Librarian of Congress

“ A request was read from the catalog section, first, that the Executive Board be asked to appoint a permanent cataloging committee to which the questions in cataloging may be referred for recommendations; second, that the Executive Board be asked to send a request to the Librarian of Congress for the publication of the code of alphabeting used in the Library of Congress. ”

“ In a deeper sense, GIFFORD said, the origin of the Workshop lay in the desire of the current Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, to make the collections of the Library, especially those offering unique or unusual testimony on aspects of the American experience, available to a much wider circle of users than those few people who can come to Washington to use them. This meant that the emphasis of AM, from the outset, has been on archival collections of the basic material, and on making these collections themselves available, rather than selected or heavily edited products. ”

“ Worthington C. Ford, Chief of the Division of Manuscripts, we are under special obligations for the interest they have taken in rendering serviceable to us the vast and splendid resources of the Library of Congress. The Librarian of Columbia University also has generously extended to us helpful courtesies which we gratefully acknowledge. ”

“ It is not the least of [321] Mr. E. B. Nicholson's many services to the Association which he called into being, to have discerned that it could not in its infant stage prosper without official patronage, and that, without prejudice to individual claims, its fitting head at that period would be the chief librarian of the chief library, the Principal Librarian of the British Museum. He accordingly invited Mr. Jones to accept the office of President, and to invest the young society with the sanction of official prestige, by consenting to open its first Congress, and deliver an inaugural address. ”

“ Melvil E. Dewey, President of the American Library Association, who was selected to preside at the first day's Congress, delivered the opening address, in which he comprehensively reviewed library progress in the United States during the present century. He was followed by Mr. Frederick M. Crunden, Librarian of the St. Louis Public Library, who read an interesting paper on "The Librarian as Administrator." The second session of the Congress, on Thursday morning, was presided over by Mr. ”

“ FREEMAN conceded the correctness of GREENFIELD's observation as applied to a school environment. The risk is that a student would sit down at a system, play with it, find some things of interest, and then walk away. But in the relatively controlled situation of a school library, much will depend on the instructions a teacher or a librarian gives a student. She viewed the situation not as one of fine-tuning research skills but of involving students at a personal level in understanding and researching things. ”

“ No books can be taken out of the Library except on the responsibility of a member of Congress. Till within a very few years, books were allowed to be taken by strangers who presented a written permit to do so from a Congressional official. ”

“ Everybody who has had any experience of executive office in the national government knows what kind of argument is now employed with the Librarian by men of political influence who wish to unload upon the library their persons to be provided for or to be got rid of. “Here is a man,” says the Senator, “for whom I must have a place in the library with a good salary — not less than so much.” ”

“ The guileless citizen who is still impressed by the favorite argument of the spoils politicians that the head of a public department will know best what kind of help he needs, and should therefore be left entirely unhampered by civil service rules in selecting his subordinates “according to his own sense of duty and responsibility,” may study with profit the illustration of that theory furnished by what is at present going on in the Library of Congress. The Congressional Library has gradually grown to be one of the great libraries of the world. It may be destined to become the greatest. ”

“ As the only Government library of comprehensive range, every year of its existence should be marked by incessant progress toward completeness in every department. In the new and splendid home for the Nation’s books provided by the far-sighted liberality of Congress, readers whose pursuits are endlessly varied should be assured of finding the best literature of all lands. It is a fact pregnant with meaning that the nations which possess the most extensive libraries maintain the foremost rank in civilization. ”

“ The Library of Congress not only houses the much-appreciated Congressional Research Service, it also offers 1.6 million visitors access to 15 million primary-source documents and operates the Veteran's History Project and the Surplus Books Program. ”

“ THE FUNCTION OF A NATIONAL LIBRARY
BY AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD The uses of a great national collection of books are so manifold and far-reaching that it is difficult to sum them up in any succinct statement. The Library at Washington, steadily growing for generations, was founded primarily for the use and reference of Congress. As the library of our national legislature, whose responsible labors cover the wide field of domestic welfare and foreign relations; it should contain all that can contribute to their service and information. ”

“ As to my going anywhere, I have to tell you of a dream, which I should like to become a reality. There is going to be a Congress of Librarians in the United States, which is to open on the 15th of September next, and where all the great questions connected with the management of a great Library are to be discussed and uniform principles adopted. The Americans have always been my friends, and the principles which will prevail are mine. They wish me to go, and I 171should like it amazingly; but the expense is too heavy. I will try, if possible, to get help from the Trustees. ”

“ We cannot but be conscious of a wave of public feeling slowly rising, the action of which is visible in the establishment of new libraries, in the adoption of the Free Libraries Act by communities which had long resisted it, in improved library buildings and appliances, in acts of munificence like Mr. Carnegie's and Mrs. Rylands's, and as a natural consequence, in the improved salaries and status of librarians. I am aware that very much remains to be done in this latter respect. No one can more earnestly desire that the librarian's position were better than it is. ”

“ Men of science themselves, after contending for liberty of expression, do not always use that liberty with discretion or to the advantage of the community. Now, there must be a selection. That is the point we start from as librarians; that is the duty laid upon us—to get, with the means at our command, the books that will be most useful to our constituents. Now, that means choice. How are we to make a choice? I do not believe there is a librarian in the United States who would set himself up as an arbiter or an expert in every department of literature ”

“ In the vast and complicated system involved in a government so complex as the American, where State rights and Federal supremacy are constantly brought in question, Congress and its Committees are taxed with responsibilities which demand the widest political, historical, and judicial knowledge. Only a library of completely encyclopædic range, filled with books and periodicals which illustrate every subject, and throw light upon the history and policy of every nation, is adequate to equip them for their work. ”

“ VERY few of the great mass of humanity know who makes the beautiful
public document, with its plain, black binding and wealth of statistics. Few stop to think that hidden away from the great work-a-day world, with eyelids heavy and red, and with finger-nails black with antimony, toiling on at his case hour after hour, the public printer, during the sessions of Congress, is setting up the thrilling chapters of the Congressional Record, and between times yanking the Washington press backward and forward, with his suspenders hanging down, as he prints this beautiful sea-side library of song. ”

“ Much as I honor the advocates of civil-service reform, and applaud what they have accomplished in the way of furthering a real merit system, I submit that a further step in advance may be taken when we have heads of municipal departments as unlikely to make political appointments as the average librarian is, and as free from pressure to make such appointments as are the librarians of a large number of our best institutions. ”

“ A public library committee about to commence operations, but unable to pay for a skilled librarian, should communicate with the Library Association, stating their case, and asking that body to nominate a trained librarian who, for an agreed fee, would act as adviser to the library authority, and enable the work of organization to be accomplished on modern scientific lines. ”

“ The Congressional Library is by far the finest structure I have ever seen. I cannot help feeling proud that I am an American when I walk through its halls and look upon the portraits of the great men who helped to make our country truly great. ”

“ The old author slip catalog must be revised and reduced to print. There must be compiled a subject catalog, of which none now exists. Innumerable gaps—that which is crooked can be made straight, but that which is wanting cannot be numbered—innumerable gaps are to be ascertained and filled. A collection of reference books must be placed back at the Capitol, with suitable apparatus, to bring the library once more into touch with Congress and enable it to render the service to Congress which is its first duty. ”

“ Having started as the Library of Congress, it has, aside from its one copy of every American book and the books on natural science belonging to the Smithsonian Institution, few books except those on politics, history, political economy, and law. The lack of space for books, which existed until a few years ago, made it seem inexpedient to spend money for purposes other than the convenience of Congressmen. But the American people, in its love for books, has now erected such a building as the world had never before seen devoted to the storing of books. ”

“ In the Library of Congress, there is a very salutary safe-guard thrown around the most valuable books in the form of a library regulation which provides that no manuscript whatever, and no printed book of special rarity and value shall be taken out of the library by any person. ”

“ In this aspect of the case, those who are charged with the management and control of libraries have imposed upon them a very grave responsibility. They are not merely the custodians of the books which the public purse has bought; they are commissioned to guide in the path of highest progress. In this light, the function of the librarian assumes the halo of a holy office. He who discharges it earnestly and faithfully may do much to help forward the enlightenment of his generation. ”

“ Jefferson, late President of the United States, of the whole of his library for Congress in such a mode, and upon such terms, as they consider highly advantageous to the nation, and worthy the distinguished gentleman who tenders it. But the means placed at the disposal of the committee being very limited and totally inadequate to the purchase of such a Library as that now offered, the committee must have recourse to Congress either to extend their powers, or to adopt such other plan as they may think most proper. ”

“ That American librarians are looking toward a fuller development of inter-library loans, and away from a central reference bureau, is the consensus of the recent (1910, March and May) symposium conducted by the Library Journal. Our duty now is, by sympathy, interest and contribution, to forward the work of the Library of Congress and the A. L. A. headquarters, and to make our own lending conditions the most generous in our power. ”

“ Now, I shall prepare another bill, or have the old bill introduced again, I do not know which, and, as long as I remain in the office of Superintendent of Documents, I shall endeavor to bring about legislation on the lines proposed in the bills heretofore presented to Congress. In the first place, I want all the government periodicals taken out of the Congressional series and bound in cloth, so that they can be distributed to the libraries as soon as they are printed. ”

“ It is impossible to do more than glance at the principal libraries and activities, where the field is so immense, and a brief sketch of some of the chief federal, state, university, endowed and municipal libraries will therefore be presented.
The Library of Congress was first established in 1800 at Washington, and was burned together with the Capitol by the British army in 1814. President Jefferson’s books were purchased to form the foundation of a new Federal libraries. library, which continued to increase slowly until 1851, when all but 20,000 vols. were destroyed by fire. ”

“ The seven million dollars which it cost has been paid not by the District of Columbia, but by the country at large. No such sum would have been requisite for a building to serve Congress alone. It seems to intend a library that shall serve the country at large, if there is any such thing possible. In fact the library is already being referred to as the National Library of the United States. What does this mean? or rather, what may this mean? One naturally looks abroad—to the foremost of national libraries. ”

“ The Librarian knows exactly what qualifications those should have who are to serve as his immediate assistants, or in the catalogue department, or in the art gallery, or in the departments of maps and charts, or of periodicals, or of music, or in the Congressional reference library, or in the law library, or in the copyright department. And being a conscientious officer, not a spoils politician in any sense, the Librarian earnestly wishes to put into the places to be filled the best qualified persons he can find. ”