(See[ p. 22.])
Mr. Bowker: Can't we have a word from Mr. Thwaites on this question?
R. G. Thwaites: I do not suppose I ought to speak on this matter, for I am one of Mr. Larned's contributors. I have done a good deal of annotation, or evaluation, of this sort, upon request; I have a fair acquaintance with reviewers, and have done a good deal of reviewing myself. I know the limitations of reviewers, and there is, I think, a great deal of truth in what Dr. Ely says. I always want to know, when I read a review, who wrote the review; after I know the individual who has written the review, I make up my mind more or less regarding its verdict. Often, in writing annotations for this work of Mr. Larned's I have felt the very serious responsibility which rested upon me as an individual contributor, in seeming to crystallize judgment for generations perhaps—if this book is to be used for generations—and the possible harm that might result from such crystallization. I know that my point of view will be entirely different from another man's point of view. You take four or five men and ask them to write a note on the same book for this annotated list, and you will have four or five different judgments—absolutely, radically different. It is perhaps, a dangerous thing to crystallize these judgments; and yet, after all, I sympathize very greatly with Mr. Iles' position. I think the thing should be done. Librarians are asked for such judgments all the time. All of us who write text-books are continually asked for annotated bibliographies for students to follow, and we are always passing judgments—other people might call them "snap" judgments—upon various books. Great wisdom is necessary in this matter. For instance, the other day Mr. Larned sent a note to two of us who are contributing to this annotated bibliography. It happened through some editorial mistake that two notes, asking for comment on a certain book, were written to different individuals. It was Dr. Davis Dewey, of the Institute of Technology, who happened to cross my path and wrote a note on the same book. Now we had two absolutely different opinions about this book. And yet it was very natural. I had looked at this book as the story of an exploring tour down the Mississippi valley; he had looked at it as a study in sociology from an economic standpoint. It was exceedingly interesting from my standpoint; it was filled with fallacies and whims from the standpoint of an economist and sociologist. Well, I threw up my note and let his stand. What are we going to do about it? Some work of this kind ought to be done, because it is most useful; but after all, I think Dr. Ely's word of warning is one that we should take to heart very thoroughly. Personally I really don't know whether we ought to "evaluate" literature or not; and yet I am doing it all the time.
Mr. Iles: We expect that this bibliography of Mr. Larned's, and any others in the same series which may follow, will appear also in card form, and I very much desire when the central bureau finds that a particular note can be replaced by a better one, in the light of further developments, that that particular note should be withdrawn, and a better and more nearly just note be substituted; all gratuitously to the subscribing libraries.
F. M. Crunden: I realize the force of what Dr. Ely has said, but I still believe that this work is worth doing, because it is exceedingly valuable to us. We have got to have some guide. We cannot all of us read in all lines and so far as the contradictory notes referred to go, it seems to me that all that was necessary was for the editor to apply to those two divergent notes just the remark that Mr. Thwaites made—that one was written from the standpoint of the sociologist and economist, the other from that of the historian and geographer. From one side it was a good book; from the other side a bad book.
Mr. Putnam: I speak on such a subject as this with very great reluctance, and yet, as a librarian who has had occasion in times past to select—I do not have so much occasion now, because so much matter comes to us without inspection—I wish to draw a distinction between selection and exclusion. Now, when Dr. Ely speaks of an index librorum prohibitorum or an index expurgatorius, the implication is that the libraries of this country, on advice or of their own motion without advice, are deliberately excluding from their collection books of which they disapprove. The librarian, however, approaches the matter in an entirely different way. He has at his disposal, for purchase, a very limited sum of money; a very limited sum of money, no matter how large his library, for the amount of literature put upon the market is practically limitless. Men of science themselves, after contending for liberty of expression, do not always use that liberty with discretion or to the advantage of the community. Now, there must be a selection. That is the point we start from as librarians; that is the duty laid upon us—to get, with the means at our command, the books that will be most useful to our constituents. Now, that means choice. How are we to make a choice? I do not believe there is a librarian in the United States who would set himself up as an arbiter or an expert in every department of literature; who would claim to determine the value of doctrine, either in religion or in economics, the two departments of literature as to which the discrimination must be most difficult and most dangerous; and yet even in those departments we must choose. That means a selection. What is the alternative, in case we have no guide? What would Dr. Ely offer us? Dr. Ely, of course, as any university professor, has his students, who are studying not merely one subject in which they wish to get the best and final opinion, but all opinions, from which they are to draw conclusions. Now, the duty of the librarian is simply to represent all opinions, and not his own opinion, or his notion of the best opinion, or somebody else's notion of the best opinion; but, given a doctrine which is important, which is attracting attention, he assumes that this doctrine must be represented in his collection. It is only a question of what represents this doctrine best—not whether the doctrine is right or wrong. If there is a book regarding which there are two opinions, the appraisal may give the two opinions, as all appraisals should, so far as it can be done. The substance of what I wish to say is this: our duty is not one of exclusion; it is one of selection, and that fact is as little understood as any element in library administration to-day—and I am sorry to say that the misunderstanding is apt to be countenanced by the librarian. Take for instance the case of the Boston Public Library, berated all over the country for excluding certain books from its collection. Now, the Boston Public Library deliberately excludes, to my knowledge, almost no book. Its process is of selection. It receives about seven hundred volumes of recent fiction a year, to consider for purchase. It believes that it is for the best interests of its constituents to buy less than two hundred titles and multiply copies. Now, how is it going to dispose of the other five hundred? They are neither rebuked, disapproved of or placed in an index. They are simply left out, because in the process of selection, the first two hundred seem most useful for the purpose of the library.
Dr. Ely: I was not thinking about the librarians in my remarks. They must, of course, make their selections of books, but what I had in mind was the bringing, especially in the form of a card catalog, these judgments and these appraisals before the reading public all over the entire country, and so possibly forming opinion, along one line. Formerly librarians have had a great many facilities to aid them in making this selection of which Mr. Putnam has spoken. They have had the various periodicals with their reviews; they could read these and base their selections upon these. I had especially in mind the objections to crystallizing opinion and bringing a one-sided opinion, or one kind of an opinion, before the entire United States, instead of having opinions of one sort in one place and opinions of another sort in another place. Also, it is the impartial nature, or the apparently impartial nature, of the proposed "evaluations" which seems to me especially objectionable. Of course, in our college classrooms, we give our estimates of books, but Professor A will give one estimate, and then the students go to Professor B's class-room, and they hear another estimate, so that they soon learn the personal inclinations and preferences of the various professors, and can soon offer some explanation of the conditions and the circumstances under which these estimates are formed. And the views expressed in one university are criticised very largely by another university. Not so I take it with the person who ordinarily consults the card catalog of a public library.
R. R. Bowker: May I take a moment from my own paper to say just a word on this subject? Questions are asked of the librarians, and they must be answered. To answer them in the fullest light instead of the scantiest is, as I understand, the purpose of what Mr. Iles calls "evaluation." If Miss Smith—I think there are six of her, so that my remarks are not personal—comes from the library school, or after the library school training, to a public library desk, she is sure to be asked questions, we will say, in American history. There may be an information clerk to refer them to, or there may not; but, as I understand, this work of Mr. Iles is intended, not to exclude other sources of information, but to give Miss Smith opportunity to inquire and obtain the best and widest available information as to the character of a particular book, or as to its rating. If this book were to be the sole and exclusive authority, then of course we might have a censorship in literature, but I do not understand that in the minds of the promotors of this plan there is any such design to make an exclusive and solely authoritative work.
W. Millard Palmer read a paper on
[ THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS, AND LIBRARIANS.]