Any such librarian, with only a fairly equipped library, will find her opportunity at her hand.
[SOME PRINCIPLES OF BOOK AND PICTURE SELECTION.]
By G. E. Wire, M.D., LL.B., Worcester County (Mass.) Law Library.
1. Books and pictures should be suited to the constituency.—This may seem so trite, so self-evident as to need no statement, much less any argument to support it. But on sober second thought, all will agree that it needs constant reiteration and appreciation. All of us are familiar with libraries—of course not our own—in which we detect glaring inconsistencies in book selection. The story used to be told of one library commission that in its first epoch it used to send the books on agriculture to the sea-coast, and books on fish curing to the hill country. This is now strenuously denied but there may be more truth than poetry in it after all.
In the case of large, 50,000 v. libraries and over, less care need be taken, both on account of expenditure of money and on account of worthlessness of the book itself. A few hundred dollars' worth of rubbish, more or less, does not count and almost any book no matter how poor comes in use some time. But in the case of the small, 5000 v. library or under, with little money to expend and the whole realm of knowledge to cover, it is different. Of course the covering will be scanty and thin, but it will do for the first layer. They should buy but few books in philosophy and religion, more in sociology, only the latest and most popular in the arts and sciences, comparatively fewer in literature and more in history, biography and travel.
Of course fiction, adult and juvenile, must also be bought and at first a disproportionately larger amount in many cases. Too much reliance should not be placed on what some larger library has or on what the neighboring library has.
Avoid imitation and duplication, especially the latter. Now that inter-library loans are coming in, each small library in the more thickly settled portions of the country may be able to supplement its neighbor. Travelling libraries should also help out the smaller libraries which can ill afford to sink a large part of their annual book-fund in evanescent fiction, which soon moulds on the shelves.
As the commissions become better organized, they should also be able to send expensive reference works for the use of study clubs, and so help the small libraries all the more.
The needs of the constituency should be carefully studied and the most pressing should be attended to at first, others can wait. As to buying technical books for those engaged in manufacturing, I think a more conservative policy is now favored. Better wait a while and feel your way before spending much on these high priced books which rapidly go out of date. Theoretically the operatives of a cotton mill should be much interested in all that relates to cotton, but practically when their hours of drudgery are over they are more inclined to a novel, if inclined to read anything. And how much encouragement have they to read in most factories? Better begin with the owners, who may be on your board, or the superintendent, who may live on your street. As liberal purchases as possible should be made in reference books—always selecting the latest and freshest to start on. For example Seyffert's "Antiquities," Bulfinch's "Age of fable," and Murray's "Mythology" will serve better than Smith's books, now out of date and expensive beyond all return for the money invested in them. More will be said along this line under head of cost. Of course in a library of this size, no foreign books should be bought other than perhaps some fiction.
I thoroughly believe in America for Americans. Foreigners would not buy our books under the same circumstances and why should we buy theirs? Reciprocity is good policy. Even in the case of English books most of those on geology, botany, zoology, on fishing and hunting, are valueless to us, by reason of climatic, or other local conditions. Their local history and antiquities are quite as unprofitable for most of our public libraries.