Fig. 153.—The Islington Reference Library. Note the special tables.
409. Access.
409. Access.—For successful reference work a certain measure of open access is essential, and is allowed by most libraries which otherwise are arranged on the closed system. The British Museum, Birmingham and other large reference libraries allow readers free choice from a selected assortment of books, numbering from a few to 20,000 or more volumes, of quick-reference character, including atlases, gazetteers, dictionaries, directories, encyclopædias, codes, etc., which answer everyday questions and which are wanted without delay. These, in themselves, form a fairly considerable reference library, and that fact should be recognized when the question of access is under consideration. Other libraries allow freedom of access to nearly the whole collection; but none allows it to the whole. There are in many libraries unique books, records, and other works to which access is wisely limited, in the interest of their preservation as records and from other points of view. These, however, form an infinitesimal part of the stock of average municipal collections. All it is wished to emphasize here is that open access without any formality whatever should be allowed to the obvious quick-reference works of the kind enumerated above. A much-occupied business man who wants an address, the definition of a word, or a cable code is not likely to endure the bother of filling up application forms patiently; and to insist upon it may mean the loss of the patronage of a valuable class of the community. For the general part of the reference library where open access is in vogue admission is usually gained by signing the visitors’ book. Such signing has not definite safeguarding value, but is to some extent a moral check upon would-be defaulters, and is useful as a means of registering the number of readers. The plans given in [Chapter VII.] give some idea of the disposition of the ordinary reference library, and no one plan can be called the best. All that can be affirmed positively is that ample reading space should be allowed, that good light, natural and artificial, and ventilation, ease of administering the stock, close classification and the fullest cataloguing possible should be aimed at. The commonest error, as we have hinted, is crowding and insufficiency of seating accommodation. A well-administered reference library creates its own reading public, and accommodation which may be ample at the opening of the library often proves in a few years to be inadequate.
| CAREVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY. | |||
| Reference Department. | |||
| No Book must on any account be removed from this room,or transferred to other readers. | |||
| Book No. | Author and Title of Book. | Initial of Assistant. | |
| Name of Applicant | ................................................................... | ||
| Address | ........................................................................................... | ||
| Date | ................................................................... | ||
Fig. 154.—Reference Library Application Form ([Section 409]).
Where access to shelves is not allowed, and application forms are used, it is customary to supply blanks similar to that shown in [Fig. 154], on which particulars of the book wanted are entered. In some libraries these slips are placed on the shelves in the place of the books issued, and remain there till the books are replaced. To ascertain that no books are missing an assistant examines the shelves every morning, and notes any slips still remaining which represent books issued on the previous day. To facilitate this operation a differently coloured slip may be used on alternate days—white to-day, blue to-morrow—so that on a white day the presence of a blue slip will instantly draw attention to a misplacement or a missing book. In other libraries the slips are filed near the point of issue, and remain there as a check against the shelves and the readers until the books are returned. Some libraries return the slips to the borrowers as a receipt, and compile their statistics from the books; others retain the slips and make up their statistics from them. Some libraries also insert an issue label in the inside front of each book, which is stamped every time the book is issued, and thus a record is made of a book’s popularity or otherwise, which should prove useful when discarding has to be considered. Application forms, or for that matter signatures in visitors’ books, are no protection against thefts of books. Readers have simply to give a false name and address, and walk off with any book they please, if they intend theft.
410.
410. It is the common practice in open access reference libraries to have notices displayed of this nature:
Readers are requested not to return books to the shelves when they have done with them, but to close them and leave them on the table.