If I were to sum up in these short moments the opportunities which lie before library workers, it would have to be an epitome of all that has been said at this conference and all previous conferences, and of all that has been written on library extension and influence. Even then the opportunity which lies before you might not even be mentioned.
I will not even try to enumerate the almost endless ways in which library usefulness may express itself, for these various ways are, after all, only different directions in which to use our one great opportunity of service to mankind.
May we not think of a library as a dynamic force in the community, to be used for lifting the common level. There are so many forces at work in the nation pulling down and scattering; but the hundreds of large and small libraries dotted over the country stand for social regeneration, stand for the building up and perfecting of human society, stand for the joy and happiness of individual lives. And no matter how limited seems our own small field, it is a piece of the great domain of helpful activity.
It is not always easy, after a hard and tiresome day of small and perplexing duties, to see beyond our wall of weariness. Yet nothing is more restful than to feel that we are contributing our part to a great work, and that we, in our place, are a part of one of the great building-up movements of the century.
I will not soon forget what Mr. Lane said in his president's address at the Atlanta conference. I would like to quote largely, but this sentence serves. He said: "What a privilege that we are always free to place ourselves at the service of another. Most professions are so engrossed by their own work that they have no time to serve the needs of others, but it is the business of the librarian to serve. He is paid for knowing how."
It is peculiarly true that the librarian's business is to put himself and the library under his custody at the complete disposal of the people. It is his business to watch their interests and to think in advance for their needs.
The librarian must have, in Mrs. Browning's words,
"... both head and heart;
Both active, both complete and both in earnest."
Our opportunities, then, are not something which lie to one side, to be especially thought of, but are the very heart of our business—of our profession.
I have been wondering if there is not an element of discouragement to the librarian of the small library, in such a conference as this, or even to us who fill subordinate places in large libraries. We get so many new ideas, we get so many plans which other libraries are putting into operation. We know we cannot put them into practice, we know well enough that we shall go home and do just what we have been doing, with small quarters, with cramped revenues, with possibly unsympathetic trustees who take unkindly to our new-born enthusiasm. There seems to be the possibility of so much, but the opportunity for doing so little, and then our limitations seem more apparent than our opportunities. The assistant in the larger library says, "I wish I could be the librarian of a small library, they have so much better an opportunity for coming into close contact with the people," and the librarian of the little library who does her own accessioning, cataloging, record keeping, charging, reference work, etc., with one brain and one pair of hands, says, "Oh, if we were only a little larger library, with more money, and with more help, I might do so many things that other libraries do."