The librarian must furnish books shaped to the man's hand, books that he can use to perform work, that he can depend upon as true, accurate, precise, simple, efficient, economical, reliable in the same sense that his tools must be all these. And so, the selection of books for a working library of technology becomes not unlike the testing of instruments of precision. Care in selection is of supreme importance in fitting up a tool-shop of books.
Wisdom in application is scarcely second to intelligence in choice. A practical man does not often come to a library for this or that particular book, for the work of a specified author, or for a title that he has in mind. If he does, he cannot always be depended upon to know his own wishes in the matter. What this man wants is information about a topic that concerns him. He leaves it to the library to tell him in what printed form that information can be had—and it's risky, for the library, to trifle with him or to play him false. Hesitation, indecision, irresolution are fatal. If the library exhibits lack of faith in itself, who, indeed, shall have faith in it? The workingman will be sure to entertain the same contempt for the librarian's doubtful application of even the best books as he himself would of the misuse of good tools in his own trade.
This necessity for books that will answer to needs is the incentive in the erection of a working library to which men may resort.
At home we have a permanent and constantly revised selection of the most useful technical books registered on cards of varying colors showing the differing characteristics of the books included. This is our Works Library. And within it, on blue cards, are listed the simplest and most direct texts for the man with the least preparation for books. This is our Dinner-Pail Library. And starting with these, we may go on with a degree of confidence in teaching men the use of tools the handling of which we ourselves understand.
Preparedness in attitude, preparedness in equipment, await the arrival of the man the most skeptical of the library's guests. Does he come and go away again confirmed in his skepticism? If he does, it's the library's fault, not his. Does he come, and remain, to come again? Then he is ready to pay the tribute of his allegiance that becomes the librarian's great reward.
We have heard the American Machinist complain that the mechanic found no voice to sing his praises. Not less is the genus librarian unwept, unhonored, and unsung. He expects praise as little as he desires it, and, perhaps, I may say, deserves it. But the ready word of appreciation, the acknowledgment of the library's help in overcoming difficulties that drove a man there as a last resort, the confession of awakening to the new knowledge of the library's wider purpose and power, is expressed often with a frankness and fervor that surprise and gratify the fortunate librarian who has been instrumental in bringing things to pass.
I recall how men of few words and little sentiment have spontaneously related to me their experiences of misfortune, perplexity, disappointment, or other embarrassment that caused them to turn to the public library for a possible helping hand, and then, how the library did not fail them in their extremity. At such times, I knew that the free library was doing what it undertook to do.
Of this sort are the few, the impressive instances that illustrate how, on occasions, a working library can meet very exceptional requirements. There are also the very many—the students, apprentices, shopmen, machinists, inventors, chemists, engineers, manufacturers—all artisans and craftsmen in their various ways, who are coming to learn that in their usual daily processes they may expect from the public library the ordinary, indispensable service that the library has always performed for those who know the value of books.
It is this complete idea of a library that still fails of development in the minds of these men, an idea that the library is a live thing, a public utility of which they will naturally and inevitably avail themselves as they do of the street-cars to take them both to and away from their work. Nothing is needed to convince men that a utility is a utility save the satisfying use of it. When they have found that the library speeds them on in the direction of the day's occupation, then it becomes easy enough for them to learn that the library can also get them far removed from it. And when the workingman fully comprehends the working library, and by means of it is introduced to the diverting library, he becomes a man with the greatest capacity for usefulness, and the library's conquest of the community is finished and triumphant.