State Library Commissions.—Commissions have been established in thirty-three states with the view of advancing the library interests of the state. They aim not only to promote the efficiency of the libraries already existing but also to help in the establishing of new ones. They collect statistics of libraries throughout the state and so are able to help the backward ones by showing what is being done in the more active communities. Some commissions conduct summer library schools where the untrained assistants from the smaller libraries can get valuable instruction. Others have institutes and district meetings at which topics of interest to the smaller libraries are discussed. Organizers are sent to such libraries as are in need of reorganization, recataloging or professional help along one line or another. In some states the commission takes charge of the traveling libraries, which are sent to clubs, granges and the smaller libraries. The sending of books to the blind falls within the province of the library commissions in certain states. Some are authorized to give direct financial aid to the smaller struggling libraries. Nearly all the commissions publish bulletins, circulars of information, library laws, selected lists of helpful books, and occasional leaflets.
Traveling Libraries.—In order to carry the advantages of the public library system to the residents of rural districts and villages, a system of traveling libraries has been introduced into most of the states. New York was the first to adopt this system, which it did in 1892 at the instance of Melvil Dewey, then State Librarian. The plan was to send a number of small libraries, each containing one hundred carefully selected volumes, which were lent for six months at a time to “stations” from which requests had been received. In 1895 Michigan and Iowa introduced the system as a part of the work of their state libraries and in the following year a traveling library system for one county was established through private generosity. The Wisconsin Free Library Commission soon took it up and developed it for the whole state. In some states where the traveling libraries have not been fostered by state aid, the work has been carried on by the women’s clubs, as for example in Colorado.
In Michigan application for traveling libraries can be made by study clubs, Epworth leagues, Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., Sunday schools, farmers’ clubs, granges, reading circles, etc. The titles are selected from printed finding lists, and the books go by freight at the expense of the borrower. If books on a special topic are desired, the request should be filed by May 1st with the State Librarian in order to receive them in the fall. The State Library has also a loan collection of pictures, reproductions of the best examples of ancient and modern art. The unframed pictures are loaned to art clubs, while the framed ones are loaned to schools to be kept on their walls from three to six months.
CHAPTER II.
ORGANIZATION OF A LIBRARY.
The organization of the average library consists of the following component parts:
1. Board of Trustees.—The main function of the board of trustees is to look after the financial interests of the library, to see that the buildings and equipment are properly cared for, and to decide broad questions of policy. Trustees should be (but are not always) elected from the elite of the community. It is expected that in them will be found a genuine culture, an appreciation of things pertaining to the arts and sciences, combined with the advantages of education, travel and sufficient leisure to look after public interests. “Cultivated men,” says Edward Edwards, “familiar with books from childhood, have usually a very inadequate perception of the toil and thought which have to be given to the good arrangement, the accurate cataloging, and the ready service of a library. What, then, is to be expected if a dominant share in the management of a library be placed in the hands of men with just enough of elementary education to bring into broad daylight the intensest ignorance, in union with the most stolid self-conceit?” “A little bookishness in a committeeman,” said Justin Winsor, “may be as dangerous as a sip from the poet’s Pierian spring, particularly if there is no deeper learning in any of his associates. He knows just enough of books not to know that he knows nothing of libraries.”
2. The Librarian.—“A librarian,” said Henry Bradshaw, “is one who earns his living by attending to the wants of those for whose use the library under his charge exists, his prime duty being, in the widest possible sense of the phrase, to save the time of those who seek his services.” The librarian has been variously compared to the commissariat in the republic of letters, whose business is not to fight himself but to put others in fighting trim,—or to the host at the banquet of knowledge who is assiduous in securing the comfort of the guests and in placing before each one just the kind of food he likes and requires. He knows that what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Enthusiasm for the work is a prime requisite in the librarian. Even a good staff cannot overcome the deadening influence of daily contact with a chief lacking in enthusiasm.
To the librarian should be left the details of administration. The librarian is the executive officer of the board of trustees and the latter, if wise, will look to the librarian for getting the results desired and will allow that officer as free a hand as possible. If the librarian is not capable of administering the library, or worthy of the fullest confidence, the sooner one is secured who measures up to this standard the better.
3. The Library Staff.—The duties of the staff vary with the size of the library. In the smallest libraries the librarian may be the only one engaged in the actual work of the library, but in such cases the library hours must be restricted to such as one person can take care of. The next step in growth is to have some one relieve the librarian at the desk and to do the more clerical work. Next come special assistants to look after special tasks like cataloging and classifying, desk work and so on. The staff, whether large or small, should consider itself responsible to the librarian and should not, except in extraordinary cases, go directly to the board of trustees with petitions. The librarian should always be the spokesman for the staff. Going over his head indicates a lack of sympathy and cooperation between the librarian and staff that argues badly for the welfare of the institution.