455. Technical Libraries.
455. Technical Libraries.—While the commercial library furnishes information for the buyer and seller of commodities, the technical library is concerned with information for the manufacturer and operative; the question is therefore closely related to the question of commercial libraries, and in some districts is the more important. In large American libraries there is usually a separate department of the reference library devoted to technology, but in this country the supply of such books as this department would afford has been inadequate. Lately considerable attention has been devoted to technical libraries, and we may summarize a few of the results and recommendations.
456. Local Industries.
456. Local Industries.—It is clear that municipal libraries have a special interest in providing all literature possible on local industries; text-books of the various trades, periodicals, patent publications, reports, catalogues and similar matter should be collected assiduously. This does not mean that every trade represented in the town need be treated in an exhaustive manner, but the leading industries, by which numbers of the townsfolk live, certainly should be. Examples of such collections are those on engineering at Coventry, furniture at Shoreditch, clocks and clock-making at Finsbury, coal-mining at Wigan, and the leather trades at Northampton. Some of these, however, are confined to books, in many cases perforce for lack of funds and personal service; but the ideal, too often unrealized, is a collection of material of all kinds of which books form only a part. Local means and opportunities must determine how far any library can carry such a collection—usually, at present, not very far; but as many works of recognized value on the predominant industries should certainly be stocked.
457. Technical Collections Generally.
457. Technical Collections Generally.—Hitherto it has been the province of the municipal library to supply general works in technology, and the special libraries of individual industries have been provided by the industry. This, in the view of the Ministry of Reconstruction’s Adult Education Committee (Third Interim Report, Libraries and Museums, 1919, Cd. 9237), should be the prevailing method of the future. It is obvious that few public libraries can supply expensive treatises on technical questions in which their own district is not directly interested; even with a greatly increased library rate they could not do so in any large measure. The greater cities may perhaps acquire these books, but they could not supply more than one or two copies. Too limited a view should not be taken in great towns, because co-ordination and co-operation such as are implied in the Joint-Technical Catalogues published at Glasgow bring the whole resources of a wide area to a focus. In ordinary towns the present aim should be to obtain the largest possible number of general and special works in science and applied science, and to leave the supply of the more expensive, recondite, and valuable but rarely used treatises to a central reservoir library, which may be developed out of the Central Lending Library for Students, perhaps with the aid of the special libraries of the various institutions which represent trades and professions. The main aim of the Library Association is to have a central reservoir library established in London from which all libraries may draw important little-used books; and the Ministry of Reconstruction’s Committee adopt this idea as the basis of their scheme for the co-ordination and re-organization of libraries.
In building up technical collections a library benefits greatly by expert assistance; but the advice of several, and not one only, is very desirable, since experts rarely agree on minute questions of books, and each of any two experts cancels the idiosyncrasies of the other. But experts can usually be found from neighbouring universities, or big industrial concerns, who will give the library the benefit of their knowledge, especially in assessing the value of older books. No section of the library needs revision so frequently as the technical, unless it be the commercial. This is more especially likely to be the case in these next few years after the War, when all industrial advances made from 1914 onwards will probably be recorded, to the superseding of many previous books.