The point I wish to emphasize is: Never let a man go away without either the information for which he has come, or the knowledge as to where he may find it. This does not mean that we must spend precious time in looking up irrelevant questions, or in attempting to handle matters which some other library or organization could deal with more efficiently. It does mean that it is our business as a Bureau of Information to know just where that question can be most effectively handled, and then to direct the inquirer there.
Thus if a man desires a certain address in Los Angeles, we send him to the Cotton Exchange, one block away, which has a full line of directories, open to the public; if a certain government monograph which we do not possess, we refer him to the Cossitt library, which as a government depository has a full collection of public documents; if other than a very simple legal reference, we refer him to the law library, mentioning its hours and restrictions.
If the information desired may be secured by letter, we often give a reader the necessary address and let him write himself. We ought, of course, to save the library's time in this way whenever possible. Yet frequently the information or material to be secured would have a future value to the library itself, or to the city, and whenever this is the case, this advantage, together with the reader's grateful appreciation of the library for getting him what he wants when he wants it, surely justifies us in writing the letter ourselves. Thus, Goodwyn Institute library has recently secured much information and literature on smoke abatement experience of other cities, for engineers suddenly forced to apply modern methods by a stringent city ordinance. Assistance has been given in the same way to the Mississippi Valley Levee Association; to a committee appointed to present a county insanity commission bill to the state legislature; to the city engineer, on the practice of different cities as to grade-crossings and railroad track elevation; again to an individual reader who wished to learn what diseases are native to South Carolina in distinction from those supposed to be cured by residence there; to a local manufacturer on the process of making paper from cotton stalks; to a student on the death rate and prevalence of tuberculosis among negroes; to another on the best methods of alfalfa raising in West Tennessee.
The use of the telephone is encouraged for information needed quickly. If a busy business man wishes to know the name and address of the U. S. Consul in Peru, the 1910 population of Guthrie, Oklahoma, the meaning of a troublesome phrase in a Spanish letter, he appreciates knowing that he can get a prompt reply by calling up the library. The St. Joseph library makes this feature of its information service effectively known by attractive blotters and leaflets sent to business men.
We are all familiar with the insistent demands of club members and of school children, set sometimes, the former by the club system, and the latter by the school system, to subjects beyond their grasp. Of the vexed problem of distributing our crowded hours judiciously among all these demands, Miss Bacon has written most lucidly in her delightful paper on "What the public wants," in the May (1913) Library Journal.
Certainly we do have to learn to discriminate as to the time and attention we give to each demand upon us. Yet each is important to the man, woman or child, who makes it, and however briefly and expeditiously we may dispose of it, let us make the questioner feel that he did well to come to us, that we are for the moment concentrating upon his problem, and that we are giving him the best assistance in our power, even if it be only an address, or a telephone number, or the name of the book in which his question will be answered.
Let me repeat that it is all largely a matter of making our library a clearing house of information, of connecting the man with the answer to his question, rather than of necessarily answering it ourselves. And to this end, and by these means, may the small library be as useful as the large.
The next speaker was Miss SARAH B. BALL, librarian of the business branch of the Newark free public library, who spoke on
WHAT ANY LIBRARY CAN DO FOR THE BUSINESS INTERESTS OF THE TOWN
Have you ever felt discouraged over the purely potential value of your reference books, because they seem to remain forever potential? Have you ever turned the pages of the World Almanac and sighed over perfectly good answers which you could give to questions that nobody asks you? Every reference librarian present knows what I mean. When is wheat harvested in Burmah? Who is the secretary of sanitation in Cuba? How long does it take a letter to go from New York to Melbourne, via Vancouver? Are grapes more nutritious than plums? What are the dues in the Knickerbocker Club? What three nations have dominions on which the sun never sets? How many shipwrecks last year on the U. S. coasts?