If the foregoing resolution is adopted, we recommend that a committee be appointed to study this subject further and to submit the draft of what might be termed a library chapter for a city charter.
For the purpose of discussion and to clarify the thought of the association on this subject your committee submits the following tentative points which it believes should be considered for such proposed model library chapter.
First, the charter should provide for a library board which should have power to administer and control the public library of the city, and at the same time administer all libraries municipally owned in the city. This would include the municipal legislative reference library in the city hall, libraries in public schools, high schools, and possibly such others as libraries in municipal art galleries, museums, etc. This board should consist of not less than five or more than nine members, excluding ex-officio members, the number of which should not exceed one half of the appointive or elected members. A sufficiently small proportion of the board should be elected or appointed each year to make its membership fairly continuous so that it may develop a constructive policy, something that is impossible where the membership is likely to change materially at brief intervals. In no case should the terms of more than half of the members expire at one time.
In our smaller cities or towns it would seem advisable to consider whether the municipal art gallery and museum should be administered by the same board which administers the library. It has been suggested that in such places it would be possible to carry on this work with very much less expense under one management than under several managements, and experience apparently demonstrates that having the library, art gallery, and museum interests in the city in the same building, or in a group of related buildings, adds immensely to the public service of each at a minimum expenditure of money. In other words, having all these interests under one roof or in buildings closely adjoining each other makes it possible for each institution to strengthen the other, and at the same time makes it possible for the best coöperation and coördination; and furthermore many more people will use each of these institutions when they are together than when they are widely separated. In larger cities where it may seem desirable to have the art and museum interests under separate boards the charter should provide for official (ex-officio) representatives of each of these institutions on the boards of the others as well as with the board of education of the city, so as to insure the greatest amount of coöperation and coördination. It is the conviction of this committee that the educational interests of the community in many of our cities today should be coördination to a greater extent than they are now, not only for the purpose of eliminating duplication of work and effort but also for the mutual strengthening of the work and effort of each.
In many small cities and some larger ones it has been the practice for the public library to be managed by the board of education. The disadvantage of this, however, is that the library interests are usually turned over to a committee and that the membership of this committee is likely to change from year to year, so that there is no constructive policy; and where there is no constructive policy the interests in the library on the part of other members of the board is likely to be small. However, many of the difficulties with the management of a public library by a board of education have frequently grown out of the method of appointment or election of the school board. If the school board is in politics and therefore more or less partisan, the library is apt to suffer by this arrangement even more than the schools themselves. Possibly, where public opinion is sufficiently alive to the value and importance of education a single board might manage all the educational interests of a city, just as the board of regents of one of our large state universities administers its varied activities.
Another point to be considered is whether the library board should be elected by the citizens at large, or appointed by the mayor or selected by the board of education. Election by the citizens of members to such a board should be absolutely non-partisan. Women should have the right to vote and should be eligible to the board. The board should have power to fill vacancies which may occur by death or resignation, until the next general election, in case the board is elected by the citizens at large. Of course, if the members are elected by the board of education, vacancies could be filled at any time by that board, and if they are appointed by the mayor he could fill a vacancy.
Your committee believes that it is unwise for a public library to be governed by a board which elects its own members, or a majority of its own members: in other words, a "close corporation" is not the form of governing board that is best for a library belonging to all the people of the community. This would not apply where cities make a terminable contract with an existing institution. It is generally unwise for the corporate name of a municipal public library to bear the name of an individual. It should bear the name of the city, and the charter should fix its name.
The charter should provide for the organization of the library board by the election of a president and vice-president, with the city treasurer as the ex-officio treasurer of the board and the city comptroller as the auditor of the board's accounts. It should also provide for a secretary or clerk, who should be an employee of the board rather than a member of the board, and it is highly desirable that this officer should be the librarian. In any case his powers should not conflict with those of the librarian.
The charter should give the library board full power to hold trust funds which may be placed in its hands, to administer the same, and to accept and to hold gifts of real and personal property for the general purposes for which the board was created. The charter should provide, if the state law does not do so, that the library should not receive less than a minimum fund for its maintenance, based on the assessed valuation of the city. It ought never to be possible for a council so to cut a library's budget that it is necessary to close branch libraries or abandon established work for a year or more, thereby cutting off for the time being all normal growth and sometimes crippling the library so that it takes years to recover. This has happened in more than one American city. The whole idea of a minimum tax for the maintenance of a library is in line with the thought expressed in many of our state constitutions: namely, that the educational interests of the community are paramount.
The library board should have full legal rights for defense in the courts, etc. The charter should provide that the chief law officer of the city should be its legal representative.