Manual of Library Economy / Third and Memorial Edition

by James Duff Brown; W. C. Berwick Sayers

General.—All works that are defective or dirty should be discarded, or at any rate withdrawn from general circulation. A book defective in a plate or a section or two can sometimes be completed by an application to the publisher for the missing part, which is usually forthcoming at small cost. Dirty books are the bane of municipal lending libraries, and a ruthless policy in regard to them is a public economy. Especially does this remark apply to classic fiction: clean, or fresh, copies should always be available, even if at the cost of obtaining fewer works of inferior fiction. Many of the criticisms levelled at libraries have been due to neglect of this matter; sometimes due, we are sorry to say, to want of money to buy the necessary replacements.

201.

201. None of the foregoing recommendations for discarding, except the last, applies to bibliographical rarities or curiosities; to works of recognized literary merit which are mentioned in histories of literature; to books which are of local interest; or to special collections. They apply simply and solely to the rank and file of literature, the 50 per cent. of the fruits of the press which become stale through effluxion of time. The question of how to dispose of discarded books can generally be decided by some local circumstance. Discarded text-books of science are generally of little value to anyone, and need not be preserved at all. But faded works of travel, history and biography may find interested readers in workhouses, hospitals and prisons. To these, or similar institutions, the discarded books of a public library could be transferred. It is hardly necessary to point out that books which are not good enough or fresh enough for a central library, are not good enough for a branch library. Books proposed to be withdrawn permanently should be submitted to the library committee, and lists of the discarded books may be printed in the bulletin, if there is one, or, failing that, in a separate form. It is useful that readers likely to be interested should be afforded an opportunity of judging the proposals and action of the library committee in its work of weeding out the library. Any serious objection to a book being removed should be considered, and nothing should be done without the utmost deliberation, because, as yet, we have not achieved a public library index expurgatorius of books not worth preserving. When this comes, the task will be immensely lightened. Books which are discarded should not be permitted to leave the library unless stamped, to indicate that they are rejected. A stamp with a movable dating centre should be used, with the words,

“Public Library, Discarded,”

in a circle.

202. Practical Methods of Selection.

202. Practical Methods of Selection.—The number of books which have been published to aid in book selection is somewhat large, but few of them, save, perhaps, Sonnenschein’s publications and Nelson’s Standard Books, make any attempt to indicate the best editions of particular authors. It may be assumed that every entry in these lists of best books represents a work which is recommended on account of its merit, literary or otherwise. But something more than this is required by the librarian who is faced with the task of building up a great modern library, and is limited in his selection to books of the most enduring merit, and those which most completely and accurately record the state of the science or subject to which they are devoted. It is a very easy matter to simply order books, like the millionaire who fitted up his library by the superficial yard, thereby tempting a bookseller, entrusted with a large order for books of a uniform size in fine bindings, to bind up some hundreds of copies of a cheap “remainder,” in different covers, but with varying titles, in order to provide in dummy form the necessary mileage of books required. Public library formation can hardly be undertaken in this happy-go-lucky manner.

203.

203. The principal aids to the selection of new books are The Library Association List of Best Books, which is an annotated, classified and evaluated list published weekly in The Athenæum, and The A. L. A. Book-List, which serves similarly for American books, and the journals of various kinds, which review and advertise books as published. Comparatively few of the literary journals review books in a manner helpful to the would-be book-buyer, because they do not describe the contents of them so much as criticize their literary style, production, printers’ errors, etc. Generally speaking, a modern book review is what it was in the old days of the Edinburgh and Quarterly, simply a peg on which to hang the reviewer’s opinions on the subject of the book, and on which to display his knowledge and critical insight. Moreover, it must be remembered that publishers advertise their wares in literary journals, and that fact may, in some cases, not be without influence upon the views of the critics. The subject of the book, its style of treatment, scope, and details of its contents are left to be divined by the reader. Some of the modern publishers’ monthly catalogues are much more helpful than any journal or review, because they add brief descriptive notes to each entry of a new book. A plain, practical note outlining the principal contents and intention of a book is worth pages of critical remarks to the librarian book-buyer. The following is a list of the journals most used by librarians in selecting new books:

General:
	Athenæum (Annotated)		-	Weekly and monthly, most of them giving a summary list of new books, reviews, and advertisements.
	Literary World
	Publishers’ Circular
	Saturday Review
	Nation (London)
	Spectator
	Times Literary Supplement (Annotated)
	Bookman.
	Bookseller.
	Book Monthly.
	A.L.A. Book List. (Annotated.)
	Nation (New York).
	Publishers’ Weekly (New York).
Special:
	Nature (scientific books generally).
	English Mechanic (technical books)
	Engineer (technical books).
	Current Foreign books can readily be found in the lists issued by Brockhaus, Hachette,Williams & Norgate, Dulau, etc.