Theodore Wesley Koch

“ The moral to be pointed out is that the catalog must be good as a first requisite to a library. In the words of the old comparison, the catalog is the key to the otherwise hidden material buried in books. In a library of any size, the best desk attendant in the world is almost helpless, or at best constantly handicapped, without a convenient and rational classification of the volumes of the collection and the bibliographical aid of a catalogue. The born bibliographer is as rare as the born teacher or poet. ”

“ The librarian has been variously compared to the commissariat in the republic of letters, whose business is not to fight himself but to put others in fighting trim,—or to the host at the banquet of knowledge who is assiduous in securing the comfort of the guests and in placing before 17 each one just the kind of food he likes and requires. He knows that what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Enthusiasm for the work is a prime requisite in the librarian. ”

“ Whenever from private collections or the breaking up of public institutions, rarities got abroad in the open market, the collectors of the old world found that they had a resolute competitor to deal with, almost, it might be said, a desperate one, since he was, in a manner, the representative of a nation using powerful efforts to get a share of the library treasures of the old world. ”

“ There is no profession which throws one into the society of more varied types than that of librarianship. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the cultured and unrefined all come to the library for aid. The reference librarian must “be all things to all people.” She must meet her public in such a way that if they come once they will come again, feeling themselves cordially welcome. She must have all the qualities which will make the library a place to which the public will want to come, and herself the person they will seek for assistance. ”

“ What, then, is to be expected if a dominant share in the management of a library be placed in the hands of men with just enough of elementary education to bring into broad daylight the intensest ignorance, in union with the most stolid self-conceit? ”

“ I mean one in which any popular books, tending to moral and intellectual improvement, shall be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons can be reading the same book at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the whole people when they most care for it, that is, when it is fresh and new. ”

“ To be capable of guiding the reading of children it is necessary for one, first, to have appreciation and discernment in adult literature, second, to gain the child’s point of view. The various printed book lists are helpful, but the librarian should depend upon her own judgment as final critic in the selection of books for her children’s collection. She must realize the qualities essential to particular classes of books, such as history, and biography, science, travel, fiction, and the qualities which make them suitable for children. ”

“ To be able to use books effectively, to know where to find exact information when wanted, is a kind of knowledge that comes from familiarity with reference books and the use of books as sources. Such an acquaintance with books is of infinitely more value in later life than knowing a few text-books from cover to cover. The place in which to lay the foundation for this proper and intimate acquaintance with books as tools is in the school library and the period is that of the high school age. ”

“ The librarian must develop a sense of proportion and beware of the library patron with a hobby, and of the trustee who is interested in building up only one side of the library, and of the scholar who thinks that “only solid reading for the immortal mind should be placed before old and young.” In buying for an average public library the aim should be to choose general treatises rather than those covering only special phases or special subjects. ”

“ Without it, the librarian, teachers, and pupils are handicapped in their work and the library fails of its full usefulness. A knowledge of how to use a library will be of the greatest value to the student not only through his high school course, but even more so in college, if he goes that far, or in continuing his reading and self-culture through the means of the public library when he discontinues his academic career. ”

“ In no department of the library does personality count for as much as in the reference department. The reference librarian may be a brilliant student and have a thorough grasp of the various fields of knowledge, but of what use will it be to her if she has not the ability to meet people and to sink her own personality to a large extent? ”

“ New York had long labored under the disadvantage of having no public library from which books could be freely borrowed by her citizens. Dr. Cogswell once remarked that a free circulating library in New York was impossible and that in five years any collection of books made for that purpose would be scattered forever beyond hope of recovery. He here showed the distrust of the book-collector and the attitude of the old style librarian towards the books entrusted to his care.
The Astor and the Lenox Libraries were for reference use only, and were never open in the evenings or on holidays. ”

“ University librarians are familiar with a similar argument against technical departmental libraries to the effect that they have a tendency to make the technical student feel that there is no need of his going to the University Library, that the departmental library answers all his needs. Experience, however, proves that to have these students use any library you must plant it right in their midst. So with the high school students: give them a good library in their own school building and then see that they use it properly, for this is a part of modern education. ”

“ In these days when high schools are extending their work in so many directions and when books must be provided for supplementary work in English, in history, in the preparation of debates, and in other subjects, a well-equipped library is a necessity in the modern high school. A motley array of old text-books, out-of-date encyclopædias and miscellaneous volumes from the attics of well-meaning friends of the institution will not make a good high school library. ”

“ A person having a library of from fifty to three hundred books does not feel the need of 26 classifying them. The ordinary arrangement is based upon size, color or convenience. The books in the average house are so placed as to look their best. The classification, as far as it exists, is an esthetic one. The owner knows the exact appearance of every volume in his library and when he wants Longfellow’s poems he can tell at a glance where it is. In a small private library there is no occasion for all the history being in one place or all the poems in another. ”

“ A child’s first reading is by means of pictures and his first introduction to literature through stories told or read aloud, and even as early as the picture book period the library has the responsibility of supplying the child’s need and desire for experience through books and of developing his taste by putting before him the best. The child who grows up with the library will be a more intelligent and appreciative user of the adult department than he would be had he grown up without the library. ”

“ The story style of presenting science is, as a general thing, of little use. Children can take their informative reading in a straightforward way. Nothing is more disappointing to them than to take a book for the sake of the story and find that it is only information with a story covering, or to search for some definite information and be constantly hindered by the narrative.
As to the real literature for children, or the story, perhaps there is no surer way of gaining discrimination than by reading some of the classics for children and some of the standard fiction ”

“ There are compensations for those in charge of small libraries, where a trained children’s librarian cannot be afforded, in opportunities for a greater share in the joy of working with the receptive thought of the child, while the work with parents and teachers as well gives deeper insight into the sympathy for the needs of the children. ”

“ The children’s collection should be kept well rounded and should contain a fair proportion of good poetry, chosen from various standpoints: all that is childlike in subject and form, much that is beyond the average child but appreciated by the unusual one,—poetry chosen for beauty of sound or charm of movement. ”

“ The high school library should not try to compete with the public library if there is one in the same town. Literature for recreation pure and simple is better supplied by the public library, where it is available for those who are both below and above the high school age. But, on the other hand, if there is nothing to interest the students by its innate appeal, if everything in the school library suggests lessons, many of the students will view it with suspicion, and avoid it, unless sent there by the teachers. ”

“ We do this every day, and the classification of books is only one special phase of this general process. Thus, a man who owns a hardware store does not place his goods helter skelter,—a stove, a box of nails, some saws and then a furnace, but he runs over his stock and classifies it, putting stoves in one place, nails in another. By this classification he gains two things: first, he can find any one thing he wants more quickly; secondly, he can tell how much of any one article he has on hand and so decide whether he must lay in a new supply. ”

“ Rules governing fines for overdue and damaged books must be decided according to the policy of individual libraries. It is not good for children to feel that a fine can be outlawed; better remit it for sufficient reasons or try the plan of allowing them, in certain cases, to work out the fine,—a plan which has been found satisfactory in some libraries. A damaged book should never be passed without notice.
Books for children.—The great purpose of library work with children is to attract the children to books: satisfying individual needs and demands, and guiding their reading. ”

“ The lending of sets of books for class room libraries is best begun with schools at a distance too great for the children to walk to the library to get their books. These collections are made up of about fifty books, not text books nor required supplementary reading, but books following the line of certain parts of the school work and books of imaginative reading. A simple method is usually devised for statistics of circulation, such as a large card for each book on which is written the name of the child who is reading the book. ”

“ Without the help afforded by classification he would be overwhelmed by the immense number of facts brought before him and without the aid of classification he would never have known of evolution, the guiding star of modern investigation. ”

“ But above all, it is manifest that a rapidly growing nation, finding homes for thousands of foreigners and their children annually, must use every means of rapidly educating their new citizens, and the public library is one of the most efficient and ready ways of accomplishing this great national object. ”