William Warner Bishop

“ Perhaps it is not too much to say that the modern American library is a new architectural type. Conditions peculiarly our own, many of them the direct result of American innovations in planning library work, have produced a kind of building which is in many respects novel. The college gymnasium and the large library in the hands of our architects have become almost as markedly American forms of building as the sky-scraper and the grain elevator. ”

“ More and more architects are studying the needs of libraries, and mistakes once made and realized are seldom repeated.
The small library also has furnished in the past decade numerous opportunities for the designer. Aside from the benefactions of Mr. Carnegie, which are in some respects the most striking event of the past ten years, literally scores of small buildings have been erected by private individuals and by towns. These are coming to form an architectural type fully as distinct as the large buildings. ”

“ To librarians he was celebrated for a long series of most valuable contributions to the problems of classification and cataloguing, while his personal qualities endeared him to all. That such men were to be found foremost among American librarians is one of the occasions for pride in their calling. Their memory should prove one of the greatest incentives to future workers in their chosen field.
It would be a rash man who should venture to predict the directions of library growth in the next ten years. ”

“ The libraries in the large cities have been showing a most decided desire to assist their clients in securing books. To this end the branch library and the delivery station have experienced an almost marvelous development in the past decade. There is hardly a public circulating library of prominence in the country which does not maintain from half a dozen to half a hundred reading-rooms with small collections of reference books, as well as numerous stations for delivery of books from the central library. ”

“ The demands of the librarian for natural light throughout the structure, for compact storage and at the same time for instant accessibility of his books, for protection from fire and damp, joined with the need of supplying plenty of space for readers, for administration and for those who throng the corridors and desks where books are given out and returned, have resulted in some extremely interesting and beautiful buildings. ”

“ A large measure of cooperation in the technical details of library administration and the consequent cheapening of its cost may also confidently be expected. Finally, it is entirely probable that the educational value of libraries in the community will come to be greater both by reason of the conscious efforts of the librarians to increase their efficiency, and by the recognition of those efforts on the part of the public whom they serve. ”

“ Carnegie is a firm believer in the doctrine that the public should support the public library, and he has regularly stipulated that ten per cent, of the amount which he gives for a building should be pledged by the community as an annual appropriation for maintenance. ”

“ In short we may safely affirm that public libraries are studying the needs of their communities as never before, and that the somewhat vague notion of aiding the 'public' is fast being replaced by concrete and tangible assistance to organizations and individuals. ”

“ A second story usually provides space for additional study and administration rooms. A very large number of memorial libraries of this general type have been erected, particularly in New England. Numerous local and individual variations occur, but a building designed to shelve some ten thousand books so as to be easily reached by any visitor and to afford one attendant a fair view of the main floor has become the accepted type of the small library. ”

“ The desire for an organization to give opportunity for the public exploitation of this sort of work produced in 1896 the Library Section of the National Educational Association. Not the schools alone, but women's clubs and social settlements, and, in general, all organizations whose members use books in their work, have been brought into friendly relations with the progressive libraries. ”

“ Evans's 'American Bibliography,' the 'United States Catalogue of Books in Print' and the 'American Catalogue' are perhaps the most remarkable. The list might be indefinitely extended. Bibliography, whether seen in the form of the scholarly treatise, such as the catalogue of the Dante collection of Cornell University, or in that of the latest reading list for children, has become a distinct feature of library progress in America. ”

“ Many of the more recent buildings have been planned so that the visitor may go directly to the shelves, and many of the older buildings have been remodeled to permit this practise. In almost every way this has been a gain. There has come with it no small loss of books, but that loss is insignificant in view of the greatly increased use of the libraries which has resulted from easy personal contact with books. Most libraries in the future will undoubtedly be planned to permit direct access to open shelves for a great part of their collections. ”

“ It must be confessed that no other influence has been so potent in the improvement of the condition and administration of the smaller and more backward libraries as these commissions. They have fully justified their right to exist. ”

“ Far more important than any other feature of the decade has been the adoption of uniform rules for cataloguing by many of the libraries of the country, for the purpose of securing printed catalogue cards from a central bureau. ”

“ Branch libraries have not infrequently been established at the request of large manufacturers or other employers of labor near their places of business, and in some cases the running expenses have been paid by them. ”