Manual of Library Economy / Third and Memorial Edition

by James Duff Brown; W. C. Berwick Sayers

461.

461. The stock arguments in favour of newspapers are reasonable, and have a strong element of truth in them. They attract a class of reader who would not otherwise come to the library at all, and satisfy the literary aspirations of some ratepayers who might receive otherwise no direct return for their rates. The presence of literary, technical and commercial periodicals in the newsroom is also said to attract a large number of interested readers, and no doubt it does; but this result might be achieved independently of the newspaper element. Newspaper readers are often a class apart; they rarely read anything else. Real newspaper readers are comparatively few, and besides those who come for the weekly periodicals, the newsroom attracts loafers, sporting men and all kinds of hopeless individuals, to whom the comparative comfort of the newsroom is an attraction. Mr George Gissing, in one of his sketches, has drawn an exaggerated picture of such a newsroom haunter, who suffers from a kind of neurosis which drags him irresistibly to a public newsroom, there to indulge his morbid olfactory sense. The main argument in favour of newsrooms is that they present representative journals of every shade of opinion, and give the opportunity which is badly needed of comparative reading. But it is a department which some librarians think costs rather more than is justified by its actual value. When the annual charges for periodicals, fittings, lighting, heating, oversight and proportion of loan are all added together, it will be found that a newsroom costs a very considerable amount, which could be applied to more permanent advantage in a reference or lending library. The smaller the library the greater is the proportionate cost, and committees may seriously consider the question of limitation in public newsrooms, at any rate so far as daily newspapers are concerned. It is clearly a department where continual supervision is necessary, where it is most difficult to enforce discipline, and one that gives rise to continual public criticism.

462.

462. A few years ago the practice of blacking out the betting news was adopted in some newsrooms, as an experimental device to discourage the sporting element, which in some towns used to obstruct the greater part of the newsrooms. This is mentioned, not as an example to be followed, but as showing the shifts some library authorities have been driven to in order to prevent abuses. This practice of obliteration is now rare. Another suggestion for coping with the betting fraternity is to cease buying or displaying the evening papers, or to procure them so late as to make them useless for the purposes of the sporting element, while not in any way penalizing the reader who comes after 7 p.m. As a further suggestion for limiting the cost and obstructions of most newsrooms in large towns, it has been proposed (1) that only the morning daily papers be bought, for the benefit of the unemployed; (2) that the “Situations Vacant” columns only be displayed from 7 or 8 till 11 a.m.; (3) that the whole of them be removed at 11 o’clock, and their places occupied by maps, charts, pictures of current topics, or other similar broadside matter likely to interest and instruct.

463.

463. In this way a newsroom might be greatly improved, and the character of its work changed, without interfering with the use of the illustrated periodicals, technical journals and trade papers displayed on the tables. By utilizing the wall space only for newspapers, good oversight is obtained and a certain amount of limitation is forced upon the authority by mechanical means. In arranging newspapers on the stands, care should be taken to separate the popular journals by a few less popular ones, so as to avoid continuous crowding at one or two points. The people who read newspapers should be distributed round the walls as thinly as possible, and this can only be effected by spreading the papers all round the available area.

464.

464. In selecting newspapers for a newsroom great care should be taken to represent all political parties, and at the same time to avoid as far as may be the sensational element. All local papers should be taken, if not for display at least for permanent preservation. The leading London and provincial dailies should be taken, and a representative daily from Scotland and Ireland, and the leading foreign newspapers in French and German at least.

Fig. 165.—Double Newspaper Stand, Chelsea ([Section 466]).