A Book for All Readers / An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries

by Ainsworth Rand Spofford

The constant exercise of the habit of supplying helps to readers is a splendid intellectual school for the librarian himself. Through it, his memory is quickened and consequently improved, (as every faculty is by use) his habits of mental classification and analysis are formed or strengthened, and his mind is kept on the alert to utilize the whole arsenal of the knowledge he has already acquired, or to acquire new knowledge.

Another very important benefit derived by the librarian from his constantly recurring attention to the calls of readers for aid, is the suggestion thereby furnished of the deficiencies in the collection in his charge. This will be a continual reminder to him, of what he most needs, namely, how to equip the library with the best and most recent sources of information in every field of inquiry. Whether the library be a large or a small one, its deficiencies in some directions are sure to be very considerable: and these gaps are more conspicuously revealed in trying to supply readers with the means of making what may be termed an exhaustive research upon a given subject, than in any other way. You find, for example, in looking up your authorities in what has come to be called Egyptology, that while you have Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt, and Lane's Modern Egyptians, both of which are very valuable works, you have not the more modern books of Brugsch-Bey, or of A. H. Sayce, or of Maspero. You may also find out, by mingling freely with a good part of the readers, what subjects are most frequently looked into or inquired about, and you can thus secure valuable information as to the directions in which the library most needs strengthening. Thus, in a community largely made up of people connected with manufacturing interests, the inquiries are liable to be much concerned with the mechanic arts; and you would therefore naturally seek to acquire a liberal selection of the best and latest works in technical science, or the useful arts. If you have, on the other hand, very few inquiries, indeed, for theological works, you take it as some evidence that that department of the collection needs little enlargement, and you may devote your funds in other directions. Then too, the great value of popularising the library by the hearty interest shown by the librarian in the wants of the people can hardly be over-rated. This interest, being a perennial one, and continued through a series of years, the number of citizens and their families assisted will be constantly on the increase, and the public opinion of the town will come in time, to regard the library as a great popular necessity. Hence, if it is an institution supported in whole or in part by town or municipal funds, its claims to liberal consideration will be immeasurably strengthened. If an enlargement of room for the books, or even a new library building comes to be needed, its chances for securing the funds requisite will be excellent. If a more liberal supply of new books, or an extended range of older ones of great value is reported by the librarian as wanted to increase the usefulness of the library, the authorities will more cheerfully consider the claim. And if it is proposed that additional and competent assistance shall be given to the librarian, or that he should be more liberally compensated for his highly useful and important labors, that, too, may be accomplished—especially if it has come to be recognized that by his wide knowledge, and skilful management, and helpful devotion to the service of the reading public, he has rendered himself indispensable.

In the supply of information desired by readers, it is better to leave them to their own search, once you have put before them the proper authorities, than to spend your time in turning for them to the volume and page. This, for two reasons—first, it leaves your own time free to help other readers, or to attend to the ever-waiting library work; and, secondly, it induces habits of research and self-help on the part of the reader. It is enough for the librarian to act as an intelligent guide-post, to point the way; to travel the road is the business of the reader himself. Therefore, let the visitor in quest of a quotation, look it out in the index of the volumes you put before him. If he fails to find it, it will then be time for you to intervene, and lend the aid of your more practiced eye, and superior knowledge of how to search; or else, let the reader look for it in some more copious anthology, which you may put before him. There are multitudes of inquiries for the authors of poems, which are in no sense "familiar quotations," nor even select quotations, but which are merely common-place sentiments expressed in language quite unpoetic,—and not the work of any notable writer at all. They are either the production of some utterly obscure author of a volume of verse, quite unknown to fame, or, still more probably, the half-remembered verses of some anonymous contributor to the poet's corner of the newspaper or magazine. In such cases, where you see no poetic beauty or imaginative power in the lines, it is well to inform the inquirer at once that you do not think them the production of any noted writer, and thus end the fruitless search for memorizing what is not at all memorable. What may strike uncultivated readers as beautiful, may be set down as trash, by a mind that has been fed upon the masterpieces of poetry. Not that the librarian is to assume the air of an oracle or a censor, (something to be in all circumstances avoided) or to pronounce positive judgment upon what is submitted: he should inform any admiring reader of a passage not referred to in any of the anthologies, and not possessing apparent poetic merit, that he believes the author is unknown to fame. That should be sufficient for any reasonably disposed reader, who, after search duly completed, will go away answered, if not satisfied.

I gave some instances of the singular variety of questions asked of a librarian. Let me add one, reported by Mr. Robert Harrison, of the London Library, as asked of him by William M. Thackeray. The distinguished author of Esmond and The Virginians wanted a book that would tell of General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. "I don't want to know about his battles", said the novelist. "I can get all that from the histories. I want something that will tell me the color of the breeches he wore." After due search, the librarian was obliged to confess that there was no such book.

A librarian is likely to be constantly in a position to aid the uninformed reader how to use the books of reference which every public library contains. The young person who is new to the habit of investigation, or the adult who has never learned the method of finding things, needs to be shown how to use even so simple a thing as an index. Do not be impatient with his ignorance, although you may find him fumbling over the pages in the body of the book in vain, to find what you, with your acquired knowledge of indexes and their use, can find in half a minute or less. Practice alone can make one perfect in the art of search and speedy finding. The tyro who tries your patience this year, will very likely become an expert reader the next. Wide as is the domain of ignorance, there are few among those intelligent enough to resort to a library at all, who cannot learn. You will find some who come to the library so unskilled, that they will turn over the leaves even of an index, in a blind, hap-hazard way, evidently at a loss how to use it. These must be instructed first, that the index is arranged just like a dictionary, in the alphabetical order of the names or subjects treated, and secondly, that after finding the word they seek in it, they must turn to the page indicated by the figure attached to that word. This is the very primer of learning in the use of a library, but the library in any town, used as it is by many boys and girls of all ages, has to be a primary school for beginners, as well as a university for advanced students. Despise not the day of small things, however you may find it more agreeable to be occupied with great ones.

On the other hand, you will find at the other extreme of intelligence, among your clientage of readers, those who are completely familiar with books and their uses. There are some readers frequenting public libraries, who not only do not need assistance themselves, but who are fully competent to instruct the librarian. In meeting the calls of such skilled readers, who always know what they require, it is never good policy to obtrude advice or suggestion, but simply to supply what they call for. You will readily recognize and discriminate such experts from the mass of readers, if you have good discernment. Sometimes they are quite as sensitive as they are intelligent, and it may annoy them to have offered them books they do not want, in the absence of what they require. An officious, or super-serviceable librarian or assistant, may sometimes prejudice such a reader by proffering help which he does not want, instead of waiting for his own call or occasion.

Let us look at a few examples of the numerous calls at a popular library. For example, a reader asks to see a book, giving an account of the marriage of the Adriatic. You know that this concerns the history of Venice and its Doges, and you turn to various books on Venice, and its history, until you find a description of the strange festival. It may be, and probably is the case, that the books, like most descriptive works and narratives of travellers, are without index. This is a disability in the use of books which you must continually encounter, since multitudes of volumes, old and new, are sent out without a vestige of an index to their contents. Some writers have urged that a law should be made refusing copyright to the author of any book who failed to provide it with an index; a requirement highly desirable, but also highly impracticable. Yet you will find in most books, a division of the contents into chapters, and in the beginning of the volume a table of the contents of each chapter, giving its leading topics. This is a substitute for an index, although (not being arranged in alphabetical order) it is far less useful than that time-saving aid to research. But you have to learn to take advantage of even poor and inferior helps, when you cannot have the best, (as a poor guide is better than no guide at all, unless it misguides,) and so you run your eye quickly through the table of contents to find what you seek. In the case supposed, of the ceremony at Venice, you will be aided in the search by having in mind that the catch-words involved are "Adriatic," and "Doge," and as these begin with capital letters, which stand out, as it were, from the monotonous "lower case" type (as printers call all the letters that are not capitals) your search will be much abridged by omitting to read through all the sentences of your table of contents, and seizing only the passage or passages where "Doge," or "Adriatic," may occur.

This remark will apply as well to numerous other searches which you will have to make in books. The table of contents will commonly take note of all the more salient topics that are treated in the book, whether of persons, of places, of notable scenes, historic events, etc., and so will aid you in finding what you seek. In the last resort only, in the books whose table of contents fails you, will you have to turn the leaves page by page, which, while not equivalent to reading the book through, is a time-consuming business.

Of course no librarian can devote hours of his precious time to searches in such detail for readers. They are to be supplied with the books likely to contain what they are in search of, and left to seek it in their own way, with such hints and cautions as to saving time by taking the shortest road, as the experience of the librarian enables him to supply. The suggestions here given are not needed by scholarly readers, but are the fruits of long experience in searching books for what they contain.

Again, let us take the case of a call by a reader who happens to be a decorative painter, for patterns which may furnish him hints in finishing an interior of a house. Of course he wants color—that is, not theory only, but illustration, or practical examples. So you put before him Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament, or Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome, both illustrated with many beautiful designs in color, which he is delighted to find.