Part 20 (1/2)

Without such aid, given continually and systematically, the library fails in the princ.i.p.al end for which it was founded--the elevation and instruction of the people. We might as well turn our children into a school-house, fully furnished with books and apparatus, but with only a janitor to see that no injury is done to them, and expect the children to make a wise use of their opportunities, to take up and pursue the proper studies without the aid of a master, as to give children the free range of a great library and expect them undirected to make a wise use of its advantages as a means of education. It is, therefore, in my opinion, a most pernicious error to encourage young people, of the lower cla.s.ses especially, to come to a library, and to give them poor stories in the mistaken belief that, the taste for reading being developed, they will naturally and surely rise from these to better books. Such a belief is contrary to all our experience of human nature. With careful guidance and restraint a boy may be brought from the Dime novel to read Scott and Macaulay. But without this restraint and guidance, where one will rise, a hundred, a thousand rather, will remain at the level from which they started, or more naturally sink to still lower depths.

The question is, Can anything be done to help the young who throng our public libraries to read well and wisely? Shall these boys and girls, with their unknown powers both for good and evil, be left to grope helplessly amid these treasures of wisdom and knowledge which our libraries contain, or shall the attempt at least be made to give them a kindly and intelligent guidance? This work, of such incalculable importance, I hasten to say, is already well done to a certain extent by a few librarians in the country. But it is a work which requires time, patience, tact, an insight into character, and a very varied and extensive knowledge. It is evident that the librarians who combine these requisites are few in number. It is a work which cannot be done by them as a cla.s.s. Nor can it be done by the ordinary catalogues, however skilfully prepared. For it is evident that there needs to be some personal knowledge of each reader's capacities in order to help him intelligently and profitably. Nor is it something which the school-teachers, willing though many of them are, can do, except in a limited degree, as many of those who need help are not school-children.

There are, however, a few persons in every town fitted by their education and their circ.u.mstances in life for this work, and it is to them we must finally appeal.

The most practical plan, presenting on the whole the fewest difficulties, seems to be the following: Let those persons who are willing to make the attempt to give this instruction in reading choose each a subject, as general History, the History of the United States, Science, Travels, Biography, Fiction, or Children's stories, and see what their public library contains on these subjects. In due time notice could be given that all persons wis.h.i.+ng help in the choice of books in any of these subjects could be aided by applying to the librarian. He would refer the inquirer to that person who has chosen this subject, who will naturally endeavor to find out something of the character, circ.u.mstances, and abilities of the applicant before selecting the books best fitted in his or her opinion for him to read. No doubt, at first, there would be few to apply, and mistakes would be made from lack of experience. But, if only one reader was substantially aided, if only one bright youth was rescued from the danger of dissipating his energies by aimless or depraving reading, all the labor would be amply rewarded, to say nothing of the benefit which the guide himself, in preparing for his work, would receive. I do not believe, however, that the applicants for guidance would be few, when it was known among the work-people of our mills, our shops and stores, among the poor, that every one coming to the library asking for aid would find some one ready, as it were, to take him by the hand, and lead him from book to book, so long as he needed help. I am confident that it would be an invaluable service if some one or two persons should take the pains to become acquainted with the character of the books for the children and the novels contained in a library. There are many parents who feel instinctively the truth of the words of F.W. Robertson, that ”a man's character and mind are moulded for good or evil far more by the forms of imagination which surround his childhood than by any subsequent scientific training.” Many an anxious but ignorant parent who sees in her boys and girls a craving for books, at which she rejoices with trembling, would turn with heart-felt grat.i.tude--I speak with the fullest confidence, because I speak from experience--to one who would give them advice as to the books which their children might safely read and those which they should shun.

It is only by some such means as this that the public library can be made a real educating power for the ma.s.ses. In far too many places, now, it is simply a place where children can get story-books at the public expense. This cannot long continue, and I believe that the greater part of the libraries which continue to do this work without an effort to fulfil their higher mission, will surely and inevitably die, as the District School and Agricultural libraries died fifty years ago. The responsibility rests with the people of each place where there is a public library, as to which of two ends shall be reached. It may be merely a means for furnis.h.i.+ng amus.e.m.e.nt for an hour, or it may be a central beacon from whence the rays of light shall stream into every house.

ADAPTATION OF LIBRARIES TO CONSt.i.tUENCIES

Prepared by Samuel S. Green, then librarian of the Worcester, Ma.s.s. Public Library and a member of the State Library Commission, for the World's Library Congress held at the Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893) and printed in the government report thereon. The ”adaptation” favored by Mr.

Green consists in weeding out unfitting books. Melvil Dewey, as editor of this volume of papers, tells us in a foot-note that in the discussion of Mr. Green's paper, this process was not generally approved except as the first step in a transfer to other libraries. President Eliot's suggestion of reservoir libraries for storage is a later stage, in the same line of thought. A sketch of Mr. Green appears in Vol.

I. of this series.

NOTE.--With this paper should be read those pages of the Chicago discussions in which it was pointed out by leading librarians that to weed out safely would require much costly expert service; that the most hurtful criticism would be attacks after inevitable cases where some one would greatly wish a book that had been withdrawn as useless; that the printed catalogs already circulated would be made untrustworthy by parting with any volume included; that what one wise and learned man would throw out as trash, another equally wise and learned would consider specially valuable because of differing personal equations. In short, that however excellent in theory, it was perhaps the most difficult thing in librarians.h.i.+p to put successfully in practice.

While few favored ”weeding out” simply to gain room by getting rid of books little wanted, many believe in transferring to other libraries which have a distinctly greater need of them.--M.D.

A resident of a Ma.s.sachusetts town to which the Commonwealth was about to give $100 worth of books came to secure my influence as a member of the State free public library commission to have a large part of the $100 spent for rare and expensive books on Ma.s.sachusetts history. As a large and valuable library made up princ.i.p.ally of books of that cla.s.s was soon to be given to another small town in the same county, it would have been manifestly unwise to grant this request. It seems unwise also to place a students' library in a small town where there are few who will use it. It would be better to give the library to a flouris.h.i.+ng inst.i.tution at a county seat, on condition that it shall be open for free consultation by all residents of the county, and that, under proper rules, books may be lent from it to inhabitants of smaller towns for use at home.

In this way the library would be so placed that most persons wis.h.i.+ng to make investigations would have the books near home, and the comparatively few investigators in the smaller towns, such as the man in the town first mentioned, would also have their interests provided for.

The trustees of the Thomas Crane Public Library at Quincy, Ma.s.s., have concluded, utilizing the experience of many years, that a working library of 15,000 volumes is sufficient to supply the general wants of the 20,000 residents of the city. It is proposed not to let the library grow beyond 20,000 volumes while the wants of the city remain what they are, and when it exceeds that number of volumes to cut it down by taking out books that never have been needed in a popular library like that in Quincy or that have become useless. It having become evident that an addition would presently have to be made to the building if the recent rate of increase should continue, it seemed best to the trustees to begin at once to reduce the size of the library. They proceeded, under the able leaders.h.i.+p of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, to remove from the library large numbers of Government doc.u.ments, unnecessary duplicates, books of an outgrown ephemeral interest, and those unsuited to the locality. Twenty-one hundred and forty-five volumes were removed immediately. The Quincy library, by adopting this course, relieves itself from very considerable prospective expenses and secures money to use in increasing its usefulness.

Part of the plan is to keep the printed catalogs of the small library up to date and to scatter copies of them widely throughout the city by selling them at a nominal price. It is always expensive to prepare and print a good catalog; it is very expensive to issue new editions frequently. Still, if a popular library is to do its work well it must introduce its const.i.tuents to its books by means of frequent revised editions of a good, printed catalog.

The Thomas Crane Library has been famous for the excellence of its annotated catalog and for lists of books on special subjects for the use of school children. It proposes in future to use more money than in the past in making, printing, and keeping up to date good catalogs, and, in order to make it practicable to do so, to keep down the number of volumes in the library, thus reducing the expenses of cataloging, and also to save money in housing its books. That is to say, it is acting on the well-established principle that a small library well cataloged, if at all adapted in the number of its volumes to the size of a town, is of incalculably greater advantage to its const.i.tuency than one many times larger but poorly equipped with catalogs.

It is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan not to make the library a special reference library. That city is very near Boston and Cambridge, which it is well known are richly supplied with large general and numerous special libraries.

When a man appears in Quincy who wishes to make a minute inquiry on some special subject, it is proposed to refer him to the great libraries in the neighboring cities, and to confine the efforts of the trustees of the Quincy library to supplying the general wants of its const.i.tuency.

Here, then, is a bold attempt at adapting a library to its const.i.tuency.

Shall it be seconded?

Many will hold it unwise to discuss such a subject publicly. Remembering many ill-judged efforts at economy by ignorant, uneducated, or parsimonious men in town meetings and on library boards, they will p.r.o.nounce it hurtful to libraries to point out to such men that some library experts consider it well to keep down expenses for cataloging and housing books by weeding out libraries. Perhaps they are right.

Whether they are so or not, however, their objection is too late. The matter now under consideration is undergoing public discussion, and it is important that men having special knowledge of library matters should contribute now the results of their experience. Unreasonable men in town meetings and in boards of trustees must be answered, and reasonable men and women need to understand thoroughly the subject in order that their answers may be discriminating and wise.

Once, when the Librarian of Congress asked that an addition be made to the library rooms, a member is said to have urged that instead of enlarging the Capitol, the library should be weeded out. Such a plan would be regarded generally as exceedingly foolish.

There must be in many parts of this broad land large and growing libraries which will aim to gather very large general and special collections not limited to books of intrinsic merit. Such libraries will have to get many books of little value in themselves to enable students to study subjects historically. It would indeed be very silly to weed out the Congressional Library. Somewhere there should be accessible (and where better than in that library?) every book, pamphlet, and map published in the United States. The Congressional Library should be a great national library like the Bibliotheque Nationale and the British Museum.

The Quincy plan would not work well even in a place the size of Worcester, Ma.s.s., with a population of only 90,000 or 95,000, and but 44 miles from Boston, for it is a center of important educational inst.i.tutions and of inquirers, and therefore needs large reference libraries. Cambridge, though very much nearer Boston than Quincy, becomes, because of Harvard University, a center where there must be a large library. It is too great an inconvenience for Harvard professors and students to rely, except for book rarities, on libraries even so near as those in Boston.

On the other hand, consider the John Adams Library at Quincy. It was collected by President John Adams in Europe and America, and undoubtedly contains many valuable books. But is it in place in Quincy? It was formerly kept in the Adams Academy, but not proving useful there, it was transferred to the Thomas Crane Public Library, where it now is. Mr.

Charles Francis Adams recently said that he only knew of this John Adams Library having been consulted once in forty years, and that then he was himself the consulter. It is more convenient for Mr. Adams to make his many researches in the great libraries in Boston and Cambridge than in Quincy, and his opinion is that this library should be given to the Boston Public Library, where it would be of great value in supplementing the collections, and would be readily accessible to the cla.s.s of students who would use it. Perhaps, however, Quincy would be unwilling to give up this library, which marks its connection with a very distinguished man. While it is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan not to make the public library a special reference library, its success depends on having large reference libraries near at hand. In one respect it encourages making the library a special library, namely, on local interests and history. As to the saving in expense possible under the Quincy plan, while money is saved which would ordinarily be used in housing books and in other ways, increased expenditure, it should be remembered, is contemplated in frequent issues of improved catalogs. As I shall soon show, the plan, if well carried out, requires other expenditures.