THE EFFICIENCY OF THE LIBRARY STAFF AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
In conversing one day with the superintendent of one of our local industries where the library is maintaining a station, I learned something of the many provisions devised by the welfare department of the organization as conducted by the social secretaries of the company. From my tour of inspection I have a vivid recollection of attractive dining rooms, an indoor gymnasium with an up-to-date swimming pool, office or laboratory for a medical attendant to administer first aid and attend to accidents of more or less serious nature, architectural plans, free of charge, for prospective home builders, a well selected book collection of popular and technical character, presided over by a representative of the public library, which institution also arranges for biweekly noon lectures on popular and instructive topics. On my commending the humanitarian spirit animating the management of the company the prompt response came: "That element enters only as incidental in our policy. It is all a matter of business. We must hold our organization intact. It is important to retain our skilled workmen and we must make it worth their while to remain with us."
If it has been found to be good policy to provide for the contentment and welfare of the human units in an organization where, after all, a large part of the day's work is rather mechanical and of fixed standards, how vastly more important it must be to give a close, generous consideration to the happiness and comfort of the personnel in a library system where the personal service is of paramount importance, where the physical and mental vitality is under constant pressure, where improvement in the day's work is always exacted and where the result yielded to the individual effort is uncertain and often undemonstrable.
In the case of library service, humanitarian regard should weigh equally with considerations of statistics and output, inasmuch as library work is a service for humanity and its welfare. Those entrusted with the management of libraries may well remember the maxim that "as we do we teach," which, applied to library conditions, may lead us to conclude that whatsoever is done to promote the happiness and best instincts of the rank and file in a library organization, will result directly in instilling in the public service, rendered by them, a spirit of sympathy, ready regard of the rights and needs of the public and an eagerness to serve loyally. Any library management conceived and executed in this spirit may be depended upon for achievements in what is really library economy.
I'll endeavor to formulate some suggestions toward effecting such results and I can harbor but feelings of satisfaction, should I be advised later that they have already been practically realized in some institutions.
The question of how to maintain and increase the efficiency of the staff might well be approached from two angles, the physical and the mental conservation of forces.
Dr. Luther H. Gulick makes the statement, that "there are conditions for each individual under which he can do the most and the best work. It is the business of those in charge of others to ascertain these conditions and to comply with them."
We hear so much in our day about scientific management that we may be led to begin inquiring skeptically if its value is not exaggerated in the interests of professional organizers, systematizers, etc.
No working chart for computing the energy of a mental effort or for the increase of its productiveness has as yet been devised but none of us will deny the need of a working plan for the day's work. Else we drift.
According to the new doctrine as laid down by Mr. H. N. Casson, "there is no such thing as unskilled labor, there is an intelligent method for every accomplishment. Scientific management does not mean frenzied production. On the contrary, it individualizes the workman, it means the better ordering of the work for the best interests of both individual and the service. Consequently, it provides for recreation as well as for work. It insists that the individual shall not sag so far down at the end of the day's work that he will not recuperate." This concerns not only expended energy but misdirected energy.
The day's schedule should be so arranged that work requiring the highest mental effort be assigned to the most fruitful hours of the individual, the work so distributed that each individual performs the task he can best do and is most worthy of his highest skill.
Pride in the work under your hand, the sense of doing something worth while, generates the spirit of loyalty and happiness which reckons, not so much with the written library regulations, as with the unwritten law of the service to stand by cheerfully as long as needed.
During the recent years I spent in the East, it was my privilege to become intimately acquainted with one of the most distinguished engineers our country produced during the last half-century. One day when I had occasion to call upon this gentleman, I was directed to proceed from his office to one of the noisiest departments of his extensive mills. There I finally located him seated on an anvil, watching taciturnly the moving throng of busy mechanics. I learned afterwards that the lifelong habit of this philosophic engineer was to emerge from his secluded office and enter the quarters where the "wheels turn around." There he would in his quiet manner ask shrewd questions and enter into conversation with any one whose task or skill attracted him. It is on behalf of the rank and file in the library world that I draw upon this recollection of an industrial organization noted for its resources and efficiency. Invite the confidence of every member of the staff, welcome suggestions, allow your assistants to voice the conclusions their experience and service bring home to them, listen with sympathy to suggestions prompted by loyalty and daily pondering. There are times when we may well forget our official gradings, when it will prove profitable to learn from the members of the crew how our theories stand the test.
The question of hours, salaries and vacations can be answered only in a general way. The gauge by which we examine the running of the human machinery entrusted to us should be read with sympathy, and we should set a pace that we can hold the entire day or the working period of a normal life. Speaking for our own institution, we adhere to the 42-hour weekly schedule with provision for a weekly half-holiday. Evening work should certainly never exceed the number three in any one week and personally I'm leaning toward the more desirable two evenings a week. Where a special evening force is employed the recommendation of course, does not apply.
The restroom and the kitchenette are now so generally established as to be past the stage of argument. These restrooms should be well equipped and no niggardly considerations should stand in the way of making them neat, airy and inviting in order to afford comfort and relaxation. The appearance and atmosphere of the restroom should banish the dull sense of drudgery and evoke the gentler side of life.
The half-holiday and vacation should be provided, not so much because a faithful servant has earned a rest, but because without it life means living at a low level, with the certain result of deadening one's faculties, ambition and alertness, whereas these should all grow with one's experience and work. Certainly a month's vacation in the course of a year is a minimum respite in any professional activity of confined nature and mental concentration. We must consider the weight of the statement made by Luther H. Gulick that, "growth is predominantly a function of rest and that the best work that most of us do is not in our offices or at our desks, but when we are wandering in the woods, or sitting quietly with undirected thoughts." Those who are entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the daily toil of others should so govern that each individual remains "master of his own work and not its slave."
Just a few words as to the rate of compensation prevailing in the library profession today. In so far as the city of Detroit is concerned, the scale of wages now in operation and adopted some three years ago, was based on the salaries paid in the public schools which seems a fitting arrangement inasmuch as our public library is an outgrowth of, and, as to appointment of trustees, still under the control of the Municipal Board of Education. The professional training and executive skill required in a librarian of today make it seem reasonable that his or her compensation should be fairly at par with the salaries paid in other city departments where professional training is among the requisites, such as Department of City Engineer, City Attorney, Municipal Museum, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Principal of a High School, etc. Our salary schedule based upon the schedule applying to principals and teachers in our local public schools operates in parts as follows:
Heads of departments to receive the same pay as principals of eight room schools.
Branch librarians to receive the same pay as principals of seven room schools.
First assistants to heads of departments to receive a salary corresponding with that of assistants to principals of schools. In the same manner the schedule applies to the rank and file, promotions being given semi-annually, based on seniority and service record.
That this regulation would apply satisfactorily in other municipalities is questionable, as may be deduced from a statement made by one congressman, who, in discussing the salaries paid the school teachers in the city of Washington remarked with blunt sympathy that "the policemen were paid more to crash the skulls of the children in Washington than the teachers were paid for putting something into them."
To maintain the efficiency of the library staff it is necessary not only to consider the welfare of the individual during his working hours but to provide such material regard for his day's toil that his vitality and enjoyment of life may be conserved by having the means to afford the necessary comfort and social status consistent with our profession.
To consider the importance of personal appearance, neatness in dress in our service with the public is simply to recognize the point of view of the library patron whose opinion is worth while, and how are we to exact this showing of "fine front" if we do not defray the cost thereof?
It is difficult, if not physiologically unsound, to speak about the mental conservation of the library staff apart from its physical maintenance, but in considering the former I would invite your attention to what Mr. P. W. Goldsbury so aptly calls "the recreation through the senses." Mr. Goldsbury remarks, "the importance of our understanding, the wide range of the functions of our senses, the influence of our surroundings and the manner in which they react on our minds." He illustrates his point by quoting the saying that "for horses the hardest road out of London is the most level one. There are no hills to climb and descend, and the tired horse has no chance to rest one set of muscles while another works. Monotony produces fatigue; and because this particular road is one dead, monotonous level, more horses give out on it than on any other road leading out of London." Irresistibly the moral of the canvas before us breaks in upon our individual sense of self-preservation and our responsibility for the welfare of others. For economic as well as for humanitarian reasons it behooves us to so apportion the day's work that one's senses are exercised one after another and through interchange of duties and tasks, not only one's body but one's mind is given a variety of exercise and impressions. The rotation of duties every two hours in departments where direct service with the public is given, will, I believe, be found to afford some relaxation and wholesome change to attendants on duty, especially so, if the change afford the alternative of stationary position and moving about.
We all know how one's mind, spirit, aye, even nerves are affected by objects within our vision, the feeling of depression that benumbs us when our eyes rest on dingy colors and ugly outlines, when we dwell in gloomy quarters or poorly ventilated rooms. Architects and librarians will find that the efficiency of the human machinery housed within the library walls will be maintained at its best if beautiful effects in color and design of interior decorations are features of the library equipment, if daylight is abundant, furnishings tasteful, atmospheric conditions invigorating—let us sometimes have even the fragrance and color-play of flowers. The capacity of our senses for higher development is nourished by the stimulus from the outside world which brings to us, often unconsciously, mental and physical refreshment and recreation. The occasional relaxation in the day's work contributes to a reasonable mental and physical balance, even the occasional conversation during working hours may well be tolerated, certainly any undue restriction thereof will do more harm than good.
I trust that in siding with the authority just quoted and submitting to you these considerations I will not be charged with implying that "work is to take secondary place." To the contrary:—it is by consideration of the little things, by modulating adverse factors, by dealing in a common sense manner with the conditions surrounding our physical and mental field of daily toil, that we may be able to restore the energy that we expend and not only maintain, but increase, our efficiency.
Our stock in trade, our best assets in library work are the joy of the work and the happiness of the individual. The response from each one of us to the call for ever more faithful and efficient service will come with a hearty good will if our strength be protected—our altruistic visions given time and leisure to go woolgathering.
The CHAIRMAN: It is well known to all of us that the Province of Ontario has done notable library work in recent years. Under the guidance of a corps of educational and library officials this work has been stimulated and intensified. A great aid too in the work has been the Ontario library association, with a membership, organization, meetings and committee work that correspond favorably with any other library organization anywhere. The conference has not up to this moment had an opportunity to hear in an official way from the Ontario library association, which must of course be numbered among the hosts of this meeting. Dr. C. R. Charteris, its president, is in the room, and the chair is very certain that the conference will not be content without a few words of greeting from the president of the Ontario library association.
Dr. Charteris expressed pleasure at bringing greetings from the Ontario library association, saying they were backed by about one hundred representatives from the province. He was sure that all, whether trustees or librarians would return home with renewed energy and endeavor to increase interest in library work.
The CHAIRMAN: As this point, ladies and gentlemen, the program naturally divides, and we are brought to that portion of it prepared by the Professional training section of the association. The gavel will be turned over to the chairman of that section, Mr. Matthew S. Dudgeon, secretary of the Wisconsin free library commission.
(Mr. Dudgeon takes the chair.)
The CHAIRMAN: Those of us who are interested directly in library schools, as well as those of you who are more indirectly, but none the less vitally, interested in library schools, feel that we are fortunate that the next subject, "What library schools can do for the profession," should be presented by a man who has not only seen the inside of library schools as a student, but also, as secretary of a state commission, as secretary of the American Library Association, and as librarian of a public library, has seen the needs of the library and has seen what the capacities of the library school graduate are to meet those needs. I will call upon, but not introduce, Mr. CHALMERS HADLEY, librarian of the Denver public library.