Librarian

“ Every librarian of experience, every administrator of traveling libraries, will recall such instances. One boy comes upon the right book, and the current of his life is changed; another reads a volume, and in his brain germinates the seed that blossoms into a great invention; in a chance hour of reading, a third finds in a page, a phrase, a word, the inspiration whose expression sets aflame the world. ”

“ Our chief librarian is not more successful in the conduct of the whole than his subordinates are in the thorough cultivation each of his own little plot. On the one hand their knowledge of the shelves, volume by volume, on the other, their personal intercourse with the students enable them to give every book to that reader to whom it will do most good, — as a skilful bookseller suits the tastes of his patrons, — and to answer every inquiry with the best work the library has on that matter, as the doctor prescribes the right medicines for his patient. ”

“ But in the small library there is no such limitation, and the reference librarian, who may also be the head librarian and the chief cataloger, may come in touch each day with every sort of human interest, from the eager desire of the office clerk to get back to the soil by the road of raising rice in Arkansas or apples in Idaho, to the yearning for economic independence and artistic expression in the soul of the girl who comes to pore over books on design.
To one who is fully awake to the human side of things, there can never be any dull monotony in the life of the reference librarian. ”

“ What, moreover, would be the object of these precious collections, gathered at so great expense by fortune or by science, if they were not consecrated, according to the intention of their generous founders, to the advancement, the glory, and the perfection of science and literature?
But that a library may fully attain the end of its foundation,—that it may be in reality useful, and useful with equal certainty and facility,—it should be administered by a librarian distinguished for soundness of judgement no less than for the readiness and accuracy of his memory. ”

“ The librarian who delights in religion, philosophy or folklore says of lists on biology, botany, steam-engineering or sanitation—"I leave all that to Professor So and So—of course he knows all about it." Why should he, more than the librarian? What is the librarian for, if not to know things? Is it not time to turn from the material things and concern ourselves more with a higher standard of scholarship and more outside work in our profession? And for the small libraries of 5000 v. or under there are the library commissions who are supposed to, and do, advise them. ”

“ In those constantly arising questions which form the subjects of essays or discussions in all institutions of learning, the well-furnished library is an unfailing resource. The student who finds his unaided mind almost a blank upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian, and surrounds himself with books and periodicals which may throw light upon it. ”

“ So the librarian may play upon his mass of books, selecting and grouping and bringing into correspondence his own tones and the receptive minds of his community, until every man sees in the library not a jumble but a harmony, not a promoter of intellectual confusion but a clarifier of ideas. In some such fashion it is allowed him to get close to{287} the minds and hearts of his community as Riley did to his readers.
We are realizing today, we of the library world, that it is a poor instrument that yields but one tune, and a poor player who is able to produce only one. ”

“ There are some librarians who seldom forget a book after once seeing it, and can tell not only its appearance, but its place on the book shelves, and the appearance of its neighbors on either side. This is one of the qualifications of an efficient library assistant. What is true of the librarian is likewise true of other people. What makes the difference between an efficient clerk in a book-store and one who is merely passable? It is this power of observation and memory which makes his knowledge of books held in stock reliable. ”

“ Every library ought to be supplied with at least one librarian in each department, stuck all over with books, like burrs, so that nobody can touch him or be near him without carrying away a book on him that he's got to read and that he will long to read and will read until somebody drives him to bed! ”

“ After all the mechanical detail is done, when the cover has been labelled, when the catalogue notation has been figured, when the class distribution has been determined, the librarian stands middleman in a threefold capacity. She is a purveyor, in the sense that she passes a book over the counter; she is a custodian, in so far as books need protection; she is the high priestess, since the library is a temple of treasures, a storehouse for our literary heritage. ”

“ The librarian or assistant librarian who will instinctively rub out all pencil marks observed in a library book deserves well of his countrymen. It is time well spent.
The writing on book-margins is so common a practice, and so destructive of the comfort and satisfaction which readers of taste should find in their perusal of books, that no legitimate means of arresting it or repairing it should be neglected. ”

“ The public library for the public
The librarian of former times was almost invariably a bookworm, and was often a student properly so called. The older librarians of the present day, and the librarians of the great libraries of our cities, are also very commonly men of letters, men of learning, men who admire the student spirit and know how to appreciate it. The librarian of former days actually felt that the books of which he had charge were to be used, if they were used at all, chiefly, if not only, by persons who wished to make some careful and painstaking research ”

“ It is obviously beyond the power of a boy or girl assistant to draw out of these readers the exact nature of their difficulties; that is a task requiring address, sympathy and tact, which experience alone gives. In small libraries the librarian himself may consider it a privilege to work at busy times in this department; it will be well worth his while. The qualifications a reference librarian should aim to possess are a complete library technique, an intimate knowledge of the sources of information and of his stock, and a certain missionary spirit which loves knowledge for its own sake. ”

“ The assistant in the larger library says, "I wish I could be the librarian of a small library, they have so much better an opportunity for coming into close contact with the people," and the librarian of the little library who does her own accessioning, cataloging, record keeping, charging, reference work, etc., with one brain and one pair of hands, says, "Oh, if we were only a little larger library, with more money, and with more help, I might do so many things that other libraries do." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The librarian's part is to suggest the best books in which to find what they want, to get any book they may need, sometimes suggest a line of subjects to choose from, etc, but the work of preparing the material is done entirely by the girls. When a book is being read and discussed, they sit around a table and read in turn the bits that have been selected for them by the librarian, who tells them the thread of the story between selected bits read by the girls. ”

“ But something more than this is required by the librarian who is faced with the task of building up a great modern library, and is limited in his selection to books of the most enduring merit, and those which most completely and accurately record the state of the science or subject to which they are devoted. ”

“ As a matter of fact the position of librarian is more of an executive business affair than a literary one. Let me give you fair warning—it is in no sense your business to dictate to others as to what they may or may not, should or should not, read, and if you attempt to assume such responsibility you will make unnumbered enemies, and take upon yourself a thankless and uncalled-for task. ”

“ True, every librarian does occasionally respond to requests for advice in book-selection and book-purchase, but the library is not yet recognized as the great testing field of the would-be book owner; the librarian is not yet hailed as the community’s expert adviser in the selection and purchase of books, as well as its book guardian and book distributor. ”

“ In these new libraries, I propose to provide the librarian at my own expense for the first two years, thereby insuring the judicious management and consequent popularity of the scheme.
“A librarian who has the missionary spirit can have, in a small town, about as christianizing an influence as a home missionary. She will make the library a pleasant place, where quietness and good manners are the rule, and every one is made to feel at home; she will offer wise suggestions as to the selection of books, and give occasional talks on authors and good literature. ”

“ To pursue one subject though many authorities is the true way to arrive at comprehensive knowledge. And in this kind of research, the librarian ought to be better equipped than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because his business is bibliography; which is not the business of learned professors, or other scholars who visit the library. ”

“ The librarian who, with ample funds for the purpose, has the duty before him of forming a Public Library, sets forward on a pleasant task. He has the catalogues of all kinds of libraries to guide him, and he will be able to purchase the groundwork of his library at a very cheap rate, for probably at no time could sets of standard books be bought at so low a price as now. ”

“ In the great libraries the librarian-in-charge of the reference department is easily the head of the grade we are discussing, as he must obviously be a person of considerable bibliographical acquirements in addition to being the possessor of a complete library training, and his work lies with inquirers, research workers, and similar readers who require skilled and sympathetic assistance. In the majority of libraries all librarians-in-charge are regarded as official equals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The company furnishes room, heat, light, and librarian's salary and the public library provides the books. This type of library may combine the intimate personal relationships of the small branch, the club, the story hour, and the vocational bureau. It may, as the Sears, Roebuck library has done, publish lists of books covering certain grades of a school course in grammar, rhetoric, history of literature, and study of the classics, and through the personal influence of the librarian it may make these courses really used, for always in work of this kind it is the personal equation that counts. ”

“ No novels are [Pg 82] admitted into the library. The following is a passage from the librarian's report of 1874: "In watching the use of our library as it is more and more resorted to by the younger readers of our community, I have been much interested in its influence in weaning them from a desire for works of fiction. On first joining the library, the new comers often ask for such books, but failing to procure them, and having their attention turned to works of interest and instruction, in almost every instance they settle down to good reading and cease asking for novels. ”

“ No library trustee can put himself fully in the place of a librarian, and see for himself the multitude of occasions arising in the daily work of the library, where promptness, tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a success, and the want of any of these qualities a failure. ”

“ The young people are the library's most hopeful material. To them the librarian hopes to give, through books and journals, an added pleasure; and in them he hopes to awaken a taste for reading something—in time something good. To attract the children it will be wise to have on file a few juvenile journals and picture papers and illustrated magazines. ”

“ The librarian stands in the position of an engineer to whom is presented a task which by the methods of his profession he must perform. Numerical growth, expansion, addition of new schools and new subjects, and the introduction of the laboratory method by which books are made actual tools for use, all mean to the librarian more books, larger reading-rooms and more of them, a large staff specialized and grouped into departments, the supervision of a complicated system, and capable business administration. ”

“ In selecting, classifying, and preparing the books, in examining and mending them, the work will ordinarily be better done if it is under the charge of a trained librarian, and it will be done more economically if it is done in a good public library. ”