SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT, AND THE REFERENCE DEPARTMENT AS A BUREAU OF INFORMATION
What we call "reference work" has been a little in disrepute of late, and there has been some discussion as to the amount of time which may legitimately be spent in helping the curious inquirer to learn how many of the Louis's died a natural death, or whether Helen of Troy wore locks of Titian red. But it is only in the large library that there can be any limitation of what we call the reference department to the handling of such academic quibbles. It is true that in the large library the technical department, the business branch, the art department may limit and thin the quality of work left to the reference librarian, till she (or he) may feel that only the dry bones of the day's research are hers (or his). But in the small library there is no such limitation, and the reference librarian, who may also be the head librarian and the chief cataloger, may come in touch each day with every sort of human interest, from the eager desire of the office clerk to get back to the soil by the road of raising rice in Arkansas or apples in Idaho, to the yearning for economic independence and artistic expression in the soul of the girl who comes to pore over books on design.
To one who is fully awake to the human side of things, there can never be any dull monotony in the life of the reference librarian. I have often wished I had time—and genius—to write the Romance of a Reference Library. It would cover as many pages, and be almost as thrilling as the Thousand-and-One-Nights. I wish I had time to tell you, the Molly-Make-Believe Episode of Goodwyn Institute library, or the Tale of the Telegram from the Nicaragua Revolution.
Now in the small library where one reference assistant must be so many things to so many people in the course of one day, there is special need of scientific management of time, labor, methods, resources. Fortunately, the reference assistant has few statistics to trouble with. The only record that seems essential is that of questions asked and topics looked up. A pad of paper, dated, kept at one's elbow, and questions jotted down almost as they are being asked—this gives an interesting basis for monthly and yearly reports, and makes something to show for the day's work much more interesting than mere figures, and does furnish certain figures, especially if we add, after each topic, approximate number of books, pamphlets and magazines used in getting information or material desired.
From these daily sheets interesting deductions can be made, classifications of different kinds and sources of questions asked, what classes of people are users and which are non-users of the library, on what lines the library needs to build up its resources, in what directions it needs to advertise better. Red pencil checks may be placed against more significant topics, for quick summarization at the end of the month. If the question is for school or club work, or likely to recur again, take a pencil and small pad, write Panama canal tolls or labor laws affecting women, or whatever the subject may be, at the top of the pad, and make rapid note of magazine articles, books, etc., looked up. Much time is lost in looking up the same things over and over again, sometimes by one assistant, and sometimes by another. Lists jotted roughly down while material is being looked up, or directly after, may be copied by typewriter on catalog cards and filed alphabetically in a special tray of the catalog case, where they will be quickly available for the next call. For debates, the material listed on cards should be grouped roughly under "general," "affirmative" and "negative." It saves time, also, in collecting books on the reserve shelf for a debate, to mark the places by clipping to the page a slip labelled "affirmative" or "negative." Of course, for debate work the first aid to scientific management is the use, so far as possible, of the work done by others in such invaluable little manuals as the Debaters' Hand-Book series, and the debate pamphlets of the Universities of Wisconsin, Texas, Iowa and others, supplemented by the latest magazine articles in the Readers' Guide.[11]
[11] A brief list, entitled "Debaters' Aids," was distributed in connection with this paper.
The same economic principle applies, of course, to every other class of subjects looked up. Make use of work done by others, whether in the form of bibliographies, indexes, reports and publications of special organizations, or what not. Two small indexes which save much time in the small library are the Pittsburgh Library Debate Index and their Contemporary Biography. Though the latter is now ten years old it is still extremely useful to those libraries which are so fortunate as to own copies.
Another economy of time and money is the using of book-lists printed by other libraries or organizations, checking on them the titles in one's own library, putting the library stamp upon them, and distributing them to the class of users interested. Goodwyn Institute library has recently done this with the booklet entitled: "What to read on business efficiency," issued by the Business Book Bureau of New York.
An important psychological point is always to get one good piece of material before each researcher promptly, then other material may be gathered more deliberately. If several people are waiting at once, give each one reference to start on rather than serve one in detail while all others wait their turn. Perhaps this is a small and obvious trifle to dwell upon, but it is a bromidium that trifles make success, in reference work as in anything else.
Returning to the wisdom of using others' work, I must emphasize the importance of collecting the material put out by all sorts of special organizations. We know that every subject now has its literature, from "votes for women" to the extermination of the house fly or the loan shark. And much of this matter, often in pamphlet or leaflet form, is obtainable free or at small
cost. Frequently such literature is the latest and most authoritative word upon any subject.
In our scheme of scientific management, therefore, the small library, perhaps even more than the large, can not afford to do without collecting such literature. The pamphlet collection is indispensable. It means work, but in the end by its live usefulness it saves time. By scientific management and intensive use a small library with a good pamphlet collection can get better results than one three times as large whose resources are not up-to-date and thoroughly made use of.
First, a word as to the filing of such material; second, as to sources for securing it. I cannot attempt to offer any new solution to the vexed problem of pamphlet disposal. I will merely state briefly how Goodwyn Institute library handles its pamphlets. We have found the system of filing in pamphlet boxes most convenient and practicable. A box is lettered with D. C. number or inclusive numbers, and with subject or subjects included, as 334.6 Agricultural credit. Pamphlets are counted as received, but not accessioned. If important, catalog card is made under subject, or author, rarely under both. If of slight or only temporary value, they are merely marked with class number, and placed in box without cataloging. Sometimes merely a general catalog card is made to show that the library receives all the publications of an organization, as with the National American Woman Suffrage Association, or with the American National Child Labor Committee. In these cases there would be both author and subject card. Any specially important publication of the association would be brought out by separate card. A check on the pamphlet would indicate whether or not it had been cataloged.
For the small library which has not time to catalog individual pamphlets, it would be sufficient to make one general card for each group, giving class number and subject heading, as: "325 Immigration; for material (or for additional material) on this subject, see pamphlet collection," or merely, "See also pamphlets."
Goodwyn Institute clips also the local newspapers and a few others for matters of local or special interest, mounts the more valuable clippings on manila sheets, 8x10 in size, numbers them, occasionally catalogs an important one, and files them with pamphlets on the same subjects. To keep the collection from becoming obsolete, or occupying too much space, it should be gone over once a year, and old pamphlets and clippings and their cards withdrawn and destroyed. With many constantly changing subjects in agriculture, engineering, current problems, etc., it becomes instinctive with the reference assistant to bring forth first to the would-be investigator the pamphlet box or boxes on that subject, then the more recent magazine articles, and only last the books.
In Goodwyn Institute library the pamphlet collection is supplemented by a vertical file, arranged alphabetically under the same headings as the pamphlets. In this file are placed letters, circulars, typewritten lists, and the like, not advisable to be placed in the pamphlet boxes. A practical plan for indexing this material is a general card on each subject included, to be filed at end of regular cards in cataloging: e. g. "Levees; for additional material, see vertical file." For the very small library the vertical file is perhaps the most convenient arrangement for disposing of pamphlets and all unbound material in one place.
Some of the larger libraries bind in inexpensive form all pamphlets which are considered worthy of preservation, but for the small library this seems necessary only in the case of pamphlets of unusual value or size.
Now as to some of the sources of the pamphlet and ephemeral literature which is so valuable. I can not do better than to remind you again of two lists with which you are probably already familiar. The first is "Social questions of today, selected sources of information, compiled by the Free Public Library, Newark, N. J.," 1911. It may be obtained from the Editor of Special Libraries, State Library, Indianapolis, for ten cents. It includes the names and addresses of organizations interested in social questions, such as the American Civic Association, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Vocation Bureau of Boston, and an index of subjects covered by the publications of these organizations, such as the cost of living, prison reform, sex hygiene, vacation schools.
The second list is entitled "The library and social movements; a list of material obtainable free or at small expense." It may be had from the A. L. A. Publishing Board for five cents. This list includes material on all sorts of sociological questions, from co-operative stores to workingmen's compensation. From these two lists a good working collection of up-to-date, inexpensive pamphlet material on social problems may be obtained. Among recent organizations, born since these lists were published in 1911, are the Drama League of America, the American Commission on Agricultural Co-operation, the Southern Sociological Congress. All these put out valuable and inexpensive reports and publications. It would be a boon to small, and even large libraries, if the A. L. A. Publishing Board would father a new list including and enlarging the material of the two 1911 lists, and adding the most important new organizations and publications which have since come into being.
The recently published index to Special Libraries, Vol. 1-3, makes available, in that indispensable little journal much valuable material on current questions, and sources of information.
For all subjects, technical, scientific, historical, sociological, covered by the U. S. Government publications, and these subjects are innumerable, a convenient guide to selection is offered by the brief classified price-lists furnished by the Superintendent of Documents. The suggestions in the little weekly Government Publications, published by M. E. Greathouse at 510 12th St., N. W., Washington, at fifty cents a year, are also helpful, as are the notes in the A. L. A. Booklist, which now lists many government documents. The "Interesting Things in Print" column in Public Libraries should be carefully scanned, as should the "Periodical and other literature" department of the Library Journal.
To get upon the regular mailing list of as many organizations as possible saves much time spent in writing for individual publications. And even where there is a membership fee, as of $2.00 per year to the Drama League of America, for example, it will bring far more valuable returns in twelve months than the same amount expended in books.
The first labor of writing for and handling a collection of pamphlet literature seems considerable, but when properly organized its daily up-keep is not difficult and its presence in a library goes far to make possible the scientific management of the queries and problems which come each day to the reference desk.
May I rather say the information desk. We librarians are so at home with our own terminology, have talked so long and familiarly of reference desks, reference work, the reference library, that I doubt if we ever realize the foreignness of our language to the shy visitor within our gates. "Ask in the reference room" means worse than nothing to him, but the simple legend "Information desk" will draw him like the kindly and familiar face of a friend.
The idea that a modern library is, or should be, a central Bureau of Information for its town or city is one that we first have to get thoroughly into our own heads, and then impress upon our public. In the effort to find the simplest and most effective way to present this idea to our Memphis public, we tried running the following card in the street cars:
What do You want to Know?
You have 12,000 Books, Trade Journals, Magazines on all subjects, and an Information Bureau for Your use absolutely Free in Goodwyn Institute Library.
We were able to make specially advantageous terms with the street car advertising company, whose representative had himself made use of the resources of the library, and we have been running this card, or similarly worded ones, for over a year. The results, sometimes direct, sometimes indirect, have been very interesting. The card has brought us many business men, and other street car users, who, seeing our invitation daily, recall it from the depths of their subconsciousness when they do want to know. The card is often taken quite literally, as in the case of the young Russian from Odessa, later from St. Louis, who read the sign in the street car which brought him from the railway station. He came straight to the library and to the information desk, told his story briefly and succinctly, and asked how he could find a position as house boy, for which he was qualified. The Jewish Rabbi happened to be in the library at the moment. He called up the head of the Jewish Charities, who on hearing that the lad was from Odessa, said: "Why, that is my native place! Send him along and I will surely find him something." And he did.
Another bright-eyed youth, who worked with a moving-picture corporation in the daytime, but had his evenings free, came in to ask if we had d'Espuy's "Architecture antique." He was overjoyed when he saw it and other folios on the subject, said he was wanting to go on with the study of architecture at night, and had seen our street car card. "That card's a fine stunt," he added. Then there was the case of the two young men who had come down the river by boat from Iowa, looking for work as extra Christmas clerks. They were sent up to us by a policeman, from whom they asked information. We sent them to the Y. M. C. A. Department of Employment, and one of them afterward came back to tell us they had both gotten a job. We do not at all mind being teased a bit about our "Employment Bureau," so glad are we that the policeman and the man-on-the-street should instantly think of Goodwyn Institute library when asked for any information which he cannot give. We desire to be regarded as a sort of central clearing house for general information, even when the question is of so primitive and vital a nature as how a man shall earn his next meal, and to this end we take as our motto "Nothing human is alien to us."
We think it is within our legitimate field to tell the man not that he has come to the wrong place, but to tell him the address of the right place, and sometimes even to give him a note or do a moment's telephoning that will connect him with the right place, and will make him feel that the library's "What do you want to know?" means him.
The point I wish to emphasize is: Never let a man go away without either the information for which he has come, or the knowledge as to where he may find it. This does not mean that we must spend precious time in looking up irrelevant questions, or in attempting to handle matters which some other library or organization could deal with more efficiently. It does mean that it is our business as a Bureau of Information to know just where that question can be most effectively handled, and then to direct the inquirer there.
Thus if a man desires a certain address in Los Angeles, we send him to the Cotton Exchange, one block away, which has a full line of directories, open to the public; if a certain government monograph which we do not possess, we refer him to the Cossitt library, which as a government depository has a full collection of public documents; if other than a very simple legal reference, we refer him to the law library, mentioning its hours and restrictions.
If the information desired may be secured by letter, we often give a reader the necessary address and let him write himself. We ought, of course, to save the library's time in this way whenever possible. Yet frequently the information or material to be secured would have a future value to the library itself, or to the city, and whenever this is the case, this advantage, together with the reader's grateful appreciation of the library for getting him what he wants when he wants it, surely justifies us in writing the letter ourselves. Thus, Goodwyn Institute library has recently secured much information and literature on smoke abatement experience of other cities, for engineers suddenly forced to apply modern methods by a stringent city ordinance. Assistance has been given in the same way to the Mississippi Valley Levee Association; to a committee appointed to present a county insanity commission bill to the state legislature; to the city engineer, on the practice of different cities as to grade-crossings and railroad track elevation; again to an individual reader who wished to learn what diseases are native to South Carolina in distinction from those supposed to be cured by residence there; to a local manufacturer on the process of making paper from cotton stalks; to a student on the death rate and prevalence of tuberculosis among negroes; to another on the best methods of alfalfa raising in West Tennessee.
The use of the telephone is encouraged for information needed quickly. If a busy business man wishes to know the name and address of the U. S. Consul in Peru, the 1910 population of Guthrie, Oklahoma, the meaning of a troublesome phrase in a Spanish letter, he appreciates knowing that he can get a prompt reply by calling up the library. The St. Joseph library makes this feature of its information service effectively known by attractive blotters and leaflets sent to business men.
We are all familiar with the insistent demands of club members and of school children, set sometimes, the former by the club system, and the latter by the school system, to subjects beyond their grasp. Of the vexed problem of distributing our crowded hours judiciously among all these demands, Miss Bacon has written most lucidly in her delightful paper on "What the public wants," in the May (1913) Library Journal.
Certainly we do have to learn to discriminate as to the time and attention we give to each demand upon us. Yet each is important to the man, woman or child, who makes it, and however briefly and expeditiously we may dispose of it, let us make the questioner feel that he did well to come to us, that we are for the moment concentrating upon his problem, and that we are giving him the best assistance in our power, even if it be only an address, or a telephone number, or the name of the book in which his question will be answered.
Let me repeat that it is all largely a matter of making our library a clearing house of information, of connecting the man with the answer to his question, rather than of necessarily answering it ourselves. And to this end, and by these means, may the small library be as useful as the large.
The next speaker was Miss SARAH B. BALL, librarian of the business branch of the Newark free public library, who spoke on