Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries

by Arthur E. Bostwick

It does not, however, seem probable that the average cost of books to a public library will ever be as low again as it was, say, ten years ago. In fact this may be said of all library expenses. Salaries are rising and ought to rise higher; our buildings are larger and finer and demand more expensive care. We are heating them with more costly apparatus and lighting them with electricity. The library of the future will doubtless cost more to maintain in every item than the library of the past—but the public will receive more than the difference.

As regards children’s work there seem to be at present two tendencies—one toward complete isolation and one in the opposite direction. Will our grandchildren, when they go to the public library, be segregated in a separate room, perhaps in a separate building; or will they be treated as a distinct class only so far as may be absolutely necessary for good administration? Probably complete separation is best for the library and best for the adults; I hesitate to say that it is best for the children. After all, childhood is but a stage and not a resting state at that—rather restless and progressive. Any special conditions that we provide for it must themselves be subject to constant change. In our schools the child passes from grade to grade. In our libraries the grades are only two; let us not make the leap from one to the other too great. I look to see special library work for children increase in importance, but with due recognition of the fact that some of the needs and aspirations of a “grown-up” are present in many a twelve-year-old and that it is better that the clothes of a growing child should be a size too large than an exact fit.

The travelling library deserves a special word, because its success is indicative of the tendency to bring the book and its user into closer contact. In New York we began, only seven years ago, to circulate a few hundred books monthly in this way among half a dozen schools. Now we give out nearly half a million a year from nearly 500 different points. We hear the same tale from all sides. And the cost of circulation per book is surprisingly small. In New York the circulation through travelling libraries is equal to that of three branches of the first class, while the number of assistants employed is about half the number required in one of those branches. The cost of operating three large branches in Carnegie buildings is about $40,000 yearly, whereas our travelling libraries for the last fiscal year cost us but $6400. Of course it must be remembered that a very large amount of the work of circulation in this case is done by volunteer assistants and that the users of the books have not the facilities and resources of a branch library—the number and variety of books, the pleasant surroundings, the trained aid. Of course the travelling library can never take the place of the fully equipped branch, but in supplementing branch work and in reaching those who live in sparsely settled communities its capabilities are great and it may be expected that its use will increase.

The broadening of library work illustrated by the successive appearance of the reference library, the circulating library, the delivery station, the branch and the travelling library suggests the thought that this series may be carried further in the future by the addition of some working plan that will bring the book still closer to its user. Such a plan would be the system in which books are delivered free of charge at the houses of those who use them, or the provision of a real library on wheels—a van supplied with shelving for a thousand books or more from which selection can be made as it moves about from house to house. It does not seem probable that any such device as this will be generally adopted for districts adequately provided with regular libraries, but for thinly settled regions they may supplement or take the place of our present travelling or home libraries. I believe for instance, that a moving library of 1000 books, calling once a week at each house in a farming district would be preferable to four travelling libraries of 250 books each, stationed at points in the same district, although, of course, the cost would be correspondingly greater.

The library’s status as an educational institution seems now to be well established. No one disputes it, and as this appears to be the chief ground on which its support by public funds is justified we may regard it as settled that the library is to continue to play its part in public instruction. This part, though not so definite and positive as that of the school, extends over a far longer period. While the library’s work is parallel and supplementary to that of the school in the case of those of school age, it must continue its work alone after its users have left school. Here it may settle its methods for itself, but in its earlier work when it deals with pupils, it has the teacher to reckon with. The necessity for constant consultation and co-operation between the authorities of two public institutions, whose work is so similar and can so easily result in wasteful duplication or still more wasteful conflict, is obvious. We need not be surprised that librarians and teachers are getting nearer together and we may confidently predict that the rapprochement will be closer in the future. But although the school is ceasing to look upon its younger sister as an interloper in the pedagogical family, there is still plenty of room for the definition of their respective spheres. And we have no right to complain that the school is still doing much library work, when we have ourselves sometimes tried to do school work. I look in the future for the definition of two clearly separated spheres of activity, one filled by the library and the other by the school, and for the closest co-operation between the two that is consistent with confining each to its own work. It is probably too much to expect that the school will give up the custodianship of books. It must at least control its own text books, and its collection of reference works should be complete enough to constitute a thorough guide and aid to proper study. But the distribution of supplementary reading should be the part of the public library. This and other related points are to be settled, if at all, in the future by two kinds of mutual understandings; namely, between the governing boards of library and school and between librarian and teacher. The due definition of spheres of work can come only from an official agreement between library board and school board; helpful aid on both sides can come only from an official agreement between library board and school board; helpful aid on both sides can come only from personal contact and acquaintance between teachers and library assistants—such a degree of acquaintance between teachers and library assistants—such a degree of acquaintance that each comes to have a practical knowledge of the other’s problems, trials and limitations. Most librarians have made more or less effort in this direction; some have met with distinguished success. We may safely predict further progress along this line.

The lessons of the past and of the present all point to the increasing use of the library as a great engine of popular education, using the noun in its broadest sense and emphasizing the adjective. The library is more and more a great humanizing influence; if this is so, nothing human must be alien to it. And much that is human and humanizing is nevertheless ephemeral. With some the implications of this word are wholly contemptuous. Of a day! Does nothing valuable pass quickly away, having done its little work? The day itself is a day only and vanishes with the evening and the morning; yet it has its part in the record of the years. So with “ephemeral” literature. As we have seen, a great deal of what we are wont to consider as standard and permanent will ultimately perish. Yet be its life that of a year or a century, a book may play its little part in the mental development of those who read it. Just at present the favorite vehicle of literary expression is fiction. People put into stories what they have to say of history, sociology and ethics; they embody in romance their theories of aesthetics, economics and politics. There is good doctrine with a poor literary setting and there are paste jewels in pure gold. But taking it by and large the much decried deluge of modern fiction has undoubtedly been educative in its tendency. This is why I cannot yield to logic and predict the gradual disappearance of all but a small residuum of fiction from the public library. There is a tendency in that direction but there are some signs of a reaction. The seer may hope, even if he dare not predict, that the great public library that can afford to do so will continue to purchase such fiction as will interest or entertain the average person of education, even if it is to stay on the shelves but a few months.

What will be the future distribution of libraries in this country? At present their numbers are large in the northern states and comparatively small in the southern. Growth has been unexampled in its rapidity and has been stimulated by large benefactions. So far as this growth may be looked upon as the direct result of Mr. Carnegie’s gifts it may doubtless be regarded as abnormal, although it should be noted that every Carnegie building means a present and future outlay on the part of the community in which it stands, of many times the amount given by the donor. Primarily, library expansion is the result of a popular conviction that the public library is a public necessity. Expansion has proceeded in proportion to the spread of that conviction and along the lines of its progress. If there are fewer public libraries in the South than in the North it is because the need for them is not felt there, even if it exists. Doubtless the race problem is a powerful inhibitory influence. Two things are certain; that library expansion is to go on for some time, and that a time will come when it must stop. When that time arrives, the library will have attained its majority and we shall have an opportunity to address ourselves to problems that can not be attended to during our period of growth.

Who will use our great library of the future? Who uses the library of to-day? I have been asked that question by reporters and have been puzzled to answer it. For whose use is the public library intended? It will be logical to answer “the Public, of course,” but there are a great many people who will give this answer with mental reservations. With them “the Public” means some particular part of the public. Some think that the libraries are for the poor, or at any rate for those who cannot afford to buy books for themselves. This is a survival of the origin of some of our circulating libraries, which were originally charities. But a public foundation and a charitable foundation are two different things. Our parks are free, yet we do not object to their free use by the wealthy, nor do the wealthy classes themselves seem to shrink from it. Some again would limit the use of a library to students, or at all events to those who do not care to withdraw books for home use. These are people who do not believe in the circulating library—and there are still such. Others again would have the public library cater only to those of educated literary taste. For these reasons and for others it is a fact that our public libraries, even those with the largest circulations, are not used by the entire public. Probably, however, they are being used more and more freely. In a library that uses the two-book system it is impossible to tell exactly from statistics, how many persons are drawing from the library at one time. Assuming, however, that the number is proportional to the number of books outstanding, we find in the New York Public Library that it has been increasing a little faster of late years than the circulation. In other words, individual reading has not increased, and the great recent increase of circulation in our library and presumably in others also, is due to an increase of readers. The size of the library’s public is therefore increasing and there is no reason to suppose that it will not continue to do so. Of course there must be a limit. For instance, certain sections of the public will not use a library—as they will not use a school—in conjunction with other sections. This may be because of social or racial feeling, or personal uncleanliness or offensiveness, even when the latter is not carried to the point where the librarian can properly object to it. In such cases the lower element will drive out the higher. The remedy seems to be sought in segregation. This may be either open and acknowledged as in those southern cities where the library has a separate department for colored people, or it may be virtual, as where a convenient lounging room with newspapers is provided for the tramp element, sometimes with the privilege of smoking. In large cities the branch library system acts in the same way. The character of the card-holders is determined by that of the surrounding district and we thus get practically separate libraries for separate sections of the community. I look to see this separation proceed to a somewhat greater degree, not perhaps systematically but automatically and almost involuntarily. In spite of the apparent concession to class feeling, it will certainly increase the aggregate use of the library and thus make it more truly a public institution. So far as the branch system is concerned, of course, this is only one of the ways in which it increases the size of the library’s public. Even in a section where the population is perfectly homogeneous, more people will always be served by two libraries than by one. The number of branch library systems is rapidly increasing and the prospects are that the greatest possible use is to be made of them in the future. And they will be made up of true branches. Delivery stations have their uses, but they can never take the place of buildings with permanent stocks of books and all the conveniences of a separate library. Where a branch building is also a delivery station, as it always should be, that is, where the users of a branch are allowed to draw on the stock of the Central Library or of the other branches, it is found that the branch use vastly exceeds the station use. In our own library a branch that circulates 500 to 1000 of its own books daily will give out only two or three from other branches. This is sufficiently indicative of the preferences of the public, and in a matter of this kind public preference will ultimately govern. These branch libraries will have limited stocks of books, mostly, though not entirely, on open shelves, and will include small reference collections which will be more important as the branch is farther removed from the central library. These predictions, it seems to me, are all warranted by present tendencies.

How will the future library be governed and administered? The governing body at present is almost universally a board of trustees who are men of standing and responsibility but usually without expert knowledge. These are sometimes semi-independent and sometimes under the direct control of their municipal government. The present tendency seems to be to minimize municipal control but to increase the number of governing bodies subject to it. In other words private libraries are doing more public work than formerly under contract with municipalities, becoming thereby subject to the control of the city or town but not so closely as to bring politics into the management. This state of things is so desirable that we may expect it to be multiplied in the future. As regards the lay or inexpert character of the governing board, though it is looked upon by some as objectionable, it is shared by the library with great numbers of other public and semi-public institutions. Such a board may be regarded as representative of the great lay public, on whose behalf the institution must be operated, and whose members are interested in results rather than in the special methods by which these results may be obtained. That the members of such a board should be mere figure-heads is certainly not to be desired; that they should, either as individuals or collectively, take part in the details of administration is equally undesirable. There are boards that are doing the one or the other of these things, but the tendency is to lean neither in the direction of laxity nor of undue interference—to require definite results and to hold the librarian strictly responsible for the attainment of those results, leaving him to employ his own methods.

And the librarian of the future; who and what will he be? The difference between the modern librarian and him of the old school has often been the subject of comment. The librarian nowadays is less the scholar and more the man of affairs. Is change to go on in this direction? There are rather, it seems to me, signs of a reaction. Perhaps reaction is hardly the word. The librarian, while keeping in touch with the times, is reaching back for a little of the spirit of the old-time custodian and incorporating it with his own. Is it too much to hope that the heads of our future libraries, will keep in the forefront of library progress, alert to appreciate the popular need and to respond to it, may yet have something of the sweet and gentle spirit of the old scholars who used to preside over our storehouses of books?