| [Do Readers Read?] |
| (The Critic, July, 1901, p. 67-70) |
| [What Makes People Read?] |
| (The Book Lover, January, 1904, p. 12-16) |
| [The Passing of The Possessive; A Study of Book Titles] |
| (The Book Buyer, June, 1897, p. 500-1) |
| [Selective Education] |
| (Educational Review, November, 1907, p. 365-73) |
| [The Uses of Fiction] |
| Read before the American Library Association, Asheville Conference, May 28, 1907. (A.L.A. Bulletin, July, 1907, p. 183-7) |
| [The Value of Association] |
| Delivered before the Library Associations of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, October 9-18, 1907. (Library Journal, January, 1908, p. 3-9) |
| [Modern Educational Methods] |
| (Notes and News, Montclair, N.J., July, 1908) |
| [Some Economic Features of Libraries] |
| Read at the opening of the Chestnut Hill Branch, Philadelphia Free Library, January 22, 1909. (Library Journal, February, 1909, p. 48-52) |
| [Simon Newcomb: America’s Foremost Astronomer] |
| (Review of Reviews, August, 1909, p. 171-4) |
| [The Companionship of Books] |
| Read before the Pacific Northwest Library Association, June, 1910. (P.N.W.L.A. Proceedings, 1910, p. 8-23) |
| [Atomic Theories of Energy] |
| Read before the St. Louis Academy of Science. (The Monist, October, 1912, p. 580-5) |
| [The Advertisement of Ideas] |
| (Minnesota Library Notes and News, December, 1912, p. 190-7) |
| [The Public Library, The Public School, and The Social Center Movement] |
| Read before the National Education Association. (N.E.A. Proceedings, 1912, p. 240-5) |
| [The Systematization of Violence] |
| (St. Louis Mirror, July 18, 1913) |
| [The Art of Re-reading] |
| [History and Heredity] |
| Read before the New England Society of St. Louis. (New England Society of St. Louis. Proceedings, 29th year, p. 13-20) |
| [What The Flag Stands For] |
| A Flag Day address in St. Peter’s church, St. Louis. (St. Louis Republic, June 15, 1914) |
| [The People’s Share in The Public Library] |
| Read before the Chicago Women’s Club, January 6, 1915. (Library Journal, April, 1915, p. 227-32) |
| [Some Tendencies of American Thought] |
| Read before the New York Library Association at Squirrel Inn, Haines Falls, September 28, 1915. (Library Journal, November, 1915, p. 771-7) |
| [Drugs and The Man] |
| A Commencement address to the graduating class of the School of Pharmacy, St. Louis, May 19, 1915. (Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, August, 1915, p. 915-22) |
| [How The Community Educates Itself] |
| Read before the American Library Association, Asbury Park, N.J., June 27, 1916. (Library Journal, August, 1916, p. 541-7) |
| [Clubwomen’s Reading] |
| (The Bookman, January-March, 1915, p. 515-21, 642-7, 64-70) |
| [Books For Tired Eyes] |
| (Yale Review, January, 1917, p. 358-68) |
| [The Magic Casement] |
| Read before the Town and Gown Club, St. Louis. |
| [A Word to Believers] |
| Address at the closing section of the Church School of Religious Instruction. |
| [Index] |
A LIBRARIAN’S OPEN SHELF
ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS
[Do Readers Read?]
Those who are interested in the proper use of our libraries are asking continually, “What do readers read?” and the tables of class-percentages in the annual reports of those institutions show that librarians are at least making an attempt to satisfy these queries. But a question that is still more fundamental and quite as vital is: Do readers read at all? This is not a paradox, but a common-sense question, as the following suggestive little incident will show. The librarian-in-charge of a crowded branch circulating-library in New York City had occasion to talk, not long ago, to one of her “star” borrowers, a youth who had taken out his two good books a week regularly for nearly a year and whom she had looked upon as a model—so much so that she had never thought it necessary to advise with him regarding his reading. In response to a question this lad made answer somewhat as follows: “Yes, ma’am, I’m doing pretty well with my reading. I think I should get on nicely if I could only once manage to read a book through; but somehow I can’t seem to do it.” This boy had actually taken to his home nearly a hundred books, returning each regularly and borrowing another, without reading to the end of a single one of them.
That this case is not isolated and abnormal, but is typical of the way in which a large class of readers treat books, there is, as we shall see, only too much reason to believe.