CHAPTER XXVIII
LOCAL COLLECTIONS
424. General.
424. General.—Of the departments of reference, other than the general working department, prior consideration may be given to the Local Collection on the ground that every municipal public library must have a collection of this kind. At any rate it should have as complete a collection as possible of material relating to its town. County collections are a much more serious matter and should only be attempted by towns of county rank, or the town in each county where the majority of the population is. There is hardly a county in England which can support two county collections, because rival collections are mutually inimical, and their competition for certain items causes the price of the latter to increase absurdly. The town is another matter. The one place where copies of books, pamphlets, photographs, etc., relating to a town ought to be found is its public library; and there are several principles, warnings and suggestions that may be enunciated in connexion with the work. The relative value of the material to be collected is hardly a matter for the librarian; often most despised material has great value when brought into relation to other material. The best general principle is: “Get everything and leave its evaluation to posterity.”
425. Material collected.
425. Material collected.—Primarily the words local collection are co-extensive with local bibliography. This last term, however, is too narrow, and the broad headings embraced by the collection may be set out, and then considered in detail. These are:
- (a) Printed records.
- (b) Written records.
- (c) Pictorial records.
- (d) Engraved records.
All or most of these are found in every local collection, and their statement immediately raises the question: Can pictorial records, although undoubtedly a part of local history, come into the province of the library? Are they not rather in that of the art gallery? Similarly are not engraved records (bronze coins, tokens, rubbings of monumental brasses and seals) better placed in the museum? It may be urged that the art gallery is concerned with art, the museum with science, and the library (in this connexion) with history. Pictures and engraved articles are not collected by the librarian because of their artistic qualities—in fact, many of his most cherished possessions are artistic atrocities—but because they are records. On this argument a good case can be made for their retention in the library. No doubt, where a town has the three institutions named, and where the local collecting spirit is at work in each, and is definitely co-ordinated, it would be wise and economical to sub-divide the field; but where there is only the library, there can be only one principle, and that the one already emphasized—“get everything.”