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

6. A statement of the actual condition of the library, as to books, shelving accommodations, furniture, etc., with any needful suggestions for improvement, should be included in the annual report.

7. A well-considered suggestion of the value of contributions to the library in books or funds to enrich the collection, should not be overlooked.

8. The librarian should not forget a word of praise for his assistants, in the great and useful work of carrying on the library. This will tend to excite added zeal to excel, when the subordinates feel that their services are appreciated by their head, as well as by the public.

The preparation of an annual report affords some test of the librarian's skill and judgment. It should aim at plain and careful statement, and all rhetoric should be dispensed with. Divided into proper heads, a condensed statement of facts or suggestions under each should be made, and all repetition avoided.

Such a library report should never fail to set forth the great benefit to the community which a free use of its treasures implies, while urging the importance of building up the collection, through liberal gifts of books, periodicals, or money, thus enabling it to answer the wants of readers more fully, year by year. It will sometimes be a wise suggestion to be made in a librarian's report, that the library still lacks some specially important work, such as Larned's "History for Ready Reference," or the extensive "Dictionary of National Biography," or Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, or a set of Congressional Debates from the beginning; and such a suggestion may often bear fruit in leading some public-spirited citizen to supply the want by a timely contribution.

Of course, the annual report of every public library should be printed, and as pamphlets are seldom read, and tend rapidly to disappear, its publication in the newspapers is vastly more important than in any other form. While a pamphlet report may reach a few people, the newspaper reaches nearly all; and as a means of diffusing information in any community, it stands absolutely without rival. Whether the library reports shall be printed in pamphlet form or not is a matter of expediency, to be determined by the managing board. Funds are rarely ample enough, in the smaller town libraries, to justify the expense, in view of the small circulation which such reports receive, and it is much better to put the money into printing library catalogues, which every body needs and will use, than into library reports, which comparatively few will make any use of. A judicious compromise may be usefully made, by inducing some newspaper, which would print a liberal share of the report free of charge, as news, for public information, to put the whole in type and strike off a few hundred copies in sheet form or pages, at a moderate charge.

This would enable the library officers to distribute a goodly number, and to keep copies of each annual report for reference, without the expense of a pamphlet edition.

In some of the larger and more enterprising of city libraries, reports are made quarterly or monthly by the librarian. These of course are much more nearly up to date, and if they publish lists of books added to the library, they are correspondingly useful. Frequently they contain special bibliographies of books on certain subjects. Among these, the monthly bulletins of the Boston Public Library, Harvard University Library, New York Public Library, Salem, Mass., Public Library, and the Providence Public Library are specially numerous and important.

The relations of a public library to the local press of the city or town where it is situated will now be noticed. It is the interest of the librarian to extend the usefulness of the library by every means; and the most effective means is to make it widely known. In every place are found many who are quite ignorant of the stores of knowledge which lie at their doors in the free library. And among those who do know it and resort to it, are many who need to have their interest and attention aroused by frequent notices as to its progress, recent additions to its stores, etc. The more often the library is brought before the public by the press, the more interest will be taken in it by the community for whose information it exists.

It is of the utmost importance that the library conductors should have the active good will of all the newspaper editors in its vicinity. This will be acquired both by aiding them in all researches which the daily or frequent wants of their profession render necessary; and also, by giving them freely and often items of intelligence about the library for publication. Enterprising journals are perpetually on the hunt for new and varied matter to fill their columns. They send their reporters to the library to make "a story," as it is called, out of something in it or about it. These reporters are very seldom persons versed in books, or able to write understandingly or attractively about them. Left to themselves to construct "a story" out of a half hour's conversation with the librarian, the chances are that an article will be produced which contains nearly as many errors as matters of fact, with the names of authors or the titles of their books mis-spelled or altered, and with matters manufactured out of the reporter's fancy which formed no part of the interview, while what did form important features in it are perhaps omitted. The remedy, or rather the preventive of such inadequate reports of what the librarian would say to the public is to become his own reporter. The papers will willingly take for publication short "library notes," as they may be called, containing information about the library or its books, carefully type-written. This course at once secures accurate and authentic statements, and saves the time of the press reporters for other work.