Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

Not less important and valuable is the service rendered by this Library to all the Departments and Bureaus of the Government. Questions frequently arise requiring investigations so broad and extensive as to overtax the stores of even the largest library to supply all the information sought for.

To a National Library which is, in some degree, the intellectual centre of a great capital, resort numberless seekers after books and information. Here is found the busy journalist, turning over files of forgotten, but carefully preserved newspapers, to ascertain or to verify facts, dates, or opinions. Here the Senator or Representative seeks and finds precedents and illustrations, authorities and legal decisions, parliamentary history and the experience of nations, to embody in his reports, or apt citations and poetic gems to adorn his speeches. Hither come the students of history, American and foreign, assured of finding the chronicles that illustrate every period, early or recent, in whatever language. Here are found devotees of art, studying the manuals or the histories of painting and sculpture, or the engraved galleries of Europe, for examples of the beautiful. Hither come the architect, the mechanic and the engineer, in search of designs, of models, or of patents, or of some book which contains the last word in electrical science. Here, too, come professional men of every class, lawyers after leading cases, clergymen investigating commentaries or religious homilies, physicians reading medical or surgical or hygienic treatises, teachers and professors striving to add to their learning. The readers in the wide and attractive fields of literature are still more numerous than those who pursue the graver walks of science. Here, the vast number and variety of works of fiction have their full quota of absorbed readers. The enthusiasts of poetry and drama follow close upon, and the student of biography finds no end of memoirs that are equally full of entertainment and instruction. Essays and criticism enlist the attention of many, while many more find their delight in the perusal of voyages and travels. Here the eager student of metaphysics or moral science feeds his intellect upon the great masters of human thought, and the man ambitious of great reforms busies himself over the books on social science. Here comes the student of natural science in quest of botany, zoölogy, or the other kingdoms of nature, and the politician searches after the arguments and the history of parties. Here the zealous grubber after facts of genealogy burrows among endless tables of family births, deaths, and marriages, and the ever present investigator of heraldry traces the blazonry of crests and coats-of-arms. Here frequent the feminine searchers after costumes, fanciful or historical, and here the lovers of music resort to feed their sense of harmony upon the scores of the great composers. The student of oratory revels in the masterpieces of ancient or modern eloquence, and the lover of classic lore luxuriates in the pages of Greek or Roman poets, philosophers, or historians. The law of nations (that undiscoverable science) engages the baffled researches of some, while many others pursue, through a world of controversial writings, the knotty problems of finance. Some readers visit the Library for prolonged and serious and fruitful investigation—others for only momentary purpose to verify a quotation, or to settle a wager about the origin, the meaning, or the orthography of a word. Many books have been written, and many more have been edited or corrected, by the aid of the copious stores of every great library.

To respond adequately to all these and countless more demands upon its intellectual resources, a National Library must clearly be one of universal range. This comprehensive aim for the National Library will appear still more important when it is considered that it is, in effect, the only really representative library of the nation. Not that other collections (and many of them, let us hope) are not equally far-reaching in their scope and their aim at completeness; but the Government Library being the only one endowed with the full copyright production of the country, its law of growth is necessarily in advance of that of other collections, however well endowed—provided only that adequate care be taken by Congress for its proper increase in other directions. The copyright law brings into it, year by year, virtually the entire intellectual product of the nation so far as protected by copyright; as well as a steadily increasing share (since the extension of the area of copyright protection through the international provisions of the act of 1891) of the works of foreign authors. Thus the National Library acquires a great store of publications which the other libraries do without, from lack of means, or of room, or of disposition to purchase.

It is easy to say that the greater part of the books and periodicals thus acquired are trash; but it is to be considered that very substantial reasons can be urged why one library should preserve the entire product of the American press, irrespective of intrinsic value. First, every nation should have, at its capital city, all the books that its authors have produced, in perpetual evidence of its literary history and progress—or retrogression, as the case may be. Secondly, this complete assemblage of our literature in the Library of the Government (that is, of the whole people) is an inestimable boon to authors and publishers, many of whose books, after years have elapsed, may owe to such a collection their sole chance of preservation. Thirdly, it is a most valuable aid to would-be writers to have access to all the works that have been published in the special field they seek to cultivate. Fourthly, one comprehensive library—inclusive and not exclusive—should exist, because all other libraries must be in a greater or less degree exclusive. Fifthly, all American books should be preserved as models—even if many of them are models to be avoided. One learns as much frequently from the failures of others, as from their successes. Sixthly, it is already provided by law (and very wisely), that all copyright publications of whatever character, shall be deposited in the Library of Congress, and the Nation is as much bound to conserve these things, in evidence of copyright, as to preserve the models in the Patent Office, in evidence of patent right. Seventhly, there is no standard of selection or of exclusion that could be adopted which would stand against the fact of the endlessly varying judgments of different men, or even of the same men at different periods. What is pronounced trash to-day may have an unexpected value hereafter, and the unconsidered trifles of the press of the nineteenth century may prove highly curious and interesting to the twentieth, as examples of what the ancestors of the men of that day wrote and thought about.

Of course it should be one of the foremost aims of our National Library to secure all books, pamphlets, maps and periodicals relating to our own country. Everything that can illustrate the discovery, settlement, history, biography, natural history, or resources of America should be gathered. The already rich collection of Americana comprises a large share of the earlier works respecting America, nearly all of which are now rare, as well as of the early printed books of the various American presses, and many published in places where no books are now printed. Assiduous pains have been taken to increase these collections from auctions and from sale catalogues in this country and in Europe.

Another function of the Library of the Nation is to furnish a repository for special collections of books, manuscripts, and memorials, which may be dedicated by their donors to public use. Now, for the first time, the Government of the United States is placed in a position where it can receive and preserve in a fitting manner, in a noble fireproof edifice, of ample proportions, such gifts of private libraries, etc., as any of its citizens may present. One such donation, from a public-spirited citizen of Washington, the late Dr. J. M. Toner, has already been presented and accepted by Congress. It is to be expected that the example will be followed by other collectors of private libraries, who feel a natural reluctance that their collections of special value, costing years of time and much money to assemble, should be scattered abroad after they have ceased to enjoy them, leaving no memorial behind.

In this connection it should be noted that the National Library furnishes the most obvious and appropriate repository for special collections of manuscripts. When organized into departments, the systematic collection, arrangement, and preservation of manuscripts, with calendars both alphabetical and chronological, open to public use, will form one of the cardinal objects to be kept in view. This too long-neglected field, though zealously cultivated by the leading historical societies of the country, has had no proper recognition at the hands of the American Government. While the manuscript papers of four American Presidents have been purchased, because offered to Congress by their heirs, no attempt to obtain and preserve those of the other Presidents has been made, nor has any fund been devoted by Congress to secure the papers of other public men. All the principal nations of Europe, and even the Dominion of Canada, have an archivist, or custodian of manuscripts, responsible for keeping, indexing, and increasing these collections, whose importance as original documents illustrating the history and biography of the nation can hardly be overrated. To avail of all opportunities offered for securing such manuscript collections, and to seek out others, thus preserving for posterity unique and valuable historical materials which would otherwise remain in private hands, subject to constant diminution or destruction, should be one cardinal function of the National Library. Many such would be freely given by their owners, if assured of permanent care and preservation in that institution.

The acquisition and preservation of pamphlet and periodical literature should be sedulously cultivated by National Libraries. No fact is more familiar to students than the rapid disappearance of these ephemeral but often valuable publications. The chances of procuring any desired pamphlet a few months after its publication are incalculably smaller than those of securing copies of any book. Hence the importance of adding them to the one representative library of the Nation while they are yet fresh and procurable. As this species of literature is seldom protected by copyright, the greater portion of the pamphlets of any period must remain unrepresented in the Government Library unless their authors will take the trouble, by wise forethought, to send copies of their productions to Washington. Of the great value of pamphlets, as exponents of the thought of the time, and the questions which agitate the public mind, expressed frequently in condensed and forcible style, there can be no question.

Of the periodical literature, in its vast extent and variety, now including, in the United States alone, more than twenty thousand different publications, a National Library should acquire and preserve the more important portions. These, in the absence of any possibility of providing room for all, may be held to embrace (1) All American reviews and magazines, with a selection of the leading English and European ones. (2) The daily newspapers of the larger cities of the country, and a few, at least, of the principal journals of England and the Continent, not forgetting the American republics, and Canada. (3) Two, at least, of the most widely circulated journals of each State and Territory in the Union, representing each political party. This has been the established policy of the Library for thirty years past, and the bound files of these periodicals constitute one of the most largely used portions of the Library. Only by keeping up full sets of the notable serials, whether literary, political, religious, historical, scientific, legal, medical, technical, agricultural, economic, etc., can the Library answer the just demands of the national legislature and of the public. In whatever direction American libraries may be inferior to those of other and older nations, they are (at least in the larger collections) well equipped with the literature of periodicals. The materials thus furnished to the politician, the historical writer, or the student of literature, are of great and incalculable value. A National Library is not for one generation alone, but for all time. So much the more important is its function of handing down to the readers and students of the future a full and authentic mirror of each age in its progressive growth, to be found most vividly in the pages of the daily and weekly journals, and the magazines and reviews of every class. These periodicals furnish the best impress of the times which can be derived from any single source. Stored up in a permanent fireproof repository, they are ever ready to be drawn upon by those who know how to use them.

One little known and imperfectly understood function of the National Library is to furnish evidence of literary property to all who are interested in copyrights. This is rendered possible through the removal to Washington, by the copyright act of 1870, of all original records of copyright, previously scattered in more than forty different offices throughout the various States. The registry of copyrights having been transferred to the Librarian of Congress, at the same time, and continued ever since, it is easy to follow out the record of any individual copyright, and thus to trace questions concerning literary property for more than a century. This facility is of great value to publishers and authors, in the various negotiations constantly being made in questions of renewal of the terms of copyrights expiring, or in suits at law seeking to establish or to invalidate copyrights by litigation, or to prevent infringement. Incident to this, it is a part of the function of the Library to produce any copyright book, or other publication in its possession, for inspection by whom ever it may concern.