The Public
The root of library opinion and support is public sentiment. Indirectly, it nourishes the spirit which inspires the private donor. Directly, it supplies the impulse which founds the library; the enthusiasm which supports it liberally; the civic wisdom and pride which erect buildings; the large and democratic taste which approves adequate facilities, sound construction, quiet and appropriate beauty in building.
The aim in the United States is to make the library an essential part of education, not only in acting with the school system, but in carrying on the graduate to a larger education at home, not only literary and social, but industrial as well, so as to develop law-abiding and useful citizens. There is a further aim, akin to that of parks and playgrounds, in providing a sober recreation to rival the attractions of saloons and street corners and dance halls.
When the public can be convinced that its library works to these ends and is economically and efficiently managed, the community will support it generously. When the time comes for building, sufficient funds can generally be got without trouble. The voters will not forget Washington’s injunction, “Promote, as objects of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge,” and they will rank the library first among such institutions.
“There is probably no mode of spending public money which gives a more extraordinary and immediate return in utility and innocent enjoyment.”—Stanley Jevons, quoted by Crunden.
In library building, realize that the public, which pays, should get every possible service in its best form, service for educated and uneducated readers; for workmen and workwomen, as well as for scholars, for the children of all, and for the teachers of the children. Especial thought should be given to those citizens who can have no large libraries of their own. Your library should be made so simple and homelike that it will invite them as a home or a club they own.
Wise Election of Trustees. The town can begin to provide for wise building by paying some attention to selecting suitable trustees. The position is an honorary one in most towns, and is usually given to clergymen, lawyers, men of literary taste, each of whom is, as it were, citizen emeritus, retired from active life, and remote from the wants of the public. The board is apt to become a cosy club, and to get into a rut. Especially is this so if it is in-breeding; allowed to select its own members, and to become a clique. If Harvard College cannot allow its overseers to serve more than two terms successively, towns should not allow any town board to become perpetual. Especially may this autocracy work harm in building. Men chosen for literary taste are not always the most practical. There ought to be on the board of trustees representatives of every section and every large element in the town. Among them there should be enough wise, level-headed men to make up a building committee, just the kind of men who would naturally be selected as building committee of a bank or church, men of judicial temperament who can weigh the argument of librarian and architect, and of sober judgment to curb extravagance in either. It is the part of the public to elect such men, and to defer to their judgment when selected. Literary taste is not needed on building committees. The librarian ought to know how to handle books; his judgment will suffice. Artistic taste is not needed; a good architect ought to have that in his training.
Judgment. In one final point the public can help good planning; in their expression of opinion, their criticism or approbation of the building after completion.
Even the stranger who flashes through the town in his automobile can carry away into his own community an intelligent lesson. If the building has been properly planned, he should say, “That is evidently a library, a good library; just suited to this town (or institution), and evidently doing good work here.”
The citizen of the town should criticize its exterior not so much for splendor as for appropriateness and good taste. Does it suggest to him, and invite him to, the study of books or the recreation of reading? Even then, better suspend judgment until he sees or hears how the new library works as a library. If he can educate himself to this degree, his lay comment will have some share in the progress of library science.