John Cotton Dana

“ The Pears' soap plan of printers' ink is one of the finest and best.
If a library has or is a good thing for the community let it so be said, early, late, and often, in large, plain type. So doing shall the library's books enter—before too old to be of service—into that state of utter worn-out-ness which is the only known book-heaven. Another way, and by some found good, is to work the sinfully indifferent first up into a library missionary, and then transform him into a patron. A library is something to which he can give an old book, an old paper, an old magazine, with no loss to himself. ”

“ 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. And he is right; for every minute spent in unnecessary work is so much lost time. Not only that, but it is unnecessary expense, and one of the most important things which a small library has to consider is economy.
Is it not of value to the library that its librarian should know how best to expend the money given him to use? ”

“ Give the people at least such liberty with their own collection of books as the bookseller gives them with his. Let the shelves be open, and the public admitted to them, and let the open shelves strike the keynote of the whole administration. The whole library should be permeated with a cheerful and accommodating atmosphere. Lay this down as the first rule of library management; and for the second, let it be said that librarian and assistants are to treat boy and girl, man and woman, ignorant and learned, courteous and rude, with uniform good-temper without condescension ”

“ That the public library is a part of the educational system should never be lost sight of in the work of establishing it, or in its management. To the great mass of the people it comes as their first and only educational opportunity. ”

“ The public like to handle and examine their books, and it is good for them to do it. They like the arrangements in the library to be simple; they object to red tape and rules. They like to have their institutions seem to assume—through, for example, the absence of signs—that they know how to conduct themselves courteously without being told. They don't like delays. They like to be encouraged to ask questions. They like to be consulted as to their wants, and as to changes in arrangements and methods. They like to feel at home in their library. ”

“ The public library, then, is a means for elevating and refining the taste, for giving greater efficiency to every worker, for diffusing sound principles of social and political action, and for furnishing intellectual culture to all. ”

“ It is from this common-folks-education point of view that the advocate of the open-shelf system looks upon the question of library administration. A free public library is not a people's post-graduate school, it is the people's common school.
The more I see and learn of free public libraries the more I am convinced that a public library can reach a high degree of efficiency in its work only when its books are accessible to all its patrons. The free public library should not be managed for the use of the special student, save in special cases, any more than is the free public school. ”

“ Few books are devoted exclusively to one subject and belong absolutely in any one class. The classification of books must be a continual compromise. Its purpose is not accurately to classify all printed things, this can't be done; but simply to make certain sources of information—books—more available. Any classification, if it gets the books on a given subject side by side, and those on allied subjects near one another, is a good one.
Books may be classified into groups in a catalog or list, yet themselves stand without order on the shelves. ”

“ The magazines furnish us with the best fiction, the best poetry, the best essays, the best discussions of all subjects, old and new, and the latest science. It is a question if many a village library would not do more, vastly more, to stimulate the mental life of its community, and to broaden its views and sympathies, and to encourage study, if it diverted a far larger part of its income than it now does from inferior books, and especially inferior novels, to weekly journals and popular and standard magazines. ”

“ It supplies the public with recreative reading. To the masses of the people—hard-worked and living humdrum lives—the novel comes as an open door to an ideal life, in the enjoyment of which one may forget, for a time, the hardships or the tedium of the real. One of the best functions of the public library is to raise this recreative reading of the community to higher and higher levels; to replace trash with literature of a better order. ”

“ It is inevitable that in starting a library there should be some mistakes made; but with a trained librarian in charge, these mistakes will be fewer in number. For example, what does the novice know of classification? He realizes that the books, for convenience in use, must be grouped in classes. If he has had the use of a good library (as a college student would) he has some idea as to how the class divisions are made, and knows also that there must be some sort of notation for the classes. ”

“ So with our reading habits; a taste for good reading once acquired becomes a joy forever.
Teachers do not realize, as does the librarian, the low tone of the reading taste of the community. When they fully understand this, together with the fact that the acquirement of a reading habit and a love for good literature are largely dependent, in a majority of cases, upon the public school training, then will the librarian have to bestir himself to supply the demand for good books made by the school. ”

“ The study club is one of the best means of extending the influence of your library; of securing the attention and hold of the people. It awakens thought, arouses discussions, puts into circulation books which otherwise might stand idle on the shelves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Binding a book means not only covering it, but preserving it. Good binding, even at a high price, educates the public taste and promotes a desire to protect the library from injury and loss. Cheap binding degrades books and costs more in the end than good work. ”

“ There is nothing out of place in the comparing of the library to the school and the college, but its true mission is not to be so limited. To a large extent it is to be compared, as an object of public care and expense, with the park, the modern common, where there are flower-beds, rare plants in conservatories, lakes with boats in summer and skating in winter, and music by excellent bands. ”

“ Reference work—Helping the inexperienced inquirer—Periodicals
Reference work in libraries large and small has for its first rule: Meet the inquirer more than half way. To the stranger a library is often an oppressive place, an awesome place—in his imagination. He comes in shyly; everyone appears busy, his question suddenly seems to him trivial; he won't trouble these wise and busy people with it—and goes out. ”

“ He should be a leader and a teacher, earnest, enthusiastic, and intelligent. He should be able to win the confidence of children, and wise to lead them by easy steps from good books to the best. He has the greatest opportunity of any teacher in the community. He should be the teacher of teachers. He should make the library a school for the young, a college for adults, and the constant center of such educational activity as will make wholesome and inspiring themes the burden of the common thought. ”

“ They will, by their free use of the library, and by their approval of it, do much to add to its popularity. The best books for children will be enjoyed by all.
In selecting fiction, get from the older librarians a statement of what are the most popular of the wholesome novels found on their shelves. A better guide than this it will be difficult to find. Fiction is of the greatest value in developing a taste for reading. Everyone should be familiar with the great works of imagination. Nearly all the greatest literature of the world is fiction. ”

“ A proper and worthy aim of the public library is the supplying of books on every profession, art, or handicraft, that workers in every department who care to study may perfect themselves in their work. ”

“ Some librarians pretend that they must buy to please the public taste; that they can't use their own judgment in selecting books for a library which the public purse supports. Why these librarians don't supply the Police gazette it is difficult to understand. "The public" would like it—some of them. We select school committees and superintendents and teachers to run our schools. We ask them to inform themselves on the subject and give us the best education they can. They don't try to suit everybody. They try to furnish the best. Library trustees and librarian are in a like case. ”

“ An enthusiasm for a work or this kind may be somewhat crushed out by the press of regular duties, but the librarian may be greatly helped by the coöperation of organized clubs. Musical societies, Saengerbunds, the Elks, Daughters of the Revolution, and other societies are constantly preparing excellent entertainments, which it is hoped they will be willing to reproduce for those who have either not the leisure or the inclination to study. Such a movement does not in any way divert the energies of the library from their original aims, but is only another means of enhancing their efficacy. ”

“ Note.—It is believed that there need be no limit of rate placed in the state law, as a community is not at all likely to vote to tax itself too high for library support. The people of a small place will, in fact, often fail to realize that in order to raise money enough to accomplish their object the tax rate must be higher than in a large place. It is not impossible that communities will, by and by, spend about as much in support of their public libraries as in support of their public schools. ”

“ The highest and best influence of the library may be summed up in the single word, culture. No other word so well describes the influence of the diffusion of good reading among the people in giving tone and character to their intellectual life. ”

“ In a few cities the following plan for increasing the amount of good reading among the children of the poorer and less educated has been tried with great success. It is especially adapted to communities which are quite distant from the public library or any of its branches. It is, as will be seen, work which is in the spirit of the college settlement plan. The "home libraries," if they do no more, serve as a bond of common interest between the children and their parents, and the persons who wish to add to their lives something of interest and good cheer. ”

“ Every person actively engaged in library work owes it to herself, as well as to her profession, to join the American Library Association. If the association is large, if its meetings are well attended, if its proceedings as published show that the problems of library work are carefully studied, if the published proceedings are widely circulated, it is easier to persuade the intelligent part of the public that the librarian's profession is serious, dignified, and calls to its membership men and women of ability and zeal. ”

“ If, then, the library is equally conservative, if the librarian and the trustees look upon their books as too sacred or too precious to be handled by boys and girls, the desired coöperation will never be attained. ”

“ The prevailing tendency among librarians is to share ideas, to give to one another the benefit of all their suggestions and experiences. The result is a large fund of library knowledge which is common property. ”

“ Success or failure of a library, as of a business, depends on the ability of the man or woman at its head, and only trained men and women should be in charge. The business of the librarian is a profession, and a practical knowledge of the subject is never so much needed as in starting a new enterprise. ”

“ Each community has different needs, and begins its library under different conditions. Consider then, whether you need most a library devoted chiefly to the work of helping the schools, or one to be used mainly for reference, or one that shall run largely to periodicals and be not much more than a reading room, or one particularly attractive to girls and women, or one that shall not be much more than a cheerful resting-place, attractive enough to draw man and boy from street corner and saloon. ”

“ It is well to have as many committees as can be actively employed in order to enlist the coöperation of all the trustees.
The executive committee should take charge of the daily work of the library, of purchases, and of the care of the building; they should carry their duties as far as possible without assuming too much of the responsibility which properly belongs to the full board. It will be best to entrust the choice of books to a book committee appointed for that purpose purely. The finance committee should make and watch investments and see that purchases are made on most favorable terms. ”

“ If possible give the young people a reading room of their own, and a room in which are their own particular books. These special privileges will not bar them from the general use of the library. Make no age limit in issuing borrowers' cards. A child old enough to know the use of books is old enough to borrow them, and to begin that branch of its education which a library only can give. The fact that a child is a regular attendant at school is in itself almost sufficient guarantee for giving him a borrower's card. ”