BY TELEPHONE
BY TELEPHONE
"On January 14th," so announced a circular issued last month by the Ezra Beesly Free Public Library of Baxter, "we shall install a telephone service at the library. Telephone your inquiries to the library, and they will be answered over the wire."
Now, January 14th was last Saturday, and this is undoubtedly the first account of the innovation at Baxter.
Miss Pansy Patterson, assistant reference librarian, took her seat at the telephone promptly at nine o'clock, ready to answer all questions. She had, near her, a small revolving bookcase containing an encyclopædia, a dictionary, the Statesman's Year Book, Who's Who in America, Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, The Old Librarian's Almanack, the Catalogue of the Boston Athenæum, Baedeker's guide book to the United States, Cruden's Concordance, and a few others of the most valuable reference books, in daily use among librarians.
Should this stock fail her she could send the stenographer, Miss Parkinson, on a hurry call to the reading-room, where Miss Bixby, the head reference librarian, would be able to draw on a larger collection of books to find the necessary information.
Mr. Amos Vanhoff, the new librarian of Baxter, stood over the telephone, rubbing his hands in pleasant anticipation of the workings of the new system which he had installed.