How to Form a Library, 2nd ed

by Henry B. Wheatley

Mr. F.B. Perkins, of the Boston Public Library, contributed to the Report on Public Libraries in the United States a useful chapter on "How to make Town Libraries successful" (pp. 419-430). The two chief points upon which he lays particular stress, and which may be said to form the texts for his practical remarks, are: (1) that a Public Library for popular use must be managed not only as a literary institution, but also as a business concern; and (2) that it is a mistake to choose books of too thoughtful or solid a character. He says, "It is vain to go on the principle of collecting books that people ought to read, and afterwards trying to coax them to read them. The only practical method is to begin by supplying books that people already want to read, and afterwards to do whatever shall be found possible to elevate their reading tastes and habits."

A series of articles on "How to Start Libraries in Small Towns" was published in the Library Journal (vol. i. pp. 161, 213, 249, 313, 355, 421), and Mr. Axon's Hints on the Formation of Small Libraries has already been mentioned. We must not be too rigid in the use of the term Public Libraries, and we should certainly include under this description those institutional Libraries which, although primarily intended for the use of the Members of the Societies to which they belong, can usually be consulted by students who are properly introduced.

Of Public Libraries first in order come the great libraries of a nation, such as the British Museum. These are supplied by means of the Copyright Law, but the librarians are not from this cause exonerated from the troubles attendant on the formation of a library. There are old books and privately printed and foreign books to be bought, and it is necessary that the most catholic spirit should be displayed by the librarians. The same may be said in a lesser degree of the great libraries of the more important towns.

In England the Universities have noble libraries, more especially those of Oxford and Cambridge, but although some colleges possess fine collections of books, college libraries are not as a rule kept up to a very high standard. The United States Report contains a full account of the college libraries in America (pp. 60-126).

The libraries of societies are to a large extent special ones, and my brother, the late Mr. B.R. Wheatley, in a paper read before the Conference of Librarians, 1877, entitled "Hints on Library Management, so far as relates to the Circulation of Books," particularly alluded to this fact. He wrote, "Our library is really a medical and surgical section of a great Public Library. Taking the five great classes of literature, I suppose medicine and its allied sciences may be considered as forming a thirtieth of the whole, and, as our books number 30,000, we are, as it were, a complete section of a Public Library of nearly a million volumes in extent."

The United States Report contains several chapters on special libraries, thus chapter 2 is devoted to those of Schools and Asylums; 4, to Theological Libraries; 5, to Law; 6, to Medical; and 7, to Scientific Libraries. For the formation of special libraries, special bibliographies will be required, and for information on this subject reference should be made to Chapter VI. of the present work.

When we come to deal with the Free Public Libraries, several ethical questions arise, which do not occur in respect to other libraries. One of the most pressing of these questions refers to the amount of Fiction read by the ordinary frequenters of these libraries.

This point is alluded to in the United States Report on Public Libraries. Mr. J.P. Quincy, in the chapter on Free Libraries (p. 389), writes, "Surely a state which lays heavy taxes upon the citizen in order that children may be taught to read is bound to take some interest in what they read; and its representatives may well take cognizance of the fact that an increased facility for obtaining works of sensational fiction is not the special need of our country at the close of the first century of its independence." He mentions a free library in Germanstown, Pa., sustained by the liberality of a religious body, and frequented by artisans and working people of both sexes. It had been in existence six years in 1876, and then contained 7000 volumes. No novels are admitted into the library. The following is a passage from the librarian's report of 1874: "In watching the use of our library as it is more and more resorted to by the younger readers of our community, I have been much interested in its influence in weaning them from a desire for works of fiction. On first joining the library, the new comers often ask for such books, but failing to procure them, and having their attention turned to works of interest and instruction, in almost every instance they settle down to good reading and cease asking for novels. I am persuaded that much of this vitiated taste is cultivated by the purveyors to the reading classes, and that they are responsible for an appetite they often profess to deplore, but continue to cater to, under the plausible excuse that the public will have such works."

Mr. Justin Winsor in chapter 20 (Reading in Popular Libraries) expresses a somewhat different view. He writes, "Every year many young readers begin their experiences with the library. They find all the instructive reading they ought to have in their school books, and frequent the library for story books. These swell the issues of fiction, but they prevent the statistics of that better reading into which you have allured the older ones, from telling as they should in the average."

At the London Conference of Librarians (1877), Mr. P. Cowell, Librarian of the Liverpool Public Library, read a paper on the admission of Fiction in Free Public Libraries, where he discussed the subject in a very fair manner, and deplored the high percentage of novel reading in these libraries. At the Second Annual Meeting of the Library Association (1879) Mr. J. Taylor Kay, Librarian of Owens College, Manchester, in his paper on the Provision of Novels in Rate-supported Libraries, more completely condemned this provision. He concluded his paper with these words: "Clearly a hard and fast line must be drawn. A distinct refusal by the library committees to purchase a single novel or tale would be appreciated by the rate-payers. The suggestion of a sub-committee to read this literature would not be tolerated, and no man whose time is of value would undergo the infliction. The libraries would attain their true position, and the donations would certainly be of a higher class, if the aims of the committees were known to be higher. Manchester has already curtailed its issues of novels. It has been in the vanguard on the education question: and let us hope it will be true to its traditions, to its noble impulses, and lead the van in directing the educational influence of the free libraries, and striking out altogether any expenditure in the dissemination of this literature."