The VICE-PRESIDENT: I am going to ask Mr. W. P. Cutter, librarian of the Engineering Societies of New York City, to contribute either by a paper or an oral discussion of Mr. Dudgeon's address.
Mr. CUTTER: I do not know that I have anything to offer as a contribution to the discussion of Mr. Dudgeon's very interesting paper and Mr. Josephson's very interesting discussion of it. I might, perhaps, with my usual liking to express things briefly, say that I consider a special library as one that serves people who are doing things, and a reference library one which serves people who are thinking things. The former are not thinking about doing things, they are already doing them. I think that applies also to people who are serving as legislators, who are making laws; to sociologists, who are making attempts to handle crime and other sociological questions. I believe that the development now in the public library world is in the direction of service to the public. For twenty-five or twenty-six years now we have been talking about, first, books, and then about places for storing books, buildings to put them in, methods of cataloging them, charging them, of making picture bulletins for children and all that, and we have finally arrived at a discussion of the methods of serving the people who are really doing things. It has taken about twenty-five years to arrive at that point, and I think we are reaching that goal. I noticed, although I was not present at the meeting this morning, that in two reports of committees of the American Library Association, an instrument was mentioned which has been used in one library, at least, to my knowledge, for the reproduction of material for people who are doing things, a reproduction of printed material, manuscripts, maps, drawings, etc. This is the first time that has come up, I think, in a report in the American Library Association on the reference side.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: I hoped that Dr. McCarthy, the head of the legislative reference department of the Wisconsin library, and Mr. Galbreath, former state librarian of Ohio, who is now secretary of the Constitutional Convention of Ohio, would be present today. In their absence the discussion is now open to the members, and I hope there will be a very general and free discussion.
JOHN A. LAPP: I have not very much to say except to emphasize one or two points which Mr. Dudgeon brought out in his paper. One of those points is the fact that the material which we deal with in special libraries is not found in books. In a short experience of only four years, I think, outside of those references to legal works, to law periodicals and law books, I have not been able to do one-tenth of my work from books or from published material. Most of the work, the real work, which has been done by the legislative reference department of Indiana has been done through work which we have prepared, which we have drawn up from the general material scattered here and there in obscure sources and from letters which we had written to experts outside. I say scarcely one-tenth, and I do not know but perhaps that is too liberal. One-tenth of the questions we have been able to answer from published material. That would seem to me to be the most distinguishing point about the special library. I believe that the heads of the industrial libraries, the manufacturing libraries, the commercial libraries, will agree with me on that point.
The subject of the training of special librarians is the one subject here upon which there seems to be, thus far, a division of opinion. I have always believed that the person who has a general knowledge of the subject, with a library training, is the person who is best qualified to do the work of a special library. I think that is true particularly in legislative and municipal reference work; but, on the other hand, it should be emphasized that if that person did not have a pretty good knowledge of library work, or if he did not have a pretty efficient librarian with him, he would make a sorry failure, as Mr. Dudgeon has suggested. At the same time, I do not believe that the librarian who is trained as a librarian merely, who loves books and so on, can get hold of the real vital part of the work in a way that the person who is using the special library demands. On the whole I am inclined to believe that the best working arrangement is to have a man in the library who has a knowledge of the subject matter and a person who knows something about library work and library training, and then to have him supplemented by some one who knows the library side of it, with a bare knowledge of the other subjects, and, working together, they can bring about a very efficient special library service. That is the ideal of a special library combination. I think it has worked out in most cases. But, again, speaking from personal knowledge, I do not think that I could ever do very much in legislative reference work if I were a librarian without the other training. Whatever I had of librarian training, through the school, when I went into the work, might be placed in very small compass—I haven't told this before but I will confess now that when I began I knew very little about librarianship. If my assistants knew that at the time, at any rate, I have never told It before, but I have learned something about it since that time. But I think I could have made a better success of librarianship if I had had more library training. On the other hand, I do not believe I could have gotten along if I had not had the other side of the subject more largely. So I agree with Mr. Dudgeon on most points as to that question; but I would suggest that the person who is in charge, if he is not fairly well grounded in librarian skill and librarian art, should have some one with him who would keep him off the rocks, because he will go on the rocks if he does not have some one to guide him.
The special library meets a very special need. That has been pointed out many times. We deal with material that is not in print. We manufacture it. Many times we must color it with our own opinions. Some people say that in public affairs, in municipal and legislative reference work, we should not allow our own personality or our judgment to enter into the work. I should like to find a librarian who is able to keep from doing that. If I have knowledge which to me seems certain, if I know a certain fact and have the information right at hand, I cannot refrain from telling the person who ought to know that fact; I cannot refrain from telling him that a certain thing is right, or a certain thing is wrong. While we must all do it diplomatically, it is out of the question, I believe, for a man to be efficient as a special librarian, even in dealing with the public affairs in libraries, to avoid giving his own opinions on subjects. What is the use of his getting a knowledge of the subject if he cannot really use it? But he should use it very discreetly.
The special library was very well described by Mr. Cutter when he said it was a library for those who do things, while the reference library is for those people who think of things. This is the age of efficiency. I believe that the librarian is the efficiency engineer, or ought to be the efficiency engineer, of the educational world. I think the general reference librarian ought to be that, and I think the librarian of the special library, particularly of the manufacturing and industrial library, can be to a large degree the efficiency expert of such a concern.
GUY E. MARION: I think the people who are present here would take a good deal of satisfaction in knowing who the people are that are actually and most vitally interested in special library work, and I have analyzed an up-to-date membership list which I hold here in my hand, of which I should be glad to show copies to any who may be interested. We have now grown to a group of 224 people who are interested. That is a growth, roughly, of twenty-five per cent since our last meeting in New York City. There are four insurance libraries in the country. There are nineteen people who are interested in public utilities. There are five financial libraries. There are among the commercial, technical and scientific libraries (many of which are in manufacturing concerns), forty-eight. Among the public affairs libraries, which cover the legislative reference departments of state libraries as well, there are something like thirty-six. It is interesting to note that the public libraries have themselves been sufficiently interested to know what we are doing, so that forty-five of them have become members of this association, to be in touch, I presume, with what we are aiming for. There are twenty-nine colleges and universities interested; and of miscellaneous people whom we can hardly classify, not knowing where they belong, there are thirty-eight. In this connection I think it is worth while to say to you, many of you who frequently change about the country, or are looking for advancement, that it would not be amiss for you to fill out one of the little blanks showing your qualifications, the things in which you are interested. At the present moment I know of the largest automobile concern in this country, the automobile trust, which is looking for an active, wide-awake librarian, probably a man. Those opportunities are coming to the attention of your secretary quite frequently, and we shall always be glad to have you keep in touch with us by filling out one of these little blanks. We may be able to readjust you.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The Secretary has an announcement to make in regard to city planning.
Mr. MARION: I think it would not be amiss for me to speak of three or four of our bibliographies. There has been one list published under the direction of Mr. Meyer of the Library of Congress, called "Selected list of references on the short ballot," which is easily obtainable at our headquarters; also a list of references on street railway service by Robert H. Whitten, our president. There was prepared by Mr. Dana, "The social questions of today," which is a very useful compilation of subjects, and institutions and people interested in social questions. Then, in addition, our May number of "Special Libraries" has published probably the most remarkable collection of city planning items that has ever been gathered together. It was done co-operatively between the Library of Congress and the Department of landscape architecture of Harvard university. (Here the Secretary read a notice of a later complete bibliography of City planning which will be published by the Library of Congress in which a new complete classification scheme for the arrangement of all the articles will be used.)