The Library and Society: Reprints of Papers and Addresses

by Unknown

This condition is, however, not that of most of the libraries which are represented here. Our incomes are none too large for the work which we must necessarily do for the general public. Such libraries must ordinarily content themselves with offering to men opportunities for reading without special guidance in the use of books. This work has been attempted in a good many of the smaller libraries. They attempt to provide masculine conditions for reading and reading material which will appeal to men. The first includes a well-furnished, comfortable room for men, where a man can come in his working clothes without feeling he is out of place; smoking may be allowed or not—both plans are tried without great difference in apparent result. The masculine reading comprises newspapers and magazines; good books of literature which can be left in the room (paper bound copies suggested); most important of all are trade journals; if possible, files of the recent volumes of these journals, selected according to the industries of each town; and the most readable and most recent reference books on similar subjects. In a word, a room is furnished with reading which will appeal to the classes of men who do not ordinarily use libraries and who are not greatly interested in literature.

This plan is good one and ought to be tried, but I believe the conditions are exceptional under which it will reach large numbers of men. Inertia and habit will keep most of them away from the library. They will see the daily papers at their wonted places of resort, and the room, necessarily lacking in much of the freedom of the club, will fail to attract very many of them. They will not form the habit of visiting it, even though they might enjoy it if the habit were formed. It must also be remembered that increasing numbers of the manufacturing concerns are providing their employees with reading of this kind, and thus limiting the use of the city library.

In some libraries the attempt to reach men has gone still further and has led to an inclusion of attractions which are ordinarily regarded as outside the work of a library. They have attempted to combine to some degree the privileges of a club with that of the public library. The Stevens Point Library has a club room, equipped with billiard tables, cards, etc., as well as with technical journals and similar books. This, the librarian reports, is very successful in attracting boys, many of whom learn to use the library. Men, however, do not come in large numbers, as they do not care to use a place frequented by boys, and in which smoking is not permitted. At Wausaukee a special room with games and where lunch is served has been established at the library as a means of furnishing a sort of club room for lumber men who come to the village, especially on Sunday, and who have no other place of resort, except the saloon. How far such methods are advisable as a part of library work is a question which will often be asked during the coming years and which only experience can answer. At present such enterprises have not gone beyond the stage of early experiment.

Summing up the result, I would frankly confess that the reports which I have received are not numerous enough for a positive judgment, yet it is my impression that where there is an income large enough to provide a special librarian and a public large enough to warrant the expense, this movement for special libraries for men is likely to succeed. It seems also to be true that where the library provides the men with the opportunity for reading only, and does not furnish guidance for readers, no very large use is made of technical books and there is no greatly increased use of the library in general. How to guide the reading seems, therefore, to be the central factor in the solution of the problem.

In a small town a special librarian is impossible, for financial reasons, but there, as well as in large cities, lectures can be given which deal with practical subjects and the aid to their knowledge which the library affords. Many cities are giving such courses of lectures, notably perhaps New York, and with considerable effect on the use of the public library. I have no statistics regarding such lectures from the various cities, but undoubtedly this method offers the easiest plan for extending the use of the library in smaller cities and towns. I say the easiest, and it will not be difficult to secure good lectures on literature, history, or art, but lectures on the practical subjects are much more difficult to obtain, since it is hard to secure lecturers who know more about the trades than do the craftsmen who constitute the audience.

If these movements are to succeed, they must not be attempted in an amateurish way. They must be well planned and well executed—planned and executed with careful reference to the wants of the men of the community. Above all, they must be persistently carried out with full vigor year after year, even though results are apparently small. Their purpose must be steadfastly maintained and the methods of execution continually readjusted, as success or failure indicates. It is no light or easy thing to change the habits of half the adult members of the community—to cultivate the reading habit in those who have reached maturity without acquiring it—and the work which the library proposes for itself involves such a task.

If men are to be reached at all it must be on a business basis, not on that of occasional effort. Nor must the missionary spirit prevail, for men, as a rule, do not wish to be reformed or to be helped. They must find in the library a place which appeals to their sense of comfort and which gives them things that they want, or, like other sensible people, they will not use it.

One word in closing this topic, and that in emphasis of what I have already said. It is easier to keep a boy reading as he grows up than to catch him again as a man after the library has lost him. Take a lesson from the church. The boy who graduates from Sunday-school rarely returns for a post-graduate course. In the wise administration of the work for children and youth lies the main hope not of reaching, but keeping men in the library.

But it should be definitely understood that this enlargement of library work which the times are forcing upon us means increasing expense, more room, more books—which must be more frequently renewed—and a larger library staff. It means the attempt to do efficiently several lines of intellectual work for the public instead of purveying literature for those who desire it. This new work the library can readily accomplish, but not with the staff which was sufficient for the old duties. Any library can provide, for example, the list of desiderata mentioned in the Independent's article, which could easily be extended. They can all be furnished by the library as the public wants them and will pay for them. They cannot be, and ought not to be, supplied by an already overworked library staff of two or three persons.