Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries

by Arthur E. Bostwick

“Don’t never prophsey onles ye know,” says Hosea Bigelow. I beg to call attention to the fact that this means “Don’t prophesy at all”—perhaps it was so meant by the shrewd Hosea. We never can know—and yet we continue to prophesy. The best we can do, of course, is to estimate probabilities. Probabilities! That is a good word. They have dropped it from the weather reports and call their estimate a “forecast.” I like the old word better. Let us see, then, what some of the probabilities are in library work.

“Everything flows,” said the Greek philosopher. Nothing in the world is stable; change is the order of the day. But note the word he uses. That which flows is in a state of orderly change in a definite direction. Everything progresses; and the library and its work are being borne along in the general current. Now the writers on hydro-dynamics, who are experts on blow, tell us that there are two ways of studying a current, which they name the “historical” and the “statistical”: In the former the attention is fixed on a definite particle of the moving fluid whose change of velocity and direction is noted as it passes along; in the latter a definite locality of the stream is selected and the fluid’s changes of form and density at that particular place are observed. In like manner we may study the library movement historically or we can select a definite point in its course—the present time—and note the conditions and their alteration. The latter plan, I venture to think, is the more favorable one for the would-be prophet.

Let us, then, take a few of the salient features of library work as they exist to-day and inquire: (1) What is the present situation with regard to each; (2) Is that situation changing; and whither and how fast; (3) Is its rate of change altering, and (4) are the conditions that affect it and its alteration, likely to remain as they are. If we can answer all these questions we can at least make an attempt at estimating the probable situation at a given future time. We must bear in mind, however, that in the library world, as elsewhere, there are sudden or abrupt changes, or catastrophes, and that these generally defy prediction. And this is equally true of unexpected aids or beneficient influences. The library benefactions of Mr. Carnegie would have upset the most careful and logical estimate of library progress made twenty years ago.

First let us take up the status of our stock in trade—our supply of books. President Eliot warned us two years ago that our books are piling up too fast. His warning has met with scant heed because experience has not brought it home to most of us. Malthus warned us long ago that the progress of population was toward overcrowding the world. We laugh at him because there is still plenty of room and means of utilizing it unknown in his time. Yet population increases, and it will overcrowd the world some day unless something occurs to prevent. In like manner our stock of books increases faster and faster. The ordinary American public library is a thing of yesterday; small wonder that it does not yet begin to feel plethoric. Our oldest large libraries are those of our universities, and Harvard’s president has told us that to them the evil day is within sight. Librarians have not received with favor President Eliot’s plea for getting us out of our future difficulty but this is neither here nor there. To judge by our present attitude either our library buildings must increase indefinitely in size or our stock must be weeded out. It must be remembered, however, that our books are perishable, and are growing more so. I do not regard this as an unmixed evil. Rather than to make our books unwieldy for the purpose of preserving them we prefer to make them usable and to rely on reprinting for their perpetuation. Thus what is not wanted will pass away. Perhaps this will solve our problem for us. But in any case it looks as if the future library building and its contents were to be greatly larger than those of to-day.

What are to be the style and arrangement of the future library building? The present situation can hardly be described in general terms. As in all building operations, there is a strife between the architect, representing aesthetics, and the administrator, representing utility. At present the architect seems to be having his way outside and the librarian his way inside. But why this contest? Is it not the architect’s business to make utility more beautiful but not less useful? And should not the administrator wish his surroundings to please the eye? Apparently the two are drawing a little closer together of late. We are having fewer temples of art that have to be made over to fit them for use as libraries and fewer buildings that are workable but offensive to the eye. The tendency seems to be toward simple dignity, although we certainly have some surprising departures from it. Probably the library of the future will be a simple and massive structure of much greater size than at present, with its decorations largely structural, and combining ample open-shelf and reading facilities with greatly increased capacity for book-storage.

There is one particular in which the architect has been specially out of touch with the administrator. The open-shelf is now all but universal, but many architects seem not to have heard of it. Many buildings, actually intended for administration on the free access system, seem yet to have been planned as closed-shelf libraries and opened to the public as an afterthought. A library without a special stack-room for book-storage is an unthinkable thing to most architects. And yet in many small libraries book-storage is not necessary, and in most branch libraries, where only books in general use are to be placed, it will never be necessary. To get the maximum advantage from open shelves, with a minimum of risk, the books should be placed on the walls as far as possible and such book-cases as stand on the floor should be as low as an ordinary table, so as to be easily overseen. A stack-room, it seems to me, is distinctly a closed-shelf arrangement. I believe this is coming to be recognized and that in the future library the books will be on or near the walls.

But how about the open-shelf system itself? At present there are few libraries that do not have it in some form, and some of these are libraries that continued strongly to disapprove of it even after it had become well and widely established. The indications are nearly all that it has come to stay. I say nearly all; for there is still a feeling among many people that it is not good administration to abandon so large a percentage of our books to thieves. In libraries in small communities where the loss is small, this question does not arise; but in New York, for instance, where we lost 5000 books last year, it is serious. We librarians may say and believe that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, but trustees and municipal authorities are hard to convince. In New York we have taken what many will consider a backward step, by partially closing, as an experiment, the shelves of two of our branches. So that although we may safely say that free access has come to stay, I do not look to see it applied very generally to large collections. One thing seems to me clear. Library administration is becoming increasingly business-like, and it is not business-like to accept a large annual loss without an attempt to minimize it. We must at least investigate regularly and rigidly the sources and character of this loss.

As for the other features that we have become accustomed to regard as distinguishing the new library era from the old—special work with children, co-operation with schools, travelling libraries, etc.—it is evident that these, too, have come to stay. Their spheres are widening and their aims are diversifying, however, so that he who should venture to predict their precise status in the future would be rash.

In fact, the library idea itself is beginning to suffer a sort of restless change that is quite distinct from its orderly progress. The activities of the library are at present a good deal like those of the amoeba—stretching out a tentacle here, withdrawing one there; improvising a mouth and then turning it into a stomach; shifting and stretching about; somewhat vague and formless, yet instinct with life, appetite and caution, and vitalized with at least the germ and promise of intelligence. Such a state is an unpromising one for prophecy. Is this or that new development of activity the beginning of an orderly march in a straight line, or is it to be withdrawn or reversed to-morrow? Is our work with children to include much that now seems to belong to the kindergarten, the museum, and the art gallery? Are our travelling library departments to sell books in the future as well as lend them? Are we to deliver books free at our user’s homes? Are our Boards of Education to turn over to us the superintendence of all such work as deals with books and their use? Many questions like these would have been answered in the affirmative yesterday but in the negative to-day. I might be inclined to say “yes” to some of them now, when to-morrow would prove them out of the question. But there is one assertion that we can make boldly. Whatever the library has tried to do or to be, whether success or failure has attended it, it has never ceased to be a library—a keeper and purveyor of books. Whatever else it may undertake, we may be sure that this will continue to be its chief reason for existence, and that its other activities, if such there be, will grow out of this and group themselves around it. Is the library to grow into a bookstore? I do not know, but if so its commercial functions are likely to be subsidiary. Certain libraries have already added to their duties as free institutions the functions of pay-libraries, and the commercial feature has thus been introduced. It seems to be spreading, and it may prove an entering wedge for a system of actual sales to supplement that of paid loans. A powerful deterrent, however, will be the influence of the book-trade. Following the line of least resistance, the activity of the library as an aid to the ownership as well as the reading of books is perhaps more likely to manifest itself in advice than in actual trade. Some libraries are now making special effort to give their readers information about book-prices, and about places and methods of purchase; and it seems likely that this kind of aid, since it can arouse no opposition, will increase.

The position in which we find ourselves, of opposition to those who make and sell books, is unfortunate. The situation has been growing more and more tense and it may continue so to grow, perhaps up to the point where all discount will be withheld from libraries and where new legislation may discourage importation, but I do not believe that it will keep on indefinitely. No one who looks into the matter closely can help believing that in the long run libraries advertise the book-trade and help it by promoting general interest in literature. This view of the matter was taken by a majority of the New York Booksellers’ League at a recent dinner at which the question was discussed. Even purely as a matter of business, the library deserves special privileges and it will doubtless continue in some measure to receive them.