The following paper written by Miss BEATRICE WINSER, of the Newark free public library, was read in her absence by Miss Agnes Van Valkenburgh, of the library school of the New York public library:
THE RELATION OF THE CATALOG DEPARTMENT TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS IN THE LIBRARY
The subject assigned to me is the relation of the catalog department to other departments in a library. There is a feeling abroad that it is the tendency of librarians to consider their catalog departments as things apart, the details of whose management, long ago settled by experts, should be modified only as those experts may suggest.
Probably chief librarians do not have the habit of refraining from giving frequent and careful examinations in the catalog departments, or have less interest in the improvement of those departments than in others; but, because it has been possible for experts to formulate rules, as it has not been possible for anyone to do for other branches of the work, the chief librarians have quite naturally allowed themselves to pay less and less attention to the details of these departments, which have thus lost the stimulus which the chief librarians give to the departments with which they largely concern themselves.
This, naturally, as I have already said, tends to make of the cataloging department a thing apart and much efficiency is lost to the library as a whole because of it.
For the purposes of this paper I propose to include in the scope of the cataloging department much of the work on books from their selection to their placing on the shelf.
It must be borne in mind that I am speaking of public libraries and not of college, historical, scientific or special libraries of any kind, and that I am making suggestions only.
Book Selection
The selection of books instead of being a difficult and complicated matter calling for hours of study and conference, is really quite simple. Every librarian should expect his more intelligent assistants to make suggestions and help to keep his or her own collection up to date, but final decisions as to purchase should rest in the hands of two or three only. An attempt to let a dozen or more people discuss at meetings the value of any book or books and the propriety of adding this or that to the library costs enormously in time and money, and serves no useful purpose.
It improves the quality of the books selected but little, it tends to develop undue caution and to make the choice too literary and, if it helps to educate the assistants, it does so at too great a cost. The desire is often expressed that a library should contain "a well-rounded, well-balanced collection of books." This phrase sounds well and perhaps impresses the trustees or the town, but what does it really mean? Were we to follow it to its logical conclusion we would all buy in certain fixed proportions, all kinds of books and while we might then lay claim that we had a well-balanced collection, we would be far from filling well the special needs of any special community in which we might be placed. In point of fact every library buys what it thinks it needs most, in most cases it will be found that the books selected are the best books for that library. Most books buy themselves, others cry out to be selected. The clientele is waiting for them. The small remnant of specially chosen books call for no elaborate conferences. Why have any system of recording the fact that you did not buy certain books at this time, since next month or next year the book not bought has been displaced by another? Besides, you can always discover from your bibliographical aids the books you have been compelled to miss, so why duplicate the work already done for you?