Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries

by Arthur E. Bostwick

MAL-EMPLOYMENT IN THE LIBRARY[12]

Students of the labor problem have given a vast amount of attention to the unemployed, but comparatively little to the mal-employed. It troubles them—and very properly—that there should be large numbers of persons who are doing no work, who are contributing nothing toward the operation of the world’s machinery; they do not seem to be so greatly bothered that there are persons hard at work to no purpose or with evil result—whose efforts either do not help the world along or actually impede it or hold it back. Serious as is the case of those who are not employed at all, it is as nothing compared with those who are employed badly.

One reason for this neglect—which is at the same time a reason why it should no longer exist—is that the burden of unemployment bears most conspicuously on the individual, while that of mal-employment is predominantly civic. It is true that unemployment works civic injury, and that mal-employment, especially if it be criminal, is recognized at once as a possible harm to the individual. But what I mean is that the unemployed person, unless he is one of the idle rich, is greatly concerned about his lack of employment, which touches his pocket directly. He does all that he can to get back into the ranks of the employed, but once there it does not occur to him to ask whether what he is doing benefits society, or is of no value to it, or actually harms it. Even if he does so inquire, he is not likely to give up a job that pays him well simply because what he is doing is injurious to the world’s progress. The injury done is social and civic and we must look to increased social and civic consciousness for its abatement.

I owe this word mal-employment, in its contrasted use with unemployment, to William Kent, a member of Congress from the city of Chicago. In a recent interview, Mr. Kent gives it as his opinion that the sin of the day is waste—the expenditure of effort for naught or for positive ill. Of course, when we get down to details there is difficulty or even impossibility in deciding whether or not a given man is mal-employed—we may leave out of consideration here all persons engaged in criminal occupations. For instance, Mr. Kent considers that the small army of men engaged in the manufacture of champagne are all mal-employed. Whether we agree with him or not depends somewhat on our predispositions and our points of view. Many parents, in earlier days, thought that when children were at play they were mal-employed; most persons now regard this form of employment as necessary and beneficial, although Dr. Boris Sidis thinks that the same interest now employed in aimless play may be used to carry the child onward in the path of individual progress and development. How about the vast number of persons occupied in amusing or trying to amuse the public—employees of theatres, recreation parks, and so on? Many are well employed; some are doubtless mal-employed. Among persons that we should all agree are mal-employed are all those writing books or plays that are morally harmful, as well as those concerned in publishing such books or producing such plays, and, for the moment, all who are reading or witnessing them; persons engaged in manufacturing or distributing useless or harmful products; all who do work of any kind so badly that inconvenience or harm results; unnecessary middlemen whose intervention in the process of distribution only impedes it and adds to its expense. Anyone may add to the list by taking thought a little. If all these mal-employed persons should suddenly lose their positions the result would be beneficial to society, even if society had to support them in idleness; if they should all turn their attention from mal-employment to beneficial uses, how incalculably great a blessing they would bestow upon mankind! It is every man’s business, it seems to me, to inquire whether he is well employed or mal-employed, and if the occupation in which he is engaged is generally beneficial to society, then whether all those under his orders are well employed in carrying out its purpose.

Let us, as librarians, take up this civic task for a few moments. And first, let us not hastily conclude that we are necessarily well employed simply because we are librarians. A library may do harm; I have personally known of harm done by libraries. A group can be no better than its constituents; a collection of harmful books is assuredly itself harmful. More, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link; a fleet is no faster than its slowest ship; and we may almost say that a library is no better than its worst book. And we must not forget that a book may be bad in three ways: it may give incorrect information, teach what is morally wrong, or use language that is unfitting. It may be necessary that a library should contain any or all of these, but if they give it its atmosphere and control its influence as an educational institution, even unwittingly, it is anti-social and those who administer it are mal-employed. I have in mind a pseudo-scientific book for children that abounds in misstatements combined with beautiful illustrations; a book of travel full of ludicrous misinformation; a work intended to teach Italians English, whose English is screamingly funny. The library assistant who hands one of these to a reader is mal-employed. I can make a list (and so can you) of books that teach, directly or by implication, that what is universally acknowledged to be wrong is right—at least under certain circumstances; that theft is smart and that swindling is unobjectionable. The library assistant who circulates these is mal-employed. All of us can easily also place our hands on books whose only fault is that their language is objectionable—incorrect, silly or vulgar. They may be otherwise unobjectionable, yet I venture to say that the distribution of these books is also mal-employment. How about the librarian who administers such a library, and the staff who assist him? They are all mal-employed. No matter how well and how conscientiously the cataloguer may perform her task, no matter how clean the janitor may keep the front steps, they are only aiding to keep up an institution that disseminates falsehood, teaches unrighteousness, encourages vulgarity; and they are all mal-employed. This is what I mean when I say that a library may be no better than its worst book. If its output is bad, all exertion to accomplish that output is also bad. And as for the output itself, it may be that the good done by a thousand good books may not outweigh the ill done by a few bad ones.

A person is always mal-employed when he is leaving a more important thing undone, to do a less important one. The degree of mal-employment in this case is measured, of course, by the difference in value between the two things. Mr. E.L. Pearson, in one of his library articles in the Boston Transcript, calls attention to what he names “side-shows” in libraries, and asserts that the chief business of a library, the proper care and distribution of books, is often neglected that other things may be attended to, and that money needed for books is often diverted to these other uses. This is undoubtedly true in many cases, and in so far as it is true some librarians and library assistants are mal-employed. The scope of library work has broadened out enormously of late and libraries are doing all sorts of things that are subsidiary to their main work—things that will make that work easier and more effective. This is as it should be, provided that these numerous tails do not wag the dog. To take an extreme instance we will assume that a small library is in great need of books and that a small gift of money, instead of being expended for these is put into material for picture bulletins. We should have no difficulty in concluding that the person who makes the bulletins is mal-employed; and in so doing we should not be condemning picture bulletins at all or saying that money spent for them is wasted. Take again a case specially noted by Mr. Pearson, which is bothering the heads of some of our library trustees at this moment—the acceptance and preservation of full sets of the printed catalogue cards of the Library of Congress. There can be no doubt of the value of such depository sets to certain libraries, and as they are given free of charge the only expense connected with them is the cost of an assistant’s time in filing them, amounting perhaps to an hour or two a day, and that of cabinets in which to keep them. Whether this cost is far outweighed by the usefulness of the collection to the library and its patrons, or whether that usefulness is practically nil, making the outlay wasteful, no matter how small it may be, must be answered by each library for itself. In some cases, labor expended on the filing of L.C. cards is undoubtedly mal-employment.

Certain kinds of work which were either not mal-employment when they were adopted, or were not recognized as such, have become so by reason of a change, either in the conditions of the work itself or in the way in which it is regarded by those who are doing it and by the public that benefits by it.

Take, for instance, labor performed under an age-limit rule for children, such as nearly all libraries once possessed, and such as is still enforced in some places. If it is true that the library ought not to be used by children below a specified age, work done in ascertaining their ages and in excluding those barred out by the rule is necessary and valuable. If this is not true; if the exclusion of such children may be actually harmful to the community, it follows that all such work is the most flagrant kind of mal-employment.

But there may also be mal-employment in the course of work of undoubted advantage to the library and its public. If in the course of such work something is done that sets it back instead of helping it on, or that injures the library in some other way more than it helps by what it directly effects, labor expended on that thing is mal-employment. This is a more fundamental and elementary thing than lack of efficiency. If an assistant is cataloguing books well, but much more slowly than she ought, she is not efficiently employed, but neither is she mal-employed, for she is doing nothing that directly injures the work. If she were to stop, the library would be injured, not benefited. But if she is making egregious blunders in her work, causing undue labor in revision or making the catalogue confused or misleading in case her cards should get into it, it might be better for the library if she were to stop work, and she is surely mal-employed.