Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries

by Arthur E. Bostwick

It is the misfortune of this paper that it has been obliged to dwell on the darker side of library work. It is hardly necessary to remind an audience of librarians that this is not the prominent side. All users of a library are not delinquents or law-breakers, and the assistants have other and better work than to act as fine-collectors and detectives. The sombre effect of what you have just heard should have been dispelled by a paper on “Rewards and delights of library work,” but this the Program Committee has seen fit to omit, probably because it is not necessary to emphasize the obvious.

HOW LIBRARIANS CHOOSE BOOKS

The form in which this subject is stated removes it from the region of ethics and brings it down to the hard realms of fact I am not to tell you how librarians ought to select books, but how they do select them. I shall assume, however, that you do not care to have this paper filled with instances of abnormal and unprofitable selection, but that you wish to hear of the normal and the unobjectionable. Booksellers tell us that many buyers of books are governed in their choice by the color of the covers, and I have suspected that some librarians are influenced in the same way. Some librarians appear to object to works that are less than one century old; others are on record as discouraging the purchase of fiction less than one year of age. Some librarians have a prejudice against certain classes of books and an inordinate love for others.

The only things that should be considered by the librarian in buying books for his library are the needs of the community that he serves, the capability of the various books under consideration to satisfy those needs, and the financial ability of the library to secure what is needed.

I shall take up these points in order. First, the needs of the community. These are not necessarily to be measured by its demands, otherwise the librarian’s labor would be considerably lightened. Unfortunately, when a community needs a given class of books very desperately it is often serenely unconscious of the fact. To the librarian falls the task not only of determining what the need is and of filling it, but also of arousing a wholesome consciousness of it. In this educational work he may be, and often is, aided by the teacher, the clergyman, or even by the users of the library themselves. Hence the importance of getting in touch with all the agencies that may do work along this line. There is nothing that calls for more tact. With the children it is comparatively easy to point out a deficiency, but a direct attempt with a self-respecting adult may end in disaster, and a season or two of well-meant effort may result in weakening the librarian’s influence or even in losing him his position. But one can rarely teach tact to the tactless, and tact is something that every librarian must have, so that this lopping-off process, after all, may simply be regarded as a phase of nature’s elimination of the unfit. One way of ascertaining the proportional demand for various classes of literature in a community, is by examining the class-percentage of circulation. By comparing these with the corresponding volume percentages we may see whether the demands of the community are being met, and by comparison with the percentages of an ideal library we may see whether such demand ought to be met or not. Of course, the ideal is somewhat indefinite. One may accept the suggested proportions in the A.L.A. catalog, or average those of several libraries of high class; or one may construct an ideal of one’s own. In any case, the ideal proportions will evidently vary with conditions of place and time. To show how this test may be applied, consider the percentage of science circulated last year in the New York Public library. This varied from 3 to 28 per cent in the various branches, and was 9 per cent for the whole library. The percentage of science on the shelves similarly varied from 6 to 18 per cent, and was also 9 for the whole library. In our library sociology and philology are included in the science report, and the percentage of these three classes combined in the old A.L.A. catalog is 17. If this is to be taken as the standard, therefore, the library as a whole falls below it, though individual branches approach or even exceed it. As a whole, however, the demand and the supply balance pretty well. There is no doubt, however, that in this and most other libraries the demand in this class is too small and needs stimulation. Of course, this is brought up merely as an instance of how fertile this comparison of percentages is in information, and how valuable in ascertaining whether the demands of a community are supplied, and whether they ought to be supplied, along any given line.

We will assume that either in the ways indicated, or in some other, the librarian has satisfied himself that he understands what his community needs. How shall he find the books that will satisfy that need, and when they are found (or, still more, when they obtrude themselves on his notice) how shall he know that they are what they claim to be?

In order to find what he wants, the librarian naturally turns at first to such classed bibliographies as he has at hand, including publishers’ trade lists. Unfortunately, books very rapidly become out of print, and if his bibliography or list is even two or three years old he cannot be sure that his work of selection is not in vain. The value of the A.L.A. catalog has been much impaired by its inclusion of out-of-print books, and as, now that it is several years old, the number of these is increasing daily, its use has become more and more vexatious, both to librarians and publishers. It is to be hoped that in the new edition now preparing the out-of-print books will be omitted. Fortunately we now have at our disposal yearly alphabetical lists of in-print books. Such are the index to the Trade list annual and the United States catalog for American editions, and the Index to the reference catalog of current literature for British books.

If the needs of your library require that some one class should be largely replenished, you may call in expert knowledge. Some teacher or student who is a specialist in that subject is generally not hard to find, and his advice will be of the greatest value. Special bibliographies are valuable in inverse ratio to their length—a complete list of works on Egyptology, for instance, is hardly more valuable to the ordinary small library than a full, unclassified list of books in-print on all subjects.

The majority of the small library’s purchases are books as currently issued. For these the Publishers’ weekly is indispensable. Some librarians prefer to look at every book before purchasing, and arrange with publishers or booksellers to send large numbers of books weekly or even daily on approval. This, if there is sufficient time, is a good plan, but it is certainly wasteful. There are many books which we can surely reject or accept from the author and title entry in the Publishers’ weekly as well as if the actual book were in hand. If a mistake is made it will be, or should be, discovered as soon as the book is received, and the volume can then be exchanged. Only the doubtful books need be asked for on approval, and these will generally be found to constitute a relatively small percentage of the whole.

The data on which the librarian may rely to accept or reject from a mere list of books are: 1) the author’s name; 2) the title, with such brief annotation as may follow it; 3) notices in the book magazines; 4) the publisher’s name. The author stands for much—the style, method of treatment, the fitness to print of what he has to say, the readableness of his book, and so on. We all know that there are authors whom we can absolutely rely on in these respects, either for acceptance or rejection. It is thus necessary that the librarian may know the uniformly good author and the uniformly bad ones; but experience must be his guide, as this lies somewhat without the scope of the present paper. The title should tell us something about the contents of the book, but, unfortunately, the aim of the title-maker is too often not to give information but to stimulate curiosity. In some cases this is carried so far that the title of a book leaves us in absolute ignorance as to whether it is sociology, travel, or fiction. One is, therefore, generally obliged to refer to some kind of descriptive note to get the desired information. Such notes are often appended to lists and the librarian does well to remember that they are generally not intended to be critical. For criticism we must go to the reviews, and here I have always felt, and still feel, that the librarian has a real grievance. The book periodicals are many, and every daily paper has its critical page. This mass of matter is made accessible through the recently issued Index to books reviewed. Yet with it all there is not one place where the librarian may look for brief notes on current books, telling him just what he wants to know and no more, and with the confidence that the information is quite free from bias. In saying this I am quite ready to give credit to our best book reviews for their many good qualities. What I mean is, that the reviews are written for the reader or the bookseller, never for the librarian. In making use of those at his disposal the librarian must learn to discriminate, to weigh authorities, and to pick out the occasional sharp needle of valuable criticism from the haystack of discursive talk.