Creating the library habit by such methods: by putting the library in the way of the public and making it a familiar and consuetudinal part of the environment; pervading the civic fabric and injecting itself into the daily life of the citizen, is one thing. It is a very great and glorious thing. To the multitude it has opened new channels of relaxation, of stimulation, of mental growth and moral adjustment. Its possibilities have not been overstated even by the librarian himself. And on the day when librarians discovered the means and perfected the methods which set the library in that commanding and strategic position, on that day they set themselves in their rightful place as public educators and added a powerful impulse to that divine momentum by which humanity is being driven forward toward the goal of perfection which must be its destiny. But creating the reading habit—well, is that quite the same thing? And if it be not quite the same thing, are librarians still concerned as much as formerly with promoting the generation of the reading habit as a part—say the lesser half—of their task? And if librarians are so concerned, are they—are we—using the most effective methods to advance that part of our task? And is advertising the library just the same thing as advertising the books? It is by the consideration of these questions that I hope to expound my text and deal with the topic assigned to me.
The library habit is akin to the museum habit, the public conservatory habit and the menagerie habit, and differs from the reading habit as visits to these institutions differ from cultivating your own garden patch or rearing your own pets. Perhaps the logical conclusion of these comparisons would seem to be that one must own one's books, but happily one does not have to own a book's body in order to possess its soul. Our present library machinery is admirably adapted to the nurture of the library habit. Open shelves, book display racks, branches in which all visible barriers and restrictions have become as obsolete as the "keep off the grass" signs in the parks, all these invite the promiscuous and profuse handling of books, the sipping and skipping, the skimming and returning for more. Our card catalogs with their stern noncommittalness and deadly monotony make it necessary for the reference patron to call for whole armfuls of books which he fumbles hastily, scouring the index and tables of contents, and laying them aside for the next dip into the grab bag. Our monthly bulletins, presenting in serried ranks the accessions of the month, severely marshalled by the rules of the decimal classification, and with one title closely followed by the next, so that the roaming eye is constantly caught by new and ever more attractive possibilities for skipping and skimming—what could be devised more effectively to promote that species of gluttony which is indicated by long lists of call numbers of books which we simply must see before next month's bulletin appears with another long list? All these things conduce to high circulation statistics and are therefore grateful to our senses. But how many of them are calculated to impart the reading habit, are effective in instilling "much love and some knowledge of books" as a distinguished librarian has paraphrased it in a recent lecture? How far does any of this machinery go in advertising books as to their subject and scope, as the program has it?
The science of advertising claims a psychological basis all its own. Perhaps it is no psychology at all but only a functioning of instinct that causes us to respond, and often capitulate in the end, to the ceaseless reiteration and ever-present insistence upon a given assertion. But whatever it is, it reacts upon the volition in so compelling a manner as to justify, even in the final acid test of the cash book, the enormous outlay of money poured forth in arousing it. And the keynote of it all is, not the fact of the reiteration, though that is important, but the overpowering irresistible confidence with which the assertion is put forth. The advertiser who would go before his public with the guarded statement that "our soap seems to be a very good soap and barring certain blemishes, a very desirable article," or would quote somebody else's testimonials (a practice now employed only by those Ishmaelites of commerce, the patent medicines) might spread his placards in a solid wall across the country, with no other result than that of obliterating the landscape which now he only makes hideous. Yet I ask whether the foregoing does not fairly represent the general style of book annotations in library publications, when we treat ourselves to the luxury of annotations at all?
Yet the business man and the librarian both need publicity, and that which each should secure varies from the other only in degree, not in kind nor in the object primarily to be attained by it, namely, the patronage of the public. The merchant seeks this patronage for his own ends of private gain; the librarian, for ends which he knows to be of higher value and of greater consequence to the life of the community. The former offers for sale an article which he has manufactured or purchased, and to the use of which he sets out to convert the public by methods which have been found effective, though they are expensive. The latter buys his goods, not, let us hope, with quite the same purpose of securing only such as are likely to appeal to the passing fancy of his constituency. His aim being higher than the mere gratification of tastes and desires, he applies higher standards to his purchases. His business is selection. Every book that he adds to the library he first selects out of all that are offered, and each selection is fortified and backed by his deliberate judgment that that particular book will be a good one for his public. He knows why it is so, and now it becomes his business to convince his patrons that it is so, and to induce them to profit by the selection which he has made. How does he go about it?
His task is both easier and more difficult than that of the merchant. Easier, because he asks nothing more intrinsically valuable than time and thought; more difficult, because to most people the use of a book is not yet so proximate a need as a safety razor or even a cake of soap. In common with the merchant he is striving to secure that indispensable element upon which every human transaction between two parties must rest, namely, the confidence of those with whom he seeks to deal: confidence in his motives, in his judgment, and in the value of the service which he offers to perform. And while the merchant constantly faces the danger of losing the faith of the public through the easily aroused distrust of the value of that which he offers, the librarian finds even greater difficulty in overcoming the fear that his design is the philanthropic one of uplifting and improving their mental condition instead of merely amusing them. While the one must combat the lurking suspicion of his customers that he may be "doing" them, the other must dissimulate lest he be discovered in the act of "doing them good."
Each, then, is under the same necessity of securing the attention of the public, and ultimately for the same end: that of ensuring the prosperity and consistent growth of his enterprise. We know how the merchant advertises. Now, how does the librarian advertise? By means of catalogs, bulletins, reading lists, occasionally by space in the newspapers, when that can be had free. Very good means, these,—for advertising the library; for implanting the library habit. But very poor and weak means, indeed, for advertising the books or instilling the reading habit. Books are not advertised in library publications, except incidentally, for you cannot advertise a book merely by mentioning its name, or copying its title page.
In his spacious and optimistic way the librarian, when speaking ex cathedra, in library publications, vests himself, without intending to, in a sort of cloak of infallibility as unbecoming as it is unnatural, saying: "Behold, I bring you the books of the month; they are good books or they would not be here. That is enough for you to know. I have spoken!" And yet he has at his command twice over the chief essential ingredient of all good advertising, namely, confidence. Confidence in the righteousness of his mission and confidence in the merit and integrity of his book selection, and in the conscientious methods employed in making it. Why does he not try to do a little of that which the merchant spends millions in trying to do—transmit that confidence to his patron? Why, when his business is book selection, and he knows he prosecutes it faithfully, is he so afraid of being caught at it?
The monthly bulletins of our public libraries, with a few shining exceptions, are bare and bald author and title lists employing that deadliest of all monotonous forms, the catalog entry. Now, I have been too long apprenticed to the trade of the cataloger to find it in my heart to cavil at his art and the carefully evolved, scientifically derived principles upon which it rests. But when the cataloger is "a-cataloging" he is not writing advertising copy. He is making a permanent record, and he is following certain rules which long experience has established and vindicated as good and necessary for that purpose. He finds it necessary to establish, beyond the possibility of confusion, the absolute identity of an author, and he does this by giving that author his full and correct name, stripping him of all disguises and never heeding the fact that the author himself may have been trying through all his years of discretion to live down the indiscretions of his baptismal record. This practice of employing full names in a card catalog can still be defended, though with much labor. But when an author is made to appear thus full-panoplied in a monthly bulletin, which should have the freshness and attractiveness of a news-sheet—which is all it is—he is more often disguised and concealed from, than revealed to, the view of him who is expected to read as he runs. Again, the cataloger rightly confines himself to rendering an accurate transcript of the title page, neither adding thereto, nor, if he be wise, subtracting one jot or tittle therefrom. But title pages, like human faces, are often but a poor index to character, and many a book which might upon closer acquaintance prove a very good friend indeed, if only some one had been near to speak the few formal words of introduction required in good society, is passed by because of a forbidding and austere, or otherwise misleading, countenance. And so the monthly record becomes a stern and monotonous affair, requiring to be furbished up and trimmed with all sorts of side issues by way of supplying what the city editor calls human interest, all of them well contrived to advertise the library, but using up the space which should be given over to advertising the books—of which, first of all, and after all the library is composed.
Mr. Dana, in his pamphlet on booklists, makes a statement, from the experience of his own library, but which must have found an echo in many a heart, to the effect that the monthly list did not supply any definite demand and was very little used. Exactly! So might a monthly list of additions to the city directory be very little used; so does the periodical revision of the telephone directory supply a definite demand only to those who are looking for something—and the average citizen is spending very little of his time looking for books. They must be shown to him, and then he must be shown why it will be to his advantage, pleasurable or profitable, to make their closer acquaintance.
Open shelf rooms, or, wanting these, display racks and tables are in themselves a mighty stride forward in shortening the distance between the reader and the books. But do they always go the whole distance? Is it enough to turn a man loose in a roomful of books, all beckoning to him and standing in rows expectant to be chosen, like children in a game? They cannot speak, the attendants, gracious and hospitable and expert though they be, cannot speak to everyone. They often have enough to do to give attention to those that have the courage to speak to them. But placards could speak. Small groups of books, taken out of their tactical formation on the shelves and brought together because of some bond of common interest not always convertible in terms of the decimal classification, could become eloquent. And eloquent, indeed, and welcome to the dazed explorer of unfamiliar precincts, would be a bulletin, many of them, plenty of them—for a belief in signs of the right sort is a mark of wisdom—which would tell him in an authoritative, confident, and confidential way what he wishes to know, namely, something about the books, or only about a few of them, that surround him. We do these things, sometimes, on rare occasions, on special days, by means of special bulletins. But it is mostly in the children's room. In fact we take great pains that the children should receive the benefit of our expert judgment and ministrations. But to their elders, to most of whom we might well apply a reverent adaptation of the words of the precept, beginning: "Except ye become as a little child ...," to their elders we pay the subtle and misdirected compliment of assuming that they know as much as we do about what is, after all, our chief business, the selection and proper employment and enjoyment of books.