Essentials.—The cataloger must constantly bear in mind that the catalog is a machine for the use of the public. Any time spent in making it serve the readers more easily and quickly is time well spent. Any time spent in beautifying it simply for the glorification of the cataloger is time wasted. Rules,—careful, detailed rules,—are needed so that the machine may do its work without friction and that every part may fit into its proper place, but any rules that hamper the user of the machine, should be promptly struck from the code. The cataloger is paid to make a time-saving machine, and this is her duty,—to make a machine that will bring together the book and the man who wants it with the least expenditure of effort on the part of the latter.
“If the trustees can afford it,” very rightly says Miss Esther Crawford, “there is one substitute for a catalog, viz., a librarian who knows intimately every book in the library; who has the memory for each book and that fine, discriminating knowledge of the reader’s tastes and abilities which will enable her always to fit the right book to the right person; who will never be absent from the library during the ten hours in which it is kept open every day in the year; who will never die nor take a vacation,—marriage is out of the question.”[[1]]
The Cataloger’s Training.—“The modern library movement is young, and it is therefore not surprising that the subject of library work in general and of cataloging in particular is not fully understood,” writes Miss Theresa Hitchler in the eighth annual report of the Brooklyn Public Library. “The average man does not know and cannot realize the demands of the work, and has no idea, seemingly, that any training or special aptitude is necessary. By way of contrast to this average man’s view might be recorded the plaint of a prominent librarian at a recent library club meeting that so great a per cent of the talent of the library profession had to be diverted to the cataloging department, to the detriment of the circulating desk. The moral to be pointed out is that the catalog must be good as a first requisite to a library. In the words of the old comparison, the catalog is the key to the otherwise hidden material buried in books. In a library of any size, the best desk attendant in the world is almost helpless, or at best constantly handicapped, without a convenient and rational classification of the volumes of the collection and the bibliographical aid of a catalogue. The born bibliographer is as rare as the born teacher or poet. The cataloging expert must have the quick mind, sound common sense, broad view and good judgment of the book-reviewer joined with the slow and solid qualities of the bibliographer. The former qualities are needed for rapid classification of books in all the various fields of human knowledge, from abstruse to practical, from grave to gay, and for placing them under subject headings in the catalog useful and specific, to student, scholar and every day reader alike, and are by far the more important and indispensable. The latter qualities are needed for recording accurately the data of the books so classed, in a bibliographical catalog of a form useful to people of all grades of intelligence. It stands to reason that to cope with these requirements, a solid educational training that gives an intelligent outlook on the various fields of knowledge must be joined to a natural aptitude for bibliographical detail, and added to these a technical training in such work. The head of such a department must possess these requirements in an ever greater degree, with an executive ability and knowledge of human nature above the ordinary, since the results, good or bad, depend directly on her ability and on her management, successful or unsuccessful, of the varied material entrusted to her guidance.”
CHAPTER VI.
REFERENCE WORK AND CIRCULATION.
Reference Work.—By “reference work” is meant work done in assisting the public to use the resources of the library. Dewey defines it as “systematic aid to readers.” A reference book according to Dr. E. C. Richardson “is a book which is to be consulted for definite points of information, rather than read through, and is arranged with explicit reference to ease in finding specific facts.” In this class fall dictionaries, encyclopaedias and hand-books of all kinds. The same answer to almost any question may be found in a number of books in the library by taking the time to examine them carefully, but the object of the reference department is to serve the public as expeditiously and satisfactorily as possible and reference books are the means to that end. Any book referred to becomes for the time being a reference book; but the term “reference book” as used in a library refers to the “ready reference book,” i. e. the books that were specifically written for reference use and to which the definition given above refers.
The reference collection is usually a small but exceedingly valuable portion of the library and the reference work does not confine itself to the use of the reference books, but to any book in the library which may contain something which will help towards the desired answer. The reference collection is generally placed in the reading room of the library and in that part of the room most convenient to the public and to the librarian.
The reference department is the heart of the library, and the more alive and efficient the members of the department are, the stronger is the beat of its pulse and the more far reaching the results of its work. All other departments exist to make more efficient the work of the reference department. The accessions department purchases books that there may be live material to work with in the reference department. The classifier groups the books so that all the material on the various subjects in the library is placed most conveniently on the shelves. The cataloging department catalogs the books so that the reference department may by the simplest means find what is contained in the library. Without the work of the other departments the reference department would be tied hand and foot and might as well not exist. With their cooperation it becomes the very life of the library, reaching out in various ways into the community to make the influence of the library more strongly felt.
Importance of Reference Work.—The average reader is uninformed as to the use and helpfulness of any but the commonest reference books. The duty of instructing the readers in the use of the ordinary library tools devolves upon the assistants at the reference desk. They must interpret the catalog to the public and incite in the readers a desire to help themselves after they have been initiated into the use of a dictionary card catalog and have had the use of some of the more important reference books explained to them. If an education consists not so much in getting knowledge as in knowing how and where to get it when the need arises, then it is clear that the assistants at the reference desk fill an important place in the library staff. They have a great opportunity for helpfulness. Other divisions of the library may labor successfully to build up the collections, and have them properly classified and cataloged, but if the service at the reference desk is inefficient the usefulness of the library is sadly impaired. The reference assistants can make or mar the library’s reputation for service.
Of course there is such a thing as doing too much for the patrons of a library, thereby preventing their learning how to help themselves. Let the readers understand that it is necessary to dig into the contents of the books and discover things that the bibliographies and card catalogs cannot point out.