[3] The report and questionnaire is printed in connection with the minutes of the Executive Board.
Miss Gooch then stated that the discussion for the afternoon was the administration of the catalog department considered first in its relation to the other departments of the library, and second as to its management of its own affairs looking toward simple, inexpensive and rapid methods of work. She explained that the discussion was concerned with library systems consisting of a central library with a number of branch libraries, and was to be treated both from the librarian's and from the cataloger's point of view.
The discussion was opened by Mr. F. F. HOPPER, of the Tacoma public library.
ADMINISTRATION OF THE CATALOG DEPARTMENT FROM A LIBRARIAN'S POINT OF VIEW
In the reorganization of our libraries, in the adoption of modern progressive and simplified methods, in the effort to develop and improve service to the public, the catalog department has tended to be drawn out of relation to the other departments, to become in a way isolated, and as a result its efficiency has been impaired. The attention of librarians has been given to other phases of library activities and therefore they know less about the catalog department than any other. Undoubtedly the technicalities of the cataloging process make it most difficult for librarians to grapple with, but all the more carefully should we consider ways and means of increasing the efficiency of the process, relating the work more closely to changes in other departments, and studying methods of possible simplification of the routine mechanical work that seems to have largely increased of late.
In one of Mr. Carlton's reports to his board of trustees, he uses these words: "It has often seemed to me that in library administration the catalog department was much like the police department in municipal administration. It is frequently under investigation; it is constantly being reformed; its defects are felt in many other departments; and its heads are always changing as one after another breaks down or fails to achieve impossible results."
Surely such an unsatisfactory and unwholesome condition is not without remedy.
If I can not presume to submit a definite plan of reformation, perhaps I may at least attempt to suggest possible lines of investigation for each librarian to pursue.
1. The catalog room.
In the modern organization of work, the first care is to provide work-rooms in which the highest efficiency may be maintained. Scientific investigation shows the extravagance of conditions which retard speed and multiply unnecessary motions, which do not provide adequate light and air and proper colors to conserve strength, arrest fatigue and support the energies. In planning buildings we properly endeavor to bring the catalog department into the closest possible relation with the order department, the book stack and the reference department, to save steps which mean time and money. My observation is that frequently there is not the same care exercised in planning the room itself as there is in locating it. Often it is too small, so that work clogs up, books must be shifted too often (an expensive process), too many corners must be turned in getting about the room and the assistants impede one another's progress. On the other hand, a room may be so large that time is wasted in getting about it. To be sure this is a rare fault. I have seen cataloging rooms admirably placed for convenience of access to stack, reference room and order department, and really adequate in size, but so devoid of light and air that even a hardened devotee of our reading rooms would fear to enter such a place. Plenty of windows, if possible on two sides of a room, and ample indirect artificial lighting are just as important for the efficiency of the catalog department as like facilities for the public reading rooms.