The Business Library: What it is and what it does

by Louise B. Krause

The Circulation of Periodicals

After the periodicals have been read and subject indexed by the librarian, as necessity requires, and this should be done immediately on mail delivery, they are sent to the desks of the members of the organization who are most vitally interested in any special information which they contain. Methods of circulation vary in different types of business libraries; some business libraries which serve a large constituency prefer to make typewritten or mimeographed lists of subject references to articles in the periodicals received during the week, and circulate these lists throughout the organization, asking the men to send to the library for any article they desire to read. This method does not suit busy executives who have no time to read a list and make a selection, and who wish the material itself put in front of them.

Some business librarians route their periodicals, attaching a slip with a list of names indicating the next person to whom the periodical is to be sent, when a reader is finished with it. Other business librarians send the individual periodicals direct to one man only, with a slip attached calling his attention to the article of special interest to him. As soon as he is through with the periodical, he puts it in his outgoing basket and it is returned to the librarian, who sends it to a second man, with a special note of the contents for him. This method seems much more desirable than to route periodicals, because they most often fail to route—they simply side track! The periodical gets laid aside on some one's desk and the librarian does not know whether it is being passed along promptly or not, whereas if the periodical is sent direct to one individual and is not promptly returned, the librarian goes after it, if it is important that it should go to someone else in the organization, without unreasonable delay. In large organizations with hundreds of employes to be reached, the routing of periodicals is absolutely necessary. The practice of the librarian of one large corporation is to subscribe for one copy of each weekly periodical for every five men who desire to read that periodical and one copy of each monthly periodical for every seven men. To insure quick routing, the names of delinquents are put at the end of the list of those to whom the periodical circulates, and the names of the men who have proved that they pass on the periodical quickly are put at the top of the list.

Samples of 3 by 5 inch charging cards. These cards may be purchased in ten colors, ruled in either four or six columns. Some business librarians put the borrower's record on a white card, and the record made under the name of a periodical on a colored card. Some business librarians omit the date of circulation. The initials on the right hand card shown above, are those of the men in a business office who are to have the periodical sent to them regularly. The cards bearing the names of the borrowers should be filed in a charging tray in alphabetical order, as should also the cards bearing the names of the periodicals. In a business library, it is not necessary to file by date as is done in public libraries.

Books loaned from a business library may be charged in a similar manner, i.e. a card bearing the name of author and title of the book taking the place of the card bearing the title of the periodical as shown above. The book card is kept in a pocket, pasted on the front or back cover of the book, when the volume is not in circulation.

The circulation or routing slip which is attached to each periodical bears the following: "Please keep this magazine in circulation. To be of value it must reach every man on this list within a week. If you cannot read it now, send it on without checking off your name and it will be returned to you later. Mark at the right of your name the page number of any article that you believe should be indexed for future reference."

A simple loan record on 3 by 5 inch cards specially ruled and of which illustrations are shown, should be kept under the name of the man to whom the periodical is sent, and also under the name of the periodical, in order that the librarian can tell on a moment's notice where any issue of a periodical is and also what each man has charged against him. Books and other library material may be charged in the same manner.

Business men in general, so experience proves, exercise no particular responsibility either to return material or to replace it, for the business organization has no rules for lending, and the responsibility of knowing what material is out of the library, where it is, and that it is brought back or replaced, falls upon the librarian. The business librarian with his loan record as a guide tactfully asks if the business man is finished with the material, and if so, collects it; in some cases the collection is made without asking, when a visit to a man's office clearly shows that the material is side-tracked and dusty. This is one of the most tedious duties which falls to the business librarian's lot, but one of the most important ones, for the function of the librarian is to get material used freely, and not hoarded.

Business men who always get what they want from their library on a moment's notice do not appreciate the time and patience such service requires on the part of their librarian, for no genius is involved in the case of the librarian who always has ready on the shelves what is needed. Often a business man who literally wants material on a minute's notice, is the one who is most careless in cooperating with the librarian by returning material, and who does not want to stop a moment to have a loan record made. Sometimes a business man gets in a hurry for library material, which the librarian says he already has, but which he insists is not in his office, whereupon the librarian goes to his office, and pleasantly and often humorously unearths it from the bottom of the pile of material on his desk or table.

In the matter of the loaning of material the business librarian certainly has to be characterized by the words "long suffering," for he must make no excuses and deliver material in spite of the delinquencies of others. If some one at this point protests that it is unfair to the business librarian, the answer is, that the business man has a right to do as he pleases with his own, and that the business librarian exists to save a busy man from the error of his ways, for it must be remembered always that the business library is organized to give service to men of affairs, burdened with large responsibilities. All business men are not careless in returning material, and certainly minor employes have no right to be, but it will have to be admitted that business men, who never think of taking the trouble to return material are in the majority.

A corner of bound periodicals in the library of H. M. Byllesby & Company, Chicago. The worth while periodicals devoted to any one industry are comparatively few and bound volumes do not take up so much space as might be imagined. A three foot shelf will hold six or seven years of one periodical.