Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association / Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901

by Unknown

The next thing, as has been the case with many other associations, was the work of securing the library commission. We pegged away at that for five years before we accomplished anything. Finally the State Federation of Women's Clubs interested itself; we secured the commission, and the work has been going on exceedingly well for the past year. We have made no plan yet for further definite work, but some need will doubtless develop.

In regard to programs, they must, of course, as Mr. Dana said, be adapted to local conditions, and the people who are primarily the workers in the state association, cannot expect personally to get much from the program or from the work of the association. But it is probably true in most cases that these workers have opportunities of visiting other libraries, and have facilities for work that are not open to the librarians in the smaller places. The librarians of the smaller libraries should be given something definite, something technical, something that will be of help to them in the work from a professional point of view.

As to place of meeting, the Iowa meetings were always held in Des Moines, the capital city, until two years ago. Then it was decided to make the library association a movable feast. We met at Cedar Rapids two years ago, last year at Sioux City, where we had a good meeting, although not largely attended. Sioux City is in the extreme western part of the state, and is not easily accessible by railroad, but we drew a little from South Dakota, which was what we had counted on; some Dakota people came and joined the association, and two of those people have attended this A. L. A. conference. We meet next in Burlington, where there are more libraries in the locality, and we expect a larger attendance. I suppose the ideal condition would be to meet in some central place, where there are library facilities, but I believe it is worth while to move the association about; that is one way of advertising it.

Miss Olive Jones: I fully believe that the greatest work of the state association it does through the librarians individually. It is of help in the state in bringing out different lines of work, and in keeping the library work before the public; but, after all, do we not gain more from individual effort than from anything else? In educational problems, it is coming to be realized that the work of the individual means more than the work of any body of people, and I am fully convinced, if we can bring librarians to our state associations, and have an association full of enthusiasm and that intangible something which we call library spirit, we will have more done for the state at large than by any devising of general work along large lines. I would make a special plea that in deciding where to meet, you should consider first the librarians, and settle a pleasant place for the members who meet fellow-workers only once a year. There are librarians who have no vacation at all, except when their board kindly allows them to go to the state association meeting; there are librarians who never know personally anything of this larger work done all over the country, and we should not ask such persons to come to a place where they are not going to be comfortable, and which they must spend a good deal of money to reach. We must be sure of having something for the librarians of the smaller libraries; something technical, not too much, but something which the librarian can take away, feeling that it has been worth while to attend. I am not certain that we could have library instruction in Ohio; we tried it and it did not seem to work; but if you can introduce in the program one or two definite, technical papers, it is a good thing. And at the same time give a chance for sociability and some social entertainment.

There is one other point, and that is in regard to the advertising that we can do through individuals—you see my point is individualism. I believe in newspaper advertising, but I think if you can work up a good mailing list through your state, sending all your circulars to individuals, you will do more than by newspaper advertising. And it is a good thing to get one library in each city to keep a list of every one in that city who ought to be specially interested in library work, whether members of the association or not. Then let that librarian send to the secretary of the association a duplicate of that list, so that everything the state association issues goes to each person who should be interested in library work.

W. R. Eastman: In New York we are going through a little transition period in state library association work. Formerly our state association held occasional meetings in different places. It held one in midwinter in New York City, with the New York Library Club. Then in the summer or spring we held a meeting in the central part of the state. We tried to make our programs as practical as could be, discussing not only occasional technical points, but elementary points as well. We always had good meetings; we got together a little circle of librarians who were interested, and we thought the state association was worth keeping up, although the state was so large that we reached only one or two centers. About a year ago, under a new administration, Dr. Canfield suggested that the annual meeting should always be held in one place. We consented to try the plan, and decided to make Lake Placid, in the Adirondacks, our meeting place. We met there, and the association, to my surprise and somewhat to my disturbance, first voted always to meet in one place, and then voted always to meet at Lake Placid. We then made a proviso instructing the executive board to district the state into 10 or 12 districts, and lay out a plan by which every one of those districts should have a library conference in the course of the year. Thus, instead of one meeting of the state during a year, we are going to have 12 local conferences. Whether those local conferences will have an organization I do not know; the board has not yet reported its plan. Probably there will be some sort of a skeleton organization—a president and secretary, and perhaps some one in charge of each local conference, and then some member of the association will probably come and attend the conference. Our object is to bring together the librarians and library trustees for 50 miles around; if the teachers are interested, so much the better. So, you see, we have begun to establish a system of local conferences all over the state. It is not extravagant; it is hopeful; I believe there is a great deal in it, especially for the larger states.

Miss Stearns: I for one would protest against always meeting in one place, unless as Mr. Eastman has described, the meeting is held at a resort. I have known cases where meetings were held at one central, large town, because it was so accessible; and the librarian of a little library, who cannot have open shelves and all facilities, goes to this town and sees its large library, with its red tape, and gets so completely tangled up in the red tape of that institution that she will never be able to disentangle herself. I believe in the migration of meetings.

H. C. Wellman: I am in hearty sympathy with what has been said in regard to extending library work through the state. It is especially valuable in the newer states of the Union, but in the older states, in New England, in New York, and elsewhere, I think we must not attend too strictly to the extension of library work, but must rather intensify it. A state library association, as Miss Jones said, can do a great deal for librarians and for the library profession. The Massachusetts Library Club has done something in the way of giving a series of lectures, to run two or three years. The first lecture dealt with paper making, the subject being treated by an expert; then came book illustration, of which most librarians knew absolutely nothing; and then, finally, book binding, for which we had one of the best binders of the state to come down and show us the tricks of the trade. You are all library school graduates out here; but in the effete east nine-tenths of the librarians have not had that technical training. I do not know anything that was of more practical good to our club membership than that lecture on library binding. There is another thing that we ought to do, and that is to give attention to the more scholarly side of librarianship. We are so busy organizing, so busy spreading library ideas, that we are in danger of losing sight of scholarship. That is something the state association can do—in the directions of literature, bibliography, and such subjects. I think that should be emphasized more than has been the case. In the Massachusetts Club we are trying a similar scheme to that of Mr. Eastman; we are going to have one annual meeting, which will take in all the library clubs all over the state. Then, besides that, the state club meets about three times a year in different parts of the state.

In concluding, I want to make sure that this round table is to be continued, and I therefore move that this assembly petition the program committee of next year for another round table meeting on this subject. Voted.

Miss M. E. Ahern: I want to say a word about this matter of having peripatetic meetings. In the state of Illinois we have all the library law and all the library books in the northern part of the state, and then there is a part of the state down in the south that they call "Egypt." There may be some libraries there, but we have been unable yet to induce them to take their place in the state library association. Two years ago, after having tried for several years to get these libraries to come into the association, we brought the association to them, and held our meeting in East St. Louis, under the most distressing circumstances of weather and other uncomfortable conditions; and not a single librarian from that community attended the meeting. We tried the same plan last year in another place in the state, and I felt when the meeting was over that we had not done much good there. Very few of the local people came to the meeting. Later I heard that we did some good, but I am inclined to think that the personal efforts of the librarians at that place did more than the association did. I am not at all a pessimist, but in Illinois this plan has failed to interest the people of the indifferent districts in the work that the library association was trying to do, and I have been almost convinced that it is the proper thing for an association to get a central point and bring librarians in touch with the vitalizing spirit of a good library conference, rather than to try to take the association to an indifferent community. I want heartily to emphasize the point made by Mr. Dana about local speakers. I have suffered more than once from these local speakers. I have a most distinct recollection of hearing a trustee talk for one hour and a quarter on the beautiful, magnanimous and generous efforts made by himself to run the local library. The point made by Mr. Wellman needs to be taken cautiously. I think there is more danger of emphasizing the scholarly side of librarianship at state meetings than there is of not giving it sufficient attention. The American Library Association, in my opinion, should stand for the higher tenets of the library faith, and the scholarly side should be more emphasized than has been the case heretofore in the meetings of the national association. With all our different organizations, clubs, associations, conferences, round tables, and so on, it seems to me that the American Library Association should take care of the technical side, and the smaller questions, that must, indeed, be settled by local conditions, should be taken up by the state associations. While, of course, we want to have material of a high order presented at the state association, at the same time we must remember that these associations reach those people who cannot be touched in any other way; and if they have come to get light on this new topic of work for children, or if they are on the point of reorganizing their library, or if they are having trouble with their board, they do not take kindly to a dissertation on printing in the 15th century.