The Library and Society Part 26

Now, for closing ill.u.s.trations, let me show you how libraries at great distances help one another. I will choose the relations of the library in Worcester to the Public Library of Denver, Colorado. Mr. Dana, the librarian of that library, sent to me to borrow one of the publications of the Browning Society of London. It was sent to him by registered mail and returned, safely, in the same way.

Next he wanted, for some student of mining, an extract from one of the volumes of the _Comptes Rendus_ of the French Academy. The extract was copied from the volume and sent to him. There has since occurred the following transaction. A gentleman in Chicago had written to Mr. Dana, in Denver, to ask him whether he knew of a translation of the report of a government railroad commission in Holland which had recently been engaged in considering what kinds of paint are best to use in preserving iron, and whether he could tell him where to find the results of certain experiments which had been made in one of the bureaus of the U.S. Navy Department. Mr. Dana pa.s.sed along the question to me, knowing that I had often to answer questions of that kind. In order to find an answer to the first question, I at once set a young man at work looking at the indexes of the late volumes of the _Railroad and Engineering Journal_, and soon an important article was unearthed giving the results of the investigations of the Dutch commission. This piece of information was sent to Denver. I then wrote to Mr. Henry C. Baird, the Philadelphia publisher, to see if he knew of the publication of a translation of the report. He wrote back that he did not know of the publication of such a translation, but that there was a long article on paints useful in the preservation of iron in one of the most recently issued volumes of Spons's "Receipts." He promised, however, to make further inquiries. So he went to the rooms of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and inquired there what gentleman in the city was most likely to have the information sought for. He was referred to some one connected with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., who told him that he was not aware that the report had been translated, but referred the inquirer to an elaborate article extending through several numbers of the well-known periodical, _Iron_. Mr. Baird transmitted the information he had got to me and I sent it and other pieces of information gained since my last letter to the library of Denver. The information sent to Denver was sent to Chicago. So by the aid of two far separated librarians a person in Chicago, an intermediate city, distant from the homes of both, received information which he desired through Denver, Worcester, and Philadelphia. For an answer to his second question, this inquirer from Chicago was referred to the Navy Department at Was.h.i.+ngton.

A clergyman in Colorado Springs, and this is a final ill.u.s.tration, applied to the librarian of the same public Library in Denver for an old book by Goldwin Smith. He referred him to me. I knew him, having met him on my way to California. To my surprise I found we did not own the book.

So I wrote to Mr. Winsor, the Librarian of Harvard University, and told him that the applicant could be trusted and would make good use of the information afforded him, and that he needed the book in preparing a course of lectures which he was to give at once at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Then I asked Mr. Winsor if he felt at liberty to lend the book. The next thing I heard in regard to the matter, a letter came from the gentleman in Colorado Springs thanking me for the aid rendered, and saying that Mr. Winsor had sent the book and that it had reached him just in time to use in preparing a lecture. The library in the United States which was earliest in the field in doing the work of lending to other libraries systematically and on a large scale, in so far as I know, was that of the Surgeon-General's Office in Was.h.i.+ngton, long administered so intelligently and with so keen an eye for usefulness by Dr. John S. Billings.

Now, how can libraries in towns of the size of North Brookfield become bureaus of information?

Let them approach as nearly as they can to the ideal of seeing to it that everybody needing information gets it.

The first thing to do is to let it be understood that a library desires to have inquirers come to it for information, and that its librarian is ready to take time to find out whether the library contains books which will give the information desired.

If it does not have the needed books, the librarian tries to think where they can be had. Does anybody in town own them? If not, can they be had from a library in a neighboring town?

If these resources are not adequate, then let the librarian send to the nearest large centre to borrow books from the library there to answer the questions asked. Worcester would be the natural centre for North Brookfield to send to.

Individuals should not send to Worcester, but the librarian, having exhausted resources at hand, should send for the books, the library agreeing, of course, to make good damage and loss and pay the cost of carriage. An out-of-town librarian does not know the individual users of a library in a smaller town, but the librarian in that town does know his const.i.tuency and for whom it is safe to borrow books. Libraries should lend to one another, but the work of lending should be systematic.

As a member of the Free Public Library Commission of Ma.s.sachusetts, I wish to say that the commission likes to come into close contact with the libraries of the state, and that the smaller libraries may from time to time find it helpful to put questions to its chairman at the state house in Boston, in person, through a representative, or by letter, about library administration.

People are breaking away from their leaders to-day. There is an immense amount of crude thought and imperfect information in every community. I verily believe that not least among the instrumentalities by which thought may be matured and knowledge completed are public libraries when administered as bureaus of information by accomplished and earnest librarians, who will act as sympathetic friends and advisers to inquirers and help them to look at all sides of questions and form well-grounded judgments.

THE LIBRARY FRIEND

Not all the information required of the Public Library is asked by those engaged in laboratory research or by experts in commerce and industry. Much of it is homely stuff, greatly desired and more or less easy to find. Much of it can be given offhand by the capable reference a.s.sistant, who thereby becomes what the writer of this article calls a "library friend" to her neighborhood.

Miss Winifred Louise Taylor was born in Freeport, Ill., Feb.

24, 1846. In 1874 she organized the first circulating library in Freeport and acted as librarian for twelve years.

It was eventually incorporated in the Freeport Public Library. In 1900-01, Miss Taylor was in charge of the information desk at the Pratt Inst.i.tute Free Library, Brooklyn. For many years she gave much of her time to work in the prisons, and in 1914 she published "The Man Behind the Bars," describing some of this work.

"The library friend" is the term that seems best to apply to that member of the modern library's staff whose work is a development of the service ordinarily rendered through the "information desk."

Information-desk service as usually conceived, it is not; for the library friend deals with the tendencies, tastes, and aspirations of readers as much as if not more than with the definite question and answer respecting facts. The office indeed may be regarded as finding its first expression in the circulating libraries maintained by subscription in many of the smaller cities twenty-five years and more ago, when the free public library of to-day was comparatively rare. In those libraries every subscriber knew the librarian, and the librarian was personally acquainted with every book on the shelves. To bring the books and readers into congenial relations.h.i.+p was the business and usually the pleasure of the librarian. The personal element was the heart from which the circulation of the books radiated--if the presiding personality lacked vitality and enthusiasm the library was a failure.

With the era of the democratic free libraries, with their more rapid growth, with their doors open to men, women and children of all cla.s.ses, the human element, the personal relation of librarian to the reader suffered a gradual eclipse, until, in some libraries more perfectly developed on the technical side, the personal equation vanished altogether. The library became a great machine, into which a number was dropped, and out of which a book was dropped like corn from the hopper.

We all know how formidable this mechanism is to those unaccustomed to modern library methods. To the uninitiated the card catalog is an abomination, an unsolved problem, a delusion and a snare. The boy who is interested in athletics, fumbling over the card catalog in Micawber-like fas.h.i.+on, hits upon the t.i.tle "Morning and evening exercises"; he straight away hands in the number thinking he has found a prize. It is discouraging and depressing when the machine shoots out to him a volume of devotional compilations. He has tried his luck and it has failed, and as he was reminded only last week that a book cannot be exchanged the same day on which it is drawn out he retires with "Morning and evening exercises," a sadder, but not a wiser boy. It is in accord, therefore, with the process of library evolution that a closer personal relation between reader and librarian should be developed through some such medium as is here outlined under the designation "the library friend."

One of the library problems just now is this: given on the one side 100,000 books and on the other 50,000 people. How is each individual to be brought into contact with the particular book that he wants? Where open shelves are practicable a great advantage--to the discriminating reader, an inestimable advantage, is gained; but the majority of librarians have not room to throw any department open to the public; and even among open shelves the person whose judgment of books is wholly untrained often misses what he is looking for.

The a.s.sistance given by the reference room is invaluable. There no one goes away unsatisfied; but the reference room reaches only those in pursuit of a definite subject. Beyond its range is the drifting, aimless reader, the searcher after something he knows not what. The dull, the diffident, the beginners in the use of libraries, those who read purely for amus.e.m.e.nt and those who want the new books--new spelled with a capital n and book with a small b--old persons, those whose eyesight is defective and whose gla.s.ses strike the card catalog at the wrong angle, foreigners who use English with difficulty and diffidence--all these gather together in the delivery room at once, and efficient as the a.s.sistant may be--and sometimes they effect miracles--it is impossible for them to give the different individuals the help each one needs. In the libraries where the human element is most withdrawn the case of these people is hard.

To bring the personal relation again into the library and to develop it with the growth of the needs of the public, with this end in view, a number of libraries have introduced the information desk. By common consent, perhaps in the eternal fitness of things, this position so far seems to have been relegated to woman.

"She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friends.h.i.+p."

So wrote Sir Roger De Coverley of the object of his affections, and no one could more felicitously describe two of the qualifications for the one presiding at the information desk. A reading lady she must be; and it is no less important that she be far gone in friends.h.i.+p for the public. To study their needs; to be receptive as wax to their impress, and responsive with heart and soul as well as with mind. This all around sympathetic power is the fundamental requisite of true service in this position. She may be a person of many words or of few; a good listener she must be. Success depends less upon temperament or gifts than upon an att.i.tude of inward receptivity and outgoing friendliness--the att.i.tude that radiates a home-like atmosphere and insensibly sets the stranger at ease. Emerson quaintly described certain faces as "decorated with invitation." This style of decoration will be permanently in fas.h.i.+on in this position if the invitation from the heart is a magnet strong enough to draw within its circle those who are in need of help. It is most necessary, also, that a certain poise be preserved. To be ready but not over anxious to a.s.sist; to be responsive but not intrusive; to be suggestive but never insistent; to recommend books without forcing one's own literary tastes or standards upon others; while helping new comers, to seek to make them independent in their use of the library instead of leading them to rely on some one else to do the work and use all the judgement for them, all this requires a nice adjustment of balances. And it is well to have on hand the tact which is the art of lessening social friction, and the sense of humor so invaluable as a lubricator in human relations. When any one comes to the information desk with a grievance, irritated, if not angry, to be met with simple good nature, and not to be taken too seriously, and yet to find instant readiness to adjust the cause of annoyance if possible, soon dissipates the feeling of antagonism or injury. Such encounters ought not to tax one's patience.

They sometimes turn out to be rather interesting.

Nor need stupidity tax one's patience. What more pathetic than the isolation of one who is slow to perceive and to grasp? It is a terrible handicap. To rescue the dull from their dullness should be the first impulse, and shallow is the sympathy that does not reach out to such instinctively. It is not enough to be able also to unlock the resources of the individual.

People come to libraries from all sorts of homes. To the man or woman living in the midst of ugly and sordid surroundings, where the days are crowded with drudgery, the weekly visit to the library becomes a social event; it is a lift into a fresh atmosphere, into another plane of life.

A pa.s.sing greeting from the information desk gives a sense of welcome and of relations.h.i.+p to the reading public. Five or ten minutes of cordial contact, a brief conversation with one unrelated to their world of worries, is a refres.h.i.+ng experience. To be recognized as a thinking, reading being, with opinions about books, instead of a human machine for cooking, scrubbing and sewing, or money-getting, puts new life into one.

But this social side of the work of the information desk must rest on the solid foundation of practical qualifications. One must possess the knowledge of a wide range of books, the power of concentration on the one person or the one subject in hand, and the mental alertness that perceives when another person is waiting. The more perfect the understanding of the system of cla.s.sification of the books and of all the technical side of library work, the more effective will be the service at the information desk. There the resources of the library should be at command, and should be reached rapidly and accurately. When any imaginable or unimaginable question may be asked at any moment, from "May I use your pencil?" up through the whole range of history, art, literature, politics, science or religion, one must know the ground thoroughly in order to meet these demands. Topics requiring special research are pa.s.sed on to the reference room, but the inquirer should be put on the right track when he wants but a single book from the delivery room.

The new-comer must be instructed in intelligent use of the catalogs and helped towards self-reliance from the start. The young people must be a.s.sisted in making out their first lists, and these lists should represent a variety of authors, in order that the author who pleases can be followed up independently through the card catalogs. A well selected first list for boys or girls should place at their command a range of 50, 60, or 100 books. It is surprising how few writers are known to the average boy or girl who comes to the public library for fiction. The field of the boy is often bounded by Alger, Ellis, Optic, and Henty, while the girls may know only Sophie May and Miss Olcott. Beyond are unknown seas. One of the early developments at the information desk will be carefully-selected lists of books for boys and girls. They grow under one's hand as the young people in turn recommend additions. This sense of co-operation wins the confidence of those who are quick to suspect and ward off any lurking desire for their improvement on the part of the library. Notwithstanding that the starting point must always be the taste and inclination of the reader, it is a simple matter to keep the pressure in the right direction. Carefully-selected fiction lists for older readers also meet a want. Such lists do not include the works of the standard, voluminous writers known to every one. Into them are gathered some of the old favorites of a generation ago, or later novels which may have happened to miss fame and yet possess an abiding charm and the indispensable element of interest. There are hundreds of such books, perennially delightful, novels just now submerged under the continually rising tide of new fiction. It is a piece of pure good fortune for the reader who turns in despair from the pursuit of "David Harum," "Eben Holden," or "Janice Meredith," to find a fresh range of unheard-of novels of equal or more than equal interest. This enlargement of their circle of congenial authors is welcomed with every grateful appreciation. A list of good short stories is another resource, and one of cheerful books for invalids; stories that are neither morbid nor tragic. Young working men who can come to the library only at evening are glad of a.s.sistance in selecting books related to their work and they are quick to respond to any evidence of sympathetic interest in their pursuit. Young girls employed during the day who wish to make up for the lack of opportunities in school are eager and grateful for advice in outlining courses of reading and study; those studying music are glad of guidance into the more interesting pathways of musical literature, or it may be the amateur in some branch of art who reveals a cherished ambition in the hope of obtaining help in this direction, and delightfully friendly relations spring into being while these various lists are under way.

Often the chance encounter, the mere pa.s.sing remark, brings the happy inspiration as to just the right books, as when one catches a glimpse of a deep enthusiasm for nature surviving in the breast of a man through fifty years spent between city walls. To introduce him to Richard Jeffries, most intense, nearest to nature's spirit, and least known of nature's lovers, is to enrich the remaining years of this man's life.

All who go to the library go as seekers. Some are seeking merely entertainment, others are searching for knowledge, but many are struggling with the deep problems that beset us all, perhaps in moral or spiritual darkness, and looking only for light. If one's heart is with the people, nothing so quickens perception as sympathy. One notes the trend of the reading of the individual, and often what he is seeking is intuitively divined. Perhaps the simple remark, "If you can tell me just what you want I may be able to find it for you," results in a frank statement of the difficulty, or an outburst of sudden confidence is given from the impulse that makes it often easier to confide in a stranger than in a relative. And it counts for a good deal just then if the one at the information desk knows what writer has felt and thought most deeply and has written most clearly and helpfully on that subject.

Few are the needs of the human heart or mind that are really beyond the reach of help from books--books in which we find the reflection of our every mood, the expression in our inmost aspiration, the conservation of the feeling, the experience and the wisdom of the race.

CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING

Border regions are those of greatest interest, for they are regions of contact and therefore places where things happen.

This is a border region between the field of the librarian and that of the teacher. Its activities are the sole justification for the name "library teacher" bestowed upon a.s.sistants in many of the homelier city districts. Here the librarian must tread warily. He can not push or pull; he must effect what he desires by making it attractive to the reader. In the five following papers this function is somewhat elaborated--a very modern phase of library work and one most nearly concerned with its socialization.

PROBABLE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL OUTCOME OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

A paper by Rev. Dr. Pierce, then editor of _Zion's Herald_, a Methodist publication, read at the Lake George Conference of the American Library a.s.sociation in 1885. Notably free from the caution and hesitancy then often appearing in the public utterances of the clergy regarding popular libraries, and full of belief that their power of guidance would make them "powerful elements of culture."

Bradford Kinney Pierce was born in Royalton, Vt., February 3, 1819, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1841.

Entering the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was also occupied for many years as teacher and editor, being agent of the Sunday School Union in 1845-56, editing _Zion's Herald_ in 1872-88 and then serving as librarian of the Free Library at Newton, Ma.s.s., in addition to his other duties, until his death, April 19, 1889. He has been called "the Nestor of New England Methodism."

The free public library is now becoming the favorite posthumous beneficiary of our men of wealth. Heretofore it has hardly been esteemed respectable in the vicinity of Boston for a man of fortune to die without leaving a generous bequest to Harvard College or to the Ma.s.sachusetts General Hospital. The city and town library is now beginning to share liberally in these testamentary benefactions. The college requires too considerable a sum in our days to be often adequately endowed by the estate of one patron, but the library can be established and be quite amply appointed by the acc.u.mulation of one public-spirited citizen, and be made to become his most-honored and permanent memorial. Every town of any size in our New England and Northern States either has, or will soon have, one of these people's universities, through the individual gift of a generous citizen, or by public establishment.

This general gathering of large bodies of books in all our princ.i.p.al towns, opened freely to all ages, can but produce a manifest influence for good or evil in the community. The familiar and forcible response to the objection made to the establishment of so many small colleges in the land, rather than securing their consecration and abundant endowment and appointment in a few centres, is that the "fresh-water inst.i.tution," so called, brings the opportunities for a liberal culture near to thousands who could not otherwise be prompted to make the incident sacrifices to secure an advanced education. The immediate presence itself of the inst.i.tution is an inspiration to study. So the presence of the numerous libraries, with their wide-open doors to all, and their attractive shelves, becomes a powerful incitement to those who otherwise would hardly think of seeking enjoyment or profit in reading. The statistics of these city and town libraries fully confirm this _a-priori_ presumption as to their influence in awakening and cultivating an interest in books among all cla.s.ses. And this influence of books upon a reading community is very powerful. It is more subtle than human companions.h.i.+p. The latter strongly affects and moulds the character; but books reach us at lower depths. They inspire us more profoundly; they touch our whole being, intellect, heart, and executive purpose; they imperceptibly create or modify our ethical standards; they become our models of life and conduct; they lay hold of our highest and most sacred sentiments and color our views of the life beyond.

It can but be, where the circulation of these volumes reaches nearly all our families and enters into the thoughts and emotions of every day of the year, that manifest results for the better or the worse will follow. Many thoughtful persons have been honestly anxious in reference to the result of the experiment. The public press has sent out its serious forebodings from the pens of those who have taken depressing views of the matter, and alarming tracts have been published, giving painful criticisms upon the contents of certain libraries, the nature of special volumes found upon their shelves, and the amount of circulation of works of fiction of not the most elevating, or even wholesome, character. To all this we answer that these criticisms, whether well founded or not, have not been without their influence in calling attention to the most intelligent of our inst.i.tutions. Their officers are cultured gentlemen and ladies, clearly apprehending the relation of the library to the intellectual and moral development of the community and its true office in administering to the improvement, as well as enjoyment, of its patrons. It is more and more becoming an educating rather than a simply entertaining inst.i.tution. It is every day becoming more widely recognized that it is not intended to be a compet.i.tor with the circulating library, but rather an antagonist, winning the patrons of the latter to the reading and study of a higher order of literature.

While the majority of library managers do not take the extreme view that has been strongly advocated by some quite intelligent library trustees, that the public funds should not be used for the purchase of fiction, which may be considered an intellectual luxury, but only for improving and educating literature, they do seek to carefully sift the lighter issues of the press, securing the best and the purest of this character.

They also study at the same time, through their accomplished officers and a.s.sistants, in the use of the local press, through the cooperation of the teachers of the schools and the leaders of public opinion, with the aid of parents, to awaken especially in the minds of the young people a taste for regular and substantial courses of reading in the various departments of science, history, and _belles-lettres_. The success that has attended these efforts is full of encouragement. Our superintendents and librarians do not simply remain at their desks, or stand behind their tables to respond to the call for books, but make themselves felt in the community, aiding in the investigations of students, a.s.sisting in the search for authorities, facts, and ill.u.s.trations, suggesting plans for interesting the youthful readers in scientific or literary studies, and calling attention to the rich acc.u.mulations upon the library shelves. The annual reports of these inst.i.tutions are constantly showing improvement in the character of the reading in their several communities,--a gradual decrease in the lighter works, and an increase in the call for books of art and science, of travel and biography, of poetry and philosophy. A significant falling off in the number of books taken from the library, in many places, is noticed, while the patronage of the library is manifestly increased. The works that are now selected are substantial, requiring thought and time in reading. They cannot be hurried over in a day like the light novel, and hence the decrease in the number of volumes read is a most gratifying evidence of improvement in the quality of the reading.

The free library is becoming the effectual antagonist, also, of the superficial news and story papers. Their "name is legion." They a.s.sault the eye with their staring ill.u.s.trations, and tempt the reader by their cheapness. Especially at the close of the week, supplies of this trash, with periodical sheets of a little higher order, but still superficial, have been heretofore laid in for the hours of respite from labor on the Sabbath. This light, disconnected, desultory reading, carried on through all the unoccupied hours of the week, while it secures a smattering of information, can but be of a very vicious intellectual tendency, not to speak of its moral influence. The free library and its reading-room offer without expense the perusal of the best periodical literature in the land, and permit and tempt their patrons to secure, for the unemployed hours of the approaching Sabbath, works of deep interest and of an improving character.

We are confident that this multiplication of well-selected and constantly growing collections of standard and current literature is full of promise of good, and, as generally managed among us, is attended with small and easily corrected evils. It is inspiring the establishment of literary and scientific clubs, awakening the ambition and inventive powers of our mechanics, encouraging a liberal and cultivating course of reading among our school students, and affording an immeasurable amount of pure and refining enjoyment throughout the community. We look upon it as one of the significant and powerful elements of a higher and general culture among the people, and prophetic of far greater and better fruits in the future.