THE RELATION OF THE CATALOG DEPARTMENT TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS IN THE LIBRARY
The subject assigned to me is the relation of the catalog department to other departments in a library. There is a feeling abroad that it is the tendency of librarians to consider their catalog departments as things apart, the details of whose management, long ago settled by experts, should be modified only as those experts may suggest.
Probably chief librarians do not have the habit of refraining from giving frequent and careful examinations in the catalog departments, or have less interest in the improvement of those departments than in others; but, because it has been possible for experts to formulate rules, as it has not been possible for anyone to do for other branches of the work, the chief librarians have quite naturally allowed themselves to pay less and less attention to the details of these departments, which have thus lost the stimulus which the chief librarians give to the departments with which they largely concern themselves.
This, naturally, as I have already said, tends to make of the cataloging department a thing apart and much efficiency is lost to the library as a whole because of it.
For the purposes of this paper I propose to include in the scope of the cataloging department much of the work on books from their selection to their placing on the shelf.
It must be borne in mind that I am speaking of public libraries and not of college, historical, scientific or special libraries of any kind, and that I am making suggestions only.
Book Selection
The selection of books instead of being a difficult and complicated matter calling for hours of study and conference, is really quite simple. Every librarian should expect his more intelligent assistants to make suggestions and help to keep his or her own collection up to date, but final decisions as to purchase should rest in the hands of two or three only. An attempt to let a dozen or more people discuss at meetings the value of any book or books and the propriety of adding this or that to the library costs enormously in time and money, and serves no useful purpose.
It improves the quality of the books selected but little, it tends to develop undue caution and to make the choice too literary and, if it helps to educate the assistants, it does so at too great a cost. The desire is often expressed that a library should contain "a well-rounded, well-balanced collection of books." This phrase sounds well and perhaps impresses the trustees or the town, but what does it really mean? Were we to follow it to its logical conclusion we would all buy in certain fixed proportions, all kinds of books and while we might then lay claim that we had a well-balanced collection, we would be far from filling well the special needs of any special community in which we might be placed. In point of fact every library buys what it thinks it needs most, in most cases it will be found that the books selected are the best books for that library. Most books buy themselves, others cry out to be selected. The clientele is waiting for them. The small remnant of specially chosen books call for no elaborate conferences. Why have any system of recording the fact that you did not buy certain books at this time, since next month or next year the book not bought has been displaced by another? Besides, you can always discover from your bibliographical aids the books you have been compelled to miss, so why duplicate the work already done for you?
Now let us look at the purely clerical side of book ordering. Do we fill out an elaborate order slip with all sorts of bibliographical data needed for comparatively few books only? All that is really needed by bookseller and library is the author, title and publisher of a book, and the latter even could be omitted in most cases.
Do we economize time and labor by writing our orders so that with the aid of carbon paper, we have an order slip to file, one to send to the bookdealer and another to the Library of Congress for the purchase of cards?
When a consignment of books arrives do we have some elaborate system of checking it off the bill? Do we use cabalistic signs in our books so that the public may not by any chance discover the price of them? Or do we simply write in plain sight the price, source and date of the bill in each book, check the book on the bill and pass it on?
Have we ever tried the experiment with say the Fiction Class of not giving either price, source and date of bill in the books?
Suppose we buy all our novels from one bookseller, as most libraries do, and announce to the staff generally and also drop a card into the official catalog and the shelf-list to the effect, that after such or such a date, neither the source nor price will be found in any novel, as everyone knows that all novels are bought from John Smith and cost $1.00. Think of the time saved! I am willing to wager that no library could report any ill effects from this change.
As to the few novels which sell at net prices, the money lost in charging the usual rate of $1.00 is negligible compared with the time saved in making these unnecessary entries. To comfort the super-conscientious librarian the loss would actually be covered in many cases, because the reprints of novels often cost less than $1.00.
Accession Record
Now let us go on to the accession book and ask how many use the regular or the condensed book and why?
Do you cling to the theory that it is the one complete record of every book in your library and would be most useful in case of adjustment of fire losses? I can't deny that it is a complete record of every book, but of what use is that to the library?
As to the adjustment of fire losses, are the books in your library arranged in accession order so that in case of fire you could show the insurance adjusters which books were burned by referring to your accession books?
Do you claim that the accession number is still necessary so that you may know the number of books added and to help distinguish one copy of a book from another? Why not use the Bates numbering stamp as an automatically accurate recording device, and save time and money? Do you use the accession book for securing each month the number of books added in any one class, which of course the Bates numbering stamp can not give?
To get this one record we employ the time of a person in making other useless records, when all we need is a blank book in which we enter in a few minutes all books under date and class number. In the same book we enter in another place the books subdivided under heads of purchase, binding, periodicals and gifts. Thus at tremendous saving we can answer at once the question of how many books are added during any month and in what class.
Do you perhaps keep an accession book, so that you may secure the price and source of a book reported lost by a borrower? How much lost motion, to say nothing of time and money, is expended annually in libraries where assistants turn from their shelf-list to their accession book for these facts which should be given on the shelf-list card!
Classification
Have you ever thought how much it costs your library to have it classified by a college and library school bred person? I am using these terms as synonymous with an educated person. Have you ever noticed how much time she spends in getting a book into what to her is the exact class and place?
Now I am not arguing for less educated people in our public libraries, far from it, but I wish to call your attention to the amount of time and money expended by you in too minute and particular classification. Have you ever thought that quite a coarse classification is just as good for your library as the rather particular one which causes your head cataloger to spend half an hour over a book which might just as well be made ready in five minutes?
Often, after much time has been spent in debating this point or that, about some special feature of a book, and it has at last been placed in a certain division, it will be found more useful with its fellows in a coarser or broader division.
I am only suggesting that time could be saved here without impairing the usefulness of the library.
Cataloging
This is that division of library work which one must approach as the holy of holies, leaving one's shoes on the mat outside.
Please do not assume that I do not appreciate what it has meant to the public library to have experts formulate a set of rules which any library can use. I am not objecting to the rules, but to the application of the rules. We spend hours, days, months, and years in giving paging, illustrations, size, publishers and place of publication on our catalog cards and all for what purpose pray?
What does the average user of a public library want to know? He wants to know whether you have a book by a certain author, by a certain title or on a certain subject. Ninety-five per cent of the borrowers of books want nothing more than that, and I am excluding fiction entirely. Consequently for the possible five per cent, and that is a high percentage, you spend much time in giving gratuitous information. The man who knows his subject goes to the bibliographies of the subject and does not depend upon your card catalog for bibliographical information. Let us look into these valuable items, aside from the very necessary author and title, supplied on catalog cards.
Paging. Did your reference people ever report any need of it in serving the public? I never heard of such need.
Place of publication and publisher. Both these items are occasionally asked for, but why spend time in putting them on all your cards for the sake of the few who wish to know, since you can immediately refer to Books in Print for current books and for all others to the many aids published for the librarian.
The date. Well, I might grant that it serves a better purpose than the other items, but I doubt its great usefulness.
Do you in addition to the very necessary shelf-list for all the books in the library, have a special shelf-list for Branches? Have you ever thought of the time given to keep the record of all the books at your Branches?
What purpose does it serve, since your Branches have their own record of the books they have?
I know of one library which kept such a record and finally decided to give it up, since it cost a great deal of money, and seemed after careful consideration to be of little value. Not the least harm has resulted from the change and the cataloging department has almost forgotten that it was ever done.
Does the head cataloger work at least one day a week in the lending or reference department for the sake of getting away from her own point of view and to imbibe something of the real needs of public and assistants? Try it, even if you think you can't afford it and I venture to prognosticate that your cataloging department from being the seat of the learned and superior will become a really valuable aid to all the other departments.
Within the limits of my paper I have been able to cite only a few examples of the changes which might be made in the method of putting books on the shelf in most of our public libraries, but I hope that the very obvious things I have said may serve to help in simplifying the work of a profession already much overburdened with technique.
The fourth paper in the discussion by Miss LAURA SMITH, of the Cincinnati public library, was entitled: