The essential principles in organizing a successful business library can be briefly stated as follows:
1. Centralization of material within the business organization.
2. Coordination of the business library with the facilities of the public and special libraries of the city in which the business library is located.
1. Centralization of Library Material
The first step in establishing a library in a business organization is the centralization of all the printed material available in its different offices or departments. This is exactly what is not done in a large number of business houses. Books, pamphlets and other valuable information are scattered among the various members of the organization, who treat them as personal property and preserve them in their private desks as carefully as a squirrel hides his store of good nuts. In many business organizations the policy of the employes in regard to information seems to be, to hold on to everything of value for one's personal use, regardless of how much value the information might be to another member of the organization, and also regardless of the fact that the material has been paid for out of the company's funds.
It should be said, however, in defense of the practice of not putting information into a central library, that it is not always based upon thoughtless or selfish habits, but upon lack of confidence; there is a fear that if information passes out of the hands of the man into a central library, that when he wishes to use it again, in a hurry, that he may not be able to locate it promptly. This feeling is not without reasonable foundation, as it is based on the irritating experience which some business men have had in using central correspondence files which, in many offices, are poorly administered and cannot produce desired information promptly. The business library, when administered by a qualified librarian, not only can produce all filed material promptly, but in one large corporation, known to the writer, has so successfully handled material that the officers and employes send their information to the library, as a safer and more reliable place to keep it for quick reference, than the drawers of their own desks.
Centralization of library material gives all the departments the benefit of everything the company has collected on a special subject, and often makes it unnecessary to duplicate information for the use of several departments. Centralization makes it possible also to have in one place a complete record of all library material owned by the company which can be loaned as small working collections to any department.
The fact that a central library department has on record what material is temporarily or permanently kept in all the departments, makes it possible also for it to act as a clearing house between all departments in locating desired information. This principle does not apply of course to corporations of such magnitude that their activities comprise several distinct lines of business; in such a case each department would require a specialized collection of information, which would become the library of that particular branch of the industry.
It should be kept clearly in mind that the business library has a distinct province from correspondence files, which primarily take care of the letters accumulated in the transaction of business. The business library is in no wise concerned with such records. Its function is not to take care of the records which are created by the activities of the company, but to collect and bring into the company all possible knowledge and information of value from a large variety of outside sources.
The business library also has a distinct province of activity apart from the statistical department of an organization. The function of the latter is to correlate and interpret data which are created either by the activities of the organization or obtained from outside sources, because of value in relation to the various projects of the organization. The function of the library in relation to the statistical department is to supply the printed information which that department needs in its work of correlating and interpreting data.
Many statistical departments have made the mistake of endeavoring to collect and preserve material for their work, which particularly belongs in the business library, with the result that they have cumbersome files of heterogeneous information, badly classified and cataloged, and which do not yield, either quickly or accurately, information when desired. The files of the statistical department should cover only the data which are the result of the particular activities of the company, together with valuable original records which are neither correspondence nor library material.