member com.
on resolutions, 202; rpt. on N. Y. public library school, 300-1;
member program com. Professional training section, 301.
Poole, F. O., addresses Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 313; pres. Am.
Assn. of Law Libraries, 314.
Porter, W. T., presides Trustees' section, 302; chrm. Trustees'
section, 307.
Post-conference trip (Ideson), 211-3.
Power, Effie L., chrm. Children's librarians' section, 268.
Pratt Institute school of library science. Proposed normal course at
(Rathbone), 297-300.
Prisons, See Libraries in federal prisons.
Professional training section, proceedings of, 295-301.
Program com., 195.
Public documents, rpt. of com. on (Godard), 115-6; com. on, 194; res.
from com. on, 200.
Public documents round table, proceedings of, 307-11.
Publications, recent, of A. L. A. publishing board, 83-4.
Publications committee of the League of Library Commissions, rpt. of
(Dudgeon), 326-7.
Publicity for the sake of information (Hatton), 72-5; p. for the sake
of support (Milam), 120-4.
Publishing Board. See A. L. A. Publishing board.
Putnam, Herbert, address, 59-66; rpt. com. on co-ordination, 96-7;
chrm. com. on international relations, 194; member com. on
co-ordination, 195; speaks of proposed Leipzig exhibit of book
arts, 196.
Ranck, S. H., member public documents com., 194; rpt. com. on
ventilation and lighting of libraries. 196, 199-200; member com. on
gov. of Am. libraries, 199; reports for municipal yearbook com.,
346; participates in discussion, 346-7.
Rathbone, Josephine A., discusses library schools, 155; member
of Council, 196; "Projected normal course at Pratt Institute,"
297-300; membership com. Professional training section, 301.
Rawson, Fannie C., member publications com. League of Library
Commissions, 328.
Reference work. See College and reference section.
Regina, Sask., message of sympathy to, on account of cyclone, 170.
Reinick, W. R., addresses public documents round table, 310.
Resolutions, rpt. of Com. on (Thwaites), 201-2.
Richardson, E. C., member com. on. international relations, 195;
"Fundamental principles of Cataloging," 234-7.
Robertson, James W., presides preliminary session, 57-ff; presides
fourth general session, 158-ff; addresses assn. on Conservation in
Canada, 161-9; addresses Agricultural libraries section, 216.
Roden, Carl B., represents A. L. A. at Wisconsin assn., 79; rpt. of
treasurer, 81; "Book advertising: information as to subject and
scope of books," 181-7; member com. on bookbuying, 195; "Day in
Montreal," 209-11.
Root, A. S., rpt. com. on lib. training, 113; chrm. com. on lib.
training, 194.
Sanders, Minerva A., died, 80.
Sawyer, Mrs. Harriet P., member of Council, 196.
Sawyer, Laura M., member com. on work with blind, 195.
Saxe, Mary S., "With the children in Canada," 247.
Schenk, F. W., first vice-pres. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 314.
Scholefield, E. O. S., member Executive committee Am. Assn. of Law
Libraries, 314.
Schools. See High Schools, Library schools.
Schwab, J. C., member com. on co-ordination, 195.
Secretary's rpt. (Utley), 75-81.
Settle, George T., invites A. L. A. to Louisville on behalf various
organisations, 193.
Shaw, R. K., "Is the establishment of a central reference bureau
desirable?" 278-9.
Short story index, Do we need a (Drury), 277-8.
Shortt, Mrs. Adam, welcomes assn. on behalf women's clubs, 57.
Sicotte, L. W., died. 80.
Sinclair, L. B., discusses paper by Walter, 260.
Small, A. J., member public documents com., 194; addresses Am. Assn.
of Law Libraries, 313.
Smith, Elizabeth M., sec'y. public documents round table, 307.
Smith, Faith E., member com. on library training, 194.
Smith, Laura, member com. on work with blind, 195.
Smith, T. Guilford, died, 80.
Smoot, Reed, letter read from, 309.
Sneed, Mrs. Percival, member of Council, 196.
Special Libraries Association, proceedings of, 329-53.
Spencer, Florence, member Executive board Special Libraries Assn.,
353.
Social side of the conference (Thwaites), 205-8.
Solberg, Thorvald, addresses public documents round table, 310.
Steiner, Bernard C., rpt. com. on federal and state relations, 102;
chrm. com. on federal and state relations, 195.
Strohm, Adam, "Efficiency of the library staff and scientific
management," 143-6; member com. on library training, 194; member
com. on gov. of Am. libraries, 196.
Study outlines, rpt. of com. on (Brown), 319-20.
Subject headings, papers and discussion on, 227-38.
Sutliff, Mary L., member com. on catalog rules for small libraries,
195.
Sykes, W. J., reads paper by L. B. Sinclair, 260.
Thompson, J. D., addresses public documents round table, 309; member
com. on subject headings, 314.
Thompson, Laura A., presides Catalog section, 227.
Thwaites, Reuben G., represents A. L. A. at inauguration Geo. E.
Vincent, 79; rpt. of com. on resolutions, 201-2; social side of the
conference, 205-8.
Tobitt, Edith, "Type of assistants," 138-42.
Toronto, day in (Ahern), 208-9.
Travel com., 195.
Treasurer's report (Roden), 81.
Tremblay, Amedee, 181.
True, A. C., "Suggestions as to a policy of administration of
agricultural college and experiment station libraries," 216-22.
Trustees' section, proceedings of, 302-7.
Turvill, Helen, rpt. on uniformity in cataloging rules, 246, 301.
Tutt, Virginia M., participates in discussion, 342-3.
Tyler, Alice S., elected to Executive board, 79; rpt. of com. on
relation of A. L. A. and state library assns., 196.
"Type of assistants" (Tobitt), 138-42.
Underhill, Caroline M., member com. on library training, 194.
Uniformity in cataloging rules, rpt. of com. on (Turvill), 246, 301.
Utley, George B., rpt. of sec'y, 75-81; represents A. L. A. at
conferences in Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Indiana,
Wisconsin, 78-9; lectures before library, sch. Iowa, New York,
Illinois; member program com., 195.
Van Valkenburgh, Agnes, member com. to investigate cost and method of
cataloging, 193; "Training or teaching," 295-7; sec'y Professional
training section, 301.
Ventilation and lighting of libraries, rpt. of com. on (Ranck), 196,
199-200.
Vincent, George E., address by, 170-81.
Wales, Elizabeth B., rpt. on charters provisions for public
libraries, 316-7; first vice-pres. League, 328.
Walter, Frank K., discusses library schools, 156-8; member Council,
204; "Teaching library use in normal and high schools," 255-60;
gives account of new quarters N. Y. State library school, 295;
member program com. Professional training section, 301; chrm.
Professional training section, 301.
Walton, F. P., prepares paper for joint session, 335.
Ward, G. O., discusses paper by Mary E. Hall, 266-8.
Warren, Irene, member com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 194.
Washington, D. C., suggested for 1913 conference, 193.
Webster, Caroline F., member publications com. League of Library
Commissions, 328.
Welles, Jessie, "What do the people want?" 132-3.
Wellman, H. C., reads paper by Grace Miller, 187; member Executive
board, 204.
Whare, Grace A., addresses Children's librarians' section, 254.
What do the people want (Wells), 132-3.
Whitney, E. L., rpt. as treas. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 312;
treas. Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 314.
Wigmore, J. H., prepares paper for joint session, 335.
Windsor, P. L., member com. on code for classifiers, 193; presides
College and reference section, 268.
Wire, G. E., discusses subject headings in medicine, 237-8; addresses
Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 313; participates in discussion, 336.
Wood, Harriet A., member com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 194.
Woodard, Miss G. E., sec'y Am. Assn. of Law Libraries, 314; member of
com. on classification, 315.
Wyer, J. I., Jr., represents A. L. A. at conferences in Iowa,
Illinois, Missouri, 78; presides third general session, 133; member
com. on conditions governing affiliation of other than local,
state and provincial assns., 196; presides Agricultural libraries
section, 213-27; reads paper by A. C. True, 216; addresses public
documents round table, 311.
Wyer, M. G., reads paper by Hanson, 280.
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.
Italics markup is denoted by _underscores_.
Bold markup is denoted by =equals=.
Corrected paragraphs on p. 301 in REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON
UNIFORMITY OF FORMS OF CATALOG CARDS. The problem seemed to be
that the lines of the two separate paragraphs were intermixed
during typesetting.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association Held at Ottawa, Canada June 26-July 2, 1912" ***
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