Passing from the triad of things I do not believe I make one positive affirmation. Every public library should establish a standard. As a matter of fact, this is done now. For example, the works of Mr. Charles Garvice are seldom found on our catalogs nor those of Rev. Silas K. Hocking. These two among the most popular English novelists of our day, may be found on the shelves of the circulating libraries, and with several others almost equally well-known, appear among the miscellaneous attractions of the railway news counters; but not with us. Why? They are clean, highly moral, in the accepted use of that word, and not without a certain literary merit. The answer to my query implies selection, in accordance with a standard.
I said some years ago on this subject, and have seen no reason to change my opinion, that while there are those who resent what they call "censorship" on the part of public libraries, nevertheless, simply because we are public institutions, we have responsibilities to the public, toward children, at least, and toward those of unformed literary taste.
Personally, I am not much afraid of the baleful effect of certain books usually condemned by moralists. Not every one who reads "The pirate's own book" will take to piracy on the high seas; and a quiet elderly lady of my acquaintance who reads rather more erotic French fiction than some would approve, still preserves, so far as I can see, modesty of demeanor, and, unless skilfully dissembled, an exemplary private life. I was myself, in my young days a persistent reader of Beadle's dime novels, which were of size to be readily concealed between Euclid and Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar, well out of view of the censor. Oliver Optic was permitted to corrupt my young mind, and since I had an eclectic taste, I absorbed liberal doses of Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., Emerson Bennett, and Mrs. Southworth, writers almost unknown to the present generation. So far, I have escaped the penitentiary and the home for feebleminded. But that does not justify the exposure of Burton's "Arabian nights" on open shelves, for which lapse of judgment we were once criticised by a reputable Boston paper, or prove that since life is short and art is long and one can not read everything, and some books are, from any point of view, better than others, judicious selection may not prevent lamentable waste of time.
Before selection is attempted, the amount available for expenditure should be fixed, and this should be determined by the income of the library and the proper relation which, within that income, purchases of fiction should bear to other necessary expenses. The percentage will vary, I should suppose, with different libraries. Speaking for my own, it has by experience been determined at from 20 to 25 per cent of all expenditures for books. In a recent lean year, it dropped as low as 12 per cent, but in the last four years has ranged from 23 in 1912 to 25 in 1909. I include expenditures for replacements as well as for new fiction.
All theory apart, no more could have been spent without impairing the up-keep of other departments. As I have intimated, we are always confronted, to use Mr. Cleveland's phrase, by conditions rather than theories. I need not enlarge upon the character of those other departments. They are not for the use of the dilettante or the connoisseur. Contrary to an opinion that seems to prevail in certain quarters, we do not buy extensively, as one critical commentator put it, either "musty parchments or rare first editions in which not one person in 50 has the slightest interest or concern."
No. These departments provide for the scholarly use of a library which is at the center of a group of educational institutions accommodating probably 10,000 students. It is unthinkable to suppose that this work of education, of so much importance to our city, could go on without the aid derived from the library. And I need only mention the various special collections which have grown up from the beginning, which are drawn upon each year by students who come to us from abroad, and from which, on the interlibrary loan plan, we lend annually to other libraries in the proportion of 1,200 to the 50 which we receive from them in return.
These phases of our work must be taken into account, just as similar considerations must be influential in any library, if a proper balance is to be kept of expenditures for fiction. And bear in mind that every dollar spent for fiction beyond the proper limit as set by a candid consideration of conditions and resources, no matter how insistent the demand—and it is well known that the demand may be so insistent as to require, without satisfying it, all the money at your command—every dollar beyond this limit is a dollar drawn from students, from readers in courses, from work with the immigrant, if you have that problem, from work with children, from the artisan or mechanic who comes to you for the books that will add to his industrial efficiency, from your business men's branch, if one exists. The library cannot be made a mere depository for fiction. This should go without saying. It does not propose to include all good fiction in its purchases. The sum set apart can not all be used for new fiction, but must cover replacements. The library must also buy fiction in other languages than English.
As to the work of selection, I pass in rapid review our own methods, concerning which much nonsense has been written. We examine with care substantially every book in English that comes from the press, which any public library is likely to buy. Last year, which is perhaps typical, 890 different books in fiction were considered, including fiction for young readers. And every book was not merely examined by title, but was read and commented upon in our interest by at least 3 persons on the average.
Of course, no such thorough examination could be made by the library staff alone, and we have the services of a volunteer committee of readers not officially connected with the library. The committee does not supersede the critical opinion of the librarian or his selected staff officers. It does not even control. It merely aids by an analysis of the books and by such opinions, expressed on blank forms provided for the purpose, as show an outline of plot and treatment, and merits or defects as they appear, not to trained literary critics, but to average readers of some cultivation in different walks of life or on different social planes.
This committee was one of the excellent inventions of my predecessor, Dr. Putnam, and, shortly after its establishment, it received wide attention from the press, for the most part based on complete misconception of its purpose and character. This resulted in creating an impression as different as possible from the actual, but which still persists, as the mother-in-law joke persists, or the young lady who plays the piano in the parlor while mother washes in the kitchen, or the stage Irishman and Yankee—stock material of the pseudo-humorists.