The distribution of library-school graduates is very irregular. Some libraries in all classes have none at all. In the three lower classes no library has a larger number than three. In some of the larger libraries there may be as many as 20 or 30.
I am aware that some of this irregularity, which I have called a lack of standardization, may be due to differences in nomenclature. Assistants, for instance, having precisely the same duties may be described as supervisors in one library and not in another. This will not explain everything, however, and the conclusion is inevitable that in the respects just noted no uniformity has yet been reached by libraries. It seems to me that this lack of standardization has made its appearance in precisely the place where it might have been expected—namely in the third of the three periods already mentioned, that of co-ordination and systematization. This is the latest period; some libraries have not yet entered upon it and most of them are young in it. In other words, children's work is much older than the systematic administration of a children's department, or a system of children's rooms. Hence, children's work in general—the selection and purchase of books for children, the planning of children's rooms and their administration as units—has existed long enough to become standardized. We know what we want, having passed through the stage of experimentation.
This is not true of the administration of a children's department—the grading of assistants, the organization of a compact body of workers with its expert supervision, the settling of questions of disputed jurisdiction that necessarily arise in cases of this kind. It is on this part of their work that children's librarians need to focus their attention for the next few years. It is time, not perhaps to withdraw our eyes from the older questions but to transfer our gaze in part to the newer. We need to talk less about the size of our juvenile collection, methods of selection of children's books, the salaries of our assistants, ways of increasing our circulation, sizes and plans of children's rooms, and so on, and more about the organization and administration of the children's department as a whole—the duties of the supervisor and her assistants; her relations with the heads of other departments and with branch librarians, the measure of control shared by her with heads of branches in case of children's librarians of branches, the existence of separate grades, corresponding to separate duties or variation of qualifications, among the children's librarians; insistence on training adapted to these different grades. Time forbids me to go into details, and I can but suggest these points for your consideration. Into one point, however, I feel like going a little more fully:
We need more special training for children's work. It is the one kind of specialization that we have attempted in our schools, and we must have more of it and more kinds of it. This of course is but a single case in the more varied program of special training that I am convinced we shall have to take up before long. In the course of an interesting debate on this subject in the A. L. A. Council last January it developed that most of the librarians present looked upon specialization as impractical. In particular they believed it impossible for a student to look forward so definitely to special work that he could decide on the special courses that would benefit him. The man that had taken the college-library course might become a superintendent of branches; the qualified municipal reference librarian would go, perhaps, into an applied science room. This may be so now but it cannot long remain the case. Even now we can not carry this line of argument much further without making of it a reductio ad absurdum. Why go to a library school at all when, after all, you may accept the headship of a grammar-school on graduation, or even decide to travel for a hardware house? Why should we attempt to train one man for a lawyer and another for a physician when both may prefer farming? We are getting away fast from the old idea, born of pioneer conditions, that anybody can do anything if he tries. We shall have to travel further enough from it to satisfy ourselves that an expert university librarian will have to be trained for his post and not for that of head of the supply department in a public library. We have learned that a children's librarian does her work better for special training; may it not be that we shall have to make some difference in the future between training, let us say, for supervisory work, for the charge of a branch children's room, and for the duties of an assistant of lower grade?
In closing, let me say again that we need to focus our attention at present on the organization and administration of a children's department, especially on the places where it interlocks with that of other departments. The study of this matter should not be entrusted to children's libraries alone, for the standardization of work involving more than one department should not be ex parte. The matter should be in charge of a committee including in its membership both chief librarians and the heads of children's departments—possibly also the children's librarian of a large branch library and a branch librarian.
The volume of the work is now remarkable; its organization has gone beyond that of some other departments in attention to detail; the question of its co-ordination and of interdepartmental relations should now be taken up systematically.
| Libraries Averaged | Very Large Over 2,000,000 | Libraries Averaged | Large 1,000,0002,000,000 | Libraries Averaged | Medium 500,0001,000,000 | Libraries Averaged | Small 250,000500,000 | Libraries Averaged | Very Small Under 250,000 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Av. number volumes in library | 5 | 658,416 | 8 | 286,643 | 7 | 150,200 | 13 | 92,236 | 18 | 58,355 |
| Av. juvenile volumes in library | 3 | 136,080 | 7 | 57,348 | 6 | 26,750 | 12 | 16,244 | 16 | 7,496 |
| Av. cost of juvenile volumes | Not given | 2 | $22,000 | 5 | $21,316 | 2 | $9,750 | 2 | $3,843.49 | |
| Av. volumes added during year | 5 | 73,098 | 8 | 30,172 | 7 | 15,654 | 13 | 8,898 | 18 | 4,405 |
| Av. cost of volumes added during year | 5 | $70,976.88 | 7 | $27,244.25 | 7 | $15,001.75 | 10 | $8,851.81 | 17 | $4,467.22 |
| Av. juvenile volumes added during year | 4 | 32,100 | 6 | 12,383 | 6 | 5,875 | 13 | 2,661 | 17 | 1,247 |
| Av. cost of juvenile volumes added | 3 | $18,928.92 | 3 | $7,801.86 | 6 | $4,428.10 | 3 | $2,876.00 | 9 | $1,207.01 |
| Av. circulation for year | 5 | 3,973,150 | 8 | 1,214,068 | 7 | 714,784 | 13 | 339,059 | 18 | 175,928 |
| Av. juvenile circulation for year | 5 | 1,451,569 | 6 | 501,389 | 7 | 227,697 | 13 | 122,739 | 17 | 56,475 |
| Av. number children's rooms in system | 5 | 23 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 13 | 2 | 18 | 1 |
| Av. number rooms used in part by children | 5 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 13 | 3 |
| Av. seating capacity of children's rooms | 5 | 1,502 | 8 | 467 | 7 | 233 | 11 | 150 | 17 | 79 |
| Av. classroom libraries | 2 | 314 | 7 | 301 | 7 | 201 | 8 | 83 | 7 | 31 |
| Av. home libraries for children | 1 | 56 | 3 | 26 | 1 | 25 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 6 |
| Av. deposit or delivery stations not included in above | 4 | 52 | 7 | 22 | 7 | 12 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 4 |
| Av. volumes on shelves open to children | 3 | 129,413 | 7 | 52,067 | 6 | 40,326 | 10 | 13,721 | 13 | 5,504 |
| Av. juvenile cardholders | 2 | 34,942 | 7 | 28,501 | 4 | 14,470 | 11 | 7,056 | 14 | 5,230 |
| Av. age limit of juvenile cardholders | 2 | 15 | 7 | 15 | 3 | 14 | 8 | 15 | 14 | 14 |
| Av. estimate of juvenile cards in use | 2 | [5]46,332 | 5 | 20,845 | 4 | 9,436 | 7 | 6,172 | 11 | 2,704 |
| Av. supervisors of children's work | 4 | 1 to 5 | 7 | 0 to 5 | 5 | 1 to 2 | 7 | 1 to 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Av. salary paid supervisors | 1 | $2,000 | 6 | $1,174 | 5 | $1,070 | 7 | $760 | 3 | $846.66 |
| Av. clerical assistants in children's work | 1 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 1 to 3 | 5 | 1 to 3 | 2 | 1 to 3 |
| Av. salary paid clerical assistants | 1 | $705 | 4 | $524 | 4 | $600 | 5 | $516 | 1 | $420 |
| Av. children's librarians | 4 | 20 | 7 | 1 to 11 | 5 | 1 to 9 | 12 | 1 to 3 | 17 | 1 |
| Av. salary paid children's librarians | 4 | $786.82 | 7 | $896 | 5 | $648.50 | 12 | $829.16 | 17 | $801 |
| Av. additional assistants giving full time to children's work | 3 | 4 to 83 | 4 | 2 to 27 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 to 3 | 9 | 1 to 4 |
| Av. salary of such assistants | 3 | $560.33 | 4 | $714 | 2 | $690 | 4 | $524 | 9 | $512.22 $600[6][7] |
| Av. assistants giving part time to children's work | 1 | 2 | 2 | 10 | ... | ... | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 to 7 |
| Av. salary paid such assistants | 1 | $576 | 2 | $654 | ... | ... | 2 | $288 | 4 | $591 |
| Number library school graduates | 4 | 1 to 21 | 8 | 0 to 29 | 7 | 0 to 2 | 11 | 0 to 3 | 16 | 0 to 3 |
| Number assistants having had partial library school courses | 4 | 3 to 11 | 5 | 0 to 8 | 6 | 0 to 5 | 11 | 0 to 1 | 13 | 0 to 2 |
| Number trained in local library | 4 | 4 to 56 | 7 | 0 to 15 | 7 | 1 to 9 | 10 | 0 to 3 | 16 | 0 to 4 |
| Number trained in other libraries | 4 | 3 to 10 | 7 | 0 to 1 | 7 | 0 to 1 | 9 | 0 to 2 | 12 | 0 to 1 |
| Pages giving full time to children's work | 3 | 0 to 11 | 6 | 1 to 8 | 7 | 0 to 2 | 12 | 0 to 2 | 15 | 0 to 2 |
| Av. yearly salaries for entire staff (not including janitors) | 4 | $170,453.82 | 8 | $74,503.90 | 6 | $30,844.90 | 12 | $19,984.81 | 17 | $10,159.22 |
| Av. yearly salaries children's department | 2 | $20,080.00 | 8 | $11,032.33 | 6 | $4,144.75 | 12 | $1,726.33 | 14 | $1,306.01 |
[5] Not the same libraries as are represented two lines above.
[6] Maximum.