This, then, is the duty of the business library if the title to asset-value is to go unchallenged. And the library may be certain that business will not take it at its own appraisal but will demand to see for itself whether its claims are justified.
Business libraries in many cities are justifying their existence and are gradually making for themselves a secure place among the assets of the enterprises which they represent.... Finally, how are the library and business to co-operate for their mutual advantage?
It is evident that in this respect business has to perform a duty even greater than we have laid upon the library itself. If the library is under obligation to adapt itself to the needs of business, business is under special obligation to place its resources more completely at the disposal of the library. It must take the library seriously and plan for it accordingly....
Business fails to appreciate the ally that it might have in the well conducted library. It appreciates and at times is mildly grateful for the library's service; but it has shown no great discernment when it came to an understanding of the means by which the service was rendered. It asks for and expects results; but has little appreciation of the price at which results must be bought.
An indispensable requisite of a business library is a librarian thoroughly conversant with the main facts of the business. He must know its theory and history. He must be freed from routine at least to the extent necessary to enable him to become an expert in the materials which he handles. He must be treated as a literary adviser and given the opportunity to develop literary discrimination and judgment in the field which he covers. Then he becomes more than a custodian of books; he is a counselor, impressing his personality upon a unique source of business inspiration, namely, the business literature of his collecting and bringing direct to his superiors the information which they will know how to use for the good of the business as a whole.
Subordinates, working under him, will assemble, classify, card index, bulletin and distribute, while the library itself will stand on a level with manufacturing, accounting and selling. It will be a department of the business, organized like other departments, for efficiency....
The library may adapt itself to business, but it is for business to say whether the adaptation shall be thoroughgoing and effective. Is the library, then, a business asset? My answer is that it is such just in proportion as business is willing to let it be. When business shall treat it as it treats other factors of business success, discerning its possibilities of usefulness, encouraging and planning for its development, adapting it to the requirements of business activity, then it will justify itself unquestionably....
Business has already awakened to the possibilities of library help, and wherever it has done so with insight and courage it has answered for itself the question which we have here proposed. In banking, in finance, in engineering, in applied chemistry, in insurance and in numerous other fields, business has set itself to the task of adapting library methods to business needs. Special collections administered for special requirements are springing up in every large city, and the liberality with which these are beginning to be supported is in some respects an indication of business' own estimate of their value.
The VICE-PRESIDENT: The matter is now open for discussion, and I will ask Mr. Morton, librarian of the United Gas & Fuel Company, to be the first speaker.[17]
[17] Mr. Morton's discussion will appear in "Special Libraries."