WHAT ANY LIBRARY CAN DO FOR THE BUSINESS INTERESTS OF THE TOWN
Have you ever felt discouraged over the purely potential value of your reference books, because they seem to remain forever potential? Have you ever turned the pages of the World Almanac and sighed over perfectly good answers which you could give to questions that nobody asks you? Every reference librarian present knows what I mean. When is wheat harvested in Burmah? Who is the secretary of sanitation in Cuba? How long does it take a letter to go from New York to Melbourne, via Vancouver? Are grapes more nutritious than plums? What are the dues in the Knickerbocker Club? What three nations have dominions on which the sun never sets? How many shipwrecks last year on the U. S. coasts?
These questions are being asked by somebody and being answered in a fashion by somebody. Very often that "somebody" is the editor of the query column in the newspaper. The newspapers of the country have educated the people to turn to them with their questions. How many of those questions could be answered just as well or better by the public library? How often the newspaper itself turns to the public library for the answers? Here is truly an unnecessary duplication of work and a loss of time. Here is also a high-road to popularity and an opportunity for usefulness to a community clearly seen by newspapers and worth cultivating by public libraries.
While we are making laws, librarians might conspire to put through a city ordinance to compel all questioning people to call on the public library as the first source of information. As that is manifestly impossible, something must be done to attract the business and trade interests of a town to the public library as a bureau of information. Why? Because the citizens pay taxes to support an institution—the public library—that they may be, by that institution, helped to become not simply better, but also wiser; not simply wiser, but also better informed; not simply better informed in general, but also better informed in city affairs; not simply in city affairs, but also in the affairs of each industrial unit. In a word, the city supports a library that the library may help it to become more harmonious, better governed and more productive.
As the institution is supported for specific purposes, it should not only be prepared to fulfill these purposes; it should also let it be known to all that it is thus prepared.
It should let those who support it know that it can not only help one who seeks general culture; but can also help one who seeks knowledge of city management in any of its countless aspects, or knowledge of methods of productive or distributive processes in any of their countless forms.
Possibly the first thing to do in thus letting its practical powers be known is to introduce into its vocabulary the phrase "business department" or "information department." A wider range of questions comes to a library that uses the words "information" or "business department" instead of "reference department." The words "public library" do not convey to the mind of the average person a suggestion of a tenth of the resources for information that are locked up in the collections of printed things which our cities now maintain.
An inquiring Newarker once said to me "Why should a public library advertise itself? Surely everyone knows where it is and that it contains books."
"Yes," said I, "but, do you yourself know what those books contain? Would you go to the library to learn the elevation above sea level of the street corner on which you live, or for the width of the street? Would you go there to plan your next business trip by using the maps of the cities you will visit, so that time will not be lost in going from one factory to another? If you are trying to sell a patented ticket punch, do you go to the library for the names of purchasing agents of railroads? If you have lost the address of a business correspondent do you telephone to the library or do you set the whole office force on edge hunting for the lost letter? Would you turn to the library for the date of Wilson's Chicago address, or the launching of a new battleship?"
He went away wiser; and left me quite pleased with myself.
Many public libraries have undertaken the task of collecting manufacturers' catalogs from all parts of the United States. Our experience indicates that this is a heavy expense with comparatively slight return. Would it not be better to spend the same amount of time and money compiling information about the industries of one's own town? It is a hopeless task to represent adequately the manufacturers of the United States. It is not a hopeless task to compile information about local manufacturers that will prove of great value. No business directory gives the specific information that is a daily need among the business men of a community. The directory gives, for example, a list of paper-box manufacturers, but does not indicate those who make egg boxes, hat boxes, jewelry boxes, etc. It lists the jewelry manufacturers, but is useless if you want the names of those who make 22-karat wedding rings. Many manufacturers and dealers are sending to distant cities, through habit, for articles made equally well and at the same cost within their own city, for no other reason than that they lack detailed information of the products of their own city. In some places the Board of Trade is the natural clearing house for this information. This is as it should be.
But what about the towns that are without Boards of Trade or whose Boards of Trade are not equipped to give this information? It is safe to say that there are not ten cities in the United States where one can find on file for the use of the public complete and specific information about the industries of that city. To secure this information is not an easy task. It requires circular letters, follow-up letters and possibly personal calls; but the value of thus creating an interest in the public library among those citizens who are paying the heaviest taxes, coupled with the real importance of the information itself, makes it an undertaking of peculiar value to a tax-supported public library. Fortunately the smaller the city the fewer the manufacturers and the easier the task, so that here indeed is a piece of work that may well be undertaken by libraries of many towns and cities.
We have grown in Newark, from being the conventional and rather academic library, to one that has quite large sources of civic and manufacturing and commercial and financial information. The question now is, how shall we get the people to realize the change? We are somewhat in the position of a dry goods store which has transformed itself into a department store, but is visited largely by those who seek only dry goods. We need to advertise our groceries, hardware, furniture and china.
If library architecture would only permit of show windows, as do all our Newark branches, the task would be greatly simplified. What a show window has meant to the business branch can be seen any day. A passerby is first attracted by the bright color of a map showing the London subway system. He pauses to read the old familiar words: "Trafalgar Square," "Tottenham Court Road" and "Ludgate Circus." Beside it is a new directory of the clothing trade, or a book on insurance, a pamphlet on civil service, or a new trolley guide. Finally, his curiosity aroused over the kind of a business house that can have such diversified interests, he looks up at the gold-lettered sign on the window and reads with puzzled expression, "Business Branch and Reading Room of the Free Public Library." Often he peers curiously in to see what kind of people are inside, and, seeing a room full of men, comes boldly in and asks for—a directory of Spuyten Duyvil, or some other obscure place. The window display has broadened his idea of the resources of the public library, which he had hitherto thought of as having nothing to interest him.
Where a library can afford it there are many advantages in establishing a business department. It keeps together closely related subjects, it is very helpful to business men, and it helps in advertising. If a permanent business department is impossible, there is much to be gained by a temporary showing of all that can be gathered relating to business.
All libraries have more of this material than we perhaps realize, surely more than the public realize. By bringing it together and displaying well-printed signs concerning it we are following sound advertising principles. The man who sees a sign in the library, "Our business is answering questions," will not be so absurdly apologetic over "bothering you" with his wants, and will use the resources of the library to better advantage than the man who thinks it is only for lending books.
Other signs that may be used with good effect are these:
"Have you an idea? Patent it. The library will tell you how."
"You support this library. Do you use it?"
"Why guess about things? Your Public Library can give you the facts. Telephone or write."
"A valuable export trade is yours if you follow the consular reports in the Public Library."
"Follow the work of the Legislature. The bills are on file at the Public Library."
Framed signs of the library as Bureau of Information, placed in public places, are good permanent advertisements. Personal visits to the places where questions are being asked—the post office, the railroad, telegraph, newspaper and express offices, and the suggestion that those in charge send to the public library all inquiries they do not wish to be troubled with or can not satisfy, will turn many people toward the library.
If it is the item of expense that stands in the way of business work in your library, have you considered possible economies in other lines? Why not discontinue a certain fashion magazine and add a financial one? Turn down an order for a history of the court of Queen Anne and buy a good history of Wall Street. Get along without that valuable but expensive book on the ancient civilization of the Egyptians and buy a directory of the manufacturers of the world. Deny your worthy scholars the latest commentary on Plato and get your business men the latest book on accountancy. Sacrifice an historical or classical atlas and secure the best maps of your own locality. Decide against the Portuguese dictionary and buy a cable code. Cancel the order for so-and-so's travels in British Guiana and subscribe for the Official Railway Guide.
Here are suggestions for a few resources to be used in meeting business inquiries of a general order, such as come to a library that advertises itself as a Bureau of Information, and some things we have found useful in business work:
1. The latest edition of the city directory, directories of local towns, of the capitol of the state, and of the largest cities of the United States. An exchange of directories one year old with other public libraries has proved quite satisfactory. It increases your resources, and the fact that you ask for year-old directories from local business houses for the purpose of exchange is a good advertisement of the library's business side. The cost of sending a 5-lb. directory to any part of the United States by book-rate express is about fifty cents.
If you cannot afford directories, get telephone books from the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., New York City, at prices ranging from 35 to 50 cents. Many of these contain classified sections. A classified telephone directory of New York may be obtained free by writing to Mr. Reuben J. Donnelly, 37 Fulton Street, New York City.
2. The very best local maps. To spend $30 on a real estate atlas may seem extravagant; but such atlases are usually issued at intervals of 6 to 10 years, and will prove one of the most useful sources of local information.
3. The Official Railway Guide. If the library cannot afford to pay $8.00 a year for it, get a month-old copy from the local railway office. It contains the most complete list of U. S. towns in print and is of value as a gazetteer and in many other ways.
4. The Western Union A. B. C. and Lieber Cable Codes are the only general codes in use. They cost about $32.00.
5. A table for displaying catalogs of business book publishers. This will increase the use of business books and lead to many good recommendations by visitors.
6. A monthly magazine, "Business News," of the Business Book Bureau of New York. It indexes articles in the principal business magazines and lists the important new business books.
7. A typewriter for the free use of visitors. The local office of a typewriter company may place one in the library as an advertisement.
8. Reports of transactions on the New York stock exchange or of transactions in local securities. Local brokers' offices will consider it a good advertisement to place these on file.
9. Trolley guides. Fifty cents spent on these each year will fortify the library against all attacks in that line.
10. Thomas's Register of American Manufacturers, price $15.00. With this in hand you can say that, "The Public Library can give you names of pill-box manufacturers in all parts of the U. S., the name of the man who makes office furniture in Marietta, Ohio, or the place where Rubberset products are manufactured."
11. Kelly's Directory of Merchants, Manufacturers and Shippers of the World. Price 30s. This enables you to say, "The Public Library can give you the name of German manufacturers of mirrors, the dealers in lacquered ware in Tokio, the name of a bank in Warsaw, a forwarding agent in Sydney or the express facilities of Coburg."
With a simple and inexpensive equipment, somewhat like that included in these eleven items, backed by wide advertising in the local press, a public library can attract the business men of a town to use the institution they support, an institution which should be turned to by everyone in the municipality as the very first source of information.
Miss EDITH KAMMERLING, head of the Civics Room of the Chicago public library, presented most ably the work which could be done by any library in the civics line, under the title