Library science

“ 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. ”

“ This view of literature, libraries, and the use of books, and this special fondness for what may be called genuine contributions to art, science, and industry, are proper enough in their time and place; but it cannot be too often impressed upon the library world, and upon those who contribute to the support of libraries, and upon trustees and directors generally, that the thing that is of great consequence in the work of the free public library is not its product in the shape of books which are the results of careful research, or of books which are contributions to science, art, and industry ”

“ The public in general take more interest in libraries and the books they contain, when allowed direct access to closely classified shelves, there to examine before selecting literature. It is an education for a man who wants a book on ferns to go to a series of book shelves and find displayed the whole literature of botany, arranged in logical order, and thus obtain in five minutes a better conception of his own subject and its relationships, than could be got by hours of study in a catalogue. ”

“ My contention is that it is for the advantage of libraries that intelligent booksellers, ready to place their knowledge at the service of the librarians, should exist, and it is unwise and uneconomic to do that which may cause this class to cease to exist. ”

“ There is no more important factor in the success or failure of a library than the classification of the books and other material which form its stock. Some of its uses are obvious to all readers; it brings the material on any subject together on the shelves and in the catalogues, and thus enables both librarian and reader to find books readily. It has perhaps more important uses, because it enables the librarian, and, in open access libraries, the public, to see the strength and weakness of the collection in various subjects ”

“ It is thought by some that an open access library is itself a book exhibition, but even with this system, and certainly with the indicator system, there are many things that can be exhibited with advantage. Such works as Williams’s History of the Art of Writing, the facsimiles published by the British Museum, and other large treasure houses ”

“ He who would attain the goal must learn to labour and to wait, for knowledge is locked up mainly in books, appropriately termed works. There is, however, a short cut with a pass-key in universal or co-operative bibliography, a simple system of arrangement by which may be economized the labours of hundreds who are cataloguing over and over the same books. ”

“ We may perhaps look forward to the day when all the bound books in the library will be for home use, and will give information at second hand, too late for the business man to act promptly on it. The real sources of up to date knowledge will be, as they often are now, manuscript letters, circulars, newspaper clippings and trade catalogs. With their inevitable index they form a huge encyclopedia, absolutely up to date. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are however in this matter two factors—one’s self and the library. In order to sketch out one’s life work as librarian and live it, one must needs first know what libraries are, what they are capable of becoming and how one can best apply such knowledge and energy as one may have to making these libraries accomplish what they were intended to do for human society. This involves looking at libraries as a whole as well as at one’s life work as a whole, and the task of the library school is to give this view of the situation. ”

“ He will therefore not admit indiscriminately every book into his collection, but will select such only as are of genuine merit and of well-approved utility; and his acquisitions, guided by the principles of an enlightened economy, will be rendered still more valuable by the substantial merits of an able classification. It is impossible, in fact, to attach too much importance to the advantages resulting from an intelligent and methodical order in the arrangement of a library. ”

“ The encouragement of the Study of Bibliography, in its legitimate sense, and towards its true object, may be numbered among the most efficacious cures for this destructive malady. To place competent Librarians over the several departments of a large public Library; or to submit a library, on a more confined scale, to one diligent, enthusiastic, well-informed, and well-bred Bibliographer or Librarian (of which in this metropolis we have so many examples) , is doing a vast deal towards directing the channels of literature to flow in their proper courses. ”

“ Studies for the use of artists are also collected, mounted on cards, and made accessible, and some of these attempts to popularize art should be made in British libraries. Photographs are comparatively cheap, and almost every kind of picture and study can be obtained in this medium. What is particularly required is some kind of practical list or guide, drawn up by an expert, from which libraries could make their selections. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The very method, therefore, lies chiefly outside the experience of library history, being gathered mainly from primitive art and anthropology, and definition must needs consider what the essential nature of these primitive libraries is that links them with the great libraries of modern times. ”

“ It is easy now to collect, for books of interest are to be found on all sides; but in old times this was not so, and we must therefore admire the more those men who formed their libraries under the greatest difficulties. In a book devoted to the formation of libraries it seems but fair to devote some space to doing honour to those who have formed libraries, and perhaps some practical lessons may be learned from a few historical facts. ”

“ Most librarians in libraries of several years’ standing have been confronted with the difficulty of obtaining copies of certain books which have been allowed to go out of print by their publishers. The number of such books is rapidly increasing, and among them are works which have taken a recognized place in English literature, as well as many others which have obtained a certain value by being enshrined in the catalogues of hundreds of public and other libraries. ”

“ Education is even a greater stumbling-block. It is variously assigned to Psychology, Sociology, Philology and Ethnology by different critics, and Fine Arts is equally perplexing. In actual practice in a library, there is really no inconvenience felt in connexion with the distribution of any of these classes, and as they do not originate naturally from any of the other main divisions, but qualify and pervade the whole of them like an encyclopædia, or other general work, it will be found best to retain them where they are. ”

“ A preliminary lesson may consist of a simple demonstration of the purpose and means of access to the library—its divisions, cataloguing and classification, and an exercise in finding books; and this may be followed by other lessons on the making, use and care of books; and other lessons may follow on reference work, subject-hunting, the use of periodical indexes, bibliographical aids, dictionaries, maps, etc. They must be purely objective to succeed, and everything described should be placed before the children. ”

“ In the past librarians have hesitated to discard any book which has once been placed on the shelves. They have believed that all printed matter has value and that a book which belongs to the library is sacred and must on [Pg 132] no account be destroyed. It is difficult to defend such an attitude. If we admit for the time being that the librarian never makes mistakes in acquiring books, still it is sure to happen that many books will outlive their usefulness, except as a part of the history or bibliography of the subject. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such books as Poole's Index, Watt's and Brunet's Bibliographies, and the New American Indexes, prepared with such care by the Librarians' Association, are at hand in almost all the Public Libraries; and the librarians will always be glad to encourage intelligent readers in the use of them.
I should be sorry, in closing the series, not to bear my testimony to the value of the Public Library system, still so new to us, in raising the standard of thought and education. For thirty years I have had more or less to do with classes of intelligent young people who have met for study. ”

“ I understand that all the book-printers or stationers of the Commonwealth are bound of every book that is printed, to send a copy into the University Library; and it is impossible for one man to read all the books in all faculties, to judge of them what worth there is in them; nor hath every one ability to judge of all kind of sciences what every author doth handle, and how sufficiently; therefore I would have at this time of giving accounts, the library keeper also bound to produce the catalogue of all the books sent unto the University's library by the stationers that printed them ”

“ They require a sound preliminary education in the candidate, a knowledge of the broader lines of general library administration, and, added to [450] these, a study of the child mind, practical social service work, the study of the bibliography of juvenile literature, and practice—usually gained by actual work in children’s rooms—in story-telling, subject-hunting, bulletin-making, and similar matters. Cataloguing, classification, the preparing of attractive lists, etc., for children are all somewhat modified from the forms in use in the grown people’s departments, and all are treated specially. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is inevitable that in starting a library there should be some mistakes made; but with a trained librarian in charge, these mistakes will be fewer in number. For example, what does the novice know of classification? He realizes that the books, for convenience in use, must be grouped in classes. If he has had the use of a good library (as a college student would) he has some idea as to how the class divisions are made, and knows also that there must be some sort of notation for the classes. ”

“ As libraries have become more thoroughly organized, as they have become more aggressive in their methods, and as they have come to be looked upon by librarians and others as possible active factors in educational work, the proper management of them has naturally been found to require experience and technical knowledge as well as tact, a love of books, and janitorial zeal. ”

“ A library being but a collection of books, it becomes business men to assemble as many as possible in the shortest time, in order, perhaps, to outshine an adjoining township, or to satisfy the ratepayers that they are hard at work in the interests of education! To many library committeemen a book is just a book, and like bricks, or paving stones, or potatoes, or other realizable stock, the bigger the accumulation the better. ”

“ Nothing can be more laudable than forming Libraries, when the founders have no other view than to improve themselves and men of letters: but it will be necessary, in the first place, to give some directions, which will be of great importance towards effecting the design, as well with regard to the choice of books as the manner of placing to advantage: nor is it sufficient in this case, to be learned, since he who would have a collection [Pg 33] worthy of the name of a library must of all things have a thorough knowledge of books, that he may distinguish such as are valuable from the trifling. ”

“ Every club, school, library, society, and all citizens can be made to know that here information can be obtained about books.
Our own demand is quite large and ought to be larger. There are libraries with meagre equipment, schools with none, people with none, colleges with little—all these may be taught to turn to the central institution for bibliographical information. ”