Reports of the following:
State Board of Agriculture Commissioner of Banking Department Board of Corrections and Charities Dairy and Food Commissioner Superintendent of Public Instruction State Board of Health Commissioner of Insurance Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics Commissioner of Railroads Agricultural Experiment Station, and Bulletins State Library—and State Library Commission.
Loan Systems.—The function of the loan department has been thus defined: “To give to the reader the books he wants to take home and to make sure that he will return them promptly for the sake of other readers.” To this end a systematic record of books loaned is kept.
This record may be made to answer certain questions which arise in different kinds of libraries. (1) What books are due on a certain day? This is the “time record.” It is the record usually kept and is necessary to insure the library against loss and to safeguard the interests of the community. (2) What books are out, or, is a certain book out? Who has it and when is it due? It is the “book record” and this kind of a record is kept in most college libraries. (3) What books does a certain person have out? This is called the “readers or borrowers record.” Although some libraries keep all three of these records, many keep only two and the majority only one.
It is not possible to say that there is one best charging system although some form of the Newark or the Brown system is commonly used. All systems require a register of the “borrowers,” kept either numerically in a book or alphabetically on cards or both. Some libraries require a sponsor or guarantor for each one drawing books, but this is going out of favor and only an identification is demanded. When the library is small or the patronage is large it is customary to limit the number of volumes a person can have out at one time to two, one volume of fiction and one non-fiction. These volumes can be kept from seven to fourteen days with the privilege of renewing them for an equal length of time. Other libraries give much more freedom in the number of books one person may draw and in the length of time they may be retained.
Most charging systems require that each book in the library be fitted with a pocket into which is slipped a “book card” on which may appear the author and title of the book, the class and book numbers and the accession number. When the book is drawn out this card is removed from the book and is kept in the library. On it may be entered the borrower’s name or number and the date the book is drawn or to be returned. A card may also be issued to each reader for purposes of identification or to aid in charging the book. Such a card is a “reader’s card” or “borrower’s card.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE BINDING AND CARE OF LIBRARY BOOKS.
Library Binding.—The average library is spending about six percent of its total income on binding. The newer and smaller libraries spend less because their books have not yet come to need the binder’s attention. The older and larger libraries spend more because of the large number of books needing to be rebound and the numerous periodicals taken.
The essentials of good library binding are durability, flexibility, neatness, high grade of materials and suitability of style. Library bookbinding is distinct from the ordinary machine made “case” or publisher’s cloth binding and the decorative binding favored by bibliophiles and amateurs. The weak points in modern book making are poor paper, imperfect sewing, poor attachment of the book to the cover, lack of flexibility in the back and joint, perishable leather and cloth used in the binding. The results are that leaves become loosened, the joints broken and the linings of the hollow backs come off and the boards separate. The present tendency is to strengthen weak joints by using double boards, inserting between them the linings and tapes on which the book is sewn.