John Cotton Dana

“ The value of training for the man or woman who shall take charge of a large city library is now so firmly established that no one thinks of discussing the question. If it is true that technical training is essential for the headship of a large library, why is it not equally necessary for that of a small library? Trained service is always of greater value than untrained service, be the sphere great or small. ”

“ Necessity being the mother of invention, he contrives some plan for bringing together books on the same subject. But with the addition of books to the library and the demand which growth makes, he finds that constant changes have to be made in order to get books into their right places; and then some day he awakens to the fact that there is some perfectly well-known and adopted system of classification which will answer all his purposes, and be a great deal more satisfactory in its adaptability to the needs of his library than the one he has been struggling to evolve. ”

“ He feels that the hours which he has spent in rearranging his books, taking them out of one class and putting them into another, although hours of such hard work, are in reality so many hours of wasted time. ”