Most book auction houses in this country are obliged to call in the services of an interpreter when a book in other than the English or French language is to be catalogued, but in Europe the force employed is, as a rule, equal to all emergencies. To illustrate the variety of demand made upon the modern auctioneer, in this line, it may be stated that the establishment with which the writer is connected, can catalogue items in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish; in fact, nearly all of the European, and some of the Oriental Languages, without calling upon outside help.
A book auctioneer would find it as impossible to properly handle books without the use of a suitable reference library, as for a carpenter to work without tools. In a live, up-to-date auction house, every bibliographical work of real value not already possessed is secured when found in the open markets, and consulted frequently. These collections often represent an expenditure of thousands of dollars. Some single works call for the outlay of hundreds, but they are essential for the use of the expert cataloguer.
The labor involved in handling books in connection with their sale at auction is very heavy. Supposing that a library of, say, five thousand volumes is offered for sale. It is packed by the owner, or under his directions, and is forwarded to the auctioneer. The boxes are opened and the contents placed in a special compartment. They are then catalogued, each item being separately handled. Another clerk then arranges them for exhibition on the shelves, where they remain until the time of sale. During the sale, they are again exhibited, and handled, and after it are laid aside in groups, according to their newly acquired ownership. When shipment is made the following day, or later, another handling is required. No scheme can be devised that will admit of less than four handlings of the entire lot. When we consider that in some establishments nearly a million separate items are received and sold each season, some idea may be formed of the labor involved.
The auctioneer has been obliged to either adapt his business to modern conditions, even though it entails heavy expense and added burdens, or take a rear place in the procession. Business cannot be transacted now as it was even five years ago, though many attempt to do it by the antiquated methods of the times "befo' de war." More books are sold by auction each successive year; and with the wonderful progress being made in the literary development of this great country, it is likely that the auctioneer will become in the near future an even more important factor in the formation and dissemination of libraries than ever before.
The following extract from a magazine article on "The Book Auction," written years ago by Joel Benton, may be deemed a fitting conclusion. He said:—
"In no one place are there so many eager patrons of the book auction as in New York. Here are men who can give thousands of dollars for a single book, if they choose, and add it to an already extremely valuable collection.
"It is pleasant to see these men and their representatives sitting in the auction room, and poring, over their catalogues. There are times when they must not be disturbed, or spoken to. Great issues depend upon their utmost attention. Not Izaak Walton, the many rare editions of whose one great book they rapturously fish for, ever fished more intently for trout and grayling than they for the beauties of thought and of the printer's art.
"No idyls of the brook call your chronic book buyer to bask in green meadows, and under cerulean skies while the auction season lasts. The pine floor, the gaslight, and the voice of the auctioneer hold him. His house may overflow with thousands of unshelved volumes. Naught cares he. It is not because he is short of reading that he buys. It is because he is drawn by that fascinating, never-to-be-accounted-for, and inexpressible ardor of the pursuit. I have a friend who says he would rather attend a book auction than spend an evening with the President, or with our greatest general, or with a literary lion like Tennyson or Browning."[Back to Contents]
SELECTING FOR A PUBLIC LIBRARY
By Arthur E. Bostwick
In selecting books for a public library, the two things generally taken into account are the public desire and the public need. The different values attached to each of these two factors may be said to determine the policy of the library in book-buying. The extreme cases, where full force is given to one factor while the other is entirely disregarded, do not, of course, exist. Libraries do not purchase every book that is asked for, without considering whether such purchases are right and proper. Nor do they, on the other hand, disregard popular demand altogether and purchase from a list made up solely with regard to what the community ought to read rather than what it wants to read. Between these two extremes, however, there may be an indefinite number of means. A librarian may, for instance, purchase chiefly books in general demand, exercising judgment in disregarding such requests as he may deem improper. Or he may buy chiefly those books that in his opinion should be read in his community, listening to the voice of the public only when it becomes importunate. Several considerations may have part in influencing his course in this regard. In the first place, a library with plenty of money at command may in a measure follow both plans; in other words, it may buy not only all the good books that the public wants to read, but those also that it should read. The more limited the appropriation for book purchase, the more pressing becomes the need that the librarian should decide on a precise policy. Again, a library whose books are for general circulation would naturally give more heed to popular demand than a reference library used chiefly by students. Further, an endowed institution, not dependent on public support, could afford to disregard the public wishes to an extent impossible in the case of a library whose expenses are paid by the municipality from the proceeds of taxation. Above and beyond all these considerations, the personal equation comes in, sometimes very powerfully. It often seems as if some library authorities regard popular favor as an actual mark of discredit, while others look upon it almost as a condition precedent to purchase. Take, as an example, the so-called "fiction question," over which most libraries, and some of their patrons, are at present more or less exercised. There can be no doubt of the popular regard for this form of literature, especially for the current novel or romance. Some libraries would sternly discourage this preference and refuse to purchase fiction less than one year old, while others do not hesitate to buy, within the limits of their purses, all such books as would be likely to interest or entertain the average reader of taste and intelligence. The views of the selector regarding the relative importance of the library's duties as an educator and an entertainer must also affect his views.