The Business Library: What it is and what it does

by Louise B. Krause

2. Coordination of the Business Library with Public Libraries

After the resources for information which exist within the business organization have been adequately centralized the next important step is to coordinate these resources with all other existing library facilities of the city in which the business firm is located. There should be a thorough survey of these libraries in order to ascertain as far as possible the content and availability of their resources. This is an important factor in the creation of a business library, when one considers the problem of shelving much material, within the more or less limited space occupied by a business organization. Floor space in skyscrapers is too valuable to be used as a mere storehouse for printed material used only on rare occasions, and there is also the added expense of a staff of workers to care for a large collection. The business library must, therefore, be considered solely as a working laboratory, and care taken not to include in it material which will be seldom used, particularly in cities where business organizations congregate and where are located large public libraries having excellent resources which can be used to supplement the "working laboratory" collection of the business organization.

This principle will not apply, however, to those business libraries which are maintained at the headquarters of national associations. Such libraries must collect everything on their subjects, and be prepared to be a central bureau of information on their specialties, for their membership throughout the United States. For example, the libraries of the National Safety Council and the Portland Cement Association, located in Chicago.

This policy of coordination was expressed in the following words, by a large corporation several years ago when it organized its library: "We will keep our library down as far as possible to a small working collection, and our librarian shall be a go-between us and the other libraries of the city when we want information not available in our own collection." Thus the busy man of affairs is able to keep in touch, through his librarian, as proxy, with many avenues of helpfulness, which would be closed to him were it not for the fact that he had been far-sighted enough to employ a librarian to act for him in these matters of detail.

Public library facilities, while they supplement can never be a substitute for a library within a business organization, for different groups of business people who are vitally interested in one particular subject, or more often in only one phase of a subject, will naturally collect and know more about that subject than a general library serving a thousand and one interests can be expected to do.

The business librarian who is given the confidence of the officers of his organization, gets saturated with a knowledge of the business of the organization and is able to sense in advance what information will be needed, and will be prepared as far as possible for the emergency when it comes.

All librarians of public libraries will undoubtedly agree to the statement that they are not in a position to act as confidential library adviser to rival business corporations. The Public Library must deal impartially with all inquirers and cannot give precedence to any inquirer simply because he is in a hurry. Every man must wait his turn because the needs of other inquirers are equally important with his.

If the Utopian state should ever arrive when our public libraries have all the money necessary to meet the every information need of the community, the argument that the public library should serve the interests of business men, who are tax payers, in such a manner that it would not be necessary for them to have libraries within their business organizations, can be answered by a parallel suggesting that the public library should so serve all the interests of the public that no one need have a library in his own home. A business organization desires to make its own selection of material, on the basis of its needs and tastes; it wishes to have this material close at hand without any borrowing restrictions, so that it can be used quickly, without loss of time, and without the limitations which would be imposed if it were the property of some one else, and required particular care to keep it intact, for the business man often wishes to clip or give away the printed information in his possession.

The business library is, however, not antagonistic to the public library at any point. On the contrary, the business library must coordinate its resources with those of the public library and work in harmony with it.

The large business organization which can afford to employ a librarian, and the small business firm which cannot, will find a wealth of helpful material in the public libraries of their vicinity.