James Duff Brown

“ The value of an art gallery depends, therefore, on its size and representative nature so far as art students are concerned, and on the appeal which fine paintings make to the higher feelings and perceptions of mankind for its influence as a creator of taste and stimulator of a love of the beautiful. When an art collection takes the form of a special exhibition illustrative of a subject, rather than a particular school of painting, its value and interest are enormously increased. ”

“ An imperfectly classified, or unclassified, library resembles chaos as nearly as anything can do, and want of classification renders the finest collection of books useless except to those who already know all there is to be known of any subject in which they may be interested, and who can therefore find the books by other means. ”

“ There is infinitely more wisdom in spending £50 in a selection of modern works on technical subjects, which would be of immense service to living persons, than in spending the same amount in the purchase of a single rare Bible which will only appeal to a few students of typography. Books must not be regarded as an investment on which a profit can be made by a sale at some future date, because books of bibliographical rarity and much monetary value bought from public funds must remain public property, inalienable for all time. ”

“ Fortunately this attitude is becoming more common, if it is not universal, and the whole tendency of modern public library work is to break down all barriers between the readers and the freest use of books. Indeed, it is better to lose a few books yearly than to protect them from the very few dishonest people who may live in the community by means which militate against the liberty of readers. ”

“ The chief reason for this is no doubt the cherished tradition that libraries are to be made as large as possible, because they are the repositories of the literature of the ages and the storehouse for every kind of printed matter. The museum idea of a public library, however, is now giving place to the workshop idea, and few librarians nowadays of average-sized municipal libraries hold the view that it is their function to provide and retain every book, irrespective of its value or appeal, and to attempt to rival the British Museum or Bibliothèque Nationale on a reduced scale. ”

“ A well-arranged and classified museum, whether of a general character, or which is confined to local botany, zoology, geology and archæology, has great bearing on the educational work of public libraries. It enables a reader to realize the material side of his studies, and by showing him related objects in a definite order, broadens his outlook on the subject, and brings home to him the reality of the matter. As object-lessons are to school-children, so are museums to library readers. ”

“ It is obviously beyond the power of a boy or girl assistant to draw out of these readers the exact nature of their difficulties; that is a task requiring address, sympathy and tact, which experience alone gives. In small libraries the librarian himself may consider it a privilege to work at busy times in this department; it will be well worth his while. The qualifications a reference librarian should aim to possess are a complete library technique, an intimate knowledge of the sources of information and of his stock, and a certain missionary spirit which loves knowledge for its own sake. ”

“ Staff and Public.—It is most important that good relations should exist between readers and the whole of the staff. It is a well-known fact that one or two overbearing assistants can render a public library more unpopular than almost anything else. Assistants should school themselves to endure with philosophy the impertinence of the small number of the general public who contrive to make themselves objectionable in every town, and not visit on the heads of the inoffensive majority the sins of the inconsiderate few. ”

“ In some libraries the plan of multiplying copies of every book which becomes fashionable is carried to such an extreme that some injury must be done to the general work of the library by unduly fostering one class of literature at the expense of all the other classes. The practice of adding six or more copies of a new novel has the effect of decreasing the funds available for the purpose of buying other works, and it certainly gives rise to misleading conceptions of the stock of books possessed by the libraries. ”

“ The competitor who can completely out-distance the average library is the keen private collector with a generous purse and unlimited leisure. In his case the librarian can only hope that his will contains a clause in which his collection and the library are in happy juxtaposition. With relation to actual buying, it is a good axiom never to purchase anything except “on approval.” It is really wonderful how attractive a commonplace and almost valueless item can appear to be in an agent’s catalogue. ”

“ There is no special Act for the establishment of art galleries similar to the Museums Act already described, and apart from special Acts, the Public Libraries Acts are the only ones which empower the establishment of art galleries. Needless to say, such powers are rarely exercised unless other sources of endowment or income are forthcoming. So many single pictures cost more than the produce of a penny rate in most towns, that it is, on the face of it, absurd to think of art galleries only as departments of public libraries. ”

“ Best Books.—A live library, in addition to the literary classics in all departments, should only select the best and most popular books. The question of selecting only the very best, or only what is in great demand, should be compromised by always getting the best, with a selection of the most popular, [172] subject to the understanding that the latter are to be discarded when their day is past. Every movement which stirs the public mind and imagination produces a great crop of books, but only a very small proportion of these survive or are worthy of preservation. ”

“ Mr L. Stanley Jast has gone so far as to affirm that the children should not be more than can easily be “contacted by the librarian,” on the ground that more efficient work can thus be done. It is a matter upon which a decision can only be made from a knowledge of the conditions and the character of the child population. Clearly, however, a qualification in a successful children’s librarian is the power to keep order, to prevent practical joking, loud conversation and laughter in the reading room. ”

“ The staff of every public library should learn as a first lesson that they are the servants and not the masters of the people, and that mutual self-respect can be maintained without undue familiarity on the one side or aloofness on the other. ”

“ Allowing the average time in which a child will use the library, to be four years, the lesser of these figures provides that each child may read at least one volume a week throughout that time; but it is impossible to allow the child a choice of books in these circumstances, and this is a very grave defect. It can only be affirmed that there should be at least one book for every child of reading age, and that this minimum should be increased as rapidly as possible. ”

“ The first point which occurs is the connexion between a library’s income and its book-purchasing power. As, by law established, most British library incomes are strictly limited, it follows that a similar limitation must govern the supply of books, and that only a selection of new books can be procured, old and out-of-print books taking their chance. The very largest rate-supported libraries are bound by this limitation to buy only a selection from the immense mass of books annually published, and, even if such purchases amount to several thousands of volumes, they represent only a selection. ”

“ Any action of this kind on the part of a Public Library Committee should be confined to protecting junior readers from coming into contact with demoralizing literature, and preventing the library from becoming a dumping-ground for feeble and trashy books of all kinds. No one can object to a committee electing to sit in judgment on any book which may be thought to endanger public decency, or inculcate ideas of morality counter to those generally adopted, but such explorations in search of the improper should not be confined to fiction. ”

“ In large libraries it is usual to stipulate that the librarian must devote the whole of his or her TIME to the duties of the office. This simply means that no other office can be held concurrently, but particularly a paid office. A librarian’s private time can be devoted to any hobby he chooses, be it gardening, cycling, photography, literature, music or sport. Provided, always, such recreations do not render a librarian less fit for his public duty. Official time occupied in any work which has for its object improvement in professional knowledge should be allowed within reasonable limits. ”

“ Public library buildings should be erected, not on the principle of storing as many books as can possibly be collected in fifty years’ time, but of restricting the book accommodation to the reasonable limits which careful selection and cautious discarding will fix, and increasing the space available for readers, and giving them only the very best literature, imaginative or instructive, that the world has to offer. ”

“ That the aim of the library as an educational institution is best expressed in the formula ‘Self-development in an atmosphere of freedom,’ as contrasted with the aim of the school, which is ‘Training in an atmosphere of restraint or discipline’; in the school the teacher is dominant, because it is possible to pass on a form, to teach an art; but in the library the pupil strikes out his own line, and becomes his own teacher; the library supplies the material upon which the powers awakened and trained in the school can be exercised ”

“ The question of adjustability is just as important as get-at-ability. In every method or appliance which is introduced for library, or, indeed, any other work, the great principle of movability or adjustability should be preferred to fixity. The power of moving or changing without altering the character or shape of anything is of enormous advantage in every operation, and a very good illustration of the application of this power is furnished by the card catalogue, with its infinite capacity for expansion in every direction. ”

“ General.—Although the library invented the card index, it may be confessed that in this country the library has not yet realized the possibilities of its own invention, even if it is convinced of its complete desirability. We make no question, however, of the fact that such methods as card-indexing and its derivative, vertical filing, become more necessary every day if the librarian is to handle with any degree of success the multiplicity of documents, prints, papers and other disparate matter which form so important a part of the stock of a really living library. ”

“ No untrained person is likely to attain more than the poorest or most commonplace results and will undoubtedly prevent the library from serving the community to anything like its potential capacity. Indeed, the work of the librarian is a professional occupation demanding for its successful accomplishment a training as complete and special at least as that required of the teacher. A committee fails signally in its public duty if it does not recognize this fact in the choice of its librarian ”

“ A librarian should never be compelled to reply to a child that Ivanhoe, The Last of the Mohicans, Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, or The Jungle Book, for example, is “out.” It is questionable whether abridged or adapted versions or extracts from classics should be stocked; they often give children an entirely false impression of the work they represent, and as a general rule works that may be “extracted” for children should be provided in their original form. ”

“ Cheapness does not in this matter necessarily mean economy, nor is good workmanship often an accompaniment of low prices. It may be said generally that library binding is one of the items of maintenance which no library can afford to have done cheaply and badly. It is much better, in the long run, for a library in a small provincial town to send its work to a recognized bookbinder in a large town, and even to pay carriage both ways, than to depend upon the local bookseller or stationer, who only knows about the casing of magazines. ”