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Title: Papers and proceedings of the thirty-fifth general meeting of the American Library Association, 1913
Author: Various
Language: English
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PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL
MEETING
OF THE
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
HELD AT
KAATERSKILL, N. Y.
JUNE 23-28, 1913
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
78 E. WASHINGTON STREET
CHICAGO, ILL.
1913
CONTENTS
General sessions:
President's address: The world
of books and the world's work Henry E. Legler 73
"As others see us" 83
Secretary's report George B. Utley 99
Treasurer's report C. B. Roden 103
Reports of boards and committees:
Finance committee C. W. Andrews 104
A. L. A. Publishing Board Henry E. Legler 105
Carnegie and endowment fund W. W. Appleton 111
Bookbinding A. L. Bailey 113
Bookbuying W. L. Brown 114
Co-operation with the N. E. A. M. E. Ahern 125
Federal and state relations B. C. Steiner 126
Library administration A. E. Bostwick 126
Library training A. S. Root 134
Library work with the blind Emma N. Delfino 136
Library work in Great Britain L. S. Jast 139
The immigrant in the library Mary Antin 145
Immigrants as contributors to
library progress Adelaide B. Maltby 150
The man in the yards Charles E. Rush 154
What of the black and yellow
races? W. F. Yust 159
The working library for the
artisan and the craftsman E. F. Stevens 170
The woman on the farm Lutie E. Stearns 173
Book influences for defectives
and dependents Julia A. Robinson 177
Changing conditions of child
life Faith E. Smith 184
How the library is meeting the
changing conditions Gertrude E. Andrus 188
Normal schools and their
relation to librarianship W. H. Kerr 193
The present status of
legislative reference work C. B. Lester 199
State wide influence of the
state library D. C. Brown 202
The law that stands the test M. S. Dudgeon 206
Making a library useful to
business men S. H. Ranck 210
Libraries in business
organizations Louise B. Krause 215
The municipal reference library
as an aid in city
administration George McAneny 219
The friendly book G. M. Walton 224
How to discourage reading E. L. Pearson 230
Report of tellers of election 236
Executive board 237
Council 242
Sections:
Agricultural libraries 258
Catalog 259
Work with children 275
College and reference 300
Professional training 343
Public documents round table 352
Affiliated organizations:
American association of law libraries 362
League of library commissions 364
Special libraries association 382
Post-conference trip 386
Attendance summaries 392
Attendance register 393
Index 409
KAATERSKILL CONFERENCE
JUNE 23-28, 1913
FIRST GENERAL SESSION
(Monday evening, June 23)
The PRESIDENT: The Thirty-fifth Annual Conference of the American
Library Association begins this evening. Custom has decreed that the
presiding officer shall deliver a message, and the present presiding
officer has not sufficient independence of mind to depart from that
long-established custom.
PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS
The World of Print and the World's Work
I
Turning for a text to Victor Hugo's stirring epic of Paris, these words
may be found in the section for May, and in the third chapter thereof:
A Library implies an act of faith
Which generations still in darkness hid
Sign in their night, in witness of the dawn.
When Johann Gutenberg in his secret workshop poured the molten metal
into the rough matrices he had cut for separate types, the instrument
for the spread of Democracy was created. When early Cavaliers and
Puritans planted the crude beginnings of free public schools, the
forces of Democracy were multiplied. When half a century ago the
first meager beginnings of the public library movement were evolved,
Democracy was for all time assured. Thus have three great stages,
separated each by a span of two hundred years from that preceding,
marked that world development whose ultimate meaning is not equality of
station or possession, but equality of opportunity.
Not without stress and strife have these yet fragmentary results
been achieved. Not without travail and difficulties will universal
acceptance be accorded in the days to come. But no one may doubt the
final outcome which shall crown the struggle of the centuries. The
world was old when typography was invented. Less than five centuries
have passed since then, and in this interval--but a brief period in
the long history of human endeavor--there has been more enlargement of
opportunity for the average man and woman than in all the time that
went before. Without the instrumentality of the printed page, without
the reproductive processes that give to all the world in myriad tongues
the thought of all the centuries, slavery, serfdom and feudalism would
still shackle the millions not so fortunate as to be born to purple and
ermine, and fine linen.
II
The evolution of the book is therefore the history of the unfoldment
of human rights. The chained tome in its medieval prison cell has
been supplanted by the handy volume freely sent from the hospitable
public library to the homes of the common people. The humblest citizen,
today, has at his command books in number and in kind which royal
treasuries could not have purchased five hundred years ago. In the
sixteenth century, it took a flock of sheep to furnish the vellum for
one edition of a book, and the product was for the very few; in the
twentieth, a forest is felled to supply the paper for an edition,
and the output goes to many hundred thousand readers. As books have
multiplied, learning has been more widely disseminated. As more people
have become educated, the demand for books has increased enormously.
The multiplication of books has stimulated the writing of them, and the
inevitable result has been a deterioration of quality proportioned to
the increase in quantity. In the English language alone, since 1880,
206,905 titles of books printed in the United States, have been listed,
and 226,365 in Great Britain since 1882. Of these 433,270 titles,
84,722 represent novels--36,607 issued in the United States and 48,115
in Great Britain. Despite the inclusion of the trivial and the unsound
in this vast mass of printed stuff, no one can doubt the magnitude
of the service performed in the advancement of human kind. The
universities have felt the touch of popular demand, and in this country
at least some of them have attempted to respond. Through correspondence
courses, short courses, university week conferences, summer schools,
local forums, traveling instructors, and other media of extension, many
institutions of higher learning have given recognition to the appeal of
the masses. Logically with this enlargement of educational opportunity,
the amplification of library facilities has kept pace. The libraries
have become in a real sense the laboratory of learning. Intended
primarily as great storehouses for the accumulation and preservation
rather than the use of manuscripts and books, their doors have been
opened wide to all farers in search of truth or mental stimulus.
In a report to the English King, Sir William Berkeley wrote as governor
of Virginia in 1642: "I thank God there are no free schools nor
printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for
learning has brought disobedience into the world, and printing has
divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from
both."
Governor Berkeley's sentiments, expressed by him in turgid rhetoric,
were held in his day by most men in authority, but that did not prevent
the planting of little schoolhouses here and there, and men of much
vision and little property bequeathed their possessions for maintaining
them. Many a school had its origin in a bequest comprising a few
milch kine, a horse or two, or a crop of tobacco; in some instances,
slaves. From such beginnings, with such endowments, was evolved three
hundred years ago the public system of education which today prodigally
promises, though it but niggardly realizes, sixteen years of schooling
for every boy and girl in the land.
If the span of years needed for the development of the free library
system has been much shorter, the hostile attitude of influential men
and the privations that attended pioneer efforts were no less marked.
As recently as 1889 the writer of an article in the North American
Review labeled his attack: "Are public libraries public blessings?" and
answered his own question in no uncertain negative. "Not only have
the public libraries, as a whole, failed to reach their proper aim of
giving the means of education to the people," he protested, "but they
have gone aside from their true path to furnish amusement and that in
part of a pernicious character, chiefly to the young." And he added: "I
might have mentioned other possible dangers, such as the power of the
directors of any library to make it a propaganda of any delusive ism or
doctrine subversive of morality, society or government; but I prefer to
rest my case here."
And it was somewhat later than this that the pages of the Century gave
space to correspondence in opposition to the establishment of a public
library system for the city of New York.
These were but echoes of earlier antagonisms.
III
For the documentary material dealing with the beginnings of the public
library movement, the searcher must delve within the thousand pages
of a portly folio volume issued by the British government sixty years
ago. If one possesses patience sufficient to read the immense mass of
dry evidence compiled by a parliamentary commission and "presented to
both houses of parliament by command of Her Majesty," some interesting
facts in library history will be found. A young man of twenty-three,
then an underling in the service of the British Museum, afterwards an
eminent librarian, was one of the principal witnesses. Edward Edwards
had the gift of vision. Half a century before public libraries became
the people's universities, as they are today, his prophetic tongue
gave utterance to what has since become the keynote of library aims
and policies. Badgered by hostile inquisitors, ridiculed by press and
politicians, he undeviatingly clung to his views, and he lived to see
his prophecy realized.
Great libraries there had been before his day; remarkable as a
storehouse of knowledge in printed form was, and is in our own day, the
institution with which he was associated. But in these rich reference
collections intended for the student of research, the element of
popular use was lacking. To have suggested the loan of a single book
for use outside the four walls of the library would have startled and
benumbed everyone in authority--and without authority--from the members
of the governing board to librarian, sub-librarians, and messenger
boys. This stripling faced the members of parliament, and without
hesitation proclaimed his thesis.
"It is not merely to open the library to persons who, from the
engrossing nature of their engagements of business, are at present
utterly excluded from it, but it is also that the library may be made a
direct agent in some degree in the work of national education. Let not
anyone be alarmed lest something very theoretical or very revolutionary
should be proposed. I merely suggest that the library should be opened
to a class of men quite shut out from it by its present regulations."
Then he added: "In such a country as this there should be one great
national storehouse. But in addition to this, there should be libraries
in different quarters on a humbler scale, very freely accessible."
One of the ablest members of parliament, William Ewart, of Liverpool,
became intensely interested in the views expressed by young Edwards,
and from that day was counted the consistent champion of library
privileges for the common people. Largely through his instrumentality,
aided by such men as Richard Cobden, John Bright and Joseph Brotherton,
parliament passed an act "for the encouragement of museums." Out of
this measure grew the later public libraries' act. This notable step
was not accomplished without bitter opposition.
"The next thing we will be asked to do," said one indignant member on
the floor of the House, "is to furnish people with quoits and peg-tops
and footballs at the expense of taxpayers. Soon we will be thinking of
introducing the performances of Punch for the amusement of the people."
Events in England influenced similar movements in the United States. In
a letter to Edward Everett, in 1851, Mr. George Ticknor gave the first
impetus to the establishment of a free public library in Boston--the
first in the new world to be maintained permanently by the people for
the people.
"I would establish a library which differs from all free libraries yet
attempted," he wrote. "I mean one in which any popular books, tending
to moral and intellectual improvement, shall be furnished in such
numbers of copies that many persons can be reading the same book at the
same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the
pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the whole
people when they most care for it; that is, when it is new and fresh."
Sixty years after the date of Mr. Ticknor's letter, and chiefly within
the last two decades of the period, the public library movement has
assumed a place in public education, which, relatively, the public
school movement attained only after three hundred years of effort.
When Thomas Bodley died, in 1613, in all Europe there were but three
libraries accessible to the public--the Bodleian, the Angelo Rocca at
Rome and the Ambrosian at Milan. In 1841 the Penny Cyclopedia devoted
about four inches of a narrow column to the subject of libraries,
ancient and modern, and limited its reference to American libraries to
one sentence, obtained at second hand from an older contemporary:
"In the United States of America, according to the Encyclopedia
Americana, the principal libraries are, or were in 1831, that of
Harvard College, containing 36,000 volumes; the Philadelphia Library,
containing 27,000; that of the Boston Athenaeum, containing 26,000;
that of Congress, containing 16,000, and that of Charleston, containing
13,000."
It is only since 1867 that the federal government has deemed it worth
while to compile library statistics, and the first comprehensive
figures were gathered in 1875. It is worth noting that then they
embraced all libraries comprising 300 volumes, and that in 1893 no
mention is made of collections containing less than a thousand
volumes, while the most recent official enumeration makes 5,000 volumes
the unit of consideration. From these official figures may be gleaned
something of the extraordinary growth of libraries, both numerically
and in size. In 1875, including school libraries there were 2,039
containing a thousand volumes, ten years later there were 4,026, ten
years after that 8,000, and at this date there are in this class not
less than 12,000, while the recorded number comprising three hundred
volumes or more reaches the substantial total of 15,634, and 2,298 of
these catalog in excess of 5,000 volumes each.
IV
These figures show phenomenal growth, but even more impressive are
the facts that give their full meaning in detail. From a striking
compilation issued in Germany by Die Brücke a few weeks ago, together
with figures extracted by means of a questionnaire, supplemented
by statistical material gathered by the Bureau of Education, the
facts which follow have been deduced: Counting the great libraries
of the world, the six continents abutting the seven seas possess
324 libraries whose book collections number in excess of 100,000
volumes each, and of these 79--or approximately one-fourth--are
located in the Americas. Of the 79 American libraries 72 are in
the United States, including university, public, governmental and
miscellaneous institutions, with a combined collection of 19,295,000
volumes. If this statistical inquiry is pursued further, a reason
becomes apparent why millions are starved for want of books while
other millions seemingly have a surfeit of them. The rural regions,
save in a handful of commonwealths whose library commissions or state
libraries actively administer traveling libraries, the book supply is
practically negligible. Even the hundreds of itinerating libraries but
meagerly meet the want. All the traveling libraries in all the United
States have a total issue annually less than that of any one of twenty
municipal systems that can be named. The public library facilities in
at least six thousand of the smaller towns are pitifully insufficient
and in hundreds of them wholly absent. The movement to supply books
to the people was first launched in the rural regions seventy years
ago. Indeed the movement for popular education known as the American
Lyceum, which forecast the activities of the modern public library just
as the mechanics' institutes of Great Britain prepared the soil for
them in that country, flourished chiefly in the less thickly settled
centers of population. The early district school libraries melted away
in New York state and Wisconsin and other states, and the devastated
shelves have never been amply renewed. The library commissions are
valiantly and energetically endeavoring to supply the want, but their
efforts are all too feebly supported by their respective states. In
this particular, the policy is that which unfortunately obtains as
to all educational effort. More than 55 per cent of the young people
from 6 to 20 years old--about 17,000,000 of them--live in the country
or in towns of less than two thousand inhabitants. According to an
official report from which this statement is extracted, there are 5,000
country schools still taught in primitive log houses, uncomfortable,
unsuitable, unventilated, unsanitary, illy equipped, poorly lighted,
imperfectly heated--boys and girls in all stages of advancement
receiving instruction from one teacher of very low grade. It is plain
why, in the summing up of this report, "illiteracy in rural territory
is twice as great as in urban territory, notwithstanding that thousands
of illiterate immigrants are crowded in the great manufacturing and
industrial centers. The illiteracy among native-born children of native
parentage is more than three times as great as among native children
of foreign parentage, largely on account of the lack of opportunities
for education in rural America." In Indian legend Nokomis, the earth,
symbolizes the strength of motherhood; it may yet chance that the
classic myth of the hero who gained his strength because he kissed the
earth may be fully understood in America only when the people learn
that they will remain strong, as Mr. Münsterberg has put it, "only by
returning with every generation to the soil."
If the states have proved recreant to duty in this particular, the
municipalities have shown an increasing conception of educational
values. The figures make an imposing statistical array. In the
United States there are 1,222 incorporated places of 5,000 or more
inhabitants, and their libraries house 90,000,000 volumes, with a total
yearly use aggregating 110,000,000 issues. Four million volumes a year
are added to their shelves, and collectively they derive an income of
$20,000,000. Their permanent endowments, which it must be regretfully
said but 600 of them share, now aggregate $40,000,000. Nearly all of
these libraries occupy buildings of their own, Mr. Andrew Carnegie
having supplied approximately $42,226,338 for the purpose in the United
States, and the balance of the $100,000,000 represented in buildings
having been donated by local benefactors or raised by taxation.
The population of these 1,222 places is 38,758,584, considerably less
than half that of the entire United States. Their book possessions,
on the other hand, are nine times as great as those in the rest of
the country; the circulation of the books nearly twelve times in
volume. Closer analysis of these figures enforces still more strongly
the actual concentration of the available book supply. The hundred
largest cities of the United States, varying in size from a minimum of
53,684 to a maximum of 4,766,883, possess in the aggregate more books
than all the rest of the country together, and represent the bulk of
the trained professional service rendered. The great majority of the
3,000 graduates whom the library schools have sent into service since
the first class was organized in 1887, are in these libraries and in
the university libraries. Forty per cent of the books circulated are
issued to the dwellers in these one hundred cities, and in fifteen of
them the stupendous total of 30,000,834 issues for home reading was
recorded last year. Without such analysis as this, the statistical
totals would be misleading. The concentration of resources and of
trained service in large centers of population, comparatively few in
number, makes evident the underlying cause for the modern trend of
library development. A further study of conditions in these human hives
justifies the specialized forms of service which have become a marked
factor in library extension within a decade. With increased resources,
with vastly improved internal machinery, with enlarged conception of
opportunity for useful service, have come greater liberality of rules
and ever widening circles of activity, until today no individual and no
group of individuals, remains outside the radius of library influence.
If this awakened zeal has spurred to efforts that seem outside the
legitimate sphere of library work, no undue concern need be felt.
Neither the genius or enthusiasm of the individual nor the enterprise
of a group of individuals will ever be permitted to go too rapidly or
too far: the world's natural conservatism and inherited unbelief stand
ever ready to retard or prevent.
V
Specialization has been incorporated into library administration
chiefly to give expeditious and thorough aid to seekers of information
touching a wide variety of interests--business men, legislators,
craftsmen, special investigators and students of every sort. This
added duty has not diminished its initial function to make available
the literature of all time, nor to satisfy those who go to books
for the pure joy of reading. The recreative service of the library
is as important as the educative, or the informative. For the great
mass of people, the problem has been the problem of toil long and
uninterrupted. The successful struggle of the unions to restrict the
hours of labor has developed another problem almost as serious--the
problem of leisure. Interwoven with this acute problem is another
which subdivision of labor has introduced into modern industrial
occupations--the terrible fatigue which results from a monotonous
repetition of the same process hour after hour, day after day, week
after week. Such blind concentration in the making of but one piece
of a machine, or a garment, or a watch, or any other article of
merchandise, without knowledge of its relationship to the rest, soon
wears the human worker out. There must be an outlet of play, of fun,
or recreation. The librarian need not feel apologetic to the public
because perchance his circulation statistics show that 70 per cent of
it is classed as fiction. If he wishes to reduce this percentage to 69
or 68 or 61, let him do it not by discouraging the reading of novels,
but by stimulating the use of books in other classes of literature. But
well does he merit his own sense of humiliation and the condemnation of
the critics if he needs must feel ashamed of the kind of novels that
he puts upon his shelves. To quote a fellow librarian who expresses
admirably the value of such literature, "A good story has created many
an oasis in many an otherwise arid life. Many-sidedness of interest
makes for good morals, and millions of our fellows step through the
pages of a story book into a broader world than their nature and their
circumstances ever permit them to visit. If anything is to stay the
narrowing and hardening process which specialization of learning,
specialization of inquiry and of industry and swift accumulation of
wealth are setting up among us, it is a return to romance, poetry,
imagination, fancy, and the general culture we are now taught to
despise. Of all these the novel is a part; rather, in the novel are
all of these. But a race may surely find springing up in itself a fresh
love of romance, in the high sense of that word, which can keep it
active, hopeful, ardent, progressive. Perhaps the novel is to be, in
the next decades, part of the outward manifestation of a new birth of
this love of breadth and happiness."
VI
Many of the factory workers are young men and young women, whose
starved imaginations seek an outlet that will not be denied. In lieu
of wholesome recreation and material, they will find "clues to life's
perplexities" in salacious plays, in cheap vaudeville performances, in
the suggestive pages of railway literature, in other ways that make for
a lowering of moral tone. The reaction that craves amusement of any
sort is manifest in the nightly crowded stalls of the cheap theaters.
Eight million spectators view every moving picture film that is
manufactured. It is estimated that one-sixth of the entire population
of New York City and of Chicago attends the theaters on any Sunday of
the year. One Sunday evening, at the instance of Miss Jane Addams, an
investigation was made of 466 theaters in the latter city, and it was
discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge;
the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's
betrayer; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained
honor. And of course these influences extend to the children who are
always the most ardent and responsive of audiences. There is grave
danger that the race will develop a ragtime disposition, a moving
picture habit and a comic supplement mind.
VII
It is perhaps too early to point to the specialized attention which
libraries have given to the needs of young people as a distinct
contribution to society. Another generation must come before material
evidence for good or ill becomes apparent. That the work is well worth
the thought bestowed, whether present methods survive or are modified,
may not be gainsaid. The derelicts of humanity are the wrecks who knew
no guiding light. The reformatories and the workhouses, the penal
institutions generally and the charitable ones principally, are not
merely a burden upon society, but a reproach for duty unperformed.
Society is at last beginning to realize that it is better to perfect
machinery of production than to mend the imperfect product; that to
dispense charity may ameliorate individual suffering, but does not
prevent recurrence. And so more attention is being given prevention
than cure.
I gave a beggar from my little store
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore
And came again, and yet again, still cold
And hungry as before.
I gave a thought, and through that thought of mine,
He found himself a man, supreme, divine,
Bold, clothed, and crowned with blessings manifold,
And now he begs no more.
VIII
If numbers and social and industrial importance warrant special library
facilities for children, certainly the same reasons underlie the
special library work with foreigners which has within recent years
been carried on extensively in the larger cities. Last month the
census bureau issued an abstract of startling import to those who view
in the coming of vast numbers from across the waters a menace to the
institutions of this democracy. According to this official enumeration,
in but fourteen of fifty cities having over 100,000 inhabitants in 1910
did native whites of native parentage contribute as much as one-half
the total population. The proportion exceeded three-fifths in only
four cities. On the other hand, in twenty-two cities of this class, of
which fifteen are in New England and the Middle Atlantic divisions,
less than one-third of the population were native whites of native
parentage, over two-thirds in all but one of these cities consisting of
foreign-born whites and their children.
In his Ode delivered at Harvard, Lowell eloquently referred to
"The pith and marrow of a Nation
Drawing force from all her men,
Highest, humblest, weakest, all,
For her time of need, and then
Pulsing it again through them,
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,
She of the open soul and open door,
With room about her hearth for all mankind!"
This was written in 1865. Since then the rim of the Mediterranean
has sent its enormous contribution of unskilled and unlettered human
beings to the New World. There have been three great tides of migration
from over-seas. The first came to secure liberty of conscience; the
second sought liberty of political thought and action; the third came
in quest of bread. And of the three, incomparably the greater problem
of assimilation is that presented by the last comers. Inextricably
interwoven are all the complexities which face the great and growing
municipalities, politically and industrially and socially. These are
the awful problems of congestion and festering slums, of corruption in
public life, of the exploitation of womanhood, of terrible struggle
with wretchedness and poverty. Rightly directed, the native qualities
and strength of these peoples will bring a splendid contribution in
the making of a virile citizenship. Wrongly shaped, their course in
the life of the city may readily become of sinister import. Frequently
they are misunderstood, and they easily misunderstand. The problem is
one of education, but it is that most difficult problem, of education
for grown-ups. Here perhaps the library may render the most distinct
service, in that it can bring to them in their own tongues the ideals
and the underlying principles of life and custom in their adopted
country; and through their children, as they swarm into the children's
rooms, is established a point of contact which no other agency could so
effectually provide.
Under the repressive measures of old-world governments, the racial
culture and national spirit of Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, Balkan Slavs,
and Russian Jews have been stunted. Here both are warmed into life and
renewed vigor, and in generous measure are given back to the land of
their adoption. Such racial contribution must prove of enormous value,
whether, as many sociologists believe, this country is to prove a great
melting pot for the fusing of many races, or whether as Dr. Zhitlowsky
contends, there is to be one country, one set of laws, one speech, but
a vast variety of national cultures, contributing each its due share to
the enrichment of the common stock.
IX
Great changes have come about in the methods that obtain for the
exercise of popular government. In a Democracy whose chief strength
is derived from an intelligent public opinion, the sharpening of such
intelligence and enlargement of general knowledge concerning affairs
of common concern are of paramount importance. Statute books are
heavily cumbered with laws that are unenforced because public opinion
goes counter to them. Nonenforcement breeds disrespect for law, and
unscientific making of laws leads to their disregard. So the earliest
attempts to find a remedy contemplated merely the legislator and the
official, bringing together for their use through the combined services
of trained economists and of expert reference librarians the principles
and foundation for contemplated legislation and the data as to similar
attempts elsewhere. Fruitful as this service has proved within the
limitation of state and municipal officialdom, a broadened conception
of possibilities now enlarges the scope of the work to include
citizen organizations interested in the study of public questions,
students of sociology, economics and political science, business men
keenly alive to the intimate association--in a legitimate sense--of
business and politics, and that new and powerful element in public
affairs which has added three million voters to the poll lists in ten
states, and will soon add eleven million voters more in the remaining
thirty-eight. The new library service centering in state and municipal
legislative reference libraries, and in Civics departments of large
public libraries, forecasts the era, now rapidly approaching, when
aldermen and state representatives will still enact laws and state and
city officials will enforce them, but their making will be determined
strictly by public opinion. The local government of the future will
be by quasi-public citizen organizations directing aldermen and state
legislators accurately to register their will. When representative
government becomes misrepresentative, in the words of a modern
humorist, Democracy will ask the Powers that Be whether they are the
Powers that Ought to Be. To intelligently determine the answer, public
opinion must not ignorantly ask.
X
This has been called the age of utilitarianism. Such it unquestionably
is, but its practicality is not disassociated from idealism. The
resources of numberless commercial enterprises are each in this day
reckoned in millions, and their products are figured in terms of many
millions more, as once thousands represented the spread of even the
greatest of industries. But more and more, business men are coming
to realize that business organization as it affects for weal or woe
thousands who contribute to their success, must be conducted as a trust
for the common good, and not merely for selfish exploitation, or for
oppression. As the trade guilds of old wielded their vast power for
common ends, so all the workers gave the best at their command to make
their articles of merchandise the most perfect that human skill and
care could produce. Men of business whose executive skill determines
the destiny of thousands in their employ, are growing more and more
to an appreciation of the trusteeship that is theirs. A humane spirit
is entering the relationship between employer and employed. Great
commercial organizations are conducting elaborate investigations into
conditions of housing, sanitation, prolongation of school life, social
insurance and similar subjects of betterment for the toilers; but a
brief span ago they were concerned chiefly with trade extension and
lowering of wages, all unconcerned about the living conditions of
their dependents. They too are now exemplifying the possession of that
constructive imagination which builds large and beyond the present.
For results that grow out of experience and of experiment they also
are in part dependent upon the sifted facts that are found in print.
The business house library is a recent development, and in ministering
in different ways to both employer and employed, gives promise of
widespread usefulness.
XI
With the tremendous recent growth of industrialism and the rapid
multiplication of invention, the manifest need for making available the
vast sum of gathered knowledge concerning the discoveries of modern
science has evolved the great special libraries devoted to the varied
subdivisions of the subject. Munificently endowed as many of them
are, highly organized for ready access to material, administered to
encourage use and to give expert aid as well, their great importance
cannot be overestimated. What they accomplish is not wholly reducible
to statistics, nor can their influence be readily traced, perhaps, to
the great undertakings of today which overshadow the seven wonders of
antiquity. But there can be no question that without the opportunities
that here lie for study and research, and--no less important--without
the skilled assistance freely rendered by librarian and bibliographer,
special talent would often remain dormant and its possessor
unsatisfied. Greater here would be the loss to society than to the
individual.
XII
Thus the libraries are endeavoring to make themselves useful in
every field of human enterprise or interest; with books of facts
for the information they possess; with books of inspiration for the
stimulus they give and the power they generate. Conjointly these yield
the equipment which develops the constructive imagination, without
which the world would seem but a sorry and a shriveled spot to dwell
upon. The poet and the dreamer conceive the great things which are
wrought; the scientist and the craftsman achieve them; the scholar and
the artist interpret them. Thus associated, they make their finest
contribution to the common life. The builders construct the great
monuments of iron and of concrete which are the expression of this
age, as the great cathedrals and abbeys were of generations that have
passed. Adapted as they are to the needs of this day, our artists and
our writers have shown us the beauty and the art which the modern
handiwork of man possesses. With etcher's tool one man of keen insight
has shown us the art that inheres in the lofty structures which line
the great thoroughfares of our chief cities, the beauty of the skylines
they trace with roof and pediment. With burning words another has given
voice to machinery and to the vehicles of modern industry, and we
thrill to the eloquence and glow of his poetic fervor.
"Great works of art are useful works greatly done," declares Dr. T. J.
Cobden-Sanderson, and rightly viewed the most prosaic achievements of
this age, whether they be great canals or clusters of workmen's homes
worthily built, or maybe more humble projects, have a greatness of
meaning that carries with it the sense of beauty and of art.
In medieval days, the heralds of civilization were the warrior,
the missionary, the explorer and the troubadour; in modern times,
civilization is carried forward by the chemist, the engineer, the
captain of industry, and the interpreter of life--whether the medium
utilized be pen or brush or voice. Without vision, civilization
would wither and perish, and so it may well be that the printed page
shall serve as symbol of its supreme vision. Within the compass
of the book sincerely written, rightly chosen, and well used are
contained the three chief elements which justify the library of the
people--information, education, recreation.
The urge of the world makes these demands; ours is the high privilege
to respond.
* * * * *
The PRESIDENT: We have a very interesting ending to tonight's program
in that we have secured from eminent men and women in the United States
and Great Britain brief expressions touching our own work. A circular
letter was sent to a number of these eminent ladies and gentlemen
represented in professional and business life, to the following effect:
"Librarians realize that they can profit from seeing themselves
'as others see them.' At the coming annual conference of the
American Library Association to be held in Kaaterskill, N. Y.,
it is planned to present to the assembled librarians of the
United States and Canada brief messages from leading thinkers
and recognized authorities in the arts, sciences and letters,
and in public life, commenting upon such library activities as
are related particularly with their own special interests. Each
message may take the form either of criticism or suggestion. We
shall esteem it a privilege if you will consent to contribute
to this symposium. While we shall be glad to hear from you on
any phase of library work which most appeals to you, we venture
to suggest the following topic for your comment: (Here was
inserted a specific topic suggested for individual discussion.)
Sincerely yours,
HENRY E. LEGLER,
President."
Most of these questions will be apparent as the answers are read. We
have distributed these responses among a few of our own members who
will serve as proxies for the most distinguished contributors to a
program which the American Library Association, I believe, has ever had.
Selections from these letters were then read by Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites,
Mr. C. B. Roden, Miss Mary Eileen Ahern and Mr. W. P. Cutter.
(The following is a list of the questions which were asked in these
letters and the replies received follow.)
Are our public libraries succeeding in their effort to bring to men and
women the "life more abundant?"
What can the library do to encourage the study of American history?
Should our public expect the library to supply all the "best sellers"
hot from the press?
Are our public libraries making returns in service adequate to funds
appropriated?
How could our tax supported public libraries be of greater usefulness
to business men?
Is the negro being helped by our public libraries?
Does the public library do as much as it might to encourage the reading
of the classics?
Is the public library helping to improve dramatic taste?
Is co-operation between the public school and the public library
developing in the right direction?
Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten
the people on social and economic problems?
Is the public library a factor in the recent development of a public
conscience?
Should the public library exercise censorship over the books it
circulates?
What is a dead book?
What rank should the library have in the scale of the community's
social assets?
What is your conception of the ideal librarian?
Is it wicked for our libraries to amuse people?
Are the art departments of our public libraries quickening the love for
the beautiful?
Are our libraries helping to make better citizens of those from
over-seas?
Is the modern city library engaging in activities outside its proper
sphere, e. g., lectures, storytelling, art exhibits, victrola concerts,
loan of pianola rolls, etc.?
Is the library doing as much as it might to be a true university to the
people?
What do you consider the most valuable accomplishment of the public
library movement in the past decade?
Need librarians apologize for circulating a large percentage of
contemporary fiction?
* * * * *
New York, April 7, 1913.
Dear Mr. President:
You ask "what do you consider the most valuable accomplishment of the
public library movement in the past decade?"
* * * * *
Answer--
The spread of the truth that the public library, free to all the
people, gives nothing for nothing; that the reader must himself climb
the ladder and in climbing gain knowledge how to live this life well.
ANDREW CARNEGIE.
* * * * *
My father[1] has asked me to write to you in reply to your letter
concerning the conference of the American Library Association to be
held in Kaaterskill, N. Y. Neither my father nor I have any chance
to see in any detail what our public libraries are doing to make
life more abundant. One little incident, however, has come within my
experience. The New York Public Library sends its discarded books to
various hospitals and camps instead of destroying them. I have been
able to get some of these discarded books for use in a Boys' Club here
in Cornwall. They were well chosen for what I wanted and the boys have
been responsive and interested in taking them out. This is simply one
of the things that the public libraries are doing with the books they
are through with and can use no more.
[1] Lyman Abbott.
Yours very truly,
BEATRICE VAIL ABBOTT.
* * * * *
London, England,
April 15, 1913.
In reply to your letter of April 1st, written on behalf of the American
Library Association, I do consider that to a certain extent the fiction
circulated in the public libraries of the United States does help to
enlighten the people on social and economic problems. But I am bound to
say that I think that we novelists might do a very great deal more in
this direction if we would avoid sentimentalizing the truth in order to
make it seem more palatable, and also if we would adopt the habit of
describing more completely the general social background against which
our leading figures live and move.
Believe me,
Yours faithfully,
ARNOLD BENNETT.
* * * * *
Drama League of America,
Chicago, Ill.
In the last three years the American people as a whole have begun to
awaken to a realization of the vast importance of our amusements in
the nation's life. We are realizing that we are far behind the other
civilized countries in the development of our dramatic taste, and we
are beginning to be uneasy over the danger of being too careless in
regard to our recreation. The people at large are commencing to take
a genuine interest in the problems presented by our theater, and the
character of the plays they give.
We have arrived at a period of prosperity when we have time, at last,
to pay attention to the arts, and especially the last to be developed,
the dramatic art. We are uneasy over the conditions in our theaters
today.
Vaguely the people as a whole are feeling around for one means or
another to correct these conditions, to create a great national art and
to restore drama to her proper place among the arts. One movement after
another has aimed to meet these conditions--new theaters--municipal
theaters, censorship laws,--every sort of reform. It has remained for
the Drama League of America to place its finger upon the really vital
issue. For the actual fault of the present situation lies with the easy
going American public. You cannot create a New Theater without a public
to support it; you cannot force art on an unwilling public no matter
how large an A you use in spelling it. In fact, your reforms must begin
the other side of the footlights; and if we are to have better plays
upon our stage, if we are to do away with the meretricious plays now
too frequently there, we must work with this great pleasure-loving
good-natured public, and cultivate in it a taste for better drama.
We must create a demand for good drama and the supply will follow--the
dramatist, actor and manager are only too willing to fall into line,
if the public can be induced to refuse the worthless play and support
better drama. The really vital and necessary thing is to secure a
public which will enjoy and support good plays. Hence, it has become
an important and basic matter to improve the dramatic tastes of the
country. In fact, in the opinion of many, this is one of the great
problems we have before us as a nation today.
Organized with this very object, the Drama League of America has
worked for three years on the problem. In those three years it has
discovered many things. One of these is, that there is a real and
genuine response to the appeal of the written drama; that the message
of the play need not be restricted to the city with a theater, but
that through the printed play every community may be reached. Another
point worked out by the league is the absolute assurance that the
best and in fact the only way to improve the dramatic taste of the
country is to inculcate a thorough knowledge of good drama--an intimate
acquaintance with the best plays written. As many of these plays are
rarely acted now, or if acted are confined to the big cities, the
third point easily follows, that by means of the printed play we can
gradually so inoculate the entire nation with a knowledge of good drama
and what it really is that it will turn instinctively from the cheap
and worthless play and demand better things. Consequently the first and
most important matter is to make good drama accessible to every one.
By spreading knowledge of the best plays of the past and present, all
over the country, we are improving the dramatic taste of the nation and
paving the way for better conditions in the theaters.
In this effort to increase the reading of plays the Drama League not
unnaturally turned early in its career to the libraries, feeling itself
largely dependent upon them for the full development of its work. The
keenest response has come in return. Over 73 libraries are represented
in our membership and keep on file the league literature. The testimony
from these libraries is most encouraging. On every side we find the
libraries eager to help in this development of public dramatic taste.
Since the only way to improve dramatic taste is by acquiring a thorough
knowledge of plays, it is palpably apparent that the libraries can
be the greatest possible help in this new movement. To illustrate
concretely--The Drama League enters a medium sized town with one public
library, inducing the two or three women's clubs to take up each a
course in modern drama, interesting the teachers in the high school in
the league's high school course, even persuading the grade school to
do drama work with the younger pupils. Usually there are formed also
several little reading circles. Of course, the first demand is for the
published plays. The students flock to the libraries to get the desired
dramas.
In Chicago the testimony has come many times that since the
organization of The Drama League public interest has been so keen that
the demand for dramas has been phenomenal. Is the library content
merely to recognize this condition? By no means. The Drama Department
has had to quadruple its supply, and even then is frequently obliged to
hold the books in for reference only in order to meet the demand. But
see what this has meant to the league to have that quadruple supply of
the dramas demanded by its members. From Washington comes the testimony
that the organization of the league has increased the demand for drama
books; from Los Angeles came a large order for special dramas and
reference books needed by our members. The Massachusetts State Library
has offered to meet any demands made upon it. Librarians in various
communities are officers and directors in this new movement.
May I suggest a few ways in which the libraries can help us? In the
first place, it will be a real benefit to any community if its library
will become a member of The Drama League and keep its literature on
file. In this way the community is kept informed through the Drama
League bulletins of the best current plays by its critical analysis;
it has access also to the study courses and bibliographies on drama
prepared by the league's experts. Secondly, it would be an inestimable
help in this task of improving dramatic taste of the community if the
library would be sure to have on hand all the dramas listed in our
study and reading courses. Thirdly, if the libraries would arrange a
handy shelf of worthy drama where "he who runs may read," where the
passerby would be attracted by a drama and pick it up to read it, it
might induce a taste for better plays, a knowledge of good drama in
a previously heedless theater goer. In Evanston, Illinois, for three
years this shelf has been maintained in the library by the Drama Club.
Every few weeks a new selection of dramas is placed on this little book
rack which stands near the main call desk. It is much used and very
popular.
The library could also helpfully publish a separate list of its books
on drama and dramas, or better yet arrange them in a separate section.
Such a list is published yearly by the Evanston Library and several
other libraries have recently adopted this plan--notably the Newberry
Library, Chicago, and the Kansas City Library.
Another way in which the libraries can co-operate in raising dramatic
taste, is by making it easy for the playgoer to read the dramas
which have been published and are to be presented in his city. By
co-operation with the Drama League the library might receive word in
advance when a published worthy play is to be given in town. It could
then see to it either that its copy of that play is withdrawn from
circulation and held for reference only, or it could secure extra
copies of the play to meet the extra demand. If it could be thoroughly
understood that the library was doing this, interest in reading the
play could be stimulated. For instance, the library could post a notice
stating the coming of the play to town, side by side with the league
bulletin or criticism of the play, and the announcement that it could
be secured at the book shelf. With this active help of the libraries
we might go far toward securing a trained dramatic taste on the part
of our theater goers. There are several magazines of special value to
the student of drama. It would be a very great help if the libraries
made a special point of including these among their subscriptions
and of listing them under the Drama Department--as for instance, the
Drama Quarterly, and Poet Lore print in each issue a play which has
never been printed in translation before, and which cannot be secured
elsewhere. These are extremely valuable to the drama student. The
Drama Quarterly, moreover, is especially adapted to the needs of the
student of drama, and should be accessible to him. It aims to criticise
the various books on drama and dramas of special excellence, also
publishing notices of the most recent drama movements in this country
and abroad. It is not used for league propaganda, but was taken over by
The Drama League merely because it was in danger of being abandoned.
Moreover, in Current Opinion and Hearst's Magazine are frequently
printed very valuable portions of unpublished new plays. With every
issue of L'Illustration is published a new French drama in French. It
would be an excellent thing if the larger or better equipped libraries
could excerpt the plays from these magazines and have them sewed up
simply, each complete by itself, and kept with the other dramas. In
this way the library could make an excellent modern drama department
readily accessible to the league members, obtainable in no other way,
and at very slight cost to the library.
A very important way in which the Library Association might help is
one which may not be practical, but which your convention might be
able to work out for us. It is in the nature of loan libraries. As we
introduce our study courses into the small towns we frequently find
no library facilities along our lines. One of our workers made an
investigation of the Drama Department in libraries in small towns of
five to ten thousand inhabitants in the Middle West, and found that
without exception all of those she visited, had only Shakespeare and
Faust, with occasionally a volume of L'Aiglon. It is easy to see how
difficult it will be for clubs and individuals to take up a study of
drama under such conditions. Is there any way in which the large state
libraries can prepare a loan library at very slight cost, made up of
books desired for this special work, which could be borrowed by the
local library for the use of its clubs? Of course, in some states, as
in Wisconsin and New York, and probably many others, this is covered
by the traveling libraries; but there are very many where this is not
so. Cannot the libraries go even farther in their effort to improve
dramatic taste and meet the demand for dramas and books on dramas, a
demand which the Drama League is attempting to create?
Several libraries in various cities, as notably Chicago and Washington,
have opened their rooms for Drama League meetings. Cannot this be done
in other cities? Surely any way in which you, as public institutions,
can increase the interest in good drama, is a part of your proper
function. The league work must go hand in hand with the libraries.
Without you and your resources, your wisdom and your co-operation, we
would be much crippled and sadly curtailed in our possibilities of
achievements. On the other hand, now that the development of a national
taste for better drama is becoming recognized as a necessity in order
to effect any improvement in the conditions of our stage today, now
that we fully recognize that the best way to create a better dramatic
taste is by familiarity with the best in drama, now that we are
working to make the reading of plays popular and wide spread, does it
not become a very important branch of the library's activity to take
every step possible to increase the reading of plays and the thorough
knowledge of dramatic literature on the part of young and old?
The real opportunity is with the children. Here we can create a fine
dramatic taste for the future, and here, too, the library can help.
In your junior corner, can you not have the plays recommended on our
junior list, as suitable for children in order that they may have
them for their play acting? Can you not start a Junior League Drama
Circle to read and act little children's plays, just as you have
your story hour? In this way the library is helping us prepare the
audiences of the future which shall not only support better drama, but
being thoroughly inoculated with an instinctive dramatic taste, will
positively demand worthy drama. So will the libraries and The Drama
League, representing the universities, schools, clubs and individuals
in general have aroused the public conscience to a realization of its
responsibilities for the amusements of the people.
MARJORIE A. BEST (MRS. A. STARR BEST)
President, Drama League of America.
* * * * *
The Macmillan Company, New York, N. Y.,
May 5, 1913.
In reply to your esteemed letter of May 2nd I may say that the matter
which seems to me to be of the greatest interest to publishers, and
possibly also to librarians, at the present time is the dissemination
among the public at large of that correct information in regard to the
ever increasing tide of new books which will enable the public to learn
of really meritorious works which are published, and avoid the trash
which is now being so freely distributed.
Almost the only way at the present time of reaching large numbers of
book readers is through the libraries, and this seems sufficient excuse
for bringing this, which seems to me to be the most important matter,
to your notice and of begging that it may be given publicity among
your fellow librarians in order that we may have suggestions for the
solution of the difficulty.
Yours very truly,
GEORGE P. BRETT,
President.
* * * * *
Brown University, Providence, R. I.,
April 29, 1913.
In reply to your letter of April 21 I can only say that I am not
familiar enough with the conduct of American libraries to make any new
suggestions on the question you propose. I think the plan followed by
the Providence Public Library is the best one to encourage the reading
of the standard works of literature. It has, as you of course know,
a pleasant room, easily accessible, in which attractive editions of
the best authors can be read. Would it be feasible to supplement this
plan by publishing, from time to time, interesting, short descriptions
of standard books, giving prospective readers some notion of the
subject and peculiar attraction of each--somewhat after the manner of
publishers' alluring (or would-be alluring) notices of new books?
Yours sincerely,
W. C. BRONSON.
Northampton, Mass.,
May 16, 1913.
Your letter of the fourteenth, inviting me to contribute to a symposium
of thought concerning library work in America and suggesting the
topic, "What is your conception of the ideal librarian," does me great
honor. But it brings to my mind very clearly my inability to offer
a definition which I could possibly hope would be enlightening or
stimulating to a convention of librarians.
The library work of our present day has expanded into such liberal
bounds and taken on such a missionary, and at the same time scientific,
spirit that one who is merely its beneficiary cannot give himself the
hardihood to offer words of criticism or of counsel. I know no work
which shows such splendid contrasts to what it was when I began life
as does the profession of the public librarian and the professional
conception of the library's mission to the world.
It has been my great joy and honor to bring up a large family whose
members are now separated and busy in the world's work and it gives me
great pleasure to say of them, as of myself, that the modern management
of public libraries has made life worth incalculably more than it could
have been under the limitations of forty years ago.
With every good wish I beg to remain ever
Yours truly,
GEORGE W. CABLE.
* * * * *
Santa Barbara, Cal.,
May 5, 1913.
It gives me great pleasure to attempt a brief answer to the question
you suggest--"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping
to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" I should
be inclined to answer the question decidedly in the affirmative. In
addition to the letters I receive from persons whose only access to
modern fiction is through the public library, concerning my own work,
I have, in the course of political campaigns, and in places in various
parts of the country where I have made another sort of address, held
many conversations with men and women in the audiences. These have
interested me greatly. My own experience corroborates a fact to which I
have heard several librarians attest (and it is to me the most hopeful
phenomenon in our American life), that the American public--mainly
through the libraries--is reading more widely and more intelligently
than those who do not come into direct contact with a large portion
of it guess. Four or five months ago I received a letter from a poor
woman who lives on a farm near one of the larger towns of Massachusetts
giving me a list of the books she had got from the library during
the past year. She had read them all; and they included, in addition
to two good biographies and Royce's "Loyalty," several of the best
recent novels, both English and American, dealing seriously with the
problems of modern life. And finally, the other day when I was in San
Francisco, I had a long conversation with an ex-burglar who had served
a term in the penitentiary, and who has reformed and has been for the
last eight years making an honest living, on the subject of such novels
as you mention. His comments on them were not only interesting but
often valuable. His source was, of course, the public library. Hence,
I am glad of this opportunity to pay my tribute to the librarian, and
to express, as an American citizen, my appreciation of the work he is
doing.
Sincerely yours,
WINSTON CHURCHILL.
* * * * *
Bureau of Education,
Washington, D. C.
April 29, 1913.
The public libraries have no better opportunity for effective service
than that offered through generous and intelligent co-operation with
the public schools and especially with the high schools and the highest
grades of the grammar schools. Ideas and ideals gained through reading
in childhood and youth effect the character more fundamentally and more
permanently, and determine moral conduct for a longer time than ideas
and ideals gained later. It should also be remembered that children
have more time to read than men and women immersed in the strong
current of adult life.
The public library in every city and town should be open on the freest
terms to all school children and they should feel that they have the
heartiest welcome to it. Not only should the teacher encourage children
to use the library; librarians should invite them to do so and make all
possible preparations to serve them. There should be in the libraries a
sufficient number of reading rooms to accommodate children of different
grades. In these should be assistant librarians who know the very best
in literature for children and youth and who know also how to deal with
children and how to make the rooms attractive. It is all important
that the reading rooms and those in charge be attractive, respected,
liked, and loved. It is especially important that children be led to
read those things that have permanent and eternal value. No one should
be permitted to direct the reading of children who thinks it necessary
to have books written down to them or who does not know that the
greatest books are the simplest and the most wholesome. The children's
librarians should also be whole minded and whole hearted people with a
broad and interesting knowledge of the world and life. It will be fatal
if they are narrow, prejudiced, sectarian, or over-provincial.
The public library should have the services of one or more good story
tellers who know the best stories of the world and can tell them in
an interesting way. As often as once a week at least there should be
a separate hour for all the children. The children should, of course,
come in sections--primary, grammar grades, and high school.
In addition to the services rendered as here suggested at the library,
all the children in school or out should have library cards and for
the convenience of the children every school building should be made a
branch library for the use of children at least. I see no reason why
it should not also serve as a branch library for the older people. It
would not cost much to have some one or more teachers at each school
serve as librarians under the direction of the librarian of the central
library. Through the branch library at the school many parents and
other older members of the family could be reached who never can be
reached through the ordinary central and branch library buildings.
Attractive statements about books, especially new books should be sent
to the parents by the children and books might be ordered and returned
through the children. It would not be difficult to induce pupils and
teachers to arrange reading circles and clubs among the adult members
of families living near the school, the books used by the reading
circles to be ordered from and returned to the school branch library.
Teachers and principals would also be willing to arrange for weekly
meetings for the members of these reading circles and clubs, the
meetings to be held at the school. Certificates and diplomas might be
given for the reading of certain groups of books.
The library should own in sets books helpful to teachers and children
in their studies and should, at the request of superintendents and
principals, place sets of these in the several schools for use in
school, but not to be taken out except over night or over Saturdays and
Sundays and holidays.
Libraries should also own large collections of illustrative pictures
and lantern slides. These should be cataloged as books are and lists
of them should be in the hands of school superintendents, supervisors,
principals, and teachers. The pictures and slides should be loaned the
schools freely upon their request. School officers and teachers should
be asked to assist in selecting these and all other collections for the
use of children.
The library should serve in this way not only the schools of the city,
but also the country and village schools in the counties in which they
are located. Through the country schools more good can be accomplished,
frequently, than through the city schools. Country boys and girls
are more eager to read than city boys and girls. They have more time
for it and will read better books. The library should have a direct
relation with every school and every teacher in the county. Of course,
the county should pay for this service, but it should have it whether
it pays for it or not. The city cannot afford to withhold it. The city
depends on the country for its prosperity and life. The children now
in the country will make up a large part of the population of the city
twenty or twenty-five years from now.
In many places the public libraries are doing all these things to some
extent; in no place to as great an extent as is possible. By using to
the best advantage the opportunities here suggested, public libraries
may double their usefulness.
Yours sincerely,
P. P. CLAXTON,
Commissioner.
* * * * *
New York City,
April 4, 1913.
The Negro American is being helped greatly by public libraries wherever
he is given reasonable encouragement to enter them. Often in the North,
he is not made to feel welcome in these libraries and in most of the
public and private libraries of the South, he is rigorously excluded.
It would seem that a statement from the American Library Association to
the effect that the color line in literature is silly, is much needed
at present.
Very sincerely yours,
W. E. B. DU BOIS.
* * * * *
Mayor's Office,
Boston, Mass.
Of course, the financial return for money expended to maintain a public
library cannot be definitely stated, as may be done in connection with
municipal activities which deal solely with material things.
It is impossible to trace along commercial lines the influence upon
the community of an institution whose prime purpose is not profit, is
not even a product that can be expressed in terms of dollars, but is
the enlargement of the individual life, and the promotion of higher
standards of citizenship.
On the lowest and most sordid plane however, an institution like the
Boston public library is worth many times its cost to the city merely
on account of the number of persons from abroad who are attracted to
the building as an example of monumental architecture, or because it
contains exceptional works of art in its mural decorations, or who
visit it as a museum of rare and interesting books. These visitors
number thousands yearly; many of them stay in the city for several
days, and their entertainment and their expenditure of money while they
remain, add to the commercial prosperity of the city.
In somewhat the same way, but on a much higher plane, directly within
the scope of the library function, numbers of students are yearly drawn
to the city by the advantages the library offers for intellectual
research. And the library enhances the importance and value of the
various schools and colleges within our borders, by enlarging their
intellectual resources.
In other directions the value of the library to the community is
evident. The fact that it is here adds something to the value of every
estate in the city. Persons seeking a desirable place of residence
prefer a city or town which has good schools and a well-equipped and
adequately supported library to a place without these institutions,
even if no direct use is made by such persons of either. The influence
of a good library on the general conditions in a community is therefore
a profitable asset.
In assimilating the different elements of a mixed and rapidly growing
population, the work of the library is obvious, and its results far
outweigh their cost. And the increased efficiency of individuals,
which the library promotes, has its effect in inestimable public
benefits. For example, to take a single possible case out of many,
here is a young man without money or influence but who has talent
which, if properly fostered may become the source of power. Through
the opportunities for study given by the public library he perfects
an invention, or writes a poem, or enters a useful profession by means
of which he ministers to the comfort and enjoyment of his fellow-men
and confers honor upon this city. How can one over-estimate the social
value of such lives, or the part which the library has played in their
development? Such instances are by no means few, and unquestionably
they supply an affirmative answer to the question as to whether or not
the library is making an adequate return for its cost.
JOHN F. FITZGERALD.
* * * * *
Chicago, Illinois,
May 10, 1913.
Your question, "Is the fiction circulated by our public library helping
to enlighten people on social and economic problems?" is one which I
can answer promptly and affirmatively. Looking at fiction in the mass,
it is without doubt an enormous educational influence. Leaving out of
view for the moment the historical novel, or the sociologic novel, and
taking merely the local novel, the novel which vividly portrays the
life of a special village, or country, or nation, we find it of the
greatest service in teaching the people of one country, or class, how
the people of other countries and other classes live. Such books bring
the ends of the earth together. They unite the north and the south,
the east and the west, in common sympathy and understanding. They
contribute very largely to the higher patriotism, as well as to the
profounder social brotherhood.
It would be easy to criticise fiction for other and less valuable
content, but speaking generally, I believe it to be second only to the
stage in its power to affect the young student of life and manners.
Very sincerely yours,
HAMLIN GARLAND.
* * * * *
Ithaca, N. Y.,
May 16, 1913.
You ask for comment--as "related particularly with their own special
=interests=" and at the risk of being charged with "talking shop,"
I have been brutally frank. Yet I hope it will cheer these splendid
workers for civilization.
The library is =not= "doing as much as it might to be a true University
to the People." Books alone will not attract the insensitive or
indifferent, nor will handsome buildings. Equal to other necessity
of the library to be "a true university to the people," =is that of
arousing interest, awakening curiosity and alluring into path ways
that lead to books and reading=. I know of nothing better than to have
cheap, popular, illustrated lecture courses that constantly refer to
books and the special theme.
Does the local librarian or do active directors, attempt seriously
to tap the knowledge of the local specialist, professional man, or
public spirited speaker? Do the library people emphasize the necessity
of close, personal contact, as far as possible, with the individuals
and with the people? Libraries must be more human. No machinery, or
salaried personnel, however costly or efficient, within chosen lines
of activity, can do without that same human sympathy, which in other
professions, is known to outweigh in value, all edifices, or the paid
professional corps; yes, even in religion or philanthropy. Not all,
but most libraries--and I have looked in, and at, and around many--are
too self-centered.
Yet with this criticism, honestly called for and as honestly given,
none can appreciate the librarian more than I. To guide youthful
reading, warning as well as advising and alluring them to high flights,
is to make the librarian's calling =second to none= in our complex
civilization.
With all good wishes to the librarians of the United States and Canada.
Sincerely yours,
WILLIAM ELIOT GRIFFIS.
P. S. Every library should have a lecture hall and not be afraid even
of the "fit audience though few."
* * * * *
Clark University,
Worcester, Mass.,
May 17, 1913.
My experience is a long one with university libraries, but I have had
far less to do with public libraries.
The greatest need of the specialist and expert is help in finding all,
and especially the latest, often very scattered, literature on the
special point on which he is conducting his research, and I believe
that in the future every academic library will have a few specialists
with a good knowledge of languages, of Ph. D. rank, who can do just
this. We have one such here, to whom my work owes more than to anybody
else. If I ask her to find me, e. g., all the recent references on a
topic, be it ever so special, including perhaps a score of archives
and special journals, back for three or five years as I may specify,
up to the latest arrival, I get this list, which always includes many
things our library does not have, then take it to the librarian, who
can generally get about everything by borrowing far and near. These,
together with the resources here, are placed upon a table in an alcove
where I can work or take the books home. This makes a perfectly ideal
condition, and it is at the same time indispensable for advanced
special work, and everything in a university library should be plastic
to this end.
A public librarian, it seems to me, should study all the changing
interests in a community or in special parts of it, and be able to
print in the daily press whenever any topic is prominent a little
article telling in a few lines the point of a few books or articles;
e. g. a manual training high school is opened. The daily paper should
state that the library has a good collection of literature up to date
on that subject (if it has), and give a few points from a few of the
best books, naming them. A few titles are not enough.
Another point that interests me greatly is the library story telling.
I think more should be done, not less, in this line for children, and
that books illustrating topics in geography, history, etc., should be
not only laid before teachers but that the classes should meet there
and have the things shown to them. Why does not the public library
go into some of the wonderful illustrative material in the above and
other topics, which is so characteristic of German schools, and of
which American schools know almost nothing? Our educational Museum
here has lately spent thousands of dollars and collected thousands of
these illustrations all the way from wall pictures to bound pictures,
illustrating material from primary grades up into college, which we
loan as we do books to teachers, parents and others. There is a very
great new departure possible here. Why does not your Association look
into this? It has been a great find for us. And about everything in
our large collection and its use, to my mind, might be done by public
libraries although none of them that I know of has done much of
anything along that line. I am
Very truly yours,
G. STANLEY HALL.
* * * * *
The University of Chicago,
Chicago, May 16, 1913.
While I am not at all a specialist in library science and art, I am
daily a debtor to your profession. In answer to the question--"What
rank should the library have in the scale of the community's social
assets?"--I should indicate the following hints of an argument: The
income of every family is increased by the possession and use of a
public library. This item is never found set down in the accounts of a
family as a part of their income, and the students of budgets are too
apt to overlook it; but all communal property, as lake fronts, parks,
playgrounds, public schools, public free libraries and reading rooms,
are so much addition to the enjoyments of all who have the taste and
inclination to use them. As the library contains the very best thoughts
of the greatest men and women of all time, I should say that the public
free library is among the very highest possessions of the people.
When we consider the dangers of idleness or of a depraved use of
leisure, and when we consider the splendid opportunity of spiritual
growth which comes from intelligent and systematic daily use of the
library, we must place this institution among the highest agencies
of social amelioration and progress. Every year sees improvement
in the administration of this noble trust by the professional
custodians and administrators. There is manifest everywhere a spirit
of courtesy, patience and enterprise, which does honor to this branch
of the profession of educators. The librarian and his assistants are
colleagues of instructors in all institutions of every grade, and those
of us who are teaching feel ourselves to be under profound obligations
to our companions in service.
Sincerely yours,
CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON.
* * * * *
Chicago, April 7, 1913.
I have your letter of April 2nd in which you are good enough to ask me
to write a few lines on the topic: "Should the public library exercise
censorship over the books it circulates?"
I suppose there is no question that the good public library should
=have= somewhere in its shelves all books of serious intent, and should
circulate in a restricted and properly guarded way =any= book no matter
what its subject matter. So the question comes down to the propriety
of circulating generally without restriction all sorts of books.
I should hesitate to say that a public library should exercise no
supervision over its circulation, although I myself have suffered from
what I consider unjust and unmerited notoriety--due to the prescient
sensibilities of certain librarians, as you know. But when you will
admit the principle of censorship, the matter is a delicate one, of
course. It would seem to me, for example, unwise to circulate freely
books of medicine. As to fiction--or what publishers call "the general
list" of books, I think an intelligent librarian should hesitate
a long time before putting on his or her =index expurgatorius any
publications= vouched for by the imprint of a =reputable= publishing
firm. For such books have actually passed a severe censorship before
being put out. I realize it is all a personal matter, for what to me
is good red meat may be poison to my brother. I think, for instance,
that such a novel as The Rosary is infinitely more pernicious than
the Kreutzer Sonata, La Terre, or Germinal, but the average librarian
wouldn't. So I am afraid the matter will have to stand just where it
is today--a book will be censored as unfit or unclean according to the
whim of the individual librarian. Presumably the public librarian is
at least abreast of, if not superior in culture and idealism to his
community, and as our communities improve our librarians will become
persons of wider intelligence and culture than they are now in some
cases and exercise their censorial powers with more real discrimination.
Apropos of this matter you may be interested to know that a few months
ago the New York Post in an editorial protest against certain young
American realists and their treatment of sex--instanced Mr. Howells and
myself as examples of "clean American reticent realism!" This, after
all the roar over "Together" is an amusing illustration of growth in
critical opinion. Mr. Howells sent me the editorial but I haven't it
with me.
Truthfully,
ROBERT HERRICK.
P. S. My own views on the proper treatment of sex in fiction will be
briefly touched upon in an article on American fiction to be printed in
the Yale Review before long.
* * * * *
Chicago, May 17, 1913.
You ask me "is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping
to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" That is
a question which a librarian can answer better than any author. In
general, it seems to me, magazine fiction is doing more in that line
than book fiction. Some of the greatest circulations ever attained by
periodicals have been built upon a shrewd knowledge of the American
materialism. One editor voices it:--"Americans are interested about
two-thirds in business, and one-third in love." That editorial policy
has won in this country.
As to social and economic problems, more properly considered, I
don't think fiction is doing much for the people. This really is the
fault of the people, or of human nature, or rather of American human
nature. I think we are one of the most neurotic and hysterical people
in the world, which means that presently we shall be one of the most
swiftly decadent people in the world. For this reason, we have sudden
fashions in fiction. Just now we like to read about "action" of heroic
sort--precisely as we pay to see baseball games instead of playing
baseball ourselves. Also, we are for the time given over to a wave of
erotic fiction, just this side of indecent. At one time we were crazy
over historical fiction, before that, over dialect fiction, before that
over analytical fiction. Therefore, I should say that our book fiction
does not and cannot do much in the way of handling social and economic
problems at the present day. Once in a while, we have a political
novel, machine-made, and like all other political novels. Sometimes, we
get a business novel, in turn like all other business novels. We don't
have really very many thoughtful novels good enough to be called big.
I fancy it would not pay authors to write them, or public libraries to
buy them. We are having a period of business and political sack cloth
and ashes, but, drunk or sober, broke or prosperous, the American
character seems to me annually to grow more hectic and hysterical, and
less inclined to care for big things and good stuff. Part of this is
the fault of our newspapers, but most of it is our own fault. We care
for making money and for little else, and we spend money whether we
have it or not. The public libraries would be the natural agency for
correcting some of these things, but frankly I don't know how they
could do it.
Yours very truly,
EMERSON HOUGH.
* * * * *
New York City.
Why should not the libraries amplify the work they are already doing by
the promotion of the public schools as well as libraries as social and
civic centers? Schoolhouses should be constructed with all equipments
for branch libraries, just as they are now equipped with gymnasiums and
baths. The library should not be an accident in the public school; it
should be an integral part of it. The schoolhouse is the natural place
for the library. To it the children come daily--little messengers who
would secure books from printed slips for their parents, too tired or
too distant from the library to serve themselves. The library should
be the school rest and reading room. It would relieve the tedium of
regular school work. It would lend variety to education; it would
enrich it and beautify it.
In addition, great economy would be effected by converting the
school into a library; there would be a saving in construction,
in maintenance, in operation. The fine social sense of the modern
librarian would have a reaction on education and would lead to other
activities being introduced into the schools.
The American library is the model of the world in many ways. It has led
the movement for the widening of public services to old and young. It
is one of the most inspirational achievements of the American city,
and it could do a substantial service by promoting the social center
idea, which is so actively engaging the minds of people all over the
country.
(Signed) FREDERIC C. HOWE.
New York, N. Y.
April 30, 1913.
In response to your kind invitation to send a brief message on the
subject--"Can public libraries legitimately attempt amusement as well
as instruction of the people?" I would reply to the affirmative.
If literature is an art, and if libraries are to be as they should
be--reservoirs of literature--they surely cannot be complete without
giving an important place to arts' most human appeal, amusement.
The novel, invented to amuse, stands today as the vital force in
literature. Of course, by "amusement" I do not mean a vaudeville.
Shakespeare wrote to amuse; and if he does not offer a popular line
today it is because modern writers are better chosen to amuse our
century. Indeed, if you remove the fiction department--the amusement
section--from your library you reduce it to the plans of a machine--an
admirable machine, perhaps--but without a human soul to drive it.
Sincerely yours,
WALLACE IRWIN.
* * * * *
Carnegie Institution of Washington,
Washington, D. C.,
June 5, 1913.
The specific question which you propound, "What can the library do to
encourage the study of American history?" is one which I suppose must
have very different answers for different sorts of libraries. In the
case of libraries of moderate size in small cities, it has sometimes
appeared to me that the money used in the purchase of books on American
history was too exclusively used in buying the less expensive sort of
books, those in one or two or three volumes, of which it is perfectly
easy to get a considerable number out of each year's appropriations;
while on the other hand, the purchase of certain books of value in
expensive sets was never made, because it could not easily be made in
any one given year. If the purchasing policy were given a somewhat
longer range, extending over several years, one might plan to redress
this inequality. To avoid speaking as if I were recommending any one
long set of Americana for purchase, let me adduce as an instance a
library of forty or fifty thousand volumes with which I am familiar
which has in the past twenty years bought a great many books of
English history, without ever yet having afforded the purchase of the
=Dictionary of National Biography=, obviously because it was too large
a morsel for any one year's budget.
If I were to proceed to make any suggestion for the larger libraries, I
might select for comment the relative lack of co-operation among such
libraries in respect to the pursuit of the more expensive specialties.
It is plain that the interest of students are, in respect to restricted
specialties of this class better served on the whole by their being
able to find relatively complete collections in one place, rather
than scattered fragments of such collections in various places. The
ambition of libraries for possession might well be tempered by some
closer approach to systematic organization of these things, whereby
certain ones should be recognized as belonging plainly in the field of
a certain library without competition on the part of the others. I am
speaking, of course, of things which only a few students are seeking,
and which they must expect to seek by travel, and not of those things
for which there is a separate effective demand in every large city.
May I also suggest the question whether it is not a legitimate use of
the funds of a public library to pay recognized experts, resident in
its city or summoned from elsewhere, to go over the shelves relating
to a particular subject and carefully signalize those gaps which are
almost certain to occur; to name, in other words, any important books
which have been omitted but which are necessary to make the collection
a well-rounded one for the needs of the particular locality as the
librarian sees them. I think also that university and college libraries
are particularly in need of such periodical redress, because professors
are so prone to request books needed for the immediate purposes of
their classes, and to exhaust their appropriations by such requests,
forgetting the need of building up rounded collections for general
purposes; and the librarian, on his part, feels a certain delicacy
about suggesting books for which the professor has evinced no desire,
though often he will agree they were desirable, if their absence were
called to his attention. Believe me
Very truly yours,
J. F. JAMESON.
Hadley, Mass.,
May 20, 1913.
I have your recent letter asking for some brief comment on such phase
of library work as most appeals to me.
At present, in accord with the trend of current thought in other
matters, I am inclined to lay stress on efficiency; and under that head
I would urge that librarians, especially in the smaller places, do much
strenuous and persistent weeding among the books that find their way to
the shelves. Feed the furnace with the books that are no longer useful
in your particular library, or in some other way absolutely dispose of
them.
Much of the fiction, both for grown-ups and young people, should go,
after the first interest in it has waned. Many also of the information
books decline in value with the passing years and should not remain
a permanent incubus. Very few of the government publications are of
practical use in the average library.
We have altogether too much veneration for printed matter. Library
housecleanings to discard the literary rubbish and misfits are a real
need. Quality is decidedly more important than quantity, if you would
have charm and the widest usefulness.
Yours very truly,
CLIFTON JOHNSON.
April 11, 1913.
In response to your kind letter of April 5th, and after refreshing my
mind by consultation with librarian friends, with your kind permission
I may say a word on the theme, "That librarians should sometimes take
account of stock," that they should consider the reasons for their
existence and find out how nearly their present day activities coincide
with the purposes for which they are established.
With one or two notable exceptions public libraries in the United
States are a development of the last quarter of the 19th Century.
Until about 1895, or possibly 1900 the efforts of librarians were
directed toward perfecting methods of administration, cataloging, etc.
Then having arrived at mutual agreement as to forms of procedure they
devoted themselves more and more to library extension. They realized
that only fractions of their respective communities were in touch with
the libraries. In a city of 400,000 inhabitants perhaps 40,000 or 10
per cent would make use of library privileges, and the circulation
of a million volumes per year meant the use of only 2-1/2 books per
year for each inhabitant. Then commenced the era of branch libraries,
deposit stations, libraries in schools, libraries in factories, in
fire-houses; a resort to every possible means to extend usefulness of
the library throughout the whole community. Not satisfied with these
expedients other forms of extension are being adopted. I am told that
"one library publishes a weekly paper heralding the advantages of its
city. It has established a business man's information branch, compiled
an index to the products manufactured within the city, and holds itself
ready to give information as to where the best tennis balls, suit cases
and everything else can be purchased." Undoubtedly this is a public
convenience, but it seems to be getting a little away from original
library purposes. There is a tendency for libraries to so scatter their
energies that they lose sight of the main objects of their being.
They exhibit the same tendency which can be seen in the curricula of
many colleges which offer courses upon every conceivable subject,
the lasting value of which to those who pursue them is certainly
questionable.
Libraries are not exempt from the prevalent tendency of municipal,
state and federal agencies to extend their activities and increase
the burden of taxes. It is safe to say that in many public libraries
the budgets have been more than doubled in the last 15 years. It is
a question whether the real service to the community has gained in
proportion. It is not necessary to make hourly deliveries to downtown
delivery stations of the latest thing in fiction, but it is essential
that the libraries should do their utmost to maintain ideals. The
library which has set apart in a separate room a collection of standard
literature has performed a notable service for its community and
furnished an example worthy of imitation. It is a part of the best work
of the library to assist in perpetuating only that which is worthy of
survival.
Very truly yours,
DAVID STARR JORDAN.
* * * * *
The French Embassy,
Washington, D. C.,
May 8, 1913.
On the question you put me: "Are our libraries helping to make better
citizens of those from over-seas?" I must decline to give an answer. It
would be somewhat bold on the part of one who is not himself a citizen
of this country and whose opportunities have been scant, for studying
such a problem, to express an opinion.
Concerning librarians, as such, I may say that my experience with them,
under many climes and skies, has ever been of the pleasantest. Their
keeping company with the thinkers and writers of all times, spending
their days in those temples where the wisdom, the folly, the dreams,
the beauty of ages is stored for the contemplation or warning of
succeeding generations, gives them, of whatever nationality they be, a
philosophical turn of mind, a benevolent desire to help, a friendliness
to the untutored who want to know more. For me they are the typical men
of good will for whom there will be peace.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
JUSSERAND.
* * * * *
Chicago, May 5.
"Can public libraries legitimately attempt amusement as well as
instruction of the people?" Since you ask me the question, I feel
obliged to answer it in all seriousness. In my opinion the public
library ought not to be turned into a place of amusement. Let us have
this one institution left as a refuge from amusement. The general
desire of the public to be amused has caused it to become almost
impossible for one to go anywhere or see anything without becoming
conscious of the fact that the first and generally the sole purpose
of everything is to amuse. The preachers make their sermons amusing,
the poets make their poems amusing, the artists make their pictures
amusing, the merchants make their shops amusing; one cannot eat in a
public place without being amused. Steamships and railway trains are
operated for the amusement of passengers; every vacant storeroom will
by tomorrow have become a place of amusement and plans are already
being made to convert funerals into amusing affairs. Spare to us the
one place in which we may hope to escape from amusement. Let the public
library remain grand, gloomy and peculiar.
Sincerely yours,
S. E. KISER.
Chicago, April 9, 1913.
In reply to your letter of April 5, 1913, would say--The modern city
library is covering a most desirable field in meeting the needs of a
large element of the public, which looks to it almost exclusively for
information along library and allied lines. A popular library should
be able to supply information on all subjects of a general character
and should not proceed along lines of reference facilities except in a
general way. This ground is covered by private gifts and educational
institutions. The city library should, it seems to me, be constituted
along liberal lines, adapted to entertain as well as instruct. Any
means adapted to stimulate the public desire for the use of its
privileges properly guarded, cannot fail to be of general benefit. Thus
lectures, story telling, art exhibits, and even victrola concerts, loan
of pianola rolls, etc., may serve to induct the mind into the wealth
of knowledge embraced within its wonderful collection of books. The
portals of the city library should be made insidiously alluring, with
the expectation that once within them, the reader will go farther.
Very truly yours,
C. C. KOHLSAAT.
Northampton, Mass.,
June 12, 1913.
To My Fellow Workers in Libraries,
Greetings:
I always feel a little bashful when I go into a strange library as I
sometimes do and happen on a librarian who confronts me with things I
say about librarians in the "Lost Art of Reading." Usually I speak up
quite quickly and say to a librarian, "Oh, but you know I do not mean
YOU!"
But in speaking as I am now to all the librarians there are in the
United States and Canada this seems to be inconvenient.
I am afraid that if there were any nice thoughtful benignant way of
taking each librarian in this great mass meeting, of all the librarians
there are, one side and whispering to him quietly, "Oh, but you know I
do not mean YOU," I would probably do it!
But being driven to it and being faced out this way as I am today, two
or three thousand to one, there seems to be nothing for it but to face
the music and to look you in the eye a minute and say once for all, "I
DO mean you, I mean each of you and all of you," and I accuse you of
not taking immediate, powerful and conclusive steps to convince donors
of libraries and the public of the rights of librarians, of your right
to perform your duties under decent, spiritual conditions as members of
a high and spirited calling, as professional men and women, as artists
and as fellow human beings and not as overworked, under-assisted, weary
servants of books.
The charges against the library donors and managers that I brought
out in my new book "Crowds," more particularly the chapters, "Mr.
Carnegie speaks up," and "Mr. Carnegie tries to make people read," are
charges that are going to be answered most successfully by people who
admit that they are largely true and who will then proceed tomorrow,
before everybody, to turn them into lies. The sooner the librarians
and trustees and public men of this country proceed to make what I
am saying today about public libraries hopelessly ridiculous and
out-of-date, the sooner I will be happy.
If I were to move into a strange community and wanted to be a valuable
citizen in it, the first thing I would do would be to go to the public
library and ask the librarians and their assistants this question, "Who
are the interesting boys in this town?"
If the librarians could tell me I would linger around, and in one way
or another, get acquainted with those boys, follow them up and see what
I could do to connect them with the men with the books, and ideas and
ambitions and opportunities that belong to them.
If the librarians could not give me a list of such boys I would ask
them why.
If they told me that they had not time to attend to such things I would
ask the trustees why.
If the trustees had not selected librarians naturally interested
in boys and books and had not provided such librarians with the
necessary assistants so they would have time and spirit to do such
things I would turn to the people and I would challenge the people to
elect trustees for their library who knew what a library was for.
I sometimes think of the librarian in a town as the Mayor Of What
People Think, and if he does not have time to read books and to love
ideas and inventions in himself and in other people and does not take
time to like boys and get the ideas and boys together, he cannot be in
a town where he lives, a good Mayor Of What People Think.
We shall never have great libraries in the United States until the
typical librarian exalts his calling and takes his place in our modern
life seriously--as the ruler of our civilization, the creator of the
environment of a nation and as the dictator of the motives and ideals
of cities, the discoverer of great men and the champion of the souls of
the people.
I candidly ask you all: What is there that can be done in America in
the way of letting librarians keep on being folks?
One almost wishes that all the members of the library association of
America would write to Andrew Carnegie, snow him under with letters
from the nation, asking him to try the experiment of having at least
one of his libraries in the United States fitted up as elaborately
and as elegantly with librarians as it is with dumb waiters, marble
pillars, book racks and umbrella stands.
When we go into a library--some of us--we want to feel our minds being
gently exposed to cross-fertilization. We may not want librarians to
throw themselves at us--come down plump into our minds the minute we
enter whether or no, but we do want when we come into a library to be
able to find (if we steal around a little), eager, contagious, alluring
librarians who can make people read books and from whom people cannot
get away without reading books. Every library ought to be supplied
with at least one librarian in each department, stuck all over with
books, like burrs, so that nobody can touch him or be near him without
carrying away a book on him that he's got to read and that he will long
to read and will read until somebody drives him to bed!
Faithfully yours,
GERALD STANLEY LEE.
* * * * *
Northampton, Mass.
Greetings and good wishes to the men and women who hold the keys:
I saw in England, last year, a very old library where the books are
chained to the shelves. They have always been chained there; at first
because they were valuable and human nature was weak, and now to
preserve the tradition. But in general, either because the value of
books is less or because human nature is less weak, we trust our public
with its books unchained. The shelves of most libraries, I understand,
are open freely and the loss of books is small--small enough to be
disregarded, you tell me, in relation to the general good.
And not only is the public freely admitted. In Northampton I have seen,
many times, the books put on wheels and traveling out to the public;
they are in a kind of clothes-basket set on a truck with tiny wheels;
and the janitor trundles the truck to the trolley, and the trolley
carries the books to Leeds or Florence or Williamsburg, it may be--I do
not know their destination. I only see them traveling away on wheels.
This is only A-B-C to all of you. Most of you could tell me much more
interesting things that libraries are doing. Some of you have already
seen that it is not enough to put the books on wheels and trundle them
out to the public, but that the public itself must be followed and
captured. You tell me that in the future the library that would be
really up-to-date must catch its readers where it can and chain books
to them.
Presently we shall need wings to follow life and bring it back to
its books. For life moves swiftly; and you who hold the keys and who
are putting books on wheels and sending them out will not stop till
the life in books and the life of the world are come together again.
Presently we shall all work for this. You have freed the books, you
have sent them out, you have reached out to give them to us freely.
Presently you will unlock the books themselves and open the pages;
and the time when a child studied only a few books will belong to the
past; the living use of books will be a part of the life of every child
that is born into the world. Presently we shall all work together for
this--with you who hold the keys.
JENNETTE LEE.
* * * * *
New York, N. Y.,
April 3rd, 1913.
I'd like to do as you request--but I have no facts to contribute. I
feel sure that the public library is doing much to improve dramatic
taste--but I can't adduce any evidence.
Yours truly,
BRANDER MATTHEWS.
* * * * *
Philadelphia, Pa.
The librarian's constant difficulty is now, what shall a library try to
collect, what shall it keep? This has become a grave question. Being
myself book greedy, a gourmand of print, I am a poor judge of what to
reject.
Soon or late the average man, who is presumed to represent common
sense, will ask, "What is the use of these accumulations of books?"
This average man can never consider a library with comment of
imagination. A book is for him a book, whereas for you or me a book is
a saint, a hero, a martyr, a fool, a seraph of light bearing science.
Let us drop him with a word of scorn. We shall not ever understand one
another. Nor would he have the faith in books of that Samonicus who,
for the cure of a tertian fever in the Emperor Gordian, ordered the
fourth book of the Iliad to be applied to the head of the patient.
That has long puzzled me--why the fourth? But Mr. Average awaits a
quotation. A voice out of the splendid day of Elizabeth shall say it:
"Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred of a book; he hath
not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink."
S. WEIR MITCHELL.
The Nation,
New York City,
May 5th, 1913.
I fear you must be charging me with discourtesy for delaying so long my
reply to your letter of April 19th. I have in fact had the intention
of writing to you rather fully on the subject of public libraries and
best sellers, for use in your conference in Kaaterskill. One obligation
after another, however, has kept me from doing this and now I can only
express to you briefly my conviction that the public library ought by
no means to undertake "to supply all the best sellers hot from the
press." It has always seemed to me that the office of any institution
such as the library is as much to direct and restrain public taste as
it is to supply what is demanded.
With regret that I cannot reply at greater length to your flattering
request for my opinion, I am
Very truly yours,
PAUL E. MORE, Editor.
* * * * *
Washington, D. C.,
May 17, 1913.
When your letter came I was, I believe, away from home. At least I
never had an opportunity to answer it until just now, having been
absent a good deal since its date. Although you do not set the time
of the coming conference, I assume that it is not too late to answer
your question and I am writing now simply to acknowledge receipt of
your letter. I will, however, say that I believe that the circulation
of fiction by our public libraries does help to enlighten the people on
all problems whatsoever, for, in the first place, fiction contains many
of the standard novels which certainly have a tendency for good; and
secondly, however trashy novels are, in the main they have an educating
effect.
Yours very truly,
THOMAS NELSON PAGE.
* * * * *
4 Newbury Street, Boston, Mass.,
April 29, 1913.
I cannot better comply with your request (made on behalf of the
American Library Association) than by giving you a leaf from my own
experience of twenty-five years, as President or managing director
of a rural library, which serves the public in a mountain town where
I chiefly reside, and yet is a private institution, receiving no aid
whatever from town or state. And my message is to libraries of small
means and resources, so situated that trained librarians or assistants
are not to be had.
We have by this time about 5,000 volumes, all obtained through gift or
purchase, of which less than half are works of fiction; and the list,
on the whole, includes most standard works. From one benefactor we have
a good stone building, erected last year upon a lot of our own; and by
the time the testamentary provision of another benefactor takes effect
hereafter we shall have an endowment fund ample enough to place our
institution upon a permanent footing of liberal expenditure. Hitherto
our annual income has been small and met by life memberships, special
entertainments and personal gifts, in which summer visitors and the
townspeople combine.
In order that our books should be classified but without too much
effort I introduced, some years ago, the following scheme: A, denotes
works of fiction; B, biography, history, travels, etc.; C, poetry,
essays and miscellaneous; P, periodicals and pamphlets (by bound
volumes or in cases); R, books of reference. Juvenile books under these
respective heads are marked by an added J.
We have no card catalog and find our patrons served more to their
liking, and perhaps more economically, by issuing printed lists,
frequently, which give the author and the title simply; the number,
and letter, as printed, indicating the subject. About 1905 a pamphlet
catalog was brought out which gave our list complete to that date.
Since that time, supplement lists have been printed at convenience;
while the latest books are always posted in the library on written
sheets. When the supplements become sufficiently numerous we expect
to issue a second full pamphlet catalog; and so on. We cannot pay for
expert assistance to keep up a card catalog properly, with our present
means; and what our patrons most want is to have individual printed
lists that they can readily consult.
About 90 per cent of our circulation consists of A or AJ books, but we
try to increase the demand for the B and C books. So, too, the books
most eagerly sought are those last added, but we encourage the reading
of standard authors wherever we may.
Yours very truly,
JAMES SCHOULER.
* * * * *
Indianapolis, Ind.,
April 24, 1913.
"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten
the people on social and economic problems?"
George Meredith, in a letter written in 1884, said:
"I think that all right use of life, and the one secret of life, is
to pave ways for the firmer footing of those who succeed us.... Close
knowledge of our fellows, discernment of the laws of existence, these
lead to great civilization. I have supposed that the novel, exposing
and illustrating the natural history of man, may help us to such
sustaining roadside gifts."
Merely "entertaining" fiction is comparable to vaudeville or to
tight-rope walking; its use may be to amuse the tired laborer
of all sorts; its overuse, however, tends to become a habit and
produce flaccid minds. Save for this, all fiction which depends on
"plot"--always a hash of used meats--or on farcical or melodramatic
"situation," is almost negligible. But on the whole, and because of
this flaccidity, I believe, it would be a good thing if all merely
"entertaining" fiction could be destroyed.
A very small portion of that fiction which is produced by artists
seeking to know and reveal life, deals with economic problems. Except
for the work of a few writers (Mr. H. G. Wells, for instance,--he
includes economic discussions) it concerns itself with social relations
and "the natural history of man." Its circulation must certainly help
to enlighten people upon social problems. Here I must fail you, for
I do not know what type of fiction has the circulation you mean; the
most general circulation, I take it. A novel is helpful as it is a
revelation of truth; it is always harmful when it is written from a
false or assumed point-of-view; it is very likely to be harmful when
it is founded upon shallow observation or a cocksure philosophy. Most
of the fiction produced in our country today is founded upon nothing
except the desire to circulate; therefore it shouldn't!
Very sincerely yours,
BOOTH TARKINGTON.
* * * * *
Elizabeth, N. J.,
May 16, 1913.
The question you ask is not debatable. The public library is among
the foremost aids the American boy has today. As great a help as the
library is the librarian. Much depends upon his personal interest,
enthusiasm, judgment, appreciation of the book and the boy. "The man
behind the book," provides the power.
Librarians undoubtedly are a help not only to the boy, but to the
writer of boy's books. But like all other classes there are librarians
and librarians. Some are efficient, some too theoretical, some
visionary, some without the capacity to understand the normal boy,
and a few are deficient. As far as I have observed, the limitations
of the librarians are not so much in their knowledge of books as in
their understanding of boys. Every profession has its special peril.
The minister may become dogmatic, the judge autocratic. The peril of
the purely bookish man is that of becoming a prig. The pre-conceived
opinion of what a boy ought to be sometimes prevents the discovery
of what he really is. Among some there is a tendency to magnify
the unusual boy at the expense of the normal boy. Such librarians
would confer a benefit if they would discover what has become of the
prodigies of our boyhood.
It is sometimes forgotten that boys must be led into better reading,
not forcibly transplanted. There are steps and stages in this journey
as in every other. A taste for good reading is something to be
cultivated, not forced. A healthy boy has about the same appetite
for observing the ready-made opinions of his superiors that he has
for donning the made-over garments of his ancestors. Many librarians
understand the boy as well as the book. The combination is fruitful,
and divorce here has its own penalty as well as elsewhere. If the
American boy (as in many places he is) can be made to feel that the
librarian as well as the library are for his benefit, a double good
will result.
Cordially,
EVERETT T. TOMLINSON.
* * * * *
Arlington, Mass.,
May 29, 1913.
In reply to the question proposed to me by your Association, "Is the
public library helping the boy to become a useful man?" I reply
emphatically in the affirmative. Of course, the degree of helpfulness
must depend largely upon the library, and still more upon the character
of the boy. To one of low tastes, with no ambition beyond the hour's
indulgence, the finest library will have little meaning; but to one
having a thirst for knowledge, and aspirations for self-improvement,
access to any fairly well chosen collection of books cannot but prove
of inestimable service in stimulating and developing his nobler
qualities. My own early experience convinces me of this. In my
recollections of a backwoods boyhood ("My Own Story," pages 44-46) I
have told something of my indebtedness of a small subscription library,
in which were found the works of a few great writers, among those
Byron, Shakespeare, Plutarch, Cooper, and Scott, and a History of
England, which was the first book I turned to after reading "Ivanhoe."
The world was transformed for me by the poets and romancers that smiled
on me from those obscure shelves. I repeat here what I once wrote of
that golden opportunity of my boyhood. The town has a vastly more
attractive and comprehensive library today; but the value of such an
institution depends, after all, upon what we ourselves bring to it.
The few books that nourish vitally the eager mind are better than
richly furnished alcoves amid which we browse languidly and loiter with
indifference. This is true alike of the boy and the man.
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
* * * * *
Toledo, Ohio,
May 14, 1913.
You ask, "Is the public library a factor in the recent development of a
public conscience?"
I suppose that by the term public conscience you mean that undoubted
quickening of the public sense, shall we say public decency?--which
America has felt in the last ten years, though as yet it has undertaken
no fundamental reforms, and is too apt to degenerate into a mere hue
and cry after some individual whom it would make a scape-goat for the
sins of the people.
Now, in the development of this feeling, or of this public conscience,
it is doubtful whether the public library has been much of a factor.
It depends altogether upon the librarian. There are a few instances,
no doubt, in which the public library has had this effect, and there
are many librarians in the country who, as wise and intelligent men
like yourself, are interested in vital subjects, and therefore able
to interest others in them. By a judicious exposure of books these
subjects are made so inviting and so attractive that the patrons of
the library are led on and on in an ever widening exploration of the
subject. The library does offer to any one who wishes to make inquiry
the opportunity of gratifying his desires, and in this way it no doubt
exercises a considerable influence. There is a profound and tremendous
influence, silent and indirect, from its mere existence, its mere
presence, which must do good in a city, just as in a home in which
there are many books, even though they were never read, there is the
atmosphere of culture. The librarian, however, should be a sort of
teacher, helping the public mind, assisting in the development of the
public conscience, for I fear that the public, if left to themselves,
would rather read the six best sellers, and in the realm of general
ideas engage, to recall a phrase of Henry James "in the exercise of
skipping."
Yours sincerely,
BRAND WHITLOCK.
SECOND GENERAL SESSION
(Tuesday morning, June 24, 1913)
The PRESIDENT: We are to start this morning with the committee reports.
Unless, however, undue objections are made we shall read these by title
and, like the members of Congress, ask leave to print. A number of
them indeed are in printed form and have been distributed and you have
doubtless found them on the chairs as you entered the hall. I may say
that some of these reports are unusually strong in that they represent
the work of a year of very careful thought and investigation by their
members. If you will take the time, either at this conference or after
you get home, to read these reports, you will greatly profit from the
labors of these respective committees. The printed reports comprise
those of the secretary, the treasurer, the trustees of the endowment
fund, the publishing board, the committee on bookbinding, the committee
on bookbuying, the committee on federal and state relations; and
reports have also been received in manuscript, by the secretary, from
the committees on co-operation with the National Education Association,
library administration, library training and work with the blind.
Unless it is requested that any particular one of these reports be read
at this time we shall pass them over and commit them to the secretary
for inclusion in the printed conference proceedings.
The above mentioned reports are here printed in full.
SECRETARY'S REPORT
The third report of the present secretary and the fourth since the
establishment of a headquarters office is here submitted to the
association. The material conditions of headquarters are practically
identical with those reported a year ago; we are still the recipients
of the generosity of the board of directors of the Chicago public
library, the large room furnished free by them being more and more
appreciated as we compare our commodious quarters with those greatly
inferior where a rent is charged which would be prohibitive to the
funds of the A. L. A. For the continued courtesy and unfailing kindness
of the librarian of the Chicago public library and his able staff I
cannot find adequate words. It is unquestionably a decided advantage
for the executive office of the A. L. A. to be in close proximity to a
large reference collection and to a competent corps of library experts.
In these respects we are fortunate not only in the Chicago public
library, but also in the John Crerar and Newberry libraries which so
admirably supplement each other in forming reference facilities of a
high order.
The routine work of the year has much of it so closely resembled in
kind that of last year that the secretary feels it unnecessary to
rehearse it again in detail, but respectfully refers inquiry on this
point to his report at the Ottawa conference. In quantity it is
rapidly increasing; there are more letters to write; there is more
proof to read; more personal calls from librarians and others as the
establishment of the office becomes known; there are more arrangements
to be made for the many-sided interests of the Association. The
Publishing Board's work is likewise increasing, and with the removal of
the Booklist office from Madison to Chicago headquarters, which will be
made in the near future, additional duties will devolve on the general
office, even though that periodical has its own special staff. These
things, however, are as we desire they should be and we are pleased to
see indications that the funds of the Association are going to permit
the enlargement of the work as this is found advisable.
=The Office as an Information Bureau=--In no way is this growth quite
so noticeable as in the increased correspondence through which the
executive office is used as an information bureau on library economy.
For a time after the establishment of the office this correspondence
was naturally almost entirely with librarians. The letters of the
past year, however, have shown that our existence is becoming known
to others. We are being told the problems of the library committees
of women's clubs; of manufacturers who wish to get their workmen
interested in a business library; of business men who are thinking of
establishing such a library; of young men and women who are considering
librarianship as a vocation and do not know the proper steps to take
to get the necessary training and experience; and of publishers and
of booksellers who are referring various matters to our office. These
things in addition to the steady daily stream of correspondence with
librarians in every state of the union. Last year we recorded that our
actual correspondence averaged 67 letters a day for a period covering
several months. It has been considerably greater the past year. This
includes, of course, all correspondence relative to publications,
membership matters, and business routine. Several months ago the
secretary printed 10,000 little leaflets mentioning some of the ways
in which the A. L. A. can assist in library informational lines. About
half of these have been distributed, mainly in channels outside of
regular library work and among those who perhaps had not previously
learned of headquarters and of our publications.
=Membership=--Last year it was the privilege of the secretary to
report that the membership was larger than ever before in the history
of the Association. We are now glad to be able to say that there is
a substantial increase in membership over last year. In January, the
secretary mailed with the annual membership bills an appeal to members
to help again this year as they did last in securing new members.
This appeal has been very effectual; many have been instrumental in
securing one or more new members and the secretary desires here to
thank all those who have so kindly assisted in this campaign. During
the late winter and early spring many personal letters were written
to librarians and library boards asking them to have their libraries
become institutional members of the A. L. A., and many have responded
favorably. Several hundred personal letters were also addressed to
those who had recently, according to the news columns in the library
periodicals, changed their positions, presumably for the better
financially.
When the last handbook was printed, in October, 1912, there were
2,365 members of the A. L. A. Since then to June 1st, 1913, 192 new
individual members and 40 new institutional members have joined, a
total of 232. On the other hand, the association has lost 11 members
by death, 35 have resigned, and judging by the experience of previous
years about 160 members will probably fail this year to renew their
membership and will consequently be dropped from the rolls. It is
likely that enough new members will join at the Kaaterskill Conference
to offset in numbers those whose membership lapses and that the net
membership in the 1913 handbook will probably be about 2,550 or a gain
of about 185 over 1912.
The income from membership dues is in consequence steadily increasing.
For the calendar year 1911 the total amount from this source was
$5,325.46 (including exchange on checks); in 1912, $6,236.18; and for
1913 we hope the total amount will not be far short of $7,000.
=Publicity=--The usual methods to secure as much publicity as possible
have been followed. The library periodicals have, of course, been
kept informed of what the office was doing that would interest the
library public. We have sent news notes from time to time to the Dial,
Nation, New York Times Review of Books, Bookman, Education Review,
American City, and other magazines, and to about 180 of the prominent
newspapers of the country. Several articles regarding the conference
were given to the Associated Press, and to news syndicates. Before the
Ottawa Conference, the Associated Press sent to all their subscribers
a multi-graphed portion of the president's address. The Association
needs more money for this publicity work and more time should be spent
on it than the secretary has been able to spend. Its results at present
are far from satisfactory and we hope that with growth of income a
more systematic publicity department can be organized, perhaps modelled
somewhat after the excellent methods employed by Prof. J. W. Searson,
who conducts the publicity work of the National Education Association.
=Registration for library position=--The executive office has from its
inception been something of a free employment bureau for librarians
and library assistants, who for proper and sufficient reasons desire
to change their positions. This year the work has been somewhat more
systematized by the use of a printed registration blank, which is sent
on request to any member of the association. The questions asked on
this blank are as follows:
Date of this registration.
Name in full.
Address (permanent).
Address (temporary, or until ...).
State fully all schools (above grammar grade) and colleges or
universities you have attended, with period of attendance at
each.
Degrees, when and where obtained.
Have you traveled abroad? When? Where? How long?
Languages you read easily.
Languages you read with assistance of a dictionary.
Library training and experience.
Positions held, with approximate dates; and salary received.
Nature of appointment desired.
Salary expected.
Part of country preferred.
Physical condition.
References.
Forty-two librarians have thus far registered on these blanks and five
or six of these have been helped to new positions. The secretary has
helped in the filling of some fifteen library positions aside from
those using the registration blank.
If, however, the service to those seeking positions, and to those
seeking capable librarians and assistants is to be as important and
far-reaching as we wish to make it, the office must have knowledge of
vacancies as well as of persons wanting positions. Library boards and
librarians are cordially invited to correspond with the secretary when
in need of library workers.
=Library Plans=--During the year a number of valuable additions have
been made to our collection of architects' plans of library buildings.
We want more, particularly good plans of buildings costing from $25,000
to $75,000, as these are most in demand. Will librarians and boards
who have recently acquired new buildings bear our needs in mind? These
plans have from the beginning proved useful, and if a fair number
of the latest type of plans could be added the collection would be
increasingly useful and used.
=Library Pension Systems=--During the year the secretary has been
making efforts to collect information about pension systems in
operation in libraries or plans being made for pensions. No great
progress has been made, due perhaps to the fact that not many libraries
are as yet contemplating a pension system. The secretary will be glad
to receive information from any librarian or board who has not yet
written him on this subject.
=A. L. A. Representatives at State Meetings=--President Legler was the
official representative at the Ohio meeting, Newark, October 21-24;
at the Illinois-Missouri joint meeting, St. Louis, October 24-26; and
South Dakota conference, Mitchell, November 25-27. He also addressed
the Long Island Library Club on the work of the A. L. A. on October
17th.
Mr. T. W. Koch, member of the Executive Board, was the official
representative to the Indiana state meeting, Terre Haute, October 17-19.
Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick, ex-president of the A. L. A., represented the
Association at the North Dakota conference, Mayville, October 1-2;
Minnesota meeting, Faribault, October 2-4; and Iowa meeting at Nevada,
October 8-10.
Secretary Utley represented the A. L. A. at the Illinois-Missouri
meeting, St. Louis, October 24-26; Oklahoma meeting, Muskogee, May
14-15; and was present unofficially at Niagara Falls, "New York library
week," September 23-28. The secretary has also lectured before the
New York state library school, the Training school for children's
librarians of the Pittsburgh Carnegie library, and the University of
Illinois library school.
=Necrology.= The Association has lost by death eleven members since
the conference of a year ago. The list includes an ex-president of the
A. L. A., and one of the most prominent librarians of the country;
a business man who had for years taken a deep interest in library
progress; an eminent churchman who has for many years maintained his
connection with the national association; the librarian of a large
university; the librarian of a well known public library; and several
others who at their several posts have faithfully performed their
duties and rendered their contributions to the work in which they were
engaged.
The list follows:
Clarence W. Ayer, librarian of the Cambridge (Mass.) public library,
died April 12, 1913. He was previously connected with Western Reserve
University, but had been engaged in library work in Massachusetts for a
number of years. He had been a member of the A. L. A. since 1900 (No.
1984) and had attended four conferences.
Dr. John Shaw Billings, director of the New York public library, died
March 11, 1913. Successful as an army surgeon during the war between
the states, he later assumed charge of the Surgeon-General's library
and brought it to recognition as one of the most celebrated medical
libraries in the world, and compiled an index catalog that has taken a
place among the permanent monuments of bibliography. Coming to New York
in 1895, he began the stupendous work of bringing the various libraries
of that city under one great system, releasing funds tied by legal
complications, and superintending the erection of a central building
costing nearly ten millions of dollars. These tasks he lived to
accomplish and they remain as his lasting monument. He was president
of the A. L. A. for the year 1901-02, and presided at its Magnolia
conference. He joined the association in 1881 (No. 404) and attended
six of its conferences. See Public Libraries, 18: 148-9; Library
Journal, 38, 212-14.
Bertha Coit, assistant in the New York public library, died July 22,
1912. She joined the Association in 1904 (No. 3167), and attended the
conferences of 1904 and 1907.
Right Rev. William Croswell Doane, Bishop of Albany, and for many years
vice-chancellor of the University of the State of New York, died May
16, 1913. He joined the A. L. A. in 1893 (No. 1125) and although he
attended none of the conferences had steadily maintained his interest
in library work and retained his membership in the Association.
Jennie S. Irwin, first assistant in the Mt. Vernon (N. Y.) public
library, died Nov. 8, 1912. She joined the Association in 1902 (No.
2437) and attended the conferences of 1906 and 1908.
Walter Kendall Jewett, librarian of the University of Nebraska, since
1906, died March 3, 1913. He was previously librarian of the medical
department of the John Crerar library, and had been notably successful
in his library work. He joined the Association in 1904 (No. 3109) and
attended four conferences.
Charles A. Larson, editor of publications of the Chicago public
library, died August 19, 1912. He had been connected with the Chicago
library for many years and was highly valued. His able work in the
reference department will be long remembered. He joined the Association
in 1901 (No. 2373) and after lapsing membership rejoined in 1910. He
attended the Mackinac conference.
Rev. William Ladd Ropes, librarian-emeritus of the Andover Theological
Seminary, at Andover, Massachusetts, died December 24, 1912. He was
well known to the librarians of an earlier generation. He joined the A.
L. A. in 1877 (No. 106) and attended three A. L. A. conferences, and
the London international conference of 1877.
Charles Carroll Soule, of Boston, long identified with the book
publishing business and interested in library work, died Jan. 7,
1913. He was trustee of the Brookline (Mass.) public library from
1889-1899, member of the A. L. A. Publishing Board from 1890-1908,
second vice-president of the A. L. A. in 1890; and a member of the
Council 1893-96 and 1900-05. Mr. Soule was an expert on library
planning, having written a book, and numerous articles on this subject.
A pamphlet on "Library rooms and buildings" was issued by the A. L. A.
Publishing Board as one of its tracts. He joined the A. L. A. in 1879
(No. 216) and had attended 18 conferences. No librarian was better
known to librarians than this interested layman. See Library Journal,
38:89; Public Libraries, 18:57.
Nelson Taylor, bookseller of New York, of the firm of Baker & Taylor,
died June 26, 1912. He had been a member of the A. L. A. since 1906
(No. 3531).
Bertha S. Wildman, secretary to the librarian of the Carnegie library
of Pittsburgh and a member of the faculty of the Training school for
children's librarians, died February 19, 1913. She was a graduate of
Pratt Institute library school and previous to her connection with the
Pittsburgh library had been the organizer and first librarian of the
Madison (N. J.) public library. She joined the A. L. A. in 1900 (No.
1945) and attended four conferences.
GEORGE B. UTLEY,
Secretary.
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
REPORT OF THE TREASURER, January 1--May 31, 1913
=Receipts=
Balance, Union Trust Company, Chicago, Jan. 1, 1913 $3,395.29
G. B. Utley, Secretary, Headquarters collections 4,555.41
Trustees Endowment Fund, interest 350.00
Trustees Carnegie Fund, interest 2,509.90
A. L. A. Publishing Board, Installment on Hdqrs. expense 1,000.00
Estate of J. L. Whitney 104.34
Interest, January--May, 1913 28.92 $11,943.86
-------- ----------
=Expenditures=
Checks No. 40-44 (Vouchers No. 615-690 incl.) $3,379.74
Distributed as follows:
Bulletin $ 246.06
Conference 20.70
Committees 23.50
Headquarters:
Salaries 2,125.00
Additional services 213.30
Supplies 177.91
Miscellaneous 155.45
Postage 78.48
Travel 85.00
Trustees Endowment Fund (Life Mem.) 150.00
C. B. Roden, Treas. (J. L. Whitney Fund) 104.34
A. L. A. Publishing Board, Carnegie Fund interest 2,509.90 5,889.64
-------- --------
Balance Union Trust Co $6,054.22
G. B. Utley, Balance, National Bank of Republic 250.00
---------
$6,304.22
James L. Whitney Fund
Feb. 4, 1913, Principal (Union Trust Co. of Chicago, savings acct.) $104.34
Respectfully submitted,
C. B. RODEN, Treasurer.
Chicago, June 1, 1913.
REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE
To the American Library Association: Ladies and Gentlemen:--
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 $21,915.00, 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 of any excess of sales
over the amount estimated.
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 checked the
securities now in the custody of the trustees, and certifies that their
figures in regard to the securities on hand are correct. He finds that
at par value the bonds and other securities amount to $102,500.00
for the Carnegie fund, and $7,000.00 for the principal account. He
certifies that to the best of his knowledge and belief the accounts
submitted are correct.
All of which is respectively submitted for the committee.
CLEMENT W. ANDREWS,
Chairman.
With the completion of the ninth volume of the A. L. A. Booklist Miss
Elva L. Bascom severs her connection as editor and as head of the
editorial department of the Publishing Board. For five years Miss
Bascom has carried on this work with signal ability and with devoted
industry, and it is with sincere regret that the members of the Board
have accepted her resignation. During this period of editorial activity
Miss Bascom has maintained the excellent standards established by
her predecessors, Miss Caroline Garland and Mrs. Katharine MacDonald
Jones, and has given to the publication a standard of judgment in
selection and critical appreciation that has made the A. L. A. Booklist
invaluable to thousands of librarians and as many library trustees in
the selection of current books for their respective institutions. The
A. L. A. Booklist is everywhere recognized as a publication wholly
untrammeled by commercial consideration in the listing of books and the
recommendation which these are given.
Miss May Massee has been elected as Miss Bascom's successor and will
enter upon the work early in August. Her experience as a member of the
staff of the Buffalo public library and her training prior thereto
commends her for the position.
Concerning the A. L. A. Booklist there are no new facts to report,
comments noted in previous reports being applicable as well at this
time. While renewed representations have come to the members of the
Board, suggesting a change of size, form, and character, and the
arguments in behalf thereof have been given due weight, it has not
seemed wise to alter the policy which has been continued for a period
of nine years.
With the beginning of the new volume the place of publication and
therewith the editorial headquarters will be transferred from Madison,
Wis., to Chicago. By consolidating the editorial headquarters of
the Publishing Board with the headquarters of the American Library
Association both will be materially strengthened and some financial
economies can be affected.
=Periodical Cards=--The Board received word last fall from the Library
Bureau that they would have to advance prices for the printing of the
analytical periodical cards. The matter was placed in the hands of a
committee, and after some negotiation, unexpectedly prolonged by the
illness of the representative of the Library Bureau, a rearrangement
of the work was made which will enable the Board to continue the
service to the present subscribers without change in prices. This has
been accomplished by giving an order for sixty-five copies of all
titles and thirty-five additional titles of the periodicals most in
demand. Hereafter, subscriptions must be made either to the full set of
approximately 2500 titles, or to the limited set of 200. A revision of
the list is now in progress.
Concerning the periodicals issued during the past year Mr. William
Stetson Merrill has submitted the following report as editor:
The sixteen shipments of A. L. A. periodical cards prepared and sent
out during the year ending May 31, 1913 have comprised those numbered
284 to 299, which were received by subscribers June 18, 1912 to May 14,
1913. These shipments have included 3459 new titles and 136 reprints,
making a total of 3595 titles. The time of preparation has been reduced
from thirteen to ten and a half weeks.[2]
[2] By "time of preparation" is here meant the interval between the
receipt of copy, and receipt of cards by the subscribers.
In February of the present year the editor took occasion to check up
the work currently done, with the titles of periodicals given in the
printed list as indexed by the Publishing Board. It was then discovered
that in the case of thirty-five periodicals no titles had been
indexed during intervals ranging from two to five years to date. These
facts were brought to the attention of the collaborating libraries,
which later reported upon these arrears as follows: Periodicals for
which no issues later than those indexed had been received by the
library, 12; discontinued, 3; now indexed by the Library of Congress,
2; overlooked or indexing postponed by the library, 10; dropped, 2;
record card wrong, 1; no indexer, 5. The collaborating libraries at
once took up the work of bringing their indexing up to date and at the
time of writing only three current periodicals are not indexed to date,
with the exception of those for which there is at present no indexer.
The preparation of the distribution and charges sheets has been in the
hands of Mrs. S. L. Hitz and Miss Jane Burt under the supervision of
the editor, who has also attended to all the correspondence connected
with the card work.
=New Publications=--New publications since the last report was
submitted include the following:
Aids in library work with foreigners, compiled by Marguerite
Reid and John G. Moulton. (2000 copies).
How to choose editions, by William E. Foster. (Handbook 8)
(2500 copies).
Buying list of books for small libraries, compiled by Zaidee
Brown,--new edition revised by Caroline Webster. (1000 copies).
List of economical editions, by Le Roy Jeffers. (2nd edition).
Revised. (1000 copies).
Periodicals for the small library, by Frank K. Walter. (3000
copies).
A. L. A. Manual of library economy, 5 new chapters.
Chap. V. Proprietary and subscription libraries, by Charles
Knowles Bolton. (1000 copies).
Chap. X. The library building, by W. R. Eastman. (2000
copies).
Chap. XIII. Training for librarianship, by Mary W. Plummer.
(2000 copies).
Chap. XXVII. Commissions, state aid and state agencies, by
Asa Wynkoop. (In press).
Chap. XXXII. Library printing, by Frank K. Walter. (1500
copies).
A normal library budget and its items of expense, by O. R.
Howard Thomson. (Handbook 8.) (1500 copies).
Index to library reports, by Katharine T. Moody. (1000 copies).
List of Polish books, compiled by Mrs. Jozefa Kudlicka.
(Foreign Booklist 6). (1000 copies).
=Forthcoming Publications=--How to start a public library, by G. E.
Wire, M. D. Second and revised edition. (Tract 2).
Graded list of stories for reading aloud, by Harriot E. Hassler;
revised by Carrie E. Scott.
=Reprints=--During the past year the following publications have been
reprinted:
Guide to reference books, by Alice B. Kroeger. (1000 copies).
Cutter's Notes from the art section of a library. (Tract 5).
(1000 copies).
Catalog rules, compiled by committees of the American Library
Association and the Library Association (of the United
Kingdom). 1908 edition (1000 copies).
Essentials in library administration, compiled by Miss L. E.
Stearns. (2nd edition). (Handbook 1). (2000 copies). Revised.
Mending and repair of books, by Margaret W. Brown. (Handbook
6). (1000 copies).
U. S. Government documents in small libraries, by J. I. Wyer,
Jr. (3rd edition). (Handbook 7). (1000 copies).
=A. L. A. Catalog=--The success of the A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11,
has been greater in point of sales than the most sanguine of us had
expected, 3471 copies having been sold since its publication a year
ago. There is still a reasonably steady demand, 321 copies having
been sold during the first five months of 1913. The book has been
more extensively advertised than any of the Board's other recent
publications, special efforts having been made to make it known to
high schools, college professors and book lovers generally, but the
sales have, nevertheless, been largely confined to libraries, library
commissions and library schools.
=Manual of Library Economy=--Fourteen chapters of the Manual have thus
far been printed, each as a separate pamphlet, and one is now in press.
The list is as follows:
1. American library history, by C. K. Bolton.
2. The Library of Congress, by W. W. Bishop.
4. The college and university library, by J. I. Wyer, Jr.
5. Proprietary and subscription libraries, by C. K. Bolton.
9. Library legislation, by W. F. Yust.
10. The library building, by W. R. Eastman.
12. Administration of a public library, by A. E. Bostwick.
13. Training for librarianship, by Mary W. Plummer.
15. Branch libraries and other distributing agencies, by Linda A.
Eastman.
17. Order and accession department, by F. F. Hopper.
20. Shelf department, by Josephine A. Rathbone.
22. Reference department, by E. C. Richardson.
26. Bookbinding, by A. L. Bailey.
27. Commissions, state aid and state agencies, by Asa Wynkoop. In press.
32. Library printing, by F. K. Walter.
The chairman of the Committee the manual, J. I. Wyer, Jr., reports that
seven other chapters are known to be in an advanced state and may be
expected soon.
=Advertising=--The Board's publications have as usual been advertised
in Library Journal and Public Libraries and in one or two special
numbers of the Dial. Review copies of publications are sent to library
periodicals and a number of other papers and magazines, such as the
Bookman, American City, Nation, Dial, New York Times Review, Chicago
Post (Friday review), Springfield Republican, Boston Transcript, etc.
Our best returns, however, continue to come from direct circularization
of libraries, library commissions and library schools, about 11,000
pieces of mail advertising our publications having been sent out since
the last conference.
No new large publication has appeared since the A. L. A. Catalog,
1904-11, was published a year ago. Although thirteen new publications
have been printed and two more are forthcoming they are all, with one
exception, small in size and with price ranging from ten to twenty-five
cents a copy. Consequently the amounts from sales are but small in the
aggregate. Would it not be well for the Board to endeavor to put forth
at least one publication each year which shall be of sufficient size,
usefulness and importance to make it rank as the "opus major" of the
year? There are surely subjects enough within our scope that can be
handled to the advantage of the libraries and the profit of the Board.
=Foreign lists=--The Board has not felt greatly encouraged to undertake
the publication of lists of foreign books because of the unfortunate
financial experience with those already issued, only one of the five
having paid for itself. This spring, however, when the manuscript of
the long-expected Polish list was received a new policy was adopted.
The secretary circularized those libraries whom he thought would be
interested in this list, stating that the publication of the list
depended upon the receipt of a sufficient number of subscriptions,
requesting those libraries who were able and disposed to do so, to
subscribe for at least four copies at 25 cents each. By this means
enough subscriptions were readily secured and the Polish list has been
printed. If libraries are willing to subsidize the publication of these
lists, or putting it another way, to pay for several copies more
than they perhaps need, other lists can be undertaken, and the Board
will welcome suggestions as to what languages should be taken up. It
has been suggested that a Yiddish list would be useful, also Italian,
Lithuanian, Finnish and Spanish lists.
HENRY E. LEGLER, Chairman.
FINANCIAL REPORT
=Cash Receipts June 1, 1912, to May 31, 1913.=
Balance, June 1, 1912 $ 1,168.46
Interest on Carnegie Fund 6,084.90
Receipts from publications:
Cash sales $3,354.68
Payments on account 9,936.85 13,291.53
Interest on bank deposits 17.36
Sundries 1.56 $20,563.81
--------- ----------
=Payments, June 1, 1912, to May 31, 1913.=
Cost of publications:
A. L. A. Booklist $1,671.40
A. L. A. Bulletin reprints 52.57
A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11 3,613.43
Aids in library work with foreigners 38.50
Buying list of books for a small library 40.00
Catalog rules 193.19
Essentials in library administration 242.99
Government documents in small libraries 25.50
How to choose editions .... 70.00
List of economical editions 111.80
Manual of library economy, Chaps. 5, 10, 13 148.60
Mending and repair of books 22.50
N. E. A. Reprint (Bostwick's article) 14.50
Periodicals for the small library 93.80
Periodical cards 2,038.44 $8,377.22
Addressograph supplies 21.47
Typewriter 37.50
Advertising 177.40
Postage and express 1,089.01
Rent, Madison office 300.00
Travel 189.72
Salaries 2,658.77
Elva L. Bascom, editing A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11 300.00
Katharine T. Moody, editing Index to Library reports 300.00
Expense, headquarters (1912--$2,000; 1913--a/c $1,000) 3,000.00
Supplies and incidentals 1,009.61
Printing 15.25
Royalty on Guide to reference books 279.78
Contingencies 40.81
Balance on hand, May 31, 1913 2,767.27 $20,563.81
SALES OF A. L. A. PUBLISHING BOARD PUBLICATIONS.
April 1, 1912, to March 31, 1913.
A. L. A. Booklist, regular subscriptions 1385 $1,385.00
Additional subs. at reduced rate of 50c 187 93.50
Bulk subscriptions 853.20
Extra copies 1110 159.10 $2,490.80
Handbook 1, Essentials in library administration 617 124.47
Handbook 2, Cataloging for small libraries 602 105.04
Handbook 3, Management of traveling libraries 42 6.13
Handbook 4, Aids in book selection (out of print)
Handbook 5, Binding for small libraries 279 39.40
Handbook 6, Mending and repair of books 395 61.02
Handbook 7, Government documents in small libraries 528 72.35
Handbook 8, How to choose editions 1561 97.39 505.80
Tract 2, How to start a library 38 1.90
Tract 3, Traveling libraries (out of print)
Tract 5, Notes from the art section of a library 359 17.93
Tract 8, A village library 89 4.42
Tract 9, Library school training 87 4.32
Tract 10, Why do we need a public library 245 10.71 39.28
Foreign Lists, French 54 13.32
Foreign Lists, French fiction 38 1.90
Foreign Lists, German 45 22.00
Foreign Lists, Hungarian 17 2.48
Foreign Lists, Norwegian and Danish 29 7.11
Foreign Lists, Swedish 35 8.61 55.42
Reprints, Arbor day list 24 1.20
Reprints, Bird books 10 .99
Reprints, Bostwick, Public library and public school 20 1.00
Reprints, Cataloging in legislative reference work 54 2.89
Reprints, Christmas Bulletin 14 .70
Reprints, Efficiency of L. Staff and scientific
management 127 1.80
Reprints, National library problem of today 13 .65
Reprints, Rational library work with children 73 3.60
Reprints, Relation of P. L. to municipality 1183 25.90
Reprints, Traveling libraries as a first step 26 1.30 40.03
Periodical cards, Subscriptions 1,868.63
Periodical cards, Old South Leaflets v. 14 6.30
Periodical cards, Reed's Modern Eloquence sets 5 12.50 1,887.43
League Publications:
Aids in library work with foreigners 630 44.73
Directions for librarian of a small library 712 22.05
Graded list of stories for reading aloud 87 8.42
Library and social movement 172 6.59
Buying list of books for small library 385 28.47 110.26
A. L. A. Manual of library economy:
Chap. I. American library history 228 16.16
Chap. II. Library of Congress 162 12.59
Chap. IV. College and university library 178 14.19
Chap. V. Proprietary and subscription
libraries 264 23.62
Chap. IX. Library legislation 198 15.86
Chap. X. The library building 381 31.02
Chap. XII. Administration of a public library 202 16.34
Chap. XIII. Training for librarianship 246 23.85
Chap. XV. Branch libraries 225 15.82
Chap. XVII. Order and accession department 346 27.84
Chap. XX. Shelf department 285 21.70
Chap. XXII. Reference department 229 19.23
Chap. XXVI. Bookbinding 342 27.36 $265.58
A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11 3471 4,107.25
A. L. A. Index to general literature 25 143.40
Catalog rules 547 298.32
Girls and women and their clubs 34 2.65
Guide to reference books 565 774.83
Guide to reference books, Supplement 528 124.63
Hints to small libraries 130 84.95
Index to library reports (advance orders) 41 38.70
Library buildings 172 16.57
List of editions selected for economy in bookbuying 94 22.43
List of economical editions, (2nd edition) 164 38.41
List of music and books about music 50 12.24
List of subject headings, (3rd edition) 819 1,902.55
List of 550 children's books 199 29.44
Literature of American history 25 135.00
Literature of American history, Supplements 71 9.69
Periodicals for the small library 98 9.40
Plans for small library buildings 97 116.72
Reading for the young 11 8.11
Reading for the young, Supplement 15 3.71
Subject Index to A. L. A. Booklist 162 23.01
Subject Index to A. L. A. Booklist, Supplement 224 12.40
A. L. A. Bulletin 271 84.00
Library statistics--Bulletin reprint 25 1.18 8,029.59
---- --------- ---------
Total sale of publications $13,424.19
REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE CARNEGIE AND ENDOWMENT FUNDS
To the President and Members of the American Library Association:
The Trustees of the Endowment Fund of the American Library Association
beg leave to submit the following statement of the accounts of their
trust--the Carnegie and General Funds--for the fiscal year ending
January 15, 1913.
There has been no change in the investments, and all interest has been
promptly paid. The Trustees are pleased to call attention to the credit
to the General Endowment Fund of nine life memberships, and would
recommend that more of such memberships be taken as they are about the
only source of addition to that Fund.
On January 31, 1913, the usual audit of the investments and accounts
of the trust was made by Mr. E. H. Anderson, of the New York public
library at the request of the chairman of the Finance committee of
the Association. As evidence of the audit, Mr. Anderson furnished the
Trustees with the following copy of his report made to the Finance
committee:
Feb. 1, 1913.
My dear Mr. Andrews:
Yesterday, January 31st, I went to the vaults of the Union Trust
Company at Fifth avenue and Thirty-eighth street, this city, and
with Mr. Appleton and Mr. Kimball, trustees of the endowment fund of
the American Library Association, checked up the bonds now in their
custody. I enclose herewith their typewritten statement concerning the
funds in their hands, and I certify to the correctness of the figures
as to the bonds on hand. These I have checked in black ink after a
personal count of them at the vaults aforesaid. At their par value they
amount to $102,500 for the Carnegie Fund, and $7,000 for the general
endowment fund.
I have not examined the bank book of the trustees nor the vouchers
for the amounts transmitted to Mr. Roden, the treasurer. Mr. Roden's
records should verify the amounts transmitted to the treasurer. If you
think it worth while I can examine the bank book of the trustees, but
personally I do not think it necessary. If you feel that it should be
done, however, return the enclosed typewritten statement for comparison
with the bank book. Mr. Roden will also be able to check the receipts
for life members. I think Mr. Appleton said that two more had been
received since January 15th.
I hereby certify that to the best of my knowledge and belief all of the
accounts on the typewritten sheets enclosed herewith are correct.
Very sincerely yours,
(Signed) E. H. ANDERSON.
Respectfully submitted,
W. W. APPLETON,
W. C. KIMBALL,
W. T. PORTER,
Trustees Endowment Fund A. L. A.
May 1, 1913.
CARNEGIE FUND, PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT
Cash donated by Mr. Andrew Carnegie $100,000.00
=Invested as follows:=
June 1, 1908 5,000 4% Amer. Tel. & Tel. 96-1/2 $ 4,825.00
Bonds
June 1, 1908 10,000 4% Amer. Tel. & Tel. 94-3/8 9,437.50
Bonds
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.
(Lake Shore Col.) 90 13,500.00
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, 1913 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
=1912=
January 15, Balance $1,524.33
February 6, Int. N. Y. Central 262.50
May 1, Int. U. S. Steel 437.50
May 10, Int. Cleveland Terminal 300.00
May 31, Int. Mo. Pacific 375.00
May 31, Int. Seaboard Air Line 200.00
July 2, Int. Amer. Tel. & Tel. 300.00
July 2, Int. Western Un. Tel. 375.00
August 8, Int. N. Y. Central 262.50
September 3, Int. Seaboard Air Line 200.00
September 3, Int. Mo. Pacific 375.00
November 1, Int. U. S. Steel 437.50
November 1, Int. Cleveland Terminal 300.00
December 31, Int. Union Trust 39.90
=1913=
January 2, Int. Western Un. Tel. 375.00
January 15, 1913 Cash on hand 934.90 $6,064.23
------- ---------
=Disbursements:=
=1912=
January 24, Carl B. Roden, Treas. $1,524.33
June 4, Carl B. Roden, Treas. 1,575.00
September 18, Carl B. Roden, Treas. 500.00
October 28, Rent Safe Deposit Co. 30.00
November 18, Carl B. Roden, Treas. 1,500.00
January 15, 1913, Cash on hand 934.90 $6,064.23
--------- ---------
ENDOWMENT FUND, PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT
=1912=
January 15, On hand, Bonds and Cash $7,286.84
February 28, Life membership, C. N. Baxter 25.00
March 28, Life membership, L. A. McNeil 25.00
March 28, Life membership, A. B. Smith 25.00
May 4, Life membership, H. L. Leupp 25.00
May 28, Life membership, W. M. Smith 25.00
May 28, Life membership, L. E. Taylor 25.00
July 2, Life membership, E. P. Sohier 25.00
September 18, Life membership, M. R. Cochran 25.00
November 1, Life membership, S. C. Fairchild 25.00
$7,511.84
------ ---------
=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, 1913 Cash on hand, 541.84 $7,511.84
Union Trust Co. --------- ---------
ENDOWMENT FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT
=1912=
January 15, Cash on hand $175.00
May 1, Int. U. S. Steel 175.00
November 1, Int. U. S. Steel 175.00 $525.00
------- -------
=Disbursements:=
=1912=
January 24, Carl B. Roden, Treas. $175.00
June 4, Carl B. Roden, Treas. 175.00
January 15, 1913 Cash on hand 175.00 $525.00
------- --------
BOOKBINDING COMMITTEE
In last year's report it was stated that a special collection, showing
the kind of work done by library binders, had been started by this
committee. During the past year this collection has been materially
increased by samples submitted by different binders; it now includes
work from 34 binders covering the entire country from the Atlantic
ocean to the Pacific. The collection was formed so that when librarians
write to ask about the work of specific binders, the work itself can be
examined and intelligent answers given.
Notices of the collection were printed in the various library
periodicals and a certain numbers of requests for information have been
received; a smaller number than the committee hoped for, but sufficient
to warrant keeping the collection up-to-date.
In view of certain criticisms of this collection, it may be well to
state that it is not the purpose to print criticisms of the work
of different binders, or to grade them in any way. When asked for
information the committee will not compare the work of one binder with
another, neither will librarians be advised to desert one binder and
employ another. All that will be done will be to send suggestions as
to ways in which the work of the binder in question can be improved.
In order to do this the work of the binder must be available for
examination. The committee fails to see how any binder can take offense
at this method, or claim that other binders are being officially
recognized by the A. L. A.
The announcement of the publishers of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
that they were about to issue a Yearbook which would be printed only
on India paper called forth a protest from this committee against
the use of thin paper--a protest which had no effect whatever until
letters protesting against its use had been sent to the publishers by
50 librarians of the larger libraries. Even then the sole concession
that the publishers made was to agree to bind 750 copies on ordinary
paper, provided that we could guarantee a sale of that number. For
this reason the committee asks that those who wish to purchase a thick
paper edition of the Yearbook register their orders with the committee.
If the total number by July 1st amounts to 750 copies, the publishers
will be notified to that effect. Many librarians have refused to buy
the India paper edition, and it is evident that if all librarians would
refuse to get it, the publishers would realize that the demands of
librarians in this respect should be heeded.
There have been comparatively few reference books published or
announced during the year which the committee felt would need to be
bound especially for library use. It was thought advisable, however,
to submit our specifications for binding the new editions of the
Standard Dictionary and Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography.
The publishers of the Standard Dictionary adopted practically all of
the specifications and the publishers of the Cyclopaedia of American
Biography now have them under consideration.
In this connection it is worthy of notice that the publishers of
reference books are not only giving studied attention to binding
processes, but they also realize more fully than they did a few
years ago the necessity of using leather which is free-from-acid.
Until within the last two or three years it has been difficult to
get leathers tanned according to the specifications of the Society
of Arts. Recently, however, several firms in this country have begun
to specialize in leathers free-from-acid; and in addition to this,
the Government Printing Office insists on having a certain amount of
such leather and calls for it in its proposals for bids. These are
encouraging signs that in the future we may hope to get leather which
will not disintegrate so rapidly as that which we have been obliged to
use for many years past.
With assured standards of book cloths and leathers, which
manufacturers, publishers, binders and librarians each year are
recognizing more and more as vital to the proper construction
of a serviceable book, there remains only paper to be carefully
standardized. Some efforts are being made by private companies and by
the government to discover which papers are best for certain uses, but
at present the librarian at least knows little of the subject and is
practically at the mercy of the publisher.
ARTHUR L. BAILEY,
ROSE G. MURRAY,
J. RITCHIE PATTERSON.
COMMITTEE ON BOOKBUYING
At the Ottawa meeting of the American Library Association this
committee reported simply progress, without giving details of its work
during the past year, but it had submitted the following report to the
Executive Board, which we now submit to the Association at large, and
follow it up with a further report of the action of your committee
during the past year.
To the Executive Board of the American Library Association.
The A. L. A. Committee on bookbuying met with a committee from the
American Booksellers' Association in Cleveland on May 13, 1912 for
the purpose of discussing book prices and discounts to libraries. As
it was found impossible to come to any satisfactory understanding
before the annual meeting of the associations, it was decided to make
only a report of progress. It was, however, further agreed that a
more detailed report should be made to the Executive Boards of the
associations to ascertain if the Executive Boards deemed it wise that
the discussion should be continued.
The Booksellers' Association at its annual convention held in New York
in May has accepted the report of progress, and has reappointed its
committee.
During the year 1910-11 your committee had much correspondence with the
officers of the American Booksellers' Association, with the librarians
and with the booksellers throughout the country on questions of the
upward tendency of book prices and the efforts which were being made to
decrease the discounts to libraries.
At a meeting of the American Booksellers' Association held in May,
1911, a committee on "Relations with libraries" was appointed to
take up the matter with the committee of the A. L. A. Shortly after
this committee was appointed, your committee asked that a time be
set for a meeting. As the chairman of the Booksellers' committee was
abroad, the matter was postponed until September. In September the
A. L. A. committee was asked to prepare a statement and submit it
to the committee of the American Booksellers' Association, to which
they agreed to make a reply, the two papers to form the basis for a
discussion at a meeting to be held as soon as the Booksellers' reply
had been prepared. We submitted the statement requested in October,
1911. Although repeated requests for a reply were made, we did not
succeed in getting a copy until March, 1912, and notwithstanding
repeated requests for a meeting to discuss the matter, none was held
until May 13, 1912, on the eve of the annual conference of the American
Booksellers' Association.
We attach a copy of the statement made by your committee and the reply
by the committee of the American Booksellers' Association. The attitude
of the members of the committee of the Booksellers' Association at
the meeting referred to did not differ from that taken in the reply
excepting that they were willing to modify the expressions in the
reply to a considerable degree. It urged that special attention should
be given to the tables of business loss and profit, which had been
prepared in the book store of Brentano's. In connection with these
figures the net books should be most considered so far as the new books
are concerned. At the present rate of increase of books so issued it
will be but a short time before all books are so published.
Your committee was asked to admit that it was morally wrong to demand
that the booksellers should do business at any such profits, or loss,
shown by these figures. Your committee did not feel that it was
justified in taking that position, nor would it be even if it were more
certain of the accuracy and fairness of the figures.
Without doubt there is much that is wrongfully asked or required of the
booksellers by some of the library people, which must of necessity add
materially to the cost of doing business, but this, we believe, should
be paid for by those asking the special favors, and should not be
covered by a regular charge upon all library business. There was much
to be said in favor of the booksellers' increase of prices if it needs
to cover such expenses.
On the other hand, it is thought that the bookseller is not justified
in all of the increases which have been made in the prices of books to
libraries; as, for example, the discounts now allowed to libraries from
prices of the net fiction and net juveniles.
It is believed that, with the right spirit of coöperation, there are
certain changes that might be made which would help the bookseller, as
well as the librarian. If what we understand to be the present attitude
of the booksellers remains unchanged, if they are unable to give as
well as to take, your committee feels as though the discussion might
as well come to an end. We believe that there exists considerable
difference of opinion among booksellers as to the justice of the terms
now being offered to libraries as large buyers of books.
It will be a matter of great regret if there cannot be established
most cordial relations between the libraries and the Booksellers'
Association. At the same time, we do not think that the A. L. A. should
establish such relations upon terms made wholly for the benefit of the
booksellers.
We think that the Executive Board should know the present condition of
the negotiations, so that it might, if it sees fit, instruct its future
committee.
(Signed)
WALTER L. BROWN,
CARL B. RODEN,
CHARLES H. BROWN.
Committee on Bookbuying.
Statement Made by the Committee on Bookbuying of the American Library
Association to the Committee on Relations with Libraries of the
American Booksellers' Association.
October, 1911.
To the Committee on Relations with Libraries, American Booksellers'
Association.
Gentlemen:
We send you herewith a brief statement of the position of the Book
Buying Committee of the American Library Association in relation to the
subject which we hope to discuss with you.
The relations between libraries and the book trade should be placed
upon a business basis, and the discussion of them upon any other ground
is not asked for by the libraries.
There is no question as to the desirability and the necessity of
improving the conditions of the book trade, and we are in sympathy with
the apparently successful efforts now being made toward that end.
The libraries ask that at this time of reorganization and radical
changes a careful and just consideration should be given to their
claims as large buyers of a special character. This has always been
recognized in the past, and is the reason for the special discounts
allowed them by the booksellers.
The library trade as a factor in the book business is of increasing
importance. While it may not be considered as "Wholesale business"
if, as it is claimed, that term implies the purchase in quantities of
single titles and involves a business risk in such purchases, yet it
differs so much more from the character of the retail trade that in the
new adjustment of discounts there would seem to be little justice in
charging against it the expenses of retail trade.
We believe that the amount of library trade, and its peculiar character
warrant your association in having appointed a committee to consider
its claims.
In dealing with libraries many of the largest items of the expense
involved in the conduct of the retail business are wholly unnecessary.
It can be conducted as well by dealers on back streets or in lofts as
it can be by those who have the most luxurious and expensive stores to
attract the retail trade, it does not call for the advertising of their
wares by the dealers; all skill of salesmanship is eliminated, and no
accounts have to be charged off because of failure.
It is claimed that there are other expenses as great, perhaps, as those
mentioned, which are peculiar to the library trade, but in reality are
not called for in the business of many libraries, and while, perhaps,
they are customary, they are really necessary in but few cases, if
any. These expenses would seem to be rather the result of bookselling
methods than because of any peculiar demands of the business. These
"bad features," as they were called in your recent convention, were
pointed out as being
(a) Very slow pay,
(b) Its approval feature,
(c) The practice of asking for competitive bids with the lack
of ability to judge squarely of such bids.
We cannot see that any of these features are of vital importance to the
library. To many libraries, as we have said, they do not apply at all,
and probably others would be better off if they were not allowed by the
trade.
The "approval feature" which was made much of by one of your officers,
is, we believe, quite as much the fault of the dealers who wish to
urge the sale of their stock as it is the fault of libraries who wish
to examine the books before purchasing. Many books are sent out to
libraries on approval which have already been passed upon, or are
entirely outside the range of their purchase, and involve an expense of
time to the library, which is forced upon it by the bookseller.
We agree that no library should ask for competitive bids on itemized
lists, for the gain to the libraries who do this is much smaller than
the expense involved. It is probable that such lists would show a lack
of bibliographical detail and would require much time in wasted effort
on the part of the bookseller. Library authorities purchasing books
in this manner might, perhaps, be expected to show a "lack of ability
to judge squarely of such bids." We believe that the bibliographical
work of the bookseller in searching for the best (or more often the
cheapest) edition to quote on such a list is the most expensive
work the bookseller would have in this trade. Such work is wholly
unnecessary, as the selected lists of recommended books published by
the American Library Association, as well as those published by the
state and local associations and the large libraries, are in the habit
of stating the edition, the publisher's name and the price. It is safe
to say that all libraries are supplied with such bibliographical aid to
the extent of their needs and purchases.
This question, however, has little to do with the trade of the
libraries conducted according to modern methods. The best libraries do
not send out for competitive bids on itemized orders, and they do place
the necessary bibliographical detail on their orders, and we might add
that their officers are fully capable of judging squarely the editions
supplied and the price quoted.
We should like to see the book trade classify the library business as
peculiar to itself. Taking the best library trade as a standard, it
might suggest some requirements which should be asked for in return
for obtaining the library discount. If the business is free from these
faults with which it is more or less justly charged, it should be
profitable to the bookseller.
We believe that libraries have a right to protest against the
increasing charges made to them for the passing of the books of
the publishers through the hands of the booksellers, and that some
concessions should be made in the discounts now granted. We believe
that there is ample room for increasing the booksellers' profits by
the reformation of its methods, or perhaps we should say the library
methods, which are now accepted by them. The general increase and the
tendency toward further increases in the charges for the handling of
books for libraries by the rules of your association we believe to
be unjust, and that we are fully justified in asking that a careful
consideration be given to this question with a view toward making more
liberal discounts to this trade.
We do not believe that the last move of your association in making
the same discount on net fiction as upon other net books is warranted,
for we think it would be only fair to grant the libraries a proportion
of the larger profit which the bookseller receives by reason of the
extra discount allowed by the publishers on net fiction. If no other
concession is made, we believe that a better price should be offered to
libraries on their purchases of net fiction.
We should regret to have the booksellers take action which would give
the libraries the impression that their trade was a burden to the
booksellers; that the members of your association required a larger
profit from them than what is amply satisfactory to the jobbing trade
and many dealers.
It is to the interests of the library to foster friendly relations
with the local booksellers. We believe that together they can be of
more service than when working against each other; it is good for
the community; we believe that it is also to the interests of the
booksellers to keep the library trade, not only because of sentimental
reasons, but because it pays. Not only are the library accounts
practically guaranteed and the requirements of display, advertising
and salesmanship minimized, as we have already stated, but the
library is often the only buyer of many books which are received by
the booksellers. No other one customer keeps the stock moving to such
an extent as the library. None other wears out books and calls for so
many duplications after the period of popular demand, taking from the
bookseller's shelves books which he need not re-stock. Much of this
kind of trade prevents actual loss which the bookseller would have
without the library customer.
We are not at all convinced that the booksellers are losers in the
library trade, nor do we wish to be placed in the position of receiving
special favors. The libraries like to feel that the booksellers are
giving them fair prices so they will not be constantly shown by
out-of-town dealers how much cheaper they might have bought their new
books by waiting a brief time after publication.
Wide margins of profit always lead to the cutting of prices unless the
trade is absolutely controlled, which is not the condition in the book
trade at this time.
We wish to be in a position to urge all libraries to buy of the regular
dealers in their localities, and trust that your committee may be able
to see some way of recommending further concessions to the library
trade.
Answer to the Foregoing Statement
Answer to the library Committee on Relation with Booksellers, as
proposed by Charles E. Butler, Brentano's, New York.
1. We agree that the relations between librarians and booksellers
should be on a business basis, and that there is no question as to the
desirability of improving the condition of the book trade.
2. We are in hearty sympathy with the desire of the libraries, that
a careful and just consideration should be given to their claims for
better discount as large buyers collectively of a special character.
3. It is the most earnest desire of the book trade to be absolutely
fair and just toward the libraries. We fully and most sincerely believe
that the libraries would not for a moment desire or expect that their
purchases should be made at the sacrifice of a trade, whose very
existence depends on what reasonable profit can be made by them in
their business transactions.
4. The libraries believe that the booksellers can make better discounts
than they do now, if they carry on their business along the lines
indicated by them, while the booksellers claim that the present
condition of buying and selling prohibits them from making a profit,
but is actually productive of loss, and that the method proposed by the
libraries is not possible.
5. The booksellers are of necessity the agent of the publisher. If
his business is not self-sustaining, he must fail. The reduction of
real booksellers, by a most liberal construction of what constitutes
a bookseller, from about 3,000 when our population was 40 millions
to about 2,000 with our population at 90 millions, is evidence of
the truth of this assertion. The booksellers are entitled to sell to
everyone who buys books, libraries or others.
6. The libraries are not booksellers, therefore they are not entitled
to booksellers' discounts, which they are now getting from certain
sources. Thus, booksellers are deprived of the library business.
7. The bookseller is an important factor in any community in which he
is placed. He is taxed by city and state. His educational influence
cannot be estimated. His capital, his brains and physical effort are
all invested in making his business a success. To do so, he needs
reasonable profits, and it is business folly to do any part of his
business that results in a loss.
8. A great majority of the libraries are created and supported by
direct taxation, by charitable contribution, endowment, legacies and
the like. It is true, the libraries have to be conducted in a careful,
businesslike way simply keeping within their means. Doing this, they
are free from the booksellers' anxieties and difficulties as a merchant.
9. The unique position enjoyed by libraries in the community as to
their capital and freedom from commercial risk, and exemption from
taxation and rent, has raised the question: "Why should they receive
discounts on books?" Do they, as libraries, get special discounts on
their building, their shelving, light, heat, electricity and supplies,
etc., etc.?
10. The libraries state that in booksellers dealing with libraries many
of the largest items of the expense involved in the conduct of the
retail business are wholly unnecessary.
"It can be conducted as well by dealers on =back streets or in lofts=
as it can be done by those who have the most luxurious stores to
attract the retail trade; it does not call for the advertising of their
wares by the dealer; all skill of salesmanship is eliminated and no
accounts have to be charged off because of failure."
11. The bookseller establishes himself in every community, in such
locations as will attract trade--generally the best--limited only by
his capacity to pay rent and expenses. This is vital to his success.
A bookseller locating himself on a =back street= for the purpose of
doing business to enable him to give the library a large portion of
his small earnings would speedily end his career. He could not get
enough library business to exist on and his chances of doing a general
retail business, on a back street, would be very small indeed. He would
become solely a 25 per cent or 30 per cent buyer, 10 per cent which he
gives to the libraries, with a possible 28, 25 or 20 per cent expense
account. We do not believe that the libraries would knowingly ask
anyone to do business under such circumstances for their benefit. Will
the libraries figure this out?
12. Presuming, for the sake of argument, a bookseller does locate
himself on a back street for the purpose of doing library business:
He =must= be a bookseller to get a =wholesale rate=. A mere agent not
carrying stock, but simply buying on orders, would not be supported or
supplied by the publishers, as he does not carry stock or assume the
risk of the business.
13. He would therefore have to carry a reasonable amount of stock to be
considered a bookseller. The libraries may not know that the discount
given the bookseller is qualified by the quantity purchased of each
item. Thus, the average trade discount now prevailing on net books and
net fiction is 30 per cent in small quantities. If he purchases 10 to
25 copies of a title, he gets an extra 5 per cent. If he purchases 50
to 250 of a title (according to the publisher and the book offered) he
gets an extra 10 per cent. The libraries familiar with this discount,
and being misguided as to the results, argue that a better discount
than they now get should be given them by the bookseller. We have not
included here the great number of books published at such discounts as
25 per cent, 20 per cent, 15 per cent, and even 10 per cent, to which
must be added transportation and other charges. More of such books
are bought by libraries than by the retail buyer, such as educational
books, scientific books, medical books, law books, subscription books,
etc.
14. Now this is what really happens to the man on the =back street=, as
well as to =the bookseller= on the principal thoroughfare. It is safe
to say that out of the purchase of 100 new books of any one house, say
for a period of a year, about 90 per cent would have to be bought in
small quantities at a discount of 30 per cent, about 5 per cent at the
extra 5 per cent discounts, and 5 per cent at the extra 10 per cent
discounts. Thus, buying 90 per cent of his stock at 30 per cent and
selling to libraries at a discount of 10 per cent leaves 20 per cent
to do business, with an average expense cost to the bookseller of 28
per cent on every dollar of sale. =The 10 per cent at better rate would
improve matters very little=, as can readily be seen. It does not seem
as if the bookseller could make better discount than he does to the
libraries and it really is a question whether he is justified in giving
as much as he does now, if able to give any at all, except at a loss to
him.
15. The theory has been advanced by the libraries that all their
business should be considered by booksellers as an =independent
element= in the business and not chargeable with the 28 per cent cost
per dollar of sale, but that the library business should be charged
with a much less ratio of expense, thus enabling the bookseller to
gratify the desire of the libraries for a further discount. They base
this proposition on the following claims:
1. It does not call for the advertising of their wares by the dealer.
2. All skill of salesmanship is eliminated.
3. No accounts have to be charged off because of failure.
The facts are that the smaller libraries, and to some extent the larger
libraries, are constantly supplied by publisher and bookseller with
circular matter regarding new and forthcoming publications, letters
and personal visits as to special publications, as well as sending the
new books, as issued, on approval, at considerable cost and trouble,
and some loss of sale, because books are not available for display to
possible buyers who visit the dealer's place of business. The proper
handling of library orders to any reasonable extent requires skilled
clerks with good knowledge of books, the use of catalogs and the
ability to work out titles correctly that are incorrectly given, and
which is so often done. It is true that no accounts have to be charged
off, but library accounts require much care and trouble in making
duplicate and triplicate vouchers, many have to be sworn to before
notaries, in some cases depositing money as security that goods will
be supplied at prices quoted, and generally a long wait before the
bills are paid, and many minor troubles annoying to both libraries and
dealers.
16. As a business proposition, the making of a library department a
separate one from the business, and determining its exact cost of
maintenance, and basing the library discount thereon is not feasible,
for the reason that the bulk of its operations are so interwoven with
the business, requiring the assistance of the entire force at many
stages that it would be impossible to pick out and determine what each
operation costs. Again, the profits and loss of a business can only
be finally determined at the end of the fiscal year, when the stock
is taken, and the books closed--a very anxious moment indeed for the
bookseller. He then knows, to his joy or sorrow, how much it has cost
him to make one dollar of sale, and what profit or loss he has made on
each dollar of sale, on every class of merchandise he has sold, the
library trade included. This percentage of sale is his guide for the
following year, and as a good business man, he must eliminate every
class of merchandise he sells that does not produce some profit. No
business can work successfully otherwise.
17. The following table will show the various ramifications of a
special library department in the business, if carried out as proposed.
What suggestions would the libraries make in a case like this?
Work of the library clerk.
Clerks.
Writing to libraries
for trade.
Sending circulars
and book information
to libraries.
Certain reference
catalogs.
Receiving order for
estimate and
price.
Looking up same
and selecting editions
and pricing.
Writing to publishers
about special
books to be
priced.
Correcting librarian's
errors.
Store Assistance.
Correspondence in
general.
Typewriters, machine,
paper, etc.
Advertising for out-of-print
books and
general advertising.
Assistance of other
clerks.
Order department
and laying out order
and getting
shorts.
Receiving department.
Bookkeeping department.
Packing and shipping
department.
Catalog--reference.
Freight and express
on goods bought.
Returns and credits.
Postage.
Loss on bad accounts.
Theft.
Depreciation
of stock.
Rent.
Heat.
Light.
Care and keep of
store.
Salaries and wages.
Interest.
Store supplies.
Insurance and taxes.
Auditing.
Cost of books on approval--going
and
coming.
Good will and reputation.
18. The libraries state that
They have a right to protest against the increasing charges
made to them for passing of the books of the publishers through
the hands of the booksellers, and that some concession should
be made in the discounts now granted.
19. In this, the libraries should consider they are not a trade
organization, who, like the booksellers, depend on their trade for a
living. Publisher and bookseller are one in interest--producer and
distributor, and it is economically proper that the publisher's product
should pass through the hands of the bookseller, and to whom?--to
their clientele, the public. What relation does the library have to
the bookseller, other than as a buyer, the same as the rest of the
community? It is claimed that libraries are large buyers collectively,
but the general public are larger buyers collectively, by many millions
of dollars. If the library theory holds good, would not the same theory
hold good if the citizens of each community were to combine in their
purchasing and demand discounts accordingly? Would this not result in
the booksellers' sudden and complete annihilation, instead of a gradual
one, as it has been?
20. As to the "increasing charges," there is no more increase to
the libraries than to the general public. What brought about these
"increasing charges?" The necessity of self-preservation of both
publisher and bookseller. Till the beginning of the net system and for
some years thereafter books were published at the traditional prices of
more than fifty years ago (and later a period of ruinous competition to
the bookseller) the discounts to the trade remaining about the same,
and this in spite of the fact that the cost of everything pertaining to
book-making and its selling had greatly increased, and had not advanced
in price, while almost every other article of merchandise, labor,
material and the necessities of life, has greatly increased in cost,
and increased in selling price.
21. The libraries state:
We should regret to have the booksellers take action which
would give the libraries the impression that their trade was a
burden to the bookseller, that your members required a larger
profit from them than what is amply satisfactory to the jobbing
trade and many dealers.
22. The booksellers do not feel that the libraries are a burden to
them. They are anxious to have trading relations with them, but on a
mutually satisfactory basis. The library does not need profit for its
existence, supported as it is, but the bookseller needs it for his very
existence. Were the libraries aware of the actual facts of the case,
they would undoubtedly learn to their surprise that the trade done by
"the jobbing trade and many dealers" was anything but satisfactory,
and were their dealings with the libraries closely analyzed they would
find they had made small profit, if not loss, on the total of the books
sold to them. The dealers have only shown existing conditions, and have
asked for relief.
23. The libraries are not sole buyers of net books. A very large
proportion of their purchases are of non-net books, which are sold to
them at little or no margin of profit, and at the same discount as the
booksellers get. This is ruinous competition.
24. Why then do the trade desire library business under existing
conditions? They do not seek this business for its profit-making
on general publications, regular and net, for that is almost nil,
but for such stock as can be bought at much better discount than the
regular trade rates, such as jobs and the like, that they can sell
the libraries, and also for the real value of the libraries to the
bookseller that their orders often enable him to dispose of certain
stock--even at cost--which might take a long time to dispose of.
Finally, there is a certain amount of pride--surprising as it may
seem--that the bookseller has. He wants to sell the library in his own
community, he wants to do all the business of his community, and he
feels it keenly that his library is the only one with whom he cannot do
business, except at a very small profit or loss; and which trade goes
to some other town or state.
25. We trust we have made clear to the libraries the exact business
situation as it relates to the bookseller, jobber, and the like.
To some extent, what is stated here is no new story. The general
assertion has been made by the bookseller that the library business is
unprofitable, while the libraries state they believe otherwise is or
should be the case, and suggest their ideas as to a remedy.
26. It can be proved, we think, to the entire satisfaction of
the libraries, that in spite of the net system and corresponding
maintenance of price, the bookseller, jobber and the like, will be
happy indeed if he can show the smallest margin of net profit as
a result of a year's work in selling regular and net books to the
libraries and the public as well.
27. The booksellers, jobbers and the like desire the library business.
They believe that it rightly belongs to them in their own locality, and
to no one else, be they large or small.
28. They believe the discount given to libraries by booksellers,
jobbers and the like, should be uniform the country over, and leave a
small margin of profit to the seller.
29. They believe that competitive bidding by the libraries has been
detrimental to booksellers, jobbers and the like, as well as to the
libraries in many ways, direct and indirect.
30. They believe that the libraries desire to be fair in this matter
and not ask for unreasonable terms, and that a knowledge of the real
facts of the case of the condition of the booksellers, jobbers and
the like, will convince them that the booksellers, jobbers and others
are doing all, if not more than they can, in giving the libraries a
discount of 33 1-3 per cent on regular books, and 10 per cent on net
books, as at present.
31. Booksellers, jobbers and the like fully believe that they can be
of great assistance to the libraries and the libraries to them, and
it is their earnest hope that close and harmonious relations may be
brought about, and that they will do all in their power towards it.
The booksellers most heartily endorse the great and good work the
libraries perform to the community, and from a selfish point of view,
the bookseller freely admits the great assistance derived by them from
the influence of the libraries in creating a desire for reading and
the possession of books, and the general educating and elevating of
the community, and the bookseller also feels that his presence in any
community is likewise educating and elevating and that his interests
should be reasonably conserved.
32. The booksellers complain that when libraries become publishers, as
many of them do, they make their prices net but give the trade little
or no discount therefrom. Such books sold by the bookseller, cost him
considerable in addition to the published price.
33. They cordially invite the librarians to go into any facts and
figures they may desire to be informed about, as to the cost of
booksellers doing business and as to the conditions affecting the
relationship of both, with a view that all difficulties may be removed,
to our mutual satisfaction.
34. We are pleased to learn that the libraries believe---
1. The approval feature can be dropped.
2. That no library should ask for competitive bids on itemized lists.
3. The bibliographical work is entirely unnecessary by the bookseller
and can be dispensed with.
4. That the relations between libraries and the book trade should be
placed upon a business basis.
5. That there is no question as to the desirability and the necessity
of improving the condition of the book trade, and that they are in
sympathy with the apparently successful efforts now being made toward
that end.
BOOKSELLERS SELLING TO LIBRARIES AND THE RESULT, IN PROFIT AND LOSS TO
THE BOOKSELLER.
The following tabulation is compiled, from actual purchases made from
four prominent publishers, by a large bookseller, during a period of
one year. These purchases included books in all classes of literature,
fiction, biography, science, travel, etc., etc., which would fairly
represent the book purchases of a number of libraries for the period
of one year. These books were bought at varying discounts, viz.:--2/5,
2/5-5, 2/5-10, 1/4, 1/4-5, 1/4-10, 3/10, 3/10-5, 3/10-10, 1/3, 1/3-5,
1/3-10. Every advantage was taken where possible, to obtain by quantity
buying, the extra 5 and 10 per cent, given by the publishers. The
amount bought of these four publishers at published price was about
$37,035.87, which cost the bookseller about $24,000.00, and included
both regular, net and special books.
Let us assume that this bookseller sold these books from his stock to
the libraries, at a discount from the published prices, on regular
books, of 1/3 and a discount of 10% from the published prices of net
books.
It is here shown, what the result of the operation would be to the
bookseller, as to profit or loss. The cost point of doing business by
booksellers the country over, has been fairly well determined to be on
the same average, 28% per dollar of sale. This may fluctuate according
to circumstances and location, between 30% and 25%. In order, however,
to clearly and fully cover all possibilities in the matter, the expense
per dollar of sale has been calculated at 28%, 20%, 15%, 10% and 5% per
dollar of sale.
In all these calculations per dollar of sale, no allowance is made for
depreciation of stock, fixtures, bad accounts, etc., etc.
It is hoped that a careful analysis of this table will help solve the
library problem.
TABLE NO. 1.
Published Discount Sold to Cost to Cost per
Price to Libraries Booksellers Dollar
Libraries at of Sale
Cost per Dollar of Sale 28%.
Non Net 15,935.85 1/3 10,623.93 9,145.56 2,974.70
Net 21,099.98 1/10 18,989.99 14,854.44 5,317.19
Cost per Dollar of Sale 20%.
Non Net 15,935.85 1/3 10,623.93 9,145.56 2,124.78
Net 21,099.98 1/10 18,989.99 14,854.44 3,797.99
Cost per Dollar of Sale 15%.
Non Net 15,935.85 1/3 10,623.93 9,145.56 1,593.59
Net 21,099.98 1/10 18,989.99 14,854.44 2,848.49
Cost per Dollar of Sale 10%.
Non Net 15,935.85 1/3 10,623.93 9,145.56 1,062.39
Net 21,099.98 1/10 18,989.99 14,854.44 1,898.99
Cost per Dollar of Sale 5%.
Non Net 15,935.85 1/3 10,623.93 9,145.56 531.19
Net 21,099.98 1/10 18,989.99 14,854.44 949.49
Total Cost Loss Gain Total Loss Total Gain
Cost per Dollar of Sale 28%.
Non Net 12,120.26 1,496.33 -- -- --
Net 20,171.63 1,181.64 -- 2,677.97 --
Cost per Dollar of Sale 20%.
Non Net 11,270.04 646.11 -- 308.55 --
Net 18,652.43 -- 337.56 -- --
Cost per Dollar of Sale 15%.
Non Net 10,739.15 115.22 -- -- --
Net 17,702.93 -- 1,287.06 -- 1,171.84
Cost per Dollar of Sale 10%.
Non Net 10,207.95 -- 415.98 -- --
Net 16,753.43 -- 2,236.56 -- 2,652.54
Cost per Dollar of Sale 5%.
Non Net 9,676.75 -- 947.18 --
Net 15,803.93 -- 3,186.06 -- 4,133.24
TABLE NO. 2.
The following tabulation is compiled on the same basis as Table No. 1,
but showing the result to the bookseller, as to profit and loss, if the
bookseller increased the discount to the libraries, on regular books,
from 1/3 to 2/5, and on net books from 1/10 to 1/5.
Published Discount to Sold to Cost to Cost per
Price Libraries Libraries at Booksellers Dollar of
Sale
Cost per Dollar of Sale 28%.
Non Net 15,935.85 2/5 9,561.53 9,145.56 2,677.22
Net 21,099.98 1/5 16,879.99 14,854.44 4,726.39
Cost per Dollar of Sale 15%.
Non Net 15,935.85 2/5 9,561.53 9,145.66 1,434.22
Net 21,099.98 1/5 16,879.99 14,854.44 2,531.99
Cost per Dollar of Sale 10%.
Non Net 15,935.85 2/5 9,561.53 9,145.56 956.15
Net 21,099.98 1/5 16,879.99 14,854.44 1,687.99
Cost per Dollar of Sale 5%.
Non Net 15,935.85 2/5 9,561.53 9,145.56 478.07
Net 21,099.98 1/5 16,879.99 14,854.44 843.99
Total Cost Loss Gain Total Loss Total Gain
Cost per Dollar of Sale 28%.
Non Net 11,822.78 2,261.25
Net 19,580.53 2,700.54 4,961.79
Cost per Dollar of Sale 15%.
Non Net 10,579.78 1,018.25
Net 17,386.13 506.14 1,524.39
Cost per Dollar of Sale 10%.
Non Net 10,101.71 540.18
Net 16,542.43 337.56 202.62
Cost per Dollar of Sale 5%.
Non Net 9,623.62 62.10
Net 15,698.43 1,181.56
June, 1913
Report of the Bookbuying Committee of the American Library Association,
1912-13
In November, 1912, your committee was notified by the secretary that
the executive board asked it to continue its negotiations with the
committee on libraries of the American Booksellers' Convention.
A meeting with the latter committee was immediately arranged for,
and such meeting was held in New York City on November 25th, which
was attended by two representatives of the Booksellers' Association
and by two members of the committee on Book Buying of the A. L. A.
A discussion lasting over three hours, when all the details and
conditions were gone over, resulted in a definite agreement, the
ratification of which the committee of the American Booksellers'
Association promised to recommend to that Association.
This agreement was in the nature of a small concession on the part
of the Booksellers' Committee. While the concession was small, it
was accepted as at least showing a disposition on the part of the
Booksellers to co-operate with the libraries in the promotion of a
better feeling between them. The Booksellers' Committee agreed to allow
the libraries a discount of 15% from the net price on new fiction,
instead of 10%, which is now allowed. The 15% discount was to be given
during the calendar year in which the novel was published, as given on
the title page.
A few days after this agreement was made, the acting chairman of the
American Booksellers' Association committee announced that he could
not carry it out, because of his finding that the booksellers could
not afford to do what he had promised to recommend, and at that time
submitted figures which he thought proved his contention. These figures
differed in no particular from those which were formerly submitted,
and which are a part of this report, and which, we believe are on a
false basis of an exaggerated cost of doing library business, and of
misleading statements as to discounts allowed by the publishers to
booksellers on new fiction.
At the annual meeting of the American Booksellers' Association, which
was held in May of this year, a statement was made by its committee on
Relations with libraries, but this statement does not form a part of
the published report of the proceedings of the convention, and your
committee has not been able to obtain a copy of the stenographer's
notes. The acting chairman of the Booksellers' Committee informs us
that he made no report, but that he submitted and supplemented the
foregoing statements of the committees, with quotations from the
correspondence of the two committees. It, therefore, probably differed
but little from the original statements made by the two committees.
We would, therefore, call your attention to the reasons given in the
Booksellers' "Statement" for holding the uniform higher prices which
the libraries are paying for books because of the short discounts
allowed by the Booksellers' Association. As the position taken by the
Booksellers' Association is not agreed to by all of the individual
booksellers, such action may or may not be looked upon as a "restraint
of trade."
The estimate of the cost of doing business by retail booksellers is
28%, and the contention is that no profit is made from any item which
does not net them a sum greater than 28% above cost. This would mean
that they wish to force the libraries into becoming retail customers
because library business as a wholesale trade is regarded by the retail
booksellers as too costly, and the Booksellers' Committee believes
that it should not be welcomed by them. All booksellers do not take
this view any more than they would wish to endorse that expressed in
paragraph 8 of the "answer" of their committee, which reads as follows:
"A great majority of the libraries are created and supported by direct
taxation, by charitable contributions, endowments, legacies and the
like. It is true that libraries have to be conducted in a careful,
businesslike way, simply keeping within their means. Doing this,
they are free from the booksellers' anxieties and difficulties as a
merchant."
Your committee believes that there is no question as to the desire of
all libraries to encourage good feeling between the booksellers and
themselves, nor is there any question as to the desirability of having
a bookstore in every community.
We believe that the local booksellers should be encouraged, but not at
the expense of the taxpayers through the library.
The libraries, as wholesale buyers, should, we believe, be allowed
greater discounts on the net books. As the retail booksellers seem
not included to make any compromise, we believe that your committee
on Book Buying might, in the immediate future, be of service to the
libraries by calling their attention to the advantages of buying many
replace books from booksellers who are desirous of obtaining and
keeping the library business and to those who deal in remainders and
second-hand books, both here and abroad.
Inasmuch as the Booksellers' Committee on Relations with libraries did
not keep its verbal promise, and has reassumed its former position
which allows no concession whatsoever, although asking and expecting
co-operation from the libraries, we believe that there is nothing to
be gained by further negotiations with the Booksellers' Association
Committee on Relations with Libraries as it is now constituted.
Respectfully submitted,
WALTER L. BROWN,
CARL B. RODEN,
CHARLES H. BROWN,
Committee on Bookbuying.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CO-OPERATION WITH THE NATIONAL EDUCATION
ASSOCIATION
The committee of the American Library Association on co-operation
with the National Education Association, while having no special
accomplishment to present, still seems justified in reporting the year
as being one decidedly of progress. Never before in the experience of
the committee has there been a more friendly expression of a desire to
co-operate on the part of the N. E. A. than has been the case this year.
President Fairchild sent an invitation unsolicited for a representative
of the American Library Association to take a place on the general
program of the meetings of the National Education Association in
Salt Lake City. The committee has not been able to find a proper
representative to accept the invitation, owing to the great distance
from library centers of the place of meeting.
There has been an increased amount of discussion by correspondence of
the members of the committee as to the work that could be done more
thoroughly to create a sympathetic attitude toward the work of the
public library as an integral part of public education.
An increasing number of schools are turning to the libraries for help,
and one association of college librarians has strongly emphasized the
need of instruction in library methods for the students of high schools.
The committee has been active in its efforts to co-operate with
the library department of the N. E. A., and has received a written
expression of thanks for its work this year from the officers of the
department.
M. E. AHERN,
Chairman.
COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL AND STATE RELATIONS
The committee reports that its chief activity throughout the year,
has been the endeavor to secure a cheaper postal rate upon books, in
which effort it has been unsuccessful. Attempts were made to have
books included in the parcel post bill of 1912, and also to have the
rate on books made the same as the second class rate on magazines when
sent by individuals. At the regular and extra sessions of Congress,
the Chairman of the Committees of Congress on Post Offices and Post
Roads, were interviewed, and the Postmaster-General was urged to give
the favorable influence of his department toward the end desired. There
seems to be no probability of an immediate alteration in the rate upon
books, unless a complete revision of the parcel post section of the
postal laws be made, and there is some question as to whether it is
desirable for books to be included in the parcel post, with the present
zone system, inasmuch as under it, the postage upon books within
certain zones would be actually greater than under the existing law.
The activity of those desiring a one cent postage upon letters, also
causes members of Congress to hesitate in making any reduction such as
we desire.
When the new tariff bill was introduced in the House of
Representatives, the Committee addressed a communication to the
Committee on Ways and Means, so as to secure the retention of the
privilege of free entry for books imported by public libraries. The
Treasury Department on April 19 decided "that small importations
through the mails for colleges or other institutions entitled to
import books free of duty under Par. 519 of the Tariff Act will be
passed without requiring an affidavit in each instance, provided such
institutions will file with the Collector of Customs a copy of its
charter or article of association showing it to be entitled to pass
such importations free of duty." Libraries desiring to avail themselves
of this privilege should forward this information promptly to the
Collector of Customs at the port where they receive books.
BERNARD C. STEINER, Chairman.
COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION
Part of your Committee's report is simply supplementary to that of
last year, constituting with it a survey of methods used in certain
libraries in carrying out two common operations--accessioning and the
charging of issue. Last year the selected libraries were asked simply
to describe these operations closely, being urged to leave out no
detail, no matter how trivial and unimportant. It was thought that no
set of questions, however minute, would provide for all such details,
and that a questionnaire might result in many omissions and make the
operations, as performed by the contributing libraries, appear to be
more uniform than is really the case. The event proved, however, the
necessity of some sort of a questionnaire, and after a study of last
year's results the following was prepared by Mr. George F. Bowerman,
of this committee, and sent out by the chairman both to the libraries
named in the last report and to certain others. Data have been received
from the following institutions:
Public or Circulating Libraries
Butte, Montana
Atlanta
Pittsburgh
East Orange
Forbes Library
Jacksonville, Florida
Lincoln Library, Springfield
Los Angeles
New York
Pratt Institute
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
Seattle
Washington
College or University
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
Westminster College, Fulton, Mo.
Harvard
Kansas
Syracuse
Tulane
State Libraries
Indiana
Iowa
New York
Virginia
Special Library
John Crerar, Chicago
Society Libraries
Medical Society of the County of Kings
New York Society
New York Bar Association (accession only)
We give below the questions sent out with a summary of the various
answers by numbers. The original blanks are on file at A. L. A.
headquarters, showing answers in greater detail, together with the
names of the answering libraries.
Summary of Reports on Accession Routine
[Harvard University library did not answer each question in detail,
as it keeps no accession record in the usual sense. A record is kept
each day of the number of volumes and pamphlets received by gift and
by purchase, from which statistics are made up at the end of the
year. A file of continuation cards for annual reports and similar
continued publications and a record of gifts from individuals are
useful supplements to the daily record. Bills for books are filed
alphabetically under dealer's name each year, and order slips, giving
agent, date of order and date of receipt, are preserved.]
(1) When do you accession, before or after cataloging?
Before cataloging--14.
(2) Are all books that are cataloged accessioned? Affirmative,
24 (exception, 11).
(3) What method of keeping your accession record do you use?
All use accession book except Los Angeles and Forbes
Library, which use bill method, and Washington, D. C.,
which uses order cards as accession record.
East Orange does not believe accession =book= essential.
Pittsburgh, which accessions only adult books, is inclined
to believe book unnecessary. Their method of treating
juveniles is especially interesting.
Seattle notes that their book has fewer items than the A.
L. A., and says the use of order cards as accession
record is an excellent method.
(4) Which of the following items do you enter in your
accession record?
The number following the item indicates the number of
libraries reporting its use:--Author, 19; title, 18;
publisher, 17; place of publication, 13; date of
publication, 18; size, 10; edition, 13; number of
volumes, 23; binding, 11; publisher's price, 8; cost,
18; source, 20; date of bill, 10; date of entry, 14.
(5) Do you enter facts about re-binding in the accession record?
Affirmative, 3; negative, 20.
(6) a. Do you use your accession record to obtain statistics of
additions?
Affirmative, 19; negative, 5.
b. What items do you include?
Some of these questions were not answered, so it is
inferred that the statistics obtained are for total
additions only. Following items were reported
on:--Class, 7; source, 8; branch, 2; language, 2;
circulating or reference, 2; adult and juvenile, 2.
(7) Do you maintain a numerical record of accessions according
to classification? Department or branches? Does it cover
expenditures for each main class? Department or branches?
Negative, 14; record according to classification, 6; branch
or department, 3; separate record of expenditures, 4.
(8) Where do you place accession number?
Page after title page, 6; title page, 3; title page and
first page, 1; title page and page 101, 1; book plate
and page after title page, 1.
(9) Do you write price and date of bill as well as accession
number in the book. Do you write cost of a set in the first
volume?
Affirmative, 6; negative, 13 (both questions); cost, 1;
date, affirmative, 3; negative, 1; cost in volume 1 of
set, 6.
(10) How do you indicate the branch or department to which a
book is assigned?
Not indicated, or there is no branch, 14; stamped or indicated
in accession book, 5; books stamped or marked, 5; separate
accession book for each branch, 3; order card and book
stamped, 2.
(11) In case of replacements do you keep a record of the
accession number which has been replaced or do you regard
replacement as if it were an added entry or duplicate,
disregarding old number entirely?
Replacement is regarded as an added entry or duplicate, and
no record kept of the old number, 16; New number given
to replacement but make note of the number replaced, 6;
Old number used, 3.
Butte, Mont., reports:
"We enter each new copy in the shelf list as copy 2-3,
etc., keeping a record of each book."
New York City Bar Association reports:
"Do not use numbers, but dates. A book added to replace
is not counted for the annual statistics."
(12) Do you note in the accession record when a book is
withdrawn, or do you keep a withdrawal book?
Note in accession record, 9; note on shelf list, 4; note
in accession book and keep withdrawal book, 3; have
withdrawal book, 2; have no withdrawals, 2; files
book cards, 1; keeps record on cards, 1; keeps cards
withdrawn from public catalog, 1; not noted at all, 2.
New York City Bar Association reports:
"We keep all books except in very rare cases. The only
notes made are in catalogs and in statistical record."
Summary of Reports on Charging Systems
1. What charging system do you use?
Newark system, 12; Brown system, 2; Borrower's record, 2;
Single file--Book file under date or class, 4; Double
file--Borrower's file and book file, 6.
2. The process of charging.
a.1. Do you issue books on borrowers' cards? 18.
a.2. Do you charge by means of call slips? 4.
a.3. Permanent or temporary book cards? 5.
b. How many cards are issued to one borrower?
One card, 10; two cards, 4; three cards, 1;
temporary borrower's cards, 2; temporary book cards
and no borrower's cards, 9; borrower's pocket
instead of borrower's card, 1.
c. If a borrower presents his own cards and those of
others also, do you issue books on all cards presented?
Affirmative, 13; negative, 1 (cards, slips or pocket
held at the library, 12).
d. Do you issue privilege or teachers' cards?
Affirmative, 9; negative, 7.
e. How many 2-week books of fiction are charged on one
card?
e.1. One book of fiction on a card for 2 weeks--10.
Two books of fiction on a card for 2 weeks--2.
Three books of fiction on a card for 2 weeks--1.
Tulane University--Faculty can withdraw any number
at one time; students, only 3.
No discrimination between fiction and
non-fiction--3.
No limit--Virginia State.
No exact time limit--2.
e.2. One 7-day book on one card, 11; three 7-day books
on one card, 2; unlimited (East Orange), 1; no
7-day books, 2.
e.3. One 4-week book of fiction on one card, 5; two
4-week books of fiction on one card, 2; three
4-week books of fiction on one card, 2; unlimited
(East Orange), 1; none issued for 4 weeks, 6.
f. How many pay duplicate books may one borrower draw at a
time?
Number unlimited, 8; three at one time, 1; five at
one time, 1; as many as cards presented, 1.
(Libraries having no pay collection, 16.)
g. Do you issue books and magazines on the same card?
Affirmative, 14; negative, 4; no circulation of
magazines, 4.
h. How many books are issued on privilege or teachers'
cards?
Unlimited, except for fiction, 5; 12 books, 1; 10
books, 2; 5 books, 3; no special cards issued, 16.
i. Are books stamped on the date of issue--8.
Are books stamped on the date of return--10.
j. Do you use different colored pads for charging and
discharging?
Affirmative, 5; negative, 18.
k. Do you use different colored pencils for different
dates?
Affirmative, 5; negative, 19.
l. Do you use different sized type for different dates?
Affirmative, 1; negative, 24.
m. Is the assistant at the charging desk required to use a
mark or initial of identification on the book card?
Affirmative, 11; negative, 15.
n. n.1. Do you stamp fiction and non-fiction on
the same card?
Affirmative, 12; negative, 5; no distinction
made, 1.
n.2. Do you stamp fiction and non-fiction on
different parts of the same card?
Affirmative, 5.
n.3. In combination? 3.
n.4. Do you use the same colored ink for fiction
and non-fiction?
Affirmative, 9; negative, 2.
o. Are the class numbers of non-fiction written on a
teacher's or privilege card?
Affirmative, 5; negative, 4.
p. How many places do you stamp--Book card? Borrower's
card? Date flap? Book entry? Call slip?
3 stampings, book card, borrower's card, date
flap--12.
2 stampings, book card, borrower's card--2.
2 stampings, book card, date flap--3.
2 stampings, call slip, date flap--3.
1 stamping, call slip--4.
1 stamping, temporary book card--1.
1 stamping, borrower's pocket--1.
q. Do you renew books more than once?
Affirmative, 11; negative, 14.
r. Do you renew books issued for 7 days?
Affirmative, 3; negative, 15.
s. Do you renew books issued for two weeks?
Affirmative, 19; negative, 2.
t. Do you renew books issued for four weeks?
Affirmative, 12; negative, 3.
u. Is the process of renewal like original charge?
Affirmative, 19; negative, 2.
3. Counting of Circulation.
a. Do you verify your count by having it checked by a
second person?
Affirmative, 3; negative, 21; no count kept, 2.
b. Do you verify your filing in the same way?
Affirmative, 4; negative, 20.
c. Are records kept in different departments combined
daily in a single statistics record?
Affirmative, 10; negative, 7; daily and monthly, 4;
yearly count, 1.
d. Do you send collections of books for home circulation
to places outside the library?
Affirmative, 16; negative, 11.
e.1. Do the custodians of these places furnish circulation
figures?
Affirmative, 14; negative, 3.
e.2. How often? Monthly, 6; bi-monthly, 1; yearly, 3;
weekly, 1.
f. Is any record kept of the reading (not home
circulation) of these collections?
Affirmative, 2; negative, 14.
g. If no circulation figures are obtainable, do you count
the original collections sent as books issued?
Affirmative, 13; negative, 4.
h. is omitted.
i. For what periods are such collections sent on deposit?
Varied, 16; two months, 2; two weeks, 1.
4. Filing of cards.
a.1. Are fiction and non-fiction cards separated under the
day's issue?
Affirmative, 12.
a.2. Or are all cards filed in alphabetical order according
to author or otherwise.
Accession number, 1; author, 2; author and accession
number, 1; borrower's name, 2; call number on
slips, 2; class number, 6; title, 1.
b. Do you use different colored book cards?
Affirmative, 13; negative, 14.
c. Do you have separate files for 7-day cards, or do you
file them daily with 2-week books issued one week
previously--also 4-week books issued 3 weeks previously?
Separate files, 4; no separate files, 5; filed daily
with 2-week books issued one week previously, 8.
d. Do you have separate files for cards issued to
teachers? For renewed books? Foreign books?
Teachers--Affirmative, 6; negative, 17; renewed
books--Affirmative, 1; negative, 22; foreign
books--None.
e. Do you use guide cards to separate the classes of
non-fiction or do different classes have different book
cards?
Guide cards, 2; guide cards and colored book-cards, 1;
colored book cards, 4; neither, 15.
f. Have you separate files for books loaned to staff
members, trustees, etc.?
Affirmative, 8; negative, 19.
g. Are special records kept of books in quarantined houses?
Affirmative, 14; negative, 12.
h. Do you keep your file of collections loaned as deposits
separate from ordinary circulation?
Affirmative, 18; negative, 4.
5. Discharging of books.
a. Do you stamp on borrower's card or slip the date book
is returned?
Affirmative, 15; negative, 2.
b. Do you keep on file at the library all cards of
borrowers when in use?
Affirmative, 14; negative, 13.
When not in use?
Affirmative, 16; negative, 5.
c. Do you retain at the library a borrower's card on which
there is a fine?
Affirmative, 16; negative, 1.
d. Do you issue receipts for books without cards?
Affirmative, 5; negative, 17.
e. Do you give the receipt to the borrower to be returned
with card for cancellation of date or do you keep file
of such receipts at the library?
Receipt file kept at library, 4.
f. Do you discharge books before stamping off borrowers'
cards?
Affirmative, 5; negative, 10. Discharging and stamping
off done at the same time, 9.
g. If not do you look up book cards overdue before you
stamp off borrower's card?
Affirmative, 8; negative, 3.
h. Do you inspect book while borrower waits? Affirmative,
15; negative, 11.
i. Are books discharged near your return desk or away from
it?
Near or at desk, 28.
j. Do you inspect carefully all books returned?
Affirmative, 18; negative, 8.
k. Is this inspection made when books are discharged or
when shelved?
When discharged, 8; before shelved, 8; at both times, 3.
The most interesting thing brought out by this investigation is the
fact that it has taken your committee two years to ascertain and
tabulate the simple facts regarding methods of procedure, in a very
limited number of institutions, in the performance of only two of the
many operations that go to make up their current work. From this it
may be imagined how long and difficult a task it would be to carry
out a really comprehensive survey of all the work of all kinds of
libraries as currently performed. And yet such a survey would appear
to be a necessary preliminary to a study of the subject whose aims
should be definite suggestions toward the improvement of this work in
the direction of greater efficiency. It would seem, at present, a task
beyond this committee's powers, although we may be prepared to take
general advisory charge of such a work if others can be induced to
undertake the details. Possibly some of the library schools may regard
this as profitable employment for their students.
In the next place we are struck with the complete negative that our
results place upon the general impression that the various details
of modern library work are becoming--possibly even have already
become--thoroughly standardized. No one thinks, of course, that
everyone does everything alike; but we are apt to believe that
there are now a few generally approved ways of doing each thing,
and that each library selects from these the one that suits its own
conditions and limitations. On the contrary, we seem to be in an
era of free experiment. Nothing in the two sets of operations that
we have studied--not even the existence and value of the operations
themselves--would appear to be regarded as sacred. Everyone has his own
methods and is apparently satisfied, either with them, or with his own
ways of departing from them and groping after something better.
We cannot regard this as altogether desirable. Doubtless no one most
efficient way of doing any of these things can be settled upon, so
long as conditions differ, but we cannot believe that differences so
fundamental and complexities so varied as those revealed in this report
are due merely to differing conditions, and that each is the best in
the place where it is practised. We must conclude, therefore, that many
of our libraries are doing these particular things, and by inference
others also, in wasteful, inefficient ways.
Having made a survey of the facts, the next step would be to inquire
concerning all variations from a method selected as the simplest in
each case--possibly accessioning as practised at Pratt Institute
Free Library or the Public Library of the District of Columbia and
the charging system at Pittsburgh or at East Orange, New Jersey. The
cost of these variations in time and money and the skill necessary
in carrying them out, should be ascertained and the practical value
of each, if it has any, should be found. It may then be possible to
select, for a library of a given type, a standard method of procedure,
which will be, all things considered, the most efficient for it.
In regard to cost, the report of the sectional committee on the cost of
cataloging, to be made at this conference, will doubtless throw some
interesting light on the problem.
Questionnaires
The use of the questionnaire by this committee may require some
justification in the light of the growing feeling among librarians
that the multiplicity of such demands upon their time is becoming a
nuisance; and possibly some general recommendations on the use of
library questionnaires may be in order.
We feel that the value of the questionnaire, and the way in which it
should be received, regarded and disposed of, depend primarily on the
purpose for which it is intended and also largely on the skill and
tact of the questioner. We distinguish three main classes of library
questionnaires: (1) Those intended to gather data for the information
of librarians in general; (2) those intended for the use of single
libraries; (3) those intended for the information of individuals. Those
of the first class, it seems to us, it is the duty of all librarians to
answer, as far as possible. They include questions sent out by A. L. A.
or state association committees and those put by individual libraries
or librarians with a promise to publish the results or to put them into
shape that will make them available to the public, provided, of course,
the information sought appears likely to be of value when tabulated.
Questionnaires of the second class will generally be answered, not so
much as a matter of public duty as of personal courtesy. They include
requests from one librarian to another about details of administration
for guidance in making improvements or alterations in method. A
librarian feels usually that it is good policy, if nothing more, to
comply with such requests so far as his rules permit, for he may at any
time desire to make a similar request on his own part. It is suggested,
however, that whenever possible such data as these should be asked in a
way, and from a sufficient number of libraries, to warrant throwing the
results into a form that will make them generally available.
The third category includes most of the questionnaires that excite the
ire of librarians and cause a feeling that questions of all kinds are
nuisances demanding abatement. They come from students writing theses,
from assistants preparing papers for local clubs, from individuals
obsessed with curiosity, from reporters, from persons of various
degrees of irresponsibility. There is no reason why any attention at
all should be paid to these and we recommend librarians to return to
them merely a stereotyped form of polite acknowledgement and refusal.
It is hoped that the Headquarters of the Association may become more
and more the clearing house for systematized information of this kind,
saving thereby much wasteful duplication of material and effort. We
recommend that the originators of legitimate questionnaires send to
Headquarters before making up their list of questions, to see how many
can be answered in this way.
Much of the feeling against questionnaires is due to lack of good
judgment on the part of the framers. It is obviously unfair to ask
another librarian to answer questions that could be answered from
the resources of the questioning library, even if the latter would
require a little more time and trouble. A large proportion of the items
in questionnaires of all three grades specified above are of this
character. If it is desired that all the answers shall appear in the
same form on one sheet, answers obtainable in the questioning library
may be written in before sending out the list, and the attention of
the correspondent may be called to this fact. In any case a statement
should accompany the questionnaire that the information asked cannot be
obtained by any other means at the asker's disposal.
In some cases questions are asked that require the collection of
unusual data regarding the current work of the library. The answers
to such questions can evidently not be given, even if the library
is willing and anxious to undertake at once the additional work of
collection, until the expiration of the period for which the figures
are asked--generally one year. The usual method seems to be to send out
such questions to a large number of libraries in the hope that a few
will be able to answer them at once. A better way would be to send out
to a large number of libraries a statement of the desired data, asking
those willing to undertake their collection to notify the asker. At
the expiration of the period of collection the sender of the questions
would then have accurate data and he would not expect them before the
end of this period--whether one year or less.
It would seem to be unnecessary to remind those who receive and answer
questionnaires that returned blanks should bear the name of the library
to which they refer, were it not for the fact that this is so often
omitted. In one recent case the name was given simply as "Carnegie
library," with no address.
Briefly set forth, the recommendations of this committee, regarding the
use of library questionnaires, are, then, as follows:
(1) That questionnaires should always be for the information of
librarians in general, or for improving the service of one library in
particular, preferably the former.
(2) That no questions should be included that can be answered in the
questioning library or at A. L. A. Headquarters.
(3) That questions requiring the collection of current data over a
specified period of time be asked proportionately in advance of the
report desired, in cases where the data are not such as are usually
recorded.
(4) That those who answer questionnaires be careful to include the name
and address of their library.
Labor Saving Devices
It is a commonplace of library history that librarianship has
contributed the card catalog idea to commercial life. The library in
turn is indebted to commercial life for many labor-saving devices.
Very likely a few of the largest libraries utilize all available
labor-saving devices to the utmost. Your committee is, however, of
the opinion that the medium size and smaller libraries might reduce
the cost of administration through the more general use of mechanical
appliances. We recommend that at a coming meeting of the Association
there be held an exhibition of all available competing labor-saving
devices adapted to library use. The assembled demonstration of such
devices should prove most instructive to the members of the association
and would itself be a time-saving device. Such an exhibition could
probably not be advantageously assembled except in a large city. Your
committee therefore recommends that either it or a special committee be
authorized to arrange for such an exhibition and demonstration.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
Committee on Administration.
COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY TRAINING
At the beginning of the year the committee began the consideration of
an outline, prepared by the chairman, of possible points considered in
the proposed examination of library schools. This outline was submitted
to the members of the committee individually and valuable suggestions
obtained and was afterwards discussed by such members of the committee
as were present at the January meetings in Chicago.
This outline which is appended to the present report is not to be
considered as necessarily final, for the committee invites criticisms
and suggestions from other members of the profession. What the
committee desires if library schools are to be examined, is that the
schools should be examined from the point of view of the needs of the
profession, not simply from the point of view of the interests of the
library schools. The real vital questions lying at the foundation of
the examination of library schools are these: Does this method of
obtaining recruits for the profession give the best results which can
be secured by such a method? Do the library school trained workers
prove in actual experience that their training has been of the right
sort? These questions cannot be answered from an examination of the
records of any one or even any half dozen library school graduates, but
only from the examination of many such records.
As was before said, criticisms on the outline are invited from members
of the profession and from any of the library schools, as the desire of
the committee is to make an absolutely thorough, and impartial study of
the whole library school problem.
At the January meeting in Chicago the members of the committee were
rejoiced to learn that the executive board had re-appropriated the
appropriation for 1912 with a like amount for the work of 1913.
With these financial limitations in mind the committee considered the
question of an examiner, and one having been agreed upon, made the
proposition with great confidence, only after considerable delay to
have it declined. Further search through the field discovered another
person who seemed equally suitable and she was approached only to
decline.
The real difficulty evidently lies in the fact that we are asking
the examiner to undertake a large piece of professional work and
practically offering only expenses and the cost of a substitute for
the regular work during such times as it is necessary to leave it.
Naturally enough, it is not easy to find anyone willing to take this
additional burden.
The committee now have in consideration other names and hope, if
reappointed, to be able to announce an examiner before the beginning
of the next library school year to such schools as indicate their
readiness to receive an examination.
For the Committee.
AZARIAH S. ROOT, Chairman.
Appendix
Scheme of Efficiency Tests for a Library School
(Note.--In its general outline this scheme is indebted to the admirable
Test of College Efficiency prepared by Dean Charles N. Cole of Oberlin
College.)
I. THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION
A. Government and control of the school:
1. Trustees:
(a) How chosen. Fitness to direct library training;
(b) Tenure of office;
(c) Meetings, how often;
(d) Ad interim power vested where;
(e) Determination of policy: does it lie with trustees,
president, director or faculty.
B. Equipment of the school:
1. Connection with other educational work:
(a) With college or university;
(b) With other institutions;
2. Connection with a library:
(a) Of what type;
(b) What constituency and to what extent used;
(c) How far equipped with modern library methods;
(d) Actual practice work in library by students;
3. Bibliographical apparatus:
(a) General reference books;
(b) Trade Bibliographies;
(c) Special Bibliographies;
(d) Library economy;
(e) Samples of library blanks and supplies;
4. Housing:
(a) Recitation rooms;
(b) Study or work rooms;
(c) Rest and social rooms;
(d) Library facilities.
C. Administration of the school:
1. Officers:
(a) How many;
(b) How obtained;
(c) Qualifications;
(d) Tenure of office;
(e) Estimate of work;
(f) Compensation;
(g) Vacation;
2. Faculty:
(a) Do new teachers have a voice in determination of
educational questions;
(b) Faculty meetings, how often;
(c) Committees, how many; what duties.
D. Instruction in the school:
1. Faculty:
(a) How obtained;
(b) Qualifications;
(c) Tenure of office;
(d) Estimate and adjustment of work;
(e) Requirements of teachers;
(f) Number of hours of instruction given by each
teacher in a school year;
(g) Compensation;
(h) Vacation;
(i) What supervision of teachers' work;
2. Students:
(a) How admitted, examination, certificates, etc.;
(b) How far does actual practice differ from catalog
statements;
(c) Requirements for admission;
(d) Requirements for admission of students to advanced
standing (in two year courses);
3. Supervision of student work:
(a) Regulation of amount of work;
(b) Guidance in choice of studies;
(c) Requirements for passing grade;
(d) What is done about conditions and failures;
(e) What methods for enforcing the regularity of work;
(f) What provision for the individual help of weak
students;
(g) Graduation;
(h) Records, how kept, etc.;
4. Curriculum:
(a) Arrangement and order of studies;
(b) Length of time devoted to each subject;
(c) System of required studies;
(d) System of electives;
(e) What training for special fields of library work,
e. g., children's librarians, legislative reference
librarians, etc.
5. Class Room Work:
(a) Size of classes;
(b) What part of the course is class room work;
(c) Method of conducting class room work;
6. Practice Work:
(a) What part of course is practice work;
(b) How revised and supervised;
(c) What is the purpose in practice work;
(d) Is this purpose realized;
7. Informal Instruction:
(a) Lectures, etc.;
(b) Opportunities to see work of libraries;
(c) Actual experience in libraries other than that
connected with the school.
E. Student Life and Work:
1. Number of students:
2. Work of students:
(a) What seem to be the scholastic ideals of the
students;
(b) To what extent do the students seem to have
professional enthusiasm;
(c) What studies do they elect when there is an option;
(d) Outside activities of students;
(e) Social life and cultural development of students;
(f) Environment particularly with reference to breadth
of culture;
(g) Room and board; are students housed under sanitary
and elevating conditions;
(h) Health;
(i) Social conditions and standing of students;
(j) Previous educational advantages;
(k) Literary, musical and artistic opportunities during
library school course;
(l) Opportunities to form personal relationships with
members of the faculty.
II. THE TESTING OF SCHOOL WORK IN PRACTICAL ACTIVITY
1. What has been the professional success of the graduates:
(a) To what extent have they taken prominent places in the
library world;
(b) Omitting as far as possible personal qualities, is
there any general characteristic stamping the students
of the school;
(c) Do the interests of the graduates seem to be broadly
professional, or narrowly confined to a particular type
of work which they have entered;
2. What has been the general intellectual standing of the
graduates:
(a) Have they shown themselves equal to cope with their
opportunities;
(b) Have they shown a range of interest which has enabled
them to connect their work with that of philanthropic,
charitable, sociological;
(c) Have they taken influential places in the towns in
which they work.
COMMITTEE ON WORK WITH THE BLIND
The libraries which circulate embossed books have continued their
services throughout the year with ever increasing results, the largest
circulation having been attained by the New York public library, which
circulated 21,938 books and pamphlets. The Free library of Philadelphia
sent out 17,706 volumes; the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh, 3,218; the
Perkins Institution, 6,000; Wilmington, Delaware, 567.
=Library of Congress.= The most important event in the history of the
Reading Room for the Blind during the year was the appointment of Mrs.
Gertrude T. Rider as Assistant in charge.
=Perkins Institution.= The school is now in its new home where the
library is housed in commodious quarters, and is in charge of a trained
librarian from Albany, Miss Laura M. Sawyer, and a trained assistant
from Simmons, Miss Louise P. Hunt, who devote their time to the care of
the valuable special collection in ink print about the blind as well
as to the circulation of embossed books.
=New York State Library.= Eight new titles in New York point were
embossed for the New York state library in 1912 and an additional list
of well chosen titles is now in press for 1913.
=Saginaw, W. S., Michigan.= The Free lending library for the blind has
asked the legislature for $2,000 to replenish the collection with new
books. Of 202 borrowers the librarian reports that 117 persons have
drawn no reading matter during the latter half of the year.
=California State Library.= Mr. Charles S. Greene, of the committee,
sends the following report of the work of the State library and the San
Francisco reading room:
The California state library for the blind wishes to report progress
during the last year. Although we have had very little money to
buy books, accessions have increased from 2,309, April 1, 1912, to
2,659 April 1, 1913, mainly through gifts and the regular receipt
of magazines. Borrowers have increased from 475 to 550. The most
satisfactory advance, however, has been in the increased use the blind
borrowers are making of the library in borrowing all kinds of writing
appliances and games to try before buying and in asking information on
all subjects of interest to them. Such questions as what occupations
are followed by the blind, and where different articles for their use
can be purchased, are constantly being asked. With an increase in the
State library fund, which the present legislature will probably grant,
it is hoped to buy all the new publications as fast as possible, as
well as to complete our collection of appliances for the blind.
The San Francisco reading room and library for the blind has about 400
volumes. It conducts an emporium for the sale of articles made by the
blind and teaches Braille reading and writing, Braille stenography,
weaving, basketry and broom making.
=Pennsylvania.= All borrowers residing in the western part of the state
are now supplied with books from the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh;
those residing in the eastern part of the state have the use of books
deposited with the Free library of Philadelphia by the Pennsylvania
home teaching society.
=Cincinnati, Ohio.= Miss Smith, of the committee, sends the following
report: "There seems to be nothing new here in the library work for the
blind. The Clovernook Home, which is to be opened May 30, has absorbed
the attention largely of Miss Trader and her sister and this spring
the flood interfered somewhat with the meetings at the library."
=Minnesota.= Miss Carey, of the committee, writes as follows of the
work in Minnesota: "As far as I know the entire work of providing books
for the blind in this state is done through the School for the Blind
at Faribault. The library there is in excellent condition, being on a
wholly modern basis as to classification and details of management.
It is open throughout the year and circulates to outside readers on
an average 25 books a month. There are 80 regular readers outside the
institution and about 90 in residence this year. As the school is small
this is a large number. The librarian in charge is one of the teachers
and for years in this school it has been considered something of an
honor to hold this position, although it is by no means a sinecure....
The library work is always stimulated by the annual summer school for
adult blind which brings in new readers each year. At the close of the
session the pupils, many of them, become patrons of the library 'for
good.'"
=New Publications.= Since the first embossed book was issued in
Philadelphia in 1833, the publishing of literature in raised print has
been increased until there are now 16 presses in active use in this
country. The record of new publications for 1912 is as follows:
American Braille, 56 titles in English; 2 titles in German.
New York point, 14 titles, of which 8 were embossed by the New York
state library.
In European Braille new titles have been issued in England and
Scotland; in Moon type 11 titles have been added and 10 other titles
are in press.
=The Catholic Review=, monthly, published by the Xavier free
publication society for the blind, 824 Oakdale Avenue, Chicago, Ill.,
in American Braille.
=The Illuminator=, a quarterly Braille magazine, published by
the Holmes-Schenley literary society of the Western Pennsylvania
Institution for the Blind, Pittsburgh, Pa.
=Society for the Promotion of Church Work Among the Blind.= Volumes
3 and 4 of the music of the Hutchins' Hymnal have been finished and
copies distributed to a number of the leading circulating libraries
where the volumes will be available to those who may not wish to
purchase them.
=Bible Training School=, South Lancaster, Mass. "Some friends of the
blind, in looking over the catalogs of books in different libraries for
the blind, were impressed with the small amount of Christian literature
that had been placed in the embossed type, especially in New York
point and American Braille, so the plan was conceived of creating a
fund and printing one book after another as the funds would accumulate,
placing them in the circulating libraries throughout the United
States." To obtain the volumes in New York point and American Braille,
free of charge, address Mrs. S. N. Haskell, South Lancaster, Mass.
=Gould Free Library for the Blind=, 555 East 6th Street, South Boston,
Mass. "The library is working under the auspices of the International
Bible Students' Association headquarters, Brooklyn, N. Y., which
supplies financial aid in the main, while donations have been accepted
from outsiders. Our books are all Bible studies, very helpful and
appreciated by the blind. We circulated 3,474 books and pamphlets last
year in the three point systems and a few books in Line type and Moon
type."
=Free Theosophical Circulating Library for the Blind=, 32 Waverly
Street, Everett, Mass., has issued three titles in American Braille;
also a monthly paper of 7 or 8 pages.
=New postal law.= Under an act of Congress of August 24, 1912,
"magazines, periodicals and other regularly issued publications in
raised letters for the blind, which contain no advertisements and for
which no subscription fee is charged, shall be transmitted in the U.
S. mails free of postage and under such regulations as the Postmaster
General may prescribe."
=The Twelfth Convention of Workers for the Blind= will be held in
Jacksonville, Illinois, June 24-27, 1913, and among those who will
attend the conference are several representatives from public libraries
interested in the circulation of embossed literature. Miss L. A.
Goldthwaite, of the New York public library, has been asked to conduct
a round table. In the general discussion of the subject of catalogs for
the blind it is hoped to obtain the best opinion of those in attendance
upon the most convenient form for such catalogs or finding lists for
use by those who read by touch. The Library of Congress, the New
York public library, the Brooklyn public library, the New York state
library, the Free library of Philadelphia, as well as institutions
for the blind, will be represented by the assistants in charge of the
circulation of embossed books.
At this conference there will be given the report of the "Uniform Type
Committee" appointed at the Overbrook conference in 1911. The two
agents of that committee, who made an extended tour of this country
from May, 1912, until February, 1913, visited many schools and other
institutions for the blind and tested over 900 readers in one or more
of the three systems--New York point, American Braille and British
Braille. Scientific tests to determine the best size of type, spacing,
etc., have been made to establish a standard or uniform system of
writing and printing. The recommendations of the committee have been
reserved until the meeting of the American Association of Workers for
the Blind at Jacksonville; they are awaited with interest by all.
EMMA R. N. DELFINO,
Chairman.
The PRESIDENT: As you will see from your printed programs we are
privileged this morning to receive an accredited delegate from the
Library Association of the United Kingdom, and it is our especial
pleasure to greet as this accredited delegate an old friend of American
librarians. He was with us at the Conference of 1904, and we have since
that time watched with a great deal of interest the strong, splendid
work which is manifest in the library over which he presides. I have
the honor of introducing to you this morning the Honorary Secretary
of the Library Association of the United Kingdom and the accredited
delegate from that organization, Mr. L. STANLEY JAST, chief librarian
of the Croydon Public Libraries.
Mr. BOWKER: And, Mr. President, I move that we receive our welcome
guest from the L. A. U. K. by a rising vote of welcome.
Mr. Jast spoke as follows:
PRESENT CONDITIONS AND TENDENCIES OF LIBRARY WORK IN GREAT BRITAIN
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: I should like first of all to
express the peculiar personal pleasure I feel at being privileged
for the second time to attend a conference of the American Library
Association. As you have said, sir, it was my pleasure in 1904 to
attend a meeting of your body, then as now the accredited delegate
of my Association, but that meeting of 1904 was, as you know, an
international meeting, and an international meeting anywhere is apt to
take on general rather than special characteristics, and I have long
wished to be present at an ordinary meeting of the American Library
Association, so that I might see for myself how you conduct your work
and hear you discussing your own problems in your own way. So that I
trust, Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen, that you will kindly
forget that
"A chiel's amang ye takin' notes."
Iam authorized by the Council of the Library Association to extend to
you, sir, and the members present their very heartiest greetings and to
express on their behalf their high appreciation not only of the special
invitation which you sent to them to send a delegate but for the
extremely generous offer of hospitality which was attached thereto. My
Council felt that to such an invitation only one response is possible
and that was to accept.
We were in hope that Mr. Henry R. Tedder, who is the chairman of
the Council of the Library Association and its honorary treasurer
and an ex-president,--and otherwise the secretary of the Athenaeum
Club,--would have come as our delegate, because Mr. Tedder's importance
is intrinsic and not like mine purely adventitious and depending wholly
upon the office which I at the moment have the privilege to hold; but
it was impossible for Mr. Tedder to come on this occasion and, ladies
and gentlemen, I am the best that we can do for you at this time.
But I am happy to say that it is the general feeling of the Council
that in future we should not let many meetings of the A. L. A.--at
all events in the eastern states--go by without sending one or more
members of our Association to be present at them. I do not think that
there is anything from which our Association is likely to get a more
valuable return than by the visits of some of its more prominent
members to America in order that they may see for themselves and not
merely read about what you are doing, and how you are doing it and get
some knowledge of the conditions under which you are working, of your
achievements and of your difficulties, and so bring to library work
in Great Britain that added power which must inevitably come from a
wider knowledge. So that I trust that the imperfections of the present
delegate will be overlooked, in the hope not only of more but of better
to come.
I am also requested by my Council to extend a very hearty invitation
to the members of the American Library Association to attend the
annual meeting of the Library Association to be held in 1914. That
meeting will almost certainly be held at Oxford, by invitation of the
University and of the city. I need not of course point out the extreme
suitability of the city of Oxford for a meeting of librarians, nor
the attractions which Oxford must possess for everyone who likes an
atmosphere of ancient learning and who revels in the architectural
glories of a bygone day. So we hope that as many of you as possible
will come over there for that meeting in order that we may make of it
a sort of Americo-Anglican conference. Observe the order, please, in
which I mention those words. I draw special attention to that because
I believe I have somewhat of a reputation for an absence of tact on
these occasions--at any rate among our own members.
When I informed Mr. Utley that I was coming he was good enough to write
me a letter, which I received just before I sailed, and he asked--not
knowing me very well of course, or he might not have been so liberal
in his invitation--that I should talk to you on any subject I liked.
I thought that it would be best perhaps if I should say something
about the present conditions of library work in Great Britain. Of
course it is impossible, in an address lasting only a few minutes,
to cover anything like the whole field, and if I did attempt it I
should only bore you. But you may be interested in one or two of the
outstanding features of our recent work, because they throw light
upon conditions which are in many respects very different from yours.
First of all, there are two features in what I may perhaps call the
domestic situation, which to us are of considerable significance. The
most important step which the Library Association as an association
has ever taken has been the recent reorganization of its membership
along the lines of the professional qualifications of the members. In
our old grouping we took no account whatever of whether a member of
the Association was a professional librarian or merely a member of
a library committee or just a person interested in library work. The
honorary fellows of the Association and the fellows were any persons,
whether librarians or not, whose names would add dignity and importance
to the Association, or who had distinguished themselves by some special
service rendered to the Association or the movement as a whole. Then
in addition Mr. Tedder himself had a small group of what he called
_very_ honorary fellows who were the honorary fellows who insisted on
paying their annual dues. That was an entirely private group of Mr.
Tedder's. Now we have changed all that. Fellows and members of the
Association are now professional librarians only, and non-professional
librarians are known as associate members. The privileges of membership
including the power to vote and to serve on the Council are shared
equally by all members of the Association. The fellows consist in the
main of librarians only, but there is a small sprinkling of deputy and
sub-librarians. The by-law referring to fellows who do not hold chief
positions states that "they must be librarians of approved status,"
but we interpret that phrase "approved status" in the widest possible
way. The members consist of assistant librarians--all those assistant
librarians who are not in the small group of fellows; they must be
twenty-five years of age and have had six years' experience. That
is so at the moment. But after the 31st day of December, 1914, only
librarians who possess the diploma of the Association will be entitled
to fellowship, and in order to receive the diploma you must have taken
in addition to possessing practical experience in an approved library,
the six examinations held by the Association, have obtained the six
certificates, have gone through if necessary a ~vive voce~ examination
and have submitted a thesis. Then professional librarians who possess
four out of the six certificates will be entitled to membership. A good
deal of criticism has been leveled at the scheme owing to the fact that
the librarian of some pettifogging little library, with perhaps a total
rate income of a couple of hundred a year or even less, because he is a
chief in a small way, is entitled to fellowship, while an assistant in
a big library system, who may have infinitely more responsibility, is
only entitled to membership. But we had to begin somewhere and we had
to draw the line somewhere and we drew the line at the sub-librarian,
because when we got below the sub-librarian we should not know where
on earth we were, because there is no accepted nomenclature of library
positions in our country. I do not know whether there is in yours.
"Sub-librarian" does not always mean the same thing. The term "chief
assistant" is used in a very different way in different libraries.
Moreover, the Privy Council would not have approved these by-laws
unless we had opened the door as widely as possible to the holders of
all existing chief positions.
There is one weak point so far which we have discovered in our scheme.
We have no provision for non-professional members corresponding to
professional fellowship among the professional members, but we have a
new by-law now before the Privy Council creating a group of associate
fellows and the associate fellowship will be conferred upon chairmen of
library committees and upon non-professional members of the Association
who have served the Association in some definite capacity as members of
the Council or in some other way.
That, I think, then is the most important domestic thing that we have
ever done because we have now made the beginnings at all events of a
definite organization of the profession.
The other important thing will not have the same interest for you,
but I mention it because it throws light upon our own conditions. We
have settled, by a new by-law, the relations of branch associations to
the parent body. Until recently we had a by-law which merely provided
that branches in any particular district may be formed but it did
not state what the powers of the branches were, and owing to that
absence of definition we have suffered for a great many years past
from a considerable amount of trouble. One or two of the branches
grew considerably in recent years, in numbers and in importance; and
they began to resent the fact, the inevitable fact of course, that
for the most part the actual work of running the Association fell
upon the members of the Council who were resident in London or near
it. It may seem absurd to you to speak of the distance of London from
the great provincial centers in Great Britain, but it is not absurd,
because every country measures distance on its own scale, and to all
intents and purposes Manchester is just as far from London as Chicago
is from New York--because we =think= it is. As Hamlet says, you will
remember--anticipating Mrs. Eddy by several centuries--
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
And as an illustration of the result of this friction I may mention
that in London, at the library school--which is hardly a library school
because it has not the organization that your schools have, so I ought
not to use that term really, but a department of library lectures
at the London School of Economics and Political Science, which is a
department of the University of London; at these lectures all persons
are admissible whether they are librarians or not, but at similar
lectures in the provinces everybody was excluded who was not already
engaged in library work. So that you had the absurd situation that
while the parent body was running one policy at headquarters you had
branch associations running an entirely different policy in their own
centers. The question of the "open door," as it was termed, was a very
hotly debated one at one time in our Association. Well, the general
effect of the stress between the branches and the Council was of course
bad, each branch being a more or less permanent storm center. While
no absolute harm was done perhaps, and while the fireworks let off
at the annual meetings were of a more or less harmless character, at
the same time we had a general condition of irritation which affected
injuriously the work of the Association as a whole. Now we have done
away with that, very largely at all events, at least, we hope, by a new
by-law, the main points of which are these: First of all, membership of
a branch association includes membership of the parent body; the parent
body receiving the subscription to the branch association returns to
the branch association a rebate of so much a head for the expenses of
the branch and, most important of all, the constitution and by-laws of
a branch must be approved by the headquarters council and must in no
case conflict with the by-laws and constitution of the parent body.
The Council meets monthly, I may say, and one of the quarterly
meetings is held on the occasion of the annual meeting. So that means
that the expenses of the provincial members are paid to three of
the quarterly meetings held during the year; and all the important
business--especially contentious business--is relegated to those
quarterly meetings.
Leaving the domestic question and coming to the library situation
as a whole in Great Britain, I think that the phrase "marking time"
fairly describes it. The public libraries in the United Kingdom have
accomplished, I think, great things with extremely limited means. But
though the first library act was passed in 1850, though the libraries
have since then justified themselves many times over, though the
demands made upon the libraries have gone on increasing time after
time, yet the libraries are still strangled by the statutory limitation
of one-penny-in-the-pound on the tax leviable for library purposes
which was imposed not by the Ewart Act of 1850, which limited the rate
to a halfpenny, but by the amending act of 1855. It is quite true that
about forty of the large towns of the country have promoted special
parliamentary bills giving them power to levy a rate of two-pence or
even more in the pound, but in very few cases is two-pence actually
levied, and of course it is the smaller towns, which can not face the
expense of promoting special legislation, which really need greater
rating powers even more than the larger boroughs.
As the incidence of a library tax in Great Britain is quite different
from yours I may perhaps give you some general idea of what it means
by taking the case of my own town, simply because I happen to remember
the facts more clearly. Croydon is a town in the outer London ring,
with a population of 174,257 people. Its income from the penny rate
is a little over £4,000 sterling. It circulates about 555,000 volumes
per annum and its fiction percentage is about fifty. Whether that is
something to be apologized for or not I am not quite clear, after the
president's address of last evening. Then one has to remember that the
ratable value of a place like Croydon is a good deal higher than the
ratable value of most of the provincial towns. But those figures will
give you a general idea of the yield of the penny-in-the-pound rate.
A rate of that kind results, you will easily see, in the case of the
smaller towns, in a condition of genteel poverty, and in the case of
many small towns of absolute hopeless starvation. And this unfortunate
position has been accentuated by the tremendous growth of branches in
recent years. Of the three b's which constitute a library--building,
brains and books,--the ordinary British rate-payer thinks mainly of
buildings. The building usually does not cost him anything, because he
gets it from Mr. Carnegie, and it is something to look at and something
"we've got for our ward, don't you know," books will drop from the sky,
and "anyhow you don't require brains to hand books over a counter."
Hence, from this you have a town, which will perhaps support, in
passable efficiency, one central building and two branches, endeavoring
to support one central building perhaps and six branches, and so on.
Hence the limited book funds which we have in our libraries and hence
on the whole the poorly remunerated library staffs.
And that brings me to a point which it was suggested to me by one of
your members I should say something about, and that is the position
of women in English public libraries. I am not going to express any
opinion on the subject of women in libraries. After all, as George
Bernard Shaw says somewhere, opinions are really only serious when
you act on them, and my capacity for courage has never been equal to
the task of acting upon many of my opinions. But as things are at
present, a number of libraries employ women assistants. There are
very few places where women are chief librarians; there are a few in
the quite small towns. There are very few libraries which have women
sub-librarians or deputy-librarians. These are almost invariably men.
But the number of women employed in secondary and tertiary positions
in English public libraries is considerable and is very definitely
increasing. And whether that be a good thing or a bad thing, I am quite
clear about this, that it is increasing for the wrong reason. Women
are employed in English public libraries not because they are better,
but because they are cheaper--with the unfortunate result that the
increase of women in the library staffs tends necessarily to lower the
already low average of salaries paid.
The Library Association have long recognized of course that the
root of all our present difficulties lies in the limitation on the
library income, and in order to do away with that they have been
promoting for the last three or four years or more a library bill,
the main clause of which permits a town to levy a rate, not exceeding
two-pence-in-the-pound, that is exactly double the present amount.
When we originally drafted the bill we did away with the limitation
altogether, but we have now put a limitation in order to placate
possible opposition. That bill has been already read once before the
present parliament--but the first reading of course is a purely formal
matter; it is the second reading which is the crucial one; and owing to
the exasperating nature of the orders of the House of Commons any one
member has only to rise in his seat and say, "I object," to a private
member's bill for that bill to be labeled "contentious business" and
for its second reading to be deferred to the Greek kalends, owing of
course to the enormous number of private members' bills and to the
growing inefficiency of the House of Commons as a legislating machine.
It is choked with bills and it can not adequately attend to the
thousand-and-one matters which call for its attention. The best chance
for the bill would be for the government to grant facilities for it.
If they would do that I have not the slightest doubt that the bill
would pass because so far as we can see there is little or no serious
opposition to it; but we can not get it discussed. The unfortunate fact
seems to be that the government will not worry about anything which
does not sway votes. Nobody is going to get excited about a library
bill. If it is true that there is no particular opposition to it, it is
also true that there is no crowd of electors passionately demanding it.
Then we suffer to a considerable extent in Great Britain from the
attitude of the superior people to the public library. In America all
the superior people are sympathetic with the public library--apparently
so anyhow. In England usually they sneer at it. Why, Heaven knows!
Only the other day a cabinet minister who was considered to be a
friend of ours, whose name before he reached cabinet rank was actually
a backer to a bill on similar lines to the present one, in a meeting
which he addressed referred to the country as being "drenched" with
public libraries. I think his point was the far greater importance
of public wash-houses or something of that sort. And, as I say, he
used the extremely unpleasant, and peculiarly unappropriate adjective
"drenched." Now of course no one objects to a cabinet minister talking
nonsense. After all, what else can you talk to a popular audience
in politics but nonsense? But this particular variety is pernicious
nonsense. The press, of course, with their usual avidity for seizing
on anything silly, print that sort of thing ad nauseam and a good deal
of real harm is done and difficulty created. I think the minister in
question has stated somewhere that he owes a great part of his own
education to the public library. Mr. Carnegie has said the same thing.
Behold how differently men requite the benefits they have received!
Well, Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen, I have perhaps given you
the idea that I take a rather pessimistic view of library conditions at
the present moment in Great Britain, but that is not so at all--most
emphatically not so. I am absolutely convinced that the future of the
public library in Great Britain is as certain as it is with you, and
though the next step forward may be delayed, the longer it is delayed
the bigger that step will be when it is taken.
The PRESIDENT: Mr. Honorary Secretary and our Guest: I would that
the gift of speech had been given me that I might adequately express
to you the sense of appreciation that we all feel for your coming,
for your gracious words of greeting in behalf of your Association and
for the view that you have given us of not only the conditions that
obtain in Great Britain but also what the future holds forth for the
libraries of your country. In our American assemblages it is customary,
when some procedure is taken that no one is particularly interested
in, to pass it by; but when something transpires that requires further
and more careful thought it is our parliamentary custom to refer this
to a committee. In this particular case I am sure that I am meeting
the wish of the Association as well as my own personal desire when I
refer your splendid message to a committee of the whole, consisting
of all the librarians present, all the members who have unavoidably
been kept at home and that other, smaller group who come within the
classification of Mr. Dewey's "private collections." What you have said
to us, sir, has emphasized to us particularly that not only is there
in the relationship between your libraries in Great Britain and ours
in this country a kinship of interest, brought about through identical
language, and a kinship of literature, but also there are common aims
and aspirations. Just as the language is subject to local variations,
due to the customs of geographical centers, so there are differences
in method perhaps. But, after all, we are each, in our own way,
attempting to do the same things and to achieve a common purpose. I
trust, sir, that you will convey to your associates in Great Britain
our gratitude for the kindly expressions which you have brought to us
from them, and we venture the hope that we shall be enabled to carry
forward the splendid precedent which has been set in your coming.
As you glance at the names of those who are to participate at this
session, you will note that this is practically New York Day; the one,
sole participant who is credited to another part of the country is
after all perhaps merely loaned to Missouri, because he is a graduate
of the New York library school. I shall ask the First Vice-President,
Mr. Anderson, to preside over the rest of this meeting.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: Ladies and gentlemen, I can take that kind of
punishment with great composure. The subject for the regular program
this morning, as you all know, is work with foreigners and with the
colored races. I have the honor to be a neighbor of the first speaker
and I may say to you confidentially that she has recently moved a mile
or two farther away from me without adequate explanation. The author of
"The Promised Land" needs no introduction to this audience. All of you
have read with enthusiasm and appreciation the chapter of her book in
which she testifies to the value of the service of the Boston public
library to her. It gives me very great pleasure to introduce to you
MARY ANTIN, who will talk to you on
THE IMMIGRANT IN THE LIBRARY
It is very difficult to be interesting or impressive while telling
people things that they already know. I won't try to do that. Any one
of you sitting in this audience could tell me a great deal more about
the immigrant in the library than I can possibly tell you. What I am
going to do is to ask you to have in mind what you know about the
immigrant, to call up the figure of the immigrant in your libraries as
you have seen him daily, and test by your knowledge what I have to say.
You know better than I do in what numbers the immigrants come to your
libraries, how much of their time they spend there, what books they
seek there. What I want to ask you is to share your knowledge of these
things with as many people as possible; tell your neighbors every
time you have a chance what the immigrant does in the library. Every
little while we begin anew the discussion of the immigrant--to let him
in, or not to let him in--and all sorts of arguments are presented on
both sides. Representatives of various organizations--capitalistic,
unionistic or what-not--hurry their advocates to Congress to speak
for or against, on this side and on that side. I want to ask you to
see to it that the knowledge that you have of the immigrant is also
widely spread on such occasions. The caricaturist is always ready with
his pencil to give us pictures of the immigrant in various amusing
poses--more or less true, more or less false; the interesting author
of the comic paragraph is always there; the artist of the vaudeville
stage, and enthusiasts of one sort and another--enemies or friends of
the immigrant--are ready to speak up whenever the question comes up.
~You~ have a fund of knowledge on the subject which is very special,
very different. Bring it out on every occasion! When the gentlemen
in Congress want to pass a law to hold up the immigrant at the gate
because he cannot read fifty lines of our Constitution, say to them,
"Hold! Wait and see what the immigrant's boys and girls will read when
they are let loose in a public library." Remind them that the ability
to read is not in itself a test of intellectuality. You know scores,
hundreds of boys and girls of educated, cultured American families who
do not take such an interest in your libraries as the boys and girls
of these illiterate immigrants. You know what you know. Please tell it
so loudly that every one may hear. Talk about the "five-foot shelf of
classics"! Is it not true that the boys and girls of the immigrants
swallow it whole and make no boast about it? Why, they are saturated
with the classics the minute they get a chance. The mere ability to
read--what does that amount to? You know what book the immigrant calls
for. Every little while I read a short paragraph in the New York papers
telling that the East Side branches of the public library have the
greatest circulation of the classics. I would like to see those little
paragraphs enlarged, printed big and spread where everybody can see
them. We need to know these things.
Please let me speak today as an American, and not as an immigrant. I
wish I could efface from your memory this once the knowledge of my
origin. Don't make allowances for what I say because of what I was. I
am not speaking as an immigrant making an appeal for the immigrants.
I am speaking to you as an American. My credentials are these: I have
been with you nearly twenty years. My father was an Americanized
citizen before I got here and I married a native American. Please
accept me as an American today. Let me speak as one of yourselves.
We are so ready to classify people by externals--by their habits, their
customs, by the way they dress, by their gestures. Why, a better test
of a man than the way in which he makes a living is the way in which
he spends his leisure; and to that you can testify in the case of the
immigrant. To gain our bread and butter we are forced to do this, that,
and the other thing. But nobody drives us into the public library if
the saloon is across the way. Speak up and tell to which door the
immigrant turns in his leisure hours. People of dainty habits are
disgusted with the personal habits of the poor foreigners. They have
noticed a smell of herring and onions in the East Side of New York.
The smell of onions, my friends, can be driven out, but a mean habit
of mind is harder to eradicate. Many gentlemen who feast daintily on
caviar content themselves with the sensational newspaper or the trashy
novel. Are they superior to the hired laborers who feast on boiled
potatoes and herring and onions and have a volume of the classics
propped up before them while they eat? There are people who object to
the uncouth manners of the alien. It would do us good to make a study
of the natural history of the personal habits of the immigrants. There
is a reason for the shrug of the shoulders, for the gestures that are
so easily caricatured. They have a history, way back, that it would do
us good to realize.
You workers in the libraries, you see the immigrant in hundreds, you
see him off guard; for a man in his hours of relaxation is not posing;
you see the alien as he is at least on one side of his nature. Let your
neighbors know what you know about the immigrant. Whenever testimony is
being taken on the subject, let your voice be as loud as any. Almost
every day you will read in your favorite paper letters to the editor,
about "the immigrant peril"; how the foreigners lower our standard of
life, demoralize our habits, spoil the manners of our children in the
public schools. Some of these things are true, to a certain extent. But
you, under whose observation the immigrant comes, and the immigrant's
children, ought to be ready with an explanation of many of these
things, and you ought to be ready to suggest a remedy. You know what
kind of homes these immigrant children come from, and that explains a
great deal. You sit there and agree with me, I can see by your faces.
You nod and you smile and you turn to one another, as much as to say,
"That is so." Don't tell it to me! I know it!! Tell it to those who do
not know it.
A few days ago I received a delegation of boys and girls from the
nearest village high school. They represented the debating clubs
of their school. They were preparing a debate on the subject of
immigration, and who could help them except I? We talked very
earnestly for about an hour at my fireside about this perennial
question, and these young people took me at my word and were very
much in earnest about what I had to say and in the way in which they
received what I had to say. That is all right. As a subject for
discussion in the high schools that question may be made immortal, but
as a subject for national agitation it ought to be laid at rest. Why is
it that certain questions have been settled once and for all and others
are always being reopened? Those questions are settled finally which
are considered in relation to their underlying principles. Let us not
confine ourselves to the superficial aspect of the immigration question.
Every once in a while, when we come to moralize about these
immigrants--there are too many of them, they come from the wrong
quarters of the globe, and what not--let us ask ourselves, Is that the
real thing that concerns us, or is there something at the bottom of
this agitation that ought to receive attention first? Are we really
afraid that the immigrant is going to take the bread from our mouths?
If so, let us stop and think about it. It is the law of nature that
the best man shall come out ahead. Are we going to stop the immigrant
by temporarily locking the door, while we have possession of the key?
It will not be for long. Right to the end it is going to be a struggle
between the better and the worse, and the better will get ahead. We
need not be afraid that the immigrants will take the bread from our
mouths if we see to it that we are equally able or better able than
they to earn our bread. It is said they are taking the earth from under
our feet. Not if we are strong enough to stand and hold our ground. If
they are getting the better of us, it is because they are better than
we, or else, if that is not so, then they can not be getting the better
of us, and we need not be afraid of them.
We will never settle this question until we are willing to consider
it along fundamental lines. Did our forefathers, when they launched
the declaration that all men were created free and equal, refer to
the few hundreds or few thousands of people who were then in this
country? Why, in that case, many of you are here only as guests! Was
there any thought in their minds that of all the people in the world,
those who happened to get in here before they set to work to compose
the Declaration of Independence were the ones who were born free and
equal, and with equal opportunities, and all the rest of mankind with
limitations? You heartily approve the sentiments expressed in our
Constitution and our Declaration of Independence. How then can you
limit the application of their principles? When did the day dawn when
it was time to shut the gate? When did the hour arrive when we could
say that all those of free and equal origin were already here and the
rest could stay outside? I don't know at what moment immigrants begin
to be immigrants and not pilgrims and voyagers for spiritual freedom.
People were surprised at a phrase I used not long ago, and quoted it
right and left, as if I had made a great discovery, when I said that
every ship that brings over the immigrants is another Mayflower. Why, I
can not think of it in any other terms. Ships are now made to run with
steam instead of with sails, and our forefathers did not come in the
steerage because the Mayflower wasn't built that way.
You see I am not sticking to my text--a proof of an inexperienced
speaker. But I am not a speaker. I am a witness on the witness stand. I
have been called from the ranks to testify. Now each of you is in the
same position. It would have been an impertinence on my part to get
up before a body of scholars without a finished address, if I had any
idea that I was going to make an intellectual contribution. I simply
answer to my name as a witness, and each of you can do no less: testify
to what you know. Now remember I am not asking this for the sake of
the immigrant. If this were the proper time and place I would tell you
just how, in what order, my interest in the immigrant on the one hand
and in America on the other developed. With me it was America first,
and it still is so. I was not conscious of the immigrant as a special
class of our citizenship until I became conscious of certain American
problems. It is with me the immigrant for the sake of America, not
America for the sake of the immigrant, and I beg you to believe me. And
why do I insist that all the truth you know about the immigrant shall
be brought out? I am not speaking--I can not repeat it emphatically
enough--because I am an immigrant, not even because I represent that
specially large group of immigrants, the Jews. If America should go
back on its ancient traditions and close its hospitable doors, the
Jews would suffer bitterly. But what is one more disappointment in the
history of the Jews? They have known how to lift up their hearts and
thank God for disappointments before. They would simply adopt another
dream. It is not for them that I speak. Nor is it because I am a great
lover of justice. I want to see that justice is done to the stranger,
to be sure; let us know all sides of the immigrant that no injustice
may be done. But the thing that makes me speak to you more than any
other is my love for America, for the ideals that I was taught to
cherish in the public school. I took everything in my school books
literally; when I read that this is the land of freedom; that the door
is open to all worthy men and women, and that all shall have an equal
opportunity. I want to hold you to that, to a literal interpretation of
those terms.
I went back to Russia two years ago, to Polotzk on the Dvina, the
city in the Pale where I was born, and again I felt as I felt in the
beginning, when I first came here, after seeing how those people over
there regard us. They still take us at our word. When we turn them away
at the gate, for this and that petty excuse at the bottom of which
is some selfish motive that we do not dare to acknowledge, they are
bitterly disappointed. And yet they are not the worst sufferers. It is
we who suffer, we as Americans, for in turning them away we abandon our
ideals, and lose the consciousness that we are still conserving the
ideals of our forefathers. It always seems to me that in our attitude
towards the immigrant, more than in any other branch of our national
policy, we make manifest our true ideals. In our formal dealings with
foreign governments we may make blunders, we may betray weaknesses, but
on the whole these matters remain a secret with the foreign ambassador.
The people at large do not follow very closely these dignified
negotiations about treaties and tariff and what-not; but as we meet
these individual men and women at the gate, here we give ourselves
away. There, at the gate of entrance, we, the people of America, deal
directly with the people of the world. The immigrant with his million
eyes is looking at us, and he will tell whether or not we still believe
in the things for which we honor our forefathers on all our patriotic
anniversaries.
There was a young Jewish girl working in my household as a cook, who
had been through very unhappy experiences in this country, experiences
which, unfortunately, have been multiplied in the lives of many other
girls who come here unprotected. She told me her story once, and I
saw that what hurt her more than her own misfortunes, more than the
agony she had been through, more than the disgrace she had suffered,
was her disappointment in America. She found that in America, in this
instance that she knew of in her own life, a man may do a gross wrong
and there is no way to get hold of him and punish him. She had times of
discouragement when she would talk to me and complain of that thing.
Oh, it shook me to find that in the mind of this ignorant, illiterate
child of seventeen, we, the American people, had lost something of our
prestige. I talked to her--perhaps the need inspired me--and explained
to her that our laws, like the laws of civilization at large, are not
yet perfect; that law and civilization are things of gradual growth;
and showed her that although we are still to blame for many things that
here exist, we have done far better than other people in some respects.
I made it my business to try to prove to this ignorant Russian girl,
my cook, who waited on me every day, that America was still America,
despite some mistakes and some failings, and that, on the whole, we
have gone further in the quest of justice than other nations. It
mattered to me that this one girl should think we were still Americans,
and surely it matters to you just as much.
Do not let these millions that come to our gates get the wrong
impression of us. Do not let people with selfish interests to serve,
who send representatives to Congress, speak louder than you do when
this question comes to be discussed. Let the truth out every time.
For the sake of our country I am asking it, not for the sake of
the unfortunate foreigners. We owe them something, as a people of
charitable heart, to be sure, but we owe more to ourselves and to our
traditions.
This same girl of whom I speak also afforded an illustration of
some of the nobler traits of many of our immigrants that you are
aware of, and that you ought to testify to. I mean the reverence
for learning that is found among the ignorant, the illiterate, of
many of our immigrants. This girl who could not read or write a word
in any language until she came to me (when gradually, by means of
the cook-book, she made some progress), had a genuine reverence for
learning, which is in itself half of the material for making a scholar.
I kept her pretty busy in my household, as I usually do keep our maids,
and sometimes, when there would be a rush of more work than I could
do, I would put her to extra trouble, to bring my luncheon upstairs,
perhaps, when I could not stop for meals. "Oh, Miss Antin," she used
to say, "it is wonderful that I can wait on somebody who can write
books!" A respect for letters such as this is not one of our prominent
characteristics as Americans. I ought to have the courage of our
foreign visitor, who told the truth about his people. I can do no less.
We can not boast of too much reverence for learning. Is it not a great
asset these foreigners bring with them, this reverence for learning?
The man behind the pushcart can't read fifty lines of the Constitution,
but his heart bows in reverence before the man who can, and that is
worth more than the ability to read the Constitution and forget it.
There are so many ways of classifying the immigrants--as laborers, as
a peril, as a help, according to one's point of view. But I always
think of them as a cloud of witnesses in the tribunal of the nations.
They go back and forth, in person or through letters; their experience
is reported all over the world, and they tell the truth about us. The
immigrant is the only visitor, you know, who comes to stay and finds
us out. The tourists, the critics, the honorable guests of various
honorable institutions, who are taken around in carriages and shown
our best front, what do they know about us? The letters home that go
out from the East Side, shiploads of letters, some of them written at
dictation, sent by persons who cannot write themselves--(I used to
write letters for my cook; I have never forgotten some of them)--those
are the documents that go all over the world. They are forming their
opinion of us in the far corners of the earth. What shall they say of
us?
If you see that justice is done in the case of the immigrant, they will
have no evil to say of us. Our traditions of liberty, of hospitality to
the oppressed, will be realized in the eyes of the world.
Now it does not matter that the immigrants today may not be running
away from religious oppression, or may not be victims of political
martyrdom. Martyrdom of the worst kind is martyrdom of the spirit,
and immigrants who have suffered such martyrdom are still coming to
us by the shipload. It is accurate to say, in a certain way, that
the immigrants in the beginning came in search of liberty, and today
they come in search of bread. That may all be, but with most of our
present-day immigrants, if you give them bread and nothing else, they
are not satisfied. You know it. And I know what the people said in
Polotzk only two years ago. If any of you thought, from reading my
story, that I had put down the reminiscences of my early childhood,
with the haze of the past over all, that I had idealized everything in
my enthusiasm, I can assure you that while my story was in manuscript
I went back to Polotzk, to find out if I had told the truth, and I
found that I had. I found there my old rabbi, my teacher who taught
me my Hebrew letters. I talked with various of the old scholars, who
were very old when I got back after seventeen years' absence--these
old men who spend their time over the Talmud in the corridors of the
synagogues--and I found among them just that attitude toward America
which I remembered to have existed when I came away nearly twenty years
ago. They look on us today as on the upholders of justice and true
liberty. They still believe in us.
Do not let them lose that faith! It is more to us than it is to them
that they shall be satisfied in their high longings. That is all I ask
of you. You know the immigrant as he is in the library; you have a
view of him that most people have not. You send your little paragraphs
to the New York papers. They are not printed big enough. Nobody sees
them. Speak up and tell what you know about the immigrant, that justice
may be done, that we may remain sound-headed and true-hearted in our
national life, true to our traditions; and the immigrant will hear with
a million ears and see with a million eyes and run with a million feet
to the far corners of the earth, to cry that America is still America.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: I shall ask you to rise as an expression of
thanks and appreciation of Miss Antin's address. (The audience remained
standing for a moment.)
The next speaker will discuss the subject of immigrants as contributors
to library progress. It gives me very great pleasure to introduce to
you Mrs. ADELAIDE B. MALTBY, who is in charge of the Tompkins Square
branch, on the lower East Side, of the New York public library.
IMMIGRANTS AS CONTRIBUTORS TO LIBRARY PROGRESS
I should prefer to let Miss Antin's personality and accomplishments
bear home to you the point I had hoped to make; and silently let
what she has said to us possess our imaginations to the end that our
interest and will-to-do will be vigorously stirred. Fortunately, this
will happen in spite of my words.
A little girl with a fairy book in her hand gleefully remarked: "I can
tell what kind of stories are in the book by the continents." Would
that we could so tell the stories of our peoples! Yet the story of
immigrants in this country is not unlike that of the "Ugly Duckling;"
and Miss Antin is living proof of the swan-like qualities. We, as a
nation, have persisted in hatching the odd egg; have been apparently
proud of the duckling's ability to swim untaught, like other ducks;
and were duly troubled, when because of his unlikeness, he was
not acceptable to closer acquaintance with cock and gander in the
barn-yard. We have witnessed, with but feeble protest, his struggle to
feel at home, his association with wild ducks and all it entailed. It
seems as if the winter of his agony is enduring. He's had a stirring
within as of something better to come! The question is will we make
greater effort to recognize the swan-like qualities and to give freedom
for their development? In this direction lies progress.
As contributors, I shall not single out great personalities from among
our foreigners. They will belong to history. Nor do I mean only the
well educated groups. They are generally accorded recognition. But I do
name the masses who earn just consideration slowly.
First of all, immigrants have kept us alive in every generation. Shall
we say on the "qui vive" in some localities? All agree that living
is no minor art, so to stimulate life is a contribution. Frank Warne
in his book, the "Immigrant Invasion," tells how the distribution of
immigrants previous to our civil war practically determined the outcome
of that struggle, by giving to the North balance of power in Congress
because of larger population, which was made up of able-bodied men who
replaced Federal soldiers and kept shops and farms going to furnish
supplies to the army. It is interesting to note that Mr. Warne ascribes
the trend of immigration to the north and west very largely to what was
read in the old countries about life in different parts of America,
mentioning "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as the one product of literature most
influencing distribution.
Cold statistics tell us that New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Illinois and California have the greatest number of foreign
born. With this as a basic fact we naturally suppose that in these
states, at least, public libraries will be found catering to and
helping to Americanize and to educate these citizens-to-be; because, if
for no other reason, we proudly call ourselves the "university of the
people." If the truth were told through questionnaire, or otherwise,
about twenty-five out of one hundred libraries throughout New York
state are sufficiently alive to the problem to supply books to attract
and interest foreigners. Yet for twenty years, at least, the task of
assimilating the almost overwhelming influx of immigrants has been
acute in the states named and in many localities elsewhere. A gentleman
working for the education of foreigners in American ways has said that
he thought libraries seemed most indifferent to their opportunities.
While another, a foreigner, devoting himself and two fortunes to
bettering conditions for immigrants, thinks that public libraries, when
they do work sympathetically--I mean that in the broadest sense--with
the foreign born are the only organizations which accomplish with real
altruism the implanting of American ideals and the developing of
better citizens. This, he believes, is done when we appreciate and
build on the natural endowment of the individual or race.
Since the national government has been facing this stupendous problem,
commissions and organizations galore, official and philanthropic, have
sprung into existence as aids. So many are there in New York City
alone, a possible list would bewilder one! Yet in how many reports of
such work when educational assets of communities are being cited, is
there mention made of libraries as a force in educating the immigrant?
Through libraries, however, more than through most educational agencies
may self-expression and development of natural gifts be realized by
individuals of all ages and nationalities. Where does the trouble lie?
Have we been open-minded or eager enough to discover the excellent
contributions foreigners bring to the end that we respond to live
issues, thus building progressively?
Old habits can be changed to new compunctions. There is no standardized
method of discovering or of spiritualizing men, of holding intercourse
with aliens or of receiving what they bring; but we can develop
sympathy and understanding, by knowing the people as individuals,
their countries, literatures, languages, arts, great national
characters--in a word, their histories, even to economic conditions.
Thereby do we come to an understanding of reasons for immigration
of the present day and of aspirations for life here. Thus equipped
mentally for further sympathetic appreciation, first hand observation
of conditions will help; or if that is not possible, an imaginative
putting ourselves in the immigrants' places from the time they leave
their old world homes with all their worldly goods in their hands and,
in spite of homesickness and fears, with courage and hope in their
hearts--with them as they exist in their steerage quarters and with
them when they pass through the portals and mazes of Ellis Island, in
the main uncomprehendingly but always trustfully. I can not attempt
here to draw the detailed picture; but if you cannot see it for
yourself, Mr. Edward Steiner gives it graphically and faithfully in
his "On the Trail of the Immigrant." At last, the Federal government
accessions the immigrant. He is passed on, properly numbered, to be
shelf-listed by states, cities and towns, coming finally to libraries
and other institutions to be cataloged. It remains to us then to
decide for our own work whether there shall be one entry under the
word "alien" or whether his various assets shall be made available by
analytical entries.
Somewhat of all this we must know to appreciate what the immigrant
can contribute to life here, and to library progress, if we are wise
enough to call it forth or make opportunity for its expression. It is
vain to hope for the assimilation of the alien as a result of conscious
benevolent effort. We too often forget that each of the hundreds of
thousands is a human being! With a sense of the finest they can bring
with them, we should have an increasing knowledge of how they live
here, what they think and how these elements can be influenced by books
and personal contact. The pressure of a congested neighborhood goads to
thoughtful search for remedies.
No one will go far along these paths without realizing how avid
libraries must be to reap the benefits of such diverse gifts, rather
than to suffer from the dregs. We must correlate books and people as
never before to attain progress.
"If we once admit the human, dynamic character of progress, then it is
easy to understand why the crowded city quarters become focal points of
that progress." As an earnest of what is being done in many libraries
elsewhere, may I tell of our work in New York, of that only because I
know it best. What has been done in one place and more, can be done in
another through interest, desire and adaptation.
The necessity of having the library near the people for whom its
use is intended is, of course, recognized. This is more especially
true when the people are foreigners. The New York public library
has forty-one branches and all that are located in districts where
foreigners live have, beside English books, collections of books in
languages native to the residents. By so doing we believe that we
convince of our friendship those adults who do not and even those who
may never read English. This is a fundamental necessity, opening up
various possibilities for imparting American ideas and ideals. The
less English the grown people read the more they need knowledge of
true American ideas to help keep them in touch with their children,
who rapidly take on ways and manners strange to their parents, many
of whom are uncomprehending, reticent and often sad. We go still
further. We have assistants of the nationalities represented in the
neighborhood, whose special duty it is to make known to their peoples
the library privileges, also to know their people individually as
far as possible and, of course, the books. Right here may I say that
a foreign born assistant imbued with respect for her own countrymen
and with true American ideals can in her enthusiasm do more to make
real citizens than many Americans. This cannot be accomplished if, as
happens with so many young foreigners, their own people as we see them
in this country, are held in contempt. It were pity to scorn the strong
qualities they possess, these "Greenies," as they call themselves.
They live daily too close to the vital facts of existence to develop
self-consciousness or artificialities to any great extent. We talk of
simplicity. They have it. Courage, singleness of purpose, happiness in
modest circumstances and astonishing capacity for work are elements of
everyday life unconsciously developed. Their wealth of imagination,
fostered by their own folk-lore and early traditions, could not be more
wonderfully illustrated than it has been just recently in New York.
The majority of us think of New York and other large cities as vast
factories with the machine-like and vicious qualities of human nature
uppermost, so it is most refreshing to contemplate "Old Home Week in
Greenwich Village" and the "Henry Street Pageant."
"Old Home Week" successfully recalled Greenwich Village history in a
dramatic way to its residents--American, Irish and Italian--and aroused
a new sense of fellowship in sharing the district's activities.
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Henry Street Settlement,
a pictorial representation of the history of the neighborhood
from the days of the Indians to the present time was given by
its residents--men, women and children--before an assemblage of
spectators from all parts of the city and representative of all its
activities--civic and social. The last living picture, or episode,
was of all the nationalities that have lived in the last fifty years
in Henry Street, once the center of Manhattan's fashionable life.
The Irish, the Scotch, the Germans, the Italians and the Russians
appeared. They sang the songs and danced the dances that contribute
so much poetry to the life of the city, while onlookers marveled at
the temperamental qualities which made it possible for foreigners to
reproduce with unconscious realism historical scenes of a city and a
country not their own!
Such neighborhood pageants as this and the celebration in Greenwich
Village, exert a wholesome and a permanent influence in our municipal
life. In both these events the libraries of the neighborhoods took
part. The library aimed to show that folk-songs and folk-dances are
kept alive by folk-stories. The contrast between old New York and
the present time was shown by the use of historical scenes--lantern
slides--and a story; in the one case reminiscent of early Dutch
settlers and in the other a poetic interpreting of the spirit of
service in municipal life. Those planning the pageant felt that this
was a direct help in making atmosphere or in inducing an interpretive
mood in participants. Festival occasions like these bind together by
national ties the people and institutions of a neighborhood and are
rich with possibilities for the library. To a delightful degree they
broaden our understanding of the folk-spirit.
So it seems natural to have stories in the library told by foreigners
in their native tongues. From time to time we have groups of Bohemians,
Germans, Hungarians, Italians listening to old world traditions and
tales. Knowing the original and the translation enhances the value of
the story in English for narrator and listeners. Through these story
hours we are reminding the foreigner of his unique contribution to life
here, and are showing our respect for his best. For a simple example,
our picture books and book illustration in general do not express life
as vividly or realistically as Russian, Bohemian or Swedish artists do.
Having some of these in our juvenile collections has been a distinct
contribution to establishing sympathetic relations with foreigners.
Yes, it is true that the Italian laborer loves Dante and Italian
classics. It is relatively true of other nationalities. If we take
for granted that we should know and libraries should have, French and
German standard writers--and this largely because their literature is
older, more translated or their languages better known--may we not also
take for granted that literary history is still in the making? Should
we not bestir ourselves to know latter-day masterpieces, if such there
be, and the older literature which has helped mould or inspire writers
of them, in Swedish, Finnish, Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian or any other
language spoken by the people surrounding us? Perhaps the need of
realizing what these literary contributions may mean can be emphasized
by the fact that in one week, June 2 to June 9, 1913, thirty thousand
souls, nearly five thousand daily, passed the man at the Eastern
gateway. Eighty per cent or thereabouts are going beyond New York City
these days.
Is the Hungarian's enjoyment of Jokai or their patriot poets for
Hungarians alone? One can better appreciate how to sustain effort and
enthusiasm in a person or a group of this nationality if one knows
that much of their best poetry came almost from the cannon's mouth
on the field of battle; and if one has seen the glistening eyes and
heard the voices of kerchief-capped girls and boys in trousers to shoe
tops as they sang in ringing tones "Esküszünk!" and then heard their
national song in English for the first time. At home they may not
celebrate their Independence Day, March 15; but when they are invited
to, here, in the library, they do it with much genuine feeling and true
sentiment, which I believe leads them to appreciate and adopt as their
own our Independence Day. Through such as they, perhaps, patriotic
sentiment and feeling may once more be evident in our Fourth of July
celebrations.
If we try to think of a library without the contributions of writers of
other nationalities, we must face almost empty shelves in some classes
of knowledge. This makes us realize more clearly that immigrants have
rich possessions by right of inheritance while these are ours only
by adoption. Some of the newcomers to our shores may have lost their
heritage temporarily; but they will warmly cherish as a friend the
library that restores to them this valuable possession and for us that
friendship is preeminently a contribution.
There are other special ways in which the library seems happily
successful in forming such friendships. With adults it comes through
our co-operation with neighborhood associations, or organizations
working for the benefit of foreigners, such as the Y. M. C. A. and Y.
W. C. A. who conduct in our lecture rooms classes to teach English to
foreigners. In these instances it is our pleasure to supplement with
books the copies treated. The book work is, perhaps, most marked in
connection with the English classes where we have opportunity to watch
progress and needs of the individual more carefully from the time
when an eager pupil may ask, as one did, for a book called a "Woman's
Tongue" wanting Arnold's "Mother Tongue" to his reading of Hale's "Man
without a country," perhaps, or Andrews' "The perfect tribute." There
are also many semi-social, semi-educational clubs, or associations,
which hold their meetings in the libraries. The Slavia is a Bohemian
club, which has as its only meeting place the Bohemian department of
one of our branches. Its members have done much to help form a splendid
Bohemian library. Several Hungarian associations work in co-operation
with three branches, where are collections of Hungarian books. A
large Polish society gives its educational lectures twice a month
in one branch and its advice in the selection of books; but perhaps
the "German Association for Culture" best illustrates my point. They
state: "We are working for culture, and we aim to give the Germans in
America and the Americans a better understanding of our contemporary
German literature and art. We are bending our efforts more particularly
for our members who as artists, poets, writers, etc., are producing
valuable works. And we want to help as much as possible those talented
artists, poets, etc., who are not yet known." Their distinction is that
they succeed! Even in the et ceteras!
As concrete instances of other possible contributions by foreigners
to library progress, I want to tell of the discussion of one City
History Club chapter and the action of a settlement organization.
The membership in both is composed of foreign-born young men from
sixteen to twenty years of age, and both groups interest themselves in
present day civic welfare. The Settlement Club wrote to the mayor,
comptroller, library trustees and several daily papers a dignified
plea for increase in library appropriation and in salaries. The year's
closing meeting of a certain City History Club was a discussion of the
city budget, the club members representing New York's mayor, aldermen
and comptroller. The main contention of the majority was that cutting
the appropriation of the public library meant seriously handicapping
one of the city's most efficient servants and they ended with a warm
appreciation of service rendered by library assistants and a vigorous
plea for better salaries. This was later reproduced for an audience of
representative citizens by the City History Club as a token typical
of their work. Both these happenings came as complete surprises to
librarians. It seems as if in their eagerness to "get on" young
foreigners, especially, seek and use every possible public means for
advancement. They soon appreciate what good service means and how to
get it. They make us feel toward what ends they are tending and suggest
definitely our part in the building for civic betterment.
To sum up, immigrants do bring very rich contributions in arts
and literature. They bring many capabilities, that of acquiring
intellectual cultivation being not the least among them. I am not blind
to the seriousness of the problems they create, having worked among
them about ten years; but the conviction strengthens that knowing
and understanding their racial and social inheritance and first hand
contact with groups of individuals stimulate to broader thought and
living. It is not an argument! It is a suggestive statement! Immigrants
can contribute to library progress.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: We will now have a paper from Mr. CHARLES E.
RUSH, the librarian of the St. Joseph public library, on
THE MAN IN THE YARDS
This great country of ours has become within the last century a huge
"melting pot" for all the nations of the world. Foreign and English
speaking tongues from the four corners of the earth have sought our
shores as a haven of relief and opportunity. No other nation has
experienced a like growth and none other has ever gained the changing
cosmopolitan characteristics which have come to us from such widely
differing component parts. Those of us who call ourselves Americans
owe our life, liberty and happiness to the conditions which brought
about this great growth and upon us devolves the great burden of
relieving many of the unfortunate conditions which naturally result
from the continued and increasing wave of humanity still seeking better
things in our so-called land of freedom and equality.
During the past ninety years nearly thirty millions of people have
entered our immigration gates, adding to our numbers more inhabitants
than the total population of the United States three score years ago,
and almost one-third of our present total figure. At the close of
the year of 1912 the total and combined population of five states of
the Union did not equal the number of immigrants admitted during the
preceding twelve months. Eighty per cent of these thirty millions
arrived during the last fifty years. Eighty-seven per cent of them were
more than fourteen years of age, while only thirteen per cent were
under fourteen. These figures easily demonstrate that the problem is a
growing one and that the large proportion of new arrivals are destined
to become citizens and parents of future citizens in a short time. Our
past policy of devoting our greatest efforts to the thirteen per cent
while largely neglecting the eighty-seven per cent seems very similar
to the losing method of mending a leaking boat by removing the water
with a sponge rather than by repairing the hole.
Economists tell us that the "rise and fall of the immigration waves
are very closely connected with the phenomenon of prosperity in this
country," and that the general causes of westward expansion lie in the
presence of foreign political and religious persecutions, low wages,
bad economic conditions, ease of transportation, inflated rumors of
great opportunities in America, and the appeal of separated friends and
relatives.
The early immigrants, being largely of Teutonic and Keltic origin, were
thrifty and self-reliant by nature and entered our American life as
skilled workmen in agriculture and in the trades. In the last quarter
of a century the source of the tide has changed from the northern to
the southern countries, resulting in a far different type of foreigner
who is generally unskilled, lacking independence and initiative, and
blindly submissive to authority. Many come from nations with a per
cent. of illiteracy rising as high as seventy, and notwithstanding the
fifty per cent decrease in the total percentage of illiteracy in this
country during the past thirty years we must face the fact that some
twenty-eight out of every one hundred of the new arrivals over fourteen
years of age are annually classed as illiterates. In the future we may
expect to receive an increasing flood of immigration from China, Japan
and India, with problems and conditions even more perplexing.
Some say that the incoming foreigner directly affects the entire
laboring class native to America in that he adds materially to the
supply of wage earners, lowers the scale of wages due to lower
standards of living, changes working conditions through the subdivision
of labor, modifies labor organizations, influences local and national
politics and increases social difficulties. It has been said that "low
standards of living on the part of unskilled workers menace the higher
standards of the skilled workers. The man of skill is recognizing this
fact and he is frequently found joining hands with the unskilled to
right the grievances of the latter. In the cotton mills, in the meat
packing industry, in the coal mines, in the clothing industry and
elsewhere, one nationality has been displaced by another satisfied
with a lower standard of living. In turn the second has been displaced
by a third, and so on. Wave after wave of immigrants may be traced in
the history of one of these industries. As rapidly as a race rises in
the scale of living, and through organization begins to demand higher
wages and to resist the pressure of long hours and over-exertion, the
employers substitute another race and the process is repeated. Each
race comes from a country lower in the scale than that of the preceding
until finally the ends of the earth have been ransacked in the search
for low standards of living combined with patient industriousness."
(Carlton).
Our civilization cannot remain unaffected by these changing
characteristics and the threatening, industrial conditions confronting
us. With the army of the unemployed rapidly growing larger and larger,
it behooves the American nation to encourage immediate consideration
of ways and means to prevent unfortunate results in our industrial,
political and social life.
The national government, being concerned chiefly with the admission
or rejection of the immigrant, quickly places him under the care of
state and local governments, who are duty-bound to assume the entire
responsibility of developing him into an efficient worker and a good
citizen. The regulation of private employment agencies, protection
of the foreigner in transit, adoption of standard employment laws,
creation of municipal unemployment commissions, etc., indicate that
state and city governments are beginning to respond to this duty
of offering more sympathetic understanding, more adequate care and
better protection to the newly arrived, confused, unemployed and
homeless immigrant. These governments are slowly realizing that
their obligations have been sorely neglected in the past when
such problems were wholly consigned to the well meaning but quite
inadequate field of private philanthropy. Public libraries, as
departments of city governments, concerned with the dissemination of
knowledge of the masses, must soon realize their large responsibility
in the naturalization, education and socialization of our foreign
born population. It is very gratifying to announce that the state of
Massachusetts has very recently taken the lead in this particular
field of service by the passage of an act authorizing the appointment
by the Board of library commissioners of a field worker to direct the
educational work of libraries among the aliens of the state.
Libraries, like human beings, can reach a high point of efficiency
and service in a particular line only when that line is encouraged
and promoted. The development of libraries favoring certain classes
of citizens has been quite general and extremely successful. Much has
been said but comparatively little has been done for the foreigner
among our laboring men. The "man in the yards," the unskilled foreign
wage-earner, being taxed, while needing more and receiving less from
society than others, "has done much of the rough and hard work of
recent decades. He has built the roadbeds of our railways, mined
our coal and iron, unloaded our vessels, and cleaned our streets.
The recent immigrant has performed the crude manual labor necessary
for the upbuilding of big industrial plants and huge transportation
systems. His services in developing the resources of the nation have
been extremely important. Many industries would be almost depleted
if divested of all wage-earners of foreign birth and those born on
American soil but of foreign born parents. If the foreign born and the
native born of foreign parents were removed from our large cities, the
latter would shrink to approximately one-third of their recent size."
(Carlton.)
This "man in the yards" with whom "intimate contact removes prejudice,
inspires appreciation and kindles self-respect," displays an astounding
amount of seriousness and earnestness in his desire to learn and
to improve himself when once informed of the possibilities in our
libraries. Very often he finds his chief delight in the best of books,
like a child calling for good instead of new books, and many times
he is not as dull and as ignorant as generally supposed, being more
appreciative of better things than our average native laboring man. The
opportunity is a great one to be of practical and inspirational help
to an eager reader seeking to increase his earning power and joy in
life, and to learn of the higher ideals of citizenship and the coming
brotherhood of all.
In order to devise worth-while methods of approaching him and securing
his interest, place yourself in imagination in similar surroundings and
conditions on a foreign shore. Only through direct appeals touching
your personal needs, pleasure and occupation would you be attracted
in like circumstances by strangers. The same is true with our new
Americans.
Foreigners who speak the same language largely settle in the same
locality and move from place to place in groups. A thorough educational
survey of these groups in the community tributary to the library
or branch is of first importance to determine the characteristics,
conditions and needs of each group. Whenever it is possible an
experienced library and social worker should be employed. The advice
and assistance of factory managers, labor leaders and social workers
cannot be valued too highly. Following these steps branch and deposit
stations administered by local assistants may well be located in
favorable shops, yards, factories, settlements, centers, and labor
headquarters, without arousing undue suspicion among the men, even more
extensively than in many of our progressive library systems today.
The formation of the recently named "Creative" or "Extension"
departments and the appointment of one or more trained assistants to
create interest and regularly visit and supervise the library work
in each district, group and institution will soon become a customary
feature in the large cities. I firmly believe that it will not be
many years until our large manufacturing institutions employing much
labor will construct recreational centers in their plants equipped
with social, reading and gymnastic departments sufficient to meet the
needs of their employees. Furthermore, I see little to discourage the
establishment of traveling library collections on wheels, visiting
certain districts on scheduled time, after the manner of the now
famous Maryland wagon and automobile. In libraries near foreign
centers special departments are needed to supply practical and simple
information in different languages on requirements for naturalization,
instruction, employment, investments, American customs, travel and
history, demands of law and order, American money and banks, and
friendly advice on many things of fifty-seven or more varieties.
The development of our present line of tactics, including the
presentation of lectures emphasizing the possibility of increased
wages through practical reading, the formation of classes in the study
of English, the promotion of special foreign entertainment programs
and exhibitions, the extension of the library habit to adults through
publicity directed to their children, the publication of daily news for
workers by means of special library papers and the general press, the
creation of more effectively printed library advertising done in many
languages, the co-operation with individuals and societies promoting
educational, social and recreation centers, etc., will open a new era
in library service for foreign laboring men.
A great number of specialized and technical industrial books may not
often be found necessary in library collections, since the great need
among this class of readers is a large supply of trade journals and
more elementary mechanical books for the unskilled workman, the student
mechanic and the future tradesman.
On the other hand life as well as livelihood must be considered and
met. All men must live while they are earning a living and in these
days they must be trained for vacation as well as vocation. The
tendency today is to place too much emphasis on the daily struggle
for livelihood and to neglect the hours of life during leisure time.
In defense of the "man in the yards" the crying answer returns, "but
what of the man whose soul-deadening toil leaves little or no time for
leisure or whose daily labor kills all mental and physical desire for
leisure, rest and improvement." This cry will return again and again
until all labor shall be so equalized that all men will have more
of what life offers and less of what it demands. Those who work on
specialized labor done under intense strain and through long hours are
destined to become weakened, brutalized and almost incapable of showing
intelligent interest in social-betterment. Even "family life," the
first school of morals, is a closed book against the man who comes home
dead-tired late at night.
Consider some of the perils through which the working boy must pass
from year to year, such as economic waste in un-educational trades,
stinted physical development, early maturity, suppression of the spirit
of boyhood, indifference towards knowledge and efficiency, personal
weakness, and delinquency. The dire results due to these perils are
well illustrated by the following replies made by a number of Chicago
factory children when asked why they quit school:
"Because it's easier to work in a factory than it is to learn at
school."
"You never understand what they tell you in school and you can learn
right off to do things in a factory."
"They don't call you a Dago."
"You can buy shoes for the baby."
"Our boss he never went to school."
"School ain't no good. The Holy Father he can send ye to hell, and the
boss he can take yer job away er raise yer pay. But the teacher, she
can't do nothing."
Is it not true that greed, selfishness, privilege, injustice and
neglect are five of the great sins of civilization? These obstructions
to progress are largely due to ignorance and indifference, two causes
which are in themselves as great evils as their results. In order to
attain the best of social conditions, positive cures must be found for
these devastating evils--cures that will replace greed by liberality,
selfishness by the brotherhood of man, privilege by equality, injustice
by justice and neglect by service--cures that will transform ignorance
and indifference into clear-eyed knowledge and active responsibility.
Laws and revolutions have failed more miserably than we enjoy
admitting and only through the far reaching, beneficent influences of
education and religion may we expect to touch the roots of these great
evils.
Is it possible that many of our public libraries, who reach the
individual and his family long before and for many years following
the efforts of our public schools, can consider themselves excused
from a large part of their responsibility in the educational movements
now striving to improve the physical, mental and moral conditions of
these men who suffer for want of better things? How can it be that
some librarians stand by indifferently and heed not the cry of need
from these weaker members of society, who, with their distinctive and
curable social difficulties, have been left alone to carve their own
destinies, unappreciated and unaided? The time is near at hand when
everyone shall recognize that it is the "common right of all men to
share in the culture, prosperity and progress" of society, and that the
conservation of life by raising it to its highest value is to be the
cry of our new era of heightened individuality.
In his inaugural address President Wilson uttered these accusing heart
searching words: "We have been proud of our industrial achievements,
but we have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the
human cost, the cost of lives snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and
broken, the fearful physical and spiritual cost to the men and women
and children upon whom the dead weight and burden of it all has fallen
without mercy the years through. The groans and agony of it all, the
solemn moving undertone of our life, coming up out of the mines and
factories and out of every home where the struggle has had its intimate
and familiar seat, have not yet reached our ears."
The "vision of the open gates of opportunity for all" must first be
seen by those who lead before they who follow can dream dreams and go
forth to realize them.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: The next speaker, who is now the librarian of
the Rochester public library, was for many years librarian of one of
the most important libraries south of what Mr. O. Henry was accustomed
to call "Mason & Hamlin's Line." I have the pleasure of introducing Mr.
WILLIAM F. YUST, who will speak to us on
WHAT OF THE BLACK AND YELLOW RACES?
The form in which this subject is expressed is first a question asking
for information which has never before been collected. Possibly there
is in it also a mild challenge to library authorities calling for a
declaration of purpose and policy.
So far there is no indication of a yellow race problem in public
libraries. When foreigners enter a field which is already occupied they
do not produce a real race problem so long as they are so few in number
that they are chiefly objects of curiosity.
It is difficult to understand how the Japanese can be a serious race
problem in California where they constitute only two and one-half per
cent of the population and own and lease only twelve one-hundredths
of one per cent of the land. And yet it sounds as if there is trouble
there. Whatever may be its nature and its causes, the difficulty has
not extended to public libraries. The Chinese on the Pacific coast,
as elsewhere, are seldom seen in a library. They live in their own
quarter and hardly ever penetrate other sections of the city except for
purposes of trade.
The Japanese who frequent the libraries are not numerous. They belong
almost entirely to the student class and the books they take are used
in connection with their school work. In some places they "appear to
be more resourceful, more polite and more intelligent than the average
high school student" with whom the libraries come in contact. As a
class of patrons they are not only inoffensive but desirable.
While the yellow man is clearly not a problem in libraries, it is
equally certain that the black man is a problem. This is especially
true in the South. In northern libraries it is the rule to admit him
without distinction. Throughout the South, with very few exceptions,
the segregation maintained in all social, educational and religious
institutions is enforced in libraries.
This paper will deal primarily with the public library question. But
account should also be taken of the institutional libraries to which
negroes have access.
Institutional Libraries
The report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1910 contains a
list of 189 secondary and higher schools for the colored race in 16
states and the District of Columbia. Of these 160 report libraries
aggregating 368,684 volumes with an estimated value of $295,788.
Following is a summary of the institutions and their libraries arranged
by states. Of these libraries 84 have less than 1,000 volumes;
56 have 1,000 to 5,000 volumes; 11 have between 5,000 and 10,000
volumes; 6 have between 10,000 and 20,000. Two have 26,607 and 27,000
respectively.
Schools Volumes Estimated
Reporting. in Value.
Library.
Alabama 14 49,522 $26,525
Arkansas 6 9,450 5,150
Delaware 2 1,900 800
District of Columbia 2 27,253 43,569
Florida 7 8,267 7,120
Georgia 14 49,025 32,181
Kentucky 6 3,950 2,350
Louisiana 10 14,353 16,051
Maryland 5 7,250 5,735
Mississippi 11 18,432 14,920
Missouri 3 4,950 5,500
New Jersey 1 35 25
North Carolina 20 16,560 13,097
Ohio 1 6,500 2,500
Oklahoma 1 975 1,450
Pennsylvania 2 19,500 20,500
South Carolina 16 27,600 21,000
Tennessee 11 30,025 17,935
Texas 8 13,550 17,830
Virginia 18 52,030 35,950
West Virginia 2 7,557 5,600
--- ------- --------
Total 160 368,684 $295,788
Many of these collections except in the larger institutions, have
been characterized as "so unsuitable as to be almost worthless ...
the discarded refuse of garrets and overcrowded store rooms, which
should have gone to the paper mill, but was sent to these poor children
through mistaken kindness."
These libraries are primarily for the use of the students, but they
are usually open to the townspeople for reading and reference. While
the people thus have access to a collection of books for consultation,
it can not be said that they have the equivalent of a public library,
even where the selection is good. It is a common occurrence, however,
throughout the country for institutional libraries to operate against
the establishment of a public library without acting as a satisfactory
substitute.
General Attitude
The prevailing attitude toward libraries for negroes is one of
indifference among the masses of both races. But the same conditions
existed for many years and still exist in other parts of the country.
The library must follow the school, it can not precede it. When it
is remembered that the educational awakening of the South is of
comparatively recent date and that anything like general education of
the negro is still more recent, the small number of public libraries
for negroes will not appear so strange. In a few places a vigorous
demand has arisen. In a few places the authorities have not only
supplied the demand but have endeavored to stimulate and enlarge it.
It may be said, however, that there are still people who think that
the negro is incapable of education and that it actually unfits him
for usefulness. Uncle Remus has a saying, "When you put a book into
a negro's hand you spoil a good plow hand." This notion still lurks
in the minds of a surprisingly large number of people, who cite the
wretched condition and dense ignorance of millions of negroes after
fifty years of freedom. In 1910 thirty per cent of them were still
illiterate. Libraries can not flourish in illiteracy as trees can not
grow in a desert.
There are, however, oases in the desert, bright and shining examples of
individuals, schools and whole communities, which have demonstrated the
negro's capacity for the highest education and development. There is a
growing disposition to afford him full opportunity for making the most
of himself.
While some librarians are urging action, others shrink from it as from
a disagreeable task. One is endeavoring to look at the subject of a
negro library from the missionary standpoint and is trying to convince
the trustees that such an innovation would be desirable, but finds it
very hard to arouse any interest and enthusiasm. Another proposes to
let the question alone till forced to take action. Another reports that
the city is on the verge of the question. Another is having difficulty
to find a central location for a colored library where white people
do not object. One city with a branch library in a negro high school
considers it an easy way out of a difficult situation. The authorities
realize that the time is coming when these facilities will no longer be
adequate. At present their funds are needed so much in other directions
that they hope to be able to postpone this added expense for some time
to come. One library having a special room for negroes never pushes
this part of its work, but does only what it is compelled to do by city
ordinance. Another where there is no race distinction tells how the
library is overrun at times with negroes and what a drawback this is to
the work.
Some lend books to negroes but do not allow them to sit in the reading
room. This practice is not established by rule and regulation but rests
on the disposition of the librarians to be helpful to all. Public
sentiment will tolerate it in this form while it would rebel at an
attempt to guarantee the same service in formal rules.
Table of Leading Cities
Following is a table of some of the chief southern cities showing their
status with respect to negro libraries. The letter x denotes a negro
educational institution having a library of 1,000 volumes or more.
Negro
Population 1910 Public Remarks
City Total Negro Lib.
=Alabama=
Birmingham 132,685 52,305 No
Mobile 51,521 22,763 No
Montgomery 38,136 19,322 No
=Delaware=
Wilmington 87,411 9,081 Yes Admitted to Wilmington
Lib. without distinction.
=District of Columbia=
Washington 331,069 94,446 Yes Admitted to Pub. Lib.
without distinction. 2 x.
=Florida=
Jacksonville 81,640 40,020 Yes Sep. room & sep. books
in Carnegie lib.
=Georgia=
Atlanta 154,839 51,902 No 4 x.
Macon 40,665 18,150 No
Savannah 65,064 33,246 Yes Small sep. lib. of
little consequence.
=Kentucky=
Covington 53,270 2,899 No
Lexington 35,099 11,011 Yes Draw bks. at same desk with whites;
sep reading room; little used.
Louisville 223,928 40,522 Yes $30,000 Carnegie branch of pub. lib.;
2nd branch $22,500 being built.
=Louisiana=
New Orleans 339,075 89,262 No $25,000 Carnegie branch
to be built. 4 x.
=Maryland=
Baltimore 558,485 84,749 Yes Pratt free lib. admits without
distinction. 2 x.
=Missouri=
Kansas City 248,381 23,566 Yes Pub. lib. admits without distinction.
St. Louis 687,029 43,960 Yes Pub. lib. admits without distinction.
St. Joseph 77,403 4,249 Yes Pub. lib. admits without distinction.
=North Carolina=
Raleigh 19,218 Yes Sep. bldg. erected by city.
Poorly supported.
=Oklahoma=
Oklahoma City 64,205 6,546 Yes Pub. lib. admits without distinction.
=Tennessee=
Chattanooga 44,604 17,942 314 vols. placed in col. high
schools as a beginning.
Memphis 131,105 52,431 Yes Cossitt Lib. supplies books
thru LeMoyne Inst. 1 x.
Nashville 110,364 36,523 No $25,000 Carnegie Branch
to be built. 2 x.
=Texas=
Dallas 92,104 18,024 No
Galveston 36,981 8,036 Yes Branch of Rosenberg lib.
in col. high sch'l.
Houston 78,800 23,924 Yes $15,000 Carnegie bldg.
under negro board.
San Antonio 96,614 10,716 ?
=Virginia=
Norfolk 67,452 25,039 No
Richmond 127,618 46,733 No This city has no
pub. library.
Cities Having Colored Libraries
Charlotte, N. C., is the first and only city to build a library for
negroes with its own funds. After erecting a $25,000 Carnegie building
it spent $5,000 on a site and a separate building for negroes which was
opened in 1906. But its only income for maintenance is $400 a year from
the city. Most of the books have been donated. In 1911 the librarian
of the white library enlisted the interest of a Pittsburgh woman who
collected about 600 volumes for it in the North. The librarian at
Wilkes-Barré, Pa., sends it the best of her discarded books. From these
facts one may infer what kind of standard is maintained.
The white library was incorporated by the legislature in a special
act, which at the same time created a separate negro board. Several
ineffectual efforts have been made to have the act changed to place the
colored library under control of the white board and the supervision
of the white librarian. This would undoubtedly result in greater
efficiency, as now everybody including the colored board seems to be
inactive and indifferent toward it. Its failure however can hardly be
ascribed to the negro board alone because it is manifestly impossible
with such resources under such conditions to conduct a library which
would command the respect and the interest of either race.
Savannah, Ga., also has a small library for negroes. It was organized
in 1907 and is housed in rented quarters, but very few persons seem to
know of its existence. The city appropriates $360 a year for it. In
1911 it had 2,611 volumes and 1,244 were drawn for home use. Its total
receipts were $375.77. At the end of the year $35 was due the librarian
for salary and there was a deficit of $33.93. In 1910 Mr. Carnegie
offered $12,000 for a colored branch building and the city has promised
an increased appropriation on the completion of the building. For a
time the negroes tried to raise the money for a site by subscription,
but so far they have not succeeded.
Jacksonville, Fla., has in its Carnegie building a separate room and
books in charge of a colored attendant. Of its 81,000 population half
are colored, but the negro registration is only five per cent and
the circulation six per cent of the whole. No effort is being made
to extend it. The opinion prevails that the arrangement is a mistake
and that a branch library in the negro quarter would bring out a much
larger use.
Galveston, Texas, has had a branch of the Rosenberg library in the
colored high school since 1904. It contains 2,745 volumes. With a
colored population less than one-fifth as large as Jacksonville it has
twice as many borrowers but circulates only one-fourth as many books,
2,433 last year. This seems a very small number and does not bear out
the theory that a separate branch enlarges its use.
In Memphis, Tenn., the Cossitt library in 1903 entered into an
agreement with the LeMoyne Institute, a colored normal school, which
furnishes the room, and the Cossitt library furnishes the librarian
and the books, which number about four thousand added to a like number
belonging to the school. While these are used mainly by pupils and
teachers of the school, it serves as the book supply for all interested
negroes in the city and surrounding district.
The facilities thus furnished seem to meet the present demands pretty
fully. Much depends on the librarian's attitude, which is helpful and
encouraging. The circulation last year was 13,947 vols. The institute
is erecting a new school building, which will provide better library
accommodations.
Louisville, Ky., was the first to establish a full-fledged branch on
a broad basis and to erect a separate branch library building for
negroes. The original plan for ten Carnegie branch libraries, of which
seven have been built, included two for negroes. The first of these was
opened in rented quarters the same year as the main library in 1905.
Three years later it was moved into the new $30,000 building.
In its administration the colored branch is a part of the general
library system and is under the supervision of the main library. The
branch librarian, who is a graduate of Hampton Institute, and the two
assistants are colored.
The branch serves as the reference library for the colored high schools
and other educational institutions. It is in close co-operation with
the grade schools through the collections of books which it sends to
the classrooms to be drawn by the pupils for home use.
It has an assembly room which is used for lectures, entertainments
and numerous other public meetings, and two classrooms for smaller
gatherings. There is a story hour for children and several reading
and debating clubs for boys and girls and adults. Through its various
activities the library not only circulates books and furnishes facts
but it is an educational and social center from which radiate many
influences for general betterment.
Fine work is being done with children, who draw 68 per cent of the
books circulated. An interesting account of it is given in the Library
Journal for April, 1910, 25:160-61, by Mrs. Rachel D. Harris, a former
teacher in the colored schools, who is in charge of this department.
When the branch was started eight years ago it was somewhat of an
experiment and there was doubt and apprehensiveness all around with
regard to the outcome of the undertaking. But it has been a pronounced
success from the beginning. It has grown steadily until last year
73,462 vols. were drawn from it for home use. It has become so popular
that the second branch is now under construction in the eastern colored
section of the city.
The colored people are proud of this library and its achievements. Its
opening marked an epoch in the development of the race which is second
in importance only to the opening of the first colored free schools
there in 1870.
Houston, Texas, also has a separate branch building opened last
April. For the past four years it was maintained in a small way in the
colored high school. The new building is distinctively a product of
negro enterprise. Booker T. Washington's secretary called on Andrew
Carnegie personally and secured the promise of $15,000 on condition
that the city of Houston would agree to provide not less than $1,500
annually for its maintenance. The $1,500 for the site was raised by
colored citizens entirely among their own people. The plans for the
building were drawn by a colored architect and its erection supervised
by a committee of a separate board of trustees, which consisted of nine
colored men. The librarian is a colored girl who is responsible only to
the colored trustees. Although she and the trustees consult freely with
the librarian and trustees of the public library, the latter act only
in an advisory capacity to them. They are therefore justly proud of the
library as their own achievement. It contains 5,000 volumes. From a
colored population of 30,000 the registered borrowers were only 1,261
last year and the books drawn 5,117. These numbers seem very small, but
no doubt there will be a large increase in the new building.
While the Houston method of management may contribute to the negro's
self-respect and minister somewhat to the pride and independence of a
few of their number, the wisdom of the plan may well be questioned. The
results are bound to be inferior unless experience counts for nothing.
It is unfortunate that so many cities in their first venture proceed
with such disregard of the experience of other places. But the limit
is reached when the same city repeats the process with a second board
after one board has learned its lesson. This applies not only to the
details of planning, erecting and furnishing a building but equally if
not more to its operation, the selection, purchase and cataloging of
books, the appointment of assistants and the transacting of its daily
business.
The white public library boards of Nashville and New Orleans both have
plans under way for the erection of Carnegie colored branch buildings,
each to cost $25,000. In Nashville the negroes are raising $1,000 and
the city is paying $5,000 toward the site. In New Orleans the city
will purchase the site. In neither of these places is there any public
provision at present for supplying books to negroes.
In Atlanta, Ga., the leading educational center of the South for
negroes, they are still without public library facilities, although
agitation on the subject began over ten years ago. On the day of
the opening of the beautiful $125,000 Carnegie building a committee
of colored men called on the library board. Prof. W. E. B. DuBois of
Atlanta University acting as spokesman said:
"Gentlemen, we are a committee come to ask you to do justice to the
black people of Atlanta by giving them the same free library privileges
that you propose giving to whites. Every argument which can be adduced
to show the need of libraries for whites applies with redoubled force
to the negroes. More than any other part of our population they need
instruction, inspiration and proper diversion; they need to be lured
from temptation of the streets and saved from evil influences, and
they need a growing acquaintance with what the best of the world's
souls have thought and done and said. It seems hardly necessary in
the twentieth century to argue before men like you the necessity and
propriety of placing the best means of human uplifting into the hands
of the poorest and lowest and blackest.
"The spirit of this great gift to the city has not the spirit of
caste or exclusion but rather the catholic spirit which recognizes no
artificial differences of rank or birth or race, but seeks to give all
men equal opportunity to make the most of themselves. It is our sincere
hope that this city will prove itself broad enough and just enough to
administer this trust in the true spirit in which it was given."
The chairman asked, "Do you not think that allowing whites and negroes
to use this library would be fatal to its usefulness?" Another member
of the committee replied that they did not ask to use this library nor
even ask equal privileges but only some privileges somewhere.
The chairman then made these points clear: (1) That negroes would not
be permitted to use the Carnegie Library in Atlanta; (2) That some
library facilities would be provided for them in the future; (3) That
the city council would be asked to appropriate a sum proportionate to
the amount of taxes paid by negroes of the city; (4) That efforts would
be made to induce northern philanthropists to aid such a library.
Later Mr. Carnegie offered to give the money necessary for the erection
of a branch library for negroes. When the details of its administration
came up for consideration the negroes demanded representation on the
library board. This was positively refused and the proceedings were so
completely blocked that the negroes of Atlanta are still without any
public library advantages.
Methods of Management
From the cases cited it appears that there are four distinct methods
of dealing with this question in the South: (1) To admit the negro to
the same building on equal terms with others as is done in Baltimore,
Wilmington, Washington and some of the Missouri libraries. This method
is not satisfactory to the whites. As one report says, "There are white
people who are deterred from using the library because in so doing they
must touch elbows with colored folks.... We could do better service to
both races if there could be a separation, for we must take the people
with their prejudices, especially in the use of the library, which is
a purely voluntary matter." (2) To admit him to the same building but
to a separate room, which is not satisfactory to the negro. One library
which has this plan reports, "Many of the educated and cultured negroes
(for there are some even in the South) will not come unless they can
do so on the same social equality and use the same apartments as the
white patrons." (3) To have a separate library under control of members
of their own race. This is almost certain to produce inferior results
on account of their inexperience and lack of knowledge regarding every
phase of the work. (4) To have a separate branch in charge of colored
assistants who are under the direction and supervision of one board
and one librarian, who have control over the entire library including
all branches and other agencies. This plan assures the greatest economy
and efficiency and will probably be adopted by all the libraries whose
funds will permit it. A separate colored board is as unnecessary and
unbusinesslike as would be a separate board for each white branch.
On the advantages of a separate branch library one colored man writes:
"In the South the separation is not only necessary for the peace and
cordial relations desirable to be maintained but the colored branches
are desirable because the colored people would use them so a hundred
times more than they would otherwise. The feeling of perfect welcome,
ownership and unqualified privilege are all necessary to patrons who
are to get the best possible from libraries among them. These things
in the South can only be had in separate branches as much as it is
regrettable that there should be a mind and spirit demanding separate
libraries."
Traveling Libraries
Delaware and Kentucky are the only state library commissions reporting
special traveling libraries for negroes. Last year "seven traveling
libraries of 30 to 50 volumes each were arranged for the use of the
colored schools in Delaware, and the entire charge and care of these
libraries was given over to the State College for Colored Students near
Dover." The Kentucky commission has two libraries of 50 volumes each in
circulation and is planning to send more. Hampton Institute also sends
out traveling collections of books.
Another system of traveling libraries is that established in 1910 by
James H. Gregory of Marblehead, Mass., for distribution through Atlanta
University among the negroes of the South. There are about 60 libraries
of 48 volumes each. They are sent to any community, school, church or
other organization for one year and then exchanged for a different
set. Two interesting articles on these libraries and their founder
were published by G. S. Dickerman in the Southern Workman, August and
September, 1910.
What the Negro Reads
What the negro reads is in itself a large and interesting subject. A
brief article on it dealing equally with what the negro does not read,
appeared in the Critic, July 1906, from Mr. George B. Utley, then
librarian of the Jacksonville public library. The first book drawn from
the Louisville library was Washington's "Up from slavery." The most
striking feature of the circulation in general is the comparatively
small percentage of fiction read. Of the 258,438 volumes drawn from
the Louisville library during its first six years only 46 per cent was
fiction.
This may be due to the fact that the so-called leisure class, who are
supposed to read most of the fiction, is smaller among the colored
people; or that the novel does not appeal so strongly to the negro
mind; or that the library is used more largely by pupils, teachers,
ministers and other professional people, who come to it for more
serious purposes.
A book entitled "Tuskegee and its people," edited by Booker T.
Washington, contains biographical sketches of many negroes who have
gone out from that school to work for the elevation of their race.
These sketches give a remarkable picture of the "conditions that
environ the masses of the negro people," as well as their struggles for
improvement.
One of them describing the country school which he attended writes,
"When I reached the point where the teacher ordered me to get a
United States history, the book store did not have one, but sold me
a biography of Martin Luther instead, which I studied for some time
thinking that I was learning something about the U. S."
Years later "I betook me to the woods, where I read everything I
could get. It was during this time that accidentally, I may say
providentially, I got hold of a book containing the life of Ignacius
Sancho; and I have never read anything that has given me more
inspiration. I wish every negro boy in the land might read it."
Another Tuskegee graduate, a woman whose mother as a slave had been
taught to read by her master's daughter, writes: "Sundays, with my
sisters gathered about her knees, we would sit for hours listening as
mother would read church hymns for us."
The articles by Mr. Dickerman above referred to give the results of
some investigations on their choice of books. He received answers from
35 leading negro schools in response to a request for a list of such
"books as had been found in the experience of their schools to be the
most popular and the best and which they would recommend." The "Life of
Lincoln" appeared on 15 of these lists; "Little women" 15; "Robinson
Crusoe" 14; "Paul Dunbar" 11; "Uncle Tom's cabin" 10; "Ivanhoe" 9;
"Souls of black folk" 9; "Ramona" 8; "Life of Douglass" 8; "Uncle
Remus" 7. Six lists included "Alice in wonderland," Grimm's "Fairy
tales," "John Halifax," "Last days of Pompeii," and "Swiss family
Robinson."
These lists all came from schools and therefore bear the earmarks of
the schoolmaster. But the largest part of the reading by negroes is
done by the pupils and teachers in connection with their school work.
This would account for the preponderance of the literature and history
classes. Miss Sarah B. Askew observes that among the general readers
in a public library "the colored people's tastes are for quick action,
strong emotion, vivid coloring, and simplicity of narration." Books
by and about their own people are in constant demand. The colored
magazines, those devoted especially to their interests and those
published by colored men are always popular.
There is also a growing demand for books useful to the mechanic in
his daily work. Chauffeurs "avail themselves of technical books on
automobiles." An early experience in the Louisville library was with
a woman who made a business of raising chickens. She called at the
library for medical help because many of them were dying. Strangely
enough this subject had been overlooked in selecting the books and the
librarian was unable to prescribe for sick chickens. But a book on
poultry was ordered for her immediately.
Conclusions
Following are some conclusions regarding libraries for negroes:
(1) That books and reading are of the utmost value in the education,
development and progress of the race.
(2) That in northern public libraries they are admitted to all
privileges without distinction.
(3) That in southern libraries the segregation of the races
prevails, as it does, in all educational, religious and other social
institutions.
(4) That in many places institutional libraries are supplying the book
wants of the few negroes who really have need of libraries.
(5) That among the masses of the colored race there is as yet very
little demand for libraries.
(6) That where a genuine demand has manifested itself and up-to-date
facilities have been provided negroes have been quick to use them and
have made commendable progress.
(7) That in some of the large cities containing a great many negroes
who are intelligent and who pay taxes the provision made for them is
sadly inadequate or is entirely lacking.
(8) That southern librarians generally are kindly and helpfully
disposed toward them and that the majority of the white people favor
a fair deal for them, including the best training and the fullest
enlightenment.
(9) That in the South any arrangement which aims to serve the two races
in the same room or in the same building is detrimental to the greatest
good of both. Complete segregation is essential to the best work for
all.
(10) That many libraries are not financially able to conduct separate
departments and so the negro loses out.
(11) That a few cities have splendid facilities for them, a few others
are now establishing branches, a considerable number are discussing the
question seriously and another considerable number which should be at
work are doing nothing.
(12) That the best solution of the problem is the separate branch in
charge of colored assistants under the supervision and control of the
white authorities.
(13) That even in northern cities which have large segregated colored
districts such separate branches would result in reaching a larger
number of negroes and doing better work for both races.
(14) That the South is entitled to the sympathy and help of the North
on this question, which is only a part of the larger question of negro
education. That sympathy will come with fuller information and will
increase as the size and seriousness of the problem is more fully
understood.
Adjourned.
THIRD GENERAL SESSION
(Wednesday morning, June 25, 1913)
The PRESIDENT: There is a matter of business to come up this morning.
At the last conference the Association adopted an amendment to the
Constitution which, to become effective, must be ratified at this
meeting. It may be added that the requisite notice required by the
Constitution, of thirty days, has been given by the Secretary, through
publication in the Bulletin, where you have doubtless seen the proposed
amendment together with the by-law which is dependent, of course, upon
the adoption of the amendment itself. The Secretary will please read
the proposed amendment as adopted at the Ottawa conference.
The SECRETARY: I will also read that portion of Section 14 of the
Constitution to which the amendment would apply:
"=Council.= Membership. The Council shall consist of the
executive board, all ex-presidents of the Association who
continue as members thereof, all presidents of affiliated
societies who are members of the Association, twenty-five
members elected by the Association at large, and twenty-five
elected by the Council itself,"--
And the proposed amendment consists of the following words to be
inserted at that place:
--"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."
The PRESIDENT: The amendment is before you for consideration. What is
your pleasure? Are you ready for the question?
(The question being called for and put, the amendment was adopted.)
The PRESIDENT: Dependent upon the adoption of the amendment to the
Constitution there is now before you for consideration a proposed
amendment to the by-laws. The Secretary will please read the suggested
amendment which carries into effect now the Constitutional amendment
which you have just adopted and which becomes effective, in that it has
now been adopted by two successive conferences.
The Secretary then read the proposed amendment Section 3a, which is as
follows:
"Sec. 3a. 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."
The President then put the question and the above amendment to the
by-laws was duly adopted.
Dr. ANDREWS: I move the addition of the words "or to members of
other affiliated societies," in order not to bar these members from
attendance at our meetings.
The PRESIDENT: Dr. Andrews' amendment is to include the words "or to
members of other affiliated societies."
Mr. RANCK: I think, as a member of the Committee that had something to
do with the drafting of the proposed by-law, that I can say that the
purpose of that provision was that there should be some advantage to
persons holding membership in these organizations, to get the railroad
rates, hotel rates, etc.; in other words, to have some pecuniary
advantage in their becoming members and not to be able to come and get
those advantages without holding any kind of a membership.
If I may be permitted, Mr. President, I should like to give a few
figures with reference to the distribution of the members of the
Council as it now exists, as given in the last handbook. There were
72 members of the Council, counting the one or two who have died,
representing 48 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. However,
in the Council only 20 States in the Union have representation.
In other words, there are 28 states in the Union that are not
represented in the Council. The population of these 28 states is nearly
thirty-three millions and their area is nearly two million square
miles, whereas the area of the states that are represented is a little
over a million square miles. The point is, Mr. President, the purpose
of the amendment to the Constitution and these amendments is to give a
wider geographical distribution of representation in the Council; in
other words, that more than half of the area of the United States may
be brought in, on account of this geographical representation, and that
the thirty-three millions of people who live in those states may be
able to get a representation which it seems at the present time they do
not have.
The PRESIDENT: The question before the conference is on the proposed
amendment of the by-law as offered by Dr. Andrews.
(The President put the question and the amendment was duly adopted.)
The PRESIDENT: The question now is upon the amendment to the by-laws as
amended.
(The President put the question and the amendment to the by-laws was
duly adopted.)
The PRESIDENT: The Association during the past year suffered grievous
loss in the passing of two of its notable members, members who had
long been identified with the Association and its work, and I may
add the loss of a friend of librarians everywhere, that splendid
gentleman, Mr. Francis Fisher Browne, of The Dial,--a man gentle of
soul, keen of intellect and fine of fiber. While perhaps we are not
called upon to take official notice of his passing it seems to me very
well that we should group him with those whose loss we mourn at this
time. By request of the Executive Board and of the Council a committee
consisting of Dr. Putnam, Mr. Bowker and Mr. Wellman have been asked to
draft memorial resolutions on the passing of Dr. Billings and Mr. Soule
and I would ask Dr. Putnam to report at this time.
Dr. PUTNAM: With your permission I will ask Mr. Wellman to read the
suggested minute with reference to Mr. Soule. And the Committee would
suggest that if the expression in these minutes appears to you just,
that they be adopted by a rising vote.
Mr. Wellman then read the following resolution which was unanimously
adopted by a rising vote.
CHARLES CARROLL SOULE
With profound sorrow, we record the death of Charles C. Soule, whose
services and relation to the American Library Association were in many
ways unique. Though himself not a librarian, yet in the early days of
the public library he was one of those who foresaw the great force
which it might be made to exert in our democratic civilization; and to
promote the wise realization of this vision, he labored unceasingly
as a member of this Association for more than thirty years and was a
constant attendant at the meetings. He served as vice-president in
1890, as member of the Institute for six years, as member of the
Council for eight years, as trustee of the endowment fund for twelve
years, and as a member of the Publishing Board for eighteen years. But
his distinctive contribution was in efforts towards the improvement of
library architecture; and here by his study and writings, as well as by
creating the office of advisory expert in building, he did more than
any other man to further the planning of library buildings for library
work.
In reciting the tale of his accomplishment, it is impossible to
forget the man. Unselfish and high-minded, a good counsellor and a
consistent friend, he ever showed eager and affectionate interest in
the work of his fellow members, and especially in the success of those
beginning their careers. Above all, he possessed a generous faith in
his associates and an unfailing good will. These were but a few of the
qualities which enabled him to achieve so much for the public library,
and which endeared him to hosts of librarians throughout the land.
Dr. PUTNAM: Mr. President, this is proposed as a minute for the records
of the Association. It is therefore headed "John Shaw Billings."
The resolution was unanimously adopted by a rising vote.
JOHN SHAW BILLINGS
April 12, 1838--March 18, 1913
A member of the American Library Association
1881-1913--Its President, 1901-02
It is seldom that the death of an individual removes from two
professions a unit of singular power in each. But such was the loss in
the recent death of John Shaw Billings; a scientist in a department of
science intensive and exacting, a librarian rigorously scientific in a
profession broadly humane. To the former he made original contributions
which constituted him an authority within special fields; but also
in his great Index-Catalog of Medical Literature, one which assured
certainty and promoted advance in every field--and left the entire
medical profession his debtor. As a librarian, having first brought
to preeminence the professional library entrusted to him, he was
called to the organization into a single system of isolated funds
and institutions, achieved that organization, and lived to see it,
under his charge develop into the largest general library system in
the world, with a possible influence upon our greatest metropolis of
incalculable importance to it, and through it, to the welfare of our
entire country.
The qualities which enabled him to accomplish all this included
not merely certain native abilities--among them, penetration,
concentration, vigor, tenacity of purpose and directness of method,
but others developed by self-denial, self-discipline, and a complete
dedication to the work in hand. It was through these that he earned his
education and his scientific training; and they hardened into habits
which attended him to the end of his days, when he concluded in toil
that shirked no detail a life begun in toil and devoted to detail.
Such habits, a keen faculty of analysis, and a scientific training
kept him aloof alike from hasty generalizations and from the impulses
of mere emotion; while his military training induced in him three
characteristics which marked alike his treatment of measures and his
dealings with men; incisiveness, a distaste for the superfluous and the
redundant, and an insistence upon the suitable subordination of the
part to the whole. In this combination, and in the knowledge of, and
power over, men which accompanied it, he was unique among librarians;
in his complete lack of ostentation he was unusual among men. His
mind was ever on the substance, indifferent to the form. A =power= in
two professions, to have termed him the "ornament" of either would
have affronted him; for he was consistently impatient of the merely
ornamental. Any =personal= ostentation was actually repugnant to him;
and he avoided it as completely in what he suffered as in what he
achieved; bearing, with a reticence that asked no allowances, physical
anguish in which most men would have found ample excuse from every care.
If such a combination of traits assured his remarkable efficiency,
it might not have seemed calculated to promote warm personal or
social attachments. Yet there was in him also a singular capacity for
friendship; not indeed for impulsive and indiscriminate intimacies, but
for those selective, deep, steady and lasting friendships which are
proof of the fundamental natures of men. And however terse, austere,
and even abrupt, his manner in casual relations, where a really human
interest was at stake he might be relied upon for sympathies both warm
and considerate, and the more effective because consistently just and
inevitably sincere.
The testimonies to these qualities in his character, to these powers,
and to his varied achievements, have already been many and impressive.
The American Library Association wishes to add its own, with a special
recognition not merely of the value to the community of the things
which he accomplished, but of the value to individuals in the example
of a character and abilities so resolutely developed and so resolutely
applied to the service of science and the service of men.
The PRESIDENT: To offer a telegram as a substitute for a long and
pleasurably anticipated paper is cause for regret, but such must be the
case this morning as Miss Arnold finds it impossible to be with us.
The telegram reads as follows:
"Emergency meeting of Simmons College Corporation has been
appointed for Wednesday and prevents me from attending library
meeting. Extreme regrets.
SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD."
The general theme of this morning's session is "Library influence
in the home, in the shop, on the farm, and among defectives and
dependents." We shall begin the morning's program with a paper on
"The working library for the artisan and the craftsman," by EDWARD F.
STEVENS, librarian Pratt Institute free library, and director of the
school of library science, Brooklyn.
THE WORKING LIBRARY FOR THE ARTISAN AND THE CRAFTSMAN
It is not my privilege to speak to you at this time of the
professional, technical, or practical aspects of that recent phase of
library work wherein is attempted the reconciliation of shopmen with
bookmen. In the very few moments placed at my disposal I may mention
only that human relationship which enters so largely into a librarian's
dealings with men who are concerned with and about their work.
The straightforward, sympathetic intercourse of man with man may adorn
to the point of making almost beautiful a department of librarianship
which is extremely matter-of-fact in its essential character and
might easily become commonplace in its practicality. The business of
a technology department in a public library may best be expressed in
terms of the statement of the policy of the Franklin Union established
in recent years in Philadelphia--"the further education of men already
employed." Such a working library is strictly a library of work. It is
almost oppressively utilitarian. Yet to a librarian who has had the
privilege of making books known to artisans and craftsmen, and who is
now denied that privilege, the sense of the loss of the fellowships,
not to say friendships, that formerly were a part of his daily
occupation proves that the sympathetic was after all the potential
element in his experience.
I may say with Lowell, "I like folks who like an honest piece of
steel.... There is always more than the average human nature in a man
who has a hearty sympathy with iron."
Theodore Roosevelt has given us a maxim that deserves to be written as
a rule of life--"That which one does which all can do but won't do is
the greatest of greatness."
Therein is the greatness of work with practical men--the discernment
of the simplest facts of life, the performance of the simplest acts of
life in working out the complex things of life, recognizing, to begin
with, that a man's difficulty is at once less a difficulty when it
becomes the friendly concern of a fellow-man. My own first experience
as a seeker after help in a public library in matters technical that
were then of great importance to me, met the rebuff and disappointment
that have given me a point of view which amounts to a conviction.
In the present day, the library assumes considerable confidence in
inviting the workingman into its constituency, and the workingman
must come to it with no less confidence if the library expects its
justification. The mechanic, as formerly the scholar, must approach the
library with a calculated expectation. The librarian must understand
him, believe in him, and in turn make himself understood by him.
In a recent issue of the =American Machinist=, a writer deplores
the general lack of sympathy and interest in the affairs of the
"unheralded mechanic." That the life he lives has no place in men's
thoughts nor in literature. This is the closing statement: "As it is,
if left to themselves, mechanics will by their silence continue to
let those outside the shop think of them as nothing but men tied to a
whistle."
Leigh Hunt (himself very much an outsider) in a familiar essay makes
this friendly observation: "A business of screws and iron wheels is, or
appears to be, a very commonplace matter; but not so the will of the
hand that sets them in motion; not so the operations of the mind that
directs them what to utter."
But this mechanic that now nears the public library is coming neither
as a pathetic figure in distress, nor as a mysterious or heroic figure
beyond our comprehension. He comes as an unpretending man dignified by
earnestness of purpose not to discredit an honorable vocation.
The best of mutual understanding and feeling, however, will not secure
the chief ends of librarianship except so far as they splendidly
prepare the way. The recognition of books as tools comes only as the
books stand the same practical test that the workman applies to his
instruments.
The librarian must furnish books shaped to the man's hand, books that
he can use to perform work, that he can depend upon as true, accurate,
precise, simple, efficient, economical, reliable in the same sense
that his tools must be all these. And so, the selection of books for
a working library of technology becomes not unlike the testing of
instruments of precision. Care in selection is of supreme importance in
fitting up a tool-shop of books.
Wisdom in application is scarcely second to intelligence in choice.
A practical man does not often come to a library for this or that
particular book, for the work of a specified author, or for a title
that he has in mind. If he does, he cannot always be depended upon to
know his own wishes in the matter. What this man wants is information
about a topic that concerns him. He leaves it to the library to tell
him in what printed form that information can be had--and it's risky,
for the library, to trifle with him or to play him false. Hesitation,
indecision, irresolution are fatal. If the library exhibits lack of
faith in itself, who, indeed, shall have faith in it? The workingman
will be sure to entertain the same contempt for the librarian's
doubtful application of even the best books as he himself would of the
misuse of good tools in his own trade.
This necessity for books that will answer to needs is the incentive in
the erection of a working library to which men may resort.
At home we have a permanent and constantly revised selection of the
most useful technical books registered on cards of varying colors
showing the differing characteristics of the books included. This
is our Works Library. And within it, on blue cards, are listed the
simplest and most direct texts for the man with the least preparation
for books. This is our Dinner-Pail Library. And starting with these, we
may go on with a degree of confidence in teaching men the use of tools
the handling of which we ourselves understand.
Preparedness in attitude, preparedness in equipment, await the arrival
of the man the most skeptical of the library's guests. Does he come
and go away again confirmed in his skepticism? If he does, it's the
library's fault, not his. Does he come, and remain, to come again?
Then he is ready to pay the tribute of his allegiance that becomes the
librarian's great reward.
We have heard the =American Machinist= complain that the mechanic
found no voice to sing his praises. Not less is the genus librarian
unwept, unhonored, and unsung. He expects praise as little as he
desires it, and, perhaps, I may say, deserves it. But the ready word
of appreciation, the acknowledgment of the library's help in overcoming
difficulties that drove a man there as a last resort, the confession
of awakening to the new knowledge of the library's wider purpose and
power, is expressed often with a frankness and fervor that surprise and
gratify the fortunate librarian who has been instrumental in bringing
things to pass.
I recall how men of few words and little sentiment have spontaneously
related to me their experiences of misfortune, perplexity,
disappointment, or other embarrassment that caused them to turn to the
public library for a possible helping hand, and then, how the library
did not fail them in their extremity. At such times, I knew that the
free library was doing what it undertook to do.
Of this sort are the few, the impressive instances that illustrate how,
on occasions, a working library can meet very exceptional requirements.
There are also the very many--the students, apprentices, shopmen,
machinists, inventors, chemists, engineers, manufacturers--all artisans
and craftsmen in their various ways, who are coming to learn that in
their usual daily processes they may expect from the public library the
ordinary, indispensable service that the library has always performed
for those who know the value of books.
It is this complete idea of a library that still fails of development
in the minds of these men, an idea that the library is a live thing,
a public utility of which they will naturally and inevitably avail
themselves as they do of the street-cars to take them both to and away
from their work. Nothing is needed to convince men that a utility =is=
a utility save the satisfying use of it. When they have found that the
library speeds them on in the direction of the day's occupation, then
it becomes easy enough for them to learn that the library can also get
them far removed from it. And when the workingman fully comprehends the
=working= library, and by means of it is introduced to the =diverting=
library, he becomes a man with the greatest capacity for usefulness,
and the library's conquest of the community is finished and triumphant.
The PRESIDENT: Mr. Stevens has very forcefully brought out the factor
that a book may be in bringing into life dormant faculties that might
otherwise go to waste and recalls to us the remark of Prof. Dewey, that
the loss of the unearned increment is as nothing compared with the loss
of the undiscovered resource.
Of course you know as well as the members of the program committee
that they had nothing to do with the selection of the next speaker;
the topic chose her. How could anyone else be asked to present the
subject of "The woman on the farm," than Miss LUTIE E. STEARNS, of the
Wisconsin free library commission?
THE WOMAN ON THE FARM
Modern programs of library extension through public libraries as
distinguished from traveling library systems are practically confined
to an arbitrary line drawn tightly around the city's limits. Charters,
laws, or ordinances under which many libraries operate are usually
interpreted to restrict the use of such institutions to a narrow
area and no great attempt has been made through legislation, save in
California and a few isolated examples elsewhere, to extend library
privileges to adjacent communities. It is a happy omen for the future
that the president of the American Library Association, the custodian
of a library catering to two-million city dwellers with a circulation
second in rank to Greater New York, should have seen fit on his own
initiative to place among the topics of this meeting the needs of the
woman on the farm, the real founder of the city's citizenship.
"Who's the greatest woman in history?" was the query debated by Kansas
school teachers recently. They considered Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth,
Semiramis, Cleopatra, Cornelia, Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa,
Grace Darling, Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony, and half a
hundred others. When they came to deciding, all the names known to
fame were ruled out. And to whom do you suppose the judges awarded the
palm? Here is the answer: "The wife of the farmer of moderate means who
does her own cooking, washing, ironing and sewing, brings up a family
of boys and girls to be useful members of society and finds time for
intellectual improvement."
These teachers knew that woman, they knew the drudgery she faced at
four or five o'clock every morning the year 'round. There are twenty
millions of her in this country of ours, she makes up nearly one-fourth
of the population of the country, and while we are dealing with these
most "vital statistics," we may include the tragic fact that sixty-six
per cent of those committed to insane hospitals are from rural
districts, the farm women constituting the great majority thereof.
And yet the needs of this great, deserving class of "humans" with minds
and hearts even more receptive to ideas than are city women--the needs
of such as these are as yet almost wholly unrealized by librarians
aside from Commission workers. No committee of the American Library
Association has ever had the joy of working out a program of library
extension from the great city systems to rural readers. The question
put by the then President Roosevelt to his Country Life Commission,
"How can the life of the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of
opportunity, freer from drudgery, more comfortable, happier, and more
attractive?" still awaits solution from the library standpoint.
Though agriculture is our oldest and by far our largest and most
important industry, it has only recently occurred to us in the United
States that we had a rural problem. It is only within the last decade
or so that we have awakened to the fact that there is a rural as well
as an urban problem, and the library world is too prone to keep from
recognizing it. We are not concerned in this connection with the
problem of the retired farmer who moves into a town to spend his last
days which are, seemingly, all he is willing to spend; nor shall we
discuss those restless flat dwellers in our cities who, tempted by
such alluring and wholly immoral titles as "The Fat of the Land," "The
Earth Bountiful," "A Self-Supporting Home," "Three Acres and a Cow," or
"Three Acres and Liberty"--"for those to whom the idea of liberty is
more inspiring than that of the cow"--attempt to start ginseng, guinea
pig, pheasant, and peacock farms, and who return to the city as shorn
of guineas as the pigs they leave behind them.
In the serious solution of this problem, we may, in truth, differ as
to the sort of farmers we would benefit. As Sir Horace Plunkett has
said in his "Rural problem in America," "The New York City idea is
probably that of a Long Island home where one might see on Sunday,
weather permitting, the horny-handed son of weekday toil in Wall
Street, rustically attired, inspecting his Jersey cows and aristocratic
fowls." These supply a select circle in New York City with butter
and eggs at a price which leaves nothing to be desired unless it be
some information as to cost of production. Full justice is done to
the new country life when the Farmers' Club of New York fulfills its
chief function--the annual dinner at Delmonico's. Then Agriculture
is extolled in fine Virgilian style, the Hudson villa and the Newport
cottage being permitted to divide the honors of the rural revival with
the Long Island home. "But to my bucolic intelligence," concludes Sir
Horace, "it would seem that against the back-to-the-land movement of
Saturday afternoon, the captious critic might set the rural exodus of
Monday morning."
To the New England librarian there probably comes the picture of
rugged, bean-clad hills with "electrics" in every valley eager to take
the intellectual rustics to the Lowell lectures or the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. That books are appreciated in the rural districts even
in a state that boasts a library in every town is shown by a letter
from one who had received the volumes sent out by the "Massachusetts
Society to Encourage Studies at Home." "I do not know where I should
stop if I tried to tell how much these library books have helped me
in my isolated life--I have craved so much and there seemed no access
possible to anything I wanted. I have lived always with a longing for
something different; life was a burden to be carried cheerfully, yet I
never quite conquered the feeling that the burden was heavy. Books have
taken away that feeling and before I was aware, the load was gone. I
have written thus of myself, not because my individual experience is of
importance enough to interest anyone, but because I believe the world
is full of people with the same wants that I have and it may be some
satisfaction to know how fully you are supplying them."
To the librarian of New Jersey, the isolated dwellers of the salt
marshes would come to mind. Maryland suggests to some librarian
epicures the oyster farm, with its succulent product, but to others
comes the vision of the "real thing" supplied as in Washington County
with the ideal arrangement of central library, branches, deposit
stations, traveling libraries, and automobile delivery to the very
doors of the Maryland farm homes--the most ideal arrangement of rural
extension that exists in America today.
To the Georgian, the "cracker" presents itself with its "Uneeda" book
appeal. The "mountain-white" of Kentucky, who comes to Berea in his
seventeenth year to learn his letters, would surely appreciate an
opportunity to go on with them when he gets "back home." In the north
middle west, where farms are still surrounded by a fringe of pine and
an "infinite destiny," a farmer's wife writes as follows: "For many
years I have lived on a farm on the cleared land of Northern Wisconsin,
and I have made an earnest study of the conditions that surround the
lives of the average isolated farmer and his family. I have seen all
of the loneliness and desolation of their lives, I have witnessed all
the dreariness and poverty of their homes. I have been with them when
our nearest railroad station meant a twenty-eight mile trip through
bottomless mud or over shaking corduroy; where our nearest post-office
was eighteen miles away, over the same impassable roads and where we
were often without mail for weeks at a time; when the nearest public
library was sixty miles away; when the only element of culture or
progress we possessed was the little backwoods school, housed in a
tumble-down log shack and presided over by careless or incompetent
teachers. I have watched civilization come to us step by step,--the
railroad, the rural mail delivery, the country telephone, and other
modern rural conveniences. But, before any of these, right into the
midst of our lonely backwoods life, came the traveling library, for it
is characteristic of the traveling library that it is not dependent on
modern conveniences for its appearance. I can recall the thrill of joy
with which we received our first case of books. I read their titles
over and over, handled and caressed them in a perfectly absurd manner.
Almost all of the books were old friends of mine; but, to our little
neighborhood of foreigners, they were "brand new" and the enthusiasm
over that library knew no bounds.
"We had a regular literary revival that winter. We talked books in
season and out of season; and from talking about the books in the
little library we fell to talking of other books; of books we had read
in our younger, happier days. It mattered little if in the course of
these conversations books and authors were hopelessly mixed.
"I cannot say that we derived any great amount of knowledge from our
first library, but I do know that it brought into our little backwoods
settlement, that which we needed much more--hope and courage and an
interest in life. That was my first introduction to the traveling
library, but during the years that have gone since then, I have seen
much of the work of these little cases of books. While it is true
that the traveling library does not always meet with as enthusiastic
a reception as our little settlement gave it that winter, yet it
always comes to our rural communities as a help and inspiration. My
appreciation of the worth of the traveling library has grown with the
years."
"Once a library meant nothing but rows of books and its influence
was confined to narrow limits. However with the establishment of the
traveling library, these books have become veritable missionaries
penetrating to all sorts of dreary, isolated places, carrying with them
a culture and a pleasure that will aid in illuminating the long, dreary
path of existence with the color of happiness."
As one farmer's wife has it in another locality, "Good books drive
away neighborhood discussion of the four deadly D's--Diseases, Dress,
Descendants and Domestics."
Olive Schreiner in her wonderful and heart searching study of "Woman
and Labor," has pointed out that at first woman hunted with the man,
and later when the race settled in one spot, the woman was the tiller
of the soil and the man the hunter and warrior. Then when man no longer
needed to hunt or fight, the woman moved within the house and the
man tilled the fields. The woman became the isolated one. Isolation
is the menace of farm life just as congestion is of city life. This
isolation has a depressing effect upon the intellectual life of those
who require the stimulus of contact with others to keep their minds
active. The woman on the farm, as Mr. Bailey has pointed out, is apt to
become a fatalist. Floods, drought, storms, tornadoes, untimely frosts,
backward seasons, blight, predatory beasts, animal and plant diseases
render a season's great labor of no avail, or destroy the fruits of it
within the hour. Along with these perennial discouragements comes the
interminable round of getting up before sunrise and cooking, baking,
dishwashing, sewing, mending, washing and ironing clothes from day to
day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, with additional
work peculiar to the seasons, such as at planting times, threshing and
harvesting, fruit gathering and preserving, etc., etc., etc. The work
of the farm is carried on in direct connection with the home, thus
differing from nearly all the large industries, such as manufacturing
and the like. The fact that agriculture is still a family industry
where the work and home life are not separated, differentiates it from
life in the city with its lack of a common business interest among all
the members of the family. This condition tends to make rural life
stable. The whole family stay at home evenings and one book is read
aloud to the entire family circle. We still find the big family in the
country where bridge whist and race-suicide--cause and effect--are as
yet unknown. But the big family puts cares and responsibilities upon
the mother on the farm and when one sees the "bent form, the tired
carriage, the warped fingers and the thin, wrinkled features" of so
many farmer's wives, one does not at first see anything but cruelty to
animals in urging recreation and reading upon such overburdened women.
But a brighter, industrial day is at hand. From perpetual motion to
hours of reasonable industrial requirements the daily working period
of the farmer is coming to be reduced by labor saving machinery. The
modern gasoline engine, to my mind the most important contribution to
civilization and culture in recent times, now pumps the water, saws
and cuts the wood, runs the lighting plant, the washing machine, the
milking machine, the cream separator, the churn, the sewing machine,
the bread-mixer, the vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, the coffee
grinder, the ice cream freezer and even the egg-beater. These, with the
fireless cooker, have relieved the housewife and made time for reading
and other recreation. Good roads, rural free delivery, the interurban
trolley car, the automobile and the rural telephone are removing the
old-time isolation and are making possible enjoyment and a culture
and refinement equal to that of the business and professional classes
of the cities. One thing only is still withheld from distinctly rural
communities--the opportunity to get good books.
It has been said so often it has become a truism that the rural
districts are the seed bed from which the cities are stocked with
people. Upon the character of this stock more than upon anything else
does the greatness of a nation and the quality of its civilization
ultimately depend. The importance of doing something with and for these
people is paramount for the farms furnish the cities not alone with
material products but with men and women. Census returns indicate that
cities are gaining on the country all the time. We who wish to stop
the rural exodus must co-operate with other agencies to make farm life
more attractive and this we can do by opening our doors to farmers and
their wives, the makers of men. It is our city's self-protection that
there should come from the farms strong, well-educated minds, and we
each should contribute our share to this end. A Chinese philosopher
has said, "The well-being of a people is like a tree; agriculture is
its root, manufacturing and commerce are its branches and its life;
if the root is injured, the leaves fall, the branches break away and
the tree dies." State universities and other free educational agencies
are recognizing the fact that not the few but all, farm and city-bred
alike, must be educated for life and through life. Commencement day
is no longer the educational day of judgment for the individual. Rural
consolidated high schools are being built to supplement the little red
schoolhouse. Libraries, through extension of their service, must aid in
the great agrarian movement of the day. We cannot all, perhaps, have
the ideal arrangement as worked out in Maryland by Miss Titcomb. It
may not be possible to cover other states with book wagons as Delaware
proposes to do. We may not accomplish the California ideal of the
county as the unit. We may not be able to send traveling libraries on
their beneficent mission, but we each may try to let down the bars at
our own reservoirs so that whosoever is athirst may come and drink of
the waters of life freely.
The PRESIDENT: Whenever I become rash enough to venture a comment upon
any paper of Miss Stearns I always take the precaution to do it before
she presents it; afterwards it is entirely superfluous. Yet I venture
to express a thought which I am sure has occurred to you likewise; that
there is a very strong relationship between the two papers which have
been presented this morning; that there is cause and coming effect
in that the one activity of the library, as represented by the first
paper, is making possible the multiplication of these various devices
which shall make for the woman on the farm the new day of which Miss
Stearns has prophesied.
During the last few years the library has entered another new field, an
unsuspected field. Those of us who have had an opportunity to go about
to the various institutions where the defectives and the dependents and
other unfortunates are incarcerated have marvelled at the--shall we say
ignorance, which has been at the bottom of the book work with these
people. But scientific methods have been introduced and during the
last few conferences we have had something of the promise which has now
grown into fuller realization. I shall ask Miss JULIA A. ROBINSON, who
has done strong, splendid work in Iowa in this connection, to present
the next paper, on
BOOK INFLUENCES FOR DEFECTIVES AND DEPENDENTS: HELPING THOSE WHO CANNOT
HELP THEMSELVES
Needy humanity divides itself into three classes, those whom it is
said the Lord helps, those who will not and those who cannot help
themselves. In no form of need, however, are we interested today save
that of the book, nor with the willfully book needy.
For are not they served by the public libraries which go even into
the highways and byways and wellnigh compel the uninterested to come
to the feast freely offered to them? And though there are still rural
districts not yet supplied with public or traveling libraries, many of
them have the ability to provide themselves with books had they the
desire.
But there are those, not always removed by space but far removed by
condition from such privileges, because crime, weakness or misfortune
has deprived them of their freedom and for the safety of society,
their own restoration to health or their care and education they are
detained behind closed doors. These are the morally, mentally and
physically defective and the dependent upon the bounty of the state.
With this class of helpless are we concerned, with their needs and with
what is being done to bring to them the influence of books. Of their
needs let me speak briefly while I define and locate the different
classes, giving a few figures which perhaps may not be amiss in helping
us to realize their numbers.
Of the moral defectives 113,579 have heard the grated doors of prison,
penitentiary or reformatory close behind them, for some never to open.
For others in a few years perhaps these doors will swing outward to
freedom. Shall it be to useful citizenship, or to become a greater
menace to society and again to be put behind the bars? Most of these
are men who are employed during long working hours. There is much time
for idle thoughts during those hours, in addition to evenings and
Sundays spent alone in locked cells. Large is the opportunity here
for the book in its threefold mission of recreation, instruction and
inspiration to lives barren of pleasure and interest.
But these are not all. We must add 22,900 juvenile delinquents found
in the state industrial and training schools of the United States,
boys and girls whose steps have early found the downward path, in most
cases, I believe, because of the influences into which life ushered
them. But many of these are yet within the years of susceptibility and
to the other upward influences with which it is now sought to surround
them should be added the society of books which will bring wholesome
pleasure while they present high standards and make right living
attractive.
These numbers are exceeded by the mentally defective of whom 187,454,
disturbed or confused, dazed or depressed, look through grated windows
or sit in shadowed corners of the insane hospitals. To take their
thoughts from themselves and direct them into healthful channels may
mean a step toward mental healing and adjustment. This books will often
do and to fail to furnish them may mean to omit a remedial influence
in their treatment. Of the feebleminded, there are 20,199 in the
institutions for that class of defectives. With them the task is not so
encouraging, but a right to the pleasure of books is theirs and should
not be withheld.
There are 61,423 to whom the printed page must speak for they hear no
other voice, and 44,310 to whose touch the raised letters bring their
message. Shut out from so much which others enjoy shall these be denied
this means of recreation and instruction?
The charitable institutions shelter 268,656 dependents which include
the old, the sick and the children in the state public schools,
orphanages and homes. The former need books to cheer them in their
fight for health and strength, or to while away the hours of waiting
for their final summons. The children need them not only for the
enjoyment which comes from childhood reading, but as a means of
development of mind and character. I would lay especial emphasis on the
importance of libraries in these and in the industrial and training
schools. Useful as books are in the other institutions, there the
help which they bring is but to the readers themselves. Here we have
citizens in the making and the state has not only the opportunity of
laying the foundations of character, but by laying them deep and broad
and strong of receiving returns for their efforts in intelligent and
useful citizens. To librarians I need not speak of the value of books
in giving the education which makes for intelligence and the ideals
which make for usefulness.
To meet these needs what do the institutional libraries offer? I shall
not give you figures which at best would be inaccurate and incomplete,
but such information as could be obtained showing the efforts which are
being made to provide books and reading for defectives and dependents,
the adequacy and suitability of the libraries and their use of modern
library methods.
The list of states is incomplete, some failing to respond, others
giving vague information, and an omission may not mean that nothing
is being done along this line. What is given will serve to show the
general trend of interest in the work.
California plans to serve the institutions through the county system of
libraries, but just how this is to be done or whether any institutions
have libraries or have received assistance was not stated.
Colorado reports libraries in all the state institutions, the best
being that at the state penitentiary where the visitors' fees yield
a considerable income which is used for books. In Georgia two
institutions only have libraries, which are reported to be neither
well selected, kept up to date nor administered according to modern
methods.
The only information received from Idaho was that traveling libraries
are sent to the industrial school.
In Illinois libraries are reported in the eighteen charitable and
three penal institutions of the state, though not all are adequate or
suitable in selection.
In Indiana several institutions receive annual library appropriations
ranging from $1,000 down to $200. No institution is without a library
though not all are organized or well selected or large enough for the
needs of the institution. The library commission lends an organizer
to assist in this work and in some cases the book selection and the
affairs of the library are put into the hands of the commission. The
librarian from the School for Feeble Minded Youth will attend the
summer school.
In Iowa libraries exist in all of the fourteen state institutions;
all are classified, organized and administered according to approved
library methods. All except the penitentiaries have appropriations of
$300 to $500 each for the purchase of books. In the penitentiaries the
fund received from visitors' fees is used for this purpose. Reports
are made each month to the Board of Control showing the reading done
by classes in each institution. A trained librarian appointed by the
Board of Control gives all her time to the institutional libraries,
superintending the work, doing the book selection, supplying the
technical knowledge, instructing the librarians and stimulating the
reading.
In Kentucky the prisons and hospitals are under separate boards,
neither of which has done much for the libraries in the institutions
under their charge, but both have the matter under consideration and
better things are looked for in the future. The prison libraries are
represented as inadequate and unsuitable. One only has a fund for the
purchase of books and that only $50. The only books in the Houses of
Reform are the traveling libraries loaned by the library commission.
Two state hospitals have very small libraries and no fund. One has
about 800 volumes and an annual fund of $250.
The chairman of the Board of Control of State Institutions in Kansas
writes that considerable interest is taken in providing suitable
reading for the dependents and defectives of that state and that the
institutions are urged to systematic work, but does not state whether
all have libraries.
The Maine Insane Hospital has an endowment which yields an income
of about $600 annually which is expended for books for the general
library, periodicals and medical books. According to the chaplain of
the Maine state prison "additions are made to that library from three
sources, a few volumes by purchase, some by gifts from individuals, but
mostly by gifts from the state library of =books no longer useful in
the traveling libraries=."
The Massachusetts prison commission reports libraries in substantially
all the prisons. The larger ones are classified.
Michigan has a state appropriation for books. All the institutions have
libraries of some kind, but none are classified or organized according
to modern methods. The selections are made by the state librarian.
Minnesota has also an appropriation for books in the state
institutions. The public library organizer from the Library Commission
pays regular visits to the institutions, selects the books and
supervises the work. Not all are classified and several need new books.
The two asylums for incurable insane and the hospital for inebriates
have only traveling libraries.
In Missouri five institutions have no libraries. Traveling libraries
are sent to the insane hospitals. In the boys' training school
the library is managed without system. If a boy wants a book the
superintendent takes what may be at hand and gives it to him.
Nebraska has a state appropriation of $2,000 made directly to
the Library Commission to be expended by them for the thirteen
institutional libraries. This is used for books, supplies and
periodicals except in two institutions which supply their own
magazines. The institutions are asked to furnish cases only and some
one to loan the books. Books are selected by the commission and
prepared for circulation in the commission office.
In New Hampshire the legislature makes an appropriation for the
libraries in the state prisons and state hospitals.
The February number of New York Libraries was made an institutional
number and among other things contained reports from the institutional
libraries of the state showing libraries in all but two or three
institutions which are supplied by traveling libraries. The following
editorial comment is made on these libraries: "Of the thirty-six
institutions from whose libraries detailed reports are herewith
presented, there are not more than two or three whose library
conditions would be regarded as up to the standard commonly expected
and demanded for public libraries. For not one of them does the state
provide a sufficient appropriation for the attainment of such a
standard." The committee appointed by the State Library Association on
libraries in the penal institutions in the state of New York in making
their report recommend a change of title for the committee to include
the charitable as well as the penal and reformatory institutions and a
request that the legislature pass an act authorizing the appointment of
a supervising librarian for the state institutions.
The libraries in many of the state institutions of North Carolina are
reported so small and poorly cared for that they are practically
useless. The School for the Blind has a separate library building
called the Laura Bridgman Library and there is a good library in the
School for the Deaf classified by the teachers. The value of this work
is appreciated by the Board of Charities but there is a lack of funds.
The North Dakota Library Commission has recently been asked to assist
in selecting books and organizing a library for the state penitentiary
where a thousand dollars is to be expended. No libraries exist in the
other state institutions.
The Oregon Library Commission reports libraries in all the state
institutions except one just opened. All the institutions are located
at Salem and receive direct assistance from the commission in
organization and book selection and management of their libraries.
Purchases are made from a general fund. All are reported adequate
except one to be made so. Three are classified and the rest are to be.
Pennsylvania has libraries in all the state institutions but none are
organized, classified or administered according to accepted library
methods. The Library Commission takes the position (wisely it seems
to me) that their part lies in stirring up the boards in charge of
the institutions to active interest in these libraries, rather than
themselves mixing in the affairs of another organization, though as yet
little has been accomplished in that direction.
Tennessee has a library in the School for the Blind, the School for the
Deaf and the state prison, but none in the insane hospitals. These are
organized and classified to a limited extent only.
From the biennial report of the Texas Library Commission I quote
the following: "Only a few of the institutions have libraries and
as a rule these are small and without reference to the purpose they
are to serve. Some have nominal librarians, but none trained and a
library without a trained librarian is like a piano without a pianist,
valuable, even expensive, but of little use or pleasure."
In Vermont an appropriation of $500 was made in 1910 and $200 is now
appropriated annually. This is divided between the libraries in the
State Prison, House of Correction, State Industrial School and Insane
Hospital and is under the control of the Free Public Library Commission
which purchases the books and oversees the cataloging. A card catalog
of each institution is kept at the commission office. The State Prison
also has a printed catalog.
Washington has a library of some kind in all its institutions, but in
none is it a real factor. None are classified.
In Wisconsin no institution is wholly without a library. They are
organized and classified in a limited way only. The commission assists
to some extent in book selection.
From these reports we may draw the following conclusions: (1) Libraries
of some kind exist in many state institutions. (2) Probably most of
these libraries are only partially adequate, if not wholly inadequate
and unsuitable. (3) Few are organized or administered according to the
best methods, have proper rooms or a librarian in charge to render
even their present collection useful. (4) In a few states only is
there trained supervision or systematic library work undertaken in
the institutions. (5) Where appropriations are made they are seldom
sufficient to properly maintain the libraries.
The responsibility for this work lies (1) with the governing bodies,
the Boards of Control and other boards to whom is committed the
care and welfare of the defectives and dependents of the state and
the superintendents of the various institutions who are directly
responsible for this care, and (2) with the librarians entrusted
with library extension and the carrying of books to those who would
otherwise be bookless, the state library commissions.
That the superintendents partially appreciate the value of the book
is evidenced by library beginnings in many institutions and their
readiness to co-operate in movements toward the improvement and
increased usefulness of the libraries. But they are busy men with many
departments on heart and mind and the boards are charged with many
interests.
It is not surprising, therefore, that it is the librarians who have
recognized the importance of these libraries and the fact that if they
are to become a real force in the institutions the work must be given
to some one whose business it shall be, who is trained for it, and who
has the time to give it proper attention.
As few institutions are yet in a position to individually employ a
trained librarian, the solution of the problem has seemed to be a joint
or supervising librarian for all the institutions of a state or of a
kind in a state.
Iowa through the influence of Miss Tyler and Mr. Brigham was the
first to undertake this work and is still the only state in which
institutional library work is done by a librarian working under the
Board of Control and giving all her time to the institutions. The other
states having institutional supervision are Indiana, Minnesota, where
an officer from the commission gives part and Nebraska the whole of her
time to the institutional libraries, and Oregon, Michigan and Vermont
where the work seems to be done directly by the secretary.
If the Board of Control and the institutional heads are not affected by
party changes the advantage, it seems to me, lies with the librarian
employed by them, who goes into the institutions with authority from
the board to do what needs to be done and not as a guest, who is
sometimes unwelcome. The book selection can thus be better guarded and
I believe books purchased with institution funds will be better cared
for by both officers and inmates than those received by donation.
Appropriations are also likely to be larger if made directly to each
institution than if made in a lump sum to the commission.
The initiative, however, will undoubtedly lie with the library
commission and the importance of institutional library work is such
that should the boards fail to use their opportunity it may become the
part of the library commission to at least inaugurate the work, which
having begun they will probably be allowed to continue.
Before closing may I emphasize very briefly three important points in
connection with institutional library work. I wish I might elaborate
both these and the other points which I have touched so hurriedly, but
time forbids.
1. If the libraries are to become a real factor for good in
institutional work, the book selection must be differentiated to meet
the needs of the different classes of readers, and great care used to
exclude the harmful and include helpful books only. 2. To make these
libraries most useful there should be suitable rooms, not only for
the proper shelving of the books, but for use as reading rooms where
the atmosphere of book lined walls may yield its helpful influence
and prepare the way for public library use by the boys and girls at
least when the opportunity shall come to them. 3. Though there may
be a supervising librarian in the field, there should be a competent
institutional librarian who shall not only do the routine work, but
have sufficient knowledge of books and readers to be able to fit them
together and sufficient time to do the work properly.
Thus shall these libraries, not only bring brightness and cheer to
lives otherwise dull and colorless, for
"This books can do;--nor this alone; they give
New views to life, and teach us how to live;
They sooth the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,
Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise;
Their aid they yield to all: They never shun
The man of sorrows, nor the wretch undone;
Unlike the hard, the selfish and the proud,
They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
Nor tell to various people various things.
But show to subjects what they show to kings."
The PRESIDENT: I am very glad to be able to announce that Miss Rathbone
has kindly consented to exhibit some extremely interesting charts
which have been prepared and exhibited in connection with the work of
the library school at Pratt and I am sure that all of you will miss
something if you do not avail yourselves of the opportunity which is
here presented to see them and to hear the explanation concerning them.
Miss RATHBONE: I am very glad indeed to tell you a little about our
exhibition because we found it an interesting thing to do and the
people who saw it were interested in it. The genesis of the matter
was this: When Miss Alice Tyler was at the school this spring we were
speaking about budget and other exhibitions and she said, "I do wish
librarians could find some way of graphically presenting library work
so that people could understand it as the child welfare work has been
presented." That remark of hers, coupled with the fact the library
school has never taken part in the exhibition that Pratt Institute has
held for a great many years, at the end of the third term, suggested
to me the idea of putting the problem to the class of devising an
exhibition that should be a visual presentation of the school course
and also of library work in general in a form that would be interesting
and intelligible to the general public. After a visit to the Bureau
of Municipal Research, where Dr. Allen gave them a talk on the value
of graphic presentation of facts, I told the students that they were
to have the entire responsibility of the planning and execution of
this exhibition as a problem in the library administration seminar. It
was, of course, an experiment but I was sufficiently convinced of its
success after the class made their first and only report of progress,
to invite the staffs of the neighboring public libraries to the
exhibition. When the material was assembled and installed it created a
good deal of interest both in the Institute among the librarians who
saw it, and, best of all, on the part of the public at large. We had
about five hundred visitors in the four days it was open and it seemed
to awaken in the minds of the people who saw it some conception of
what library work means. We heard many comments of this kind, "Well,
now that I understand the work the library does, I am going to use it
more intelligently." One high school boy said, "Gee! I've had an awful
time trying to use this library before, but I think I know what it is
about now." That sort of a thing made me realize that the exhibition
might be of value to some of you as showing one way by which people
could be interested in the actual work done in a library, so I wrote to
see if space could be had to install it here. It was too late, however,
so I simply brought up a few of the charts as examples.
The exhibition began with the technical work of the library--the
progress of a book through the various steps was illustrated by a
ladder the rungs of which were labeled, Book Selection, Ordering,
Receiving, Accessioning, Classification, etc. Books were shown running
toward this "Library Ladder," nimbly climbing the rungs, while at the
top they acquire wings and fly "off to the public." This chart hung
over a table on which the successive operations were shown in detail
the same book being used as an illustration throughout. The successive
steps were numbered to correspond to the rungs of the ladder. For
example, Book Selection was shown by a group including the A. L. A.
Booklist, the Book Review Digest and two or three of the reviews. The
descriptive card read "No. 1. These are a few of the aids in book
selection."
Following that was a chart (exhibiting it) to illustrate the utility
of classification, on which was presented a group of ten scientific
books unclassified, followed by the same ten in D. C. order, with the
question, "In which group would it be easier to find the books on
insects." That was followed by another exhibit to prove the utility of
subject cataloging. Two copies of the same book were obtained, one new
and the other quite worn, the book being Gleason White's "Practical
designing," which is made up of a number of papers on minor arts, by
different authorities. The new book with a single author card lay on
the table surrounded by radiating interrogation points, questions
unanswered, and over the book hung this inscription: "This book looks
new. Why? Because nobody knows what is in it. It is poorly cataloged."
The worn copy lay on the next table and radiating from that were a
number of questions with the catalog cards that answer them attached.
Over that was the screed: "This book shows wear. Why? Because it can be
reached from twenty-four sources. It is well cataloged." People who had
not known before what a catalog meant studied that thing out and the
change of expression which came to their faces when they saw the new
book and the worn book side by side and understood what it signified
was delightful. It struck home.
The work of the reference department was tellingly illustrated by an
arch in which the reference library was the keystone, all intellectual
activities depending on it.
(Miss Rathbone then exhibited various other charts and described them
in detail.)
In addition to this, children's work, the field work, the courses
in binding and printing, the making of reading lists, the course in
fiction were represented.
Altogether we felt that graphic illustration of library work was not
only possible but distinctly worth while and that the exhibition had
done a good work in educating the library's public, as well as the
class, and we expect to make it a permanent feature of the year's work.
Adjourned.
FOURTH GENERAL SESSION
(Thursday morning, June 26, 1913)
The PRESIDENT: We begin this morning the fourth session of this
Thirty-fifth Annual Conference and I shall ask the chairman of the
Committee on Library Administration to submit at this time his report.
(Dr. Bostwick here read the report.)
The PRESIDENT: You have heard the report of the Committee on
Administration. This report embodies some recommendations which it
seems to the Chair should be acted upon. Therefore the recommendation
which suggests the appointment of a committee to undertake certain work
will be referred to the Executive Board for their attention, as, in
accordance with the terms of the Constitution, it devolves upon the
Executive Board to name the committees. The report will be printed in
the proceedings.
(This report is printed with other committee reports. See page 126.)
Mr. RANCK: Mr. President, there is just one item, about questionnaires,
if I may have a moment to state it, that I think the committee has not
referred to. It is a matter of some importance to us at our library.
I think we answer, in the form of questions of one kind or other, not
all from libraries however, about a thousand a year. I should like to
insist on the importance, when a blank is sent out on which spaces are
left for writing in the answers, that a duplicate be sent so that a
library can keep a copy of the answers sent. Again and again we have
to copy them because we feel it very important that we should know
just exactly what we are sending out in that way. And if possible, in
the printing of that report I should like to see the committee include
that, if they are willing to accept the suggestion.
The PRESIDENT: The suggestion is a very good one.
The PRESIDENT: I feel like congratulating you this morning upon the
program for this fourth session, the general theme being: "Children
and young people; their conditions at home, in the school and in
the library." No matter how splendid a structure may be reared nor
how beautiful it may be, without an adequate foundation it is most
insecure. We have learned to realize in library work that we must begin
at the beginning if our work is to have any perpetuity or any permanent
result. We feel that, splendid and admirable in every way as the work
with the adults is, that that alone is not enough. That work invites,
as it deserves, our respect and admiration, but in the work with
children is centered our affection. And when I say this I do not mean
to intimate for one moment that that work is enveloped in sentiment.
I believe most firmly that the work with children is constructive
work of the very highest order. If there are any in this audience who
doubt that I am sure that after we shall have heard the papers of
this morning the doubts will be dispelled. We shall have this work in
three volumes this morning, the first volume comprising two chapters.
The title of the first volume is The Education of Children and the
Conservation of their Interests, and Chapter One will be contributed by
Miss FAITH E. SMITH, of the Chicago public library, on
I. CHANGING CONDITIONS OF CHILD LIFE
It is now twenty-eight years since some one first recognized the fact
that children needed to have special libraries or special collections
of books in libraries, and thereupon opened a children's reading room
in New York City.
Some of the conditions affecting child life today existed then, but we
know more about them now than we did then. We have many specialists
in sociological fields who are making investigations, compiling
statistics, drawing conclusions, and telling other people how to
make the world a better place. Our rapid industrial development is
producing many problems concerning child welfare, some of which are
of vital interest to us as library workers; others we may well leave
to playground associations, juvenile courts, health bureaus, social
settlements, child labor committees, schools and churches. It is not
ours to change housing conditions or to do away with child labor, but
it is ours to meet these conditions, to be god-parents to those whose
natural parents are not inclined or not able to guide their reading,
to present to the children's minds other worlds than the tenement or
street, and to give to children worn with daily labor such books as
will be within their grasp, and will help them to permanent happiness.
In 1885 when a children's library was opened by Miss Hanaway in
New York City, there were fewer means of recreation than there are
now. There were no motion-picture shows, no children's theaters,
no municipal recreation parks with free gymnasiums, swimming pools
and baths. Child labor had only begun to be exploited by large
manufacturing establishments (1879). Then there were more homes,
permanent abiding places, where there was room for children both to
work and to play. There was more family life, where father and mother
and children gathered about the evening lamp, and father read aloud
while mother sewed and the children listened, or where each member of
the family had his own book in which to lose himself. There were daily
duties for each of the children, the performance of which gave them
training in habits of responsibility.
Today such conditions may be found only rarely, except in small cities
and villages.
Congestion in large cities has led even well-to-do families to live in
apartment houses. In Chicago this sort of life began only thirty-four
years ago, and today one-third of all that city live in residences
having six families per main entrance. (Chicago City Club-Housing
exhibit.) This tendency to apartment life means the loss of the joy of
ownership, the feeling of not-at-homeness and consequent restlessness,
due to frequent change of environment.
Book agents say that they cannot sell books to families in apartment
houses, because they have no room for books. Scott Nearing in his
"Woman and social progress" regrets "the woeful lack of provision for
the needs of the child in the construction of the modern city home.
Huge real estate signs advertise the bathroom, bedrooms, the dining
room and kitchen, the library, and reception hall. But where is the
children's room? Owners do not care to rent houses to people having
children. Many of the apartment houses exclude children as they exclude
dogs or other objectionable animals." Yet we say, and rightly, that
this is the century of the child.
The complexity of modern life, the tendency to materialism, the
multiplicity of interests, have deterred many parents from being
actively concerned in the growth of the minds and the souls of their
children. This part of their development is being left to teachers,
church workers, leaders of boys' and girls' clubs, etc. There is not
time for reading aloud to children at home, and little concern is
manifested by many intelligent parents, regarding their children's
choice of books. The "poor, neglected children of the rich" are not
allowed to use the public library books, because there may be germs
hidden among the leaves. They may have their own books, but they are
denied the joy of reading a book that some other boy or girl has read
and pronounced "swell".
Because of this lack of concern on the part of parents in children's
reading, are we not justified in our hitherto condemned paternalism?
Home life among the very poor in the congested districts of our large
cities is often such as is not worth the name. The practice of taking
lodgers which prevails among some foreign elements of the population,
means the undermining of family life, and often the breaking down of
domestic standards. (Veiler, "Housing reform," p. 33.) "Thousands
of children in Chicago alone are being exposed to the demoralizing
influences of overcrowded rooms, of inadequate sanitary provisions, and
of unavoidable contact with immoral persons."
"Bad housing is associated with the worst conditions in politics,
poverty, population density, tuberculosis, and retardation in the
schools. It is directly related to many cases of delinquency of
boys and girls, who have been brought before the juvenile court."
(Breckenridge and Abbott, "The delinquent child and the home.")
Furthermore wrong home conditions result in driving children to the
street. The child who finds no room at home to do the things that he
wishes to do, not even room to study his school lessons, is inevitably
forced into the street, "not only in the day time, but as common
observation shows, until late at night, not only in good weather but in
foul." Here he grows up, and is educated "with fatal precision." The
saloon and its victims, the hoboes and their stories, criminals dodging
the police, lurid signboards, a world of money-getting, all become only
too familiar to him. Sin loses its sinfulness, and gains in interest
and excitement.
Are we placing our attractive children's rooms, clean and orderly,
adorned with flowers and fine pictures, where they may be readily seen
from the street, where picture books placed in the windows may vie in
alluring powers with the nickel-novel window displays?
The boy of the street may be a member of a boys' gang, and if so, this
becomes one of the great influences acting upon his life, either for
good or for ill. Mr. Puffer makes the statement that three-fourths of
all boys are members of gangs. (Puffer, "The boy and his gang," p. 9.)
Those boys are fortunate whose gang is an organized body efficiently
directed, such as the Boys' Scout Patrol. This, Mr. Puffer says, "is
simply a boys' gang, systematized, overseen, affiliated with other
like bodies, made efficient and interesting, as boys alone could never
make it, and yet everywhere, from top to bottom a gang." Here lies
an opportunity for co-operation on the part of the library, and many
are the interests awakened by the Boy Scout movement which may be
encouraged by the library.
Another influence constantly appealing to children of the street as
well as to others, is the glaring advertisement of the moving-picture
show. Moving pictures are now the most important form of cheap
amusement in this country; they reach the young, immigrants, family
groups, the formative and impressionable section of our cities, as no
other form of amusement, and can not but be vital influences for good
or ill. In 1910 it was estimated that more than half a million children
attended motion pictures daily. (Juvenile Protective Assn. of Chicago,
"Five and ten-cent theaters"--pamphlet.)
Is it not possible for the library to make permanent whatever good,
though fleeting, impression may be made by educational pictures or
pictures from great books, by co-operating with the picture shows, and
being ready to supply to the children copies of the stories, nature
books, or histories to which the children may have been attracted by
the motion pictures?
During the meetings this week our interest in the adult immigrants and
their relation to the library has been aroused and augmented, and it
has been proven conclusively that the solution of the immigrant problem
must of necessity rest with the children. The change in the type of
immigration in recent years from a large percentage of English-speaking
and Scandinavian races having a low percentage of illiteracy, to a
leadership among races of eastern and southern Europe, with a very high
percentage of illiteracy, has had a decided influence on standards of
living.
These people of other lands do not adapt themselves to American ways as
readily as their children. Many do not know the English language, they
do not stir far from home or from work, and have few new experiences.
"Many things which are familiar to the child in the facts of daily
intercourse, in the street or in the school, remain unintelligible to
the father and mother. It has become a commonplace that this cheap
wisdom on the part of the boy or girl leads to a reversal of the
relationship between parent and child. The child who knows English is
the interpreter who makes the necessary explanations for the mother to
the landlord, the grocer, the sanitary inspector, the charity visitor,
and the teacher or truant officer. It is the child again who often
interviews the boss, finds the father a job, and sees him through
the onerous task of 'joining the union.' The father and mother grow
accustomed to trusting to the child's version of what 'they all do in
America,' and gradually find themselves at a disadvantage in trying to
maintain parental control. The child develops a sense of superiority
towards the parent and a resulting disregard of those parental warnings
which, although they are not based on American experience, rest on
common notions of right and wrong, and would, if heeded, guard the
child." (Breckenridge and Abbott, "The delinquent child and the home.")
Can books not teach children to honor their father and mother, and
"that the head and the hoof of the Law, and the haunch and the hump is
obey"?
We are told that one of the causes of crime among the children of
foreigners is transmitted ambition. "The father left the homeland
because he was not satisfied.... He worked hard and saved money, that
the dream of better things might be realized.... The son manifests this
innate tendency by a desire to excel, by the longings to rise and be
masterful, the ambition to beat the other fellow--these are the motives
which impel him to an intensive life that carries him to excess and
transgression." (Roberts, "The new immigration," p. 325.)
It is for us to interest this ambition and turn it into right channels.
We may also discover what special interests are uppermost in the minds
of those of different nationalities, things they wish their children
to love, traditions they have cherished, and which we may help the
children to cherish.
Driven by necessity or by the spirit of the age, the immigrant
quickly develops a strong ambition for acquiring money, supposing
that he landed on our shores without that impelling force. One of the
consequences is that he withdraws his children from school as soon as
they are old enough to secure their working papers. "To the Italian
peasant, who, as a gloriously street laborer begins to cherish a
vision of prosperity, it matters little whether his girls go to school
or not. It is, on the contrary, of great importance that a proper
dower be accumulated to get them good husbands; and to take them from
school to put them to work is, therefore, only an attempt to help them
accomplish this desirable end." (Breckenridge and Abbott.)
In 1911 the National Child Labor Committee conducted an investigation
of tenement house work in New York City. Among 163 families visited
having 213 children, 196 children ranging in ages from 3-1/2 to 14
years were working on nuts, brushes, dolls' clothes, or flowers. These
are truly not the good old-fashioned domestic industries in which
children received a good part of their education. Those working in
factories and tenement sweat shops, where labor is specialized and
subdivided into innumerable operations, do not get the variety of
employment that cultivates resourcefulness, alertness, endurance and
skill. (Child labor bulletin, Nov., 1912.)
We cannot expect these children, with bodies retarded in development by
overwork, and without proper nourishment, to be able to take the same
mental food that is pleasing to other children of the same age, who
have had all necessary physical care.
The hours when working children, those engaged in gainful occupations,
and those who are helping in the homes, are free for recreation,
are in the evening and on Sunday. Are we placing our most skilled
workers on duty at these times, and are we opening our story hours and
reading clubs on Sunday afternoons, when the minds of these children
are most receptive of good things, when the children are dressed in
their good clothes, their self-respect is high, and they are free from
responsibility?
It is a well-known fact that the need of money is not the only cause
of the exodus from school that occurs in the grades. An investigation
made by the Commissioner of Labor in 1910 (Condition of woman and child
wage-earners in the U. S., vol. 7), examining the conditions of white
children under 16, in five representative cities, showed that of those
children interviewed, 169 left school because earnings were necessary,
and 165 because dissatisfied with school. The Chicago Tribune (Nov. 11,
1912) stated that in 1912 there were in Chicago over 23,000 children
between 14 and 16 years of age, who were not in school. Over half of
these were unemployed, and the remainder had employment half the time
at ill-paid jobs, teaching little and leading nowhere. In 1912 there
were 34,000 children of Philadelphia not in school, and only 13,000
were employed. (Philadelphia City Club Bulletin, Dec. 27, 1912.)
The curriculum of our public schools is in a transitional stage. The
complaint of parents who take their children from school before they
have completed the high school course, is that it does not teach them
to earn a living. The desire of commercial men is to have such courses
introduced as will lessen the need of apprentice training in their
establishments. These changes may help boys and girls to earn a living,
but those courses which teach them how to live may be sacrificed. Man
does not live by bread alone. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young says, "The training
must also implant in the mind a desire to become something--I mean by
that an ideal.... It must make the boys and girls able to know that
they have possibilities of greater development along many lines." This
sort of training is within the sphere of the library as well as within
that of the schools.
The children in the rural districts (which the 1910 census interprets
as meaning people of towns of less than 2,500 inhabitants, and people
of the country) are the library's great opportunity. In these districts
may be found the old-fashioned home life, where parents are glad to be
aided in the direction of their children's reading. There are fewer
distractions in the way of amusements. Books are not seen by the
thousands, until they have become so confusing that one knows not what
to read or where to begin. Homes are owned, instead of rented, and a
library worker is not liable to lose her group of children each first
of May.
The pleasures of city life have been made easily accessible to children
and grown people by means of trolley lines, good roads, telephones,
etc., and the music of grand opera has been carried to the country
homes by means of talking machines. Still the distractions of modern
life have not absorbed a large part of the everyday life of the
children, so that their minds may be appealed to along the line of
their natural interests. As Miss Stearns told us yesterday, there
is less of drudgery in farm life today than there was thirty years
ago, and children have more time for study and reading; but they need
direction and assistance.
The consensus of opinion among writers on rural sociology is that the
great need of the people of the country is more education; education
that will make farming more scientific and efficient, and less
fatiguing, education that will help boys and girls to find amusement in
the life about them; education that will guide that passion for nature
which every normal child possesses.
* * * * *
Because children today have many more opportunities for recreation than
they had thirty years ago; because many leave school long before they
have acquired the education that will teach them how to live, as well
as how to earn a living; because in many homes mothers and fathers
cannot train their children in American ideals of citizenship, which
they themselves do not understand; because in other homes the physical
needs of children are held to be of most importance, while mental and
moral needs are left to the care of teachers and social workers, the
time seems ripe for the library to place emphasis upon the educational
side of its work, rather than upon the recreative. Let the recreative
be truly recreative, giving relaxation, new visions, higher standards
of living, and increased belief in one's self, but let the educational
work meet the children's needs, increase their efficiency, teach them
how to live, and to be of service in the world's work.
Mr. Bostwick, in the Children's section, mentioned three eras in
library work with children; first, the era of children's books in
libraries; second, era of children's room; third, era of children's
department. These concerned books and organization, the machinery of
getting the books to the children. We think we have learned something
about children's books, and we know approved methods of administration.
Possibly we are now on the verge of the fourth era, when we shall know
~children~. Not the child with a capital C, a laboratory specimen, but
living children, with hearts and souls. Do we know the conditions under
which the children of our own neighborhood live? Do we understand their
interests, and are we sanely sympathetic?
The PRESIDENT: We are glad to get Chapter Two: How the Library is
Meeting these Conditions, by Miss GERTRUDE E. ANDRUS, of the Seattle
public library.
II--HOW THE LIBRARY IS MEETING THE CHANGING CONDITIONS OF CHILD LIFE
Every month, if the mails are regular, we receive assurance that
the public library is an integral part of public education, and
the complacence with which we accept this assurance gives ample
opportunity to our critics for those slings and arrows with which
they are so ready. Ideas and ideals of education are rapidly changing
and it behooves the librarian, and more particularly the children's
librarian, to see that she keeps pace with the forward movement and
that the ridicule of her censors is really undeserved.
The old idea of education was to abolish illiteracy, "to develop the
ability, improve the habits, form the character of the individual, so
that he might prosper in his life's activities and conform to certain
social standards of conduct."
The new idea of education is that of social service, to train children
to be not mere recipients, but distributors, not merely to increase
their ability to care for themselves, but also their ability to care
for others and for the state.
This perhaps sounds a note of the millennium, but we have been told to
hitch our wagon to a star and although the star proves a restive steed
and often lands us in the ditch, we travel further while the connection
holds than we should in a long, continuous journey harnessed to a
dependable but slow-going snail.
It may seem a far cry from these comments on education to the topic of
my paper: How the library meets the changing conditions of child-life,
but in reality it is only a step, for just as in philanthropy the
emphasis is placed more and more upon prevention rather than remedy, so
in education the task is coming to be the training of the good citizen
rather than the correction of the bad citizen. And if the library is,
as we are anxious to claim, an integral part of public education, it
must have a share, however small, in the preventive policy of modern
educators, which will in time effect a change in present social evils.
Unless the library, as it meets these constantly changing conditions,
can do something to improve them and to make the improvement stable, it
has small claim to be included in the educational scheme of things.
In the conditions of child life which Miss Smith has outlined, the
breaking up of the home is the most serious handicap which the children
have to face. It is on this account that all social agencies working
with children endeavor, so far as each is able, to supply an "illusory
home" and to give, each in its own capacity, the training in various
lines which ought in a normal home to come under the direction of the
mother and father.
There is a spreading belief in the value of reading but there is a
woeful lack of knowledge as to what should be read, and the children's
library therefore fills a double rôle; it provides books which it would
be impossible for many of the children to get otherwise, and it selects
these books with thoughtful care of the special place each one has
to fill, so that it becomes a counselor, not only to the children but
to those parents who are anxious to assume their just responsibility
in the guidance of their children's reading, and yet feel their
inability to breast unaided the yearly torrent of children's books. The
stimulation of this feeling of responsibility on the part of parents is
one of the most effective means at the library's disposal of striking
a blow at the root of the whole matter, for it is on the indifference
of the parents that the blame for many juvenile transgressions should
rest, which is now piled high upon the shoulders of the children.
In this connection mention should be made of the home library, the
most social of all the library's activities. This small case of books,
located in a home in the poorer quarters of a city and placed in charge
of a paid or volunteer library assistant has been proved to be a potent
force in the life of the neighborhood, for the "friendly visitor," if
she be of the proper stuff, is not merely a circulator of books, she is
an all-round good neighbor to whom come both children and mothers for
help in their big and little problems, so that the results have proved
to be "better family standards, greater individual intelligence, and
more satisfactory neighborhood conditions."
But even granting that the mothers and fathers show a deep concern in
what their children read, the connection between books and children is
often left of necessity to the children's librarian who is selected
with special reference to her adaptability to this particular kind
of work. Now, no matter how strong a personality this young woman
may possess, no matter how high her literary standards, nor how
far-reaching her moral influence, it is obviously impossible for her to
come in contact with more than a few of the children in her community.
And in order to provide that intimacy with books from which we wish no
child to be debarred, she must depend not alone upon her children's
room, beautiful and homelike though that may be, but she must place
her resources at the disposal of other educational agencies, all of
which are working toward a common end. Of these the most powerful is
the school, and through the lessons in the use of the public library,
through the collections of books placed in the schoolrooms, and most of
all through the influence of the teacher, the public library will touch
the lives of thousands of children who might otherwise be in ignorance
of its resources, and who through this contact will receive a vivid
impression of their share as citizens in a great public institution. In
this correlation of school and library care must be taken to place an
equal emphasis upon the library as a place for recreation as well as a
place for study.
Contrary to the teachings of our Puritan forefathers, we are growing
more keenly alive to the imperative need of healthful recreation
as a means of combating existing social conditions, and our great
cities and our little villages are gradually making provision for
the gratification of the desire of the people to play. Nowhere does
the library find an alliance more satisfactory than with these
play-centers, for it is in the union of the physical and mental
development that education comes to its fullest fruition and the
striving to instill "imagination in recreation" can find no better
field than in these places where not only muscles but minds may be
exercised.
These are the well-worn channels through which the children's library
pours its stream of books into a thirsty land, channels into which
run the tributary streams of deposit stations, churches, settlements,
telegraph offices, newsboys' homes, and all the rest which it would
only weary you to repeat.
We are constantly engaged in deepening and broadening these channels
because we believe in the power of books to develop character and to
broaden the vision of that "inward eye which is the bliss of solitude."
Now the book that does this most effectively is the book behind which
lies some personality. We all know the popularity of "the book Teacher
says is good." But the problem of the children's librarian is not
limited as is the teacher's to two or three dozen children. She must
lay her plans to reach hundreds of children and she can do this only by
dealing with the children in groups: in other words, in clubs, reading
circles, and story-tellings.
The natural group of child life is the boys' gang or the girls' clique
which offer unlimited opportunities for good or ill. The tendency of
a =neglected= group is to develop strongly a regard for the interests
of the individual group and make it antagonistic, if not actually
dangerous, to the larger group of society.
The possibility of touching children's interests, enlarging their
horizon, and influencing their ideals through these groups has been
utilized in the club work of many libraries. Although all library clubs
lead eventually to books, the way may be a circuitous one and baseball,
basketry, and dramatics may be met on the way. But aside from the book
interest, without which no library club can be considered legitimate,
there is the opportunity of guiding the activities of the group by
means of debate work or similar interests so that their attention may
be directed outside of their immediate environment and made to include
the greater possibilities of the larger social group.
Very often in girls' clubs the charitable impulse is strong and may be
so led as to instill a very thoughtful sympathy for others.
It is for the things we know best that we have the most sympathy
and the truest devotion, and we may expect real patriotism and an
active civic conscience only when we have taught the children to
know thoroughly their country and the city in which they live. This
is some of the most valuable work that is being done by libraries,
and it may be well passed on, as has been done in Newark, to become a
part of the school curriculum. Indifference to the fatherland is not
the best foundation on which to build the superstructure of American
patriotism, and the confused and homesick foreigner welcomes with
gratitude the books in his own tongue provided by the library, the
opportunity to use the library's auditorium for the meetings of his
clubs with unpronounceable names, the respect with which his especial
predilections and prejudices are considered by the library in his
immediate neighborhood, the display of his national flag and the
special stories told the children on the fete day of his country. A
people without traditions is not a people, and if we expect these
strangers to respect our institutions, we must show them an equal
courtesy.
This regard shown by the library and other institutions for the
national characteristics of the parents reacts upon the children
and they grow to understand that though their elders may have been
outstripped in the effort to become Americanized they have behind them
an historical background which is respected by the very Americans whose
customs the children ape so carefully.
The reading circle and the story hour are similar in their purpose for
they are both intended to call the attention of the children to special
books and to open up the delights of a new world to imaginations
often starved in squalor and poverty. Both the reading aloud and the
storytelling have their rightful place in the home and are merely
grafted on the library in its attempt to supply its share of the
"illusory home" for which we are striving.
If the Sunday story-tellings and clubs meet the neighborhood needs more
efficiently as Miss Smith has suggested, the library schedule should be
so arranged as to accommodate them.
The time of childhood is a time of unbounded curiosities. Everything is
new and wonderful and open to investigation, and that library may count
itself blessed of the gods which can command the co-operation of a good
museum. Given an exhibit case containing a few interesting specimens,
a placard bearing a brief description of the specimens, and the titles
of a few books on the subject obtainable at the library, and we can all
of us picture a rosy dream of budding scientists, nature-lovers, and
historians.
This child-like interest is the secret of the popularity of the
moving-picture show. Here we see unfolded the processes of nature,
the opening of a flower, the life of a bee, we ride in a runaway
train and in an aeroplane, and we see enacted the daily human drama
of love and hate. Here is an opportunity which many libraries have
grasped, and slides are furnished the picture theaters announcing
the location of the library and bearing some such legend as this:
"Your Free Public Library has arranged with this management to select
interesting books and magazine articles upon the historical, literary,
and industrial subjects treated in these pictures. It is a bright idea
to see something good and then learn more about it." Mr. Percy Mackaye
in his recent book on the Civic Theater, comments on this as follows:
"A brighter idea--may we not add?--if the founders of the library had
recognized the dynamic appeal of a moving-picture house, and endowed
it to the higher uses of civic art! Truly, a spectacle, humorous
but pathetic: Philanthropy in raiment of marble, humbly beseeching
patronage from the tattered Muse of the people!"
So far as the writer knows, but one library has as yet made moving
pictures a permanent addition to its activities, although a small town
in Washington State has intimated that it would do so, provided the
Carnegie Trust Fund would give it money. It is a sign of the times, and
one of which note must be taken, for it gives the library a chance to
deepen the benefit of such good pictures as there are and to raise the
standard of the others.
Unfortunately the interest of many boys and girls is forced prematurely
to the subject of how they may aid in the family support. They leave
school untrained and unfitted for the life they have to live, and go
into shops, factories, department stores, and other service. Whether
they leave because of economic pressure or because of a lack of
interest in their school work the fact remains that 32 per cent of the
children entering school drop out before they reach the sixth grade,
and only 8 per cent finish the fourth year of high school. Manual
training and vocational guidance are taking a hand in the matter and
the part of the library is evident, not only in its supply of books on
these topics but in the personal interest of the library assistants and
in their suggestions and advice to the young folks who are struggling
to find themselves. This is of course but a drop in the bucket but it
is an effort in the right direction.
So many of these young people leaving school prematurely are shut
up at the crucial age of adolescence in huge factories and stores,
creeping home at night too tired to move unnecessarily, or letting the
individuality which has been so sternly repressed all day burst forth
in excesses and indiscretions. Only a few will come to the library, so
to make sure the library must go to them.
One of the most notable examples of this kind of work is in the main
plant of Sears, Roebuck & Co. in Chicago. The company furnishes room,
heat, light, and librarian's salary and the public library provides
the books. This type of library may combine the intimate personal
relationships of the small branch, the club, the story hour, and the
vocational bureau. It may, as the Sears, Roebuck library has done,
publish lists of books covering certain grades of a school course in
grammar, rhetoric, history of literature, and study of the classics,
and through the personal influence of the librarian it may make these
courses really used, for always in work of this kind it is the personal
equation that counts.
Some commercial houses have independent libraries of their own,
sometimes in connection with their service department, as does the
Joseph & Feiss Co. of Cleveland, in which case the direction of the
library comes under the charge of a person whose duty it is to use
every means to deepen, strengthen, and broaden the capacity of every
employe so that he may remain an individual and not become a machine.
This is an age of industrialism which has early placed upon the boys
and girls the responsibilities of life, and the love of books is one of
the most important of the influences which will keep the pendulum from
swinging too far upon the side of materialism and purely commercial
ambition.
These are some of the ways in which the library is trying to meet the
changing conditions of child life in the city through the children's
rooms, the homes, the schools, the playgrounds, the factories, and
other institutions which have to do with the employment, amusement, or
education of children.
From many of these problems the life of the country child is mercifully
free, but in place of them there is the isolation of farm life and
the idleness on the part of the children so often found in country
villages. As more than half of our population is in the country, it is
but logical that libraries should long ago have made some attempt to
reach a class of readers who, as Mr. Dewey says, "have a larger margin
of leisure, fewer distractions, and fewer opportunities to get the best
reading. They read more slowly and carefully and get more good from
books than their high-pressure city cousins whose crowded lives leave
little time for intellectual digestion."
Long before the formation of the Country Life Commission, librarians
were sending traveling libraries to farm-houses and rural communities,
and library commissions are now scattering broadcast the opportunities
for reading which will do so much to "effectualize rural society."
When we think of books and the country, we think also of Hagerstown
and the book wagon, an institution which in its influence on country
life may well be added to the famous trilogy of "rural free delivery,
rural telephones, and Butterick patterns." Greater attention is being
paid in these days to conditions of country life, both on farms and
in villages, and the work of the country librarian is as broad and as
interesting as that of her city co-worker.
But whether the work is done in the city or the country, in a crowded
tenement district or on a thousand-acre ranch, it has as its foundation
the same underlying principle: that of co-operation with all other
available agencies to the end that the boys and girls may have a fuller
opportunity to become good citizens. We cannot be progressive if we
are not plastic, and in the adaptation of our work to the changing
conditions of child life lies the secret of the value of the children's
library.
The PRESIDENT: We give a sigh of satisfaction and one of regret:
satisfaction over the pleasure we have had in listening to these fine,
moving chapters; regret that they have been so brief. We are reconciled
only by the fact that there are two fine companion volumes still to
come. Mr. WILLIS H. KERR, of the Kansas State Normal School, will give
us the first one, the subject being:
NORMAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR RELATION TO LIBRARIANSHIP
That there is a close relation between librarianship and the forces
of education is implied both in the special topic of this paper and
in the general theme of the morning: "Children and young people;
their conditions at home, in the school, and in the library." Indeed
librarian and teacher have more in common than we yet think. For real
library work is teaching, and real teaching is guidance in living, and
to live well for thy neighbor and thyself is--real library work.
The burden of this discussion will be, not whether the library is an
integral part of education, but rather what modern education, as an
art, science, and practice, has to say about the attitude and method
and practice of library work. With open mind and modest, may we attempt
a statement of "library pedagogy" to parallel current educational
practice? How may we librarians knit our work more effectively into the
educational fabric? How best correlate people and books?
If such a statement of library pedagogy is possible, even though
tentative, it is worth our while. From college days there rings in my
ears the topic of an address by Dr. Samuel B. McCormick, now President
of the University of Pittsburgh: "We can achieve that which we can
intelligently conceive and adequately express." We must see our whole
job through and through if we are to cope with our friends who do not
yet see what we are at. The good brother, a Ph. D. of one of our best
universities, a successful city school superintendent, now a fellow
professor, who said, "I can see how instruction of our normal school
students in library methods will help them in their work here, but
how will it help them as teachers? Anyone can find a book in a school
library." The superintendent who complained that all his pupils got
at the public library was sore eyes and ruined minds from reading
trashy fiction; the library trustee who likened library work and
salary to dry-goods counter service and wage; the typewriter salesman
who objected to open shelves and book wagons and story hours, because
they cost--I won't say how much he said; what infinite patience, what
skillful teaching power must we librarians have, to turn this tide and
use it?
Lest we paint the picture too darkly, let it be said with all
thankfulness and cheer that multitudes of teachers, superintendents,
boys, girls, men and women, do understand. There is Superintendent
Condon, formerly of Providence, now of Cincinnati, of whom Mr. Foster
says in the last (1912) Providence report: "Mr. Condon's co-operation
with the library was constant, intelligent, and effective." There is
Mary Antin and her brothers and sisters, Americans all, to whom one of
the richest gifts of the "Promised Land" is the public library. There
is State Superintendent Alderman, of Oregon, and Mrs. Alderman. There
is the United States Commissioner of Education, Mr. Claxton, and Mrs.
Claxton. In every state are men like a western Kansas superintendent
(way out next to Colorado, on the prairies), who found his community
destitute of books; even school books and tablets had to be ordered by
the drug store from a distant city; no community interest, no debating
societies, no class plays, no school athletic teams. He made school
vital to the boys and girls. Then because to his thinking education
does not end with school days, and because he had the library vision,
before he was there a year he passed the subscription paper, organized
the library association, got the books and magazines, and opened
the public library. He gave that town something to live for. And
every state has librarians like the little Kansas lady in a country
community who does reference work and draws patrons from sixteen
surrounding school districts by the use of the rural telephone.
What have the normal schools to do with all this? Before answering
this question, it may be well to note that the term "normal school"
has not always the same significance. In the United States there are
194 public normal schools. Scholastic standards are of three general
types: First, the old-time normal school, whose graduates have little
more than completed a high school course including some required
pedagogy. Second, the largest division, the two-year normal school,
which requires two years of college cultural and professional work,
high school graduation being required for entrance. Third, the normal
college or state teachers' college, which grants the bachelor's degree
for the completion of four years of college cultural and professional
work. As a rule the graduates of the high school normal course go into
the rural or the small-town schools; the graduates of the two-year
college course, into elementary schools and special subjects; and the
graduates of the four-year college course, into high school subjects,
principalships, and superintendencies. The four-year state teachers'
colleges of the United States can be counted on the ten fingers, and
their ultimate sphere of influence is being debated. It would seem,
however, that the adequate teacher-training institution must be as
broad in its facilities and standards as are the conditions of modern
life with which teachers must cope.
In the normal schools of these three types, student attendance varies
from 100 to nearly 3,000, the average being about 600. Faculties
vary from 8 or 10 members to 125. Equipment varies correspondingly,
the better schools having very complete facilities. For example, the
Eastern Illinois State Normal School, at Charleston, which is said
to have a faculty ranking in scholarship with the universities, has
1,200 students, 31 members of faculty, offers two college years of
teacher-training, has three buildings, a library of 16,000 volumes, and
like many other normal schools of its type has an assured future and
a fine field of influence. You will pardon another example, I hope,
cited because I can be still more definite in describing it: The Kansas
State Normal School, at Emporia, is a type of the four-year normal
college. It was established in 1865. Last year it had 2,750 students,
350 in the training school (comprising kindergarten and grades one
to eight), 1,100 in the normal high school, and 1,300 in the college.
It had a faculty of 100, nearly half of these being men, many of the
best universities being represented. It has 11 buildings, including an
enormous gymnasium, a library, a hospital, a training school, science
building, etc. It has a department of library science, in charge of
a professor giving full time to that department, and on the same
plane as other departments of instruction. Of this same general type,
in equipment, numbers, and standards, are the schools at Ypsilanti,
Michigan; Cedar Falls, Iowa; Kirksville, Missouri; Greeley, Colorado;
Terre Haute, Indiana;--I do not mean to slight other worthy examples.
Aside from these three types of public normal schools, another
important type of teacher-training organization is the department
of education and psychology in our best colleges and universities,
exemplified notably by the School of Education of the University of
Chicago, and Teachers' College of Columbia University, the last-named
being perhaps the most efficient teachers' college in the world. I
hasten to add mention of the conspicuously helpful work in educational
psychology, pure and applied, which is being done at Clark University,
Massachusetts, under the inspiring leadership of Dr. G. Stanley Hall.
Now, using the term "normal schools" to include all of these types
of institutions and as representing their practices and ideals, may
we ask the question we left a moment ago, "What have the normal
schools to do with librarianship?" This: The normal schools have now
consciously taken up the task of preparing teachers who understand the
life that now is and can teach boys and girls to live that life and
to be useful members of society here and hereafter. These organized
institutions of teacher-training take themselves seriously, they accept
the responsibility of their task, and they are measurably succeeding;
despite the declarations of popular magazines and investigating
committees that our schools are a colossal failure. Which they are not,
for didn't they train Mary Antin, and Miss Stearns, and you and me?
If librarianship is educational work, and it is, the normal schools
may therefore have some suggestion of educational practice worthy the
consideration of librarians.
What is the educational world thinking and doing? Examine the program
of the National Education Association, to meet week after next at
Salt Lake City. I group some of the topics from the general sessions:
=First=, What is education?; Education for freedom; The personal
element in our educational problems; Teaching, and testing the teaching
of essentials; Measuring results. =Second=, What shall we do with the
single-room school?; The rural school; Fundamental reorganizations
demanded by the rural life problem; Rural betterments; The schoolhouse
evening center. =Third=, moral values in pupil self-government, The
high school period as a testing time, Public schools and public health.
Relate these groups of topics with this definition of education from
the late Andrew S. Draper, of honored memory:
"Education that has life and enters into life; education that
makes a living and makes life worth living; education that can
use English to express itself; education that does not assume
that a doctor must be an educated man and that a mechanic or
a farmer cannot be; education that appeals to the masses,
that makes better citizens and a greater state; education
that supports the imperial position of the State and inspires
education in all of the States--that is the education that
concerns New York."
Mingle with educational men and women, search the educational
periodicals and programs, scan the educational books, visit the normal
colleges; and I think you will discover that something like this is
happening in the educational world: The content of education is being
adapted to meet the needs of all the classes and the masses. The method
of education is being adapted to the individual. The result is that
education is being universalized, socialized, democratized.
In this adaptation of educational material and method, all eyes are
upon the individual child. We are studying this child, working for
him. We are playing for the batter, tackling the man with the ball. We
believe it is more important to develop the undiscovered resource than
to run all boys and all girls through the same hopper. A phrase used
in the =School Arts Magazine= for May, 1913, in describing a notable
Boston exhibit of art illustration, breathes this spirit: "Instruction
in illustration, should be creative and individual from the outset.
Models are posed to help in expressing more truthfully the conception
of the illustrator rather than as a discipline in abstract drawing."
The true teacher never gives up a boy or a girl. But mind you, we are
saving the individual, making a man out of him, not that he may be a
self-centered unsocial phenomenon, but that he may be a fellow among
men, a useful social unit. We want strong individuality willing and
able to live in society.
Perhaps the biggest word in current education is motivation. That word
motivation covers a multitude of sins and a multitude of virtues.
Motivation does not mean coddling. It does not mean allowing the child
to do as he pleases. On the other hand, motivation does not mean
forcing an unnatural process or situation upon a helpless child or a
helpless public. It does not mean that we are to give something to the
child. Motivation is not didactic in attitude.
The spring of action in all of us is impulse. There is no time here to
go into the psychology of instinct, impulse, emotion, motive, action,
and all that. Suffice it for example that through the play instinct and
impulse the wise teacher leads the child to a respect for fair-play,
order, law, justice. The child never knows where he got it, but he
has what he needed, and he has it indelibly. This process assumes a
God-given wisdom on the part of the teacher: to know how that little
mind is working, what it needs, how it may be brought to feel the need,
and then to lead, draw out, educate that mind--O, miracle of miracles!
A step further in the consideration of the educational process: Perhaps
there have been committed more atrocities, more crimes in the name of
education, in the high school than in any other period of school life.
More fairly stated, the crimes have been in the upper six years of the
usual twelve,--in that period which is called adolescence. Why do so
many boys and girls drop out of the upper grades? Why do so many youths
never complete high school? The vocational training people have one
answer, and it consists in letting the boy work at something of which
he feels the need. They motivate his work. The boy from the farm can't
read Tennyson's "Princess;" set him at the =Breeder's Gazette= or the
testing of seed-corn; you can teach him English as readily through one
task as the other. Only that boy never would learn English from "The
Princess,"--and I love Tennyson.
As an example of skillful motivation in teaching may I describe a case
which is also an object-lesson to librarians in correlating people
and books? It is a third-year high school class in argumentation.
After some preliminary study, one day the teacher remarks rather
inconsequentially, "Do you know I believe the 'Boston tea party' was an
unjustifiable destruction of property, and that unprejudiced historians
now admit it?" Now that won't "go" in Kansas any easier than it will
in Massachusetts. Teacher is immediately challenged, and she replies,
"Well, I'll debate it with you; and I'll be fair and square with you
and tell you of some material on your side. But there is one man whose
authority I would not want to dispute; you'll surely treat me fairly,
won't you?" A young lady member of the class at once puts a motion to
the class that it will not be considered fair to use the writings of
Edmund Burke against teacher. Does that class depend upon bluffing
its way through that debate with teacher? No, it keeps us busy at
the library to get material out fast enough, even though we had been
previously informed by the teacher that the material would be wanted.
Even Dr. Johnson's "Taxation no tyranny" is read with eagerness.
Teacher finally agrees to debate even against Burke. Is Burke a bore to
that class? Why, the library has to buy additional copies. Of course,
the end desired by the teacher all the time was Burke.
More and more, in the instruction of adolescent and adult, the
teacher's effort is being directed toward arousing a problem to be
solved. Whether by a class lecture, by a class discussion, or by a
personal conference, the pupil is brought to feel that it is important
for him to find the answer. Is it not important, then, for the
librarian to be skilled in drawing out a statement of the problem,
or, changing the figure, to recognize accurately the symptoms and to
prescribe unerringly? I think librarians having to do with high school
and college students should rather frequently visit classes and attend
lectures. If this were done, the pupil would less often be ground
between upper and nether millstone, and the millstones would think more
of each other.
Thus far, educational ideals and practices. Now will they help us any
in attempting to formulate a library pedagogy? I believe they will. I
believe that the teaching attitude, the study of the individual, the
putting of the individual's needs far and away before the observance of
inflexible rule and practice, and the determination to correlate people
and books and life to the very ends of the earth,--these four stones at
least will be in the foundation of library pedagogy.
I am not sure that all educational people will agree entirely with
the foregoing statement of educational principles and methods. I am
quite sure that I may as well gracefully hand my head now to some of
you because of the following library corollaries of the preceding
educational doctrines. Some of these are my own beliefs, some are
beliefs of educational men regarding libraries:
In the training of librarians, would it be more in accord with
modern pedagogy to have less lecturing, less practice work done in
the this-is-the-only-way-to-do-it attitude, and to have more of the
come-on-and-let's-find-out, the learn-by-doing laboratory spirit?
Educational administration is being remodeled, centralized. If library
work is to be more and more educational, school men have said to me,
why not make the public library an integral part of the city school
system, and the state library and state library commission an arm of
the state department of education? It is a terrible thought, but it
will not drown by denying it.
When library work becomes educational through and through, and all
library assistants are experts in psychology and human nature, the
fines system will be a thing of the past.
Conservation of the individual means that it is better to have a
book in use than to have it lying peacefully on the shelf entirely
surrounded by unbroken rules.
Conservation of society means that it is better to have the library
open on holidays and Sundays, when the working man isn't "dead tired,"
than to report an increased circulation of fiction.
The PRESIDENT: For an object lesson as to the strenuous life we go
to Oyster Bay. For library buildings we go to East Ninety-first
street, New York, or when he is in Europe we go to Skibo Castle. For
information as to the latest inventions we go to the laboratory of Mr.
Edison. For full information as to the best in high school work we go
to the Girls' High School in Brooklyn. Miss MARY E. HALL.
Miss Hall spoke extemporaneously upon the enlarging scope of library
work in high schools. Some of the points discussed were treated by her
in a paper before the section on Library Work with Children at the
Ottawa conference, 1912. See Ottawa Proceedings in Bulletin of the
American Library Association, v. 6, p. 260-68.
The PRESIDENT: As my eye roves over this audience I see it is thickly
sprinkled with punctuation marks. It has been suggested that some of
our papers ought to be discussed from the floor. We shall be glad to
hear from any librarians who are in this audience, either in the form
of experiences or comment.
Mr. OLIN S. DAVIS: While I approve fully all that the last speaker has
said, I feel very strongly that the college or high school library
should not be too complete and that the student should be encouraged
to use the public library. Work should be given to the students in
high schools and girls' schools that would require their coming to the
public library, because if the children in the grades and high schools
do not learn to use the public library in those years they will not be
apt to use the library in later years when they have left school.
Miss HALL: I would like to say that the first thing we do with pupils
is to take a census of the entering class to find out how many do
not have cards in the public library; interview them to see why they
have not; even to write letters to the parents and urge them to allow
their children to have cards; and to see before the end of the first
term that every student in the entering class has a card in the public
library, has a note of introduction from the school librarian to the
branch librarian of the public library, and to see that the branch
librarian of our big cities and the high school librarian work together
four years with that student. We have the very closest co-operation.
Miss AHERN: Most of you reading library literature lately have seen
considerable criticism of the fact that when students go out from
college they do not know how to use the library. That is sometimes
the student's fault, but most often it is the fault of the college
curriculum. That is a topic we need not discuss here. But I believe
librarians will do a great service to those who are going into college
activities if they emphasize and elaborate that idea of putting into
the requirements for college entrance, a knowledge of how to use
library machinery.
There are a good many things that are necessary for students to know
before they are able to take up the work in colleges, particularly in
literature and language. I am not saying that these should be any
less. But here is something that I wonder no one has ever thought of
before. It means a good deal more to a student to know how to use the
various reference books in the college library on, say, the works of
John Milton, than to have read some of the things which are included in
the entrance examination. I think the idea of requiring a knowledge of
how to use the library for college entrance is the best thing I have
heard at a library meeting for a long time, and I hope the librarians
who are present will impress that idea on their superintendents
of schools, on their high school principals, and on the college
authorities, as far as they can. It is a good thing. If we should
not get anything else out of this 1913 meeting but to impress on the
school people that a knowledge of how to use the library is a necessary
requirement for a college course, we shall have gained a great point.
Mr. RANCK: I should like to ask Miss Hall about her experience with
reference to the use of the library on the teaching of English and
literature in the high school.
Miss HALL: I have been very much interested in this. Our school has
been so large it has been very difficult to do all we would like to
do. We have not been able to do what has been done in the Detroit
or Grand Rapids high school in the way of instruction. But I have
been interested in seeing what it has done for the English and the
history departments. In the first place, our teachers are coming with
their classes for instruction and the teachers are learning a great
many things which they are putting in practice. For the last year we
have done more with the Reader's Guide in history than ever before.
Teachers are assigned to help me in my work. After they heard the talk
on the Reader's Guide they said, "We can do this: we will go through
the Reader's Guide and we will bring out everything that is really
interesting on the history of France, Germany, China, Russia and the
Balkan War; we will look over those articles and make a card of the
best things." They are using the Reader's Guide in English more than
ever before; they are using reference books more. After the talk on the
Statesmen's Yearbook and on the almanacs and some of the yearbooks,
such as the New International Yearbook, they are using them almost as
textbooks. The Statesmen's Yearbook is in use nearly all the time, as
is the New International Yearbook, since that talk. They are using
the Reader's Guide for new material--essays that they want on special
subjects, and are using it for debate work, informal debates on all
sorts of interesting current problems for English work, training the
students to do oral debating without any notes, and talks on the topics
of the day. They are using encyclopedias more wisely than they used to.
Teachers used to send scholars to encyclopedias for everything. And
when we talked about the real use of encyclopedias and bibliographies,
how the encyclopedia simply gave you a certain amount of definite
information and often led to more important things, they began using
those bibliographies.
Miss HOBART: I do not know that any librarian has been trying to work
out the problem which I have of reaching the public school pupils
and teachers. Some of the best things that I have found in that way
are these: I made myself familiar, as early in the term as possible,
with the teachers and the conditions of their home life. I found that
some had very poor places to room, as they are apt to have in small
communities, and to those I offered the use of the library rooms for
evening use and for time out of school when they wished to correct
papers. Our library is warm and light in the winter and cool and
light in the summer. And the teachers were extremely glad to have a
place where they could come and be quiet and comfortable and do their
own work. I think that last year the teachers in our small village
practically lived in the library. Even those who had homes there used
to make it their abiding place most of their waking hours. For the
high school pupils, at the time of their graduating essays, we laid
books aside in different places in the library. Many of those children
had no proper places at home where they could write. They came to the
library and did their work; almost all the work on their graduating
essays was done evenings. For six weeks we gave the use of our catalog
rooms to two girls who had their books sent there. There were several
out-of-town children; to those we gave a room in the basement. They
came from school as quickly as possible at noon, ate their luncheon in
a very short time and spent the rest of the intermission in the library
doing reference work. The expressions of appreciation we have received
and the consciousness of the help given to those children in the use of
the library has been a great source of satisfaction.
Adjourned.
FIFTH GENERAL SESSION
(Friday morning, June 27, 1913.)
The PRESIDENT: We begin this morning the fifth session of this
conference and the theme covering the papers is, "The library's service
to business and legislation." Ten years ago it would not have occurred
to anyone perhaps that it would be possible to have a series of papers
upon this subject, and the surprising expansion of the service in these
directions is evidenced by the fact that we have, in order at all to
attempt to cover this subject adequately, a larger number of papers on
this morning's program than we have on the program for any other of
the subjects which have been scheduled. I will ask Mr. C. B. LESTER to
start the program with his paper upon
THE PRESENT STATUS OF LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE WORK
It is now more than twenty years since the need of specialization in
the library's work on subjects of legislation was recognized in New
York in the creation of a special staff for such work, and it is just
about ten years since the successful combination in Wisconsin of such
special reference work with the formulation of bills aroused most of
the states to the possibilities of usefulness in this field. It would
therefore seem worth while to examine the work so far done to discover
if possible such principles and tendencies as may be subject to
generalization.
It is at once obvious that any such generalization in a broad sense
must be difficult, for this present year shows in legislation both
east and west that we have not yet come to rest on such fundamental
principles as to method even though there may be substantial unanimity
as to policy. The new laws in Vermont (and I think in New Hampshire)
in the east--in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in the middle west--and
in California on the Pacific coast show such differences that it is
evident that local conditions must still be very largely controlling.
And to go back a full year or more would bring to notice the new work
organized in several states through university bureaus but without
special legislation, and the proposals before the Congress.
Comparatively little examination shows that the conception of the work
to be done differs widely. Mr. Kaiser of the University of Illinois,
who is preparing a detailed study of the subject, writes me: "I find
that in practically thirty-two states it is attempted in some form or
other--the state library as a whole, a division of the state library
created within the library, a division created by law, a separate
bureau, library commission bureaus, state university bureaus, etc."
Obviously this must include practically all states where the state
library is other than a law library only or a historical collection
only, and must credit with doing legislative reference work those
states where general reference work is done on subjects of legislation.
But there is a more exact use of the term which takes account of the
fundamental principle well suggested in the statement of the Librarian
of Congress in his communication to Congress in 1911. "A legislative
reference bureau goes further [than the Division of Bibliography].
It undertakes not merely to classify and to catalog, but to draw off
from a general collection the literature, that is the data, bearing
upon a particular legislative project. It indexes, extracts, compiles."
It breaks up existing forms in which information is contained and
classifies the resulting parts, and often "adds to printed literature
written memoranda as to facts and even opinions as to merit."
Such work as the legislative reference staff should be qualified to do
is distinctly informational rather than educational in its reference
to the patron. It does the work of research, of gathering, sorting and
uniting the scattered fact material wanted and presents the results
ready for use. And to be fully effective this work must in some way be
co-ordinated with the formulation of legislation, so that the product
offered by the legislator may be both firmly founded and properly
constructed. This work is so evidently necessary that it will be
done in an increasing number of states whether the state library or
some other agency undertakes it and protects its efficiency by the
impartial, non-political and permanent organization of it which can be
there best provided.
Practically all legislation specifically providing for such work has
been passed in the years beginning 1907 and it is significant that most
of this emphasizes research and drafting. The laws specially providing
for such work are as follows:
Alabama, 1907, no. 255.
California, 1913.
Illinois, 1913.
Indiana, 1913, ch. 255 (1907, ch. 147).
Michigan, 1907, ch. 306 (1913, ch. 144).
Missouri, Stat., 1909, Sec. 8177.
Montana, 1909, ch. 65.
Nebraska, 1911, ch. 72.
North Dakota, 1909, ch. 157 (1907, ch. 243).
Ohio, 1913 (1910, no. 384).
Pennsylvania, 1909, no. 143 (1913).
Rhode Island, 1907, ch. 1471.
South Dakota, 1907, ch. 185.
Texas, 1909, ch. 70.
Vermont, 1912, ch. 14 (1910, ch. 9).
Wisconsin, Stat. Sec. 373 f.
An analysis of the work done, whether provided for by legislation or by
administrative practice, shows certain other facts. The number of the
staff in any state is often variable, temporary or part time assistance
is often used, and this is true where this work is not a part of the
work of a state library or other wider organization. Furthermore, the
cost in money is almost impossible to estimate accurately in many
places, because of this co-operation with other work. In starting a
new work this difficulty in answering the question of what it costs
elsewhere must be faced. The best way to meet it seems to be to make
the comparison on the basis of the work wanted, definitely planning
what is to be done, and asking for a lump sum to cover its estimated
cost.
The drafting proposition is a most important element. Some three or
four states already have official bill-drafting agencies, other than
legislative reference departments, and a number of others definitely
depend upon the attorney-general's office for this work. In some states
there is opposition to putting this in the hands of a non-legislative
agency, and in others the libraries, while ready to handle a
specialized reference work, are not ready to undertake drafting.
Obviously this work requires highly specialized training, and equally,
I believe, it will be agreed that this service should be rendered and
that it must be in the closest co-operation with the reference work.
There is no doubt in my own mind that the best condition is that of a
single agency to perform this dual work, where the establishment of
such is possible, and the usual organization seems to include both the
expert draftsmen and the special clerical and stenographic assistance.
This service in the primary formulation of bills must inevitably lead
to a similar assistance as bills progress toward final enactment. This
care as to form through the processes of amendment and revision will
ultimately be complete if the enacted statute law is what it should be
"to stand the test."
This leads me to certain suggestions of other fields of service in
the legislative process which should all tend to better the whole
legislative product. Of course, in much of this service the emphasis is
placed upon form and make-up of the final product, the discretion as
to subject matter resting elsewhere, but that discretionary judgment
is to be based upon the most complete information it is possible to
furnish. Most of these services are now performed by the libraries or
other non-legislative agencies in some states, but of course not all,
or indeed many, in any one state. They include editing, foot-noting,
side-noting, indexing of session laws, and the preparation of tables of
amendments, repeals and similar matter; the proper filing and care of
original bills, journals, committee records, and similar matter, after
the work of the session is completed; the editing and indexing of the
printed journal; editorial work of various forms upon the legislative
documents. These are all services needed by our states, useful to the
legislative bodies, and only properly handled through some permanent
agency. Is the state library that agency? I leave the question for
your consideration, and suggest that some uncertainty at present as
to just what may be most desirable is evident particularly in the new
legislation in Vermont, Ohio, Indiana and California. It has already
been brought out in prepared paper and in discussion at this conference
that the state library should not be a central public library in its
content or its method. It is rather possible to express the field of
its activities as that of a collection of special libraries. Into that
field would come quite naturally the varied services to the legislative
branch of the government which have been suggested. As already stated
some of them are now supplied in some states. What we shall ultimately
work toward in our states is a complete organization of these allied
branches of work, all of which focus about the work of the legislature.
Some of these services are at once recognized as within the field of
the library--about others there is a decided difference of opinion. But
they all have many common elements, many points of contact. They are
most effectively to be handled as a group. The tendency will surely be
toward a concentration rather than a scattering of these parts of one
general work. Plans for such a concentration, adapted to a particular
set of conditions, to be sure, have already been put into concrete bill
form in New York and the bill was before the legislature this year.
The question presents many new features, but is not something to be
answered perhaps in the distant future; it is rather, I believe, worthy
of a very real consideration in the present.
The PRESIDENT: The second paper this morning, which follows very
logically after the one which we have just heard, will be by Mr.
DEMARCHUS C. BROWN, state librarian of Indiana, on
STATE-WIDE INFLUENCE OF THE STATE LIBRARY
The writer of this paper would be more than Protæan if he could say
anything new on this topic. All our associations, at least the half
dozen I belong to, meet so often that repetition is forced upon us. In
the interim very few experiences or ideas worth recording come to us.
Biennial or triennial sessions would lead to better results and save
money.
The personality and attainments of the librarian (and his staff) are of
prime importance in making the state library a dominating influence in
the commonwealth. He is the man behind the gun. I put him first. From
the negative side,--his position should not be subject to partisan or
personal influence. That is a blight to start with and will ruin any
institution. We are still afflicted with that curse in places, not only
in the state libraries but in official positions generally.
Affirmatively, the head of the state library ought to be a person of
scholarly acquirements or at least in deep and appreciative sympathy
with scholarship and knowledge. If he is a scholar in a limited field
he should be in accord with all who are trained in other departments.
He should be able to represent the state in its educational and
scientific undertakings, by papers and addresses, whenever called
upon. It goes without saying that he should be a trained man in
educational or library or literary work and of course an executive
officer. His library is a laboratory of all for all in the state and
he must be in touch with the work of that laboratory. His library is
the distributer of blessings to a great commonwealth, and according
to the motto of the "Library Company" of Philadelphia, that is divine
(Communiter bona profundere deum est). I'll not quote the Latin--it
would be classic, and to be classic is against the regulations of the
Zeitgeist. I want him to be an inspirer for all to love art and poetry,
and study and history and politics (real); and not merely skilled in
the knowledge of card indexes and catalog rules. A certain famous
general in the Confederate Army spent so much of his time on details of
drill and quartermaster's regulations that he forgot how to fight his
army.
I have put the librarian first in this broadening influence of
the state library. All the volumes and equipment and staff will
be comparatively a failure without this scholarly, well-trained,
wide-awake executive officer.
As to the various ways in which the state library can extend its
influence and make itself useful, permit me to suggest a few. This
institution can well be the bibliographical center of the state. Every
club, school, library, society, and all citizens can be made to know
that here information can be obtained about books.
Our own demand is quite large and ought to be larger. There are
libraries with meagre equipment, schools with none, people with none,
colleges with little--all these may be taught to turn to the central
institution for bibliographical information. I consider this a source
of wide-spreading influence, valuable and helpful to the whole state. I
have placed it second more because I deem it important, not because I
think all of these points can be listed accurately as to their relative
positions.
Our states heretofore have been very slow in preserving their history,
both of the commonwealth and municipalities. This has led, perchance,
to the unspeakable commercial county histories with their unspeakable
portraits and unspeakable cost, which we are compelled to purchase in
order to have something.
The state library's influence should extend over the entire state in
an attempt to teach the preservation of history. The library is the
natural place for the collection and organization of the history of the
state. The archives may well be kept here for reference and use, though
some states have a separate archives and history department.
I wish we knew how to preserve history. We don't keep or build
memorials, we tear down and throw away. What we want is the new, the
fresh, the raw. The old, the seasoned, the ripe, we think is effete
(how we like that word in referring to the old advanced civilization of
Europe). The state library has a great, unploughed field to cultivate.
Personally, I find people ready to burn up newspapers or manuscripts,
or sell volumes for junk rather than give them to an institution
where they may be preserved. I am trying to teach them otherwise, but
succeeding very slowly indeed. I trust some of you are doing better.
The women's clubs are a source of help in extending the influence
of the library. They are asking for information of all kinds at all
times. We laugh at them, I know. They have papers on Shakespeare,
Goethe or Homer at one sitting and dispose of them all. But what shall
we do? They are the conservers of culture and reading. Men don't want
them, i. e. culture and reading. They are bourgeois, "practical,"
(à bas with that word and up with refinement and culture which is
just as meaningful in books as in a field where we know culture is
everything). I know many prosperous country towns without a men's
reading organization or club in them, but many women's. If the state
library in its state-wide influence, could convert men to reading, it
would do a great work. Send your bulletin to the clubs, suggest topics
for discussion, and thus distribute the leaven.
So much of our reading and study is done through periodicals of every
description that it is made necessary for one central institution to
be well supplied with these publications. The periodicals not taken in
the average library, college or club, the foreign, like Revue de Deux
Mondes, and Dublin Review, for example, and particularly the learned
periodicals used only occasionally, should be found in the state
library.
The state library can become a source of information, widespread over
the state, by this process. Demands come sometimes from remote corners,
from a teacher or some ambitious student, and he should never be
neglected. This department, I fear, has been in a measure overlooked.
We have about a hundred from foreign countries secured through exchange
for the Indiana Academy of Science. They are not commonly called for
but they form a tie between the library and the scientific men and
students over the state.
By no means limit this list to scientific periodicals. Make the
selection as broad as human interest, if funds and space permit.
It is commonplace to say that the state library is the document
depository of the commonwealth. You know that now. Many people do not
realize it, however. Every official publication of the state, counties
and municipalities, if preserved here, will be a source for historical
research in the future. Nothing of the kind should be thrown away. Many
state libraries were founded with this particular purpose in view.
The state library is the logical place for the preservation of all
documents of the state. From it the municipal authorities, students of
state history and political science, teachers, legislators and citizens
gather the information needed on the documentary history of the state.
All the states have institutions of various kinds--colleges, hospitals
for insane, the epileptic, the tubercular, reformatories, etc., etc.
Why should the state library not at least supplement the small or
large collections in these institutions? Their purpose is not to
purchase books, though some are needed. The state library's influence
and assistance should enter here, also. Much can be done to enlarge
the views and inform the heads of these institutions and to make
happy many of the inmates. No demand by a superintendent of a state
institution for books to be purchased for and referred to by him would
be overlooked in the Indiana state library. The institutions are
scattered over the state and the library's influence would be spread in
gathering material for the people connected with these institutions.
The libraries of the state universities can be supplemented to great
advantage, as has been done at least in our own state and in yours, I
have no doubt.
The newspapers of the state are not kept with any regularity in the
different localities. They are a valuable fund of information for
the historian, who must sift rigidly of course. Our attempt is to
preserve the papers from each county. We have many instances already
of the value of our collection. We believe that a state-wide service
is done in this way. I know the newspaper is not what we think it
ought to be, but certain conditions of politics, business and social
customs are pictures which will otherwise be lost. The librarian in
the state library has imposed upon him here an important duty to the
commonwealth, and the possibility of rendering great service.
The high schools are fond of debating. The boys are more easily aroused
to reading by the discussion of a public or social problem. The local
library is usually meagre. If the school principal is kept in close
touch with the central library he will know where to send for material.
A bulletin on "Debates" with bibliographical lists is of great service
to the school men. The state library extends its work to educational
centers by this method. The Indiana state library for several years
has followed this system and as a result has almost been swamped with
requests for debate material. As many as forty high schools in one
week tried to overwhelm us, but our staff stood the test womanfully and
won.
There are state-wide associations of all kinds in every state. Many
of them publish reports or proceedings. The state librarian may well
keep his institution in touch with all of these. The library may
even be a member of some of them, especially educational, social,
literary or artistic. The presence of a member of its staff at their
meetings or correspondence may lead to the use of the library by these
organizations in a way that will show that the library is the thing to
be used--a tool for every man.
Common as it may be to say it, the assistance to the blind of the state
by the central library must not be passed by. It is a great joy for
any one to note the pleasure these unfortunate people obtain from the
collections from which they draw daily. Very few, if any, are able to
purchase their own books. The number assisted is small, but the benefit
and happiness are great and lasting.
As the state library is the document and the political science center,
it follows that legislative and official information are to be secured
here. The officials and members of the Assembly ought to be made to
know that the state library is, as it were, the fountain head from
which to draw. If the library is worth anything or its head and staff
worth anything, they should be consulted frequently by these persons
in their work of lawmaking. The library has gathered and organized the
material and by means of its use by the legislator, the library exerts
a state-wide service.
It is the province of the traveling libraries department to lend
collections of books to groups of citizens in localities apart from
libraries. This does not hinder the state library from doing much for
the farmer individually and in farmers' institutes. Addresses may be
delivered, bibliographical lists on agricultural subjects sent and
books loaned if the law permits it, and I think it should.
In our own library we have letters and requests from farmers; we
preserve the records of their institutes and granges. One who had
only half an hour a day to read asked for a volume of Jefferson,
Shakespeare, or a good book on chiggers. If he could find out how to
get rid of the chiggers, I would prefer that book to Jefferson, whose
apotheosis is sadly overworked. That farmer's request was not so
fascinating as that of a teacher who wanted a book on "the history of
the human people." This is a sample of Indiana readers. Indiana, the
home of authors! (I want to express my opinion in parenthesis here,
that this Indiana literature talk is also sadly overworked.)
All this concerns special classes of people and books. But the general
reader must be looked after. If democratization of books and reading
is our keynote, and I think it is, then the citizen who wants to read
on history, poetry, art, sociology, religion, must not be neglected.
State-wide means much. It means an open mind for all the demos.
Our central library shall not be a trade shop, not for the bourgeoisie,
but a mentor, a guide, a place of refinement and culture. Not for the
practical man only--he usually does not know anything and does not want
to; he has no breadth of view. Looking up a trade item or a report or
some figures is good and useful; so is loving a poet because it is at
the foundation of character and education.
We have recently been informed--no, we have been told--that to talk
about reading, culture, the love of knowledge, is "flapdoodle." A
citizen may be benefited by knowing how many miles of railroad are in
his county, or what amount of money his city spends, but he will be
just as much benefited by reading a lofty poem of André Chénier, Le
Jeu de Paume for example, or a stanza of William Dwight Moody's, not
that he will make money, but something far better.
What I want to say is that the state library shall extend the love
of learning, of literature, or art and all their kin to the furthest
boundaries of the state in order that all may know that here is a
fountain whence all may receive instruction and refreshment. Why
should the business man not read something besides the newspaper, the
statements of which are denied the next day? Yet most men read nothing
else. If his own town library is small let him call upon the state
library and let the state library be ready to help. I believe that
lending books must still be granted to the state library. We have calls
from lovers of reading from every corner of Indiana, from men who love
culture, knowledge and literature. These we propose to accommodate as
long as the law permits. This observation is made because it has been
said repeatedly that the state library shall deal in documents, reports
and reference books.
We have many foreigners in Indiana. When these cannot secure what is
wanted at their local library I want them to come to us, as recently
happened when the Roumanians wanted the text of their native poets and
something about their provincial capital Nagygebin.
I trust that we may all have one great library for reference with a
minimum of popular fiction--a library that is a guide to scholarship
and knowledge, a library where every man who loves to read may turn
himself out to grass and browse, browse deeply. Herein will we have
state-wide influence.
May I group these influences as a summary:--the personality, fitness
and scholarship of the State Librarian; the bibliographical center may
well be the state library; the legislative reference for the Assembly
and officials; the gathering and preserving of the history and archives
of the state along with the encouragement among the people to preserve
local historical material; the collecting of newspapers representing
the entire commonwealth; the creation of a periodical center in the
state library; close connection with schools, colleges and all kinds
of organizations, social, literary, commercial, etc.; assistance for
all the state institutions, educational, charitable, and correctional;
close relation with the women's clubs; assistance to the farmer and the
foreigner in isolated localities; the center for general culture and
love of knowledge where every citizen may continue to go to school.
The PRESIDENT: Mr. Lester in his paper referred to the bill-drafting
department of a legislative reference bureau and Mr. Brown has just
referred to the man behind the counter. We may perhaps feel that modern
conditions require two men behind the counter in government: the one
who prepares the ammunition and the one who fires it; and perhaps the
more important is the one who prepares the ammunition; the one who
draws up the law, leaving to the legislature the more perfunctory
service of applying the match. Mr. MATTHEW S. DUDGEON has served in the
capacity of director of the bill drafting department of the Wisconsin
legislative bureau and I believe that since he has assumed the duties
of the executive officer of the Wisconsin Library Commission he has
continued to perform that service. We shall be glad to hear from him
this morning as to
THE LAW THAT STANDS THE TEST
In an address before the New York Bar Association the Honorable
Joseph E. Choate says that we in America are suffering seriously
from plethora of legislation. He suggests that this whole mass of
legislation pabulum that is made up and offered to the people from year
to year, ought to be more thoroughly 'Fletcherized,' more completely
masticated, before it is poured into the body politic for digestion.
"If that were done, I am sure," he says, "that we could get along
with half the quantity and it would do us just as much good." The
volume of legislation now being considered is, in fact, appalling. The
legislature of one Eastern state had before it at its last biennial
session four thousand and eighty-one distinct bills. A Western state
this year has asked its legislature to consider three thousand, seven
hundred and thirty-eight measures. A Southern state actually passed
at its latest session one thousand, four hundred and sixty different
enactments.
Unlike the hookworm, however, this disease is neither new nor newly
discovered, nor is it like the chills and fever, indigenous to our
newly settled American continent. Over three hundred years ago
Montaigne discovered a superabundance of legislation in France. "We
have more laws in France," he says, "than in all the rest of the
world." And going back still further to the first century A. D. we find
Tacitus complaining that there are too many laws in Rome. "So that as
formerly we suffered from wickedness," he says in his Annals, "so now
we suffer from too many laws."
We may safely conclude then that the enactment of many laws which are
not so fully "Fletcherized" as they should be, is a complaint which
long ago became chronic among bodies politic generally and that it is
high time that some cure be found for the ailment. How can the quantity
of laws be diminished and the quality improved? How can our legislative
acts be masticated so that one-half as many may do us as much good?
The problem of thus improving legislation and producing "the law that
stands the test" is indeed a most serious one.
=Requirements.= Let us suggest the proposition that a law that
stands the test must first be one which violates no provision of the
constitution; second, it must be founded upon a sound economic basis;
third, it should be capable of efficient administration: that is, it
should be a practical, workable, usable thing; fourth, it must fit
into its surroundings both legal and social. It must, as Blackstone
has suggested, fit the situation as a suit of clothes fits the man.
Some laws which are perfectly sound in good old occidental England have
been found to be entirely impossible in oriental India. A measure which
suits the Anglo-Saxon Yankee in Connecticut may be entirely out of
place among the mixed peoples of the Philippines.
The law that stands the test must have all these qualities and this is
the law which all the American states are striving to produce. Such a
law may, of course, possess these characteristics and yet not be in
every sense satisfactory. It may not accomplish all that was hoped for
it; it may contain errors; it may need amendments, and still it may be
a law which, in a proper sense, stands the test. To give a method by
which a law may be created which will stand the test will not therefore
be to suggest that a method has been discovered which will produce
perfect legislation.
=Nature of subjects considered.= It should be remembered also that
the difficulties of legislation arise not only from the multitude of
subjects presented, but because many of the subjects are in themselves
most difficult of comprehension. The Right Honorable James Bryce has
said that the task of legislation becomes more and more difficult and
that many of the problems which legislators now face are too hard
not only for the ordinary members but even for the abler members of
legislative bodies because they cannot be understood and mastered
without special knowledge.
To illustrate: The legislature of a middle western state has had
before it at a single session laws upon the following subjects: A
comprehensive code of court procedure, initiative and referendum,
recall of all officers except judges, home rule in cities, excess,
condemnation, woman's suffrage, workmen's compensation, regulation of
industrial accidents by commission, income tax, state aid to public
highways, conservation and control of water power, forest reserve,
system of industrial education, system of state life insurance, the
formation of farmers' co-operative associations, limitation of the
hours of labor for women, child labor, public school buildings as civic
centers, and teachers' pension.
There does not exist in any learned society nor in any university in
the land a single man who can do more than converse intelligently upon
all of these subjects; yet this state expected its absolutely untrained
legislators to understand these matters thoroughly, to express a wise
judgment upon them, and to record their judgment in such form as to
force it upon an entire state.
=Lack of training on the part of the legislators.= Of the one hundred
members of the lower house of the legislature which voted upon all
these measures sixty-five had never had any previous legislative
experience. Only thirty had had the advantage of any college education.
While nineteen of the one hundred were lawyers, they were for the most
part young, inexperienced men, whose contact with public questions had
been limited. Thirty of the one hundred were farmers, thirty-one were
in business, six were doctors or dentists, eight were mechanics, three
were school teachers. Yet these men, without experience, or training,
or special fitness were forced to vote upon all these difficult
economic and industrial problems, and also upon about two thousand
other more or less important measures.
=Necessity for unbiased information.= It is of course evident that what
the legislator must have is a source from which he can obtain complete
information upon all sides of a controverted question. A court which
purports to administer justice after hearing the contention of only
one party to a transaction would open itself to ridicule. Yet this is
precisely the method pursued in legislation. The legislator begins
without any independent knowledge of the subject. Such knowledge as
he obtains is brought to him ordinarily by a lobbyist. He receives
many private suggestions whose source he hardly knows. He attends a
committee hearing on a bill seeking to increase the taxes levied upon
railroad property, for example. Here the best data and legal arguments
that money can buy is ably and forcibly presented by the railroad
attorneys. They give figures to show that the railroads are already
taxed more than other forms of property. They quote economists to the
effect that the proposed taxation is unsound and unscientific. They
cite court decisions demonstrating to a certainty that the proposed
measure is unconstitutional. They argue, wheedle, misstate, and finally
convince the legislator that the measure is absurd. No similarly
exhaustive arguments in behalf of the bill can be presented, for no
talent comparable to that of the railroad attorneys, and in fact no
talent at all is retained by the people in behalf of public interests.
This is the legislative librarian's opportunity. As the Right Honorable
James Bryce has said: "No country has ever been able to fill its
legislatures with its wisest men; but every country may at least enable
them to apply the best methods and provide them with the amplest
material."
=Legislation elsewhere.= It is to be remarked that the legislative
questions before all civilized communities are essentially similar.
Everywhere are problems growing out of crime and pauperism; problems
relating to hours of labor, child labor, and wages; employer's
liability; compulsory insurance; workman's compensation; problems
arising out of inheritance, income taxation, and the regulation of
public service corporations. Nothing is so new, however, but that some
other legislature has worked upon the problem or is working upon it.
Take, for example, such a question as employer's liability or workman's
compensation. Fifty legislative bodies are working upon or have worked
upon this single question. In at least three foreign countries and in
one American state it has been adequately solved. The other forty-six
have failed in part or altogether, either because of uneconomic and
unscientific approach or because of constitutional limitations.
Formerly and up to within the last ten years no effort had been made to
profit by the experience of these fifty other legislative bodies. The
typical American way is to let the legislators stumble along, ignorant
of the results of similar experimentations elsewhere, trying out
expensive, independent experiments, which inevitably end in ineffectual
enactments.
What the legislator most needs to know, then, is what efforts other
communities are making to solve the problem before him and how they
are succeeding, to the end that good measures which have succeeded
elsewhere may be adopted and their failures not repeated. Where
successful legislative work is done the first effort is always to get
copies of every law on every subject which is likely to be legislated
upon at the current session. All data bearing upon the success or
failure of this legislation in other states and countries must be
collected, digested, tabulated and placed in such form as to be
readily available to the legislator. If a measure has failed or been
repealed the reasons for the failure or repeal are sought. If it has
been successful its provisions are carefully studied and analyzed
with a view to adaptability to local needs. Experience shows that in
some cases it is necessary to prepare a translation of good foreign
legislation which has never before been translated into English.
But no law from another jurisdiction can be safely transplanted without
careful consideration. The local constitution must be studied. In
such a case as the workman's compensation act referred to, it was
necessary for a commission to make a close, scientific study of the
causes and character of the industrial accidents within the state,
to investigate the rates of the casualty insurance companies in the
different industries, to discover what co-operation for the prevention
of accidents could be secured from employers and employees. Hearings
were held at various industrial centers within and without the state;
scores of witnesses were examined; manufacturers, labor unions,
engineering experts and economists were called upon. In short, the
problem was treated in a thoroughly scientific manner. Contrary to the
usual practice, the case was prepared and presented to the legislature
with the same thoroughness and care as is usual when an important case
is prepared and presented to the court. As a result the law, although
not perfect, stands the test.
=Drafting.= When the legislature has discovered what measures have
proved successful elsewhere and what local conditions demand, it is
still helpless because the members know nothing of legislative forms
and cannot use with sufficient accuracy the language expressive of
its conclusion. Assistance in bill drafting is necessary. Experience
has shown that the man who does this must be either a trained lawyer
who is also a practical political scientist or a practical political
scientist who is something of a lawyer. It is often found too that
in its original form a measure is unconstitutional and a lawyer's
knowledge is necessary in order to devise some means of whipping the
constitutional devil around the judicial stump. For example, the
workman's compensation law of England, enacted too literally in its
original form, is clearly unconstitutional in America and has been
so declared by the courts of our state. In another state, however,
the legislative lawyers who were engaged in drafting the bill, seeing
clearly the judicial stump and the constitutional devil, by a simple
but clever device passed what was in effect the English law, but in
such form that when it came before the Supreme Court it was not only
declared constitutional but was commended.
=Fault not with legislators but with the system.= If legislation be bad
the fault is, then, not with the legislator. The average legislator
is a keen, bright, honest man, who has been successful in at least a
small way in his business or profession. He is ignorant of legislative
subjects not because he is an ignorant man, but because his knowledge
is of other things. The fault is not with him. It is inherent in our
unscientific system of legislating.
We put a group of farmers, grocers, and mechanics at work upon some
great sociological problem. They can have no adequate knowledge of the
subject. We do not give them compensation enough to pay their living
expenses while they work. We allot them only a few hours to consider
a given question. We provide for them no information. We furnish them
with no legal counsel. Assuming, however, as is often true, that these
men are men of integrity and humanity and common sense and that their
ideas are sound, they enact a good law that forbids, for example, the
employment of children in hazardous and immoral surroundings. In this
they have accomplished an important and intelligent constructive work.
Then we hire the best trained minds in the state and put them in our
courts. We pay them higher salaries than any other public servants. We
give them large libraries in which is found the accumulated legal lore
of the past. We grant them, for the questions before them, all the time
they can use,--weeks, months, often literally years. These talented,
high-minded gentlemen, by dint of industrious delving and assisted
by highly paid and highly trained attorneys, discover at last in the
depths of their moth-eaten law books some mummified eighteenth century
idea which has become petrified into a constitutional provision. They
shake their heads and decide that the splendid, humane, up-to-date,
common sense legislation is unconstitutional and void because of some
minor constitutional objection. They cannot be, and should not be,
criticised, for they are clearly performing a duty. Neither can these
judges substitute anything in place of the law which they destroy, for
the work for which we pay them so well in money and honor and position
is only critical,--and their function is in this case destructive.
=The law making function as important as the judicial.= Now, creative
work the world over has always been recognized as requiring greater
intelligence, better training, keener initiative than the purely
critical. Yet, in legal matters this principle has been entirely
ignored. In every way we exalt the interpretive, critical, even
destructive, judicial process. We neglect and belittle the constructive
creative process of law making.
The conclusion of the whole matter is that the making of the law
is in principle as important,--in fact, more important, than the
interpretation of it.
The legislative function must be as carefully performed as is the
judicial. Men should be prepared for law making as are men for the
judicial bench. They must be men of the same calibre, of good ability,
of high intelligence, of absolute integrity, of broad sympathies, and
of big vision. Not until we have an agency of this type assisting in
law making, not until the making of laws is recognized as a distinct
and important governmental function, co-ordinate with, if not superior
to the judicial function, not until each state has a bureau which will,
as the Honorable James Bryce says, supply the legislators with the
amplest material and enable them to apply the best methods, can we hope
to have laws which in the highest sense "stand the test."
The PRESIDENT: We go now from the legislature to the business man,
the man who makes the wheels turn around. Those of you who had the
opportunity to hear the striking address, at a meeting of the Special
Libraries Association the other day, from a business man of Boston
need not be reminded of the tremendous possibilities that lie in this
extension of the library service. Mr. S. H. RANCK, of the Grand Rapids
public library, will discuss
MAKING A LIBRARY USEFUL TO BUSINESS MEN
On first giving consideration to this paper I was inclined to believe
that the story of the personal use of the library (the public library)
by business men would be almost as brief as the traditional story
of snakes in Ireland. Few librarians have the means of knowing how
many business men use their institutions, but where statistics of
registration indicate the occupation of card holders it would appear
that the library gets almost as many bartenders as bankers.
To get some definite data on this subject I had the library records
investigated of the 198 officers and committees of the Grand Rapids
Association of Commerce, the leading business organization of our city,
with a membership of 1,300. These 198 men (and a few women) represent
our most active business concerns, as well as a few professions. Of
this number only 53, or 27 per cent, have live library cards. In
looking over the names I recognized 38 of those without cards as
persons who either individually or through their employees in the
interest of the house, have used the library more or less for reference
purposes. There are of course others who use the library in this way
without my knowledge.
These figures indicate that the library is serving directly only about
50 per cent of the livest business men of the town. The specific
questions I propose to discuss are, Why do business men use the library
relatively little? What can the library do to get business men to use
it more?
Progressive business men use the library because they recognize the
enormous value of new ideas and of new knowledge to their business, no
matter where they get them. The trouble is that public libraries can't
always furnish them the knowledge they need. And furthermore not all
business men are progressive. There are standpatters in the business,
as well as in the political world. However, there is no class of men
who have a better idea of the potential power of print, rightly used,
than the business men who advertise. Such men are always ready to meet
the library more than half way.
In discussing this question I should have preferred to use the term
"business men" in a liberal sense. We are all more or less "business"
people at times, but for this occasion I am directed by our president
to limit it to that one of its 24 different meanings which applies to
employer rather than employee in "the occupations of conducting trade
or monetary transactions" and in "employments requiring knowledge of
accounts and financial methods."
Before proceeding further permit me to state my conviction that
the greatest service the library is doing for business men is not
to business men personally, but rather for them through their
employees,--in supplying knowledge and in promoting the general
intelligence and the social welfare of the community. These things
are of the greatest importance to every employer, for they are the
foundations on which all efficiency is built. The social welfare work
of the Panama Canal, much of it the kind libraries are doing, is a
conspicuous example of the immense financial value of such work.
The male portion of adult society we may roughly divide, so far
as occupations are concerned, into manual workers (laborers and
mechanics), professional men, business men, and drones (the idle class)
who, like the lilies of the field, neither toil nor spin, but who
frequently outshine Solomon in the gorgeousness and variety of their
array. They live a parasitic life on the productive labor of their
fellow men, giving no adequate return. In the administration of our
public libraries most consideration has been given to the idle class
and to the professional classes. Real service for the manual workers
and business men has been largely neglected until within recent years.
There are several reasons for this neglect. Among these may be
mentioned the following: Working men and business men are expressing
themselves in deeds and in things rather than in words and books; and
therefore until recently there has been relatively little worth-while
material available for the libraries to put on their shelves for the
men directly engaged in industrial or commercial pursuits. Furthermore
there has been a long standing prejudice on the part of these men
(those who are rule-of-thumb men) against the reliability and the
utility of things in print for their everyday work. And in certain
quarters this prejudice still exists to a very considerable extent.
They are inclined to look upon the writers and users of books as
theoretical and impractical.
A further handicap in the use of libraries by business men, is the
fact that so few of us in library work know the contents of books and
things in print that might be useful to them in their daily work; and
oftener we know still less of the problems business men must deal with.
Therefore we cannot relate the inside of books with their work.
Much of the work of the public library is a kind of salesmanship,
even though there is no direct exchange of the coin of the country.
Salesmanship in its best sense is service, and service is what a city
is buying for all its people when it puts into its annual budget a more
or less (usually less) adequate sum of money for its library. As things
are today I fear that in too many cases the public instead of drawing a
plum from the library pie is not infrequently handed a lemon.
Recently I had the pleasure of dining with the vice-president of a
department store that employs over 2,500 people to sell nothing but
clothes--wearing apparel. He told me that the great secret of the
success of his institution, through whose doors there enter from
30,000 to 40,000 people every day (and remember that nearly all these
people enter with the expectation of parting with some of their good
money), is the fact that every employee has instilled into him or her
the fact that the salesmanship that brings success is service and
that it is founded on knowledge; for, said he, "No one can sell goods
satisfactorily unless he knows all about them,"--where they are made,
how they are made, what they are, their history, etc. And these things
everyone in this store is systematically taught. Incidentally, I may
add that this department store starts its people at a minimum wage
higher than the minimum in many libraries, and the maximum for women in
this store is double the maximum of the highest paid women in library
work in this country. This store uses the public library of its city
and has a library of its own whose librarian is at this convention at
the expense of the store. When a department store finds such a policy
a wise one the business men responsible for its management will be
the first in the community to support a policy of library service
based on knowledge. But business men must be shown that the library is
delivering the goods.
The business man places his establishment so far as possible where it
will best serve the purposes of his business, and he spends loads of
good money in the first place, and annually in the form of taxation, to
get his building at the right place. Besides getting his establishment
at the right place he also spends more loads of good money to arrange
it for the economic and expeditious handling of his affairs in it.
So far as libraries relate to serving the business man, as well as
nine-tenths of the other people in the community, I am convinced that
95 per cent of the library buildings of the country are badly located,
and furthermore that the large proportion of these buildings are badly
arranged for the work they have, or ought, to do.
The place to serve the people is where the people daily congregate and
pass by in the largest numbers. This is never on a side street or in
the "best" residence section of the city. Your average "best" citizen
today gets more satisfaction out of his public library in showing his
visitor from out of town the Greek temple set back in a beautiful
grove or garden as he whirls by in his six cylinder, 60 horse-power,
seven-passenger touring car than in using the books and periodicals
inside. Such a building in such a setting has a value as a work of art,
but not as a library for service. Incidentally, it is only fair to say
that business men in most of our cities are largely responsible that we
have library buildings for show rather than for use.
Every block that separates the library from the principal lines of
the movement of the people, every foot that people must walk from the
sidewalk to the entrance of the building and then to its books, every
step that must be climbed above the level of the sidewalk to reach the
first floor, are all so many hurdles, barriers, which the people are
obliged to overcome before they can get to their own books, whether it
be to use them for business or pleasure, for education or recreation.
The bad location and arrangement of library buildings in the United
States are keeping hundreds of thousands of potential users and
supporters of libraries away from them and out of them every day of the
year. And there is no class of persons in the community more affected
by such things than business men, for they recognize (consciously or
unconsciously) better than any other class the commercial value of time
and convenience.
Let me put this a little more concretely. The library building in which
I work is better located and arranged than the average library building
of the country. And yet the total distance walked to and from the
sidewalk by all those who enter that building daily is nearly 35 miles
to the point where the library begins to serve them. Furthermore each
one of the thousand and more persons who daily enter this building,
in addition to the energy he uses in walking 180 feet to and from
the sidewalk must lift his own weight and the weight of the books he
carries seven feet above the level of the sidewalk. In other words
the location and arrangement of this building with reference to the
sidewalk requires the people who use it daily to take an extra walk of
almost the distance from Baltimore to Washington and at the same time
carry a weight equal to that of a ton of coal 350 feet to the top of
a skyscraper and down again. And all this is in addition to the walk
of 450 feet from the nearest car line, which few people use, 800 feet
from the car lines which are generally used, and over 400 feet from the
nearest thoroughfare. The library to be a friend to man, and to serve
him, must "live in a house by the side of the road where the race of
men go by."
The business man who studies usually buys his own printed matter that
deals directly with his work, and in this respect he is usually far
ahead of the library both in knowledge and in material at hand; and
the bigger his business the more is this likely to be the case. The
librarian will almost invariably find such a man a most helpful person
in the selection of things to be purchased and in the relative value of
both authors and books. It should be the business of every librarian to
know intimately, as far as possible, all such men in the community.
Our public libraries must largely increase on their shelves the number
of things in print that are of real service to the business man in his
work. First of all we must know what these things are, and next we
need to have the nerve to spend money for them much more freely than
we have ever done before. This is expensive and most such expenditures
will not show in the statistics of circulation. As an illustration of
this let me refer again to the institution I have the honor to serve.
For a number of years we have been spending $400 a year for books in
only one line of business. Besides the books, we take some two dozen
current periodicals on the same subject. All are used to a considerable
extent and the use made of them by only a dozen men is of the greatest
commercial and financial importance to our city. And yet so far as the
figures of circulation are concerned the expenditure of $450 of our
annual book fund for this one business is practically nothing.
We must get away from the idea of measuring the usefulness or the
efficiency of the library by the number of books issued for home use.
So long as this idea dominates our public library work we can never do
our best for the community, and especially the business part of it.
We need of course many books for the business man in our circulating
departments, but these by no means meet the need. Many of these
books are out of date in a few years at the best. To keep up to date
there is necessary a liberal purchase of yearbooks, transactions and
publications of industrial, technical and commercial associations
which bring down to date annually, and in convenient form, the latest
knowledge in their respective fields. For progressive business men
such works are vastly more important than encyclopedias, important as
encyclopedias of all kinds are.
Then too we must pay greater respect to the material published in
pamphlet form. On a multitude of subjects some of the latest and best
things have appeared in this form. Most of us do not handle this
material properly, if at all. In many libraries pamphlets are regarded
and cared for with about the same degree of disrespect as were public
documents in most libraries twenty years ago, and I regret to say, in
many libraries today. And as for the public use made of pamphlets, it
is practically nothing.
But more important for the wide-awake business man than books,
documents and pamphlets, is a large collection of current periodicals
relating to every kind of business activity in your city, with clipping
files on many subjects, for it is only through these that it is
possible to keep up with the latest information or for the library to
supply the thing that is most needed at the minute. As an illustration
of such use I recall several recent instances of business men getting
up briefs in connection with the proposed Underwood tariff bill.
The latest information, even when compiled sometimes by government
authorities, was secured from technical or trade journals before it
could be received from the Government Printing Office.
In short the best work the library can do for the business men
personally is in the building itself, supplemented by extensive use
of the telephone and the mails (reference or information work if
you please), and not by issuing to them for home use books whose
information at the best is rarely less than a year old, but in
reality is more likely to be five, ten, or even twenty years old.
The circulating book has a most important place and I would not for
one moment take from it the importance that is its due. My plea is
that we recognize more fully for our business man, and especially the
so-called small business man--the man of small business, or the young
man who hopes to establish a business of his own, the great importance
of library assistants who know the contents and the relative value of
books, pamphlets and periodicals, and who understand the art of library
salesmanship whereby the business man gets the things he really needs.
And then when we have done all this--have librarians who know, and the
things in print the business man needs, this one thing more we must
do, we must let the business man know what we have for his particular
problem and how we can serve him. The library must advertise the
utility of ideas and of knowledge in the every day work of the world as
well as advertise its resources and its service.
The best advertising is that which comes from a well served patron. But
our libraries have thrown away one of the best means of publicity by
locating their buildings where people must go out of their way to find
them and by so arranging them that the passerby sees nothing but stone,
brick and glass--things that suggest nothing of the joy and usefulness
of books. Seeing great crowds enjoying and using books, as well as
seeing attractive things in print through properly arranged show
windows, would appeal to the average library user in a way that would
simply compel his interest and attention in the things we have for him.
The architecture of the average library building suggests a tomb--a
place for dead ones--rather than a place chock-full of the things
that appeal with tremendous force to the soul that is alive with the
throbbing impulses of this wonderful time in which we live.
Since our buildings deny us this great means of publicity which the
show window enables every merchant to use to such great advantage, we
must use as best we may such means as we find available. In a general
way I may state my conviction that we should make a much larger use
of the specific personal appeal as over against general publicity,
though the latter is also necessary. When a man has a definite task
assigned him put the resources and service of your library directly up
to him for his particular problem, especially if the problem is one
a little outside the circle of his regular business. It will come to
him at the psychological moment and he is most likely to act on your
suggestion; whereas had it come to him as a general statement before
he was personally interested most likely it would have been promptly
forgotten. As a part of our regular routine letters from the library
go to all such persons, as we see their names in the newspapers, on
programs, etc.
At the meeting of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America early
this month in Baltimore I had the pleasure of "getting next" to some
of the livest business men in the country. The thing that impressed me
most was not the interesting exhibitions there shown or the various
"stunts" that were pulled off, but the new note that some of the men
were striking. It was this: "Business and business efficiency for
service rather than for profit." This is a high ideal, worthy of any
profession, and I venture the prediction that it will be men of this
type who will more and more dominate the business world of the future.
Such men will appreciate and support the public library more than
business men have ever done before; but they will also require more. To
get their support we as librarians must think less of measuring our
efficiency in terms of circulation statistics, a kind of impersonal,
bookkeeping standard, but more of measuring it in terms of human
service--human service not only for the business man, but for every
man, every woman and every child in all this vast continent of America.
The PRESIDENT: Great as is the opportunity of the public library to
serve the business man, it can't do it all, for so highly specialized
are some of the departments of interest of the various business houses
that no public library without a treasury like that of our millionaire
concerns could hope to undertake a work of that character. Therefore,
each large business concern necessarily must supplement the resources
of the public library by means of library facilities of its own. We
shall hear something of this form of work this morning in the paper
which is to be presented by one of the most successful of the libraries
of this type, that of H. M. Byllesby & Co. of Chicago, whose librarian,
Miss LOUISE B. KRAUSE, will give us the paper.
LIBRARIES IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS: THEIR EXPANDING FUNCTION
The service which books render mankind may in general be designated as
falling into two classes; namely, books for inspiration and books for
information. Dismissing the use of books as a means of inspiration,
because the subject does not fall within the scope of this paper, let
us consider the most important use to which printed information can be
put, in the service of mankind. At first thought it might seem that the
use of the printed page for purposes of information reached its highest
service in the function of education, but granted that it does not
play an important part in education, we know education to be something
vastly larger than a mere knowledge of facts, and we also know that
many men and women who are repositories of information derived from
the printed page do not always put it into operation for the best
welfare of their fellows; for, as James Russell Lowell has said,
"There is nothing less profitable than scholarship for the mere sake
of scholarship;" and truly scholarship without the ultimate purpose of
practical service is one of the most selfish possessions in the world.
Let us therefore exclude the use of printed information in the
service of education as its highest form of usefulness and consider
the following statement. The use of print in furnishing information
performs its most important service in the function which it exercises
in modern business, because it is business which lays hold of abstract
science and knowledge and puts them into practical operation for the
greatest benefit to mankind; for the commercial age in which we live
is not a sordid age, but an age which is distinctly marked by the
development and conservation of resources for the supplying of man's
needs, by means of the extension of applied science into the field
of business. Now lest this statement should be too abstract, and the
speaker be accused in the words of Leonard Merrick of "voicing the
sentiments of the unthinking in stately language," let us consider this
proposition for a moment in the concrete. It is business enterprise
that has brought about, through the perfection of the steam engine, the
swiftness and convenience which we enjoy in twentieth century travel by
railroad. It is business that has brought the service of the telephone
and telegraph to their highest perfection. It is business that has
developed artificial lighting by gas and electricity and emancipated us
from candles and kerosene lamps. It is business that is transforming
raw and waste materials by the application of pure science, into
products of service and value for the needs of innumerable homes,
in addition to perfecting agricultural machinery, and producing
fertilizers to enrich the land, thereby making possible the production
of better crops. Thus we might continue to multiply illustrations of
how business enterprise has equipped us with the means of meeting great
needs which at various times have seriously threatened the welfare of
human life. This fact of the application of abstract science to the
world's practical needs, through the medium of business enterprise,
has become permanently recognized by institutions of learning, as seen
in the establishment of technical schools, schools of commerce and
finance, and instruction in business administration, for, as a recent
writer in the Journal of Political Economy has said, "The methods of
American industry are rapidly being intellectualized."
A variety of professional work of which engineering and chemistry
are noteworthy examples are also carried on by large business
organizations, and we find professional men of the highest rank as
prime movers in large commercial enterprises. (In this connection it
might not be amiss to state that out of an experience as university
librarian and business librarian the speaker is inclined to think that
the professional business man keeps more adequately informed and up to
date on his specialties than does the average university professor.)
An additional fact which bears directly on the general subject under
discussion is, that the age in which we live is not only a business
age, but that it is an age marked by the magnitude of its business
organizations; an age of "big business," as some one has called it;
and because of the economic conditions of our advancing civilization,
business will undoubtedly continue to be "big business" even though
subjected to federal and state regulation. Now correlating these two
facts, namely, that modern business is conducted by means of large
organizations and that its success is based upon the intelligent
application of scientific knowledge to practical needs, we have cleared
the way for an appreciation of the function of printed information as
embodied in the work of libraries in business organizations.
The business organization builds up its own library, first, on account
of the convenience of having close at hand the information constantly
needed by its workers, and subject to no borrowing restrictions,
which would be inevitable even if the facilities of outside libraries
were available; and second, on account of the necessity for careful
selection of material particularly adapted to its individual needs.
Business organizations have for many years collected information in
a desultory manner, but it has been only in the last few years that
some of them have awakened to the fact that more was needed than
mere collection of printed information, and for the same reason that
they were availing themselves of all modern devices for the quick and
adequate handling of their various products and were systematizing
their methods to obtain more efficient results, so they must lay hold
of modern library methods under experienced supervision if they were
to keep up with the steadily growing and important mass of printed
information. Therefore we find business organizations securing the
services of professional library workers, trained to use books in
the broadest and most practical manner. Some hesitation was at first
expressed in various quarters as to whether so-called professional
library methods used in public and university libraries were suited
to business library needs, and as to whether library workers educated
for general library work would adequately meet the business library
situation. In fact it was intimated that the business librarian
was a worker of a different brand than the ordinary librarian and
therefore he had both knowledge and needs which set him apart from his
library fellows, in a special class by himself. Out of four years'
experience as a business librarian the speaker takes pleasure in
stating that practical experience has proved the fallacy of both of
these conceptions. It is true that business librarians are called
upon to exercise certain functions which the librarians of public
and university libraries are not, but which any efficient head of a
public or university library would be quite capable of exercising if
the occasion demanded it. In fact the recent rise of library interest
in business men and their needs can be directly traced to the heads
of some of our public libraries and the work they have inaugurated
in making their libraries as helpful as possible to all classes of
citizens.
The characterization of the function of libraries in business
organizations by the word "expanding" in the title assigned to this
paper by the President of the American Library Association, is most
apt, and indicative of the real status of the case. The business
library is in a process of evolution, and just what the final result
will be, it is a little too early in its development to state.
The elemental idea of the function of a business library that was held
by the officers of the business organization with which the speaker is
most familiar, was to have the books and data which were the property
of the company, classified and cataloged so that material could be
found quickly, and a librarian was employed solely on the basis of this
need.
With the acquisition of a librarian the library situation soon changed
from the inquiry for certain definite books and periodicals, to the
inquiry as to whether the company had any specific information on a
given subject, and if not as to whether printed information on the
subject was available elsewhere and how quickly it could be obtained.
The evolution in the function of a library from that of furnishing a
definite book asked for, to furnishing all the information obtainable
on a given subject as quickly as possible is decidedly expensive, and
the what, how and where of the case would furnish ample material for a
separate paper.
The evolution in the function of the library did not stop at this
point; for it was soon expected that the librarian would understand
the specific interests of the members of the organization, and to a
certain degree think for them in keeping up with the field of print
and in bringing to their attention, without a request on their part,
certain facts of which they would like to be cognizant. To this duty
was added the forecasting of possible future needs, and the collection
of information in advance of rush demands.
The magnitude of the work of modern business organizations requires the
division of labor into a number of departments, and the workers in
any one department may not always be acquainted with the information
which may be available in another department. The library, by keeping
in touch with individuals in all departments, becomes a central bureau
of information in being able to refer the members of one department to
those in another who possess the particular information desired.
The business library also assembles and files the manuscript data of
original research conducted by members of the organization, materials
which constitute one of its valuable assets. Research data in the
possession of business corporations is often a worthy contribution to
scholarship. An illustration of this fact was recently brought to the
attention of the speaker, by the statement of a university student, who
said that in making a study of the drinking waters of a certain state
the only analyses of waters on record were those which a railroad had
made primarily for the purpose of ascertaining the suitability of the
waters for boiler use on locomotives.
In addition to these briefly outlined functions, which are more or
less technical, attention should be directed to several others, lest
a mistaken impression be given that business library work is entirely
technical in its nature.
Business men are often called upon to serve the public as good citizens
in various capacities, and also to serve as officers or on committees
of national business organizations, and thus have interests outside of
their regular company work. Their librarian is expected to assist in
any need which arises by reason of these outside interests, and not
only may be called upon to furnish information but also to do editorial
work in preparing material for publication.
The welfare and education of employees has also become a prominent
feature in the work of many large business corporations, and the
library is expected to be a prominent factor in this work, as it
is the logical educational center of the organization. Some of our
business libraries have recently been drawn rather deeply into welfare
work with the result that certain phases of practical library service
are being neglected. It does not seem advisable, however, that the
business librarian should annex any line of welfare work which does
not legitimately center in the library; for the librarian is best
fitted to serve the interests of the organization by maintaining high
standards of efficient library service rather than by annexing other
kinds of work belonging solely to the sphere of a social worker. This
is particularly important at the present stage of business library
development, as the business world in many sections has not yet learned
what professional library service really is, and how to utilize it most
effectively.
In view of the fact that the business world except for comparatively
few organizations is not utilizing the undoubtedly valuable service
which professional librarians are able to render, and that the American
Library Association has always endeavored to extend the use of books
and their widest application, it might not be amiss to suggest that it
would be legitimate work for the American Library Association with its
library prestige and well known motives of personal disinterestedness,
to undertake a campaign of education to bring before business men the
subject of what library work really is, and the character of service
it is prepared to render; for in these days of the over-emphasized
and often superficial cry for more efficiency, there is no line
of work that is more genuinely efficient than that of the trained
librarian. The information, to be put before business men, should be
free from library technicalities and details, and its arguments should
be framed, not to enlighten librarians, but to convince busy men of
affairs possessed of shrewd judgment and large foresight, as to the
practical worth of the matter as a business proposition. For library
work in business organizations is no longer a theory or a tentative
experiment, but has proved itself in the firms adopting it to be an
integral part of the successful work of the corporation. This fact is
well illustrated by a bulletin recently issued by a large business
firm, in which it endeavored to put before the public, in a pamphlet
entitled "Why it is qualified" the value of the consulting services of
one of its departments, and among the prominent reasons given under
"Why it is qualified" is the fact of the commercial library maintained
by the company, with the library's particular resources under competent
supervision.
Because printed information has proved to be an integral factor in
the successful prosecution of business and because it can be most
effectively utilized by means of professional library methods,
therefore, the business library hopes to take its place in the ranks of
the American Library Association as one in purpose with all libraries
in the realization of a common ideal, namely, the largest possible use
of books in the practical service of mankind.
The PRESIDENT: I have just received a message that Mr. McAneny will be
here in a very short time. In the few moments intervening it might be
well perhaps to discuss some of the trenchant papers which we have had
this morning.
Miss AHERN: Mr. President, I would like to take exception to one thing
Mr. Ranck said in his paper. I do not believe that the idea that the
contents of books are useful to men in the business world is of recent
date. I think, perhaps, the second statement that these things have
only come recently into the arrangement of resources of the library
is the truer one. We certainly have had knowledge of chemistry and
of geology and technical knowledge in manufacture for many, many
years, only many librarians have been more interested in the purely
educational or inspirational part of the library and have neglected
that large field of usefulness and that large company of people who
contribute to the welfare of work and of the world, as Miss Krause
has pointed out. The best chemists in the country are being sought
by the business houses; the best knowledge of soils, of minerals, of
woods, of lumber, of stone has long been sought by the men who are
making a commercial use of these things. And their information is not
held in reserve: it is all in printed form and only the scope of the
librarian's knowledge of where things may be obtained in the world of
print places the limit on this material for the library shelves. And so
I hope that librarians will not say that books on these subjects, that
material on these subjects is a recent product. It is our knowledge of
them, a knowledge that this is a part of the province of library work,
that makes for recent activity.
The PRESIDENT: Mr. Ranck is here to answer for himself. The statement
has been challenged and he can answer it.
Mr. RANCK: I think there is not so much difference between the view I
take and the view taken by Miss Ahern. I do not know that I followed
my manuscript very closely at that point, but what I had in mind was
the business man rather than the professional, technical man. I fully
grant what Miss Ahern says with reference to technical subjects,
scientific subjects, and so on. As I said, I think there is no radical
disagreement between Miss Ahern's and my position. There may be a
misunderstanding.
Miss AHERN: I was not questioning what Mr. Ranck had said, but, rather,
removing any excuse that the library folk may put to themselves for a
lack of interest or a lack of activity along this line by saying that
the material was scant or hard to command.
Dr. ANDREWS: There is the other side, that Miss Krause's paper
emphasized and which Miss Ahern seems to neglect. Miss Krause's paper
states that American industry is becoming intellectualized, and that
this is a great factor in the development of business life. It ought
also to be an extra incentive to the public library to meet the
demands. I think that much of this development in the technical side
of library work has come from the increasing study by business men of
their own world and that we ought to remember that while the public
libraries have neglected in the past to furnish business men with what
they wanted, yet the latter did not want it then as much as they do now.
The PRESIDENT: Those of us--and I assume that that means every
librarian--who read the June number of the World's Work were impressed
by one strong article therein concerning the growing magnitude of
municipal administration and the great problems that confront those
who are charged with such administration. Without repeating to you
the very striking comparisons which the author made with some of the
governmental functions of states and even some of the kingdoms of
Europe, showing the tremendous problems confronting the municipal
officials, problems of tremendous budgets, of great public works, and
so on, it will be sufficient for me to say that it is a happy omen that
we are now getting into the public service men of high civic ideals
and constructive ability and who are replacing men whose self-seeking
interests or vanity led them to seek the votes of their fellow
citizens. I am glad that we have with us today a man of this high type.
I need not say further concerning him because we took advantage of his
absence to get from Mr. Bowker a pretty good who's-who bearing upon
himself, and I shall simply introduce to you at this time to speak to
us upon the subject of "The municipal reference library as an aid in
city administration," the Honorable GEORGE McANENY, president of the
borough of Manhattan, New York.
THE MUNICIPAL REFERENCE LIBRARY AS AN AID IN CITY ADMINISTRATION
It is a very real pleasure to meet with the American Library
Association, and to convey in behalf of my colleagues in the
administration of the City of New York, and in behalf of other
colleagues in public business throughout the country, our hearty
congratulations and possibly a friendly warning and a word of appeal.
Congratulations are due you for having established on so high a plane
and in so short a time the profession of librarian. Especially are you
to be congratulated for having welcomed the new profession of municipal
reference librarian; for your adaptability in the constant extension of
the reference work, and for the resiliency which is showing again in
another field that real Father Williams never grow old. Could Benjamin
Franklin look upon this gathering, and hear your reports of social
service, through circulating, home, reference and municipal reference
libraries, I am sure that no fruit of his patriotism would seem to him
more promising than the recent application of the circulating library
idea to government affairs.
My friendly warning has to do with your requests to fiscal bodies
for appropriations. In many parts of the country, there is the
feeling that the less the library has to do with public officials the
better it is for the library, consequently, as a short cut, we find
compulsory minimum appropriations--so many mills or so many parts of
mills for library development. We also find that too many towns are
satisfied with this compulsory minimum tax, and that the only time
their fiscal representatives hear about libraries is just before the
budget appropriations are voted. You must be indulgent with those who
vote the money, if the outcome of this habit suggests the man who was
exasperated by his wife, who he said "just nagged and nagged him for
money, when he came, when he left, on Sunday, always." Finally, when
a neighbor summoned the courage to ask, "What in the world does she
do with all the money?" he, perforce, must answer; "Well, I don't
know; you see I haven't given her any yet." Councils and Mayors will
understand your library problem best if you will help them understand
at those quieter seasons of the year when they are not harassed, as
they are at budget time, by appeals from every other city department
and for every other thing.
When presenting your budget, give the fiscal officer credit for wanting
to know the whole truth, and for wanting reasons for giving you the
money you request. Seldom will it help to ask for a great deal more
than you need. Always, it will help not to present in a single total
items that do not belong together. Classify your budget. State your
program clearly. If all the money you want is not voted this year,
stick clearly to the plan that has been voted, and show both the fiscal
authorities and the town where your service has been crippled, if at
all, for want of funds. It will be well to begin your budget campaign
so that the first idea which the public and the fiscal officers get is
that of the service you wish to render, rather than the money you wish
to get. Most library budgets, like most other budgets of the United
States, are apt to be put in without the explanatory matter which alone
will make the dollar-and-cent facts show social reasons for library
support.
Now for my appeal. In asking you to consider certain needs of public
business, I want to speak quite frankly, as a city official who, like
thousands of other city and county officials, must step into other
people's business, with no time for getting acquainted with detail,
and with a public to deal with that not only expects us on the first
day we take office to use all the machinery of our predecessor and to
get better results, but also really expects us to fail. We inherit a
stack of mail. We are flooded with suggestions and complaints; many of
them in confidence and most of them confusing. We are urged to attend
club and church meetings, and dinners, and graduating exercises. We are
expected, without any change in subordinate personnel, while giving
our attention to large community problems and to the political aspects
of public works, to get an efficient product out of our employees, no
matter who they are or what they have been. In most places, we find no
disinterested adviser, either on the inside or on the outside.
Such a situation would not necessarily be serious if we stepped
into a thoroughly efficient organization where every employee and
supervisor had his place, and where the institution as such had its
"continuing memory." When Mr. Rea succeeded Mr. McCrea as president
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, he inherited a splendid organization,
every part related to another part; a system under which experts had
tabulated within a moment's reach the successes and the failures of
the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the costs of its various contracts, the
difference between estimates and final costs, and an efficiency ranking
both of its various employees and its stations. When the present
administration in New York City stepped into office, we inherited an
aggregation of departments and divisions then spending--if we count in
installments and interest paid on the city debt--more than $160,000,000
for the expenses of a single year. There were ninety thousand
employees. Side by side with one another were clerks paid one $600
and another $1,800 for the same kind of work; in another grade were
clerks paid $1,600 and others paid $2,400 for the same kind of work.
When salaries had been increased, and why, was not a matter of record.
Supplies were contracted for by no standard form. Specifications,
either for supplies or for construction work, were worded differently
at different times, according to the individual wish or whim of the
department officer preparing them. The public was but poorly protected
at any point. Plans were made for new buildings, for new roads, and
for other vast improvements, often without estimates of cost; often
with assurances of only slight cost, where, too frequently, cost had
been estimated as an entering wedge only. Thus a great city would
stumble into an experiment or public improvement demanding millions of
dollars, without ever reckoning the ultimate amount of its obligation.
For example it may be fair in this presence to recall that the first
bill for the New York public library carried with it an appropriation
of $2,500,000. The city decided to spend this $2,500,000 and actually
it spent $10,000,000. The New York public library is worth every dollar
it cost, ten times over; I am merely emphasizing that the public should
have had its eyes open and, in this case as in every other, should have
known what it was doing. Although this same gap occurred over and over
again--between estimate and actual cost--no steps were taken to recall
the fact when each new amount was under consideration.
Ignorant as we have been of our own experience, still less informed
have we been regarding the experience of neighbor cities. Some years
ago, Denver, in operating its street railway, found it expedient to
substitute electric motor power for the old cables. After Denver had
discarded these cables, Baltimore adopted the cable. Rochester has
recently adopted a device to attach drinking fountains to its ordinary
fire hydrants. The idea is a new one, and may prove valuable. I say
it merely by way of instance; but if it is a good idea, New York City
and your city should adopt it. Each successive experiment of the sort
should, at least, be brought promptly to the attention of public
officials.
Again, New York City has worked out an improved system of accounting
and budget making. The village of Dobb's Ferry, the cities of Duluth
and Cincinnati have used an improvement upon New York's budget
exhibits--recently called a new kind of "confidence game"--that is,
taking the public into official confidence about the public's own
business. Instead of waiting a generation for cities to adopt these new
methods, their officials should promptly be given the facts they need.
Is it not criminal waste and error for one city to introduce a system
of sewer disposal, or of milk regulation, which another city has found
endangering the lives of its citizens? If a measure has proved bad and
dangerous for one city, modern science in the hands of a librarian
should make it unnecessary for every other city to go through the same
experience.
To help us in ending all this waste, and to help us, in short, in
putting city government upon a thorough scientific and efficient
basis, the municipal reference library is beginning to take its highly
important place. Without a municipal reference library, it will in
future be difficult for any administrative officer to do his best. I
will not attempt to review the laborious steps of my colleagues in the
present board of estimate and apportionment--our governing municipal
body--to incorporate into standard specifications, standard salaries
and standard contracts the memory of our past failures, so that we
may hold the gains that we have made and avoid the weaknesses and
the errors of our experience. But I venture some suggestions as to a
reference library that, although general in their application, will
indicate our reasons for establishing such a library in New York.
Our reasons for placing the library in our new Municipal Building--as
we propose to do--apply everywhere. It must be made easy for officials
to get information, and for the librarian to get the information
promptly and directly to the officials. It is not enough to know that
it may be had. To have important information an hour away from the
office is almost as bad as to have it a thousand miles away. It must
be easier for the busy official to get the information he wants than to
endure the thought of going without it. In putting the library where
the users are, instead of where they are not, we are following the
simple rule of trade that meters city property by the foot instead of
by the acre.
The municipal library is a place not for everything, but for particular
needed things. If it were true that Mark Hopkins on one end of a log
and a student on the other constituted a college, it is even more
true that a librarian in a bare room, anxious to serve the public via
the public official and knowing where the material is, constitutes an
infinitely better municipal reference library than a place perfectly
equipped which suggests erudition rather than immediate help. There is
great danger that our municipal reference libraries will become junk
shops, as interesting and as helpful, as out of date or as unrelated
to today's problems as an encyclopedia or a "compendium of useful
knowledge." A municipal reference library should suggest answers to
today's questions; not answers either to yesterday's questions or to
next year's. Will you, the librarians, consider the importance and the
advisability of keeping these libraries workshops, as they ought to
be, and of using your general reference libraries as the place for the
storage of materials.
The ordinary city official hasn't the time to plough through a mass of
pamphlets looking for what he wants. He wants the facts collated and
marshalled, ready for use--and "he wants what he wants when he wants
it." Some time ago I was interested in drawing an ordinance to license
all vehicles using the New York streets, and to regulate the weight,
the width and size of tires, etc., of our great trucks that have been
tearing up our pavements. I wanted to know about the policy of other
cities in this matter, and to devise, if possible, a way of making
those vehicles that destroy the streets help pay for their maintenance.
Similarly, today, as Chairman of the committee on the height, size and
arrangement of buildings within the city limits, I am interested in the
adoption of some reasonable basis for regulating our modern skyscraper
in order to keep the city, literally, from choking itself to death.
Again, we have had to restore to the public many miles of city
sidewalks that had been preempted by stoops, and other encroachments.
We have wanted to plan our public buildings and related matters with a
view to the future, and to the grouping of building sites in a "Civic
Center." So, in dealing with our transit problem; in investigating the
health department, and in improving the type and quality of street
pavements, I have wanted not all the information there was to be
had--not books or formal reports--but concrete answers to immediately
pressing questions. I wanted to be referred to the latest article
or report which would make it unnecessary to go through twenty or a
hundred other articles, books or reports. It is enough to know that in
a great central library are all the working materials for scientific
research. Frankly, I feel that the actual use that will be made of the
municipal reference library will be in inverse ratio to the number of
books that are in evidence, and that require the time of the librarian.
I would go so far as to say that anything that a public official has
not just called for, or that the librarian is not about to call to the
attention of a public official for departmental study or report, or for
the drawing of ordinances, should be kept in the general library, and
out of the municipal reference library.
Comptroller Prendergast and Librarian Anderson are even planning to
have New York's official correspondence "clear" through the municipal
reference library--so far as the writing and answering of letters
calling for special information goes. I am told that when Portland
recently started its municipal reference library the mayor promptly
availed himself of its facilities for answering innumerable sets of
questions and special questions that came from outside the city, and
advised his heads of departments to follow his example. I wish the
Carnegie Institution for Scientific Research or some other great
foundation interested in the conservation of national resources and
human energy would investigate what it is now costing this country
to fill out the innumerable blanks from college boys wishing help on
their commission government debate; college students writing theses;
national organizations compiling reports, etc. Niagara unharnessed was
wasting much less power than are we officials, school superintendents,
mayors, and engineers who are answering such questionnaires. It would
be lamentable enough if we always answered right; but most of us answer
quite inadequately, and many of us answer wrong. Last year, a certain
national society wrote me, asking certain questions about civil service
reform. I had had more or less to do for some years with that line of
public service. My instinct was to take time from pressing duties to
answer these questions; but a neighbor who had received a similar set
of questions was thoughtful enough to write to this national body and
suggest that before he answered he would like to know how many other
New York officials and private agencies had received the same set of
questions. It appeared then that twenty different people, including a
dozen officials, had been asked to fill out that blank. Whereupon it
was suggested that instead of drawing upon twenty people who did not
possess the facts, the investigator might turn directly to the Civil
Service Commission that did possess the facts, and there, no doubt, he
readily found what he wanted.
Now, if a municipal reference library could have served as a clearing
house, it would have been brought to light at once that one answer
would have served the purpose of twenty, or that one answer, at least,
would have served the purpose of the dozen official answers. Moreover,
just as the official reports give fresher material than published
books, such correspondence, manuscript reports of investigating
committees, etc., give fresher material than published reports.
Such data should be kept properly classified, available upon call or
when the librarian sees its time for usefulness.
Another practical suggestion I make from my experience as an official.
While it seems to apply especially to administrative departments or
to private agencies specializing in certain fields, I really do not
see much prospect of getting it unless from a municipal reference
library or from the municipal reference activity of a general library.
I refer to an up-to-date "Poole's" or cumulative index of the passing
subject matter of city government. You get, the library gets, once a
month a list of all the articles in the principal books. Why should
we not have a list of the advance steps taken in public affairs? Just
as soon as a few librarians call for such information, it will become
commercially possible to reduce it. The individual library can then add
to the material the particular points that are of interest to its own
community.
Similarly, it would be of the greatest assistance to every city
official if the matters under his jurisdiction were listed and
material grouped under proper heads. For example, the president of the
Borough of Manhattan has jurisdiction over the streets and sidewalks;
encroachments and encumbrances; street vaults and street signs; the
sewer system; the public buildings; the baths and markets; and the
control of private buildings through the enforcement of the buildings
laws. If information in regard to what other cities were doing in all
these matters were listed, plus suggestions and advance steps taken
in these same matters at home, the reference librarian would be of
incalculable help to that office.
Finally, just a word about the expense of the municipal reference
library. The amount which it is justified in demanding will depend
naturally upon the service it renders. The merit of our new segregated
and classified budget is that it calls for the work needing to be done,
as well as the cost of not having the work done, and that it shifts
attention from the personality that requests the budget allowance. A
circumscribed program means circumscribed budget. Frankly, I believe
that extension of program should and must precede extension of budget.
But this new kind of social work which serves a community at those
points where it is now least equipped to serve itself, will not want
for financial support when it talks about the work that should be
done--and not about itself.
No municipal activity will, in my judgment, find it easier in the
next twenty-five years to secure adequate financial support than the
municipal reference library which is not a compendium of knowledge but
a forecaster of service needed and an ever-present help in time of
trouble.
The PRESIDENT: May I express to you, Mr. McAneny, the thanks of the
American Library Association for your coming and the assurance that we
have profited greatly from it.
Adjourned.
SIXTH GENERAL SESSION
(Saturday morning, June 28, 1913.)
THE PRESIDENT: During the other sessions of the Conference we have been
considering people--and books. At this concluding session the topics
on the program have special reference to books--and people. The first
paper invites our interest by its suggestion of the flavor which old
books bring. Miss G. M. WALTON, of the Michigan State Normal College,
will present this paper.
THE FRIENDLY BOOK
It was Mr. Lowell who reminded me the other day, by quoting
Ecclesiasticus in one of his essays, that we owe the ideal of the man
of leisure to a book of the Apocrypha wherein we read, "The wisdom of a
learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure."
Our profession standing as a guarantor of our wisdom and our learning,
I am here today to bespeak a portion of our large opportunity of
leisure for--The Friendly Book.
There is small fear that we librarians forget the books of power and
the books of knowledge which DeQuincey (the ofttimes quoted) presses
upon all men. And most of us undoubtedly possess that ardent zeal
for knowledge which filled the soul of the literal-minded librarian
who read quite seriously (and found therein a working category for
her own improvement) Lamb's letter to an old gentleman whose early
education had been neglected, where, among the qualifications of a
preceptor, the following will serve to refresh your memories: "He
must be a thorough master of vernacular orthography, with an insight
into the accentualities and punctualities of modern Saxon. He must
be competently instructed in the tetralogy, or first four rules. He
must have a genius capable in some degree of soaring to the upper
element, to deduce from thence the not much dissimilar computation of
the cardinal points. He must instruct you in numeric and harmonious
responses, and he must be capable of embracing all history, so as
from the countless myriads of individual men, who have peopled this
globe of earth--for it is a globe--by comparison of their respective
births, lives, deaths, fortunes, conduct, prowess, etc., to pronounce,
and teach you to pronounce, dogmatically and catechetically, who was
the richest, who was the strongest, who was the wisest, who was the
meekest man that ever lived; to the facilitation of which solution,
you will readily conceive, a smattering of biography would in no
inconsiderable degree conduce."
I sometimes question if professions are not tinged with the culture
epoch epidemic. It is not so very long since we were half hesitatingly
taking a place among the other learned professions, almost with the
apologetic air of the young boy making his first appearance in long
trousers, and wondering if his fellow-men appreciate his coming into
their midst--but the youth soon assumes the aggressive attitude which
compels attention--and one symptom of this attitude which I feel
among ourselves is the large and learned talk about =new= books--the
self-satisfied air and monumental confidence in our sometimes
sophomoric knowledge and understanding of all things "in the heavens
above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth," until I
wonder if the pleasant counsel about reading "books at least a year
old, that we like, and that are great books" must be relegated with
the rest of our Emersonian philosophy to the lumber room of our many
youthful joys and dreamings.
I believe we all love best to mark the passing years by the friends
they bring us, and it were a barren year that brings not one more
friend, and so with our friendly books, which like all friendships
fill our lives with genial warmth and gratitude. Neither is really a
matter of choice, for a book like a person yields its intimate charm
only to the sympathizing heart. We have no care to answer why, other
than, "because"--"We love them because we =must= love them." A new
book friend comes to us now and then, and we cling to the old ones.
Sometimes we lose the personal touch, but we see their kindly faces and
after a separation from them we arrange them on the shelves, and we
rearrange them, and, as Mr. Arnold Bennett says, "The way we walk up
and down in front of those volumes, whose faces we have half forgotten,
is perfectly infantile."
I remember once in Rome a friend, selecting photographs, said, "I must
take a good Cicero to my son Frank, who used to say he felt as well
acquainted with Cicero as he did with Bishop Huntington," and dear old
Dean Hook, when a lad at Oxford expresses this same intimate feeling
in one of his lively inimitable letters, "I have got into a very
dissolute set of men, but they are so pleasant that they make me very
often idle. It consists of one Tuft, H. R. H., Henry Prince of Wales,
and a gentleman Commoner named Sir John Falstaff, and several others.
I breakfast with them, drink tea, and sometimes wine with them," and,
again, on hearing the good news of the recovery of his grandfather,
he writes, "The minute I opened the letter and saw the news, I pulled
down my Shakespeare and had a very merry hour with Sir John Falstaff.
I was determined to laugh heartily all that day. I asked Sir John to
wine with me. I decanted a bottle of my beloved grandfather's best port
and Sir John and I drank his health right merrily. Perhaps you will
want to know how my old friend Sir John drank my grandfather's health.
Why I took care to find out the place where he drank Justice Shallow's
health. And so when I said, 'Here's to Sir Walter,' I looked on the
book and the Knight said, 'Health and long life to him.'"
Among the oldest and dearest of my friendly books is the "Life and
Letters of Lord Macaulay," of which I became the happy owner, when
it was fresh off the press, during a sojourn in the west, far away
from my home library. The dates along the margins (one of Macaulay's
habits which I adopted as I read) bring pleasant thoughts of a journey
from Colorado to the western coast, and long before I knew Dean Hook
(whom I first met here as the Vicar of Leeds) I was pulling Macaulay
down from the shelf, not indeed to drink with Sir John, but to refer
to some particular talk of men or of books--always to read on and on
with equal delight whether he were breakfasting with a party of old
Trinity College friends, reading in his study, or acting as a guide and
escort on a half holiday of sight-seeing with his nieces and nephews,
with whom he was always the prince of playfellows. It was on one of
these excursions to the zoological gardens that Thackeray overheard
someone say, "Never mind the hippopotamus! Never mind the hippopotamus!
There's Mr. =Macaulay=!" When absent he exchanged long and frequent
letters with the children, sealing those to his nephew at Harrow
with an amorphous mass of red wax, which, in defiance of all postal
regulations, usually covered a piece of gold.
A scrap from one of his letters to a little niece will serve also as
an example of the poetry, which he usually attributed to the Judicious
poet, for whose collected works the children vainly searched the
library.
"Michaelmas will, I hope, find us all at Clapham over a noble goose. Do
you remember the beautiful Puseyette hymn on Michaelmas day? It is a
great favorite with all the Tractarians. You and Alice should learn it.
It begins:
'Though Quakers scowl and Baptists howl,
Though Plymouth Brethren rage,
We churchmen gay will wallow today
In apple sauce, onions and sage.
Ply knife and fork, and draw the cork,
And have the bottle handy;
For each slice of goose we'll introduce
A thimbleful of brandy.'
Is it not good? I wonder who the author can be? Not Newman, I think. It
is above him. Perhaps it is Bishop Wilberforce."
The Macaulays and the Wilberforces living at Clapham Common are
very real people to me, and my firm allegiance to Trinity College,
Cambridge, has never wavered since Macaulay's undergraduate days, not
even when Samuel Wilberforce, the future bishop, went up to Oriel
College, Oxford.
And how doubly precious is a book-friendship, whose introduction
claims a personal touch; as when, with the same friend who bought
the photograph in Rome, I afterwards visited Winchester Cathedral
and standing beside the chantry tomb of Bishop Wilberforce she said,
"When you go home, read his life. He was a great and good man," and
I have continued reading it for nearly thirty years. Wilberforce was
undoubtedly for twenty-five years the greatest figure in the English
Church. His great sorrows made him tender and tolerant, and many who
saw only the brilliant man little dreamed of the causes and depth of
his power. He was made Bishop of Oxford in the troublous times of the
Tractarian Movement, and so great was the work he accomplished and so
devoted to him were his clergy that when translated to Winchester,
Bishop Stubbs, who succeeded him, coming from quiet Chester, where his
history was his chief occupation, ruefully asked, "Why am I like the
Witch of Endor? Because I am tormented by the spirit of Samuel." His
quickness and humor flashed an unexpected light on many a question,
as when asked why he was called Soapy Sam he answered it was probably
because he was always in hot water and always came out with hands
clean. And his whimsical reply to "Who are the greatest preachers
in England?"--is one of those comical self-evaluations which it is
generally most hard to give--"I must refer you to an article on a
lady's dress--Hook and I." His absolute freedom from personal animosity
shows itself in the story I like best of all. During a stormy committee
meeting in which he and the Bishop of London were violently opposed
to each other, he threw a note across the table. Supposing it to be
some point on the business in hand, the Bishop of London read, "My
dear Bishop: You really should not wear such boots. Your life is too
precious and valuable to us all to allow such carelessness."
Nothing could more touchingly express the devoted and loving esteem in
which he was held than these words written at the time of his death:
"With others who loved him, kneeling reverently beside the body, was
Mr. Gladstone, whose sobs attested how deeply his feelings were moved
by the sudden loss of his long-tried friend."
The last time I was in England I made a Sussex pilgrimage to his
old home at Lavington. It was in June, and my companion smiled as I
exclaimed with enthusiasm, "St. Barnabas day, the eleventh of June--the
Bishop's wedding day!" We saw the trees he had planted and loved, the
spot whence he would turn for a last homeward look, saying he was as
proud of being a Sussex squire as a bishop; and best of all the great
clumps of rhododendron which he planted with his own hands.
Since so many librarians are gardening as a favorite recreation, why
not have a friendly corner in the garden, where we may "Consider the
lilies of the field," as we are bidden in that dearest of all books,
and where each mood, whether gay or somber, would find echo from the
"eternal passion" of the poets--"Rosemary for remembrance, or pray you
love, remember there's pansies, they're for thoughts." Growing next to
these in my own garden is the fragrant Carolina allspice, because it
was the best loved of flowers by Henry Bradshaw.
I sometimes question if a book is truly a friendly book unless I
possess it, and yet this in a way would cut off both Thackeray and the
friend whom he loved best of all, "dear old Fitz," for I gave away my
"Fitzgerald's Letters" to a friend with whom I exchange many friendly
books. A man of leisure and literary tastes, and in easy circumstances,
Fitzgerald avoided fame as earnestly as most men seek it. Living in a
country cottage with a garden, books, pictures and music, he cherished
his many lifelong friendships, which he says were more like loves, by
writing letters which have a touch of gentle humor and of tender and
unaffected charm, as in a letter to Frederick Tennyson: "I have been
through three influenzas; but this is no wonder, for I live in a hut
with walls as thin as a sixpence, windows that don't shut, a clay soil
safe beneath my feet and a thatch perforated by lascivious sparrows
over my head. Here I sit, read, smoke and become wise, and am already
quite beyond earthly things. I must say to you as Basil Montague once
said in perfect charity to his friends: 'You see my dear fellows, I
like you very much, but I continue to advance, and you remain where you
are, you see, and so I am obliged to leave you behind. It is no fault
of mine.' You must begin to read Seneca, whose letters I have been
reading, else you will be no companion to a man who despises wealth,
death, etc. I wish you were here to smoke a pipe with me. I play of
evenings some of Handel's grand choruses which are the bravest music
after all."
And again, to William Bodham Donne, when puzzled over his Agamemnon and
the line of signal fires from Troy to Mycenæ, he writes, "I am ignorant
of geography, modern and ancient, and do not know the points of the
Beacons, and Lemprière, the only classic at hand, doesn't help me. Pray
turn to the passage and tell me (quotes three lines of Greek) what,
where and why. The rest I know or can find in dictionary or map, but
for these:
Lemprière
Is no-where:
Liddell and Scott
Don't help me a jot,
When I'm off, Donnegan
Don't help me on again.
So I'm obliged to resort to old Donne again."
A postscript in a letter to Charles Eliot Norton reads--"Only a word,
to add that yesterday came Squire Carlyle from you, and a kind long
letter from Mr. Lowell; and the first nightingale, who sang in my
garden the same song as in Shakespeare's days."
And finally, to Lawrence the portrait painter: "Have we exchanged a
word about Thackeray since his death? I am quite surprised to see
how I sit moping about him, so little have I seen him the last ten
years, and not once for the last five. To be sure I keep reading his
'Newcomes' of nights and now I have got hold of 'Pendennis.' I keep
hearing him say so much of it; I really think I shall hear his step
coming up the stairs to this lodging, and about to come (singing) into
my room as in old Charlotte Street thirty years ago." And ten years
later he writes, "A night or two ago I was reading old Thackeray's
'Roundabouts,' and (a sign of a good book) heard him talking to me."
I am sorry that so many people know Fitzgerald only because of the
"Rubaiyat." I confess myself to be rather like-minded with
"That certain old person of Ham,
Who grew weary of Omar Khayyam,
Fitzgerald, said he,
Is as right as can be,
But this cult, and these versions,
O, Damn!"
And Thackeray, there is no one book which stands for him, save,
perhaps, the dear little old brown volume of letters to the
Brookfields. It is here that we learn much of "Pendennis." In one
letter he writes, "I am going to kill Mrs. Pendennis presently, and
have her ill in this number. Minnie says, 'O Papa, do make her well
again! She can have a regular doctor and be =almost= dead, and there
will come a nice homeopathic physician who will make her well again.'"
We who truly know and love him find him ever in his own pages as he
smiles kindly at us through his spectacles, or we feel the difficulty
with which he is keeping his spectacles dry, and we too say, "Dear old
Thackeray," as in the lines at the end of the White Squall, where with
pages of nonsense, he writes how the Captain
"Beat the storm to laughter
For well he knew his vessel
With that wind would wrestle;
And when a wreck we thought her,
And doomed ourselves to slaughter,
How gaily he fought her,
And through the hubbub brought her,
And when the tempest caught her,
Cried, George some brandy and water.
And when its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended,
And as the sunrise splendid
Came blushing o'er the sea,
I thought, as day was breaking,
My little girls were waking,
And smiling and making
A prayer at home for me."
One of these little girls, Minnie Thackeray, became the wife of Leslie
Stephen, of whom Mr. Lowell speaks as "that most lovable of men," whose
Life and Letters, so full of rich and wondrous friendships, and of deep
and subtle charm, is always a midnight companion if taken up in the
evening. While our serious-minded librarian may find its chief value
in the chapter on "The Struggle with the Dictionary," where as editor,
I presume many of us first met with Stephen, (and which would prove
invaluable to Lamb's old gentleman) she will find there only a small
part of the Real Leslie Stephen, who wrote one day to Edmund Gosse,
"No, R. L. S. is not the Real Leslie Stephen, but a young Scotchman
whom Colvin has found--Robert Louis Stevenson."
It is a temptation to linger over Stephen's letters to John Morley and
Charles Eliot Norton (perhaps his closest lifelong friends), and to the
rich list of literary men whom he knew so well through his long years
of literary and editorial work. Like those of Lowell and Stevenson, his
letters lead one constantly to the reading of his books, wherein again
one always finds himself. It were difficult to imagine more felicitous
titles of self-revelation than "Hours in a library," "The amateur
emigrant," and "My study window." I cannot leave Stephen without a word
from the "Letters to John Richard Green" (little Johnny Green) which
he edited. As Macaulay used to love to prove the goods he praised by
samples of quotation, I will content myself with Green's questioning
Freeman, in a long letter full of Early English history: "By the way,
have you seen Stubb's Hymn on Froude and Kingsley?
'Froude informs the Scottish youth
That parsons do not care for truth.
The Reverend Canon Kingsley cries:
History is a pack of lies.
What cause for judgments so malign?
A brief reflection solves the mystery,
Froude believes Kingsley's a divine,
And Kingsley goes to Froude for history.'"
Long years ago my eye caught the title, "From Shakespeare to Pope,"
Gosse, and as I took down the book, I asked, "Well, what was there
from Shakespeare to Pope?"--a question which the book answered so
delightfully that I read it straight through twice, while the Critical
Kit Kats is my particular joy in introducing to friendly books my young
student readers, whom I send off armed with it, together with a volume
of Fitzgerald, or Stevenson, or the Browning sonnets. Mr. Gosse has
such a comfortable and intimate way of saying things that makes one
feel it is one's own expression of one's own thoughts. I suppose most
of us own to a pocket copy of Shakespeare's sonnets, wherein we have
marked many a line, and then Mr. Gosse writes for us, as he sends the
sonnets to a friend:
"This is the holy missal Shakespeare wrote,
Then, on sad evenings when you think of me,
Or when the morn seems blyth, yet I not near,
Open this book, and read, and I shall be
The meter murmuring at your bended ear;
I cannot write my love with Shakespeare's art,
But the same burden weighs upon my heart."
Do your friendly books ever find each other out upon the shelves?
After reading in Mary Cowden Clarke's "My long life," of her childish,
reverent awe towards Keats and Shelley, who were often guests in her
father's house, the book found its place next to those poets, and was
it Keats who was sitting on the sofa when the same little girl crept up
behind and kissed his hand just because she had heard he was a poet?
Gilbert White's "Natural history of Selborne," much in the same way
stands beside Lowell, in whose "Garden acquaintance," I first learned
its "delightful charm of absolute leisure," and here too, when it
leaves my study table, stands that dear big book which still claims
my leisure hours, "Charles Eliot, landscape architect," one of those
rare books with a subtle and unconscious autobiographic touch, when one
chances upon the fact that the writer was Harvard's president, telling
the story as the brief fore-note says,
"For the dear son,
Who died in the bright prime--
From the father."
But this is all very personal and my only hope is that while I am
reading, you are following the example of my sometime youthful nephew,
who, on being asked about the sermon one Sunday after church, answered,
"Why really, Mamma, I don't know what it was about. I got tired
listening, and withdrew my attention and went fishing."
Finally, although we are admonished not to put new wine into old
bottles, there fortunately is no admonition against old wine in new
bottles, and friendliness is certainly the richest of wine both in men
and in books. Nor am I at all certain that in the last analysis it is
not the supreme grace which makes possible that joy in life, without
which we are of necessity cast into a limbo of outer darkness, and so I
commend to you the best of old wine which ever lingers in The Friendly
Book.
THE PRESIDENT: Our good old friend, Dr. Canfield, once told a story
about a critic who after a life devoted to the gentle art of making
enemies was gathered to his fathers. Those who had known him, and who
had for the most part been recipients of his buffetings gathered about
his bier, and compared notes and estimates of the special qualities
which the late departed had possessed. Yes, said one, "he loved us so
well that he chastised us frequently." True, said another, "he could
never catch sight of one of us without administering a vigorous kick."
At this the eyelids of the deceased were seen to flutter a bit, and he
sat bolt upright and his sepulchral voice made this response: "Yes, but
I always kicked towards the goal."
Now perhaps this introduction may not seem to be a very happy
preliminary to the paper about to be announced, and in some respects
its application may not be evident, for certainly the speaker who is
about to talk to us, on "How to discourage reading" is by no means
a dead one. He has, however, been somewhat active in the kicking
process--though always towards the goal. I present to you Mr. EDMUND L.
PEARSON, of the Boston Transcript.
Mr. PEARSON: The president has very kindly referred to the fact that
while I do not practice the profession of librarian, I tell other
people how they ought to do it. He might have made use of a quotation
or a sentence or two at the beginning of Mark Twain's "Puddin'head
Wilson," only I fear that Mr. Legler was too courteous to use it. I
have no hesitation in speaking of it myself. Mark Twain says of the
Puddin'head Wilson maxims: "These maxims are for the instruction and
moral elevation of youth. To be good is noble, but to tell others how
to be good is nobler and much less trouble."
Mr. Pearson read the following paper:
HOW TO DISCOURAGE READING
When the "Five Foot Shelf" of books were published, three of my friends
bought the set. One of them did so without any pretence that he was
going to read them. He is a somewhat naïve young man, able to indulge
his whims, and he said he thought that buying the books "would help out
President Eliot." That is a very meritorious sentiment to hold toward
the compilers or authors of books--I wish that there were more persons
who felt that way. I have no fault to find with him, at all.
Nor have I any complaint to make against the other two men. Blame
is not what they deserve, but commiseration. Like the girl in the
song, they are "more to be pitied than censured." The price was a
consideration with them, and they gave up their money for the sake of
being forever cut off from all those tremendous "classics." For that
is what it amounted to. One of these men has a very pretty office,
with some nice bookshelves, painted white. He added to the books of
his profession and some other works of general literature, this "Five
Foot Shelf"--which occupies, I believe, about eighteen feet of shelf
room. He tried to read one of the books--I know he did that, because he
admitted it--and he confided to me that he thought it was silly.
The third man bought the "Five Foot Shelf," and announced his
determination "to read the whole thing right through." He did this
with set teeth, as if he might have said: "I'll read 'em if they kill
me!" Well, he started one of them. He read a little in Franklin's
"Autobiography." I know he did, because he told me about it. He and I
belong to that irritating class of persons who get up early and take
long walks before breakfast, and then take care to mention it later in
the day, as if to cast discredit on other people. We have to go early,
too, because we intersperse the walks with runs, and he has dignity to
maintain, and it wouldn't do for him to dash about the streets after
other people are up. While we walked, or dog-trotted, about the country
roads he told me about the "Autobiography." But I have noticed that he
has left the "Five Foot Shelf." I doubt if he even finished that first
one of its volumes which he attempted. When he talks about books now,
it is about the "History of the American people." He is a Democrat, and
like many Democrats he has discovered that our history has been truly
written only according to Mr. Woodrow Wilson.
Will any one of those three men ever read =two whole= volumes from that
set? It is doubtful--very doubtful. And their cases are, I believe,
typical of thousands of others. And what is true of the "Five Foot
Shelf" is true of a score of other collections--the Hundred Best Books,
the Greatest Books of the Universe, the Most Ponderous Volumes of the
Ages, the Selected and Highly Recommended Classics of All Nations.
There are dozens of them--you all know them--these "standard" sets and
collections, in which learned and well-intentioned men have innocently
conspired with publishers to discourage reading.
The "Five Foot Shelf" is not picked out for especial disapprobation.
As a matter of fact, I suppose it is far better, far more human in
its selections, far more readable in some of its titles than most of
these sets of "great" books. But there is something about every one of
these collections of classics that acts like a palsy upon the reading
faculty. It is a little mysterious, rather hard to define, but that
it exists I have no manner of doubt. It would be impossible to doubt,
after seeing it demonstrated so many times.
Take, at random, the titles of five famous books--books which are
apt to turn up in these sets or collections. Plato's "Republic," the
"Odyssey," the "Morte D'Arthur," the "Anatomy of melancholy," and "Don
Quixote." Take the average man, the man usually known as the "business"
man. Suppose that he has not read any of these books in his school
days--that he has reached the age of forty without reading them. Now,
the chances are at least a hundred to one that he =never= reads them.
But let him buy one of the sets of thirty or forty volumes, in which
these five books are included, and the chances against his reading any
one of the five, instead of being diminished, are enormously increased.
It is now certainly three hundred to one that he never reads any of
the five books. There is something benumbing, something deadening,
something stupefying, to the average man to take into his house six
yards of solid "culture." And this I believe to be true as a general
statement, in spite of instances which may be adduced here and there.
But, mind you, if this same man happens to have his attention called to
one of the books--especially to either of the last two, as they are a
little nearer the temper of our time--and if he gets one of them, =by
itself=, there is now a fair probability that he may read at least part
of it. He =may= even finish it.
If he really wishes to read the so-called great books let him forever
beware of acquiring one of those overwhelming lumps of literature--the
publisher's delight and the book-agent's darling--known by some such
name as the Colossal Classics of the World. They breed hypocrites and
foster humbugs. He buys them and =thinks= he is going to read them.
They look ponderous and weighty and erudite upon his shelves--to the
innocent. People exclaim: "My! What fine books you have!" He tries to
smile a wise smile--to give the impression that they are the companions
of his solitude, the consolation of his wakeful hours. He knows that
these people won't ask if he has ever read any of them. They are afraid
he might come back at them with: "Oh, yes, of course. Now, how do =you=
like Milton's 'Areopagitica'?" After a time he begins to think he =has=
read them--because he has looked at the backs, and started to cut one
or two of them. Then it is all up with him. He never even tries to read
them again. They just stand there and occasionally make him a little
uncomfortable.
Making friends with books, and especially with those famous books which
require some concentration, is like making friends with people. You
can not do it in a wholesale, yardstick manner. If they come into our
lives at all, they come subtly, slowly, one at a time. If a man should
walk into this room saying: "All my life I have been without friends,
I have decided that I wish to have friends--I am going to adopt all of
you, every one of you, as a friend, here and now!"--you know how an
experiment like that would succeed. It is the same with books.
In the competition for the best method to discourage reading, the
second prize should be awarded to that pestilential invention--the
Complete Works of an author. There was a publisher--he still lives--who
told one of his agents: "Books are not made to read; they are made to
sell." He was probably the inventor of that discourager of reading, the
Complete Works.
If one of you wishes to keep a friend in total ignorance of any writer,
there is an almost certain method--give him one of the sets of the
Complete Works of that writer. It is a sure method to kill interest.
As in the case of the collections of classics, there is something
wholesale and overpowering about such a set. It is thrown at your head,
so to speak, in a chunk, and you never get over the blow. Imagine the
case of a man who had never read Dickens. If he is wise, he goes at
him one book at a time, he tests and he tries, and at the end of a few
years he owns eight or ten books--well-thumbed books, that have been
read, and that represent pleasure. But if he listens to the book-agent
he contracts for a yard and a half of Dickens, and when it comes he
gazes in despair at that rigid row of books--as unassailable as a
regiment of Prussian grenadiers. That is the end of all intercourse
between him and Charles Dickens.
"Oh, you might as well have them all," says the agent, "you needn't
read the ones you don't like." That is what the waiter told the man
when he brought him a breakfast-cup full of coffee, after dinner,
instead of a demi-tasse: "You ain't got to drink all of it."
Miles upon miles of these sets of Complete Works are sold every year,
and from one end of the land to the other, heads of families are
sinking back comfortably upon their Morris chairs, and gazing in
fatuous self-satisfaction at their bookcases, which they have just
filled, at one swoop, with nine yards of the Complete Works of Scott,
Cooper, Dumas, Dickens, and Thackeray.
"Look, Mother, we've got the bookcase filled up at last!" "Well, I am
glad to see it! It was distressin' to see all those shelves so empty
like."
Will they ever look at them? Never a look! It is even odds they do not
cut the pages. Now that the noble art of pressing autumn leaves has
gone out--you know how it was done, with wax and a hot flatiron, and
then you put them between the pages of a book--now that pastime is
forgotten, there isn't one remaining cause why those pages should ever
be opened. The insides of those books will be the most secret place in
that house henceforth. Talk about sliding panels and secret drawers in
old writing-desks--they are open and conspicuous in comparison. They
will be great for hiding places--I think I will write a melodrama and
have the missing will turn up in the fifth act, sixty years later,
hidden between page 1 and page 2 of one of the volumes in somebody's
Complete Works.
For the third place in the list of best methods to discourage reading
there are two competitors. They are so nearly tied that it is hard
to choose between them. I am inclined to think that the honor should
be awarded to the custom of setting up counsels of perfection in the
matter of recommending the so-called "classics" to possible readers,
of saying by word of mouth, or by printed page: "These are the great
classics, the great books of the world" and adding, by implication, "If
you don't like them, after making heroic attempts, then you have been
weighed in the balance and found wanting."
This word "classics" covers a multitude of nuisances and perplexities.
The "classics" include books which are still alive with humanity, which
are delightful today to any person who is at all bookish, and they
include books which are so utterly alien, so far removed from our time,
place and habit of mind, that it is absolutely absurd to pretend that
anyone in this year and land, except a few, a very few, specialists,
can read them with any pleasure, or can read them at all, in fact,
except under compulsion.
These lists of the great classics are too frequently compiled with
a cowardly obedience to tradition. It matters a little what some
great person of a hundred or a thousand years ago thought about a
book--but it does not matter much. Recently, I saw in a book a list
of great persons who had been influenced by this or that book. Some
book or other influenced Madame de Maintenon--what of it? Doubtless
other books, far less desirable, influenced her, too, so what does
it prove? The value of books, as a recent writer has pointed out,
shifts and changes with the changing years. What may have been truly
a great book a thousand years ago is not necessarily great today--no
matter how many famous personages have embalmed it in their praise,
and no matter how many other personages have praised it, not because
they enjoyed it themselves, but because the earlier ones did. Such a
book is interesting--to specialists--as a milestone in the history
of literature, but it is not to be forced, however gently, upon the
general reader as a book he "ought" to read.
Museums of art, like the Louvre, contain paintings which ignoramuses
like myself look upon with astonishment. Mediæval pictures of the most
hideous description--how came they in the same building with these
other beautiful works of art? Is it possible that anyone is so silly
as to pretend to admire them? And then the explanation dawns upon the
ignoramus: they are here to illustrate the development of the art
of painting. This is a museum, as well as a collection of beautiful
things. No one who is honest pretends to enjoy their beauty. It is
thus with books. A great collection of books may well contain those
writings which seemed full of meaning to people two thousand years
ago, but they are not to be held up--not all of them, at any rate--as
books which anybody "ought" to read today. The significance of any work
of literature, however noble, is a thing to ebb and flow, and finally
to vanish altogether. Professor Barrett Wendell reminded me once that
Shakespeare's plays and my daily themes would alike, one day, be dust
and atoms in the void of the centuries--but I do not think that he
meant unduly to compliment Shakespeare by this association.
Since it is always better to come down to tacks in speaking of books,
I will mention some of the classics which have little significance
today. It is always dangerous to do this--somebody is sure to hold up
his hand and exclaim: "Why, I like =them=, very much," or "I know an
old gentleman who reads =that=, every night before going to bed." But
I will take the risk, and say that the Greek and French dramas of the
classic periods are works of literature almost certain to appear on
most of these lists of Best Books, and that it is almost sheer humbug
to put them there. So few people can read them, there is so little
reason--especially in the case of the French plays--why anyone =should=
read them, today, that their inclusion is a pitiful example of lack
of courage. In the matter of the French drama I speak especially of
Racine and Corneille--names almost certain to appear on these lists of
the classics. Someone will relate the story about Napoleon saying that
if Racine (or was it Corneille?) had lived in his time, he would have
made him a marshal. Then some of his plays are smugly entered upon the
list. With their stiff, set speeches, their ridiculous unbosomings of
the leading characters of their "confidantes," they are as out of place
in our life as were their Caesars, Alexanders, and Pompeys, teetering
about the stage in high-heeled shoes, ruffles, wigs, and all the rest
of the costume of Louis XIV.
It is good to recommend the classics, but it must not be forgotten
that there are classics, and classics. There should be independence,
and an ability to look things in the face, to realize that a change
has come, when it is already here. Why should the people who deal with
books let the politicians get ahead of them? There is a bright, clean
air blowing through the nation, and those who worship fusty precedent
are correspondingly unhappy. We have a president who cares not a rap
for mouldy and senseless traditions--he has learned well the lesson
taught him by one of his predecessors. If President Wilson has the
courage to point out that the final authority on matters of factory
legislation and mine inspection in the year 1913 is not necessarily
Thomas Jefferson, is it not possible for the critics and choosers of
books to understand that Dr. Johnson and Madame de Maintenon have not
uttered the last word about literature? There might and should be a
"new freedom" of literary criticism--not yesterday, nor today, nor
tomorrow, but all the time.
Here is another way to discourage reading. You can do it by giving a
man one of these over-annotated editions of a book. I mean a book which
has so many footnotes that the text is crowded right out of bed; a book
in which the editor is so pleased with himself for discovering that the
father of Lady Hester Somebody (who is mentioned in the text) was born
in 1718 and died in 1789 that he simply has not the decent manners to
keep his useless knowledge to himself. No; he must tell it to you, even
though he elbows the author--a better man than himself--out of the way
to do it.
One of the best books of its kind--I speak under correction--is George
Birkbeck Hill's edition of Boswell's "Johnson." It is, I believe,
correct, and scholarly; it certainly represents a vast amount of labor,
and it is "very valuable for reference." Also it is admirably arranged
for driving a reader away from Boswell forever. It is positively
exasperating to see page after page on which Boswell occupies two lines
at the top, and Dr. Hill takes up all the rest of the room. Sometimes
he takes up the whole page! Yet that edition is recommended to readers
by persons who ought to know better.
Other excellent examples--I am speaking only of much-praised books--are
found in the Furness Variorum editions of Shakespeare. When one of
these volumes appears it is usually greeted by a chorus of "Oh's!" and
"Ah's!" as when a particularly gorgeous skyrocket goes up on Fourth of
July night. Such scholarship! Such a boon to earnest Shakespeareans!
Such labor! Such erudition! Well, a great deal of that praise is
deserved--each volume is certainly a tour de force. But I wish to
read you from a review of the latest of them--a review written for
the Boston Herald, by Mr. John Macy, the author of that vigorous and
sensible book, "The spirit of American literature." It deals with
"The tragedie of Julius Caesar" edited by Horace Howard Furness, Jr.
"This," writes Mr. Macy, "is the latest volume in 'A New Variorum
Edition of Shakespeare,' and is the first under the sole editorship
of the late Dr. Furness' son. From an enormous mass of commentary,
criticism, word-worrying, text-marring and learned guesswork, Mr.
Furness has chosen what seem to him the best notes. The sanity of his
introduction and the good sense of some of his own notes lead one to
suppose that he has selected with discrimination from the notes of
others. His work is a model of patience, industry and judgment. He
plays well in this game of scholarship. But what is the game worth?
What is the result?
"Here is a volume of nearly 500 large pages. The text is a literal
reprint of the folio. The clear stream of poetry runs along the tops
of the pages. Under that is a deposit of textual emendations full
of clam-shells and lost anchors and tin cans. Under that is a mud
bottom two centuries deep. It consists of (a) what scholars said
Shakespeare said; (b) what scholars said Shakespeare meant; (c) what
scholars said about what other scholars said; (d) what scholars said
about the morality and character of the personages, as (1) they are
in Shakespeare's play, and as (2) they are in other historical and
fictitious writings; (e) what scholars said about how other people
used the words that Shakespeare used; (f) what scholars said could be
done to Shakespeare's text to make him a better poet. I have not read
all those notes and I never shall read them. Life is too short and
too interesting. All the time that I was trying to read the notes, so
that I could know enough about them to write this article, my mind
kept swimming up out of the mud into that clear river of text. It is
a perfectly clear river. Some of the obscurities that scholars say
are there are simply not obscure, except as poetry ought to have a
kind of obscurity in some turbulent passages. Some of the obscurities
the scholars put there in their innocence and stupidity, and those
obscurities you can eliminate by blandly ignoring them."
These learned and over-annotated editions--they are not intended, you
say, for the casual reader. Yet they get into his hand--they are,
sometimes recommended to him. And, as Mr. Macy asks, are they worth
the labor they have cost--are they worth it to =anybody=? Looking at
them reminds me of the ideal ascetic of the Middle Ages, St. Simeon
Stylites. St. Simeon was considered the most religious man of his time
because for twenty years he lived upon a pillar that "numbered forty
cubits from the soil," and because he would
"'Tween the spring and downfall of the light,
Bow down one thousand and two hundred times,
To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints."
In spite of that, St. Simeon is not the ideal religious man today. Will
these fact-collectors be the ideal scholars a century hence?
Are we sometimes acclaiming as great scholars men who are really doing
nothing but a tremendous amount of grubbing? Are some of the so-called
scholarly editions really scholarly, or are they simply gigantic
"stunts?" Whatever may be their value for reference, and that is vastly
over-rated, they discourage reading.
It is also possible to drive people away from books, or make it
difficult for them to get near books, by printing confusing things
about them. It is possible to catalog a book--according to the best
rules--in such a fashion as to make it an exceedingly unattractive,
not to say repellant object. This is bad enough when it is done in
the formal catalog, but when it is done in little leaflets, and
book-lists--things which ought to be informal and inviting--the case is
very sad. The other day I saw an entry in a book-list which read like
this: "Dickens. Whipple, E. P. Charles Dickens." The expert is in no
doubt; the uninitiated may well be confused to know which is the author
and which the subject. When someone defends such practices by saying:
"But the rules!" someone else, whose voice is a voice of authority
ought to say: "Fudge! And also Fiddle-de-dee!"
The general subject today is "the World of Books." It is a delightful
world--one so different from that into which we emerge every morning
that it seems hard, sometimes, to realize that the one exists inside
the other. It is a place of entertainment within the reach of any of
us. There are a few obstructions around the entrance--some of which
I have tried to describe. People have built up walls of impossible
"classics"; publishers have tried to string a barbed-wire fence of
Complete Works around it. Pedants stand outside, calling upon you to
swallow a couple of gallons of facts before you go into the great tent.
You can walk by them all. Inside, everything is pleasant. Over in
one corner are the folk who like to play with first editions, unique
copies, unopened copies, and all the rest of those expensive toys. Some
of these gentlemen have about as much to do with the world of books as
have the collectors of four-post beds and old blue china, but many of
them are very good fellows. Most of them do not belong in here at all,
but, like boys who have crawled in under the tent, now they are inside
they think they have as much right as anybody. Some of them, indeed,
are quite uppish and superior, and inclined to look down on the rest of
us who have a vulgar notion that books are made to =read=.
Here is all you require--a comfortable chair, and a pipe. And the
company! Well, look around:
Dear Lamb and excellent Montaigne,
Sterne and the credible Defoe,
Borrow, DeQuincey, the great Dean,
The sturdy leisurist Thoreau;
The furtive soul whose dark romance,
By ghostly door and haunted stair,
Explored the dusty human heart,
And the forgotten garrets there;
The moralist it could not spoil,
To hold an empire in his hands;
Sir Walter, and the brood who sprang,
From Homer through a hundred lands,
Singers of songs on all men's lips,
Tellers of tales in all men's ears,
Movers of hearts that still must beat,
To sorrows feigned and fabled tears.
At the conclusion of Mr. Pearson's paper a book symposium was conducted
in which the following members of the Association briefly discussed the
respective books here indicated:
Hine. Modern organization. Reviewed by Paul Blackwelder.
Crispi's Memoirs and the recent literature of the Risorgimento.
Reviewed by Bernard C. Steiner.
Goldmark. Fatigue and efficiency. Reviewed by Katherine T.
Wootten.
Tarbell. The business of being a woman. Reviewed by Pearl I.
Field.
Antin. The promised land. Reviewed by Althea H. Warren.
Brieux. La femme seule. Reviewed by Corinne Bacon.
The great analysis. Reviewed by Josephine A. Rathbone.
Weyl. The great democracy. Reviewed by Frank K. Walter.
The PRESIDENT: Before inducting into office the president-elect I shall
ask the secretary whether there are any announcements to be made or if
any new business is to come up at this time? Is there any business for
the Council to consider?
Dr. ANDREWS: There are some resolutions from the Documents Round Table
to come before the Council and perhaps other routine work.
The PRESIDENT: They will be referred to the Council. We will receive
the report of the tellers concerning the election.
The SECRETARY: The report of the tellers states that you have elected
as your officers for the coming year the following persons:
REPORT OF THE TELLERS OF ELECTION
No. of Votes
President
E. H. Anderson, Director New York
Public Library 144
First Vice-President
H. C. Wellman, Librarian City Library,
Springfield, Mass. 141
Second Vice-President
Gratia A. Countryman, Librarian Minneapolis
Public Library 144
Members of Executive Board (for 3 years)
Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress,
Washington 146
Harrison W. Craver, Librarian Carnegie
Library, Pittsburgh 137
Members of Council (for 5 years)
Mary Eileen Ahern, Editor "Public Libraries,"
Chicago 140
Cornelia Marvin, Librarian Oregon
State Library 145
Alice S. Tyler, Director Western Reserve
Library School 146
R. R. Bowker, Editor "Library Journal,"
New York 144
A. L. Bailey, Librarian Wilmington
(Del.) Institute Free Library 142
Trustee of Endowment Fund (for 3 years)
E. W. Sheldon, President U. S. Trust
Co., New York 143
FORREST B. SPAULDING,
JOHN F. PHELAN,
Tellers of Election.
The PRESIDENT: You have heard the result of the election. I shall
ask Mr. Gardner M. Jones and Mr. Harrison W. Craver to show the
president-elect the way to the platform.
(The committee escorted Mr. Anderson to the platform.)
Mr. President-elect, it is with special personal satisfaction that I
have announced to you the result unanimously made by this conference in
choosing you to the honorable position of president. I am personally
gratified in that you represent, I think, so splendidly many of
the elements which have been talked about during this meeting. You
are yourself a graduate of a library school, yet you have sympathy
with those who have not attained to that distinction. You have been
associated with a great scientific library, you have been in charge of
a medium-sized library and are now at the head of the largest public
library in the world; and yet many of us have had evidences that you
have the deepest and warmest sympathy for the small and struggling
library, no matter where it may be.
Mr. President-elect, the retiring board of officers received this gavel
not as an emblem of authority, but as a symbol of service. As such we
commit it to your care for the next year.
For the retiring board of officers I may say, in the words of Wynken
DeWorde in one of his colophons, "And now we make an end. If we have
done well, we have done that which we would have desired; and if but
meanly and slenderly, we yet have done that which we could attain unto."
The wish goes from the ex-president to the president that the most
successful administration in the history of the Association may be the
one which is about to begin.
(Mr. Legler then handed the gavel to Mr. Anderson and retired from the
platform.)
PRESIDENT ANDERSON: Ladies and gentlemen, fellow members of the
Association: In the first place, I want to express my heartfelt thanks
for the gracious things the retiring president has just been pleased
to say concerning my humble self. Furthermore, I have to thank him for
giving me an opportunity to correct a mistake which has been current in
this Association for some twenty years, namely, that I am the graduate
of a library school. I was at the Albany library school--more years ago
than I care to tell--between seven and eight months. My money ran out
and I had to get a job. I did not even complete the first year. That is
a reflection on me, not upon the library school.
The exigencies of trains and luncheons would make it unfair if not
cruel for me to detain you here this morning with a speech and I shall
make none. But I want to beg you on this occasion to forget and forgive
the disagreeable things said or done by the officers-elect in the heat
of a bitter partisan campaign. (Laughter--There was no opposition
ticket.)
Seriously, I want to express to you all, not merely for myself but for
every member of the incoming executive board and the incoming members
of the Council, our appreciation of the honor you have conferred upon
us and of the responsibilities you have placed upon our shoulders. We
can only hope to maintain--and it will require a struggle and great
and arduous work on our part to maintain--the high standard set by our
predecessors. I thank you.
If there is nothing further to come before us the Conference will stand
adjourned.
ADJOURNED SINE DIE.
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Meeting of June 23, 1913
Meeting called to order by President Legler. Other members present were
Miss Eastman, Messrs. Anderson, Andrews, Putnam and Wellman.
Several matters of routine business were transacted, including the
reception and adoption of the report of the Committee on Nominations.
Upon motion of Mr. Anderson, seconded by Dr. Putnam, Mrs. H. L.
Elmendorf was elected member of the Publishing Board to succeed herself
for a term of three years.
In behalf of the Committee on International Relations, Dr. Putnam
reported that with such information as it had been able to gather
the committee felt unable to make any affirmative recommendation as
to participation by the American Library Association in the proposed
Exposition of the Book and Graphic Arts at Leipzig in 1914.
Adjourned.
Meeting of June 28th
Present: President Anderson, Miss Eastman, Messrs. Andrews, Wellman and
Craver.
Mr. Wellman presented his resignation as non-official member in view of
his election to the office of first vice-president, which, upon motion
of Dr. Andrews, was accepted.
Upon motion of Mr. Craver, it was unanimously voted that W. N. C.
Carlton be elected to the Executive Board to fill the unexpired term of
Mr. Wellman. Mr. Carlton was called to the meeting and took his place
as a member of the Board.
A meeting place for 1914 was next considered. Miss Edith A. Phelps,
librarian of the Carnegie library of Oklahoma City, appeared before
the board and invited the Association to meet in Oklahoma City, her
invitation being seconded by the Oklahoma Library Association and other
organizations of the State. Invitations were received also by letter
from the convention bureaus of New Orleans, Nashville, Wilmington,
Del., Milwaukee, and other places. After informal discussion it was
voted that the Secretary be instructed to investigate facilities for
holding the conference at Madison, Wis., and if, in the opinion of the
president and secretary, conditions at Madison are not favorable for a
meeting, that Mackinac and Ottawa Beach be investigated in the order
here named.
Invitations from the authorities of the Panama-Pacific Exposition
to hold the conference at San Francisco in 1915 were read and
from the California Library Association to the same effect, Mr.
Everett R. Perry, of Los Angeles, bearing the invitation from the
latter association. Invitations were also received from the library
authorities of Seattle, seconded by the business organizations of that
city and by the convention bureaus of other cities of the Pacific
Northwest. It was voted to refer this information to the next Executive
Board.
Mr. William Stetson Merrill presented the following report in behalf of
the Committee on code for classifiers, which, upon motion, was accepted
as a report of progress, and the request for an appropriation of $20
referred to the meeting of the Executive Board in January.
The Committee on code for classifiers begs to present a
report of progress.
During the past year no general meeting of the Committee has
been held, but the chairman has been in correspondence with
several members of the Committee and considerable data have
been collected for the proposed Manual for classifiers. Messrs.
Bay and Merrill are more immediately concerned with this
section of the work and over three hundred points have been
assembled for future consideration.
An appropriation of twenty dollars ($20.00) to cover
typewriting, postage and stationery is requested.
Respectfully submitted,
(Signed)
WM. STETSON MERRILL, Chairman.
At the request of the secretary a transfer of funds was authorized as
follows: From the contingency fund to conference fund, $75, and to
miscellaneous fund $75, leaving a balance in the contingency fund of
$95.
Upon motion of Dr. Andrews, it was voted that members joining the
Association after the annual conference shall only be required to pay
one-half year's dues together with the usual initiation fee of $1.
Consideration of the question of issuing the annual handbook in
biographical section form was postponed until the next meeting of the
Executive Board.
A letter was read from Dr. Frank P. Hill, suggesting that a special
committee be appointed to consider the matter of participating in
the proposed Leipzig Exposition and to ascertain the cost of such
participation as well as the possibility of securing a creditable
exhibit from American libraries. It was voted that a special committee
of three on this subject be appointed by the president, which committee
shall make the report to the Committee on international relations. The
president appointed as this committee Dr. Hill with power to add the
other two members.
It was unanimously voted that an appropriation of $30 from the
contingency fund be made to each of the three members of the Travel
Committee as partial compensation for expenses incurred in the
performance of association duties, and that the thanks of the Executive
Board be expressed with regret that the finances of the Association did
not permit a complete reimbursement of expenses.
A report was submitted from the Committee on cost and method of
cataloging, but owing to the lack of time for proper consideration the
secretary was instructed to have the report typewritten and copies sent
to the respective members of the Executive Board. At the request of the
Committee that two other members be added to the Committee, one of them
to be located in Chicago, the other to be the head cataloger of one of
the public libraries taking part in the investigation, the president
appointed the following persons: J. C. M. Hanson and Margaret Mann.
The request of the Committee for an appropriation of not to exceed $50
was referred to the January meeting of the Executive Board.
The report is as follows:
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON COST AND METHOD OF CATALOGING
The present report is preliminary only. Before a final report can be
made a more detailed inquiry must be undertaken of the way in which
the work is handled in libraries of various types. The methods used in
the libraries that have taken part in the present investigation vary
to a considerable degree, and do not always seem to lend themselves to
an accurate classification by character or size of library; in some
cases this is possible, for instance when we find that the receipt of
much duplicate material in the large public libraries having extensive
systems of branch libraries has developed a method of handling
these that is almost uniform for all. One element which disturbs
the cataloging work in these libraries is that the withdrawal and
cancellation of the records of lost and worn-out books is done by the
cataloging departments. Five of the twenty libraries do not at present
readily lend themselves to comparison in all respects with the others,
the Library of Congress and the New York public library on account
of their size and complicated organization, the libraries of Harvard
University and the University of Chicago because of the disturbances
caused by present work of reorganization and recataloging, and the New
York state library on account of its rapid growth since the fire two
years ago. In other libraries recataloging goes on simultaneously with
the current work, but it does not cause the same disturbances as in
the cases mentioned.
While most libraries count classification and shelf-listing as parts
of the cataloging, only four include accessioning, and three do not
include either of the four processes mentioned under point 2 in
the questionnaire sent out by the committee. Three libraries state
expressly that the assignment of subject headings is done by the
cataloging force, but this is probably also the case with some who do
not mention the fact. In one case the reference and cataloging work are
combined in one department; in general, reference work seems to be the
catalogers' favorite side line.
In some libraries the determination of headings and the form of entry
is determined by the heads of the department, in others all the
original work is done by the assistants and afterwards revised, while
in at least one case such work as classification and the assignment of
subject headings is done by specialists, each handling his particular
subject. Two or three libraries employ a special assistant for the
cataloging of serial publications. Two libraries have all statistical
recording done by a special assistant or clerk.
Whether a library prints its cards or has them written or typewritten
in several copies, does not seem to influence the method of work except
at the final point, but the growing use of cards printed by some other
library has introduced an element that did not exist when any of the
libraries taking part in the investigation were organized.
The cost of cataloging can not be determined until a definite unit has
been agreed upon. The way to reach such agreement might be in line with
the method employed by the Boston public library, where a considerable
number of volumes were set aside for this investigation and the time
and money spent on each work carefully computed. By employing a
similar way of investigating not only the cost, but also the routine
gone through with a book in a number of libraries on its way from the
unpacking room to the shelves, some definite unit might be found.
The work of the committee has only begun; it should be planned to
go much more into details than the present questionnaire indicates.
The purpose of the committee should be twofold; to find out whether
a method of handling the routine with a minimum expenditure of time
could be worked out that could be recommended as standard, and to
study how the work might be so arranged as to be made in some degree
less mechanical to those who are capable of more or less independent
handling of literary material for the purpose of preparing it for use
by readers in libraries.
AKSEL G. S. JOSEPHSON,
EMMA V. BALDWIN,
AGNES VAN VALKENBURGH.
Questionnaire
1. Give a short sketch of your catalog department indicating
the processes into which the work is divided.
2. How many of the following items do you include as part of
cataloging?:
(a) Accessioning.
(b) Classification.
(c) Shelf-listing.
(d) Preparation for the shelves.
3. Of how many persons does your cataloging force consist and
how is it graded?
4. What are the minimum and maximum salaries in each grade and
division of your cataloging force?
5. What was the total amount expended for salaries for the
catalog department in 1912?
6. a. How many of the assistants in the catalog department
spend full time on the cataloging work?
b. What other work are these engaged in in other departments
of the library?
7. a. How many volumes did you add to your library during
1912?
b. How many of these were added as new titles to your catalog?
c. How many of these were on printed cards from the Library of
Congress or from other libraries?
8. What do you estimate that it cost your library in 1912 to
catalog a book, including accessioning, classification,
shelf-listing and preparation for the shelves?
9. Give any special information about your library that will
enable the committee to understand particular phases of
your cataloging work.
Libraries Included in the Investigation
_University and Reference Libraries_
Columbia University Library.
Harvard University Library.
Princeton University Library.
University of Chicago Library.
Yale University Library.
John Crerar Library.
Library of Congress.
New York Public Library, Reference Department.
New York State Library.
Newberry Library.
_Public Libraries_
Boston Public Library.
Brooklyn Public Library.
Buffalo Public Library.
Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh.
Chicago Public Library.
Cincinnati Public Library.
Cleveland Public Library.
Philadelphia Free Library.
St. Louis Public Library.
Toronto Public Library.
A request was read from the catalog section, first, that the Executive
Board be asked to appoint a permanent cataloging committee to which the
questions in cataloging may be referred for recommendations; second,
that the Executive Board be asked to send a request to the Librarian
of Congress for the publication of the code of alphabeting used in the
Library of Congress.
Voted, on motion by Dr. Andrews that the president and secretary be
instructed to appoint a committee for this year to whom questions
of cataloging may be referred, and that the chairman of the catalog
section be consulted as to the proper form of a by-law providing for a
permanent committee.
Upon motion by Dr. Andrews, voted that the secretary be instructed to
ask the opinion of the Committee on code for classifiers as to the
desirability of a permanent committee to consider specific questions
of classification and as to the proper form of a by-law to provide for
such committee.
The appointment of members to the various standing committees was next
considered, and as a result of consideration at this meeting and of
later correspondence between the members of the Executive Board and
consultation with the chairmen of the various committees, the standing
committees for the year 1913-14 are announced as follows:
COMMITTEES, 1913-14
Finance
C. W. Andrews, The John Crerar Library, Chicago.
F. F. Dawley, Cedar Rapids, Ia.
F. O. Poole, New York City.
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. F. D. Belden, State Library, Boston, Mass.
Co-operation with the N. E. A.
Mary Eileen Ahern, "Public Libraries," Chicago.
Mary A. Newberry, Public Library, New York City.
Irene Warren, School of Education, Chicago.
George H. Locke, Public Library, Toronto, Canada.
Harriet A. Wood, Library Association, Portland, Ore.
Library Administration
A. E. Bostwick, Public Library, St. Louis, Mo.
George F. Bowerman, Public Library, Washington, D. C.
John S. Cleavinger, Public Library, Jackson, Mich.
Library Training
A. S. Root, Oberlin College Library, Oberlin, Oh.
Faith E. Smith, Public Library, Chicago.
Alice S. Tyler, Western Reserve University Library School, Cleveland.
Adam Strohm, Public Library, Detroit, Mich.
A. L. Bailey, Wilmington Institute Free Library, Wilmington, Del.
Chalmers Hadley, Public Library, Denver.
Cornelia Marvin, Oregon State Library, Salem, Ore.
George 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.
Frank P. Hill, Public Library, Brooklyn, N. Y.
W. C. Lane, Harvard University Library, Cambridge, Mass.
R. R. Bowker, "Library Journal," New York City.
Bookbuying
The committee has not yet been appointed.
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.
T. L. Montgomery, State Library, Harrisburg, Pa.
Demarchus C. Brown, State Library, Indianapolis, Ind.
Paul Blackwelder, Public Library, St. Louis, Mo.
C. F. Belden, State Library, Boston, Mass.
Thomas M. Owen, Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Ala.
W. P. Cutter, Library of Engineering Societies, New York City.
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
Laura M. Sawyer, Perkins Institution, Watertown, Mass.
Lucile Goldthwaite, New York Public Library.
Mrs. Emma N. Delfino, Free Library, Philadelphia.
Mrs. Gertrude T. Rider, Library of Congress, Washington.
Julia A. Robinson, Secretary Iowa Library Commission, Des Moines.
Miriam E. Carey, Supervisor of Institution Libraries of Board of
Control, St. Paul.
Program
E. H. Anderson, Public Library, New York.
H. C. Wellman, City Library, Springfield, Mass.
George B. Utley, A. L. A. Executive Office, Chicago, Ill.
COUNCIL
Meeting of June 24th
The meeting was called to order by President Legler with 45 members
present.
The Chair announced the death since the last meeting of the Council
of Dr. John Shaw Billings and Mr. Charles Carroll Soule, and by
unanimous vote of the Council the Chair appointed Dr. Herbert Putnam,
R. R. Bowker and H. C. Wellman a committee to draft resolutions to be
presented to the Association at large.
Dr. Bostwick as chairman presented the following:
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON RELATIONS BETWEEN THE LIBRARY AND THE
MUNICIPALITY
In presenting this final report, your Committee finds it necessary
to consider and to give expression to two points of view, both of
which are represented in its membership and neither of which can
be neglected--one that believes that, owing to diversity of local
conditions and of constitutional and other requirements in different
parts of the Union, it is impossible to frame definitely a model
library law or a model library section of a city charter, and the
other, that without some such expression as can be given only in the
form of a definite body of law of this kind, the recommendations of the
Committee will necessarily be vague and will largely fail of effect.
Your committee has therefore thought it best in the first place to make
a statement of the things that a library law or charter section should,
in its opinion, aim to do, giving reasons where necessary; and in the
second place to present a definite example of the way in which these
things may be done, accompanied by a warning that before adopting it
as a model in any specific instance, it should be carefully studied
by some competent person and modified to suit the necessities of the
case. Your committee realizes also that every state library law should
contain provisions, such as those regulating the State Library and
Library Commission, which do not fall within the duties assigned to
this committee and hence are not touched upon in this report.
And first, regarding the aims of a library law:
(a) We reiterate our statement of last year that the library is an
educational institution and that education is a matter of state rather
than of local concern. If a state already has a good library law which
has worked and is working well and satisfactorily to all concerned,
local libraries should be left in operation under the provisions
of the law, precisely as the schools should be and generally are
left, no matter what changes in the form of municipal government are
contemplated or have been carried into effect. If the state law is not
entirely satisfactory, it is better to amend it than to try to better
matters through the local charter. The charter may well contain, to
avoid the possibility of conflict, some such special disclaimer as
the following: "Nothing in this charter shall be so construed as to
interfere with the operation of the public library under the library
laws of the state." If the library law contains provisions seemingly in
conflict with new charter provisions, some additional definition may be
necessary.
(b) Possibly we are not yet ready for compulsory library establishment
throughout a state, but at all events it should be made simple and easy
for any public taxing or governing body to establish a free public
library and to tax itself for the support of that library, accepting
gifts where necessary and obligating itself to fulfill the conditions
under which these gifts are made. This would include municipalities,
counties, townships, school districts, boards of education, etc.
The library should be assured of reasonable and sufficient financial
support, either through the operation of a special-tax provision or by
the requirement of a minimum appropriation by the authorities. In no
case should the existence or value of the library be placed in jeopardy
by making possible a capricious withdrawal or lessening of support by
the local authorities.
(c) The library should be administered by an independent board of
trustees, not by a single commissioner, and, in particular, not by a
commissioner who has other matters on his hands. In case such grouping
appears necessary, the library should be placed with other educational
agencies and in no case treated as a group of buildings or a mere
agency of recreation. The board should be a body corporate, distinct
from other municipal organizations and departments, with powers of
succession, power to sue and be sued, to acquire and hold property,
etc. The terms of its members should not expire all at once, so that
reasonable continuity in policy will be insured. It should have power
to take over and manage other city libraries, school libraries and, by
contract, libraries in other municipalities or communities.
(d) The funds of the library, including those derived from taxation,
bequest, gift, and library fines and desk receipts, should be at the
board's free disposal for library purposes, including the purchase of
land and the erection of buildings. They should be received and held
by the municipal authorities, and disbursed on voucher, with the same
safeguards and under the same auspices as those required for other
public funds.
(e) The library should be operated on the merit system, in the same
way that the schools are so operated--not by placing the selection and
promotion of library employees in the hands of the same board that
selects clerks and mechanics for the city departments, but by requiring
that the library board establish and carry out an efficient system of
service satisfactory to the proper authorities.
The board should have entire control of its own working force and
should initiate its own policies, including selection of sites and
planning of buildings, its librarian being regarded both as its
executive officer and as its expert adviser, to whom the choice of
methods and the management of details are naturally left. He should be
present at meetings of the board and may serve as its secretary.
We regard as satisfactory any body of law that will accomplish the
results aimed at in the following sections, which your committee does
not regard as couched in legal phraseology. Before being used in any
state its provisions should be worded by a competent person experienced
in drafting bills for the legislature of that state.
Section 1
Any taxing body shall have authority to levy a tax, not less than ----
mills on the dollar, for the support of a free public library within
its jurisdiction, and such tax shall be levied if so ordered by a
majority vote of all voters at a general election, on petition signed
by ---- voters.
Any governing or taxing body shall have power to provide, by annual
appropriation, for the support of a free public library, whether or
not a tax is levied as above provided, or to enter into a contract for
library service with another governing or taxing body or with a private
corporation already maintaining such a library.
Section 2
Any library supported as specified in Section 1 shall be governed by a
board of not less than five or more than nine trustees (appointed as
the legislature may provide), which board shall have the powers of a
public corporation and shall perform all acts necessary and convenient
for the maintenance and operation of the library.
The board may receive gifts and bequests, acquire and transfer
property, real and personal, sue and be sued. It shall manage all
libraries owned by the city and may contract with other public bodies
within and without the city, to render library service, adding to its
number, if mutually so agreed, one or more representatives of such
public body. The terms of the members shall not expire coincidently.
Any member may be removed by the appointing or elective power for
stated cause.
Section 3
All moneys collected for the use of the library, whether by taxation or
otherwise, shall be in custody of the city treasurer and shall be paid
out by him on vouchers duly attested by the board and audited by the
proper city authority.
Section 4
All employees of the library shall be appointed and promoted for merit
only, and the board shall adopt such measures as will in its judgment
conduce to this end.
Section 5
If a gift is offered to the library on conditions involving the
performance of certain acts annually, the municipality may obligate
itself to perform such acts, by ordinance which shall not be repealed.
Section 6
The Board shall submit an annual report of its work in detail, with its
receipts and expenditures, to the tax-levying body.
Upon motion by Mr. Wellman it was voted that the above report be
printed as a tentative report in the Bulletin.
Upon motion of Dr. Bostwick it was unanimously voted that the session
of the Council on Thursday evening, June 26th, at which the topic, "The
Quality of Fiction" is to be discussed, be thrown open to the members
of the Association at large.
The Chairman called attention to the vote of the Council which was
passed at the Asheville meeting in 1907, providing that privilege be
given to members of the Council to reserve hotel rooms at the annual
conferences in advance of the membership at large and stated that
a number of members of the Association considered this action as
undemocratic and as undesirable for the Council to continue.
Upon the motion of Mr. Thomson it was unanimously voted that this
ruling be rescinded.
The following persons were appointed by the Chair as a Committee on
nominations to nominate five members for the Council to be elected by
the Council for a term of five years each: H. G. Wadlin, Josephine A.
Rathbone, M. S. Dudgeon, Edith Tobitt, W. O. Carson.
Mr. Ranck presented a report of progress in behalf of the Committee
on ventilation and lighting of library buildings and recommended that
the Committee be continued, which recommendation, upon motion of Dr.
Putnam, was adopted.
The report here follows:
Report of Committee on Ventilation and Lighting
June, 1913.
To the Council of the A. L. A.:
Your special committee on ventilation and lighting can submit at this
time only another report of progress.
After the meeting at Ottawa the matter of having laboratory and other
tests made in connection with the technical and scientific problems
was taken up with certain industrial organizations with a view to the
possibility of having them, in the interest of scientific knowledge,
make the necessary tests for us, at no expense to the Association.
Objection developed against this line of procedure, inasmuch as it
was feared that less confidence could be placed in such tests when
the organization making them (or if the persons making them were in
the service of such an organization) had a commercial interest in the
results of the tests.
Accordingly the effort was made to have the tests made by the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, and also by the Russell Sage Foundation,
both of which efforts failed. The matter was then taken up with the
Department of Commerce, and we are hopeful that we may be successful in
getting the national government to make these tests for us through the
Bureau of Standards.
In the meantime the committee is continuing its investigations and
experiments so far as the limited resources at its command will
permit. In this further study the committee is strengthened in its
belief reported a year ago to the effect that most of the ventilating
apparatus now in use will have to be discarded as junk and that the
whole art and practice of artificial ventilation will have to be
entirely remodeled on a correct physiological basis, inasmuch as the
present basis appears to be entirely incorrect.
We therefore recommend that the committee be continued for another
year. If deemed advisable the committee could prepare a preliminary
report of its findings for publication in the Bulletin of the
Association. Such a report might be of immediate service to librarians.
As an indication of the committee's difficulties in this matter we may
cite the experience of Prof. Brooks of the University of Illinois who,
after years of study and experience in illumination, feels less willing
today to prescribe a lighting scheme than a few years ago.
Respectfully submitted,
SAMUEL H. RANCK,
C. W. ANDREWS,
W. H. BRETT,
E. H. ANDERSON,
ERNEST D. BURTON,
Committee.
Mr. Ranck made an informal statement regarding the irregular and
unsatisfactory fire insurance rates which he had found many libraries
of the United States were securing and recommended that this subject be
investigated by the Council.
It was voted upon motion by Mr. Thomson that a committee of three be
appointed by the chair to investigate the subject of fire insurance
for libraries. The chair appointed as this committee M. S. Dudgeon,
Chalmers Hadley and S. H. Ranck.
There being no further business the Council adjourned.
Meeting of June 26th
This session of the Council was conducted as an open meeting and was
attended by many of the members of the Association at large. The
president presided.
The nominating committee presented the names of Willis H. Kerr, Mary W.
Plummer, Mary E. Robbins, John Thomson and Samuel H. Ranck for members
of the Council for a term of five years each. Upon motion by Dr.
Bostwick it was voted that the secretary cast a ballot for the election
of these members, which was accordingly done.
The remainder of the session was devoted to a discussion of "The
Quality of fiction," discussion being led by Dr. Horace G. Wadlin and
Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick.
Dr. Wadlin spoke as follows:
The Quality of Fiction--I.
The question set for our discussion is not new. It seems to be always
with us. By itself, I do not think it of much importance. It only
becomes so as related to the much larger question of the general
purpose of the public library--what it is supposed to stand for in
the community. All details of library policy revert to that, and the
fiction question is, after all, a detail.
"The quality of fiction"--if I may paraphrase the words of a celebrated
writer of it whose works still compete with the latest "best seller"--
"The quality of fiction is not strained.
It droppeth like the gentle rain from Heaven.
It is, perhaps, thrice blessed;
It blesseth him that writes, and him that prints and sometimes
him that reads.
'Tis mightiest in the mighty and--"
But I refrain from going farther. Beyond that point we reach debatable
ground and I shall add nothing to the sum of human knowledge in that
direction.
When your President asked me to open this discussion, he was kind
enough to imply that the time had arrived when representatives of
the larger libraries, at least, might speak with conviction on this
question. And I suppose I was selected for the reason that the library
for which I am responsible has, through circumstances not entirely
within its control, acquired a reputation for ultra-conservatism in
respect to purchases of fiction; a reputation for which it is entitled
to little praise, if the result be thought meritorious and for which
it should not be blamed if the results are condemned.
For it is well, always, to choose the good rather than evil in any line
of action; to choose it, that is, because you love it. But, if you
don't love it, it is fortunate that in the general plan of nature the
good so surrounds us and hems us in, to say nothing of the consequences
which follow the choice of evil, that, in any case, we can scarcely
escape the choice of good.
With us in Boston, and I take it the conditions are not dissimilar
elsewhere, the practical considerations of providing shelf-room for
new accessions, of keeping the catalog within reasonable limits, the
adequate provision for new books in other departments of literature,
the constant increase in our fixed charges due to the expansion of our
work--these enforce the restriction of purchases of fiction within
limits that may be deemed conservative, whether we particularly favor
conservatism or not.
Therefore I speak with no pride of opinion based upon the policy of my
own library, nor in criticism of the policy of others, nor with any
hope of establishing a hard and fast rule. Criticism is frequently
caustic and bitter. I would fain be persuasive and kindly. It is indeed
my conviction that no invariable rule is possible on this matter or
on other points of library policy. Certain principles hold, but the
application of them must vary in different libraries, and must proceed
in harmony with local environment. Any other course would result in a
system, hard and mechanical, where it ought to be flexible, sympathetic
and humane.
It is said that in some places it is necessary to placate public
opinion by liberal purchases of light and harmless trifles, "bright
and snappy" stories, "big heart-gripping" tales of the moment in order
that the fountain whereon the library depends for its continued life
may not run dry. If that be so, who am I that I should sit in the seat
of the scornful, or pronounce judgment on my neighbor? Any librarian
whose hand is thus forced has trouble enough without my adding to it
with wild and whirling words. After all, such action is not without
precedent--nay, we may go farther and say not without justification.
Old Isaac Walton was not the first who angled successfully with a
concealed hook, and he has his disciples in other than green pastures
or beside still waters. But, speaking seriously, such bids for the
popular approval that may result in enlarged appropriations have
nothing to do with the quality of fiction, and carry no lesson for
those in more fortunate circumstances, who are able to exercise a sane
and untrammelled judgment.
Let us admit freely, that fiction as a branch of literature, is today
important, not merely as a means of relaxation and amusement but of
inspiration and instruction. Whether or not that admission implies that
a public library ought to provide an undue quantity of it is a question
of logic, and to be logical when sentiment will more effectively carry
your point is today fatal in the discussion of more weighty matters
than the one we are now considering. There is, indeed, a form of
printed matter even more frequently used than the novel for relaxation
and amusement. I allude to that required in the great game of Auction
Bridge, and one may gain instruction, perhaps inspiration from that,
but public libraries so far ignore it. Although it has been suggested
that a moving-picture annex, freely used by some millions to the same
ends, might be profitably taken on, and unquestionably the suggestion
has much to recommend it. At all events, that time may not be wasted
in profitless controversy, I grant, at the outset, all that the most
ardent advocates of fiction claim in its behalf.
And since it is asserted that many persons will read nothing but
fiction, and that such reading is especially adapted to put new life
into the tired shop-girl, to illuminate the social gloom that shrouds
the proletariat, by taking him into worlds as unlike his real world
as it is possible to make them, and to put a little more vitality
into the merchant overwrought by too strenuous pursuit of the elusive
dollar, why question its importance as at once a tonic and a sedative,
a general promoter of bright days and peaceful dreams?
Of course, though many think otherwise, it is not undeniably the
business of a public library to act as a pharmaceutical dispensatory
and to make persons read who might much better get a required physical
stimulus in some other way. Mr. Dana some months ago put the reading of
the classics into the limbo of out-worn tradition--put them perpetually
"on the blink," if I may use language similar to that employed in
fiction by Sewall Ford's popular hero--and Miss Corinne Bacon, in a
brilliant paper which, if you have not read it, I commend to your
attention, keenly reminds Mr. Dana that it is not really necessary for
any of us to read at all.
If, however, we dispute the unqualified benefits of fiction reading,
it is the works of the masters which are used to overwhelm us--the
recognized standard novels, quite modern some of them, for the
production of good fiction did not stop with the death of Scott or
Thackeray or Dickens--as if anybody questioned their influence or
their power!
If I wished, on the other hand, to assume the rôle of Mrs. Partington,
and seek to beat back the on-rushing tide of printed matter, all of
which claims to be imaginative and romantic, I should need no better
broom with which to attempt that forlorn and hopeless task than one
made from the strands which Mr. Booth Tarkington, and others actively
engaged in the production of fiction, supplied in the letters read from
this platform Monday evening.
There is a trinity of things, frequently asserted, which I do not
believe, that is, I do not believe them in my present state of mental
development, though I trust I am still open to conviction.
=First=, I do not believe that everybody is entitled to receive at our
hands the books they want, when they want them! I hear it put this way:
The State or the municipality ought to provide any citizen who wants
a book with the book he wants when he wants it.--A moment's candid
examination will, I think, show that this is impossible, and it being
impossible, we need not spend time in disputing the theory.
=Second=, I do not believe that we should buy the book of the day, and
all the books of the day, irrespective of merit; or, as a critical
journal once put it, "Buy the books the world is talking about--merit
or demerit cast entirely aside."
The talk of the people, about the books of the day is, 99 per cent of
it, if we may apply a quantitive measure to that which is immeasurable,
pure gossip, fostered by more or less interested, or paid notices
in the newspapers, and the reading of books which for the moment are
made the subjects of such gossip is of about as much real value to
the average man or woman as was Mrs. A's inquiry after the health of
Mrs. B's old man. Not that she cared anything about his health but the
inquiry helped conversation. And when the book of the day rises above
the plane of mere gossip its interest or value is frequently momentary.
Two years ago, the cheerful idlers on summer hotel verandas were
lightening the burden of persistent application to what, for want of a
better term, is called "fancy work" by reading "The rosary." Last year,
their affections were centered on "The harvester." This year--well, I
refrain from advertising what is likely to be found there.
But surely most public libraries in these days of expanding
opportunity, find it difficult enough to supply things which have
higher civic promise in them, even in fiction, without stocking up
extensively with that which is as evanescent as the foam on the wave.
=Third=, I do not believe--as some do--that the indiscriminate reading
of fiction, even poor fiction, leads finally to the selection of
better books. Once I thought so, and I know that my distinguished
predecessor, Dr. Winsor, held that opinion. But, after some thirty
years' intimate knowledge of a library (outside of Boston), not too
large to permit the study of the peculiarities of individual readers,
this seems to me delusive. If I wanted to promote good reading, I would
not treat it as a pill to be sugar-coated. Good wine needs no bush.
Passing from the triad of things I do not believe I make one positive
affirmation. Every public library should establish a standard. As
a matter of fact, this is done now. For example, the works of Mr.
Charles Garvice are seldom found on our catalogs nor those of Rev.
Silas K. Hocking. These two among the most popular English novelists
of our day, may be found on the shelves of the circulating libraries,
and with several others almost equally well-known, appear among the
miscellaneous attractions of the railway news counters; but not with
us. Why? They are clean, highly moral, in the accepted use of that
word, and not without a certain literary merit. The answer to my query
implies selection, in accordance with a standard.
I said some years ago on this subject, and have seen no reason to
change my opinion, that while there are those who resent what they
call "censorship" on the part of public libraries, nevertheless,
simply because we are public institutions, we have responsibilities to
the public, toward children, at least, and toward those of unformed
literary taste.
Personally, I am not much afraid of the baleful effect of certain books
usually condemned by moralists. Not every one who reads "The pirate's
own book" will take to piracy on the high seas; and a quiet elderly
lady of my acquaintance who reads rather more erotic French fiction
than some would approve, still preserves, so far as I can see, modesty
of demeanor, and, unless skilfully dissembled, an exemplary private
life. I was myself, in my young days a persistent reader of Beadle's
dime novels, which were of size to be readily concealed between Euclid
and Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar, well out of view of the
censor. Oliver Optic was permitted to corrupt my young mind, and since
I had an eclectic taste, I absorbed liberal doses of Sylvanus Cobb,
Jr., Emerson Bennett, and Mrs. Southworth, writers almost unknown to
the present generation. So far, I have escaped the penitentiary and
the home for feebleminded. But that does not justify the exposure of
Burton's "Arabian nights" on open shelves, for which lapse of judgment
we were once criticised by a reputable Boston paper, or prove that
since life is short and art is long and one can not read everything,
and some books are, from any point of view, better than others,
judicious selection may not prevent lamentable waste of time.
Before selection is attempted, the amount available for expenditure
should be fixed, and this should be determined by the income of the
library and the proper relation which, within that income, purchases of
fiction should bear to other necessary expenses. The percentage will
vary, I should suppose, with different libraries. Speaking for my own,
it has by experience been determined at from 20 to 25 per cent of all
expenditures for books. In a recent lean year, it dropped as low as 12
per cent, but in the last four years has ranged from 23 in 1912 to 25
in 1909. I include expenditures for replacements as well as for new
fiction.
All theory apart, no more could have been spent without impairing
the up-keep of other departments. As I have intimated, we are always
confronted, to use Mr. Cleveland's phrase, by conditions rather
than theories. I need not enlarge upon the character of those other
departments. They are not for the use of the dilettante or the
connoisseur. Contrary to an opinion that seems to prevail in certain
quarters, we do not buy extensively, as one critical commentator put
it, either "musty parchments or rare first editions in which not one
person in 50 has the slightest interest or concern."
No. These departments provide for the scholarly use of a library which
is at the center of a group of educational institutions accommodating
probably 10,000 students. It is unthinkable to suppose that this work
of education, of so much importance to our city, could go on without
the aid derived from the library. And I need only mention the various
special collections which have grown up from the beginning, which
are drawn upon each year by students who come to us from abroad, and
from which, on the interlibrary loan plan, we lend annually to other
libraries in the proportion of 1,200 to the 50 which we receive from
them in return.
These phases of our work must be taken into account, just as similar
considerations must be influential in any library, if a proper balance
is to be kept of expenditures for fiction. And bear in mind that every
dollar spent for fiction beyond the proper limit as set by a candid
consideration of conditions and resources, no matter how insistent the
demand--and it is well known that the demand may be so insistent as to
require, without satisfying it, all the money at your command--every
dollar beyond this limit is a dollar drawn from students, from readers
in courses, from work with the immigrant, if you have that problem,
from work with children, from the artisan or mechanic who comes to you
for the books that will add to his industrial efficiency, from your
business men's branch, if one exists. The library cannot be made a mere
depository for fiction. This should go without saying. It does not
propose to include all good fiction in its purchases. The sum set apart
can not all be used for new fiction, but must cover replacements. The
library must also buy fiction in other languages than English.
As to the work of selection, I pass in rapid review our own methods,
concerning which much nonsense has been written. We examine with care
substantially every book in English that comes from the press, which
any public library is likely to buy. Last year, which is perhaps
typical, 890 different books in fiction were considered, including
fiction for young readers. And every book was not merely examined by
title, but was read and commented upon in our interest by at least 3
persons on the average.
Of course, no such thorough examination could be made by the library
staff alone, and we have the services of a volunteer committee of
readers not officially connected with the library. The committee does
not supersede the critical opinion of the librarian or his selected
staff officers. It does not even control. It merely aids by an analysis
of the books and by such opinions, expressed on blank forms provided
for the purpose, as show an outline of plot and treatment, and merits
or defects as they appear, not to trained literary critics, but to
average readers of some cultivation in different walks of life or on
different social planes.
This committee was one of the excellent inventions of my predecessor,
Dr. Putnam, and, shortly after its establishment, it received wide
attention from the press, for the most part based on complete
misconception of its purpose and character. This resulted in creating
an impression as different as possible from the actual, but which still
persists, as the mother-in-law joke persists, or the young lady who
plays the piano in the parlor while mother washes in the kitchen, or
the stage Irishman and Yankee--stock material of the pseudo-humorists.
The genial "Librarian" of the Boston Transcript, who on Saturday is to
tell you how to discourage reading, still has periodic visions of the
"Censors of the Boston public library," just as more timid souls have
created bogies out of Col. Roosevelt or other historic characters. But
the committee has no power to "censor" anything, and the Boston public
library has no "black list" nor has it in my time ever had to become a
censor. It has to choose, and so far as possible within the exercise of
fallible human judgment to choose wisely. It finds itself unable to buy
some hundreds of as good books, perhaps better books, than it buys, but
it censors nothing, being fortunately relieved of a duty from which I
would myself not shrink in exigency, by the limitations surrounding its
choice.
It is one of the curiosities of journalism, this rise of the legend of
the Boston fiction committee. It started from a half jocose article
wholly inconsequential, one would have thought, in a western paper from
the pen of a little-known Boston space writer. Numerous excellent books
not purchased were said to have been "tabooed," and the list went over
the country like wild fire. None of them had been "tabooed," unless
inability to buy is a taboo. Big head lines with Swinburnian fervor
spoke of the "books banned in Boston." From the little daily papers,
the matter spread to the big ones. The Times Saturday Review pointed
out, after scanning some of the titles, that "in some New England minds
exquisite pleasure was akin to wickedness," because of the supposed
censorship of books not bought. The committee was irreverently alluded
to as the "body of spinster censors who since they were themselves
virtuous had determined there should be no more cakes and ale." A
critical literary journal feared that the committee desired "to form
Boston's literary taste on too precious a model," and that since the
majority of the readers were women, "the sense of power may have led
them into arbitrary decisions." A New York paper, not unwilling to have
a shy at Boston, said: "The committee takes an attitude untenable,
Pharasaic, and what the enemies of Boston call Bostonese."
Harper's Weekly, a journal of civilization, expressed curiosity about
the committee: "That the majority of them are young, we know, because
they are not married. But are they red, white, or blue stockings? Do
they approve of straight fronts? Do hoops still gallop in the East
wind?" Drastic comments were received and appeared in print from other
librarians. Mr. Legler's predecessor, entirely in good faith, fell
with the rest. He said he had been told that in Boston they sent new
novels to club women and received their opinions on slips of paper.
He imagined that a good dinner would have something to do with such
reports.
The St. Louis Globe Democrat had a word of commendation, although
equally misled as to the grounds of praise. It said: "The literary
lines are drawn as sharply and perhaps as arbitrarily as the social
ones. Yet this New England trait of severe selection is a blessing
to the country, and has leavened its crudeness from ocean to ocean.
Puritanism has been more or less a critic of the rest of us, but the
criticism has done good. * * * There is doubtless good reason for the
rejections made." But the New York Sun which still shines for all,
said: "The city was so terribly agitated over the wicked censorship of
fiction at the library that the reading committee is doomed to become
an extinct institution."
All of this is ancient history, and I only recall it as showing, in
little, the growth of a popular myth. The committee as an institution
still lives. It has always been representative. As the Bookman once
said of its lists of best sellers, so, in dealing with the reports,
we are not under the impression that we are pointing solemnly to
stupendous critical opinions. We do not even claim that every
individual report is actually accurate and unbiased. But we do believe
that collected and weighed, they are unbiased and accurate in the bulk.
The committee in its membership is subject to frequent changes. It is,
as I have said, free from library influence. Its members are appointed
by the committee itself and we neither approve nor cancel appointments.
At present there are 27 members, men and women, married and unmarried,
(10 unmarried ladies comprise the spinster element), Protestants and
Catholics, French, German, Spanish, as well as those to whom English is
the mother tongue.
They are all fairly intelligent, not illiterate of course, but not
offensively scholarly. They include artists and teachers, several
literary persons, at least two authors of repute, a business man or
two, two physicians, and so on. This analysis shows the representative
character of the committee; that it is made up with breadth of
selection. Its verdict is not conclusive, and aims to reflect only the
opinion which readers of intelligence would form after careful reading.
Other factors are always taken into account in determining whether or
not a book shall be bought. Necessarily, many current novels approved
by the committee are not bought. Frequently novels are bought which
the committee did not approve. But the experience of several years
has shown that nearly all which for various reasons we have found it
impossible to buy have failed to demonstrate their right to live for
even a few brief months. The demand for some of them was insistent for
a short time. Now, their very names are forgotten. If we had purchased
a considerable number of them, the money, so far as present demand is
concerned, would have been wasted. It may be fairly said, however, that
we have bought meantime, so far as our resources permitted, a fair
representation of the best fiction, that which is likely to remain in
constant request. Our supply of standard English fiction is large,
perhaps 50,000 volumes, and is constantly replaced as the books wear
out. We are liberal in providing good fiction for the young. Were our
funds enlarged, we could undoubtedly use a larger number of copies,
especially in branch and deposit work, but, as I have made clear,
we cannot expend a larger amount of our money in this way without
impairing the growth of the library in other important directions.
Whether or not you approve the method that we find helpful, some plan
of selection must be adopted since choice is imperative.
Of course, it would be possible to buy two copies of 500 different
books, or, as at present, perhaps 10 copies of 100 books; the expense
would be the same in either case. But in the first instance the chances
of a borrower getting a copy of any book selected would be much reduced
in comparison with his chance of getting one under the more limited
range of titles. Of course, also, under the first plan, the library
would be free from the impression that many novels had been "banned,"
but the public advantage is greater under the present system.
I have already taken too long. If you find anything in our plan
helpful, I shall be glad. At any rate, I hope I have done something to
lay the ghost of unreasonable censorship which some of you may imagine
hovers over the Boston public library. We have our faults in Boston,
but not that.
Let me take a moment in summing up. Every librarian must determine
for himself how much money he ought to spend for fiction, under his
own local conditions, within his own resources. He should try to keep
a proper proportion in this expenditure, not as measured in Boston
or elsewhere but in that little corner of the earth where his own
library is placed. This is a personal matter, not one of invariable
mathematical relations.
Having done that, he should establish a standard and select with
reference to it. Not my standard--it may not fit the case--but his
own. And this too, like most library functions, is a personal matter.
It will depend largely on what the librarian is trying to do with his
library. For a library should not be a dead thing. It should have a
vital relation to the particular community in which it is placed, and
fit it as the glove fits the hand. Through the books we circulate we
are directly influencing the men and women we reach; not for their
personal benefit or enjoyment only, or to satisfy only their individual
tastes or desires; but that they may become better fitted for their
civic duties, may become happier, more intelligent, more hopeful in
their human relationships.
It is not the book that you give John Smith for the benefit of John
Smith only, that counts, but the book that makes John Smith of greater
benefit to the community. That sentence, which I quote in spirit if
not in exact words from our colleague, Dr. Richardson, expresses the
reason for being of the public library, the only justification for
the maintenance of such libraries by general taxation. Whatever books
contribute to that end are the books that should be bought.
There is nothing in the book itself as it lies on the shelf. It is
neither moral nor immoral nor of any other intrinsic merit or demerit.
"Three weeks," 12 copies of which a commercial circulating library in a
small city near my home kept in constant circulation for a year, is as
good as another in that inert position. But books in contact with the
soul of humanity are no longer dead things. They have something of that
vital quality which gave them birth, as Milton long ago said.
It is sometimes as much our duty to restrain readers as to stimulate
them, and a large circulation per capita without regard to the
character of the books circulated, is as apt to be a sign of the
inefficiency of a library, as it is a thing to be emulated.
This is not a recital of platitudes nor does the subject call for
beautiful phrases about the ideals of the librarian's profession.
On the contrary, it concerns practical results in return for
the taxpayers' money, which comes hard enough at best. It is no
heart-breaking matter whether you buy and circulate 50, 60 or 70 per
cent of fiction. If you bring your percentage down from 70 to 50,
that of itself may not mean improvement. But it is heart-breaking if
you fail to get the books best adapted to secure the results I assume
you are trying to obtain and which you ought to obtain in your own
community.
It may be that what Mr. Dana once facetiously called the "latest tale
of broken hearthstones" is just the thing to give a fillip to the
dormant sensibilities of your patrons--to make them sit up and take
notice lest cracked hearthstones become fashionable in your vicinity.
I do not know. But this I know. You should settle that point with
your own conscience, and when you have settled it, go on, and do not
apologize. In the long run your sins whether of omission or commission,
will find you out. On the other hand, believe me, virtue in this field
as in others, will bring its own reward, and the reward of virtue is
about the only one any librarian can reasonably expect.
Dr. Bostwick was called upon to continue the discussion and spoke as
follows:
The Quality of Fiction--II.
The two things that it is necessary to take into account in selecting
literature are its form and its content. The former largely determines
the literary value of a composition; the latter its practical
usefulness. Poetry and prose are the two great basic forms into which
all literature is divided. Narrative may be cast in either form and
when that narrative is untrue we call it fiction. In the usage of most
of us the word is restricted to prose. Fiction, therefore, is not
so much a matter of form as of content, or rather of the quality of
content. Of two books telling of the lives of the same kind of persons
in the same way the mere fact that one is true and the other not would
class one as biography and the other as fiction.
Of what importance is the fact that of two bits of narrative, one is
true and the other is untrue? That depends on the purpose for which the
narrative is to be used. If we desire an accurate and orderly statement
of facts, the true narrative is the only one of value. On the other
hand, the facts, not of the narrative but incidental to it, may be
true in the fiction and false in the biography. From the standpoint
of the seeker of recreation, the fiction is generally, although not
always, more interesting. The writer has the advantage of being able
to create the elements of his tale and control their grouping, as
well as regulate their form; and in addition he knows that he must be
interesting to secure readers. Unfortunately, historians, biographers
and travellers have generally too high an opinion of their functions as
purveyors of truth to stoop to make it interesting.
As regards literary value, of course the mere truth or falsity of the
narrative can have little to do with this; yet I believe, as a matter
of fact, that fictitious narrative has literary value oftener than
true narrative; for the reason offered above, that writers of truth
consider it beneath their dignity to garnish it, like those fatuous
dieticians who believe that so long as we take so much proteid and
so much carbohydrate we need not worry over forms and flavors. Now I
am supposed to be telling you about fiction and about the propriety
or impropriety of including much of it in libraries, but I think you
see that I am sidling toward the statement that I think we need not
consider fiction at all, as fiction, in this connection. The reasons
for rejecting fiction, when they exist, have nothing whatever to do
with its being fiction, and would apply to non-fiction as well. If
a biography purporting to relate the events in the life of Oliver
Cromwell is full of errors, that is a reason why it should not stand on
your library shelves. If a novel, purporting to give a correct idea of
life in Chicago, succeeds only in leaving the impression that the city
is peopled with silly and immoral persons, that is equally a reason
for rejection. If a history of the Italian Renaissance is filled
with unsavory details, these might exclude it, just as they might
exclude a novel whose scene was laid in the same period. The story of
a criminal's life, if so written as to make wrong appear right, might
be rejected for this reason whether the criminal really existed or not.
A poor, trashy book of travel should no more be placed on the shelves
than a novel of the same grade. And if our book funds are limited we
can no more buy all the biography or travel or books on chemistry or
philosophy than we can buy all the novels that fall from the press. I
do not deny, of course, that any or all the reasons for rejection that
have been adduced might be overbalanced by others in favor of purchase,
and they might be so overbalanced in the case of fiction as well as in
that of non-fiction.
In other words I should not buy a book because it is fiction, or turn
it down for the same reason, any more than I would buy or fail to buy a
book because it is biography or travel. I say I should not do this any
more in one case than in another; I might want to do it occasionally
in both. But I believe that the more we forget the mere issue of
fiction versus non-fiction and try instead to draw the line between
useful books and harmful ones, wise books and silly ones, books that
help and books that hinder, books that exalt and those that depress,
books that excite high emotions and books that stir up low ones--the
sooner we shall be good librarians.
Following Dr. Bostwick's remarks the subject was thrown open to
discussion by members at large.
The chairman said that at his request some very interesting facts had
been extracted from the annual published statements in Publishers'
Weekly, respecting so-called best books of the year. These statements
showed that many of the books which were leading books of particular
years, ten, fifteen and eighteen years ago, had absolutely disappeared
from the list of books which are now in current favor. Some of these
books were found to be unknown to those who are now engaged in book
selection.
Replying to the question as to the percentage of fiction of books
bought by public libraries in Canada, Mr. W. O. Carson of London, Ont.,
stated that in his library the percentage of fiction ran from twenty to
twenty-five per cent and he thought that was a fair average for other
Canadian libraries. Mr. Carson said that the Ontario government bases
the government grant on the amount of money expended on books and they
give no grant on fiction if it exceed more than forty-five per cent of
the amount expended on other books, so in the majority of the small
libraries, they do not expend more than thirty per cent on fiction for
fear of losing a government grant on anything that exceeds that amount.
Replacements are included in this percentage.
Dr. Steiner said that a number of years ago Mr. Ranck and he prepared
a paper on replacements and their attention was called to the very
large proportion of expenditure for replacements which had to be used
for fiction and that this was particularly noticeable in a library of
some age, as in the case of the Enoch Pratt Free library of Baltimore.
The speaker thought it should be borne in mind in connection with the
purchase, whether the amount expended was mostly for current fiction,
mostly for replacements, whether a new branch was being stocked or
whether a library was being stocked which had not been sufficiently
provided previously with standard works. The exact proportion of
fiction in any one year should be governed by these three factors, if
not by others. Dr. Steiner said that their library last year wore out
in round numbers about 7,000 books, of which at a rough guess at least
six-sevenths were fiction. They replaced about 5,000 books including
most of the non-fiction books, leaving from 1,500 to 2,000 volumes in
fiction which were allowed to expire by limitation. In every case where
a book wears out, the circulation department reports whether that book
is regarded by them as being worthy of replacement and if the book be
not a duplicate but is an original copy the recommendation is always
brought to the librarian, who occasionally overrules the decision of
the circulation department in the case of original copies, but so far
as duplicates are concerned, the opinion of the circulation department
is absolutely accepted.
Dr. Andrews said he had found it very useful in the work of selection
to discriminate between those books the library does not intend to
buy at present and those which it will not accept even as a gift, and
that in fiction it might be especially valuable to have some line of
exclusion. He asked whether the chairman or Miss Bascom could recall
what is the proportion of comparison between the recommendation of the
Boston book committee as read by Mr. Wadlin and that of the A. L. A.
Booklist.
Miss Bascom replied that as she recalled it for 1912 of about 1,000
novels published about 140 were included in the Booklist, adding that
she supposed that the greater number of the entire output were read.
The chairman said that from figures which he had caused to be compiled,
it was found that in this country and Great Britain something like
80,000 titles belonging to the classification of fiction had been
printed since 1882 in this country and 1880 in Great Britain. Mr.
Wadlin said that the A. L. A. Booklist contained titles of fiction
which the Boston public library had not bought simply because they
could not, having bought other things instead. Local conditions govern
their book selection to a considerable extent.
The question being raised whether librarians experienced any
considerable pressure brought to bear upon them to purchase certain
books, the opinion was expressed by Mr. Ranck, Mr. Wadlin and others
that this pressure was not nearly so great as one might think would
be the case, that those demanding the purchase of a certain book were
reminded that the library had a limited income and that the question of
selection always had to be very carefully considered and that books not
purchased were not necessarily excluded for any other reason than lack
of funds.
Representatives of the library schools being asked to what extent the
lectures given in library schools were intended to exert an influence
either for or against the wide purchase of fiction, Miss Hazeltine of
the University of Wisconsin library school, said it was their effort
to teach the students to buy the best books with the money at their
disposal--those of the best literary value--and to buy many duplicates
of the best fiction.
Dr. Bostwick said that those libraries that have pay collections
of duplicates ought to state whether their reports include the pay
collections of duplicates or not and what relation this collection
bears to the original copies. In St. Louis it is the tendency to buy
rather a small number of copies of each work of fiction for regular use
and put these books as far as possible into duplicate collections. The
pay collection of duplicates in St. Louis varies very much. In three
of the branches it has not even been begun, the librarians of these
branches reporting that there is no demand for it. In two branches it
is very popular and in the central library fairly so.
Dr. Hill thought it was not wise to give a smaller number of copies to
the public for free use than to the department where pay is requested.
It seemed to him that the public should have just as many copies of a
book as those who can afford to pay one or two cents a day. In Brooklyn
they give the same number of copies to the free circulating department
as to the duplicate pay department. Dr. Hill said the Brooklyn public
library last year spent for replacement, juvenile and adult, $50,000
out of the $80,000 which was spent for books, or something like 60 per
cent for fiction both new and replacements.
The chairman said he was much interested in a statement printed in
Collier's about two or three years ago in which was enumerated the
result of the publishing activities of the father of the present
publisher, who started the line of inexpensive editions of Dickens,
Scott and others of a similar character. It was noted in that summary
that the firm had sold in this country seven million copies of the
works of Charles Dickens and four or five million copies of Scott's
works, not individual titles, but the complete works of those authors.
This means of course that a surprisingly large number of the best
novels by these writers must be in the homes of the people who use the
public libraries and that these people use the libraries to supplement
their own private collections. Consequently, no particular conclusions
can be drawn as to the actual character of the reading done by these
people from the fact that books they get from the public libraries are
mostly the quality of fiction which is put out at the present time.
Mrs. Sneed said there was one rule for the selection of fiction which
she generally gave to her library school class every year. This was the
rule of Henry van Dyke: A book of fiction is really worthy to be bought
if it has not given an untrue picture of life, if it has not made vice
attractive or separated an act from its consequences. The speaker
thought that if this rule was applied in reading one would not go so
very far astray.
Mr. Bishop said he had been greatly interested in the last five years
in the selections made by the public itself. The Library of Congress
receives, of course, all the copyrighted fiction and places one copy at
least of practically every book of permanent value upon its shelves.
After the temporary agitation of the immediate advertising is over the
public itself goes back to lines that are surprisingly good in every
way.
Mr. Gould said that Mr. Dutton, the publisher of Everyman's Library,
recently told him that he had now sold over one and a half million
copies of the books in Everyman's Library, which was a good indication
of the market found for standard works.
Mr. Jast, the English delegate, being called upon by the chair,
contributed also to the general discussion, after which the session
adjourned.
Meeting of June 28th
A meeting of the Council was called to order by President Anderson
immediately after adjournment of the conference.
The following resolutions were received from the Government
Documents Round Table and were read and adopted by unanimous
vote.
The following resolutions were passed unanimously at the
adjourned meeting of the Documents Round Table, Friday, 12:15
p. m., when the Special Committee on Resolutions, consisting of
Miss E. E. Clarke of Syracuse University, Mr. H. J. Carr of
Scranton, and Mr. H. O. Brigham of Rhode Island, appointed at
the regular meeting on Thursday, reported as follows:
WHEREAS, The American Library Association desires to express
the appreciation of its members respecting the efficient work
that has been and is being done for libraries by the office of
the Superintendent of Documents, nevertheless it recognizes
the many hampering features that still control the issue and
distribution of public documents. Believing that these features
can be materially lessened, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED, That this Association approve and urge the
early enactment of Senate Bill 825 entitled, "An Act to amend,
revise, and codify the laws relating to the public printing
and binding and distribution of Government Publications," now
pending before the Sixty-third Congress; strongly recommending,
however, that the parenthetical exception now included in the
first proviso of Section 45 of said bill be stricken out so
that the annual reports of departments shall not be treated as
Congressional Documents.
BE IT ALSO RESOLVED, That this Association repeat its former
recommendation urging that the text of all public bills upon
which committee reports are made, shall be printed with the
report thereon.
GEO. S. GODARD,
Chairman Documents Committee.
The following report was made to the Council by Dr. Andrews in behalf
of the Committee on affiliation with other than local, state and
provincial library associations.
Your Committee on affiliated societies respectfully report
that they have proceeded in the way proposed and approved
by the Council at its meeting in January. They regret that
circumstances have prevented them from presenting a final
report but they believe that substantial progress has been made.
In May the Committee sent to the presidents of the four
affiliated societies the following letter:
"The Council of the A. L. A. has appointed a committee to
formulate the relations which should exist between the
Association and affiliated associations other than state,
provincial, etc., in return for the privileges accorded them.
The committee understand that this action was taken largely
because one or two of the societies had expressed a desire to
contribute toward the expenses of the Association. This desire
was duly appreciated by the council, who felt that it would be
well to take definite and formal action. The committee propose
that hereafter these privileges shall not be extended to other
than affiliated societies without formal vote of the council,
except that the program committee will be authorized to do
so for the first meeting of any newly-formed society. They
propose to recommend, also, that the present provision shall
be continued,--namely, that each affiliated society shall meet
with the Association at least once every three years. They also
expect to recommend that some contribution towards expenses
be required, but wish that the manner and the amount of the
assessment be determined after consultation with the societies,
and have asked that I secure an expression of your opinion on
these points. They would consider the amount suggested by one
of the societies,--namely $25.00, as a maximum. The grounds for
such a contribution are evident, but it may be well to state
them as follows:
"1. Participation in the special railway accommodations.
"2. Provision for rooms and meals at reduced rates.
"3. Provision of rooms and time for meetings.
"4. Participation in the activities of the meeting.
"5. Printing programs, announcements in the Bulletin, and
assignment of 15 pages in the Proceedings.
"The cost of preparing for and holding a convention is about
$500.00, that of the Bulletin and Proceedings, including
editing and distributing, about $1,500.00. Provision of hotel
rooms and travel facilities is not a matter of money, but
frequently involves disappointment to individual members who
apply too late.
"As stated already, the committee have not agreed on any amount
or method. They have considered a flat amount of $15.00 to
$25.00, one dependent on the number of members in the society,
who are not members of the Association, and one dependent on
the number of such members who attend.
"Personally, I think the logical method would be a combination
of the first and third, and suggest that there be an initial
amount of $10.00 or $15.00 and an additional charge of 50 cents
or 25 cents for each member attending who is not a member of
the Association. Of course, this additional charge will not be
asked for official delegates of libraries who are members.
"Kindly let me have an expression of your opinion on this
subject at your earliest convenience and oblige.
"Yours truly,
"(Signed) C. W. ANDREWS."
They have just now received replies from all and formal action
has been taken by two. All, though perhaps with varying degrees
of cordiality and readiness, recognize the justice of the
proposed arrangement. There is quite naturally some variance in
their suggestions as to the proper amount of the contribution
to be made and the method by which it is to be computed. The
committee desire to consider carefully these suggestions and
to reconcile their variations as nearly as possible. They
would like to discuss them in a personal meeting of the whole
committee, as well as by correspondence, and hope that the
winter meeting of the council will afford them an opportunity
to do so, and to formulate a by-law for the consideration of
council.
They therefore submit the foregoing as a report of progress.
For the Committee,
C. W. ANDREWS.
It was voted that this report be received as a report of progress and
further consideration be referred to the mid-winter meeting in January,
1914.
Adjourned.
AGRICULTURAL LIBRARIES SECTION
(Round Table, June 27, 1913, 2:30 p. m.)
Mr. Charles R. Green, librarian of the Massachusetts Agricultural
College, was acting chairman of the meeting, which was an informal one
without a regular program. Miss Emma B. Hawks, of the U. S. Department
of Agriculture library, acted as secretary. The subjects for discussion
were (1) Catalog cards for agricultural experiment station publications
and (2) The indexing of agricultural periodicals.
Mr. C. H. Hastings first spoke briefly in regard to the printing of
cards by the Library of Congress for the publications of the state
agricultural experiment stations. Cards have already been issued for
the Illinois and Indiana station bulletins, the copy being supplied
by the university libraries. Before going on with the work for the
other stations, he thought it desirable to consult with the Office of
Experiment Stations in regard to a plan of co-operation by which the
same card might be used both for the Library of Congress cards and for
the "Card index to experiment station literature" issued by the office.
It would be much more economical to have only the one card printed,
if possible. Miss E. B. Hawks expressed doubt as to whether such an
arrangement could be made, inasmuch as the form and purpose of the
Office of Experiment Stations card index differ so widely from those
of a dictionary catalog. Mr. Hastings thought that it would do no harm
to make the attempt and said that he would consult with the librarian
of the Department of Agriculture and the director of the Office of
Experiment Stations in regard to it. If such an arrangement can not
be made he thought the Library of Congress would be willing to print
separate cards, having the copy supplied by the station or college
libraries, if they are willing and able to do the cataloging.
Mr. H. W. Wilson then spoke in regard to the publication of an index
to agricultural periodicals. He stated that he has had a good many
demands for such an index and has delayed adding any agricultural
titles to the Industrial Arts Index, because it may be better to have a
separate one. Those who have written to him about it have almost always
expressed a preference for a separate index. Miss Hawks asked whether
some titles might not be included in the Industrial Arts Index now,
and then removed if a separate agricultural one were begun. Mr. Wilson
replied that there was some likelihood of the Agricultural Index being
begun next year, in which case it would hardly pay to do anything with
the agricultural literature before this. There was some discussion as
to the scope of the index. Mr. Wilson said they would wish to include
only journals of national standing. Mr. C. R. Green thought that there
were not more than about six of these. Mr. H. O. Severance thought
there would be many more than this, including papers devoted to special
phases, as poultry, bee keeping and stock raising. Dr. C. W. Andrews
doubted whether the farm papers were worth indexing. He thought that
the matter was rarely original, but that the articles of value are
worked up from Station and Department of Agriculture publications. Mr.
Wilson said he had had more demands for an Agricultural Index lately
than for an index of any other subject.
Inquiry was made as to how many subscriptions would be needed to
justify the starting of a separate index. Mr. Wilson could not
say definitely. There might be two plans--one, the division of
subscriptions among subscribers. The basis for the Industrial Arts
Index was 20 cents a title--40 cents for a weekly. The other plan is
a sliding scale of charges by which a library having a great many of
the periodicals indexed pays a higher price, thus enabling the smaller
ones to pay something but not a higher price than they can afford for
the service rendered. Mr. Wilson stated that he was willing to go to
the expense of a referendum to find out the wishes of libraries on
this subject, with a view either to the starting of a separate index
or the incorporation of some agricultural journals in the Industrial
Arts Index. If the idea of a separate index is abandoned, he would
almost certainly add some titles to the Industrial Arts Index. Mr.
Green thought that he might count on active support of the Department
of Agriculture library and all the agricultural experiment stations. He
was not sure what further support there would be. Mr. Wilson thought
the demand would probably be an increasing one.
Meeting adjourned.
CATALOG SECTION
FIRST SESSION
The first session of the Catalog Section was held Wednesday afternoon,
June 25th, the chairman, Miss Harriet B. Gooch, of the Pratt Institute
school of library science, presiding. As the minutes of the last
meeting had been published, their reading was omitted.
The report of the committee on the cost and method of cataloging was
called for, in response to which Mr. A. G. S. Josephson, Chairman of
the committee, stated the present report was but a preliminary one, to
be followed by a final report next year. The Catalog Section took no
action on the report since the committee was appointed by the Executive
Board of the Association, not by the section.[3]
[3] The report and questionnaire is printed in connection with the
minutes of the Executive Board.
Miss Gooch then stated that the discussion for the afternoon was the
administration of the catalog department considered first in its
relation to the other departments of the library, and second as to its
management of its own affairs looking toward simple, inexpensive and
rapid methods of work. She explained that the discussion was concerned
with library systems consisting of a central library with a number of
branch libraries, and was to be treated both from the librarian's and
from the cataloger's point of view.
The discussion was opened by Mr. F. F. HOPPER, of the Tacoma public
library.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE CATALOG DEPARTMENT FROM A LIBRARIAN'S POINT OF
VIEW
In the reorganization of our libraries, in the adoption of modern
progressive and simplified methods, in the effort to develop and
improve service to the public, the catalog department has tended to
be drawn out of relation to the other departments, to become in a
way isolated, and as a result its efficiency has been impaired. The
attention of librarians has been given to other phases of library
activities and therefore they know less about the catalog department
than any other. Undoubtedly the technicalities of the cataloging
process make it most difficult for librarians to grapple with, but all
the more carefully should we consider ways and means of increasing the
efficiency of the process, relating the work more closely to changes
in other departments, and studying methods of possible simplification
of the routine mechanical work that seems to have largely increased of
late.
In one of Mr. Carlton's reports to his board of trustees, he uses these
words: "It has often seemed to me that in library administration the
catalog department was much like the police department in municipal
administration. It is frequently under investigation; it is constantly
being reformed; its defects are felt in many other departments; and its
heads are always changing as one after another breaks down or fails to
achieve impossible results."
Surely such an unsatisfactory and unwholesome condition is not without
remedy.
If I can not presume to submit a definite plan of reformation, perhaps
I may at least attempt to suggest possible lines of investigation for
each librarian to pursue.
1. The catalog room.
In the modern organization of work, the first care is to provide
work-rooms in which the highest efficiency may be maintained.
Scientific investigation shows the extravagance of conditions which
retard speed and multiply unnecessary motions, which do not provide
adequate light and air and proper colors to conserve strength, arrest
fatigue and support the energies. In planning buildings we properly
endeavor to bring the catalog department into the closest possible
relation with the order department, the book stack and the reference
department, to save steps which mean time and money. My observation
is that frequently there is not the same care exercised in planning
the room itself as there is in locating it. Often it is too small, so
that work clogs up, books must be shifted too often (an expensive
process), too many corners must be turned in getting about the room and
the assistants impede one another's progress. On the other hand, a room
may be so large that time is wasted in getting about it. To be sure
this is a rare fault. I have seen cataloging rooms admirably placed for
convenience of access to stack, reference room and order department,
and really adequate in size, but so devoid of light and air that even
a hardened devotee of our reading rooms would fear to enter such a
place. Plenty of windows, if possible on two sides of a room, and ample
indirect artificial lighting are just as important for the efficiency
of the catalog department as like facilities for the public reading
rooms.
2. Relation of catalog department to other departments.
When friction develops between two departments (of course it never
does; this is merely a hypothetical case), my observation is that the
catalog department is pretty likely to be a party to the affair. Why?
Simply because as organization within libraries has developed, the
catalog department has been left more and more to its own devices.
In the departments working with the public, the tendency has been
to complexity of organization, perhaps, but still to elimination
of detail, simplification of method, the sacrifice of theory to
practicality that the public may have the feeling of freedom and ease
and be given the quickest and best service with the least red tape.
During this process the catalog department has continued to develop
theory unchecked by daily strenuous contact with the busy borrower, to
increase routine and mechanical work, still opaque to the searchlight
of scientific investigation from outside the department. You need
publicity, but all you ever get is pages and pages of blasts against
the poor old battle-scarred, but more-or-less-still-in-the-ring
accession book, which in nine cases out of ten belongs to another
department anyway. The illuminating power of publicity for the
devious ways of cataloging and the development of a better spirit
of co-operation, are to be obtained perhaps best of all by the
establishment of entirely feasible definite relations between the
departments. As Miss Winser will develop this topic, I will leave
it here, simply remarking that in my experience the opinions of one
department about the organization and detail of another department
are frequently of the utmost value, but rarely the opinions of other
departments about the catalog department, whose problems are not
understood.
3. Organization of the department.
(1) General type of organization.
The development of the modern elaborate systems of scientific
management in the various forms of industry has for the most part
superseded the best type of ordinary management known as the
"initiative and incentive system." Under the old system success
depends almost entirely upon the initiative of the workmen, whereas,
under scientific management, or task management, a complete science
for all the operations is developed, and the managers assume new
burdens, new duties and responsibilities. Having developed the science,
they scientifically select and then train, teach and develop the
workmen. The managers co-operate with the men to insure all the work
being done in accordance with the principles of the science which
has been developed. The work and responsibility are almost equally
divided between the management and the workmen. The combination of
the initiative of the workmen and the new types of work done by the
management makes scientific management so much more efficient than the
old way.
"All the planning which under the old system was done by the workman,
as a result of his personal experience, must of necessity under the new
system be done by the management in accordance with the laws of the
science."[4] One type of man is needed to plan ahead and an entirely
different type to execute the work. Perhaps the most prominent single
element in modern scientific management is the task idea. The work of
each workman is fully planned in advance by the management and the man
receives complete written instructions, describing in detail the task
he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in doing the work.
And the work planned in advance in this way constitutes a task which
is to be solved by the joint effort of the workman and the management.
This task specifies not only what is to be done, but how it is to be
done and the exact time allowed for doing it.
[4] F. W. Taylor, "Principles of scientific management."
It is said that "the most important object of both the workmen and the
management should be the training and development of each individual in
the establishment, so that he can do (at his fastest pace and with the
maximum of efficiency) the highest class of work for which his natural
abilities fit him," but it is nevertheless true that to some extent
scientific management contemplates the selection of the workman best
fitted for one particular task and keeping him at that task because
he can do that better than any other. Within the narrow domain of his
special work, he is given every encouragement to suggest improvements
both in methods and in implements. In the past the man has been first;
under modern methods the system is first.
I have attempted to summarize some of the principles of so-called
scientific management, because in the organization of our cataloging
work definite principles of any kind of management have rarely been
evident throughout, and if we are to observe accurately the system of
this department, and study it with a view to possible improvement, we
must test its work by some existing scientific standards.
The =science= of cataloging has been pretty fully developed, and at
least its technique is taught in our professional schools. Therefore
it may be assumed that we are now reasonably conforming to the first
ideals of scientific management when we select with due care for
the headship of our catalog departments and for the more important
positions, those trained in the principles of the science. I personally
believe that the principles of scientific management should be actively
employed by the head cataloger in the definite planning of the work
of the individual, in the testing of the speed and accuracy of the
individual for a special task, and in the insistence that speed for
each task shall definitely conform to careful but easily made tests
of the amount of time that should be consumed in performing the task.
There are plenty of results of experiments in other lines of work
which show that the output is increased, the cost lessened, by the
constant planning and supervision and co-operation of the head of the
department, and consequent abandonment by him of a corresponding amount
of special detail work of his own that he heretofore may have done.
But now I must register an emphatic exception to the application of the
exact principles of scientific management to a catalog department.
I believe the principles of scientific management as developed for
the organization of industry and business, should undergo a distinct
change or be abandoned entirely in their application to one most
important phase of the organization of a catalog department. Scientific
management does consider the health and comfort and freedom from
fatigue and efficiency of the individual, but always with a view to the
effect upon a particular task and upon increased output at reduced
cost. In other words the emphasis is placed on the task, not at all
on the broad development of the individual. In library work, human
sympathy, a broad point of view, the fullest possible development of
personality are of the utmost importance; esprit de corps, the spirit
of loyalty and co-operation are of more importance than a particular
task. I assume that needs no argument. Scientific management, fully
applied, would, it seems to me, defeat this vital purpose of library
organization, and would more effectually differentiate and isolate the
catalog department than is already the case in many libraries.
This leads to some illustrations of my meaning by
(2) Some practical considerations of the organization.
I do entirely believe in a distinct and complete organization of a
catalog department, not in the system some libraries use in having a
department head, but without assistants definitely and wholly assigned
to the one department. It is my observation that to insure quick,
accurate, consecutive and thoroughly efficient work, not only must the
department head devote practically her whole time to the one job,
but at least enough assistants also, to insure continuity of work. I
am not in favor of the head of the department being part of the time
assistant in the children's room or even in the reference room. Such a
plan is altogether too extravagant. The manager of a department needs
to give undivided attention to the supervision of the work of the
department. The head of the department is constantly brought directly
in touch with the general administration of the library and with other
department heads, and a possible tendency to narrowed point of view
is thus checked to some extent. There are also some assistants who
are naturally fitted to the work of the catalog department and not at
all to meeting the public. If we secure an assistant evidently suited
for catalog work, but for no other, we should bend all our energies
to making her the most efficient possible cataloger, and not deprive
the catalog department of her constant services in order to make a
vain attempt to develop other sides of her personality and give the
public poor service in the process. In my judgment, in a library
cataloging from 25,000 to 35,000 volumes a year, a head cataloger, a
first assistant, and probably at least two other assistants should
give their whole time to the department and so form the backbone of
the organization. To this part of it the principles of scientific
management may be thoroughly applied.
My idea of the necessity for divergence from those principles comes
when we consider the need for the development of some members of the
cataloging staff by other sides of library experience, and also when
we consider the importance of mutual understanding and co-operation
between the departments. All librarians experience difficulty in
obtaining assistant catalogers because a candidate is very often
reluctant to devote herself wholly to the routine operations of the
catalog department. In many such cases, it would be possible to
secure an excellent part-time assistant for the catalog department,
if we would offer work for part of the day in a department dealing
with the public. In this way we would achieve a double purpose. The
experience of all librarians, I am confident, will indicate the
inestimable advantage to the point of view of the catalog department
and to the catalog itself if some one of considerable importance in
the department gives a part of each day to reference work, and another
assistant a part of each day to the loan department. I think it is not
so important that a cataloger devote some time to work with children,
and it is also true that such an arrangement is rarely of value to
the children's department, where special qualities and training are
all-important. On the other hand, it is desirable that someone with
the training and experience of a children's librarian, give to the
catalog department time for the assignment of subject headings for the
children's catalog. The work of the catalog and order departments is
most closely related and yet it is my experience that misunderstanding
between those departments is not infrequent. An assistant whose time
is divided between the two should and does work to the advantage of
both departments. With the exception of the one representative from the
children's department, I do not believe that the possible advantage
gained by having assistants from the departments which deal with the
public give part time to cataloging, by any means equals the loss of
efficiency attending the change from one manager to another or the
loss in the work itself, for it is unusual that one assistant should
do equally high-class work in two such distinct fields. I know that
some say that the majority of really good desk assistants possess
the education, the clear and discriminating mind, the accuracy and
resourcefulness of the good cataloger and are of value in the catalog
department. Also it is true that the suitability of each assistant
for each department would of course be considered when interchanges
are arranged. Nevertheless it is my observation that excellent desk
assistants ordinarily can do well only the merest clerical work in a
catalog department, and usually they do not appreciate the accuracy and
minute care required in cataloging work. Certainly it is extravagant
to use a part of the time of a presumably fairly-well-paid, good desk
or reference assistant for merely mechanical work in the catalog
department, which otherwise would be done by a cheaper grade of service
than the better grade of catalog assistants. Also the special care
and extra time wasted by head catalogers in revising the work of such
assistants is an expense worth consideration.
4. Cost of cataloging.
Many complaints are heard from librarians of the seemingly excessive
cost of cataloging. Few practical suggestions seem to have been made
for reducing costs, except in the elimination of some details, such
as accession books. Since I understand a committee is investigating
this whole question, I have not attempted to obtain any statistical
information. In the few fairly large libraries whose estimates of the
cost of the process have come to my attention, the estimated cost of
purchasing, accessioning, and cataloging a book, including labelling,
gilding, card filing, and everything necessary to secure a book and
prepare it for use, ranges from 30 cents to about 65 cents. These cost
estimates vary, not only because of differences in the elaboration or
simplicity of the processes, but also because of the difference in the
character of the books added, large numbers of duplicates for schools,
branches, etc., being more easily and cheaply handled than separate new
titles.
There can be little question that scientific management, properly
used, will reduce the costs of cataloging work. Adequate planning and
supervision of all processes by the head cataloger, the classifier
and others in charge of divisions of the work, can make for speed. I
am convinced that we do not really know the maximum length of time
which an assistant should be allowed to keep at one certain task.
An assistant typewriting shelf-list cards should do rapid work for
perhaps three hours. After that a measure of fatigue makes change
of occupation advisable for the individual, and economical for the
department. Slight fatigue from typewriting will not, however, impair
efficiency in a different sort of work. A point worth considering here
is, that the change in the occupation of a higher-grade assistant in
order not to impair efficiency, should not mean time given to a lower
or more mechanical grade of work. That is extravagance. Impending
mental fatigue does not mean that mental processes are to be abandoned.
Just as much rest is obtained, and efficiency is really increased, by
simple change of the mental groove. Here the advocate of the general
exchange of assistants between departments might say that the advisable
thing to do is to send the assistant to another department. In most
cases I believe that such a change is a mistake, because a change from
one department to another means too great a break in the continuity of
management in two departments. One manager can plan more effectively
for the entire working time of an individual than two managers can plan
for the two halves.
The development of library schemes of service, branches, stations,
children's rooms, work with schools, has all added enormously to the
routine and mechanical processes of cataloging. More shelf-lists, more
catalogs, and all sorts of differentiation in the processes suitable to
the special need have multiplied details faster than most librarians
realize. It is this tremendous complexity which has worn out head
catalogers, increased costs, and made administrators clamor for the
elimination of unnecessary detail, without having a real understanding
of what the detail is and is for.
Deterioration in the cataloging process will injure other departments,
but undoubtedly most libraries have superfluous refinements that could
well be omitted with economy in cataloging, and no loss to the chief
end of all our work.
It is a temptation to consider carefully the methods which might save
expenses in the cataloging process, but I can take time only to make
brief reference to some of them, most of these having been frequently
discussed at length before.
(a) Careful planning of catalog room for convenience, to save all
unnecessary motions.
(b) Scientific supervision of tasks to produce greatest speed without
undue fatigue.
(c) Stopping the publication of many monthly bulletins. Some bulletins
of the larger and certain particular libraries are of inestimable
value to other libraries. Most of these bulletins are printed from
the linotype slugs used in printing their own catalog cards, and
consequently the labor is minimized. The bulletins of most libraries,
I firmly believe, are of no possible use to other libraries, and the
material in them would be much more read by the public if published in
the newspapers, as it should be in any case, and if the special lists,
which are the most useful part of many bulletins, were printed on a
multigraph, instead of being buried in forbidding bulletins that no
able-bodied ordinary man in his senses could be driven to read.
(d) Use of Library of Congress cards. Some people say they do not save
time. I recommend those people to recatalog a library without them,
also to attempt to get along without them for a while for current
additions. To the best of my knowledge they do save money, and I know
they save wear and tear on typewriter machines and ribbons, and they
save temper, which is nervous energy and worth while saving. If you
don't believe that last read Goldmark on "Fatigue and efficiency" and
then you will. Besides, Library of Congress cards look better than
typewritten cards and have more durability, since typewritten cards rub
and fade and have to be rewritten too frequently.
(e) What real objection can there be to simplifying the cards you write
yourselves? It does not matter if they are not consistent with Library
of Congress cards. No living borrower would know whether they were
consistent or not, and no dead one would matter. Besides if variety
is the spice of life, consistency is the vice of it. Nobody but a
librarian ever worried about being consistent. I regret I can't even
except the clergy.
(f) Omitting book numbers for fiction saves a vast amount of time and
sacrifices little. They do not add beauty, and they cause endless
trouble and expense without due compensation.
(g) As to the accession book: I mention this because everyone does,
and therefore, lack the courage to pass it without remark. Some
library reports say that they save the time of one assistant by doing
away with it. The fact that practically all of them say it, no matter
what size the library in question is, makes one suspicious. I think
they are just copying each other's reports, which is not fair. If,
however, the accession book is abandoned, and the bill-date, source
and cost for each copy of a book are added to a shelf-list card which
contains author, title, publisher and perhaps date of publication, much
writing is saved and all necessary information is preserved. In the
Minneapolis public library, which makes the closest estimate I have
seen, four hours per 150 books are said to be saved by such a method.
No small matter! It is my personal opinion that the accession book is
superfluous in a library which is completely cataloged and shelf-listed.
(h) An interesting change due to the study of motions is recommended
in the procedure for shelf-listing by the Minneapolis public library:
"Formerly one person marked the call number on the back of the title
page, and assigned the copy letter, then the book was taken by
another assistant who marked the book slip, the pocket and the label.
This meant two people handling the book, the second doing only the
mechanical work of copying; hence the work must be revised by someone
else, or many mistakes occurred in the work of even our best markers.
Now, the shelf-lister, who knows the meaning of the number and has it
already in her mind, marks all books as she lists them, and the work
goes through faster and more accurately."
(i) Trying to save money by omitting the yearly inventory, particularly
for open shelves, is a mistake, I believe. One does not save money by
gaining discredit for failing to keep track of his wares.
(j) It is doubtless superfluous to recommend throwing away antiques,
like withdrawal books.
(k) The use of the multigraph for writing catalog and shelf-list cards
is certainly economy if the number of catalogs is large enough to
require pretty large duplication. The shifting of much mechanical work
to a less highly-paid class of assistant and the saving in revision of
all but the first copy of a card, are distinct gains.
(l) There are doubtless many mechanical devices which will be adopted
to advantage in cataloging in the next few years. Many machines of
different sorts have greatly changed bookkeeping methods, making the
bookkeeper an initiative force in administration of business houses,
and certainly similar economy systems will be developed for the
cataloger.
5. Efficiency of the individual in the department.
The routine work of cataloging brings fatigue sooner than an occupation
involving more variety, although the effects of this form of fatigue
may not cumulate so rapidly. It is consequently of special importance
that the executive pay particular attention to the application of
the principles of scientific management to the efficiency of the
individual. The utmost care must be taken that energy shall be
carefully directed and not be over-expended. Unduly prolonged attention
to a particular kind of work resulting in the long run in nervous
exhaustion is a familiar phenomenon of cataloging. Dr. Richardson
says that for correction and verification work, two hours a day is
the maximum for highest efficiency. My observation is that continuous
work at the typewriter should not exceed three hours. Although filing
is largely mechanical work, it is also very wearying because of the
decided monotony of it, and there is a marked tendency to tire quickly.
Since errors rapidly increase with fatigue, the service is directly
injured, as well as indirectly through the ultimate effect on the
health of the individual.
In general the carefully trained assistant not only knows how to go
about his work with more dispatch, with less need for supervision, with
more real efficiency, but also with less wear and tear on his nervous
energy. An added argument for the economy of paying higher salaries to
obtain adequately trained assistants! I have had excellent opportunity
to observe the effect of the graded salary on the efficiency of
a cataloging staff. The increased interest, the new energy, and
the altered spirit are marked when a graded service is installed,
particularly when it is realized that efficiency, as well as length of
service, is considered.
It is not necessary to discuss recreation in the library, as the
subject relates to the catalog department no differently than it does
to the others. The same may be said about vacations, but in passing I
should like to say that I agree entirely with Dr. Bostwick's idea of
them as assignments to special work. It seems to me that assistants
should be required to obtain the approval of the executive to the plans
for their vacations. I have taken vacations myself which were certain
to do me no good, and consequently do my work harm, and it does seem
that I ought not to expect pay for such a misuse of the library's
time. The change in the hours of service in the circulation department
of the New York public library from 42-1/2 hours a week to 40 hours has
caused widespread approval. I wonder if anyone has called attention
to the fact that slight changes in climate affect the ability of the
individual to work a certain number of hours. For instance, I know from
experience that it is possible to work longer without discomfort in an
even climate, not subject to extremes of either heat or cold, than it
is in the climate of New York. There are certain parts of the country
where it takes less energy to work 42 hours per week throughout the
year than it does to work 40 hours correspondingly in New York.
With more attention to light, air, attractive appearance and convenient
arrangement of room, avoidance of fatigue in spite of rapid work
or monotony, sensible hours, some degree of variety in work, sane
vacations, some outdoor exercise during each day, decent pay on a
graded basis, the efficiency record of the cataloging staff in many a
library should be raised, their organization held intact, and their
humor and good-humor have some chance to appear.
The subject was continued by Dr. ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, of the St. Louis
public library, who spoke as follows:
From the administrative standpoint the library life of a book is
divided very distinctly into two periods, that before it is placed on
the shelves and that after it is so placed. The first period, embracing
selection, order, receipt, classification, cataloging and mechanical
preparation, is strictly preliminary to the second and would have no
reason for being except for the second. The public recognizes the
second chiefly and knows of the first vaguely and inadequately. To
the library, and especially to that part of the staff engaged in the
operations proper to it, it bulks large.
The librarian of a large library often finds himself obliged to act,
in a measure, as the public's representative, taking the point of
view of the thousands of readers, rather than of those who operate
the machinery directly under his own control. To one who is actually
handling the levers and pulleys, the machine often seems to be the
thing. The general administrator, somewhat removed from this direct
contact, is better able to see it as it is--a means to an end.
Hence to the chief librarian, this period of preparation must always
be a cause of anxiety. Its cost and its duration especially worry him.
While his training and experience do not permit him to minimize its
importance, he would like to make it as cheap and as short as possible.
The reader wants his book, and he wants it now--as soon as he sees the
notice of it in the paper. The departments of the library that have to
do with its preparation are anxious only that this preparation shall
be thorough, realizing that on it depends the usefulness of the book
in the second, or public, period of its life. The impatient reader
sees no reason for any delay. The co-operating departments see every
reason. The librarian sees the reasons, too, but it is his business, to
a certain extent, to take the reader's part, and insist that the book's
preparation shall not be so thorough that by the time of its completion
two-thirds of the necessity for any preparation at all shall have
passed, never to return.
It therefore becomes an important part of his duty to hurry up the
work of preparation, and it is my experience that this duty becomes
difficult of performance, wellnigh impossible, when the work and
responsibility of preparation devolves upon two or more departments.
It has sometimes seemed to me that a majority of my working hours
were occupied in settling disputes between the order and catalog
departments, in futile endeavors to fit the responsibility for delays
upon one or the other and to decide which of them, and when, was
telling the truth about the other. It was thus with a feeling of
relief, although somewhat of surprise, that I found myself four years
ago at the head of a library where the preparatory stage of the book's
life is entirely in charge of one department, a plan involving of
course the consolidation of the order and catalog work.
My four years' experience has convinced me that in many cases this
plan may be the solution of some of the librarian's problems. It does
not do away with delay: it does not make the library staff assume the
reader's point of view, or even the librarian's; but it does reduce
the number of department heads with whom the librarian has to deal
in his "hurry-up" campaign, and it does unify a responsibility whose
division continually causes him trouble and vexation. That we so
seldom see the combination of this work arises from the fact that the
various stages of the book's preparation are rarely looked upon as
parts of a whole. The ordering of books is regarded as a business in
itself, requiring its own kind of expert knowledge and completed when
the book has been delivered and the bills checked off. The cataloger,
again, is proud of the degree of technical perfection to which he has
brought the multiplicity of detail in his work. He has a high sense
of its necessity in the library's scheme. Few see that both these
processes, together with mechanical operations of pasting, labelling
and lettering on which everyone looks down, are simply stages in
the work of preparation, through which a book must pass before it
becomes an integral part of a modern library. These are not separate
departments of work, one completed before the next is begun; they are
interwoven and interdependent in all sorts of ways. Books can not be
ordered properly without a catalog. Books can not be cataloged properly
without information necessary in the operation of ordering. It becomes
a question of library policy, then, whether these operations may not be
combined, and the considerations adduced above form at least a strong
argument for such combination.
I have purposely dwelt on this matter from the standpoint of a general
administrator and have therefore not gone into details, which it will
be easy for you to obtain if you desire them.
In closing, let me say that I believe catalogers to have in a high
degree that devotion to their task and that skill and interest in
working out its details, that have made the American public library
what it is. What they need to guard against is the aloofness arising
from the separate and technical character of that work. Many of them
realize, and all of them should do so, the fact that the catalog
is made for the reader; not the reader for the catalog. We may try
to train our readers to use our catalogs, but to the end of time we
shall still have to deal with the unintelligent, the careless and
the captious, and we must try to adapt our catalogs more or less
to them. The cataloger may have to break cherished rules, to throw
tradition overboard, to act in many ways that will scandalize his
profession. Contact with as many other departments of the library as
possible--realization of his position as a cog wheel in contact with
other cogs, will help on the good work.
The following paper written by Miss BEATRICE WINSER, of the Newark free
public library, was read in her absence by Miss Agnes Van Valkenburgh,
of the library school of the New York public library:
THE RELATION OF THE CATALOG DEPARTMENT TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS IN THE
LIBRARY
The subject assigned to me is the relation of the catalog department
to other departments in a library. There is a feeling abroad that it
is the tendency of librarians to consider their catalog departments as
things apart, the details of whose management, long ago settled by
experts, should be modified only as those experts may suggest.
Probably chief librarians do not have the habit of refraining from
giving frequent and careful examinations in the catalog departments,
or have less interest in the improvement of those departments
than in others; but, because it has been possible for experts to
formulate rules, as it has not been possible for anyone to do for
other branches of the work, the chief librarians have quite naturally
allowed themselves to pay less and less attention to the details of
these departments, which have thus lost the stimulus which the chief
librarians give to the departments with which they largely concern
themselves.
This, naturally, as I have already said, tends to make of the
cataloging department a thing apart and much efficiency is lost to the
library as a whole because of it.
For the purposes of this paper I propose to include in the scope of the
cataloging department much of the work on books from their selection to
their placing on the shelf.
It must be borne in mind that I am speaking of public libraries and not
of college, historical, scientific or special libraries of any kind,
and that I am making suggestions only.
Book Selection
The selection of books instead of being a difficult and complicated
matter calling for hours of study and conference, is really quite
simple. Every librarian should expect his more intelligent assistants
to make suggestions and help to keep his or her own collection up to
date, but final decisions as to purchase should rest in the hands of
two or three only. An attempt to let a dozen or more people discuss at
meetings the value of any book or books and the propriety of adding
this or that to the library costs enormously in time and money, and
serves no useful purpose.
It improves the quality of the books selected but little, it tends
to develop undue caution and to make the choice too literary and,
if it helps to educate the assistants, it does so at too great a
cost. The desire is often expressed that a library should contain "a
well-rounded, well-balanced collection of books." This phrase sounds
well and perhaps impresses the trustees or the town, but what does it
really mean? Were we to follow it to its logical conclusion we would
all buy in certain fixed proportions, all kinds of books and while we
might then lay claim that we had a well-balanced collection, we would
be far from filling well the special needs of any special community
in which we might be placed. In point of fact every library buys what
it thinks it needs most, in most cases it will be found that the
books selected are the best books for that library. Most books buy
themselves, others cry out to be selected. The clientele is waiting for
them. The small remnant of specially chosen books call for no elaborate
conferences. Why have any system of recording the fact that you did
not buy certain books at this time, since next month or next year
the book not bought has been displaced by another? Besides, you can
always discover from your bibliographical aids the books you have been
compelled to miss, so why duplicate the work already done for you?
Now let us look at the purely clerical side of book ordering. Do we
fill out an elaborate order slip with all sorts of bibliographical data
needed for comparatively few books only? All that is really needed by
bookseller and library is the author, title and publisher of a book,
and the latter even could be omitted in most cases.
Do we economize time and labor by writing our orders so that with the
aid of carbon paper, we have an order slip to file, one to send to the
bookdealer and another to the Library of Congress for the purchase of
cards?
When a consignment of books arrives do we have some elaborate system of
checking it off the bill? Do we use cabalistic signs in our books so
that the public may not by any chance discover the price of them? Or do
we simply write in plain sight the price, source and date of the bill
in each book, check the book on the bill and pass it on?
Have we ever tried the experiment with say the Fiction Class of not
giving either price, source and date of bill in the books?
Suppose we buy all our novels from one bookseller, as most libraries
do, and announce to the staff generally and also drop a card into the
official catalog and the shelf-list to the effect, that after such or
such a date, neither the source nor price will be found in any novel,
as everyone knows that all novels are bought from John Smith and cost
$1.00. Think of the time saved! I am willing to wager that no library
could report any ill effects from this change.
As to the few novels which sell at net prices, the money lost in
charging the usual rate of $1.00 is negligible compared with the
time saved in making these unnecessary entries. To comfort the
super-conscientious librarian the loss would actually be covered in
many cases, because the reprints of novels often cost less than $1.00.
Accession Record
Now let us go on to the accession book and ask how many use the regular
or the condensed book and why?
Do you cling to the theory that it is the one complete record of every
book in your library and would be most useful in case of adjustment of
fire losses? I can't deny that it is a complete record of every book,
but of what use is that to the library?
As to the adjustment of fire losses, are the books in your library
arranged in accession order so that in case of fire you could show
the insurance adjusters which books were burned by referring to your
accession books?
Do you claim that the accession number is still necessary so that you
may know the number of books added and to help distinguish one copy
of a book from another? Why not use the Bates numbering stamp as an
automatically accurate recording device, and save time and money? Do
you use the accession book for securing each month the number of books
added in any one class, which of course the Bates numbering stamp can
not give?
To get this one record we employ the time of a person in making other
useless records, when all we need is a blank book in which we enter in
a few minutes all books under date and class number. In the same book
we enter in another place the books subdivided under heads of purchase,
binding, periodicals and gifts. Thus at tremendous saving we can answer
at once the question of how many books are added during any month and
in what class.
Do you perhaps keep an accession book, so that you may secure the price
and source of a book reported lost by a borrower? How much lost motion,
to say nothing of time and money, is expended annually in libraries
where assistants turn from their shelf-list to their accession book
for these facts which should be given on the shelf-list card!
Classification
Have you ever thought how much it costs your library to have it
classified by a college and library school bred person? I am using
these terms as synonymous with an educated person. Have you ever
noticed how much time she spends in getting a book into what to her is
the exact class and place?
Now I am not arguing for less educated people in our public libraries,
far from it, but I wish to call your attention to the amount of time
and money expended by you in too minute and particular classification.
Have you ever thought that quite a coarse classification is just as
good for your library as the rather particular one which causes your
head cataloger to spend half an hour over a book which might just as
well be made ready in five minutes?
Often, after much time has been spent in debating this point or that,
about some special feature of a book, and it has at last been placed in
a certain division, it will be found more useful with its fellows in a
coarser or broader division.
I am only suggesting that time could be saved here without impairing
the usefulness of the library.
Cataloging
This is that division of library work which one must approach as the
holy of holies, leaving one's shoes on the mat outside.
Please do not assume that I do not appreciate what it has meant to
the public library to have experts formulate a set of rules which
any library can use. I am not objecting to the rules, but to the
application of the rules. We spend hours, days, months, and years in
giving paging, illustrations, size, publishers and place of publication
on our catalog cards and all for what purpose pray?
What does the average user of a public library want to know? He wants
to know whether you have a book by a certain author, by a certain title
or on a certain subject. Ninety-five per cent of the borrowers of books
want nothing more than that, and I am excluding fiction entirely.
Consequently for the possible five per cent, and that is a high
percentage, you spend much time in giving gratuitous information. The
man who knows his subject goes to the bibliographies of the subject and
does not depend upon your card catalog for bibliographical information.
Let us look into these valuable items, aside from the very necessary
author and title, supplied on catalog cards.
Paging. Did your reference people ever report any need of it in serving
the public? I never heard of such need.
Place of publication and publisher. Both these items are occasionally
asked for, but why spend time in putting them on all your cards for
the sake of the few who wish to know, since you can immediately refer
to Books in Print for current books and for all others to the many aids
published for the librarian.
The date. Well, I might grant that it serves a better purpose than the
other items, but I doubt its great usefulness.
Do you in addition to the very necessary shelf-list for all the books
in the library, have a special shelf-list for Branches? Have you ever
thought of the time given to keep the record of all the books at your
Branches?
What purpose does it serve, since your Branches have their own record
of the books they have?
I know of one library which kept such a record and finally decided
to give it up, since it cost a great deal of money, and seemed after
careful consideration to be of little value. Not the least harm has
resulted from the change and the cataloging department has almost
forgotten that it was ever done.
Does the head cataloger work at least one day a week in the lending
or reference department for the sake of getting away from her own
point of view and to imbibe something of the real needs of public and
assistants? Try it, even if you think you can't afford it and I venture
to prognosticate that your cataloging department from being the seat of
the learned and superior will become a really valuable aid to all the
other departments.
Within the limits of my paper I have been able to cite only a few
examples of the changes which might be made in the method of putting
books on the shelf in most of our public libraries, but I hope that the
very obvious things I have said may serve to help in simplifying the
work of a profession already much overburdened with technique.
The fourth paper in the discussion by Miss LAURA SMITH, of the
Cincinnati public library, was entitled:
ADMINISTRATION OF A CATALOG DEPARTMENT FROM A CATALOGER'S POINT OF VIEW
The ideal of the modern library is service to the community, but the
tendency has been to estimate this service by statistics as printed
in library reports. Columns of figures, showing the number of books
cataloged and the cards made, represent but a small part of what can be
done and should not be taken as a measure of value of the cataloging
department to the library patrons. The old idea of the library was
the omniscient librarian who served all the readers from his store of
knowledge, but the development of the modern library movement, bringing
an increased patronage, made it necessary to delegate some of this
work, and libraries were set off into departments. Gradually mechanical
appliances were introduced and personal aid was limited to the favored
few while the average reader was helpless in the face of machinery
whose workings were a mystery to him. It reminds one of the story of
the fine hospital donated by a philanthropic citizen to a thriving town
of the middle west. The building was a model of hospital architecture,
the furnishings were the most modern obtainable and the institution
was ideal in every respect, adjudged by experts the latest thing in
hospitals. A poor citizen, foreign by birth, took his wife to this
hospital for treatment. The next day he went to inquire for her and was
told that she was too ill to see him, but the attendant offered to take
him through the building and show him all the modern improvements. The
man was interested and followed his guide through the various wards,
listening attentively to his lecture on the advantages of the latest
improvements in hospital service. The second day he returned to learn
the progress of his wife's case, but she was still too ill to see him,
so the attendant showed him some more improvements, which he had not
seen the day before. The man was greatly impressed. The third day he
returned and was told that his wife had died. When asked by a friend
what disease had ended her life, he replied, "I don't know, unless it
was the improvements." So the library has adopted progressive methods
and among other improvements it has walled a room with the latest model
of catalog trays filled with cards as silent guides to the collection
of books. Printed signs, which no one reads, give intricate directions
as to the use of this monster; a human assistant is rarely in sight.
Has the library the right to expect the public to know how to use a
catalog? A trained assistant should be stationed here, and who are
better qualified for this service than the members of the cataloging
staff? At this point is one of the opportunities for the cataloger's
most efficient service to the community.
The chief requisite of a well-organized catalog department is a corps
of intelligent, educated, trained assistants who have had several
years' experience. The raw recruit from the library school is an
expense to the service because library school graduates find difficulty
in adapting themselves to the existing methods of most libraries.
This fault is sometimes individual but more often it is due to the
different methods of cataloging taught in the various schools. There
should be uniformity of method on this point, full cataloging should be
taught in all the schools because it is far easier for the cataloger
to learn omissions than to acquire a knowledge of full cataloging when
the short form only has been taught in the school. Subject-heading
work can be taught only in a general way. Years of experience are
needed before an assistant is competent to assign subject headings,
therefore a constantly changing staff is an item of expense worthy of
serious consideration. Subject headings might be in the hands of a few
assistants but there is advantage in having the views of many minds
under the supervision of one reviser.
An understanding of the community and of existing conditions within
the library, added to a thoroughly assimilated knowledge of cataloging
methods, increases the value of an assistant. Changes are usually due
to small salaries, and to better financial conditions elsewhere, but
adding a reasonable amount to the salary of a competent assistant is a
good investment. To be sure, it foots up on the pay roll as a larger
outlay than the substitution of a less experienced assistant at the
same or a smaller salary. What the pay roll tells, however, is not
borne out by the facts because on it there is no financial accounting
for the time of the administrator of the department which is consumed
in breaking in a new cataloger while the more important things wait,
or go by default. Positions in the cataloging department should yield
a financial return sufficient to make their incumbency more or less
permanent for it is possible to accomplish more with a smaller staff of
experienced assistants than with a larger number of those new to the
business.
When the library has gathered together the best staff of catalogers
it can afford it should not put them, like a collection of expensive
bric-a-brac, behind closed doors with only the regulation catalogers'
tools as guides, and expect them to yield the best return on the
investment. The best cataloger needs the stimulus of personal contact
with the public as an aid to the most intelligent work. When the
cataloging department has a sufficient number of well-trained,
experienced assistants, a schedule of work which permits direct contact
with the public for at least one-third of the time and a system of
co-operation between departments with freedom from unnecessary
interruptions to the routine as planned, the catalog is a labor saving
tool reducing the net cost of production by the time saved to the
circulating and reference departments.
The cataloging for a large library system should be done at the central
library for several reasons. The main cataloging offices are there
with the collection of reference books and the official files showing
what headings and entries have been used. The expert catalogers and
revisers are better fitted for the responsibility of the cataloging
than the assistants at the branches, distracted by other work. The
enormous number of cards necessary for the various catalogs are more
economically duplicated by writer press, or multigraph, than by hand
or typewriter because time is saved in this way in the actual making
of the cards, in numbering and putting titles on printed cards and in
proof reading, or revising, for in revising typewritten cards, each
card must be carefully scrutinized, while from the writer press only
the first copy needs revision. When copies of the same title are to
be purchased for several branches, the cost of cataloging is greatly
reduced if all the copies reach the cataloging department together as
time is thus saved in all the processes of preparing the books for
circulation, from the accessioning to the pasting of the labels. In
the case of fiction this is always possible but with other classes,
while it is not always expedient to purchase for the main library
and the branches simultaneously, the branch librarians and order
department can simplify the process by prompt decision as to the number
of branches to which titles are to be added, so that all cards may be
ordered or made at the same time. By this means one order for printed
cards and one setting up of copy for writer press or multigraph is
sufficient. When books come to the catalog department singly and at odd
times the labor of verifying author entries and subject headings is the
same as for new titles, and the making of cards becomes a mechanical
process only when they are to be made in large quantities. Every branch
added to the library system increases the work of the cataloging
department, a fact often lost sight of by the chief administrators of
a library. There seems to be a popular delusion that each new addition
to the library family means only a duplication of cards while the fact
remains that most of the processes in the routine practically consume
as much time and thought as if the title in hand were new in the
library. In the case of shelf-listing it is obviously easier and takes
less time to make a brand new shelf-list card for a book than it does
to withdraw the card from the shelf-list, make an addition to it and
refile the card.
If the main building is so arranged that one card catalog can be used
conveniently by all departments much expense will be saved. But if
there must be department catalogs, author and subject entries should
be uniform so that the individual catalogs may be simply duplicates
of certain divisions of the general catalog. Subject headings in the
public library should be simple enough to be within the comprehension
of the average reader. To simplify headings for children is a useless
expense and an insult to the child who is often more intelligent than
many adult readers. The public library being "an integral part of
public education" should not be guilty of senseless simplification even
though the kindergartners may accuse us of "taking away the joy of
childhood." If the so-called simplified headings are used they can not
be filed with other headings, therefore two separate catalogs in each
branch must be maintained at extra expense.
All non-essentials should be eliminated from the mechanical processes
of preparing books for the shelves. The time of high-priced service
should be used for the scholarly work, duplication of cards and routine
clerical work do not require a college education nor library school
training. Printed cards should be purchased whenever possible. It is
not necessary to become hysterical over the superfluity of information
on some of the Library of Congress cards because the average user of
a catalog in a public library does not read beyond the first line of
the title, and therefore is not confused by bibliographical details.
On the other hand, this same detail is valuable to the few readers who
need it. Another groundless objection to the use of these cards is the
statement that books must be held until the cards are received. If
there is co-operation between the order and the cataloging departments,
books and cards may be ordered and will come to the cataloger about
the same time. When they do not the books should be sent through on
temporary slips. This adds slightly to the cost of handling, but
saves the reputation of the library in the circulating department. The
printed card should be accepted when it agrees with the title page,
but when the card requires changes which mar its appearance it should
be rejected. When the cards must be made by the individual library the
extra bibliographical detail should be omitted for purposes of economy,
and the catalogs would still be uniform and accurate in essentials.
Entries must be accurate, uniform and as consistent as possible that
the catalog may save the time of the reference librarians, since
effective reference work can be done only when the library is well
classified and cataloged and quick service is possible only under these
conditions.
The plan to combine the catalog and reference departments, the
assistants working one-third of their time in reference work, brings
excellent results. In the first place the assistants come in direct
contact with the public for part of every day. The knowledge of books
gained by examination for full cataloging can be made directly useful
to the public. On the other hand, the demands of the reader, his
peculiarities of expression and his general attitude toward the library
give inspiration to the work in the cataloging department as to subject
headings and analyticals to be made. The change of work is restful and
enables the assistants to accomplish much in a day without becoming
weary of either line of work. The efficiency of the assistants depends
upon their ability to bring the book and the reader together and as the
cataloger has the advantage of studying the books she should therefore
bring this knowledge to the public through personal contact.
Emphasis is put on the increased usefulness of the staff by reason of
the ability to appreciate the relation between the library and the
public and to bring into the daily life of the community the increased
knowledge of books.
What has been said is not intended as a criticism of any method of
administering a cataloging department, but is an effort rather to
present a plan which from practical experience has proved successful.
The discussion was then thrown open to the floor, with the suggestion
from the chairman that it take the following lines:
1. Is the catalog department too confined in its organization and too
distinctly separated from other departments?
2. How much mechanical work should be done by expert catalogers? Who
should do the mechanical work and where should it be done?
3. What should be the relations between the catalog and the shipping
departments?
Mr. Hodges, of the Cincinnati public library, said that each library
had to use a system suited to its individual needs, that in Cincinnati
there was no head of the order department, that he considered the use
of catalogers in the reference department during rush hours a good plan
as they were usually well fitted for the work, that in his library
there was a single head of the catalog and reference departments.
Miss Hitchler, superintendent of cataloging of the Brooklyn public
library, said that co-operation could be effected between departments
without interchange of assistants.
Mr. Hopper said that the obstacle to combining the heads of the catalog
and order departments in one person was that a knowledge of cataloging
and a knowledge of the book trade were seldom combined in one person.
During the discussion of the second point--that of scientific
management within the department--Miss Van Valkenburgh raised a laugh
by inquiring where we are to draw the line in keeping track of our
efficiency.
Mr. Martel, of the Library of Congress, in answer to the charge made
against catalogers of over-elaboration, as for example in the matter of
periodical records, said that under-elaboration often proved quite as
expensive as over-elaboration.
SECOND SESSION
Friday, June 29.
The second session of the Catalog Section was held on Friday afternoon,
June 29, Miss Gooch presiding.
Miss Van Valkenburgh, Miss Hiss, and Miss Dame, were appointed as
nominating committee by the Chairman.
The session took the form of an informal discussion on simplified
forms of typewritten catalog cards, and was held at the desire of the
committee of the Professional Training Section on uniformity of forms
of catalog cards. This committee was appointed in January, 1912, and
consists of Helen Turvill, Chairman, Agnes Van Valkenburgh, Harriet B.
Gooch.
The Chairman directed the discussion by taking up point by point the
form of card recommended by the committee for the practice work of
the library schools. Typewritten cards for a public library of about
50,000 volumes, to be filed with L. C. cards, were taken as a basis of
discussion.
Among the details considered were the following, with the decisions
which seemed most generally favored by those present:
=Brackets.= Omit brackets for material inserted in heading but use in
title and imprint.
=Initial article.= Use initial article, unless including it would
entail repeating author's name in the title.
=Initial possessive.= Omit author's name in the possessive case at the
beginning of a title, and cancel it when used on L. C. cards.
=Editor, etc.= In the title use the name of the editor, translator,
etc., in the form given on the title page.
=Imprint.= Include place, publisher and date of publication together
with inclusive copyright dates if they differ from the date of
publication.
=Collation.= Give main paging, illus., ports., maps. Give size only if
unusual.
=Position of items.= Begin collation on a new line and indent.
=Secondary cards.= Give author and title only on secondary cards. (Main
subject cards are not considered secondary cards.)
Other details discussed were use of points of omission, form of series
note, tracing cards, headings in joint-author entries, the place for
paging in an analytical note, entry under pseudonym versus real name,
entry for adapter.
At the close of the foregoing discussion, the matter of having a
permanent A. L. A. committee on cataloging was brought forward, and
upon Miss Van Valkenburgh's motion, it was determined to request
the Executive Board of the A. L. A. to appoint a permanent catalog
committee to which questions in cataloging may be referred for
recommendation.
Miss Sutliff then suggested that an A. L. A. code of alphabetizing
would also be welcome. Mr. Martel, in response to a question by the
Chairman, said that the Library of Congress followed the Cutter Rules,
but had working notes that might be helpful.
A motion put by Mr. Keogh was then passed that the Executive Board of
the A. L. A. be asked to send a request to the Librarian of Congress to
furnish the code of alphabetizing used in the Library of Congress for
publication.
An amendment to the foregoing to include the words "with changes for
small libraries" failed of passage.
The nominating committee then submitted its ticket: Chairman, Charles
Martel, Chief of the Catalog Division, Library of Congress; Secretary,
Edith P. Bucknam, Chief of the Cataloging Department, Queens Borough
public library.
After the election, the meeting adjourned.
SECTION ON LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN
FIRST SESSION
The first session of the Section on Library Work with Children was held
in the ballroom of the Hotel Kaaterskill, at 2:30 p. m., June 24th,
with the Chairman, Miss Power, in the chair. In the absence of Miss
Lawrence, Miss Ida Duff acted as secretary.
Two papers on the subject of "Values in library work with children"
were read; the first by Miss CLARA W. HUNT, superintendent of the
children's department, Brooklyn public library.
VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN--I
You are probably familiar with the story of the man who, being asked
by his host which part of the chicken he liked best replied that "he'd
never had a chance to find out; that when he was a boy it was the
fashion to give the grown people first choice, and by the time he'd
grown up the children had the pick, so he'd never tasted anything but
the drumstick."
It will doubtless be looked upon as heresy for a children's librarian
to own that she has a deal of sympathy for the down-trodden adult of
the present; that there have been moments when she has even gone
so far as to say an "amen"--under her breath--to the librarian who,
after a day of vexations at the hands of the exasperating young person
represented in our current social writings as a much-sinned-against
innocent, wrathfully exploded, "Children ought to be put in a barrel
and fed through the bung till they are twenty-one years old!"
During the scant quarter century which has seen the birth and marvelous
growth of modern library work with children, the "new education" has
been putting its stamp upon the youth of America and upon the ideas of
their parents regarding the upbringing of children. And it has come to
pass that one must be very bold to venture to brush off the dust of
disuse from certain old saws and educational truisms, such as "All play
and no work make Jack a mere toy," "No gains without pains," "We learn
to do by doing," "Train up a child in the way he should go," and so on.
Our kindergartens, our playground agitators, our juvenile courts, our
child welfare exhibits are so persistently--and rightly--showing the
wrongdoing child as the helpless victim of heredity and environment
that hasty thinkers are jumping to the conclusion that, since a child
is not to blame for his thieving tendencies, it is our duty, rather
than punish, to let him go on stealing; since it is a natural instinct
for a boy to like the sound of crashing glass and the exercise of skill
needed to hit a mark, we must not reprove him for throwing stones at
windows; because a child does not like to work, we should let him
play--play all the time.
The painless methods of the new education, which tend to make life too
soft for children, and to lead parents to believe that everything a
child craves he must have, these tendencies have had their effect upon
the production and distribution of juvenile books, and have added to
the librarian's task the necessity not only of fighting against the
worst reading, but against the third rate lest it crowd out the best.
It is the importance of this latter warfare which I wish mainly to
discuss.
We children's librarians, in the past fifteen or twenty years, have had
to take a good many knocks, more or less facetious, from spectators
of the sterner sex who are worried about the "feminization of the
library," and who declare that no woman, certainly no spinster, can
possibly understand the nature of the boy. Perhaps sometimes we are
inclined to droop apologetic heads, because we know that some women
are sentimental, that they don't all "look at things in the large," as
men invariably do. In view, however, of the record of this youthful
movement of ours, we have a right rather to swagger than to apologize.
The influence of the children's libraries upon the ideals, the tastes,
the occupations, the amusements, the language, the manners, the home
standards, the choice of careers, upon the whole life, in fact, of
thousands upon thousands of boys and girls has been beyond all count as
a civic force in America.
And yet, while teachers tell us that the opening of every new library
witnesses a substitution of wholesome books for "yellow" novels in
pupils' hands; while men in their prime remark their infrequent sight
of the sensational periodicals left on every doorstep twenty years ago;
while publishers of children's books are trying to give us a clean,
safe juvenile literature, and while some nickel novel publishers are
even admitting a decline in the sale of their wares; in spite of these
evidences of success, a warfare is still on, though its character is
changing.
Every librarian who has examined children's books for a few years back
knows exactly what to expect when she tackles the "juveniles" of 1913.
There will be a generous number of books so fine in point of matter and
make-up that we shall lament having been born too late to read these
in our childhood. The information and the taste acquired by children
who have read the best juvenile publications of the past ten years is
perfectly amazing, and those extremists who decry the buying of any
books especially written for children are nearly as nonsensical as the
ones who would buy everything the child wishes.
But when one has selected with satisfaction perhaps a hundred and
fifty titles, one begins to get into the potboiler class--the
written-to-order information book which may be guaranteed to kill all
future interest in a subject treated in style so wooden and lifeless;
the retold classic in which every semblance to the spirit of the
original is lost, and the reading of which will give to the child
that familiarity which will breed contempt for the work itself; the
atrocious picture book modeled after the comic supplement and telling
in hideous daubs of color and caricature of line the tale of the
practical joker who torments animals, mocks at physical deformities,
plays tricks on parents, teases the newly-wed, ridicules good manners,
whose whole aim, in short, is to provoke guffaws of laughter at the
expense of someone's hurt body or spirit. There will be collections
of folk and fairy tales, raked together without discrimination from
the literature of people among whom trickery and cunning are the
most admired qualities; there will be school stories in which the
masters and studious boys grovel at the feet of the football hero; in
greater number than the above will be the stories written in series on
thoroughly up-to-date subjects.
I shall be much surprised if we do not learn this fall that the world
has been deceived in supposing that to Amundsen and Scott belong the
honor of finding the South Pole, or to Gen. Goethals the credit of
engineering the Panama Canal. If we do not discover that some young
Frank or Jack or Bill was the brains behind these achievements, I
shall wonder what has become of the ingenuity of the plotter of the
series stories--the "plotter" I say advisedly, for it is a known fact
that many of these stories are first outlined by a writer whose name
makes books sell, the outlines then being filled in by a company of
underlings who literally write to order. When we learn, also, that an
author who writes admirable stories, in which special emphasis is laid
upon fair play and a sense of honor, is at the same time writing under
another name books he is ashamed to acknowledge, we are not surprised
at the low grade of the resulting stories.
With the above extremes of good and poor there will be quantities on
the border line, books not distinctly harmful from one standpoint--in
fact, they will busily preach honesty and pluck and refinement, etc.,
but they will be so lacking in imagination and power, in the positive
qualities that go to make a fine book, that they cannot be called
wholly harmless, since that which crowds out a better thing is harmful,
at least to the extent that it usurps the room of the good.
These books we will be urged to buy in large duplicate, and when we,
holding to the ideal of the library as an educational force, refuse
to supply this intellectual pap, well-to-do parents may be counted
upon to present the same in quantities sufficient to weaken the mental
digestion of their offspring beyond cure by teachers the most gifted.
There are two principal arguments--so-called--hurled at every librarian
who tries to maintain a high standard of book selection. One is the "I
read them when I was a child and they did me no harm" claim; the other,
based upon the doggedly clung-to notion that our ideal of manhood is
a grown-up Fauntleroy, infers that every book rejected was offensive
to the children's librarian because of qualities dangerously likely to
encourage the boy in a taste for bloodshed and dirty hands.
Now, in this day when parents are frantically protecting their children
from the deadly house fly, the mosquito, the common drinking cup and
towel; when milk must be sterilized and water boiled and adenoids
removed; when the young father solemnly bows to the dictum that he
mustn't rock nor trot his own baby--isn't it really matter for the
joke column to hear the "did me no harm" idea advanced as an argument?
And yet it is so offered by the same individual who, though he has
survived a boyhood of mosquito bites and school drinking cups, refuses
to allow his child to risk what he now knows to be a possible carrier
of disease.
The "what was good enough for me is good enough for my children" idea,
if soberly treated as an argument in other matters of life, would
mean death to all progress, and it is no more to be treated seriously
as a reason for buying poor juvenile books than a contention for the
fetich doctor versus the modern surgeon, or for the return to the foot
messenger in place of electrical communication.
It would be tactless, if not positively dangerous, if we children's
librarians openly expressed our views when certain people point
boastfully to themselves as shining products of mediocre story book
childhoods. So I would hastily suppress this thought, and instead
remind these people that, as a vigorous child is immune from disease
germs which attack a delicate one, so unquestionably have thousands of
mental and moral weaklings been retarded from their best development
by books that left no mark on healthy children. In spite of the
probability that there are today alive many able-bodied men who cut
their first teeth on pickles and pork chops, we do not question
society's duty to disseminate proper ideas on the care and feeding of
children.
Isn't it about time that we nailed down the lid of the coffin on the
"did me no harm" argument and buried the same in the depths of the sea?
Another notion that dies hard is one assuming that, since the
children's librarian is a woman, prone to turn white about the gills
at the sight of blood--or a mouse--she can not possibly enter into
the feelings of the ancestral barbarian surviving in the young human
breast, but must try to hasten the child's development to twentieth
century civilization by eliminating the elemental and savage from his
story books.
If those who grow hoarse shouting the above would take the trouble to
examine the lists of an up-to-date library they might blush for their
shallowness, that they have been basing their opinions on their memory
of library lists at least twenty-five years old.
We do not believe that womanly women and manly men are most
successfully made by way of silly, shoddy, sorry-for-themselves
girlhoods, or lying, swaggering, loafing boyhoods; and it is the empty,
the vulgar, the cheap, smart, trust-to-luck story, rather than the
gory one, that we dislike.
I am coming to the statement of what I believe to be the problem most
demanding our study today. It is, briefly, the problem of the mediocre
book, its enormous and ever-increasing volume. More fully stated it is
the problem of the negatively as the enemy of the positively good; of
the cultivation of brain laziness by "thoughts-made-easy" reading. It
is a republic's, a public school problem, viz.: How is it possible to
raise to a higher average the lowest, without reducing to a dead level
of mediocrity the citizens of superior possibilities? Our relation to
publisher and parent, to the library's adult open shelves of current
fiction enter into the problem. The children's over-reading, and their
reluctance to "graduate" from juvenile books, these and many other
perplexing questions grow out of the main one.
I said awhile ago that the new education has had a tendency to make
life too soft for children, and to give to their parents the belief
that natural instincts alone are safe guides to follow in rearing a
child. I hope I shall not seem to be a good old times croaker, sighing
for the days when school gardens and folk dancing and glee clubs
and dramatization of lessons and beautiful textbooks and fascinating
handicraft and a hundred other delightful things were undreamed-of
ways of making pleasant the paths of learning. Heaven forbid that I
should join the ranks of those who carp at a body of citizens who,
at an average wage in America less than that of the coal miner and
the factory worker, have produced in their schools results little
short of the miraculous. To visit, as I have, classrooms of children
born in slums across the sea, transplanted to tenements in New York,
and to see what our public school teachers are making of these
children--the backward, the underfed, the "incorrigible," the blind,
the anæmic--well, all I can say is, I do not recommend these visits
to Americans of the stripe of that boastful citizen who, being shown
the crater of Vesuvius with a "There, you haven't anything like that
in America!" disdainfully replied, "Naw, but we've got Niagara, and
that'd put the whole blame thing out!" For myself I never feel quite so
disposed to brag of my Americanism as when I visit some of our New York
schools.
And yet, watching the bored shrug of the bright, well-born high school
child when one suggests that "The prince and the pauper" is quite
as interesting a story as the seventh volume of her latest series, a
librarian has some feelings about the lines-of-least-resistance method
of educating our youth, which she is glad to find voiced by some of our
ablest thinkers.
Here is what J. P. Munroe says: "Many of the new methods ... methods
of gentle cooing toward the child's inclinations, of timidly placing
a chair for him before a disordered banquet of heterogeneous studies,
may produce ladylike persons, but they will not produce men. And when
these modern methods go as far as to compel the teacher to divide this
intellectual cake and pudding into convenient morsels and to spoon-feed
them to the child, partly in obedience to his schoolboy cravings,
partly in conformity to a pedagogical psychology, then the result is
sure to be mental and moral dyspepsia in a race of milksops." How
aptly "spoon-fed pudding" characterizes whole cartloads of our current
"juveniles"!
Listen to President Wilson's opinion: "To be carried along by
somebody's suggestions from the time you begin until the time when you
are thrust groping and helpless into the world, is the very negation
of education. By the nursing process, by the coddling process you are
sapping a race; and only loss can possibly result except upon the part
of individuals here and there who are so intrinsically strong that you
cannot spoil them."
Hugo Münsterberg is a keen observer of the product of American schools,
and contrasting their methods with those of his boyhood he says:
"My school work was not adjusted to botany at nine years because I
played with an herbarium, and at twelve to physics because I indulged
in noises with home-made electric bells, and at fifteen to Arabic,
an elective which I miss still in several high schools, even in
Brookline and Roxbury. The more my friends and I wandered afield with
our little superficial interests and talents and passions, the more
was the straightforward earnestness of the school our blessing; and
all that beautified and enriched our youth, and gave to it freshness
and liveliness, would have turned out to be our ruin, if our elders
had taken it seriously, and had formed a life's program out of petty
caprices and boyish inclinations."
And Prof. Münsterberg thrusts his finger into what I believe to be the
weakest joint in our educational armor when he says: "... as there
is indeed a difference whether I ask what may best suit the taste and
liking of Peter, the darling, or whether I ask what Peter, the man,
will need for the battle of life in which nobody asks what he likes,
but where the question is how he is liked, and how he suits the taste
of his neighbors."
What would become of our civilization if we were to follow merely
the instincts and natural desires? Yet is there not in America a
tremendous tendency to the notion, that except in matters of physical
welfare, the child's lead is to be followed to extreme limits? Don't we
librarians feel it in the pressure brought to bear upon us by those who
fail to find certain stories, wanted by the children, on our shelves?
"Why, that's a good book," the parent will say, "The hero is honest and
kind, the book won't hurt him any--in fact it will give the child some
good ideas."
"Ideas." Yes, perhaps. There is another educator I should like to
quote, J. H. Baker in his "Education and life": "Whatever you would
wish the child to do and become, that let him practice. We learn to
do, not by knowing, but by knowing and then doing. Ethical teaching,
tales of heroic deeds, soul-stirring fiction that awakens sympathetic
emotions may accomplish but little unless in the child's early life ...
the ideas and feelings find expression in action and so become a part
of the child's power and tendency...."
Now we believe with G. Stanley Hall that, "The chief enemy of active
virtue in the world is not vice but laziness, languor and apathy of
will;" that "mind work is infinitely harder than physical toil;" that
(as another says) "all that does not rouse, does not set him to work,
rusts and taints him ... the disease of laziness ... destroys the whole
man."
And when children of good heritage, good homes, sound bodies, bright
minds, spend hours every week curled up among cushions, allowing a
stream of cambric-tea literature gently to trickle over their brain
surfaces, we know that though the heroes and heroines of these stories
be represented as prodigies of industry and vigor, our young swallowers
of the same are being reduced to a pulp of brain and will laziness that
will not only make them incapable of struggling with a page of Quentin
Durward, for example, but will affect their moral stamina, since
fighting fiber is the price of virtue.
Ours is, as I have said, a public education, a republic's problem.
To quote President Wilson again: "Our present plans for teaching
everybody involve certain unpleasant things quite inevitably. It is
obvious that you cannot have universal education without restricting
your teaching to such things as can be universally understood. It is
plain that you cannot impart 'university methods' to thousands, or
create 'investigators' by the score, unless you confine your university
education to matters which dull men can investigate, your laboratory
training to tasks which mere plodding diligence and submissive patience
can compass. Yet, if you do so limit and constrain what you teach, you
thrust taste and insight and delicacy of perception out of the schools,
exalt the obvious and merely useful things above the things which are
only imaginatively or spiritually conceived, make education an affair
of tasting and handling and smelling, and so create Philistia, that
country in which they speak of 'mere literature.'"
In our zeal to serve the little alien, descendant of generations of
poverty and ignorance, let us not lose sight of the importance to our
country of the child more fortunate in birth and brains. So strong is
my feeling on the value of leaders that I hold we should give at least
as much study to the training of the accelerate child as we give to
that of the defective. Though I boast the land of Abraham Lincoln and
Booker Washington I do not give up one iota of my belief that the child
who is born into a happy environment, of parents strong in body and
mind, holds the best possibilities of making a valuable citizen; and
so I am concerned that this child be not spoiled in the making by a
training or lack of training that fails to recognize his possibilities.
It is encouraging to find growing attention in the "Proceedings" of
the N. E. A. and other educational bodies to the problem of the bright
child who has suffered by the lock-step system which has molded all
into conformity with the capabilities of the average child.
The librarian's difficulty is perhaps greater than that of the
teacher, because open shelves and freedom of choice are so essential
a part of our program. We must provide easy reading for thousands of
children. Milk and water stories may have an actual value to children
whose unfavorable heritage and environment have retarded their
mental development. But the deplorable thing is to see young people,
mercifully saved from the above handicaps, making a bee line for the
current diluted literature for grown-ups, (as accessible as Scott on
our open shelves) and to realize that this taste, which is getting a
life set, is the inevitable outcome of the habit of reading mediocre
juveniles.
We must not rail at publishers for trying to meet the demands of
purchasers. Our job is to influence that demand far more than we have
done as yet. Large book jobbers tell us that millions and millions
of poor juveniles are sold in America to thousands of the sort we
librarians recommend. I have seen purchase lists of boys' club
directors and Sunday School library committees calling for just the
weak and empty stuff we would destroy. I have unwittingly been an
eavesdropper at Christmas book counters and have heard the orders
given by parents and the suggestions made by clerks. And I feel that
the public library has but skirmished along the outposts while the
great field of influencing the reading of American children remains
unconquered. Until we affect production to the extent that the book
stores circulate as good books as the best libraries we cannot be too
complacent about our position as a force in citizen making.
An "impossible" ideal, of course, but far from intimidating, the
largeness of the task makes us all the more determined.
This paper attempts no suggestion of new methods of attacking the
problem. It is rather a restatement of an old perplexity. I harp
once more on a worn theme because I think that unless we frequently
lift our eyes from the day's absorbing duties for a look over the
whole field, and unless we once and again make searching inventory
of our convictions, our purposes, our methods, our attainments, we
are in danger of letting ourselves slip along the groove of the
taken-for-granted and our work loses in power as we allow ourselves
to become leaners instead of leaders. May we not, as if it were a
new idea, rouse to the seriousness of the mediocre habit indulged in
by young people capable of better things? Should not our work with
children reach out more to work with adults, to those who buy and sell
and make books for the young? Is it not time for the successful teller
of stories to children to use her gifts in audiences of grown people,
persuading these molders of the children's future of the reasonableness
of our objection to the third rate since it is the enemy of the best?
May it not be politic, at least, for the librarian to descend from her
disdainful height and make friends with "the trade," with bookseller
and publisher who, after all, have as good a right to their bread and
butter as the librarian paid out of the city's taxes?
And then--is it not possible that we might be better librarians if
we refused to be librarians every hour in the day and half the night
as well? What if we were to have the courage to refuse to indulge
in nervous breakdowns, because we deliberately plan to play, and to
eat, and to sleep, to keep serene and sane and human, believing that
God in His Heaven gives His children a world of beauty to enjoy as
well as a work to do with zeal. If we lived a little longer and
not quite so wide, the gain to our chosen work in calm nerves and
breadth of interest and sympathy would even up for dropping work on
schedule time for a symphony concert or a country walk or a visit
with a friend--might even justify saving the cost of several A. L. A.
conferences toward a trip to Italy!
This hurling at librarians advice to play more and work less reminds
me of a story told by a southern friend. Years ago, in a sleepy
little Virginia village, there lived two characters familiar to the
townspeople, whose greatest daily excitement was a stroll down to the
railroad station to watch the noon express rush through to distant
southern cities. One of these personages was the station keeper, of dry
humor and sententious habit, whom we will call Hen Waters; the other
was the station goat, named, of course, Billy. Year after year had
Billy peacefully cropped the grass along the railroad tracks, turning
an indifferent ear to the roar of the daily express, when suddenly
one day the notion seemed to strike his goatish mind that this racket
had been quietly endured long enough. With the warning whistle of
the approaching engine, Billy, lowering his head, darted furiously
up the track, intending to butt the offending thunderer into Kingdom
Come. When, a few seconds later, the amazed spectators were gazing
after the diminishing train, Hen Waters, addressing the spot where the
redoubtable goat had last been seen, drawled out: "Billy, I admire your
pluck--but darn your discretion!"
The parallel between the ambitions and the futility of the goat,
and the present speaker's late advice is so obvious that only the
illogicalness of woman can account for my cherishing a hope that I may
be spared the fate of the indiscreet Billy.
Miss CAROLINE BURNITE, director of children's work, Cleveland public
library, delivered the second paper on this subject, presenting the
topic from another viewpoint.
VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN--II
To elucidate principles of value, I shall use, by way of illustration,
the experience and structure of a certain children's department where
the problem of children's reading and the means of bringing books to
them has been more intensively studied in the last nine years than was
possible there before that time. At the time we took our last survey
of the department it was found that probably about six out of ten of
the children of the city read library books in their homes during the
calendar year, and that each child had read about twenty books on
the average. Four of the six procured library books from a library
center; two of the six procured them from collections, either in their
schoolrooms or in homes in their neighborhood. In all, fifty-four
thousand children read a million books, which reached them through
forty-three librarians assigned for special work with these children,
through three hundred teachers and about one hundred volunteers. Now,
we know that six out of ten children is not an ideal proportion and
that fifty-four thousand may endanger the quality of book influence
for each child, but both of these statements indicate conditions to be
adjusted so that the experience of each reading child may contribute
to the whole and experience with numbers may benefit the individual.
To accomplish this end, work with the children was given departmental
organization. My concern in this paper is with departmental
organization as it benefits the reading child, and with the principles
and policies which have been developed through departmental unity.
We think ordinarily that one who loves books has three general
hallmarks--his reading is fairly continuous, there is permanency of
book interest, and this interest maintained on a plane of merit. These
three results always justify the reader and those who have influenced
him, and if the consequent book interests of the library child were
entirely such, they would prove to all laymen, without argument, that
the principles are basic. But in the child's contact with the library
there are many evidences of modifications of normal book interests;
for, instead of continuity of reading, the children's rooms are
overcrowded in winter and have comparatively small book use in summer;
instead of permanency of book interests extending over the difficult
intermediate period, we know that large numbers of those children who
leave school before they reach high school have little or no library
contact during their first working years and we sometimes feel that the
interesting experiences with reading working children, which librarians
are prone to emphasize, give us an impression of a larger number than
careful investigation would show. As for quality of reading of the
individual working child we cannot maintain that it is always on a high
plane.
All these conditions we know to be largely the result of environmental
influences. Deprived for twelve hours a day, twelve months in a year,
of opportunity for normal youthful activities, the child's entire
physical and mental schedule is thrown out of balance and his tendency
is to turn to reading, a recreation possible at any time, only when
there is no opportunity to follow other avenues of interest. The
strain upon the ear and eye, and back and brain, is even greater in
the shop than in the school, and in the consequent intense physical
fatigue the tendency is toward recreations in which the book may have
no place. The power of the nickel library over the child can be broken
by the presence of the public library, but no intermediate gets away
from the suggestion, by voice and print, of the modern novel, with its
present-day social interests. Consequently the whole judgment of the
results of library work with children can not rest upon these general
tests of normal book interests. Rather such variations from the normal
are themselves conditions which influence the structure of the work
and especially the principles of book presentation. If children are
living in an environment which is not the best one for them, all the
forces with which they come in contact should tend to correct the
abnormal and give them the things their moral nature craves--freer
and fuller thoughts, better and freer living, truth of expression,
beauty of feeling. We must recognize that books also must be a force
in reconstructing or normalizing the influences of their environment.
Children with social needs must have books with social values to meet
those needs--right social contacts, true social perspective, traditions
of family and race, loveliness of nature, companionship of living
things, right group association and group interests.
But while the pedagogical and moral values of books, that is the
benefits of right reading for children of normal life, were fully
analyzed, the children's department of which I speak had almost no
written principle to aid in the enormous task of determining the
influence of books on children with social needs. Appreciations of
the social relationships and the interdependence of characters in
books which have proven themselves moving forces in the lives of
children, gained through the testimony of men and women who know their
indebtedness to them--such books as "Little women," "Tom Brown,"
"Heidi," "Otto of the silver hand"--gave a fundamental principle upon
which to work. Books should construct a larger social ideal for the
reader instead of confirming his present one. Then arose this question:
Should we have books with weak social values in the library as a
concession to certain children, or by having them do we harm most those
very children to whom we have conceded them? The gradual solution of
this problem seems to me to be one of the greatest services which a
library can render its children. So long as this question is in process
of solution we may accept the following as a tentative reply: No books
weak in social ideals should be furnished, provided we do not lose
reading children by their elimination. If such books are the best a
child will read and we take them away, causing loss of library reading
interest, we permit him to sink further into his environment. With the
last principle as a basis, the evaluation of books was accomplished
in the evolution of the department. The cumulative experience of
librarians working with children showed that many books which lead only
to others of their kind were weak in social viewpoint, and that such
books were the ones read largely by those children most occasional
and spasmodic in their reading. Here was a determining point in the
establishment of standards of reading, for it brought us face to face
with the question, Shall we consider this situation our fault since we
supply such books to children who need something better vastly more
than do others, or shall we merely justify our selection by maintaining
that those children will under no circumstances read a higher grade
of books? However, it was proven at the same time that other books
were read also by children with social limitations, which, although
apparently no better on first evaluation, lead to a better type of
reading and this gave us a fresh impulse to consider the evaluation
of books as a constantly moving process, and prompted the policy of
the removal of those types of books which were least influential in
developing a good reading taste. This was done, however, with the
definite intention that an increasingly better standard of reading must
mean that no reading children be sacrificed, an end only possible by a
fuller knowledge of the value of the individual book to the individual
child.
Now let us see what changes have been evolved in the book collections
in the department under consideration in the past seven or eight years.
In the first study of the collection and before any final study of
books from the social viewpoint had been reached, the proportion
of books of the doubtful class to those which were standard was
considered, and it was seen that this proportion should be decreased in
order that a child's chances for eventually reading the best might be
improved. It was obvious that the reading of the young children should
be most carefully safeguarded, and this was the first point of attack.
As a result, these two types of books were eliminated:
1. All series for young children, such as the Dotty Dimples
and the Little Colonels.
2. Books for young children dealing with animal life which
have neither humane nor scientific value, such as the
Pierson and Wesselhoeft.
At about the same time stories of child life for young children were
restricted to those which were most natural and possible, and stories
read by older girls in which adults were made the beneficiaries of
a surprisingly wise child hero, such as the Plympton books, were
eliminated.
The successful elimination of these books, together with the study of
the children's reading as a whole, suggested within the next two or
three years that other books could be eliminated or restricted without
shock to the readers. On the pedagogical basis, certain types of books
for young children were judged; on the social basis, certain types of
books for older children, with results as follows:
1. The elimination of word books for little children, and the
basing of their reading upon their inherent love for folk
lore and verse.
2. The elimination of interpreted folk lore, such as many of
the modern kindergarten versions.
3. The elimination of the modern fairy tale, except as it has
vitality and individual charm, as have those of George
MacDonald.
4. The elimination of travel trivial in treatment and in
series form, such as the Little Cousins.
5. The restriction of an old and recognized series to its
original number of titles, such as the Pepper series. The
disapproval of all new books obviously the first in a
series.
6. Lessening the number of titles by authors who are unduly
popular, such as restricting the use of Tomlinson to one
series only.
7. The elimination of those stories in which the child
character is not within a normal sphere; for instance, the
child novel, such as Mrs. Jamison's stories.
8. The restriction of the story of the successful poor boy to
those within the range of possibility, as are the Otis
books, largely.
Without analyzing the weaknesses of all these types, I wish to say a
word about the series form for story and classed books. The series must
be judged not only by content, but it must be recognized that by the
admission of such a form of literature the tendency of the child toward
independence of book judgment and book selection is lessened and the
way paved for the weakest form of adult literature.
The last policies regarding book selection developed on the same
principles within the past three years have been these:
1. The elimination of periodical literature for young
children, such as the Children's Magazine and Little
Folks, since their reading can be varied more wholesomely
without it.
2. The elimination, or use in small numbers, of a type of
history and biography which lacks scholarly, or even
serious treatment, such as the Pratt histories.
3. Lessening the number of titles of miscellaneous collections
of folk lore in which there are objectionable individual
tales; as, for instance, buying only the Blue, Red, Green
and Yellow fairy books.
4. Recognizing "blind alleys" in children's fiction, such as
the boarding school story and the covert love story, and
buying no new titles of those types.
Reports of reading sequences from each children's room have furnished
the basis for further study of children's reading for the past seven
months. These have been discussed and compared by the workers, and are
now in shape for a working outline of reading sequences to be made and
reported back to each room, to be used, amplified and reported on again
in the spring.
While those books which are no longer used may have been at one time
necessary to hold a child from reading something poorer, we did not
lose children through raising the standard, and the duplication of
doubtful books in the children's room is less heavy now than it was
a few years ago. Also there are more than twice as many children who
are reading, and almost three times as many books being read as there
were nine years ago, while the number of children of the city has
increased but 72 per cent. Furthermore, the proportion of children of
environmental limitations has by no means diminished, and the foreign
population is much the same--more than 75 per cent. Of course, the
elimination of some books was accomplished because there were better
books on these subjects, but the general result was largely brought
about because in the establishment of these higher standards =we did
not exceed the standards of those who were working with the children.=
The standards which they brought to the work, and which they deduced
themselves from their experience, were strengthened through Round
Table discussion, where each worker measured her results by those of
the others and thereby recognized the need of constant, but careful
experimentation. A children's department can not reach standards of
reading which in the judgment of the librarians working with the
children are beyond the possibility of attainment, for with them rests
entirely the delicate task of the adjustment of the book to the child.
A staff of children's librarians of good academic education, the best
library training, a true vision of the social principles, a broad
knowledge of children's literature, is the greatest asset for any
library maintaining children's work.
But it is true inversely that in raising the standards of the children
the standards of the workers were raised. By this, I mean that there
were methods of book presentation in use whereby the worker saw
farther and deeper into the mentality of the child and understood
his social instincts better. This has been evidenced in the larger
duplication of the better books. The methods are those which recognize
group interest and group association as a social need of childhood.
Through unifying and intensifying the thoughts and sympathies of the
children by giving them, when in association with their own playmates,
a common experience of living in great and universal thought in the
story hour, the mediocre was bridged and both the child and the worker
reached a higher plane of experience. By giving children a chance for
group expression of something which has fundamental group interest,
not only the children recognized that books may be cornerstones for
social intercourse and that there is connection between social conduct
as expressed in books and social obligation, but, what is also vastly
important, the worker learned that when children are at the age of
group activity and expression they can often be more permanently
influenced through their group relations than as individuals.
Through the recognition of the principle that there are standards of
book use with individual children and other standards of book appeal
for groups of children, it was shown that the organization of the
work as a whole must be such that all avenues of presentation of
literature could be fully developed. It was seen that far less than
with the individual child could we afford to give a group of children
a false experience or impotent interest, and that material for group
presentation, methods of group presentation and the social elements
which are evinced in groups of children should receive an amount
of attention and study which would lead to the surest and soundest
results. This could be fully accomplished only by recognizing such
methods as distinct functions of the department, to be maintained on
sound pedagogical and social bases. In other words, that there should
not only be divisions of work with children according to problems of
book distribution, such as by schools and home libraries, but there
must be of necessity divisions by problems of reading. Whereas, in
a smaller department all divisions would center in the head, the
volume of work in the library above alluded to rendered necessary
the appointment of an instructor in storytelling and a supervisor of
reading clubs, which has resulted in a higher specialization and a
greater impetus for these phases of work than one person could have
accomplished. Here we have an instance of the benefit that a large
volume of work may confer upon the individual child.
With the attainment of better reading results and higher standards
for the workers, it was obvious that the reading experiences of the
children and the standards of the workers must be conserved, that the
organization should protect the children, as far as possible, from the
shock of change of workers in individual centers. Within the past two
years considerable study has been given to this, and yearly written
reports on the reading of children in each children's room are made,
in which variations of the children's reading in that library from
accepted standards, with individual instances, are usually discussed.
However, the children's librarian is entirely free to report the
subject from whatever angle it has impressed her most. Also a written
report is made of the story hour, the program, general and special
reading results, and intensity of group interest in certain types
of stories. This report is supplementary to a weekly report in a
prescribed form of the stories told, sources used and results. All
programs used with clubs are reported and a semi-annual report made of
the club work as a whole. A yearly tabulation is made of registration
from public and parochial schools, giving registration in all
libraries, class rooms and home libraries. By discussion and reports
back to individual centers, these become bases for a wider vision of
work and a wiser direction of energy with less experimentation.
The connection between work with children and the problem of the
reading of intermediates, referred to in the beginning, should not be
dismissed in a paragraph. However, it is only possible to give a short
statement of it. Recognizing that the reading of adult books should
begin in the children's room, a serious study of adult books possible
for children's reading was made by the children's librarians for two
summers, the reports discussed and books added to the department
as the result. A second report of adult titles which children and
intermediates might and do read was called for recently and from that
a tentative list has been furnished both adult and children's workers
for further study. The increasing number of workers in the children's
department who have had general training, and in the adult work who
have had special training for work with children will make such reports
of much value. It may be interesting to know that fifteen of the
children's librarians have had general training and six adult workers
in important positions have had special training for children's work.
Four years ago there were only three in children's work who had had
general training and none in adult work with the special training.
In order to follow the standards of children's work, there is one
principle which is obvious, namely, a book disapproved as below grade
for juvenile should not be accepted for general intermediate work. This
is especially true of books of adventure which a boy of any age between
12 and 18 would read. It has been possible to raise the standard of
books for adults in the school libraries above that of the larger
libraries. This will furnish eventually another angle for the study of
the problem of intermediate reading.
In conclusion, the chief influences in the establishment of right
reading for children are an intensive study of the reading of children
in relation to its social, moral and pedagogical worth to them, the
right basis of education and training for such study on the part of
the workers, the direction of such study in a way that brings about a
higher and more practical standard on the part of the worker, and the
conservation of her experience. These are the great services which the
library should render children, and they can be most fully accomplished
through departmental organization.
These papers were followed by a discussion, led by Miss Stearns and Mr.
Rush, in which advice was given to those selecting children's books to
eliminate, in buying new books, those which would be eliminated later,
and the suggestion was made that children's librarians should enter the
field of writing children's books. Dr. Bostwick of St. Louis then gave
a report on
VOLUME OF CHILDREN'S WORK IN THE UNITED STATES
We may divide the history of work with children into three epochs.
During the first, our libraries were realizing with increasing
clearness the necessity of doing something for children that they were
not doing for adults. During the second this conviction had taken the
practical form of segregation, physical and mental, and its details
were worked out with definiteness. In the third, in which we still are,
the whole administrative work of the library for children is being
systematized and co-ordinated. These three stages may be roughly styled
the era of work with children, the era of the children's room and the
era of the children's department. The first began, in any particular
library, when that library began to do anything whatever for children
that it was not doing for adults; the second, when it opened its first
children's room; the third, when it co-ordinated all its children's
work under one administrative head. In most libraries the first period
was relatively short; the second relatively long. Some libraries began
their work by establishing children's rooms, reducing the first period
to zero. Some large libraries are still in the second period, never
having co-ordinated their children's work. Here are the approximate
dates for a few libraries:
1 2 3
Cleveland 1894 1898 1903
New York 1895 1898 1902
Pittsburgh 1898 1898 1898
St. Louis 1893 1897 1909
Milwaukee 1896 1898 ....
Chicago 1904 1904 ....
Brooklyn 1899 1899 1901
Boston 1895 1895 ....
I lay no stress on the accuracy of these dates, particularly in
the first column, where in some cases they are matters of opinion.
Pittsburgh appears as a unique example of a library that stepped
full-fledged into all three stages at once, starting off, as soon as it
began to do children's work at all, not only with a children's room,
but with a definitely organized department to conduct the work.
With the idea of presenting comprehensively some idea of the volume and
importance of children's work in the United States at the present time,
a questionnaire was sent out to libraries (78 in all) whose total home
use was 100,000 volumes or more. Of these 51 responded. These have
been divided into five groups, five "very large" libraries, circulating
more than 2,000,000; eight "large" ones, between one and two million;
seven "medium," between half a million and a million; thirteen "small,"
between quarter and half a million, and eighteen "very small," from
100,000 to 250,000. The results for each of these groups have been
stated separately--averaged where possible.
First, regarding the total volume of work. The answers to the questions
show that in 51 of the 78 largest public libraries in the country,
graded by circulation--libraries containing altogether nearly 9,000,000
books and circulating a total of over 30 millions--there are now
1,147,000 volumes intended especially for children. Children drew out
during the last year 11,200,000 volumes for home use. Volumes for
children added during the year numbered 280,000. These libraries have
231 rooms devoted entirely to children and 180 used by them in part,
with a combined seating capacity of 15,900. Classroom libraries are
furnished for the children in the schools, by 31 libraries reporting,
to the number of 5,000.
Children in 46 libraries reporting hold altogether 413,000 library
cards. There are 42 supervisors of children's work, with numerous
clerical assistants and staffs of 473 persons, of whom at least 177 are
qualified children's librarians, 108 are graduates of library schools,
and 54 have had partial courses.
The general conclusion deducible from the statistics gathered seems to
be that in some ways library work with children has become standardized
while in others it has not. Standards, whether permanent or not, we
can not tell, have been reached or approximated in the number of books
devoted to children's use and, in general, in the proportion of the
library's resources, time and energy that is given to this branch
of the work. But when we come to the specific number of assistants
assigned to it, their supervision, their pay and the grade of
experience and training required of them, then we all part company. Not
only is there no general agreement here, but some of the discrepancies
are so large that we can ascribe them only to the fact that we are
still in the experimental stage.
For instance, to take first the fairly uniform or standardized
conditions, the fraction of the stock of books allotted to children
is about one-fifth in the larger libraries and decreases slightly in
the smaller; in the very small it is about one-eighth. The proportion
of juvenile books added yearly is much larger; it varies from nearly
one-half in the very large libraries down to one-fourth in the very
small. This would seem to be a result of the increasing stress laid
on children's work. If this proportion is maintained in the annual
purchases, that in the total stock may approximate to it in time,
although we can not be sure of this without knowing the ratio of the
life of a children's book to that of an adult book. The children's
books are doubtless shorter-lived, and this would tend to keep the
proportion down in the permanent stock. The circulation is still more
nearly uniform, being about one-third to children in all the classes of
libraries. The proportion of money spent for children is also uniform,
being about one-fourth in libraries of all sizes. The same is true
of the number of children's rooms, which throughout all classes of
libraries, both large and small, are in the proportion of one to every
60,000 to 70,000 of circulation, and of their seating capacity, which
is 60 to 70 per room.
Looking on the other side of the shield we find the greatest variation
in the proportion of children's cards in use, which runs from less than
one-half up to nearly all. From one to five supervisors are employed
in each library but some of the very large libraries use only one and
some of the small ones as many as three. The same is true of clerical
assistants, of which some of the very small libraries report as many as
three, while some of the very large get along with as few as two.
Salaries are fairly uniform, although apparently smaller than the work
would warrant. Whereas the children's circulation is about one-third
the total, the salaries in the juvenile department are from one-seventh
to one-eighth the total throughout. In the "small" libraries they are
only one-eleventh of the total.
The distribution of library-school graduates is very irregular. Some
libraries in all classes have none at all. In the three lower classes
no library has a larger number than three. In some of the larger
libraries there may be as many as 20 or 30.
I am aware that some of this irregularity, which I have called a
lack of standardization, may be due to differences in nomenclature.
Assistants, for instance, having precisely the same duties may be
described as supervisors in one library and not in another. This will
not explain everything, however, and the conclusion is inevitable
that in the respects just noted no uniformity has yet been reached
by libraries. It seems to me that this lack of standardization has
made its appearance in precisely the place where it might have been
expected--namely in the third of the three periods already mentioned,
that of co-ordination and systematization. This is the latest period;
some libraries have not yet entered upon it and most of them are
young in it. In other words, children's work is much older than the
systematic administration of a children's department, or a system of
children's rooms. Hence, children's work in general--the selection
and purchase of books for children, the planning of children's rooms
and their administration as units--has existed long enough to become
standardized. We know what we want, having passed through the stage of
experimentation.
This is not true of the administration of a children's department--the
grading of assistants, the organization of a compact body of workers
with its expert supervision, the settling of questions of disputed
jurisdiction that necessarily arise in cases of this kind. It is on
this part of their work that children's librarians need to focus their
attention for the next few years. It is time, not perhaps to withdraw
our eyes from the older questions but to transfer our gaze in part
to the newer. We need to talk less about the size of our juvenile
collection, methods of selection of children's books, the salaries of
our assistants, ways of increasing our circulation, sizes and plans
of children's rooms, and so on, and more about the organization and
administration of the children's department as a whole--the duties of
the supervisor and her assistants; her relations with the heads of
other departments and with branch librarians, the measure of control
shared by her with heads of branches in case of children's librarians
of branches, the existence of separate grades, corresponding to
separate duties or variation of qualifications, among the children's
librarians; insistence on training adapted to these different grades.
Time forbids me to go into details, and I can but suggest these points
for your consideration. Into one point, however, I feel like going a
little more fully:
We need more special training for children's work. It is the one
kind of specialization that we have attempted in our schools, and
we must have more of it and more kinds of it. This of course is but
a single case in the more varied program of special training that
I am convinced we shall have to take up before long. In the course
of an interesting debate on this subject in the A. L. A. Council
last January it developed that most of the librarians present looked
upon specialization as impractical. In particular they believed it
impossible for a student to look forward so definitely to special
work that he could decide on the special courses that would benefit
him. The man that had taken the college-library course might become a
superintendent of branches; the qualified municipal reference librarian
would go, perhaps, into an applied science room. This may be so now but
it cannot long remain the case. Even now we can not carry this line
of argument much further without making of it a reductio ad absurdum.
Why go to a library school at all when, after all, you may accept the
headship of a grammar-school on graduation, or even decide to travel
for a hardware house? Why should we attempt to train one man for a
lawyer and another for a physician when both may prefer farming? We
are getting away fast from the old idea, born of pioneer conditions,
that anybody can do anything if he tries. We shall have to travel
further enough from it to satisfy ourselves that an expert university
librarian will have to be trained for his post and not for that of head
of the supply department in a public library. We have learned that a
children's librarian does her work better for special training; may it
not be that we shall have to make some difference in the future between
training, let us say, for supervisory work, for the charge of a branch
children's room, and for the duties of an assistant of lower grade?
In closing, let me say again that we need to focus our attention
at present on the organization and administration of a children's
department, especially on the places where it interlocks with that of
other departments. The study of this matter should not be entrusted to
children's libraries alone, for the standardization of work involving
more than one department should not be =ex parte=. The matter should
be in charge of a committee including in its membership both chief
librarians and the heads of children's departments--possibly also the
children's librarian of a large branch library and a branch librarian.
The volume of the work is now remarkable; its organization has gone
beyond that of some other departments in attention to detail; the
question of its co-ordination and of interdepartmental relations should
now be taken up systematically.
Libraries Very Large Libraries Large
Averaged Over Averaged 1,000,000-
2,000,000 2,000,000
Av. number volumes in library 5 658,416 8 286,643
Av. juvenile volumes in library 3 136,080 7 57,348
Av. cost of juvenile volumes Not given 2 $22,000
Av. volumes added during year 5 73,098 8 30,172
Av. cost of volumes
added during year 5 $70,976.88 7 $27,244.25
Av. juvenile volumes
added during year 4 32,100 6 12,383
Av. cost of juvenile
volumes added 3 $18,928.92 3 $7,801.86
Av. circulation for year 5 3,973,150 8 1,214,068
Av. juvenile
circulation for year 5 1,451,569 6 501,389
Av. number children's
rooms in system 5 23 8 6
Av. number rooms used
in part by children 5 7 7 7
Av. seating capacity of
children's rooms 5 1,502 8 467
Av. classroom libraries 2 314 7 301
Av. home libraries for children 1 56 3 26
Av. deposit or delivery
stations not included in above 4 52 7 22
Av. volumes on shelves
open to children 3 129,413 7 52,067
Av. juvenile cardholders 2 34,942 7 28,501
Av. age limit of
juvenile cardholders 2 15 7 15
Av. estimate of
juvenile cards in use 2 [5]46,332 5 20,845
Av. supervisors of
children's work 4 1 to 5 7 0 to 5
Av. salary paid supervisors 1 $2,000 6 $1,174
Av. clerical assistants
in children's work 1 2 5 2
Av. salary paid
clerical assistants 1 $705 4 $524
Av. children's librarians 4 20 7 1 to 11
Av. salary paid
children's librarians 4 $786.82 7 $896
Av. additional assistants giving
full time to children's work 3 4 to 83 4 2 to 27
Av. salary of such assistants 3 $560.33 4 $714
Av. assistants giving part
time to children's work 1 2 2 10
Av. salary paid such assistants 1 $576 2 $654
Number library school graduates 4 1 to 21 8 0 to 29
Number assistants having had
partial library school courses 4 3 to 11 5 0 to 8
Number trained in local library 4 4 to 56 7 0 to 15
Number trained in
other libraries 4 3 to 10 7 0 to 1
Pages giving full time
to children's work 3 0 to 11 6 1 to 8
Av. yearly salaries for entire
staff (not including janitors) 4 $170,453.82 8 $74,503.90
Av. yearly salaries
children's department 2 $20,080.00 8 $11,032.33
Libraries Medium Libraries Small
Averaged 500,000- Averaged 250,000-
1,000,000 500,000
Av. number volumes in library 7 150,200 13 92,236
Av. juvenile volumes in library 6 26,750 12 16,244
Av. cost of juvenile volumes 5 $21,316 2 $9,750
Av. volumes added during year 7 15,654 13 8,898
Av. cost of volumes
added during year 7 $15,001.75 10 $8,851.81
Av. juvenile volumes
added during year 6 5,875 13 2,661
Av. cost of juvenile
volumes added 6 $4,428.10 3 $2,876.00
Av. circulation for year 7 714,784 13 339,059
Av. juvenile
circulation for year 7 227,697 13 122,739
Av. number children's
rooms in system 7 3 13 2
Av. number rooms used
in part by children 6 3 9 4
Av. seating capacity of
children's rooms 7 233 11 150
Av. classroom libraries 7 201 8 83
Av. home libraries for children 1 25 3 3
Av. deposit or delivery
stations not included in above 7 12 9 12
Av. volumes on shelves
open to children 6 40,326 10 13,721
Av. juvenile cardholders 4 14,470 11 7,056
Av. age limit of
juvenile cardholders 3 14 8 15
Av. estimate of
juvenile cards in use 4 9,436 7 6,172
Av. supervisors of
children's work 5 1 to 2 7 1 to 3
Av. salary paid supervisors 5 $1,070 7 $760
Av. clerical assistants
in children's work 4 1 to 3 5 1 to 3
Av. salary paid
clerical assistants 4 $600 5 $516
Av. children's librarians 5 1 to 9 12 1 to 3
Av. salary paid
children's librarians 5 $648.50 12 $829.16
Av. additional assistants giving
full time to children's work 2 2 4 1 to 3
Av. salary of such assistants 2 $690 4 $524
Av. assistants giving part
time to children's work ... ... 2 1
Av. salary paid such assistants ... ... 2 $288
Number library school graduates 7 0 to 2 11 0 to 3
Number assistants having had
partial library school courses 6 0 to 5 11 0 to 1
Number trained in local library 7 1 to 9 10 0 to 3
Number trained in
other libraries 7 0 to 1 9 0 to 2
Pages giving full time
to children's work 7 0 to 2 12 0 to 2
Av. yearly salaries for entire
staff (not including janitors) 6 $30,844.90 12 $19,984.81
Av. yearly salaries
children's department 6 $4,144.75 12 $1,726.33
Libraries Very Small
Averaged Under
250,000
Av. number volumes in library 18 58,355
Av. juvenile volumes in library 16 7,496
Av. cost of juvenile volumes 2 $3,843.49
Av. volumes added during year 18 4,405
Av. cost of volumes
added during year 17 $4,467.22
Av. juvenile volumes
added during year 17 1,247
Av. cost of juvenile
volumes added 9 $1,207.01
Av. circulation for year 18 175,928
Av. juvenile
circulation for year 17 56,475
Av. number children's
rooms in system 18 1
Av. number rooms used
in part by children 13 3
Av. seating capacity of
children's rooms 17 79
Av. classroom libraries 7 31
Av. home libraries for children 1 6
Av. deposit or delivery
stations not included in above 12 4
Av. volumes on shelves
open to children 13 5,504
Av. juvenile cardholders 14 5,230
Av. age limit of
juvenile cardholders 14 14
Av. estimate of
juvenile cards in use 11 2,704
Av. supervisors of
children's work 3 1
Av. salary paid supervisors 3 $846.66
Av. clerical assistants
in children's work 2 1 to 3
Av. salary paid
clerical assistants 1 $420
Av. children's librarians 17 1
Av. salary paid
children's librarians 17 $801
Av. additional assistants giving
full time to children's work 9 1 to 4
Av. salary of such assistants 9 $512.22
$600[6][7]
Av. assistants giving part
time to children's work 4 2 to 7
Av. salary paid such assistants 4 $591
Number library school graduates 16 0 to 3
Number assistants having had
partial library school courses 13 0 to 2
Number trained in local library 16 0 to 4
Number trained in
other libraries 12 0 to 1
Pages giving full time
to children's work 15 0 to 2
Av. yearly salaries for entire
staff (not including janitors) 17 $10,159.22
Av. yearly salaries
children's department 14 $1,306.01
[5] Not the same libraries as are represented two lines above.
[6] Maximum.
[7] For first year.
SECOND SESSION
The second session of the section was held June 27th, at 2:30 p. m., in
the ballroom. Miss MARTHA WILSON, supervisor of school libraries, state
department of education, St. Paul, Minnesota, read a paper entitled
POSSIBILITIES OF THE RURAL SCHOOL LIBRARY
On the outermost fringe of library influence they wait--the country
children.
To fulfill to them the mission of the library, to make books necessary
and accessible, we must take account of the agency which touches the
life of even the most remote group--the country school.
Relationships between libraries and schools have long afforded
discussion and the librarian is rare who does not feel a sense of her
share in the educational work of the town and her responsibility in
making her library serve as an adjunct to the school, supplementing or
supplanting its library resources.
The country school and its library has in the main been outside this
friendly concern or ministration on the part of the town library and
but little account taken of it as a part of the library resources or
possibilities of a county or state.
The present revival of rural interest has quickened every phase of
country life, social, economic and educational.
The country school has shared in the enlargement of interest and is
undergoing many radical changes in its spirit, its teaching, its
relationships to the neighborhood and the world outside.
While in former times the country child went to school only when not
needed at home and received through the year an intermittent schooling,
amounting in all to but few weeks a year, compulsory education laws in
the majority of states have prolonged the period which he now actually
spends in school, and subsidies in state aid for longer terms have
lengthened the season through which the school is in operation.
The new emphasis on country life is a transforming effect on the
country school, "the ragged beggar sunning" is being replaced by a
modern building planned according to state regulations, with regard to
comfort and convenience, seats and lighting are seriously considered
and the individual drinking cup adds the last touch of modernity.
It is changing its teaching as carefully. The leaders in country school
work are striving to give a standing to country service, to reshape it
to new country conditions and connect its work very definitely with the
neighborhood in which it is placed.
In Minnesota there are three types of rural schools. The first of these
is the one-room, one-teacher school in an isolated community where
every grade is represented and all subjects taught. The second type is
the associated school where several districts have connected themselves
with a town school, where the pupils of high school age are received
on the same term as their town cousins, and the one-room schools
continue the work with the lower grades in the country but under the
supervision of the central school. The third is the consolidated school
where a number of districts have combined and established in a town,
village or open country a modern school for the grades and high school,
transporting to it all the children within the radius of five miles.
In all of these schools, the old course of study is adapted to include
health instruction, nature study or agriculture, some manual training,
sewing and cooking. The high school training departments and the normal
schools are making all haste to prepare teachers to fulfill the new
requirements while the teachers already at work must bring themselves
up to grade at the summer schools. The practical subjects make a strong
appeal. A country teacher at the summer school was heard to remark that
"the rope-tying lessons were awfully interesting and the course in
agriculture was just grand."
As a help in the new order of things a strong school library is
needed more than ever. Even in the smallest school there is indeed a
collection of books known as the school library, the heritage of the
years. These show no design in selection further than meeting the
state aid requirement of the expenditure of a certain amount of money
every year for library books. The trail of the book agent is over them
all: witness the sets; Motley--"History of the United Netherlands,"
Grote--"History of Greece," Gibbon--"Rome," and such subscription books
as "Lights and shadows of a missionary's life" and "The Johnstown
flood."
The erstwhile teachers and their interests have left an impress; the
correspondence courses which they pursued while teaching are reflected
in such books as Hamerton--"Intellectual life"; "The literature of the
age of Elizabeth"; and all the Epochs, and Eras and Periods in which
they delved for credits; their faith bears witness in the "Life of
Luther" found in every school library in one western county and their
hopes in "How to be happy tho' married," common in another.
The average number of volumes in each school is impressive in reports,
but inspection of the libraries too often shows that the majority of
the books are entirely useless in connection with the school work and
quite beyond the grasp and interest of the pupils who may be typified
by little moon-faced Celestia who trudges two miles through the pine
forest to the little log schoolhouse and to whom an illustrated book is
a revelation of worlds unknown; Anna, eleven years old, who at the time
of our visit was doing the work of the household and caring for her
mother and the new baby brother before she came to school, for in this
county the size of the state of Connecticut there are but five doctors
and fewer nurses; Mary, aged 13, who keeps house for an older brother
and his logging "crew" of four grown men; and little Irven, 7 years
old, who reads so fast the words can hardly come and who is willing and
eager to aver in round childish scribble that his favorite books are
"Seven little sisters," Eskimo stories and Fairy stories and fables.
However hard to realize, the needs are simple to state; better books
and direction in their use.
In many of the newer libraries there are many good and suitable books
and the more progressive county superintendents are paying more
attention to their libraries, making use of the suggestive lists
furnished them and selecting all the books for the schools in their
counties. One proudly reports the purchase in his county in the last
year of 2144 =real= children's books. The standardization of the state
school list has helped in later years, and as they are obliged to buy
from this list there is a pleasing lack of "Motor boys" and "Aeroplane
girls."
Some few of the teachers have the notion of the purpose of the school
library and are eager to extend its influence. One teacher, combining
school work with homesteading, asked for help in getting illustrated
books and pictures, explaining that he found it difficult to give
images to the words in their texts as the children in his school had
never seen a locomotive, a train of cars, a bridge, a tower, a brick or
stone building, and the nearest approach to the palace of which they
read in their stories was the two-story square frame building in the
adjoining settlement. The teacher of Anna and Mary realizing that they
would not be allowed to stay in school longer than the law required,
having now had more schooling than their father or mother, was trying
to give them some simple instruction in household work and was glad to
know of "When Mother lets us cook" and the simple books of sewing; and
the town girl teaching her first term in the country school tells of
her experience in using books of drawing to tame the young "Jack-pine
savage" who had been the bully of the school.
The country teacher, as a type, is hardly more than a child herself,
born, or transplanted at an early age, into pioneer conditions of work
and living with the energies and thought of the family concentrated on
getting a start in life in the new land.
In these homes books have not been plentiful, in some the catalog of
the mail order house is often the only printed matter in evidence,
having apparently displaced the family Bible from its time-honored
place on the center table.
In the early schooling and life of the country teacher only the
textbooks have left an impress and when she is asked at a country
teachers' meeting or in the beginning of her normal school course to
name favorite children's books, she puts down the texts she studied in
the country schools, the Baldwins, the Carpenters, the Wheelers and the
rest.
The stage of poverty and extreme hardship is fast passing. With
increased prosperity comes the opportunity for better things, usually
desired by the children, not always by the parents.
The school inspector was urging a new schoolhouse. The farmer thought
this one good enough. After dinner they went out to see the fine stock
and seeing the splendid barns for the stock the inspector said: "You
provide such good buildings for your stock you ought to be willing to
do something for your children." The farmer still demurred and the
inspector pressed the matter. "Do you care more for your stock than
for your children?" The farmer became indignant and said: "I want you
to know that stock is thoroughbred." If the parents have lost or never
had the power to enjoy books, the school and the library must see to it
that this asset is given the child in the country, who tomorrow must
deal with the problems of the new country life more complex than his
fathers have known; the farmer's wife to become emancipated must learn
to use the books which will help her, and there must be foundations
for the larger citizenship for in spite of all efforts to keep the boy
on the farm he will continue to join the ranks of the financiers, the
doctors, the judges, the governors and the like.
The newer idea of the use of books and reading in the country schools
is taking hold if sometimes vaguely. "I tell them to read library
books," she said when asked what use she made of the school library.
"Oh no, I have never read any of them myself," and "Little women" and
"Captains courageous" and many other live children's books stood in
perfect condition on the shelf, though there were a number of children
in the school old enough to enjoy them, and only such books had been
used as the more adventurous spirits in the school had tasted, found
good and passed on to their fellows.
Few children have books of their own--one-third--one-fourth--one in
ten being the answer which comes from the teachers to this query.
Generally speaking, they read the books in the school library or none
at all unless there is a traveling library at hand.
Teachers' training departments in the high schools are doing much to
help the country school. In the year's work the students get much
of the spirit as well as methods of country school teaching for
the training teacher is usually eager to give them all she has of
enthusiasm and efficiency and reaches out for all help in her work.
In one teacher's outlines, familiar looking notes on book selection and
lists of children's books were discovered. She had patiently copied
them from the summer school notes of the librarian in her home town and
was using them with her students. In addition to her regular work she
looks after the school library which is open to the public and also
gives help to schools in the country in the arrangement of their school
libraries. In most of these departments some work is attempted on the
rural school library with required reading of children's books.
The town librarians find these classes an opportunity to extend their
influence by talks in the schools and showing the resources and use of
the library. Acquaintance and work with country teachers helped one
librarian to put through a long-cherished, long-fought scheme of county
extension. As the teachers understand more fully the help they can get
from the library the more eagerly they consult the librarian about
their work.
The inclusion of talks on children's books, reading and school
libraries on the programs of the county teachers' and school officers'
meetings, talks and exhibits at district and state educational
gatherings and the University weeks have helped to give school
libraries new importance in the estimation of the teachers.
The country school library to become useful must be reduced to a
collection of books suited to the ages of the pupils as well as to the
work in the school. As elsewhere, the best way to get the country child
to read the best books is to have no other kind.
Recent library legislation makes it possible for any country or town
school library in Minnesota to combine with a public library for
service. They may turn over their books not needed in the school and
what is more valuable to the library, the fund which they are annually
required to spend for library books. In return the library must furnish
the school with traveling libraries of books selected from the state
school list, suited to the pupils in the school, and the school may
also be a distributing point for books for the neighborhood, a real
branch.
In some of the associated school districts the central library sends to
the associated schools traveling libraries purchased by the district
or borrowed from the library commission. In others, the country pupils
act as a circulating medium for the central school library. In one town
the school and town jointly maintain a good library with a competent
librarian in the schoolhouse and it successfully serves the town, the
pupils for their reference work and the country 'round about through
the country boys and girls who come in every day to school.
The village or open country consolidated school presents yet another
opportunity. These schools are the direct outgrowth of the new spirit
of country life and are planned to minister to the social as well as
the educational needs of the combined districts; and serve as a social
center. The library is an important part of the equipment for this work.
State plans for these buildings include a good-sized assembly room, and
a room for a library is required. The principal of the school must be
shown how the library may help him in his work and he must be assisted
in the selection of books not only for the school work but also for
the boys' and girls' club, the potato and corn growing contests, the
farmers' club, the women's club, the debating societies, literary
evenings, and social gatherings which he plans to make features of his
school.
Such are some of the possibilities. To make them realities, the
teachers must be trained in an understanding of the purpose of a
library and a knowledge of children's books, and every library agency
in every county and state must be quickened toward the most remote of
"all of the children of all of the people."
In the discussion by Mr. Kerr, Miss Burnite, Miss Brown, Miss Allin,
Miss Zachert and Miss Hobart, which followed, the following points
were made: That the time to accomplish the work in question is when
the teachers are in the normal schools, that such work should be based
upon the teachers' intensive knowledge of children's books, and that
influence may be gained by approaching the superintendents and by
using as advertising mediums the school papers to which the teachers
subscribe.
Miss Power then gave the chair to Miss Mary E. Hall, librarian
Girls' high school, Brooklyn, N. Y. Miss Hall introduced Miss MAUDE
McCLELLAND, who told of her work in charge of the library in a high
school in Passaic, N. J., pronounced by Miss Hall to be a model of its
kind. Miss McClelland made a very happy comparison of the old time
school boy and the school boy of today and discussed modern high school
methods of helping children to meet actual problems in life.
Miss McClelland said in part:
THE WORK OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRANCH
In the preface to a volume of essays entitled "Literature and life,"
William Dean Howells defends the doctrine that the tree of knowledge,
so familiar to all of us, is in reality but a branch of the tree of
life. Literature, instead of having a separate existence of its own,
is, as a matter of fact, but a part of life, and all that is necessary
to make it a vital force in the lives of human beings is to establish
its identity with life.
Now the emphasizing of this unity of literature and life has become
the self-appointed task of the modern public library--a task which it
is approaching from a number of different angles, such as work with
children, work with clubs, work with foreigners, and work with schools.
Something of what the library is doing along one of these lines--that
of work with schools--may be learned by studying the methods in use in
the high school branch of a public library.
Perhaps these methods may best be illustrated by contrasting the school
days of two brothers, Adam and Theodore. Now Adam went to school in
the good old days when there were no high school libraries, and indeed
very few libraries of any kind. At 9 o'clock every morning the active
interests of life ceased for him. He then entered the schoolhouse and
began the study of a set of lessons, which far removed from real life
in themselves, could not be made intensely vital even by the best of
teachers, because there was no library in the building upon which the
teachers could draw for books and other materials to illustrate the
connection between the classics and real life.
The first subject upon his program was ancient history. This he
learned with the aid of a textbook, condensed in form, and attenuated
in spirit. To him the book was a collection of disagreeable facts to
be learned by heart and then forgotten as quickly as possible after
examinations were over.
Now, when Adam's brother Theodore entered the school, matters had
changed. A branch of the public library had been installed, and the
history teacher was no longer handicapped in her work. The members of
Theodore's class had all been given special topics for investigation,
so when the class in ancient history was called, one pupil drew upon
the board the plan of a Greek house, which he had copied from Harper's
classical dictionary, while another pupil, who had been to the library
and interviewed Gulick's "Life of the ancient Greeks," described the
furniture and cooking utensils of the Greeks, and told about the kind
of things they had to eat. And Theodore began to realize that after
all, those ancient Greeks were real people, just like other real
people. So from that history lesson he carried away inspiration from
the life of the past toward the living of his own life of the present
and future.
The next lesson on the schedule for the day was English. Now, when
Adam went to school, he had been rather fond of reading--but that
there could be any connection between reading and the English work
given him at school never entered his head for a moment. True, they
did some reading in the English class, but it was reading in which he
wasn't very much interested, though he supposed that in some vague way
it probably did him a great deal of good. The real reading, which he
did surreptitiously at home was of an entirely different kind. Far
from imagining that he derived any benefit from it, he at times even
feared that he was endangering his immortal soul. But he felt that the
pleasure was worth it. The two kinds of reading, if tabulated, would be
about as follows, the comparative amount done being in about the ratio
of 16 to 1 in favor of the kind he liked--if he had luck in borrowing
books from the boys:
School Reading
Rhetoric and composition.
Evangeline.
Pilgrim's progress.
Selections from Milton.
Lady of the lake.
Home Reading
The downward path or A debt of vengeance.
Helping himself.
A leap in the dark.
Trapped in his own net.
The school reading was unexceptionable as to literary character, but,
at least for the growing boy of average intelligence, it seemed to lack
attractiveness.
When Theodore entered the English class in high school, times had
changed. The first thing the teacher did was to give him a list of
books for home reading. At the top of the list was written, "These
books may be borrowed either from the high school branch or from any
other branch of the public library." On the list were such books as
"Huckleberry Finn," "Tom Sawyer," "The jungle books," "Story of a bad
boy," "The wonder book and tanglewood tales," "Treasure island" and
"The man without a country."
Now, these books have literary character; they are attractive;
furthermore, they were written by authors who at all times observe with
proper respect and deference the laws of the English language.
So, once more, through the aid of the library, we find the connection
between literature and the joy of life established.
In the old days, not much had been said about vocations, or working
for a living. Indeed, the only ambition considered really worth while
was that of going to college and becoming educated. To leave school
before graduation was rather a disgrace, and if any boy was, like Lady
Macbeth's guests, by force of circumstances, compelled to "go, and stay
not upon the order of his going," his method of departure can best be
described by the expression, "slinking out." But now, Theodore found
the school ready and willing to help all those who had to leave school
to go to work; and again, the connection between real life and school
was established.
And if Theodore found that the library was not lacking in books that
would help in the practical issues of life, neither did he find a
dearth of the books that are needed for companionship--the books that
we are inclined to group under the heading "Cultural reading." Oliver
Wendell Holmes, in one of his essays, says, speaking of libraries, that
he has the same easy feeling when among books that a stableboy has
among horses. And it is perhaps along this line--that of inculcating a
real love for books--that the greatest work of the high school library
lies.
In an article on "Children's reading" in Harper's Weekly for May 31
there are some valuable suggestions for the librarian, not least among
them that contained in the last paragraph, which I shall quote:
"An excellent suggestion is that in all public schools there should be,
as well as the supervisor of drawing, and the supervisor of music, and
the supervisor of manual training, a supervisor of the art of reading.
For is not reading, after all, an art, and an uplifting, consoling and
educative art?"
Mr. SAMUEL H. RANCK, librarian of the Grand Rapids public library, read
a full and interesting paper on
THE LIBRARY'S OPPORTUNITIES IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
In October, 1911, the Grand Rapids public library published in its
monthly bulletin an outline of the Central high school course in
vocational guidance, with a selected list of the library's books
on this subject for teachers and pupils. Five thousand copies were
printed, and no number of the bulletin we have ever published has
received so much attention. Requests for it have come from all over
the world, and a number of institutions have purchased as many as 50
copies. This bulletin is now out of print. In the near future, on the
basis of our experience of the last few years, we expect to publish a
revised edition of the vocational guidance list, which will include
much new material purchased on this subject in the last two years.
Although this list has received so much attention outside of the city
its greatest success has been in the city itself. It has brought to the
library a great number of young people for the books for circulation
and to the reference department for the preparation of all sorts of
themes on vocational subjects as a part of their high school work
in English. It is not an uncommon thing to find from 20 to 50 high
school students at one time working on this subject in our reference
department. Incidentally this work at the library has been a splendid
training for the boys and girls in the use of the reference books, and
regardless of any direct effect it might have on their choice of a
career it is certain that the consideration of a number of subjects in
connection with the possibility of their being followed as a vocation
tends to broaden the life of any young person.
At first this work was regarded somewhat as a joke by some of the
pupils but there has been less and less of this as time goes on. No
work that the library has ever done in the way of making certain
classes of books known to its readers has met with anything like the
response as has this work of co-operation with the Central high school.
All through this work the thought of the library has been that it is a
co-operating agent rather than an institution working independently,
and it seems to me that in all work of this kind the teacher and the
school through their intimate personal knowledge of the child are in a
much better position to guide the boys and girls than is the library.
The library's place is simply that of being fully alive and sympathetic
with the whole situation, and in putting forth every effort to gather
all available data and to supply the needs of those who can use printed
material on this subject. It does not of course neglect opportunities
for personal influence, but it seems to me that the library can not
take the initiative in the same way nor on the same scale as does the
school. Through the reading rooms the library has special opportunities
to direct the "misfit" who comes to the library for a clue to a better
occupation.
Along with the list in our bulletin of October, 1911, which by the way
includes only things in the circulating department of the library, we
published an outline of work in vocational guidance in the Central
high school by Principal Davis. The following is his statement and
the outline, as then in use, since modified somewhat on the basis of
practical experience.
Outline of Work in Vocational Guidance in the Central High School
By Jesse B. Davis, Principal
"Vocational guidance aims to direct the thought and growth of the pupil
throughout the high school course along the line of preparation for
life's work. The plan is intended to give the pupil an opportunity to
study the elements of character that give success in life, and by a
careful self analysis to compare his own abilities and opportunities
with successful men and women of the past. By broadening his vision
of the world's work, and applying his own aptitudes and tastes to the
field of endeavor that he may best be able to serve, it is attempted
to stir the student's ambition and to give a purpose to all his
future efforts. Having chosen even a tentative goal his progress has
direction. In the later study of moral and social ethics he has a
viewpoint that makes the result both practical and effective.
"In order to reach all the pupils in the high school this work is
carried on through the department of English, which subject all pupils
must take. Brief themes and discussions form the basis of the work.
Pupils are directed in their reading along vocational and ethical lines
and are advised by teachers who have made a special study of vocational
guidance. The following outline is but suggestive of the types of
themes and discussions to be used. Each teacher is given opportunity to
use her own individuality in working out the details of the scheme.
"Outline
First Year
1st Semester--Elements of success in life.
1. Every day problems.
(a) The school. (b) The home. (c) The athletic field.
(d) The social group.
2. Elements of character.
(a) Purpose of life. (b) Habit. (c) Happiness. (d)
Self-control. (e) Work. (f) Health.
2nd Semester--Biography of successful men and women.
1. Character sketches.
2. Comparison of opportunities of ... with self.
3. Comparison of qualities of ... with self.
Second Year
1st Semester--The world's work.
1. Vocations: Professions, occupations.
2. Vocations of men.
3. Vocations of women.
2nd Semester--Choosing a vocation.
1. Making use of my ability.
2. Making use of my opportunity.
3. Why I should like to be....
4. The law of service.
Third Year
1st Semester--Preparation for life's work.
1. Should I go to college?
2. How shall I prepare for my vocation?
3. Vocational schools.
4. How shall I get into business?
2nd Semester--Business ethics.
1. Business courtesy.
2. Morals in modern business methods.
3. Employer and employee.
4. Integrity an asset in business.
Fourth Year
1st Semester--Social ethics: The individual and society--from
the point of view of my vocation.
1. Why should I be interested in
(a) Public schools? (b) The slums? (c) Social
settlements? (d) Public charities? (e) The church?
(f) Social service?
2. The Social relation of the business man.
2nd Semester--Social ethics: The individual and the state--from
the point of view of my vocation.
1. The rights of the individual.
2. Protection of the individual from the state.
3. The obligations of citizenship.
4. The rights of property.
5. The responsibility of power."
The books in the bulletin were arranged in accordance with the
foregoing outline, which takes the pupil through the whole four years
of high school work. Principal Davis' statement of the aims and methods
of vocational guidance as it is being carried on in Grand Rapids
is sufficiently clear I think, and does not require any additional
explanation. It should be clearly understood, however, that vocational
guidance is altogether different from vocational education and from
industrial education, subjects with which it is sometimes confused.
To meet the many demands which come to Mr. Davis for information
regarding vocational guidance he is now at work on a book which will
discuss the whole matter fully. This book will probably be ready in the
fall. It will contain a revised list of our books on this subject.
At a recent meeting of the Board of Education this work was organized
and systematized for the whole city, for all the pupils in the seventh
grade and upwards, with Principal Davis as director of the work.
In the light of our experience we believe that the library, in addition
to printing a list of books such as given in accordance with this
outline, needs a supplementary list arranged according to vocations. On
account of the growing interest in vocational education and industrial
education there have been many useful books published within the
last few years. When this work was first begun there was a dearth
of suitable material on a good many subjects, and it was necessary
for the library to depend largely on magazine articles, pamphlets,
etc., in the reference department, the best of which we have indexed
according to subject, along with our indexing of other material such as
college catalogs, to show the institutions where courses are given on
particular subjects, etc.
The following are a few of the subjects called for recently, as they
were noted in the reference department: Nursing, Teaching, Drafting,
Social settlement work, Dressmaking, Library work, Dentistry, Music,
Mining engineering, Electrical engineering, Farming, Physical
training, Agriculture, Education of defectives, Forestry, Playground
work, Stenography, Art, Mechanics, Magazine illustrating, Domestic
science, Landscape gardening, Designing dresses, Housekeeping, Social
secretary work, Private secretary work, Decorative painting, Baseball
managership, Surveying, Civil service, Kindergarten work, Scientific
farming, Physical culture.
The purpose in all this work is to endeavor to aid boys and girls
to find a work in life that will command their best energies, their
intelligent interest, and is adapted to their capacities, thus avoiding
so far as possible the bane of young people drifting into the first
thing that comes along, whether they are fitted for it or not. This
work puts before them the widest possible range of choice of vocation,
enlarges their horizon, and then endeavors to ground them in those
fundamental moral qualities which are the basis of every successful
life.
By putting the right sort of books into their hands in this way the
library has a tremendous opportunity for influencing their lives at
the most formative period, and at the same time developing in them a
more or less serious attitude toward life and its work. The study of
the lives of successful men and women and the study of the work and
requirements of different vocations can not help but impress upon boys
and girls the importance of preparation and conscientious effort as
prime requisites for success in any line of work.
We of the library in Grand Rapids are of the opinion that the library
alone in such work could do very little. As already stated we believe
that the initiative should come from the school. On the other hand, we
are firmly convinced that the school alone without the co-operation of
the library would be very seriously handicapped. In the first place the
school would be required to duplicate unnecessarily a large number of
the books which are in our public libraries, and this of course would
be an economic waste. In the second place the school would be denying
the children one of the best opportunities to come in contact with an
institution which aids them in the continuation of their education all
through life after they leave school. It is of immense value to the
child to get training in the use of the library in connection with the
thinking he is giving to his work in after life. A better introduction
of the child to the value of books and a public library, the library
itself could hardly ask.
But the library's greatest opportunity in vocational guidance is in the
fact that all this work is really constructive manhood and womanhood,
or if you please, constructive citizenship. And this is not only the
greatest work the library can do, but the greatest work any institution
can do.
This subject proved a timely one and aroused considerable discussion.
Many questions were asked concerning the co-operation of the public
library in Grand Rapids with this department of work in the high
school. Mr. Ranck announced that Mr. Davis, principal of the Central
high school, expects to bring out a book in the fall which shall
include outlines and the list of books which has been in such great
demand and which is now out of print.
The discussion seemed to show that "vocational guidance" is a
legitimate field not adequately covered by libraries. Miss Power now
took the chair.
Miss Burnite made a motion to adopt the following resolution:
Whereas, the members of the American Library Association who
are engaged in work with children feel the great bond of
affection for all those who have rendered that service to child
life which the achievement of efficient library service for
children signifies;
And whereas, the Dayton public library has suffered the
destruction of its children's department and thereby the
children of the city are without the influence of good books
at the time they need them most;
Be it resolved: that we express to the Board of Trustees,
the librarian, Miss Clatworthy, the head of the children's
department, Miss Ely, our deep sympathy and the hope that their
work may be rehabilitated upon a greater plane of service.
Be it resolved also, that these resolutions be spread upon
the minutes of this meeting and the secretary be empowered
to forward them to the library officials mentioned with the
request that the resolutions be forwarded to the Women's
Clubs of the city and especially to the Mothers' Clubs as
an expression of sympathy for them also, in the loss of the
department of the library which has furthered their own efforts
in bettering child life.
The motion was carried and the session adjourned.
BUSINESS MEETINGS
At the business meetings of the section held June 25th at 2:30 p. m.
and after the session, Friday, June 27th, the chairman appointed three
new members of the advisory board, as follows: For one year, Mr. Henry
E. Legler, and, for three years, Miss Linda Eastman and Miss Lutie E.
Stearns. Miss Annie C. Moore, Miss Clara W. Hunt and Miss Caroline
Burnite were appointed members of the nominating committee and upon
their recommendation the following officers for the ensuing year were
unanimously elected: Miss Agnes Cowing, chairman; Miss Mary Ely, vice
chairman; Miss Ethel Underhill, secretary. Miss Adah Whitcomb and Miss
Faith Smith were appointed by the chair to investigate the subject of
simplified headings in several different libraries, to confer with the
Catalog Section and A. L. A. Publishing Board, and to report to the
Section.
COLLEGE AND REFERENCE SECTION
MAIN SESSION
The main session of the College and Reference Section was held on
Tuesday afternoon, June 24th, at the Hotel Kaaterskill. Mr. Andrew
Keogh, reference librarian of Yale University, presided; Miss Amy L.
Reed, librarian of Vassar College, acted as secretary.
The chairman asked for a motion to fill the vacancy on the committee of
arrangements which would be caused by his own retirement. It was voted
that the Chair appoint a nominating committee; Mr. L. L. Dickerson,
librarian of Grinnell College, and Miss Laura Gibbs, cataloger of Brown
University, were asked to serve as such a committee.
The session then proceeded to the program for the day, which was the
work of Miss Sarah B. Askew, New Jersey public library commission, and
of Mr. N. L. Goodrich, librarian of Dartmouth College. In order to
secure pointed discussion Mr. Goodrich had caused brief summaries of
the papers to be printed and distributed to members of the section two
weeks before the meeting.
Miss LUCY M. SALMON, professor of history at Vassar College, read the
first paper, entitled
INSTRUCTION IN THE USE OF A COLLEGE LIBRARY
Students who enter college are in an altogether hopeless state, if we
are to believe the lamentations poured out in educational reviews and
in library journals. In familiar phrase, "they have left undone those
things which they ought to have done, and they have done those things
which they ought not to have done, and there is no health in them."
But it is not given either a college librarian or a college instructor
to remain long hopeless, either for himself or for others,--the
very nature of his calling demands that somebody do something.
Discouragement over ignorant and untrained freshmen dissolves into the
bewildering questions of who is to do what, and when, and where, and
how. And so the college year begins.
It is undoubtedly true that a very large majority of college freshmen
are not familiar with a large library such as they meet in college,
that they have never used a card catalog, and that they would not even
recognize it if they saw one.
But is it reasonable to expect such knowledge? The majority come from
small places where such opportunities are not found, the work of the
secondary schools does not demand extensive use of a library, and
the mental immaturity of pupils of the secondary school age does not
augur well either for an understanding of the intricacies of the card
catalog, or for any special interest in the cataloging of books, or in
general library history and administration. If the entering student
had a knowledge of these things, one reason for going to college would
be lacking,--he goes to college to learn what he cannot reasonably be
expected to know before that time.
Cheerfully accepting then this condition of ignorance of all library
procedure on the part of the rank and file of college freshmen
everywhere, and unanimously agreeing that the college student must in
some way learn how to use a library, diversity of opinion is found in
regard to these two questions:--Is this instruction given better as an
independent course to the entering students, or is it better to give
it in connection with regular college work? Should the instruction be
given by members of the library staff, or by college instructors?
The very fact that this question has been broached is helpful, since
it is significant of the great changes that are coming both in library
administration and in educational theory and practice. It suggests the
increasing specialization in library work, the growing co-operation
between the library force and those engaged in the more technical
side of education, newer and, we believe, higher ideals of the object
and therefore of the process of education, and the reflection of
these changes in the development in the student body of independence,
self-reliance, and the desire to do creative work.
Assuming therefore that we are all interested in securing for the
college student fullness of knowledge at the earliest hour possible, I
venture personally to differ somewhat from the report of the majority
of the committee of the New England college librarians and to say that
from the angle of the college instructor, it seems clear to me that
the knowledge is better acquired in connection with regular college
courses and that it can best be given by college instructors. It is
with most of us a favorite occupation to see how many birds we can
bring down with one stone, and this desire is in a sense gratified if
we can incorporate knowledge of how to use a library with the subject
matter included in a particular course,--it seems a saving of time for
student, instructor and librarian. Everything is clear gain that can be
picked up by the way.
But quite apart from this general desire to telescope several
subjects, there are specific advantages gained by the student when the
instruction is given by the instructor of a regular college class.
The knowledge acquired falls naturally into its place in connection
with definite, concrete work. Abstract theory has little place in the
mental equipment of the fresh man, he seeks out relationships, adds new
knowledge to what he already has, and quite reasonably is impatient,
even intolerant in spirit when new ideas and facts are presented to him
that he cannot immediately assimilate. To use a homely illustration, an
article of food, like butter, that is essential for our physical diet
serves its purpose much better when distributed through other articles
of food than if taken independently and by itself. All new ideas in
regard to library organization, cataloging, bibliography, searching for
material, the handling of books, if gained through the usual channels
of college work, are quickly and easily assimilated by the college
student. If, however, these same ideas are presented to him unrelated
to other work they are in danger of remaining unassimilated and of
becoming a hindrance rather than a help.
On the other hand, the advantages in having the instruction given by
a regular college instructor are that he deals with small sections of
students, not with "numbers which are appallingly large;" that he knows
the individual student; that he is able to relate the bibliographical
work with the individual student on the one hand, and on the other hand
with the special subject with which the student is working.
Personally, I can but feel that the assumption made by the committee
of the New England college librarians, by the librarian of the
Newark public library, by the dean of the collegiate department of
the University of Illinois, and by others in the library field that
college instructors are not interested in this matter and would oppose
instruction in it is not really warranted by the condition that exists.
May I venture to describe somewhat in detail what is done in one
college in showing students how to use books, how to become acquainted
with the opportunities of a large library, and how to avail themselves
of these opportunities in a direct personal way. In giving this account
of what is done in Vassar College, may I emphasize the statement
that the work done is by no means peculiar to one college,--other
institutions all over the country are doing much that in principle is
precisely the same, although the details may vary.
The first aid in knowledge of the library building, of its equipment,
and of how to use its collections is given the Vassar College student
literally during her first hours on the college campus. She is met by
a member of the senior or the junior class and taken about the campus,
and it is the duty of these student guides to give every entering
student a copy of the =Students' Handbook=. In this she is urged
to "become acquainted with the library as soon as possible." "The
reference librarian," the =Handbook= tells her, "expects every new
student to come to the reference desk to be shown about the arrangement
of the library and the use of the catalog and to receive a copy of the
library Handbook."
The guides point out the library and they are instructed to urge the
new students to seek out the reference librarian at once and to make
the library trip immediately. The new student goes to the residence
hall where she is to live and she finds on the bulletin board in this
hall an invitation to take the library trip. The records kept by the
reference librarian show that a very large percentage of the entering
students almost immediately avail themselves of this invitation
extended by guides and reiterated by =Handbook= and by bulletin boards.
When the new student first enters the library she is given a plan of
the building showing the arrangement of the different sections and a
handbook explaining in full the library privileges. Armed with this,
she is met by the reference librarian and then joining a group of three
others she is taken through the library where she makes connections
between the plan in her hand, the books on the shelves, "the inanimate
reference librarian--the card catalog--" and the animate reference
librarian in whom she finds a guide, counselor and friend.
This library trip can be, and is intended to be only general in
character. The student gains from it first of all the consciousness of
having found in the reference librarian a friend to whom she can always
go for help and advice; second, her interest is aroused to become
better acquainted with the card catalog and with the general facilities
for work afforded by the library; and third she gains a determination
to follow the injunction of the =Students' Handbook=, "do your part to
make the library an ideal place in which to work."
It is at this stage, after this general instruction given by the
reference librarian, that the majority of the entering students meet
the officers of the department of history. We give them collectively
during the first week, usually the second day, an illustrated lecture
on the library. This includes slides showing the catalog cards of a few
of the books they will use most in their history work, the cards of
the most important reference works, periodicals, and atlases, slides
showing the difference between a "see" card and a "see also" card,
slides that explain incomplete series, continuation cards, and every
variation that concerns their immediate work. Every slide concerns a
work on history that is to be used almost immediately, and the form
used in cataloging, the notation and the annotation, the hieroglyphics
of the printed card, and the bibliographical features of the card are
fully explained from the screen.
The students then meet their individual instructors, each one having
previously provided herself with a pamphlet called ="Suggestions
for the Year's Study, History I."= This pamphlet, besides giving
detailed instructions for the preparation of the work, includes a
plan of the library; suggestions in regard to its history, as also
the description and the meaning of its exterior and interior; a
facsimile and explanation of the catalog card of the text book used
in the course; hints concerning the general card catalog; an analysis
of the general form and different parts of a book; special directions
for preparing the bibliographical slips or cards that must accompany
every topic presented, together with an illustration of a model card;
a full classification, with illustrations under each, of all the
works of references the class will presumably use, including general
works of reference, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, periodicals, year
books, atlases, autobiographical material, including the various
forms of =Who's Who?= together with biographical, ecclesiastical and
various miscellaneous dictionaries and encyclopaedias; an elaborate
chart devised to show the authoritativeness as history of the text
book used in the course, accompanied by a full explanation of it;
suggestions in regard to the purchase of histories for a personal
library; and finally, a recommendation to make use of another pamphlet
called =Suggestive Lists for Reading in History=. The main points
in the pamphlet =Suggestions for the Year's Study= are talked over
between instructor and students, and constant reference is made to it
throughout the year.
The next step in the history work is to assign each student one or
more questions written on a slip and drawn by lot. These questions are
intended to test her assimilation of the bibliographical help already
given, and her ability to apply to a concrete case what she has gained.
As soon and as often as possible the students in the different sections
of this class in history go to the library with the instructor for such
additional and special help as they may need.
From time to time the students in History I prepare special topics on
limited questions. A bibliography must always preface these topics and
if it is in any way at fault, either as regards form or material, it
must be presented a second time or as many times as is necessary to
correct the defects.
This course in History I is required of every student in college.
Those students who elect other courses based on this become acquainted
with still other features of the library and acquire added facility
in bibliographical work. Every student, for example, who elects the
course in American history has a pamphlet called =Suggestions for the
Year's Study, History A, AA=. This pamphlet includes a chart that shows
the location in the library of all the sections of American history,
each accompanied by the Dewey notation for each section, and also the
notation for the sections in political science, law and government,
American literature, English literature, and English history. It also
considers at length the place in the course of the textbook, secondary
works, collections of sources, almanacs, works on government, guides
to literature, state histories, biographies, travels, and illustrative
material. For the latter the students are again referred to =Suggestive
Lists for Reading in History=.
Another section of the pamphlet considers specific classes of books
which the student uses. It calls attention to the various kinds of
bibliographies, as complete, selected, classified, and annotated; to
library catalogs arranged on the dictionary, author, subject, and
title plan, as also to trade catalogs; to documents classified by form
and by contents; to official publications, and the publications of
historical societies; to every form of personal record; to descriptions
by travelers; and to general and special histories. It also takes up
periodicals; manuscripts; special facsimiles, like the B. F. Stevens;
geographical material; monumental records; inscriptions, and pictorial
material.
Elaborate directions are given for preparing exhaustive bibliographies
of the material in the college library on special subjects and
suggestions for expanding these in the future as other opportunities
for further library work are presented. In addition, tin trays of
cards are provided in the American history sections. These are
bibliographical cards that supplement but do not duplicate the catalog
cards of the general library catalog.
During the year about twenty special topics are prepared by this class,
each prefaced by a bibliography of the subject. At the end of the year,
one special bibliographical topic is presented. This represents what
each student can do in the time given to three classroom hours.
At the end of the first semester of this course the examination given
is not a test of what the students have remembered but rather a test of
what they are able to do under definite conditions. The class is sent
to the library, each member of it usually receives by lot an individual
question, and she then shows what facility she has gained in the use of
books by answering the question with full range of the library.
Other pamphlets of =Suggestions= have occasionally been prepared for
the most advanced courses. At the end of the senior year the students
in my own courses are frequently given an examination that calls for
the freest use of the library in the planning of history outlines
for club work, in arranging for a public library selected lists of
histories suitable for "all sorts and conditions of men," and similar
tests that show how far they are able to apply present bibliographical
knowledge to probable future experiences.
All this instruction and opportunity for practice in bibliography
is not left to "the chance instruction of enthusiastic instructors"
or to "the insistence of department heads" to quote Mr. Kendric C.
Babcock.[8] It is definitely planned, it is systematically carried
out, there is definite progression from year to year in the kind of
bibliographical work required, and it is directly related to the
specific and individual work of every student. From time to time
conferences are held by the members of the library staff and the
instructors in history and these conferences enable each department
to supplement and complement the work of the other and thus avoid
repetition and duplication.
[8] =Library Journal=, March, 1913, p. 135.
This division of labor enables the reference librarian to play the part
of hostess, to make the students feel at home, to secure their good
will and co-operation, to develop a sense of personal responsibility
towards the library and its treasures. Her work as regards the library
is
largely general and descriptive; as regards the students it is that of
a friend and counselor; as regards the other officers of the college it
is that of an ally and co-operator.
It is necessary to emphasize at this point the wide divergence between
the work of the reference librarian in the college or the university
and that of the reference librarian in the public library however large
or small it may be.
In the public library the demand made upon the reference librarian
is for definite information for immediate use; the library patron
wishes, not training in acquiring information by and for himself, but
the information itself; no substitution of deferred dividends will
satisfy his insistent demand for immediate cash payment; he cares not
at all for method but he cares very particularly for instant results.
Moreover, no one intervenes between the reference librarian and the
library patron,--he alone is responsible for giving the information
desired. And again, the reference librarian has to deal with an
irregular, constantly fluctuating clientele. The man who wants to know
who first thought the world was round and whether he was a vegetarian
or perchance a cannibal may never visit the library again, but the
effort must be made to satisfy his curiosity. The reference librarian
of the public library must always be more or less of a purveyor of
miscellaneous information to an irregular fluctuating public.
But the functions of the college reference librarian are altogether
different. It is often his duty not to give, but temporarily to
withhold information; not to answer but to ask questions; to answer
one question by asking another; to help a student answer his own
question for himself, work out his own problems, and find a way out
of his difficulties; to show him how to find for himself the material
desired; to give training rather than specific information; to be
himself a teacher and to co-operate with other instructors in training
the students who seek his help. All this is possible for him for he
deals with a regular constituency and he can build up each year on
the foundations of the previous year. But while progression comes
for the students, there is always the solid permanency of subject
with which the reference librarian deals. With the regularity of
the passing calendar there come the questions of the feudal system
and of the frontier, of the renaissance and of how to follow a bill
through congress. The personnel of the student body changes, but there
is always an unchanging residuum of subject matter. On the side of
the regular college work there is therefore practically no demand
whatever made on the college reference librarian for the miscellaneous
information demanded of the public reference librarian,--he is not the
one who writes for the daily papers the description in verse of the
daily life of the reference librarian.[9] Just what his work is in the
college, from the students' point of view is indicated by a recent
experience.
[9] =Library Journal=, Oct., 1912. =Public Libraries=, June, 1913.
A class of seventy in American history was recently asked to what
extent the members of it had availed themselves of the services of the
reference librarian in that particular course and the replies seem to
show that their inquiries had chiefly related to the use of government
publications, early periodical literature, material not suggested
by the titles of books, out-of-the-way material, source material,
and current newspaper material not available through indexes. The
many tributes to the help received from the Vassar College reference
librarian are perhaps best summed up, so it seems to the teacher, in
the statement of one student "she shows you how to go about finding a
book better the next time."
If then it must be evident that the work of the college reference
librarian differs widely from that of the public reference librarian,
it remains to consider specifically what division of the field should
be made between the college reference librarian and the college
instructor. Here a clear line of demarcation seems evident. The college
instructor must know the student personally and intellectually, as he
must know the conditions from which he has come and the conditions
to which he presumably is to go. He must help the student relate all
the various parts of his college work and help him relate his college
work to the general conditions in which he is placed. Hence he cannot
separate for the student the bibliography of a subject from the subject
itself. Nor can he turn over to the librarian the instruction in
bibliographical work. The reference librarian is the only member of
the library staff who in the capacity of a teacher comes into direct
personal relationship with the student, but his work, as has been seen,
is entirely different.
In this division of the field that leaves to the college instructor the
actual instruction of students in the use of books, a large unoccupied
territory is claimed by the reference librarian as peculiarly his
own. This concerns the "extra-collegiate activities" and includes
help on material needed in inter-class debates, dramatics, pageants,
college publications, Bible classes, mission classes, commencement
essays, and all the miscellaneous activities in which the student, not
the instructor, takes the initiative. This work corresponds somewhat
closely to that of the general reference librarian in a public library
and it demands about one-half of the time of the librarian.
Instruction in the use of the library is facilitated by unrestricted
access to the shelves and here the students are able to put their
knowledge to the test and to work out their own independent methods.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages of unrestricted access to
the library shelves? The question was recently asked a class of seventy
students and their replies show an almost unanimous opinion that the
advantages are overwhelmingly in favor of the open shelves.
Among the educational advantages enumerated are that this fosters
independence and self-reliance, through encouraging personal
investigation; that it enables students to see books in relation to
other books, to make comparisons, and therefore to select those that
are the best to use; that it shows the library resources and, to a
certain extent, the breadth of the investigation that has been done in
specific lines. "The open shelf is an instructor, a great indispensable
helper, an education in itself," writes one student, while another
states, "It gives an opportunity to form a closer acquaintance with
books already known by name, and for casual acquaintance with books one
has not time to draw out and read at length."
On the more personal side the students have found the advantages to
be the pleasure found in handling books; the appeal made by titles
and bindings; the inspiration that comes from the feeling of kinship
with books; the opportunity given for wide acquaintance with books and
authors; more extensive reading; the saving of time; the satisfaction
of being able to find what is wanted, freedom from the limitations of
specific references. "We become interested in subjects and in books
we should not otherwise have known at all," writes one, while another
asked a friend who replied, "Well, I don't know exactly what it means,
but I guess it means that I for one use books I never otherwise would
have used."
On the side of the library as a whole, many have found advantages in
the opportunity it gives of doing general and special bibliographical
work and in the knowledge afforded of the general plan of arrangement,
classification, and cataloging. "If we had to stay in a reading room,
how much idea of library organization should we have?" is the clinching
question of one enthusiastic student.
The moral advantages are found to be the feeling of responsibility
towards books and the training given in not abusing the privilege.
But it is in the failure of some persons to avail themselves of these
opportunities for moral training that students find the disadvantages
of the open shelf. There are the periodic complaints that books are
lost, misplaced, hidden, and monopolized; that the privilege is abused;
and that the social conscience is lacking. "The open shelf is the ideal
system but it is designed for an ideal society," feelingly writes one,
while another, more philosophical, finds that the open shelf has its
annoyances, but no disadvantages, and that these are probably to be
charged up to human nature, not to the system.
Only an occasional one sees any other disadvantages. One student finds
herself bewildered and lost in irrelevant material, while another
brought up in the atmosphere of Harvard, thinks that the closed stack
encourages greater precision and carefulness, "for if you have to put
in a slip and wait for a book you are more careful about your choice
than you are when you can easily drop one found to be unsatisfactory
and lay your hands immediately upon another one." "It may be," adds a
third, "that we do not get all we might from a book when it is so easy
to get others. I find myself often putting aside a book when I do not
immediately find what I want."
With an occasional plaint about the increased noise and that the open
shelf really takes more time since it is easier to ask for an authority
on a specified subject than it is to look it up for one's self, the
case for and against the open shelf, from the side of the student,
seems closed, with the verdict overwhelmingly in favor of unrestricted
access to the library shelves.
I cannot forbear suggesting two directions in which it seems to me the
library work could be extended to the advantage of both library and
academic force.
The first is the desirability of having connected with every college
library an instructor in the department of history who gives
instruction in one or more courses in history and who is at the same
time definitely responsible for the development of the bibliographical
side of the history work.
The work of the history librarian on the library side would be to serve
as a consulting expert on all questions that arise in cataloging books
that are on the border lines between history and other subjects. Such
perplexing questions are constantly arising and valuable aid might be
given in such cases by an expert in history.
Another part of the work of the history librarian from the side of
the library would be to keep the librarian and the history department
constantly informed of opportunities to purchase at advantage works on
history that are available only through the second-hand dealers. It
now usually devolves on some member of the library staff to study the
catalogs of second-hand books and report "finds" to some officer of the
history department. Could facilities be provided for making it possible
to have the initiative come from the history side it would seem a
distinct gain.
The work of the history librarian would also include the responsibility
for the classification, arrangement and care of the mass of apparently
miscellaneous material that accumulates in every library but does not
slip naturally into a predestined place. All is grist that comes to the
history mill, yet it is difficult to know how it can best be cared for.
Miss Hasse in her well-remembered article =On the Classification of
Numismatics=[10] has shown that the utmost diversity has prevailed in
regard to the classification of coins and the literary material dealing
with them. This is but one illustration of the uncertainty, confusion,
and diversity that prevails in classifying much of the material that
seems miscellaneous in character, and that yet should be classified as
historical material.
[10] =Library Journal=, September, 1904.
The work of the history librarian on the side of the students would be
concerned during the first semester particularly with the freshmen and
the sophomores. The bibliographical and reference work now done could
be greatly enlarged and extended. It would be possible to explain still
more fully the possibilities of assistance from the card catalog; to
help students locate the more special histories that might seem to
be luxuries rather than the necessities of their work; to make them
acquainted with histories as histories, rather than with histories as
furnishing specific material; to develop their critical appreciation
of books and their judgment in regard to the varying degrees of
authoritativeness of well known old and recent histories. Encouragement
would be given the students to begin historical libraries for
themselves, advice could be given in making reasonable selections of
books, and help in starting a catalog. Interest in suitable book-plates
for historical collections might be roused as well as interest in
suitable bindings, and thus through these luxurious accessories the
student be led on to friendship with the books themselves and with
their author.
During the second semester the work of the history librarian would
be largely with the seniors and would be more constructive in its
nature. The seniors are looking forward to taking an active part in
the life of their home communities and they will be interested in
the public schools, in the public library, in social work, in church
work, in history and literary clubs, in historical pageants, fêtes
and excursions, in historical museums, in the celebration of historic
days, and in innumerable other civic activities, many of which are
intimately connected with the subject of history. The history librarian
would be able to give invaluable aid to the seniors in preparing
lists of histories suitable for public libraries in communities where
suggestions may prove welcome; in suggesting histories adapted to all
these demands made by personal, co-operative, and civic activities.
This constructive work of the history librarian would be capable
of infinite extension and variation and its good results would be
far-reaching and of growing momentum.
May I suggest one further possible direction in which the activities
of the library staff would lend interest to the general work of the
college. Every institution needs luxuries and the members of the
library staff have it in their power to offer courses of lectures open
to all members of the college and also to citizens of the community
who are interested in educational questions. Such courses would
include lectures on the history of libraries; on the great libraries
of Europe and America; on the great libraries of the world; on great
editors like Benjamin F. Stevens; on rare books; on books famous for
the number of copies sold, of editions, of translations, of migrations
through auction rooms; on the famous manuscripts of the world. The
possibilities of such courses are limitless.
There are also the courses of lectures that we are all eager to hear
on the plain necessities that are of even greater interest than are
those that deal with the luxuries. The college wants to hear about the
administration of a library and its general problems; about the special
questions of cataloging, interlibrary loans, the special collections
of the library as well as its general resources. From the standpoint
of special departments, lectures might be given by representatives of
these departments on the treasures of the library as they concern their
special fields.
Joint department meetings of the members of the library staff and
the officers of the departments of English and of history for the
discussion of questions of mutual interest have at Vassar College
proved stimulating and contributed much to a mutual understanding
of each other's ideals and to a sympathetic appreciation of the
difficulties attending their realization.
"Why cannot all this work with and about books be explained by the
librarians,--" college authorities sometimes ask. "That is their
business; it is the business of the teacher to teach."
The answer is simple. The good teacher must individualize the student,
the good librarian must individualize the book; and both teacher and
librarian must co-operate in helping the college student get the utmost
possible from his college course in order that in his turn he may help
the community in which he lives in its efforts to realize its ideals.
The endless chain extends to the farthermost confines of heaven!
Discussion of the paper was led by Mr. J. T. Gerould, librarian of the
University of Minnesota. He believed that most college teachers had
neither the knowledge nor the enthusiasm necessary to give systematic
bibliographic instruction. Training in the use of the library should,
he thought be given by a member of the library staff, from a general
point of view, introducing the student to reference books not simply in
one field, but in all. The time had come for the university libraries
to define their position as a distinct educational integer, not a
mere adjunct to the academic departments. Of course, to take such a
position, the library staff must be thoroughly equipped, and must
include trained bibliographers in adequate number.
Dr. E. C. Richardson, librarian of Princeton University, called
attention to the fact that the principle of unrestricted access to the
shelves required hearty co-operation between the college public and
the library staff. It should be recognized that the librarian is not
responsible for the correct placing of every book on an "open shelf."
Mr. John D. Wolcott, librarian of the Bureau of Education, Washington,
D. C., spoke of the questionnaire on the subject under discussion sent
out in October, 1912, by the A. L. A. to two hundred colleges and
universities. A summary of the results were included in the chapter
entitled "Recent aspects of library development" by John D. Wolcott,
which forms a part of the Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education
for the year ended June 30, 1912. Reprints may be obtained from the
Commissioner.
Mr. H. C. Prince, librarian of the Maine state library, called
attention to the courses in legal bibliography which were being given
at various law schools. Those at the University of Chicago, though
without credit, were eagerly attended by law students.
Mr. Goodrich reiterated his belief that the libraries should take a
definite stand in insisting that college students must be taught how
to use library resources to the full. They must learn the many "tricks
of the trade," which in his opinion, were better known at present
to the librarian than to the teacher. Miss Salmon replied that she
thought it less a question of learning the "tricks of the trade" than
of adapting the desired knowledge to the individual need and capacity
of the student; hence her belief in the teacher as the proper medium of
instruction. The discussion could not be pursued for lack of time.
Mr. H. E. BLISS, librarian of the College of the City of New York, read
a paper on
SOME PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING CLASSIFICATION FOR LIBRARIES
I
The letter inviting me to take part in this conference echoes to me
now across the busy field of the past month with notes something like
this: "Come, if you will, and talk to us and with us, but =please= be
=practical=." Perhaps I have elsewhere in-adroitly given the impression
that I believe classification for libraries should be a matter of
science or of philosophy. I did indeed say in print, some months ago,
that "To be practical today and tomorrow, man must be scientific."
Upon science, that is verified and organized knowledge, practical
common sense is becoming more and more dependent. To be practical
without knowledge is in most matters to be ineffectively practical. How
practical should we be in classification for libraries, and how should
we be practical effectually?
Those who have had to do with classification only in small collections
of books for popular use may regard it as a comparatively simple
and unimportant thing. They do not see why there should be so much
trouble and fuss about it. This we may term the naïve view, to borrow
a phrase from recent philosophical literature. But some of those who
have undertaken to maintain a classification for a large university
or reference library know that it is one of the most difficult and
complicated of our problems. They apprehend furthermore that it has not
yet been solved satisfactorily. This may be termed the =critical= view.
It may vary from moderation to extremes optimistic or pessimistic.
Not a toy librarians want but a =tool=, as we say. The mechanism
of a library, however, is not operated by merely mechanical hands.
There should be somewhat in library service beyond mere statistical
and technical economies. Our arrangement of books should not be
inconsistent with the organization of knowledge, lest we fail in an
=inestimable= service to the seekers and disseminators of knowledge.
II
Is it feasible economically to adapt this instrument, classification,
to that higher service? There are three answers to this question. There
is the pessimistic negative. Books are wanted in all possible and
impossible arrangements. You cannot make a classification that, even
with the customary transfers of charging-systems, will serve all these
ever-varying needs. This argument leads to the virtual negation of the
very =principle= of classification. If this were wholly true, it were
futile to provide a place for bacteriology, for the books would be
wanted now under botany, now under pathology, or sanitation, and again
perhaps under agricultural science.
Shall we separate such branches or not? The pessimist says:
"Whichever you do, classification fails." The optimist answers: "Good
classification serves the average or prevailing demand." To more
special subjects the pessimist then turns, such as crystallography,
eugenics, child-psychology. These he says are claimed in their
entirety by two or three different sciences. These arguments, launched
against so-called "scientific classifications," are no less hostile
to the worthy undertaking of a practical system in such conformity to
the consensus of modern science as the conditions permit. But most
librarians have not accepted this pessimistic negative. They continue
to classify books for average demands, and the interest in the problem
increases.
Contrasted is the more prevalent optimistic view. We have good
classification. The Decimal Classification is an admirable, successful,
at least serviceable system; it is the established, the familiar, the
most practical. With all its faults, we love it still. Is not that
=naïve=? Then, a consistent, scientific system is an impossibility. The
relations and interests in science are ever changing, always complex.
The thing would not continue for a decade to be satisfactory.
Another outcome of the naïve optimistic view, as realizing the
complexity of scientific specialization, is the doctrine that a simple,
practical system may be kept abreast of scientific progress by the
addition of new details. This elaboration of schedules is compatible
with what we term "expansion." Expansibility is essential to the
very life of a notation, but it may be overworked. Certain systems
have, I fear, expanded beyond the capacity of their safety valves to
save them from explosion. Thousands of the details of those inflated
schedules are practically useless even in the largest library. Such
abnormal distension of the bibliographical body, or hypertrophy of
its special parts, is not now for the first time called a disease of
the bibliothecal system. That the subjects and topics are innumerable
and of intricate complexity has led to the misconception that a
classification for libraries should embody an infinity of captions in
infinite complication. An alphabetical subject-index is believed to be
all that is requisite to operate this maze of entangled details. This
view may be termed the =subject-index illusion=.
Classification for libraries is to be distinguished on the one
hand from notation and on the other hand from an arrangement of
bibliographical subjects indexed. Notation and index are but
correlative to classification, and, however requisite to a practical
system, are in truth of minor importance. They are the fingers and the
feet of the body and brain that organize the materials of knowledge.
Yet it is these fingers and feet that have chiefly occupied the
attention of most classifiers.
In the theory of classification subjects are to be distinguished from
classes as contents from containers. The subject is that which is
denoted by its definition; the class is the aggregate of particular
things--books, or other things--that are comprised by the definition.
A class may be comprehensive of many subjects or aspects of subjects.
Such need not appear in the schedules of the classification, but they
should be in its subject-index. Thus, Botany is a subject, to which
Botanical Books is the corresponding class; Plant Physiology, a less
general subject, has a less comprehensive class of books. Geotropism
is a specific subject in the physiology of plants. The question
arises, is there a class of books and pamphlets treating especially
of this subject, the tendency of plants to respond to gravitation, as
a stimulus? "Have you in your library," I might ask individually of
the majority, "have you an aggregation of books on this subject?" The
A. L. A. List comes nearest in the sub-headings under Plants, where
with Movements appears Heliotropism, a kindred subject. This caption
Movements is for a veritable class of subjects, and it might indeed
comprise Geotropism. That is just what the Library of Congress schedule
does, subordinating under QK 771 "Movements, Irritability in plants,
(general)", the caption of 776, "Miscellaneous induced movements:
Geotropism, Heliotropism, etc." In my own classification, the mark GCM
goes with the caption, "Movements, Heliotropism, Geotropism, etc."
It seems well thus to provide for a future group of monographs. If I
criticise the Library of Congress classification today, or elsewhere,
be it remembered that I recognize its correct treatment of this and
thousands of other subjects. But is the E. C. justified in reaching
into the dim future for subdivisions of specialization such as its
NESGD, Diatropism, and NESGL, "Lateral Geotropism?" That is where we
must open the safety valve or burst.
The body of the D. C. is congested with thousands of names of persons,
places, and events which may be subjects, but hardly for classes of
books. Systematic schedules might provide for most of these, reduce the
bulk of the system, and make for economy and convenience. The L. C.
schedules suffer from similar but more astounding expansion. Class H,
Sociology and Economics, is needlessly immense, having 551 p., of which
but 51 are index. According to the principle laid down a moment ago,
the number of subjects in the index should by much =exceed= those in
the schedules.
The "Expansive" Seventh expansion expanded so much with its own
specialistic tissue that it could afford to omit such bulk of proper
and place names. For instance Aves (Birds), covers 8 pages of fine
print; there are all the taxonomic terms, for example, PGSLPI is for
Phalacrocoracidæ, some family related to the pelicans; but there
appears besides only the single subject Oology (eggs), at the end
as PGZ. No place under Birds for their structure, their habits,
for the popular bird-books, and for such interesting subjects as
their migration, flight, etc., about which there =are= books!
However much there is to interest, to commend, and to admire in this
great undertaking, it must be admitted that this is not practical
classification for libraries. It is the province of the subject-catalog
to bring together topics and titles which are too special for
classification to bring into collocation.
But let us return to the main question of the feasibility of =better=
classification. There are three answers, I said. Two we have
considered, the naïve, and the pessimistic, also their offspring, the
subject-index illusion, but we have not yet completely answered the
pessimistic. This we may now proceed to do in connection with the third
answer, which is optimistic and constructive, while at the same time
critical. This affirms that better classification is feasible, that it
may be sufficiently flexible and durable, that changes and adjustments
may be provided for in alternative and reserved locations, that the
notation may be quite simple, and that the index may be as full and
specific as comports with convenience.
The purpose of library classification is to group books and to
=collocate groups= for the convenience of readers and students in
their =average wants=. It is not so much for those who want a book,
whose author and subject are known, or any good book on a particular
subject; for such, the author and subject-catalogs may suffice. But
classification is for those who want books, in the plural, directly,
without preliminary handling of cards. Three types of such wants are to
be distinguished.
(1) To all libraries come (the prevalent type) those who wish a
few good books on the subject, or a few facts to be found in the
standard books. They do not care to fuss over the card-catalog.
The reference librarian, the selective lists, may serve such
wants, but close classification usually does so most economically
and most satisfactorily. For very specific subjects, however, the
subject-catalog in the large library may often best serve this type and
may make it less dependent upon free access and close classification.
(2) The second type wants all the good books treating of the subject
especially. From these the user himself is to make selection according
to his purpose or point of view. Free access and classification are
here requisite. A bibliography, if there be one, would be most likely
an _embarras de richesse_.
(3) The third type is that of exhaustive research: all the available
literature is wanted, not only the books and pamphlets treating
especially of the subject, but also those on related subjects and
those of broader scope. Subject-catalogs and bibliographies are
needed preliminaries, but access, continued access to the books, is
the desideratum. It is for this type that the most carefully guarded
libraries give access to their precious collections. Classification,
not merely any old kind of subject, or close classification, but good,
scientific, close classification, based upon good, consistent, broad
classification, is here of paramount importance. The test comes when
the student turns from the special to the more general and the related
subjects, which are mostly in related branches of science. The tendency
to organization in science is rapidly and surely growing. The more
consistent with the consensus, to which studies on the average are
adapted, however original and divergent their aim, the more convenient
will be the classification. It is in subordination of the specific to
the broader subject or class and in collocation of related subjects
and subdivisions of classes that most systems fail; and here that most
classifiers fail to understand either the fault or the remedy.
The difficulties emphasized by the pessimist, the overlapping
of studies and the rival claims, arise chiefly from improper
subordination. The material is common to the several sciences because
these are portions differentiated from larger fields. Child-psychology
is part of Psychology. The science and art of education are mainly
concerned with the mental. They are related to Physiology and to
Sociology as Psychology is related. But to place Education under
Sociology, as is done by the D. C. and the E. C. is to answer the
relation of second, not of first dependence, and is as false as it
were to put psychology under sociology, to put the cart before the
horse. Education and Psychology are working together, and their books
should be contiguous. How shall we arrange these practically? Well,
scientifically, in the order of generality, thus:
I Anthropology.
ID to IG Human physiology.
J Psychology.
JN Social psychology.
JO Child-psychology.
JP Education.
JQ Educational psychology.
K Sociology and Ethnology.
KA Sociology.
KE Ethnology.
L History.
The principles of consistent subordination and practical collocation
should guide the maker of a system, and his notes should guide the
classifier of books. Here indeed should be a "code for classifiers"
more intimately articulated than in a separate book. But herein lies
the practical art of classification, so to dispose classes, divisions,
and subdivisions, that they shall produce a relative minimum of
inconvenience under the average conditions of demand and a relative
maximum of collocation not only of special classes but of general, as
well as a degree of consistency as high as practical conditions permit,
and ultimately, as an ideal, a consistency not only with the pedagogic
but with the philosophic organization of knowledge. This ideal, I
believe, is not beyond approximate realization.
This critical but optimistic view ascribes the failure of library
classifications to the dispersion of related material under subject,
or close classification, without proper subordination and collocation.
The subject-index, however useful to classifiers, is of little value
to students. I approve close classification, but find it the more
unsatisfactory and baffling as it is the less consistently adapted to
good broad classification, with good articulation of related subjects
according to predominating interests, and with alternative locations
for flexibility to changes and for durability in the progress of
science.
III
Having answered the main question of feasibility, we may now take up
some minor practical questions, first Notation. It is not likely that
reason shall soon remove all traces of prejudice and controversy in
this matter. A few propositions, however, are so reasonable that I
think they will be accepted. Notation should be brief and simple. Its
simplicity depends upon its brevity, though also upon the familiarity
and homogeneity of its elements. Letters give brevity. The capacity
of three-letter notation, allowing for omission of all objectionable
combinations, is about 15,000. Using letters and figures together
increases this capacity to about 25,000, omitting confusing mixtures
such as K7G and 8B4. Since somewhat more than 10,000 subdivisions
seem requisite, the question reduces to this form: "Which is simpler,
notation of three letters, or of five figures?" But figures, it is
argued, are more familiar. They may be so to bookkeepers, but to the
keepers of books! Familiar here means familiar with the numbers of
the D. C. Then, are unmeaning combinations like DAL or GWK really
more meaningless than numbers like 13859? On the other hand, isn't
RAG easier to see and to remember? But the argument, so far as it
is not merely prejudiced, is childish. Such combinations as A1, 3B,
C42, and CF6, are hardly objectionable, and may prove convenient and
economical in class-notation as they do in the author numbers, with
which librarians are so friendly. Since they are come to stay, what is
the use of arguing for homogeneous notation?
Notation is the more systematic and economical where it reduces in
part to schedules applicable to the subdivision of many classes or
divisions. This feature appeared to a minor extent in the "form signs"
of the D. C., but was carried out extensively and complexly in the E.
C. It is apparent also in the L. C., but there is more conspicuous
by its absence through hundreds of pages of names of countries,
places, and persons. Time does not permit me to describe here the six
schedules that economize the system I have worked out: Schedule 1,
Mnemonic numerals, constant throughout; Schedule 2, for subdivision
by countries, applicable under subjects, where-ever desired; Schedule
3, for subdivisions under countries and localities; Schedule 4, for
subjects under any language, except the chief literary languages;
Schedule 5, for the chief literary languages; and Schedule 6, for
arranging the material under any prominent author.
Some who admit the feasibility of better classification object that
a classification modern for the present will be out of date in a
generation. This in new guise is the familiar argument that it is
useless to clean the house today, for it will need again to be cleaned
next week--which all good housewives say is an unreasonable argument.
It would be a pity to have fair librarianship called a slouch.
Is it conceivable that your books shall remain forever classified as
they are at present? Are there to be no changes, merely additions of
new captions? Conservatism is not strange, considering the cost of
changing notation; but that cost is small compared with the cost of
new building or new collections, and is justified by the service to
be rendered. The longer postponed, the larger the cost, the larger
the burden. Some libraries are changing now--to what? That change may
indeed have to be changed again in a decade or two. But how long,
then, should a classification endure--or rather, be endurable? One
who would not prophesy may nevertheless give an opinion. I believe
that a good classification should last a century--with some minor
alterations. I believe that a good library should be willing to
reclassify, if necessary, at least some of its collections two or
three times in a century. I think that library economy should have
been developed with better regard to this problem. It is not practical
to arrange books inconsistently with the scientific and pedagogic
organization of knowledge. Organization based on consensus is one
of the marked tendencies of modern thought and purpose, and is not
likely to be overcome by dissenting or disintegrating philosophical
counter-tendencies. This organization is more stable than the theories
on which it rests, and these are more stable than the popular press
would lead us to suppose. New theories, new statements, are assimilated
to the established body of knowledge without much dislocation of
members. Durability in a system would depend not only upon present
consistency with the organization of knowledge, but upon flexibility
through reserved and alternative locations, judiciously chosen with
regard to tendencies in science. There might be flaws and errors, but
all practice, in whatever profession is thus imperfect and tentative.
That the D. C. is antiquated is not because of any change in science,
but because it did not conform to the science of its generation. The
welcome accorded to it in the pioneer days was in keeping with the
earlier view that classification is a simple thing, as it indeed was
for the small popular libraries. That acceptance has mellowed now
into an affectionate companionship with a familiar and comfortable
conveyance that has proved serviceable so far. Now the thing is said to
need repair. But that it cannot economically be reconstructed has been
recently demonstrated. It evidently must go on till its thousand pieces
fall in a heap together, like the "wonderful one-hoss shay." Loading
it with more and more scientific luggage may for a time increase its
service, but the rattling of its parts grows all the more distressing
to those who ride.
I reserve my opinion of the Expansive Classification and of that of the
Library of Congress. It is to the point to say, however, that they are
as unsatisfactory in the major principles of practical and scientific
classification for libraries as they are valuable and admirable in
the details which they have elaborated. They should help to solve the
ultimate problem; but, if consistency with science and economy with
convenience are feasible and requisite, neither of these systems is
fit, nor is either, I think, likely to endure in general use in the
future.
The simpler, the more systematic, and the more consistent with the
organization of knowledge a classification and notation is, the more
economical and the less vexatious will be the operation of classifying
books. The subject, scope, treatment, purpose of the book--if that
could be stated beforehand--and why not?--by author and publisher,
and confirmed by the copyright office or the national library, then
the class-notation could in most cases be quickly found through
subject-index. That information might be printed in the book and more
readily found there than through centralized cataloging and service of
cards. Centralized or co-operative classifying however, or assigning
of subjects and of the class-marks of an elaborately classified
central or national library, would be a service of high value and
of very considerable economy. =But= it should be distinguished from
standardized classification. As libraries differ and differentiate, so
should their classifications. At best a system may serve for libraries
of a type, but not for all types. A university need not adopt an unfit
classification as more than one has done of recent years. It may
translate the centrally assigned subjects and class-marks into its own
system, through its own index. Some general conformity, or conformity
in special parts, may indeed prove economical and convenient, but
standardization of an elaborate system is progress in the wrong
direction.
This outline of a large, complex, and unsolved problem of paramount
importance is very inadequate. I would propose that a committee be
constituted, to articulate with the present committee on a code for
classifying, to set to work upon a fuller investigation of this
great question of the feasibility of better and more economical
classification and notation. If librarians do not provide better
classification for libraries, then the users of libraries will very
likely in the not remote future provide for better librarians.
In the subsequent discussion, opened by Dr. Richardson and by a paper
written by Mr. W. S. Merrill, chief classifier of the Newberry library,
Chicago, exception was taken to many of Mr. Bliss' criticisms of
present classifications. It was pointed out that the D. C., with all
its faults, was yet eminently practical, as evidenced by its widespread
use. Mr. Cutter stated that the E. C. classification for zoology,
which Mr. Bliss had specially criticised, had been made in just the
way Mr. Bliss himself regarded as the soundest, i. e., it had been
condensed from material furnished by an eminent scientist; as to its
being over minute, it was expanded only half as much as the scientist
had proposed. Mr. Charles Martel, chief of the catalog division in the
Library of Congress, Dr. Andrews, librarian of the John Crerar library,
Chicago, and others also expressed their belief in close classification
as a safeguard against confusion and unscientific grouping.
Only a few minutes remained for a paper on "Art in the college
library," by Mr. FRANK WEITENKAMPF, chief of the art department, New
York public library.
ART IN THE COLLEGE LIBRARY
The problem of art in schools has been frequently discussed. The matter
of art in colleges, apparently, has not been so much considered. The
cases, however, seem to be dissimilar only in degree, not in kind.
In fact, not a little of the material that has been suggested for
schoolroom decoration would be equally in place in the college. For
instance, names such as those of Gozzoli or Luca della Robbia, on the
=Craftsman's= list for schools could just as well be suggested for the
college. Also, the average student is probably first to be reached
best by recognition of the fact that there are other interests beside
the purely aesthetic. In other words, good use can be made of the
subject picture, the best possible being chosen. Dr. W. D. Johnston,
librarian of Columbia University, where exhibitions "have always been
an important auxiliary of lectures" and have included exhibitions of
graphic arts, states that these last "are selected and displayed less
with a view to artistic than pictorial value." But he adds that more
and more attention is given to artistic value, and that in his belief
the most valuable exhibits of an artistic nature are those "displayed
permanently on the walls of halls, seminar rooms and lecture rooms. On
the other hand, those which are exhibited temporarily should, if well
selected, and well announced, do much to broaden taste."
The permanent display of pictures which illustrate with distinction
certain broad principles of taste, is of undoubted necessity. But
the use of the temporary show must not be lost sight of. The oft
seen easily becomes the oft unheeded; familiarity breeds contempt.
Periodical changes therefore seem advisable, as evidence that there
is "something doing." Loans of good prints from private sources, if
advisable, might be utilized to excellent effect. For instance, if the
library happens to own, or can borrow, a copy of such a publication
of color reproductions as the Medici prints, or "Meister der Farbe"
or "Alte Meister" (the latter two issued by Seemann of Leipzig),
a number of plates from the same might be placed on exhibition
for, say, three months. This might be followed by a six-weeks'
black-and-white show of good etchings from a private collection, or
from the stock of the nearest museum or print dealer. After that,
perhaps, a show of Greek art. The guiding principles should be: Keep
the exhibit within reasonable bounds as to numbers, make selection
with as much discrimination as circumstances will permit, and see
that what you offer is made palatable. Dr. E. C. Richardson of the
Princeton University library tells me that there a large collection
of art photographs is drawn upon for permanent exhibition, the latter
rearranged "every now and then" in order to exhibit fresh material, and
that there have been a number of special exhibitions. (Incidentally,
this university has a great variety of undergraduate courses in art.)
The matter of proper presentation is important. Not what is seen, but
what is digested, counts. Good labels are a necessity; summary, with as
little dryness as possible, informative, so that the student may see at
a glance why a given picture was shown, and what are its good points.
If relation to studies can be brought out in these exhibits, all the
better. That naturally suggests the possibility of an occasional
display of pictures illustrating a given period or personality in a
given country. In the recently-printed little volume, "Art museums
and schools," containing four lectures by Stockton Oxson, Kenyon Cox,
Stanley Hall and Oliver S. Tonks, the significance of the museum to
teachers of English, art, history and the classics is considered, and
the documentary value of art is properly emphasized. "In order to
teach the classics," says Prof. Tonks, "you must know more of ancient
life than is to be gleaned from the literature by itself." Viewed in
this light, the old Greek vases and other art objects take on a new
significance. But the ultimate object of all this must not be lost
to sight, the cultural influence sought, the promotion of interest
in art as a matter not apart from, but a part of, our daily life, a
contribution to general culture. It is well to make it clear that a
certain amount of appreciation of art can become as much a matter
of course as certain elementary rules of good breeding. "Art," says
Croly, in his "Promise of American life,"--"art cannot become a power
in a community unless many of its members are possessed of a native
and innocent love of beautiful things." These considerations, again,
suggest the occasional exhibiting of plates illustrating decorative
and applied art, say color plates such as those in Wenzel's "Modern
decorative art," or "Dekorative Vorbilder," or similar books, if
procurable, or black-and-white plates from books or art magazines. A
judicious use of the library's books is advisable, not through lengthy
lists in which the bibliographical instincts of the librarian might
find vent. Reference to two or three books on a subject--whetting
the appetite by displaying them at the same time as the plates
exhibited--may lead to an occasional reading at spare moments. It may
help also to show the fallacy of the "I don't know anything of art,
but I know just what I like" attitude. You can not understand anything
worth understanding without some trouble, any more than you can play
football or bridge without some practice.
The matter of hanging must depend, naturally, on local conditions:
amount and distribution and shape and location of available wall
space or other space, financial resources, character of student body,
etc. The simplest method is, of course, to suspend the pictures by
clips from horizontal wires, but it is not under all circumstances
the safest. Pictures may be fastened to a wooden background (usually
covered with burlap or other textile) on the wall. In that case, care
must of course be taken that thumb-tacks do not pass through the print.
The shank of the tack passes close to the picture upon the outermost
margin of which its head will then press. Mr. E. R. Smith of the Avery
library at Columbia University, lays strips of bristol board over the
spaces between the pictures, and overlapping the margins of the same;
the tacks pass through these strips. Pictures fastened to the wall
may be covered by sheets of glass held in place by strong tacks, or
perhaps the brass-headed upholsterers' nails. Where prints are shown
unprotected it may prove well to mount them, unless they are printed
on thick and strong paper. (At the Newark library they use mounting
board bound at the edge with buckram and further strengthened by
pigskin corners; this is for prints which circulate among teachers.)
Where frames are used with the intention of periodical or occasional
change of exhibits, the back can be held by the familiar "button"
device which can be easily swung aside so as to admit of changing the
picture without extracting nails. Mr. Paul Brockett of the Smithsonian
Institution, tells me that there the glass doors of bookcases have been
used for exhibiting pictures. At the same place, wing frames--that
space-saving device of a dozen frames with glass centered on a
standard, and having a certain swing in either direction--have been
used. Moreover, these frames were units which could be hung on the
standard or placed against the wall. In some of the New York public
library's branches, such frames radiate directly from the wall, to save
space. A similar device is seen in a certain type of display fixtures,
in which the swinging frames reach to the floor, and which may be seen
in operation in the lithographic exhibition of Fuchs & Lang, Warren
St., New York City. There is no protecting glass here, however, and
I presume that the use of this contrivance would be safe only in
exceptional cases. Hints to exhibitors may be found in articles such as
the one on "Mounting, framing and hanging pictures," by Miss Mabel J.
Chase, assistant supervisor of drawing, Newark, N. J., in the =School
Arts Magazine= for December, 1912, or in one on "Planning and mounting
an exhibit" in the number for March, 1913, by George W. Eggers, who
lays stress on the fact that "Every exhibit should definitely tell
something." Still continuing the examination of this magazine, one
notes in the issue of April, 1913, an article on the "Decoration of an
assembly hall in R. C. Ingraham Grammar school, New Bedford, Mass."
That relates to a permanent exhibit, and describes the distribution of
pictures and other objects in such a manner as to make a harmonious
arrangement of the whole room. But there are other periodicals, and
there are readers' guides and other indexes and bibliographical aids,
and this is not the place for lists.
Now, as to the material to be used for the exhibition. Outside of
the resources offered by the library's own collection and the loan
possibilities indicated, there are various dealers and other agencies
to be taken into account. In the state of New York for instance,
the division of Visual Instruction of the Education department has
a circulating collection of pictures furnishing ample material for
educational extension lectures and for study clubs. This consists
of "Braun, Elson, Hanfstängel and Hegger carbons, Copley prints and
bromides and Berlin photogravures." These wall-pictures are lent to
schools and libraries, framed without glass, for a fee of 50 cents each
per year. In other states, I presume state library commissions could
give advice. There are the artistic lithographic drawings in color
issued by B. G. Teubner of Leipzig at five and six marks apiece, the
plates of Seemann's "Meister der Farbe" can be purchased separately,
and dealers such as the Berlin Photographic Co., George Busse, the
Detroit Publishing Co., Braun Clement & Co. and others could no doubt
give lists and advice. Importing book-dealers, French and German, must
be considered. Not all of the material furnished by these concerns is
equally cheap, but a certain amount of the higher-priced sort will
serve for permanent exhibit.
Part 6, devoted to the art department, in John Cotton Dana's "Modern
American library economy," is a very useful guide, not only in
its record of accomplishment at Newark, but also in its hints as
to sources, its list of addresses. Miss Ethelred Abbot's "List of
photograph dealers" (Massachusetts Library Club, 1907) is properly
emphasized for its usefulness, as is also the "Bibliotheca pædagogica."
For permanent exhibits the reproductions of certain examples in
architecture, painting and sculpture which have become classical, are
of obvious value. And here, too, the reason for inclusion may well
be emphasized to the student, not only by proper labels but also by
reference at the proper time in the classroom and lecture hall. Such
classics in art will not infrequently be found reproduced better in
black-and-white than in color. Should the library decide to procure
color work by modern artists, such as the Teubner prints referred
to, or the similar ones issued by Voigtländer or by the Künstlerbund
of Karlsruhe, care must be taken to select such as are of general,
and not merely local, interest. Say for example, the well known
"Field of grain" by Volkmann. Such modern work also has the advantage
of emphasizing the fact that there is work worth while being done
today. It likewise shows the healthy tendency to enlarge acquaintance
with home production, home scenery, home customs. We find that, for
instance, in Germany, in Sweden, to a certain extent in England, and
elsewhere. Much of the foreign endeavor in this direction has found
its use in schools, but it involves some big principles in point of
view which make a certain amount of its results of use in the college
as well. But we should similarly pay attention to the best American
work. Noteworthy attempts by American artists to interpret American
life and the beauties of our scenery deserve support. One notes with
interest the attempt made by the American Federation of Arts' Committee
on Art in the Public Schools to call attention to American examples in
the fine arts by calling for an expression of opinion as to the best
works produced by our artists. T. W. Stevens reported that the Chicago
Institution, furthering the utilization of students' work in the
decoration of public school walls, "encouraged the adoption of subject
pictures for decoration; especially subjects in American history."
The help of the art department, where the college has one, may well
be enlisted. (Parenthetically let me state that E. Baldwin Smith in
his recent report on "The study of the history of art in the colleges
and universities of the United States," Princeton, 1911, summarizes
his statistics in the statement that of 1,000,000 students, 163,000
have any art courses at all offered them.) Not only have we such rich
collections as those of the Avery Architectural library at Columbia,
the Fogg Museum at Harvard, or Yale University, but collections of
casts, photographs and books will be found at the disposal of the art
departments of a number of other colleges. Such resources might be
drawn upon so that some modicum, at least, of art influence may be
extended to the rest of the institution. If the direct co-operation of
the art department is secured it must necessarily be adapted to the
needs of the case with a clear understanding of the fact that general
students, and not art students, are to be served. The statement of
Dr. Leigh H. Hunt, associate professor of art at the College of the
City of New York is of interest here. His 6,000 boys, says he, would
like to begin with the human face. They do not necessarily lean to the
saccharine, but perceive human interest shown without the aid of the
direct anecdote. They stand Memling and Ghirlandajo. "The boys love
color," he continues, "and are easily led to love refined color. They
admire the early English water colorists--Cox, DeWint; also, Japanese
prints." After becoming interested in such refined color, they get a
liking for monochromes--delft blue landscapes, sanguines and sepia
drawings.
Efforts such as those I have indicated seem particularly called for
where the college is away from art influences. But they should not
be put aside even where the college is located in a larger center
with an art life. Rather should the resources near at hand be turned
to advantage. I have seen the statement that over 30 per cent of our
museums are connected with educational institutions. Also, in a large
city, there are numerous art exhibitions, most varied in character. But
the very extent of all these opportunities may serve to keep away the
student who has so many other duties and attractions. And, as Prof.
Hunt points out, boys living at one end of a large city not only whirl
past all such possibilities on their way to college, but in New York,
using the subway, they pass under it and not through it. What is wanted
is the direct, unavoidable presentation of art to those who are not yet
sufficiently interested to seek art for themselves.
In the whole matter the ever-necessary exercise of common sense
is commendable. Enthusiasm for the cause must be moderated and
adapted to the point of view of the student. The didactic element
should be unobtrusive. The student should be interested rather than
admonished. Above all he should be led to see that a certain love
and appreciation of art is not a "highbrow" affair but a proper,
necessary and pleasure-giving part of the equipment of the cultured
man. As proper and a matter of course as the avoidance of a necktie
of shrieking colors, or as the use of the table knife for cutting
only. Farther discussion of this subject, as well as decision as to
the practicability of the ideas advanced, must be left to those who
have a more intimate acquaintance with the problems, conditions and
difficulties involved than can be had by one who has to deal with the
readers in a large public library.
Mr. Goodrich called attention to the library of the University of
Michigan as one place where ideas like those of the paper had been
carried out, made a plea for color prints as against the everlasting
black and brown, and suggested the possibilities of pottery and
textiles in the way of giving life and cheer to the delivery hall. He
referred by way of example to the beautiful drapery curtains in the
John Hay library reading room--a vast relief from the ordinary roller
shade and just as effectual.
At the end of the session, the nominating committee brought in the
name of Mr. W. N. C. Carlton, librarian of the Newberry library, to
succeed Mr. Keogh on the committee on arrangements; Mr. Carlton was
unanimously elected. His term will be three years; the other members
of the committee, Miss Askew and Mr. Goodrich, remain the same as this
year. The session then adjourned until Friday night.
COLLEGE LIBRARIANS' ROUND TABLE
The round table for college librarians was held on Friday evening, June
27th. F. C. Hicks, of Columbia university, presiding.
Miss JOSEPHINE A. RATHBONE, of the Pratt Institute school of library
science gave a talk on
WHAT COLLEGE LIBRARIANS CAN DO FOR LIBRARY SCHOOLS
In a recent lecture on administrative problems of the college library
given to the students of the Pratt Institute library school the
lecturer pictured the ideal college library of the future, with a
staff consisting of specialists, each with a knowledge of his subject
equal to that of instructors or professors plus a library school
training, whose recompense should be on the same scale as that for
the teaching of those subjects. I remarked afterward that before that
vision could come to pass the college librarians should have to act as
feeders for the library schools, turning toward librarianship promising
material from which the library schools could make the college library
specialist of tomorrow. Hence this paper.
There has been a good deal of discussion in the Professional Training
section about specialization in library schools--the desirability of
having special courses to prepare librarians for technical libraries,
for professional libraries, for legislative reference libraries,
etc., etc., but I am convinced--and my conviction deepens with my
increasing experience--that the time for specialization is before the
library school course and not during it. Theoretically it does not seem
possible that the same library course should be able to fit students
for such different lines as children's work, municipal reference
work, cataloging, branch library work, the scientific department of a
university library, a botanical garden library, and the librarianship
of a town library, but actually that is just what happens; recent
graduates of our school are filling just such positions and each one
found that her library training plus her previous education, experience
and temperament enabled her to fill the special position satisfactorily.
Now what the college librarian can do for the library school and
hence for the library profession, is, it seems to me, to make it
known among college students that there are opportunities for the
specialist in library work--to disabuse the mind of the man or woman
who wants to pursue economics or sociology or some branch of science
of the idea--almost a fixed idea it would seem--that a specialist in
order to continue in his specialty must necessarily teach it, that
teaching offers the only pied a terre, the only means of support for
the student. Students of sociology and government are beginning to find
their way into organized welfare work, it is true, but library work
should be presented to them as a means of social service, of at least
equal importance with settlement work or organized charity. That it
could be so presented I am confident, and by whom if not by or through
the agency of the college librarian?
Schools and colleges are devoting an increasing amount of attention to
vocational guidance. Will not college librarians make a point of seeing
that the possibilities and diversified opportunities of librarianship
are presented to the students each year? If they do not care to do this
themselves, librarians or members of library school faculties might be
found in the vicinity who would be glad to do it.
Once the subject of librarianship is presented to the student and
the desirability of entering upon the work through the gateway of
library school training is pointed out (I assume that no time need
be spent arguing this point--but if I am wrong I shall be glad to
discuss the matter with any dissenters later), the college librarian
can further the cause by being prepared to advise students as to
their choice of a library school. The college librarian should supply
himself with the circulars of the several schools and should inform
himself concerning the reputation, advantages, requirements, and
specialties of the different schools. We all agree that there is no
one best library school (except our own), but that each of them offer
special opportunities that make them adapted to the particular needs
of different students. To direct the inquirer to that school that
will best fit him for the particular kind of work he inclines toward
would be to serve the profession, the schools, the colleges, and the
individual student. Will not the college librarian take this function
upon himself and enrich the profession not only with the quiet bookish
student who will develop into the old-fashioned librarian for whom
there is still room, but with the specialist, the executive, the
vigorous and enthusiastic altruist who wants to serve the world by
positive, constructive, social work?
The following paper, prepared by Mr. ROBERT S. FLETCHER, librarian of
Amherst College, was read by Mr. N. L. Goodrich, of Dartmouth:
THE COLLEGE LIBRARY AND RESEARCH WORK
There was published in 1912 a "Union List of Collections on
European History in American Libraries, compiled for the Committee
on Bibliography of the American Historical Association by E. C.
Richardson, Chairman."
In the preface to this exceedingly valuable work occurs the following
extract from the Report of the Committee, December, 1911:
"It is clear from this situation that no library is
self-sufficient--even Harvard lacking 930 sets, and all but 12 lacking
on the average of 2,153 out of 2,197 works. Even as good colleges as
Amherst and Williams, having but 26 and 17 respectively, lack 2,171
and 2,180 respectively out of 2,197, while probably 700 of the 786
institutions doing work of college grade in the United States are worse
off than these."
I need hardly say that this is merely a statement of fact and in no
sense a criticism or arraignment of any library mentioned or implied.
Furthermore, it is undoubtedly true that analysis and reflection
will render this statement much less startling than it appears at
first glance. Whether we can explain and account for it to our entire
satisfaction is a question which seems to me rather doubtful. Let me
quote a little more from this same source:
"The most significant fact of the statistics of last year remains,
however, substantially unchanged--the fact that only ten or a dozen
libraries have as many as 10 per cent of the collections, and that out
of 786 institutions which profess to do work of college grade, only
about fifty libraries have as much as 1 per cent. The actual situation
is even much worse than appears from the figures, since two or three
inexpensive volumes of illustrative source books for classroom use are
in the list through inadvertence, and undoubtedly swell the record of
the minor institutions. It is safe to say that a majority even of the
institutions included in the Babcock list have less than one-tenth of
1 per cent of these sets, and yet these are titles which have been
gathered from actual references and are the books which are liable to
meet any men engaged in historical research at every turn."
If we assume that research work belongs only to the university--that it
has no place in the college--we may dismiss these figures as possessing
no significance for us, save as they throw some light on the inferior
quality of the collections built up by most of our American libraries.
If on the other hand we believe that the smaller institution should
encourage its teachers to do research work, and should, so far as its
resources allow, provide the facilities for such work, then I believe
that a study of the conditions responsible for the situation set forth
in the Committee's report cannot fail to be of some value. And while I
hold no brief for the research worker I am strongly of the opinion that
the college which does encourage original research can not but gain a
higher quality of teaching, and at the same time acquire a collection
of books which, if not notable, shall be at least thoroughly good.
It may be claimed, and in that case must be granted, that such a
question as this is practically an academic one, and so pretty largely
outside of the librarian's province. That is true, however, only
so long as you leave the question unanswered--or answer it in the
negative. An affirmative answer would bring the matter home directly
to every college librarian in the country. The college which believes
in research and encourages its faculty to do it, must have a librarian
not only in sympathy with the movement, but one skillful in finding
ways and means to make it a success, since in most cases the funds
at our disposal for the purchase of books would seem to preclude the
possibility of such a thing.
Before going further into the discussion of this phase of the question,
let me return for a moment to the report from which I quoted. One or
two conclusions may justly be drawn from the figures therein presented.
In the first place I think we may safely infer that the situation as
regards History, so strikingly set forth, is repeated, and probably
in an even worse form, in all the other departments of knowledge.
Certainly we should not expect a library which was so weak in the
research material of History, to be any stronger in Philology or the
Sciences, or in Philosophy and Economics.
The second conclusion follows naturally from this, that the average
college library--for it is with the college library that this paper
concerns itself--has built up its collection with practically no
emphasis on the acquisition of such material.
To say that this general condition exists solely because of the lack of
funds is to my mind neither a real explanation, nor a real excuse. It
exists primarily because there has never been any pressure from members
of the faculty to bring about a different condition.
If we seek a reason for it we shall find it in the fact that
research work has by tacit consent been left almost entirely to the
university. Its place there--its vital importance in the university
scheme of work--has never been questioned. Making all allowance for
the difference in conditions I still cannot see why a thing that is
confessedly of so much benefit to the university should not also be of
help to the college. At the risk of getting a little off the track,
and for the sake of making what I mean as plain as possible, it seems
necessary to devote some space to a definition of the term research
work. I am writing, of course, from the standpoint of an outsider, who
expresses a purely personal opinion on a subject which interests him.
There can be no hard and fast definition of such a term as this--at
least not from a librarian.
I shall suppose then, that research work is of two kinds, both
important, but one of them much more important than the other. The
first and most common kind is that ordinarily done by the graduate
student in the university. It is the gathering of material--the
collection of information on some particular phase of some particular
subject--and is not only of value in itself, but when taken together
with the work done by other students along related lines becomes
part of the structure on which scholarship is built. We may call it
analytical research work. The other kind is that done by the man of
clear vision and wide outlook, mature enough to see that the analytical
work is merely material for a bigger thing--call it what you will--the
man who can take the information others have collected and impart
it in the form of culture. This is synthetic research work. Now the
university has much of the former, some of the latter. The college has
need only of the synthetic. If its place in the educational world is
to be permanent, its contribution to education must be cultural. The
type of teacher it needs, and I believe must have, is the man who has
done, or is capable of doing, synthetic research work. In his hands
teaching takes on a vitality, a spontaneity, a genuineness that no one
else can give it. That the book collection of the average college would
be sufficient for the needs of men like this is out of the question.
There would inevitably arise a demand for the purchase of works of
an entirely different kind--a demand that would have to be at least
partially met. This demand would be for research material, by which I
mean the results of research work, and the problem of such a college
library would become a problem in discrimination--the decision as to
what of this material it should try to obtain.
It ought not to be difficult to draw a clear distinction between
analytical and synthetic research material. Illustrations of the first
will readily occur to you, one as good as any being the usual thesis
submitted for the doctor's degree. All "source" material is necessarily
analytical--is the result of a careful, painstaking, often laborious
search for information: information that may illuminate some dark
corner of the field of knowledge. But it is never itself illumined by
the spark of genius, nor wrought by the loving hand of the artist. It
is merely the wood and the stone out of which a complete structure may
some day arise.
Now how does the synthetic conception of research apply to History?
A modern German writer has compressed the whole significance of it
into a sentence: "The writing of History," he says, "is just as truly
a =will toward a picture= as it is a knowledge of sources." In other
words synthesis of the kind referred to is always the work of the
artist, and in the nature of things becomes thereby a contribution to
culture. Gibbon's "Decline and fall of the Roman empire," Lamprecht's
"History of Germany," Rhodes' "History of the United States"--these
are all synthetic: each one existed first as a picture in the mind of
the artist, not merely as an array of sources from which the facts of
history might be drawn.
"But," you say, "all libraries buy these books and others like them
as a matter of course." Yes, we do, but I think the trouble is that
we do not make books of this sort our standard, if indeed we have any
standard beyond a favorable review or a request from a patron. It is no
more true that the result of all synthetic research is cultural than
that the result of all artistic endeavor is beautiful. Results here are
just as uneven as anywhere else, with much that is good and perhaps
even more that is bad, and it is when we come to discriminate that we
are apt to go astray. Now a teacher such as I have in mind would keep
abreast through the better periodicals of all that was being done in
his particular line, and if facilities were furnished, would buy what
he knew he needed--monographs, bibliographies, biographies, and some
larger works--things that would not only give his teaching a vitality
and freshness otherwise lacking, but would help to hasten the day when
his own contribution to the world's culture should see the light.
Assuming, then, that a college accepts this view, and proposes to
encourage its faculty to do research work, what are the practical ways
in which the library can not only co-operate, but further such an
undertaking? For I believe there are several. A preliminary statement
as to the functions of the college library would seem to be essential.
These have often been set forth for us in detail, and I shall only
enumerate them here. The first and most important function is, of
course, to meet the needs of the students and teachers as they arise
in the regular college work. Along with this is the supplying of books
for general reading, outside of the curriculum. Most of these books
are bought for members of the faculty, who are thereby enabled to keep
in touch with the latest developments in their own and other fields,
and to avoid the possibility of mental stagnation from too close
association with a particular subject. I believe much more might--and
should--be done in the way of developing a taste for general reading on
the part of the students, but that is another story.
Apart from these what are the functions of the college library? To be,
so far as it can the centre of culture for the community in which it
is located: to aid the local public library in its work with woman's
clubs, and high school pupils: to lend books freely to other libraries.
And in our own case there is the added opportunity of being of some
assistance to another institution in the same town.
Now these things are all important, and the librarian who does not
realize it, who fails to utilize to the utmost the possibilities
they contain for intellectual and social betterment, is not worthy
of his hire. But the point of view I take in this article compels me
to consider them as secondary. The college library exists first of
all to supply the book needs of its own students and faculty, and for
nothing else. The expenditure of its funds, always insufficient, must
be limited to this chief function. It is probable that all these other
things I have enumerated can be done without any financial loss to the
library, but where any of them means a diversion of library funds it
becomes unjustifiable.
I said above that there are several practical ways in which a
library--more properly, perhaps, a librarian--can not only co-operate,
but further a movement to encourage research work on the part of
members of the faculty. My remarks are of necessity limited to my
observation of conditions in the institution with which I am connected,
and are not to be considered general in their application. At the same
time, I am inclined to think that these conditions are reproduced, at
least to a certain extent, in most college libraries.
The assistance which the library can render must, of course, be very
largely financial. Only by releasing funds from present uses, or
by increasing these funds, can we hope to buy material of the kind
referred to.
I am convinced, in the first place, that we can save money in the
purchase of books, and this not through better discounts, or any
choice of agents, but through more care in the selection of the books
themselves. In other words, submit all lists of proposed purchases to a
more rigid scrutiny. Make all titles answer such questions as "Is this
book going to be of real value to this library?" "Is its usefulness to
be more or less permanent, or merely temporary?" "Could not our need
for it be met by borrowing from another library?"
In our own case, at least, I fear a number of books are recommended
by professors or others, and bought by the library, which could not
survive any such test. This naturally applies not so much to department
books as to those of a general nature, for in the last analysis the
teacher must be the judge of what he needs to help him in his work.
Secondly, we ought to save money--I think a considerable sum--on our
periodicals. And here the saving effected by dropping some from the
list is a double one; not only the subscription price, but the cost
of binding. I realize that I am treading on dangerous ground in this
matter, and that most professors would say to drop all the books if
necessary, but none of the periodicals. And I could wish for enough
space to elaborate my side of the question at some length, instead
of touching on it only briefly. For I believe it to be of real
importance--a thing that every college library must face and decide
at some time or other. Here at Amherst we spent last year over 40
per cent of the income from our book funds on periodicals and their
binding--a proportion which I cannot believe to be justified. Is
there not such a thing as a "periodical" habit, into which all of us,
librarians and professors alike, are apt to fall? We keep periodicals
on our lists because they have always been there--were there before
we came--although on reflection we are sure that no one ever uses
them--not even the professor at whose instance they were ordered. In
the first place, of course, he =expects= to use them, sometime if not
now. Or he is sure that he =ought= to--that they would give him just
the impetus he needs in his work. Or perhaps (and I should whisper
this) he likes to have it known that the department is taking these
things "couldn't get along without them." Now the periodical that
cannot prove its right--in terms of usefulness--to be on the shelves
of a college library has no place there. And the significance of this
for us is the fact that in being there it is keeping something else
out! What we spend for it, and for others like it, would enable us to
make at least a beginning on the acquisition of our synthetic research
material.
These are two of the ways in which it seems to me a librarian in
sympathy with this movement could further it. Another, possibly worth
mentioning, is to refrain from binding miscellaneous pamphlets and
other unbound material, mostly presented to the library, and which we
are apt to think may some day serve a purpose. Part of it may--most of
it can well be thrown away and the binding money saved.
"But," you say, "even in the aggregate these things do not mean very
much; perhaps one or two hundred dollars at the outside--one or two
or three research collections a year for your library." No, they do
not mean very much, by themselves, or in the purchasing power of
money they are instrumental in saving. But they stand for something
definite and logical; they are indicative of a determination on the
part of an institution to get men of a certain type for its faculty,
and to provide them with facilities for doing the broadest and biggest
work possible. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to think such an
institution could find more money as it needed more. And the librarian
skillful in discovering ways and means would not be contented with his
yearly appropriations, but would succeed in interesting trustees and
friends of the college to a point where interest would be translated
into deeds.
Now there is, of course, another side to all this, and we should be
short-sighted indeed not to recognize it. The college library which
spent any considerable share of its funds for research material which
really belongs only in the university library would have no means
whatever of justifying itself--would be worse off than an institution
which had no research material whatever. How may we guard against this
danger? I must take it for granted that the sort of teacher I have
been considering would choose his research material wisely and with
the right perspective. In case he failed to do this I should expect
the librarian to tell him so. And back of the librarian should be a
real library committee; so constituted as to represent the different
departments as fairly as possible; having charge of the allotment
of book funds; advising and helping the librarian in the shaping of
the library's policy; the court of last resort when an expensive and
somewhat doubtful set was being considered--I can conceive of such a
committee as being one of the greatest factors in the success of this
whole undertaking. Let at least two types of teachers be selected for
it. The one a man whose chief interest centers in the personal and
human side of his students; who puts them first to the extent that his
work is with them rather than with books or scholarly endeavor. The
other the man I have defined as the synthetic research worker, broad
in his sympathies toward his students, but a man who realizes both the
need of the age for culture, and his own ability to contribute to it
something worth while. By a fusion of such types as these the rights of
all would be conserved--the needs of all met so far as possible.
Just a word more by way of summary and I shall be through.
I believe the book collection of the average college library is much
below what it might be in point of quality. A possible way of changing
this situation for the better is to encourage members of the faculty
to do research work. This would also result in a higher standard of
teaching--or so at least all the teachers with whom I have talked
assure me. It is not necessary to assume that research is essential to
scholarship, but merely that it adds something to a man's efficiency
and power that can be gotten in no other way. The college librarian, if
he cares to, can play an important part in bringing these things about.
You will doubtless find this scheme--represented here only in
outline--rather idealistic, but so, I take it, are all educational
schemes. I can only hope that you will find also some soundness in
its theory--some small addition to the constructive criticism of a
condition which I believe to be fundamentally wrong.
Miss MINNIE E. SEARS, head cataloger of the University of Minnesota
library, presented a paper on
CATALOGING FOR DEPARTMENT LIBRARIES
Before beginning the discussion of cataloging for department libraries,
let me say that as it is a subject which is still in the experimental
stage and not yet capable of generalization, the statements made in
this paper are based, partly upon information collected from certain
university libraries in which this problem is now being worked out, and
partly on my own experience in organizing the department catalogs of
the University of Minnesota. The other libraries quoted are those of
the University of Chicago, Columbia, Illinois, Johns Hopkins, Michigan,
Missouri and Wisconsin.
In considering the problem of cataloging for department libraries,
we may start with a definition and an assumption. For the purpose
of this discussion it may be said that a department library is not
a mere handful of reference books on a subject, but a more or less
comprehensive collection of books on the subject shelved and used
separately from the collections of the main library; and it may be
assumed that the necessity for a separate catalog of such a collection
is admitted by all.
Assuming this, the first question that presents itself is that of the
form of the department catalog. Shall it be an author, a classed or a
dictionary catalog, or, since in most cases the department library is
a small open-shelf collection, will it suffice to have a shelf-list
only, serving also as a classed catalog? The shelf-list would offer the
simplest and cheapest solution of the difficulty, but the day when it
was accepted as a solution of the entire problem has passed. Not one
of the libraries consulted suggests the shelf-list alone as a possible
arrangement. An author catalog, at least, is needed in addition, and
the majority of these libraries report dictionary catalogs in some
of the department libraries, if not in all. Chicago University is to
provide for the department libraries outside of Harper building an
author catalog and a shelf-list, where printed cards are available,
and an author catalog only for the department libraries within Harper
building. Columbia, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota have dictionary
catalogs for all department libraries. Missouri has dictionary catalogs
in 3, and Wisconsin in 2 department libraries, while Johns Hopkins
is to have dictionary catalogs in all department libraries which are
outside its main building.
A more difficult question is that of the scope of the catalog. How
exhaustive is it possible, or even desirable, to make it? It must, of
course, include all books in the department library itself, but shall
it also record all books dealing with the same subject to be found
elsewhere in the university? Such completeness of record would be
the ideal arrangement, and would, undoubtedly, meet with the hearty
approval of the university departments. But will not the cost be
prohibitive to many libraries, even in this day of printed cards and
multigraph? To be of value, such elaborate cataloging should be done
thoroughly and systematically and above all, once undertaken, should
never be allowed to lapse, or confusion will be the result. The fuller
information about related materials in other parts of the library can
always be obtained from the main library catalog, if that record is a
union catalog of department libraries as well; and if the department
librarian is in telephone communication with the reference librarian
at the main library, the information can be obtained almost as quickly
as if it were included in the department catalog. We may, therefore,
conclude that the department catalog complete for its own library
but not including related material in other libraries, is the most
practicable form under present conditions, although the ideal form is
the more complete catalog which expense at present generally prohibits.
The third point which our problem raises is that of variations in
cataloging from the rules followed in the general library catalog. The
first important variation which suggests itself as possible is in the
treatment of analytics. Shall analytics be included in the department
catalog, and if so, shall they be the same as those in the general
catalog? On this point the practice of our eight libraries varies
somewhat. Chicago University is not planning to include any analytics
in its department catalogs, and Johns Hopkins includes only a few.
Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota, in the main, duplicate for their
department catalogs the analytics made for their main catalogs and, as
a rule, include no additional analytics. The Columbia practice is more
ambitious, as that library includes in its department catalog analytics
(mainly articles in periodicals) which are not included in its general
catalog. An article in the =Columbia University Quarterly= for March,
1911, states that the department catalogs have analytics for all
important serials that bear upon the work of the departments whether
shelved there or in the general library, that is, the department
library catalog attempts to serve both as catalog and index. These
cards are intended for temporary use only, to be removed when the
demand for them ceases.
In most university libraries it would be impossible to keep up
systematically such elaborate catalogs, and it is not clear that such
indexing--for it is indexing rather than cataloging--would be desirable
in all places. A catalog can never be made to take the place of a
reference librarian, or of an intelligent use of the important annual
and other subject indexes to the literature of a subject, such as
=Psychological Index=, the various =Jahresberichte=, etc. Moreover,
every reference or department librarian naturally does more or less
in the way of keeping up card indexes or bibliographies, which are
frequently revised and the old material discarded as new and better
material takes its place. Such reference indexes are simpler and more
practical than serial analytics in a department catalog, since they
do not call for expert revision and absolute uniformity of subject
headings. On the whole, the tendency of present opinion and practice
seems to be that important analytics which are useful in the general
catalog are useful in the department catalog also, but that beyond
that it is better to encourage the use of the printed indexes and the
keeping of an informal reference index for material not yet included in
the printed aids.
A more important possibility of variation, where the department catalog
is dictionary in form, is found in subject headings. Will the same
headings that are found satisfactory in the main library catalog serve
equally well in the department catalog as used by specialists? Too
much emphasis can not be laid upon the fact that any variation of this
kind greatly increases the cost of the cataloging, as the assigning
and revision of two sets of subject headings, one for the general and
one for the department catalog, will mean that that part of the work
is greatly increased, though not doubled. The correct assignment of
subject headings presents enough difficulties under any circumstances,
and the catalog supervisor should hesitate to multiply these unless
there is strong reason for doing so. In libraries which have adopted
the Library of Congress subject headings, those headings, with minor
variations, will, for most subjects, be found satisfactory in the
department as well as in the general catalog. Law will at once occur
to all as a subject for which it may be desirable to run two sets of
headings. We have done this at the University of Minnesota, using the
special Library of Congress law headings in the department catalog,
and the regular Library of Congress headings in the general catalog.
A point to be carefully considered in adopting more than one set of
subject headings, moreover, is the possible confusion of mind that may
be produced in the student, the exigencies of whose work require him to
use more than one of the library catalogs. Such records are certainly
much easier to use when there is uniformity of subject entries, and the
adoption of several different sets of subject headings will certainly
cause confusion, even to members of the library staff, much more to
students.
After the questions of form, scope, and contents of the department
catalog, comes the practical question of how best to get the work done.
It can be done in either of two ways, by the regular cataloging force
of the university or by the department librarians. In most university
libraries the cataloging staff is small in comparison with the amount
always to be done, and the work of keeping the general catalog up to
date taxes all its powers, and leaves no time for extra records such
as department catalogs. On the other hand, does not the department
librarian have more or less time which, when properly arranged, could
be given to cataloging under the direction of the head cataloger?
We have found this to be the case at the University of Minnesota.
Until three years ago our department libraries were all under the
supervision of the various departments, and hence in a more or less
chaotic state. Some of these have not yet emerged from chaos. In these
three years, however, we have evolved a system by which this work is
done by the department librarians, or, in one case, by an assistant
in the department library. It has so far proved a perfectly workable
system for our given conditions. All the department librarians so far
appointed have been either library school graduates or people with
equivalent library training, and in addition to that, in some cases,
with special knowledge of the subjects of the departments. One of the
first duties of the department librarian, on taking charge of his
library, has been to organize it, classifying and cataloging it under
the supervision of the head of the catalog department, but doing the
work in the department library. The question has been raised as to how
the department librarian could do the reference work and other work
of his library, and at the same time catalog the department books for
both the department and general catalog. Of course the cataloging will
be intermittent and more or less interrupted, as our rule is that the
work for the public must be done first. Until, however, the books of a
department library are in order and properly listed, no satisfactory
reference work can be done with them. Our own experience has certainly
been that the reference work of our department librarians has been
strengthened by their work of cataloging. The general library gains
also from this work of the department librarian, as the latter does
the cataloging of his books for the general catalog at the same time
as that for the department catalog, and so the growth of the general
library catalog is greatly promoted, without a corresponding tax upon
the resources of the catalog department. In as far as possible the
work is revised by the head cataloger or a reviser, in the department
library, but in some cases of difficult revision it has been found
necessary to transfer the books to the catalog department for revision
there. At present, whenever printed cards can not be obtained, all
cards are actually made by the department librarian, but as soon as we
are able to adopt the multigraph, rough copy only will be supplied by
that assistant.
After the department library has been thoroughly organized and
cataloged, the department librarian goes on with the lighter task
of cataloging the current accessions of his library for both the
department and the general catalog.
Some of the advantages of thus having the work done by the trained
department librarians are:
1. It adds several workers to the cataloging force of the library, and
thus makes it possible to do much more in the way of providing needed
departmental catalogs. This fact has been of great importance with us
at the University of Minnesota, where, with the present cataloging
force alone, it would have been impossible to provide these catalogs.
Besides, there is the advantage to the general library of getting the
cataloging of these same books done for the general catalog.
2. The department librarian should have, and generally does have,
special knowledge of his subject, which is of assistance in cataloging,
especially in classification and the assignment of subject headings.
3. As the work is done in the department it is easy for the department
librarian to consult the professors whenever necessary or desirable.
4. There is a real advantage to the department librarian in the added
familiarity with the department books which he has gained in cataloging
them. This is particularly true in the case of the librarian who,
in the beginning, is not a specialist in his subject, but even the
specialist may gain some knowledge from this handling of the material
which will help him in the service of his readers. Moreover, if he has
actually made the catalog, he can use it more intelligently himself and
instruct his students better in the use of it.
Our scheme has certain disadvantages as well as advantages. Some of
these are:
1. There is danger that not enough cataloging research work will be
done when the cataloging is done in the department library, because
many of the important catalog and bibliographical aids are not
accessible outside the catalog department--for example, the depository
or union catalog of printed cards.
2. There is danger that the existing records will not be consulted
enough, because the general catalog is not easily accessible and can
only be consulted on special trips to the main library.
3. When the work is thus decentralized, there is much greater
difficulty in obtaining from the various assistants work which is even
fairly uniform. No one who has had experience in trying to manage such
work will minimize this difficulty. For this reason, the revision is
more difficult, and must be done with the greatest care, especially in
the matter of subject headings.
4. It is sometimes more difficult to get good cataloging from those
whose first interest does not lie in this branch of the work, and who
are not closely associated with the regular catalogers, and familiar
with the many traditions of a catalog department. For this reason
we have found at Minnesota, that it is an advantage to have a newly
appointed department librarian work in the catalog department for a
time before taking up the work in his library.
We have found, however, that with us the advantages outweigh the
disadvantages, particularly the one great advantage that it has been a
practical way of accomplishing work which could not have been done by
our present cataloging department.
Summary
A tabulated summary of the replies received from the libraries
circularized has been prepared, but as it is too detailed for reading
here, I will omit it, and present, instead, a few conclusions which
may fairly be drawn from this summary. While practice is not uniform
on any one point of department cataloging, certain tendencies toward
uniformity are clearly evident.
1. In the matter of department librarians there is clearly a tendency
towards the appointment of trained workers having, whenever possible,
some special knowledge of the subject of their departments as well.
This, of course, is important, if the cataloging is to be done in the
department libraries. All these libraries feel, also, the need for
some kind of department catalogs, although the number of such catalogs
already established varies from three at the University of Wisconsin to
twenty-three at Columbia.
2. There is a pretty general agreement that the dictionary catalog
is the most desirable for department libraries. Columbia, Illinois,
Michigan, and Minnesota report dictionary catalogs in all organized
department libraries, and Johns Hopkins in all department libraries
outside the main building. Wisconsin and Missouri report dictionary
catalogs in certain department libraries, and Chicago reports author
catalogs and shelf-lists. All the libraries using dictionary catalogs
report the use, in the main, of the same kind of subject headings in
department as in general catalogs, except for certain special subjects,
such as law, or for certain highly specialized collections, such as the
Avery Architectural library at Columbia.
3. There is a somewhat greater variation in the scope of material
to be included. So far, only two libraries, Columbia and Michigan,
report any department catalogs covering more than the material in the
department libraries, but Missouri and Minnesota report that they
intend, eventually, to have their department catalogs include all
books on the subject in the university. In the matter of analytics the
majority practice is to include the same analytics in both general
and department catalogs, although Chicago uses no analytics at all in
department catalogs, while Columbia, at the other extreme, includes
more analytics in department catalogs than in the general catalog.
4. Present opinion seems to be pretty evenly divided on the subject of
whether the actual work of cataloging should be done by the department
librarians or by the regular cataloging force, although there is
perhaps a tendency to have this work done by the department librarians
wherever there are trained workers in charge of the department
libraries. Universities in which the work for department catalogs
is done by the department librarians, report that the department
librarians catalog these same books for the general catalog as well.
In conclusion, let me repeat that if the cataloging is done by the
department librarians, too much emphasis can not be laid upon the fact
that it is absolutely essential to have all this work done under the
supervision of the head cataloger, with the most careful revision.
Otherwise there will be as many varieties of cataloging as there are
department librarians.
In behalf of Dr. W. Dawson Johnston, of Columbia, Miss Isadore G. Mudge
read the following
PROPOSAL FOR A CATALOG OF UNIVERSITY SERIAL PUBLICATIONS
One of the desiderata of our exchange departments, as well as of our
reference departments, is a catalog of American university serial
publications. This should give in addition to the general title, a
full table of contents, and an index of the same. It may be prepared
by one library, or cooperatively by the library of each institution
issuing such series, and published by a central institution, as the
bibliography of American historical societies was published by the
Smithsonian Institution, or published as the trade list annual is, each
institution printing its own catalog and forwarding it to a publisher
to be indexed, bound with the catalogs of publications of other
institutions, and so published.
The desirability of such a catalog as a record of American university
publications was presented to the Executive Committee of the
Association of American Universities at its last meeting. The Committee
voted to recommend to the Association the passage of the following
resolution:
"Resolved, That the Association of American Universities recommends to
each of its constituent universities the preparation of a catalog of
its serial publications and the printing of the catalog in a form which
will permit the publication of the several catalogs as a collected
work, so arranged and indexed as to make it a useful work of reference."
If the members of the College Section are similarly interested in such
a catalog, similar action on the part of the section may be desirable.
I present this suggestion with some diffidence because although the
catalog will save librarians much labor in the long run the preparation
of it would involve a large amount of extra labor in the immediate
future. In spite of this, however, I hope that it will receive your
favorable consideration.
After some discussion it was voted that the proposal be referred to
the executive committee of the College and Reference Section for
consideration.
The meeting then adjourned.
REFERENCE LIBRARIANS' ROUND TABLE
The meeting of the Public Library Division of the College and Reference
Section was held on the evening of June 27. It was called to order by
Edwin H. Anderson, who turned it over to Miss Sarah B. Askew of the
New Jersey public library commission, who acted as chairman for the
evening. The first speaker was Miss MARILLA WAITE FREEMAN, librarian of
the Goodwyn Institute library of Memphis, who spoke on
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT, AND THE REFERENCE DEPARTMENT AS A BUREAU OF
INFORMATION
What we call "reference work" has been a little in disrepute of late,
and there has been some discussion as to the amount of time which may
legitimately be spent in helping the curious inquirer to learn how
many of the Louis's died a natural death, or whether Helen of Troy
wore locks of Titian red. But it is only in the large library that
there can be any limitation of what we call the reference department
to the handling of such academic quibbles. It is true that in the
large library the technical department, the business branch, the art
department may limit and thin the quality of work left to the reference
librarian, till she (or he) may feel that only the dry bones of the
day's research are hers (or his). But in the small library there is
no such limitation, and the reference librarian, who may also be the
head librarian and the chief cataloger, may come in touch each day with
every sort of human interest, from the eager desire of the office clerk
to get back to the soil by the road of raising rice in Arkansas or
apples in Idaho, to the yearning for economic independence and artistic
expression in the soul of the girl who comes to pore over books on
design.
To one who is fully awake to the human side of things, there can
never be any dull monotony in the life of the reference librarian.
I have often wished I had time--and genius--to write the Romance of
a Reference Library. It would cover as many pages, and be almost as
thrilling as the Thousand-and-One-Nights. I wish I had time to tell
you, the Molly-Make-Believe Episode of Goodwyn Institute library, or
the Tale of the Telegram from the Nicaragua Revolution.
Now in the small library where one reference assistant must be so many
things to so many people in the course of one day, there is special
need of scientific management of time, labor, methods, resources.
Fortunately, the reference assistant has few =statistics= to trouble
with. The only record that seems essential is that of questions asked
and topics looked up. A pad of paper, dated, kept at one's elbow, and
questions jotted down almost as they are being asked--this gives an
interesting basis for monthly and yearly reports, and makes something
to show for the day's work much more interesting than mere figures, and
does furnish certain figures, especially if we add, after each topic,
approximate number of books, pamphlets and magazines used in getting
information or material desired.
From these daily sheets interesting deductions can be made,
classifications of different kinds and sources of questions asked, what
classes of people are users and which are non-users of the library,
on what lines the library needs to build up its resources, in what
directions it needs to advertise better. Red pencil checks may be
placed against more significant topics, for quick summarization at
the end of the month. If the question is for school or club work,
or likely to recur again, take a pencil and small pad, write Panama
canal tolls or labor laws affecting women, or whatever the subject may
be, at the top of the pad, and make rapid note of magazine articles,
books, etc., looked up. Much time is lost in looking up the same
things over and over again, sometimes by one assistant, and sometimes
by another. Lists jotted roughly down while material is being looked
up, or directly after, may be copied by typewriter on catalog cards
and filed alphabetically in a special tray of the catalog case, where
they will be quickly available for the next call. For debates, the
material listed on cards should be grouped roughly under "general,"
"affirmative" and "negative." It saves time, also, in collecting books
on the reserve shelf for a debate, to mark the places by clipping to
the page a slip labelled "affirmative" or "negative." Of course, for
debate work the first aid to scientific management is the use, so far
as possible, of the work done by others in such invaluable little
manuals as the Debaters' Hand-Book series, and the debate pamphlets of
the Universities of Wisconsin, Texas, Iowa and others, supplemented by
the latest magazine articles in the Readers' Guide.[11]
[11] A brief list, entitled "Debaters' Aids," was distributed in
connection with this paper.
The same economic principle applies, of course, to every other class
of subjects looked up. Make use of work done by others, whether in the
form of bibliographies, indexes, reports and publications of special
organizations, or what not. Two small indexes which save much time in
the small library are the Pittsburgh Library Debate Index and their
Contemporary Biography. Though the latter is now ten years old it is
still extremely useful to those libraries which are so fortunate as to
own copies.
Another economy of time and money is the using of book-lists printed by
other libraries or organizations, checking on them the titles in one's
own library, putting the library stamp upon them, and distributing
them to the class of users interested. Goodwyn Institute library has
recently done this with the booklet entitled: "What to read on business
efficiency," issued by the Business Book Bureau of New York.
An important psychological point is always to get one good piece of
material before each =researcher= promptly, then other material may be
gathered more deliberately. If several people are waiting at once, give
each one reference to start on rather than serve one in detail while
all others wait their turn. Perhaps this is a small and obvious trifle
to dwell upon, but it is a bromidium that trifles make success, in
reference work as in anything else.
Returning to the wisdom of using others' work, I must emphasize the
importance of collecting the material put out by all sorts of special
organizations. We know that every subject now has its literature, from
"votes for women" to the extermination of the house fly or the loan
shark. And much of this matter, often in pamphlet or leaflet form, is
obtainable free or at small cost. Frequently such literature is the
latest and most authoritative word upon any subject.
In our scheme of scientific management, therefore, the small library,
perhaps even more than the large, can not afford to do without
collecting such literature. The pamphlet collection is indispensable.
It means work, but in the end by its live usefulness it saves time. By
scientific management and intensive use a small library with a good
pamphlet collection can get better results than one three times as
large whose resources are not up-to-date and thoroughly made use of.
First, a word as to the filing of such material; second, as to sources
for securing it. I cannot attempt to offer any new solution to the
vexed problem of pamphlet disposal. I will merely state briefly how
Goodwyn Institute library handles its pamphlets. We have found the
system of filing in pamphlet boxes most convenient and practicable.
A box is lettered with D. C. number or inclusive numbers, and with
subject or subjects included, as 334.6 Agricultural credit. Pamphlets
are counted as received, but not accessioned. If important, catalog
card is made under subject, or author, rarely under both. If of slight
or only temporary value, they are merely marked with class number, and
placed in box without cataloging. Sometimes merely a general catalog
card is made to show that the library receives all the publications
of an organization, as with the National American Woman Suffrage
Association, or with the American National Child Labor Committee. In
these cases there would be both author and subject card. Any specially
important publication of the association would be brought out by
separate card. A check on the pamphlet would indicate whether or not it
had been cataloged.
For the small library which has not time to catalog individual
pamphlets, it would be sufficient to make one general card for each
group, giving class number and subject heading, as: "325 Immigration;
for material (or for additional material) on this subject, see pamphlet
collection," or merely, "See also pamphlets."
Goodwyn Institute clips also the local newspapers and a few others
for matters of local or special interest, mounts the more valuable
clippings on manila sheets, 8x10 in size, numbers them, occasionally
catalogs an important one, and files them with pamphlets on the same
subjects. To keep the collection from becoming obsolete, or occupying
too much space, it should be gone over once a year, and old pamphlets
and clippings and their cards withdrawn and destroyed. With many
constantly changing subjects in agriculture, engineering, current
problems, etc., it becomes instinctive with the reference assistant
to bring forth first to the would-be investigator the pamphlet box or
boxes on that subject, then the more recent magazine articles, and only
last the books.
In Goodwyn Institute library the pamphlet collection is supplemented
by a vertical file, arranged alphabetically under the same headings as
the pamphlets. In this file are placed letters, circulars, typewritten
lists, and the like, not advisable to be placed in the pamphlet boxes.
A practical plan for indexing this material is a general card on each
subject included, to be filed at end of regular cards in cataloging:
e. g. "Levees; for additional material, see vertical file." For the
very small library the vertical file is perhaps the most convenient
arrangement for disposing of pamphlets and =all= unbound material in
one place.
Some of the larger libraries bind in inexpensive form all pamphlets
which are considered worthy of preservation, but for the small library
this seems necessary only in the case of pamphlets of unusual value or
size.
Now as to some of the sources of the pamphlet and ephemeral literature
which is so valuable. I can not do better than to remind you again of
two lists with which you are probably already familiar. The first is
"Social questions of today, selected sources of information, compiled
by the Free Public Library, Newark, N. J.," 1911. It may be obtained
from the Editor of Special Libraries, State Library, Indianapolis,
for ten cents. It includes the names and addresses of organizations
interested in social questions, such as the American Civic Association,
the Russell Sage Foundation, the Vocation Bureau of Boston, and an
index of subjects covered by the publications of these organizations,
such as the cost of living, prison reform, sex hygiene, vacation
schools.
The second list is entitled "The library and social movements; a list
of material obtainable free or at small expense." It may be had from
the A. L. A. Publishing Board for five cents. This list includes
material on all sorts of sociological questions, from co-operative
stores to workingmen's compensation. From these two lists a good
working collection of up-to-date, inexpensive pamphlet material on
social problems may be obtained. Among recent organizations, born since
these lists were published in 1911, are the Drama League of America,
the American Commission on Agricultural Co-operation, the Southern
Sociological Congress. All these put out valuable and inexpensive
reports and publications. It would be a boon to small, and even large
libraries, if the A. L. A. Publishing Board would father a new list
including and enlarging the material of the two 1911 lists, and adding
the most important new organizations and publications which have since
come into being.
The recently published index to Special Libraries, Vol. 1-3, makes
available, in that indispensable little journal much valuable material
on current questions, and sources of information.
For all subjects, technical, scientific, historical, sociological,
covered by the U. S. Government publications, and these subjects are
innumerable, a convenient guide to selection is offered by the brief
classified price-lists furnished by the Superintendent of Documents.
The suggestions in the little weekly Government Publications, published
by M. E. Greathouse at 510 12th St., N. W., Washington, at fifty cents
a year, are also helpful, as are the notes in the A. L. A. Booklist,
which now lists many government documents. The "Interesting Things
in Print" column in Public Libraries should be carefully scanned, as
should the "Periodical and other literature" department of the Library
Journal.
To get upon the regular mailing list of as many organizations as
possible saves much time spent in writing for individual publications.
And even where there is a membership fee, as of $2.00 per year to the
Drama League of America, for example, it will bring far more valuable
returns in twelve months than the same amount expended in books.
The first labor of writing for and handling a collection of pamphlet
literature seems considerable, but when properly organized its daily
up-keep is not difficult and its presence in a library goes far to make
possible the scientific management of the queries and problems which
come each day to the reference desk.
May I rather say the information desk. We librarians are so at home
with our own terminology, have talked so long and familiarly of
reference desks, reference work, the reference library, that I doubt
if we ever realize the foreignness of our language to the shy visitor
within our gates. "Ask in the reference room" means worse than nothing
to him, but the simple legend "Information desk" will draw him like the
kindly and familiar face of a friend.
The idea that a modern library is, or should be, a central Bureau of
Information for its town or city is one that we first have to get
thoroughly into our own heads, and then impress upon our public. In
the effort to find the simplest and most effective way to present this
idea to our Memphis public, we tried running the following card in the
street cars:
What do =You= want to Know?
You have 12,000 Books, Trade Journals, Magazines on all
subjects, and an Information Bureau for =Your= use
absolutely =Free= in Goodwyn Institute Library.
We were able to make specially advantageous terms with the street car
advertising company, whose representative had himself made use of
the resources of the library, and we have been running this card, or
similarly worded ones, for over a year. The results, sometimes direct,
sometimes indirect, have been very interesting. The card has brought
us many business men, and other street car users, who, seeing our
invitation daily, recall it from the depths of their subconsciousness
when they do want to know. The card is often taken quite literally, as
in the case of the young Russian from Odessa, later from St. Louis,
who read the sign in the street car which brought him from the railway
station. He came straight to the library and to the information desk,
told his story briefly and succinctly, and asked how he could find a
position as house boy, for which he was qualified. The Jewish Rabbi
happened to be in the library at the moment. He called up the head of
the Jewish Charities, who on hearing that the lad was from Odessa,
said: "Why, that is my native place! Send him along and I will surely
find him something." And he did.
Another bright-eyed youth, who worked with a moving-picture corporation
in the daytime, but had his evenings free, came in to ask if we had
d'Espuy's "Architecture antique." He was overjoyed when he saw it and
other folios on the subject, said he was wanting to go on with the
study of architecture at night, and had seen our street car card. "That
card's a fine stunt," he added. Then there was the case of the two
young men who had come down the river by boat from Iowa, looking for
work as extra Christmas clerks. They were sent up to us by a policeman,
from whom they asked information. We sent them to the Y. M. C. A.
Department of Employment, and one of them afterward came back to tell
us they had both gotten a job. We do not at all mind being teased a
bit about our "Employment Bureau," so glad are we that the policeman
and the man-on-the-street should instantly think of Goodwyn Institute
library when asked for any information which he cannot give. We
desire to be regarded as a sort of central clearing house for general
information, even when the question is of so primitive and vital a
nature as how a man shall earn his next meal, and to this end we take
as our motto "Nothing human is alien to us."
We think it is within our legitimate field to tell the man not that
he has come to the wrong place, but to tell him the address of the
right place, and sometimes even to give him a note or do a moment's
telephoning that will connect him with the right place, and will make
him feel that the library's "What do =you= want to know?" means him.
The point I wish to emphasize is: Never let a man go away without
either the information for which he has come, or the knowledge as to
where he may find it. This does not mean that we must spend precious
time in looking up irrelevant questions, or in attempting to handle
matters which some other library or organization could deal with more
efficiently. It does mean that it is our business as a Bureau of
Information to know just where that question can be most effectively
handled, and then to direct the inquirer there.
Thus if a man desires a certain address in Los Angeles, we send him
to the Cotton Exchange, one block away, which has a full line of
directories, open to the public; if a certain government monograph
which we do not possess, we refer him to the Cossitt library, which
as a government depository has a full collection of public documents;
if other than a very simple legal reference, we refer him to the law
library, mentioning its hours and restrictions.
If the information desired may be secured by letter, we often give
a reader the necessary address and let him write himself. We ought,
of course, to save the library's time in this way whenever possible.
Yet frequently the information or material to be secured would have
a future value to the library itself, or to the city, and whenever
this is the case, this advantage, together with the reader's grateful
appreciation of the library for getting him what he wants when he
wants it, surely justifies us in writing the letter ourselves. Thus,
Goodwyn Institute library has recently secured much information
and literature on smoke abatement experience of other cities, for
engineers suddenly forced to apply modern methods by a stringent city
ordinance. Assistance has been given in the same way to the Mississippi
Valley Levee Association; to a committee appointed to present a
county insanity commission bill to the state legislature; to the city
engineer, on the practice of different cities as to grade-crossings and
railroad track elevation; again to an individual reader who wished to
learn what diseases are native to South Carolina in distinction from
those supposed to be cured by residence there; to a local manufacturer
on the process of making paper from cotton stalks; to a student on the
death rate and prevalence of tuberculosis among negroes; to another on
the best methods of alfalfa raising in West Tennessee.
The use of the telephone is encouraged for information needed quickly.
If a busy business man wishes to know the name and address of the
U. S. Consul in Peru, the 1910 population of Guthrie, Oklahoma, the
meaning of a troublesome phrase in a Spanish letter, he appreciates
knowing that he can get a prompt reply by calling up the library.
The St. Joseph library makes this feature of its information service
effectively known by attractive blotters and leaflets sent to business
men.
We are all familiar with the insistent demands of club members and of
school children, set sometimes, the former by the club system, and the
latter by the school system, to subjects beyond their grasp. Of the
vexed problem of distributing our crowded hours judiciously among all
these demands, Miss Bacon has written most lucidly in her delightful
paper on "What the public wants," in the May (1913) Library Journal.
Certainly we do have to learn to discriminate as to the time and
attention we give to each demand upon us. Yet each is important
to the man, woman or child, who makes it, and however briefly and
expeditiously we may dispose of it, let us make the questioner
feel that he did well to come to us, that we are for the moment
concentrating upon his problem, and that we are giving him the best
assistance in our power, even if it be only an address, or a telephone
number, or the name of the book in which his question will be answered.
Let me repeat that it is all largely a matter of making our library a
clearing house of information, of connecting the man with the answer to
his question, rather than of necessarily answering it ourselves. And to
this end, and by these means, may the small library be as useful as the
large.
The next speaker was Miss SARAH B. BALL, librarian of the business
branch of the Newark free public library, who spoke on
WHAT ANY LIBRARY CAN DO FOR THE BUSINESS INTERESTS OF THE TOWN
Have you ever felt discouraged over the purely potential value of
your reference books, because they seem to remain forever potential?
Have you ever turned the pages of the World Almanac and sighed over
perfectly good answers which you could give to questions that nobody
asks you? Every reference librarian present knows what I mean. When is
wheat harvested in Burmah? Who is the secretary of sanitation in Cuba?
How long does it take a letter to go from New York to Melbourne, via
Vancouver? Are grapes more nutritious than plums? What are the dues in
the Knickerbocker Club? What three nations have dominions on which the
sun never sets? How many shipwrecks last year on the U. S. coasts?
These questions are being asked by somebody and being answered in a
fashion by somebody. Very often that "somebody" is the editor of the
query column in the newspaper. The newspapers of the country have
educated the people to turn to them with their questions. How many of
those questions could be answered just as well or better by the public
library? How often the newspaper itself turns to the public library for
the answers? Here is truly an unnecessary duplication of work and a
loss of time. Here is also a high-road to popularity and an opportunity
for usefulness to a community clearly seen by newspapers and worth
cultivating by public libraries.
While we are making laws, librarians might conspire to put through a
city ordinance to compel all questioning people to call on the public
library as the =first= source of information. As that is manifestly
impossible, something must be done to attract the business and trade
interests of a town to the public library as a bureau of information.
Why? Because the citizens pay taxes to support an institution--the
public library--that they may be, by that institution, helped to become
not simply better, but also wiser; not simply wiser, but also better
informed; not simply better informed in general, but also better
informed in city affairs; not simply in city affairs, but also in the
affairs of each industrial unit. In a word, the city supports a library
that the library may help it to become more harmonious, better governed
and more productive.
As the institution is supported for specific purposes, it should not
only be prepared to fulfill these purposes; it should also let it be
known to all that it is thus prepared.
It should let those who support it know that it can not only help one
who seeks general culture; but can also help one who seeks knowledge
of city management in any of its countless aspects, or knowledge
of methods of productive or distributive processes in any of their
countless forms.
Possibly the first thing to do in thus letting its practical powers
be known is to introduce into its vocabulary the phrase "business
department" or "information department." A wider range of questions
comes to a library that uses the words "information" or "business
department" instead of "reference department." The words "public
library" do not convey to the mind of the average person a suggestion
of a tenth of the resources for information that are locked up in the
collections of printed things which our cities now maintain.
An inquiring Newarker once said to me "Why should a public library
advertise itself? Surely everyone knows where it is and that it
contains books."
"Yes," said I, "but, do you yourself know what those books contain?
Would you go to the library to learn the elevation above sea level of
the street corner on which you live, or for the width of the street?
Would you go there to plan your next business trip by using the maps of
the cities you will visit, so that time will not be lost in going from
one factory to another? If you are trying to sell a patented ticket
punch, do you go to the library for the names of purchasing agents of
railroads? If you have lost the address of a business correspondent do
you telephone to the library or do you set the whole office force on
edge hunting for the lost letter? Would you turn to the library for the
date of Wilson's Chicago address, or the launching of a new battleship?"
He went away wiser; and left me quite pleased with myself.
Many public libraries have undertaken the task of collecting
manufacturers' catalogs from all parts of the United States. Our
experience indicates that this is a heavy expense with comparatively
slight return. Would it not be better to spend the same amount of time
and money compiling information about the industries of one's own town?
It is a hopeless task to represent adequately the manufacturers of
the United States. It is not a hopeless task to compile information
about local manufacturers that will prove of great value. No business
directory gives the specific information that is a daily need among
the business men of a community. The directory gives, for example,
a list of paper-box manufacturers, but does not indicate those who
make egg boxes, hat boxes, jewelry boxes, etc. It lists the jewelry
manufacturers, but is useless if you want the names of those who make
22-karat wedding rings. Many manufacturers and dealers are sending to
distant cities, through habit, for articles made equally well and at
the same cost within their own city, for no other reason than that
they lack detailed information of the products of their own city. In
some places the Board of Trade is the natural clearing house for this
information. This is as it should be.
But what about the towns that are without Boards of Trade or whose
Boards of Trade are not equipped to give this information? It is
safe to say that there are not ten cities in the United States
where one can find on file for the use of the public complete and
specific information about the industries of that city. To secure
this information is not an easy task. It requires circular letters,
follow-up letters and possibly personal calls; but the value of thus
creating an interest in the public library among those citizens who
are paying the heaviest taxes, coupled with the real importance of
the information itself, makes it an undertaking of peculiar value to
a tax-supported public library. Fortunately the smaller the city the
fewer the manufacturers and the easier the task, so that here indeed is
a piece of work that may well be undertaken by libraries of many towns
and cities.
We have grown in Newark, from being the conventional and rather
academic library, to one that has quite large sources of civic and
manufacturing and commercial and financial information. The question
now is, how shall we get the people to realize the change? We are
somewhat in the position of a dry goods store which has transformed
itself into a department store, but is visited largely by those who
seek only dry goods. We need to advertise our groceries, hardware,
furniture and china.
If library architecture would only permit of show windows, as do all
our Newark branches, the task would be greatly simplified. What a
show window has meant to the business branch can be seen any day.
A passerby is first attracted by the bright color of a map showing
the London subway system. He pauses to read the old familiar words:
"Trafalgar Square," "Tottenham Court Road" and "Ludgate Circus." Beside
it is a new directory of the clothing trade, or a book on insurance,
a pamphlet on civil service, or a new trolley guide. Finally, his
curiosity aroused over the kind of a business house that can have
such diversified interests, he looks up at the gold-lettered sign on
the window and reads with puzzled expression, "Business Branch and
Reading Room of the Free Public Library." Often he peers curiously in
to see what kind of people are inside, and, seeing a room full of men,
comes boldly in and asks for--a directory of Spuyten Duyvil, or some
other obscure place. The window display has broadened his idea of the
resources of the public library, which he had hitherto thought of as
having nothing to interest him.
Where a library can afford it there are many advantages in establishing
a business department. It keeps together closely related subjects, it
is very helpful to business men, and it helps in advertising. If a
permanent business department is impossible, there is much to be gained
by a temporary showing of all that can be gathered relating to business.
All libraries have more of this material than we perhaps realize,
surely more than the public realize. By bringing it together and
displaying well-printed signs concerning it we are following sound
advertising principles. The man who sees a sign in the library, "Our
business is answering questions," will not be so absurdly apologetic
over "bothering you" with his wants, and will use the resources of the
library to better advantage than the man who thinks it is only for
lending books.
Other signs that may be used with good effect are these:
"Have you an idea? Patent it. The library will tell you how."
"You support this library. Do you use it?"
"Why guess about things? Your Public Library can give you the facts.
Telephone or write."
"A valuable export trade is yours if you follow the consular reports in
the Public Library."
"Follow the work of the Legislature. The bills are on file at the
Public Library."
Framed signs of the library as Bureau of Information, placed in public
places, are good permanent advertisements. Personal visits to the
places where questions are being asked--the post office, the railroad,
telegraph, newspaper and express offices, and the suggestion that those
in charge send to the public library all inquiries they do not wish to
be troubled with or can not satisfy, will turn many people toward the
library.
If it is the item of expense that stands in the way of business work in
your library, have you considered possible economies in other lines?
Why not discontinue a certain fashion magazine and add a financial
one? Turn down an order for a history of the court of Queen Anne and
buy a good history of Wall Street. Get along without that valuable
but expensive book on the ancient civilization of the Egyptians and
buy a directory of the manufacturers of the world. Deny your worthy
scholars the latest commentary on Plato and get your business men
the latest book on accountancy. Sacrifice an historical or classical
atlas and secure the best maps of your own locality. Decide against
the Portuguese dictionary and buy a cable code. Cancel the order for
so-and-so's travels in British Guiana and subscribe for the Official
Railway Guide.
Here are suggestions for a few resources to be used in meeting business
inquiries of a general order, such as come to a library that advertises
itself as a Bureau of Information, and some things we have found useful
in business work:
1. The latest edition of the city directory, directories of local
towns, of the capitol of the state, and of the largest cities of
the United States. An exchange of directories one year old with
other public libraries has proved quite satisfactory. It increases
your resources, and the fact that you ask for year-old directories
from local business houses for the purpose of exchange is a good
advertisement of the library's business side. The cost of sending a
5-lb. directory to any part of the United States by book-rate express
is about fifty cents.
If you cannot afford directories, get telephone books from the American
Telephone and Telegraph Co., New York City, at prices ranging from 35
to 50 cents. Many of these contain classified sections. A classified
telephone directory of New York may be obtained free by writing to Mr.
Reuben J. Donnelly, 37 Fulton Street, New York City.
2. The very best local maps. To spend $30 on a real estate atlas may
seem extravagant; but such atlases are usually issued at intervals of
6 to 10 years, and will prove one of the most useful sources of local
information.
3. The Official Railway Guide. If the library cannot afford to pay
$8.00 a year for it, get a month-old copy from the local railway
office. It contains the most complete list of U. S. towns in print and
is of value as a gazetteer and in many other ways.
4. The Western Union A. B. C. and Lieber Cable Codes are the only
general codes in use. They cost about $32.00.
5. A table for displaying catalogs of business book publishers.
This will increase the use of business books and lead to many good
recommendations by visitors.
6. A monthly magazine, "Business News," of the Business Book Bureau of
New York. It indexes articles in the principal business magazines and
lists the important new business books.
7. A typewriter for the free use of visitors. The local office of a
typewriter company may place one in the library as an advertisement.
8. Reports of transactions on the New York stock exchange or of
transactions in local securities. Local brokers' offices will consider
it a good advertisement to place these on file.
9. Trolley guides. Fifty cents spent on these each year will fortify
the library against all attacks in that line.
10. Thomas's Register of American Manufacturers, price $15.00. With
this in hand you can say that, "The Public Library can give you names
of pill-box manufacturers in all parts of the U. S., the name of the
man who makes office furniture in Marietta, Ohio, or the place where
Rubberset products are manufactured."
11. Kelly's Directory of Merchants, Manufacturers and Shippers of the
World. Price 30s. This enables you to say, "The Public Library can
give you the name of German manufacturers of mirrors, the dealers in
lacquered ware in Tokio, the name of a bank in Warsaw, a forwarding
agent in Sydney or the express facilities of Coburg."
With a simple and inexpensive equipment, somewhat like that included
in these eleven items, backed by wide advertising in the local press,
a public library can attract the business men of a town to use the
institution they support, an institution which should be turned to by
everyone in the municipality as the very first source of information.
Miss EDITH KAMMERLING, head of the Civics Room of the Chicago public
library, presented most ably the work which could be done by any
library in the civics line, under the title
A CIVICS ROOM IN A MEDIUM-SIZED TOWN
Perhaps the best method of indicating the scope and material of a
civics room in a medium-sized library is to describe what are the
essentials of a civics room in a large city, permitting the adaptation
of such features of the latter to the former as the locality and
conditions may suggest.
A year ago last month a room was opened in the Chicago public library
which is known as the civics room. The legend on the door announces
"Sociology, Municipal Affairs, Business, Economics, Political Science,
and Education." At first people were very curious to see what the
civics room was like, and many there were of the idle curious who came
to see what we had, but as the subjects dealt with were not what are
generally considered as sources of amusement and entertainment, this
patronage gradually ceased until now we have only the earnest, studious
class.
The work required in assembling and taking care of the material is such
as to demand the most concentrated efforts and the most specialized
training upon the part of the librarian. She must be familiar with the
great issues of the day and must be able to look ahead and assemble
material where she sees that a topic is engaging the attention of
public-spirited men.
The material which is stored in the civics room, therefore, is less in
the form of books than in the way of pamphlets, magazine articles, and
newspaper clippings--that which is usually regarded as ephemera. The
latest material is not to be found in books, for by the time a subject
has been before the public, has been talked about, assimilated, and
finally published in book form it is practically an old subject.
One of the first considerations for the librarian is where to obtain
this material. Our civics room has a card index of institutions and
societies that are interested in the subjects that we cover in our
work, and since we are on the mailing list of most of the associations
we are pretty well supplied with their publications. The National
Municipal Review, published quarterly by the National Municipal League,
has a section devoted to new pamphlet material and is a great help in
learning of new publications. Other journals of particular value are:
The Survey, with its Information Desk, The Municipal Engineer, The
American City, and The American Political Science Review.
For magazine articles, of course we have the Readers' Guide, but most
of our magazine material is in the form of separates. The branches of
our library return innumerable magazines to the main library and these
are immediately dismembered and the articles of value and interest to
us are taken out and treated as if they were pamphlets. Our newspaper
clippings are obtained from 150 foreign and domestic newspapers
which our reading room receives daily. Representative material is
obtained in this way from all sections of the country. The pamphlets,
magazine separates, and newspaper clippings, together with a small,
well-selected collection of books and a goodly supply of current
magazines upon economic and sociological subjects constitute the
material of the room.
If you were to visit our civics room you would see one entire side of
the room lined with pamphlet boxes. Each box represents a subject.
Collected in one box are pamphlets, magazine separates, and newspaper
clippings. The patron is not compelled to read antiquated books in
studying his subject, nor is he compelled to go through the Readers'
Guide and wait for his magazines to be brought to him. Here, all
gathered together, is the latest material to be had. Each pamphlet
is classified; each magazine separate is made into permanent form by
being stapled in a manila folder with source, title, date, and class
number on the cover; each newspaper clipping is classified with source
and date and placed in a large manila envelope. We use the Wisconsin
Legislative Reference Bureau's expansion of the 300's of the Dewey
Classification for classifying our material. Selections from the
contents of a typical box will show what kind of material is to be had.
The subject is The recall:
Address of Pres. Taft at the banquet of the Swedish-American
Republican League. 62d Cong. 2d. sess. Sen. doc. 542. Mar.
9, 1912.
Address on the recall of judges and the recall of judicial
decisions at the session of the annual meeting of the Ill.
State Bar Assoc. Apr. 26, 1912.
Election and recall of federal judges; speech of Hon. Robt. L.
Owen. 62d Cong. 1st Sess. Sen. doc. 99. July 31, 1911.
Federal recall and referendum. Springfield Republican. Dec. 5,
1912.
How the "recall of decisions" would protect the weak from
injustice. Chicago Tribune. Apr. 7, 1912.
If recall ever comes, judges will cause it. Dallas News. June
8, 1912.
Importance of an independent judiciary. Ind. Apr. 4, 1912.
Judicial decisions and public feeling; address by Elihu Root.
62d Cong. 2d sess. Sen. doc. 271. Jan. 19, 1912.
A judicial oligarchy. Century mag. Oct., 1911.
The judicial recall. Century mag. May, 1912.
The judicial recall a fallacy of constitutional government;
speech by Rome G. Brown. 62d Cong. 2d sess. Sen. doc. 892.
Aug. 3, 1912.
Judicial recall is turned down. Baltimore American. July 4,
1912.
Judicial tyranny and the remedy; speech by Isaac R. Sherwood.
May 2, 1912.
Life terms and the judicial recall. Chicago American. July 16,
1912.
Nullifying the law by judicial interpretation. Atlantic. Apr.,
1911.
Oakland defeated recall nearly 2 to 1. San Francisco Chronicle.
Apr. 6, 1912.
Recall for all but judges urged. New York Sun. Jan. 6, 1913.
Recall in Oregon. Washington Post. Sept. 2, 1912.
Recall in Seattle. McClure's. Oct., 1911.
Recall of judges. Ind. Aug. 17, 1911.
Recall of judges. Editorial Rev. Nov., 1911.
Recall of judges; address by James Manahan. July 19, 1911.
Recall of judges; arguments in opposition by Mr. Rome G. Brown.
July 19, 1911.
Recall of judges a rash experiment. Century. August, 1911.
Recall of judges and judicial decisions; speech by Hon.
Augustus Gardner. Apr. 4, 1912.
Recall of public servants; speech by Hon. Jonathan Bourne. Aug.
5, 1911.
Restricting the judiciary. Chicago Daily News. June 16, 1913.
Right of the people to rule; address of Theodore Roosevelt.
Mar. 20, 1912.
Seeks substitute for judicial recall. Indianapolis Star. Aug.
30, 1912.
Study on the recall of presidents. Chicago Tribune. Sept. 23,
1912.
Where the recall is justified. International. Dec., 1912.
Wisconsin Assembly Bill; the interpellation or recall of
commissions and other state officers. Jan. 29, 1913.
Wilson explains recall. Springfield Republican. Sept. 26, 1912.
We keep the public informed of what is taking place in the Illinois
legislature by having a complete file of the house and senate bills
and joint resolutions. These are carefully indexed so that if a patron
asks for the bills relating to non-partisan elections, by turning to
our index and looking under Municipalities--Non-partisan elections, the
bills are easily found. Likewise the ordinances that are passed by the
city council are treated in the same way.
We have found from our experience covering a year's work that the
subjects that have been most used are as follows:
Initiative and referendum
Recall
Woman suffrage
Immigration
Direct election of U. S. senators
Minimum wages
Child labor
Woman and labor
Employers' liability
Housing
Unemployment
Labor unions
Syndicalism
Central banking system
Rural credit
Socialism
Single tax
Income tax
High cost of living
International arbitration
Public morals
Moving pictures
Civil service
Commission form of government
Smoke nuisance
Playgrounds and parks
City planning
Garden cities
Six-year term for president
Child welfare
Juvenile courts
Industrial education
Parcel post
Business
Industrial efficiency
Advertising
Public utilities
Noise
Billboards
Non-partisan elections
Some of the questions selected at random, show the demands made upon
the room. A committee of the City Council is appointed to investigate
the question of public service corporation commissions, and the
library receives a call for material upon the question "Whether it
is better to have public utilities regulated by state public service
commissions, or to have them regulated by the City Council." When the
investigation of the telephone rates is to be made the history of the
telephone investigations carried on by previous councils is looked
up. Upon investigating the advisability of electrifying the railway
terminals, statistics are demanded showing the amount of damage that is
done by the smoke of the railroads in the city limits. Only the live,
up-to-date material can be of any value to these city officials, and a
knowledge of what other cities have done relative to these questions is
necessary.
Newspaper men who are doing such excellent work in keeping the
people informed about what improvements are being made to better the
conditions in the city, demand a great deal of a civics room. For
example: A newspaper man writing a series of articles upon how to
improve Chicago, wishing to write an article on housing, sends in
a call for information regarding Schmidlapp houses, and it is our
business to get him the material. Again he wishes to show how to reduce
the cost of living, and sends in a request for information concerning
the conveyance of produce from the farmer to the consumer by means of
the interurban cars. Or again he wishes to inspire the public with the
desire to beautify the city with window boxes and flowers and he wishes
to know what European cities are doing along this line.
Civic associations and women's clubs are constantly making demands upon
our resources. Such questions as:
What material have you from the budget exhibits of other cities?
Statistics showing the death rate in garden cities as compared
with the death rate in cities where the population is congested.
The provision of giving the wages of prisoners to the support
of the family.
Public comfort stations.
City planning and garden cities.
The question of working women's wages in its relation to the
social evil was studied, during the recent investigation of the
Illinois Vice Commission, by students and women's clubs.
Students find our room a boon. They are able to get material there
which they are not able to find anywhere else. This spring students at
the University of Chicago were working upon a debate on Panama Canal
tolls, and they were so eager to use our material that they would stay
all day, leaving in relays to eat while a few were left behind to guard
the material.
A civics room in a medium-sized town may be made one of the most
important assets of the library if it can be arranged that the person
in charge does not have to divide her attention with the main work of
the other departments of the library. If the staff is limited it would
be better to have the civics room situated in a centralized locality,
such as the state library, with easy communication with the smaller
libraries. These could have an index of what the state library has, and
when the need would arise the librarian could communicate her wants to
the state librarian and the material could be sent as a package library
upon short notice.
And so we find that we can be of assistance to the members of the
City Council, women's clubs, civic organizations, newspaper men and
students. The future of the work is very bright; new lines of work open
up; new opportunities for service present themselves. It is in this
work that one can be alive; he can feel that he is a part of the great
movement toward the betterment of his city and its people.
Dr. William H. Allen, director of the Bureau of Municipal Research, of
New York, made the closing talk of the evening, taking as his subject,
"What a city should expect and receive from a library." He made a
plea that librarians as individuals should stand for something in the
community, should take their place as persons in the affairs of the
day as well as see to it that their institutions performed the work to
be expected of a library. He also laid emphasis on the fact that the
general public did not know of the work being done by libraries and the
possibilities of further service and urged that discussions of such
work should be given place in the general magazines and newspapers as
well as library magazines. He strongly advocated individual thinking,
the doing of that which the individual librarian felt to be the best
for a given community whether it be in line with general library
thought or not, claiming that individuality of action and thought made
for a stronger and better administration even if such individuality led
to criticism upon occasion.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING SECTION
The meeting was called to order Wednesday evening, June 25, by the
chairman, Mr. Frank K. Walter.
The first paper was presented by Miss MARY W. PLUMMER on
SPECIALIZATION AND GRADING IN LIBRARY SCHOOLS
Although it is twenty-five years since library schools began, one may
say that in a sense they are still in the experimental stage. And
to say this is really praise, for when schools cease to experiment
they are running along safely in ruts and have lost much of their
vitality. The same period has been one of great expansion in library
affairs,--not only has the country been covered with library buildings
where before, to use a Western expression, "there was nothing but
sagebrush," but forms of library work and extension have sprung up
that were undreamed of twenty-five years ago, new methods have had to
be found to meet emergencies and new conditions, social, industrial,
and educational, and the library or library commission without several
new ideas and aspirations per month is not thought to be doing its
full duty. Add to all this progress the reactions that are going on,
in library practice, in library architecture, etc., each a faithful
reflection of some new light or of some old light looked at a second
time, and the scene is one of activity paralleled, so far as the
present writer knows, in no other field of endeavor, unless it be that
of general education.
Several of the schools carry on an exercise called "survey of the
field," merely to keep their classes in sight of this movement, and
once a fortnight is not too often for such a class to meet--there is
always fresh material for discussion.
A school, however, must experiment within reason and along its own
lines. Because some small libraries and new branches are taking down
their partitions or building without them is not sufficient cause for
the advocacy of the practice in the schools; the much mooted question
of the use of the accessions-book must remain for some time a mooted
question in the schools--as long, in fact, as the conservative and
radical libraries so evenly balance each other on the subject. It is
not for the schools to practice or to teach library innovations--their
business is to watch innovations and their results and report to their
students.
It is open to the school, however, not only to watch but to forecast,
to some extent. By dint of observing and listening, one who is not in
the actual game often sees what is really happening or going to happen
before some, at least, of the participants are entirely aware of it. An
instance lies at hand in the subject of cataloging. Up to the present,
this has been one of the backbone courses in every school-schedule,
though the schools report regularly to their students the progress
making in co-operative cataloging and the use of printed cards. As this
use extends, it becomes more and more evident that cataloging is to be
concentrated in a few expert hands and that most librarians are not
going to have to be catalogers any more than the head of a commercial
concern has to know by heart the price of every article in his stock,
or than a manufacturer has to be able to do at a moment's notice what
his expert subordinates are doing.
For the present, libraries still exist which make their own cards,
and they still call on the schools regularly for librarians who can
catalog, and hope rather than expect to get them. For, in spite of the
fact that the schools still teach every student to catalog, as far
as the student material will admit, students of their own volition
seldom choose to be catalogers. Whether they too have sensed the fact
that a change is coming and that the librarianship of the future will
have more to do with the inside of the book and its application to
the individual, with the handling rather than the making of tools,
or whether they simply do not like what seems to them the probable
monotony of cataloging, I do not know; but I think the schools will
bear me out in the statement that cataloging as a specialty is not the
first choice of many students. In view of these facts, I am ready to
hazard the prediction that within ten years cataloging will be given
in the schools as an elective; and that instead of making catalogs the
majority of students will be led to consider the few main principles
of cataloging and then taught better how to use and how to criticise
catalogs.
Every instructor in cataloging knows that there are students whom it
is a waste of time and vitality to try to make into catalogers, and
every year good people go out from the schools who should never be
engaged as catalogers and whom the schools recommend only for their
qualifications for other work. Suppose we concentrated our teaching
ability in this line on the students who _would_ make good catalogers
and who would elect the study--we should be working with the grain and
not across it, the cataloging of the whole country would be uniformly
well done instead of open to well-founded criticism in places, as it is
now, and the time and strength of the instructor would be saved as well
as those of the student whose forte lies in another direction. Another
result would probably follow very quickly--more men would go into the
library schools. I am told that the detail of cataloging seems to a
man too much like making tatting, and one can easily understand that a
person competent and eager to handle large matters or to fill an active
administrative post would fret over anything involving as much minutiæ
as the making of catalog cards.
However, while libraries in general are making their own cards, and
while the smaller libraries have to have librarians who can turn their
hands to anything, cataloging as well as the rest, it is unsafe for the
schools to send out students without this part of the training. It is
only as library conditions point overwhelmingly toward cataloging as a
specializing study that the schools can change.
Librarians can help very greatly in the matter of specialization by
encouraging it and employing specialists for special work wherever
possible. Without depreciating in the least the value of an attractive
face and an agreeable manner and of taste in dress, in library work
as elsewhere, I may perhaps be allowed to put forward the opinion
that the librarian who is choosing a cataloger should not be unduly
swayed by these to the exclusion of the other requirements. Accuracy,
legibility, knowledge of books, ability in research and a taste for it,
all go to the making of a good cataloger, and it is discouraging for a
school to see the graduate who possesses these qualifications passed
over in favor of one who may have a pleasanter address but who can not
do the work half so well. And women librarians are swayed by these
considerations almost as much as men. The school can hardly be said to
blame in such cases--it can only sorrowfully shake its head, knowing
that if there is any discredit to be cast upon any one later, a great
part of it will probably fall upon the school.
Setting aside cataloging as a specialty in the days to come, to what
shall we devote the large place it has occupied in all the general
curricula?
It is easy to see that with printed cards and expert service, catalog
cards can be fuller in information, can be critically annotated,
perhaps, can be made more often for analyticals, subject and author,
and that the use of the catalog by the library assistant can be much
more constant and more discriminating. Some time can be given in the
curriculum to selecting from the catalog, securing from the shelves,
examining and comparing the books on a given subject, with the result
that the student can get a more thorough knowledge of its literature,
greater facility in the use of a valuable tool, and may become more
generally intelligent for the purpose of the selection and buying of
books, and for recommending or the contrary.
Classification and the study of subject-headings are in themselves so
broadening, furnish so good an exercise of the reasoning powers, and
afford such fine views of the inter-relations of fields of knowledge,
that I doubt if they can ever or ought ever to be set aside as special
studies. The study of works of reference, however, offers so large and
comprehensive a field that it seems to need division; and this brings
me to the other subject of my title, that of grading in the schools.
Probably no one thing has made teaching more difficult, than the wide
range of age and experience among the students. In the same class may
occur and do occur continually the girl of twenty without much reading
beyond high school and college requirements and the summer novel
(unless she has fortunately grown up in a cultivated family with the
habit of good reading and of discussing books), and the man or woman
of from thirty to forty with a knowledge of books, an experience of
life and society, and of thoughtful mind, who may have been successful
in teaching or in some other profession; and in between range students
of all degrees of cultivation, varieties of experience, and types of
education. The training fitted for the first class wastes much of the
time of the student at the other extreme, and if it be adapted to that
extreme may be too strong or too complicated a mixture for the youngest
student.
Grading would be expensive, for it would mean more teachers or more
specialized teachers. In some of the schools the classes are not
large enough to admit of so costly a proceeding; yet without grading,
under the conditions described, the school belongs where the ungraded
school belongs in the scheme of general education--it is delivering
a scattering fire that may or may not hit its object. The entrance
examination has been the device employed for unifying student-material
in some schools, and it is much better than any other means, it seems
to me; but though it may show what is the greatest common divisor of
the candidates in the way of education and offer a definite point
of departure for instruction, those who examine the papers see such
differences, quite apart from the mere answers to the questions, as
warn them that they are about to deal with a very varied assortment of
intellects, a wide range of cultivation, and with necessities ranging
from those of the steady, plodding follower who will never go further
than an average assistantship to those of the born administrator or
scholar. There is, to be sure, in such a class great benefit for the
younger and less experienced students from contact with the others,
from discussions that are a little over their heads, but, all the same,
teaching addressed to the maturer intellect leaves the other with gaps
unfilled, while teaching brought down to the level required by youth
and inexperience gets the older student nowhere for the time being. The
process is a sort of hitching along that should not be necessary in
professional or vocational schools.
Suppose that grading be practicable so far as money and teachers are
concerned. Where should lines be drawn? Often the younger person has
the more flexible as well as more open mind and the older student may
be a little set and may have ceased to take in readily new ideas. How
to distinguish the students who can receive and assimilate readily
the best and most that can be given? I should say that perhaps a
month might have to be spent in making the division by actual testing
of the students in class together. With this secured, two curricula
might be offered, one prepared for the needs of each class with
appropriate methods of teaching, and offering varied proportions of
the same subjects. And here I revert to the teaching of reference
work. For the higher grade it would be more inclusive, more difficult,
dealing more with books in foreign languages, with books on unusual
and recondite subjects, such as would be found in large reference or
college libraries, while the lower grade might be adapted to the more
elementary work to be done in small libraries or in branches.
The "moral" of this plan lies largely in the application of it. If
the large reference or college library could be deflected from its
main object, the securing of a competent reference assistant, by a
sunny smile on the part of a lower grade student, the school's work in
preparing the better student would go for naught so far as that library
was concerned, and if this happened several times it would result in
a confusion of values in the minds of the students. A + a sunny smile
- a knowledge of the books would seem to be more than equal to B + a
thorough reference equipment - a sunny smile. We may paraphrase here
a well-known saying by asserting that, taking all things together, a
librarian who can make his own choice of assistants gets the assistants
he deserves, with the further assertion that the word personality,
as often used now, does not get its full meaning; we forget that it
consists not only of what one looks like and sounds like and apparently
feels like but of all that one has made one's own out of the realm of
knowledge, and all that one has assimilated and made profitable from
one's experience.
The charge that the one year's general course is too full would
probably become less true if or when grading was adopted. Only those
subjects would need be given to a grade and those amounts of a subject
which the students were capable of profiting by and the time saved
could be used in more effective ways.
There is a very general desire to study administration among both older
and younger students. So far as this means covering the whole routine
of a library, with lectures on library relationships, management, etc.,
a course can easily be given; the difficulty arises when students
wish to go out as administrators on the strength of such preparation
alone; and when library boards send to the schools for students to
fill administrative positions and expect the training to ensure
administrative ability which, under the circumstances, can not be
guaranteed. No matter how friendly may be the attitude of the library
connected with a school, it is hardly willing to turn over any of its
administrative work to students, nor could it be expected to do so.
The ideal thing, of course, would be for the school itself to own a
small library as a laboratory in which students could be tested for
administrative ability under supervision. But this, too, would take
money. When one sees the splendid endowment of a School of Journalism,
a School of Technology, etc., one cannot help hoping that some day a
School of Librarianship may be endowed which may employ the best of
teachers and plenty of them, have its own ample collections, adapted to
its needs, and establish its own library as a laboratory in which it
may try experiments.
I have not yet touched upon the kind of specialization of which we have
heard most in late years--the kind to fit students to be librarians of
special libraries. I do not believe that the most energetic critic of
the library schools would require them to teach engineering, commercial
methods, law and medicine. A demand there certainly is from business
houses and manufactories for librarians, but that is not enough for
the schools. There must be a corresponding demand from persons wishing
to be trained for such places. This, so far as I can learn, has not
made itself felt. When applicants begin to come to the schools saying,
"I intend to go into an applied science library" (or "an insurance
library") "and I want to be trained for that work and that only," then
the schools will have to provide such training or declare definitely
that that is not a part of their field. Until such a demand arises from
would-be students, it would be foolish for a school which has plenty of
demand for general training and certain well-defined extensions of it
to go outside this province.
A committee of the Special Libraries Association, I learn, is
investigating the matter of preparation for special library positions,
and it is to be hoped that there may be a very thorough inquiry, and
that the committee will state definitely just what the association
wants and what it believes to be proper training for such positions.
Then the existing schools can decide whether or not they can give such
preparation.
Meantime, a suggestion that institutes of technology might take up this
special technical work and commercial schools the business library
courses, etc., may be worth considering.
It has been suggested that the schools specialize among themselves,
and to some extent that has come about naturally; for the school with
especially good resources and unusual facilities for teaching a given
subject, such as legislative reference or work with children, if it
makes known its advantages, is very likely to attract the student who
wishes to follow that line of work. Other reasons, however, often weigh
more heavily--the location of a school, the personnel of the faculty,
a smaller tuition fee, the general reputation and advancement of its
graduates, etc.; so that any school may be called upon to give some
special work of which perhaps it is not the best exponent. It cannot
send the student elsewhere willy-nilly, and it does its best to give
him what is wanted. As schools increase in number, a classification of
them according to curricula is likely to follow, and this difficulty
may be lessened. Even so, there is always the danger to be guarded
against that students trained along one line may, through force of
circumstances, take positions requiring a kind of training which they
have not had. It would be impossible for a mining engineer to do the
work of a mechanical engineer and vice versa, but in the work of an
average library the cataloger and reference assistant and children's
librarian must often change places, and any one of them, rather than be
without a position, would as a rule try to do the work of the others.
If all have had general training, this would not matter so much, but
without that there would be considerable loss of efficiency.
In bringing this heterogeneous paper to an end--a paper which claims to
be nothing more than a sort of thinking aloud on some of the problems
confronting the schools, I wish to state some conclusions that I feel
myself coming to: 1. That we need more good schools. 2. That they
need to send out a larger number of trained people. 3. That we need
longer, more thorough, and more systematic courses. 4. That with the
larger schools some effort at grading is desirable. 5. That the schools
would do well to get together and make a comparative study of their
curricula, and their resources and facilities for special subjects,
and map out tentatively a division of the field. This, while not
binding upon any school, might serve for guidance, but no school should
monopolize any one subject unless it is the only school having proper
facilities for giving it.
Miss CORINNE BACON read a paper entitled
CO-OPERATION OF LIBRARIES WITH LIBRARY SCHOOLS
Before beginning to talk of the ways in which libraries might
co-operate to better advantage with library schools, it is but fair to
acknowledge gratefully that many libraries are already co-operating
with us in a way that often must tax severely their time and patience.
In behalf of the Drexel Institute library school, I thank most heartily
those libraries that, regardless of the inconvenience to themselves,
allow our students to go to them for the practice work that is so
valuable to half-fledged librarians. And in voicing the gratitude of
Drexel, I feel that I am giving utterance to the feelings of every
other school that sends out its students in the same way.
We can give our students but two weeks practice work outside of
Philadelphia, because our school year is so short. Perhaps it would be
well to lengthen the year by two weeks, in order that the term of work
might be lengthened.
There are three things that it seems to me the schools may properly ask
of the libraries: advance practice work; direct criticism; a living
wage for assistants.
(1) Advance practice work--I mean by this work done in libraries prior
to any study of library science. As a rule, the student with a little
practical experience gets far more from a library course than one not
so equipped. Directors of schools often advise work in advance, but,
as far as I know, few schools require it. Pratt Institute begins with
practical work in the Pratt library. The difficulties in the way of
requiring this work are many. It would bear heavily upon the libraries;
it would be an added expense to students living at a distance from good
libraries; it would not necessarily prove the applicant's fitness or
unfitness for library work, as she might fail at the kind of work she
was set to do, and yet be capable of success on some other line.
Yet, on the whole, this would be a better test of fitness than all
the questions we directors hurl at kindly and well-meaning friends or
former instructors of our would-be students. Don't we ask too many
questions as to personality from those whose answers often carry little
weight? Why should we not accept all who measure up to a certain
physical and mental standard, without troubling our heads so much as to
whether they are ideally fit for library work? It would bring us more
in line with the professional schools. Moreover, there are almost as
many kinds of library work as there are of people!
The chance to work in a real library before beginning the course of
study would often clarify the student's ideas about library work, even
more than it would clarify the director's ideas about the would-be
student. We would have, perhaps, fewer applicants who are not very
strong but who "=love= books."
Sometimes I have wondered whether it would not be well to abandon
entrance examinations and require instead a health certificate from
a physician, a certificate that six months' satisfactory work had
been done in his library from a librarian, and a statement that the
applicant had read the English Bible through at least three times (this
last for its influence on English prose style!).
(2) Direct criticism.
"Indirect criticism" was perhaps the toughest thing in the advanced
cataloging course in my honored Alma Mater, and indirect criticism is
one of the most trying things that we teachers of library science have
to undergo. Librarians can help us by giving us their criticism of our
methods and of our students at first-hand.
We have had more or less direct criticism--we would like more.
We have been told (a) That our graduates are not so valuable to certain
libraries as their own apprentices. Of course they are not, at first,
but they should be more valuable later. (b) That they are wedded
to library school methods. I believe there is less justice in this
criticism than there was some years ago. (c) That our schools are not
"laid out and conducted in accordance with recommendations from experts
in pedagogy." We plead guilty. (d) That the schools "almost inevitably
tend to exalt technique and routine." I do not think that we mean to
do this. We know that culture and gumption are more important than
any amount of knowledge of technique and routine, but we expect our
students to finish their cultural studies (so far as such studies =can=
be finished) before coming to us, and we can not teach gumption. It is
heaven-born. We exist largely for the purpose of teaching technique
and routine but never for one moment do we mean to exalt them over the
weightier matters of the law.
I have gone a little out of the way to answer these few direct
criticisms. Some of us have profited by them. Give us more.
We would like direct rather than indirect criticism of our graduates.
Unfavorable comments on training in general, or on the training of
a particular school, do not take the place of direct criticism of
individuals. Librarians would be doing a kindness by writing to the
school from which they had a trained assistant who was lacking in ways
that reflected on her training and stating plainly what the defects
were, so that the school might profit by the knowledge.
Then, too, librarians would often save themselves trouble by
co-operating with the schools to the extent of writing for the record
of a graduate whom they think of engaging. Many do this, but not all.
A librarian or trustee may select an assistant at a conference on
account of her good looks and pleasant manners, and when he finds out
(it is usually a "he" who makes this error of judgment) that she is not
all his fancy painted her, he blames the school that trained her. The
school could have told him perhaps, if asked, wherein she was lacking.
(3) A living wage. This is the most important of the three points in
which we wish for co-operation. It is getting to be a serious question
as to whether women of ability can afford to go into library work. We
do not expect luxuries, but to do good work we must keep fit. We need
rooms that admit plenty of fresh air and we need nourishing food. We
are obliged to dress fairly well. We ought to go to library meetings,
and trustees do not usually pay the way of the assistants with the
smaller salaries. Recreation is a necessity if we are to keep sane. But
how can we afford to travel, or even to see a play or to buy a book, on
the salaries many of us get?
I was asked a few weeks ago to supply a college library with a
cataloger who must be a library school graduate knowing French and
German and the salary offered was $40 a month. If a woman ate poor
food, she might be able to save enough out of $40 to pay for her
washing--only she couldn't afford to buy any clothes to be washed. She
could never see a play, hear an orchestra, or buy a book.
A good cook, on the other hand, would have no difficulty in getting
$30 or $35 a month =and maintenance=, which would be equivalent to a
salary of at least $50 or $55 a month. Moreover, the cook would not
be expected to dress as well as the cataloger (though, as a matter of
fact, her Sunday clothes would probably be more costly) or to attend
conventions.
The case I have mentioned is by no means an isolated one. A
good-looking girl with pleasant manners, who could understand French,
German, Spanish and Italian over the telephone, was asked for by a
large city library that proposed to pay about $45 a month. Another
college library recently wanted a college and library school graduate
with experience and various other qualifications for $720 a year. Now
if an =experienced= woman with such an education can't get more than
$720 a year in library work, the sooner she leaves it for something
else the better. A special library belonging to a leading institution
in a large city was looking for a woman to reclassify and catalog its
collection, but seemed unwilling to pay even $50 a month.
This is not intended as a diatribe against the librarian employer. The
trustees and the taxpayers need education along the line of library
salaries. Libraries need larger appropriations for salaries. We have
passed through a period where method was exalted, we seem to be passing
through a period where a fine building is the prime necessity. But
after all, a library means primarily plenty of books that are worth
while and assistants that know enough to get them into the hands of the
right people. And we can not cultivate efficient assistants on less
than a living wage.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to imply that a green library
school graduate should leap at once into a high-salaried position.
Yet the comparison sometimes made with the doctor or lawyer, who
are so long in gaining a foot-hold, seems to me unfair. Lawyers and
doctors who are good for much, make big money after a while. It is the
exceptional librarian who ever gets a large salary. Therefore it is not
fair to expect her to spend so many years earning little or nothing as
does the doctor or lawyer.
I have spoken particularly of salaries for women. Salaries for men
in library work are usually too low, but I have dwelt on the women's
salaries because women are discriminated against, not alone in
libraries, but in most kinds of work done by women.
The working-woman of today asks no favor because she is a woman. She
does ask equal pay with men for equally good work.
I do not mean to over-emphasize the money side of library work, even
though I think the "missionary" side of it has been over-emphasized.
Why is a shelf-lister any more of a missionary than a bookkeeper in
John Wanamaker's store? Why is any librarian any more of a missionary
than the editor of a great daily, or than a busy surgeon, or many other
folks that might be mentioned? We librarians serve those who know more
than we, who are better than we--we are "just folks" like all the rest,
equally worthy, if we give good measure in our work, of a living wage.
We of the schools ask of the libraries we try to serve that they send
us criticisms of our graduates, that they try them out, and that they
pay them, if found efficient, that living wage without which the best
work is impossible.
Discussion of both papers followed, after which was read the
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON METHODS OF PUBLICITY FOR LIBRARY SCHOOLS
The Committee on Methods of Publicity respectfully reports to the
Professional Training Section as follows:
At the time of the mid-winter meeting at Chicago the members of this
Committee met and after consultation with the Secretary of the A. L. A.
determined upon a procedure which was carried out as follows:
It was deemed wise to make an effort to reach the students in the
colleges and universities through the publication of an article in
each of the periodicals published in the various colleges. One form of
letter was framed for co-educational institutions, one form for use at
men's colleges and one form for use at women's colleges. These were
mimeographed and Mr. Utley, who had already prepared a list of college
publications, mailed the letter to over 180 publications.
The letter was in no sense an advertisement of library schools; it was
rather an attempt to set forth facts relative to the opportunities
within the library profession. It called attention to the existence of
the various library schools and referred the interested student to the
college librarian or to the Secretary of the A. L. A.
Although the Committee flattered itself it had produced a helpful
and interesting letter, it cannot learn that it was reprinted to any
considerable extent nor that it resulted in interesting many students
in the profession.
The Committee is informed that in many, if not in most, of the
educational institutions of the country there are groups of persons
interested in vocational training. It is therefore recommended that
this publicity work be continued, but that the approach for the
publication of the article and for the local use of it be made through
the persons or groups in each institution which are particularly
interested in vocational training. In most cases these persons have an
established channel of publicity and can reach the students and the
publications better than they can be reached through the direct attack
heretofore employed.
Respectfully submitted,
CARL H. MILAM,
M. S. DUDGEON,
JOSEPHINE A. RATHBONE,
Committee on Methods of Publicity.
June 25, 1913.
The following "Account of the work of the library school round table
for 1912 and 1913," by Mr. P. L. WINDSOR, was read by Miss Frances
Simpson.
ACCOUNT OF THE WINTER MEETINGS OF LIBRARY SCHOOL INSTRUCTORS
In January, 1911, 1912 and 1913, there were held in Chicago, meetings
of library school directors and instructors for the discussion of
topics connected with library school work. While at first thought it
might seem that such discussions should form a part of the programs of
this, the Professional Training Section, nevertheless, the meetings
have evidently justified themselves and are likely to continue.
Members of the faculties of only the generally recognized library
schools have attended these meetings; that is, the plans of the
meetings do not contemplate the attendance of instructors in summer
library schools or instructors in training classes conducted by public
libraries. This limitation on the number of people taking part in these
meetings was desired, first, because we who arranged the meetings
wished to discuss problems belonging primarily to our own special
work and not to attempt the larger field which properly belongs to
the Professional Training Section; and second, because we wished the
meetings to be sufficiently small in numbers and the participants to
be sufficiently specialized in interest to insure informal and frank
discussion.
Minutes of these meetings of library school faculties have included
copies of reports presented and in some cases have included abstracts
of discussions. Copies have been sent to each school.
Some of the topics discussed would be of no general interest to even
the Professional Training Section, as they pertain so closely to school
work. Others are of such a nature that we ourselves would not, with any
freedom, discuss them before as large a meeting as a section meeting.
Our frank, informal discussions have been characteristic.
Among the questions proposed for discussion and sent to the various
faculties in advance of the meeting, are such as these:
1. Is it desirable, and if desirable, is it practicable to make the
work of the first year of the two-year schools and the work of the
one-year schools more nearly alike? Many junior students in a two-year
school enter library work without taking the senior year's work; if the
courses in one-year schools are better preparation for library work
than the first year's work of the two-year schools, then these juniors
are at a disadvantage as compared with students from a one-year school.
Some students in the one-year schools may wish to go to a two-year
school and take a second year of training; as the courses are at
present arranged, this second year's work is almost impossible, because
it does not fit on to the work that the student has had.
2. Do we use the most approved pedagogical methods in our class room
work? Do we lecture too much, and give too few quizzes, conferences
and reviews? Do we depend too much on the student's taking full notes,
when the proper use of printed outlines, or carefully selected required
readings supplemented by a few notes would yield better results? Shall
the course in cataloging be put at the beginning of the course, or
later? How much do we use the stereopticon?
3. Would it be practicable for several schools to secure a lecturer
on some special subject in library economy who should give the
regular work in that subject in each of these schools? An example of
a beginning in this direction is Edna Lyman Scott's work in several
schools.
4. Would it be possible for the several schools to combine in securing
a lecturer each year to give a short series of lectures on some one
subject, these lectures to be seriously worked up, and to be published
after being delivered? The final publication of the lectures, and the
combined remuneration from several schools, might be a sufficient
incentive to capable persons to do their best work.
5. Are the subjects now in our curricula properly balanced? Is too much
time given to learning cataloging and other routine, and consequently
too little to a consideration of methods of extending the use of the
library by the public?
6. Is it as easy to secure transfer of credit from one school to
another as it should be?
Information on the following subjects connected with library school
work has been collected, reported on and discussed in our meetings.
1. The cost of library schools and a rough analysis of their
expenditures.
2. Specialization among library schools.
3. Book selection as a course in library schools.
4. The method of revising students' work.
5. Efficiency of administration in library schools.
6. Non-essentials in our library school courses.
7. Certain pedagogical problems connected with our library school
instruction.
The following officers were elected for the coming year: Chairman,
Corinne Bacon; Secretary, Julia A. Hopkins; Program committee, Mary W.
Plummer, Alice S. Tyler, Frank K. Walter.
PUBLIC DOCUMENTS ROUND TABLE
The government documents round table was called together at 8:15 p.
m., June 26th, by George S. Godard, state librarian of Connecticut,
chairman of the committee on public documents. Mr. F. W. Schenk, law
librarian of the University of Chicago, was asked to serve as secretary.
The chairman, after brief introductory remarks relating to the progress
which had been made in the matter of printing, binding, labeling and
distributing public documents, both national and state, introduced
Miss Mary A. Hartwell, assistant chief cataloger in the office of the
superintendent of documents, Washington, who read a paper prepared by
Superintendent of Documents Frank C. Wallace, stating his position upon
the many questions and resolutions suggested at previous conferences
of the American Library Association relative to the distribution,
indexing, assignment of volume numbers, and publication of daily
bulletins by the document office.
Mr. Wallace's paper follows:
PAPER BY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS
I regret the necessity of being compelled to adopt this means of
addressing your Association, as I feel a better understanding could be
had of what we are trying to do for the libraries if it were possible
for this office to be represented at your conference. I have read with
much interest the proceedings of your last conference, and a part of
my paper will endeavor to explain some of the questions which were
discussed and made the subject of resolutions.
=Distribution of Bills and Other Publications Now Withheld From
Distribution to the Libraries.=
There is no doubt but that some libraries, even under the present
liberal distribution of government publications, fail to receive
everything they should, and I am thoroughly in accord with the opinion
expressed during your discussion that means should be provided to
enable the libraries to receive those publications of a public
character that are now withheld from distribution. It is gratifying to
note that in Senator Smoot's printing bill, which has been reintroduced
in the present Congress, there are provisions intended to supply
remedies for certain existing conditions.
Section 65, paragraph 1, to which I refer, provides that a sufficient
number of copies of those publications of Congress which do not bear a
congressional number, including the committee publications now withheld
from distribution to depositories and those printed elsewhere than at
the government printing office, shall be supplied to the libraries. It
is also worded so as to prevent the departments from withholding some
of their publications from the depositories.
The printing committee no doubt had in mind when this provision was
framed that, under the provisions of the existing law, too much
discretion is given the departments, with the result that, contrary to
the spirit of the printing law, libraries are being deprived of certain
classes of publications that are really of a public character.
The question as to the best method to be employed in the distribution
of bills is not so easy of solution. It would not be practicable for
this office to attempt to carry even a limited supply, as the work
involved in storing them in an accessible manner would involve an
expenditure that I do not believe could be justified by the results.
During the 62d Congress there were introduced 28,870 House bills and
8,589 Senate bills, and you can readily see that to handle an adequate
stock of all those bills would be considerable of an undertaking. At
the present time the only distributing agencies for copies of bills
are the House and Senate document rooms at the capitol, but, although
they sometimes furnish bills on request, the copies they receive are
not intended for general public distribution. It seems to me that the
solution supplied in your suggestion, that the text of all public
bills upon which committee reports are made should be printed with the
reports, is the most logical one that has ever been presented, but
it would not be practicable to include also the testimony taken at
hearings held by the committees, for in many cases the testimony would
fill several large volumes. Besides, section 65, already referred to,
provides that the libraries shall receive such hearings. Of course this
section is not yet law, but we are permitted to hope that it may become
so.
This is desirable from more than one point of view. It is often the
case that committee reports refer to sections of the bill under
consideration by number without quoting the language. In such cases the
report may be unintelligible to any reader who has not a copy of the
bill before him. In fact, nearly all committee reports not accompanied
by the bills to which they relate may properly be classed as incomplete
and imperfect publications.
The question of cost involved in printing the text of bills as
appendixes to the committee reports upon them is not serious. While the
number of bills introduced in Congress and receiving a first print is
prodigious, and the cost of printing them in 14-point type with as many
white lines as type lines is tremendous, it must be remembered that
only a very small percentage of the bills introduced ever get so far
as a committee report, and of these a considerable number are already
printed with the reports by order of the committees, and the cost of
printing the remainder in solid 8-point is so very much less than the
cost of printing them in the extended bill form that it is almost
negligible.
I do not think it is too late for the Association to submit to the
joint committee on printing an amendment providing for the printing
of the text of bills and resolutions as appendixes to the committee
reports upon them. The pending bill may not pass, or may be extensively
amended before passage, or may not be acted upon at the present special
session, but I consider it probable that a general printing law of
some kind will be enacted at a comparatively early day, and that
the American Library Association may, by proper effort, secure the
incorporation in it of the desired provision for the printing of the
text of bills with the committee reports.
=Reasons Why Catalogs and Indexes Cannot Be Issued More Promptly=
The need for the prompt issue of the catalogs is thoroughly
appreciated, as we understand they are the only means of information
the general public have for knowing what the United States government
is publishing.
The Monthly Catalog is required to show what documents have been
published during a month. Evidently, therefore, its compilation cannot
be completed until after the close of the month. The compilation,
however, is always completed within three or four days after the month
closes. Sometimes the printing does not follow as quickly as one would
like. This may seem strange to libraries, to whom the Monthly Catalog
is perhaps the most important of all the public documents. If, however,
they were in Washington they would soon realize that there are several
other government concerns, some of them larger and more exacting than
the public documents office. There is one known as the Congress of the
United States, which calls for thousands of pages of printing where
the documents office calls for one, and which, when it calls for the
right of way in the government printing office (or anywhere else), is
able to get it. The printing of the document office receives every
consideration in the government printing office which it is possible to
give, but it cannot command the right of way over Congress, the White
House, or the cabinet.
It has been a long time since the Monthly Catalog has failed to be
mailed during the month following its date, often by the middle of the
month. It is to be noted, also, that its information is quite different
from that of "press notices." It enters only documents that have been
actually received, and its descriptions are minute and accurate. In
its preliminary pages it gives such advance information of forthcoming
documents as can be officially secured and vouched for. There is a
habit in some government offices of giving the newspaper reporters
information of proposed publications before the copy is ready for the
printer, and sometimes before pen has been put to paper. Plans thus
prematurely announced are subject to change and the advance notice may
thus mislead the reader. Readers of the Monthly Catalog are not thus
misled.
The superintendent of documents is confident that those librarians who
keep well informed recognize his purpose to do everything for the great
library interests of the country that the limitations of the law and
the executive pressure upon his and other administrative offices for
economy make possible.
The main cause for delay in the preparation of the copy for the
document catalogs and indexes is that publications are ordered printed
as documents that do not materialize until long after the close of the
Congress to which they have been assigned, thus making it necessary
to delay publication of the catalog and indexes until sufficient
information can be obtained for making the entry.
It is hardly necessary to explain why the document catalog is being
issued in one volume to cover the entire Congress instead of at the
close of each regular session, as provided by law, because a very
complete and detailed explanation has been given in several of the
annual reports. It is evident our explanation has been considered
satisfactory by the printing committee, as the new printing bill
provides for the document catalog to cover a whole Congress.
I will also refrain from a long discourse as to why the work on the
catalogs has been behind, as I know the librarians are only interested
as to the promptness in the printing of these bibliographical aids in
the future. The copy for the 61st Congress catalog will be ready for
the printer sometime during the coming summer and that for the 62d
Congress before the adjournment of the 63d Congress, which will be as
near as it will be possible to issue this catalog after the period
covered.
This leaves it to the Monthly Catalog and the Document Index to bridge
the gap and supply the current information from one Document Catalog to
another, which, although not as complete and as comprehensive as the
Document Catalog, serve as excellent substitutes during the interim.
=Assignment of Volume Numbers to the Congressional Series=
There is probably no question concerning public documents to which
this office has given more consideration than the devising of a plan
by which it would be possible to assign the volume numbers to the
congressional series as soon as the documents are printed.
There are two very material advantages to be gained, were it possible
to solve this question; one that of eliminating the necessity for the
public printer to supply storage room for these documents and reports
prior to the preparation of the schedule; and the other that the work
of the librarians in cataloging these documents and reports would be
greatly facilitated by having all of the necessary information at the
time the publication was cataloged. The greatest handicap to a solution
of this problem is the lack of information concerning the publications
which have not been printed and to which document numbers have been
assigned. Even now, after the session is closed, we are compelled to
hold up the schedule for weeks and sometimes months to learn the title,
paging, and other necessary information regarding certain publications
to which numbers have been assigned, but which are not printed.
At the present time in preparing the schedule, we endeavor to maintain
a numerical arrangement in binding the Senate and House Reports after
having classified them as public or private in accordance with the
provisions of the printing law. The Senate documents are brought
together first by subject and then by number, but, with the House
documents, on account of the introduction in this series of all the
annual and serial publications, an effort is made to preserve, as far
as possible, a departmental and subject arrangement.
It might be well to explain at this point that, although the only
volumes distributed to the libraries now as numbered congressional
publications are those of which Congress is the author, and of these
there are consequently no other editions, the schedules and index must
of necessity, on account of the wording of the law at the present
time, be made to cover a complete numbered set still provided for the
exclusive use of Congress.
There is about only one way to accomplish the numbering of the volumes
as soon as printed under the present law, and that is by disregarding
entirely any sort of an arrangement and assigning the next open volume
number as the documents and reports appear. Of course, the index would
furnish the key to these miscellaneous volumes. Such a plan is now
being considered by us, and it is hoped that before July 1 some plan
can be devised which will permit of a more prompt shipment of the
documents and reports to the libraries.
=Publication of a Daily Bulletin=
The resolution of the Association passed at Pasadena, May, 1911,
favoring the publication of a daily or weekly bulletin of the document
issues by the superintendent of documents, has not been forgotten or
overlooked, but up to the present time the project appears no more
feasible than it did at the beginning.
The documents office has not the authority of initiative except to a
very limited extent. Its activities are all prescribed and defined by
law. It is from the law that the superintendent of documents derives
his authority to compile and publish the Monthly Catalog, the Document
Index, the Document Catalog, and the series of price lists. It would
hardly be proper or prudent for him to begin the issue of another
periodical without first asking the permissive or directory action of
Congress. Asking does not always mean getting. Legislation concerning
the document service has been found heretofore somewhat slow and
difficult in the securing. I do not feel that I could predict with any
confidence that legislation authorizing a daily or weekly bulletin
could be secured at all.
If it could, an appropriation to make it operative would be needed,
because it is not practicable for the members of the present cataloging
force to undertake any new work. They are working under high pressure
to bring the Document Catalog up to date and to keep the Document Index
and the Monthly Catalog there.
The embarrassment caused librarians by calls for documents which have
been noticed in the newspapers but not yet announced in the Monthly
Catalog is not so much due to delay of the Monthly Catalog as to
premature announcement in the newspapers. It is the practice of various
government bureaus to pass along to the newspaper men information of
new publications as soon as they are sent to press or even sooner. Of
course readers of the newspapers assume that the documents noticed
are already available for sale or distribution, whereas the fact is
that various causes may tie up the documents in press for months or
even years. The most prolific cause of such delays is changes--changes
in "copy," changes in "proof," changes even to the substitution of
entirely new matter after a first draft has been put in type. The
number and extent of such changes in printing the public documents
are almost unbelievable, and they are of course highly embarrassing
to the libraries and to the public when premature announcement of the
forthcoming issue of the delayed document has been made.
If the publishing bureaus could be induced to withhold information of
new documents until such documents had been actually printed, bound,
and delivered, the embarrassment experienced by librarians would be
obviated. It is hardly practicable, however, for the superintendent
of documents to make any suggestion in the matter to the publishing
offices. Some of them at least would be likely to resent such a
suggestion from him as being meddlesome and out of his sphere. As to
whether such suggestion from the American Library Association would be
welcomed or heeded, I do not venture to express an opinion.
Premature announcements are not always accurate. The announced
publications are often changed in the making, and sometimes are not
published at all.
Of course, the Monthly Catalog, being an official document and an
accurate one, cannot take any chances on premature announcements.
All of its entries stand for documents actually received, carefully
examined, and their origin fully inquired into. This is not work to
be hastily done. Sometimes a surprising amount of time and trouble
are expended in finding out whether a document belongs in some
series, whether it is the beginning or ending of that series; if the
latter, then whether the same subject or subjects are to be pursued
in some other series, and the variety of similar details which
libraries and collectors should have, and for which they look to the
documents office, because in too many cases such particulars cannot be
ascertained by examination of the document itself.
A month is the shortest time in which such matters can be sifted out
and brought into orderly catalog form. Lists issued at any shorter
intervals must necessarily be memoranda rather than catalogs, and the
work done on them must be performed again in a more orderly manner for
the official monthly, annual, and biennial catalogs.
=Explanation of Section 8 of the Legislative Appropriation Act
Centralizing the Distribution in the Office of the Superintendent of
Documents=
The long cherished hope for a central distributing office has been
realized nominally, but the provisions of law creating it, I am
sorry to say, correct only the evils that existed from a mechanical
standpoint, in that they prevent the double hauling and wrapping that
were necessary prior to the change. There remain as many distributing
agencies as before, as the authority to distribute the publications
consigned to this office continues with the issuing office. The
libraries have been afforded no relief, because now, as before, if a
dozen selected pamphlets are wanted, it may mean the writing to about
as many different places. This is a rather difficult proceeding, as
most persons are unfamiliar with the machinery of the government
and are frequently in doubt whom to address to secure the desired
publications. The departments have always been rather reluctant to
relinquish control of the distribution of their documents, and the new
printing bill, should it be enacted as it now reads, would give back to
them even the mailing of the daily miscellaneous requests.
Instead of providing for such a step backward, it is the opinion
of this office that a provision should be inserted that would
discontinue entirely the free distribution by the departments (except
to collaborators and sufficient copies for official use), and would
permit the superintendent of documents to supply free copies to public
libraries and sell copies to the public at a nominal cost.
At the present time the departments have only a limited supply, which
results in a few applicants obtaining free what others have to pay for.
There is probably not a librarian who hasn't experienced the
inconvenience of the present arrangement, as it is a daily occurrence
for us to have to refer their requests to the issuing office or quote
the prices.
=Need for Co-Operation on the Part of the Librarians to Improve the
Publication and Distribution Methods of Government Publications=
The most striking example of the need for co-operation is that we are
today fighting for certain reforms in the methods of publication that
were asked for sixteen years ago.
The first superintendent of documents had hardly entered upon the
duties of the office before he recognized the faulty methods of
publication and distribution which he well knew served only to prevent
the public document from occupying the position its general standard of
efficiency warranted.
It is hard to understand why the untiring efforts of those interested
in promoting the use of the public document have been practically
ignored when you stop to think of the annual cost in compilation,
printing, and distribution.
We all know that every conceivable subject is treated in the public
documents, and when we think of their value to the historian, student,
and public in general, it is hard to understand why any obstacles
should be put in the way of making them readily accessible and
encouraging the librarians to give them the proper place on their
shelves.
Now, as to the faulty methods which obtain in the publication of the
public documents, very little has been accomplished in the way of
reform. That the present methods cause needless expense in mechanical
production and needless difficulties in their use, there is no
question. Chief of these faulty methods is that of reprinting the same
book several times under different numbers and titles. I do not mention
this as a new discovery, because every superintendent of documents has
endeavored to have the law changed to eliminate from the congressional
series those publications of which a departmental edition is printed.
One edition for one book is the only logical manner of issuing
government publications, and the Smoot bill which has again been
introduced goes a long way towards correcting the present evil.
Section 45 provides that all publications of which there is a
department edition printed, except the annual reports of the executive
departments, shall not be numbered in the congressional series, and
section 65 provides that all copies additional to the original order of
the department should be identical with those ordered by the department.
We are seriously opposed to the exception of the annual reports, and
with the hopes of eliminating any exceptions we have just written the
Senate committee on printing as follows:
"No reason is known to this office why the annual reports of
the executive departments and independent offices should be
excepted from the operation of the salutary provision that
departmental publications shall not be printed a second time
with changes to indicate (erroneously) that they are documents
emanating from Congress.
"The reasons which have induced the prohibition of second and
varying prints of department publications generally, apply with
at least equal force to the annual reports, which are the most
distinctively and obviously departmental of all departmental
issues. They are so distinctive that it is safe to say they are
always known and called for by their departmental designations,
never by their congressional numbers. Everybody knows at once
what is meant by War Department Report, 1912, but nobody knows
offhand what is meant by House Document 929, 62d Congress, 3d
session. There is nothing whatever to indicate that these two
designations mean the same publication, which is really not
a House document at all, but a publication of the executive
and not of the legislative branch of the government. And, of
course, the same is true of the annual reports of all the
executive officials.
"The addition of congressional document numbers to executive
reports adds nothing to their value or to their accessibility.
The second set of designations is merely confusing and
troublesome. To spend money on such a second print is to spend
it only to buy harm instead of good.
"The numerous and conclusive considerations which have been
sufficient to place in the bill the prohibition of the second
and superfluous editions of other departmental publications
apply with at least equal if not even greater force to annual
reports, and to except them from the general prohibition seems
therefore illogical and contradictory and a long step toward
defeating the proposed reform and the economies which it is
intended to promote.
"If it is not desirable to protect the annual reports from
the waste and confusion of double editions, then it is hard
to see why any publications should be so protected. The
annual reports, so numerous, so important, so certain to be
continuously issued for all time to come, are 'the very head
and front of the offending' in the double printing abuse, and
with them the reform should begin.
"To except the annual reports seems to amount to discrediting
if not to virtually abandoning the whole reform--the most vital
of all reforms in connection with the public printing, that of
permitting but one edition for each publication, by which it
may always be known and identified and kept free from confusion
with others."
There is no question that the librarians are in sympathy with what we
are trying to do, so now is the time to join forces and make every
effort to have this bill embody the necessary provisions to correct all
existing evils.
The librarians must give the movement impetus, and we believe if
sufficient organized effort is directed in the proper channels good
results will be bound to follow.
Mr. Wallace's paper was received with enthusiasm because it showed
his close and intimate knowledge of matters pertaining to the
publication and distribution of documents. A spirited discussion
followed the reading of the paper, all through which expressions of
appreciation were made concerning the service which had been rendered
by the document office in recent years towards prompt and efficient
distribution of publications delivered to that office.
Miss Hartwell, informally representing the superintendent of documents,
answered many questions relative to the serial numbers on government
documents and urged if consistent with the policy of the American
Library Association that action be taken suggesting to Congress that
annual reports now listed in the congressional set of documents be
omitted inasmuch as they are not now in the depository set and such
omission would facilitate the publication of the Documentary Index.
The discussion also brought out the consensus of opinion that the
libraries would be more satisfactorily served if all publications were
sent out under the direction of the superintendent of documents.
Henry J. Carr, librarian of the Scranton public library; Miss Edith E.
Clarke of Syracuse University, and Herbert O. Brigham, state librarian
of Rhode Island, were appointed a special committee to prepare a
suitable resolution of thanks to Mr. Wallace for his excellent paper
and to draft suitable resolutions to be submitted to the Council for
its approval, urging that the recommendations in Mr. Wallace's paper
relative to publication and distribution of documents be approved
by the American Library Association, this committee to report at an
adjourned meeting of the session to be held at 12:15 p. m. on Friday.
The second paper of the evening, prepared by Mr. FRANCIS A. CRANDALL of
Washington, D. C., on certain phases of the public document question,
in his absence was read by Charles F. D. Belden, state librarian of
Massachusetts.
Mr. Crandall's paper (in part) here follows:
PROPOSING AN EXECUTIVE GAZETTE
The committee on department methods, known to the public as the Keep
commission, was the agency through which, about seven years ago,
President Roosevelt hoped to reorganize and energize the government
service in Washington.
The Keep commission organized for helpers twelve so-called assistant
committees, their total membership being about seventy, all supposed to
be experts in the several branches of inquiry assigned to them.
On one of these assistant committees, the one on "The organization of
editorial work and an official gazette," the writer had the honor to
serve.
We held more than one hundred meetings, and examined as witnesses
almost if not quite every man and woman who had any official relation
with the work of preparing manuscripts for printing. We learned after
a while that the President wanted an official gazette, and expected
us to devise the means of creating it. I think that nearly all the
members from the start deemed the scheme impracticable and chimerical.
It became clear that it would be a costly enterprise, and we could not
find any department that had the money for it.
Soon after this Mr. Keep left Washington, and the Keep commission,
though nominally still living, dwindled rapidly, and brought forth
little if any more fruit.
The members of the assistant committees were left stranded, with
desks full of unprinted manuscripts as the only results of their
prolonged labors. From one of these desks I have withdrawn the report
of a subcommittee of the assistant committee on the organization
of editorial work and an official gazette. Though it was written
half a dozen years ago, it seems that an element of interest yet
remains in its proposal for the publication, as an alternative to the
impracticable official gazette, of an executive gazette. This proposal
has not had any exploitation whatever.
In the hope that it may in this way be brought to the general notice
of persons interested in the methods of publication and preservation
of the historical records of the government it is now offered for the
consideration of the American Library Association.
The London Gazette, which is the model most generally thought of when
the term official gazette is used, was begun in 1665, and may be looked
upon as a survival of the pre-newspaper age, for though there were
newspapers before the Gazette, they bore little resemblance to what
we now know by that name, and the daily press--the significant part
of the press of our day--was not born till a generation later. We may
assume that when the Gazette was begun its semi-weekly issues were
sufficient to carry all the official information that the government of
that day wished to offer to its subjects. But this long since ceased to
be true. The English government now has a host of publications which
do not appear in either of the three Gazettes--London, Edinburgh,
and Dublin--of the United Kingdom, nor in any of the multitude of
gazettes which are issued in the various British dependencies, from
Canada and Australia to Borneo and the Andaman Islands. The country
has outgrown the London Gazette, and by its growth has been forced
into that specialization and subdivision of its official publications
which we see even more notably in our own country. No doubt for the
Andaman Islands a monthly gazette covers the whole ground, everything
being printed in it and no occasion being found for any other official
publication whatever. This may be true of many small countries, but it
is not conceivable for a great and growing country like ours.
The specialization of official publications seems to be an inevitable
result of the growth of public interests and the public service. By
recent methods documents are printed relating to special branches of
the public service and sent only to those employed in such branches.
Economy of both time and labor as well as economy in printing are
thus promoted. This subdivision is carried out with much minuteness.
The Daily Bulletin of the Railway Mail Service, relating solely to
the affairs which its title indicates, is printed in Washington in an
edition of 1,500 copies and supplied to all offices in the department
and sent out to the different division superintendents throughout the
country. These superintendents extract from it the matters which affect
their divisions and redistribute these parts to their subordinates
in general orders. Thus everybody in the postal service gets that
information and those orders which he needs and he does not get and
consequently does not waste any time upon that information and those
orders which he does not need. The hydrographic office's weekly, Notice
to Mariners, containing only the latest information as to aids and
hindrances to navigation, would seem to be a sufficiently specialized
publication to be supplied to sailors without further ado. Part of the
edition is issued in the complete form, but economy and efficiency are
further promoted by additional subdivision. The weekly publication,
not a large one to begin with, is split into many parts, often a dozen
or a score, and one of these leaflets is supplied to the mariner who
needs information as to those waters only into which his own voyage
will carry him. The Yearbook of Agriculture, the Annual Reports of the
Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum, the American Historical
Association, the Chief of Engineers, the Chief of Ordnance, the Bureau
of Education, and other publications which are made up of distinct
papers or chapters that permit of separate publication, are split up
and each chapter or paper printed in a pamphlet by itself, so that the
authors and others who ask for copies of special papers may have these
alone and the cost of supplying them with whole volumes thus be saved.
Even pamphlets of moderate size, like the bulletins of the Department
of Agriculture which report the proceedings of the conventions of
official agricultural chemists, economic entomologists, and other
bodies of government specialists, are split into fascicules with which
the popular demand for information on special parts of the work of
these scientific bodies may be met at least cost.
Any publication, by whatever name or in whatever form, which undertook
to include all of these and the other and almost innumerable
specialized publications of the government, and to have itself supplied
to all who now receive the existing publications, would of necessity be
of enormous bulk and be printed in an enormous edition, and it seems to
your committee that it must break down of its own weight. We think it
absolutely essential to the success of an official gazette that all of
these specialized class publications should be most rigorously excluded
from its pages. Specialization seems to be a natural and proper
development of the public printing, and it would hardly be practicable,
or wise if practicable, to arrest it.
For these reasons, your committee, in casting about for material which
might properly and usefully be carried in an official gazette, should
one be issued, has endeavored to choose that only which is of interest
to all classes and not alone to any one class, whether in or out of
the public service. The list which represents the judgment of the
committee in this respect is still very long. We have not suggested
the discontinuance of any publication on account of its inclusion in
a gazette, because in all the letters we have received from public
officials, and all the questions we have asked them, we have not yet
found one who is of opinion that any publication now existing can be
superseded by publication in a gazette without injury to the public
service.
Opinion among officials as to a gazette is radically divided, the
number for and against appearing to be about equal, though the adverse
argument appears to be the stronger. Opinion in the committee is also
widely divided, and we are unable to make a unanimous recommendation on
the desirability or feasibility of issuing a gazette on the model of
the London Gazette or of any other official gazette known to us.
Your committee, however, thinks it a duty to submit for consideration
an alternative plan, based on a suggestion offered in one of the
official letters received in reply to its inquiries. This alternative
is an executive gazette, to contain all of the official papers and
messages of the President and such other occasional matters of special
and immediate importance as the President may think it advisable to
have officially published. Such matter might perhaps at times be drawn
from the diplomatic correspondence with other governments or from
reports made by American ambassadors, ministers, or consuls, or from
the findings or rulings of commissions or other official bodies or
other sources for which no special method of official publication is
now provided.
The weight of this suggestion lies in the fact that every word
officially put forth by the chief executive is of universal interest
and of historical import, and no official vehicle for its complete
and authentic publication is now provided. It is printed in the
Congressional Record, in the newspapers, on separate sheets, in
the collected volumes of statutes, and sometimes not at all. These
publications are so scattered and each different kind so incomplete
that the most industrious librarian or other collector can never
be sure that he has all. When the congressional compilation of the
messages and papers of the Presidents from Washington to McKinley was
made the originals were gathered from all sorts of public documents
and old newspaper files and miscellaneous sources. When it chanced
that some of the old papers were preserved in public offices the
compilers--especially at first--did not know where to look for them.
That compilation as finally made is commendable, but nobody can
say that it is complete. It served, however, to demonstrate--what
indeed all students knew before--that there is no place where all
the official utterances of the head of the government may certainly
be found. If they were all to be printed in one publication--if the
faith of all Presidents were pledged that all official papers should
be given publicity in one known publication, and if that publication
were so published by volume and number that any historical student or
collector might know to a certainty when he had secured all of these
publications, then it seems to your committee that something of real
moment would have been accomplished.
It is true that the publication of presidential messages in an
executive gazette would contradict the unanimous opinion of the
committee that any sort of an official gazette should be wholly
colorless from a partisan point of view. Still, it seems of high state
importance that all of the official utterances of the chief executive,
without exception, should be collected and published in some known
and accessible place. Whether this consideration is of more or less
importance than that of keeping a gazette free from partisanship the
committee does not undertake to decide. It submits the suggestion
without expression of opinion on its own part.
The adjourned session of the government documents round table was
called to order by Chairman Godard at 12:15 p. m. on Friday, June
27th. Mr. Carr, reporting for the special committee, reported certain
resolutions, which were unanimously adopted and referred to the Council
with the request that they be officially adopted by the Association
and copies of the same be transmitted in official form to the joint
committee on printing, the public printer, and the superintendent of
documents.[12]
[12] For text of these resolutions see minutes of the Council, page 256.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES
FIRST SESSION
(June 24, 1913, at 8:30 p. m., at the Hotel Kaaterskill.)
The meeting was called to order by President Poole, twenty-eight
members being present.
The address of welcome, which was to have been delivered by Mr. Frank
B. Gilbert, of the Department of Education of New York State, was given
in the form of a telegram from him, as he was unavoidably prevented
from attending.
President Poole addressed the association as follows:
This is the eighth annual meeting of this Association. We had hoped to
have with us Mr. Frank B. Gilbert, who is one of the charter members,
formerly of the New York State Law library, but this morning I received
the following telegram:
"Unable to be present tomorrow night. Unexpected official
business requires attention tomorrow afternoon. Hope your
meeting will be successful."
I think we will have to take the welcome from the last six words.
The next item on the program is the President's address. I am not going
to make any address because you would not be edified.
I would call your attention, however, to a few things which have
appealed to me during the past year, and which, with suggestions which
will come from the members present, will make perhaps a basis for our
work during the coming year.
In my library, and I have no doubt in a good many of the libraries
represented here, there have been calls for practice and form books,
and perhaps for other local books of states outside of one's own state,
and you have all probably experienced difficulty in getting proper
information regarding such material. This need is coincident with
the possibility of developing our Law Library Journal. It occurs to
me that we might organize a committee to publish in our Law Library
Journal, once a year, a list of local practice and form books, giving
the title, author, number of the edition, date of publication, cost and
publisher--the idea being to include in the list, not all the books,
but the best books, and to place the choosing of that list in the hands
of parties familiar with such books. If a list could be published every
year it would be of considerable advantage.
Another suggestion has come to me--I think from Mr. Hewitt--that we
put in the Law Library Journal, in some such way as described above,
references to the court rules of the highest courts of the several
states and any important local courts that are represented in the
published reports. I do not refer to the text of the rules and the many
amendments, but where they can be found, date of adoption, etc.
There is another matter which will come up at one of the sessions,
viz., the movement for uniformity in the publication of session laws.
You will hear more about that later, but it is worth our consideration.
You all know the rather baffling way in which session laws are
published; hardly any two states are alike, and the states change their
methods from year to
year, causing a great deal of confusion and difficulty in finding
material.
You are perfectly familiar with the chief work which this Association
has accomplished, viz., the publication of the Index to Legal
Periodicals and Law Library Journal. We can congratulate ourselves,
I think, on a fairly successful year. The editorial work has been
done very well, and the promptness of publication has shown some
improvement. Mechanically, we have it on a better basis than ever
before, and there is no reason why the publication should not continue
and become actually self-supporting. Now, as you know, it only
partially pays for itself. The Association pays a certain amount of the
costs. We hope to increase the subscriptions among practicing lawyers,
and plans have already been made for doing this.
We should, I think, take more pains with the Law Journal portion. We
have not done with that all that is possible. Personally I think that
the editor, working as he does at present--I mean by that, under his
present contract and with the time at his disposal--can hardly be
expected to do very much more; but we can make a good deal more out of
the publication if we improve the Law Journal--make it more readable,
so that people will subscribe for the Journal alone. I do not think you
can say that anyone would pay $5 a year for what is in the Law Journal
now. I wish that matter could be taken up later and discussed, and that
steps might be taken to bring about an improvement in that respect.
The report of the Treasurer was read by Mr. Redstone of the Social Law
library in Boston.
Under the head of the Report of the Executive Committee, the letter
from Chairman C. W. Andrews, of the special committee on the relations
between the American Library Association and affiliated societies, was
considered.
Reports of the special committees were made by Mr. A. J. Small,
of the Iowa State Law library, chairman of the committee on legal
bibliography; by Dr. G. E. Wire, of the Worcester County (Mass.) law
library, chairman of the committee on reprinting session laws; by Mr.
O. J. Field, of the Department of Justice, chairman of the committee on
Latin-American laws.
The first Round Table was held on Wednesday, June 25, 1913, at 9:30 a.
m.
The report of the committee to confer with the Library of Congress
on subject headings was given by Mr. Hewitt of Philadelphia, and a
discussion ensued. This was followed by a symposium on architectural
plans and furnishings for law libraries, participated in by Mr.
Frederick D. Colson, of the New York State law library, Mr. Godard, Mr.
Poole, Mr. Hicks, Mr. Schenk and Mr. Hewitt.
At the second session, Wednesday, June 25th, at 2:30 p. m., Mr. Colson
gave an account of the destruction and rebuilding of the New York State
library. Mr. Frederick C. Hicks, of the Columbia University library,
read a paper on "Law libraries and the public," which was followed
by a statement by Dr. Wire on the Massachusetts system of county law
libraries.
A paper on the work in the University of Minnesota law library, by Mr.
Arthur C. Pulling, librarian, will be printed in a future issue of the
Journal, Mr. Pulling being unable to attend.
The nominating and auditing committees were appointed by President
Poole, as follows:
Nominating Committee: George S. Godard, chairman; Mrs. M. C.
Klingelsmith, E. J. Lien.
Auditing Committee: O. J. Field, chairman; William R. Reinick, Mary V.
Fisk.
The vouchers, etc., sent by Mr. Whitney, not having arrived owing
to the delay of the express company, the auditing committee were
instructed to report to the executive committee as soon as the material
could be examined.
The committee on resolutions, consisting of Mr. A. J. Small, Mrs.
Klingelsmith and Mrs. Hoover, reported the following resolution on the
death of Charles J. Babbitt, which was ordered spread upon the minutes:
"WHEREAS, after a long and untiring service in his life work
our friend and fellow member Charles J. Babbitt has this
year completed his work and become a graduate member of our
fellowship, and through his death this Association has lost an
active member, a kind friend and valued associate, who has left
behind him an enduring memorial in the good work which while
living he accomplished:
"BE IT RESOLVED, that this Association has met with an
irreparable loss, and that we extend our sympathy to the
bereaved family, and that this resolution shall become a part
of the record."
Then followed the report of the committee on shelf classification
of law textbooks, consisting of Miss Gertrude E. Woodard, George N.
Cheney, E. A. Feazel.
Remarks on cataloging and classifying law textbooks in the Library of
Congress were made by Mr. Martel of the Library of Congress.
Messrs. Schenk and Butler spoke on the matter of increasing the
efficiency of the Index to Legal Periodicals and Law Library Journal.
Additional features of the Journal were considered, and Mr. Schenk was
authorized to include in the Journal during the coming year:
List of Reports as currently issued.
List of textbooks dealing with local forms, practice, etc.
References showing where to find the court rules of the local courts,
the decisions of which appear in the published Reports.
The following officers were elected for the year 1913-14:
President--Franklin O. Poole, Association of the Bar of the City of
New York; First Vice-President--Frederick W. Schenk, Law Library,
University of Chicago; Second Vice-President--O. J. Field, Department
of Justice, Washington, D. C.; Secretary--Miss Gertrude E. Woodard, Law
Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Treasurer--E. Lee Whitney,
Vermont State Library, Montpelier; Executive Committee--President,
ex-officio, First Vice-President, ex-officio, Second Vice-President,
ex-officio, Secretary, ex-officio, Treasurer, ex-officio, E. O. S.
Scholefield, British Columbia Legislative Library, Victoria; A.
J. Small, State Law Library, Des Moines, Iowa; C. Will Schaffer,
Washington State Law Library.
The meeting adjourned with a resolution by Mr. A. J. Small thanking
each officer and member of the association who had contributed to its
work; and with a final word from Mr. Butler urging all to work for the
success of the Index during the coming year.
LEAGUE OF LIBRARY COMMISSIONS
Tenth annual meeting at Kaaterskill, N. Y., June 25-27, 1913
FIRST SESSION
(Wednesday, June 25, 2:30 p. m.)
Round Table on Organizing Small Libraries
The meeting was called to order by the President, Mr. Milam. A
roll-call by states showed that sixteen were represented: Indiana,
Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan,
Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island,
South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin. The President then introduced the
leader of the discussion, Miss Zaidee Brown, of Massachusetts. The
outline of the discussion, as printed on the program, was as follows:
1. Methods suggested by the state organizer for
Accessioning
Classification
Shelf-listing
Cataloging
Should it be attempted?
Should L. C. cards be used?
Loan system
Mechanical preparation of books
2. Average time required for above processes,
and average cost per 1,000 volumes
3. Help from local sources
Volunteers, paid workers, trustees
Help from neighboring librarians
4. Kinds of supplies and cost
5. How the organizer may interest the
people of the town in the library
6. Board meeting: Budget and other administrative
problems
It was stated that for this discussion "small library" meant any
library with less than 5,000 volumes.
* * * * *
As to the accession book, the general opinion seemed to be that there
was more reason for keeping it in a library without trained service
than in a larger one, and that the trustees usually liked to have
it kept. A very simple entry was recommended. Miss Brown suggested
that where, in reorganizing, it was necessary to accession the books
already in the library, the quickest way was to number them when the
first, or shelf-list, card was written. These cards might be kept in
numerical order, and the accession book written from them, thus saving
one handling of the books. She said one reason for keeping an accession
book in a small library is that the accession number may be used for
charging; this led to a discussion of the use of Cutter numbers in a
small library; Miss Wright, of Vermont, uses them and has found no
trouble. Miss Brown thinks they add considerably to the labor and
expense of reorganizing, and she has found them likely to fall into
confusion with untrained librarians. No conclusion was reached.
As to classification, the preference was for a simplified form of the
D. C., using only three figures in most cases, and combining some
classes.
The leader then asked how many organizers favored a dictionary catalog,
with an untrained librarian. Miss Hazeltine, of Wisconsin, said that
in that state they start only a shelf-list, to be used as a classed
catalog, until the librarian can attend summer school, and then a
dictionary catalog is made. Miss Askew stated that in New Jersey a
dictionary catalog is made even for a small library, if the librarian
and trustees wish it. In Vermont, also, the organizer starts a
dictionary catalog.
Miss Frances Hobart, librarian at Vergennes, Vt., reported that when
she classified she placed a slip in the book giving the class and book
number, and the subject headings to be used, for the guidance of the
cataloger. These slips are kept, to form a rough shelf-list, and serve
the purpose in assigning Cutter numbers. A number of those present
said that they thought it not necessary to make a shelf-list simply
for taking an inventory, as many libraries do not take inventory,
and it is not worth the labor of the shelf-list. Mr. Olin Davis,
librarian at Laconia, N. H., described a method of taking inventory
from the accession book, thus making a shelf-list for that purpose
unnecessary. The discussion showed that in some states the custom of
the state organizer is to start a dictionary catalog, and to make a
shelf-list only if Cutter numbers are used, or if the additional labor
can be easily afforded. Miss Brown, of Massachusetts, said that she
preferred, with an untrained librarian, to make an author and title
catalog, and to use the shelf-list for a subject catalog. She makes an
alphabetic index to the shelf-list, which also serves as a guide for
classification, and includes in this index analyticals and secondary
subject cards. She feels that this method reduces to a minimum the
difficulty of assigning subject headings, and the danger of scattering
material through doing this poorly. The objection to her method was
made that such a catalog is not so easy for the public to use; she
admitted this, but said that in a small library the catalog is mainly
a tool for the librarian. Mrs. Budlong, of North Dakota, recommended
using the order card for the shelf-list.
The discussion showed that in New Jersey and Vermont the organizer
usually starts a dictionary catalog; and in Minnesota, Indiana,
Wisconsin and Massachusetts the shelf-list is used as a subject catalog
unless the librarian has at least summer school training.
As to the use of Library of Congress cards, the general testimony
seemed to be that the labor of ordering them, and adding numbers
and headings, is about equal to that of making simple cards, with a
typewriter. Miss Brown stated that the added expense for cards per
1,000 volumes is about $35, if the order is by author and title. Miss
Farr, of Maryland, said that she could catalog about 1,000 volumes a
month, making a dictionary catalog, if she made her own cards, and
about 1,100 if she used Library of Congress cards--showing that the
labor is nearly the same.
It was not possible to give definite estimates of the cost of
reorganization or the time required, as conditions vary so greatly;
but some general averages were obtained. Mr. Milam, of Indiana, stated
that the cost of supplies and labor, including the time and expenses
of the state organizer, was about $50 to $60 per 1,000 volumes. One
organizer said that a cataloger should average 40 volumes a day,
assigning Cutter numbers and making a dictionary catalog. Miss Askew,
of New Jersey, thought this number too small, and said she expected one
person to make a dictionary catalog for 1,000 volumes in two weeks.
Miss Brown, of Massachusetts, said that the number of volumes done in
a week varied from 500 to 1,000 volumes, according to the amount of
local help received. She finds it possible to get volunteer workers
for a good deal of the work, including writing the cards, and doing
the mechanical work involved by a new charging system. This estimate
is not for a dictionary catalog, but for an author and title list,
and a shelf-list for non-fiction with subject index--no imprint being
given on most of the cards. To show the cost of reorganization where
there was practically no volunteer labor, Miss Brown gave the figures
for a library at West Bridgewater, Mass., which contained about 6,500
volumes. The state library commission gave about a week of Miss Brown's
time, which is not included in the estimate, a cataloger was engaged
at $75 a month, and an assistant at $50. Local workers were paid about
twelve cents an hour. The books were accessioned, classified, an author
and title catalog made, and a shelf-list for non-fiction with subject
index. Book-pockets and book-cards were placed in the books. Copy for
a printed catalog was made. This catalog was later printed, at a cost
of about $125. The entire cost of the work, including printing the
catalog, was between $600 and $700, or about ten cents per volume. The
time required was about seven weeks.
As to the question of how the organizer might interest the people of
the town, there was a discussion on whether the organizer did better
work if she stayed at the hotel, or was entertained in a private
family. She can, of course, become better acquainted if in a family,
but Mr. Milam said that he thought the hotel preferable because there
would be no drain on her vitality outside library hours. It developed
during the discussion that in several states the commission pays the
living expenses of the organizer in the town. In Massachusetts, the
library is expected to meet this expense, but the state sometimes helps
buy the supplies.
As to the meeting of the Board, Mr. Milam said that he thought the
organizer should always meet the Board, and if possible leave with them
a suggested budget for a library of that size. Miss Brown said that
she carried with her sample copies of a number of selected lists and
library aids, and showed them to the Board of Trustees.
A number of organizers spoke of addressing clubs, schools, and other
bodies in connection with the work.
After the Round Table, Mr. Milam appointed the following nominating
committee: Miss Clara Baldwin, chairman; Mrs. Percival Sneed, Miss
Zaidee Brown. The meeting then adjourned.
SECOND SESSION
(Wednesday, June 25th, 8:30 p. m.)
The topic of the second session was libraries in state institutions
and in federal prisons. Mr. Milam, the president, called the meeting
to order. Miss Julia A. Robinson, supervising librarian of the state
institutions of Iowa, opened the discussion. Mr. Jenkins, of New York,
who was announced on the program, was unable to be present. Miss
Robinson spoke first of the need of providing good reading matter
in state institutions; and pointed out that such libraries have
the advantage of those in the outside world, in that they need not
compete with so many conflicting interests in their patrons. Of the
two possible kinds of supervision; by an outside authority, such as a
state library commission, or by an official of the board controlling
the state institutions, the latter is preferable if the appointment of
such an official is not dominated by politics. An official appointed
by the Board of Control has greater authority, can maintain a closer
supervision of the books admitted, and can obtain more help from the
inmates of the institutions. As to methods employed, the book selection
should be carefully made to suit the various classes in the different
institutions; and the organization should be as simple as possible. In
Iowa, they use an accession book, the decimal classification, and a
simple form of shelf-list. In all the institutions, reading rooms for
the use of the inmates under proper supervision add to the usefulness
of the libraries. The librarian is usually an officer or employee of
the institution, but should possess a knowledge of the books in her own
library, and a sympathetic acquaintance with the inmates which will
enable her to assist them in selecting the books which will be most
helpful to them. She should also have sufficient time to give proper
attention to the library. Inmates often make good assistants, but
should work under close supervision and should not be allowed to select
the books. In the prisons, where the readers do not have access to the
shelves, printed finding lists are necessary.
Miss Florence R. Curtis, of the University of Illinois Library School,
next spoke on libraries in prisons. She called attention to the fact
that nearly eighty per cent of those in prisons will be out of prison
in from one to ten years. They should be regarded as citizens in the
making, to be helped in every way possible. Of those who enter, about
ninety per cent are literate; and over seventy-five per cent have
attended school beyond the sixth grade. About fifty per cent of those
sent to prison are so-called "accidental criminals," that is, they
have yielded to an impulse, but are not habitually criminal. Before
they leave prison, however, they have received an education of a sort
in crime. They know the criminal class, its leading men, etc., they
know the methods of crime, and they have learned to regard the law as
more favorable to the rich than to the poor, and how best to evade it.
Besides this, they have become acquainted with unclean literature,
circulated secretly; and with vice and dissipation. Guards in the
prison often peddle drink and drugs to the prisoners. As to what they
have learned that is good, she enumerated the following: The prisoner
may have learned a trade, but the trades taught often do not help in
earning a living outside. The prisoner may have attended a school.
Usually the school is held for four months, is taught by a volunteer
prisoner, and aims only to teach the elementary subjects. The prisoner
has attended the church service. Last, the prisoner may have had the
use of the prison library. Miss Curtis examined the catalogs of thirty
prisons. Perhaps three-fourths of the books might be regarded as
deadwood. Often the libraries contain vicious books, which give wrong
ideas of the relations of men and women, and of the family; create
a false idea of life; and make dissipation attractive. The works of
Chambers, Elinor Glyn, Phillips, Mrs. Southworth, and others of similar
grade, are found in large numbers in the prison libraries. The prisoner
has so much time to think over what he reads, that especial care should
be taken that his reading should be wholesome. Books dealing with shady
business methods, religious unrest, race prejudice, the detection of
crime, etc., are all bad. All fiction added to the library should first
be read by a person of good judgment, with respect to its effect on the
prisoners. The selection of suitable books does not represent the whole
duty toward the prisoner. Personal guidance in the choice of books is
most desirable. The chaplain is not always the best person to give such
guidance as he may not be familiar with modern fiction and he has other
duties. The superintendent is not always interested in the reading of
the prisoners. The superintendent of a reform school stated flatly
that the physical care of the girls was the main duty and interest of
the institution. A librarian appointed by the Board of Control will
make the most careful selection of the books. The librarian should
also visit the institutions and give as much personal guidance to the
reading as possible. It should be noted, however, that this is not a
place for an immature person, nor a sentimental one.
Miss Curtis said that the duty of the state library commission, as to
prison libraries, was to try to rouse the superintendents, and bring
about a better condition.
Miss Stearns, of Wisconsin, asked about the use of magazines in
prisons. She had visited a prison, with the chaplain acting as
librarian, where they took dozens of magazines, and had given up buying
books because the magazines were so popular. Among those especially
in demand were World's Work, Current Events, and Cosmopolitan. Miss
Robinson, of Iowa, said that they took magazines for the prisons, but
in no case were magazines bought to the exclusion of all books. Where
it is regarded as necessary, the magazines are expurgated by clipping
out certain articles. Miss Curtis said that in Illinois prisons many
magazines are taken, and are very popular. The men are allowed to form
magazine clubs, and to take any magazine not positively disreputable;
and many of the cheaper lower-grade magazines are taken.
Miss Clarke, librarian of the public library at Auburn, N. Y., where
there is a state prison, said that she had investigated prison
libraries in New York state, especially in Auburn, in connection with
the work of a committee of the New York State Library Association.
She regards conditions in New York state as discouraging. In Auburn,
the selection is not so bad, but the men are allowed little if any
selection. A convict assistant chooses fifty volumes for fifty cells.
These are passed out, and each one is kept a week. It is then passed on
to the next cell. An educated ex-convict in a letter printed by Richard
Harding Davis in the New York Sun, stated that he was unable for a
year to get a book he wanted, though nobody else wanted it. They have
no printed catalogs or lists. In the women's prison, in Auburn, the
prisoners are allowed to select books, and one of the teachers had done
some work with reading clubs. Miss Clarke stated that in New York state
prisons, the teacher of the prison school is not a convict. The prison
school is allowed $50 worth of books a year. The hope for improvement
in New York state, in library conditions in the prisons, is through the
appointment of a librarian in each prison, or a library supervisor of
all state penal institutions.
Mr. Wellman, of Springfield, Mass., asked how to rouse interest in
prison libraries in a state where there is no interest. Miss Curtis
said that one should avoid rousing general public criticism, as this
would antagonize the prison authorities; that it was better to use the
slow method of getting the heads of the institutions and the board
controlling the prisons interested. The state library commission
should do this. A general article in the press on the value of good
prison libraries might be desirable, but one should by all means avoid
anything approaching a sensational story about special cases. As an
example of how to rouse interest, Mr. Wynkoop spoke of the number of
New York Libraries, published in February, 1913, which was devoted
largely to libraries in state institutions. Copies of this were sent
to all trustees of state institutions in New York state, to members
of legislative committees dealing with charitable and reformatory
institutions, to members of sociological societies, to mayors and
sheriffs, to most of the leading newspapers of the state, and to others
of influence. About 700 copies were sent out in this way. There have
been some evident results. In Syracuse, Rochester, Bath, Jamestown, and
some other places, the papers have had notices about the need of better
libraries in prisons and jails, and the authorities have in some cases
taken steps to improve conditions. In answer to questions, Mr. Wynkoop
said that he did not make direct criticism of the present library
conditions in prisons, but spoke of the poor economy of spending
so little on them. The maximum amount spent on the library of any
institution in New York state is $500, though expenditures for other
purposes may run into the millions.
It was suggested that public libraries should supply local jails
with reading matter. Miss Clarke stated that in the state prison at
Auburn, magazines are taken for the officials, but are not loaned to
the prisoners. An offer of discarded but usable books from the public
library to the jail was refused, because the prisoners would cut out
the pictures and put them on the wall.
Miss Charlotte Templeton, secretary of the Nebraska public library
commission, next spoke on libraries in reformatories. This is a
somewhat more hopeful group than the prisons. The inmates are often
below the average physically, somewhat bitter, and frightened, and
sobered by their first contact with the law. The reformatory must build
them up; physically, mentally, and in the power of self-support. In
this the library is a valuable adjunct. It should contain simple books
on civics, books to help the foreigner learn English, and books on
the technical subjects taught in the prison. There is also a use for
books as a means of recreation. These may put the inmate in a better
attitude toward life, and may be the entering wedge for more serious
reading. They should, therefore, be the first line of attack. Again, a
prisoner may accept moral training from a book that he would not from
a person. The books on conduct are much read. Jordan's "Self-control,"
Grenfell's "Men's helpers," and some of the new thought books are
much read. One prisoner said, "If I had had that book three years ago
I should not be here now." Magazines are generally taken, but as a
supplement to the collection of books. They include many on current
events and on technical work, and some that are taken mainly for their
pictures. Country Life and Baseball are very popular. In conclusion,
Miss Templeton said that the reformatory library is much like a public
library, and should be administered in a similar way. In this way, the
inmates would become familiar with the use of such a library, would
form the "library habit," and be more likely to feel at home in the
public library on their release.
Miss EDITH KATHLEEN JONES, librarian at McLean Hospital, Waverley,
Mass., then read the following paper:
SOME PROBLEMS OF THE INSTITUTION LIBRARY ORGANIZER IN THE STATE
HOSPITALS
Last year I had the pleasure of telling you something of library work
in one of the large private hospitals for the insane; this year I
want to speak of some of the problems the institution organizer will
meet when she undertakes to set in order the libraries of the state
hospitals.
In the first place, unless she is fortunate enough to be appointed
by the State Board of Control or State Board of Insanity or their
equivalent, she may at times feel that she is looked upon a little bit
as an outsider by the hospital staff, as one who does not understand
hospital conditions and who belongs to an entirely different order of
things. She may even meet what seems to her indifference or actual
antagonism on the part of a few superintendents.
The fact is, the library to librarians is of supreme importance, but
the library to the average hospital superintendent is merely one method
of providing entertainment or employment for his patients. He is much
more interested in the new social service movement and the study of
eugenics and heredity than he is in the general library, which, to his
mind, is simply a part of the therapeutic system and even as such ranks
far below useful employment and arts and crafts work.
This indifference or antagonism does not arise from any personal
feeling nor is it confined to the library. It is the natural outcome
of the peculiar organization demanded in a hospital for the insane, a
general distrust of any outside interference in any department, and a
thorough conviction that each hospital is entirely competent to manage
its own affairs. In one state the state board refused the offer of
the state library committee to organize its institution libraries for
these very reasons. In another state, where the possibility of the
state board appointing an institution librarian of its own is under
discussion, one superintendent remarked that he "could only say this;
if it must come he was thankful it was coming from the =inside=,
through the board and from one who knew hospital conditions."
Another reason for this seeming indifference on the part of the
superintendents is that, in the East at any rate, a state hospital is
=always= poor. It is poor and it is crowded, and its superintendent
is harrassed with having his requests for better accommodations for
his patients, a new power house, larger kitchens and laundries, or
quarters for his married men nurses turned down; with trying to get
larger appropriations from the state legislature; with endeavoring to
feed and clothe and house 1,200 patients on an appropriation and in
quarters designed for 1,000 at the most. He probably has cut down his
expenses in every conceivable direction, and he can not see the use
of spending money for books which the majority of his patients will
not read. And there is this to be said for his point of view, that
while there are many educated and cultivated persons in all the state
hospitals, the majority of them are foreigners and illiterates from the
mill and factory-hand classes and from the slums of the cities. In New
York state alone, in 1906, forty-six per cent of the whole number of
patients admitted to the New York hospitals were of foreign birth. And
I might add, to show the menace of the class of people we are letting
into our country, that forty-six per cent of the insane were aliens,
while only twenty-six per cent of the whole population of the state
were of foreign birth. Add to these the outcasts from the slums and you
have a good idea of the make-up of the state hospitals and asylums, and
you will not wonder that many superintendents shake their heads when
libraries are mentioned.
It would, therefore, seem to be one of the duties of the organizer
to prove to the superintendent that even if three-fifths of his
patients are illiterate, reading should be provided for the educated
two-fifths; that she, from her knowledge of books and editions, can
provide a thoroughly readable library which will meet the requirements
of all classes, from college professors to the dregs of humanity, for
a much less sum than he can do it, and from her experience she can
interest the patients in books. For after you have the library, you
still have a set of people to deal with who lack initiative and must
be aroused to interest in anything. She must also impress upon him
that shelf-and-book or even accession numbers mean nothing, and that
when, as in one library I know, all the books are covered and there
is no hint of author or title on the back, the library is converted
into a sort of literary grab-bag which is funny to the librarian but
exasperating to the patient. She must convince him that an unclassified
library represents a tremendous waste, especially when it is not
supplemented by a subject catalog. She must be able to prove to him
from the experience of other hospitals that the old-fashioned method
of letting a library run itself is not conducive to growth and that
there must be some one whose chief duties are to the library. She can
assure him from figures that he is not getting out of his library what
he should, if out of 1,000 patients only 60 use the library during the
year and 50 books a week is a large circulation. She can tell him of
one hospital of 220 patients which has from 75 to 100 regular readers,
not counting nurses and employees, and averages 25 books a day, or
8,900 a year; of another of about the same size which often gives out
50 books a day; of a third, which, with a population of 2,000 gave out
last year 15,862 volumes to 344 persons. She can guarantee him that if
he will let her weed out obsolete stuff and fill in with the sort of
books the patients want and train some patient, nurse or stenographer
to act as librarian in her absence at other hospitals, his library
circulation will be doubled or trebled the first year.
Having convinced the superintendent of the utility of the organized,
central library, the institution librarian is now free to turn her
attention to the patients, getting acquainted with them, learning their
tastes in books, interesting them in reading and in pictures. And just
here I would say that in the state hospitals the doctors are always
glad to have anything new suggested in the way of employment, and that
if the organizer can manage it so that the patients can help her in the
care of the charging-system, mending and cataloging, her efforts will
be much appreciated by all concerned.
The institution organizer will soon find that each hospital differs
from every other in construction, management, and especially in the
character of illness. The asylums for the chronic insane present the
most hopeless feature, yet even here there are enough who read to make
it worth while to furnish libraries. Moreover, in the asylums, the
nurses have to be taken into account. Their work is so hopeless and
uninteresting compared with that in hospitals for acute and recoverable
cases that more must be done for them in order to get and keep even
ordinarily good attendants. And where, as in many cases, the chronic
insane are being transferred to farm colonies way out in the country,
far from any city or even large town, the library can, if it will, help
very decidedly by offering means of study and education to the nurses
and staff as well as diversion to the patients. Therefore, one can
venture to buy for an asylum a much better selection of books from the
point of view of general culture than for the ordinary hospital.
I have said so often that a hospital library must be formed for
entertainment, not for education, that it must be simple in
organization and carried along on unconventional lines, that I speak
of these points again only to emphasize them. If one looks upon
institutional work from the point of view of educative influence it
is discouraging work; but if one thinks of it as an adjunct to the
therapeutic service of the hospital, as a means of bringing some
pleasure or at least forgetfulness of self for a time to an afflicted
class and employment for hours which otherwise would be passed in
complete idleness and utter dejection, it is inspiring work. But in the
selection of books this point of view must be kept always in mind.
Yet this is just what those unaccustomed to hospital conditions fail to
grasp. Not three months ago a hospital in a far-off western city sent a
representative to see our library and get all the information he could
in regard to the sort of books they should put into their beautiful and
expensive new buildings. I showed him a list of some 1,200 of our most
popular books selected as a basis for the little catalog Miss Carey,
Miss Robinson, Miss Waugh and I have made out and annotated, and which
is now being printed by the A. L. A. Publishing Board. The first thing
he noticed was the omissions. "Why," said he, looking at Science, "you
have nothing by Spencer, or Darwin or Huxley on this list. Aren't they
the standard thing? Oughtn't I to get them for our library?" "Not if
you want a library which will be read," was my prompt reply, and I
showed him the records of our sets of these scientists, taken out at
the most three or four times in the history of the library.
A year or so ago I attempted to find out from our cards just what was
the most popular sort of fiction in our library. Of course the book of
the moment is the one read at the moment, so it would be manifestly
unfair to include these and I took only those books published prior
to 1901. It may interest you to know in their order the 25 most read
books, that is, of the old favorites. The date unfortunately excludes
Mr. Pratt, the Virginian, Kim, Rex Beach and Oppenheim. They are,
The Choir Invisible, Janice Meredith, Saracinesca, Sant' Ilario, Don
Orsino, Vanity Fair, The Lilac Sunbonnet, Old Chester Tales, Dr.
Lavender's People, When Knighthood was in Flower, The Sowers--taken
out 20 times in the last three years; The Seats of the Mighty, The
Battle of the Strong, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Memoirs of
Sherlock Holmes, Treasure Island, Cape Cod Folks and The Right of Way,
22 times; A Little Moorland Princess, Dorothy Vernon, Kidnapped and
The Cardinal's Snuff Box 25 times; Richard Carvel 29 times; The Old
Ma'amselle's Secret 40 times and The Second Wife by Miss Marlitt 43
times. This shows pretty conclusively that even our people, all of whom
belong to the cultivated and educated class, want light, interesting
stories of romance and adventure, and the average state hospital reader
wants something even lighter than these.
I have been asked again and again if the right reading really cures.
One dare not affirm this; its influence is negative rather than
positive. But I =can= say this: I have known of many cases outside as
well as in the hospital where persons have been positively harmed by
morbid or hysterically sentimental books. Our people are inclined to
be pretty emotional anyway, and whatever appeals to that side is to be
deplored.
To sum up the qualities which determine the suitability of books for a
hospital library, I can do no better than quote from the "Foreword" of
the catalog mentioned above:
In making this list the editors have endeavored to keep in mind the
following points:
1. Books in a hospital are for recreation, not for instruction, and
therefore should consist principally of fiction, picture books, travel,
biography, light and popular science and outdoor books.
2. They must be wholesome--not morbid, or gruesome, or depressing.
Good detective stories and tales of adventure, however thrilling,
if not horrible, and if they do not make vice attractive, are to
be recommended, as they, more than almost anything else, hold the
attention.
3. Illustrated books and books of pictures are invaluable, as a patient
often will look at pictures when he is too ill to read.
4. The newest fiction is called for and read, yet the old favorites
remain much in demand. With so much ephemeral stuff among the "best
sellers," it is a delicate task to select the really good novels which
will last, and there is a great temptation to fall back on the old and
tried books to the exclusion of the more modern. The editors have tried
to combine the two in just proportion, and also to give a few titles of
the better class of the "second rate" which have proved popular.
5. It is not enough to provide books for those who wish to read. There
are always many patients who are unable to take any initiative towards
selecting any form of entertainment or employment for themselves, and
for these should be provided light and simple stories which will not
tax the brain or require any concentration of attention, but which will
serve to stimulate their interest in things outside themselves. These
are not necessarily children's books, but often the simple language and
quiet wholesomeness of certain books for young people will bridge a
patient over this period of mental inadequacy and pave the way towards
a real enjoyment of maturer reading.
In addition to these five simple rules for selecting the reading
for a hospital library, the editors would emphasize another very
important point: Many of the readers will be elderly persons with
failing eyesight, who demand large, clear type. This is hard to
procure in cheap editions of standard authors and old favorites, but
it is suggested that it is well worth while to take a little pains in
selection and even to pay a higher price, in order to get an edition of
convenient size, shape and weight, in serviceable binding, with large,
clear type. Such an edition will last longer and will invite, not repel
the reader.
Complete sets of the works of standard authors, with the exception
of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, and possibly George Eliot, are not
recommended for hospitals. Only a few of the more popular stories of
each will be read.
I want to say just a word in regard to the housing of hospital
libraries. Of course the ideal arrangement is a separate building which
is open all the time, but I know of only three or four such in the
country. In most state hospitals the library was an afterthought and
the books are crowded into one or two more or less inaccessible rooms
to which the patients can come only once or twice a week and which can
not possibly be made attractive. Often there is absolutely no other
room to be had in the hospital and the librarian must make the most
of it and do her utmost to beautify it with rugs and baskets made by
the patients and flowers from the hospital greenhouses. But sometimes
a little ingenuity will solve the problem in some such unique way as
in the State Infirmary at Tewksbury, Mass., where the superintendent
conceived the idea of moving their very good little library (classified
and cataloged too) from its one small dark, inaccessible room in the
administration house to the large, light chapel which hitherto stood
idle six days in the week. Here low shelves have been built in between
the windows on the wide side aisles and stacks fitted into the alcove
rooms each side the chancel. Long narrow tables with plenty of books
and magazines have been placed in these aisles and the library is now
open practically all the time.
The Hospital for Epileptics at Monson, Mass., has met its problem
somewhat differently. The superintendent here is having two large
sunny rooms fitted up with bookshelves, one for the men where they can
smoke and one for the women where they can sew. These shelves will
be kept filled with books from the central library (in an office in
the administration house which it shares with the medical library)
administered by the stenographer-librarian, but under the direct
supervision of a patient for each room. The patients themselves are
very enthusiastic over the proposed change and have made out lists of
books they want.
In Massachusetts, the ideal so far as use of the library goes, is found
at the Foxborough Hospital for Inebriates, where only men patients
are admitted. Here they have a separate building containing one large
room with low bookcases all around it and two tables covered with
periodicals and newspapers in the center. Here the men can come when
their day's work is over or at the noon hour and read and smoke.
I wish I had time to speak of the importance of interesting the nurses
in the library and getting their co-operation, and of the possibility
of holding classes on books and reading for them. I know of no hospital
where they have time for such classes at present, but there is a
movement on foot towards requiring better education as a condition for
entering the training schools for the general hospitals, and some day
some hospital will inaugurate classes in literature.
Miss Jones agreed with Miss Robinson's statement that the libraries in
state institutions should be administered by an official appointed by
the Board of Control.
Miss Flexner, of the Louisville free public library, then spoke of
an experience in placing books in a county jail. Within the last six
months, the public library offered to place a deposit in the county
jail, and found that the jailer was willing. Permission was also
obtained from the Fiscal Court. In November, about 100 volumes, all
fiction, were sent, to be retained four months. On their return, it was
found that over 1,800 issues had been made--a heavy circulation. In
the next lot, was placed about 15 per cent of non-fiction, carefully
selected. On their return, it was found that books by Marden and
Grenfell had been popular. Mrs. Sangster's "Sweetest story ever told,"
a life of Christ, had been well used, while Mrs. Wharton's "House of
mirth" had been read but twice. "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," "Kim,"
and Mrs. Whitney's "Ascutney street" were each read 26 times in 6
weeks. Books on useful arts were so much in demand that they were
renewed. The books are charged by the chaplain. When a suspicious
looking gathering of the men was investigated by the jailor, it was
found that one who could read was reading aloud to those who could not.
In the discussion, it was stated that a list of books for use in insane
hospitals is to be published soon and that copies are to be on sale
by the A. L. A. Publishing Board. Several speakers mentioned a union
catalog for prison libraries, with annotations to guide the prisoners
in the selection of books.
The committee on libraries in federal prisons made a report, in
which they stated that an earnest attempt had been made to secure an
appropriation of at least $2,500 for the establishment of a library in
the penitentiary at Atlanta and a like amount for Leavenworth, and $500
for books for McNeil Island, but that the effort had been unsuccessful.
The attempt will be renewed this coming year. The committee was
continued.
THIRD SESSION
(Friday, June 27, 1913; 8:30 p. m.)
A third adjourned session of the League was held for the transaction of
remaining business. The meeting was called to order by the President.
Miss Martha Wilson, supervisor of school libraries in Minnesota,
spoke on co-operation between library commissions and state boards
of education. Miss Mendenhall then gave a summary of the work done
by the library committee of the N. E. A. on library instruction in
normal schools. She stated that a questionnaire was sent to 200 normal
schools, and the results show that most of the normal school libraries
need reorganization. In the 200, about 50 have trained librarians.
These are mainly in the far West. The Committee makes the following
recommendations: 1, that library organizations try to have the subject
of library training in normal schools presented at educational
meetings; 2, that trained librarians be appointed in all normal
schools, with the faculty and salary rank of heads of departments; 3,
the publication of a manual for normal school librarians by the U. S.
Bureau of Education; 4, the publication in educational periodicals of
articles on the greater use of libraries by schools, and on related
topics. It was suggested that the library commissions might help in
carrying out the last recommendation. Miss Mendenhall was asked whether
she favored putting the school libraries under the state library
commissions, or under the state boards of education. She said that she
believed the function of the school library to be distinct from that
of the public library; that the two should co-operate but not combine.
Miss Stearns of Wisconsin said that the question of the relation of
the state library commission to the state board of education should be
discussed and more clearly defined; that there is a decided tendency to
place the library commission under the state board of education, or to
merge it with it, as has already been done in one state. There was not
time for adequate discussion of this subject, and the suggestion was
made that it be taken up at a future League meeting.
Mrs. Minnie Clarke Budlong, director of the North Dakota public
library commission, read the following report of the committee on the
establishment of new commissions:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW COMMISSIONS
This committee has been requested to report on two topics--"a plan for
the League to follow in giving aid in the organization of commissions
in states now without them," and also a draft of "tentative provisions
for a model library law to be used with the model commission law."
An A. L. A. committee of which Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick is chairman, has
made a valuable report on points to be covered by a model law relating
library to municipality, printed in the 1912 proceedings. The same
committee has under consideration the drafting of the points covered
into a model charter, and the League committee decided that action on
its own part was unnecessary at present.
The other topic assigned this committee cannot be disposed of in
so brief a manner. It is a question of theory and of insight, of
sympathetic understanding and action.
There are eleven states without library commissions: West Virginia,
South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico,
Arizona, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming. These states contain one-eighth
of the population of the country, and have only one-twentieth of the
libraries.
The first step toward aid is to learn how library commissions have
been established in other states. Letters sent to 36 states elicited
22 replies. Perhaps a distinction should be made between library
commissions and state libraries, or boards of education, such as New
York, California and Oregon. But there have been included in this
report all states doing extension work, regardless of name or title of
organization.
The questions asked were:
1. How did the demand for a commission arise?
The answers received are practically unanimous. There was a need felt
and provided for by a few far-sighted library workers. Eight give the
credit of the initiative to library workers or associations. Seven
give it to women's clubs or the state federation. Five say librarians
and women's clubs were co-partners in the work, and three, Maryland,
Wisconsin and Nebraska, include teachers in this partnership.
2. Who drew the law?
The law has usually been drawn by or under the supervision of a few
interested workers, such as president of state library association,
superintendent of public instruction, president of university, or
legislative committee of state federation. In Kentucky use was made of
the model commission law.
3. What was done to secure its passage?
One would expect a wider range in replies than this question elicited.
"A friendly legislator took it in charge" sums up the story in most
states. Personal letters and interviews of library workers and club
women with members of the legislature, and particularly with members
of committees, seem the usual methods. In some states the measure was
defeated one or more times before influence enough was brought to bear
to secure its passage. In Nebraska, the measure failed twice until
pushed by the federation and teachers. Even if no general demand is
formulated, there must be a desire expressed by organizations strong
enough to impress legislators.
4. What literature was used?
At first, there was no literature available and the majority report
"none used" or "nothing special." Idaho, Minnesota and Kentucky mention
the Wisconsin publications particularly, also some from Iowa. Five
speak of special leaflets prepared or statistics used from traveling
library reports or from the League Handbook.
5. How long did it take?
The time required varies from "a few weeks" to fourteen years. Nine
secured the desired legislation in one session. Six used two to four
years. Nebraska required five years; Minnesota, six years; Tennessee,
eight years, and Illinois, fourteen.
6. When was your law passed?
Massachusetts passed the first library commission law in 1890. Since
then similar laws have been enacted in 36 states, concluding with South
Dakota and Arkansas in 1913.
7. Has it been amended--if so, when and how?
It is interesting to note how few amendments except increase in
appropriation have been made in library laws. This emphasizes the
importance of careful framing of the law in the beginning. A study of
the chief points of the law in other states with such changes as will
adapt them to the conditions in the new state should always be made.
Five states report no amendment. Two report increase in membership of
commission. Ten report increase in appropriation, or minor changes.
Missouri and North Dakota have had their annual appropriation repealed
on the theory that it is not constitutional to bind succeeding
legislatures. Oregon has made the most radical amendment, changing this
year from library commission to state library.
The conclusion of the matter seems to be that the initiative is with a
few interested people, working through library associations, women's
clubs and teachers, on the legislators, and that it may often be
accomplished in one session after public opinion is sufficiently formed
to bring the necessary pressure to bear.
These summaries lead to the following suggestions for aid:
1. A collection of material should be made which would include all
pamphlets and articles on the practical establishment of library
commissions. Effort should be made to include the special leaflets
prepared in each state during its campaign. Some states, notably
Kentucky, have prepared maps for circulation to arouse interest. A
collection of all such special material kept for loan would be found
suggestive and helpful in other states.
2. If possible some one should be sent by the League as an organizer
to assist for a short time in the establishment of new commissions.
This organizer should understand conditions in that section of the
country, and should be able to advise wisely, talk with legislators
persuasively, and address library meetings and state federations
enthusiastically. Something may be accomplished by correspondence and
by leaflets, but much more is possible to the trained observer on the
field. Conditions even in neighboring states differ widely, and require
study on the field for helpful understanding.
3. Special training for library commission workers. There is need of
electives in the lines in which commission work differs from public
library work.
4. Discussion of practical questions at League meetings. This is
already being done and should be continued so long as there is need of
a place where workers may discuss their individual problems.
5. It is suggested a committee be appointed to look after the needs of
new commissions after their organization, as well as before the law is
passed. There are many problems arising at home and abroad in which
new workers would be glad of assistance, were there some particular
committee to which they could apply.
Respectfully submitted,
MINNIE C. BUDLONG, Chairman,
ELIZABETH B. WALES,
ASA WYNKOOP,
WILLIAM FREDERICK YUST.
June 23, 1913.
The report was accepted and the committee continued.
Miss Elizabeth B. Wales, secretary of the Missouri library commission,
read the following report of the committee on charter provisions:
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CHARTER PROVISIONS
Since the meeting at Ottawa your committee has somewhat awaited the
action of the council committee, which had been working on the library
law of the state from the standpoint of its relation to the free will
and initiative of the municipality. It was thought that the work of
these committees might duplicate each other. As the report of this
committee covering statute law does not seem to meet the point at
issue, namely, safeguarding the interests of the library under the
adoption of a new form of municipal government, your committee would
make two suggestions concerning such safeguard:
1st. That it may be done by interesting the legislation of the charter
bill in a definite provision establishing the public library as a city
department.
2nd. That it may be done by inserting phrases in such bill, practically
accepting the existing state law.
In the first case the essential points to be covered are: the provision
of a proper fund, the appointment of a competent board. If all the
duties of said board are settled and all its powers defined, the
section will be a long and involved one. Your committee therefore
recommends safeguarding the state library law as the better plan.
To do this, care must be taken to insert the proper phrases under
sections which (a) define the general duties of commissioners wherever
inclusive terms are used. For instance, "and have power to administer
and control all other departments or activities of said city," the
clause "except such as are already provided for in the statutes" would
guard the library law existing; (b) under the rulings on civil service,
the same clause would be effective in protecting library service,
"except officers whose appointment is already otherwise provided for
in the statutes"; (c) under the section concerning establishment and
care of public institutions and buildings the exception must be more
definite, e. g., "except that nothing in this law shall be construed to
affect the existing state library law."
The chairman of your committee was not successful in securing these
amendments to the commission government bill in Missouri, but found the
fathers of the bill willing to consider them, and entirely ignorant
of any possible disturbance of the existing library law under the new
charter provisions. Moreover, good lawyers claim that a partially
excepting phrase under the general definition of powers in this case
makes it probable that no such disturbance need result. This opinion
can not be confirmed, however, until a test case gives us a Supreme
Court decision.
Briefly, then, your committee recommends protection on the charter law
of existing statutory provisions for libraries, rather than a special
charter provision.
Respectfully submitted,
ELIZABETH B. WALES, Chairman,
A. L. BAILEY,
A. E. BOSTWICK,
Committee on charter provisions.
June 27, 1913.
In the absence of the Chairman, the Secretary read the following
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY POST
The committee appointed by the League to assist in obtaining favorable
postal rates for library books reports as follows:
As the members of the League are aware, the provisions of the general
parcel post law were so changed immediately before its enactment that
printed matter was excluded from the privileges of the parcel post
rates. Consequently the long-distance lobbying which the committee and
the profession indulged in, favoring the parcel post law, went for
naught.
Since that time the committee has been in correspondence with a number
of members of Congress favorable to the admission of library books to
parcel post rates. During the winter the committee communicated with
all of the library commissions and with many state and city libraries
asking their co-operation in interesting their representatives in so
changing the law as to admit books. While reports indicate that this
co-operation was furnished, and several Congressmen stand ready to
favor a change, the results have been nil. This failure to get any
results whatsoever is partly due to the fact that special legislation
had entirely engaged the attention of Congress.
The committee desires to call the attention of the League to the fact
that it is not at all certain that to be included in this original
parcel post law would be a great assistance to the libraries in
circulating books. For practical library use the changed rates would
be of little or no advantage, except for points within the fifty mile
zone. Take, for example, a book weighing a trifle over one pound (and
this is a very ordinary-sized book). It can be sent anywhere within the
postal union for nine cents under the present third class rates. By
parcel post rate it would cost six cents to send this book to a point
in the city or along any rural route centering in the city. It will
cost eight cents to send this book anywhere within the fifty mile zone.
Above the fifty mile zone the parcel post rate will exceed the third
class rate as indicated below.
150 mile zone--ten cents--1 cent excess over existing 3rd class.
300 mile zone--twelve cents--3 cents excess over existing 3rd class.
600 mile zone--fourteen cents--5 cents excess over existing 3rd class.
1,000 mile zone--sixteen cents--7 cents excess over existing 3rd class.
and so on, until it will cost twenty-four cents to send the book
more than 1,800 miles by parcel post as against the nine cents under
existing third class rates--an excess of 15 cents.
These facts are the occasion for, and justify the opposition which some
publishing houses and other commercial houses sending out books or
catalogs exhibited to including printed matter within the parcel post
law. In some ways it would be unfortunate at this time to admit books
to the parcel post rates, since accepting these unsatisfactory rates
might prevent further re-adjustments for some time to come. It might be
wiser to make an effort to get better rates.
It is the committee's judgment that there is much in common between the
library authorities and some of the commercial forces which opposed
admitting printed matter to the parcel post, that we have all much in
common.
It is therefore recommended that the committee be directed to use every
effort to get into communication with the forces which have opposed
the admission of printed matter to the parcel post rates in order that
these forces may be united with library authorities in an effort so to
adjust rates as to be more advantageous to all than the present parcel
post rates would be.
In conclusion, the committee reports that it seems unlikely that any
further legislation will be immediately enacted.
Respectfully submitted,
M. S. DUDGEON, Chairman,
ZAIDEE BROWN,
MARY E. DOWNEY.
June 25, 1913.
The report was accepted, and the committee continued and directed to
carry out the recommendation contained in the report.
The following reports of the publication committee and the committee on
study outlines were read:
REPORT OF PUBLICATION COMMITTEE
The publication committee of the League respectfully reports:
That they have had under consideration during the past year two
publications, neither of which the committee has found necessary to
publish, but both of which are to be published elsewhere.
Application was made to the committee for a new edition of Mrs.
McDonald-Jones' "Magazines for the small library." At about the time
this request was received it was learned that Mr. F. K. Walter had
prepared a manuscript for publication which was substantially such
a revision. The committee held a meeting at the mid-winter meeting
of the Western Section of the League and recommended to the A. L. A.
Publishing Board that this be published. We are informed that the
Publishing Board has issued this and that it is now obtainable.
The committee has also had under consideration during the year the
publication of a "Reading list for the insane" prepared with great care
by Miss Miriam E. Carey of the Minnesota public library commission.
The committee hesitated to recommend the publication of this since
it seemed that the demand for it would be so limited that it would
be difficult to obtain returns for the money expended. The committee
is informed, however, that the list will be printed by the A. L. A.
Publishing Board and that suitable arrangements for its distribution to
libraries will be made.
The committee reports that the committee on study outlines, which was
originally a subcommittee of the publication committee, has, as shown
by their report submitted herewith, arrived at a satisfactory form of
study-club outline.
It is therefore recommended that immediate steps be taken to secure
the preparation of study outlines to be printed at once. If no other
procedure can be found the committee suggests that after a list of the
most desirable subjects to be covered is made up, a limited number of
subjects be assigned to each active commission, with agreement on their
part to prepare at as early a date as possible suitable outlines on
these subjects, conforming each as nearly as may be to the form adopted
by the League; that all these outlines be submitted to some one person
to be edited in order to secure substantial uniformity of form and to
insure that the outline will be useful in other states and that the
committee be authorized to secure the immediate printing of these if
this can be done on a basis which is financially sound.
Informal discussion of this plan with several of the commissions
indicates that the work can be done in this way. It is strongly urged
that this work should be inaugurated at once.
Respectfully submitted,
MATTHEW S. DUDGEON, Chairman,
FANNIE RAWSON,
CAROLINE WEBSTER,
CARL H. MILAM.
June 25, 1913.
REPORT OF THE STUDY OUTLINE COMMITTEE
Those who were in attendance at the meeting of the League of Library
Commissions in Chicago in January, 1911, will recall the general
discussion of the need of study outlines to be used in traveling
library work in connection with study clubs, and that the publication
committee was asked to investigate and report as to the feasibility
of the League's undertaking the preparation of such outlines, to be
utilized by the various traveling libraries. Mr. M. S. Dudgeon, as
Chairman, reported progress at the Pasadena meeting in May, 1911, and
submitted suggestions toward a uniform plan. Later Miss Margaret W.
Brown of Iowa, who had been active in club work in her own state, as
Chairman of the Literature and Library Extension Committee of the State
Federation of Women's Clubs, was made Chairman of the special committee
on study outlines.
In view of the possibility of the various library commissions
contributing one or more study outlines for League use, it seemed
important that a general scheme for preparing these should be agreed
upon, and Miss Brown presented such a scheme for discussion at the
Chicago mid-winter League meeting in January, 1912, relating to the
basis and form for preparing these outlines, based on a single text
with a small group of collateral references. This was worked out very
carefully, and tested by preparing a few outlines according to the
proposed scheme, which had proved very acceptable; and it was suggested
that the various commissions use the plan in preparing outlines, with
the thought of securing uniformity in preparation and printing. The
Chairman conferred with such thorough students of literature as Mrs.
Francis Squire Potter and Mrs. H. A. Davidson, both having practical
experience in study club work, the former being Chairman of the
Literature and Library Extension Committee of the General Federation
of Woman's Clubs, and the latter well known as the editor of the Study
Guide series.
At the annual meeting of the League at Ottawa in June, 1912, definite
recommendations were made to the League conforming to the plan
presented at the Chicago meeting the January preceding, and the
League voted to authorize an expenditure not exceeding $100 for the
preparation and printing of a few outlines. The scheme commended itself
to certain publishers to such an extent that the League was assured
that there would be no financial risk in having these printed, as it
seemed reasonably sure there would be a demand for them not only on
the part of traveling library systems, but public libraries generally,
and the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the various state
federations.
These plans would doubtless have been consummated before this, had not
the Chairman, Miss Brown, found it necessary to give up her work on
account of the condition of her health, thus making it impossible to
pursue the matter further, involving as it did many details and careful
editorial supervision of the material to be put in print. Your present
Acting Chairman consented to carry on the work until the time of this
annual meeting, hoping to carry out Miss Brown's plans as to printing a
few outlines, as a visible result of the long period of investigation
by the committee; she regrets that many things have conspired to make
this impossible. Hence, this report is made chiefly with the desire of
"keeping history straight" up to this point, and transmitting to your
next committee a statement of progress up to this time.
This report is made with the firm belief that no more important project
is under consideration by the League than this, and that if it is
kept clearly in mind that these outlines are to meet a real need of a
large class of intelligent, ambitious women of this country who have
not college preparation, but are eager students, the outlines will be
utilized in a very resultful way.
Before the Chicago meeting in January, 1913, a request was made by this
committee for a list of subjects for which study outlines were most in
demand by the various state traveling libraries, and a summary of the
answers received showed an increasing demand for aids in the study of
public questions rather than literary or cultural subjects. Definite
statements were made by several library commissions as to the need of
outlines on civic improvement for small towns, civics, conservation,
household economics, municipal housekeeping, etc.
The plan submitted by Miss Brown as Chairman of this committee as a
part of her report at the Ottawa meeting is attached hereto.
Respectfully submitted,
ALICE S. TYLER, Acting Chairman,
M. S. DUDGEON,
CARL H. MILAM.
Plan for Preparation of Study Outlines
_Basis_
A. One book selected as foundation for Outline.
If a single book suitable for text can not be found, outline to
be based on fewest number of books necessary for the purpose.
Text selected to be authoritative, reasonable in price,
readable and stimulating.
B. Five to ten books as collateral reference.
Selected to cover subject matter in study outline and amplify
the text.
Publisher and price given for all books included, for use in
purchase.
=Note=: 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 satisfactorily 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
textbooks 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 per month, October to May.
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 points
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 by 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 thus 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 indorsed 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 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 text upon
which the outline is based.
The reports were accepted, and it was voted that the publication
committee be instructed to secure the preparation of study outlines, as
suggested in their report.
The Secretary then read her report on the year's work, noting the
publication of the 1912 Yearbook of the League, and the preparation by
the President of an exhibit for the meeting of the N. E. A.
Following is the financial statement for the year.
Balance on hand, Aug. 1, 1912 $180.08
Received from dues 115.00
Received from sale of Handbook and Yearbook 28.50
-------
Total $323.58
Expenditures.
Printing Yearbook and programs $175.25
Stationery and postage 36.43
Clerical help and multigraphs 26.55
N. E. A. exhibit, supplies and clerical help 31.00
Miscellaneous 5.26
-------
Total $274.49
Balance on hand, June 30, 1913 $49.09
Miss Baldwin of Minnesota, suggested that the League send to Miss
Tyler, of Iowa, a telegram expressing regret for her withdrawal from
active commission work, and appreciation of her services to the League.
It was voted that Miss Baldwin be directed to send such a telegram. The
following telegram was sent:
"Congratulations and best wishes from the League of library
commissions, with sincere regret that you were absent from this
meeting, and the hope that you will consider yourself a life
member of the League, to which you have rendered such valuable
service."
The meeting then adjourned.
SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION
FIRST SESSION
The first session of the Fifth annual conference of the Special
Libraries Association was opened in the parlor of the Hotel
Kaaterskill, on Tuesday afternoon, June 25, 1913, with the president in
the chair.
Mrs. A. W. Von Hohoff of New York, opened the meeting with a paper
entitled, "Municipal reference work in New York City." She spoke of the
necessity out of which this collection had grown and the lack of ease
with which information of this character had been previously obtained.
In the short space of time during which this new library has been
established over 1,000 people have consulted it, mostly employees of
the city. It is serving especially those employees who are studying for
civil service examination leading to advancement in the city's work;
newspaper men, lawyers and real estate dealers have also found it of
value. A short resume of the kind of literature on its shelves was
given. This library aims to keep New York City in close touch with the
activities and movements of other cities.[13]
[13] For full paper see "Special Libraries," 1913.
The second paper on the program was by Mr. N. C. Kingsbury,
Vice-President of the American Tel. & Tel. Company, upon "The
library--A necessity of modern business."[14]
[14] For full paper see Library Journal, Aug., 1913.
Few people realize, who have had any connection with the library
movement, that specialization has come to mean what it has. Almost no
one would have supposed that even a large public service corporation
was maintaining five distinct library collections, two at least of
which are in charge of trained librarians. This paper, suggestive as
it was of the increased activity along library lines in the business
world, led to interesting questions.
It was followed by a paper by Mr. Andrew L. Bostwick, municipal
reference librarian of St. Louis, entitled "Relations between the
municipal library and legislators." He emphasized the necessity for
bridging the gap between the average librarian and the average city
assemblyman, also the potency of personality which should bring about
a close and cordial relationship between the library and its readers.
He spoke of the light manner in which municipal libraries were often
created and the subsequent selection of the librarian. The different
kind of legislators as existing in the average city were aptly held
before the audience in no unmistakable terms; and finally, the choice
of a proper librarian with his necessary qualifications was presented,
together with the manner in which the data accumulated
within the library should be put into the hands of the legislator.
Dr. W. Dawson Johnston, librarian of Columbia University, presented
the next paper entitled, "The relation between special and general
libraries."[15] "The rise of the special library is undoubtedly due to
the limitations of the general library. These have been limitations
of location as well as limitations of service. A general library can
not in the nature of things be everywhere and even when it is located
so as to serve excellently the needs of a special institution, it
can not render the service of a collection selected for a specific
purpose. There must then be special libraries for special institutions,
societies, clubs, and offices.
[15] For full report see "Special Libraries," 1913.
"The special library, however, has its limitations also. It is in
danger of having the disadvantages of a private library without the
advantages of a public library. This is so true as to remind one of
Charles Lamb's description of pamphlets as books which are no books.
In similar manner we are sometimes compelled to look upon special
libraries as libraries which are no libraries at all, especially where
they are so small and so little used as not to require the services of
a librarian.
"There are too many special libraries which are not to be distinguished
from general libraries except by their location, too many that are
simply inferior general libraries, too many that may simply be
described as general libraries gone wrong."
He discussed the policy in the elimination of books in each type of
library, the matter of the conditions of transfer from a special
library to a general one, the relations between the two in respect to
bibliographic service, and in conclusion said: "The special library
forms an important auxiliary to the general library and especially to
the university library, and more important as subjects of research
become more practical in character. The general library, because of its
comprehensiveness and size must in the nature of things be more useful
and must in the aggregate be more used. But if a special library is
well selected, that is, if only the best and latest books are admitted
to its shelves, it must be proportionately more used than the general
library and with better results. Some time may be wasted in finding a
special library and in gaining admission to it, but little is wasted in
it, while in the general library the time wasted in getting books and
in reading books which were better left unread is simply appalling."
Following this very interesting discourse, a paper entitled, "The
library of the School of Architecture at Harvard University--The
treatment of collections relating to landscape architecture, including
city planning," by Miss Theodora Kimball, librarian of this library,
was read by title in the absence of the author.[16]
[16] A reprint can be obtained from the Secretary of the "Spec. Lib.
Assn."
(1) See forthcoming issue of "Special Libraries."
Miss Helen R. Hosmer, of the General Electric Company, Schenectady, N.
Y., presented the last paper of the afternoon, entitled "The library of
the research laboratory, General Electric Company."
"Research expects rebuffs, expects to accept a small advance instead
of a revolution, expects to make mistakes, and frequently to fail, but
intends to let no lesson go unheeded, and to learn from every stumble.
"Inasmuch as every special library comes into very close contact with
those it serves, it is not strange the research library partakes of the
same nature that pervades the research laboratory. It too is, in this
case particularly, a field for experiment.
"The object in view is of course to render as readily available as
possible all the information contained in the library on subjects of
present or possible future interest to the laboratory staff.
"The main sources of this information are two: first, the scientific
and technical literature, consisting of books, periodicals, pamphlets
and special publications, clippings, and abstracts from the technical
literature, compiled by the publication department of the company, and
second the reports from the various laboratories of the company."
The handling of the different classes of material in this library is
minutely described and covers several unique features, both in the
kinds of material handled and in the methods used. In concluding, she
said: "We are attempting to build up a system requiring the minimum
amount of work for maintenance, sufficiently simple to appeal to the
most hurried research mind, flexible enough to admit of continued
improvement without demolishment, and yet adequate to the varied needs
of practical scientific investigation."
Mr. R. R. Bowker, of the Library Journal, added some very interesting
thoughts along the general trend of the meeting drawn from his many
years of experience in library and commercial fields, which were much
appreciated by all those present.
SECOND SESSION
The second session of the Association was called to order in the
Ladies' Parlor at 3 p. m., June 26th, by the president.
A few general introductory remarks were made by the president regarding
the purpose of this session which hinged chiefly about the question of
handling clippings.
Honorable Robert Luce in a very carefully prepared address then
discussed, under the title, "The clipping bureau and the library," the
internal working of the clipping bureau which bears his name. Probably
few librarians have realized the enormous volume of detail handled by
the large clipping bureau in the course of a day's work. Mr. Luce in
his paper has carefully brought home that fact and urged that many
users of material from clipping bureaus, and among them librarians,
had never learned how to correctly judge results of clipping-bureau
service. This judgment should be used upon the mass result rather than
upon detail. An interesting description of the method of caring for a
collection of 20,000 or more articles of his own proved an important
part of the paper. A discussion of the "scrap book" and its function in
the library was also handled. An earnest plea was made for co-operation
on the part of the librarians ordering material from the clipping
bureau. The employment of the clipping bureau is a step in the line
of efficiency. "No man accustomed to business methods can fail to be
struck with the waste therein due to the employment of high-grade minds
on low-grade work. When some part of the working time of a public
servant possessing intellectual acumen is put into manual labor that
can be as well performed by a youth without special training, there
is economic loss. When your subordinates handle the scissors and the
paste-brush, you are paying them for work that can more quickly and
much more cheaply be done in our cutting rooms."
A significant question by Mr. Bowker brought out the following facts:
"After the reader marks the newspaper it goes to the cutter. There
is very seldom any loss there. Occasionally an item is slashed or
overlooked, and when the clippings have been cut and pasted they go
to the sorter, whose duty it is to sort them by groups. We have the
clippings divided into 128 classifications. We allow each customer
one of those classifications." Mr. Luce answered many other questions
raised by different speakers.[17]
[17] See full discussion in "Special Libraries."
Following Mr. Luce's paper, Mr. Jesse Cunningham, librarian of the
School of Mines and Metallurgy, Rolla, Missouri, reported as the
Chairman of the clipping committee his investigation of the use and
methods of handling and filing newspaper clippings. A very careful
digest of a questionnaire sent to over thirty selected libraries,
discussed the matters of obtaining clippings by these various
libraries, the arrangement of the material for clipping, the service
rendered by the clipping bureaus, classification and methods of filing,
as well as the indexing and eliminating of dead material, closing the
report with a discussion of the use and value of clippings,
their disadvantages, the purchasing of clippings on special
subjects and the several conclusions arrived at by the committee. A
most excellent report was rendered. The committee was continued and
requested to extend its inquiries along the lines indicated.
In the absence of Dr. J. Franklin Crowell of the Wall Street Journal,
his paper upon the "Clipping methods of the Wall Street Journal
library" was read by title.
Mr. H. W. Wilson of Minneapolis, followed with a paper entitled,
"Problems of printed indexes in special fields."
"The need for printed indexes in special fields has been
made manifest by the thousands of fugitive scraps of indexes
that libraries here and there spend their time and energy in
producing for temporary use.
"First steps toward printed indexes are both fragmentary
and inadequate. It seems to be time to take the next step
in the development of index-making, a step which involves
concentration of scattered ideas--a step which should be
successful because it means comprehensiveness, thoroughness,
uniformity, economy and efficiency.
"The special fields of literature in which printed indexes are
most likely to succeed are thought to be as follows, in about
the order mentioned: Industrial arts, agriculture, education,
social problems.
"It will scarcely be necessary to defend here the alphabetical
index as opposed to the classified arrangement. While a
classified list of articles has its value in informing
specialists what has been published in their respective fields
in one particular month, or year, it is almost useless as a
book of ready reference in a library--useless even to the
technically trained, exasperating to the layman.
"In a classed list the responsibility for finding an article
rests with the searcher."
The great difficulty caused by unsatisfactory nomenclature especially
in rapid-growing new technical fields, was dwelt upon at some length.
In conclusion, he said, "At least one new field should be opened up
each year."
In the general discussion which followed, the questions of paper for
clipping mounts, adhesives, and preservatives, were touched upon.
THIRD SESSION
The third session of the Association was held on Thursday evening, June
27, 1913, opening with the president in the chair and about thirty
persons present.
Mr. Samuel H. Ranck of Grand Rapids, reported as Chairman of the
municipal yearbook committee.[18]
[18] Report on file with Sec'y of S. L. A.
In the absence of Mr. H. H. B. Meyer, his paper entitled, "The division
of bibliography of the Library of Congress as a clearing house for
bibliographical information," was read by Mr. Bruncken of the same
library.
"I am planning, in the interval before the next meetings of the
state legislature, to prepare a list of the subjects which have been
investigated by the several state libraries or state legislative
reference bureaus." This will enable the division of bibliography to
inform an inquiring librarian what states have taken up any question
his own state legislature might be interested in. Several fixed
forms of cards for doing this work in order to eliminate extensive
correspondence are shown.[19]
[19] For paper in full see forthcoming "Special Libraries."
Miss Marie F. Lindholm presented a paper entitled "A review of the
chief sources of special library collections."[20]
[20] For special reprint address Public Service Commission Library of
New York, or the Secretary's office.
While the author has been for some time connected with a prominent
public service commission, the very careful and painstaking enumeration
of sources of material can but prove of unusual value to almost any
special library in the country. Under thirteen main headings the
paper treated of a general reference foundation, reference sources of
particular value to public service commission or corporation libraries,
chief reference sources for a financial library,
those for a municipal reference library, current books and special
reports, periodicals, government and state reports, society
publications, company and trade publications, legislation, legal
decisions and briefs, manuscripts, original records, blueprints, maps,
etc., and finally co-operation in special library work. Should one
about to form a library of almost any character have before him this
paper he would without serious effort gather about himself, without
other help, a splendid foundation upon which to build his immediate
specialty. Much complementary discussion followed.
Following this the report of the Secretary-Treasurer discussed the
widening aspects of the Association, the growth of its membership,
both in numbers and in distribution, the financial condition of the
society, the large number of inquiries which had been received by
the secretary's office, indicating the spread of the special library
idea, the methods for advertising the Association and its activities
which are of interest to the members, the results obtained in the
past year through the Responsibility Districts established at the
beginning of Mr. Handy's administration, the value and possibilities
of the employment exchange operated through the secretary's office,
and the contemplated brochure advocated by the Executive Board for
placing before interested parties the important facts, such as the
Association's growth, scope, purpose, constitution, membership,
committees, printed literature available, etc.
After receiving the report of the Executive Board and accepting the
same in toto and transacting such other business matters as remained,
electing new officers, etc., the meeting adjourned sine die.
GUY E. MARION,
Secretary.
POST-CONFERENCE TRIP
Saturday noon, June 28, the post conference party left Hotel
Kaaterskill with feelings of mingled pleasure and regret. The
conference week with its happy reunion of old friends was past, and the
prospect of a week of travel with its unknown possibilities of sight
seeing and impromptu library conferences banished the depression that
follows the breaking up of a happy party. Vexing details, as paying
unusually large hotel bills, arguing with the drivers about double
payment of bus fares and exorbitant tipping of porters to insure prompt
delivery of trunks at the station, were soon forgotten. For a week we
were to be care-free, shifting all responsibility and planning to our
genial conductors, Mr. F. W. Faxon and Mr. C. H. Brown. Even trunks
were forgotten, not only by the party, but by the railroad people
until the casual inquiry of one of the party brought them to light and
started them again on their journey.
The rapid descent by the Otis Elevating Railway with the accompanying
ringing sensations in the ears made us realize the great height at
which we had lived the past week. We soon found ourselves in the
heavier, warmer air of the sea level speeding towards Albany through
the fertile farms of the Hudson Valley. We caught occasional glimpses
of the Hudson, bearing on its sluggish tide the graceful, white-sailed,
pleasure crafts and the clumsy, but vitally freighted, canal barges.
Comfortable quarters in Albany were found at the Hotel Ten Eyck, and
the party spent the evening at the new Education Building visiting the
new State library and library school. The building is considered one of
the most beautiful in the world. It is certainly very beautiful when
considered alone, but it is a pity that it could not have had a larger
site and more advantageous setting. The general plan of the building
with its magnificent distances gives a corridor appearance to all the
library rooms except the reference room, which is superb in its general
effect and equipment. The lighting scheme of this room, which is both
direct and indirect, is very effective. The absence of mural decoration
is a marked feature, and the room in all its appointments is obviously
set apart for serious study and work. The individual desks, which were
planned by the librarian, attract immediate attention, as they are
admirably arranged to give good light, convenience, and privacy to the
student.
The new library school with its splendid outfit was of great interest
to former students in the party who remembered the cramped and
migratory quarters in the old school. Every feature that experience
had suggested and foresight could devise seemed to be there to aid
and inspire the student. The older students noticed with pleasure the
portraits of Mr. Dewey and Mrs. Fairchild which adorned the walls of
the main class room. Miss Woodworth had prepared a temporary exhibition
of class photographs which aroused pleasing memories. The interest was
divided between gratification at the growth in strength of character
and success of the earlier classes and mirth at their costumes. A
permanent exhibition which is the special pride of Miss Woodworth is
the collection of work by the school alumni. This contains library
reports, bulletins, and lists prepared in whole or in part by former
students. There are also many books along historical and literary
lines, photographs of libraries planned or remodeled by library school
graduates, and photographs of the former students. This collection
was most interesting in its tangible evidence of the success of the
students. Miss Woodworth wants to make this collection as nearly
complete as possible and a credit to the school. All former students
are urged to send her a set of all their work, either printed or
typewritten, and photographs of their libraries and of themselves, both
when they were students and as they are now. All material sent to the
school before the fire was burned.
On the next day, Sunday, all departments of the library were open to
the visiting librarians and all went a second time to see by daylight
the splendid rooms, so admirably equipped and planned to give quick and
efficient service to the reader. All left the library with a feeling of
admiration for the knowledge, skill, and executive ability of those who
had created from nothing in less than two years one of the great world
libraries.
On Monday morning at an early hour we were hurried to the train to
secure seats in the dining-car. Our English friend was aghast at this
American custom of "first come, first served" so early in the morning,
and we had to admit that in this case a previous booking of seats would
have been more comfortable. We had the unexpected comfort, however, in
this case, of early breakfast in a stationary dining-car. Our route
that morning was through the Mohawk Valley along the Erie Canal with
its placid mode of travel. Glimpses of the foothills of the Adirondacks
broke up the monotony of the journey through this level country and
gave us hints of the mountain scenery to come. The name "Adirondacks"
suggested the rough, mountain wilderness and we were eager to reach it.
At Utica we turned north and soon began to climb. The country became
wilder and occasional log houses suggested pioneering. At Fulton Chain
station we left the main line of the Adirondack division of the New
York Central and in a short time our special car, which was now rather
hot and dusty, was deserted at Old Forge for the little steamer on
the First Lake of the Fulton Chain. We were in the wilderness at last
and enjoyed to the utmost the few hours' ride through this chain of
beautiful lakes. Hills and mountains were on all sides clothed with the
forests in all their glory of early summer greenery. There were few
signs of civilization and we felt as remote from our daily tasks of
doing good to others as the most reprobate could desire.
Early in the afternoon we reached Eagle Bay Hotel at the head of Fourth
Lake, our headquarters for several days. Our long delayed dinner was
most welcome, as glorious air and scenery somehow fail to satisfy all
physical needs. That afternoon, while exploring the shore of the lake,
we made our acquaintance with the Adirondack open camp, or "lean-to",
lined with balsam boughs on which to sit or lie in the evening and spin
yarns while the campfire blazes in front. We all wanted to try the game
and those who had cameras took appropriate pictures. We must have come
at the wrong time of the year, however, for, alas for the romance of
an Adirondack lodge, no one seemed to care to brave the attacks of the
mosquitos and flies which filled the woods about sundown. All sought
the refuge of the hotel piazza enveloped in a stifling smudge from
burning green hay or retired early to well screened bedrooms to catch
up on the lost sleep question.
Tuesday morning we started for Blue Mountain Lake over the Raquette
Lake Railroad. Until within a few years this country was an almost
unbroken wilderness and the road even now runs through the heavy woods
in a clearing so narrow that the trees shade the train and the full
effect of the forest can be enjoyed. The trip through Raquette Lake,
the "queen of the Adirondacks" which owes it name to its very irregular
outline, gave many opportunities for those with cameras to get fine
pictures. From Raquette Lake there was a short trip along Marion River
winding through a stretch of forest famed for deer hunting. Then came
a portage to Utowana Lake of about a mile by a primitive train of
discarded Brooklyn open horse-cars drawn by a diminutive locomotive
over a creaking railroad.
Our English friend was much interested in the fauna of the Adirondacks
and we hoped at this point we could show him at least one bear. Perhaps
the Adirondack bears like those in the Yellowstone are shy early in
the summer visitor season, for we did not get a glimpse of one of
them. The only fauna we saw aside from the birds were chipmunks, red
squirrels, one woodchuck, and two rabbits. In Eagle Lake we passed the
famous old eagle's nest and some of the ladies were in raptures over
the herons which they thought were eagles. We passed beavers' houses,
which we admired on faith, since no one had ever seen beavers working
on them. On Blue Mountain Lake even the most self-contained became
enthusiastic over its beauties. From its charm of outline, its wooded
and rocky islands, its purity and loveliness, it well deserves its
claim as the pearl of all the wilderness waters. It claims with Lake
Placid to be the loveliest lake in the eastern states. Across the lake
is Blue Mountain with its blue dome rising to a height of 4,000 feet.
Its forest clad side slopes directly to the water's edge inviting the
mountain climbers to try their mettle. We left the steamer here and
were carried by automobile about a mile up one of the hills to the Blue
Mountain House where we had a glorious view of the lake. It seemed a
pity to waste time on dinner, but we did and found it most delectable.
Although the thermometer stood in the nineties, four of the men, our
English friend among them, climbed Blue Mountain. The less strenuous
rested and enjoyed the view and the beauties of a wonderful garden
nearby in the woods. The return trip to Eagle Bay made in the cool of
afternoon and evening was enjoyed perhaps even more than the morning
trip.
We were beguiled on this excursion as on others by frequent comparisons
between English and American customs and scenery. This added much to
our enjoyment and knowledge because we could look at things from two
points of view. One observation which struck us as novel was that the
English mountains were better than the American because they were
usually treeless. Aside from the economic axiom according to which
this is a fault, we considered this position untenable, as we thought
the barren, dead, English mountains we had seen would be much more
beautiful if clothed with living green. However, when we were told that
it was more enjoyable climbing English mountains because there were
no underbrush and trees to impede one and shut out the view and the
breeze, we agreed it all depended on the point of view and the weather.
The next morning, Wednesday, after a swim in the lake, some climbed
Eagle Mountain just back of the hotel. This was an easy climb and
from the "shelter" at the top there was a fine view of the lake. This
beautiful lake region is still wild and primitive, there are few
pretentious camps or hotels and it is not generally known. More should
visit this country to enjoy its beauty before it becomes the resort of
wealth and fashion. At noon we left this beautiful spot and, with many
regrets, parted with Mr. Brown, our efficient guide to this region.
We went on by train by way of Carter and Saranac Inn Station to the
Lake Placid Club, our headquarters for the next four days. A delay in
train connections at Saranac gave us a chance to ride about this famous
resort where Stevenson once spent a winter in search of health. One of
the interesting sights was an imitation Alaskan camp with log huts and
Esquimaux dogs for the use of a moving picture making company, when
showing scenes in the wild northwest. The imitation of the northwest
was so good that it took considerable mental effort to realize we were
still in the Empire State with civilized life all about us.
So many good things had been planned for us at Lake Placid, that we
were often at a loss what to choose. We usually tried to do everything.
The first evening Mr. Dewey welcomed us and the other librarians, who
had gone directly to the Lake Placid Club from the Catskills, with a
good supper in a special dining room where we could all eat together.
He then outlined the plan of entertainment during our stay, delegating
his son, Godfrey, to carry out details and attend to our comfort and
well-being. To these three, Mr. Melvil Dewey, Miss Katharine L. Sharp,
and Mr. Godfrey Dewey, the party is most grateful for the welcome they
received and the good time they enjoyed. The Lake Placid holiday will
be long remembered with delight by those fortunate enough to enjoy it.
The entertainment included automobile tours on several days to the
famous places in the Adirondacks, covering a territory that would take
several weeks to explore in the ordinary way. When we left Lake Placid
we felt we ought to suffer from a case of Adirondack travel indigestion.
Thursday morning two parties were ready to start at 6:30 in the Stanley
steamers driven by Mr. Godfrey Dewey and Mr. Hubert Stevens for an
all day trip of about 110 miles. It was a glorious day and the early
morning ride in the cool, bracing air made us forget every care and
worry. We followed the West Branch of the Ausable River, with the road
crossing it many times and often winding beside it on narrow ledges
with the mountains towering above us where we could get the proper
thrills of danger. We all felt confidence in our chauffeurs and enjoyed
equally the swift runs on the level state roads, the racing up the
steep mountain roads and the swift plunges into the valleys. We stopped
for a moment at the beautiful Wilmington High Falls and then sped on to
Ausable Chasm. We explored the Chasm and made the trip by boat through
the gorge. This seemed a bit perilous and, although assured there had
never been an accident, we took our places in the boat with an uneasy
feeling. The ride on the swift, deep river in this wonderful cleft
in the mountain was, however, all too short. We would have lingered
to enjoy the wonders and beauty of the gorge festooned with vines
and banked with ferns which found a congenial home in its limestone
walls, but there was a long journey ahead. We climbed the walls of the
Chasm to our waiting automobiles and were soon speeding south, with
Lake Champlain on our left and the Bouquet River for company along
our road. Occasional stops were made to take on water, sometimes from
the hose at a friendly hotel, sometimes from a brook, and once from
the stock drinking-trough at a farm house where the agitated farmer's
wife was fearful that our great machine was going to pump the trough
dry. At Westport Inn we joined the other party, and had a rest on the
cool piazza and a good dinner. In the afternoon we ran west through
Elizabethtown to the mountains again, stopping for a moment to cheer
our friends in the other car who had punctured a tire. Our turn to
stop for repairs came soon, when our friends extended their advice and
sympathetic aid and passed on. In a few miles more we began to climb
a narrow mountain road which seemed impassable in places, and were
enjoying the wild scenery when another tire puncture held us up in a
lonely place, remote from the telephone. A family touring party in
another automobile stopped to offer aid, but they could not help us.
The women in that party inquired if there were wild animals thereabouts
and, when assured that there were lynxes, bears and other fearsome
beasts in the woods, they besought their men folks to hasten on before
the dark should overtake them. For a number of miles we crept along
in a crippled condition to St. Hubert's Inn, where we waited several
hours till a new tire could be sent from home. The rest of the trip
was largely after dark over rough, narrow, precipitous roads along the
Cascade Lakes where we had our fill of the spice of danger of mountain
night travel. We reached home too late to attend the council fire at
Iroquois Lodge.
Friday, July Fourth, was celebrated by the absence of fire-crackers
and fireworks and other nerve racking and dangerous devices. Instead,
a competitive prize fire drill by the Club fire department was held.
Guests could thus see how secure against harm from fire life and
property are at the Club. Under Miss Sharp's guidance, a tour of the
Club property was made in the afternoon, and we saw how the comfort and
well-being of the guests were cared for in the various departments,
such as the laundry and the kitchens. Informal tea was served at Miss
Sharp's cottage, The Larches, where Mrs. Frederick M. Crunden assisted
Miss Sharp in dispensing good cheer. That evening the party enjoyed
an informal banquet, with Mr. Dewey, Miss Sharp, and other resident
members of the A. L. A. present. Just as the dinner closed, the bonfire
on the lake was started and the beautiful and unusual spectacle was
enjoyed of viewing the fire through a curtain of water from one of the
powerful fire hydrants.
On Saturday several short automobile rides were taken in the morning,
including one to the home and grave of John Brown, of Ossawatomie, now
the property of the State. In the afternoon the party was taken by
launch to Moose Island in Lake Placid and had a picnic lunch before
a camp fire in a typical Adirondack shelter fragrant with fir balsam
boughs. On the ride home mist and rain lent mystery to the beauties of
the lake, and just before the trip ended double rainbows proclaimed the
end of the storm and a fair day for the morrow. That night a delightful
dinner was given the party at Iroquois Lodge which was graced by the
presence of Mrs. Dewey. A charming feature of the dinner was the
arrangement of lighting wholly by candles in rustic candlesticks of
white birch, some of which were used to light our way home through
the woods, and treasured afterwards as souvenirs. After dinner the
company assembled in the council chamber and listened to a graphic
story by Mr. Dewey of the origin and growth of the Lake Placid Club.
Originally planned to afford an inexpensive, sane, healthful vacation
for educational and literary workers, including librarians, it had
surpassed all expectations in its success and growth. Before the party
broke up the thanks and appreciation of all for the good time enjoyed
at Lake Placid as Mr. Dewey's guests were voiced by Mr. Hill, Mr.
Thwaites, and Miss Ahern. Mr. Jast brought a message of appreciation
from over seas where, he said, Dewey is a household word in the library
world. All spoke in a reminiscent vein and expressed the hope that Mr.
Dewey might again take active part in library work.
A small party climbed Whiteface that day and had a rather rough
experience, particularly on the descent owing to the heavy rain.
On Sunday automobiles carried the party through Saranac to beautiful
Loon Lake, one of the famous, old-time Adirondack resorts, where we
stopped for a few minutes, and then went on to Paul Smith's on lower
St. Regis Lake, perhaps the oldest and best known Adirondack hotel.
Here, as at the Westport Inn, we were guests of the proprietor at a
fine dinner. The hotel also arranged a boat trip for us through the
Lower St. Regis, Spitfire, and Upper St. Regis Lakes where we saw some
of the finest of the Adirondack camps. On our way home we visited two
famous sanitariums for the cure of tuberculosis, the state institution
at Ray Brook and Trudeau's Sanitarium, a private, endowed hospital. On
this trip no breakdowns marred the pleasure, and, aside from a little
delay in starting owing to the agitation of a timid lady from Chicago
who found herself alone on a rear seat with two mild men, all events
came off as scheduled. It might be noted in passing that on all the
automobile trips there were at least two and sometimes three men in
each car, a marked advance as compared with the famous White Mountain
coaching trip with one man to a coach.
This day, which was perfect in its sunshine and cool, bracing air, was
the climax of the trip. With keen regret we gathered to bid good-bye to
our hosts at Mrs. Dewey's afternoon tea. This Post Conference will long
be remembered as one of the best of them all.
The party broke up that night. A few stayed on for a rest at Lake
Placid and the others took their ways homeward. Some journeyed down
Lake Champlain and Lake George, and one stopped at Saratoga to be lost
in wonder at the huge hotels where all the A. L. A. might easily be
housed in comfort and elegance should that body ever meet there.
JOHN G. MOULTON.
ATTENDANCE SUMMARIES
By Position and Sex
Men Women Total
Trustees 4 4 8
Library Commissions
representatives
and organizers 8 15 23
Chief librarians 109 160 269
Assistants 65 310 375
Library schools instructors 2 21 23
Editors 3 4 7
Commercial Agents 27 1 28
Others 25 134 159
--- --- ---
Total 243 649 892
By Geographical Sections
6 of the 6 New England States sent 150
5 " 5 North Atlantic States and
District of Columbia sent 462
5 " 6 South-eastern States 14
7 " 8 North Central States 208
3 " 6 South Central States 14
9 " 14 Western States 17
3 " 3 Pacific States 13
Canadian Provinces 11
England 1
Germany 1
Norway 1
---
Total 892
By States
Alabama 1
Arizona 1
California 4
Colorado 1
Connecticut 33
Delaware 1
Dist. of Columbia 26
Florida 1
Georgia 10
Idaho 1
Illinois 67
Indiana 11
Iowa 13
Kansas 1
Kentucky 12
Maine 4
Maryland 10
Massachusetts 82
Michigan 31
Minnesota 11
Missouri 18
Nebraska 3
New Hampshire 7
New Jersey 47
New York 316
North Carolina 1
North Dakota 1
Ohio 41
Oklahoma 2
Oregon 2
Pennsylvania 59
Rhode Island 13
South Dakota 1
Tennessee 1
Texas 6
Vermont 11
Virginia 2
Washington 7
Wisconsin 16
Foreign Countries
Canada 14
England 1
Germany 1
Norway 1
---
Total 892
By Libraries
Libraries having five or more
representatives:
Brooklyn Public L. 27
Chicago Public L. 26
Cincinnati Public L. 5
Cleveland Public L. 13
Detroit Public L. 5
Grand Rapids Public L. 7
Library of Congress 9
Louisville Free Public L. 8
New York Public L. 49
New York State L. 19
New York State L. School 25
Newark Free Public L. 7
Queens Borough Public L. 5
Philadelphia Free L. 10
Pittsburgh Carnegie L. 5
St. Louis Public L. 5
Yale University L. 8
=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 in
the Adirondacks.
**Prefixed to a name indicates that the person went directly from the
Catskills to Lake Placid.
+Indicates went as far as Eagle Bay only.
Abbreviations: F., Free; P., Public; L., Library; ln., Librarian;
asst., Assistant; trus., Trustee; ref., Reference; catlgr., Cataloger;
Br., Branch; sch., School.
Abbott, Alvaretta P., ln. P. L., Atlantic City, N. J.
Abbott, Mabel L., asst. Wellesley Coll. L., Wellesley, Mass.
Acker, Margaret, ln. P. L., Ossining, N. Y.
Ackerly, Belle, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Adams, Benjamin, chief circ. dept. P. L., N. Y. City.
Adams, Leta E., head catlgr. P. L., Rochester, N. Y.
**Ahern, Mary E., editor "Public Libraries," Chicago, Ill.
Allen, Dr. Wm. H., director Bureau Municipal Research, New York
City.
Allin, Eugenia, organizer Ill. L. Ext. Com., Decatur, Ill.
Anderson, Adah M., asst. ln. Humboldt Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Anderson, E. H., director P. L., New York City.
Anderson, Mrs. E. H., N. Y. City.
Anderson, John R., bookseller, New York City.
Andrew, Mrs. Kate D., ln. Steele Memorial L., Elmira, N. Y.
*Andrews, C. W., ln. The John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Andrus, Gertrude E., supt. child. dept. P. L., Seattle, Wash.
Annis, Mrs. Newton, Detroit, Mich.
Appleton, Helena D., secretary P. L., East Orange, N. J.
Armstrong, Mary E., asst. catlgr. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Arnold, Lillian B., ln. Carnegie Stout P. L., Dubuque, Ia.
Askew, Sarah B., organizer N. J. P. L. Com., Trenton, N. J.
Avery, John M., ref. ln. State L., Montpelier, Vt.
Ayer, T. P., supervisor of binding Columbia Univ. L., New York
City.
Babbitt, Grace E., ref. ln. P. L., Washington, D. C.
Bacon, Corinne, ln. Drexel Inst. L., and dir. L. Sch.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Baer, Harriet I., br. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Bailey, A. L., ln. Wilmington Inst. F. L., Wilmington, Del.
Bailey, C. H., Buffalo, N. Y.
Bailey, L. J., ln. P. L., Gary, Ind.
Bailey, T. D., Library Bureau, N. Y. City.
Bailey, Mrs. T. D., N. Y. City.
Baker, Julia A., ln. Austin Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Baldwin, Bessie L., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Baldwin, Clara F., sec'y Minn. P. L. Com., St. Paul, Minn.
Baldwin, E. L., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Baldwin, Emma V., sec'y to ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Ball, Fanny D., ln. Central High Sch. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Ball, Sarah B., ln. Business Br., F. P. L., Newark, N. J.
Banks, Mary, ln. P. Service L. of N. J., Newark, N. J.
Barber, Clara V., asst. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Barickman, Mrs. Rena M., ln. P. L., Joliet, Ill.
Barker, E. Elizabeth, ln. Y. M. A. L., Albany, N. Y.
Barker, Tommie D., head ref. dept. Carnegie L., Atlanta, Ga.
Bartlett, S. R., ln. Lockwood, Green & Co., Boston, Mass.
**Bascom, Elva L., Wis. F. L. Com., Madison, Wis.
Bastin, Dorothy, asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Bates, Helen C., chief order dept. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Bayer, Bertha, 2558 Fulton St., Toledo, O.
Becker, Emily F., ln. P. L., Catskill, N. Y.
Belden, C. F. D., ln. State L., Boston, Mass.
Belding, Mrs. Ellinor F., child. ln. Adriance Mem. L.,
Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Bell, Bernice, head child. dept. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Bell, Madelene M., senior asst. child. dept. F. P. L.,
Worcester, Mass.
Bell, Mary B., Louisville, Ky.
Benham, Mrs. Margaret E., asst. ln. P. L., Niagara Falls, N. Y.
Bennett, C. W., Bigelow Binder Co., N. Y. City.
Bennett, Mrs. M. M., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Betteridge, Grace L., head Trav. L. Sect. State L., Albany, N.
Y.
Bigelow, F. B., ln. N. Y. Society L., N. Y. City.
Bishop, W. W., supt. of Reading Room, L. of Congress,
Washington, D. C.
Blackford, Benjamin, supt. of supplies P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Blackwelder, Paul, asst. ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Blair, Mellicent F., asst. catlgr. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Blake, Mrs. Elveretta S., Lagrange, Me.
Blakely, Bertha E., ln. Mt. Holyoke Coll. L., So. Hadley, Mass.
Blanchard, Alice, Montpelier, Vt.
Bliss, H. E., ln. Coll. of City of New York, N. Y. City.
Bliss, L. E., Jr. stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Blumberg, Theresa, br. ln. Tremont Br. P. L., N. Y. City.
*Blunt, Florence T., asst. P. L., Haverhill, Mass.
Bogle, Sarah C. N., director Training Sch. for Child. Lns.,
Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Booth, Mary J., ln. Eastern Ill. State Normal Sch., Charleston,
Ill.
Borden, Fanny, ref. ln. Vassar Coll. L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Bostwick, A. E., ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Bostwick, A. L., municipal ref. ln. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Bowen, Mrs. Enrica H., stud. N. Y. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
Bowerman, George F., ln. P. L., Washington, D. C.
Bowker, R. R., editor "Library Journal," N. Y. City.
Bowker, Mrs. R. R., Glendale, Stockbridge, Mass.
Bowman, Ethel M., Plainfield, N. J.
Bowman, Florence M., ln. P. L., Plainfield, N. J.
Bowne, Carolyn A., asst. ln. P. L., Perth Amboy, N. J.
Brainerd, Jessie F., ln. P. L., New Rochelle, N. Y.
Bredin, Edith, asst. ln. Hiram Kelly Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Brett, Clara A., asst. ln. P. L., Brockton, Mass.
Brewitt, Mrs. Theodora R., ln. State Normal Sch. L., Lewiston,
Idaho.
Brigham, Gwendolyn, asst. A. L. A. Headquarters Office,
Chicago, Ill.
Brigham, Herbert O., ln. R. I. State L., Providence, R. I.
Brigham, Johnson, ln. State L., Des Moines, Ia.
Brigham, Mrs. Johnson, Des Moines, Ia.
Brigham, Miss, Des Moines, Ia.
Britton, Jasmine, child. ln. P. L., Spokane, Wash.
**Brooks, Maud D., ln. P. L., Olean, N. Y.
+Brown, Charles H., asst. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Brown, Mrs. C. H., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Brown, D. C., ln. State L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Brown, Gwendolen, br. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Brown, Helen Dawes, 48 Elm St., Montclair, N. J.
Brown, Walter L., ln. P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Brown, Zaidee M., agent F. P. L. Com., Boston, Mass.
Browning, Eliza G., ln. P. L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Bruncken, Ernest, asst. reg. of copyrights L. of Congress,
Washington, D. C.
Brundage, Nellie M., child. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Bucher, Mrs. Paul (Ethel A. Sherwood), order asst. N. Y. State
L., Albany, N. Y.
Bucknam, Edith P., chief cat. dept. P. L., Jamaica, L. I.
Budlong, Mrs. Minnie C., sec'y N. D. P. L. Com., Bismarck, N. D.
Burnett, Marguerite, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Burnham, Adele, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Burnite, Caroline, director child. work P. L., Cleveland, O.
Burns, Anna, ln. in charge central circulation P. L., N. Y.
City.
Burritt, E. I., N. Y. City.
Burwell, Ethel I., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Butler, H. L., American Law L., N. Y. City.
Butler, Mrs. H. L., 7 Glenada Pl., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Cady, Lora, Sag Harbor, L. I.
Camp, David N., pres. and chairman L. Com., New Britain Inst.,
New Britain, Conn.
Campbell, Mrs. Jennie, asst. Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Cargill, J. V., asst. ln. P. L., Milwaukee, Wis.
Cargill, Mrs. J. V., Milwaukee, Wis.
Carlton, W. N. C., ln. Newberry L., Chicago, Ill.
Carr, Henry J., ln. P. L., Scranton, Pa.
Carr, Mrs. Henry J., Scranton, Pa.
Carroll, May I., asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Carson, W. O., ln. P. L., London, Ont.
Carter, Julia, ln. child. br. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Carter, S. J., ref. ln. P. L., Milwaukee, Wis.
Caswell, Edward A., N. Y. City.
Chamberlain, C. A., Edison Electric Co. L., Boston, Mass.
Chamberlayne, Ellen F., asst. P. L., Binghamton, N. Y.
Chamberlin, Edith J., Bradford, Vt.
Chase, Jessie C., supt. Br. Libs. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Chase, Kate B., br. ln. Cornell Square Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Chase, Mrs. Mildred H., br. ln. F. L., Newton, Mass.
Cheney, Lucy, ln. F. L., Rutland, Vt.
Chivers, Cedric, bookbinder, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Christiansen, Bolette, Kongsvinger, Norway.
Christman, Jennie L., catlgr. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Christopher, Katharine M., stud. N. Y. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
Clark, Elizabeth V., ln. Carnegie F. L., Connellsville, Pa.
Clark, Mrs. George E., Skaneateles, N. Y.
Clark, Mabel, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Clark, S. M., asst. Richards L., Warrensburg, N. Y.
Clarke, Edith E., instr. Syracuse Univ. L. Sch., Syracuse, N. Y.
Clarke, Elizabeth P., ln. Seymour L., Auburn, N. Y.
Clatworthy, Linda M., ln. P. L. and Museum, Dayton, O.
Clement, Edith M., asst. Trav. L., N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Cloud, Josephine P., supt. of circ. P. L., Minneapolis, Minn.
Coe, Mrs. Frances R., reviser of catalog, P. L., Somerville,
Mass.
Colcord, Mabel, ln. Bureau of Entomology, Dept. of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C.
Colcord, Maude B., ln. Loring Reading Room, Plymouth, Mass.
Colson, F. D., law ln. N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Congdon, Mrs. William M. (Anne W.), L. visitor and director of
Trav. Libs., Providence, R. I.
Cook, O. S., trus. F. P. L., New Bedford, Mass.
Cooper, Isabella M., instr. Simmons Coll. L. Sch., Boston, Mass.
Copeland, Lora A., asst. P. L., Brockton, Mass.
Corliss, Mary, asst. Adriance Mem. L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Cornew, Elsie M., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Cornew, Mrs. H. K., Trenton, N. J.
Coughlin, Joseph D., Hampton, Va.
Cowley, Amy, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Cowper, Virginia S., L. Dept. John Wanamaker, N. Y. City.
Crain, Lucy B., supt. of child. work P. L., Somerville, Mass.
Crandle, Inez, ln. Dimmick Mem. L., Mauch Chunk, Pa.
Craver, H. W., ln. Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Craver, Mrs. H. W., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Crissey, Jane H., asst. P. L., Troy, N. Y.
Crosby, Caroline R., Milford, N. H.
Cunningham, Jesse, ln. Mo. Sch. of Mines, Rolla, Mo.
Curtis, Florence R., instr. Univ. of Ill. L. Sch., Urbana, Ill.
Custer, Florence B., Philadelphia, Pa.
Cutter, William P., ln. Engineering Societies L., N. Y. City.
Cutter, Mrs. William P., N. Y. City.
Dame, Katharine, catlgr. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Daniells, W. N., stud., Madison, Wis.
Darby, M. Claire, ln. Accountancy Ref. L., Ernst & Ernst,
Cleveland, O.
Darrow, Helen W., asst. ln. Skidmore Sch., Saratoga Springs, N.
Y.
Dauchy, C. A., asst. ln. Adriance Mem. L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Davis, Georgia S., statistician P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Davis, Mary G., child. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Davis, Mary L., ln. P. L., Troy, N. Y.
Davis, O. S., ln. P. L., Laconia, N. H.
Davis, Mrs. O. S., Laconia, N. H.
Dayton, Hazel I., asst. Osterhout F. L., Wilkes-Barré, Pa.
Dean, Florence M., asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Dean, Mathew, 1180 Dean St., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Dean, Mrs. Mathew, 1180 Dean St., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Decker, Cora M., asst. ln. P. L., Scranton, Pa.
Decker, C. V. A., Kingston, N. Y.
Dice, J. H., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Dick, Margaret S., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Dickerson, L. L., ln. Grinnell Coll. L., Grinnell, Ia.
*Dickey, Helene L., ln. Chicago Teachers' Coll. L., Chicago,
Ill.
Dickinson, Asa Don, editorial dept. Doubleday, Page & Co.,
Garden City, N. Y.
Dickinson, Mrs. A. D., Garden City, N. Y.
Diephuis, Albert, P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Dilks, A. Irene, Bureau of Municipal Research, Dayton, O.
Dingman, Annie P., Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Dixon, Vera M., ln. Applied Science L., Columbia Univ., N. Y.
City.
Donnelly, June R., teacher L. Economy Washington Irving High
Sch., N. Y. City.
Doren, Electra C, R. F. D. 13, Dayton, O.
Dougan, Alice M., asst. catalog dept. N. Y. State L., Albany,
N. Y.
*Dougherty, Anna R., chief art dept. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
*Dougherty, H. T., ln. Sayles P. L., Pawtucket, R. I.
*Dougherty, Mrs. H. T., Pawtucket, R. I.
Drake, Jeannette M., ln. P. L., Sioux City, Ia.
Drake, Ruth B., asst. catlgr. P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Draper, Anne E., ln. Bureau of Chemistry, Washington, D. C.
Draper, Miriam S., ln. Child. Museum L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Du Bois, Isabel, br. ln. P. L., Fort Wayne, Ind.
Du Bois, Mrs. Lanetta E., New Paltz, N. Y.
**Dudgeon, M. S., sec'y Wis. F. L. Com., Madison, Wis.
Duff, Ida J., child. ln. Bushwick Br. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Duncan, Anne S., Port Huron, Mich.
Dutcher, Marion F., catlgr. Adriance Mem. L., Poughkeepsie, N.
Y.
Dwyer, Winifred G., asst. F. P. L., Bayonne, N. J.
Earhart, Frances E., ln. P. L., Duluth, Minn.
Eastman, Edith L., asst. ln. Wesleyan Univ. L., Middletown,
Conn.
Eastman, Linda A., vice-ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Eastman, William R., Albany, N. Y.
Eastwood, Mary E., asst. N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Eaton, Alice L., ln. Norman Williams P. L., Woodstock, Vt.
Ehle, Mary E., ln. Potter Br. P. L., Utica, N. Y.
Elder, Vera, asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Elliot, Mrs. Portia W., Albany, N. Y.
Ellis, Ruth M., catlgr. Hamilton Coll. L., Clinton, N. Y.
Elston, Catharine, ln. Univ. of Pittsburgh L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Engle, Emma R., chief child. dept. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Entler, Marguerite H., asst. L. Assn., Portland, Ore.
Evans, Adelaide F., head catlgr. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Evans, Alice G., ln. F. P. L., Decatur, Ill.
Evans, G. H., ln. P. L., Woburn, Mass.
Evans, Margaret H., child. ln. P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Everhart, Ethel, child. ln. P. L. Br., N. Y. City.
Ewing, Ariel M., Philadelphia, Pa.
Fairbanks, Ellen A., Woodstock, Vt.
Farquhar, Alice M., br. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Farr, Mary P., L. organizer, Philadelphia, Pa.
Farrell, Winnifred, ln. Merrick P. L., Brookfield, Mass.
Farrington, Chas. E., br. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Fauteux, Aegidius, ln. Bibliotheque St. Sulpice, Montreal,
Canada.
*Faxon, F. W., mgr. L. dept. Boston Book Co., Boston, Mass.
*Faxon, Mrs. F. W., Boston, Mass.
*Faxon, Mrs. Marcus, 86 Huntington Ave., Boston, Mass.
Feazel, E. A., ln. Law L. Assn., Cleveland, O.
Feipel, L. N., catlgr. U. S. Naval Academy L., Annapolis, Md.
Feipel, Mrs. L. N., Annapolis, Md.
Field, O. J., chief clk. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Field, Pearl I., supervisor of special deposits P. L., Chicago,
Ill.
Finney, Byron A., ref. ln. Univ. of Mich. L., Ann Arbor, Mich.
Finney, Mrs. B. A., Ann Arbor, Mich.
Fisher, Mary C., Ossining, N. Y.
Fisk, Mary V., ln. Toledo Law Assn., Toledo, O.
Fison, H. W., ln. P. L., Malden, Mass.
Flagg, C. A., ln. P. L., Bangor, Me.
Fletcher, Fanny B., trus. Fletcher Mem. L. of Ludlow,
Proctorsville, Vt.
Flexner, Jennie M., head of circulation dept. F. P. L.,
Louisville, Ky.
Foote, Elizabeth L., br. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Ford, Eva M., asst. sec'y A. L. A., Chicago, Ill.
Fossler, Anna, supervisor serial dept. Columbia Univ. L., N. Y.
City.
Foye, Charlotte H., senior asst. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Francis, Gertrude, East Orange, N. J.
Franke, Helena C, ln. F. P. L., Bound Brook, N. J.
Freeman, Abigail A., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Freeman, Alice M., Boston, Mass.
Freeman, Marilla W., ln. Goodwyn Inst. L., Memphis, Tenn.
Freidus, Abraham S., chief Jewish division P. L., N. Y. City.
Frost, Elizabeth R., ref. ln. Silas Bronson L., Waterbury, Conn.
Frost, Sarah L., ln. Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.
Fuller, G. W., ln. P. L., Spokane, Wash.
Fuller, H. de W., asst. editor N. Y. "Nation," N. Y. City.
Fuller, Mrs. H. D., N. Y. City.
Fullerton, Caroline Q., ref. ln. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Fulton, Edith, br. ln. F. P. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Gamble, William Burt, chief. Tech. Div. N. Y. P. L., N. Y. City.
Gardner, Anna M. D., Troy, N. Y.
Gardner, Mrs. I. J., N. Troy, N. Y.
Garland, Caroline H., ln. P. L., Dover, N. H.
Garvin, Ethel, custodian special libs., P. L., Providence, R. I.
Gaston, Ethelwyn, Newark, N. J.
Gates, Edith M.. senior asst. F. P. L.. Worcester, Mass.
Gates, Marguerite L., F. P. L., Newark, N. J.
Gault, Bertha H., catlgr. Mt. Holyoke Coll. L., South Hadley,
Mass.
Gaylord, H. J., bookseller, Syracuse. N. Y.
Gaylord, Mrs. H. J., Syracuse, N. Y.
Geddes, Helen C, head catlgr. Bryn Mawr Coll. L., Bryn Mawr, Pa.
George, C. A., ln. F. P. L., Elizabeth, N. J.
George, Mrs. C. A., Elizabeth, N. J.
George, Miss, Elizabeth, N. J.
Gerber, May M., child. asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Gerould, J. T., ln. Univ. of Minn. L., Minneapolis, Minn.
Gibbs, Charlotte M., Wareham, Mass.
Gibbs, Laura R., catalog reviser Columbia Univ. L., N. Y. City.
Gilkey, Malina A., asst. catalog div. L. of Congress,
Washington, D. C.
Glenn, M. R., ln. American Bankers' Assn., N. Y. City.
Godard, G. S., ln. Conn. State L., Hartford, Conn.
Goddard, W. D., ln. Naval War Coll. L., Newport, R. I.
Goding, Sarah E., 1st asst. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Goeks, H. M., ln. Mott Haven Br. P. L., N. Y. City.
Goeppinger, Eva C, asst. P. L., So. Norwalk, Conn.
Goldberg, Bessie, head catlgr. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Gooch, Harriet B., instructor Pratt Inst., Sch. of L. Science,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Goodell, Frederick, asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Goodrich, N. L., ln. Dartmouth Coll. L., Hanover, N. H.
Goodwin, J. E., ln. Univ. of Texas, Austin, Tex.
Gould, C. H., ln. McGill Univ. L., Montreal, Canada.
Goulding, P. S., catalog ln. Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
Goulding, Mrs. P. S., Urbana, Ill.
Grabau, Mrs. Mary Antin, Scarsdale, N. Y.
Graf, W. H., N. Y. City.
Grant, Agnes M., asst. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Grasty, Katharine G., ln. Eastern High Sch. L., Baltimore, Md.
Graves, Eva W., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Gray, Elizabeth P., Washington, D. C.
Gray, Florence B., asst. leg. ref. dept. N. Y. State L.,
Albany, N. Y.
Green, C. R., ln. Mass. Agricultural Coll. L.. Amherst, Mass.
Green, Janet M., br. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Green, Lola M. B., catlgr. legal dept. Am. Tel. & Tel.
Accounting L., N. Y. City.
Greene, L. E., Haines Falls, N. Y.
Gunter, Lillian, ln. P. L., Gainesville, Tex.
Guntermann, Bertha, 1st asst. order and accession dept. F. P.
L., Louisville, Ky.
Gwyn, Julia R., br. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hackett, Ann, asst. Carnegie-Stout L., Dubuque, Ia.
Hackett, Irene A., ln. F. P. L., Englewood, N. J.
Hadley, Anna, ln. Gilbert Sch. L., Winsted, Conn.
Hafner, Alfred, bookseller, N. Y. City.
Hagey, E. Joanna, ln. P. L., Cedar Rapids, Ia.
Hagey, Mrs. E. M., Cedar Rapids, Ia.
Haines, Mabel R., ln. F. P. L., Summit, N. J.
Hall, Drew B., ln. P. L., Somerville, Mass.
Hall, Mrs. D. B., Somerville, Mass.
Hall, Mary E., ln. Girls' High Sch., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Halliday, Sara L., N. Y. City.
Halpert, Freda, asst. Carnegie L., Duquesne, Pa.
Halsey, Francis W., N. Y. City.
Halsey, Levantia, Umadilla, N. Y.
Hammond, Marie A., catlgr. Miami Univ. L., Oxford, O.
Handy, D. N., ln. Insurance L. Assn. of Boston, Boston, Mass.
Handy, Mrs. D. N., Boston, Mass.
Hardy, A. Marie, N. Y. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
Hardy, Mary T., asst. ref. dept. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Hardy, Sue, N. Y. City.
Haring, Freda, Richland L. Co., Quakertown, Pa.
Harris, Miss F. S., Roxborough L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Harrison, J. L., ln. Forbes L., Northampton, Mass.
Harron, Mrs. Julia S., P. L., Cleveland, O.
Harrsen, Meta P., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Hartwell, Mary A., catlgr. Pub. Doc. Office, Washington, D. C.
Hastings, C. H., chief of card section L. of Congress,
Washington, D. C.
Hatfield, Addie E., prin. and ln. State Normal Sch., Oneonta,
N. Y.
Haupt, Lura P., br. ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hawkins, Eleanor E., head catlgr. P. L., Kansas City, Mo.
Hawkins, Enid M., ln. Stevens Inst. of Technology, Hoboken, N.
J.
Hawkins, Jean, instructor N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Hawkins, Mrs. W. M., Buffalo, N. Y.
Hawks, Emma B., asst. ln. Dept. of Agriculture L., Washington,
D. C.
Hawley, Josephine, asst. ln. P. L., Scranton, Pa.
Hayes, Edith P., P. L., Somerville, Mass.
Hayes, Ethel M., acting ln. Tufts Coll. L., Tufts College, Mass.
Haynes, Emily M., ln. Worcester Polytechnic Inst., Worcester,
Mass.
*Haynes, Frances E., asst. ln. Mt. Holyoke Coll. L., So.
Hadley, Mass.
Haynes, Susan L., ln. Joshua Hyde P. L., Sturbridge, Mass.
Hazeltine, Mary E., preceptor Univ. of L. Sch., Madison, Wis.
Hedrick, Ellen A., catalog reviser Yale Univ. L., New Haven,
Conn.
Heitkamp, Aline A., br. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hemans, Ida M., ln. N. Y. State Normal Sch. L., Geneseo, N. Y.
Hendrick, Ellen A., New Haven, Conn.
Hennessy, Edith M., Hotel Belmont, N. Y. City.
Herber, Elizabeth R., chief child. and bindery depts. F. P. L.,
Bayonne, N. J.
Herman, Mary L., sec'y Town Room, Boston, Mass.
Hewitt, L. E., ln. Law Assn. of Philadelphia, Pa.
Hicks, F. C., asst. ln. Columbia Univ. L., N. Y. City.
Hicks, Mary L., asst. ln. P. L., Evansville, Ind.
Hiersemann, A., bookseller and publisher, Königstr. 29,
Leipzig, Germany.
Higgins, Alice G., child. ln. P. L., Utica, N. Y.
**Hill, Frank P., ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hill, Galen W., ln. Millicent L., Fairhaven, Mass.
Hill, Helen, ln. William Penn High Sch. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Hinsdale, Louise G., ln. F. P. L., East Orange, N. J.
Hiss, Sophie K., head catlgr. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hitchler, Theresa, supt. catalog dept. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hobart, Frances, ln. Bixby Mem. F. L., Vergennes, Vt.
Hodges, N. D. C., ln. P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Hoff, Mary C., Stamford, Conn.
Hoff, Susan H., Stamford, Conn.
Holliday, Sara L., Lederle Laboratories, 39 W. 38th St., N. Y.
City.
Holmes, Dagmar O., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Holmes, W. C., asst. tech. ln. Carnegie L., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Hopkins, Jessica, ln. P. L., Paducah, Ky.
Hopkins, Julia A., instructor Pratt Inst., Sch. of L. Science,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hopkins, Ruth G., child. ln. P. L. Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hopper, F. F., ln. P. L., Tacoma, Wash.
Horne, Lulu, ln. City L., Lincoln, Neb.
**Horton, Mabel P., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hosmer, Helen R., ln. General Electric Co., Schenectady, N. Y.
Hough, R. B., author and publisher, Lowville, N. Y.
*Howe, Harriet E., head catlgr. P. L., Minneapolis, Minn.
Hubbard, Mrs. Georgia M., head Hist. R. and Binding, Grand
Rapids, Mich.
Hubbell, Jane P., ln. P. L., Rockford, Ill.
Hughes, H. L., ln. F. P. L., Trenton, N. J.
Hulburd, Anna A., asst. Univ. of Ill. L., Urbana, Ill.
Hull, Fanny, br. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hunt, Clara W., supt. child. dept. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hunt, Marietta L., asst. ln. L. Assn., Portland, Ore.
Huntting, H. R., bookseller, Springfield, Mass.
Huston, Caroline B., director of Haines Falls F. L., Haines
Falls, N. Y.
Hutchenrider, Rose, 1st asst. Waco P. L., Waco, Tex.
Hutchinson, Mary D., br. ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Hutchinson, Susan A., ln. Museum L., Brooklyn Inst., Brooklyn,
N. Y.
Hyde, Sara G., reviser Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Ibbotson, J. D., Jr., ln. Hamilton Coll. L., Clinton, N. Y.
Imhoff, Ono M., ln. National Progressive League, N. Y. City.
Ingalls, Florence L., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Jameson, Mary E., stud. N. Y. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
*Jast, L. Stanley, honorary sec'y L. Assn. of Great Britain and
ln. Croydon P. Libs., London, Eng.
Jeffers, LeRoy, asst. ln. and chief book order dept. P. L., N.
Y. City.
Jennings, J. T., ln. P. L., Seattle, Wash.
Jessup, Maud M., P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Joeckel, Carleton B., supt. circulation dept. Cal. Univ. L.,
Berkeley, Cal.
Johnson, Florence A., ln. Town Room, Boston, Mass.
Johnson, Josephine M., asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Johnson, Sally W., Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, Pa.
Johnston, R. H., ln. Bureau of Railway Economics L.,
Washington, D. C.
Johnston, W. Dawson, ln. Columbia Univ. L., N. Y. City.
Johnstone, Ursula K., asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Jones, E. Kathleen, ln. McLean Hospital, Waverley, Mass.
Jones, Gardner M., ln. P. L., Salem, Mass.
Jones, Marion E., asst. Harlem Br. P. L., N. Y. City.
Jones, Mary L., ln. Bryn Mawr Coll. L., Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Jones, Mildred K., asst. Utica P. L., Utica, N. Y.
Jordan, Alice M., custodian child. dept. P. L., Boston, Mass.
Josephson, A. G. S., catlgr. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Josselyn, L. W., ln. P. L., Jacksonville, Fla.
Kammerling, Edith, asst. in charge civics dept. P. L., Chicago,
Ill.
Keator, Alfred D., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Kelley, Grace, asst. John Crerar L., Chicago, Ill.
Kellogg, Mrs. R. C., trus. Richards L., Warrensburg, N. Y.
Kelso, Tessa L., Baker & Taylor Co., N. Y. City.
Kendall, Alice G., "Library Journal," N. Y. City.
Keogh, Andrew, ref. ln. Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Kerr, W. H., ln. State Normal Sch. L., Emporia, Kan.
Kessel, Martha C., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Kiennicutt, Mrs., Worcester, Mass.
Kikelhan, R., Haines Falls, N. Y.
Kilbourne, F. W., editor of Publications, P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Kilbourne, Mrs. F. W., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Kimball, Florence B., catlgr. Sayles P. L., Pawtucket, R. I.
Kimball, W. C., chairman N. J. P. L. Com. and trus. P. L.,
Passaic, N. J.
Kimball, Mrs. W. C., Passaic, N. J.
King, Elizabeth McB., catlgr. legal dept. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co.,
N. Y. City.
King, Ellen, br. ln. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Kingsbury, N. C., vice-pres. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., N. Y. City.
Kinney, Grace E., card section L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Klingelsmith, Mrs. Margaret C., ln. Biddle Law L., Univ. of
Pa., Philadelphia, Pa.
Knodel, Emma, ln. Guiteau P. L., Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.
Knowles, Leah M., P. L., Trenton, N. J.
Koehl, Stephen, Tablet and Ticket Co., Woodhaven, L. I.
Kostomlatsky, Zulema, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Krause, Louise B., ln. H. M. Byllesby & Co., Chicago, Ill.
Krouse, Edna L., ln. F. P. L., Scottdale, Pa.
Lange, Alma G., child. ln. Withers P. L., Bloomington, Ill.
Lansing, Pauline D., order clerk P. L., Buffalo, N. Y.
Lapp, J. A., director Ind. Legislative Bu., Indianapolis, Ind.
Laskey, Julia, Washington, D. C.
Latham, Calhoun, ln. and supt. P. L. Bridgeport, Conn.
Latimer, Louise P., supervisor of work with Schs., P. L.,
Washington, D. C.
La Tourette, Alexandrine, ln. Carnegie P. L., Iron Mountain,
Mich.
Lauder, E. Louise, asst. catlgr. P. L., Binghamton, N. Y.
Leach, Howard S., asst. to ln. Princeton Univ. L., Princeton,
N. J.
Lease, Evelyn S., ln. Kellogg-Hubbard L., Montpelier, Vt.
Leavitt, Miss M. V., charge ref. gifts P. L., N. Y. City.
Lee, G. W., ln. Stone & Webster, Boston, Mass.
Leeper, Rosa M., ln. P. L., Dallas, Tex.
Legler, Henry E., ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Legler, Mrs. Henry E., Chicago, Ill.
Lemcke, Ernst, pub. and bookseller, N. Y. City.
Leonard, Grace F., ln. Providence Athenaeum, Providence, R. I.
Leonard, Mary, br. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Leonard, Miriam L., 1st. asst. catlgr. P. L., Minneapolis, Minn.
Lesch, R., Detroit Pub. Co., 15 W. 38th St., N. Y. City.
Lester, C. B., leg. ref. ln. N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Lewinson, Leah, br. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Lewis, Cecilia, child. ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Lewis, W. P., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Libby, Marie C., Summit, N. J.
Lichtenstein, Walter, ln. Northwestern Univ. L., Evanston, Ill.
Lien, E. J., ln. State L., St. Paul, Minn.
Light, Matilda M., Dayton, O.
Lindgren, Elin, Pratt Inst. F. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Lindholm, Marie F., asst. ln. P. Ser. Com. L., N. Y. City.
Linton, Gussie W., asst. ln., Johnstown, Pa.
Little, George T., ln. Bowdoin Coll. L., Brunswick, Me.
Lockwood, M. E., Haines Falls, N. Y.
Loring, Nano G., asst. ln. Coburn F. L., Owego, N. Y.
Lowenstein, Nina H., asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
McAneny, George, pres. Borough of Manhattan, N. Y. City.
McAlarney, Kathrine H., asst. child. dept. F. L., Philadelphia,
Pa.
McCambridge, Maria M., br. ln., Youngstown, O.
McCarty, Harriet D., ln. P. L., Sewickley, Pa.
McClelland, A. F., Passaic, N. J.
McClelland, Maude, ln. Girls' High Sch., Passaic, N. J.
McCombs, Charles F., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
McCormick, Ada M., indus. and civics dept. P. L., Fort Wayne,
Ind.
McDonagh, M. P., trus. P. L., London, Ont.
MacDonell, Mrs. A. F., ln. P. L., Bay City, Mich.
McDonell, Mrs., Bay City, Mich.
McGuiness, C. L., N. Y. City.
McKibben, Mrs. Florence, ln. P. L., Mt. Pleasant, Ia.
McKnight, Elizabeth B., ln. Barringer High Sch. Br. F. P. L.,
Newark, N. J.
McNeil, Laila A., catlgr. P. L., Brookline, Mass.
McVety, Margaret A., chief of Lending Dept. F. P. L., Newark,
N. J.
Madden, J. H., ln. American Brass Co., Waterbury, Conn.
Malone, Marcella, br. ln. Queens Borough P. L., N. Y. City.
Maltby, Mrs. Adelaide B., br. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
*Mann, B. Pickman, bibliographer, Washington, D. C.
*Mann, Mrs. B. P., Washington, D. C.
Mann, Laura, ln. Central High Sch. L., Washington, D. C.
Marion, G. E., ln. Arthur D. Little, Inc., L., Boston, Mass.
Markowitz, Augusta, br. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Martel, Charles, chief catalog div. L. of Congress, Washington,
D. C.
Martin, Lena, ln. P. L., Gadsden, Ala.
Martwick, Mr., mgr. Tablet & Ticket Co., N. Y. City.
Marx, H. F., ln. P. L., Easton, Pa.
Massee, May, editor A. L. A. Booklist, Chicago, Ill.
Massey, Orpha Z., ln. Retail Credit Co., Atlanta, Ga.
Masters, Lydia W., asst. F. P. L., Watertown, Mass.
Masterson, F. Adele, ln. L. and Hist. Soc., Goshen, N. Y.
Matthews, Etta L., ln. Jacob Tome Inst. L., Port Deposit, Md.
Matthews, Harriet L., ln. P. L., Lynn, Mass.
Matthews, Nan, ward principal, Chestertown, Md.
Maurice, Nathalie A., ln. Madison Square Church House L., N. Y.
City.
Mayo, Lillian L., 1st asst. South Br. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Medlicott, Mary, ref. ln. City L., Springfield, Mass.
Mendlowitch, Pauline, filer P. L., N. Y. City.
Merrill, Julia W., chief br. ln. P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Mettee, A. H., ln. L. Co. of Baltimore Bar, Baltimore, Md.
Milam, C. H., sec'y and state organizer P. L. Com. of Ind.,
Indianapolis, Ind.
Miller, Clara, ln. McClymonds P. L., Massillon, O.
Miller, Louise V., ln. F. L., Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.
Miller, Ruth T., child ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Miller, Mrs. Warwick, br. ln. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Mix, Faith, asst. Br. Dept. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Monrad, Anna M., reviser Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Montgomery, Thomas L., ln. State L., Harrisburg, Pa.
Montgomery, Mrs. T. L., Harrisburg, Pa.
Moore, Annie C., supervisor Child. Rooms, P. L., N. Y. City.
Morgan, Margaret, br. ln. P. L., Providence, R. I.
Morley, Linda H., br. ln. F. P. L., Newark, N. J.
**Morris, Louise R., F. P. L., Summit, N. J.
Morrison, Bird, br. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Morrow, J. F., Chicago, Ill.
Morse, Anna L., ln. Reuben McMillan F. L., Youngstown, O.
Morton, F. N., ln. United Gas Improvement Co., Philadelphia, Pa.
Morton, Mary E., catlgr. P. L., London, Ont.
*Moulton, J. G., ln. P. L., Haverhill, Mass.
Mudge, Isadore G., ref. ln. Columbia Univ. L., N. Y. City.
Mueser, Emilie, N. Y. City.
Mulford, Anna, trus. John Jermain L., Sag Harbor, N. Y.
*Munroe, E., Cambridge, Mass.
Murray, Margaret E., ln. Filene Ref. L., Boston, Mass.
Muzzy, A. Florence, asst. N. Y. P. L., N. Y. City.
Myers, Frances E., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Nason, Sabra L., acting ln. P. L., Waterloo, Ia.
Nelson, Peter, asst. archivist, State L., Albany, N. Y.
Newberry, Marie A., ref. asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Newhard, Mabel, ln. P. L., Virginia, Minn.
Newman, Frances, stud. Carnegie L. Training Sch., Atlanta, Ga.
Newman, Magdalen R., catlgr. Nat'l Museum L., Smithsonian
Inst., Washington, D. C.
Nissley, Mabel H., Leg. Ref. Bu., Harrisburg, Pa.
Nodek, Mathilda S., ln. Hebrew Inst. Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Nolan, Dr. E. J., ln. Academy of Nat. Sci. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Norman, Carl, mgr. Albert Bonnier's Pub. House, N. Y. City.
Norris, Loraine, br. ln. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Norton, Dorothea G., child ln. P. L., Yonkers, N. Y.
Noyes, Charlotte G., ln. General Electric Co. L., Schenectady,
N. Y.
Nunns, Annie A., sec'y to supt. State Hist. Soc., Madison, Wis.
O'Connor, Alice K., stud. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
*Ogden, E. Jane, asst. Art Dept. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Oko, A. S., ln. Hebrew Union Coll. L., Cincinnati, O.
Olcott, A. V. S., 38 W. 39th St., N. Y. City.
Oliphant, C. J., Longmans Green & Co., N. Y. City.
*Osborn, L. P., ln. Peabody Inst. L., Peabody, Mass.
*Osborn, Mrs. L. P., ln. Peabody Hist. Soc., Peabody, Mass.
Otter, Alice, Wayne, Pa.
Overton, Clara S., asst. child. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Overton, Florence, ln. Yorkville Br. P. L., N. Y. City.
Overton, Miss J. M., child. ln. N. Y. P. L., N. Y. City.
Page, Benjamin, Meriden, Conn.
Palmer, Mary B., ln. Carnegie L., Charlotte, N. C.
Palmer, Maud, Wareham, Mass.
Paltsits, V. H., chrm. P. Archives Com. of Am. Hist. Assn., N.
Y. City.
Parker, Glen, Baker & Taylor Co., N. Y. City.
Parker, John, ln. Peabody Inst., Baltimore, Md.
Parsons, Mary P., N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Partch, Isa L., br. ln. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Patterson, Edith, ln. P. L., Bloomsburg, Pa.
Peacock, J. L., ln. Memorial & P. L., Westerly, R. I.
Pearson, Edmund L., "The Librarian," Boston Transcript,
Newburyport, Mass.
Pearson, Mary K., child. ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Pendry, Eliza R., child. ln. Hiram Kelly Br. P. L., Chicago,
Ill.
Peoples, W. T., ln. Mercantile L., N. Y. City.
Peoples, Mrs. W. T., N. Y. City.
Perry, Everett R., ln. P. L., Los Angeles, Cal.
Perry, Mrs. E. R., Los Angeles, Cal.
**Peters, Mary G., ln. F. P. L., Bayonne, N. J.
Peterson, M. Leona, ln. P. Sch. L., Kane, Pa.
Phelan, J. F., chief of Branches, P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Phelps, Anna R., L. organizer N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Phelps, Edith A., ln. Carnegie L., Oklahoma City, Okla.
Phillips, Mary E., ex-ln., Oneonta, N. Y.
Pidgeon, Marie K., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Pierce, Frances M., ln. Fletcher Mem. L., Ludlow, Vt.
Pinneo, Dotha S., ln. P. L., Norwalk, Conn.
Plummer, Mary W., prin. L. Sch., P. L., N. Y. City.
Poole, F. O., ln. Assoc. of the Bar L., N. Y. City.
Porter, W. T., trus. P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Power, Effie L., supervisor child. work, P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Powers, W. H., ln. So. Dak. Agric. Coll. L., Brookings, S. D.
Pratt, Anne S., catlgr. Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Pratt, Edna B., organizer N. J. P. L. Com., Trenton, N. J.
Preston, Nina K., ln. Hall-Fowler Mem. L., Ionia, Mich.
Prevost, Marie L., asst. ln. F. P. L., Elizabeth, N. J.
Price, F. H., asst. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Prince, H. C., ln. State L., Augusta, Me.
Pritchard, Martha C, organizer., Scarsdale, N. Y.
Proudfoot, Helen, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Prouty, Louise, ln. Lorain Br. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Pugsley, Maud M., br. ln. F. P. L., Newark, N. J.
Putman, Herbert, ln. L. of Congress, Washington, D. C.
Radford, Mary R., ln. F. P. L., Muskogee, Okla.
Ranck, S. H., ln. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Randel, Mrs. H. H., Tablet & Ticket Co., N. Y. City.
Raney, M. L., ln. Johns Hopkins Univ. L., Baltimore, Md.
Rankin, G. W., ln. P. L., Fall River, Mass.
Rathbone, Josephine A., vice-dir. Sch. of L. Sci., Pratt Inst.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Rawson, Fannie C., sec'y Ky. L. Com., Frankfort, Ky.
Ray, Frances K., Medical ln. N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Redstone, E. N., Boston, Mass.
Reed, Amy L., ln. Vassar Coll. L., Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Reeves, Frances E., Schenectady, N. Y.
Reich, Pauline, 1st asst. Br. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Reid, Adelia, asst. ln. State L., Lansing, Mich.
Reinick, W. R., chief P. Doc. Dept., F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Reque, Anna C., classifier, P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Reynolds, Margaret, ln. Milwaukee-Downer Coll., Milwaukee, Wis.
Rhoades, Rachel, ref. ln. P. L., Superior, Wis.
Rhodes, Isabella K., asst. Ref. Dept. N. Y. State L., Albany,
N. Y.
Rice, P. N., asst. ref. ln. Ohio State Univ. L., Columbus, O.
Richards, Miss C., trus. Richards L., Warrensburgh, N. Y.
Richardson, E. C., ln. Princeton Univ. L., Princeton, N. J.
Richardson, Margaret, Waterloo, Ia.
Robbins, Mary E., ln. & chrm. L. faculty, Simmons Coll. L.,
Boston, Mass.
Roberts, Effie I., asst. ln. Carnegie L., Wabash, Ind.
Roberts, Mary H., asst. ref. ln. State L., Indianapolis, Ind.
Robinson, Helen F., dean's sec'y and head of R. R. Harvard
Divinity Sch., Cambridge, Mass.
Robinson, Julia A., supervising ln. State Institutions of Ia.,
Des Moines, Ia.
Robinson, Rev. L. M., ln. Phila. Divinity Sch., Philadelphia,
Pa.
**Robinson, Sylvia, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Rockwell, Anna G., ln. New Britain Inst., New Britain, Conn.
Roden, C. B., asst. ln. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Rogers, Katharine B., head catlgr. F. P. L., Trenton, N. J.
Rogers, Mary E., New Britain, Conn.
Rolland, Anna P., ln. P. L., Dedham, Mass.
Root, Mrs. Mary E. S., child. ln. P. L., Providence, R. I.
Roper, Eleanor, br. ln. Queens Borough P. L., Flushing, N. Y.
Rosenthal, Herman, in charge Slavonic Div., P. L., N. Y. City.
Rowell, W. C., Eastern rep. H. W. Wilson Co., N. Y. City.
Royall, Rebecca, ln. Carnegie L., Cleburne, Tex.
Ruckteshler, N. Louise, ln. Guernsey Mem. L. & Follett Mem.
Supreme Ct. Law L., Norwich, N. Y.
Rupp, Alice, N. Y. City.
Rush, C. E., ln. F. P. L., St. Joseph, Mo.
Rush, Mrs. C. E., St. Joseph, Mo.
Russell, Florence, ref. ln. F. P. L., New Haven, Conn.
Ryan, M. Lillian, asst. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Sackett, Josephine T., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Sanborn, H. N., ln. Univ. Club, Chicago, Ill.
Sanborn, W. F., ln. P. L., Cadillac, Mich.
Sanborn, Mrs. W. F., Cadillac, Mich.
Sanderson, Edna M., registrar N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Sargent, Abby L., ln. P. L., Medford, Mass.
Savage, Etta V., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Sawyer, Mrs. Harriet P., chief Instruc. Dept. P. L., St. Louis,
Mo.
Saxe, Mary P., ln. Westmount L., Montreal, Can.
Schaanning, Maja, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Schenk, F. W., law ln. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Schenk, Mrs. F. W., Chicago, Ill.
Scholefield, E. O. S., ln. Provincial L., Victoria, B. C.
Schooley, Altie, br. asst. P. L., Passaic, N. J.
Schwab, J. C., ln. Yale Univ. L., New Haven, Conn.
Sears, Minnie E., head catlgr., Minnesota Univ. L.,
Minneapolis, Minn.
Secombe, Annabell C., ln. F. L., Milford, N. H.
See, Alice, stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Settle, George T., ln. F. P. L., Louisville, Ky.
Settle, Mrs. George T., Louisville, Ky.
Severance, H. O., ln. Univ. of Mo. L., Columbia, Mo.
Sewall, W. F., ln. P. L., Toledo, O.
Sewall, Mrs. W. F., Toledo, O.
Seward, W. F., ln. P. L., Binghamton, N. Y.
Shaver, Mary M., classifier & catlgr. Vassar Coll. L.,
Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Shearer, A. H., Newberry L., Chicago, Ill.
Shelly, Adah, ln. P. L., Sault St. Marie, Mich.
Sherwood, Grace, dir. Legis. Ref. Bu., State L., Providence, R.
I.
Shivers, Anne O., ln. F. P. L., Perth Amboy, N. J.
Shoemaker, Katharine H., ln. Stephens Mem. L. of Manaynuk,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Sibley, Jessie G., child. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Sibley, Mrs. Mary J., acting ln. Syracuse Univ. L., Syracuse,
N. Y.
Simpson, Frances, asst. dir. L. Sch., Univ. of Illinois,
Urbana, Ill.
Slomann, P. F. V., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Small, A. J., law ln. Iowa State L., Des Moines, Ia.
Smith, Bessie Sargeant, supervisor Smaller Branches P. L.,
Cleveland, O.
Smith, Elizabeth, inst. Syracuse Univ. L. Sch., Syracuse, N. Y.
Smith, Elizabeth M., head Order Div. N. Y. State L., Albany, N.
Y.
Smith, Ellen G., ln. F. P. L., Walla Walla, Wash.
Smith, Faith E., dir. Training Class, P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Smith, Florence S., br. ln. P. L., Kansas City, Mo.
Smith, Irene, asst. Open Shelf Room, P. L., Denver, Colo.
Smith, Laura, chief Catalog & Ref. Depts., P. L., Cincinnati, O.
Smith, Mary A., ln. P. L., La Crosse, Wis.
Smith, Mary A., ln. F. L., Madison, Wis.
Smith, Miriam G., New Rochelle, N. Y.
Sneed, Mrs. Percival, princ. Carnegie L. Training Sch.,
Atlanta, Ga.
Snyder, Mary B., br. ln. Queens Borough P. L., L. I. City, N. Y.
Sornborger, Harriet B., ln. Bancroft Mem. L., Hopedale, Mass.
Spaulding, F. B., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Speck, Mrs. Laura, asst. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Sperry, Earl E., ln. & dir. L. Sch., Syracuse Univ. L.,
Syracuse, N. Y.
Spofford, Edith C., 340 W. 85th St., N. Y. City.
Spofford, Mrs. Edith F., ln. Bu. of Mines L., Washington, D. C.
Spofford, Mrs. Lucinda F., br. ln. P. L., Somerville, Mass.
Stearns, Lutie E., chief Trav. L. Dept., Wis. F. L. Com.,
Madison, Wis.
Stebbins, H. L., asst. ln. Assoc. of the Bar L., N. Y. City.
Stebbins, Mary F., child. ln. P. L., Cleveland, O.
Stechert, F. C., pres. F. C. Stechert Co., Inc., booksellers,
N. Y. City.
Stechert, Mrs. F. C., N. Y. City.
Steele, Edith McH., 1st. asst. Silas Bronson L., Waterbury,
Conn.
Steele, Elizabeth K., ln. F. P. L., Lorain, O.
Steele, Ruby E., ln. P. L., Ansonia, Conn.
Steiner, Bernard C., ln. Enoch Pratt F. L., Baltimore, Md.
Stetson, Willis K., ln. F. P. L., New Haven, Conn.
Stevens, Edward F., ln. Pratt Inst. F. L., & dir. Sch. of L.
Sci., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Stevens, Mrs. E. F., Brooklyn, N. Y.
*Stevenson, Luella M., 1st. asst. Carnegie F. L., Braddock, Pa.
Stewart, Edna S., Williamsport, Pa.
Stewart, Rose G., chief catlgr. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Stollberg, Luella E., child. ln. P. L., Toledo, O.
Stonehouse, M. E., asst. L., Y. M. A., Central L., Albany, N. Y.
Strohm, Adam, ln. P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Strong, George F., ln. Adelbert Coll. L., Western Reserve
Univ., Cleveland, O.
Strong, Mason, 7 Wall St., N. Y. City.
Studwell, Florence, N. Y. City.
Sturgis, Sarah L., Fort Wayne, Ind.
Subers, Helen D., L. organizer, Ashbourne, Pa.
Suter, Martha W., asst. in Book Selection & Annotation, N. Y.
State L., Albany, N. Y.
Sutherland, Miss, Westmount L., Montreal, Can.
Sutherland, Elizabeth M., Internat. Joint Com., Ottawa, Canada.
Sutliff, Mary L., instr. N. Y. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
Swartout, Jessamine E., ln. Heermance Mem. L., Coxsackie, N. Y.
Tarr, Anna M., ln. F. P. L., Clinton, Ia.
Taylor, Grace A., sr. asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Taylor, W. B. A., chief Ref. Accessions Div., P. L., N. Y. City.
Taylor, Mrs. W. B. A., N. Y. City.
Templeton, Charlotte, sec'y Neb. P. L. Com., Lincoln, Neb.
Thain, Mabel A., ln. P. L., Oak Park, Ill.
Thayer, Maude, ln. State L., Springfield, Ill.
Thompson, Dorothy H., asst. P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Thompson, Grace, asst. F. P. L., Newark, N. J.
Thompson, Laura E., supt. of Branches P. L., Grand Rapids, Mich.
Thompson, Mary, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Thomson, John, ln. F. L., Philadelphia, Pa.
Thornton, Ella M., State L., Atlanta, Ga.
**Thwaites, R. G., supt. Wis. State His. Soc., Madison, Wis.
**Thwaites, Mrs. R. G., Madison, Wis.
Tiefenthaler, Leo, ln. Municipal Ref. Br., P. L., Milwaukee,
Wis.
Tilton, Edward L., architect, N. Y. City.
Tobias, Ella F., asst. in charge Engineering L. Univ. of Mich.,
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Tobitt, Edith, ln. P. L., Omaha, Neb.
Todd, Mary E., head of Periodical Dept., P. L., Syracuse, N. Y.
*Tolman, Mary M., Manchester, N. H.
Townsend, Eliza E., supt. of Br. Work, P. L., Spokane, Wash.
Townsend, Ruth H., br. ln. Queens Borough P. L., Far Rockaway,
N. Y.
Towsley, Lena G., asst. child. ln. Pratt Inst. F. L., Brooklyn,
N. Y.
Travers, Rebecca B., child. room, 58th St. Br. P. L., N. Y.
City.
Tripp, Geo. H., ln. P. L., New Bedford, Mass.
Tripp, Mrs. G. H., New Bedford, Mass.
Turvill, Helen, instr. Univ. of Wis. L. Sch., Madison, Wis.
Underhill, Adelaide, assoc. ln. Vassar Coll. L., Poughkeepsie,
N. Y.
Underhill, Caroline M., ln. P. L., Utica, N. Y.
Underhill, Ethel P., child. ln. F. P. L., Worcester, Mass.
Utley, George B., sec'y American Library Assoc., Chicago, Ill.
Utley, Mrs. George B., Chicago, Ill.
Utterwick, Katharine A., asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Vail, Alice I., stud. L. Sch. Pratt Inst., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Vaile, Lucretia, stud. N. Y. S. L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Valentine, Amy, 1st. asst. P. L., N. Y. City.
Van Valkenburgh, Agnes, inst. L. Sch. P. L., N. Y. City.
Vasbinder, Lida C., Leg. Ref. Sec., State L., Albany, N. Y.
Voge, A. L., 1st asst. Card Sec. L. of Congress, Washington, D.
C.
Von Hohoff, Mrs. A. W., ln. Munic. Ref. L., N. Y. City.
Vrooman, Mrs. Kate B., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Wadlin, Horace G., ln. P. L., Boston, Mass.
Wait, Marie F., ln. Peddie Inst., Hightstown, N. J.
Wait, Maud A., 1st. asst. Central Circ. Br. P. L., N. Y. City.
Wales, Elizabeth B., sec'y Mo. L. Com., Jefferson City, Mo.
Walker, Catherine, stud. Carnegie L. Train. Sch., Atlanta, Ga.
Walkley, R. L., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Walter, Frank K., vice-dir. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Walton, Miss G. M., ln. State Nor. Coll., Ypsilanti, Mich.
Wandell, Caroline, instr. Syracuse Univ. L. Sch., Syracuse, N.
Y.
Ward, Helen M., supt. of circulation, P. L., Detroit, Mich.
Ward, Ruth L., sr. asst. Br. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Warner, Cassandra, ref. ln. P. L., Kansas City, Mo.
Warner, Philip W., bookseller, Leary, Stuart & Co.,
Philadelphia, Pa.
Warren, Althea H., ln. Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago, Ill.
Waters, Alice G., ln. Essex Inst., Salem, Mass.
Waters, Caroline E., ln. College for Women, Cleveland, O.
Watson, W. R., chief Div. of Educ. Extension, N. Y. State L.,
Albany, N. Y.
Webb, K. Louise, asst. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Webb, Nelle F., catlgr. Withers P. L., Bloomington, Ill.
Weber, Mrs. Jessie P., ln. Ill. State Hist. Soc., Springfield,
Ill.
Weitenkampf, Frank, chief Art Dept. P. L., N. Y. City.
Wellman, H. C., ln. City L., Springfield, Mass.
Wells, Marion H., child. ln. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Wetzell, Bertha S., catlgr. L. Co. of Phila., Philadelphia, Pa.
Wheeler, H. L., stud. N. Y. State L. Sch., Albany, N. Y.
Wheelock, Mary E., chief Binding Dept. P. L., St. Louis, Mo.
Whipple, Nellie M., asst. ln. P. L., Somerville, Mass.
Whitaker, Amelia, stud. Carnegie L. Training Sch., Atlanta, Ga.
Whitcomb, Adah F., ln. Hiram Kelley Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
White, Ella, child. ln. P. L., Cincinnati, O.
White, Gertrude F., child. ln. F. P. L., New Haven, Conn.
White, H. Elizabeth, ln. P. L., Passaic, N. J.
White, Mabel G., 1st. asst. br. ln. P. L., N. Y. City.
Whiteman, Edna A., supervisor Story Telling, Carnegie L.,
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Whitmore, Frank H., ln. P. L., Brockton, Mass.
Whitney, Esther, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Whittemore, Gertrude, ln. Narragansett L. Assoc., Peace Dale,
R. I.
Whittemore, Grace M. (Mrs. Everard), ln. P. L., Hudson, Mass.
Wigley, Laura M., asst. Queens Borough P. L., L. I. City, N. Y.
Wilcox, B. C., 317 E. 18th St., N. Y. City.
Wilken, Harriet E., ln. F. L., Fayetteville, N. Y.
Willets, Lora A., asst. Br. P. L., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Williams, Carrie L., asst. F. L., Newton, Mass.
Williams, Jennie C., instr. Margaret Morrison Carnegie Sch., C.
I. T., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Williams, Ora, asst. L. organizer P. L. Com., Indianapolis, Ind.
Williams, Sophie, asst. catlgr. Hamilton Coll. L., Clinton, N.
Y.
Williamson, Susan M., Elizabeth, N. J.
Willigerod, Alice, ln. P. L., Hazelton, Pa.
Willigerod, Mrs. Oscar, East Orange, N. J.
Wilsey, Della M., Pomona, Cal.
Wilson, H. G., sec'y P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Wilson, Mrs. H. G., Chicago, Ill.
*Wilson, H. W., pres. H. W. Wilson Co., publishers,
Minneapolis, Minn.
*Wilson, Mrs. H. W., Minneapolis, Minn.
Wilson, Margaret S., asst. ln. Norwalk L., Norwalk, Conn.
Wilson, Martha, state supervisor of Sch. Lbs., St. Paul, Minn.
Wilson, Mrs. R. H., bookseller, N. Y. City.
Wing, C. F., New Bedford, Mass.
Wing, Mrs. C. F., New Bedford, Mass.
Winnett, W. H., trus. P. L., London, Ont.
Wire, Dr. G. E., deputy ln. Worcester Co. Law L. & dir. P. L.,
Worcester, Mass.
Wolcott, J. D., ln. Bu. of Educ., Washington, D. C.
Wolter, Peter, mgr. L. Dept., A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, Ill.
Wood, Frances E., sr. asst. P. L. Br., Brooklyn, N. Y.
Wood, Grace I., 1st. asst. Carnegie L., Cleburne, Tex.
Wood, Mary W., ln. Blackstone Br. P. L., Chicago, Ill.
Woodard, Gertrude E., Law L. Univ. of Mich., Ann Arbor, Mich.
Woodcock, Mabel E., purchase asst. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Wooding, C. L., ln. F. P. L., Bristol, Conn.
Wooding, Mrs. C. L., Bristol, Conn.
Woodruff, Eleanor B., ref. ln. Pratt Inst. F. L., Brooklyn, N.
Y.
Wootten, Katharine H., ln. and dir. L. Train. Sch. Carnegie L.,
Atlanta, Ga.
Wright, C. E., ln. Carnegie F. L., Duquesne, Pa.
Wright, Ethel C., Cleveland, O.
Wright, Purd B., ln. P. L., Kansas City, Mo.
Wright, Rebecca W., sec'y Bd. of L. Com., State House,
Montpelier, Vt.
Wright, Ruth M., ln. State Nor. Sch., Tempe, Ariz.
Wyche, Benjamin, N. Y. Life Ins. Co., Atlanta, Ga.
Wyer, James I., Jr., dir. N. Y. State L., Albany, N. Y.
Wyer, Mrs. J. I., Jr., Albany, N. Y.
Wyer, William, Albany, N. Y.
Wynkoop, Asa, inspector P. Lib's, State L., Albany, N. Y.
Young, Gladys, stud. P. L. Sch., N. Y. City.
Young, Mrs. Olive P., John Jermain L., Sag Harbor, N. Y.
Yust, William F., ln. P. L., Rochester, N. Y.
Zachert, Adeline B., direc. of child. work, P. L., Rochester,
N. Y.
INDEX
Abbott, Lyman, letter from, 83.
Accessioning (of books), rpt. of com. on library administration, 126-8.
Affiliation of state library associations with A. L. A.,
amendment to constitution and by-law affecting, 167-8.
Affiliation with other than local, state and provincial
library associations, rpt. of com. on, 256-7.
Agricultural libraries section, round table, 258-9.
Ahern, Mary Eileen, reads letters at symposium, 82;
discusses work with college students, 198;
discusses library in relation to business, 218-9;
member of council, 236;
chrm. com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 241.
Allen, William H., addresses Reference librarians' round table, 342.
American Association of law libraries, proceedings, 362-4.
American Library Association, president's address, 73-82;
secretary's report, 99-103;
treasurer's report, 103;
rpt. of trustees of Carnegie and endowment funds, 111-3;
rpt. of executive board, 237-42;
rpt. of Council, 242-57;
election of officers, 236;
attendance summaries and register, 392-408.
A. L. A. Booklist, 105.
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.
program. See Program.
public documents. See Public documents.
travel. See Travel.
---- constitution, amendment to, 167;
by-law to, adopted, 168.
---- Council, amendment to constitution and by-law relative
to election of members to, 167-8.
---- Executive board, 237-42.
---- membership (rpt. of secretary), 100.
---- necrology (rpt. of secretary), 102-3.
---- publicity (rpt. of secretary), 100-1.
---- Publishing board, rpt. of (Legler), 105-10;
periodical cards, 105;
Booklist, 105;
new publications, 106;
reprints, 106;
A. L. A. catalog, 106-7;
Manual of library economy, 107;
advertising, 107;
foreign lists, 107;
financial report, 108;
sales of publications, 109-10.
---- registration for library position (rpt. of secretary), 101.
---- representatives at other conferences, 101-2.
Anderson, E. H., rpt. as member of finance com., 111;
presides second session, 144-ff;
president of A. L. A., 236-7;
chrm. program com., 242.
Antin, Mary, "The immigrant in the library," 145-9.
Andrus, Gertrude E., "How the library is meeting the changing
conditions of child life," 188-93.
Andrews, C. W., rpt. as chrm. com. on finance, 104;
moves amendment to by-law, 168;
discusses library in relation to business, 219;
chrm. finance com., 241;
participates in fiction discussion, 255;
rpt. as chrm. of affiliation com., 256-7.
Arnold, Sarah Louise, telegram from, 170.
"Art in the college library" (Weitenkampf), 315-9.
"As others see us," symposium, 82-98.
Attendance summaries and register. See American Library Association.
Ayer, C. W., obituary, 102.
Babbitt, C. J., memorial on, 364.
Bacon, Corinne, "Co-operation of libraries with library schools," 347-50;
chrm. Professional training sect., 352.
Bacon, Corinne, reviews Brieux, "La femme seule," 236.
Bailey, A. L., member of council, 236;
mem. com. on library training, 241;
chrm. com. on bookbinding, 242.
Ball, Sarah B., "What any library can do for the business
interests of the town," 336-9.
Bascom, Elva L., resignation as editor Booklist, 105.
Belden, C. F. D., mem. public documents com., 241;
mem. com. on federal and state relations, 242.
Bennett, Arnold, letter from, 83.
Best, Mrs. A. S., letter from, 83-6.
Bill drafting, "Law that stands the test" (Dudgeon), 206-10.
Billings, J. S., obituary, 102;
memorial resolution on, 169-70.
Bishop, W. W., participates in fiction discussion, 256.
Blackwelder, Paul, reviews Hine "Modern organization," 236;
mem. com. on federal and state relations, 242.
Bliss, H. E., "Some practical considerations regarding
classification for libraries," 309-15.
Blind, rpt. of com. on work with, 136-9;
com. on, 242.
Book, evolution of the. "World of print and the world's work:
president's address" (Legler), 73-82.
Bookbinding, rpt. of com. on, 113-4;
com. on, 242.
Bookbuying, rpt. of com. on, 114-25.
Books and reading. "The friendly book" (Walton), 224-9;
"How to discourage reading" (Pearson), 230-6.
Bostwick, Andrew L., presents paper on relations between the
municipal library and legislators, 382.
Bostwick, Arthur E., represents A. L. A. at North Dakota,
Minnesota and Iowa meetings, 101;
chrm. com. on administration, 241;
"The quality of fiction," 253-4;
"Administration of a catalog dep't," 266-7;
"Volume" of children's work in the U. S., 287-91.
Bowerman, G. F., mem. com. on administration, 241.
Bowker, R. R., member of Council, 236;
mem. com. on international relations, 242;
discussion, 384.
Brett, George P., letter from, 86.
Bronson, W. C., letter from, 86.
Brown, C. H., mem. travel com., 242.
Brown, D. C., "State-wide influence of the state library," 202-6;
mem. com. on federal and state relations, 242.
Brown, Zaidee, leads discussion, 364.
Browne, Francis Fisher, tribute to, 168.
Bruncken, Ernest, mem. public documents com., 241.
Bucknam, Edith P., sec'y of Catalog section, 275.
Budlong, Mrs. M. C., presents rpt. of com. on establishment
of new commissions, 374-6.
Burnite, C., "Values in library work with children," 282-7.
Business branches. "What any library can do for the business
interests of the town" (Ball), 336-9.
Business men, making the library useful to (Ranck), 210-4.
Business organizations, libraries in (Krause), 215-8.
Cable, George W., letter from, 86.
Carey, Miriam E., mem. com. on work with the blind, 242.
Carlton, W. N. C., member of executive board, 238;
mem. com. on arrangements College and reference section, 319.
Carnegie, Andrew, letter from, 83.
Carpenter, George O., mem. com. on library training, 241.
Carr, Henry J., chrm. resolutions com. public doc. round table, 359, 362.
Carson, W. O., participates in discussion, 254.
Catalog cards, simplified forms of, 274-5.
Catalog dep't, administration of a, from a cataloger's point
of view (Smith), 271-4.
Catalog dep't, administration of the, from a librarian's
point of view (Hopper), 259-66;
same (Bostwick), 266-7.
Catalog dep't, relation of the, to other dept's (Winser), 268-70.
Cataloging, rpt. of com. on cost and method of, 239-41.
Cataloging, request for permanent com. on, 241.
Catalog section, proceedings, 259-75.
"Cataloging for department libraries" (Sears), 325-30.
Charging systems and methods, rpt. of com. on library
administration, 128-31.
Charitable institutions. See Institutions.
Charter provisions, rpt. of com. on relations between the
library and the municipality, 243-5.
Charter provisions, rpt. of League com. on, 376-7.
Child life, changing conditions of (Smith), 184-8;
how the library is meeting the (Andrus), 188-93.
Children, section on library work with, proceedings, 275-300.
Children, values in library work with (Hunt), 275-82;
ditto (Burnite), 282-7.
Children's work in the U. S., volume of (Bostwick), 287-91.
Churchill, Winston, letter from, 86-7.
"Civics room in a medium-sized town" (Kammerling), 339-42.
Clarke, Elizabeth P., discusses prison libraries, 368.
Classification, some practical considerations regarding, for
libraries (Bliss), 309-15.
Classifiers, com. on code for, rpt. of, 238.
Claxton, P. P., letter from, 87-8.
Cleavinger, J. S., mem. com. on administration, 241.
Coit, Bertha, obituary, 102.
College and reference section, proceedings, 300-42.
College librarians, what c. l. can do for library schools
(Rathbone), 319-20.
College library and research work (Fletcher), 321-5.
College library, art in the (Weitenkampf), 315-9.
College library, instruction in the use of a (Salmon), 301-9.
Constitution. See A. L. A. constitution.
"Co-operation of libraries with library schools" (Bacon), 347-50.
Co-ordination, com. on, 242.
Countryman, Gratia A., second vice-president of A. L. A., 236.
Cowing, Agnes, chrm. sect. on work with children. 300.
Crandall, F. A., "Proposing an executive gazette," 359-61.
Craver, H. W., member of executive board, 236.
Crowell, J. F., paper read by title, 385.
Cunningham, Jesse, rpt. as chrm. of com. on clippings, 384.
Curtis, Florence R., discusses prison libraries, 367.
Cutter, W. P., mem. com. on federal and state relations, 242;
discussion, 315.
Cutter, W. P., reads letters at symposium, 82.
Davis, Jesse B., Outline of work in vocational guidance
(quoted) in paper by Ranck, 297-8.
Davis, Olin S., discusses library work with schools, 198;
discussion, 365.
Dawley, F. F., member finance com., 241.
Dayton public library, resolution of sympathy for, 300.
Defectives and dependents, book influences for (Robinson), 177-82.
Delfino, Mrs. E. N., mem. com. on work with the blind, 242.
Department libraries, cataloging for (Sears), 325-30.
Doane, W. C., obituary, 102.
Dramatic taste, development of, 83-6.
Du Bois, W. E. B., letter from, 88.
Dudgeon, M. S., "Law that stands the test," 206-10;
mem. public documents com., 241;
chrm. com. to investigate insurance rates, 246.
Duff, Ida, acts as sec'y of sect. on work with children, 275.
Election of officers. See American Library Association.
Elmendorf, Mrs. H. L., re-elected member of publishing board, 237.
Ely, Mary, vice-chrm. of sect. on library work with children, 300.
Endowment funds, rpt. of trustees, 111-3.
Executive board. See A. L. A. Executive board.
"Executive gazette, proposing an" (Crandall), 359-61.
Exhibits, library school, 182-3.
Faxon, F. W., chrm. travel com., 242.
Federal and state relations, rpt. of com. on, 126;
com. on, 242.
Federal prisons, libraries in, 366-8.
Fiction, quality of,--symposium, 246-ff.
Field, O. J., second v.p., Am. Assn. of law lib., 364.
Field, Pearl I., reviews Tarbell "The business of being a woman," 236.
Finance, rpt. of com. on (Andrews), 104; com. on, 241.
Fitzgerald, J. F., letter from, 88-9.
Fletcher, R. S., "The college library and research work," 321-5.
Flexner, Jennie M., discusses libraries in jails, 373-4.
Foreigners, library work among (Antin, Maltby, Rush), 145-58.
Foreigners. See also Immigrants.
Freeman, Marilla W., "Scientific management, and the
reference department as a bureau of information," 331-6.
"Friendly book" (Walton), 224-9.
Garland, Hamlin, letter from, 89.
Gillis, J. L., mem. com. on co-ordination, 242.
Godard, G. S., chrm. public documents com., 241;
presides Public documents round table, 352.
Goldthwaite, Lucile, mem. com. on work with the blind, 242.
Gooch, Harriet B., presides Catalog section, 259.
Goodrich, N. D., discussion, 309;
reads paper by Fletcher, 320.
Gould, C. H., chrm. com. on co-ordination, 242;
participates in fiction discussion, 256.
Grading, specialization and, in library schools (Plummer), 343-7.
Great Britain, present conditions and tendencies of library
work in (Jast), 139-44.
Green, C. R., presides Agricultural lib. sect., 258.
Griffis, W. E., letter from, 89.
Hadley, Chalmers, mem. com. on library training, 241;
mem. com. to investigate insurance rates, 246.
Hall, G. Stanley, letter from, 89-90.
Hall, Mary E., addresses assn. on enlarging scope of library
work in high schools, 197;
participates in general discussion on subject, 198-9.
Hartwell, Mary A., reads paper by Sup't of Doc., 352;
discussion, 358.
Hasse, Adelaide R., mem. public documents com., 241.
Hawks, Emma B., acts as sec'y Agricultural lib. sect., 258.
Henderson, C. R., letter from, 90.
Herrick, Robert, letter from, 90-1.
Hicks, F. C., presides College librarians round table, 319.
Hill, Frank P., letter from, regarding participation in
Leipzig exposition, 238;
mem. com. on international relations, 242;
participates in fiction discussion, 255.
History, what can the library do to encourage the study of
American?, 92-3.
Hobart, Frances, discusses work with schools, 199;
discussion, 365.
Hodges, N. D. C., mem. com. on co-ordination, 242.
Hohoff, Mrs. A. W., presents paper on municipal reference
work in N. Y., 382.
Hopkins, Julia A., sec'y Professional training sect., 352.
Hopper, F. F., "Administration of the catalog dep't from a
librarian's point of view," 259-66.
Hosmer, Helen R., paper on the library of the research
laboratory, General Electric Co., 383.
Hospitals. "Some problems of the institution library
organizer in the state hospitals" (Jones), 369-73.
Hough, Emerson, letter from, 91.
Howe, Frederic C., letter from, 91-2.
Hunt, Clara W., "Values in library work with children," 275-82.
"Instruction in the use of a college library" (Salmon), 301-9;
questionnaire sent out by A. L. A., 309.
Institutions, library work in charitable and penal. "Book
influences for defectives and dependents" (Robinson), 177-82;
"Some problems of the institution library organizer in the
state hospitals" (Jones), 369-73.
Insurance rates for libraries, com. to investigate, 246.
International relations, com. on, 242.
"Immigrants as contributors to library progress" (Maltby), 150-4.
"Immigrant in the library" (Antin), 145-9.
Irwin, Jennie S., obituary, 102.
Irwin, Wallace, letter from, 92.
Jameson, J. F., letter from, 92-3.
Jast, L. Stanley, "Present conditions and tendencies of
library work in Great Britain," 139-44;
participates in fiction discussion, 256.
Jewett, W. K., obituary, 102.
Johnson, Clifton, letter from, 93.
Johnston, W. D., "Proposal for a catalog of university serial
publications," 330;
paper on relation between special and general libraries, 383.
Jones, Edith K., "Some problems of the institution library
organizer in the state hospitals," 369-73.
Jordan, David Starr, letter from, 93.
Jusserand, J. J., letter from, 93-4.
Kerr, Willis H., "Normal schools and their relation to
librarianship," 193-7;
mem. of council, 246.
Keogh, Andrew, presides College and reference section, 300.
Kingsbury, N. C., presents paper on the library as a modern
necessity, 382.
Kimball, Theodora, paper read by title, 383.
Kammerling, Edith, "A civics room in a medium sized town," 339-42.
Kiser, S. E., letter from, 94.
Koch, T. W., represents A. L. A. at Indiana meeting, 101;
mem. com. on co-ordination, 242.
Kohlsaat, C. C., letter from, 94.
Krause, Louise B., "Libraries in business organizations;
their expanding function," 215-8.
Labor saving devices, 133.
Lane, W. C., mem. com. on international relations, 242;
mem. com. on co-ordination, 242.
Lapp, J. A., mem. public documents com., 241.
Larson, C. A., obituary, 102.
League of library commissions, proceedings, 364-82.
Lee, Gerald Stanley, letter from, 94-5.
Lee, Jennette, letter from, 95-6.
Legislative reference work, present status of (Lester), 199-202;
"The law that stands the test" (Dudgeon), 206-10.
Legislative reference work. See also Municipal reference library.
Legler, Henry E., president of A. L. A., presides at sessions, _passim_;
president's address, 73-82;
represents A. L. A. at Ohio, Illinois-Missouri and South
Dakota meetings, 101.
Leipzig exposition, rpt. of com. on international relations
respecting participation in, 237-8;
special com. on, appointed, 238-9.
Lester, C. B., "Present status of legislative reference work," 199-202.
Librarianship, ideal of, 95.
Libraries, rpt. of com. on relations between, and the
municipality, 243-5.
Library administration, rpt. of com. on, 126-33;
com. on, 241.
Library commissions, rpt. of com. on establishment of new
(Budlong, chrm.), 374-6.
Library, instruction in the use of a college (Salmon), 301-9.
Library plans (rpt. of secretary), 101.
Library post, rpt. of com. on, 377-8.
Library post. See also Parcel post.
Library schools, co-operation of libraries with (Bacon), 347-50.
Library school instructors, account of the winter meetings of, 351-2.
Library schools, proposed examination of, 134-6.
Library schools, rpt. of the com. on methods of publicity for, 350.
Library schools, specialization and grading in (Plummer), 343-7.
Library schools, what college librarians can do for (Rathbone), 319-20.
Library training, rpt. of com. on, 134-6; com. on, 241.
Lighting, rpt. of com. on ventilation and, of library buildings, 245-6.
Lindholm, Marie F., presents paper at Special Lib. assn., 385.
Locke, G. H., mem. com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 241.
Luce, Robert, addresses Special libraries assn., 384.
McAneny, George, "The municipal reference library as an aid
in city administration," 219-24.
McClelland, Maude, "Work of a high school branch," 295-6.
Maltby, Adelaide B., "Immigrants as contributors to library
progress," 150-4.
"Man in the yards" (Rush), 154-8.
Martel, Charles, chrm. of Catalog section, 275.
Marvin, Cornelia, member of council, 236;
mem. com. on library training, 241.
Massee, May, elected editor Booklist, 105.
Matthews, Brander, letter from, 96.
Mendenhall, Ida M., library instruction in normal schools, 374.
Merrill, W. S., presents rpt. for com. on code for classifiers, 238;
discussion, 315.
Meyer, H. H. B., presents paper at Special libraries assn., 385.
Milam, C. H., presides at League of lib. com., 364.
Mitchell, S. Weir, letter from, 96.
Montgomery, T. L., mem. com. on federal and state relations, 242.
More, P. E., letter from, 96.
Moulton, J. G., "Post-conference trip," 386-91.
"Municipal reference library as an aid in city
administration" (McAneny), 219-24.
Municipal reference library. See also Legislative reference library.
Municipal reference work. "A civics room in a medium-sized town," 339-42.
Municipal yearbook, rpt. on (Ranck), 385.
Municipality, rpt. of com. on relations between library and, 243-5.
Murray, Rose G., mem. com. on bookbinding, 242.
National Education Association, rpt. of com. on co-operation with, 125-6;
com. on, 241.
Necrology. See A. L. A. necrology.
Negro. "What of the black and yellow races?" (Yust), 159-67.
Newberry, Marie A., mem. com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 241.
"Normal schools and their relation to librarianship" (Kerr), 193-7.
Oklahoma City, extends invitation for 1914 meeting, 238.
Organizing small libraries, round table on, 364-6.
Owen, T. M., mem. public documents com., 241;
mem. com. on federal and state relations, 242.
Page, T. N., letter from, 96.
Parcel post for books, rpt. of com. on federal and state relations, 126.
Parcel post. See also library post.
Patterson, J. R., mem. com. on bookbinding, 242.
Pearson, E. L., "How to discourage reading," 230-6.
Pension systems (rpt. of secretary), 101.
Phelan, J. F., mem. travel com., 242.
Plummer, Mary W., mem. of council, 246;
"Specialization and grading in library schools," 343-7.
Poole, F. O., mem. finance com., 241;
presides Am. assn. of law lib., 362;
addresses same, 362-3;
president same, 364.
Post-conference trip (Moulton), 386-91.
Power, Effie L., presides at section on library work with children, 275.
Pratt Institute, library exhibit at, 182-3.
Prince, H. C., discussion, 309.
Prisons, libraries in, 366-9.
Professional training section, proceedings, 343-52.
Program com., 242.
Public documents, com. on, 241.
Public documents, resolutions concerning printing and
distribution of, 256.
Public documents round table, 352-62.
Publication committee, rpt. of, 378-9.
Publicity, rpt. of the com. on methods of, for library schools, 350.
Publishing Board. See A. L. A. Publishing Board.
Putnam, Herbert, presents minute on J. S. Billings, 169;
member of executive board, 236;
chrm. com. on international relations, 242;
mem. com. on co-ordination, 242.
"Quality of fiction"--symposium, 246-ff.
Questionnaires, 132-3.
Ranck, S. H., discusses proposed by-law to constitution, 168;
discusses questionnaires, 183-4;
"Making a library useful to business men," 210-4;
mem. public documents com., 241;
mem. com. to investigate insurance rates, 246;
mem. of Council, 246;
"The library's opportunities in vocational guidance," 296-9.
Rathbone, Josephine A., describes exhibit at Pratt Institute, 182-3;
reviews "The great analysis," 236;
"What college librarians can do for library schools," 319-20.
Reed, Amy L., acts as sec'y College and reference section, 300.
Reference librarians' round table, 330-42.
Reference work. "Scientific management, and the reference
department as a bureau of information (Freeman)," 331-6.
Research work, college library and (Fletcher), 321-5.
Richardson, E. C., mem. com. on international relations, 242;
discussion, 309, 315.
Rider, Mrs. Gertrude T., mem. com. on work with the blind, 242.
Robbins, Mary E., mem. of council, 246.
Robinson, Julia A., "Book influences for defectives and
dependents." 177-82;
mem. com. on work with the blind, 242;
discusses prison libraries, 366-7.
Roden, C. B., reads letters at symposium, 82;
rpt. as treasurer, 103.
Root, A. S., chrm. com. on library training, 241.
Ropes, W. L., obituary, 102.
Rural communities, library work in. "The woman on the farm"
(Stearns), 173-6.
Rural school library, possibilities of the (Wilson), 291-4.
Rush, Charles E., "The man in the yards," 154-8.
Salmon, Lucy M., "Instruction in the use of a college library," 301-9.
Sawyer, Laura M., chrm. com. on work with the blind, 242.
Schaffer, C. W., mem. exec. com. Am. Assn. of law lib., 364.
Schwab, J. C., mem. com. on co-ordination, 242.
Schenk, F. W., serves as sec'y Public documents round table, 352;
first v.p. Am. assn. of law lib., 364.
Scholefield, E. O. S., exec. com. Am. assn. of law lib., 364.
Schouler, James, letter from, 96-7.
Schools and libraries, co-operation between, 87-8;
as civic centers, 91-2.
Schools, library work with, 193-ff.
Schools. "Possibilities of the rural school library" (Wilson), 291-4.
Schools. "Work of a high school branch" (McClelland), 295-6.
Scientific management, and the reference department as a
bureau of information (Freeman), 331-6.
Secretary's report (Utley), 99-103.
Sears, Minnie E., "Cataloging for department libraries," 325-30.
Serial publications, proposal for a catalog of university
(Johnston), 330.
Sheldon, E. W., trustee of endowment fund, 236.
Small, A. J., mem. public documents com., 241;
mem. exec. com. Am. assn. of law lib., 364.
Smith, Faith E., "Changing conditions of child life," 184-8;
mem. com. on library training, 241.
Smith, Laura, "Administration of a catalog dep't from a
cataloger's point of view," 271-4.
Sneed, Mrs. Percival, participates in fiction discussion, 256.
Soule, C. C., obituary, 103;
memorial resolution on, 169.
Special libraries association, proceedings, 382-6.
Specialization and grading in library schools (Plummer), 343-7.
State library, state-wide influence of the (Brown), 202-6.
Stearns, Lutie E., "The woman on the farm," 173-6;
discusses prison libraries, 368.
Steiner, B. C., reviews Crispi's Memoirs, 236;
chrm. com. on federal and state relations, 242;
participates in fiction discussion, 254.
Stevens, E. F., "Working library for the artisan and the
craftsman," 176-2.
Strohm, Adam, mem. com. on administration, 241.
Study outline com., rpt. of, 379-81.
Tarkington, Booth, letter from, 97.
Taylor, Nelson, obituary, 103.
Technology. "The working library for the artisan and the
craftsman" (Stevens), 170-2.
Templeton, Charlotte, discusses prison libraries, 369.
Thomson, John, mem. of council, 246.
Thwaites, R. G., reads letters at symposium, 82.
Tomlinson, E. T., letter from, 97-8.
Travel committee, appropriation for expenses voted to, 239;
membership of, 242.
Treasurer's report (Roden), 103.
Trowbridge, J. T., letter from, 98.
Tyler, Alice S., member of council, 236;
mem. com. on library training, 241;
congratulatory message to, 382.
Underhill, Ethel, sec'y sect. on library work with children, 300.
Use of a college library, instruction in the (Salmon), 301-9.
Utley, George B., rpt. of sec'y, 99-103;
represents A. L. A. at Illinois-Missouri and Oklahoma meetings, 101;
lectures before library schools, 102;
mem. of program com., 242.
Ventilation and lighting of library buildings, rpt. of com. on, 245-6.
Vocational guidance, the library's opportunities in (Ranck), 296-9.
Wadlin, H. G., "The quality of fiction," 246-53.
Wallace, F. C., paper by, 352-8.
Wales, Elizabeth B., presents rpt. of com. on charter provisions, 376-7.
Walter, F. K., reviews Weyl, "The great democracy," 236;
presides Professional training sect, 343.
Walton, G. M., "The friendly book," 224-9.
Warren, Althea H., reviews Antin, "The promised land," 236.
Warren, Irene, mem. com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 241.
Weitenkampf, Frank, "Art in the college library," 315-9.
Wellman, H. C., presents minute on C. C. Soule, 169;
first vice-president of A. L. A., 236;
resigns as non-official member of executive board, 238;
mem. of program com., 242.
Whitlock, Brand, letter from, 98.
Whitney, E. L., treas. Am. assn. of law lib., 364.
Wildman, Bertha S., obituary, 103.
Wilson, H. W., paper on problems of printed indexes in
special fields, 385.
Wilson, Martha, "Possibilities of the rural school library," 291-4;
speaks on co-operation between library commissions and state
boards of education, 374.
Windsor, P. L., "Account of the winter meetings of library
school instructors," 351-2.
Winser, Beatrice, "Relation of the catalog dep't to other
dep'ts," 268-70.
Wolcott, J. D., discussion, 309.
"Woman on the farm" (Stearns), 173-6.
Woodard, Gertrude E., sec'y Am. assn. of law lib., 364.
Wood, Harriet A., mem. com. on co-operation with N. E. A., 241.
Wootten, Katharine T., reviews Goldmark "Fatigue and efficiency," 236.
"Working library for the artisan and the craftsman" (Stevens), 170-2.
World of print and the world's work; president's address (Legler), 73-82.
Wynkoop, Asa, discusses prison libraries, 368-9.
Yust, W. F., "What of the black and yellow races?" 159-67.
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were
corrected.
Punctuation normalized.
Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.
Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.
Bold markup is enclosed in =equals=.
Sans serif font markup is enclosed in ~tildes~.
Assigned missing anchors for the second and third footnotes at
the end of the table on p. 291.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Papers and proceedings of the thirty-fifth general meeting of the American Library Association, 1913" ***
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