Library school

“ We all rushed forward and talked about the library school, and if a community had a man or woman who could fill the place, who had special literary ability, had been well educated and was proved to have some executive ability, we all roared, "You're lost if you don't take some one who has gone through a library school training." ”

“ Purposes of a Library.—The purposes of a school library should be not only to provide laboratory material for the pupils’ work in literature and history, to enable the teacher to instruct them in the use of books as sources of information, and to assist the teacher in other ways, but also to instil in the pupils an interest in books as books, to cultivate a taste for reading. Too many high school graduates have no conception of a book, other than fiction, as anything but a task or a text. ”

“ Let them be public lectures which library workers outside the school may attend upon payment of a small fee. The intrinsic interest of a lecture upon some topic of the day whether literary, historical, political, or scientific, would attract in a way that a course upon pure bibliography can never do. As our library schools are so integrally a part, as a rule, of some system of collegiate instruction, there should be no difficulty in securing the services of different members of the faculty. ”

“ No doubt it is a convenience to both teacher and pupils to have books at hand to which to refer. The possession of an independent school library also tends to keep the reference work in the school. But in neither case ought the reference use of the public library or its branches to be wholly or materially overlooked, since it is on that that pupils must depend in after years, and therefore to that they must now be directed. We recognize that the people of modest means need the library. ”

“ The independent high school library meets peculiar difficulties and dangers in fulfilling its duty. It is right to say here that the highest point of development in high school libraries has, to the best of my knowledge, been reached in certain high schools in which the library has no connection with the public library, but where it is managed by a well-paid, trained and experienced librarian. ”

“ Consequently, if you choose graduates of those particular schools you are always sure of getting good persons. Therefore, I regard the selective function of a library school as extremely valuable. No matter how good the training you give, no matter how good the instructors you have, if you allow people in your schools who are unfitted for library work, your product will be worth little. ”

“ The distinction of and main justification for all kinds of higher education is that such education aims to put the student in position to view his work to be done as a whole, and life as a thing to be wrought out as a whole, not to be lived from hand to mouth. Presence at a library school means that the student has had foresight enough to be willing to spend energy, money, and a good bit of that most precious capital time, in sitting down to draw plans for his life building as a whole instead of starting in to build by rule of thumb. ”

“ Now the service of school and college furnishing definite instruction and perhaps training, to an organized body of youth, within a limited age, and under control, can be reasonably systematized and standardized. But the library is to furnish not merely education but enlightenment, and even culture, to the community at large—without respect to age, and without subordination to control. It cannot impose, it does not control. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the library school is growing in favor. The increasing numbers of those who apply for school courses, the raising of requirements, both for entrance and for graduation, the second class schools that have sprung up in limitation of those of higher grade, making necessary the appointment of committees by various library bodies to examine and report on them—all point in this direction. ”

“ That the aim of the library as an educational institution is best expressed in the formula ‘Self-development in an atmosphere of freedom,’ as contrasted with the aim of the school, which is ‘Training in an atmosphere of restraint or discipline’; in the school the teacher is dominant, because it is possible to pass on a form, to teach an art; but in the library the pupil strikes out his own line, and becomes his own teacher; the library supplies the material upon which the powers awakened and trained in the school can be exercised ”

“ The college librarian should supply himself with the circulars of the several schools and should inform himself concerning the reputation, advantages, requirements, and specialties of the different schools. We all agree that there is no one best library school (except our own) , but that each of them offer special opportunities that make them adapted to the particular needs of different students. To direct the inquirer to that school that will best fit him for the particular kind of work he inclines toward would be to serve the profession, the schools, the colleges, and the individual student. ”

“ The close connection which exists between the library and the schools is doing much to elevate the character of the reading of the boys and girls. Many books are used for collateral reading, others to supplement the instruction of text-books in geography and history, others still in the employment of leisure hours in school. Boys and girls are led to read good books and come to the library for similar ones. Lists of good books are kept in the librarian's room, and are much used by teachers and pupils. ”

“ But, if the young book-lover appears at the library door and fails to find the clue to the labyrinth where the words which he desires may be found, he may wander away again, never to return. If his love is strong, and the custodian learns his need, he may study his way into the desired paths; but it is evident to all readers that the library is most available to the best prepared, and that the vast treasures of even the free library are worthless to the ignorant. Further, we can but recognize that home reading and school reading do not always qualify the reader for study in a library. ”

“ 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. He should be enough of a bookworm to have a decided taste and fondness for books, and at the same time not enough to be such a recluse as loses sight of the point of view of those who know little of books. ”

“ The ideal thing, of course, would be for the school itself to own a small library as a laboratory in which students could be tested for administrative ability under supervision. But this, too, would take money. When one sees the splendid endowment of a School of Journalism, a School of Technology, etc., one cannot help hoping that some day a School of Librarianship may be endowed which may employ the best of teachers and plenty of them, have its own ample collections, adapted to its needs, and establish its own library as a laboratory in which it may try experiments. ”

“ The desirable thing is that the study of juvenile literature and the use of the library shall take equal rank with other studies in the preparation of prospective teachers; that the normal school, the pedagogical department of the college and university, the teachers' summer-school and institute, shall recognize this subject in their curricula.
The practical side of library use—its use for information—is easily seen by the public, and schools for teachers can quite readily be induced to make room for the course of study suggested. ”

“ The school authorities should never overlook the fact that the average time which the individual student attends school is short; but be it short or long, pupils should be trained in the use of the library, and taught how to find in books answers to their questions. Questions which shall require students to go to the library should be regularly given them. In the higher grades and in the high schools emphasis should be placed on library work. ”

“ If the school must deal perforce with groups rather than with units, the methods of the library adapt themselves to the converse plan of individual treatment. If the school narrows the pathway by compulsion, the library gives the joy of freedom unrestricted. ”

“ In the elementary school the library should reach to every class-room and offer there a few very attractive and very carefully selected books, so attractive and so well graded that the most indifferent boy or girl will be led by easy stages into the green fields of literature.
“The class-room is still the strategic point, for even homes of refinement are wont to delegate the work of directing the children’s reading to the school, and the teacher with her case of well-known books has every day opportunities denied to public librarian and to the majority of parents. ”

“ The librarian, who at least ought to know about books, is the logical person to plan courses and to give formal instruction and in any school which can possibly have a librarian who devotes her entire time to the library this is the proper course to follow. It happens, however, that many schools which greatly need such a course have no one but the regular teachers to administer the library and to teach its use. In such an emergency no school faculty is complete without at least one teacher who can show the pupils—and her fellow-teachers, if need be—something of the best methods of using books. ”

“ The preparation of syllabuses as guides to study for university-extension lectures, clubs, and individual students is growing in importance and promises to become one of the recognized departments of the library work. The library school, which is claimed to be the first of its kind in the world, continues to grow in strength and reputation ”

“ But why does the instruction of school children in the use of books and libraries concern the public library?
Because if children learn to use ordinary books intelligently it means a saving of the librarian's time by her not having to find the precise page of every reference for a child. It means a diminished amount of handling of books. It means less disturbance from children who do not know how to find what they want. Other results will doubtless suggest themselves.
It is not proposed to train the student to be a perfectly independent investigator. ”

“ Too often, as experience has demonstrated, the governing body would assign to the post derelict teachers unfitted by reason of age or physical handicap, and unfortunate deficiencies in other respects. On the other hand, public library authorities must recognize more tangibly than they do now that high school librarians must possess not only library training in the machinery of routine performance, but also university education, teaching experience, and qualifications of personality and temperament that will place them on a level with other members of the faculty. ”

“ Where there is no high school library and instruction must be given by the teacher or the public librarian, again the opportunities of the public library are clear. First there are teachers to be interested. English and history teachers most obviously, and department heads of these subjects are strategic points for attack. The subject of course should never be forced and a beginning should be made only with those teachers who seem likely to take interest. ”

“ It may not seem so to you who had not been born when some of us were lecturing at that first American library school up at Columbia University, but it is the fact that the teachers of that school are still living and teaching, and there were no schools of library economy strictly speaking when they began. The well fledged library school as an avowed school and independent unit is a product of this generation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some of the associated school districts the central library sends to the associated schools traveling libraries purchased by the district or borrowed from the library commission. In others, the country pupils act as a circulating medium for the central school library. In one town the school and town jointly maintain a good library with a competent librarian in the schoolhouse and it successfully serves the town, the pupils for their reference work and the country 'round about through the country boys and girls who come in every day to school. ”

“ To fulfill to them the mission of the library, to make books necessary and accessible, we must take account of the agency which touches the life of even the most remote group—the country school.
Relationships between libraries and schools have long afforded discussion and the librarian is rare who does not feel a sense of her share in the educational work of the town and her responsibility in making her library serve as an adjunct to the school, supplementing or supplanting its library resources. ”