Free library

“ The tendency to read inferior books can soon be checked by a good library. If the attention of the children in school is directed to good books, and the free library contains such books, there will be no thought of the news-stand as the place for finding reading matter.
The economical reason for establishing free public libraries is the fact that public officers and public taxation manage and support them efficiently and make them available to the largest number of readers. By means of a free library there is the best utilization of effort and of resources at a small cost to individuals. ”

“ The Free and other Circulating or Reference Libraries throughout the country must prove of immense service in superseding the necessity of purchasing volumes of temporary interest or of expensive character; and the average collector will, and does, find that a certain number of dictionaries of various kinds, and of works which happen to be favourites, suffice to exhaust his space and resources. The Free Library is an undoubted boon in two ways: in enabling us to read or consult books which we do not care to buy ”

“ In short, it is a library completely endowed, not only as to the original expense of its erection and equipment, but absolutely for all subsequent expense in its increase and administration. Concerning this species of library, I have this to say: It is a noble use to make of private wealth; it does immense good; but it is not the best final form of library evolution. And for two reasons: first, the man who will completely endow a free public library does not arise in every community; whereas, every community needs a free public library. ”

“ But the range of a large library is by no means necessary to produce the soundest educational results. Can it be doubted that familiar knowledge of a small case of well-selected books—such, for instance, as the modest stipend of a country clergyman easily collects—is better for boy and girl than the liberty of devouring a thousand highly-flavored sweets in the free library? ”

“ Those who have really learned to read, are no encouragers of the Free Library craze. The true lover of books will never want to peruse volumes that are thumbed and soiled by hundreds of other hands—he or she will manage to buy them and keep them as friends in the private household. Any book, save the most expensive “édition de luxe,” can be purchased for a few shillings,—a little saving on drugged beer and betting would enable the most ordinary mechanic to stock himself with a very decent library of his own. To borrow one’s mental fare from Free Libraries is a dirty habit to begin with. ”

“ Our great circulating libraries are our free public libraries. Do authors or publishers or booksellers recognize the public library as a force to be reckoned with, either apart from other readers or as indicative of what other readers will think or do? I once made an investigation of this question and I was compelled to acknowledge, as I am still forced to admit, that there is no such recognition. Neither author nor publisher consciously does anything different, because there are public library readers, from what he would do, if all our public libraries were wiped off the face of the earth. ”

“ But here, through the length and breadth of this glorious land, are thousands and yet more thousands of free libraries, containing all manner of books, of every age and nation, awaiting your demand. They contain all that is splendid in the way of printed matter, but also much, alas, that is not worth any man's time; so that though the best lies open and free to us, it is mingled with a vast amount of wretched trash. ”

“ No millionaire will go far wrong in his search for one of the best forms for the use of his surplus who chooses to establish a free library in any community that is willing to maintain and develop it. John Bright's words should ring in his ear: “It is impossible for any man to bestow a greater benefit upon a young man than to give him access to books in a free library.” ”

“ And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free—only so in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary subscription libraries would disappear. ”

“ Indeed, not to specify with inelegant distinctness, a free public library, like any other similarly commodious place of free public resort, would, if permitted, be used for any purpose whatever, no matter how private or how vicious, which could be served there more conveniently than by going to one's own home, or than by having any home at all. ”

“ The librarian of yesterday excludes no one at all from his library; for he is within one step of being up-to-date. He discourages no person nor any class of persons. He stands in his doors with outstretched arms and announces that his library is free to all, that it has books for all—rich and poor, old and young, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. The selection of books is well thought-out and adapted to the community in which it is. ”

“ THE FREEDOM OF BOOKS
The free town library is wholly a product of the last half century. It is the crowning creature of democracy for its own higher culture. There is nothing conceivable to surpass it as an agency in popular education. Schools, colleges, lectures, classes, clubs and societies, scientific and literary, are tributaries to it—primaries, feeders. It takes up the work of all of them to utilize it, to carry it on, and make more of it. Future time will perfect it, and will perfect the institutions out of which and over which it has grown ”

“ Has any one any objection to this Jenkins bill, which, on its face, promises to be so useful to us? I think we can get it, if we work together.
Miss Stearns: If the government admits library books into this country free of duty, why cannot it allow a man to carry a book free on the rural delivery route if he wants to do it? In our state we have people who cannot afford to pay postage on the books; if the mail-carrier is willing, in the goodness of his heart, to take the book to them, why can't it be done? Why should not a book from a free library be sent free? ”

“ Our parks are free, yet we do not object to their free use by the wealthy, nor do the wealthy classes themselves seem to shrink from it. Some again would limit the use of a library to students, or at all events to those who do not care to withdraw books for home use. These are people who do not believe in the circulating library—and there are still such. Others again would have the public library cater only to those of educated literary taste. For these reasons and for others it is a fact that our public libraries, even those with the largest circulations, are not used by the entire public. ”

“ A free library, it is true, is not a money-making concern, but it certainly should be run on business principles. The public puts into it a large sum of money and has a right to expect certain returns, which are none the less definite that they cannot themselves be represented in dollars and cents. The library statistic books are therefore, in a way, the records of the business ”

“ In every place are found many who are quite ignorant of the stores of knowledge which lie at their doors in the free library. And among those who do know it and resort to it, are many who need to have their interest and attention aroused by frequent notices as to its progress, recent additions to its stores, etc. The more often the library is brought before the public by the press, the more interest will be taken in it by the community for whose information it exists. ”

“ The Council would bring this topic strongly before their fellow-parishioners, in the hope of inducing many to make presents in augmentation of the library that they now possess. Its after increase can be only a question of time. A free library is the corollary and supplement of national education. ”

“ But the Free Library will be resorted to for instruction. Few will always hold the amusing button so close to their eyes that it will hide the instructive sun. From the start it will be superior to every private collection in the city, and its superiority will increase. Accordingly, professional men will come thither to inform themselves either each in his own specialty, or sallying on excursions from their home fields. Besides the time-honoured and traditional three professions, editors and teachers will be there, learning how to answer the hard questions of pupils and subscribers. ”

“ There are those who believe this is the only way to make a beginning. Eventually, if not in the beginning, the free public library on a rate or tax-supported basis is the most desirable form of library organization. ”

“ To do this I would establish a library which, in its main department and purpose, should differ from all free libraries yet attempted; I mean one in which any popular books, tending to moral and intellectual improvement, should be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons, if they desired it, could be reading the same work at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the pleasant literature of the day, should be made accessible to the whole people at the only time when they care for it, i.e. when it is fresh and new. ”

“ We bow our heads. Both Cutter and Poole are Americans. The parish of St. Pancras has just, by an overwhelming majority, declined to have a free library, and consequently a librarian. Brutish St. Pancras!
Libraries are obviously of two kinds: those intended for popular use and those meant for the scholar. The ordinary free library, in the sense of Mr. Ewart's Act of Parliament of 1850, is a popular library where a wearied population turns for distraction. Fiction plays a large part. In some libraries 80 per cent. of the books in circulation are novels. ”

“ Let us next consider the educational value of this institution.
It is hardly necessary for us to say that we have no objection, either for ourselves or for our neighbours, to novel-reading. On the contrary, we regard it as a legitimate form of recreation. All we argue is that it is not a luxury which should be paid for out of the rates. Now, to listen to the advocates of Free Libraries one would imagine that these institutions were only frequented by students, and that the books borrowed were for the most part of a profound and scholarly character. ”

“ We help to establish new libraries, reorganise old ones, revise methods, select books, lend single books or entire libraries, grant books or money up to $200 yearly to any library raising an equal sum from local sources, and, by means of correspondence, personal inspection, and steady work in a dozen directions, help every community to get the greatest practical good from the labour and money given to its free library. ”

“ The opening of a free public library is a most important event in any town. There is no way in which a community can more benefit itself than in the establishment of a library which shall be free to all citizens. ”

“ Here we may mote a difference between the free library and all merely commercial systems of distribution. As the purpose of the latter is to make money, wants are regarded rather than needs. But even with a store there are limitations. If any one wants an injurious article—for instance, a poison or an explosive—the law steps in to prohibit or regulate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many public-spirited citizens, fortunately endowed with large means, have offered to erect library buildings in certain places, on condition that the local authorities would provide the books, and the means of maintaining a free library. Such generous offers, whether coupled with the condition of perpetuating the donor's name with that of the library, or leaving the gift unhampered, so that the library may bear the name of the town or city of its location, have generally been accepted by municipal bodies, or by popular vote. ”

“ For some years careful students of the library movement in the United States have felt confident that every resident of a city would soon have good library privileges without fee. The rivalry of cities, the growing belief in the necessity of free libraries in our general system of education, and the feeling that public libraries are the most enduring monuments are uniting to secure for such libraries great private and public gifts. ”

“ Every member of the public over fourteen years of age has the right of free access to the library. The trustees have evolved an admirable system of a “travelling library,” for circulation among country residents of the state. ”

“ In many instances they have already begun to look after it and the best assurance for the future maintenance of free libraries in America rests with those who, having tried them and liked them during the most impressionable years of their lives, believe in the value of them for others as well as for themselves to the extent of being ready and willing to support them. ”