395.
395. At one time a considerable controversy, often conducted with surprising feeling, raged in England over the respective merits of indicator and open access methods. This continued from about 1894, when James Duff Brown inaugurated the safe-guarded open shelf plus card-charging method at Clerkenwell (now Finsbury Central) Library. His liberalizing action necessarily threatened the property of those who owned indicator patents—some of them librarians unfortunately—and an astonishing number of objections to each method were then discovered by the advocates of either (some of them honest). The younger librarians will have none of this controversy. It is a purely impersonal question as to which is the better system, and the gradual extension of the open access system seems to have settled the matter in its favour. It is clear that with advancing education the public will question the right of the libraries to erect barriers, however ingenious and practical, between the books and their readers. All that it seems necessary to say here is that librarians should be able to examine both systems in actual working, study the results obtained, and form their own conclusions without having their integrity or morality challenged because of their conclusions.
396. Bibliography
Brown, J. D. Charging Systems. In his Library Appliances, p. 20.
Dana, J. C. (Ed.). The Charging System. In Mod. American Lib. Econ., 1909.
Plummer, M. W. Loan Systems. U.S. Educ. Rept., 1892-1893, vol. i., p. 898.
Stewart, J. D., and Others. Open Access Libraries, 1915.
Vitz, C. P. P. Loan Work. A.L.A. Man. of Lib. Econ., Preprint of chapter xxi., 1914.
For articles see Cannons, E 84-106, Lending Library Methods.