But I fear you will hardly be satisfied with the analogy. The British Museum, you will say, is placed in a city which is not merely the capital of the British Empire, but the metropolis; the literary metropolis also of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Library of Congress is at the capital of the United States. But this capital is not itself a metropolis. No student in Great Britain has to travel over 500 miles to reach the British Museum. A student in the United States may have to travel as much as 3000 miles to reach the Library of Congress. The area which supports the national library of Great Britain is but 100,000 square miles; that which supports the National Library of the United States is ever 3,000,000 square miles. The conditions differ, and therefore, you will say, the obligation. If there is any way in which our National Library may "reach out" from Washington it should reach out. Its first duty is no doubt as a legislative library—to Congress. Its next is as a federal library to aid the executive and judicial departments of the government and the scientific undertakings under governmental auspices. Its next is to that general research which may be carried on at Washington by resident and visiting students and scholars: which in American history, political and social science, public administration, jurisprudence and international law is likely to make Washington its center, and which, under the auspices of the Washington Memorial Institution—that new project for post graduate study involving the use of the scientific collections and scientific experts at Washington—is likely to be organized in various branches of the natural and physical sciences as well. But this should not be the limit. There should be possible also a service to the country at large: a service to be extended through the libraries which are the local centers of research involving the use of books. That claim may be made. Now what at Washington might be useful to these libraries?
(A lively imagination is not requisite.) Suppose there could be a collection of books universal in scope, as no local library with limited funds and limited space can hope to be: a collection that shall contain also particularly (1) original sources, (2) works of high importance for occasional reference, but whose cost to procure and maintain precludes their acquisition by a local library pressed to secure the material of ordinary and constant need, and (3) the "useless" books; books not costly to acquire, but of so little general concern as not to justify cataloging, space and care in each local library if only they are known to be preserved and accessible somewhere.
Such a collection must include also the general mass of books sought and held by local libraries—the books for the ordinary reader; the daily tools of research. Its maintenance will involve processes—of classification and cataloging—highly costly. Suppose the results of these processes could be made generally available, so as to save duplication of such expenditure upon identical material held by local libraries?
A collection universal in scope will afford opportunity for bibliographic work not equalled elsewhere. Such work centered there might advance the general interest with the least aggregate effort. The adequate interpretation of such a collection will involve the maintenance of a corps of specialists. Suppose these specialists could be available to answer inquiries from all parts of the country as to what material exists on any particular subject, where it is, how it may be had, how most effectively it may be used?
There are special collections already existent in various localities in the United States and likely to come into being through special local advantage or incentive, or the interest of private collectors, or private endowment—which cannot be duplicated at Washington. Suppose there could be at Washington a bibliographic statement of that which is peculiar to each of these collections; in brief, a catalog of the books in the United States—not of every library, not of every copy of every book, but of every book available for an investigator?
There are various bibliographic undertakings which may be co-operative. Suppose there could be at Washington a central bureau—with approved methods, standard forms, adequate editorial capacity, and liberal facilities for publication—which could organize and co-ordinate this work among the libraries of the United States and represent them in such of it as—like the new Royal Society index—is to be international?
There is the exchange of material duplicated in one library, needed by another. Suppose there could be at Washington a bureau which would serve as a clearing house for miscellaneous duplicates as the Bureau of Documents serves for documents? It might accomplish much without handling a single article; it might, like a clearing house proper as it were, set debit against credit, i. e., compare the deficiencies in one library with the surplus in another and communicate the results to the institutions interested. It might do this upon slip lists sent in by each—of duplicates and of particular deficiencies—in sets, for instance. One of my associates has been guilty of this very suggestion. It is likely to bring something upon his head. He may have his choice between live coals and the ashes of repentance.
Now those are some of the things which might be asserted as the duty of Washington to the country at large. I have touched them as lightly as possible: but there they are. And we may not be able to avoid them. Nay, we seem to be drifting toward them. To some of them we are apparently already committed.
There is the building: that in itself seems to commit us. There is equipment. There are books. As regards any national service the federal libraries should be one library. They contain nearly two million volumes. The Library of Congress contains net some 700,000 books and a half million other items. It has for increase (1) deposits under the copyright law, (2) documents acquired through distribution of the federal documents placed at its disposal for exchange—formerly 50 copies of each, now 100, (3) books and society publications acquired by the Smithsonian through its exchanges, (4) miscellaneous gifts and exchanges, and, (5) purchases from appropriations. These have increased from $10,000 a year prior to 1897 to $70,000 for the year 1901-2.
Such resources are by no means omnipotent. No resources can make absolutely comprehensive a library starting its deliberate accumulations at the end of the 19th century. Too much material has already been absorbed into collections from which it will never emerge.