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LIBRARY 



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The person charging this material is re- 
sponsible for its return to the library from 
which it was withdrawn on or before the 
Latest Date stamped below. 

Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons 
for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from 
the University. 
To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 



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PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS 



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OF THE 

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TWENTY-EIGHTH GENERAL MEETING 



OF THE 



AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 



HELD AT 



NARRAQANSETT PIER, R. I. 

JUNE 29-JuLY 6 
I9O6 



PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 

1906 



CONTENTS 



TITLE 

Address of the President: One phase of library de- 
velopment 

Library progress in Rhode Island 

The library as a factor in modern civilization . . 

Subjects fit for fiction 

The librarian of the desert 

The relation of libraries to municipal government . 

The public library as a municipal institution, from 
the administrative standpoint 

The song of the library staff 

The basis of taxation for public libraries, .... 

The whole duty of a library trustee, from a libra- 
rian's standpoint 

The ideal relations between trustees and librarian... 

The need of an A. L. A.- collection of plans of li- 
brary buildings 

Design and construction of branch library buildings . 

Library architecture from the librarian's point of 
view 

Library buildings and book stacks 

The views of a consulting architect 

The new library building of Mount Holyoke College. 

The library in relation to special classes of readers: 

Books for the foreign population ... I. 

" " " " .... II. 

" " " ... III. 

Supply and use of technical books 

Use of industrial collections at Providence Pub- 
lic Library. . 

Books for the blind 

Libraries in relation to settlement work . . . 

Some methods of library advertising 

Report on library work with children 

Ihe children's library a moral force 

The problem of the girl 

The beginnings of a literature for children . . . . 

Subject headings in dictionary catalogs 

Subject headings for state documents 

Common sense in cataloging small libraries . . . 

Report of the Committee on Bookbinding .... 

Report of the Committee on Public Documents . . 

Report of the Committee on Library Administration . 

Report of the A. L. A. Publishing Board .... 

Report on gifts and bequests. Jan. i-Dec. 31, 1905 . 

Report of the Committee on Library Training . . 

Proceedings 178-232 

First Session 178-194 

Secretary's report 

Treasurer's report and necrology . . . 
Report of Trustees of Endowment Fund. 
Report of Committee on Bookbuying . 
Report of Committee on Title-pages and 

Indexes to Periodicals 

Author's Readings 

Second Session 195-203 

Amendments to constitution .... 203 

Effect of earthquake and fire on San 

Francisco libraries. C. S. Greene . 

.Fourth Session 

Report of Committee on Prose Fiction 

Address of Gov. Utter 

Report of Committee on Ways and 

Means 

Report of Committee on Publicity . . 
Advance printing of conference papers . 
Report of Committee on A. L. A. exhibit 

at Jamestown 218 

Fifth Session 219-223 

Report of Committee on International 

Relations 221 



AUTHOR 



PAGE 



Frank P. Hill 3 

H. L. Koopman 10 

W. H. P. Faunae 18 

Owen Wister . . 20 



H. L. Koopman 25 

David L. Boody 28 



H. G. Wadlin . 
Sam Walter Foss 
J. H. Canfield . 



30 

35 

56 



A. E. Bostwick 40 

Melvil Dewey 44 

C. C. Soule 45 

R. F. Almirall 46 

W H. Brett 49 

Bernard R. Green 52 

A. D. F. Hamlin 57 

Bertha E. Blakely 62 

/. H. Canfield 65 

A. E. Bostwick 67 

J. Maud Campbell 70 

H. W. Cravtr 72 



Ethel Garvin . . 
Emma R. Ncisser 



185 
190 
192 

J93 
194 



204 

207-219 
207 



210 
214 
2l6 



Cora Stewart 

P. B. Wright 

Arabelle H. Jackson 

Clara W. Hunt 

Lutie E. Stearns 

Caroline Burnite 

W. W. Bishop 

Adelaide R. Hasse 

Agnes Van Valkenburgh 

G. F. Bowerman 

Adelaide R. Hasse 

W. R. Eastman 

W. C. Lane 

Drew B. Hall 

Mary W. Plummer 

Sixth Session 223 

Permanent headquarters 

Election of officers . 

Books for the blind 

Technological books 

Settlement work 

Report of Committee on Resolutions . 

College and Reference Section 233 

Catalog Section 236 

Trustees' Section 239 

Children's Librarians' Section 242 

Small Libraries: Round Table Meetings . . 247 
Proprietary Libraries: Round Tab!e Meetings. 268 
Transactions of Council and Executive Board 276 

League of Library Commissions 

National Association of State Libraries . . 
Bibliographical Society of America .... 
Narragansett to Nantucket: Conference days 

and Post-conference trip 

Officers and Committees 

Attendance register 

Attendance summaries . 



78 
82 

86 
89 
97 

103 

T07 

113 
123 
127 
130 

140 

146 

154 
159 
175 
-232 

223 
224 
224 
230 
231 
232 
235 
239 
242 

247 
267 
275 
28l 
282 
284 
284 

285 
290 
291 
34 



CONFERENCE OF LIBRARIANS 

NARRAGANSETT PIER, R. I. 

JUNE 29-JULY 6, 1906 

^ 

/ 

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT: ONE PHASE OF LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT 



BY FRANK PIERCE HILL, Chief Librarian of Brooklyn (N. Y.) Public Library 






*T*HE problems which confront librarians 
appear in a kaleidoscopic arrangement, 
year after year, in new relations to each other. 
Fixing our a'icntion upon them at these an- 
nual conferences we find that by the shifting 
of time certain topics which in previous years 
received our consideration have been moved 
aside, and form a background, as it were, for 
that particular phase of library development 
or economy which, for the time being, has as- 
sumed the most prominent position among the 
subjects demanding attention. 

The presidents of the American Library 
Association have represented different kinds 
of libraries subscription, proprietary, uni- 
versity, public. This year, speaking for the 
large public library, I wish to present one 
effect of their growth and some of the con- 
tributing causes. I shall hope to show how 
the expansion of the public library system has 
imposed new duties upon the librarian, in- 
'Creased his responsibilities and made it neces- 
sary for him, in the organization and conduct 
of his library, to follow the methods of the 
business world. 

This is a subject which should appeal to 
librarians of all public libraries regardless of 
their size, for it is true that the librarian of 
the small library is called upon to meet, only 
in a less degree, the same problems that con- 
front the librarian of the large library. 

Times have indeed changed. There are 
those who claim that the old style librarian 
who knew books has disappeared and his 
place has been taken by the modern librarian, 
who acts as the executive officer of the insti- 
tution. Such critics sigh for the library of old, 
with its musty tomes and its air of seclusion 
and repose; they long for the return of the 
librarian with his quiet, dignified, studious 



air, and they resent the change to the utmost. 
There is some foundation for this criticism. 
Since that body of enthusiastic, tireless, in- 
domitable workers founded the American Li- 
brary Association in Philadelphia, in 1876, 
and adopted as their motto, "The best reading, 
for the largest number, at the least cost," a 
new kind of librarian has appeared. He is 
no better than the old; but he is different. 
We believe that the difference is due to the 
effort to live up to the principle embodied in 
the motto of the association. 

The librarian of a generation or more ago 
had many advantages over his successor. He 
was always with and among his books, his 
desk was in the midst of them, and his work 
directly in touch with them. He had little to 
do with the details of the management of the 
library. In those days the initiative in all 
progressive schemes was taken by the board 
of trustees or committees of the board, and it 
usually happened that a policy would be 
adopted, or action taken without consultation 
with the librarian. In some libraries, even in 
large cities, the librarian did not attend the 
board or committee meetings. He was merely 
a "keeper of books," and being thus permitted 
to pursue his studious ways, his character and 
mind were enriched from his long and inti- 
mate association with books, and he became, 
as some one has described him, "a living 
catalog and a walking encyclopedia." 

The modern librarian, from the standpoint 
of personal gain, has undoubtedly lost much 
of the joy of being a librarian. He has a 
private office away from the collection, or he 
may be unfortunate enough to have his office 
altogether outside of the library building 
where the good smell of old books never 
reaches him. That man deserves pity. So 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



situated, he is likely to get out of sympathy 
with the needs of the public whom he is try- 
ing to serve. 

The present-day librarian has taken on 
duties formerly borne by the trustees, and 
through force of circumstances rather than 
inclination, he is obliged to devote much of 
his time and attention to the business man- 
agement of the institution. 

The increase in the appropriations made to 
libraries, and the amount of work which an 
up-to-date library is expected to perform, 
have made it necessary for a librarian to be- 
come more of a business manager than his 
predecessor. He must see that the income of 
the library is wisely and economically ex- 
pended, and that the needs of the institution 
are so represented to trustees and the city 
officials as to secure sufficient money to carry 
on the work. He must keep in contact with 
the busy workers and professional men of 
the community, so that he may be prompt in 
seizing every opportunity for extending the 
usefulness of the library. 

Trustees have realized that better results 
are obtained when the librarian is really the 
active executive head. They expect him to 
make recommendations, and after they, as a 
legislative body, have accepted and adopted 
them, to see that they are carried into execu- 
tion. 

The spirit of expansion and progress which 
has characterized the age has been caught by 
the library profession. By the formation of 
the American Library Association the libra- 
rians who constituted that association were 
banded together for aggressive work, and it 
is because of the unity of their action and the 
earnestness of their purpose that so much has 
been accomplished in the short space of thirty 
years. As a result of the interchange of ideas 
which these conferences have encouraged, 
those who have been most progressive in the 
profession have been able to influence their 
more conservative co-workers to reach out 
and extend their field of operation. Experi- 
ments tried in one place with success have 
been adopted elsewhere. 

We have worked to secure the establish- 
ment of libraries upon a sound basis. Laws 



providing for their maintenance have beers 
enacted in one state after another. Organ- 
ized aid for towns and cities wishing to es- 
tablish libraries has been provided. The ar- 
ranging and cataloging of books has become 
a science. 

All of these things and many others the- 
American Library Association has accom- 
plished through committees and individuals.. 
"The library movement," says a recent re- 
port, "has now reached a stage in its devel- 
opment at which it would seem that present 
methods may be modified, with great gain in- 
efficiency, and a relatively diminished ex- 
penditure." The early workers in the modern' 
library movement saw the desirability of a 
unification of library interests and methods,, 
and did all they could to secure that end. 

Before much more can be done, organiza- 
tion must extend to the association itself. It 
is to be hoped that the American Library As- 
sociation committee on ways and means will 
report such a sum of money on hand for the 
purpose of establishing permanent headquar- 
ters as will justify the Association in making 
a start in this direction, even if it be of the 
humblest character. 

In these days system and organization are 
indispensable in library management. The 
labor saving devices which have been invented' 
for the modern man of affairs have not result- 
ed in giving him more leisure, but have been< 
designed to make it possible for him to accom- 
plish more work in a given time. The libra- 
rian has studied business methods only that 
he, like the business man, may save time in 
one direction to expend it in another. The- 
library which is not well organized will meet 
the same fate as the commercial house which 
has an incompetent head. 

Not only libraries, but other educational in- 
stitutions and systems have been established 
on such a large scale that it has been necessary 
to adopt modern methods so that the best re- 
sults and the most economic administration 
might be secured. What is said of the college- 
or university applies with equal force to the 
public library, that for their successful ad- 
ministration the scholar is not so much needed! 
as the man of practical ability. 



HILL 



We are following in the footsteps of the 
development of the school system, with which 
our growth may very well be compared. 

Although the truism that "knowledge is 
power" had been accepted by people of all 
ages and all stages of progress, it was long 
before the belief developed that even the 
common people might be educated, and that 
the safety of the nation would depend upon 
the intelligence, not of the few, but of the 
whole community. The rapid spread of this 
idea and the results which followed the quick- 
ening of the minds of the common people is 
one of the most interesting pages from the 
history of the civilization of man. But even 
after this wonderful awakening of the people 
to the realization of their power it was some 
time before it was admitted that it was the 
duty of the state to educate the young and 
prepare them for their responsibilities as citi- 
zens, and further, that all the people should 
be taxed to support this work. As soon as 
the need of general education was fully un- 
derstood, and after the people of the country 
had declared that "schools and means of edu- 
cation shall forever be encouraged," it is not 
surprising that the conception of what consti- 
tuted education should expand. In this coun- 
try the public schools at first provided only 
the most elementary instruction, while stu- 
dents who wished academic or college train- 
ing must procure it at their own expense. It 
was not until the middle of the igth century 
that Horace Mann began to urge the neces- 
sity for free high schools. The establishment 
of these schools was rapid. Then followed 
the state university for higher education. The 
library has practically followed the same 
lines. Although libraries had been estab- 
lished in America by the colonists, they were 
in most instances accessible only to subscrib- 
ers, members of certain societies or a limited 
number in the community. As the high school 
and state university were the outgrowth of 
the academy and college, so the public library, 
maintained at public expense, has been the 
natural outcome of the subscription and pro- 
prietary library. The state thus assumed the 
responsibility of providing public libraries as 
an additional means for the education of its 
people. 



For the first time in the history of the 
American Library Association we have with 
us the president of the National Educational 
Association, and others who are directly in- 
terested in the work of the schools with the 
libraries. We bid them a hearty welcome, 
and express the hope that the result of the 
joint session which is to be held on Monday 
morning may be of lasting benefit to both 
associations. 

Without anticipating the work of that day, 
it seems peculiarly fitting at this point to con- 
sider briefly the relations which the schools 
and libraries should bear towards each other. 

The public library must acknowledge its in- 
debtedness to the public schools, first, be- 
cause the latter have paved the way for the 
former, and made possible the rapid growth 
and development of the library movement in 
this country, and second, because librarians 
as co-workers in the great cause of education 
can learn so much from the example and ex- 
perience of the public school. 

One of the most important questions for 
school and library authorities to agree upon 
relates to the purchase and distribution of 
books not directly connected with the school 
studies. 

In some cities the board of education by 
supplying to the pupils of the schools books 
for home circulation is undertaking a work 
which properly belongs to the public library; 
while in other cities the books to be used in 
this way are furnished by the public library 
even though distributed through the public 
schools. The latter seems to be the proper 
division. The library has been established to 
furnish books for home reading for people of 
all ages. Would it not be a fair apportion- 
ment for the board of education to supply in 
addition to text books reference books and re- 
quired supplementary reading, and the library 
books intended merely for circulation? 

It is contrary to our ideas of political econ- 
omy that two departments deriving their in- 
come from the same source' should attempt to 
do the same work. Libraries might just as 
fairly start kindergartens, and ask for money 
from the city to support them, as for the 
board of education to buy, control, and dis- 
tribute books for circulation among pupils 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



without any co-operation with the local li- 
brary. 

Dr. Harper, in "The trend of higher edu- 
cation," says: "It is pitiable to find that many 
graduates of our best colleges are unable in 
taking up the more advanced work in divinity 
or any graduate courses to make good use of 
books. They can find nothing; do not know 
how to proceed to find anything. No more 
important, no more useful training can be 
given men in college than that which relates 
to the use of books." If this is true of the 
college graduate, how much truer it must be 
of the man whose school life has not extended 
beyond the grammar or the high school. 

A recent article in one of the magazines has 
deplored the fact that public libraries are so 
infrequently used by men. Dr. E. A. Birge, 
in an article which appears in the May Li- 
brary Journal, deals in detail with this subject. 
Is it strange that if a man who has had the 
advantages of what we term the higher edu- 
cation has failed to appreciate the value of 
books as tools, the artisan or mechanic 
should be slow in discovering their value in 
his work? Isn't this an opportunity for the 
closest co-operation between the schools and 
the library, and does it not emphasize the 
necessity of training children at an early age 
to use books? 

At a recent meeting held in behalf of tech- 
nical and industrial education, Prof. Charles 
R. Richards said: "When we face the ques- 
tion of training the actual hand workers in 
any industry, we face the problem of gaining 
time for instruction for those who cannot 
afford to be without means of support for any 
great length of time beyond the compulsory 
school age. Any real solution must consist 
in reconciliation between these two elements 
of instruction and support." 

The public library cannot give the boy or 
man the instruction he desires, but it can give 
him books from which he may gain for him- 
self, if he has the perseverance, the knowledge 
he covets. Men who seldom use the library 
are slow to take advantage of what the library 
offers. In fact unless natural students they 
are not likely to turn to the library for help. 
We believe that the boys who to-day use our 



children's rooms with such a feeling of per- 
sonal ownership and pride will, as the men 
of to-morrow, be the most loyal supporters of 
the library and the most appreciative patrons. 

The public library has been called "the peo- 
ple's university." It was supposed to take 
up the work of education where the schools 
left off. The establishment of children's 
rooms in the public libraries has made neces- 
sary a modification of this statement. Edu- 
cators are coming to realize that the library is 
not only a supplement to but an adjunct of the 
public school. 

One difference between the school work and 
library work is this that up to a certain age 
school attendance is made compulsory, while 
from the very beginning the library merely 
invites the child to come within its doors. 
The aim of the library is to lead the child so 
that he may gradually form not only the read- 
ing habit, but the library habit, and continue 
the use of books after he leaves school. 

The importance of work with children in 
the immediate future is even greater than 
that with adults, because those of us who 
have had experience know how difficult it is 
to direct the adult to any line of study. The 
child and the youth, on the other hand, may 
be taken at an age when they can be guided 
and directed until they become men and 
women. After such a training, the child who 
becomes a mechanic, an artisan, a clerk, a 
manufacturer or student in a learned profes- 
sion, knows how to use the tools at his hand 
in the most satisfactory way. If the best re- 
sults are to be obtained it is essential that the 
public school and the public library the two 
great factors in the educational work of the 
city shall work in the utmost harmony. 
The adjustment of matters pertaining to the 
relations of the schools and library requires 
tact and judgment on the part of the repre- 
sentatives of both systems. 

To return to the comparison of the develop- 
ment of the two systems. 

Step by step the requirements for the 
school teacher have increased, until no one is 
eligible for appointment in the public schools 
who does not have a diploma from a training 
school for teachers. To-day a similar prep- 



HILL 



aration is essential for the library assistant, 
and the day is not far distant when no library 
will accept as an assistant one who has not 
made a special study of library economy in a 
recognized school. 

By the development of branch systems the 
administrative duties of the librarian, like 
those of the school superintendent, have be- 
come more arduous and complex. Instead of 
one building, for example, to look after, he 
has many often at great distances from 
each other. Their equipment and manage- 
ment demand much care and thought. Differ- 
ent sections of the same city may have dif- 
ferent needs. These must be carefully con- 
sidered so that the library may not fail in its 
mission, and yet so that one section may not 
be favored above another. 

As the time when one school was sufficient 
to meet the demands of the town has passed, 
so it is rapidly approaching when not only 
each town and city will have a public library 
supported by taxation, but each city of con- 
siderable size will have libraries in different 
sections. It will no more think of compelling 
all of its inhabitants to go to one central point 
for books, than of compelling all of the chil- 
dren of school age to go to one school. Dur- 
ing the past ten years the number of. branch 
systems has steadily increased and we do not 
see the end. 

The chief librarian, like the school superin- 
tendent, finds as his system grows that it will 
be necessary for him to sub-divide his work 
in order that he may be freed from too close 
attention to details and may be enabled to 
view and direct the -work of the system as a 
whole. 

Methods of work which are unquestionably 
good in a small library, under one roof, may 
be wasteful if carried on in twenty or more 
branches of a system. The librarian, like the 
business man, must constantly ask the ques- 
tion, "Does the result justify the expense in- 
volved?" and if he finds that it does not, 
the work must be simplified. 

This question of expense, however, is one 
which is not always understood especially 
by city officials. A word on this subject may 
not be out of place. 



Some one has said that "Between the reader 
and the book stands the librarian, and the 
librarian is more the friend of the book than 
of the reader." Such a comment causes us to 
pause and ask if we are paying too much at- 
tention to the book and too little to the reader. 
It is generally thought that the cost of cata- 
loging books, circulating them, and maintain- 
ing the library is too great in comparison with 
the cost of the books themselves, or, to put it 
in another way, that the amount appropriated 
for books is not in proportion to the total 
amount of the library appropriation. Possibly 
there has been too great a tendency toward 
details in certain directions, but it should be 
remembered that the cost of a library is more 
like that of the school system, and entirely 
different from a commercial venture. Take, 
for instance, the bookstore and newspaper. 
The first outlay is the principal item. The 
newspaper receives its income from advertise- 
ments and from circulation the bookstore 
from profits on the sale of books. The library, 
on the other hand, has no income to depend 
upon except the appropriation which is given 
it by the city, or the interest on its endow- 
ment. In a word, it uses its capital for edu- 
cational purposes, and no financial return is 
expected. 

By outsiders the cost of cataloging is con- 
sidered out of all proportion to the cost of 
the book. A student was once asked by a 
schoolmaster: "With what feelings ought we 
to regard the Decalogue?" The answer came 
from one who had no very clear idea of 
what was meant by the Decalogue, but who 
had a due sense both of the occasion and of 
the question "Master, with feelings of de- 
votion mingled with awe." Too many of us 
assume this attitude of devotion toward the 
catalog, and seem to feel justified in expend- 
ing any amount of money by going into the 
most elaborate details. Possibly the pendu- 
lum has swung too far in the direction of de- 
tails, but there are healthy indications of its 
coming back in the direction of less elaborate 
methods. This may be attributed in a large 
measure to the work which the Library of 
Congress has done in printing and distribut- 
ing catalog cards. 



8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Another indication of economy is the lim- 
itation of the size of branch buildings. The 
value of books at a branch is not in the num- 
ber of volumes on the shelves, but in their 
usefulness. As a general thing a branch is 
built with a limited capadity, without any 
provision for future growth, the consensus 
of opinion being that a branch should contain 
not more than 25,000 volumes of live, active 
books. 

Dr. Charles W. Eliot, at the Magnolia con- 
ference, drew the attention of librarians to 
the Quincy (Mass.) method of weeding out 
books seldom used, as first recommended by 
Charles Francis Adams. The necessity for 
this "weeding out" is first felt by branches. 
Librarians are giving serious consideration to 
this subject, and it is quite likely that some 
libraries will adopt the method of taking from 
the branches books which have not circulated 
for a given time say two, three or five 
years, and sending them to a storehouse 
whether that be the central library or some 
other building. 

The question of what shall be done with 
the collection at the central building is likely 
to be worked out on a modification of the plan 
suggested by President Eliot. 

A most potent factor in the changed condi- 
tions in the library world is the money, 
amounting to over $40,000,000, which Andrew 
Carnegie has given toward the erection of 
library buildings. The story of Mr. Car- 
negie's boyhood resolution, to establish free 
libraries, if wealth ever came to him, and the 
reason which prompted it, is too well known 
to need repetition. Mr. Carnegie in explain- 
ing his reason for having decided upon the 
building of libraries as the field for the dis- 
tribution of his money said : "I think it fruit- 
ful in the extreme because the library gives 
nothing for nothing, because it helps only 
those that help themselves, because it does 
not sap the foundation of manly independence, 
because it does not pauperize, because it 
stretches a hand to the aspiring and places 
a ladder upon which they can only ascend by 
doing the climbing themselves. This is not 
charity, this is not philanthropy, it is the peo- 
ple themselves helping themselves by taxing 



themselves." "It is not what I am able to 
give, but what I am able to induce others to 
give, which does the real good which I seek 
to accomplish." 

What greater good can man do? 

Only last year one of the prominent literary 
magazines said : "Carnegie would have done 
a far greater service had he put into model 
tenements or hospitals the money he has in- 
vested in libraries." Even so brilliant a man 
as District Attorney Jerome, of New York, 
denounced Mr. Carnegie's gifts in these 
words : "I for one believe that it is unwise to 
take millions from the pockets of the toilers 
down in Homestead and build useless libra- 
ries. Better forget the name of Carnegie and 
leave that money with the men who earned it, 
and make their homes happy. I believe in 
law and order, but if I lived in one of those 
miserable hovels in the iron and steel dis- 
trict and needed money for a loved one, I 
should not view the founding of these libra- 
ries with complaisance." Mr. Jerome went 
further, and said that the Carnegie libraries 
in New York City were not used and never 
could be. These are strong words from a 
gifted man, but statistics showing the use of 
the new buildings as compared with the old 
indicate that he has not investigated the sub- 
ject with legal thoroughness. We as libra- 
rians know that Mr. Carnegie's gifts have 
stimulated library endowments, library appro- 
priations, library architecture, and library ac- 
tivities all along the line. It is not for us to 
say whether the money given in this way 
could have been more wisely expended, but 
whether we as trustees have made the best 
possible use of it. 

It is probable that the community which 
provides its own building holds its head 
higher than the one which has received an 
endowment, but the fact remains that hun- 
dreds if not thousands of communities in this 
country and in the old would still be without 
public libraries to-day were it not for the 
generosity of Andrew Carnegie. 

As a consequence of the growth of library 
building, due so largely to Mr. Carnegie's 
munificence, librarians have taken up the 
study of library architecture and building 



HILL 



'construction in order that they might lay a 
solid foundation of information and knowl- 
edge for future use. 

The librarian thus grounded is prepared to 
tell why certain features are practicable and 
certain others undesirable. He is able to ren- 
der assistance to trustees in selecting a site, 
in choosing an architect, in reading plans and 
specifications, in obtaining estimates, and in 
awarding contracts. In a word, he is enabled 
to see that the interests of the library are 
properly protected on all sides. 

Every librarian has a strong, well-defined, 
and laudable desire to plan a library building 
according to his own ideas of what it should 
contain and how it should be arranged. No 
one can tell how soon he may have an oppor- 
tunity to do so, and unless he has obtained at 
least an elementary knowledge of architecture 
he cannot be certain that suggestions he may 
make are feasible and practicable. 

The interest in the subject of library archi- 
tecture has become so keen that the program 
committee has decided to devote an entire 
session to the consideration of this subject, so 
I have only touched upon it here. We hope 
that the discussions at that session will be 
suggestive, alike to those who have had con- 
siderable experience in library building, and 
those who have just begun the study of the 
subject. If as a result of this meeting, archi- 
tects and librarians can agree upon some meth- 
od by which plans can bo purchased from one 
architect and used by another we shall feel that 
the discussion has indeed been worth while. 

We have thus noted a few of the promi- 
nent causes which have called the librarian 
from his life of quiet and seclusion to take 
"his place among educators and business men. 
We have endeavored to show how the trans- 
formation of the library from a storehouse 
for books to a vital educational force in the 
community has called for a corresponding 
change in the librarian to enable him to meet 
the responsibilities which the changed con- 
ditions have placed upon him. 



But with all this modern rush and worry 
and attention to administrative details we 
must not lose sight of the fact that the library 
is an educational institution. We do not be- 
lieve that the business manager can ever sup- 
plant the scholar in the library, the school or 
the college. The ideal librarian undoubtedly 
combines the strong points of both, but such a 
combination is rarely found because the quali- 
fications of the one are, in a measure, antago- 
nistic to the other. No one man is capable, 
either physically or mentally, of meeting all the 
requirements for the successful administration 
of the library. To reach the highest degree of 
perfection the great public library must have 
not only its executive whose guiding hand will 
steer the craft through all kinds of business 
dangers, but also scholarly, studious men and 
women who know books and how to use them. 
Both are necessary to the welfare of the large 
library. The wise administrator is the one 
who. while keeping his eyes upon the needs of 
the whole system, has the ability to discover 
the specialists who are needed to round out 
the work of the library, and to place each in 
his own particular niche. 

The public library is no longer a luxury; it 
plays an important part in the making of 
good citizens. It is a's essential to the welfare 
of the nation as the public parks, public play- 
grounds and public schools. 

In the early days of the new library move- 
ment we were led by Winsor, Poole, Cutter, 
Green and Dewey. They were the pioneers, 
and as such did splendid work. We cannot do 
better than to keep close to many of their 
methods. The spirit of '76 is still abroad. 
Co-operation between libraries grows stronger 
each year. So much earnestness, zeal and 
readiness to accept new ideas as is manifested 
by the profession cannot fail to have its effect. 
We face the future with a feeling of confi- 
dence in the further development and progress 
of the library and with the belief that the ad- 
vance in the years to come will be even 
greater than in the past. 



IO 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



LIBRARY PROGRESS IN RHODE ISLAND 
By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN, Librarian Brown University, Providence, R. I. 



PUBLIC LIBRARIES 

A MONG the first settlers of Rhode Island 
were not only readers of books, but 
also writers. They were dependent, however, 
for several generations upon the presses of 
London and Boston for their printing, and 
upon private libraries for their reading mat- 
ter. The first public library in the colony was 
founded just as the seventeenth century was 
passing over into the eighteenth. It was one 
of the parochial libraries sent to America 
through the efforts of the Rev. Thomas Bray, 
and was established in Newport in 1700. It 
consisted of about a hundred volumes and as 
many pastoral letters, and was strictly relig- 
ious in character. The second Rhode Island 
library was also founded in Newport, and 
fortunately still exists to reflect honor upon 
the city and the state. In 1730, about the time 
that Franklin was organizing his famous 
Junto, which soon developed into the Phila- 
delphia Library Company, there was formed 
in Newport a literary and philosophical so- 
ciety, of which Bishop Berkeley was a mem- 
ber during his stay in America. Edward 
Scott, a granduncle of the novelist, was also 
a member of the society. In population and 
commercial importance Newport was at this 
time superior to New York, and ranked with 
Boston and Philadelphia. The books brought 
over by Berkeley for his college in the Ber- 
mudas were placed at the disposal of the so- 
ciety, but its members soon found that further 
material was necessary to furnish a basis for 
their discussions; and in 1747 the gift of 500 
pounds from Abraham Redwood for the pur- 
chase of books gave rise to the reorganization 
of the society as the Redwood Library Com- 
pany. Five thousand pounds was collected in 
subscriptions for a building, which was 
erected in 1750. In accordance with the taste 
of the age the books chosen were chiefly on 
classical and theological subjects, and such 
was the fame of the library that it attracted to 
Newport the learned Dr. Stiles, afterwards 
president of Yale College, who served for 17 
years as its librarian. It is an interesting his- 



toric fact that the attraction of the Redwood 
Library was one of the influences that early 
made Newport a favorite place of resort for 
strangers, who came even from the Carolinas 
and the West Indies. 

Three years after the Newport library had 
been established in its beautiful home, that is 
in 1753. prominent citizens of the rival, 
though less wealthy, town of Providence, in- 
spired by the example set, founded the Provi- 
dence Library Company. Five years later its 
books were destroyed by fire, but in 1768, as 
we learn from its printed catalog, the collec- 
tion numbered nearly a thousand volumes. 
The library continued to exist under varying 
fortunes until 1836, when it was incorporated 
with the Providence Athenaeum. The books 
of the company were first placed in the Town 
House, afterwards in the State House, but 
since 1838 the combined collection has occu- 
pied the beautiful ivy-clad building of the 
Athenaeum on College street. 

The next library founded in the state be- 
longed to the type that preceded all others in 
America, the college library. Rhode Island 
College was founded in 1764 in the town of 
Warren, and was removed to Providence in 
1770, when its first building was erected, the 
present University Hall, of which in 1787 
Barlow sang in his Vision of Columbus: 

"While o'er the realm reflecting solar fires, 
On yon tall hill Rhode Island's seat aspires." 

A beginning was made in the formation of 
a library as early as 1767, but the growth of 
the library, like that of the college, was slow, 
and in 1772 it contained not more than 250 
volumes. About this time several important 
gifts of books were received from England. 
But from 1776 to 1782 the college building 
was occupied for military purposes, and the 
library was removed for safe keeping to a 
neighboring town. Soon after the establish- 
ment of peace a subscription made possible 
the sending of an order to London for 1400 
volumes ; and from this time onward, through 
gifts of books and money, through the estab- 
lishment of funds, and through appropriations- 



KOOPMAN 



from the college treasury, the library has 
grown steadily, until it now numbers nearly 
150,000 volumes. As regards its dwelling 
places, the collection, like many another col- 
lege library, has been decidedly migratory. It 
first occupied a room in University Hall ; then, 
during the Rtvolution, it was exiled to Wren- 
tham, Mass. ; later, in 1835, it was removed to 
the first floor of Manning Hall; and in 1878 
it was transferred to its present building. 
But this has long been outgrown, and it is 
now waiting until the new John Hay Memo- 
rial Library shall be built for its occupancy. 

It is a striking testimony to the permanence 
of American institutions that the three public 
libraries established by the people of Rhode 
Island before the Revolution are all entering 
upon the twentieth century in vigor and use- 
fulness. At this point I will venture the 
prophecy that the proprietary library, to which 
type two of them belong, is destined not to 
disappear in competition with the free public 
library, but to come again into favor in our 
cities and larger towns during the century 
before us. For instance, in the last ten years 
the number of shareholders of the Providence 
Athenaeum has increased 10 per cent, and its 
circulation 33 per cent., with a falling off of 
13 per cent, in fiction. At least seven other 
libraries were founded in Rhode Island dur- 
ing the eighteenth century, of which the first 
is still in existence. They are trie library of 
the Friends' School, in Providence, founded 
in 1784; the Cumberland Society Library, 
1792; the Gloucester Union Library, 1794; 
the Johnston Library, 1794; the Cranston Li- 
brary Society, 1797; the Potter Library, in 
Bristol, 1798; and the Warren Library, 1798. 

After the opening of the nineteenth century 
the new libraries established within the state 
become too numerous to receive mention in 
a sketch like this. Many of them "had their 
day and ceased to be" when the first enthu- 
siasm of their founders died away. Still, of 
those that came into existence in the first half 
of the century, eight are in active condition, 
the most important being that of the Rhode 
Island Historical Society, which was founded 
in 1822. In 1840 the legislature of the state 
empowered the committee of each school dis- 
trict to appropriate ten dollars a year from 
the school funds for establishing and main- 
taining a district school library. Henry Bar- 



nard, the first school commissioner of Rhode 
Island, was active in promoting the formation; 
of these libraries. In 1867 the legislature gave 
the towns authority to establish public libra- 
ries, and. two years later it empowered two- 
towns to combine and establish a library 
jointly. In 1875 a free public library law was 
passed, which permitted any town or city to- 
levy a tax of two and a half mills on a dollar 
of valuation for the establishment of a library, 
and two-tenths of mill annually for its main- 
tenance. The board of education was at the 
same time authorized to pay for the purchase 
of books for such libraries a sum not exceed- 
ing $50 for the first 500 volumes in the library,, 
and $25 for every additional 500 volumes ; but 
the limit to any library is $500 a year. Any 
town establishing or accepting a free public- 
library is required to appropriate for its use 
at least as much as the amount received from 
the state. It is needless to say that this legis- 
lation has been the chief factor in the devel- 
opment of public libraries in the state during 
the last thirty years. 

The most important library in the state that 
has been opened since the passage of these 
laws is the Providence Public Library, which 
was first made accessible to the public in 1878. 
So great has been the influence of this library 
throughout the country as well as in Rhode 
Island that one realizes with difficulty that the 
period of its activity has been less than thirty 
years. The success of its administration has- 
been the more remarkable since until 1900 it 
was confined in utterly inadequate quarters. 
Mention should be made of the important 
work with schools carried on by this library 
from the beginning. In the Providence Pub- 
lic Library was first successfully embodied" 
the idea of a "standard library," or a collec- 
tion of the great books in the world's "litera- 
ture of power," arranged in a room of its 
own as a library of pure culture. Another li- 
brary which has exerted an influence far be- 
yond the borders of our state is the Pawtucket 
Free Library, founded in 1852 and adopted" 
as the town library in 1876. The work of this 
library was under great disadvantages of lo- 
cation until in 1902 it came into possession- 
of its new building. This library was a pio- 
neer in the development of work with schools, 
and also in the open-shelf movement. On the 
latter point, Mrs. Sanders, at the Thousand" 



12 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Islands Conference, in 1887, in giving the re- 
sult of ten years' experience at the Pawtucket 
Public Library, spoke these words : "Believing 
that the first entrance into a library should 
"bring with it that most delightful sensation, 
the companionship of books, we have at our 
own library, contrary to the custom which now 
obtains, thrown open our shelves to the pub- 
lic." At the present time there are in Rhode 
Island 89 libraries of over 1000 volumes, 
the statistics of which are appended to this 
paper. Of these libraries two have over 100,- 
oo volumes each, one has between 50,000 and 
ior,ooo, three have between 25,000 and 50,000, 
thirteen between 10,000 and 25,000, sixteen 
"between 5000 and 10,000, and fifty- four be- 
tween 1000 and 5000. 

PRIVATE LIBRARIES 

On one of the journeys which Samuel Sew- 
all, of pine-tree shilling memory, made to the 
Narragansett country, in which we are now 
met, he stopped for dinner at a Newport inn, 
and while the cloth was being laid he regaled 
"himself with reading a folio volume of Ben 
Jonson that belonged to his host. This oc- 
curred in 1706, and is a fair illustration of the 
kind of "profane literature" a phrase now 
fortunately antiquated that was to be found 
in the private libraries of the colony at that 
period. Newport undoubtedly took the lead 
of all the other towns in the number and im- 
portance of its private libraries. The inven- 
tories in various wills preserve for us the 
titles of many o-f the books imported by the 
colonists, who read all the more eagerly, and 
perhaps the more selectively, because their 
"books were necessarily few. In one Newport 
library dispersed in 1733 we find in the midst 
of much theology titles like the following: 
"Quarles's poems," "Paradise regained," 
""Samson agonistes," "Plutarch's lives," 
"Sandys' Divine poems," "Butler's Hudi- 
bras," and "Howell's Letters." Many of these 
early collections were bequeathed to the Red- 
wood Library. 

Turning to the Providence town of the 
eighteenth century, we find the Brown family 
laying the foundations of that famous collec- 
tion now known as the John Carter Brown 
Library. The earliest recorded purchase for 
this collection is that of Sewall's "Apocalyp- 
tica," made by Nicholas Brown in 1769. In 



tracing the career of that great Rhode Island 
statesman, Stephen Hopkins, we find the in- 
fluence of his grandfather's and his father's 
private libraries ; he himself began early to 
collect books, and formed a library which 
was pronounced "large and valuable for the 
time." One who knew him in his later years 
declared that "he had never known a man of 
more universal reading." Says Mr. Sidney 
S. Rider, referring to the library of Governor 
Hopkins's grandfather, which was placed at 
the disposal of the neighborhood : "In these 
early years there came from this region very 
well educated and very able men ; may we not 
reasonably infer that it was from this source 
that their learning came? They had not 
schools, they must have read these books, and 
thinking did the rest." After two hundred 
years it is still thinking that has to do the 
rest. Stephen Hopkins, it should be added, 
was one of the prime movers in founding the 
Providence Library Company. In the will of 
John Merritt, who lived in Providence from 
1750 until 1770, is given a list of 250 books 
which represent, along with the inevitable 
theology which occupied in the minds of 
our fathers the place that science and sociol- 
ogy do in ours the best English literature 
up to that date. We find in the list, for in- 
stance, the writings of Bacon, Shakespeare, 
Milton, Addison, Shaftesbury, Cowley, Gay, 
Young, Thomson, and the Restoration drama- 
tists, and the standard translations of the 
classics. The library contained also the con- 
temporary cyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, 
and maps. I venture to say that this collec- 
tion has stood the test of a century as regards 
its choice of books quite as well as our "A. 
L. A. catalog" will stand it. In the Narragan- 
sett country were notable early libraries. 
Matthew Robinson, of "Hopewell," owned a 
rich collection of English, French, and clas- 
sical literature. Some of the ancient folios 
which dignified the library of the Rev. Dr. 
MacSparren are still preserved in the neigh- 
borhood. The books of Col. Daniel Updike 
and his son, still largely in the possession of 
the family, were, as we are told, '"'marvels in 
their day, and would be treasured in any 
day." 

The private libraries of Rhode Island in the 
nineteenth century are both too numerous and 
too important to receive adequate treatment 



KOOPMAN 



here. Eight of them are described in the late 
Horatio Rogers's beautiful volume, "Private 
libraries of Providence," published in 1878. 
Of these libraries, two, those of John Carter 
Brown and Sidney S. Rider, the latter unique 
in the rarity of its material on the history of 
Rhode Island, have come intact into the pos- 
session of Brown University; of Joseph J. 
Cooke's library one half was divided among 
the principal libraries of the state ; the portion 
of C. Fiske Harris's library devoted to Amer- 
ican poetry and plays came to the university, 
the portion dealing with slavery and the Civil 
War to the Providence Public Library ; John 
R. Bartlett's library came in part to the 
Rhode Island Historical Society; those of 
Royal C. Taft and Judge Rogers remain in- 
tact. A brief sketch of the most important of 
these libraries, that of John Carter Brown, 
must suffice for all. 

This collection, which now occupies its own 
beautiful building on the campus of Brown 
University, was begun before the Revolution 
as a general library, and was so developed 
until the second quarter of the nineteenth 
century, when it came into the hands of the 
collector whose name it is forever to bear. 
Mr. Brown began by collecting specimens of 
early printing, but before long he centered 
his interest upon books relating to the history 
of North and South America printed before 
1800; and this broad subject still remains the 
specialty of the library, the department in 
which it stands without a peer. For fifty 
years Mr. Brown, as Henry Stevens said, 
"enjoyed the first pick" of 'the books, maps, 
prints, and manuscripts collected by him in 
the markets of the Old World; and Mr. 
Brown himself has asserted that in all these 
years of competition with collectors from 
every part of the world, he never lost a book 
which he had made up his mind to acquire. 
It is therefore the aim of this library to pos- 
sess every early work pertaining to the dis- 
covery, exploration, settlement, and colonial 
history of all parts of the two Americas. It 
is no exaggeration to say that it is already the 
one library in the world that must be con- 
sulted by every first-hand investigator in these 
fields ; and with its endowment of half a 
million dollars, it may be expected to main- 
tain the supremacy which it has won. The 
tooks of the John Carter Brown Library 



number about 15,000; a conservative estimate 
of their present market value is a million 
dollars. 

Dealers in second-hand books tell us that 
the ordinary home library of the twentieth 
century is below the standard that held good 
a generation ago ; but the extraordinary home 
library the rich collection cf general litera- 
ture gathered for the love of it still flour- 
ishes among us, undiminished in numbers or 
quality. We have also private collections of 
specialties, among which the cynosure is the 
wonderful Shakespearean library formed by 
Marsden J. Perry, of Providence. This col- 
lection ranks in point of rarity and value of 
its treasures easily the first among the pri- 
vate Shakespearean collections of the world, 
and is surpassed, if indeed it is surpassed at 
all, by the British Museum alone. For ex- 
ample, it has absorbed entire the Halliwell- 
Phillips Shakespeare collection. Mr. Perry 
has also, as an aside, the finest collection of 
Kelmscott books extant, consisting through- 
out of Mr. Morris's own copies. 

SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARIES 

A type of library that has for two centuries 
played an important part in supplying read- 
ing matter to the people of Rhode Island is 
the subscription or circulating library. Ap- 
parently the character of the books furnished 
has never varied greatly, except as the char- 
acter of the novel has varied from the senti- 
mental to the romantic, from the romantic to 
the realistic, from the realistic to the socio- 
logical. It was from this unfailing fount that 
the American Lydia Languishes of the eigh- 
teenth century drew "The man of feeling" 
and "Tears of sensibility," from which our 
great-grandmothers obtained "The illumin- 
ated baron" and "The magnanimous Ama- 
zon," their daughters "The false heir" and 
"Hope Leslie," our own mothers "The lamp- 
lighter" and "Ten nights in a bar room," and 
after that the deluge. During the eigh- 
teenth century plays shared with novels the 
favor of those who patronized the subscrip- 
tion libraries. These collections were appa- 
rently never the owner's only stock in trade, 
but were kept along with drygoods or even 
the miscellaneous outfit of the country store. 
An interesting example of this class of libra- 
ries is the one kept by Mr. Hammond, of 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Newport, during the earlier part of the nine- 
teenth century. For many years Proyidence 
has enjoyed the services of several subscrip- 
tion libraries. The invasion of the Book- 
lovers' Library and the Tabard Inn Library 
have produced little effect upon their rivals 
already in the field, and the old-fashioned 
subscription library bids fair to last until real 
life becomes so interesting that mankind (par- 
ticularly womankind) will no longer crave the 
stimulant of fiction. It is doubtful if we have 
ever given to this class of libraries the credit 
which they deserve. They draw off from our 
public libraries the very demand that we are 
least willing to satisfy ; and some of us would 
even say that we have no business to enter 
into competition with them in the field of pure 
entertainment, but should collect fiction sim- 
ply as a branch of literature, leaving amuse- 
ment in reading to be paid for like any other 
amusement. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The first published catalog of a Rhode 
Island library is that of the Redwood Li- 
brary issued in 1764, and representing over 
1500 volumes. The first catalog of the Prov- 
idence Library Company was printed in 1768, 
with entries of over 900 volumes. Brown Uni- 
versity, or rather Rhode Island College, comes 
next with its catalog issued in 1793, recording 
nearly 2200 volumes. These were mere short- 
title lists, of the crudest sort, in which the 
books were arranged, not by authors nor by 
subjects, but, as the custom still is in English 
auction catalogs, by sizes. In passing to the 
dignified volume which forms the Brown 
University Library catalog of 1843, we find a 
change that is not greater in size than in char- 
acter. This is an author catalog in which full 
names and sometimes brief biographical notes 
are given; before each title is its number on 
the page, and after it the shelf number; at 
the end of the volume is a subject index, with 
references to the page and the title number, 
but not always to the author. This volume 
was the work of the librarian of the univer- 
sity, Charles Coffin Jewett, afterwards libra- 
rian of the Smithsonian Institution, and later 
the superintendent of the Boston Public Li- 
brary. The Providence Athenaeum catalog 
of ten years later was a volume of almost ex- 
actly the same size, and was made on the 
same plan, except that the shelf numbers are 



omitted ; a supplement was published in 
The Redwood Library catalog of 1860 fol- 
lowed much the same plan, but its shelf sym- 
bols are combinations of letters and figures- 
and are printed at the left of the title. The 
index is a close approach to the modern sub- 
ject catalog form, except that the author's 
name follows the title, and the imprint is 
omitted. 

In 1891 the Providence Public Library- 
issued a dictionary catalog "Finding list" 
f 534 pages ; and with this volume our 
larger libraries may be said to "have passed,, 
so far as their general catalogs are concerned, 
from the rigidity of the printed page to the 
flexibility of the card system. 

The most distinguished printed catalog 
issued in Rhode Island is undoubtedly the 
"Eibliotheca Americana" of the John Carter 
Brown Library, published in 1870-1882, in 
four stately volumes, enriched with numer- 
ous facsimiles. It was printed in such a 
small edition that it has since become itself 
one of the rarest of rare books. Its com- 
piler was Hon. John Russell Bartlett, to 
whom we owe also the "Bibliography of 
Rhode Island," 1864. and the "Literature of 
the Rebellion," 1866. His successor in the 
librarianship of the John Carter Brown Li- 
brary, Mr. George Parker Winship, pub- 
lished a "Cabot bibliography" in 1900, and ha? 
issued other bibliographical works of less ex- 
tent. To Mr. Clarence Saunders Brigham,. 
librarian of the Rhode Island Historical So- 
ciety, we owe the "Bibliography, of Rhode 
Island history," appended to Field's "State 
of Rhode Island," 1902, and a "Report on the 
archives of Rhode Island," 1904. Mr. Will- 
iam Eaton Foster, librarian of the Providence 
Public Library, has written among other im- 
portant bibliographical works "The literature 
of civil service reform in the United States,"" 
1881 ; "References to the history of presiden- 
tial administrations," 1885; "References to- 
political and economic topics," 1885; and 
"References to the Constitution of the United 
States," 1800. He edited Monthly Reference- 
Lists, 1881-84, and the Monthly Bulletin of 
the Providence Public Library, 1895-98. Miss. 
Agnes C. Storer has issued "A list of publi- 
cations relating to Charles Carroll of Carroll- 
ton," 1903; Mr. Hamilton B. Tompkins, a 
"Bibliography of George Henry Calvert,"" 



KOOPMAN 



1900; Mr. J. Harry Bongartz a "Check list of 
Rhode Island laws," 1893; and Mr. Charles 
E, Hammett "Contributions to the bibliogra- 
phy and literature of Newport," 1887. Mr. 
James M. Sawin, principal of the Point Street 
Grammar School in Providence, edited 1880- 
91 twelve issues of his "Annual list of books 
for young people, with brief annotations." In 
the later years the edition published was 20,- 
ooo. Mention should also be made of the 
modest but invaluable "Index to American 
poetry and plays in the collection of C. Fiske 
Harris," 1874, and of the more ambitious 
"Anthony memorial," 1886, a catalog of the 
same collection at a later period, compiled by 
John C. Stockbridge. Three contributions to 
other departments of bibliography are: "The 
librarians' manual," 1858, by Reuben A. Guild, 
librarian of Brown University, a comprehen- 
sive work, which deals, as Mr. Fletcher un- 
kindly says, "with a primeval period in Amer- 
ican library history ;" "Libraries and readers," 
1883, by Mr. Foster, a book which the years 
have not robbed of its pertinence or its value ; 
and "The mastery of books," 1896, by the 
present librarian of the university. 

LIBRARY BUILDINGS 

Rhode Island library architecture began 
with the beautiful Doric building designed for 
the Redwood Library in 1748 by Peter Harri- 
son, assistant architect of Blenheim house; it 
lingers for the moment over the Ionic 
temple dedicated in 1904 to receive the 
John Carter Brown Library; between these 
there is much important history, and not 
a little contribution to library design. 
Manning Hall, at Brown University, the 
second home of the college library, was 
erected in 1834, and was designed to be an 
exact reproduction, doubled in size, of the 
Doric temple of Artemis Propylea at Eleusis. 
The Providence Athenaeum, another Doric 
building erected four years later, encloses 
within the sternness of its granite walls an 
interior that in genuine library charm is with- 
out a superior in America. Like its predeces- 
sors, the Athenaeum consists virtually of one 
large room divided by bookcases into alcoves, 
glorious retreats, either for browsing, for 
study, or for tete-a-tetes. In these alcoves 
Poe and Mrs. Whitman carried on their liter- 
ary courtship ; and in those of Manning Hall 



half a century ago nestled the slender student 
whose name and fame will crown the next li- 
brary of his university, the John Hay Memo- 
rial. Another early library building is that 
of the Rhode Island Historical Society, which 
was erected in 1844, an d enlarged in 1892. 

The present library building of Brown Uni- 
versity is an interesting because an extreme 
example of the old college library type. It is 
Venetian Gothic in style, and is charmingly 
adapted for its original purpose, to supply the 
casual wants of a few book-loving professors 
and students, as could easily be done in the 
hours from ten to four. But an unkind fate 
has compelled this building, with its narrow 
windows clouded by stained glass, its numer- 
ous alcoves, and its tiny reading room, to 
serve the needs of a university, with students 
crowding into its encumbered spaces at all 
hours from nine in the morning until eleven at 
night. It should be judged, however, not by 
its present inadequacy, but rather by its suc- 
cessful adaptation to needs which now seem 
archaic, but which were all that had appeared 
above the horizon thirty years ago. Many 
other libraries in the state have their own 
buildings, which are used only for library 
purposes, or for the purposes of a library and 
a museum combined. Notable examples of 
this class are the libraries at Bristol, East 
Providence, Peace Dale, Warren, and Wes- 
terly. Other libraries own their buildings, but 
derive an income from the rent of portions 
of them. The best examples of this class are 
the Harris Institute Library at Woonsocket 
and the Olneyville Free Public Library. Still 
other libraries, like those of Barrington and 
Watchemoket, have quarters assigned to them 
in the town hall, an arrangement which would 
be ideal if libraries would only stop growing. 

But there are three modern library buildings 
in the state that must not be passed over 
without particular mention. The new build- 
ing of the Providence Public Library has 
satisfactorily stood the test of six years' oc- 
cupancy. It is a pure example of the Italian 
Renaissance style of architecture, and is built 
of light Roman brick with limestone trim- 
mings. The aim in planning the building was 
to provide individual accommodations for the 
individual needs of the library; we therefore 
do not find the building composed of a few 
large rooms indicative of large and simple 



i6 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



wants, but of many rooms each adapted to 
a special use. The shelf capacity of the 
entire building is 225,000 volumes, but the 
plan admits the construction of two ad- 
ditional stack buildings. Among the feat- 
ures that should not be overlooked by the 
visitor are : the position of the delivery room 
with reference to the stack; the plan and fit- 
tings of the standard library; the relation of 
use to accessibility in the assignment of the 
rooms to the different floors ; the map room ; 
the special library rooms ; the design of the 
stack; the ventilating and dusting arrange- 
ments; and the heating plant. The Deborah 
Ccok Sayles Public Library, in Pawtucket, 
dedicated in 1902, is one of the most beautiful 
library buildings not only in Rhode Island, 
but anywhere. It is built of Maine granite 
so white as to have the appearance of marble. 
The architecture is Greek, and the main door- 
way, one of the glories of the building, is an 
exact copy of that of the Erectheion at 
Athens. A feature of the building that ar- 
rests every eye is the series of six panels de- 
signed by Laurie, which extend across the 
front, and represent the great civilizations of 
the world. The building is in the shape of a 
cross, and the simple masses of the exterior 
are indicative of the large divisions found 
upon entrance. At the junction of the cross 
is the delivery room ; to right and to left are 
the reading room and the children's room, and 
behind is the stack. These four rooms are 
all really one, being separated only by Ionic 
columns. Behind the two front rooms are 
more retired rooms for reference and admin- 
istration, and in the basement are halls and 
a newspaper room. The whole building is 
pervaded with that spirit of open shelves, of 
which its accomplished librarian is one of the 
foremost champions. One more building 
claims our attention, that of the John Carter 
Brown Library, which is the chief ornament 
of the campus of Brown University, as its 
contents are the University's richest treasure. 
The architecture is a somewhat ornate ex- 
ample of the Ionic; the material is Indiana 
limestone; the plan is a highly successful em- 
bodiment of the museum library idea. The 
interior consists of one splendid main room 
devoted to the principal subject of the col- 
lection, and provided with cases for exhibition 



purposes ; subordinate to this room are four 
small rooms devoted to minor subjects, and 
the librarian's room; in the basement is a 
bindery. The building and all its appoint- 
ments are of the most substantial character, 
and are well fitted to preserve for centuries 
the unrivalled collection which is entrusted to 
them. 

THE RHODE ISLAND LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 

Ever since the founding of the Massachu- 
setts Library Club in 1890 the librarians of 
Rhode Island have had the privilege of mem- 
bership in that body, a privilege which they 
still highly value; they have also had the 
honor of contributing to the club two presi- 
dents and four vice-presidents. While they 
would have preferred a single organization, it 
was found impossible to care for the library 
interests of Rhode Island through an organi- 
zation bearing the name of another state and 
necessarily occupied for the most part with 
the libraries of that state ; so, not in any spirit 
of secession, but simply in order to be able to 
carry out at home the purposes of the elder 
organization, the libraries of Rhode Island 
in March, 1903, formed their own association. 
The object of the association is "to promote 
the library interests of the state of Rhode 
Island." Its membership has no local limita- 
tions, and already includes librarians in Mas- 
sachusetts and New York. It usually holds 
two meetings a year, and it has held joint 
meetings with the Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut organizations. Its meetings have 
been well attended, and the discussions have 
awakened an interest which is possibly easier 
to arouse in a neighborhood organization like 
this than in a larger and more varied body. 
It is perhaps too early to expect any tangible 
results from the association's activity. But 
it has certainly made the librarians of the 
state acquainted with one another. It has 
also secured a needed revision of the rules 
under which books supplied through state aid 
are purchased by the libraries, and it has be- 
gun a system of registration of library work- 
ers, which is expected to be of benefit both 
to the persons and to the institutions con- 
cerned. It receives the hearty recognition of 
the state board of education as one of the im- 
portant educational forces of the state. 



LIBRARIES OF RHODE ISLAND 



NAME OF LIBRARY 



P o 

< Ox 



NAME OF LIBRARIAN 



Anthony ........... Free Library ................. 

Apponaug .......... Free Library ................. 

Arlington .......... Public Library ................ 

Ashaway ............ Free Library ................ 

Auburn ............. Public Library ............... 

Barrington .......... Public Library .............. 

Block Island ......... Island Free Library ........... 

Bristol ............. Rogers Free Library ........... 

Carolina ............ Public Library .............. 

Centredale .......... Union Free Library ........... 

Central Falls ........ Free Public Library ........... 

Crompton ........... Free Library ................. 

East Greenwich ....... Free Library ................. 

East Providence ...... Watchemoket Public Library... 

East Providence CentreFree Library ................. 

Edgewood ........... Free Public Library ........... 

Exeter .............. Manton Free Library .......... 

Greenville .......... Public Library ............... 

Hope ............... Hope Library ................. 

Hope Valley ......... Langworthy Public Library ---- 

Howard ............ Sockanosset Sch. Library ...... 

" ........... State Prison Library ........... 

Jamestown .......... Philomenian Library .......... 

Kingston ...... . ..... Free Library ................ 

" ........... R. I. College Library ........ . . 

Lakewood ........... Free Library ................. 

Little Compton ....... Free Public Library ........... 

Lonsdale ............ Lib. & Reading Room Asso ---- 

Manville ............ Manville Library ............. 

Matunuck ........... R. B. Hale Mem. Library ...... 

Middletown ......... Free Library ................. 

Moosup Valley ....... Tyler Free Library ............ 

Narragansett Pier ..... Free Library ................. 

Natick .............. Free Library ................. 

Newport ............ Newport Hist. Soc ............ 

" ............ Naval War College Library ---- 

" ............ People's Library .............. 

" ............ Post Library (Fort Adams) 

" ............ Redwood Library ............. 

" ............... Rogers High School Library 

.......... ..Y. M. C. A. Library .......... 

Oaklawn ............ Free Public Library .......... 

Pascoag ............. Ladies' Pascoag Library 

Pawtucket ........... Deborah Cook Sayles Library.. 

" ........... Pub. High Sch. Library 

Peace Dale ........... Narragansett Library ........ 

Phenix .............. Pawtuxet Valley Free Library. . 

Pontiac ............. Free Library ................. 

Portsmouth .......... Free Public Library ........... 

Providence .......... Brown Univ. Library .......... 

.......... Butler Hospital Library ....... 

" .......... Classical High Sch. Library . . . . 

" .......... Eng. High Sch. Library ........ 

" .......... Gregory's Circulating Library.. 

.......... John Carter Brown Library.... 

.......... La Salle Acad. Library ........ 

.......... Moses Brown School Library.. 

.......... Olneyville Free Library ........ 

.......... Prov. Athenaeum ............. 

. . . ....... Prov. Teachers' Library 

.......... Public Library ............... 

............ R. I. Hist. Soc ................ 

.......... R. I Hospital Library ......... 

.......... R. I. Medical Soc ............. 

.......... R. I. Normal School Library 

.......... Sacred Heart Convent Library. . 

......... .St. Xavier Acad. Library ...... 

.......... Shepard's Circulating Library. . 

.......... State Education Dept. Library. . 

.......... State Law Library ............ 

.......... State Library 

.......... Union for Christian Work ..... 

.......... Y. M C. A. Library .......... 

.......... Y. W. C. T. U. Library ....... 

Riverside ............ Free Public Library ........... 

Saunderstown ....... Willette Free Library .......... 

Saylesville .......... Sayles Free Library ........... 

Shannock ........... Clark's Mills W. C. T. U. Lib.. 

Summit ............. Free Library ................ 

Tiverton ............ Whitridge Hall Free Library... 

Tiverton Four Corners. Union Public Library .......... 

Valley Falls .......... Free Public Library ........... 

Warren ............. George Hail Free Library ...... 

Warwick ............ League Free Library .......... 

Westerly ............ Pub. High Sch. Library ........ . 

" ............ Public Library ............... 

Wickford ............ North Kingston Free Library.. 

Woonsocket ......... Harris Inst. Library .......... 



1730 



1876 



1852 
1884 
1884 
1897 
1767 
1848 
1897 
1843 
1881 
1004 
1871 
1784 
1875 
1836 

1878 
1822 



1868 
1853 
1888 
1879 
1886 
1886 



2124 
2124 
4042 



4469 Myra S. Anthony 

3543 Harriet E. Sherman 
11885 Mary F. Walker 

6082 Herbert F. Larkin 
14746 Mrs. Clara L. Foster 

7186 Mrs. Emma S. Bradford* 

1 102 Edward P. Champlm 
19730 George U. Arnold 

3527 John F. Kelly 

3619 Frank C. Angcll 
11660 Edward E. Calder 

5108 Annie M. Livesey 
19346 Emma J. Knight 
15950 Mrs. J. E. Bnggs 

3016 Clara B. Mowry 

7261 Dorothy Burge 

-623 Mrs. Phebe H. Edwards. 

2763 Mary A. Lamb 

1766 R. G. Howland 

4469 Clara A. Olney 

---- Elmer Butterfield 
20000 Andrew J. Wilcox 

5235 Mrs. L. C. Hammond 

3888 

---- Lillian M. George 

3334 John A. Belcher 

2450 John B. Taylor 

2721 W. A. Hinckland \ 

3324 Mrs. Anna P. C. Mowry 

2498 Mrs. Emily K. Browning. 
729 Julia C. Simmons 

1612 Florence Kennedy 

4466 Mary K. Congdon 

4097 Silas T. Nye. 

.... R. Hammett Tillcy 

---- Frederic C. Hicks 
38727 Jane E. Gardner 

.... 
14390 Richard Bliss 

---- Frank E. Thompson 
235 A. H. Dadman 

3301 Adelaide B. Shaw 

56655 Mrs. Minerva A. Sanders; 
---- Elmer S. Hosmer 

^761 Rose Sherman 
9001 Mary E. Woolsey 
2146 Benjamin E. Albro 
2658 Kstherine B. Fish 
8388 H. L. Koopman 
758 G. Alder Blurr.er 

Wm. T. Peck 
---- David W. Hoy t 
---- H. Gregory 
---- George P. Winship 
---- Bi other Peter 
---- Anne E. Ewer 

18527 Mrs. H. H. Richardson: 

60452 Joseph L. Harrison 

257 Florence Brown 
131192 William E. Foster 
.... Clarence S. Brigbam 
... . George S. Mathews 
---- George D. Hersey 
3364 Mary E. Makepeace 
---- Madame Hoye 
4000 Sister Margaret May 
---- Shepard Co. 
---- Walter E. Ranger 
---- J. Harry Bongartz 
---- Herbert Olin Brigham 
6322 Mrs. Anna M. Arnold 
1350 Heman L. Calder 
. Mrs. Fanny S. Atkinsonj 
6840 Mary W. Blodgett 
2214 Mrs. Ruth A. Arnold 
1037 William T. Asquith 
934 N. F Kenyon 
1062 Caleb G. Bates 
2754 Mary J. Seabury 
2406 Esther J. Manchester 
3644 Isaac S. Dana 
821 Mary A. Bliss 



1 3801 Mrs. Mary A. S. Lane- 
.... 000 .... ... Ambrose B. Warren 

1894 17251 1221 32278 Ethan Wilcox 

1890 3363 150 1 1 on Addison W. Luther 

1865 16932 599 35032 Ama H. Ward 



i8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVILIZATION 



BY WILLIAM H. P. FAUNCE, D.D., LL.D., President of Brown University 



"\17"E have long been accustomed to speak 
of three great factors in modern civil- 
ization the school, the church, and the 
home. Must we, in view of such a signifi- 
cant meeting as this, add a fourth factor 
the library? The modern library has in some 
places become a true school ; in other places 
it has radiated something of the refinement 
for which we once looked to the home, and 
something of the idealism which is the pe- 
culiar gift of the church. The library is 
vastly more than a collection of books : it is a 
social, civilizing, moralizing force. We ex- 
pect to find the library building in every city 
and town as much as to find the spire of 
the church or the flag of the schoolhouse. 
The visitor to Boston to-day finds the public 
library as commanding a pile as Trinity 
Church, and far more imposing than any 
schoolhouse. The visitor to New York finds 
the new public library building climbing into a, 
mass and dignity as great as that of any ca- 
thedral. No smallest village is now complete 
without its library, and when some future 
Goldsmith shall sing the praise of another 
"Deserted village," he will point out not only 
the "noisy mansion" of the school-master, not 
only the church adorned with the meek and 
unaffected grace of the rural pastor, but the 
loaded shelves, the catalogs and reference 
lists, the chairs and tables, and the zeal un- 
affected, though not always meek, of the mod- 
ern librarian. 

These libraries have sprung into being 
throughout the land without specific legisla- 
tion and without deliberate propaganda. The 
church missionary societies of the country 
have adopted the avowed policy of planting 
a church in every community, and appointing 
superintendents of missions to see that this is 
done. Every state in the Union has its laws 
for the establishment and maintenance of 
schools. But these multiplying libraries have 
come into being without enactment of law or 



the preaching of any crusade. They have 
spread from sea to sea by a happy contagion, 
they have become a noble American epidemic. 
The great inarticulate thirst for knowledge 
has demanded satisfaction, and created its 
own supply. Our wisest directors of public 
sentiment and philanthropic endeavor have 
realized that through the library may come a 
charity that does not pauperize, a help that in- 
duces self-help, light to irradiate the dark 
places of civilization, inspiration for every 
calling, and access and power to every worthy 
institution and noble cause. What then is 
the specific function of this new and powerful 
institution in modern life? What is the con- 
tribution of the library to civilization? 

The library makes to the nation three gifts : 
the gift of knowledge, the gift of perspective, 
the gift of ideals. Putting the matter in an- 
other way, we may say it gives us facts, 
relations, values. 

The library is primarily to conserve and dis- 
seminate knowledge. Indeed, the old concep- 
tion of the library was purely that of a place 
of storage for written or printed material.' No 
one thought of taking out a book from a 
mediaeval library any more than of removing 
a statue or painting from an art gallery. And 
still to-day the function of the library as a 
storehouse is most important. Modern de- 
mocracy holds that knowledge is not for a few 
bright minds of each generation, not for an 
intellectual elite; but all that is knowable is 
to be made accessible to all that desire to 
know. If we allow knowledge to come only 
to a chosen few of each generation, how can 
we know that we have chosen the right ones 
to receive it? The genius who might turn 
the stream of history may be born in the low- 
liest cabin on the prairie, or in the darkest 
tenement of the great city. There may not 
be a village Hampden in every village, but 
there may be an Edison, a Fulton, an Eli 
Whitney, an Andrew Carnegie, a Carl Schurz 



FAUNCE 



in any village in America. Only when we 
make knowledge accessible to all shall we 
"know what minds and hearts are among us. 

But we must discriminate. The books 
which no longer convey knowledge, which 
state theories no longer held, and propound 
as facts things no longer believed; in other 
words, antiquated books of knowledge should 
foe sharply separated from books abreast of 
modern thinking. Those books which have 
ceased to be of any use to mankind (except 
for antiquarian purposes) or which never 
were of any use to mankind and their name 
is legion have their place in a museum, but 
not in a working library. In an arsenal we 
keep only weapons now serviceable in actual 
war, and relegate flint-locks, catapults, and 
bows and arrows to the museum. No arsenal 
in the world would be large enough to accom- 
modate weapons for a modern regiment min- 
gled with all the weapons of all past genera- 
tions. It is time for some one to say frankly 
that there is no inherent sanctity in paper and 
printer's ink. It may have been true in Mil- 
ton's day that a book was usually the pre- 
cious life-blood of a master spirit; but to-day 
a book is often the product of the least erected 
spirit that fell. An almanac put forth to ad- 
vertise some nostrum, or a novel prepared 
purely as a piece of merchandise, does not 
acquire dignity or value simply because bound 
in leather and placed on the shelf with "Para- 
dise lost." 

We must apply to our libraries some higher 
standard than that of size. We never esti- 
mate the Uffizzi or the Louvre by the number 
of paintings they contain, yet we continue to 
grade modern libraries by the number of vol- 
umes groaning on dust-covered shelves. A 
library of five thousand well selected books 
may be of far more service than one of one 
hundred thousand composed largely of books 
outgrown and forgotten. Our public libraries 
must distinguish sharply between the library 
and the museum, to the advantage of both. 

Secondly : Perspective. The library aims to 
show us facts in their large and permanent 
relations. There is no virtue in mere knowl- 
edge of facts (any more than in vast num- 
bers of volumes). Most facts are not worth 



knowing, still less worth preserving. Doubt- 
less the letter "p" occurs a certain definite 
number of times in the "Idylls of the king," 
and it may be that some deluded mortal in 
prison or asylum has ascertained that num- 
ber; but we do not care to know that fact or 
have any one else know. The exact number 
of grains in some ant-hill is doubtless dis- 
coverable, but only a lunatic would care for 
the discovery. Most facts in nature and in 
history are in our present stage of develop- 
ment without value. Only when these facts 
are collected, classified, seen in relation, and 
translated into truth do they become of value 
to men. 

For this reason the library must encourage 
slow, patient, thoughtful reading. We have 
long been told that a taste for reading is 
worth ten thousand a year. Whether this is 
true or not depends altogether on what sort 
of reading is referred to. The habit of letting 
the mind lie passive while some scribbler plays 
upon it is not worth ten thousand a y<?ar. The 
habit of letting the mind become a waste 
basket for sensation and scandal is not worth 
ten thousand a year. The habit of reading as 
a substitute for thinking is worth nothing, 
but is sheer damage to mental fibre. The uni- 
versity library is even more important than 
the university laboratory. In the laboratory 
we verify the theory which is far more likely 
to be discovered in the library. The new dis- 
covery is a new combination of old ideas, and 
such mental combination comes to us more 
easily when we are dealing with thoughts 
than with things. 

Our students need to use books not only 
as tools, but as friends. In the old days, when 
the reading of college students was far more 
promiscuous than to-day, they were accus- 
tomed to regard books almost as personal 
acquaintances, and there was a genuine ex- 
change and reaction of writer and reader. 
Such reading was indeed very desultory, but, 
as our professor of English literature is ac- 
customed to say, "it was immensely fatten- 
ing." Now, on the other hand, the college 
student goes to the library with a list of refer- 
ences, using many books, but becoming really 
acquainted with none. He opens one work 



2O 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



at volume 2, page 193, another at volume 4, 
page 315, and, having extracted the precise 
bit of information he desires, has no further 
use for the author in question. This modern 
method of reading is far more accurate and 
definite than the older method, and is ob- 
viously effective in securing results. But it 
must be supplemented by the "browsing" of 
former days, by the large horizons which come 
from being set free in the companionship of 
great minds. 

Thirdly: Ideals. Our libraries must be not 
only storehouses of knowledge, but reservoirs 
of power. The great books of all time give 
us contact with inspiring personalities, shin- 
ing examples, with the great leaders of men. 
The trophies of Themistocles will not suffer 



us to sleep. When such books come to many 
a shut-in life, to many a boyhood, cabined 
and confined, the limitations of the farm and 
the factory are forgotten, the mind expands to 
a kinship with past and future, and the reader 
in some village library may become the 
prophet of the new century, and the leader 
of the modern world. 

More than that: the literature of power 
creates the climate in which we live. It 
shapes our ideals of success, of power, of 
beauty, of goodness. Fiction and poetry, if 
they thus create aspiration and give us stand- 
ards, may be more useful than all en- 
cyclopedias or text-books, for they deal 
with the sources and the goal of all human 
action. 



SUBJECTS FIT FOR FICTION 



BY OWEN WISTER, Author of "The Virginian" "Lady Baltimore" etc. 



*T*HE considerations to which I have the 
honor and the pleasure of drawing your 
attention these considerations, and the con- 
clusions that follow from them need a long 
book, and not a short essay, to set them ade- 
quately forth. Therefore we find ourselves 
reminded of Napoleon's remark, that "The 
history of France should be written in two 
volumes or a hundred;" and we accordingly 
renounce elaboration, we renounce detail, we 
renounce every one of those explanatory qual- 
ifications and corollaries which are essential 
to a grave demonstration, if such demonstra- 
tion is to be built symmetric, complete, and 
impregnable, like a fortress. We must simply 
read our Declaration of Independence for 
a Declaration of Independence it is confin- 
ing ourselves to a few facts which lie in the 
knowledge of all civilized and instructed peo- 
ple. And since we cannot build our fortress 
in a hundred volumes, or even in a hundred 
minutes, we shall lay its corner-stone and 
nothing more: content if the quarter of an 
hour, which must suffice for this ceremony, 
shall show us clearly and once for all what 
the corner-stone is. 



And so we come at once to the question, 
What subjects are fit for fiction? and at once 
we answer it, All subjects are fit for fiction. 
This is our Declaration of Independence, the 
Independence of Literature; and we may be 
sure that it sounds as revolutionary to certain 
large classes of ears as did our Declaration 
of 1776 sound to the ears of George the Third. 
All subjects are fit for fiction. This is the 
corner-stone ; and if a nation's literature rest 
not upon this, believe me it is builded upon 
sand. Many there are in our country who 
would reject this stone; and without pausing 
to name them all, we recall among them read- 
ily the parent to whom any book is merely 
one of the toys with which his daughter plays 
when she is tired of tennis or golf; and we 
remember those many parishioners of dogma 
who love liberty so long as it belongs only to 
themselves. This is no new state of things, 
this denying the liberty of the book; and the 
world, having seen it often, is likely still to 
see it sometimes ; but let us remember that we 
call ourselves the Land of the Free, and that 
since we proclaim liberty to all, we must not 
deny it to the author. 



WISTER 



21 



But here on the very threshold of our 
demonstration we have already reached a 
chance for misunderstanding. There is not 
one of us but has argued for a whole hour 
with some unconvinced adversary, to find at 
the end that their disagreement at the begin- 
ning was only a question of the meaning of 
words ; so let us define clearly what we mean 
by "All subjects are fit for fiction." What, in 
the first place, is a Subject? and in the second 
place, what is meant by Fiction? 

A Subject is anything containing the seed 
of dramatic growth. A landscape and nothing 
.more, is therefore plainly not a subject within 
our chosen meaning. A field, a stream, a 
forest, a tree, a rock, a wave breaking on the 
sand, any of these may be enough for a pic- 
ture, or for a sonnet, but they are not enough 
for Fiction, because they contain no seed of 
dramatic growth, suggest of themselves no 
action, are, so to speak, stationary; and 
though they can form the basis of a mood, an 
impression, a reverie, they cannot form the 
basis of a story. Leaving nature, and taking 
other examples, we see in the same way that 
a colonial house, or a railway train, or a 
woman sitting in a garden, are likewise no 
subjects for fiction, although out of these also 
may be made a picture, or a set of lyric 
verses; and the right artist, whether an artist 
in paint or an artist in words, can make out 
of them almost anything that his imagination 
pleases ; can picture the landscape, the train, 
the colonial house, the woman, so as to make 
us feel gay or sad, or thoughtful, or troubled, 
or merely agreeably contented, as we ponder 
and dwell upon his work. But now observe: 
if to the landscape we add the threat of a 
great storm, or a great drought; if we place 
a little old lady in the colonial house; if we 
fill the heart of the woman in the garden 
with some keen retrospect or anticipation; if 
the railway train is rushing toward a burning 
bridge, then, although these subjects have not 
yet passed wholly outside the domain of the 
painter, they have already entered the domain 
of the teller of tales, because each one of them 
contains the seed of dramatic growth: sus- 
pense is now a part of them. 

We choose purposely such simple instances, 



in order that our definition of the term "Sub- 
ject" be at once clear, comprehensive, and 
fundamental. When we examine such a work 
as "Vanity Fair" we find that its vast cubic 
capacity holds several subjects, among which 
the ambition of Becky Sharp is undoubtedly 
the principal one; while, if we examine such 
a work as "The scarlet letter," we find a single 
theme, ancient as mankind : a woman and two 
men. And with this triangle, which forms 
the base of many thousand romances remem- 
bered and forgotten, which gives us Helen of 
Troy, Iseult of Brittany, Guinevere, Desde- 
mona, with this same triangle Hawthorne has 
made his Puritan drama. These illustrations 
of "The scarlet letter" and "Vanity Fair" 
serve by their very contrast to show what we 
mean by a "Subject." Thackeray's book con- 
tains a number, Hawthorne's only one; but 
in all of them we find the seed of dramatic 
growth. And we may notice here how point- 
less is that favorite remark of those clumsy 
counterfeits who would pass for critics; how 
often we see them write, and hear them say, 
"The plot of such and such a book or drama 
is 'not original' " ! Thackeray uses the same 
triangle as Hawthorne; Becky is the woman 
between the two men, Lord Steyne and Raw- 
don Crawley. It is the different treatment 
given the triangle, difference in the characters, 
difference in time, difference in place, differ- 
ence in cause, difference in consequence it is 
all this and only this which matters; the fact 
that the same triangle lies beneath both 
structures is not of the slightest importance. 
We cannot bear too heavily upon tms ; having 
now clearly seen what a "subject" is, we can- 
not next see too clearly that it is not the seed 
itself, but the manner in which the gardener 
causes it to grow, that lies at the bottom of 
our whole enquiry. Our enquiry holds for us 
no surprise, no paradox, "nothing new," to 
quote the phrase of the counterfeit critic; it 
will merely remind us of existing facts, it 
will merely turn our eyes upon things which 
stare us in the face as soon as our faces, 
and not our backs, are turned to them. And 
in order to press the point we have reached a 
little further home, let a third great book be 
named "Anna Karenina." Here again is 



22 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



the triangle; here again, like Thackeray, like 
Hawthorne, Tolstoi presents to us the case 
of a woman and two men. The world has ac- 
cepted these three books. We cannot say 
v/hether or not they will be known in a thou- 
sand years ; nor need we say anything so use- 
less. It suffices to keep within our knowledge, 
and remember that the judgment of the civil- 
i/ed world has placed these three books upon 
the shelf of Greatness. There they stand, ac- 
cepted, crowned, acclaimed; and yet, is it be- 
cause of their subject? is it because of the 
triangle? Why, every one of us, most likely, 
has read other stories built upon this same 
triangle, and dropped them because they were 
dull, or flung them down because they were 
vile ! Thus it becomes plain to us that one 
gardener may take the seed and so nourish it 
that it becomes fruitful and beautiful, while 
from the same seed another gardener may 
produce an ugly, withered stalk, its leaves 
blighted with bad taste, its roots cankered 
with insincerity. Yet most often in such cases 
the properly disgusted, but wholly unthought- 
ful, reader declares that the subject was not 
fit for fiction. 

And next, what is Fiction? 

For the purpose of our demonstration we 
need dwell much less upon our chosen mean- 
ing for "fiction" than we have dwelt upon our 
definition of "subject." The ultimate and 
philosophic meaning of fiction would indeed 
lead us far afield ; and it may be doubted if we 
could more than approximately reach any 
statement of it; but here it simply means 
those compositions in narrative or dramatic 
form which are products of the imagination : 
"Marmion," "Silas Lapham," "David Copper- 
field," "Camille," "Macbeth," "Don Quixote," 
are all works of fiction, differing merely in 
their scheme of composition; while Boswell's 
Johnson, Kant's "Critic of pure reason," Mil- 
ton's sonnet on his blindness, and Macaulay's 
history of England do not fall within our 
definition. These examples ought to show ac- 
curately enough that by "fiction" we mean 
certain kinds of composition in prose or verse, 
constructed either for the solitary reader, or 
the gathered audience, and roughly described 
as tales and plays. 



But even now we have not quite done with 
definitions. In our statement "All subjects 
are fit for fiction" there is still room for con- 
fusion, because we have assumed that we all 
mean the same thing by the word "fit." And 
although our explanation why a landscape is 
not a "subject" necessarily infers that by "fit" 
we mean fitted, appropriate, available, never- 
theless, we must pause here for a moment be- 
cause we continually hear it said around us, 
and have sometimes said ourselves, that such 
and such a book is "not fit to read," which 
yet may have a subject entirely "fit for fic- 
tion ;" let us firmly bear in mind that a good 
seed may have a bad gardener. There re- 
mains one possibility of confusion lurking in 
our word "fit," which it is mortifying and 
humiliating to be obliged to mention. It is to 
be feared that almost every one of us has at 
some time heard objection raised to some book 
being on the shelves of a public library be- 
cause it was not "fit" for the young. This is 
by no means what is meant by "fit" in our 
present demonstration. If a material simile 
may be permitted, it would be as reasonable, 
as intelligent, to exclude lobster salad from 
the bill-of-fare of a great restaurant, because 
it was unwholesome for the young. We who 
understand that a public library is the safe 
deposit vault of all literature of all the ages, 
where the serious student may find all the 
documents necessary to any complete investi- 
gation he desires to make we who under- 
stand this, will not mistake a public library 
for a children's nursery. 

It is the province of parents, teachers, and 
guardians to regulate both the diet and the 
reading of those committed to their care ; it is 
the province of the public library to furnish 
every work of literature to every reader who 
is fit to read it. 

And now it is to be hoped not only that our 
proposition, "All subjects are fit for fiction," 
conveys clearly the meaning we intend, but 
also that by the mere process of defining our 
terms we have arrived close to the end of our 
demonstration. For, as was said at the be- 
ginning, we confine ourselves to a few facts 
which lie in the knowledge of all civilized 
and instructed people; nor shall we presume 






W1STER 



to offer any opinion of our own in support of 
the proposition any more than we should 
if we were undertaking to demonstrate that 
twice two equals four. And, moreover, we 
believe that "All subjects are fit for fiction" 
is (once we understand it) as indisputable a 
truth as the mathematical one we have just 
instanced. 

Let us suppose that a young friend who 
wishes to be an author came to us and said : 
"I have a plot, and I want your opinion of it. 
My only doubt is whether it should be a novel 
or a drama. A husband and wife, after many 
years of happy marriage, discover that they 
are mother and son. The horror of this 
causes her to kill herself, and him to put his 
eyes out. What do you think of that?" 

Should we not beg our young friend to 
choose something else? Should we not both 
remonstrate against the dreadfulness of his 
theme, and also point out its great improb- 
ability? 

"Well, then," he might say, "what do you 
thing of this one? A man is shipwrecked on 
a strange coast, and returns home after many 
years of absence." 

It is likely that we should tell our friend to 
try again; or at any rate recommend him to 
develop only a short story from so slender 
and limited a subject. Again, he might say, 
"Here are two more. A son discovers that his 
mother has connived at his father's murder, 
and has married the murderer, who is his 
uncle. In carrying out his revenge, he is 
killed; but not before his mother has drunk 
poison and he has stabbed his uncle." Again 
we should be likely to object to the violence 
and crime involved in all this. And similarly 
in the case of our young friend's final offer- 
ing: "A black man marries a white woman. 
His enemy deceives him into suspecting her 
fidelity, so that he murders her and kills him- 
self." 

By this time at least some of us would say : 
"My dear young friend, it required a Shake- 
speare to write 'Othello.' Do not you ven- 
ture there. And you had best not try to make 
a new version of Hamlet either. For although 
the story of the son and his mother and his 
uncle was by no means Shakespeare's own in- 
vention, any more than Othello was; and al- 



though it was already familiar to the Eliza- 
bethan public both as a story and as a play, 
and consequently Shakespeare undertook to 
write a new version of it at his peril since 
his new Hamlet might have turned out in- 
ferior to the old one nevertheless, since 
Shakespeare's time no one has ventured to 
write Hamlet again. It is not likely that you 
will be able to surpass him." 

That is what some of us would probably 
say to the young man. But we should scarce- 
ly say that Hamlet was not a subject fit for 
fiction. And we should remember that from 
the man shipwrecked on a strange coast De 
Foe made Robinson Crusoe, which is not a 
short story, but a book of several hundred 
pages. And those of us who recall our Greek 
literature, recognize in the plot of the married 
couple who discover that they are mother and 
son what is acknowledged the world over as 
one of the greatest of the Greek tragedies, 
OEdipus the King nay, thought by some to 
be the very greatest of all, and certainly 
thought by none to be an unfit subject. 

Of "subjects" we have now named four. 
Stated in their simplest terms, in their seed 
form, they sound unpromising enough. Three 
of them could fairly be called unclean and re- 
volting, and one Robinson Crusoe could 
be called dull and meagre. And yet the 
youngest of them, De Foe's tale, will pres- 
ently be two hundred years old; while the 
Greek tragedy of (Edipus is more than two 
thousand years old. It has withstood all the 
storms of war, all the wreck of kingdoms, all 
the changes of taste, morals, custom, and re- 
ligion, and still stands to-day superb, unques- 
tioned, magnificent in beauty, symmetry, and 
strength. 

And why does it so stand? Is it because 
of the seed ? We believe that it is now plain 
to all that it is because of the gardener who 
made the seed grow. Sophocles was a great 
poet, a great artist, and a sincere workman; 
therefore in his hands the seed became a 
thing of beauty, and not a withered stalk. 

We need cite no further examples of "sub- 
jects" which in their seed-form look forbid- 
ding, or unworthy, yet have been made into 
classics. They are to be found in every litera- 
ture. We can perform the analysis for our- 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



selves, and find that at the core of a large 
proportion of the world's masterpieces is a 
"subject" which, did we not know better, we 
should condemn at once as being altogether 
unfit for fiction. But it is fairly to be pre- 
sumed that the four famous cases which we 
have quoted are demonstration enough; that 
in view of CEdipus, and Hamlet, and Othello, 
we cannot make a classification, we cannot 
lay down rules of exclusion and inclusion; 
we must allow the author full liberty to 
choose what subject he sees fit, for we recog- 
nize that some of the greatest works of fiction 
have been drawn from sources which seem the 
least inspiring ; and we are forced to conclude 
there is no escape from concluding that 
there is no limit save humanity itself ; that the 
field of fiction is the field of all human ex- 
perience, of all human emotion, of all human 
thoughts, deeds, fancies, and dreams. If we 
cannot see this, we merely resemble those 
provincials who would turn a public library 
into a nursery. 

But, in making our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, in giving the author his liberty, we 
have by no means relieved him of responsibil- 
ity. We have merely said to the gardener: 
Take any seed you please; but if you do not 
make it grow into a thing of beauty, if you 
produce from it a withered, ugly stalk, we 
reject you. We do not wish to dictate to you 
-what you shall tell us; therefore remember 
that the burden is upon you. Remember thaj 
if you choose to tell us about a husband and 
wife who discover that they arc mother and 
son, you do it at your peril. Remember that 
whenever you choose something which in 
itself is revolting and painful, you do it at 
your peril. Win us over to it if you can, and 
if you do yours is the greater glory, for out 
of apparent ugliness you will have distilled 
beauty. We only wish to warn you of the 
seriousness and the difficulty of your task; 
we by no means wish to bind chains upon 
your gift, nor can you measure your own 
strength until you have tested it. Go for- 
ward, therefore, fearlessly, but soberly; for 
every dangerous thing you try, you try it at 
your peril. 



Although at the beginning we said that we 
should renounce all explanatory qualifications, 
there is one of such great importance that 
brief allusion must be made to it. 

It must have been the experience of many 
of us to read some work in a foreign lan- 
guage, and say to ourselves while reading it : 
"I do not object to this as it stands, but if it 
were translated into English I should find it 
unpermissible." 

At first sight it seems mysterious that we 
should find any book acceptable only in a for- 
eign language. But the matter is a perfectly 
simple one. In reading the Elizabethan au- 
thors, we come upon very coarse language, 
which we pass over; while if a contemporary 
author were to use the same language we 
could not endure him. Why? Not because 
the Elizabethan author is dead, and the con- 
temporary author living; but because the 
Elizabethan author was writing in the con- 
vention of his own day. If we choose, we 
may put it that "he knew no better." And so 
it is with a foreign author whom we should 
dislike in English. While reading him in his 
original tongue, we in a sort unconsciously 
adopt the convention of his fellow country- 
men, which is different from our own. But 
as soon as he is translated, our own conven- 
tion surrounds him, and he becomes offensive 
through breach of it. 

This, therefore, is the only corollary to our 
main proposition to which we would draw 
notice. Any Subject is fit for Fiction, and its 
treatment must lie in the convention of its 
time and place. 

Let us hope that the above considerations 
and examinations of certain facts of literature 
have enabled us to see that there can be no 
doubt All Subjects are fit for Fiction. The 
doubt will always be, Is the man fit for the 
subject? And nobody can answer this but 
himself; he must undertake the adventure at 
his own peril. Sophocles could write 
CEdipus; Shakespeare could write Hamlet. 
Could any of us? 

But no law save our own judgment shall 
forbid us from trying. And that is our 
Declaration of Independence. 



KOOPMAN 



THE LIBRARIAN OF THE DESERT 



BY HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN, Librarian of Brown University 



[PREFATORY NOTE. In the very heart of the Lib- 
yan Desert, the most barren and inaccessible por- 
tion of the great Sahara, is situated one of the_ most 
influential libraries of the modern world. It is the 
great library at the headquarters of the Senussi 
brotherhood, which is the chief unifying force in 
modern Islam. Hither, to the oasis of Kufra, the 
central government of the brotherhood moved about 
1893 from its former seat in Jarabub, which occupies 
a more exposed position about three hundred miles 
further north on the border between Egypt and 
Tripoli. Jarabub still remains the burial place of the 
great founder of the order, and supersedes Mecca as 
an object of pilgrimage not only for the followers 
of the Mahdi, but even for other Mussulmans. The 
great library, however, which was formed by the 
Mahdi's learned brother, to whom was entrusted the 
charge of ecclesiastical affairs and education, was 
removed to Kufra. Its transportation required 500, 
some say 800, camels. From this remote center the 
Mahdi stretches out his influence, for good or evil, 
over the whole Mohammedan world. Most writers 
accuse the Senussi of political designs, and look to 
see them lead all Islam in a revolt against Christiani- 
ty and European civilization. To other authorities, 
like Professor Toy, they "appear to have for their 
object merely to secure a territory in which they may 
retain their customs and practice their religion in 
peace." The latter view is essentially that which I 
liave ascribed to the Senussi librarian, into whose 
tnouth I have put my poem. The reader who wishes 
may pursue the subject further in Arthur Silva 
White's volume, "From sphinx to oracle."] 



WHERE the giant stairs lead down, 

Boulders, and shingle, and sand, 

From the lofty northern land 

That fronts the far blue main, 

To the vale of the Sacred Town, 

Where low on the southern plain 

The wizard of Heat and Drouth, 

With a sunbeam for a wand, 

Upbuilds his world of deceit, 

Palm grove and rippling pond 

And garden and cool retreat, 

Even from north to south, 

O'er the shimmering desert's face, 

My laden file I trace, 

My peaceful marching line; 

Yet the mightiest army, I ween, 

To conquer a darkened world, 

The desert's eye hath seen, 

Since Okba's troop was hurled, 

In the might of the Prophet's word, 

From the Nile to the trackless brine: 

Yea, into the sea he rode, 

And, baring to heaven his sword, 

He cried: "Did not the deep, 

O Allah, my prowess tame, 

Westward still would 1 sweep, 

And the knowledge of Thy law, 

In mercy on man bestowed, 

Yet wider spread, and the awe 

That is due to Thy holiest Name." 



Nay, never with mine may dare 

The mightiest army compare, 

Not even Iskander's own, 

Which hewed the world to a throne. 

Nor more my little worth 

To glory like theirs must yield 

Than the proudest armies of earth 

To the victor host I wield; 

For not against spear and shield, 

Nor the strength of a man's right arm, 

Nor the speed of a horse's feet, 

Nor the arrow's, deadlier fleet, 

Nor the unseen bullet's harm, 

Not against these they war, 

The weakness of men and brutes, 

But against the demon powers 

Behind the clouds that lurk, 

That fly under heaven free, 

That burrow in dank and mirk 

Below the mountains' roots, 

That haunt the caves of the sea, 

That beleaguer these hearts of ours, 

And God and his prophet abhor. 



Four are the legions of might 

That muster at my command: 

The first is the awful WORD, 

Eternal, uncreate, 

Yea! dateless with God's own date, 

Unuttered and unheard, 

But written in rays of light 

On the mighty table of stone 

Where future and past are shown, 

That leans at God's right hand. 

Thence, for the weal of men, 

In a book whose leaves p.re gold, 

That jewels and silk enfold, 

That was writ with an angel's pen, 

It was brought from its high estate 

Through the heavens to the lowest heaven 

By Gabriel such God's plan 

In the blessed, mystic even, 

On the night of power and fate, 

In the month of Ramadan. 

But not, O crystal sphere, 

In thee lay the Word concealed; 

God willed that year by year 

Its truths to the Prophet's ear 

Should, line upon line, be revealed; 

Whether with chime of bells, 

Gabriel the message tells; 

Or thoughts, with silence shod, 

From the Holy Spirit come 

Into the secret place 

Of the heart; or the very God 

Veiled, or face to face, 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



By day or in dreams of the night, 
Speaks, and the heavens bloom bright, 
Speaks, and the hells are dumb. 



The next of the legions arrayed 

To conquer at my behest, 

In the warfare of Worst and Best, 

The holy TRADITIONS be. 

Which age unto age enshrine 

The wisdom, the power to aid, 

Of the Prophet's words divine 

To his friends, the trusted few; 

With the holy deeds of his hand 

That were done for their eyes to see, 

An example of deeds to do 

In every time and land. 

These in men's hearts locked fast, 

Unto children's children tcld, 

And onward as heirlooms passed, 

Richer than lands or gold, 

After long centuries flown, 

By holy men at last 

Were gathered and made known, 

Saints enlightened by prayer 

To mirror the Prophet's heart, 

To winnow the false from the true, 

To sift the weak from the strong, 

The low from the lofty to part. 

For "Wo be unto you 

If ye utter my sayings wrong! 

But guard them with anxious care; 

And be mindful that ye assign 

No words to me save you know 

In truth they are surely mine." 

So, in warning and ruth, 

Spake the Prophet long ago. 

And lo! the Traditions abide, 

Mighty to strengthen and guide, 

To chasten, to check, to impel, 

To comfort, reprove, inspire, 

And weak are the weapons of hell, 

And they fall in fruitless ire 

On the sunbright shields of the Truth. 



Behold, as they pass in review, 

The legions of the CONSENT! 

The mustering of the Laws, 

The saying and doing blent 

Of the learned and devout, 

Men who saw clear and true, 

Not fools in their folly blind, 

Nor drunken with pride of doubt, 

Nor scoffers that, snarling behind, 

Snap at the heels of the Cause; 

But the first of the Blessed, they, 

The Prophet's helpers at need, 

The mates of the Banishment, 

The followers of th e Flight. 

Nor had these been all, but their seed 

In every age might we count, 

Had God for our sins not sent 

Wrangling and fell despite, 



Which have blinded our eyes to the way/ 

That leads to His holy fount. 

But yet shall the Faithful learn 

The last, first lesson of Peace; 

And the precious flood si-all return 

No more to the thirsty sar.ds, 

But be dipped by men's eager hands, 

And the world's long thirst shall cease; 

And, forgetting its fevered ye.irs, 

Islam shall forward leap, 

As the panting hart, that deep 

Has drunk of a hidden rill, 

Leaps and forgets its fears; 

And they that strove shall be still, 

And the evil shall cease from scathe,, 

And Islam, rousing its youth 

As a mighty man from a swoon, 

Shall renew its morn cf Faith, 

And the triumphs of its Truth 

Shall round to a fadeless noon. 



Last of my legions four, 

The DECISIONS of the wise, 

The new and the newer lore 

That still from the old arise; 

Yea, the new Truth wrought from the ol'*' 

For the needs of the newer day, 

Never the old to gainsay, 

For the Truth is eternally true, 

But only the old made new, 

As a tale to the young retold. 

The sun that smiled on the morn 

Of the holy Prophet's birth 

Rose to-day on the earth; 

New to the new day born; 

Even so, after centuries rolled, 

The Truth abides the same, 

And so long as sin its net 

Shall spread, and the heedless fall 

And for light in the darkness call, 

Truth unto Truth shall be set, 

And a new Truth forth shall flare, 

As a new flame lightens the air, 

When flame has been set to flame. 



So march to victories new 

My legions with victory bright. 

But, lo! in their train a host 

Of warriors doughty and true, 

Heroes, although they boast 

Only a mortal might. 

The Roots of the Law they hight, 

The Creeds from the one creed wrought. 

The Renderings of the Laws, 

The Comments on the Word, 

The History of the Cause, 

The Rules of Thought Unheard, 

The Arts of the Spoken Thought. 

Last, as if led in chains, 

Follow in captive ranks 

The books, in motley guise, 

Of the lore of the prying Franks, 



KOOPMAN 



Who spare not earth nor sky, 
Nor future nor moldering past, 
But search with tireless pains, 
If haply some golden grains 
Of fact they may find at last; 
Yet, never with knowledge wise, 
And wretched for all their gains, 
In doubt they live and die. 



Mightiest force among men, 

And swiftest fleeting, the breath, 

Speech, whose birth is a death; 

For, the ear of the hearer to reach, 

On the speaker's lips it must die; 

And, heard and uttered by each, 

And uttered and heard again, 

Who shall say for a sooth 

That its message has not been wrought 

In the limbec of men's thought 

From the Truth to a semblance of Truth, 

Which at heart is wholly a lie? 

But the BOOK was born, and lo! 

Like a footprint on the strand 

That has hardened into stone, 

The Truth, released from change, 

Outlasting ruler and throne, 

Abides, while centuries range, 

While nations ebb and flow, 

In every time and land 

The Truth; else none might know 

The thoughts of the great of yore, 

For, ever the newer speech 

The newer thought would teach, 

Under the sheltering fame 

Of the wise and ancient lore; 

A.nd the Truth, like the desert mound 

slow shifting day by day, 

fill, ere one marks, it is found 

New-shapen and far away, 

Would be changed in all but name, ;, 

Not abide, like the hills, the same, 

Flashing the morn abroad 

From their iron crests, which took 

The rose of creation's dawn, 

Themselves the earliest book, 

On whose carven crags, deep-drawn, ^ . 

Stands written the Will of God. 



Faint on the paling sky, 
The Wolf-tail's white foreruns 
The dawn's quick-coming red; 
And our prayers go up on high 
To the Lord of dawns and suns. 
Then flames like darts are sped, 
And lo, the sun! and anon 
O'er the rosy mists he has clomb, 
The terrors of night are gone, 
The day with its cheer has come. 

So, day after day, 

For a score of days we press 

*-Ver our southward way 



Through a wilder wilderness, 
To the region set apart 
In the desert's deepest heart 
To shelter our sacred lore. 
There at last shall we halt, 
Where the oasis lies enisled 
In a hundred leagues of sand 
That surge on every hand, 
By the hot winds driven and 
Barren as ashes or salt. 
But, to the Faithful's eyes, 
A blessed bound it lies, 
No foeman shall pass o'er. 
Yea, in the desert's deep 
To their grave in the sands might go- 
Army on army sent 
To work our mission scathe, 
And we should awake and sleep 
And awake, and never know 
Evil deed or intent, 
Safe in our Stronghold of Faith. 



O Desert, vouchsafed to be, 

From all eternity, 

The shelter of God's Truth, 

As God's compassion large, 

And lasting as the will 

That wrought thee and endueth, 

Receive thy priceless charge! 

Accept the casket we bring 

Of God's provisioning 

For the healing of men's ill. 

So guard it from every taint 

Of thq Unfaith that fills the earth, 

That from it shall go forth, 

Like rays of the strong sun's light, 

The healing of Truth to fill 

The lands where men sicken and faint,. 

In the twilight of Faith or its night. 

All is confusion there 

And blindness and whirling haste; 

The days of their lives men waste 

In hurrying everywhere, 

And arriving nowhere at last. 

They cannot see God's sky 

For the smoke of their ceaseless toil, 

And earth shows dull and awry 

Through the dust of their mad turmoil^ 

Here, and only here, 
Of all earth's regions trod, 
Stands man, with vision clear, 
Alone with the only God; 
And the Truth forevermore 
From the desert, as ever of yore, 
On earth shall be shed abroad; 
And the gardens of earth that bloom, 
The gardens no less shall become 
Of the holy Faith, and man, 
In the desert brought face to face 
With the infinite blessing and ban, 
Shall live in every place 
As under the eye of God. 



28 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



THE RELATION OF LIBRARIES TO MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 



BY DAVID A. BOODY, President Board of Trustees of Brooklyn (N. Y.~) Public Library 



A S one enters the harbor of New York his 
eye is pleased, and if an American, his 
patriotic sense is gratified as he beholds the 
Statue of Liberty, with one hand holding 
aloft a torch and with the other resting upon 
a tablet on which are written these words, 
"July 4, 1776." We are grateful to France for 
this expression of national friendship. If, 
however, an American artist had been se- 
lected, one not only familiar with our history, 
but imbued with the genius of our institutions, 
he might possibly have selected other emblems 
for this impressive and beautiful statue. It 
seems to me he could have placed, with great 
propriety, in that extended hand a book and 
on that tablet he might have written words 
like these, "By knowledge we live." 

I believe there is no word which so com- 
pletely epitomizes our national faith as the 
word knowledge. Go back beyond 1776, be- 
yond colonial days, back to the time when the 
first settlements followed the landing of the 
Mayflower, and we see the faith which our 
fathers had in the power and usefulness of 
knowledge. As soon as the home shelter 
covered their heads they established the 
school and the church. They provided for the 
education of the mind and conscience. They 
were in a new country. They intended to 
construct a new state. They proposed to es- 
tablish new institutions. But instead of fol- 
lowing the custom that had prevailed for ages 
before their time of preparing for their phys- 
ical safety by constructing fortified towns 
they prepared to fortify their hearts and 
minds through the power of these institutions 
for fhe work of life. We know their wise 
laws concerning the establishment and main- 
tenance of free schools, but do we ever think 
of their sublime faith in the power of knowl- 
edge, in their establishment in the days of their 
weakness and poverty, years and years before 
the Declaration of Independence, of those 
great institutions of learning Harvard, Yale, 



Princeton, and William and Mary? Their 
long Atlantic coast could offer no resistance 
to an invading foe, but they knew that these 
institutions would teach a conception of life 
and duty and create a manhood stronger than 
all the hosts of oppression. 

As population grew, as it became centered 
in towns and cities, the library came and the 
great educational trinity of America became 
complete. Our people were not the first to 
establish libraries any more than they were 
the first to establish governments. For ages 
collections of books had gone on under gov- 
ernmental supervision, but our people have 
been the first through the evolution of thought 
and experience to make the library an educa- 
tional factor for the whole people. They are 
the first to give to it the character of the com- 
mon school. They are the first to declare that 
it should be a part of the educational system 
of the community. The library may well re- 
ceive the benefactions of the thoughtful and 
generous, but it should no more owe its ex- 
istence to philanthropy than should the 
school. In our land it, like the school, should 
be the fatherly provision of the state, the city 
or the town for its sons and daughters. 

Great cities have existed before our time, 
but never so far as we know cities so great. 
And never were cities growing as they are 
growing in our day; growing because the 
rural population is pouring into them; grow- 
ing because men and women believe that the 
city provides a larger, if not a happier, place 
in life; growing because a million immigrants 
are yearly coming to our shores, the larger 
percentage of which immigration remains in 
our cities. Everybody realizes to-day that 
life's greatest problems, whether govern- 
mental or industrial or social, are being 
solved, or rather that men are seeking to solve 
them, in our great cities. These problems in- 
clude not only the growth of our cities, but 
they also include the diversity of habits and 



BOODY 



purposes and ideals which are centered there. 
New York to-day is a city of races, an Amer- 
ican community of foreign nativity. How 
shall these mighty masses be unified in pur- 
pose, be Americanized in habit, be united in 
loyalty, in love of country and in the promo- 
tion of the American ideals of national and 
individual character? These are some of the 
problems of our day. You, as representatives 
of a great educational influence, are helping 
to solve these problems. 

I have taken New York City, our largest 
city, as an illustration of the municipal prob- 
lems which are crowding upon us. New 
York raises annually for municipal purposes 
over one hundred million dollars, and over 
twenty millions of that sum are annually de- 
voted to the maintenance of her schools. And 
let me say here that these schools are excel- 
lent, progressive and an honor to that great 
city. Her school board is composed in the 
main of experienced public-spirited men. 
They generously give their labor without pay. 
Before the gift of Mr. Carnegie, it became 
evident to every thoughtful man that our sys- 
tem of education, splendid as it is, needed 
some reinforcement which should give it 
wider scope and enable it to reach all of our 
people. Our children leave school at the 
average age of fourteen years. If it be wise 
to expend twenty million dollars for them up 
to that age, shall we spend nothing after- 
ward? Shall we do nothing for the tens of 
thousands of young men and women who 
come to our cities annually for their future 
homes, and upon whose intelligence and in- 
tegrity our future safety and prosperity large- 
ly depend? Is it wise to spend this vast 
amount of money annually for our children 
while in our school-houses and provide no 
helpful educational agencies for our homes? 
In answer to these inquiries the branch li- 
brary came into existence, and to-day Greater 
New York can number over sixty of these 
branches from which books are being circu- 
lated at the rate of at least eight millions of 
volumes per year. These branches are in- 
tended to reach and accommodate the whole 
pec-pie, as much as the schools are intended 
to accommodate the children alone. The 



schools we cannot spare, and I think the time 
has come when we will all say, at least in our 
big cities, that the modern library cannot be 
spared. 

The cheapness of this form of education 
should not be overlooked. Twenty millions 
per year for our children. One million per 
year the present annual cost of our libraries, 
for our children during the remainder of their 
lives and for the millions who come to our 
cities and never see the inside of a school- 
house. The public library as to-day adminis- 
tered, brought within the reach of every home, 
is both the cheapest and the most efficient in- 
strumentality in the way of educating our 
people and in thus solving the problems of 
our day. 

I have said that the modern library is an 
American institution. It is an evolution of 
the educational faith and purpose of our 
fathers. Years ago our library system, far 
inferior to what it is to-day, but far superior 
to that of any other nation, attracted the at- 
tention of the leading nations of the world. 
The London Standard in 1886, calling atten- 
tion to the work it was doing, said, "Ameri- 
cans are our masters in many departments of 
literary administration." Attention was called 
to the great collection of books in the British 
Museum which were used by scholars for 
reference purposes, and in comparison, our 
American libraries were mentioned, reaching 
as they do and enlightening all classes of our 
people. The Standard goes on to say the 
American whose tastes are thus fostered are 
the greatest reading people in the world, and 
in illustration of this fact it says, of all the 
standard English books, many more in pro- 
portion to population, are read in the United 
States than in England. It continues by say- 
ing that the "Encyclopedia Britannica" had 
for its ninth edition 50,000 American sub- 
scribers to 10,000 in Great Britain. More 
than one hundred thousand volumes of Her- 
bert Spencer's works were sold in this coun- 
try before he ever visited us in 1882. And in 
illustration of how we subscribe for our own 
books, it states that the "American cyclo- 
pedia" had 120,000 subscribers and Grant's 
Memoirs 300,000 subscribers. Who shall to- 
i 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



day attempt to measure the influence of sixty 
million volumes of books annually circulated 
among cur people through the instrumental- 
ity of American free libraries? And con- 
sider the still greater influence when we shall 
perfect our branch system, making our libra- 
ries co-ordinate with and almost co-extensive 
with our public schools. Who shall attempt 
to measure this mighty influence as it touches 
municipal government, and throws its light 
upon all the industrial problems of the day? 
In the emergencies which have come to our 
nation, the world has been surprised at the 
skill, science, general knowledge and the 
complete readiness which have pervaded all 
classes of our people. The secret of this is 



that we have believed in the power of knowl- 
edge and we have made effective the agencies 
for making that knowledge universal. We 
talk of a national tendency, the fear that 
wealth will absorb the minds and corrode the- 
consciences of our people. Let us not be dis- 
turbed. Let us remember that the very intel- 
ligence which our educational institutions- 
have provided would easily account for the 
accumulation of great fortunes from the un- 
limited resources of this great nation. Let us- 
be comforted with the thought that this 
wealth is flowing back upon the people 
in amounts and ways unknown to any 
other people since the commencement of 
national life. 



THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AS A MUNICIPAL INSTITUTION: FROM THE ADMIN- 
ISTRATIVE STANDPOINT 

BY HORACE G. WADLIN, Librarian of Boston Public Library 



TZJ* IFTY years ago the public library was 
hardly established, although the public 
schools were well developed. Before the li- 
brary in Boston was founded the scheme was 
so novel that it was necessary to support it by 
cogent reasons showing not only that the plan 
was feasible, but that it was a perfectly nat- 
ural and legitimate step "to be taken for the 
intellectual advancement of the whole com- 
munity, and for which the whole community 
by its previous establishment of a system of 
public elementary education was then pecu- 
liarly fitted and prepared." 

It may repay us, in our examination of the 
public library as a municipal institution from 
the administrative standpoint, if we glance 
for a moment at the argument which was ef- 
fective in creating the library in Boston, prac- 
tically the first great city library of the modern 
type. The line of reasoning seems trite to-day, 
and has become the merest commonplace of 
public library philosophy. But it was not so 
then ; and, bearing this in mind, pardon me 
if I quote a brief paragraph which seems to 
me noteworthy in its clear comprehension of 
what the public library was to become if the 



initial step were taken, remarkable also in its 
grasp of fundamental principles now gener- 
ally recognized. They said: 

"There can be no doubt that such reading 
ought to be furnished to all, on the same prin- 
ciple that we furnish free education, and in 
fact, as a part, and a most important part, of 
the education of all. For it has been rightly 
judged that, under political, social, and re- 
ligious institutions like ours, it is of para- 
mount importance that the means of general 
information should be so diffused that the 
largest possible number of persons should be 
induced to read and understand questions 
going down to the very foundations of the 
social order, and which we, as a people, are 
constantly required to decide, and do decide, 
either ignorantly or wisely. That this can 
be done that is, that such libraries can be 
collected, and that they will be used to a 
much wider extent than libraries have ever 
been used before, and with much more im- 
portant results, there can be no doubt. . . . 
To accomplish this object, however, which has 
never yet been attempted, we must use means, 
which have never before been used. 



WADLIN 



What precise plan should be adopted for such 
a library it is not, perhaps, possible to settle 
beforehand. It is a new thing, a new step 
forward in general education, and we must 
feel our way as we advance:" 

Fifty years have passed. The public library 
is still, comparatively, a new thing; and we 
are still feeling our way as we advance. But 
the germ was contained in the few sentences 
I have read, and those who in 1852 put such 
considerations before the public, and, imme- 
diately, supported by the public to which they 
appealed, proceeded, with more or less suc- 
cess, to put their theories into practice, de- 
serve to be called the fathers of the public 
library movement in America. 

Their prescience was still more remarkable 
since they were building far better than they 
knew. They could not have foreseen the 
modern city and its peculiar conditions. They 
were unconsciously aiding, I must believe, in 
the development of a modern municipal in- 
stitution, impelled by forces which they did 
Hot, at the moment, clearly apprehend. 

To-day the public library as an established 
department of municipal administration meets 
conditions essentially modern in a field not 
hitherto occupied. This inevitably changes 
it-5 character as compared with the great li- 
braries of the past, fixes its policy, and deter- 
mines its methods of administration. 

In this use of the word modern I contrast 
the present with no earlier period than the 
mid-nineteenth century. Since then the world 
ior most of us has been transformed. Not 
only were there then no public libraries of 
our type, but there were in the United States 
no cities like those which now exist. 

The tremendous industrial changes, within 
the memory of men still young, have created 
a social revolution. The old life was self- 
centered, peaceful, orderly; the new is com- 
plex and restless. Then our population was 
homogeneous, derived from a common source, 
moved by similar beliefs. Now we have wide 
contrasts in material condition, severe indus- 
trial competition, and many shades of opinion. 
The incoming tide of immigration, the era of 
machinery, the friction of class with class, 
have turned our larger towns and cities into 



battle grounds wherein the forces of evil are 
constantly combatting the forces of good. 

Moreover, our ideals of education and of 
social opportunity are slowly changing. To- 
day we ask not merely opportunity for our- 
selves but for every one, without distinction 
of sex, race or nationality. There is, as Pro- 
fessor Griggs has said, something thrilling in 
the unquestioning faith and enthusiasm with 
which the world is turning towards this ideal. 

Meanwhile economic changes have forced 
books to the front as instruments of educa- 
tion more prominently than ever before. The 
dominant forces in progress in the past 
brute strength,' personal bravery, material 
wealth all these, even the so-called natural 
resources of a country give place to-day to 
the general diffusion of intelligence. 

"God," said Napoleon, "is on the side of the 
strongest battalions." If that was ever true, 
it is not the gospel of to-day. God is to-day 
on the side of developed intelligence. Prece- 
dence in the future will be given to the na- 
tion, city or individual whose intelligence is 
most perfectly developed and applied in the 
arts of peace. 

The highest word in education at present is 
self-expression. Nevertheless, paradoxical as 
it may seem, in proportion as books have mul- 
tiplied and become cheap, they have become 
more than ever the principal tools of educa- 
tion, the means by which the power of self- 
expression is attained. 

I am aware that pessimists deplore our pres- 
ent literary standards, and nothing is more 
common, perhaps, than the opinion among 
scholars that the public to-day has little love 
for books. In England this is especially 
marked. A noted bookseller in Piccadilly 
said, not long ago, "No one can point to a 
single school in England where boys are 
taught to make friends of books. No one 
is taught how to use books, how to get the 
best out of them, how to be genuinely amused 
by them all the year round." Even the public 
library has been criticised as a destroyer of 
literature and of the literary atmosphere. 

On the contrary, I believe that the intellec- 
tual life, rightly considered, was never so full 
as to-day ; that the fruits of the intellect were 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



never so widely applied for the benefit of 
man ; that the experience of the race was 
never so fully recorded in books as now, and 
that books were never so generally used as 
now to the end that what is obtained from 
them may be turned to useful account. Some 
years ago Charles Dudley Warner put to the 
scholar this pregnant question as the present- 
day query of the man in the street, What is 
your culture to rne? There were never so 
many as now who could give to that question 
a satisfactory answer. 

The privileges of the intellectual life have 
been opened to the people, and its opportuni- 
ties broadened to include those who were 
formerly without its pale. While there are 
perhaps no longer the great isolated peaks, 
the general mass has been raised to higher 
levels. The intellectual hunger, the hunger 
of the child, frequently noticed in the adult, 
the period of intellectual awakening not being 
entirely a question of years, was never so 
keen as to-day. It is the purpose of the pres- 
ent to satisfy that hunger ; to extend as wide- 
ly as possible the area of privilege. It is here 
that the public library finds its peculiar work, 
and, especially in cities, its administrative 
success is largely proportioned to the results 
it achieves in this direction. 

Under modern conditions a library, consid- 
ered as a municipal institution, must be so 
administered as to reach, as no other educa- 
tional institution can reach, all classes in the 
community. Such a library can no longer 
remain merely a storehouse for books, a mu- 
seum for the collection of rare volumes, nor a 
quarry for literary artists. 

However important these functions, and I 
do not question their importance, the peculiar 
work of a library as a modern municipal in- 
stitution covers a wider field. The theory 
that a library exists principally for scholars 
is not applicable to such a library. Mr. Henry 
James has recently said, you remember, apro- 
pos of a visit to Boston, that "a library with- 
out penetralia is but a temple without altars." 
The great public library, it must be admitted, 
loses something of the poetry, something of 
the atmosphere of philosophic calm and en- 
viable repose, the exquisite charm that be- 



longs to the typical libraries of the past to 
the Bodleian, for example, or to the smaller 
libraries in some old university town. Yet 
even in Boston there exist penetralia, not ob- 
vious to the casual eye, else they would not be 
penetralia. 

But the library that properly fills its place 
as a municipal institution must adapt itself 
to present conditions. There are others than 
scholars whom it can help, and who do not 
row use it very largely. Its administration 
should be directed toward reaching them. It 
should reach the business man, the working- 
man, the new woman I use that term with- 
out reproach. 

These, except in a limited way, have not 
yet learned to use it. It must, in short, ex- 
pand upon its democratic side, and in this 
way become the intellectual center of the life- 
of the community, the true university of the 
people, extending, so far as it may be done 
through books, the gospel of "sweetness and 1 
light" and the power of a higher civilization. 
Since no similar institution was ever needed 1 ' 
before it finds few precedents for action, but 
must gradually evolve them. 

From the administrative point of view the- 
functions of the modern librarian, therefore,, 
fall naturally under two heads, namely, to in- 
spire and to direct. Since such a library 
comes in contact with readers of all stages of 
development, from the primary school to the- 
university, and deals largely with an entirely 
untrained public, frequently but one genera- 
tion removed from illiteracy, and consequently,, 
so far as the resources of the library are con- 
cerned, merely children, one of its important 
functions must be a wise discrimination in the- 
selection and circulation of books. 

To the objection that this implies censor- 
ship, I reply that censorship there must be, if" 
by censorship is meant that some books are- 
to be selected, others rejected; some freely 
circulated, others restricted, others not cir- 
culated at all. Everybody recognizes, I sup- 
pose, that there are unfit books, immoral! 
books books whose general influence upon 
the individual, and through him upon the com- 
munity, is bad. If that is true, there is every 
reason why such books should not be circu- 



WADLIN 



33 



lated by a public agency. We who administer 
a municipal institution have certain respon- 
sibilities that did not rest upon the librarian 
of the old school, or that do not attach to the 
private circulating library even now. We 
stand in this matter as the custodians of the 
public welfare, and have no moral right to 
disregard our responsibilities. It can only 
be asked that such censorship as we exercise 
shall be administered in a liberal spirit, in 
harmony with the principles of a liberal de- 
mocracy. We shall make mistakes, undoubt- 
edly, for we are fallible. We may sometimes 
offend. But just as it is admitted that there 
must be selection according to high standards 
in the field of municipal art, even in the sort 
of gardening that is to be permitted in our 
parks, or in the character and form of teach- 
ing in our public schools, so also there must 
be discrimination in the administration of a 
public library. Liberty but not license ; free- 
dom but not disregard of the accepted canons 
of morality to say nothing of taste these 
are as necessary here as in other departments 
of municipal activity. 

The notion that one may be turned loose 
in a library and left to browse, in the serene 
conviction that the result will be the natural 
selection of the book best fitted for his read- 
ing, is a theory applicable only to those who 
have already reached a certain stage of men- 
tal development, or who have the right sort 
of appetite, either inherited or acquired. It 
does not fit the conditions which now exist in 
our great cities, nor is it applicable in dealing 
with large groups of untrained persons, of 
inchoate literary taste, of many different na- 
tionalities, and of various temperaments and 
aptitudes. Such persons need to be helped, 
if you prefer that word to the less agreeable 
word "directed." They need to be inspired, 
to be carried out of their limited and often 
sordid world into the larger companionship 
which the printed book, wisely selected, may 
afford. 

It is not a question of departments of liter- 
ature, whether, for example, much or little 
fiction should be circulated. Questions of that 
kind, I take it, will settle themselves once we 
are agreed upon the direction toward which 
our administration should tend. 



To make better citizens not merely better 
voters, but better men and women in all civic 
relations, this is the prime end of the library 
as a municipal institution. This may or may 
not be the end which one has in view in col- 
lecting a private library. In that agreeable 
task one may gratify his private taste, and to 
a large extent his private whims or fancies. 
The society or club library, also, may be lim- 
ited to the peculiar needs of its proprietors. 
But the public library exists for public ends ; 
its aims are social, not individual. 

Since the scholar is necessary to society it 
must remember the needs of the scholar, and, 
in doing so, preserve the traditions of the 
libraries of the past, modified only by the 
greater demands of modern scholarship. It 
ought to have its place for meditation and 
reflection, its rooms set apart for that pur- 
pose, dedicated to the appropriate gods, if you 
please. I have no quarrel with Mr. James on 
that point. If I emphasize here the more 
popular phases of its work, it is because these 
distinguish it from the libraries of older type, 
and because they seem to me the more impor- 
tant. 

Since the civilization of the present rests 
upon the development of industry and com- 
merce, the library should offer to the artisan 
assistance in developing his skill, and to the 
employees in our great business houses the 
opportunity to broaden their knowledge. 
There is a great reading constituency in both 
these classes who might find direct personal 
benefit within our walls. The shortening of 
the hours of labor, urged especially that the 
workingman might have more time for read- 
ing, will gradually enlarge this constituency, 
if we are prepared to supply its needs. 

And beyond the utilitarian, there is the cul- 
tural use of books the reading hot with 
strenuous purpose, but for the pure love of it. 
It ought to be possible, for example, to show 
the woman who now reads fiction mainly that 
there are other pleasant places in the fields of 
literature and to lead her into them; to show 
the man who reads science or politics mainly 
that a little fiction now and then may operate 
as an alterative that even poetry opens a 
wide vista that a man of hard common sense 
might well enjoy; to meet the child just de- 



34 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



veloping a taste for reading and to cultivate 
the library habit along other lines than those 
of the imagination; to take the raw material 
that is poured upon us like a flood out of the 
old world, and, so far as books may help to do 
it, to Americanize it these are all problems 
of administration, and the administration that 
best promotes these things is the best admin- 
istration of the library considered as a mu- 
nicipal institution. 

Questions of cataloging, bulletins, refer- 
ence work, open or closed shelves the num- 
berless questions of detail are all to be tried by 
this standard: Do they help to get the right 
book into the hands of the right person at the 
right time, with the least formality and red- 
tape, or aid in attracting and benefiting the 
widest possible constituency with the least 
possible friction. 

To summarize, the administration of the 
public library as a municipal institution, in 
American cities, at least, tends inevitably 
toward (i) bringing the book close to the 
people by means of an organization compris- 
ing a central library and outlying branches, 
co-ordinated under a single administrative 
"head; (2) the confining of restrictions upon 
access to the book in the building or upon its 
circulation to the narrowest possible limits; 
(3) the cultivation of the library habit within 
the largest possible constituency; (4) direct 
educational work with the children and with 
the untrained of adult age; (5) the promo- 
tion of the use of books as helps toward en- 
larging the power of the individual, indus- 
trially and otherwise, and toward raising the 
standard of citizenship and civic responsibil- 
ity; and, finally, the development of a higher 
literary taste among readers and the stimula- 
tion of a love of reading among those who 
have not heretofore felt this inspiration. 

Shall we succeed in the work we are under- 
taking? I believe we shall, although it may 
be frankly admitted that the best municipal 
library now existing is far from realizing the 
high ideal I have in mind. But, as against 
Sisera, the stars in their courses fight on our 
side. 

Below the turmoil and strife of the present, 
the disheartening array of moral delinquen- 



cies, the civic coruption and individual selfish- 
ness with which we are at this moment made 
unpleasantly familiar, there are the great 
forces that in their own way are slowly ad- 
vancing upon what Emerson called chaos and 
the dark The institutions of society that 
make for peace and righteousness and civic 
betterment will not fail. Of these the public 
library is not the least. 

Our task is far from light. I have no roseate 
dreams about it. It is to educate and guide 
the community in the use of books ; to draw 
those who have never yet felt the need of any- 
thing we can offer them ; to open to a con- 
stituency which has but yesterday learned to 
read all the companionship that may be 
gained from books ; to help men and women 
to a wise and sane use of a part of that leisure 
which, in spite of the strenuous habit of our 
modern life, was never so abundant as now. 
In this we compete with the club, the place of 
amusement, and other less reputable attrac- 
tions. In alluding to the work before us Dr. E. 
A. Birge, in his admirable address before the 
Wisconsin Library Association, recently said : 

"It ought to be recognized that in under- 
taking this work the public library is entering 
a new and almost unexplored field of effort, 
and also that it is trying to extend its influ- 
ence to classes of the community it has not 
hitherto reached, and along lines of knowl- 
edge which it has never seriously attempted to 
follow. In such a work there must be many 
experiments and many failures, and the posi- 
tive result will be small for a long time." But 
though we may not reach the many, we shall 
reach those who by their influence will make 
good the promise that the future holds. 

Thus the library, through the stored-up 
record of the ages which form its collections, 
may bring to the hungry present the knowl- 
edge of the past out of which we came, that 
we may cry : 

"Mother Age, for mine I knew not, help me as 
when life begun; 

Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the light- 
nings, weigh the sun. 

O, I see the crescent premise of my spirit hath not 
set. 

Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my 
fancy yet." 



FOSS 



35 



THE SONG OF THE LIBRARY STAFF 



By SAM WALTER Foss, Librarian of Somerville (Mass.) Public Library 



OH, joy! to see the Library staff perpetually jogging, 

And to see the Cataloger in the act of cataloging. 

("Catalogs Log-books for cattle," was the school- 
boy's definition, 

A statement not to be despised for insight and pre- 
cision) 

Every language spoke at Babel in the books that 
pile her table, 

Every theme discussed since Adam song or story, 
fact or fable! 

And she sweetly takes all knowledge for her province, 
as did Bacon, 

All the fruit that's dropped and mellowed since the 
Knowledge tree was shaken, 

All the ologies of the colleges, all the isms of the 
schools, 

All the unassorted knowledges she assorts by Cutter's 
rules; 

Or tags upon each author in laige labels that are 
gluey 

Their place in Thought's great Pantheon in decimals 
of Dewey; 

Oh, joy! to see the Library staff perpetually jogging, 

And to see the Cataloger in the act of cataloging. 

.See the Reference Librarian and the joys that apper- 
tain to her; 
"VYho shall estimate the contents and the area of the 

brain to her? 
See the people seeking wisdom from the four winds 

ever blown to her, 
For they know there is no knowledge known to 

mortals but is known to her; 
.See this flower of perfect knowledge, blooming like 

a lush geranium, 
All converging rays of wisdom focussed just beneath 

her cranium; 
.She is stuffed with erudition as you'd stuff a leather 

cushion, 
And her wisdom is her specialty it's marketing 

her mission. 
How they throng to her, all empty, grovelling in their 

insufficience; 
How they come from her o'erflooded by the sea of 

her omniscience! 
And they know she knows she knows things, while 

she drips her learned theses 

The percentage of illiteracy perceptibly decreases. 
Ah, they know she knows she knows things, and her 

look is education; 
And to look at her is culture, and to know her is 

salvation. 

See the Children's gay Librarian. Oh, what boisterous 

joys are hers 
As she sits upon her whirl-stool, throned amid her 

worshippers, 



Guiding youngsters seeking wisdom through Thought's 

misty morning light; 
Separating Tom and Billy as they clinch in deadly 

fight; 
Giving lavatory treatment to the little hand that 

smears 
With the soil of crusted strata laid by immemorial 

years ; 
Teaching critical acumen to the youngsters munching 

candy, 
To whom books are all two classes they are either 

"bum" or "dandy"; 
Dealing out to Ruths and Susies, or to Toms and 

Dicks and Harries, 
Books on Indians or Elsie, great big bears, or little 

fairies. 
For the Children's gay Librarian passes out with 

equal pains 
Books on Indians or Elsie, satisfying hungering 

brains; 
Dealing Indians or Elsie, each according to his 

need, 
Satisfying long, long longings for an intellectual 

feed. 

See the gleeful Desk Attendants ever dealing while 

they can 

The un-inspected canned beef of the intellect of man; 
Dealing out the brains of sages and the poet's heart 

divine, 
(Receiving for said poet's heart ofttimes a two-cent 

fine); 

Serene amid the tumult for new novels manifold, 
For new novels out this afternoon but thirty minutes 

old; 

Calm and cool amid the tumult see the Desk Attend- 
ant stand 
With contentment on her features and a date-stamp 

in her hand. 
As they feed beasts at the circus to appease their 

hungering rage, 
So she throws this man a poet and she drops that 

man a sage, 
And her wild beasts growl in fury when they do not 

like her meat, 
When the sage is tough and fibrous and the bard not 

over-sweet ; 

And some retire in frenzy, lashing wrathfully about, 
When the intellectual spare-rib that they most affect 

is out. 
But she feeds 'em, and she leads 'em and beguiles 

'em with sweet guile, 
And wounds 'em with her two-cent fine and heals 

'em with her smile. 

Oh, the gleesome Desk Attendant who shall esti- 
mate her glee? 
Get some mightier bard to sing it 'tis a theme too 

big for me! 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Now my Muse prepare for business. Plume your 

wings for loftier flight 
Through the circumambient ether to a super-lunar 

height, 
Then adown the empyrean from the heights where 

thou hast risen 
Sing, O Muse! the Head Librarian and the joy that's 

her'n or his'n. 
See him, see her, his or her head weighted with the 

lore of time, 

Trying to expend a dollar when he only has a dime; 
Tailoring appropriations and how deftly he suc- 
ceeds, 
Fitting his poor thousand dollars to his million 

dollar needs. 
How the glad book agents cheer him and he cannot 

wish them fewer 
With "their greatest work yet published since the 

dawn of literature." 
And he knows another agent, champing restive to 

begin 
With another work still greater will immediately 

come in. 
So perfection on perfection follows more and more 

sublime 
And the line keeps on forever down the avenues 

of time 



So they travel on forever, stretching far beyond oui- 

ken, 
Lifting demijohns of wisdom to the thirsty lips- 

of men. 
See him 'mid his myriad volumes listening to the 

gladsome din 

Of the loud vociferant public that no book is ever "in"^. 
And he hears the fierce taxpayer evermore lift up 

the shout 
That the book he needs forever is the book forever 

"out." 
How they rage, the numerous sinners, when he Tries . 

to please the saints, 

When he tries to please the sinners hear the numer- 
ous saints' complaints ; 

And some want a Bowdlered Hemans and an ex- 
purgated Watts; 
Some are shocked beyond expression at the sight' 

of naked thoughts! 
And he smooths their fur the right way, and he 

placates him or her, 
And those who come to snarl and scratch remain t 

behind to purr. 
Oh, the gamesome glad Librarian gushing with his 

gurgling glee ! 
Here I hand my resignation, 'tis a theme too. big;: 

for me. 



THE BASIS OF TAXATION FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES 
BY JAMES HULME CANFIELD, Librarian of Columbia University 



T ESS than a hundred years ago consider- 
ably less ! any discussion of taxation in 
this country would doubtless have set as the 
limitations of government action the necessity 
of the government itself. In those days we 
said that the less we knew of government the 
better, that almost without qualification it was 
a necessary burden and a social and economic 
evil which we would gladly put away if we 
could, that it was an accident or incident of 
fallen humanity, and that the higher men rose 
in the scale of rational and enlightened exist- 
ence, and the purer they became, the less 
would they need government and the less 
would they perceive the existence of govern- 
ment. We would have said that the chief 
purpose of government was to decide in an 
apparent conflict of rights, or to prevent a 
conflict of rights ; or we would have summed 
up its sole object in the single sentence that 
the purpose of government is to secure to all 
who labor the fruits of their labor. 



To-day, however, we occupy much broaden 
ground, and what we really believe to be much ; 
more sane and safe ground although some- 
times we fear that the pendulum in its up- 
ward swing may go too far. That is a detail,, 
however, of administration, rather than a de- 
fect in principle. To-day we say that govern- 
ment is the agent for the people, established" 
to do whatever the people wish to have done. 
It is no longer simply the common laborer, 
like one who kindles our fires, sweeps our 
offices, cares for our horses, and does the- 
other odd jobs of life leaving us free to give 
undivided attention to our more important 
business; but it is the concrete manifestation 
of a system of co-operation, by which we do > 
jointly everything which we can do better that 
way than each working for himself. 

This statement of course broadens the whole- 
field of taxation. 

Taxes may be defined as enforced, equitable- 
and proportional contributions from persons. 



CANFIELD 



37 



and property, levied by the community not 
only for the maintenance of government but for 
all public needs and advantage. Taxes are the 
contributions of the people for things con- 
ducive to the common welfare. The citizen 
pays the tax that he may enjoy the benefits of 
organized society. The points or expressions 
in these definitions on which we need to lay 
emphasis are "equitable and proportional con- 
tributions," "public needs and advantage," 
"common welfare," "organized society." In 
other words, taxation regards the general ben- 
efit and welfare of political society, through 
which it necessarily but indirectly reaches and 
advances the individual. It is hardly too 
much to say that it pays but indirect regard 
to the individual as such. 

It may be remarked incidentally that under 
this view taxation has no practical limitation 
except the public welfare. Taxation is ar- 
ranged for the general good and keeps pace 
with it. There is really no principle whatever 
by which taxation may be arbitrarily limited. 
The effort in nearly every state in the Union, 
possibly in every state, to fix or to attempt to 
fix by statute, the limit beyond which taxation 
shall not go, is a surprising confession of dis- 
trust in our general system of government, 
and of weakness in our system of levying as 
now administered. Legislation may with entire 
propriety limit the amount of indebtedness 
which a given community may incur (because 
this is placing an unjus't load upon future gen- 
erations and avoiding personal and present re- 
sponsibility), and legislation may protect the 
minority by requiring certain definite major- 
ities in order to secure certain expenditures, 
or possibly by limiting suffrage with regard to 
certain forms of tax levies. But with no pro- 
priety or safety whatever may legislation cur- 
tail the amount which a community may be 
entirely willing to contribute and expend. 
Economy, frugality, wisdom in expenditure, 
integrity, cannot be enforced by law. There 
is too much character involved in each. Then, 
too, economy and frugality do not necessarily 
mean small expense or low taxation. Indeed, 
the connection between the two is so slight as 
to form almost no ground whatever for judg- 
ment in this matter. Other factors are so 
numerous and controlling that the solution of 



the problem of wise taxation goes very lame 
and halting on this factor alone. If taxes are 
so collected and expended as to make them a 
good investment, then they may be carried to 
any extent that individual expenditure may 
reach. Taxation may be high and yet ac- 
tually a matter of profit, as where the cost of 
water works and a sewer system is more than 
offset by the general rise in property values, 
the redaction in insurance rates, the decrease 
in losses by fire, and a lessening of the ex- 
pense attending sickness. Or taxes may be 
high and gladly sustained although bringing 
no money returns, as in the case of great pub- 
lic comfort, convenience or advantage. Just 
as an individual may be very willing to limit 
his expenditures in many ways in order that 
he may have attractive grounds about his 
house, or may own a well-filled library, or 
make a yearly pilgrimage to the metropolis ; 
so the people of a town may, very properly 
and wisely, make actual sacrifices in personal 
expenditures in order to secure through taxa- 
tion efficient schools, a public library, a beau- 
tiful park, or some of the advantages of the 
metropolis in a course of public lectures. All 
these should be considered rather as extra- 
ordinary expenditures, to be met by special 
action since for all general purposes taxes 
may be and ought to be such as to demand 
no very great sacrifice ; but such extraordinary 
expenditures ought not to be barred by statu- 
tory enactment. 

We should keep in mind always that the 
purpose of taxation is to make possible a pro- 
duct of greater value than the amount col- 
lected. This is one of the surest tests of the 
wisdom and integrity of both levy and outlay. 
Expenditure should be clearly remunerative. 
Every possible effort should be made to es- 
tablish the fact that the amount paid to the 
tax-collector is one of the best investments 
that citizens can possibly make. Let it be 
clearly understood that no money is wasted, 
that public service is just as efficient as that 
of a private corporation, that schools and li- 
braries and roads and parks are worth all we 
put into them, and there will be very little 
hesitancy or dishonesty on the part of the 
public in tax matters. 

It may be well to answer still more emphat- 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



ically the inquiry as to who are the proper 
beneficiaries of any collection and expenditure 
of public revenues. Possibly as communities 
and states we ought to occupy higher ground, 
but at present we certainly do very little for 
individuals as such. Taxes are levied not be- 
cause the taxpayer wants something, but be- 
cause the public wants something. The bene- 
fits of a tax are not redistributed to each tax- 
payer according to the size of his tax receipts. 
Thousands of dollars for making good roads 
are contributed by people who never ride over 
them, a large part of the school tax is paid by 
those who have no children to enjoy the edu- 
cational privileges thus secured, parks are 
built and museums are maintained and public 
libraries are opened by people who never visit 
them. The results of taxation as enjoyed by 
the individual are not a great and generous 
giving upon the part of the community to the 
individual as such. The welfare of the com- 
munity as a whole is always in mind, and the 
direct results to any individual are so entirely 
secondary as to be almost negligible. In fact, 
the community may even inflict injury upon 
the individual for the sake of the community 
as when in the exercise of its right of emi- 
nent domain it takes a homestead from an in- 
dividual and creates a highway. It is true 
that reasonable damages are awarded but 
time and again monetary damages cannot 
make good all the suffering which such action 
involves. 

Having laid this broad yet sound founda- 
tion, we find ourselves faced with the ques- 
tion, What is the purpose and intent of the 
public library ? I can answer this most briefly 
by saying that what is sought by the public 
library is precisely what is sought by the 
public schools, and something more. If we 
carefully analyze this expression "something 
more," we will find that to education and in- 
formation the public library adds recreation 
and that rather intangible and indefinite some- 
thing which we call culture. But all this comes 
within the field of legitimate taxation; just as 
we levy a tax the result of which is to be the 
utility of good roads, yet make further expen- 
diture for the comfort and pleasure of the 
traveller by planting shade-trees along the side ; 
just as we create breathing places in a great 



city by the purchase of grounds and buildings 
and the destruction of the buildings, and then 
beautify the spot by greensward and shrub- 
bery and flowers; just as we teach the three 
R's, the so-called fundamentals, in the public 
schools and then add to these fundamentals 
instruction which develops and directs both 
ethic and aesthetic taste and is conducive to 
sound morals. 

This brings us immediately to a most im- 
portant and fundamental view of the public 
library, the only viewpoint from which we 
can see it in true perspective and in true rela- 
tions, the only position which we can assume 
with any safety whatever when we discuss the 
question of public taxation, and that is that 
the public library is an integral part of the 
public and free system of education. When 
we have thus determined we are on absolutely 
safe ground. All public education rests back 
upon the constitution and laws of each state. 
No commonwealth has expressed the funda- 
mental reason for public education better 
than has the state of Massachusetts. Its con- 
stitution (Chapter v., Section 2) declares that 
"Wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue, 
diffused generally among the body of the peo- 
ple, being necessary for the preservation of 
their rights and liberties, and these depending 
upon spreading the opportunities and advan- 
tages of education in the various parts of the 
country and among the different orders of the 
people ; it shall be the duty of legislatures and 
magistrates to ... cherish the interests of 
public schools and grammar schools in the 
towns." It was with this thought in mind that 
our fathers and our fathers' fathers planned 
the scheme of general advancement and en- 
lightenment which in its scope and in its suc- 
cess has far outrun the limits of the initial 
thought, and has grandly fulfilled all their 
early hopes. 

It was the Puritan theory of life that lay 
at the bottom of the whole system of popular 
education in New England. Crude indeed as 
was their thought of individual responsibility, 
which always calls for individual intelligence; 
hampered as they were by custom and preju- 
dice in following even their own ideals, yet 
they broke new ground and sowed new seed, 
and under God the increase is our own. It 



CANFIELD 



39 



was a sort of instinct of the race, that quick 
insight which has marked the American peo- 
ple at every stage of their progress, that ready 
grasp upon all the details of a practical move- 
ment which is so peculiarly characteristic of 
us it was this temperament that early ap- 
preciated the necessity of general education 
under public control and supervision if we 
were to be successful in building a free state 
in the wilderness. This educational system 
is not something that has been thrust upon us 
by a few designing people ; it is not a hobby 
on which some small segment of the public 
may ride ; it is the magnificent result of steady 
growth under steady and intelligent demand. 
It is a system organized by the state, main- 
tained by the state, and the wisest and surest 
means of self-preservation possessed by the 
state all of which marks it as a public sys- 
tem, sharply differentiated from any and every 
form of private instruction. 

The state accepts and maintains this educa- 
tional system quite as much through a sense 
of necessity as through choice. A free re- 
public without a system of public education 
common to all would be short-lived indeed, 
because the intelligence and morality of its 
citizens are its only safeguards, its only prom- 
ises of perpetuity, its only sureties of endur- 
ance. The act of the state in education is a 
selfish act; an act grounded in enlightened 
selfishness it may be, nevertheless grounded 
in selfishness in the very best sense of a much 
abused word. It is simply an act of self- 
protection. It may well accept as the best ex- 
pression of its reason for being the statement 
in Washington's Farewell Address that "In 
proportion as the structure of government 
gives force to public opinion it is essential that 
public opinion should be enlightened." 

We must not forget that the American peo- 
ple are their own masters, for good or for ill ; 
since freedom means freedom for self injury 
and cannot mean less. That this may be a 
mastery for good and not for ill comes this 
general and public and imperative demand for 
general public enlightenment and intelli- 
gence. The proposition that only an en- 
lightened and an intelligent people can make 
self-government a success is so self-evident 
as to make argument but a vain repetition of 



empty words. And yet we know that the 
public school side of our system of free pub- 
lic education is as yet only able to secure five 
years schooling for the average child in this 
country an all too narrow portal through 
which to enter upon successful citizenship. 
There is an imperative demand then for the 
establishment and the development and , for 
the wise administration of that other branch 
of our system of free public education which 
we know as the public library. 

We must understand clearly that the bene- 
ficent result of this system of education, bi- 
furcated if you choose to call it so, is just as 
possible to the son of the peasant as to the 
son of the president, is just as helpful to the 
blacksmith as to the barrister, to the farmer 
as to the philosopher; and in its possibilities 
and in its helpfulness is a constant blessing to 
all and through all, and is needed by all alike. 
By what may be termed an instinct of hu- 
manity all governments from the very earliest 
day, even before the coming of modern civil- 
ization, have recognized that good citizens are 
more to be desired than great cities, and that 
to place wisdom and integrity in the service of 
the state is better than to gather silver and 
gold. No nation has forgotten this and es- 
caped destruction. No nation is in existence 
to-day that does not owe its present vitality to 
a wise observation of this natural law. 

The most worthy mind, that which is of 
most value to the world, is the well-informed 
mind which is public and large. Only through 
the development of such, both as leaders and 
as followers, can all classes be brought into 
an understanding of each other, can we pre- 
serve true republican equality, can we avoid 
that insulation and seclusion which are un- 
wholesome and unworthy of true American 
manhood. The state has no resources at all 
comparable with its citizens. A man is 
worth to himself just what he is capable of 
enjoying, and he is worth to the state just 
what he is capable of imparting. These form 
an exact and true measure of every man. The 
greatest positive strength and value, therefore, 
must always be associated with the greatest 
positive and practical development of every 
faculty and power. 

This then is the true basis of taxation for 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



public libraries. Such a tax is subject to all 
the canons of usual taxation, and may be de- 
fended and must be defended upon precisely 
the same grounds as we defend the tax for 
the public schools. Only as we place the pub- 
lic library squarely upon this foundation, and 
entirely within the lines of a great scheme of 
public education, established for the general 
reasons and purposes just outlined, can we 
really defend it at all. Once this position is 
taken and accepted, we are safe against all 
comers. And this will make exceedingly sim- 
ple and plain the general problem of admin- 
istration of the public library. The com- 
munity will scon come to understand that their 
relations to the library are precisely like their 
relations to the other branch of the system 
of public education, the public schools; that 
if they desire any change in administration it 
must be found in the usual way, through a 
change of directors at the proper time and in 
the proper manner. The taxpayer will no 
more think of insisting that because he is a 
taxpayer he has a right to demand a certain 
book or certain books through the public li- 



brary, than he will think that as a taxpayer 
he has a right to demand the instruction of 
his children in a specific branch or in specific 
branches which the directors of the public 
schools have not yet included in the curricu- 
lum. There will come also to the librarian 
the same sense of security that comes to the 
teacher of the public schools. While each 
branch of our system of education is wisely 
under its own directors, a differentiation 
which ought to be continued, the possible co- 
operation between all officers and workers in 
the two at least equal parts of this great field 
is multiplied indefinitely by a correct under- 
standing of the relations and possible co- 
ordination of these parts. 

Let every teacher and every librarian, there- 
fore, and every director of school or library, 
every sincerely patriotic citizen, adopt at 
once as a fundamental proposition the state- 
ment that the public school and the public 
library are integral parts of one great system 
of public and free education. This makes our 
educational future absolutely sure for all years 
to come. 



THE WHOLE DUTY OF A LIBRARY TRUSTEE: FROM A LIBRARIAN'S 

STANDPOINT 

BY ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chief of Circulation Department, New York Public Library 



A T a former meeting of this section the 
present writer had the honor of reading 
a paper in which he made an attempt to show 
that the trustee of the public library is the 
representative of the public and, as such, in- 
terested especially in results as .distinguished 
from methods, which are the business of the 
librarian as an expert administrator. In mak- 
ing this distinction I urged trustees to give 
particular attention to the formulation of 
such results as they should consider desirable, 
that librarians on their part might confine 
themselves more to the consideration of ap- 
propriate methods for the attainment of these 
results. So far as I know, however, this 
work remains to be accomplished, and it is 
because I still think it desirable that I wel- 
come this opportunity of restating the situa- 
tion and making some attempt to illustrate 



it and to indicate what may and should be 
done in the premises. According to this view 
it is not only the duty of a board of trustees 
to consider what should be the results aimed 
at by its library, to formulate its conclusions, 
to communicate them to the librarian and 
then to hold him responsible for their attain- 
ment, but everything that the board may 
properly do may be brought under this head ; 
and to state it broadly is therefore to set 
forth comprehensively the "whole duty of a 
trustee," which may serve as the justification 
of my somewhat ambitious title. 

The layman's influence, control exercised 
by and through the viewpoint of the general 
public, is a most excellent thing, however 
much the expert may chafe under it. This 
is apparent in every art and craft. The ex- 
pert, the man who has made a study of 



BOSTWICK 



technique, of the way to do it, comes more 
and more to think of the method rather than 
the result to elaborate detail and manner 
and to take keen joy in their recognition and 
comparison. So it is with the worker in art 
or in literature, and thus we have what are 
called painter's pictures and musician's mu- 
rsic and poet's poems works that interest 
and delight those whose business it is to 
produce them, but which leave the general 
reader or hearer cold. It is evident that 
-these, no matter how valuable or interesting 
"they may be from one standpoint, are not 
the highest examples of their class. Better 
are the crude attempts of native genius which 
kindle enthusiasm and arouse the best im- 
pulses while breaking every canon of art. 
Best of all, of course, are the works where 
the technique and the result are both admir- 
able and where the technical resources of the 
worker are brought to bear consciously, 
-directly and successfully upon the at- 
tainment of the result. And to produce 
such works two forces must generally co- 
operate the trained skill and enthusiasm of 
the artist and the requirement of the general 
ipublic that his work must appeal to them, 
interest them, take them a message. 
Now this is of interest to us here and 
now, because, just as we occasionally have 
"composer's music" and "architect's build- 
ings," so, it is to be feared, we may have 
librarian's libraries institutions that are 
carried on with the highest degree of tech- 
nical skill and with enthusiasm and interest 
and yet fail of adequate achievement be- 
cause the librarian makes the mistake of re- 
garding the technique as an end instead of as 
a means of thinking that if his methods be 
precise, systematic and correct, good results 
must needs follow, instead of aiming directly 
at his results and adapting his methods to 
their attainment. 

It is here that the trustee, as the official 
representative of the general public, may 
apply a corrective influence. In the case 
of the artist or the writer this influence is 
brought to bear generally in a financial way 
by a wealthy patron who will order a pic- 
ture or statue provided it accords with his 
own ideas by hostile criticism, public or 
private, that drives away purchasers. In a 
public library, public opinion rarely makes 



itself felt in this way; indeed, it could do so 
only in cases where disregard of the public 
amounted to mismanagement and led to the 
reduction of appropriations or the discharge 
of the librarian. Public criticism, as in the 
press, might also affect a librarian's course; 
it undoubtedly often does, but it need not; 
and he may safely disregard it as a general 
thing. When, however, his board of trus- 
tees calls him to account, he must listen, and 
when it tells him what he is expected to do, 
it is then his business to devise the best way 
to do it. 

A rough classification and analysis of the 
results that a librarian may be expected to 
accomplish may not be out of place here. 
We may treat them under four heads: finan- 
cial, educational, recreational and social. 

Financial results. A library must show a 
good material return for money expended. 
By this is meant that its books and supplies 
must be purchased at fair rates, its salaries 
reasonably proportioned to quantity and qual- 
ity of services rendered, its property econom- 
ically administered. A board of trustees is 
derelict in its duty if it does not require all 
this, and also hold its librarian rigidly to 
such requirement. This means that it must, 
along the broadest lines, know the ratio of 
expenditure to return in these various de- 
partments; it does not mean that the libra- 
rian should be hampered by the prescription 
of details. It means, for example, that the 
expert administrator should be called to ac- 
count if his bills for lighting and heating are 
excessive, and that he should be asked to 
show cause why they should not be kept with- 
in bounds ; it does not mean that he should 
be required to use lights of a certain candle- 
power or turn off the light in a particular 
room at a given hour. In most libraries, the 
making of annual appropriations under desig- 
nated heads and the requirement that cause 
shall be shown for a transfer from one of 
these categories to another, are sufficient 
measures of financial control. 

Among the financial results that have al- 
ready attracted the attention of the public 
and hence engaged the interest of boards of 
trustees is the attainment of a proper ratio of 
expenditure for books to the expense of ad- 
ministration. This ratio is generally regarded 
by the lay critic as abnormally small, but 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



trustees have generally acquiesced in the li- 
brarian's explanation of the causes that seem 
to him to make it necessarily so. It is un- 
doubtedly the trustee's duty to call his expert 
administrator's attention to this and all other 
seeming discrepancies in expenditure, and to 
make sure that they are not carrying the li- 
brary too far toward technical perfection at 
the expense of practical efficiency. 

Educational results. It is only right to re- 
quire that a library should be able to show 
that it is increasing the educational content 
of the community, or raising its educational 
standard, or at least that it is exerting itself 
to do so, both directly and by co-operation 
with other agencies, especially with the public 
schools. A board of trustees is certainly 
justified in ascertaining by any means in its 
power whether this is being done, and if not, 
in asking an explanation of its librarian. 
Does everyone in the community know where 
the library is? Is everyone who would be 
benefited by it making use of it? Is it a help 
to the schools, and do the teachers recognize 
this fact? Does the community in general 
regard it as a place where material for the 
acquisition of knowledge is stored and dis- 
criminatingly given out? These are questions 
that can be settled not so much by the ex- 
amination of statistics as by ascertaining the 
general feeling of the community. It is much 
easier for a trustee to find this out than it is 
for a librarian ; and trustees, both individually 
and as a body, should continually bear in 
mind the value to him of information along 
this line. Librarians are apt to talk a good 
deal about the educational function of the li- 
brary as an adjunct and supplement to the 
school. It is to their credit that they have 
made it an educational force not under press- 
ure but voluntarily, as a recognition of the 
necessities of the situation. But where such 
necessities have not yet been recognized or 
where their full import "has been slow of real- 
ization, the educational side of library work 
remains undeveloped. Let the board of trus- 
tees notify its executive officer that it expects 
him to look to this feature of his work as 
thoroughly as to the condition of his building 
or the economical expenditure of his lighting 
appropriation, and all such institutions will 
experience a change of heart. 

Recreational results. Nothing is more im- 



portant to the physical and moral health of a 
community, as of an individual, than the 
quality of the recreation that it takes. The 
question of whether recreation is or is not 
taken need not be considered. Everyone 
takes recreation ; if means for the healthy 
normal variety are not provided, the other 
kind will occupy its place. And the healthy,, 
normal individual child or adult prefers 
,the first kind if lie can get it. With the 
physical variety the library has nothing- 
to do; but to purvey proper intellectual 
recreation is one of its most import- 
ant provinces. Is this adequately done? Is it 
done at all? Does the librarian exalt other 
functions of his great machine and neglect 
this one? The large amount of fiction cir- 
culated in most public libraries is generally 
taken as an indication that the quantity of 
its recreational content is considerable, what- 
ever may be said of the quality ; but this is a 
very superficial way of looking at the matter. 
There is educational material of the highest 
value in fiction and nearly every non-fiction 
class contains books of value for recreation. 
Moreover, what may be recreation to one 
man may be the hardest kind of study to an- 
other. The enthusiast in higher mathematics 
may extract as pure amusement from a book 
on the theory of functions as his neighbor 
would from the works of "John Henry." In 
short, it is very difficult to separate education 
and recreation. Good work presupposes- 
good play. It is simply our duty to view the 
library as a whole and to decide whether it 
contains the means of satisfying so much of 
the community's demand for recreation as is- 
wholesome and proper. Whether it does this- 
may be judged from the freedom with which 
the library is used for recreational purposes 
compared with other agencies. A proper ad- 
mixture of physical and intellectual amuse- 
ment is required by everybody; is the library 
doing its share toward the purveying of the 
latter form? I do not know any better way 
of finding out than for the library trustees to 
use their eyes and ears, nor any more effective 
remedy for inadequate results along this line 
than the pressure that they can bring to bear 
on their librarian. 

Social results. Under this head we may 
group a very large number of results that are 
apt to be overlooked or taken for granted. 



BOSTWICK 



43 



They may perhaps be summarized in the 
statement that the library should take its 
proper place in the institutional life of the 
community. What this is will depend largely 
on the community's size and its social con- 
tent. In many small towns the library nat- 
urally assumes great social importance ; in a 
city it may be relatively of less weigh!, 
though perhaps its influence in the aggregate 
may be even greater. Whether it is doing 
this part of its work properly may probably' 
be best ascertained by comparison with the 
work of other institutions that go to build 
up the social fabric the church, the home, 
the club, the social assembly. Does the 
dweller in the community turn as naturally 
to the library for intellectual help as he does 
to -the church for religious consolation? 
Does he seek intellectual recreation there as 
he seeks physical recreation at his athletic 
club or social entertainment at a dance? And 
so seeking, does he find? Does lie come to 
regard the library as his intellectual home 
and the librarian and his assistants as friends ? 
What, on the other hand, is the attitude of 
the library staff toward the public? Is it 
inviting or repellent, friendly or coldly hos- 
tile, helpful or indifferent? Here is a whole 
body of results that are, in a way, the most 
important that a library can produce, and 
yet it is impossible to set them down in fig- 
ures ; they can scarcely even be expressed in 
words. The social status of a library is like 
a man's reputation or his credit; it is built 
up by thousands of separate acts and by an 
attitude maintained consistently for years; 
yet a breath may blast it. Of this position 
a board of trustees should be particularly 
proud and its members should do their best 
to uphold it. If they realize by those many 
delicate indications that we all recognize but 
cannot formulate, that the library is failing 
to maintain it, the librarian should hear from 
them. They should let him know that some- 
thing is wrong and that they expect him to 
right it. If he does not know how, that is 
an indication that his personality and ability 
are parts of the failure. 

This, then, from the writer's standpoint, 
is the whole duty of a trustee or rather of 
a board of trustees to see clearly what it 
wants, to give the librarian his orders, and to 
require an accounting. 



I am frequently struck with the attitude of 
librarians toward their boards of trustees, 
not as shown in their public acts, but as re- 
vealed in conversation among themselves. A 
board is apt to be adjudged good or bad, sat- 
isfactory or unsatisfactory, as it takes a more 
or less passive part in the administration of 
the library. If it acts simply to approve what 
the librarian does and to see that he gets the 
necessary funds, it is regarded as ideal. All 
that most librarians seem to want is to be 
given plenty of money and then to be let 
alone. This is a view of the whole duty of a 
trustee with which I do not sympathize. On 
the other hand, it is not to be denied that 
boards of trustees have done much to en- 
courage this attitude because when they are 
really active in their interest their activity 
looks too closely to detail. They are then 
apt to interfere in the regulation of methods 
rather than to require results and afterward 
ascertain whether and in what degree these 
results have been reached. 

A board of trustees is the supreme author- 
ity in a library. I would have this fact 
realized in its fullest meaning by both trus- 
tees and librarian. And I would have the 
board exercise its supremity in what may be 
called the American manner. The people 
constitute the supreme authority both in Great 
Britain and in the United States. In the 
former country, however, this authority is 
symbolized by the person of a monarch, who 
reigns but does not govern; and the minutest 
details of administration are attended to by 
the people in the persons of their parliament- 
ary representatives and of the cabinet, which 
is, in effect, a parliamentary committee. In 
this country, on the other hand, we entrust 
administrative details very largely to our 
chief magistrate and his personally appointed 
advisers. We tell him what to do and leave 
him to do it as he thinks best; and though 
Congress is disposed at times to interfere in 
the details of administration, these usually 
consist more largely of departmental decis- 
ions and rulings than of definite provisions 
of a legislative act. The President of the 
United States is the people's general executive 
officer and administrative expert in precisely 
the same sense that the librarian occupies that 
office in his own library. Congress and the 
board of trustees bear similar relations to 



44 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



these officers. And although this may be 
carrying the comparison of small things with 
great to the point of absurdity, it shows 
clearly that the American idea of delegated 
authority is to make the authority great and 
the corresponding responsibility strict. That 
the best results have been attained in this 
country by following out this plan in all 
fields, from the highest government positions 
to the humblest commercial posts, seems to 
be undoubted; and I believe that the library 
has been a conspicuous example. 



Appoint a good man, then, as your admin- 
istrative expert; give him a free rein, but not 
in the sense of allowing him to dictate the 
whole policy of your library. Decide for 
yourselves the broad lines of that policy, re- 
lying on your own common sense together 
with his expert advice ; require him to follow 
out those lines to a successful issue, and hold 
him responsible for the outcome. So doing, 
you shall fulfil, so far as the limited vision of 
one librarian enables him to see, the whole 
duty of a trustee. 



THE IDEAL RELATIONS BETWEEN TRUSTEES AND LIBRARIAN 



BY MELVIL DEWEY 



AS a glittering generality the ideal should 
be mutual confidence, harmony and good 
will, and the more personal friendship the bet- 
ter. A foolish notion is widespread that the 
trustee, like the architect, is of necessity the 
natural enemy of the librarian. The trustee's 
position in its very nature attracts only the 
best citizens, who have public interests at 
heart and give their services freely. Some- 
times these best men with the best intentions 
are out of harmony with a librarian of great 
ability and high character, simply because 
their mutual relations have not been defined 
or understood by either party. The librarian 
is perhaps justly conscious that he knows 
vastly more than any of his board about his 
work, and feels that he should not be meddled 
with. Unconsciously he is in the attitude of 
wishing to be a beneficent autocrat in his 
library world. But our public system will not 
tolerate autocrats. We demand a legislature 
with full power to make laws as well as an 
executive to administer them. The trustees 
are the legislature. The librarian is, or ought 
to be, the able and respected executive. The 
trustees should settle policies and make by- 
laws. They are responsible to the public, 
which will not tolerate the excuse of "leaving 
it to the executive" or "to their associates," 
as has been made very plain during the recent 
insurance discussion. The librarian, how- 
ever able, has no right to ask his trustees to 



ignore their responsibilities and give him 
carte blanche, as in many cases, to do exactly 
as he pleases with the public property en- 
trusted to their care. The best governor in 
the Union would have little sympathy if he 
ignored his legislature. 

On the other hand, the trustees have no 
right to usurp executive functions, as is so 
often done by boards, committees and some- 
times even by individual trustees. It is anala- 
gous to a member of legislature or a commit- 
tee undertaking the direct administration of 
the laws he has shared in making. No one 
questions the rights of the absolute owner, 
and yet if because of these property rights he 
should from time to time seize one or both 
reins from the driver of his spirited horses, 
or now and then grab a lever of a great auto- 
mobile, he certainly would lose his driver or 
chauffeur, if such were worthy the name. A 
competent librarian has the same right to 
have all orders pass through his hands, and 
to control the purely executive details accord- 
ing to the methods which he has proved will 
give the best results to the largest number at 
least cost, that the experienced driver has a 
right to demand from his employer. 

When the trustees recognize this right in 
their executive officer, and he in turn recog- 
nizes fully their supremacy as the law-making 
body responsible to the public, we shall have 
an ideal relation between them. 



SOULE 



45 



THE NEED OF AN AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION COLLECTION OF 
PLANS OF LIBRARY BUILDINGS 

BY CHARLES C. SOULE, Boston, Mass. 



T-TALF a generation ago library skies were 
bright except in one quarter. The 
American Library Association, founded in 
1876, had held a dozen annual conferences. 
The Library Journal had been started as a 
forum of discussion. The first library school 
had developed vigorous life. The librarians 
of the country, at first bewildered and unor- 
ganized before the rapid growth of the library 
movement, had got together and developed 
their calling from a mere occupation to one of 
the learned professions. The skies were in- 
deed bright with promise for the future save 
for one dark cloud that portended disaster. 

To hold and shelter the libraries which 
were coming into existence, to allow full play 
for their use, to give effect to the labor-sav- 
ing devices and practical systems of admin- 
istration which busy brains were inventing, 
new buildings were needed, especially planned 
to meet the new wants needed not only 
in one place or a few places, but all over a 
land long fallow, now bursting into a sudden 
harvest of library appropriations and bene- 
factions. 

New buildings had hardly started from the 
ground when a school of architects and trus- 
tees appeared whose motto to put it barely 
was "Show, not use." An architect, in 
the columns of a leading newspaper, argued 
that library buildings should be treated as 
monuments rather than as workshops, and 
must be made architecturally beautiful even 
at the sacrifice of all considerations of utility. 
Our city of especial culture, our "modern 
Athens," planned a magnificent library build- 
ing without asking advice or even sugges- 
tions from the library profession, although 
there were within its very gates librarians who 
had acquired worldwide reputation for wise 
counsel and executive ability. A trustee of 
that library was reported as saying that it 
was useless to consult librarians because no 
two of them agreed on any point of library 
architecture. 



To this slur the American Library Associa- 
tion responded promptly and effectively. At 
the conference of 1891 a paper was read and 
unanimously adopted, embodying twenty 
"Points of agreement among librarians on li- 
brary architecture." The first points enforced 
were these: 

A library building should be planned for 
library work. 

The interior arrangement ought to be 
planned before the exterior is considered. 

No convenience of arrangement should ever 
be sacrificed for mere architectural effect. 

A library should be planned with a view 
to economical administration. 

Although these "points" sound now and 
sounded then like truisms, it was stated in 
that paper that no library buildings in exist- 
ence conformed to all, and that many build- 
ings conformed to none, of these axiomatic 
requirements. 

The effect of this expression of opinion, 
and of the propaganda instituted by a com- 
mittee on architecture appointed by the As- 
sociation, was immediately and widely felt. 
It was found that the school of show, which 
had thus loomed as a threatening cloud on our 
horizon, was itself more show than substance. 
Architects throughout the country sought the 
advice of experienced librarians in planning 
new buildings sought so eagerly, so intelli- 
gently and so constantly that the thanks of li- 
brarians should be uttered at every conference 
to the architects who have proved their practi- 
cal American capacity for grappling with new 
library problems, by solving them in build- 
ings which combine both utility and artistic 
beauty. 

But while so much of the planning has 
been intelligent, the results have not been 
wholly satisfactory. Trustees, architects and 
librarians are fallible. Their solution of li- 
brary problems, even when guided by the best 
motives, has not been uniformly successful. 
Libraries have been built by the hundreds 



4 6 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



since 1891, some of them excellent, many 
good, same half good and half bad, and some, 
alas! wholly bad. Of these different grades 
our Association has kept no record. New li- 
braries are projected every week; most of 
them in towns where there have been no li- 
brary buildings before, and where librarian, 
architect and trustees without experience 
to guide them are all at sea. They can get 
good advice, but advice and theory are not 
enough they want models. The question 
which is often asked of librarians all over 
the country is this : Where can we get plans 
of a building costing about (such a sum), 
which has successfully stood the test of use 
and is recommended as a model by librarians ? 
The American Library Association Publishing 
Board appointed a committee some years ago 
to edit a supplement to our tract on libraries, 
givingmodel plans forlibraries of various kinds 
and varying cost ; but that committee still hes- 
itates to report, because it cannot find any- 
where a collection of plans so comprehensive, 
so well arranged, so differentiated, as to fur- 
nish materials for a selection which will com- 
mend itself to librarians in all parts of the 
United States. 

This weak point in our armor is a reproach 
to the American Library Association. 

We began a good work when we presented 
our requisites and theories of construction, 
but we have failed to keep pace with the 
movement we initiated. We have let the em- 
bodiment of our ideas grow beyond their 
control. We have allowed our architectural 
affairs to come to such a pass that conscien- 



tious builders are about as likely to hit on a 
faulty library for a model as a perfect one. 

And there is no need for such a confus'on 
of results. If we only say the word we can 
get together a representative collection of li- 
brary plans with complete records of detail,, 
materials and cost. We can file with each 
plan the mature judgment of librarians who 
have used the building since its erection, as to 
the merits and defects of each of its features. 
We can so mount and classify and index this 
collection that an inquirer from any commu- 
nity, from any kind of library, can be referred 
at once to models both for imitation and for 
avoidance; to figures of cost; to details of 
construction and furnishing; to the digested 
experience, in short, of the library profession 
of the United States. 

Is not this a consummation devoutly to be 
wished? It is attainable if we so choose. 
It will need time, it will need money, it will 
need, more than all, a man a man of en- 
ergy and intelligence. But this conference 
has only to decide to open permanent head- 
quarters for the Association with sufficient 
room for exhibits. It has only to secure a 
permanent secretary of proved executive abil- 
ity. If it opens headquarters and puts the 
right man in charge the money is sure to 
come. Our membership of nearly two thou- 
sand librarians, all eager for results, all co- 
operating to the full extent of their ability, 
will assure a collection of "evaluated" plans 
which will harmonize and perfect future ar- 
chitecture and give fresh impetus to the 
planning of practicable libraries. 



DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF BRANCH LIBRARY BUILDINGS 



BY RAYMOND F. ALMIRALL, Architect, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



"D RANCH library buildings are, speaking 
generally, either branches of a central 
library, relatively complete in themselves, or 
else public reading rooms. In either case 
they should be positioned throughout a city 
as convenient and pleasant centers of infor- 
mation and instruction. The comparative ad- 
vantages to be derived from one or the other 
of the two types can perhaps only be ascer- 



tained by a broad-minded consideration of 
the real purposes of the public library system. 
While it is not my purpose, nor is it within 
the strict limits of my subject to enter upon 
a discussion of the public library system, as 
such, yet it must be borne in mind that archi- 
tectural design and construction to be fitting; 
must presuppose a full knowledge and appre- 
ciation of the objects, purposes, methods and 



ALMIRALL 



47 



results of the system or institution proposed 
to be housed. Architecture is not art alone. 
It is knowledge expressed in art; and if 
Branch library buildings are to be designed 
and constructed in a manner appropriate to 
their usage, a concrete knowledge of such 
usage, as well as an appreciation of art, 
must guide the designer's hand. 

From my own somewhat extended experi- 
ence in the character of designs and construc- 
tions now under consideration I have found 
that the purposes of branch libraries, when 
constituting parts of well organized public 
library systems, make advisable a similarity 
of plan in the accommodations and arrange- 
ment of floor space. Idiosyncrasies and indi- 
vidual or racial characteristics of readers may 
sometimes incline a librarian to the belief 
that fundamental variations of plan are re- 
quired. But the trend of our national and 
municipal growth is toward amalgamation, 
and as the individuals comprising the popula- 
tion grow more homogeneous the library re- 
quirements become more uniform. Indeed, 
the branch library is one of our most effect- 
ive crucibles in amalgamating and elevating 
the races, and uniformity of library design 
itself makes for uniformity of citizenship. 
Within the walls of a library may be seen a 
German investigator cheek by jowl with a 
French critic, and a Russian reader knocking 
friendly elbow with a Japanese student; all 
eventually to round out a homogeneous Am- 
erican citizenship. , 

In my judgment, then, there should exist 
a type, a common basis of design and of con- 
struction with a proper discrimination be- 
tween essentials and non-essentials, as they 
may appear in the various applications. It 
must be observed in this connection that the 
design should also provide for future growth 
and development of the library system, to the 
end that progressive needs may be easily and 
scientifically met and, at the same time, the 
cost of operation and maintenance reduced to 
a minimum. 

Practically considered, the fundamental and 
essential floor spaces with which every de- 
sign should start are the delivery desk space, 
the adults' and children's reading rooms, the 
stack space and the boiler room. 

The accessory rooms that make for the 
better operation of the work and convenience 



of the readers in the branch library are the 
room in which books are received and sent 
away, the librarian's room, the lunch room, 
the study room, a small lecture room and 
public and private toilet rooms. As far as 
practicable all these rooms should be subject 
to the control of the delivery desk; and the 
fundamental necessary floor spaces, previ- 
ously mentioned, should be subject to direct 
and easy supervision from the desk itself. 

Naturally, then, the location of the delivery 
desk becomes the most important question in 
the planning of the branch library building. 
It must not only provide easy supervision and 
control, but also offer such convenient accessi- 
bility to the public that even children cannot 
possibly become confused in its use. 

Having properly located and co-ordinated 
the floor spaces with reference to their util- 
ity, the question of risk from fire next calls 
for careful consideration. This question de- 
pends not only upon location of the boiler 
and coal rooms, from which fires might start, 
but also upon the method of construction em- 
ployed. To erect a branch building in en- 
tirety according to the most modern fire- 
proofing method would entail a cost so ex- 
cessive as to be prohibitive. A happy medium 
is, however, possible, and I am well within 
the limits of conservatism in saying that if 
the boiler and coal rooms alone are of fire- 
proof construction, and the electric work and 
fixtures properly installed in accordance with 
the best requirements, there is little chance 
of a fire starting from the interior. Fortu- 
nately, the usages of a branch library do not 
give rise to the ordinary fire risks. Fortu- 
nately, too, the fires of genius may brightly 
burn, but they do not consume such material 
things as stone and brick and concrete. 

In considering trie design and construction 
of branch library buildings, I could not do 
better than briefly recite something of the 
work accomplished by the committee for 
erecting Carnegie libraries in Brooklyn, with 
which your distinguished president is closely 
identified, and of which the eminent archi- 
tectural scholar Mr. A. D. F. Hamlin is the 
professional adviser. 

These gentlemen, with the single intention 
of giving a trial to their well-thought-out 
policy for the most successful application of 
Mr. Carnegie's large gift, with the proper 



4 8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



spending of which the committee was entrust- 
ed, prepared a truly remarkable as well as 
exceptional program of instructions to their 
architects. This program not only formulated 
the requirements in detail of the proposed 
branch library buildings, but established the 
relations that should exist between the archi- 
tects themselves and between them as an 
advisory commission, and the Carnegie com- 
mittee, chief librarian and professional ad- 
viser. 

While clearly defining the ideas of those 
entrusted with the direction of the proposed 
works, the program manifested a serious ap- 
preciation of the difficulties to be anticipated 
in the most appropriate working out of the 
various designs, and while it furnished an 
ample working basis it was sufficiently elastic 
to meet any emergencies that arose. 

As this program resulted from numerous 
conferences with librarians, visits of inspec- 
tion to most of the branch and small library 
buildings then erected, and a study of all 
available drawings for such proposed build- 
ings, it was natural that, directed by the 
experienced judgment of the chief librarian, 
Mr. Frank P. Hill, and counselled by the 
mature knowledge of Mr. A. D. F. Hamlin, 
the committee succeeded in successfully advan- 
cing a practical scheme of co-operative work. 

The success of the task can be partially ap- 
preciated when it is known that after the 
erection of some fourteen branches it has 
been found that every need and demand has 
been provided for. This success is exception- 
ally remarkable on account of the recent 
phenomenal growth of the library system; 
indeed, it may not be too much to say that 
in this city the problem of branch library 
design has been worked out with discrim- 
inating foresight and broad-minded liberal- 
ity. The natural result is that a noticeably 
homogeneous character in the design of the 
buildings has been obtained and at the same 
time a greater variety of types than occur 
in any or all the groups of similar buildings 
now existing in this country. If I might be 
permitted to drop into poetry with reference 
to the group of branches thus evolved, I 
could aptly quote Montgomery and say that 
they are "Distinct as the billows yet one as 
the sea." 



In order to aid the advisory commission 
of architects in a practical sympathy with the 
project, an initial trip (previous to the de- 
signing of the first branches) was made to 
New England, where, in company with the 
chief librarian, the branches of Boston and 
the several separate library buildings in the 
neighboring small cities were visited and 
studied. On returning from this trip, numer- 
ous drawings of individual and branch library 
buildings were made accessible to the commis- 
sion and discussed by them. After working 
out the first two groups of buildings, the com- 
mission, in company with the chief librarian 
and professional adviser, again visited sev- 
eral cities, including Philadelphia, Pittsburg, 
Cincinnati and Cleveland, studying critically 
the executed work and proposed designs. 

With this mass of material in hand, the 
committee and its architects began their work,, 
and have established an easy, quick and yet 
absolutely thorough method of procedure. 
Following the preliminary examination of the 
sketches and their correction, they are re- 
viewed by the commission in conjunction 
with the professional adviser, and, when sat- 
isfactory, forwarded to the chief librarian- 
for correction. Approximate estimates of cost 
are prepared and presented with the sketches- 
by the architect before the Carnegie commit- 
tee for approval. This approval is a requi- 
site to the preparation of working drawings- 
and specifications on which estimates are re- 
ceived. 

This proceeding is described in the contract 
between each architect and the committee. 
These contracts are identical and carefully 
drawn in accordance with the "Schedule of 
professional practice and charges" of the- 
American Institute of Architects. In this 
form of contract it is specifically provided 
that no one of the architects assumes respon- 
sibility for the work of another, which, con- 
tradictory as the statement may appear, has- 
really permitted freer criticism than would 
otherwise have occurred. 

After the completion of the working draw- 
ings and specifications, estimates are received 
by the committee. The bid sheet, contract 
and general conditions are uniform and 
drawn under the directions of the committee 
by its counsel. If required to bring the cost 



BRETT 



within the limit, the work is revised until 
satisfactory estimates are received. 

During the construction of the buildings 
the committee employs a clerk of works who 
reports regularly to it on the progress and 
character of the construction of the build- 
ings and on such details as may be from time 
to time of special interest, though it is not 
unusual to meet the alert chief librarian 
and the committee making a tour of inspec- 
tion to satisfy themselves personally of the 
progress of the work. 

On trie certification of the architect that 
the contract is completed, the committee makes 
a final inspection and designates a time when 
it will publicly accept the building, and, 
through the board of trustees of the Brooklyn 
Public Library, of which the committee are 
members as individuals, turn it over to the 
city of New York. 

These practical and far-reaching results 
have been accomplished only by a co-opera- 
tive and intelligent effort on the part of all 
interested in trie work, and by a bringing to- 
gether in harmonious relation of diversified 
talents. 

Co-operation of effort and the interchange 
of ideas have produced not only branch build- 



ings of harmonious design and convenient 
working value, but have also insured what, 
in my opinion, is one of the greatest of the 
desiderata in constructions of the kind. I 
refer to a pleasing exterior and an inviting, 
interior. The child and adult reader should 
be welcomed by a sympathetic, comfortable 
and comforting design and construction, and 
not frowned upon by a structure character- 
ized by forbidding lines. Persuasion, not re- 
pulsion, should be the atmosphere of the 
branch library, and it is needless for me to* 
outline to so experienced an audience what 
beneficial effect good architecture has, ever* 
unconsciously, upon the human mind. 

With inviting and sympathetic surround- 
ings the reader is placed in close and intimate 
touch with his pursuits, the very atmosphere- 
becomes one of contentment, and in such an 
atmosphere one can well exclaim, in the words-- 
of Heinsius, keeper of the library at Leyden, 
"I no sooner come into the library but I bolt 
the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, av- 
arice and melancholy herself, and in the very 
lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls,. 
I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet 
content that I pity all our great ones and rich* 
men that know not this happiness." 



LIBRARY ARCHITECTURE FROM THE LIBRARIAN'S POINT OF VIEW 
BY W. H. BRETT, Librarian Cleveland (O.) Public Library 



*T* HE erection of a library building in- 
volves so many important considera- 
tions of location, of surroundings, of beauty, 
permanence and utility, each one of which 
must be considered in its relation to the 
rest, that the task is a difficult one; possibly 
even more so to the librarian than to the 
architect ; for while the librarian no less 
than the architect desires to achieve in the 
fullest degree desirable surroundings, beauti- 
ful architectural effect, and good construc- 
tion, he is, more than the architect, acquaint- 
ed with the purposes of the library and the 
arrangements and appliances necessary to 
effect those purposes. If libraries were sim- 
ilar in size and purpose the problem would 
be more simple, but under the head "library 



architecture" we embrace everything from, 
the single room of the small village library to 
such buildings as the great structure now 
being erected in the neighboring metropolis-, 
covering two city squares, beautiful in pro- 
portions and external effect, and including 
within its walls a world of varied activities, 
among which a circulating department whicb 
compares in size and extent of use with many 
well known libraries, a work positively large,, 
is relatively an inconsiderable incident in the 
whole. 

In what I have to say, I shall endeavor to- 
outline certain general considerations, and 
speak of two or three special subjects which 
have impressed themselves upon me. But: 
in so doing 1 am painfully aware that my 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



field of vision is comparatively limited, and 
also that in treating the subject in this ele- 
mentary way, I am necessarily rehearsing to 
you things with which you are familiar. 
Any general discussion of library buildings 
implies that although differing widely they 
do involve the same important problems. The 
problems of the very small library are so 
simple as to afford little scope for discussion, 
but their wise solution with the judicious 
expenditure of even a few thousand dollars 
is no less important to the small community 
than is the larger expenditure to the larger one. 
On the other hand, each great library will 
invariably include important problems pe- 
culiar to itself, and beyond the reach of 
generalization. Nevertheless there are cer- 
tain conditions which are almost universal. 
The first is that the responsibility rests with 
the board of trustees, that whatever may be 
the character of the library, the trustees 
decide that a library is needed and define its 
purpose. In the work of building it, they 
have the services of the librarian and the 
architect, each as their expert advisers, each 
in his own field, their right and left hand 
supporters, so to speak. The board has 
charge of the funds and knows the resources 
of the library. It decides as to the character 
and purposes of the library, the collection 
to be housed, the work to be done, and the 
amount of money to be spent. The librarian 
is its expert adviser as to that which is 
necessary to carry out these purposes the 
space necessary for the various departments 
of the work, their relation to each other for 
convenience and economy, in short all the 
facilities for the selection, receipt and prep- 
aration of books, for their safe keeping, and 
for their use in and out of the building. It 
rests with the architect to enable these pur- 
poses to be carried out, to clothe these plans 
with the material garb, to transmute these 
visions into a substantial reality. Stated in 
this way, this seems very simple. The cus- 
tody of the funds, the decision of important 
questions, responsibility of expenditure and 
results, rest with the board, the librarian 
being its expert adviser and supervisor as 
to all questions of library arrangement, the 
architect being its expert adviser and agent 
as to plans and construction. 



The lines may be thus clearly drawn and 
each has its definite province. As a matter 
of fact, however, the best result is only ob- 
tained by a cordial collaboration of all, from 
the very beginning. In the preliminary ques- 
tions to be settled by the board, as to the 
scope and character of the work, the advice 
of the librarian should be of value, and as 
soon as the question of a site comes to be 
considered, the architect may also well be 
called in, and, indeed, he may want, in ad- 
dition, the advice of his co-worker the land- 
scape gardener. In planning the building 
every question must be decided with refer- 
ence to convenience and effectiveness, the 
librarian's province; with reference to proper 
construction and beauty, the architect's prov- 
ince; with reference to purpose and cost by 
the board. It is significant that we have in 
our discussion of the subject to-day the help 
of our friends, the architects, significant that 
we are realizing more fully the need of this 
close co-operation. It might be still more 
significant if this were a meeting of archi- 
tects, and certain librarians were present to 
take part in a discussion of library buildings. 
However, I realize, as I say this, that the 
comparison suggested is hardly fair, in that 
while the subject of library buildings is of 
prime importance to the librarian, it is only 
one of several of at least equal importance in 
the field of the architect. 

Among the various questions that come up 
for consideration in planning a library build- 
ing, that of permanence is an important, a 
fundamental one. The general inclination is 
toward a permanent building. We like to 
feel that we are erecting an edifice which will 
endure through the changing years ; will be 
of service to coming generations. We would 
use granite and marble and lasting bronze, 
material upon which the tooth of time will 
dull itself. But this is a question which has 
two sides. Only twenty years ago, two of 
the best, if, indeed, they -were not the two 
very best library buildings in the country, 
were the Boston Public Library and the 
library of Columbia University, one at that 
time less than thirty, and the other possibly 
three years old. Both of these have been 
for several years out of use, and replaced by 
greater buildings. It is a question to be 



BRETT 



carefully considered whether given, as usu- 
ally is the case, a fixed sum to expend, it is 
not better to build the larger, more commodi- 
ous and convenient building which the lighter 
construction will permit, and secure moderate 
permanence, than the smaller, more massive, 
more enduring building. 

A question closely connected with this, de- 
pending upon it in a measure, is that of 
safety from fire. How fully should this 
danger be taken into account in planning a 
library building? My own view of this is, 
briefly, that there are two distinct questions 
involved : the really valuable collection, the 
rare, the irreplaceable should have all the 
protection that it is possible to give. This 
would include most reference libraries, the 
library of the student and scholar, but the 
popular circulating library is something en- 
tirely different; the books are modern, may 
be replaced, represent merely investment; 
their loss may be fully covered by insurance. 

This consideration should also govern the 
methods of using a library which must be 
provided for, in planning the building. My 
own view may be stated very briefly: the 
greatest freedom in the use of all that part 
of the library which is of general in- 
terest and not of unusual value; the great- 
est care in safeguarding all that is rare, un- 
usually valuable, and difficult to replace. 
Another question of importance is that of 
future expansion. We must consider not 
only the present, but the future needs of the 
library. Too much library building has been 
done without reference to either the present 
or the future. The building has been built 
and the library must fit itself to it. The con- 
sequence is a ready-made clothing effect. 
When a tajlor is to make a suit of clothes 
lie looks the man over, measures him care- 
fully, fits all his peculiar angles, and tries on 
until the result is satisfactory. The clothes 
fit, but the man has no room to grow in them. 
Library building is more difficult. It is very 
often like the problem of making a suit of 
clothes for a ten year old child, which will 
serve him now, and not only fit him when he 
is a man, but also serve for each of the inter- 
vening years. In other words, to build a 
"building for a small library which will also 
serve it when the growth of ten, twenty, or 



fifty years is added to its present size. This 
expansion is provided for in more than one 
way. First and most commonly, by a pro- 
vision for the enlargement of the building 
of which we can all recall instances. This is 
a difficult thing to do without lessening the 
beauty of the building, although it has been 
accomplished with success. Another method 
is by a temporary combination with some in- 
stitution, which combination may be termi- 
nated after a definite period, the entire use 
and control of the building reverting to the 
library. An instance of this may be recalled 
in the greatest public library of the middle 
West in whose building another institution 
has rights which will expire by limitation. 
In another building now proposed a combina- 
tion with the board of education is suggested 
by which a fair contribution to the cost of 
the building will be made, and a portion will 
be used as a school headquarters for a term 
of years, reverting after expiration of that 
time to the library board. This permits the 
erection of a larger building without leaving 
any appearance of incompleteness. The need 
of providing for expansion does not of course 
apply to the branch library buildings of a city 
system. These may be well kept within con- 
venient size for neighborhood use, and ex- 
pansion provided for by additional branches 
as the need occurs. 

Another thing which has always seemed de- 
sirable to me is the maintenance of a certain 
mobility in the interior arrangements of a 
library. The relative importance of various 
departments, the amount of space required 
for the minor functions of the library may 
change as the years pass, for instance it 
would have been possible to foresee the won- 
derful development in the work for children 
which has taken place within the past few 
years. Other subjects of interest are pressing 
for attention. We cannot be sure that other 
important departments of work may not be 
developed in the years immediately before 
us. For these reasons the ability to change 
the interior arrangement of libraries is ex- 
ceedingly desirable. I recall a library in the 
middle West in which the floors are fireproof 
and in which the vestibule containing the 
stairway was surrounded by a solid wall. 
The divisions of the various departments 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



upon the first and second floors were formed 
by light, movable partitions answering the pur- 
pose perfectly, and still permitting changes to 
suit changing conditions. The only exception 
was in the case of one room surrounded by a 
fireproof partition in which was stored a val- 
uable collection of coins. In smaller libraries 
these demarcations between departments may 
be made by book cases or even by railings. 

Permit me to express in a word before 
concluding, my own opinion as to one or two 
practical questions drawn from experience. 

First, as to lighting, daylight should be 
provided in great abundance, more than is 
needed ordinarily, much more than is needed 
when the sun shines, enough for dark days, 
with the deliberate intention of shading the 
windows on ordinary days, the effect of the 
subdued light being grateful to the eye, 
much more pleasant than that of the direct 
strong light. The ideal in artificial lighting 
provides an abundance of light so shaded 
that the direct light does not strike the eye 
at any point, the effect being that of abun- 
dance of diffused light with direct lighting 
upon the face of the cases and the reading 
tables. Unfortunately this ideal is expensive. 

One little point about the warming of 
buildings without attempting to go into this 
large question : steam or hot water radiators 
standing about in various places on the floors 
are objectionable. They are not beautiful 
and take valuable room. In one library an 



experiment of placing the radiators behind 
the book cases against the outside walls of 
the room, providing for the circulation of 
air entering below the case and coming out 
above seems to be successful. 

Another question is that of decoration. It 
has been said many times that the library- 
should preach in its very presence the gospel 
of fitness and beauty. I believe this is best 
effected not by making a picture gallery of 
it, but by that amount of pictorial and other 
decorations which relieves the bareness of 
the walls and gives it the sense of home- 
iness. I recall one library which has upon 
its walls the fine large colored view of St. 
Marks from Ongania, and a collection of 
colored lithographs of Venice, a section of" 
the Parthenon frieze in plaster, a large view 
in the Canadian Rockies painted in mono- 
chrome upon a photographic enlargement, nu- 
merous carbon photographs and colored' 
etchings, a set of tile about the mantel paint- 
ed to order to illustrate some of the Greek 
myths, a photograph of the Sistine ceiling 
mounted in a table top. The effect is pleasant,, 
home-like, attractive, interesting. The cost 
of all was less than one per cent, of the cost 
of the building and equipment. There seems. 
to be no room to doubt that the success and 
influence of the library is greatly increased^ 
by its attractiveness and that the relatively 
small additional expenditure is justified by 
the results. 



LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND BOOK STACKS 



BY BERNARD R. GREEN, Superintendent Library of Congress 



\ LL buildings should be designed and 
equipped with the utmost regard for 
their objects and purposes the service they 
are to render practically while in their ar- 
tistic or architectural treatment so-called 
they should be plainly expressive of those ob- 
jects and purposes. Library buildings are 
especially capable of this, but quite too fre- 
quently they are not so designed. Otherwise 
it would be much less difficult than it now 
is to recognize the library building in an un- 
familiar town unless appropriately labelled. 
This fault, however, is not a monopoly of 



the libraries, for all classes of buildings are- 
in the same category, although churches,. 
dwellings, and a few other buildings are 
more readily recognized by their architecture. 
It is to be hoped that the advancing practice- 
of architecture and it is now really advanc- 
ing in this new country of ours may soon- 
become rational enough to enable the pur- 
poses of all buildings, especially the libraries, 
to be read in their forms and lines. Every 
building should architecturally announce to- 
all intelligent beholders its reason for being. 
The purpose and uses of the library itself 



GREEN 



53 



are so distinctive that its several features 
may be made evident in the architecture of 
the building. Offices for the administrative 
work, rooms for cataloging and card writing, 
reading, comparing and examining printed 
and manuscript matter of every degree of 
illegibility and indistinctness, requiring much 
constant and exacting use of the eyes, call 
for ingenious provisions for lighting espe- 
cially by daylight. 

Quiet is also an essential to be carefully 
reckoned with, and, of course, also finely ad- 
justed ventilation and temperature of the 
several spaces. There must be proper corre- 
lation between the various apartments. All- 
important also is the relative location and 
arrangement of the several departments and 
collections of material comprising the library 
itself. 

The architect is an indispensable factor in 
the combination of talent, wide knowledge 
and experience that should guide the design, 
equipment and construction of a modern li- 
brary building, and no such building should 
be undertaken without him. But he must 
be well acquainted with actual library work 
and administration to be of much service. 
This applies as well to all classes of build- 
ings. The best of architects, those standing 
even at the head of the profession, have 
failed in practical library designing, some of 
them to a ridiculous degree; but it has not 
always, perhaps never, been altogether their 
fault. They have failed either to realize their 
own deficiencies or to learn from the librarian 
all the practical essentials of the building. 

Architects and librarians should consult and 
give and take with each other from the 
beginning. Nor should it be the individual 
librarian of the particular library alone under 
consideration, if trie object be public or gen- 
eral and not private. The building is to be 
far more permanent than human life or 
human opinion, and the more important and 
permanent the building the more essential 
a broad consideration of its plan and archi- 
tectural design. It is really a far more 
serious question than is generally realized, 
the planning of a library building to cost 
several hundred thousands of dollars at the 
present stage of library science and develop- 
ment. Witness the queer examples about the 



country, sprouted, in the recent epidemic of 
library extension. Most of the unsuitable 
buildings are due to unstated problems. Too 
many different ideas, good and bad, and too 
much of the lay trustee, as well as of the 
librarian himself sometimes, who thought he 
knew but didn't, have been the causes. The 
architects have not been to blame except so 
far as they have assumed to know and failed 
to find out an exception that has occurred, 
however, rather too often. 

When planning that largest of all the 
library buildings for the Library of Congress, 
eighteen years ago, librarians of broad experi- 
ence and view, to tell what should be pro- 
vided for the coming century of library 
development, were few may it not now be 
said there were none? At least, they agreed 
on few or no essential points, and the build- 
ers were compelled to generalize and draw 
conclusions from a variety of views, most 
of which were naturally unqualified by 
knowledge of the then state of the building 
art and mechanical resources. Up to that 
time the "housing of libraries had not become 
very pressing and so the mother of invention 
had hardly appeared in that field. 

Some of the positive statements of some of 
the librarians of the day would be interest- 
ing reading now. Perhaps those of Dr. Poole 
were the most conspicuous and aggressive in 
this way. His list of imagined' mechanical 
and structural impossibilities on which he 
based his scheme for an ideal library build- 
ing was amusing to any one acquainted with 
the possibilities, even of his own time. Some 
of the latter were incorporated in the plans 
of the Library of Congress. Instead of 
making out a list of the wants of the libra- 
rians of the day, for there was no consen- 
sus about it, one was made of their woes in 
building and mechanical arrangements and 
then it was undertaken to so design as to 
eliminate them all. This, I understand, was 
rather successful, and the outcome might 
have been much worse under all the difficult 
circumstances. This was accomplished in the 
main by doing in detail the parts that seemed 
unquestionable, and leaving undone, in large 
undivided halls, the undefined and speculat- 
ive future subdivisions of the great national 
library then believed to be assured. 



54 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Librarians will never entirely agree as to 
the design and equipment of any one build- 
ing, but they will in time unite on all funda- 
mental principles. Architects may then gen- 
erally please them, and be properly held to 
account if they do not. 

But the general subject of library design 
and construction, on which I was asked to 
speak to-day, is quite too comprehensive for 
the few minutes available, and I will confine 
myself to a reconsideration of one of the 
divisions of the subject, namely, the book 
stack or the shelving for the library collec- 
tions. 

Modern collections are large and fast grow- 
ing larger. In these days it is superfluous to 
state that the shelving should be close at 
hand, easily accessible throughout, conven- 
iently adapted to the accommodation of its 
contents and for their economical rearrange- 
ment, reclassification and reception of acces- 
sories; clean and free from dust, well venti- 
lated with a uniform and constant tempera- 
ture of about 68, well and even brilliantly 
lighted whenever and wherever required in 
the stack at all times, day or night, conven- 
iently provided with stairs and elevators 
and, for the larger stacks at least, suit- 
able mechanical apparatus for quick trans- 
mission of books to and fro between the 
shelving and the delivery point or points. 
These are all important requisites of the mod- 
ern stack and quite attainable. 

The stature of men and women governs 
and limits the interspaces of the stack, while 
the dimensions of the items of the collection, 
such as the books, determine the dimensions 
and intervals of the shelving itself. Economy 
of construction, both in space and cost, 
fixes the lengths of the shelves within the 
limits of convenient handling. Thus, for 
ordinary sized books, the height of stories 
should be seven feet, the space between ranges 
or shelf fronts from two and one-half to three 
feet, and the main aisles four to five feet. 
Narrower spaces are tolerable when unavoid- 
able, and wider ones more comfortable but 
correspondingly expensive in both prime cost 
and administration. 

Observing these elements, the book stack 
may be of any dimensions lateral and vertical, 
covering acres of ground one tier in height, 



or a very small ground area and towering to 
many stories in height, or it may be indefi- 
nitely broad and high, all as questions of 
ground rent and other circumstances may 
dictate. Present resources and ingenuity are 
equal to the problem of rendering any such 
stack thoroughly convenient and practicable 
at very moderate expense. 

The acre stack of one tier height may be 
beautifully skylighted for day service. One 
of two tiers with a glass deck may be sim- 
ilarly well lighted, but not beyond this. 

Although one of the essentials of a good 
stack is close proximity to the points of use, 
such as the reading and delivery rooms, the 
word may be taken in a figurative sense and 
the object well secured, should conditions 
make it advisable to locate the stack at some 
distance and even quite outside and away 
from the library building proper, as, for in- 
stance, on the other side of the street or in 
the middle of the next square, or even at a 
considerably greater distance. A tunnel not 
unlike that in successful operation between 
the Library of Congress and the Capitol, a 
quarter of a mile in length, equipped with 
entirely practicable rapid transit machinery, 
operated in conjunction with telephones and 
pneumatic tubes, would very satisfactorily 
accomplish the purpose. 

I am not forgetting the indispensable 
matter of light within the stack. It is really 
the main point I have to present. 

Until very recently, in fact down to the 
time of the incandescent lamp a few years 
ago, daylight was almost wholly depended on 
for finding books on the shelves. Conse- 
quently the prime effort in design and ar- 
rangement was to get daylight into the shelf 
spaces through windows and skylights, using 
the ground space and special locations on the 
lot indispensable to that purpose. This was 
done with special pains in building the Li- 
brary of Congress. It . has been anxiously 
provided also, but less effectively, in the New 
York Public Library now under construc- 
tion. 

In both cases valuable space and much 
money have been expended in efforts to se- 
cure daylighted stacks, but with very lim- 
ited success. 

Hitherto, book stacks have generally been 



.GREEN 



55 



placed at the outer wall lines of the build- 
ings and wide open spaces left around them 
to admit as much daylight as possible. Sky- 
lights have been provided in the roofs and 
clear light wells within the shelf rooms for 
the penetration of the light down and be- 
tween the shelf ranges. As much or more 
space on the lot was given up to the admis- 
sion of daylight as to the shelving and its 
communicating spaces combined. 

Daylight, however, is the most unequal and 
unsteady of all human dependencies, under the 
ever-changing position of the sun and con- 
dition of the weather. Using our libraries 
as we now do, almost as much by night as 
by day, we are without daylight altogether 
about one-half of the time. During the other 
half it comes to us on a varying scale from 
direct sunshine, which is the double of what 
we need or can endure, to something less than 
twilight or the reflection from a thunder 
cloud, which is less than half of what we 
actually need. 

At the first extreme we must draw the 
always vexatious window shade, and at the 
second turn on the artificial light, which, 
however, thus mixed with weak daylight, is 
unpleasant and unsatisfying to the eyes. 

At the Library of Congress it became 
necessary some time since to devise and in- 
stall window shades on both sides of the two 
principal book stacks, because the occupation 
of the shelves near the windows by the increas- 
ing collections exposed the books to the 
damaging effect of the direct rays of the 
sun. The great number of the windows, 
some 600, required special mechanical con- 
trol of the shades, and they are now operated 
conveniently and in a moment in separate 
sets of about 150 windows each by any at- 
tendant in the stack. So it is with sunlight; 
when we make anxious provision to let it 
in, we must make similar expensive provis- 
ion for keeping it out. 

Under present circumstances we are 
obliged to thoroughly equip book stacks with 
artificial illumination and to use it frequently 
during almost every day more or less con- 
tinuously on some days and always, of 
course, at night. 

Why not, therefore, disregard the day- 
light altogether wherever the expense of ob- 



taining it in any useful quantity is too great? 
In its place we may secure absolute uniform- 
ity and any desired brilliancy at every point 
of every possible stack with the incandescent 
electric light. 

The conditions described have been due to 
the fact that libraries heretofore were gen- 
erally small and used chiefly in the day time, 
and especially to the want of an effective, 
safe, and convenient artificial light for the 
peculiar requirements of a mass of closely 
packed book shelving and of the reading 
room. Then the light was furnished by 
some kind of fire, evolving great heat and 
more or less smoke, limited in its application 
by the danger of communicating fire, and 
always difficult and inconvenient of control. 
Its brilliance was limited and its color dull 
in every respect greatly inferior to sunlight. 

Now a quite opposite condition prevails in 
the availability of the incandescent electric 
light. It is far more nearly white, radiates 
but moderate heat in proportion to candle 
power, may be placed with safety anywhere, 
even in one's pocket or mouth, or amongst 
combustible materials and in any position. It 
is easily, perfectly, and instantaneously con- 
trollable in both quantity and intensity, and it 
is also not only of low cost but need not be 
used a moment longer at any point than act- 
ually required. 

It is further to be said that daylight is in- 
jurious to the bindings and paper of books 
and that all such material is preserved from 
bleaching if kept in the dark, not to mention 
some books that should never see the light 
on other accounts. 

For the reasons thus outlined the book 
stack, although the heart of the library it- 
self, may well be located in the least ex- 
pensive and darkest, if not remotest, part of 
the library lot, quite regardless also of neigh- 
boring danger of fire. The walls being win- 
dowless and without necessary perforations, 
may be made quite fireproof. All openings 
may be confined to the bottom and top of the 
stack. They may be few and small and un- 
der easy control. 

All book stacks should, of course, be kept 
perfectly dry, and this would practically pre- 
vent the propagation of injurious insects, 
especially if proper care be taken in the con- 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



struction of the shelving to leave no hiding 
places whatever for them. This is already the 
practice in the best stack construction. 

By placing the stack in an unimportant 
position architecturally, no expense will be 
incurred for its architectural treatment. If 
it be located within and surrounded by the 
library building it will be kept warm in 
winter and cool in summer at very little ex- 
pense. Such an enclosed stack may be more 
easily and inexpensively ventilated, and main- 
tained at a uniform temperature because not 
exposed to the ever changeable temperature 
of the exterior air. 

At the Library of Congress a stack of this 
character is proposed to accommodate the 
growing collections, in one of the four court 
yards, the plan being to fill the yard solidly 
full of shelving and roof it over. In this 
way the present court walls will enclose the 
stack and their present windows will open 
into it to any extent that may prove desir- 
able. The expense of the construction will 
be only that of the shelving and decks, the 
ventilating apparatus and elevators and a 
simple flat roof resting directly on the numer- 
ous slender stack columns. 

The best modern book stack structure is 
a very simple, light, self-contained framework 
of steel and iron with three decks, preferably 
of white marble or translucent glass, the 
shelving itself and supports being of steel 
open work. The separate pieces of material 
comprising the structure are very few in va- 
riety, small and light of weight and easily 
handled and put together. White marble 
decks are not only durable and clean but valu- 
able as reflectors of light from below and 
above. The ends or heads of the shelf 
ranges and all other surfaces having any 
extent, should be white for the same reason. 

The stack needs for its support and stabil- 
ity only a firm foundation or floor to stand 
on, depending on its height or number of 
decks, because its internal construction, in- 
cluding the multitude of slender columns 
extending from foundation to top one at 
every shelf interval may be such as to 
bind it together into one coherent mass like 
a hay stack. Surrounding walls may be util- 
ized somewhat for its stability, but they are 
not indispensable and generally serve only 
as a protection to the contents. The stack 



proper, therefore, is not a building but a 
piece of furniture which may be set up and 
stand alone in any room adapted for its re- 
ception. When built for permanence, the 
surfaces should have the most durable finish, 
or such as my be conveniently and effectively 
renewed when worn off. 

The shelves should be uniform and inter- 
changeable, and adjustable from top to bot- 
tom of the range. The decks should have 
wide openings along the fronts of the shelf 
ranges for better ventilation and diffusion of 
light and for communication between attend- 
ants on different decks, not to mention the 
saving of material in the decks. 

Stack construction should be of the sim- 
plest possible form and detail, with nothing 
movable but the shelves themselves, and, 
like a spider's web, such as to occupy the 
least possible space and leave the room for 
the books. Some stacks are quite too self- 
evident and occupy space that would much 
better be filled with books if left available. 
That scheme of shelving which, other things 
equal, accommodates the greatest number 
of volumes in a given space is the thing. 
It requires, however, ingenuity and a full 
appreciation of the problem to properly work 
it out. 

The stack should be so enclosed and ven- 
tilated as to practically exclude all outside 
dust and confine the accumulation of it to 
the inevitable internal causes of handling the 
books, their attrition on each other and the 
movements of the attendants and users of 
the books. 

In using a stack, loose paper or similar in- 
flammable stuff should be excluded from the 
lower tiers at least as a precaution against 
fire or smoke passing up through the deck 
openings. Danger from serious fire may thus 
be quite avoided, for shelved books of them- 
selves are not liable to take fire and are still 
less capable of burning and transmitting fire. 
Other details of stack construction, equip- 
ment, use and administration, may be men- 
tioned, many of which will occur to those 
who think of the subject, but the generaliza- 
tions I have given are sufficient for the pres- 
ent brief occasion. None of the suggestions 
are impossible or even impracticable. On 
the contrary, nearly every one has been 
proved feasible. 



HAMLIN 



57 



THE VIEWS OF A CONSULTING ARCHITECT 



BY A. D. F. HAMLIN, Columbia University 



*T*HE consulting architect is a product of 
the increasing complexity of modern 
architectural practice, and the consequent ne- 
cessity for specialized service. Not alone in 
architecture and in library design in every 
department of modern life the principle of the 
division of labor prevails, and every operation 
and transaction is as far as possible assigned 
to experts. So in important architectural un- 
dertakings it has become evident that it is 
good policy, and in accordance with scientific 
principles, to reserve for specialists certain 
-questions and certain aspects of the problems 
of design and execution which, under simpler 
conditions, the client and architect were ac- 
customed and were competent to settle be- 
tween themselves. 

The first question which suggests itself to 
the librarian with reference to the consulting 
architect is likely to be "What is he for?" 
a question perhaps merely academic for such 
as never expect to face the problem of erect- 
ing a library building, but wholly practical the 
moment that problem presents itself. And this 
is the answer : The consulting architect serves 
as an intermediary between the trustees, the 
librarian and the architett, and as an adviser 
on all matters of doubt and controversy which 
may arise between or among them. He pro- 
vides a clearing-house for multitudinous ques- 
tions and problems of detail ; he is at the beck 
and call of all three parties to the triangular 
partnership, to help them in doubt and diffi- 
culty, and to suggest new solutions to vexing 
problems. He acts as a cushion or buffer be- 
tween contending views or interests, and can 
often avert an impending controversy and 
smooth the track or oil the wheels of an in- 
terrupted or hesitant transaction. 

Such service is, of course, not always re- 
quired. It is unnecessary when the building 
to be erected is small and simple, or when the 
trustees, librarian and architect are all in per- 
fect agreement in their understanding of the 



problem before them, and fully satisfied that 
they have adopted the right solution of that 
problem. With a thoroughly competent and 
experienced and yet reasonably tractable ar- 
chitect, and a docile board contented to leave 
much to their librarian, the librarian is master 
of the situation, and may feel that he cares 
for no man's advice and wants no outsider, 
expert or not, to "butt in" with his counsels 
and his criticisms. 

But when the problem is new and complex ; 
when differences of opinion and of funda- 
mental conception exist between any two of 
the three parties to the triangular enterprise 
trustees, librarians, and architect when, as 
is so often the case, even the selection of an 
architect is a problem bristling with difficul- 
ties and embarrassments; when the kind of 
building wanted and the kind of building pos- 
sible with the funds in hand are two unknown 
quantities and unrelated problems, then re- 
course to a consulting architect becomes de- 
sirable, and is often the only way of escape 
from difficulty or failure. He is an arbitrator 
and a counsellor by turns ; he brings to the 
discussion and settlement of vexing questions 
an experience which enables him to look at 
the question from the outside, with impartial 
and disinterested view. 

The questions which a consulting expert may 
be called upon to decide are many and various. 
Among those in which his services are most 
often likely to be of value are these four : 

i. The selection of a site. This is often 
predetermined and fixed by conditions or cir- 
cumstances not to be evaded; but wherever 
there is a choice between sites, or opportunity 
to select at will, there is possibility of serious 
mistakes, as well as of wirepulling and inter- 
ference by all sorts of interests. An adviser 
in such cases, if he be a man who commands 
general confidence and has no possible private 
interest in the matter, is a strong bulwark for 
a board of trustees to lean on. 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



2. The selection of an architect. This is also 
sometimes a foregone conclusion. The board 
are quite united in favoring some one archi- 
tect or firm because of his commanding emi- 
nence or his special experience, or for other 
reasons. In, such cases no help or advice is 
needed. But such cases are not, after all, very 
common. Some members of the board are 
likely to have pronounced ideas, each in favor 
of a particular architect, while others have no 
opinion on the subject, and no information 
on which to base an opinion. Strong pres- 
sure, moreover, is liable to be exerted from 
the outside by influences favoring this or that 
firm, and applications pour in with every mail. 
If the library is in a small town, in place of 
local pressure there is the difficulty of decid- 
ing which way to turn in looking for an ar- 
chitect from some other city, particularly if 
there are two or three large architectural cen- 
ters about equally available for the supply. 
Then there is the difficulty of deciding 
whether artistic skill, or practical experience, 
or a reputation for excellent business man- 
agement, shall be the controlling qualification, 
and there is the ever-recurring question 
whether the talented young practitioner, with 
his spurs still in a measure to be won, 
may not be after all a wiser choice than the 
famous and long-established firm with so 
much to do that none but its underlings ever 
see the building or the trustees after the first 
interview with the heads of the firm in the 
luxurious inner office. The librarian is con- 
cerned to get a serviceable, a librarian's li- 
brary; the trustees want a building in 
which they get dollar's worth for dollar; 
each thinks he knows the architect who will 
do it. Again and again the only way out of 
the slough of divergent and contrary views, 
doubts and uncertainties has been found to 
be by a competition, and a competition is, in 
nine cases out of ten, a competition for the 
selection of an architect rather than of a de- 
sign ; and in the tenth case it is likely to be 
so also. For, given your architect, you can, 
if you want, start all anew with your design 
after the close of the competition. It is, how- 
ever, sometimes possible to avoid the delay 
and expense incident to a competition by sim- 



ply consulting an expert whose impartiality 
can be depended upon, laying before him the 
names of a number of architects most favored 
by the board and their librarian, explaining' 
their own respective views, and either calling 
for a detailed report on these firms to guide 
them in the final selection, or requesting an 
absolute selection by the adviser. He can 
look up their records and inform himself as 
to their standing and achievements, their char- 
acter and artistic ability, as no trustee or lay- 
man in architecture could ever hope to do. 

3. The program of the building. One of 
the most important of the adviser's functions- 
is to ascertain all the factors which are to de- 
termine the problem of the design of the pro- 
posed library, and co-ordinate them into a 
definite, concise, precise, technical statement. 
First of all, the general scope and character 
of the library, its purpose, size and system are 
to be considered ; then the desires and ideas of 
the librarian and the results of the experience 
of the working staff; and finally the site and 
the limit of cost the final, inflexible known 
quantities to which the whole problem must 
be adjusted. A building program thus pre- 
pared the sizes, locations, relations, and 
conditions of all parts carefully studied and 
co-ordinated for the guidance of the archi- 
tect, whether already selected or to be chosen 
by competition is a first step of the greatest 
possible value towards the realization of the 
ideal building and a mighty bulwark against 
future blunders and mishaps. 

4. Arbitration. Architects are no doubt, in 
general, a very superior order of beings, sec- 
ond only to librarians (if to any one) in char- 
acter, education, and manners ; but even be- 
tween these two grains of the salt of the earth, 
a librarian and an architect, there may be fric- 
tion, misunderstanding, or at least divergence 
of view. So also may there be between the 
librarian and his board, upon matters funda- 
mentally architectural ; while we all know that 
contractors are a species of monster, born in 
that original state of sin from which we libra- 
rians and architects feel ourselves to have 
been wholly exempt ; and contractors are born 
to trouble (us) as the sparks fly upward. No 
building enterprise was ever carried through 



HAMLIN 



59< 



without controversies and bickerings, diver- 
gences of view, clashes of authority, and 
more or less heart burnings and bitterness. 
An adviser is, or may be, and always should 
be, a wonderful smoother of these asperities; 
an allayer of strife, a judge between factions, 
having no inherent prejudices, but a large ex- 
perience both of human nature and of archi- 
tectural theory, ethics and practice. Ques- 
tions of relative authority, of fees, of extras, 
of work rejected by the architect against the 
contractor's protest, of adequacy of the draw- 
ings, of apparently conflicting requirements, of 
unexpected contingencies ; questions of pure 
design, questions of details, questions of color 
and ornament, of fixtures and furniture ; 
changes suggested after the work is contracted 
for, or structural difficulties over which archi- 
tect, contractor, librarian and board are at log- 
gerheads to all these disputes a competent 
adviser brings an answer which is decisive and 
final, and which springs from no prejudice 
because it is not a party to any of the dis- 
putes, but fundamentally the friend of all 
parties. 

Permit me to illustrate some of these points 
by spreading before you a few leaves out of 
my own experience. I shall for this purpose 
select three cases : the Newark Free Public 
Library, the Carnegie free libraries in Brook- 
lyn, and the proposed Central Library in the 
same borough. 

In 1897 the trustees of the Free Public Li- 
brary of Newark, N. J., decided to invite com- 
petitive designs for their proposed new 
building. Upon the suggestion of the libra- 
rian, who is now your distinguished president, 
I was invited to advise them in the conduct of 
the competition. A competition was neces- 
sary, because not otherwise could the board 
breast the tide of applications from Newark 
architects and their backers and friends for 
appointment to design the new building, while 
to appoint outright an out of town architect 
would have brought upon their heads a 
storm of criticism from those who insisted on 
Newark jobs for Newark architects. Some 
of you, in large or small degree, have no 
doubt experienced the same embarrassment, 
the same unreasoning public or political pres- 
sure. It is in such cases that a competition, if 



rightly conducted, provides a means of de- 
liverance both from unseemly pressure and 
from charges of favoritism and pull, while it 
provides for the board a reasonable assurance 
that the design finally adopted will be the best 
that they can secure under the circumstances 
and conditions of the case. 

In this instance there were five invited and 
paid competitors, while a large number of 
others, unpaid, were permitted to submit 
drawings, and the award went to one of these- 
"rank outsiders." This proves that while a 
limited paid competition has many advan- 
tages, it is not always sure to produce the best 
results. The adviser's duties in this compe- 
tition consisted, first, in drawing up the 
program for the competition, that is to 
say, the regulations to be observed by~ 
the competitors, and the technical state- 
ment of the requirements of the building ; 
secondly, in answering the numerous questions, 
raised by various competitors during the- 
progress of the competition as to sundry de- 
tails of these requirements ; and thirdly, in 
taking part in the final award. A full hour 
might be easily filled in recounting the Je- 
tails of this triple service, so multifarious and 
often perplexing were its details; but I wilfi 
spare you. Let me simply emphasize a few 
points that may be helpful some time to some- 
of you. First, in the preparation of the pro- 
gram, the librarian and the adviser each have 
points to contribute on which one is an ex- 
pert and the other a layman. It is the ad- 
viser's duty to draw from the librarian the 
fullest statement of his ideas and dreams for 
the new building, and to embody in the pro- 
gram every one of these that is architecturally 
and structurally practicable. To the adviser 
alone belongs the duty of drawing up the 
technical rules of the competition. No lay- 
man realizes how technical and delicate are- 
the questions involved in the conduct of an> 
architectural competition until he has once 
been "up against it himself," to use the ex- 
pressive slang of the day. Let no librarian or 
board ever cherish the delusion that they can 
save $500 to $1500 by conducting a competi- 
tion themselves without expert advice. It is- 
in its way as disastrous a delusion as home 
doctoring in a serious illness or amateur legsl 



6o 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



work in a complicated case, sure to land its 
victims in trouble and often in scandal, liti- 
gation and loss. 

Let me also call attention to this fact, 
which the experience of this Newark compe- 
tition confirmed and which I am sure Presi- 
dent Hill will endorse: that the careful, pre- 
cise, detailed study of the requirements of 
the building by the librarian and adviser, and 
indirectly by the board, before they even 
know who is to be their architect gives them 
a mastery, an inside knowledge of their prob- 
lem which they could never get in any other 
way. The study of areas and dimensions, of 
relations of parts, of the function and arrange- 
ment of each room, of lighting and communi- 
cations and equipment, the determination in 
advance, after careful study, of many points 
that otherwise would be overlooked or left 
to be decided in a hurry when they came up 
in the actual work of the building; all this 
under the guidance of an expert architect who 
has no private "axe to grind" this is of the 
greatest possible value to those (chiefly the 
librarian) who are to oversee the realization 
of the projected building and to use it after- 
wards. 

In the case of the Newark library, the li- 
brarian and the adviser came to a perfect 
understanding, each having gained a full ap- 
preciation of the other's point of view ; so 
that when it came to the final award they 
reached by independent paths the same con- 
clusion, selecting the same design, which the 
trustees had no hesitation in accepting as the 
best one of all. Its architects, who proved to 
be Messrs. Rankin & Kellogg, of Philadelphia, 
were at that time wholly unknown to any of 
those concerned in the final decision. How 
successfully they carried out their design is 
known to many of you; but perhaps few are 
aware that this achievement really laid the 
foundation for the remarkably successful 
career of this firm since that time in large and 
notable public buildings. 

After this award, the adviser continued to 
serve the board during the erection of the 
building. Important questions of design were 
submitted to his decision; the entrances were, 
as first designed, inadequate; the decoration 
of the medallions on the front, the lettering 
of the inscriptions, the scheme of color for 



the interior, and many other like questions, 
were referred to him, and he was asked to 
arbitrate more than one question over which 
the architect and trustees were divided. In 
this way friction, misunderstanding and pos- 
sible litigation were entirely avoided. 

The services rendered to the Carnegie fund 
committee of Brooklyn were of a somewhat 
different character. The problem was almost 
unique. The erection of twenty branch li- 
braries as a single enterprise in one city is 
not an every-year affair. Here again your 
president, transferred the previous year from 
Newark, was the initiator of the large-minded 
way in which his committee, a choice body of 
men of business, who were also men of cul- 
ture and experienced in public affairs, hand- 
led their task. A believer in expert advice, 
Mr. Hill persuaded them to seek such advice 
at the very threshold of their enterprise. 
The first task of the adviser was to frame the 
procedure which should govern the whole 
undertaking. The scheme which was then 
worked out has been followed ever since and 
with rather remarkably successful results, for 
which the credit belongs, not to the scheme 
alone, but quite as much to the Icyal spirit in 
which all participated in its operation. It 
was, briefly, as follows : To select five archi- 
tects, giving each a single library to design, 
but organizing the five into an "advisory com- 
mission," whose joint approval should be re- 
quired upon each separate design before its 
presentation to the board or fund committee; 
and to require, further, that each of the five 
designs should also receive the adviser's crit- 
icism and approval before adoption. The 
architects of the later libraries were to be se- 
lected and assigned upon the basis and in the 
light of the experience gained in the first five 
libraries, and were to be likewise organized 
into an advisory commission ; the presumption 
being, however, that the first five architects 
would be reappointed unless any or all of 
them proved incompetent for their task. Thus 
collaboration was substituted for competition 
and reappointment held out as an incentive 
to efficient service. Each architect was direct- 
ly responsible for particular buildings, but 
was obliged to undergo the criticism and 
privileged to benefit by the suggestions of all 
the rest. A remarkable relation of commun- 



HAMLIN 



ity of interest, a loyal and unselfish devotion 
to the work in hand, and a most friendly and 
efficient pulling together of all concerned 
have marked the progress of this interesting 
experiment. The librarian has, of course, been 
the pilot, and he has also been the link be- 
tween the five architects and the Carnegie 
committee ; and it need not be said nor 
is it flattery to say it that with a librarian 
so genial and yet so strong in his convictions 
and so widely experienced the relations be- 
tween the committee and the commission were 
pretty sure to be of the pleasantest sort. 
And yet, when one reflects on the annoyances, 
the frictions, the mis'haps, misunderstandings 
and perplexities likely to arise in building one 
building with one architect, and much more in 
building twenty buildings and dealing with 
five architects, it is, I am sure, a most credit- 
able record that not one serious difference has 
arisen between the two bodies during the en- 
tire five years since the adviser's report was 
adopted in 1901. It is, I believe, a quite un- 
exampled experience. 

During these five years the adviser has been 
called upon, first, for the report or scheme of 
procedure just outlined; secondly, to report 
on the various architects whose names were 
presented (or who presented themselves) for 
appointment, the reports being based on their 
professional history, training and achieve- 
ment; thirdly, to prepare in conjunction with 
the committee's counsel, a form of contract 
between the committee and the architects ; 
and fourthly, to pass on all designs sub- 
mitted. In addition, he has examined, criti- 
cised and approved designs for a trust com- 
pany's building erected by agreement with 
the committee on property adjoining one of 
the libraries ; prepared an elaborate report on 
the difficult question of extras the first 
formal treatise on the subject with which I 
am acquainted ; advised on a number of the 
sites selected, attending public hearings in 
two cases and speaking at one of these before 
the controller of the city ; visited and reported 
upon a bad case of leakage and dampness in 
an unfinished library the subject of a bitter 
controversy between the architect and trie con- 
tractor; and prepared a detailed report on 
branch libraries in several cities of the nearer 



West. This last report was one of the fruits 
of a trip made last February with the libra- 
rian and four architects of the commission. 
We cherish the hope, and indeed the belief, 
that the Brooklyn branch libraries, as the 
result of this mutually helpful collaboration, 
are among the very best examples to be 
found anywhere of their kind, all things con- 
sidered. The whole experience simply illus- 
trates the value of the sort of emulation which 
comes with collaboration as compared with 
divisive competition or sheer independent ef- 
fort. 

The third experience to be cited is that with 
the Central Library of Brooklyn. The Car- 
negie fund committee being members of the 
board of the Brooklyn Public Library, and 
Mr. Hill at its head, it is perhaps not sur- 
prising that expert opinion was again invoked 
to assist in determining the site of a pro- 
posed Central Library for that borough, or 
rather to report upon a particular site, of ir- 
regular form, near the reservoir and entrance 
to Prospect Park. Public opinion was much 
divided ; the opposition to the site was bitter 
and insistent and led by men of influence and 
high standing. The adviser was fully con- 
vinced of the suitability of this site, and pre- 
pared an elaborate report in its favor, in 
which he dealt at length with both the prac- 
tical and artistic aspects of the question, and 
submitted sketch plans of notable European 
public buildings on similar irregular plots of 
ground. The probable requirements, areas, 
height and cubic contents of the proposed 
building were studied and comparisons made 
with other central libraries and with the con- 
ditions of the given site. A supplementary 
report was later filed in answer to published 
criticisms. Another architect was later em- 
ployed as expert by the mayor; his conclu- 
sions confirmed those of the first expert; the 
site was adopted, and the necessary legislation 
was passed to make its adoption final and 
authoritative. 

The value of this experience is in its proof 
of the desirability and sometimes the neces- 
sity, first, of making sure you are right before 
you go ahead on a question of public import- 
ance; and secondly, of having some one 
whose experience and reputation command 



62 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



general respect and confidence to fortify 
your own official action and to take all the 
kicks that may be directed at that action or 
those responsible for it. From this point of 
view, as well as from that of the direct 
assessable value of the expert knowledge 
and counsel which the adviser brings to the 
service of the library, his fee is a wise and 
economical investment of money, and is pretty 
sure to be well earned. 

From the consulting architect's point of 
view, the designing of a library is a particular 
case of the general architectural problem of 
adapting means to ends and of the human 
problem of adapting men's views and ideas 
to each other and to the exigencies of the 
situation. One of the most difficult features 
of this part of the problem is that of adapt- 
ing the views of librarian and board alike 
to the exigencies of the cost limit. It is the 
old story of the champagne thirst and the 
lager beer purse. Give a library board 
$100,000 to spend and they forthwith lay 
down a program for a $250,000 building. The 
soaring imagination has to clip its wings and 



flap along the low level of so many thousand 
cubic feet at so many cents a foot. Then 
there is the old controversy between the li- 
brarian's ideal and the architect's ideal which, 
years ago, were wide apart., but which are 
to-day coming far closer together, thanks to 
the double process of education through which 
both parties have passed and in which the 
consultants and advisers have tried to da 
their part. Finally, there are three or 
rather four parties to the collaborative 
work of erecting a library : the board, the li- 
brarian, the architect, and that Ishmael against 
whom every hand and foot seems to be 
raised, the poor contractor, who is very often 
a very decent, honest fellow with troubles of 
his own. Each of these four must be made 
to pull with the other three, and a four-in- 
hand is not always an easy team either to 
drive or lead. It is a wonder they get along 
so well. And in all sincerity, so far as my 
own experience as an adviser is concerned, I 
can truly say that it is in library enterprises 
that I have generally found the greatest sat- 
isfaction and the greatest pleasure. 



THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING OF MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE 



BY BERTHA E. BLAKELY, Librarian. 



OUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE is in a 
New England village (South Hadley) 
in the Connecticut valley in a landscape which 
makes a charming setting for a college. 
There is plenty of space, so that each build- 
ing has the dignity of broad lawns and no lack 
of sunlight and air. 

The library is the central one of a group of 
three academic buildings facing the west 
on elm shaded College street. They are of 
reddish brown Longmeadow sandstone, and 
the exterior of the library, the latest of the 
three, was planned with especial reference to 
the architectural composition of the group. 
The building is Tudor Gothic in style. Its 
long line of 148 feet on the front is broken by 
a central gable in which is a large tracery 



window above the main entrance, on each side 
of which is a bay window with battlemented 
top. At the rear, the campus side, are three 
wings, the central one, the stack, being 54 
feet long, while those on either side are but 
22 feet. 

The stone is rough except across the front 
entrance between the bay windows, where it 
is dressed. Broad granite steps lead to the 
recessed doorway, and within the vestibule 
are a few tiled steps leading to the main floor 
of the building. 

This is a lofty hall extending from end to 
end and finished into the roof, the twelve 
wood trusses spanning the entire forty-four 
feet of the width and resting on carved gray 
stone corbels. There is a large tracery win- 



BLAKELY 



dow of leaded glass at each end besides that 
in the center of the front, and on the sides 
are high mullioned windows also of leaded 
glass. The central portion of the great hall 
is divided by screens of oak and leaded glass 
nine feet high into a main corridor and a 
series of small rooms without destroying the 
architectural unity of the whole. The archi- 
tecture was adapted from that of Westminster 
Hall, in London, and there is the same impres- 
sion of spaciousness and of aspiration and of 
individuality in the designing of details. The 
angel figures on the ends of the hammer 
beams, every alternate one holding a book 
open to the spectator below, each other one a 
scroll, are copied, I think, from those in West- 
minster Hall. 

The furniture was designed by the archi- 
tect to harmonize with the style of the build- 
ing, and the rather massive and entirely suit- 
able tables and chairs add greatly to the 
effectiveness of the whole. In coloring there 
is the greatest possible harmony. The rich, 
dark brown of the woodwork is matched by 
the burlap on lower walls which are not 
covered by bookcases, and is relieved by the 
lighter brown of plastered walls above. The 
windows, while entirely of leaded glass, con- 
tain no color except in medallions near the 
tops. The designs in these are, in the end 
windows, seals of women's colleges, and in 
the others printers' marks of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries of Aldus, Elzevir, 
Plantin, Froben, Caxton and their contempo- 
raries, with a few modern marks and famous 
book plates. As one gazes up at these book- 
ish reminders of other days and at the some- 
what elaborate fretwork below the ceiling, 
including quatrefoil and trefoil designs, and 
sees the shadows cast by all on walls and 
ceiling, he might easily imagine himself in an 
old world Gothic structure except for the 
abundant sunlight and fresh air so prized by 
the modern student. 

The entire north end of the building, includ- 
ing the wing separated from the rest of the 
room by arches and pillars, is the general 
reading room. The walls up to the height of 
seven feet are covered with bookcases which 
are joined by others at right angles, forming 
nine alcoves six feet deep. The windows are 
above the cases except in the wing, where 



window seats are placed below the four low 
windows. The tables in this room will ac- 
commodate 130 readers, allowing to each a 
space of two and a half feet. Those in the 
center are arranged for ten, those at the 
sides for six readers. For economy of space 
we planned the wall cases on two sides of 
the room for the deep shelves for oversize 
books, instead of having a ledge all around 
above lower wide shelves. Very deep ones for 
folios placed on their sides are arranged be- 
tween the pillars and side walls at the en- 
trance to the wing. The seven or eight 
thousand volumes shelved in this room are 
those in all classes most needed by the major- 
ity of the students. Free access is allowed in 
the stack also. 

The opposite, that is, the south end of the 
library, contains the periodical room, with 
extensive racks for current numbers ; cup- 
boards, which are standard bookcases with 
wooden doors, for back unbound numbers ; 
and tables and chairs of the same pattern as 
those in the general reading room. The wing 
off this room, architecturally as much a part 
of it as the other wing is a part of the gen- 
eral reading room, is differentiated by special 
furnishings suitable for a private library 
round tables, silk curtains, leather window 
cushions, easy chairs and foot-rests and is 
our Library of the Masters. The idea of this 
was borrowed directly from Mr. Foster's 
Standard Library at Providence. Besides the 
special duplicate collection of world authors 
which gives the room its character, we have 
placed here a case with leaded glass doors 
in which are locked our rare book treasures. 

The stack is in three stories, the middle 
one on a level with the main floor. It is the 
Art Metal Construction Co. bracket stack, 
entirely of steel, with glass floors. Ten small 
tables at the ends of alternate stacks on 
the main floor allow space for students which 
is much appreciated. The estimated capacity 
is 87,000 volumes, which, supplemented by the 
shelving of the reading rooms, makes the 
total capacity of the present book rooms 100,- 
ooo volumes. Below the stack is the unpack- 
ing room, whence books are brought by the 
metal lift to the main floor. 

Off the central corridor are four special 
study rooms, and on the floor above the 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



stack, reached by a stairway from the main 
corridor and by the book lift in the stack, are 
ten more, which are assigned to different de- 
partments of instruction for the use of members 
of the faculty and students doing research 
work, but not for classes except in rare cases. 

The card catalog, the logical center of a li- 
brary, is in the main corridor between the 
general reading loom and the delivery desk 
which is in the center of the building be- 
tween the main entrance and the stack 
against the partition of the catalogers' room 
and across the corridor from the librarian's 
room. The latter is the room with the bay 
window at the left of the front entrance, open- 
ing into the general reading room, the cor- 
ridor and a private office which, with the 
exception of the coat room off the vestibule, 
is the only one of the small rooms on this 
floor which has a ceiling. 

There is a store room under the main cor- 
ridor and catalogers' room, adjoining th 
stack, which can be used as a work room 
whenever it is needed. There is also a small 
newspaper room on this floor, and the four 
large corner rooms, on a level with the ground 
at the rear, a little below in front, are used 
at present as recitation rooms, but make 
provision for future growth of the library. 
The stack can also be extended if it becomes 
necessary. 

One person at the delivery desk or in the 
catalogers' room furnishes sufficient attend- 
ance, except during crowded hours. The desk 
of the assistant librarian, who does a large 
part of the reference work, stands in the cor- 
ner of the general reading room near the cat- 
alogers' room. 

The floors deserve special mention, as they 
are somewhat unusual for this country. The 
material is asbestolith, a fireproof composition 
laid over concrete five or six inches thick. 
They are light gray with black borders and 
pattern decorations, and their chief advantage 
is their power of deadening sounds. All foot- 
steps seem light upon them. 

The building is heated, like the other college 
buildings, by steam from a central plant. The 
radiators are concealed in ducts in the wall 
behind the bookcases and under the floor, and 
thus offer no obstruction to the arrangement 
of cases or furniture. Fresh out-of-door air 



is brought over the heated pipes, so that the 
air admitted through the registers above the 
bookcases is pure as well as warm, and its 
circulation through the building to the shafts, 
between the stack and the main building has 
proved very satisfactory. 

Plans for the building had been made long, 
before there was any promise of money. The 
librarian drew the first rough floor plans, 
from which, at the suggestion of the Library 
Bureau, an architect worked out full plans to 
be considered in detail and discussed with 
other librarians. When, in the fall of 1903, 
the trustees took the matter up and invited 
Mr. George F. Newton, of Boston, who had 
already planned Dwight Hall, the college art 
building, to make tentative plans, the require- 
ments were quite clearly established, and his 
early plans were only slightly modified the 
next summer when $100,000 had been se- 
cured and the work could be begun. Mr.. 
Newton gave his attention to every suggestion 
made, and was most successful in incorporat- 
ing each smallest feature which could be 
thought of for convenience in administration,, 
without detracting from the architectural 
effect. 

The contractors, Caspar Ranger & Son r 
of Holyoke, were also anxious to please 
throughout the entire course of the building,, 
and were willing to incorporate afterthoughts. 
All the tables, desks, cabinets and periodical 
cases, and the wooden shelves were made in. 
their workshops. The cost of the building,, 
of fireproof construction except in the roof,, 
with its furnishings, was $112,000, and, ex- 
clusive of the lower floor, it will accommo- 
date more than 300 readers. The college 
numbers 700 students and 100 members of 
the faculty. My rough estimate of the aver- 
age number of readers seated at a time during 
the busier hours of each day is 115 or 125. 

One year of occupancy has proved the new 
library well adapted to our needs. The 
abundant light and air, the large reading 
room for general students and secluded 
rooms for research are conducive to good 
work. The beautiful and harmonious interior 
produces the right atmosphere for scholars,, 
an environment favorable to study and high 
thoughts, and is an inspiration to better ad- 
ministration. 



CANFIELD 



THE LIBRARY IN RELATION TO SPECIAL CLASSES OF READERS : BOOKS 
FOR THE FOREIGN POPULATION I 

BY JAMES HULME CANFIELD, Librarian of Columbia University. 



/V T the isth annual meeting of the New 
York Library Association, last Septem- 
ber, I tried to say something about the service 
which the public libraries may render in 
making new Americans. I am now asked to 
present the substance of this very briefly as 
a basis for discussion of this general theme; 
to be continued by others who have come 
more directly and practically in contact with 
what may very properly be called a new 
movement in the public library world of this 
country. 

Immigration to this country has become so 
enormous, and is affecting so directly all the 
conditions of urban life, that unless we can 
digest and assimilate these immigrants there 
will soon be a sick man of the West as well as 
of the East. We need these people and they 
need us. It is a mistake to consider their 
presence here a menace. While there may be 
and probably are some undesirable immi- 
grants, the great mass of all immigrants are 
to become American citizens, and with proper 
care and reasonable thoughtfulness on our 
part will become desirable American citizens. 
Immigration in itself is no ground for dis- 
trust or avoidance. We do not propose to 
close our doors, and we could not do this if 
we wished. 

That we may have some fair idea of the 
problem pressing for solution we should re- 
member that by the census of 1900 the foreign 
born population of 14 of our more important 
cities is as follows: 

New York 1,270,080, Chicago 587,112, Phil- 
adelphia 295,340, Boston 197,129, Cleveland 
124,631, San Francisco 116,885, St. Louis 
111,356, Buffalo 104,252, Detroit 96,503, Mil- 
waukee 88,919, Pittsburgh 84,878, Baltimore 
68,600, Cincinnati 57,961, New Orleans 30,325. 

As showing the diversity of origin, lan- 
guage, tradition, etc., in a single city of 
these foreign born people in the city of New 



York 118,000 came from Austria, Bohemia 
and Hungary; 322,000 from Germany, 155,- 
500 from Russia, 145,000 from Italy, 40,000 
from Norway and Sweden, and 32,000 from 
Poland. Of the present population of the 
same city 2,650,000 are (entire or in parf) of 
foreign parentage; which means no very 
great removal in point of time from the im- 
migrant status. 

The question is, How can these people be 
given most quickly a fair understanding of 
their new life and their new relations? As 
far as the church is concerned, quite generally 
they have their own ecclesiastical organiza- 
tions. Inevitably they drift into certain por- 
tions of our cities occupied by their country- 
men who have come here earlier, which tends 
to make them clannish and is not very help- 
ful in the process of becoming acclimated. 
The day schools are doing something for the 
children, and the night schools are supple- 
menting this work and adding instruction for 
adults. At best little more can be done in 
this way than to give them elementary knowl- 
edge of our language they have little time 
for other instruction than this. This is the 
least with which we ought to be satisfied, 
because they need to know what we are try- 
ing to do, and we need to know their needs 
and desires and English is, after all, the 
only practicable method of intercommunica- 
tion. But we surely ought to do far more 
than this necessary minimum. 

There ought to be in every public library 
of every city of any size at least the classics 
of several languages, in order that those 
speaking these different tongues may appre- 
ciate our willingness and desire to recognize 
the literature of their fatherland. This sym- 
pathetic temper will help bring these people 
to our libraries. But we ought to go further 
than this, and, having brought them within 
the library and made them its patrons, they 



66 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



should find there good translations of ele- 
mentary text-books in civics from English 
into other languages, and other literature 
that will be helpful to them in their new re- 
lations. 

It is entirely true that many immigrants 
have not the education nor the mental equip- 
ment necessary to intelligent enjoyment and 
successful mastery of the classics in their own 
tongue. But a surprising number of them are 
interested in these classics, as appears in more 
than one public library on the sea coast. Just 
as our best literature advances all the stand- 
ards of thought and life, so the best in these 
strange tongues will minister directly to the 
welfare of those who are strangers in a 
strange land. But their immediate needs are 
other than this. For the sake of illustration, 
imagine yourself seeking a' home on the con- 
tinent, without definite information as to the 
conditions of the new life, unable to speak or 
understand any language but your own, in- 
experienced as a traveller, not particularly 
well read as to the country or countries with- 
in which you must choose your residence, 
and possibly without kinsfolk or friends in 
that distant land. What you would need to 
know almost immediately would be something 
of the conditions of life which you must meet, 
of the laws to which you would be subject, 
of the manner of acquiring citizenship, of your 
civic rights and duties, and of the opportuni- 
ties which the various countries or various 
parts of one country present to a newcomer. 
If you could find these in your own tongue, 
coming to you from such an authoritative 
source as a library considered as a public in- 
stitution, having what may be called official 
standing, and your attention called to all this 
and your investigation directed by a pleasing 
personality showing sympathy and expressing 
interest in your welfare your battle would 
be half won from the start. 

Inverting the illustration an Italian land- 
ing in New York ought very soon to find his 
way to some branch library where, in answer 
to his inquiry, he would have opportunity to 
learn of those simpler ordinances of the city 
which cover sanitation, education, contracts, 
licenses, carrying of concealed weapons, and 
those general police regulations with which 



every intelligent citizen needs some acquaint- 
ance in order that they may most efficiently 
protect him and advance his interests and that 
he may "keep out of trouble." He ought to be 
able to find also some intelligent and authori- 
tative discussion of the industrial conditions of 
the country, something which would tell him 
of diversified climate and products, informa- 
tion which might guide him to cheap farming 
lands, or to the fruit regions, or to the various 
mining districts, or to the great lumber re- 
gions; which would give prevailing wages, 
cost of living, general distribution of labor, 
and so on through the whole circle of possible 
occupations. Later perhaps he would care to 
know something of the political history of 
this new-found land, of its industrial develop- 
ment, of its educational system, of the men 
who have made it what it is, of plan and pur- 
pose for the future. All this is necessary for 
his immediate information and guidance in 
the choice of occupation and home, and is 
exceedingly desirable in his preparation for 
intelligent citizenship. 

I understand that your immediate answer 
to this will be that such text or texts are not 
in existence, even in English if we except 
the leaflets and folders sent out by the more 
ambitious steamship and railroad companies 
or by more enterprising states. It is this 
very point upon which I hope .the discussion 
this morning will turn what this Associa- 
tion may be able to accomplish in the way of 
the preparation of such information. In sim- 
pler form, such as leaflets, something has al- 
ready been accomplished by Dr. Blaustein of 
New York editions in the thousands being 
circulated among the immigrants at Ellis Isl- 
and. This in itself is admirable, and the plan 
ought to be taken up either by the nation or 
by the more interested states, or by boards of 
trade, or by patriotic citizens, or by some 
definite organization in which all these forces 
may have full play : with a very general dis- 
tribution of these leaflets on the other side of 
the water, either in the countries from which 
the immigrant comes or at the ports of depart- 
ure, say through the hands of the American 
consuls. With regard to such work as this, 
this Association can do little more than ex- 
press its appreciation and approval. But it 



BOSTWICK 



seems io me high time that an organization as 
influential as this should set itself very defi- 
nitely to the task not only of a wise use of such 
'literature when prepared but of the preparation 
itself. Whether this will be best accomplished 
by agitation and discussion, or by a systematic 
use of the public press, or by the appointment 
of a special committee which shall make care- 
ful study of this whole problem I do not 
pretend to say. My impression is that we 
shall go at it along all these lines and by a use 
of all these means, and I doubt if there is 
any more important work to which a special 
committee could give thoughtful considera- 
tion for the next two or three years. 

In order that this matter may come directly 
before the Association for discussion, and to 
place the whole question in a concrete form, 
I beg leave to offer the following resolutions : 



"Resolved, That the Library Institute be asked 
to give all necessary time and effort to a careful and 
thorough investigation in every detail of the possible 
service of public libraries to immigrants; that the 
Institute embody the results of this information 
and recommendations concerning the same in a 
preliminary report which shall be printed at the 
expense of this Association and sent to each of its 
active members, with a request for comment or 
criticism by mail; and that with this correspondence 
in hand a final report shall be prepared by the 
Institute and submitted to this Association at its 
next regular meeting, in 1907. 

"Resolved, That because of the direct interest of 
the public schools of this country in this as in many 
other questions discussed by this Association, 'the 
officers of this Association be requested to at once 
enter into negotiations with the officers of the 
National Educational Association, the object of which 
shall be to secure in 1907 either a joint meeting of 
the two Associations or meetings at the same place, 
the one following so immediately upon the other 
that both may derive some benefit from the member- 
ship and attendance of each." 



BOOKS FOR THE FOREIGN POPULATION II 



By ARTHUR E. BSTWICK, Chief of Circulation Department, New York Public Library. 



*T*HE problem of providing reading for for- 
eigners who understand only their native 
.languages in a city of such population and ex- 
tent as New York would seem at first sight 
an almost insuperable one, but the pe- 
culiar distribution of nationalities in the city, 
especially during the year or so immediately 
after arrival, is a great aid in this work and 
reduces it largely to a question of providing 
one or two collections of books in each for 
eign tongue a fortunate circumstance, since 
it would scarcely be practicable to duplicate 
such collections for perhaps twenty different 
languages in thirty or forty centers. 

We may say roughly that the person who 
takes a foreign book from a library belongs 
to one of two classes ; he is either one who 
reads the language as his mother tongue, or 
who is reading it merely as a foreign lan- 
guage either for its educational value or per- 
haps for recreation. Now the languages read 
in this latter way are practically limited in 
New York to four German, French, Ital- 
ian and Spanish given in the order of fre- 



quency. The demand for this purpose is 
naturally confined to no particular localities, 
and it is necessary to have small collections, 
particularly of French and German, in all 
branch libraries. But besides these languages 
there are fifteen to twenty others that are 
spoken by immigrants as mother tongues; 
and for a considerable period after their ar- 
rival, varying for a year or two to a lifetime, 
they are limited in their intellectual inter- 
course entirely to these tongues. Owing to 
this fact as well as to natural gregariousness, 
the incoming immigrant seeks out those of his 
own race; hence the various "colonies." Dr. 
Blaustein, the director of the Educational Al- 
liance, tells us that the subdivision goes even 
further than this. People from the same 
province and even from the same village seek 
each other out, so that a map of the East 
Side might be drawn reproducing somewhat 
fantastically the map of Europe with its po- 
litical and racial subdivisions. 

This grouping of immigrants is strikingly 
illustrated by the collection of posters in 



68 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



foreign tongues, displayed in the streets of 
New York, which has been gathered to ac- 
company this paper. These were all secured 
by the branch library assistants in a few days 
in the vicinity of their libraries and represent 
nothing out of the common life of the dis- 
tricts where they were displayed. Evidently 
a foreign colony must be not only large but 
compact to make the display of such posters 
worth while. The same cannot be said, of 
course, of newspapers ; but size and extent, 
if not compactness, are certainly indicated by 
the figures in the following table, which are 
from Rowell's directory and cover the bor- 
ough of Manhattan only. 



Arabic i i 

Bohemian 2 . . 2 

Chinese 2 

Croatian i 

Danish i 

French i . . 2 

Gaelic (Irish) 

German 6 .. 26 i 

Greek i 

Hungarian i .. i a 

Italian 4 . . 8 . . . . i 13 

Japanese i "' ' * 

Polish i i 

Slovak i .. .. i i .. 3 

Spanish 2 .. i 5 8 

Swedish i .. .. i 2 

Yiddish 7 .. 4 .. .. i 12 

25 i 51 2 2 . 16 97 

This clannishness is not permanent, how- 
ever. In a few years the immigrant learns 
at least some English, begins to feel at home, 
and moves off to some other part of the city, 
his place being taken by a newcomer. In this 
way, Dr. Blaustein says, the entire population 
of the East Side is renewed every three 
years a conclusion that he reaches from 
personal knowledge of the capacity of the 
district coupled with statistics of annual ac- 
cessions to its population. However this may 
be, it is certainly a shifting population, as 
our library experience in the district shows us. 
Older residents continually move away and 
newer ones move in. Here, then, is an ideal 
situation for the librarian bodies of people 
who speak only one language, who wish to 
read books in that language and who find it 
difficult to secure them, so that they gladly 
read anything that is offered to them. More- 



3 

i 
40 



over, these people are not scattered over the- 
city, but classified by languages and bunched 
together by classes, and from these groups 
are periodically eliminated those who have- 
learned English and who are therefore not 
so eager to read in their native tongues. 
Surely if the librarian is ever going to in- 
fluence the reading of anybody, here is his 
chance among these "new-caught" peoples,, 
who are not "sullen," like Kipling's. The- 
question of the propriety of giving these 
people something that may retard their ac- 
quisition of English may be dismissed with 
few words. There is no evidence that the 
possibility of obtaining books in the native 
tongue does retard it; but even if it does, we 
can afford to wait a little longer for our new 
Americans if we have a greater chance of get- 
ting thereby better and more contented citi- 
zens. Homesickness nostalgia is well 
recognized as a specific disease, causing func- 
tional derangement and even death; and we 
cannot afford to have our future citizens 
start off with an attack of it. That they are 
afraid of it is shown by the instinctive hud- 
dling together of which I have spoken. But: 
there is little chance in a city like New York,, 
whose population is something like the con- 
tents of a seething caldron, that permanent 
foreign communities, retaining foreign ideals; 
and resisting Americanization, will ever be 
formed. There is much more danger that 
this will take place in farming regions like: 
the great Scandinavian districts of the West. 
Perhaps the most striking instance of the 
retention of a non-English tongue in an 
American community is that of the so-called 
Pennsylvania Dutch. Yet no one would ac- 
cuse these people of being foreign or un- 
American. They all talk English as well as 
their peculiar dailect, and so will any body 
of immigrants under similar influences. I 
cannot see that it is ever going to be neces- 
sary for us to have a polyglot congress, like 
Switzerland, and least of all do I fear that 
giving a homesick immigrant a welcome in 
his mother tongue is likely to help along such 
a result. 

So the temporary grouping of non-English- 
speaking immigrants by nationalities in the- 
city of New York is not to be regarded as a.. 



BO ST WICK 



69 



menace to future good citizenship, but rather 
as an opportunity for its acquirement. 

We have been slow to see and slower to 
take advantage of this opportunity in the city 
of New York. We are not yet taking care of 
the English-speaking population as we ought. 
A circulation of about two books annually 
per capita in the greater city is imposing in 
the aggregate because of the size of our pop- 
ulation, but it certainly does not represent 
the maximum of library effort. 

In fact, until recent years the expansion of 
library opportunity in New York has not 
been a direct response to a demand, but rather 
an anticipation of it. Even now there are 
districts not served by branch libraries which 
make no complaint ; yet we know from our 
experience that the opening of a library in 
such regions will be followed by the sudden 
development of an overwhelmingly large cir- 
culation. This has been the case with our 
foreign work. A Roumanian or a Hunga- 
rian does not expect, when he comes to the 
city, to find books for free circulation in his 
home language. If these were never offered 
demand for them would not develop, and it 
is not until the first purchases are made and 
the ball starts rolling that we realize the en- 
ergy that is stored up in a great body of the 
population hungry for literature. A few 
years ago our foreign circulation was limited 
to the general foreign tongues and included 
none of the "neighborhood" languages. The 
consolidation with the Aguilar Library 
brought in the Russian and Hebrew collec- 
tions at the Educational Alliance, and that 
of the Webster gave us the nucleus of 
a Bohemian collection, since largely in- 
creased. A year ago we had added Hunga- 
rian, Yiddish, Roumanian, and, during the 
past year, Swedish, Finnish, Dano-Norwegian, 
modern Greek and Polish, beginning with a 
few hundred volumes of each, mostly litera- 
ture and fiction, and placing each collection 
in some branch library near the center of 
the corresponding linguistic group. Our ex- 
perience has thus not been long, but it has 
been enough to bring out the fact that our 
foreign circulation is practically an adult cir- 
culation. This has always been the case with 
our German, in which our experience in neigh- 
borhood language circulation dates back twenty 



years, from the establishment of a branch 
of the Free Circulating Library by Oswald 
Ottendorfer in Second Avenue. The circu- 
lation here has always been practically con- 
fined to adults. Its percentage of juvenile 
fiction (German and English) in its first 
year was 13, only one-third of that at the 
other branch. No separate German classifi- 
cation was then kept; but if the English pro- 
portion was the same as at the other branch, 
the German juvenile use must have been 
vanishingly small. Among the German books 
circulated there last year only two per cent, 
were juvenile fiction, and I judge from the 
reports of desk assistants that many of these 
were taken out by adults. Desk attendants 
at most of the branches estimate that the 
juvenile German issue is less than one per 
cent. At the Rivington Street branch it is 
larger estimated at ten per cent. The chil- 
dren here take out German books for pur- 
poses of study. As for other languages, the 
juvenile circulation in Roumanian, Hungarian 
and Russian is estimated about one per cent, 
each. No Yiddish is circulated among chil- 
dren. There is a small demand, but the stock 
is not great enough to supply the adult read- 
ers. Hungarian is not refused to the chil- 
dren, but those under 16 are not encouraged 
to read it. Russian is read by only a few 
immigrant children, and by them only until 
they learn English. Bohemian is read by 
perhaps ten per cent, of children. Their 
parents usually take out the books for them,, 
being anxious that they shall become familiar 
with the literature of the fatherland. These 
data show strikingly the speed with which 
English becomes the tongue of the younger 
generation and the fact that our foreign col- 
lections are only for the comfort and intel- 
lectual nutrition of those who are still occa- 
sionally looking backward to the fatherland. 
It is probable that after reaching a maxi- 
mum the circulation in what I have called 
neighborhood languages will decline and that 
it will become somewhat more scattered. This 
is indicated by our twenty years' experience 
with German. Our German circulation at 
the Ottendorfer branch during the first 
month (December, 1884) was nearly four 
times our English circulation. For the 
first year the German circulation was 63 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



per cent. Last year it was 22 per cent. 
The total foreign percentage of the two 
branches then constituting the Free Circulat- 
ing Library was 33. That of the present 36 
branches ,is 4, varying (if we exclude the 
Ottendorfer branch) from 10 down to one per 
cent. The abandonment of the neighborhood 
by the Americanized population would evi- 
dently scatter the demand for a particular 
language at the same time that the increasing 
use of English would diminish it. 

As this scattering makes itself more and 
more evident in the demand for books in other 
parts of the city, as it already has with Ger- 
man, we may find it necessary to scatter our 
collections somewhat; but probably the bulk 
of each will remain as now, in one or two 
convenient centers. 

We have been buying a few books at a 
time in a considerable number of foreign 
languages. Would it have been better to 
spend the money available for such books on 
one language at a time? For instance, would 
a fairly representative Hungarian collection, 
purchased within a few years, have been pref- 
erable to inadequate collections in a dozen 
tongues? This question will confront any li- 
brary when beginning to form foreign collec- 
tions for circulation. I can see many argu- 
ments for concentration on one language at 
a time; but on the whole I am satisfied with 
our present policy of purchasing a few hun- 
dred books yearly in each of a considerable 
group of literatures. We are confining our- 



selves at the outset almost entirely to the lit- 
erature and history classes representative 
fiction, poetry and essays, with history, biog- 
raphy and some travel ; although we have 
carefully considered local demand for other 
classes. 

Of course we include dictionaries and lan- 
guage manuals, especially books for learning 
English. These, we find, require careful scru- 
tiny. Except in the case of such languages 
as French and German, they are rarely pre- 
pared by persons familiar with idiomatic En- 
glish, and their colloquial phrases are pecu- 
liar, to^say the least. 

There is room for an amusing book on 
"English as she is taught" in Italian, Rus- 
sian or Polish manuals. Some of these are 
so outrageously absurd that we have had to 
reject them after purchase, and others we 
have reluctantly kept because there appear to 
be no others. In some languages they are 
altogether lacking. A list of such books, 
which we had begun to prepare for publica- 
tion, has been postponed for lack of time to 
give each an exhaustive examination. 

The need of books on American history and 
civics is also especially noticeable; but in- 
stead pf preparing such works ourselves, as Dr. 
Canfield suggests, it would be better simply to 
call public attention to the lack of them. 
Proper bodies to supply the need would be 
the various civic or patriotic societies, which 
would doubtless be glad to take it up if the 
matter were brought to their attention. 



BOOKS FOR THE FOREIGN POPULATION III 

BY J. MAUD CAMPBELL, Librarian ef Passaic (N. 7.) Public Library 



T~)R. CANFIELD has covered the field so 
effectually and stated the case so fairly, 
I think the cause of the immigrant might 
satisfactorily rest where he and Mr. Bost- 
wick left it. 

I would like to second Dr. Canfield's motion 
and ask if it might not be possible, while the 
Institute is investigating and preparing a 
report to be submitted to the Association, for 
each member of the American Library Asso- 



ciation, and particularly the state associa- 
tions, to agitate this point in such a vigorous 
way that the state authorities' attention may 
be called to this crying need, and co-operate 
with us in investigating and advancing the 
cause of the immigrant. 

There is hardly a state in the Union which 
has not commissions of some sort, and all 
productive of good library commissions, 
fish and game commissions, forestry commis- 



CAMPBELL 



sions. In New Jersey we have even a mos- 
quito commission to look after the extermina- 
tion of the insect which has given our state 
such renown. We had no trouble in getting 
both departments of the legislature to au- 
thorize the governor to appoint "a commis- 
sion to investigate and report on the condition 
of immigrants coming into the state." This 
has brought the matter to the attention of the 
men who govern the policy of our state. 
As librarians, we cannot translate, publish or 
actually give away books; but with financial 
backing from the state it will be possible for 
libraries to secure the books and pamphlets in 
foreign languages necessary for our immi- 
grants, and, in addition, to offer educational 
assistance. 

While Dr. Canfield's figures as to the pres- 
ent immigrant population of the large cities 
are staggering, they are not sufficient to make 
us fee! the tssk is hopeless. America has han- 
dled a bigger immigrant proposition before 
this, and the country has not entirely gone to 
the dogs. Take the hundred years between 
1800 and 1900: between 1820 and 1830 there 
were 15 aliens to the 1000; between 1830 and 
1840, 47 per 1000; between 1840 and 1850, 
100 per 1000; between 1850 and 1860, no; 
the next decade it fell to 73; between 1870 
and iSSo it was 104 per 1000; and between 
1890 and looo (the last census) it fell to 
59 per 1000, showing that fewer immigrants 
came here between 1890 and 1900 in propor- 
tion to the population than in any decade 
since 1850, notwithstanding the hysterical cry 
of our being overrun with foreigners. 

A prominent New York criminal judge, 
after having faced the worst class the 
country produces for twenty-seven years, said : 
"All evil influences, whether derived from in- 
heritance or example, might be overcome by 
education ; that our thoughts would direct 
the trend of our lives." We have given the 
adult immigrants very little opportunity to 
show what they would do for themselves 
about education; but their own deficiencies in 
this particular seem to stimulate them to 
great efforts on behalf of their children. 
In 1900 statistics show that in the whole 
United States the school attendance of chil- 
dren of foreign parentage stands highest 71 



per cent. ; those of foreign birth second 68.6 
per cent. ; while that of children of native 
parents is actually lowest 65.2 per cent. 
They show, also, that the illiterates born in 
this country of foreign parentage (5.7 per 
cent.) is only about half the percentage (9.2 
per cent.) of illiterate children of native born 
parents. 

By the last census 13.6 per cent, of our pop- 
ulation were of foreign birth and 34.2 per 
cent, of foreign parentage, who naturally ab- 
sorbed in early life many of the sentiments. 
and customs of their parents, and so are not 
very far removed from the immigrant state. 
Of the foreign born the majority land here 
past the age when it is easy to acquire a 
reading knowledge of a new language, bring- 
ing us a much-needed supply of muscle and 
brawn; for the chief elements of wealth pro- 
duction in this country and it is for its 
wealth that America stands prominent in the 
eyes of the world to-day may be classed 
as the products of mines, the products of 
agriculture and the products of manufacture, 
all absolutely dependent on manual labor, 
much of which is obtained from this foreign 
element of our population, to the great pros- 
perity of the country. These immigrants 
reach here at an age of productiveness without 
having cost the state one cent for education 
and protection and immediately become, not 
only producers, but consumers. Of 7,218,- 
755 persons owning their own homes in 1900, 
1,730,970 were foreign whites, showing that 
they come here meaning to make this country 
their home. How can we expect this country 
to continue to prosper if we separate society 
into two classes, the one encouraged to im- 
prove the mind and the other condemned to 
hopeless ignorance? 

If the office of education is to feed life; to 
change existence from a dull round of neces- 
sary duties to a pulsing, living desire to reach 
out for something better; we will have to 
feed life on something better than our present 
starvation diet ! It is not to our credit, either 
as a nation or as librarians, not to be able 
to place in the hands of our foreign-speaking 
patrons the assistance they so constantly ask 
"Give me some book about America in my 
language" and while, as Dr. Canfield says. 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



the supply does not begin to meet the de- 
mand, I fear we do not post ourselves as 
thoroughly as we might on the books that 
really do exist. A curious instance came 
under my observation last fall. Being anxious 
to secure a simple book on the laws of the 
country suitable for our Italian immigrants, 
I wrote to the Bureau of Immigration, both in 
New York and Washington. They "knew of 
no publication in a foreign language on this 
subject." The Congressional Library report- 
ed "there seems to be very little in this line/' 
but gave titles of three books in Spanish, one 
in German and one in Italian. The New York 
Public Library reported having 39,000 books 
in foreign languages, but could only suggest 
one in Spanish, one in German Miinster- 
berg's "Americans," which is rather over the 
heads of our immigrants and two or three 
in Yiddish. Brooklyn, with 24,573 vo.ls. 
in foreign languages, had nothing simple and 
not a single title to suggest in Italian. The 
report of the Boston Public Library on what 
we should endeavor to do for our large for- 
eign population warmed my heart to such a 
degree that I felt it was worth taking a trip 
to Boston, for there they surely had found the 
book I needed so badly! I went, examined 
the catalog, inquired in the reference room 
?nd was disappointed ; I left Boston a sadder 
but not a wiser woman. The following week 
I happened to speak to an Italian priest on 
the difficulty I had in making his people un- 



derstand our health laws, one woman having 
sent her little girl to spend the day in the li- 
brary because she was not allowed to attend 
school, as she had the measles. He immedi- 
ately suggested a book in Italian, written by 
an Italian lawyer in New York and copy- 
righted the previous April Caccia's "Man- 
uale delle leggi degli Stati Uniti ad uso degli 
Italiani in America" which fully explains 
all these points ; and a few days later the same 
book was suggested by an ordinary Italian 
laborer, showing that those people keep a 
closer watch on the helpful books than we 
do, in spite of our profession. Nor is this a 
solitary instance. 

In order that we may remove the stigma 
put upon libraries and books by a recent 
writer in the Annals of the Academy of Po- 
litical and Social Science, who, in speaking 
of ihe assimilation of immigrants, says, "Lit- 
tle need be said of books and libraries. They 
tend to assimilate a certain class of immi- 
grants, but they do not reach those who are 
hardest to assimilate and those who need it 
most," I beg to add the following resolution 
to those of Dr. Canfield: 

"Resolved, That all members of the A. L. A., and 
especially the state associations, agitate in their own 
state the appointment of state commissions to investi- 
gate the general condition of non-English-speaking 
residents, with the view to their education and en- 
lightenment upon the principles and policy of our 
government and institutions, and the rights and 
opportunities of its citizens." 



THE LIBRARY IN RELATION TO SPECIAL CLASSES OF READERS: SUP- 
PLY AND USE OF TECHNOLOGICAL BOOKS 

BY HARRISON W. CRAVER, Technology Librarian, Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa. 



PHE question of supplying communities 
with technological books through the 
agency of municipal libraries is one which at 
present is attracting considerable attention 
among librarians. In the past the library has 
had its largest success in meeting the wants 
of women and children, but has not succeeded 
so well in obtaining the interest of the men. 
This has been a disadvantage in more ways 



than one; it has largely reduced the possible 
influence of the library and has also de- 
prived it of the assistance it might have 
obtained from a large number of men men 
who vote and pay the taxes which support the 
library if it were to them an institution of 
practical value and not merely "a good thing 
for the city." 
For some time it has been felt that this con- 



GRAVER 



73 



-dition was wrong, but until recently little 
:seems to have been done to change it. The 
library has been content to move along the 
Jine of least resistance a line along which 
all its resources could easily be spent use- 
fully leaving the department of applied sci- 
ence practically undeveloped. Departments of 
music and art have been established, the chil- 
dren have been given careful attention ; it 
now seems time to turn some serious effort 
to practical work for men. 

In discussing the question I will speak first 
-of the larger city libraries, as the conditions 
under which they work are more familiar to 
me and the problem seems more easily capa- 
ble of satisfactory solution. 

This branch of work requires, of course, a 
fair degree of acquaintance with technolog- 
ical topics, and with manufacturing, mining 
.and engineering; subjects which are not ordi- 
narily a part of the prospective librarian's 
education. While it is possible to select 
books well enough without this special knowl- 
-edge, by the use of various aids in selection 
with which all librarians are familiar, the 
reference work is very difficult and unsatis- 
factory unless the patron can be met half 
way and his questions intelligently discussed. 
The proper solution of the question in the 
large library is to place upon the staff one 
-trained in industrial work, either by college 
or by practice, or preferably both, and who is 
broadly interested in the literature of the 
subject. With this equipment he is able to 
take up the question of book selection intelli- 
gently and also to give efficient service in ren- 
dering the resources of the library available 
to its patrons. Such an assistant can simplify 
the problem greatly for the head of the li- 
ibrary. 

The actual selection of technological books 
is not such a bugbear as many librarians seem 
to believe it. Just as in other lines, there are 
-certain publishers who maintain a high stand- 
.ard, certain who rarely issue anything of 
value, and certain others who hit or miss by 
turns. The technical journals review the new 
books regularly and often well. In no other 
class of literature is the reputation and po- 
sition of the author a safer index of the value 
of the book. Of course if modern science 



and industry is an absolutely unknown field, 
book selection is difficult; but this is equally 
true of music or of art. 

In our own library we make weekly lists 
of the new books and carefully collate all 
reviews. From these and from our general 
knowledge of the author and the present 
condition of our collection along the line in 
question, the decision is made. By watching 
all sources for book titles, we believe that 
little really valuable material escapes notice. 

The special trial of the technology librarian 
. is the rapidity with which his collection ages 
to the point of uselessness. In five or ten 
years his good working collection no longer 
represents actual practice, and he finds its 
usefulness vanishing. Changes occur with 
marvellous rapidity in many industrial lines 
and the library must be prepared to keep 
pace. In a collection devoted to the applied 
sciences and intended to aid men in earning 
their livelihood, the point of first importance 
is that information furnished shall be accu- 
rate and modern, shall represent present-day 
thought. To be able to fill this requirement 
constant buying is necessary, not only of good 
new books, but also of new editions of old 
standards. Because a library has a copy of 
Thompson's "Dynamo-electric machinery" it 
does not follow that it has the copy of 
Thompson's "Dynamo-electric machinery." 
Times change and the books must also change, 
the old ones going to the scrap pile or to a 
historical collection of what has been. This 
point is often not sufficiently appreciated. 
Size means little in a technological collec- 
tion, modernity means much. 

In selecting books it must be remembered 
that among the readers there will be many 
who have no knowledge of these subjects but 
that acquired by daily toil at a trade, and that 
to these, but little versed in the reception of 
knowledge through the printed word, the 
books of theory will often prove of little use. 
It is necessary to have books of a rudiment- 
ary nature as well as the best books, for 
many which are a little weak in theoretical 
explanations have much useful practical in- 
formation. 

It should also be remembered that the pub- 
lic library's collection should be modelled on 



74 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



practical rather than academic lines. The 
demand which comes is not for theories but 
for facts, and the collection needed is not 
that which would find greatest favor among 
scholars. Their needs should certainly not 
be neglected, but at the same time the wants 
of practical workers must constantly be kept 
in mind and supplied as far as is possible. 

In addition to books, a collection of period- 
icals is of utmost importance. There is 
always an appreciable gap between the most 
modern book and the present, and this the 
periodicals will fill. To-day the engineering 
journals are the most important publications 
you can have; the back volumes form useful 
reference sets and the current numbers en- 
able you to supply that demand for "the lat- 
est," and that, too, in the department where 
this cry is most insistent, save possibly in 
that devoted to fiction. 

Looking at it in another way, the period- 
icals are to be favored because of their 
cheapness. The average engineering book 
sells for a cent a page, if not more, while the 
magazines furnish from two to four thousand 
pages for five dollars. If economy is a motive, 
economy lies in the direction of periodicals 
rather than in that of books, even when the 
cost of binding is considered. 

In looking over the field which a library 
expects to serve, it is usually found that the 
industrial life of the people moves largely 
along certain lines and that many industries 
are of little prominence or are lacking. In 
the region supplied by the institution with 
which I am connected, for instance, the active 
industries are largely concerned with the met- 
allurgy of iron, the manufacture of ma- 
chinery, structural engineering, glass-making 
and mining. Other industries, as potting, are 
also present, but to a smaller extent; while 
certain great classes, as wood working and 
the textile industries, are almost unrepresent- 
ed. Such a survey of a library's field shows 
it where it must be strong and where it may 
be weak, and so aids in book selection. There 
is little use in buying technical books on a 
subject in which your community is not in- 
terested. Spend your money on those it 
needs. 

All these questions of when and what to 



buy are easily solved by the head of a depart- 
ment doing the work with the books if he has- 
a good grasp of the local situation; and s& 
much depends upon local conditions that 
anything further than suggestions of the 
broadest character would be of little use. 

Turning from book selection to book use 
we find the field divided, as usual, into loan 
and reference work. Each of these branches- 
calls for technological books. The loan de- 
partment is usually more insistent in its de- 
mands and may be heard farther, but there is 
in many places an opportunity, sometimes 
scarcely appreciated, for much reference 
work. 

This field sometimes seems missing when 
in reality it is there but unoccupied because 
of a deadlock. The library buys little suit- 
able material because no one ever calls for 
it; the engineer or manufacturer will not 
waste valuable time in consulting the city li- 
brary because it has never been able to help 
him. Thus much work remains undone and; 
a large section of the population learns to- 
view the library as a place of amusement,, 
useful enough in its way, but of no assistance 
in everyday problems. 

Now this situation will never be changed 
unless the library makes the move, and the 
proper move is the establishment of an active- 
reference department of technology. 

There is where your trained assistant will 
find his best field for work. With his col- 
lection of books and periodicals at hand, his 
next step is to get them used. He must push 
them forward as he can at first, until his- 
trade is established, so to speak, and must 
advertise as he can. If he is eligible to local 
technical societies he should join and become 
known, and enlarge his acquaintance with his 
possible patrons in all possible ways. 

To my mind, the proper model for a refer- 
ence technology department in a city is a 
consulting engineer's office. Some one in the 
department should be able to treat the ques- 
tions asked with sufficient knowledge both of 
their conditions and the resources of the li- 
brary to point the way toward an answer. To- 
do this is not always a question of having a 
book; sometimes an advertisement or a trade 
catalog will do the work, sometimes the 



C 'RAVER 



75 



problem can be solved from one's own 
personal knowledge. It matters little what 
the method is, provided the result is ob- 
tained. 

A useful form of library consultation is 
that obtainable by telephone and by mail. 
We have a number of regular users of the 
library whose visits to the building are scarce- 
ly semi-annual. In some factory offices we 
are proud to know that we are the first to be 
called on for anything not at hand, from an 
engineering formula to a manufacturer's ad- 
dress. Telephonic assistance seems particu- 
larly appreciated and is well worth the trouble 
it entails. 

A good field for usefulness is to be found 
in the publication of brief bibliographies from 
time to time. Bibliographies of technolog- 
ical material are not plentiful, and the amount 
of time needed to search through the mass of 
poorly indexed periodicals often makes it a 
troublesome task which might better be done 
once for all. Certain questions return to the 
library regularly, and a list of available ma- 
terial concerning these is very useful. 

It seems to me that handling technological 
books becomes a more difficult problem when 
we come to consider small libraries, in which 
it must be done as part of the general work. 
Lacking specially trained assistants, much 
must be omitted, but there is still an oppor- 
tunity to be of considerable assistance to those 
interested in industrial subjects. 

In selecting books it is often possible to 
follow the lead of some larger library, taking 
from their lists the best books. This will 
guide one to some extent, by eliminating 
many books at once. Another plan is to 
make use of volunteer assistance. Some 
users of the library will often look over lists 
or books relating to their work and select 
those of greatest value to the library. One 
fault of this plan lies in the tendency of 
everyone to view with special favor books on 
his own particular specialty and to minimize 
the value of other work; it is rather hard for 
such an adviser to avoid bias. Another 
trouble is that the aid is often too irregular to 
be really useful. 

There are, however, many libraries in Amer- 
ica which are not now large enough to em- 



ploy expert service in technology, but which 
nevertheless have need for some assistance. 
The best method of meeting their needs lies, I 
believe, in co-operation; in arranging to have 
some one with the proper requirements make 
the selections for a number of different li- 
braries. If the advice given is to be really 
efficient, however, it cannot be done wholesale 
by means of a list sent to all alike. Each 
library and its local needs must be made !he 
subject of special study. If such an adviser 
were to spend time enough to become ac- 
quainted with the town and its needs, and 
was supplied with full information as to the 
present resources of the library and the 
amount to be spent on technology each year, 
he should be able to advise monthly purchases 
which would build up a collection well adapt- 
ed to local requirements, and that at no great- 
er expense than under a system of haphazard 
buying. 

In addition, such an expert bureau would be 
able to give aid to some extent in reference 
work. Many questions which come up and 
are left unanswered could be sent to the bu- 
reau. 

So far as use is concerned, the small library 
should work along the lines of the larger 
ones as far as it can. It cannot give as good 
service in the way of aid to the readers, but 
it can have as good books and let the patrons 
hunt through them for themselves. It must 
be remembered, too, that it is much easier 
to handle a small collection than a large one, 
and so easier for the public to arrive at 
a knowledge of the material available. 

As regards the results obtained by system- 
atic development of a technological depart- 
ment, it is hard to furnish direct statistical 
evidence of any great improvement. Books 
on useful arts are but dull reading to most, 
and will be called for only when needed. 
Many borrowers come but seldom; but if 
good work is done the library may rest con- 
tent with the knowledge that they will come 
whenever they need help. In our own case, 
where one-third of the visitors to the refer- 
ence rooms come for material of an indus- 
trial nature, we feel that this work is at 
least as highly appreciated as that in other 
lines. 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



USE OF INDUSTRIAL COLLECTIONS AT THE PROVIDENCE PUBLIC 

LIBRARY 



BY ETHEL GARVIN, Custodian-in-charge 



TN a city like Providence, where there are 
so many art industries, it is natural that 
in the public library the art and industrial 
departments should be close together and 
that many readers should consult books in 
both departments in looking up anything in 
connection with their work. For instance, 
those using the books on jewelry in the art 
library would very likely also be looking up 
material on metal coloring by electricity, and 
this would be found in the books on electro- 
plating in the industrial library. In the Prov- 
idence Public Library these two departments 
are known under the general name of "the 
special libraries," and are under the charge 
of one custodian. 

The industrial collection contains about 
7600 volumes and the art collection about 
3500 volumes. The classes best represented 
are textiles, electricity and its applications, 
machinery, mechanics and jewelry design, and 
general books of flower and animal design. 

The industrial library contains a full set of 
the proceedings of the American Society of 
Civil Engineers ; transactions of the American 
Institute of Mining Engineers and of the 
American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; 
and (among English sets of the same kind), 
the journal of the Institution of Electrical 
Engineers ; the proceedings of the Institution 
of Mechanical Engineers and the journal of 
the Iron and Steel Institute. It has a fairly 
complete set of the journal of the Franklin 
Institute, and the "Annales des ponts et 
chaussees" and a complete set of Dingler's 
^'polytechnisches journal," which supplements 
the German patents. The set of the Official 
Gazette of the United States Patent Office 
is complete to date, and the 552 volumes of the 
"Specifications and drawings of patents" are 
complete from 1880 to the present time. One 
of the special features in the industrial li- 
brary is the collection of 589 industrial "trade 
catalogs." These cover a wide variety of in- 



dustrial subjects, and are arranged alphabet- 
ically by the name of the firm, the Cutter order 
number for the name of the firm being used 
in this classification. If more than one kind 
of catalog is published by a firm, the different 
ones are distinguished by the figures i, 2 
and 3 separated from the order numbers by 
a period. In order to distinguish them from 
books in the card catalog, a card is used with 
"Trade Catalog" printed at the top. These 
trade catalogs are used a great deal in 
answering certain kinds of questions, 'such as 
the most recent makes of electrical machinery, 
gasoline launches or locomotives. 

Although the library is a city library, an 
important feature of the industrial work is 
the collection of agricultural reports and bul- 
letins of the divisions and bureaus of the 
United States Department of Agriculture and 
those of the experiment stations located in 
the various states, these bulletins treating in 
many instances of biological and chemical 
subjects. These bulletins about 5000 at 
present, representing all but two of the ex- 
periment stations ' are indexed by the print- 
ed cards of the United States Department of 
Agriculture, for which this library has been 
made a deposit library, and by the card index 
to agricultural experiment station literature. 
This catalog, which is in a case by itself, now 
numbers 15,000 cards; it represents not what 
we have in the library, but what has been 
published. 

The reader finds in this department du- 
plicate catalogs of the books both in the art 
and industrial library, and duplicate class 
lists. The subject headings vary somewhat 
from the main catalog of the whole library, 
which is on the first floor, partly because only 
those headings are used which are likely to 
be asked for in these departments. 

One of these two rooms contains a draught- 
ing table, and also a photographic dark closet 
for developing plates if the reader desires to 



GARY IN 



77 



do so, and tracing paper and weights are sup- 
plied. Nearly every day some of the tracing 
paper is asked for by designers. 

The notices of civil service examinations 
are regularly posted on the bulletin board in 
the industrial library, the only other place 
where they can be seen in the city being the 
post office. 

In the purchase of books, opportunity is 
taken to utilize the titles which are suggested 
by readers, or the reviews in such periodicals 
as the Engineering News, and we have also 
profited very greatly by the recommenda- 
tions of Mr. Graver, the technology librarian 
of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and 
by that of specialists in Providence. A book 
so reported upon is, however, submitted to the 
'day and evening custodians of the special 
libraries in order to be sure that it is espe- 
cially desirable in this particular library. 

In the art library scarcely a day passes 
without some inquiry for books on jewelry or 
silverware design, and it is no wonder when 
one considers that one-fifth of the wage earn- 
ers of Providence are in the jewelry trades, 
and that the output from Rhode Island repre- 
sents one- fourth of the total value in the 
United States. Workers in these trades, es- 
pecially designers, are sent to the library 
during their working hours to get sugges- 
tions to be used in their work. In this case 
the custodian does more than to lay out such 
books as will probably contain a picture of 
the flower or animal wanted and leave the 
reader to find it for himself. An unremit- 
ting search is kept up for the design, as, 
for instance, for a "sweet pea (side view)," 
until she finds the exact thing wanted. Ev- 
erything is brought into requisition the 
books on gardening, natural history, plates 
cut from imperfect or duplicate copies of 
"Country life in America," and even the 
covers of seed catalogs at times. 

There is a collection of art trade catalogs 
also which are used by readers in looking up 
designs for such subjects as iron work, mis- 
sion furniture, jewelry and silverware. 

Articles are cut from the magazines when 
we have imperfect copies and paper covers 
-made and the whole held together by the star 
paper fasteners. 

Another line in which the connection of 
art and industry is very close is in the making 



of furniture. A worker who has an order 
for an Elizabethan bedstead comes to the 
library and uses the books on old furniture 
for careful examination before beginning 
work on it. Architects use the library, look- 
ing up Dutch and English colonial houses 
for suggestions, and also designs for mill 
construction and church and school house 
plans. 

A special purchase of books was made re- 
cently in the line of jewelry and silverware. 
This list was made after careful study of 
books in other libraries and at the Rhode 
Island School of Design and by consultation 
with teachers and workers in the various 
branches to be covered, as well as with the 
users of the library in these lines. In such 
practical subjects as die-sinking and stone 
setting no books could be obtained, but in 
other subjects in which books were bought, 
the additions were very much appreciated. 

A number of methods of advertising the 
library's resources have been employed. Any 
reader who is known to be interested in a 
book of a kind recently added receives a 
postal from the library giving the title and 
number of the book and the length of time 
that the book will be reserved for him. The 
custodian of the department sees that these 
cards are sent out. One of the assistants in 
the telephone exchange asked for a list on 
telephone work, and a list of the books in the 
library was sent, and in addition twenty ap- 
plication blanks for cards. All had been used 
in two weeks afterward. 

A list of books on automobiles was sent 
out to the school of automobile engineering. 
The publication of lists on metal coloring and 
books on plant and animal design in suc- 
cessive lists in the daily papers, and one on 
the additions in jewelry design in the local 
organ of the jewelry trade (the Manufactur- 
ing Jeweler*) has been another method of 
"advertising the library." The lists in the , 
daily papers were cut out, mounted on ordi- 
nary pad paper, with the heading, and sent to 
twenty or more firms to be placed on their 
bulletin boards, and in the case of the second 
list, addressed to the designing department of 
those firms. 

The departments 'have been chiefly adver- 
tised, however, by the readers. Frequently 
readers are seen showing their friends about, 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



not in the aimless way of a sight-seer, but 
going to the alcoves and pointing to a cer- 
tain section saying, "You will find the books 
on machinery there and those on mechanics 
on this side of the alcove," and often taking 
down a particular book as if it were a fa- 
miliar friend. The main part of the requests 
for books to be reserved by postals are for 
industrial and art books, and the requests 
are usually left with the custodian of the 
special libraries. 

In the industrial library the largest num- 
ber of users are looking up patents, two per- 
sons usually working together. The volumes 
of the Official Gazette and the "Specifications 
and drawings'' remain on the shelves less 
than any other books. Readers use this de- 
partment very steadily, spending their noon 
hours in the winter in reading in the indus- 
trial reading room. In the evening and on 
Saturday afternoons the tables are all oc- 
cupied, with one or two readers in each al- 
cove, and they even overflow into the art 
library, which has a larger room. During the 
six years that the library has been opened 
there -has been a steady growth in their use, 
and always for serious study. As showing 
the amount of reference work it should be 
said that 4500 questions were looked up in 
the special libraries last year, an increase of 
1200 over the previous year, and of this in- 
crease more than 1000 were on industrial 
subjects. The current industrial periodicals 



are kept in the periodical reom, and so the 
use of the industrial department does not in- 
clude anything but books and the bound peri- 
odicals on these subjects. 

Among those who use the industrial library- 
are apprentices and machinists in the large 
machine shops, workers in the cotton and 
woolen industries, textiles being the leading, 
industry or the state, and those interested in. 
the manufacture of gasoline engines and their 
applications to automobiles and launches. 

In the article in the Independent of June 
15, 1905, on "Libraries for men," the writer 
spoke of the supposed attendant of a library 
who would be shocked if a workman came in 
with his soldering tin and asked for a book. 
In this library such would not be the case. 
The more workmen who come the better, and 
they are welcome. A man came in his over- 
alls to get a certain gilt lettering for sign 
painting, and after eagerly searching through 
the books that I found for him until he 
found the exact letters, he apologized, saying,. 
"I was so anxious to get this that I came here 
right from the shop." Of course he was at 
once made to understand that no apology was 
needed for so sensible an act. 

It is just this feeling of the indispensability 
of the library that one wishes for in all the 
workers, whether living within the city or out- 
side. Any one in the state can draw books if 
recommended by the librarian of the town 
where he lives. 



BOOKS FOR THE BLIND 



BY EMMA R. NEISSER, Free Library of Philadelphia 



T* HE first embossed book made in the 
United States was made at the Penn- 
sylvania Institution for the Blind, in Phila- 
delphia. So, too, the honor of arousing pub- 
lic interest in the first "home teaching" of the 
blind in America is due to the same institu- 
tion, for it was by invitation of a former 
principal, Mr. William Chapin, that Dr. Wil- 
liam Moon, of Brighton, England, visited 
this country in 1882. 

Mr. Chapin soon recognized that the work 
of "home teaching" intended for the adult 
blind did not properly belong to his institu- 



tion. With Dr. Moon Mr. Chapin called' 
upon Mr. John P. Rhoads, business manager 
of the Pennsylvania Bible Society, and inter- 
ested him in the "home teaching" idea, so 
successfully carried out in England. As the 
funds of the Bible Society could not be used 
to purchase secular works, Mr. Rhoads ap- 
plied to his friends for contributions and 
collected $200. The Bible Society ordered 
a stock of embossed religious works and^ 
thus equipped, the pioneer Home Teaching 
Society and Free Circulating Library for the 
Blind began its work. Mr. Rhoads applied 



NEISSER 



to the mayor, asking that a census of all 
blind persons might be taken by the police. 
All the blind in the city were then visited by 
a teacher employed by the newly organized 
society. 

The co-operation of the Free Library of 
Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Home 
Teaching Society for the Blind in 1898 gave a 
new impetus to the circulation of embossed 
books in Philadelphia and its vicinity. 
Since the affiliation between the two insti- 
tutions the most cordial relations have been 
maintained. The books belonging to the so- 
ciety were all transferred to the Free Library, 
and were accessioned, classified and placer! 
on the shelves in a separate room devoted to 
the embossed volumes, which required special 
shelving. The Free Library purchased a se- 
lection of books in Moon type, as well as in 
the other embossed systems most used. Sepa- 
rate book plates distinguish the books of the 
Society from those of the Free Library, and 
separate accession books are used. 

The Society now employs three teachers. 
For the salaries of these teachers the Society 
is responsible, as well as for their travelling 
expenses, and for any expenses of transporta- 
tion of bsoks by mail or express. The Free 
Library provides the room, rent free, and 
the services of the assistant-in-charge. Since 
the increase in circulation has increased the 
correspondence, the Society has paid to the 
Free Library the sum of $100 annually for the 
additional clerical service required. In 1901 
the organization was incorporated under the 
laws of Pennsylvania, and the name changed 
to Pennsylvania Home Teaching Society for 
the Blind. 

The work of a department for the blind 
should not be merely the exchanging of books 
over a charging desk and the keeping of 
statistics. Each new person brought to the 
notice of the librarian should receive individ- 
ual encouragement. Some years ago a young 
medical student in our city became suddenly 
blind just before the close of his second year 
in college. When he first came to the library 
he had been without sight nearly 18 months. 
He had sat most of the time with nothing 
to do, dependent upon others when he wished 
to walk abroad, afraid to go alone. Strong 
and well, under 30 years of age, and utterly 
despondent, his case seemed very distressing. 



It was suggested that he learn to read, and 
also that he undertake to become a masseur, 
on account of his previous medical training 
and knowledge of anatomy. He studied the 
Moon type and later the American Braille, 
which he has also learned to write, and hav- 
ing become enthusiastic about the plan to 
study massage, began his lessons with one of 
the most competent instructors in Philadel- 
phia. He is now qualified as a masseur, and 
able to teach others, travels alone to the li- 
brary, and is regularly connected with one of 
the hospitals in the city. Only the other day 
he said, "If it had not been for this library, 
if I had not learned to read, I do not believe 
I would have lived; certainly I would have 
had no ambition." 

Another young man, 30 years of age, with 
a wife and little daughter to support, was 
suddenly stricken with blindness while con- 
ducting the orchestra in one of the theatres. 
His sudden loss of sight made him very 
timid, and although an excellent musician, 
he refused to touch the piano, feeling sure 
that he could not play. After first learning 
Moon type and becoming a reader, he learned 
the American Braille. His confidence was 
somewhat restored by his ability to read for 
himself and he was finally induced, as a 
personal favor, to assist a brother violinist 
whose accompanist had disappointed him. 
For the evening's performance he received 
$5, the first money he had earned since he 
lost his sight. This marked the beginning of 
a new era in his history, for he at once took 
a position to play the piano in a dancing 
school several days each week. Since that 
time he has fully regained his former hopeful 
spirit, and, with one of his friends, has as- 
sumed the responsibility of a dancing school 
and has been very successful. 

Much is being done for children; there are 
38 schools in which 4363 pupils of school age 
are receiving a good education. These young 
people are all taught to read one of the point 
systems. Of the 69,258 remaining, a certain 
number have been former pupils in the 
schools, but there are many thousands un- 
taught. Co-operation between public libra- 
ries and .home teaching societies should be 
secured if the best work among the blind is 
to be attained, and the establishment of ad- 
ditional societies is urged'. 



8o 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Each state, each large city even, should 
maintain its own home teaching society. 

This is a most excellent opportunity for 
valuable co-operation of the women's clubs 
with public libraries and library commissions. 
Their enthusiasm and help in establishing 
travelling libraries leads to the hope that the 
women's clubs may take an active interest 
in providing ''home teaching" for the adult 
blind, and in the publication of additional 
volumes in the Moon system, which is most 
used. That such an interest is already mak- 
ing itself felt is noticed in Mr. Thomson's 
correspondence. The Association of Collegi- 
ate Alumnae, of Portland, Ore., and the Phil- 
anthropic Section of the Nineteenth Century 
Club of Memphis, Tenn., have both written 
for information concerning "home teaching." 
Two members of the New Century Club, of 
Wilmington, Del., called recently at the Free 
Library of Philadelphia for advice concern- 
ing the appointment of a "home teacher" for 
the state of Delaware, whose salary is to be 
paid by the club. This is a most excellent 
arrangement for many libraries, which have 
seldom more money than is needed for ad- 
ministration. In time it is hoped to obtain 
an appropriation from the state. 

For a discussion of the relative merits of 
the different types needed by public libraries, 
the article by Mr. Edward Ellis Allen, recently 
published, entitled "Library work for the 
blind," * deserves careful consideration. 

In selecting the kind of print to be used, 
the first type to be supplied should be the 
system taught in the state school, for that 
will be called for by graduates and former 
pupils. As Mr. Allen, in his article, points 
out, however, "any library pretending to be 
representative and wishing to increase its 
usefulness will possess books in both point 
systems, and so double its variety of read-; 
ing matter." 

The following suggestions may be useful to 
those interested in the publication of books in 
the two point systems: i. Among adults who 
have advanced from the Moon type to a point 
system the demand is for books in full or- 
thography and in type large enough to be 
easily felt. 2. Many of the point books are too 
large and heavy and cannot be easily handled. 

*Lib. Journal, Jan., 1906, p. 8-n. 



The volumes in Moon type are large, but they 
are small in comparison with some of the 
volumes in the two point systems. Recently 
in sending out a book the package by actual 
weight tipped the scales at 9^ pounds. 

On June i, 1906, the Department for the- 
Blind in the Free Library of Philadelphia 
contained 2281 accessioned volumes in 5 em- 
bossed systems, belonging to both Pennsyl- 
vania Home Teaching Society and Free Li- 
brary of Philadelphia as follows : 

American Braille 209 vol. 

Braille 156 " 

Line letter 277 " 

New York point 167 " 

Moon type 1472 " 

2281 " 

together with a duplicate stock of about 8oo< 
volumes in Moon type belonging to the 
Society. 

The distribution of embossed volumes in. 
11905, from this department, according to- 
types was as follows: 

American Braille 882 vol. 

Braille 416 " 

Line letter 153 " 

Moon 5458 " 

New York point 236 " 

7145 " 

Readers who were formerly unable to send 
for books on account of the great cost of 
postage or expressage, have now the priv- 
ilege of frequent exchanges, without any 
charge, in accordance with the recent act of 
Congress granting free transportation of em- 
bossed books. Great care is taken that no^ 
infringement of the law occurs. In two in- 
stances it has been necessary to notify 
readers not to include under the covers of 
the books the written lists of books wanted 
in exchange. Even return labels are sent to- 
all readers in separate envelopes, at regular 
postal rates. 

As a protection to the bindings, and for 
the convenience of the messenger who calls 
for the books, all volumes are wrapped for 
delivery in heavy brown paper, known to the- 
trade as "drab express" wrapping paper. 
Package handles, bearing the words "Dept. 
for the Blind, Free Library of Phila., 1221 
Chestnut St.," are provided for all packages. 



8i 



Among the libraries which suffered from 
the recent earthquake and fire in San Fran- 
cisco was the San Francisco Library and 
Reading Room for the Blind, located at 4th 
and Clara streets. Mr. Thomson promptly of- 
fered the embossed books in the Free Library 
of Philadelphia for the use of readers in San 
Francisco, when, after the excitement had 
subsided, they should be ready for reading 
again. A letter was received from Miss Har- 
riet L. Young, the librarian, who, after ex- 
pressing thanks for the offer of assistance, 
said : 

"Our library was totally destroyed, as were 
banks and everything pertaining to security; 
it is therefore useless for us to accept your 
kind and greatly appreciated aid. We have 
a splendid State Library for the Blind and 
our readers can draw books from there. They, 
the trustees, have kindly tendered their as- 
sistance. 

"We shall be pleased to ask for former re- 
ports from you about September, when we re- 
organize. We saved absolutely nothing the 
little the earthquake left was destroyed in 15 
minutes by fire. We fear that many of our 
blind people were killed we cannot locate 
all of them." 

In regard to time limit in the use of the 
embossed books, the broadest privilege should 
prevail. No fines are charged, no matter how 
long books are kept. It has been found that 
in many cases one month is too short a time 
to allow for reading the books. Many of the 
adult blind read slowly, and over and over 
again. Some are invalids, and the majority 
must await the convenience of some other 
member of the family or some seeing friend 
to have the books properly wrapped for re- 
turn. A formal notice asking for the return 
of a volume is not sent until a book has been 
in circulation three months. 

In the circulation of printed books, the sole 
purpose of a renewal is to avoid the payment 
of fines. No fines being charged for embossed 
books, no renewals are necessary. The cir- 
culation of the embossed books from the De- 
partment for the Blind in the Free Library of 
Philadelphia, therefore, numbering 7145 dur- 
ing 1905, represents 7145 actual volumes cir- 
culated, and is not a technical repetition of 
circulation. 

All volumes taken from the library by the 
teacher are recorded by date of issue and 



call number on his reader's card, on which is- 
also stamped the date of return of all books. 

The daily report of circulation does not 
include the books taken by the teachers. On 
the first of the month each teacher presents 
his record book, which is kept in diary form, 
to the assistant-in-charge, who makes out 
the report according to the Decimal classifica- 
tion and also according to the number of 
volumes of each type circulated, and the 
number, if any, circulated out of the city. 
The total monthly report of circulation in- 
cludes the record of books issued from the 
department for the blind, plus the record of 
books distributed by the three teachers. 

Philadelphia is fortunate in the cordial re- 
lations which exist among the various organ- 
izations in the city interested in the blind. 
Mr. Edward Ellis Allen, principal of the 
Pennsylvania Institution at Overbrook, is 
most heartily in sympathy with the work of 
the Free Library. He is one of the managers 
of the Pennsylvania Home Teaching Society 
for the Blind and has given substantial aid" 
to the department for the blind in his large 
gifts of books in different types. Mr. Allerv 
has made many valuable suggestions regard- 
ing appliances for the blind and literature 
relating to the work. Without any formal 
co-operation between the different organiza- 
tions most harmonious relations prevail. The 
Pennsylvania Working Home for Blind Men,, 
3518 Lancaster avenue, and the Pennsylva- 
nia Industrial Home for Blind Women, 3827 
Powelton avenue, are both visited regularly 
by the teacher. 

The Society for the Promotion of Church 
Work among the Blind was organized in 
Philadelphia in 1903, under the auspices of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church. The object of 
the Society is to promote the spiritual wel- 
fare of the blind, and it aims to be a central 
source of information on this subject. Miss 
Amelia Sanford, the secretary, 708 Spruce 
street, Philadelphia, will send, free of charge, 
the books published for the Society, to any 
library which wishes to put them into circula- 
tion. 

From the Pennsylvania Bible Society, 701 
Walnut street, Philadelphia, may be obtained 
portions of the Bible in all embossed types.' 

Additional literature in Moon type is- 



82 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



greatly needed, and an effort to supply the 
demand for new books has been begun in 
this country. The Moon Magazine owes its 
existence to the suggestion and help of a 
reader. A magazine had been talked of for 
some time, but had not materialized, when 
Mr. R. P. High wrote to make inquiry con- 
cerning periodical literature. Finding there 
was no magazine published in the Moon sys- 
tem, he offered to make a contribution of 
$100 towards the expense of publishing such 
a magazine. The initial number of the new 
magazine made its appearance in January, 
1906. 

In 1904 the late Hon. John Hay, Secretary 
of State, paid for embossing his "Eulogy on the 
late William McKinley," delivered before the 
Senate and the House of Representatives. 
To Mr. John T. Morris, a friend of Dr. Rob- 
ert C. Moon, we are indebted for the "Call of 
the wild" and "Mrs. Wiggs of the cabbage 
patch" in embossed type. It is also a pleas- 
ure to announce that the Hon. J. M. Pereles, 
of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 
has arranged for the publication of Helen 
Keller's "Optimism," and has also offered to 
make his subscription an annual contribu- 



tion towards the publication of new books 
in Moon type. 

It is hoped that the example of a few indi- 
viduals may serve as a suggestion to others. 
Much may be done along this line by various 
societies, especially women's clubs. The pro- 
viding of new literature to be circulated by 
libraries and library commissions, free of 
charge, will add greatly to the happiness of 
the adult blind, many of whom are unable to 
work, and who have no occupation but read- 
ing. The cost, or rather the half-cost, of 
embossing Moon type is 75 cents per em- 
bossed page of 900 letters. The other half 
of the cost is borne by the Moon Society, of 
Brighton, England, which publishes the books. 

Is it not possible for a number of women's 
clubs, the International Sunshine Society, 
and other organizations, to furnish annually 
a stated sum, to provide for new volumes in 
Moon type, which is most used by the adult 
blind? 

This paper closes with the hope that the 
American Library Association Conference in 
1907 may report a large increase in the num- 
ber of home teaching societies, employing 
blind or partially blind teachers. 



LIBRARIES IN RELATION TO SETTLEMENT WORK 



BY CORA STEWART, Custodian of Station P, Boston Public Library 



TT is not possible for me to present a defi- 
nite program of library and settlement 
work, for the program varies with conditions 
which change every day. The nature of a 
settlement neighborhood is such that the work 
of its library is necessarily scrappy, and can 
only be truthfully expressed in a scrappy 
fashion. I have attempted to offer merely 
some suggestions which have come to me 
through a somewhat varied experience of 
fourteen years in settlement regions. 

The library where the observations have 
teen made upon which this paper is based is 
one of the smaller branches or larger reading 
rooms of the Boston Public Library. It has 
a permanent collection of 2500 books, half 
juvenile, and a deposit of 400 coiistantly 



changing books from the central library. Its 
maximum circulation is 30,000 volumes a 
year. It is housed in an irregular shaped 
store occupying the street floor corner of a 
large apartment house, into which one old 
gentleman moved because of the library. He 
said he had never had enough books. The 
station is a mile from the central library, in a 
thickly populated tenement house section, on 
the edge of the business district. It serves 
specially three grammar schools. The near- 
est neighbors are two rival ladies' tailors, 
a paper and cigar store of a Russian socialist, 
and at the corner, directly opposite the police 
call-box, the boot-blacking establishment of 
the most popular man on the street. Neapoli- 
tan to the core, the passing show on Washing- 



STEWART 



ton street and the excitement attending ar- 
rests, reconciles him to Boston. I found him 
once on a stifling summer day out on the 
pavement, chair tipped up against the wall, 
reading a library book, "For English," he 
said, "a fine book !" He held it up for me to 
see as I went by, and it was Vasari's "Lives 
of the painters." 

Two powerful and characteristic influences 
of the district are the theatres and the credit 
clothing houses. Aside from these it is a 
neighborhood of pawnshops, saloons and set- 
tlements. Into the pawnshops go the clas- 
sics. The entire family take turns in tending 
shop, and some of the sons are in Harvard, 
some in Technology, and many are in the 
Latin school. Int the library from the sa- 
loons come deputations of gentlemen with 
statistical and literary disputes to be settled 
by a book or by the. librarian. Often there is 
money up on the result. To explain to un- 
steady but quite courteous men the difficulties 
in the way of deciding absolutely whether 
Great Britain and her colonies or China has 
Ihe largest population is not so easy as to find 
the author of a rather broad poetical selec- 
tion, admirably recited for you by the leader. 
The meaning of the Latin inscription on the 
seal of the city of Cork is sometimes an 
embarrassing subject. 

For the settlement and the settlement activ- 
ities the station does something, and might 
do more. The first settlement in the United 
States was opened nearly a score of years ago. 
The same year the Children's Aid Society 
started in Boston the first home libraries. 
So much enthusiasm was aroused about the 
home library idea that, when a few years 
later the first settlement was opened in Bos- 
ton, it barely escaped being turned into a 
home library. That enthusiasm is still felt in 
every children's room of every library in the 
country. 

It was natural that the first effort of settle- 
ment workers should be with the medium 
with which they were most familiar books. 
The early settlements started with donated li- 
braries, calculated to interest small children 
and their older brothers and sisters; and the 
library day, when children changed their 
Tjooks and spent the afternoon variously en- 
tertained by games, story telling and music, 



was a feature of the settlement weekly pro- 
gram. 

It was thought that this was the best in- 
troduction to the children, and through them 
to the families, and it served the purpose. 
Groups of library children were formed into 
clubs and classes, and, as special interests 
grew up, the library days became of less im- 
portance. Here and there the settlement had 
the advantage of a resident who was a natu- 
ral librarian, who knew her books, knew her 
children, superintended their reading, "put 
the right book into the hands of the right 
child at the right time," and did most of the 
acts done in the foremost children's libraries 
to-day. This was two years before the first 
children's room in any library in the country 
was started. 

But the library day developed objectionable 
features. As the small boy, posted outside to 
note when the "Open" card went up, ex- 
pressed it, it was "Come on to the game house," 
and it drained the strength of the ordinary 
ever-changing settlement households to get 
satisfactory results from the uproarious ma- 
terial. 

One Boston settlement finally combined with 
a neighboring club and opened a reading room 
on a nearby street. To this the public library 
sent a deposit of books. A year later, 
through the influence of a librarian resident 
in the settlement, the public library was in- 
duced to place a delivery station in the dis- 
trict, the settlement presenting to it their 
children's library. This practically was the 
turning over to the city library of the general 
book work for the children of the vicinity. 

Something similar to this happened in all 
the large cities as the library branch system 
developed, and the settlements desired to 
have special sociological, class or club book 
collections, rather than general juvenile libra- 
ries. There are some exceptions. Hale 
House, for instance, retains its library, strong 
in the history of Boston, and with a good 
collection of children's stories. It is open 
constantly to Hale House club members, 
serves as an informal meeting place, and 
aims to prepare for the public library by per- 
sonally introducing the smaller children into 
the realms of good reading. It is a fact that 
the public library holds the members of the 



8 4 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Hale House clubs as it does not those of 
other settlements. It is a question, however, 
if this is not due to difference in race. Hale 
House works with the Jewish race. A settle- 
ment living among some of the other races 
cannot hope to do the book work possible in 
a community of Jews. In one case the effort 
is one of intelligent stimulation, in the other, 
one of passing out books on demand. 

In the ten years since the station has been 
established the little that has been done to- 
ward an ideal mutual helpfulness between the 
branch and the settlements has grown out of 
the needs of new club workers to know more 
of what children were capable. The librarian, 
through the work with the schools and the 
home lessons studied in the library, gains an 
insight into those subjects which interest indi- 
viduals and groups of children (subjects 
which can perhaps be only superficially treated 
in the limited school time), and by a careful 
v/atch on new books and methods, tries to be 
prepared to answer specifically the various 
club leaders, who seek advice about their pro- 
gram for the year. 

The typical question often brought is, "What 
can be done with my club of girls from 14 
to 16 years old, graduates of grammar schools, 
working in shops and factories, the most dif- 
ficult age, and, so far as I can see, interested 
in nothing." On discussion it develops that 
they are interested in three things the the- 
atre, clothes, and the other sex and that it 
is perfectly possible to present all three sub- 
jects in attractive form. For instance, there 
is that closed book to a grammar school grad- 
uate, the "Idylls of the king," with its dra- 
matic possibilities. ' Of Irish, Russian, Greek, 
Syrian, Jewish, Italian descent, all the diverse 
elements in the neighborhood, except the 
Chinese, meet on the subject of the stage. 
And for a club worker to have scruples about 
presenting the story of Guinevere, or for the 
librarian to hesitate to recommend to young 
girls the reading of the "Scarlet letter," 
"Adam Bede," the "History of David Grieve," 
is to leave the girls to the moral and literary 
standard set by the cheap newspapers and the 
facts of a "tenderloin" district, known .to 
every child in it. 

It has been found worth while to start lists 
for club workers on certain suggestive sub- 



jects, the lists to include books the children 
themselves can use, short stories and articles- 
in periodicals useful to the leader, and books- 
and articles giving manual training hints, to- 
gether with lists of illustrative pictures and 
posters possible to be loaned. 

"Where do you keep books about poor boys- 
who get rich quick?" "Will you get me two 
works of affliction for my father? He likes- 
the kind that ends well." (In this type of 
library there is seldom use for any but a sub- 
ject catalog or a classified fiction list.) 

There was a tiny old lady who demanded, 
two stories, but not love stories. 

"You know there are times when you don't 
want a love story," she said. "I have never- 
been in love, and I have been married twice." 

I suggested that there was time yet. 

"No, there isn't; I'm seventy!" she replied.. 

"Then the only thing for you is another 
incarnation. They say being in love is an ex- 
perience worth living for. You will have to- 
come back to get it." 

She grasped my arm. "Do you know, I 
dreamed I did last night. I was tall and I 
always wanted to be tall and I was young- 
and in love ; and I woke myself saying 'There,, 
that was what I wanted when I was here be- 
fore !' " 

The settlements learned to know the fami- 
lies through the children. In a small library 
which the neighborhood feels belongs to them 
the same knowledge is gained. It serves them 
all, from the smallest girl in the kindergarten 
to the oldest son in the Common Council, and 
through the children, the fathers and mothers. 

"Please can I have a dictionary and a com- 
mercial geography? My father, he has a fine 
business, but he has not the English." 

It is not alone Vasari and the commercial 
geography which is used by the adults as- 
text-books to learn English; Tolstoi's novels 
are popular as readers, and attempts to use 
Shakespeare's plays are not uncommon. One 
little foreigner told the librarian of the cen- 
tral children's reading room how she was 
teaching her mother to read. Too much kitchen' 
work left the mother no time to go to the li- 
brary, and, indeed, too little time to read a 
book, but she wanted to learn English. Sc the 
child wrote the lessons in chalk on the kitchen 
door in the morning, heard the lesson recited; 



STEWART 



by the mother in the evening, and then rubbed 
it out and prepared for the next day's work. 

There is endless work at the station with 
individuals, done by simply offering our com- 
modity in response to a demand. An exceed- 
ingly bright girl graduated from the gram- 
mar school, went to work as soon as she 
reached the age of fourteen years, but was de- 
termined to continue studying. After some 
consideration she decided to go to the 
evening drawing school. In November we 
noticed that she was taking out French his- 
tory. In December she came to me and said, 
"I want to study something besides drawing. 
I've tried the French history, but I can't get 
interested. I suppose I don't know enough. 
You know what I've studied isn't there 
any way I can take up French history by my- 
self and not have it dry?" 

As a result she took a course of reading, 
beginning with the French royal chateaux and 
the people who built and lived in them. She 
read the Champney books, "Old Touraine," 
books on Anne of Brittany, Joan of Arc, 
Agnes Sorel, Bayard. Because the Italians 
of the same period are almost inseparable 
and yet form points of comparison and con- 
trast, she read Armstrong's "Lorenzo de Me- 
dici," Rea's "Tuscan and Venetian art," 
Hewlett's "Little novels of Italy," a sketch of 
Vittoria Colonna, and Cartwright's "Beatrice 
d'Este." We aimed for books which would 
bring out enthusiasm brief biographies, 
novels sometimes those throwing side- 
lights, like "When knighthood was in flower." 
In the spring she was ready for Dumas, and 
she read his novels of the Renaissance period. 
Though protesting that she was wading 
through massacres and intrigues, she was 
quite prepared to see that the same France of 
the massacres and intrigues produced Joan 
of Arc and Bayard. This child has moved 
into a factory town where she knows no one 
but her sister's family. If introductions are 
ever of use, why should we not take a leaf 
out of settlement practice and see that the li- 
brarian of that town knows of her need of 
guidance and is specially prepared to help? 

The settlements having university extension 
classes are often able to offer special teach- 
ing for special cases coming to their notice 
through the library. But a settlement is a col- 



lection of busy people who may or may not 
be interested in district library work. It de- 
pends upon the composition of the household 
at any one time. All settlements are prone to 
fall occasionally into the condition of that 
Martha of the New Testament who was 
"Cumbered about much serving" and "troub- 
led about many things." And at such times, 
no matter what are their principles, it is wise 
not to depend on them for co-operation. As 
long as the library is the permanent factor in 
a settlement district (where the demands for 
information are apparently never satisfied) it- 
is the library that must serve as the educa- 
tional directory for the community. It must 
know what the evening schools, clubs, set- 
tlements, societies, are prepared to offer or 
can be induced to offer. 

Conditions differ in every library neighbor- 
hood, and there are many types of libraries. 
There is a little village in Maine where the" 
only elements, which by any stretch of the 
imagination might be called settlement or so- 
cial agencies, are three mortgaged churches 
and a non-resident school mistress. The li- 
brarian of the library there needs settle- 
ment training, for settlement work she must 
do and do it alone. The best example in 
Boston of a library bound up with a settle- 
ment is the North Bennet Street Industrial 
School library. Here a settlement has slow- 
ly evolved out of a day nursery in response 
to neighborhood needs, and the relation of the 
library to the other work is of the closest. 

A most interesting example of similar con- 
ditions is the Loring Library of the cordage 
factory at North Plymouth, Mass. Here the 
library does purely library work, but has all 
the settlement agencies co-ordinate and co- 
operating with it in the same isolated com- 
munity. In all cases the library is there to 
quicken intellectual life, whether it itself 
does the settlement work of story-telling, 
game-playing, conducting home libraries, or- 
ganizing clubs and classes, providing social 
and lecture headquarters, or, these being pro- 
vided by other agencies, its work is concerned 
mainly with providing on request lists, books 
and pictures for these agencies. In any case, 
the library and the librarian, like the settle- 
ment, should be an integral part of the life of 
the district. 



86 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



SOME METHODS OF LIBRARY ADVERTISING 
BY PURD B. WRIGHT, Librarian St. Joseph ( Mo.) Free Public Library 



T N the matter of advertising the smaller 
library, giving it publicity among the 
masses, the most important considerations are 
cost and results. Even in the smallest 
library, where the librarian may be an actual 
Poo-Bah, more or less time should be found 
for some kind of advertising. This is an 
essential part of the duty of the librarian. 
The library belongs to the people; and those 
in charge of it should proceed on the as- 
sumption that with ownership goes the right 
to be informed as to what it has, what it is 
doing, even what it would like to do; that its 
use is theirs by right, not by consent of those 
in charge. 

The essence of library advertising is to 
convey to the people this message, using the 
words of a western librarian in a recent letter 
to the citizens of his city: "The library is 
yours. Get acquainted with it. Get better 
acquainted with it. Its use and value will 
increase in direct proportion to your familiar- 
ity with what it already offers." 

As to methods used in pressing this mes- 
sage home, an attempt will be made to 
summarize some of those which have seemed 
to be most successful. 

More people of the reading class may be 
reached in a shorter time and at less ex- 
pense through the medium of the newspaper 
than any other. The average editor is broad 
minded and liberal when he is convinced the 
people are interested. A mere list of books 
received will now and then be used, but news 
in this shape is not as interesting as it might 
be and should be presented as seldom as pos- 
sible. Short lists, with a few illuminating 
lines about each title, will always be used. 
Notes about literary work, a few titles on 
topics in which there is a passing interest, 
will be gladly used by most newspapers. 
Reports of all meetings of the library board ; 
items from the current reports, and by all 
means all of the annual report (except the 
tables of statistics, which should be sum- 
marjzed) ; donations, with the names of 
donors; work featured on the special tables 
or bulletin boards; school and club work; 



new periodicals for the reading room ; 
changes in the regulations of the library; ex- 
planation of the two-book system, or any 
special privileges granted, and hosts of 
minor things that serve as a solid pretext for 
a library item. With most editors arrange- 
ments may be made to use a certain amount 
of library news at stated periods, even on a 
given day each week. But live news should 
not be saved for these occasions ; it should 
be "served hot," while interest is at its 
height. For the library department the copy 
should be provided by the librarian. No 
such department should appear in any paper 
without some general library news what 
is going on in other libraries; what the state 
commission or association is doing; a word 
now and then as to the American Library 
Association; contemplated changes in or the 
workings of the copyright law; news or de- 
scriptions now and then of the great libraries 
of the world. 

Owners should be educated in the things of 
vital interest to their property as well as 
those employed to run it. A bit of good 
work done by the library in another town may 
prove to be the lever to provide the means 
for doing the same thing or something bet- 
ter in our town. Books news and literary 
chat will occasionally be used and prove 
helpful to the library. Furnish the copy a 
day or two before it is to be printed. It will 
be sure to get into type, and more certain 
to be printed than if held to the last minute, 
when it may have to give way to a political 
or other sensation. Such columns may grad- 
ually be made to cover a constantly widening 
field, dropping as a distinctive feature the 
local happenings of lesser import, which will 
have been picked up by the city page as 
a matter worth while and in which many 
readers are interested. When this has been 
accomplished it will be found that the pub- 
lic, your public, knows about and is interested 
in library work in general what it all 
means, what is sought to be done not the 
petty details, but the things which count. 
The larger the city and the more general the 



WRIGHT 



circulation of the newspaper the sooner is 
this likely to occur. The library department 
in the Boston Transcript is a present day 
model of what may be accomplished, not to 
mention others; it talks of vital things in 
the library world. The ultimate aim is to 
make the library a force in the community; 
something to be recognized and reckoned 
with. This may be brought about sooner by 
the aid of the intelligent editor. 

The library bulletin is effective, though 
expensive. Quarterly issues are good, 
monthly better. The bulletin should be the 
means of communication through which the 
library says many things to the public which 
may be placed before it in no other way. 
In addition to the list of accessions, with an- 
notations, if possible a line or two clipped 
from the reviews announcements and vari- 
ous items of interest may be included, as 
well as special lists on timely or interesting 
subjects. The bulletin should not only be 
free to those who come for it, but it should 
be placed where it will be seen by as many 
people as possible. The primary object of 
the bulletin is to keep patrons informed as 
to books received, etc., but the library is fail- 
ing in an important particular if it does not 
also use the bulletins as a means of increas- 
ing its patronage. The regular mailing list 
should include all organizations, employers' 
associations, Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation, Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, clubs, societies, schools, colleges, lodges, 
recreation and lunch rooms in factories, ma- 
chine shops and large mercantile houses and 
similar places. There should be special mail- 
ing lists, for instance, of ministers of the 
gospel, students interested in special subjects, 
mechanics in the different trades, contract- 
ors, architects, teachers, and so on. It may 
not be advisable, on account of the cost, or 
for other reasons, to send all on these lists 
a copy of each bulletin, but numbers contain- 
ing special lists, notes, important new titles, 
should surely reach the class of people sup- 
posed to be interested in the subject covered. 
Special lists, to supplement the newspaper 
or bulletin, have been found to be very help- 
ful. For results worth while, these must be 
placed in the hands of those whom it is 
desired to bring to the library. For the 
reason that no one person may know the 
minds, the likes and dislikes, the ambitions 



of all other persons, I cannot resist making 
a plea for a wide distribution of all special 
lists. Surely the library may in this respect 
follow the methods of the successful business 
man to a certain extent. It has nothing to 
lose, everything to gain. Placed in books 
taken from the children's room, short lists of 
good books on any subject will find their 
way into the homes and bring adults to the 
library who had thought of that institution 
only in conjunction with school work. Placed 
in nevels which are popular with certain 
classes, they likewise are taken home and 
find a place for a time, at least, on the tables, 
where they are likely to attract the atten- 
tion of other members of the family. The 
typewriter and duplicating processes have 
made these lists possible in every library. 

Successful and lasting results are obtained 
from the right sort of advertising with chil- 
dren. Library leagues, children's clubs, trav- 
elling school libraries, neighborhood libraries, 
playground libraries, supplementary reading in 
the schools, get the childen and the books to- 
gether. If the books are right, the children 
will become interested and sooner or later 
find their way to the library and the library 
card. If received in the correct spirit, if the 
attendant knows something of child nature 
and has somewhat more than a passing knowl- 
edge of children's books, everything else may 
be taken for granted. 

Picture bulletins are a source of delight to- 
children ; exhibits of drawing or color work 
from the different schools bring the pupils 
from all the schools to see what other chil- 
dren are doing. Very often it results in 
visits from fathers and mothers. Picture 
bulletin boards, days of special import em- 
phasized on the calendar, nature exhibits, 
anything which appeals to the juvenile mind, 
assistance given to the teacher these are 
all good advertising. School work may be 
aided through the term. The library should 
be ready to do its work during vacation. Be 
prepared to help the children with outdoor 
games, nature studies, and like features, em- 
phasizing them by means of the bulletin 
board and pictures, with the most attractive 
books shelved underneath before the school 
closes, and they will not be forgotten after 
the freedom of the first few days of vaca- 
tion. In helping the children with the things, 
in which they are interested, the library 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



worker will find how easy it is to interest 
them with various things it is desirable they 
should know. 

Good novels are worth reading. Advertise 
them. They bring people to the library. It 
is better that the novel reader should get a 
good book from the library than that they 
should get poor ones some other place. They 
get the novel for entertainment, and presently 
they may want something else in the book 
line, and they will know where to get it. 
But they are entitled to the novel as mere 
entertainment or amusement if they want it. 
It may be the link which binds them to the 
library and gives that institution the oppor- 
tunity it might not otherwise have to interest 
them in some other department of reading. 

Not enough advertising is given the read- 
ing room. Too few people know about its 
benefits, its delights and comforts. Newark 
informs many people about interesting arti- 
cles in various magazines through type- 
written lists duplicated by the mimeograph 
process. To teachers it sends an educational 
bulletin, with a few words bringing out the 
salient features of articles on education and 
teaching; to business men, mechanics and 
other classes it indicates articles which it is 
presumed will appeal to them. The smaller 
library, with its limited means and few work- 
ers, cannot do much of this kind of work ; but 
it can let the people know the various news- 
papers and periodicals which may be seen 
regularly in the reading room. A little slip 
containing titles of periodicals relating to 
electricity or mechanical trades, or advertis- 
ing, or teaching, distributed in the proper 
place, will bring people to use them. There 
is little difficulty in reaching skilled mechanics, 
"because they will come if they but know the 
reading room contains good trade periodicals. 
Coming there, they will soon learn whether 
the books on our shelves in their callings are 
worth while pr not. 

As a usual thing, the average business man 
is wrapped up in his business affairs. He 
reads his newspapers, a few magazines, and 
buys books which appeal to him. The value 
of the library may be brought to him in vari- 
ous ways. He should be made to understand 
that it will try to furnish any sort of in- 
formation he may require; that it will answer 
questions over the telephone; that it will try 



to aid his business by books and periodicals 
on advertising, business methods, book-keep- 
ing, typewriting, punctuation, business letters, 
correspondence, or technical matters relating 
to his special line. If he is told these things 
in a short, crisp way, some time he will 
remember it. Little desk reminders, a small 
calendar, with a photo of the library build- 
ing, and a line or two as a suggestion that 
information may be asked for over the tele- 
phone, has been known to make library 
friends and to lead to a business use of the 
library. But it doesn't do to be cocksure 
of answering every question that comes to 
one or of claiming to be able to do so. Smok- 
ing rooms, lunch rooms, also attract men in 
some places ; billiards have been tried in 
others, and still others have chess, checkers 
and other games. These, however, are .only 
for abnormal conditions. Traveling libra- 
ries for shop or factory use, men's clubs, labor 
unions and similar places all tend to bring 
increased attendance from men at the library. 

It should be unnecessary to say that the 
library is especially strong in both its read- 
ing room and books on the shelves on any 
industry which is strikingly prominent in its 
home. If it be an iron town, then metallurgy 
and iron working should be carefully covered. 
So with any other industry. Every effort 
should be made to make the people at the 
head of business concerns understand that 
the library is willing to aid to the extent of 
its ability, and thus secure their assistance in 
getting employes to know about and make a 
right use of the library. 

In this connection, the work of the Grand 
Rapids (Mich.) Public Library is worthy 
of study and emulation. Grand Rapids, as 
all know, is a furniture-making city, and the 
library is proving its value to factory em- 
pioyers and employes alike by its special col- 
lection of books and periodicals on furniture 
and wood-working, and its method of fur- 
nishing catalog cards of these to persons 
interested, at a nominal expense. 

It is well to bear in mind that advertising, 
no matter how valuable in other respects, 
will not of itself make a library. For when 
all has been said and done, intelligent, cheer- 
ful and courteous aid rendered to those who 
come to the library ranks above and beyond 
everything. 



JACKSON 



89 



REPORT ON LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN* 

BY ARABELLE H. JACKSON, First Assistant, Children's Department, Carnegie Library, 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 



<CINCE the program for this meeting of 
the American Library Association has 
3>een made to center mainly on the work of 
the larger city public library its relation 
to the city as a tax-supported institution; its 
-adaptation to the needs of distinct classes 
among the population it is very fitting that 
among those distinct classes the needs of the 
children should be considered. 

To ascertain what is being done for chil- 
dren in the public libraries of the 100 largest 
cities of the United States having public 
-libraries, questions were sent to those libraries 
late in April, 1906. 

The questions covered : 

Population. 

Yearly appropriation for work with chil- 
dren. 

Organization of children's department con- 
.-sidered as a system of library education for 
all the children of the community and as dis- 
tinguished from the administration of a 
.single children's room, including not only 
.supervision of a system of children's rooms, 
but also work with schools, homes, co-opera- 
tion with settlements and other allied agen- 
cies for social betterment. These questions also 
-covered the following points of administra- 
tion in both children's departments and chil- 
dren's rooms: number of books in juvenile 
collection, selection of books, periodicals, num- 
ber of books loaned, age limit, guarantor, as- 
sistants in children's room, charging, discharg- 
ing, care of books, discipline, fines, advertising 
books through bulletins, story hour, etc. 

As a result of the 100 sets of questions sent 
out, 82 libraries were heard from, six returned 
the questions unanswered, some of them, as 
in the case of San Francisco, because it was 
impossible to answer the questions. 76 sent 
-more or less full reports. Grateful apprecia- 

*Based on questions sent to the public libraries of 
the 100 largest cities of the U. S. having public 
libraries, in April, 1906. 



tion and thanks are due those libraries that 
recognized the importance of the undertak- 
ing, and made the report possible by sending 
in such full answers. Not all the questions 
asked are reported on at this convention, 
but those of general vital interest in chil- 
dren's work have been made the basis of the 
report. 

It was intended to make an exhibit at this 
convention of material illustrating library 
work with children from photographs, book 
lists, bulletins, etc., which were requested from 
the libraries to which questions were sent. 
While some libraries sent such material, there 
was not enough received for an exhibit. 
That which was received will be used to good 
advantage by the Training School for Chil- 
dren's Librarians, Pittsburgh, Pa., with the 
consent of the libraries that sent the material. 

CHILDREN'S DEPARTMENT 

60 libraries report that they have a sepa- 
rate children's department. The majority of 
these, however, have each but a single chil- 
dren's room with the juvenile work confined 
to the one room. 

Some of the answers to the question "What 
is the scope of the departmental work?" may 
be interesting and helpful in distinguishing 
between an organized children's department 
and a single children's room. 

Scope of Large Departments 

Brooklyn Public Library says: "The super- 
intendent of the children's department has 
charge under the chief librarian of the buying 
of books for the children's rooms, of the plan- 
ning, furnishing, decorating of the rooms. 
She trains the assistants in the work, holds 
meetings with them and with the branch li- 
brarians in order to discuss and decide upon 
questions of discipline, methods of pushing 
the best books, school work, story-telling, etc. 
It is difficult to define the 'scope' anything 
of interest to young people in the library may 
come into this department." 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Cleveland, O., Public Library: "Comprises 
the selection of books according to definite 
standards of value, and the arrangement for 
their distribution so that they may reach the 
children only through persons who can judge 
the child's individual needs. The agencies 
for distribution are the libraries through ex- 
perienced children's librarians; the schools 
through teachers in the use of class room li- 
braries and deposit stations ; the home 
through carefully selected visitors and home 
libraries. The object is to so correlate the 
agencies that books may be within reach of all 
children. All methods, equipment of chil- 
dren's rooms, etc., belong to the work of the 
department." 

Philadelphia Free Library: "The depart- 
ment is in charge of a superintendent who 
selects and trains the assistants in charge of 
the children's rooms in the branch libraries; 
selects all books purchased ; devises methods 
of work and co-operation in each library; di- 
rects the story hour and bulletin work and 
aims to promote an interest in children's read- 
ing in other educational institutions in the 
city." 

Pittsburgh, Pa. Carnegie Library reports 
the "aim of the Children's department is 
the giving out of good books to all the chil- 
dren of the city as far as the funds will per- 
mit, especially to the children of the industrial 
and foreign classes, through the following 
agencies : children's rooms ; schools ; home 
libraries and reading clubs ; deposit stations, 
?.nd educational institutions such as settle- 
ments, etc. This department has charge of the 
selection of juvenile books; the organization 
of juvenile distributing agencies for the city; 
the selection of children's librarians ; the plan- 
ning and equipment of children's rooms ; the 
introduction of methods for library work with 
children ; and the compilation of printed ma- 
terial for the use of children, teachers, and 
children's librarians ; it also has the direction 
of the Training School for Children's Libra- 
rians. The work of the department is under 
the direction of_a chief of department who is 
responsible to the head librarian." 

Scope of Single Children's Rooms 

Brooklyn, N. Y. Pratt Institute Free Li- 
brary: "The children's department has a sep- 
arate room to which all boys and girls under 
the age of 14, who join the library, come for 
their books. The room has a collection of 
about 3000 books on open shelves and has a 
registration of 2867 members since September, 
1904, when the last re-registration was begun. 
The room is provided with low tables and 
chairs and there is a collection of picture 
books. These may be used in the room by 
any children, whether they are members of the 



library or not. The work is in charge of a 
special assistant." 

Allegheny, Pa. Carnegie Library: "This 
department is conducted as a separate and dis- 
tinct library. Children between the ages of 
6 and 15 years may avail themselves of its 
privileges." 

Some of the special features belonging to 
the children's departments mentioned in the 
answers to this question by various libraries 
are: protection to adults and the direction 
and guidance of children; visiting of 
mothers' clubs in the city and working to 
establish closer relations between the home 
and the children's department; the critical 
selection of juvenile books; circulation of a 
picture collection; giving of lectures with 
lantern slides, travel talks, etc.; the use of 
stereoscopes mounted on a table with pic- 
tures constantly on exhibition. One library 
gives as its aim that no child shall be allowed 
to leave the children's room without having: 
been given books helpful on the subject of 
which he is in quest. 

AMOUNT OF YEARLY APPROPRIATION DEVOTED TO 
CHILDREN 

34 libraries answered the question, "What 
proportion of the library fund is spent on* 
children?" 

9 referred only to the book fund in their 
answer, the percentages given varying from 
3% to 33 1-3%. 

7 reported 20% or over of the book fund 
devoted to children. 

23 reported on general appropriation, in- 
cluding salaries and book fund. 

These percentages varied from 4^% to 
50%. 

Of these, 9 reported 20% or over; n re- 
ported 10% or less of the total library fund 
spent on children. 

JUVENILE BOOKS IN LIBRARY 

60 libraries gave the number of juvenile- 
circulating books separate from the adult cir- 
culating collection. Of those so reporting 
20 libraries report that 10% or less of their 
circulating books belong to the juvenile col- 
lection, two of these reporting 3%, one 4% 
and two 5%. 

32 libraries report their juvenile collection, 



JACKSON 



as ranging from io l /2 to 20% of the total cir- 
culating collection. 

8 report 20% or over, three of which give 
their percentages as 30% or over. (These in- 
clude, of course, all juvenile books used in 
school work.) The highest proportion of 
juvenile circulating books is 30%. 

SELECTION OF JUVENILE BOOKS 

In answer to the question, "Are all juve- 
nile books read before purchase, or ordered 
through reviews?" the Public Library of Se- 
attle, Washington, replies: For book pur- 
chase, "All known methods of criticism and 
censorship are used, including reviews, read- 
ing usually, and censorship of other most 
respected libraries. As a last resort I think 
every book is prayed over." 

Newark (N. 7.) Free Public Library re- 
ports, "All are read by the head of the chil- 
dren's department and some by a committee 
of teachers." 

Pittsburgh, Pa., Carnegie Library reports, 
"Juvenile books are read and selected by the 
chief of the children's department, with the 
exception of books on useful arts, natural 
science, history and travel. These last are 
referred to specialists in their lines." 

37 libraries order their juvenile books from 
reviews, 13 read part of the books ordered 
and purchase from approved lists, 9 read 
special classes of books only, such as novels, 
doubtful books or books by unknown au- 
thors, and 13 read all books before pur- 
chase. 

PERIODICALS 

The librarian who answered the question, 
"What periodicals and magazines do you 
take for your children?" thus: "St. Nicholas, 
Youth's Companion and Amateur Work. 
What other good one is there?" will be sur- 
prised to know that 64 other periodicals are 
taken for children by the 72 libraries that re- 
ported on this question. 

As to how many of these are "good" or 
suitable for children he shall be left to de- 
cide after reading the list. 

The number of periodicals taken in any 
one library varies from one to 21. 

The following magazines are taken in 34 
or more libraries: American Boy (34), 



Birds and Nature (40), Little Folks (36), 
St. Nicholas (72), Youth's Companion (70), 
The other periodicals mentioned in the re- 
ports are : 

Amateur Work (10) 

American Ornithology 

Animal's Defender 

Baby land 

Bird-Lore (5) 

Boys and Girls (8) 

Boy's Own Paper 

Child Garden 

Children's Magazine (3) 

Children's Museum News (3) 

Children of the U. S. 

Christian Endeavor World 

Collier's Weekly (7) 

Country Life in America 

Current Events 

Forward 

Girls' Own Paper 

Golden Age 

Golden Days (2) 

Harper's Weekly (16) 

Holiday Magazine (3) 

Jabberwock (4) 

Judge (3) 

Kindergarten Revietv 

Leslie's Weekly (9) 

Life (3) 

Little Chronicle (20) 

Manual Training Magazine (2) 

Masters in Art (3) 

Men of To-morrow 

Outing (6) 

Our Animal Friends (4) 

Our Boys 

Our Dumb Animals (12) 

Our four-Footed Friends 

Our Young Folks 

Outlook 

Pathfinder 

Perry Magazine (6) 

Pets and animals 

Philatelic West 

Pluck 

Popular Mechanics (8) 

Puck (4) 

Recreation 

Review of Reviews (2) 

Saturday Evening Post 

Scientific American (8) 

Scientific American supplement (3) 

Searchlight (9) 

Star 

Success (5) 

Sunday-School Times 

Sunshine Bulletin 

Well Spring (2) 

World's Work 

Young Americans (2) 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Young Citizen , 

Young Folks 

Young Idea (4) 

Young People's Weekly (2) 

Youth (10) 

NUMBER OF BOOKS LOANED TO CHILDREN 

75 libraries answered the question, "How 
many books may a child draw at once?" 

49 libraries loan two books to a child at a 
time, 23 of which allow only one book of 
fiction. 25 make no special requirement as 
to the book, and one library loans a maga- 
zine in addition to one book of fiction and 
one of non-fiction. 

18 libraries loan only one book at a time to 
a child, while 8 libraries loan one book as a 
rule, but make exception in cases where 
books are needed for study or are re- 
quested by a teacher for the child. 

AGE LIMIT 

75 libraries reported on the question of age 

limit. 
36 have no age limit for using reading 

room nor for drawing books. 
23 require ability to read or write or both. 

3 of these make reading alone the test. 
12 make ability to sign his own name 

the only test. 

8 require some knowledge of both 

reading and writing. 
16 make a definite age limit. 

2 of these do not loan books to chil- 
dren who are below the third 
grade in school. 

4 make 10 years the age limit for 

drawing books. 

7 make 12 years the limit for draw- 
ing books. 

I limits use of reading room and priv- 
ilege of drawing books in the 
juvenile department to those be- 
tween the ages of 6 and 15. 

I library makes 9 to 18 years the 
age limit, but the rule is flexible 
enough to extend the privilege of 
drawing books to any child who 
can read. 

I limits use of children's room to 
those between 7 and 14 years of 
age. 



GUARANTOR 

Of the 75 libraries that answered the ques- 
tion, "Do you demand a guarantor or a pa- 
rent's signature on the juvenile application 
blank?" 71 require either a parent's or teach- 
er's signature or a guarantor for the child. 
The other 4 request a guarantor or parent's 
signature, but do not always require it. 

ASSISTANTS IN CHILDREN'S ROOMS 

62 libraries answered the questions, "How 
many assistants have you to one children's 
room?" "Do these assistants divide their 
time between the children's room and other 
departments of the library?" 

44 libraries have one or more assistants 
who give their whole time to chil- 
dren's work. 

18 libraries, including those of some of 
the large cities with well-organized 
children's departments, require the 
children's librarians to do some 
desk work or work in other depart- 
ments of the library. 

27 libraries require their children's li- 
brarians to do routine work such as 
pasting, mending, or cataloging. 
8 libraries require cataloging of chil- 
dren's books only. 

25 libraries report that no pasting, 
mending, nor cataloging is done by 
the children's librarian except in 
emergency. 

38 libraries have assistants in the chil- 
dren's room who have had no spe- 
cial training for their work with 
children. 

5 librarians report that their assistants 
in the children's room have re- 
ceived their training in apprentice 
classes. 

3 libraries have assistants who have 
taken courses in summer library 
schools. 

17 libraries have one or more children's 
librarians who have received their 
training in a library school ; 29 of 
these assistants have been trained 
in the Training School for Chil- 
dren's Librarians, Pittsburgh, Pa. 



JACKSON 



93 



CHARGING AND DISCHARGING 

Of the 67 libraries that answered the ques- 
tion, "Do you charge and discharge books in 
the children's room?" 50 libraries answered 
in the affirmative. 4 libraries in large cities 
where there are many branches report that 
they charge and discharge books in the chil- 
dren's room in the main building and in the 
tranches where the children's room is quite 
separate from the adult department, but in 
the other branches the charging and dis- 
charging is done at the main desk. 7 libraries 
charge books in children's room, "but discharge 
them at the main desk; while in 6 libraries 
"both charging and discharging are done at 
the main desk. 

CARE OF BOOKS 

Some of the answers to the question, 
"What methods do you use to teach children 
to keep books in good condition?'' are as 
follows : 

Waterbury Ct. Silas Bronson Library: 
"Teach care of books by label pasted in books 
as follows : 

'Keep this book clean. 
Do not turn down the leaves. 

Do not write in it. 
If injured a fine will be required.' 
Also rule to same effect on card, and per- 
sonal effort." 

Binghantton, N. Y. Public Library: "Indi- 
.vidual suggestion, precept and practice, care- 
ful explanation of the making of a book in 
the story hour and wherever the children are 
met for special work. There are no 'don't' 
signs in the library." 

Akron, O. Public Library: "Personal su- 
pervision. Have used a slip pasted in the 
"book calling attention to the fact that it is new 
and should be kept clean." 

Brooklyn, N. Y. Pratt Institute Free Li- 
brary: "The pledge in our register reads, 'I 
promise to take good care of the books I read 
here and of those I take home.' We empha- 
size this when the children join the library, 
and insist upon clean hands as a preliminary 
always to taking books. We also try to note 
the condition of books when they are re- 
turned and to fix responsibility for damage at 
once, if possible." ^ 

Cincinnati, O., Public Library: "The use of 
the washstand is frequently suggested. Book 
marks are distributed, and wrapping paper 
and cord are furnished. Admission to the 



travel talks and lectures is secured through 
the league card." 

Dayton, O., Public Library and Museum: 
''We see that books are in good repair when 
issued and watch condition when returned, 
for damage and soil, fining promptly for 
same. Book covers are shellacked and result 
has been to induce better care for both inside 
and outside of books." 

Detroit, Mich., Public Library: "Impose 
fines for carelessness. Direct to washstand in 
corner in fact, 'reprove, rebuke, exhort ' ap- 
peal to pride, set forth the ethics of good cit- 
izenship in the matter and still have grimy 
finger-marked books." 

( Grand Rapids, Mich., Public Library: 
Grand Rapids is relatively a clean city. 
When children come with dirty hands we ask 
them to wash, for which we have provision at 
the library. By precept and example we en- 
deavor to teach children to respect books sim- 
ply as books." 

Hartford, Ct., Public Library: "Eternal 
vigilance and a Goop verse." 

Norfolk, Va., Public Library: "Fining for 
actual damage and scolding." 

Somerville, Mass., Public Library: "Teach 
care of books by smiling on the children." 

Providence, R. I., Public Library: "Book 
marks. This, as in every other phase of li- 
brary work with children, seems in our ex- 
perience to require personal work, talking and 
talking and patience. We lose a valuable con- 
nection in having our return of books else- 
where, as we miss seeing just what condition 
a book is in which is returned by a child to 
whom we are about to issue a second book." 

In Salt Lake City the teachers in the public 
schools give talks to the pupils at least once a 
year on care of library books. 

Milwaukee, Wis., Public Library posts an 
honor roll, on which the names of children 
returning books in good condition a certain 
number of times are entered, and marks care- 
ful borrowers' cards with a big C honor mark. 

Duluth, Minn., Public Library invites the 
children at certain times to assist in repairing 
books, and gives lectures on bookmaking and 
care of books. 

DISCIPLINE 

In discussing the question of discipline, 43 
libraries report little or no trouble with law- 
nessness or neighborhood gangs. Some of 
the reasons given for this happy state are the 
following : 



94 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Camden, N. J., Free Public Library: "No 
trouble with neighborhood gangs because of 
the boys' and girls' Reading Fraternities con- 
ducted by the librarian with the aid of boy 
and girl officers. 

Brooklyn, N. Y. Pratt Institute Free Li- 
brary: "Orderly behavior in the library is a 
pretty well established tradition which the 
children who are old members pass on to the 
new ones. . . . One must distinguish, too, be- 
tween wilful lawlessness and animal spirits. 
We have a playground outside which usually 
solves the latter problem." 

Philadelphia Free Library: "In most sections 
of the city it is found that the authority of the 
librarian-in-charge and the janitor, who is a 
special officer in uniform, is all that is needed 
to maintain perfect order in the children's 
room." 

17 libraries report more or less difficulty 
in keeping order in the children's room. 
Among the methods of securing good be- 
havior : 

Cleveland, O., Public Library reports among 
other methods of discipline "Co-operation 
with the juvenile court; boys have been 
reported to court and reprimanded by the 
judge for disturbance outside of the build- 
ing." 

Pittsburgh, Pa. Carnegie Library: "Con- 
trol of lawlessness depends largely upon the 
branch librarian and her children's librarian. 
Each children's librarian has been trained for 
work with children and has been given in- 
struction in the best recognized methods. As 
a rule the gang is controlled through the 
leader, and individual offenders are tempor- 
arily deprived of use of card or reading-room. 
Other methods are used as occasion demands. 
The location of the library has much to do 
with the question of discipline. This problem 
cannot be the same in a library situated in a 
residential section and in one in a down town 
or a tenement district." 

FINES 

70 libraries charge the same fine for overdue 
books for adult and juvenile readers. 

50 libraries charge 2 cents a day fine. 
6 libraries charge i cent a day. 

14 libraries charge from 2 cents a day with 
an increased fine after the second or 
third day, to 5 cents a day. 
5 libraries charge 2 cents a day to adults, 
but only I cent a day to juvenile read- 
ers. 



19 libraries never remit fines, but three of 

these allow children to work them out. 

II libraries very rarely, on special occasions 

or for special reasons do remit fines. 
The policy of 45 libraries is to remit fines 
as it seems advisable, and allow children 
to work them out when possible. 
62 libraries allow children to pay fines and 
damages by instalment if the circum- 
stances warrant it. 
9 never allow fines or damages to be paid 

by instalment. 

Oakland, Cal., Free Public Library reports, 

"Often allow children to bring another 

book in place of one damaged or lost." 

40 libraries in special cases allow children 

to draw books before the entire fine is 

paid, while in. 

31 libraries the card privilege ceases when 

the fine accrues. 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Osterhout Library re- 
ports that about 5% of their juvenile 
cards are held up by unpaid fines ; Sag- 
inaw, Mich., Public Library reports 
10%; Pittsburgh, Pa., Carnegie Li- 
brary reports 14% ; Brooklyn, N. Y., 
Pratt Institute Free Library reports 
15%; Paterson, N. J., Free Public 
Library and Allegheny, Pa., Carnegie 
Free Public Library 16% ; Waterbury, 
Conn., Silas Bronson Library 20% ; 
Newark, N. J., Free Public Library 
24%. New York Public Library esti- 
mates the number of juvenile cards held 
up by unpaid fines at 15,000; but as the 
total number of juvenile readers is not 
given, it is impossible to determine 
whether the percentage is higher or 
lower than that of other libraries. 
The question of fines is one that is caus- 
ing a great deal of thought in many libraries. 
Utica, N. Y., Public Library says, "By act- 
ual count a year ago we found that nearly 
1-3 of the cards in the drawers bore fines. 
It was then that the fine was changed to i 
cent by an action of the trustee, and it is 
probable that a time alternative will be al- 
lowed this year." 

Allegheny, Pa., Carnegie Free Library re- 
ports, "I have found the fine system a great 
detriment to the work. Out of 2500 cards 
issued during the past year 400 cards have 



JACKSON 



95 



been left with fines unpaid, and thus 400 chil- 
dren 'have been practically driven from the 
library through their inability to meet the 
charges." 

In Pittsburgh, Pa., Carnegie Library the 
question has become of so great importance 
that it is under special consideration with the 
object of devising some system to replace the 
one now in force. It is thought that since in 
8 years 14 % of the children's cards have 
been held up by unpaid fines, it is likely that 
some alteration can be made in the system to 
advantage. 

Cleveland, O., Public Library charges 2 
cents a day for fines; allows children to 
work out fines or to pay fines by instalments ; 
allows one book to be drawn before fine is 
paid. If the child paying by instalment does 
not continue to bring his penny each time, 
his card privilege is withdrawn. 

ADVERTISING BOOKS 

58 libraries use picture bulletins as a means 
of advertising children's books. The special 
objects held in mind in making picture bul- 
letins are to lead children to read better 
books ; to illustrate the story hour ; to bring 
certain subjects before the children in an at- 
tractive form; to supplement the work of 
schools in special subjects; to emphasize cur- 
rent events and anniversaries ; to instruct by 
pictures ; to develop the artistic faculty, and 
to beautify the room. 

Another method of advertising the chil- 
dren's books that one especially wants 
children to read is through the story hour; 
39 libraries already hold story hours, 21 re- 
porting that they do not. Some libraries are, 
telling miscellaneous fairy tales, myths, ani- 
mal stories, holiday stories, stories of valor 
and bravery, classic stories and legends, while 
other libraries are telling carefully planned 
series of stories such as the following: he- 
roes of mythology, plant and animal life, 
children of different nations, famous men in 
history and their deeds, famous artists and 
their masterpieces, well-known stories and 
their authors, travellers from Marco Pol6~\o 
Perry, Arthurian legend's, Greek and Norse 
myths, stories from the Nibelungenlied, 
legends of Charlemagne, Robin Hood stories, 
and stories from Shakespeare. 



There seem to be two separate and dis- 
tinct objects held by libraries conducting 
story hours. 

1. To entertain and instruct children, as is 
shown by the following answer: 

Brooklyn, N. Y. Pratt Institute Free Li- 
brary: "Its purpose (that of the story hour) 
is to give the children the enjoyment that 
comes from hearing stories, and incidentally 
to broaden their interests." 

2. To lead children to books. Notice the 
following statements : 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Public Library: "There 
is no formal organization of a story hour 
planned for the library system. About 10 of 
the children's librarians are telling stories. 
Their object, to lead the children to better 
taste in reading and to better ideals and prin- 
ciples." 

Cincinnati, O., Public Library: "The pur- 
pose of the story hour is to present stories 
that may be found in books in such a way as 
to lead to an interest in the books." 

Grand Rapids, Mich., Public Library: "To 
lead the children to read books that they 
would not otherwise read if left to them- 
selves." 

Washington, D. C., Public Library: "To 
introduce children to books and to cultivate a 
taste for the best in literature." 

Portland, Ore., Library Association: "To 
direct the reading of children to special lines 
or classes." 

Pittsburgh, Pa. Carnegie Library: "To di- 
rect to better reading, especially to the read- 
ing of the imaginative and romantic forms 
of literature, chiefly classics. This we con- 
sider to be the only legitimate use of the story 
hour in public library work." 

Some of the other methods of advertising 
books mentioned by different libraries are 
school exhibits in the library, book-lists on 
special subjects, sometimes sent to schools. 
Wisconsin book-marks ; newspaper notices ; 
the posting in bulletin form of decorated 
book covers; travel talks and other lectures 
illustrated by stereopticon ; vacation lists, 
a certificate being given to all who read 6 
or more books on the list; new books dis- 
played advantageously; reading circles; and 
boys' and girls' reading fraternities. 

Cleveland, O., Public Library "The Chil- 
dren's Leaf, published four or five times a 
year, which has one or more lists of books 



9 6 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



a story (reprint) which is not otherwise a 
cessible to children, and one or more good 
poems. The Children's Leaf is given away 
at the schools and from the children's room. 
Other methods are the use of book marks, 
bulletins, reading circles and the picture tiles 
decorating the mantelpieces of three of the 
branch children's rooms." 

The last but most important method of 
advertising children's books is the personal 
work of the children's librarian and her 
effort to see that all children who come to 
the library for books have those suited to 
their needs, as the Brooklyn, N. Y., Public 
Library reports "We rely principally on 
steady personal work with children in the 
room ; we visit schools and interest teachers, 
and occasionally talk to parents at their 
meetings." 

New York City Public Library ''In every 
class room within this library's jurisdiction 
(notices) are posted. In many schools the 
principal talks to the pupils about the branch 
nearest. At the same time having the teach- 
ers give the children application blanks. Per- 
sonal visits of teachers with their pupils are 
very strongly urged." 

WORK WITH SCHOOLS 

37 libraries have a separate collection of 
books for use in schools. Two others 
supply schools from the travelling li- 
brary department 

27 libraries make work with schools a part 
of the work of the children's depart- 
ment. 

48 libraries send books to public schools. 
24 to private schools. 
17 to parochial schools. 
14 to Sunday schools, and 
22 to other educational institutions. 

Of the 36 libraries which supply schools 
from a separate collection of books all but 
two have a general collection, which, how- 
ever, represents only the better books for 
children. The Brooklyn Public Library says, 
in this connection, "We think that in loaning 
small sets we ought to keep a higher stand- 
ard than in a room with hundreds of books." 
Of the 46 libraries reporting on the ques- 
tion, "In what way do you teach the use of 



catalogs, indexes and reference books to the 
pupils of the ward schools?" 24 do the work 
only in individual cases as the children come 
to the library, 20 give systematic instruction 
to classes either in the library or in the 
schools, while in three cases instruction is 
given in the normal or high school of the 
city by the school librarian. 

For fuller information in regard to work 
with schools see Library Journal and Public 
Libraries, especially a report prepared by 
Miss Doren for the St. Louis conference. 

HOME LIBRARIES 

10 libraries report that they conduct one or 
more home libraries. In Providence,, 
R. I., the public library co-operates with 
the associated charities. The library has 
the care of these home libraries, helps 
in purchasing new books, and loans 
books from the general collection. 
In the following libraries home library 
work is in charge of the children's depart- 
ment: 

Utica, N. Y 2 home libraries. 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 5 " " 

Detroit, Mich 6 " " 

Youngstown, 6 " 

Cincinnati, 18 " 

Cleveland, 20 " 

Pittsburgh, Pa 32 " 

8 libraries conduct reading clubs for boys- 

and girls outside the library building. 
5 libraries purchase books for home library 

work from the regular library fund. 
2 use books purchased from the regular 
fund and some donated; while 3 depend 
entirely upon gifts in the form of memo- 
rial libraries or otherwise. 
This is not in any sense a report on the 
subject of home library work. This work is 
carried on in many cities and states from 
which no report was received. The facts 
given are limited to those received in the 
reports. 

SETTLEMENTS AND ALLIED AGENCIES 

23 libraries send books to settlements and 5- 
assist in the story hour at the settle- 
ments. 

13 send books to playgrounds. 

13 send books to vacation schools. 



HUNT 



97 



Some of the other institutions for social 
betterment with which libraries work are the 
Young Men's Christian Association, city mis- 
sions, boys' and girls' clubs, orphan asylums, 
boys' industrial reform schools and Sunday 
schools, bath houses, the detention room for 
juvenile court, settlements, school houses, 
newsboys' home, playgrounds and vacation 
schools are also used for the distribution of 
books to children. 

CONCLUSION 

In the 76 cities from which reports were 
received filled out so that they were available 
for this report, the number of children be- 
tween 5 and 14 years of age is 16 % of the 
total population of those cities. In the 67 
libraries which reported adult and juvenile 
circulation for the past year separately, the 
juvenile circulation was 31 % of the whole. 

Since it is true that 16 % of the population 
representing the children who are patrons of 
the children's department, is doing 31 % of 
the home reading in these 67 cities, is it not 
worth while for librarians who are anxious 
to make their librarians of as great value as 
possible in their cities to give considerable 
time and thought to work with children ? The 



reports show that some libraries are making 
ample provision for this work ; but the fact 
that 42 libraries out of the 76 reporting were 
unable to estimate what proportion of their 
funds is devoted to work with children 
that part of their population which is doing 
31 % of their home reading shows that they 
have not devoted much thought to this class 
of readers. Of the 34 libraries that estimated 
the proportion of funds spent for children, 
16 report less than 20%, some reporting as 
low at 3 % and tf/z %. Those 20 libraries 
that report 10 % or less of their circulating 
books as belonging to their juvenile depart- 
ment are providing a very limited collection 
for 31 % ot the reading done. 

It is true that library work with children- 
is still in the experimental stage of develop- 
ment and the work in some places is open to 
the charge of sentimentalism. These facts 
cannot be denied; but if the results already 
shown have been obtained while the work is 
in this stage, we must see what the possibil- 
ities are wherever the work is put on a 
sound educational basis, and wherever this 
work can be put in charge of those fit- 
ted by temperament and training to work 
with children. 



THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY A MORAL FORCE 

By CLARA WHITEHILL HUNT, Superintendent of Children's Department, Brooklyn (N. Y.) 

Public Library 



HTHE subject I have chosen is the theme 
around which all discussions have, di- 
rectly or indirectly, revolved from the time 
that the children's department of the public 
library first came into being. Yet because of 
its very taken-for-grantedness it is some- 
times buried under discussions of matters 
which, after all, are merely devices, so that 
it seems to be not out of place now and then 
to hark back to a simple reiteration of foun- 
dation principles. To those of us who have 
been in the profession for years certain be- 
liefs and aims are so a matter of course that 
we have left off talking about them, forgetting 
that our new people coming on and the laity 



whom it is our duty to teach have not been 
through the slow process of educating which 
has made these ideals enter into our grain. 
And one day, while we are looking about for 
some new thing to engage attention, we find, 
to our amazement, that these cherished ideals 
which we supposed had been accepted past 
question are not held by all our fellow-work- 
ers even, and that we shall have to convince 
them that we have a right to claim that they 
are the foundation truths on which we must 
build. 

This is a great age for pendulum swinging. 
Yesterday the doctors told us that we should 
boil drinking water to kill typhoid fever 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



germs. To-day we read of an expert's claim 
that by so doing we are increasing the dan- 
ger of communicating the disease. We had 
supposed that in our profession it was an ac- 
cepted fact that books make a very positive 
and lasting impression upon a child's thought 
and conduct, an impression that, however 
unconsciously felt by the child himself, has 
a large part in shaping his character for all 
time. Yet to-day we hear people in our own 
ranks say they do not believe that books 
have any influence on children, while others 
apparently do not think it matters much what 
sort of books a child reads at certain stages 
of his development. We see on library lists 
of children's books, instead of constant em- 
phasis of the best old standbys, titles which 
perhaps may not be classed as utter trash, yet 
which are hopelessly mediocre pot-boilers 
dashed off by uninspired writers who know 
that the libraries will encourage the children 
to imitate their elders in crying "Haven't you 
something newf" 

So we must be pardoned for talking upon a 
worn out theme. For we do most earnestly 
believe in the power of books to affect the 
soul of a child. Even if we were skeptical 
from looking into our own experience, we do 
not feel that our experience is broad enough 
or deep enough to justify our questioning 
the assertions of the greatest educators and 
scholars of our day and of the past. Grant- 
ing without foolish argument that these 
people know whereof they speak, accepting 
their declaration that books have a powerful 
influence upon the child, what sort of an in- 
fluence shall the librarian endeavor to exert? 
What standard must the books chosen for 
the children's shelves reach up to? How 
shall he decide what to leave out? 

Let us inquire first what is the chief 
aim in the education of the child as voiced 
by the greatest educators of our day. It is 
the moral aim, the purpose that looks toward 
the character building of the child. All the 
wealth poured into the generous support of 
the public schools, all the thought expended 
in working out the best methods of teach- 
ing, the most hygienic plans for school build- 
ings, all the books written and the meetings 
held to discuss the thousand and one lines of 
activity which the great public schools are 



following to-day these all have for their 
underlying thought, for their ultimate end the 
making of men, not of mathematicians ; the 
building of well-rounded character, not the 
manufacture of intellectual motors. The 
state is so educating its youth for the sake of 
its own welfare, for the very preservation of 
its national existence, because it knows that 
history is full of examples of the instability 
of empires whose walls were reared upon 
foundations of mere wealth and force of arms 
and even of intellectual power, and of the 
splendid growth of those nations whose citi- 
zens were, in the main, men of moral worth. 
The wise men of our day, taking this lesson 
to heart, compel the attendance of the chil- 
dren at school during the formative years of 
their lives, and they are thus showing their 
belief in the possibility of "training up a 
child in the way he should go." 

One of the strangest and most alarming 
signs of the times that we who are interested 
in children have to notice is the idea which 
seems rooted in the American parent's mind 
that it is not possible to train a child to be 
anything but the sort of young animal he is 
inclined to be of his own free will ; or that 
this would not be desirable if it were pos- 
sible. Seemingly the creed of the young pa- 
rent of our land is, "Give a child a good 
heritage and good example and then let him 
grow spontaneously. Do not thwart him, do 
not cross his will, don't compel him to da 
what he isn't interested in doing or you will 
make of him a mere machine." The parents 
have caught echoes of the excellent principles 
acted upon in the educating of children to- 
day such as working from a child's inter- 
ests, using his instinct for play as a means of 
educating him, respecting a child's individu- 
ality, never trying to break his will and 
catching the surface smattering without the 
underlying purpose they have swung far from 
the old Puritan's stern methods that pro- 
duced men of such fibre as made our nation 
what it is, and have let their children grow 
along the line of least resistance, with just 
the results that one finds in a flower garden 
left to itself. It seems incomprehensible that 
one who understands well the laws that gov- 
ern the successful raising of vegetables and 
flowers, the training of animals, even the ne- 



HUNT 



99 



cessity for intelligent care of a machine in 
order to keep it in good condition, can at the 
same time fancy that a human soul can attain 
"its highest development if "left to grow spon- 
taneously." 

Take a child of even the best heritage and 
environment isn't it "human nature" for 
him to want the best for himself? And did 
.any one ever see a child learn to be unselfish 
from the example of his mother, who invari- 
ably sacrificed herself and gave up the best 
to him? There are children so well born 
that it does not seem to occur to them to be 
anything but truthful and "square" in their 
dealings. Most little children are transpa- 
rent, but how quickly they learn to deceive, 
either from fear or for their advantage in. 
.some way ; and how are we to make them feel, 
but by teaching, that the absolute foundations 
of decent living depend upon a deep regard 
for the sacredness of a man's word? 

Children are not going to grow up to be 
men and women of purity and strength of 
character, unselfish, true, brave, considerate 
of others unless we use every possible effort 
to train them to those ideals and principles 
and to the habit of self-control ; and unless 
we do this by "precept upon precept, precept 
upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, 
-here a little and there a little." And the coi- 
nerstone of such training is to be found in the 
simple, old-fashioned, moss-covered word 
Obedience! Heredity and environment are 
beyond count valuable, but librarians and 
school teachers well know that it is not alone 
from the tenement of the poor immigrant 
but from the homes of well-to-do Americans 
of upright character that many of our most 
lawless, disrespectful, destructive and unreli- 
able children come. A child who has gen- 
erally been allowed to "have his own way" 
from the time he found he could get any- 
thing he wanted by screaming for it, will nat- 
urally be a troublesome member of society 
and will surely be a less valuable citizen than 
one who has been brought up to that "habit- 
uation to obedience" in which, as Carlyle says, 
""it was beyond measure safer to err by ex- 
cess than by defect." "Obedience," he goes 
on to say, "is our universal duty and destiny ; 
wherein whoso will not bend must break; 
too early and too thoroughly we cannot be 



trained to know that Would in this world 
of ours is as mere zero to Should, and for 
most part as smallest fraction to Shall." And 
so, when Teufelsdrockh writes of his stern 
upbringing he concludes, "Hereby was laid 
for me the basis of worldly Discretion, nay 
of Morality itself." 

The pendulum must swing back nearer the 
old ways, and we who have to do with chil- 
dren must expect them even as children to 
behave as creatures with souls, as beings who 
are daily preparing to become men and wo- 
men; or we shall continue to have worse ex- 
posures in our national life than we are hav- 
ing to-day of the selfish cruelty of those 
whose first aim is to "get rich quick," the dis- 
honesty rampant in businesss and politics, the 
criminal neglect to safeguard human life 
which are so fearfully common. The child 
who "looks out for Number One" is going to 
keep on doing it as a man, and that child may 
be the spoiled darling of parents whose own 
standards of life are high, but who could not 
bear to punish him when he needed correc- 
tion for his own good, who never denied him 
a whim if they could grant it at any cost, un- 
til the child, grown to manhood, suffers from 
having failed to acquire early the habit of 
self-control, the world suffers from the self- 
ishness of him who has grown up with the 
idea that his wishes must be first. The beau- 
tiful things that are done in our day to make 
children happy, the difference in this genera- 
tion's attitude toward them that lovely atti- 
tude of sympathy and fellowship in which we 
rejoice have carried with them a tendency 
to look upon a child as an irresponsible 
creature for so many of the formative years 
of his life that by the time a parent wakes up 
to the need of his being taught, the golden op- 
portunity is lost. There is one of Mrs. 
Eving's sayings that every father and mother 
and every worker with children should 
ponder well. A mother, speaking in excuse 
of her boy's selfishness, said, "One can't ex- 
pect boys to consider things. Boys will be 
boys, you know." And her brother replied, 
"Too true, Geraldine. Ye don't expect it. 
Worse luck! I assure you, I'd be aghast at 
the brutes we men can be if I wasn't more 
amazed that we're as good as we are when 
the best and gentlest of your sex the 



100 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



moulders of our childhood, the desire of our 
manhood, demand so little for all that you 
alone can give. There were conceivable uses 
in women preferring the biggest brutes of 
barbarous times but it's not so now ; and 
boys will be civilized boys, and men will be 
civilized men, sweet siste.r, when you do ex- 
pect it ; and when your grace and favor are 
the rewards of nobleness and not the easy 
prize of selfishness and savagery." 

Is any one here thinking "What have these 
pessimistic ravings of this twin sister to the 
proverbial old maid who always has good 
advice to shower upon parents, to do with 
the work of the public library and the selec- 
tion of books for the children's room?" 

To my mind the connection is clear. We 
claim for the children's library the possibility, 
the duty of being a moral force in the com- 
munity. Unless we, as educators, are fully 
alive to the obstacles in the way of the 
American child's growing up to be the sort 
of citizen the country needs, we shall not be 
energetic in seeing to it that the young peo- 
ple get nothing but good from our contact 
with them through the library. Unless we 
feel that the lawless disregard for public 
property shown by the broken glass of the 
street signs which have been used as targets 
by the boys of our city is a serious indica- 
tion for the future; unless we look ahead to 
the results that are inevitable when a child 
is expected to have so little sense of respon- 
sibility that he is not severely corrected for 
throwing stones at a passing trolley car; un- 
less we hold that the attempt to evade a two 
cent fine for an overdue book is of a piece 
with the lack of honor which prompts the 
older person to make all he can at the 
expense of people less sharp than himself; 
unless we realize that our children are ab- 
sorbing from the very air to-day the false and 
debasing idea that "success" means "making 
money" ; unless we are willing to be laughed 
at for taking ourselves so seriously and pro- 
ceed to take ourselves more seriously we 
shall not be the nursery of good citizenship 
we are meant to be. 

There is much that may be done in this 
matter of citizen training through the per- 
sonality of the workers in the library, but 
we do not begin to have the opportunity of 



the school teacher in this regard, and wer 
must rely mainly for our power for good 
upon what the child absorbs from the books- 
he finds on the shelves. And it is here I feel 
that librarians as a body are not always loud 
and insistent enough that our children shall 
find no book on the shelves of which the 
highest we can say for it is that it is of no 
particular harm. We demand that each book. 
be of some particular good. 

We believe that we have a part to play in, 
helping our boys grow up to be honorable, 
strong, clean, manly, gentle men, men not 
too conceited, not lazy either in mental or 
physical habit, men who think more of being 
faithful in little than showy in big affairs, men 
whose ideals and whose influence, whether 
exerted as statesmen or hod-carriers, will be 
such as to help keep the moral atmosphere 
of our land purer. We want our girls to care 
not only to be attractive to look upon but to- 
have just as high standards of courage and 
honor as we shall demand of our boys, to be- 
sensible and broad minded, modest and wo- 
manly, to be truly well bred, ambitious to- 
be useful, to hold cheery and wholesome 
views of life. We know that every book we 
give these boys and girls will have some ef- 
fect in changing, shaping, strengthening their" 
ideals and so moulding their habits and char- 
acter. We all admit enough of belief in this 
to eliminate from our libraries the class of 
books usually designated by the color of their 
covers and their price mark one dime.. 
But we sometimes neglect to take into account 
the insidious mischief which the steady read- 
ing of the mediocre books we are accustomed 
to call "harmless" is doing our boys and girls. 

Is there no moral harm resulting from the 
mental laziness which becomes an iron-bound 
habit with the child who reads volume after 
volume and series after series of an author 
whose morals may be good but who hasn't a 
particle of ability to put anything really 
strong, vital, stimulating, true into language 
that is vigorous and pure ? And when we - 
examine one of these mediocre books which 
seems to preach a virtuous regard for certain 
moral aims, how discriminating are we in 
deciding whether the child will carry away 
the impression of righteousness which the- 
well-meaning author perhaps wished to con-- 



HUNT 



101 



vey, or whether he will really absorb, from 
the incidents of the story, the character of the 
hero, the working out of the plot, quite oppo- 
site ideas? 

In my pessimistic remarks on the upbring- 
ing of the modern child I have spoken only of 
a small class, perhaps those children from 
respectable American homes who would nat- 
urally grow up to be our country's leaders. 
There is, besides, the large class of children 
of foreign parentage whose experience and 
knowledge of life, whose ideals of character 
are gained among the sordid and unlovely 
scenes of the crowded tenement districts. 
For how short a time does the public school 
have an opportunity to help mould the lives 
of these children, and what odds it has to 
fight against in trying to make a decent citi- 
zen out of a child in twenty-five hours a 
week for a few years when all other influences 
of the child's life are pulling in the opposite 
direction ! Surely the public library has a 
duty laid upon it to help supplement the 
work of the school. So much to do and so 
little time in which to do it. Shall we waste 
our time and money by giving these children 
books embodying ideals only a degree higher 
than those to which they have been reared? 
Shall we be satisfied if our boys have read all 
the books of even such respectable authors as 
Henty, Stoddard, Kaler, Trowbridge, if they 
have not read and loved and learned by heart 
the great classics which have lived for gene- 
rations? Shall we be content if our girls take 
their ideals of womanhood from the latest 
"Hildegarde" or "Teddy" book while they 
find Effie Deans and Maggie Tulliver and 
Agnes Wickford dull? Are we, because the 
children eagerly demand these books, to buy 
copy after copy of them, or shall we devote 
our duplicating to beautiful editions of the 
best in literature, using all our influence and 
ingenuity to popularize this class of books as 
it is possible to popularize them if we care 
enough ourselves and have any skill at all in 
managing children? Shall we, in buying the 
books of the year, obey the clamor of the 
young people who say they have read every- 
thing in the children's room and want some- 
thing new shall we descend to buying the 
mediocre because so few of the new "juve- 
niles" in any year are good? Or shall we 



rather ask ourselves why it is that, if a child 
has read every book in the children's room, he 
or more likely she 'is still demanding 
"juveniles"? Shall we then reflect that the 
children's room has not fulfilled the purpose 
for which it was intended if we have not set 
the young people on the road to a taste for the 
best on the shelves of the adult department? 

We claim to be an educational institution. 
The city supports us because, apparently, it 
accepts our claim. We shall perhaps have 
difficulty always with the adult borrowers 
who demand a class of books we do not feel 
deserve a place in our libraries. But if we are 
to follow instead of lead the taste of the chil- 
dren we must not flatter ourselves that we 
are anything more than clerks whose duty it 
is to discover exactly what a customer wishes 
and then to give her that commodity. 

But we claim for ourselves that we know 
better than the children can know what books 
are best for them, and we shall make our se- 
lections with the purpose of graduating into 
the adult departments of our libraries young 
people who have a well-defined taste for the 
best literature. 

There are two main lines which the libra- 
rian should have in mind in the selecting of 
children's books. First, she will see to it 
that every child of fourteen is thoroughly fa- 
miliar with the classics in juvenile literature, 
those productions which from every point of 
view are satisfying, providing food for the 
imagination and heart, ideals of high and 
noble living, clothing beautiful thoughts in 
the pure and lovely garb of gracious lan- 
guage. Into this class we gather such treas- 
ures as the Greek myths rendered by Kings- 
ley and Hawthorne and Lamb, the Norse 
stories retold by Mabie, the fables of yEsop, 
the folk tales of Grimm, Jacobs, Harris, the 
fairy stories of Andersen, Kipling, Dodgson 
and Ruskin, the legends of the Middle Ages 
told in no less beautiful style than Howard 
Pyle's, the tales from Shakespeare in Lamb's 
English, Barton's Canterbury pilgrims, with 
Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's progress, 
Don Quixote and Froissart and Plutarch; 
and always the stores of beautiful verse 
which it is a sin not to help a child to love. 
These are the books whic 1 i cultivated people 
call literature, and it is o.:r duty to try by 



102 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



every possible means to emphasize them. We 
must never allow our stock of these to run 
short or become unattractively shabby. If we 
have story hours and bulletins and book marks 
and literary ladders we must use them to 
arouse interest in and curiosity regarding 
these best treasures. With our smallest chil- 
dren we must use especial effort to see that 
they do not acquire the mediocre habit, for it 
is very easy to guide the beginner. With the 
older ones it means 'the exercise of consum- 
mate tact, but the results are worth the ef- 
fort. When we have an opportunity to talk 
before parents' associations or women's clubs 
we must be able to convince them of the im- 
portance of a child's not being deprived of 
the joy, both now and hereafter, of knowing 
and loving the best in literature. 

And then, in the next place, to the deciding 
of which and how many of the confessedly 
mediocre books we shall admit to our shelves 
we must bring much careful thought. We 
realize that for the children who have ac- 
quired the taste for poor stuff, so that it is 
difficult to persuade them of the joy to be 
found in those great books, which they would 
have loved if brought up with them from 
early years, we must provide some things to 
be used as baits, but we mean they shall also 
serve as stepping stones upward. Our task 
is to decide what ones, out of the mass of 
material -bordering on trash, have enough of 
merit to make them useful to our end with- 
out being harmful to the children. 

While there are plenty of books classed as 
non-fiction which need more careful elimina- 
tion than is sometimes given, our chief con- 
cern is with the child's story book, because 
fiction is the most popular class and because 
it is from the story book hero or heroine that 
the child unconsciously but surely absorbs 
many of his ideals and principles and is there- 
fore strongly affected in his character. We 
shall be obliged to let down the bars in the 
matter of literary style, but there are degrees 
even of mediocrity and we never need to in- 
clude those which are written in the lan- 
guage of a positively common person. But 
when it comes to moral tone we should never 
lower our standard an iota, and to the decis- 
ion as to whether a book will leave a child 
no worse for the reading of it one must bring 



first a belief that it matters what sort of 
books we give the children, next a knowledge 
of child nature, and third the penetration 
to discriminate clearly between '"preaching" 
and "practicing" I might say that is, to de- 
cide unerringly whether the impression to be 
made on the child will be that of the author's 
highly moral advice or of the hero's im- 
moral actions and bad associations. 

There is not time to enter here upon a dis- 
cussion of the faults of the average story 
book for boys and girls that will fill the 
counters of the book stores next fall. The 
time limits hold one to the merest opening 
up of the whole subject. The most I allow 
myself to hope is that some few who have 
not looked upon the selection of their chil- 
dren's books as a matter of serious import- 
ance may give more of personal attention and 
care to the subject. Of course, when all has 
been said, any two librarians in this Associa- 
tion might agree entirely as to the qualities 
a book should possess and differ entirely as 
to whether a given book fulfilled those re- 
quirements. In book criticism the personal 
equation will always be a factor. But in these 
days, when children's rooms are springing 
up like mushrooms all over our land, when 
trained children's librarians are few and far 
between, when thousands of our future citi- 
zens are reading a book a day from the pub- 
lic libraries, and hundreds of librarians, with 
the best intentions in the world, have not the 
time nor the expert knowledge to choose 
their children's books wisely, I think it be- 
hooves the large libraries steadily to set an 
example of emphasizing the best and weeding 
out the mediocre; and I believe that the 
American Library Association ought to be able 
so to set a standard and affect the book buy- 
ing of the smaller libraries that the produc- 
tion and sale of wishy-washy stuff will be 
actually modified and finally cut down from 
lack of profit in the business. 

For all of us who have to do with the 
children in the library there is inspiration in 
the picture of the great possibilities which 
William DeWitt Hyde holds up before the 
teachers, in speaking of the value of good lit- 
erature in the public schools. I cannot better 
close than by quoting from him words which 
tell briefly what I have been trying to express : 



STEARNS 



103 



"To feed the mind of youth on the ideals 
of a noble and elevated human life ; to win his 
fidelity to the family through sweet pictures 
of parental affection, and filial devotion, and 
pure household joys; to secure his loyalty to 
the state by thrilling accounts of the deeds 
of brave men and heroic women ; to make 
righteousness attractive by pointed fable, or 
pithy proverb, or striking tale of self-sacri- 
ficing fidelity to the costly right against the 
profitable wrong; to inflame with a desire to 
emulate the example of patriot, martyr, and 
philanthropist this is the social mission of 
good literature in the public schools. To in- 
terpret this literature, so that it comes home 
to the boys and girls, so that they see re- 



flected in it the image of their own better 
selves, so that they carry with them its inspir- 
ation through all their after lives this is 
the duty and privilege of the public school. 
It is not of so much consequence what a boy 
knows when he leaves school as what he 
loves. The greater part of what he knows he 
will speedily forget. What he loves he will 
feed on. His hunger will prompt his efforts 
to increase his store. The love of good liter- 
ature a genuine delight in Longfellow and 
Whittier, Lowell and Tennyson, Hawthorne 
and Scott, Shakespeare and Homer is, from 
every point of view, the most valuable equip- 
ment with which the school can send its boys 
and girls into the world." 



BY LUTIE E. STEARNS, Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Madison, Wis. 



'"INHERE is no more perplexing problem that 
confronts the modern librarian, teacher 
and parent, than the selection of books for 
the girl whom some one has described as the 
girl who has outgrown her doll and her 
dishes along with her short skirts, who has 
passed beyond the stage where material 
make-believes satisfy, who has become con- 
scious that the life before her means energy 
and has caught glimpses of happiness and 
sorrow, dimly realizing the mighty current 
of human effort. This is the girl who is sep- 
arated from womanhood by such a brief span 
that her ideas, acts and ideals are rapidly 
taking on the aspects of maturity. And the 
problem of the book for her! How to get 
at it! How to obtain the knowledge of this 
most intangible time in her intellectual life 
so as to give practical help. These are the 
questions that confront us. 

As showing the wide diversity of taste 
among girls between the ages of fourteen and 
eighteen, an investigation conducted by a 
Western teacher may be of interest. 82 
girls were asked to signify their choice 
in books. 20 wished anything full of 
excitement or adventure; 15 wanted his- 

*A list of books for girls and young women 
may be obtained by addressing Miss L. E. Stearns, 
547 Prospect Ave., Milwaukee, Wis. 



torical stories; 9 wanted anything about girls 
their home life, college life of boys and 
girls ; 12 voted for any sort of fiction ; 6 
for poetry ; 4 for travel : 3 for history ; i 
for music "containing the motifs" ; I for 
biography ; I for anything patriotic ; I for 
anything comical. There were 9 who had 
no choice; 4 of these had done no reading 
and the other 5 are well represented by the 
girl who expressed herself as follows: "What 
do I like to read about? That is a very 
doubtful and difficult question to decide. 
Books containing simple, pathetic life are 
very entertaining: love stories of the right 
kind are very good, but books composed of 
both these qualities I think I like the best. 
Histories I do not care so much for, altho.ugh 
'Trumpeter Fred' is very good. After I have 
read and enjoyed one sort of a book I think 
I like that kind the best, and after I have 
read and enjoyed another sort I think I like 
that kind the best ; altogether it is a very 
doubtful question in my mind." 

From the 20 girls who voted for the book 
full of action, these replies are typical : "I 
like stories of adventure about the late 
war." "I like to read about war and do- 
mestic dramas." "I like detective stories and 
history best." Another desires "adventurous 
stories"; another something "intensely ex- 



104 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



citing." Those who spoke of history liked 
it very much or not at all. Many showed a 
preference for certain periods. "Early times 
in the colonies and Egypt" was the text of 
one reply. Another said: "I like to read his- 
tory. I don't mean dry history, but some- 
thing besides history connected with the 
book." One wanted "a book of real life with 
a little spice of history." 

Another matter which comes to light is 
the difference in the maturity of the read- 
ing. One girl reads "Eye Bright," "Five lit- 
tle Peppers," and "Birds' Christmas Carol," 
while another of the same age is interested 
in "Adventures of Frangois," "Ben Hur," 
and "Lorna Doone." A typical list is the 
following: "Polly,, a new fashioned girl," 
"The senator's daughter," "David Harum," 
"Gold Elsie," "Tempest and sunshine," 
"Melody," "Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica." 
Henty and Oliver Optic are often present, 
also E. P. Roe and Mary J. Holmes. "The 
necklace of pearls," "The sin of the home," 
"The daughter of the serpent," and others of 
this ilk find place on the lists. The latest 
novel has many readers. The influence of 
some momentary cause is shown. Olga 
Nethersole's appearance can be traced on 
three of the lists, where "Sappho" and "Ca- 
mille" appear. Books of essays are not com- 
monly read. The book of poetry is the 
exception. When it appears it can generally 
be traced to the school influence or required 
reading. When the teacher of the school 
had found even a little time to look after 
the reading, there was a difference in the 
style of the book. When the girls went to 
the public library there was improvement. 
Many girls whose reading showed contact 
with good, healthful literature, showed 
also the influence of a refined home in 
their answer to the question, "Where did 
you obtain the book?" On the other hand, 
the girl who was not influenced by her home, 
teacher or library invariably presented a 
list such as the following: "The last rebel," 
"Honey and gall," "A sad, strange com- 
edy," "Her only sin," "Old Mam'selle's se- 
cret," "Marguerite," "Inez," "Dombey and 
son," "Water babies," "West lawn," "Moore's 
poems," and "An earnest trifler." As pre- 



senting an aimless mixture of good and evil, 
this list is extremely suggestive. 

While most girls of the West wish books 
of action and adventure, reading history if 
the action of men and women is made promi- 
nent, and biography if it records the deeds 
of great men and women, we find a different 
type of book demanded in the South. There 
girls from fourteen to sixteen ask for 
"straight" love stories. Mary J. Holmes and 
Augusta Evans Wilson are eagerly devoured, 
the latter being the most popular author re- 
corded. "Ouida," the "Duchess," Miss 
Fothergill, Marie Corelli, Mrs. Henry Wood, 
Edna Lyall, Amanda Douglass, Susan War- 
ner, Mrs. Wister's translations, and Miss 
Carey find favor at this early age such 
authors usually being read at a later period 
in northern climes. Jane G. Austin, Amelia 
Barr, Barrie, Burnham, Chambers, Church- 
ill, McCutcheon, Richard Harding Davis and 
Tarkington are also read. When we know 
that in the same town from which this list 
is taken there is required reading in the 
schools of the works of George Eliot, Dick- 
ens, Scott and Thackeray, we realize some- 
thing of the difficulties of guiding the out- 
side reading of young women. 

In the East we find Thomas Bailey Al- 
drich, James Lane Allen, Jane G. Austin, Alice 
Brown, Clara Louise Burnham, Frances 
Hodgson Burnett, Maud Wilder Goodwin, 
Blanche Willis Howard, Sarah Orne Jewett, 
and Mary E. Wilkins in highest favor all, 
with but two or three exceptions, it must be 
noted and regretted, New England authors. 
Loyalty to our native state and courtesy to 
our hosts and hostesses prevents any refer- 
ence, upon this occasion, to the possible pro- 
vincialism resultant from so narrow a course 
of reading. 

The results of an investigation recently 
made in England are of interest. The re- 
plies received from girls may be regarded 
as genuine expressions of opinion, for no 
names were signed, and the girls were told 
that their own teachers would not read the 
lists. The following questions were asked : 
"Which are your favorite novels? Which 
of Scott's novels have you read? Thack- 
eray's? Dickens's? Jane Austen's? Mrs. 



STEARNS 



105 



Gaskell's? Charlotte Yonge's? Do you like 
Miss Mulock's stories? Miss Thackeray's? 
Do you read magazines? If so, which? 
Which are your favorite poets? Name six 
poems you are fond of." 

The replies revealed some striking and 
surprising facts. There was little difference 
of opinion about the favorite novels the 
majority voted for Edna Lyall; next came 
Merriman's novels, and close to these An- 
thony Hope Hawkins. Marie Corelli scored 
a large number of votes, as did L. T. Meade 
and E. E. Green. A few of the older girls, 
not more than three per cent., named David 
Copperfield. With the exception of Dickens, 
no standard novelist found a place among 
the favorite books, though most of the girls 
showed that they had read a considerable 
Dumber of Dickens's and Scott's novels. It 
seems to be clear, therefore, as the compiler 
observes, that these two novelists, although 
still read by some of the younger generation, 
are no longer loved with that absorbing 
passion which so often took possession of 
their parents and grandparents. Thackeray 
and Jane Austen were only known to a 
select few who, in several instances, added 
the gratuitous but informing statement, "I 
find I cannot read Jane Austen ; she is so dull." 
Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford" appears but six 
times. Miss Yonge and Miss Mulock, usually 
actively disliked, received the following com- 
ments : "I do not like these writers," "I 
like them fairly well," or "I used to like 
them when I was young." The name of Miss 
Thackeray was unknown to all. 

The answers to questions on magazine 
reading show that the habit of miscellaneous 
reading has taken firm root in England 
as in America. "I read nearly all the well- 
known magazines," writes one young lady. 
Another girl, who read five periodicals such as 
The Strand, The World and His Wife, and 
The Smart Set, had never read a single book 
by Dickens, Scott, Austen, Yonge, and 
Thackeray, and could only recall one favorite 
novel of a most juvenile description. Were 
these two answers exceptions it would, per- 
"haps, not be worth quoting them, but they 
are largely typical of the rest of the replies. 

Concerning poets and poetry, there was 



almost absolute unanimity. Tennyson was 
the favorite, and of his poems the "Idylls of 
the king" took the first place. Longfellow's 
"Evangeline" and "Hiawatha" were much be- 
loved. Scott had a fair number of admirers. 

"It is curious," the investigator writes, "to 
compare the taste of the modern girl with 
that of the girl of twenty years ago." Fash- 
ion in reading has changed and, it must be 
confessed, for the worse. Many of the best 
writers seem to have passed into the limbo 
of forgotten things. Charles Kingsley, the 
most popular novelist of the '7o's and '8o's 
probably, whose muscular Christian heroes 
appealed to boys and girls alike, whose 
"Westward ho!" would have been voted one 
of the very finest of modern novels twenty 
years ago, is neglected, while Mrs. Ewing is 
scarcely more than a name. Equally inex- 
plicable is the neglect of a host of others. 
The investigator attributes the neglect in 
part, however, to the fact that after girls 
satiate their minds with the second-rate, the 
insipid, or the ultra-sentimental, they have 
lost the key to the great kingdom of the good 
and the beautiful. If the girl does not read 
the great novels in her youth she is seldom 
likely to do so; partly because, later on, she 
will want to keep abreast of contemporary 
literature and partly because she will have 
no desire to read them. If till the age of 
eighteen or nineteen her taste for good lit- 
erature has not been cultivated, or, to put it 
more truly, if till this age she has cultivated 
a taste for inferior books and really appreci- 
ates them, it is not to be expected that after 
twenty her taste will change to any consid- 
erable extent. 

The modern parent, teacher and librarian 
cannot escape blame for the present state of 
affairs. The modern mother exercises far less 
supervision over her daughter than did the 
mother of a generation ago and she is par- 
ticularly lax in the matter of her daughter's 
reading. Ofttimes, unknown to parents, 
an "underground travelling library" is es- 
tablished, through which system books of an 
immoral nature are passed from hand to 
hand. In the matter of drawing books from 
the public library, the parent shifts the entire 
responsibility, as to proper selection, on the 



io6 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



shoulders of the librarian and busy assist- 
ants. During seven years' experience in 
charge of the circulating department of a 
large city library, there was but one parent 
who ever came with his son, and no mother 
ever appeared, to our knowledge, with her 
daughter. It is true that mothers do some- 
times visit children's rooms, in the company 
of their offspring, but they are seldom if ever 
seen with them in the circulating depart- 
ment. Much would be gained if mothers 
would not alone aid in selecting proper lit- 
erature, but also if they would read with 
their daughters. Horace E. Scudder has 
said, "There is no academy on earth equal 
to a mother's reading to her child." The 
habit of reading aloud at the family fireside 
has gone out, more's the pity. As some one 
has said, "This old habit united the family, 
for old and young alike could take pleasure 
in the reading, and it accustomed the young 
people to good English and to a concentra- 
tion that is seldom demanded in these days. 
An hour's reading in the family circle three 
or four times a week would mean acquaint- 
ance with a considerable number of books, 
and might, perhaps, help to stem that desire 
for outside pleasures and excitement which 
is a marked feature of the age and to be 
deplored as leading to weakening of family 
life and interests." 

So much for the parents. Now for the 
schools. Required reading of certain authors 
in our public schools often kills any desire 
for further acquaintanceship. Enforced read- 
ing of John Milton, for example, has caused 
many a literary "Paradise lost," never to be 
"Regained." A really great teacher may in- 
spire her pupils with an enthusiasm for the 
best novels, drama, and poetry, but in the 
majority of cases the result of study, with 
the subsequent examination, is boredom and 
dislike for the best in literature. As a teacher 
has said, "If we would only banish this fool- 
ish idea of treating young people as if they 
were scholars and demanding from them a 
knowledge that is quite beyond their under- 
standing, we might send our girls out into 
the world with a stock of good literature and 



a love for it which would be their best pos- 
session forever after." That girls will read, 
good books and keenly enjoy them is seen, 
in the fact that for the last ten years in a 
certain large secondary school a literary so- 
ciety which all girls over thirteen may join 
has flourished exceedingly and has done ex- 
cellent work in cultivating the taste of girls 
for the very best literature. The girls join 
the society voluntarily and continue to keep 
up their connection with it long after they 
have left school. The girls have read' 
Thackeray, Jane Austen, Scott, Dickens, Mrs. 
Gaskell, "Pilgrim's progress," and selections 
from the works of Wordsworth, Tennyson, 
Coleridge, Browning, and others. This plan- 
might well be adopted by public libraries 
as a method of interesting young women in 
the best authors. The Milwaukee Public 
Library has had a girls' club that has spent 
the past two winters in studying the heroes 
and heroines of history. The story hour, now 
commonly conducted for the smaller chil- 
dren, could be used to advantage for the 
older girls. And this brings up the whole 
question of the neglect of the young girl by 
public libraries. Children's rooms are being 
established all over the land, but in nearly 
every instance supervision stops when the- 
girl of fourteen leaves the children's room 
for the general circulating department. An 
occasional assistant at a bureau of informa- 
tion aids when called upon, but in no case that 
we have been able to discover is there sys- 
tematic or regular assistance furnished at 
this most trying period of a girl's intellectual 
life. In only one library in the country, so- 
far as we know, has the need been fully rec- 
ognized and provision made to satisfy it. 
The Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh, the fore- 
runner of all that is best in work for young 
folks, is the first to officially recognize the- 
fact that the modern transition from the chil- 
dren's room to the circulating department is 
too abrupt, and it is therefore providing in 
its new building, or addition, an intermediary 
section of special open shelves in its adult 
circulating department. The result will be 
awaited with interest. 



BURNITE 



107 



THE BEGINNINGS OF A LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN 

BY CAROLINE BURNITE, Director of Children's Work, Cleveland (O.) Public Library 



TN studying literature written for children 
(which is the scope of this paper and not 
that large class of literature which children 
have made their own, such as the myth, folk- 
lore, legend) we soon see that it is entirely 
evolutionary, and that it sprang from and was 
moulded by forces which we would consider 
upon first thought entirely extraneous to the 
subject. Thus the first impulse for a chil- 
dren's literature sprang from the religious 
movements of the i6th, i7th and i8th centu- 
ries. Great spirits such as Luther and Watts, 
in their contemplation of the beauties of spi- 
ritual life, saw the exquisite analogy of the 
divine and human child and the result was the 
first form of children's literature the cradle 
hymn. This analogy has been so universal 
in the religious lullaby that it may repay us 
to see what its characteristics are. 

"Soft and easy is thy cradle, 
Coarse and hard thy Savior lay" 

is Watts' simile in his cradle hymn, which 
he follows by the most realistic touch in 
which he gives the vague imagings and fears 
of a young child : 

"Lo He slumbers in a manger, 
Where the horned oxen fed: 
Peace, my darling, there's no danger; 
There's no ox a'near thy bed." 

Like the early religious pictures, in which the 
child is always directly associated with the 
Madonna, Watts does not consider his poem 
complete without actually picturing the moth- 
er. This he does by depicting her feelings. 

"Yet to read the shameful story, 

How the Jews abused their King, 
How they served the Lord of glory 
Makes me angry while I sing." 

When these early writers wrote their cradle 
hymns, they dscovered childhood, in that they 
recognized its individuality and appreciated 
its thoughts and feelings, and from that time 
there is a literature, created for the children 
themselves. 

The great principle in children's literature 



is that, in order to catch the child's attention 
and prompt his belief in the truth of the 
story, either the theme, incident or illustra- 
tion must touch the experiences of the child. 
When this basis of understanding is built 
upon the child's real world, upon the life 
around him and what he has experienced 
through his mind, we call the literature real- 
istic, and when the hymn writers made their 
appeal to childhood through childhood, they 
laid the foundation for the realistic school. 
That this class has a direct ethical value 
is shown in the Watts cradle hymn by a 
child's desire to imitate the Christ-child's acts 
because of his innate love of beauty and good- 
ness, after his belief in the heroism of the 
Christ-child has been established through the 
contrast in their situations. The other class of 
literature is based upon the child's experi- 
ences in the unreal world and chiefly upon 
his ability to hark back to the experiences 
of primitive man. For the primitive mind, in 
its imagings and its search for primal truth, 
corresponds to that of the child. This litera- 
ture is based entirely upon the imagination 
and is called idealistic literature. It is mainly 
the myth, folklore and legend. For years 
idealistic literature has received its proper 
evaluation. The literature of realism needs 
more consideration. 

The second form of children's literature 
was the moral poem, and the first good moral 
poetry was written by Watts. He used the 
realistic method of arguing from something 
which a child knows to be true to the prin- 
ciple which he wished to inculcate. 

"Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 
For God hath made them so, 

But children you should never let 
Such angry passions rise." 

Goldsmith's "Goody Two Shoes" was the 
first bit of prose which had vitality enough 
to last through generations, and for that rea- 
son it may be considered the cornerstone of 
children's fiction. The test of a book does. 



io8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



not lie, of course, in the generation in which 
it was written. It may respond to a certain 
popular sentiment which has no permanency 
rather than to a universal chord. There were 
in the middle and latter part of the i8th cen- 
tury many little books for children. They 
"were entirely cautionary and negative, and 
childhood was but a symbol of natural de- 
pravity and human weakness. They were the 
product of a time when undue stress was laid 
upon moral values, and they lived through 
their day. Like the old Italian masters who 
gave children a knowledge of the weight of 
life, Goldsmith conventionalized his charac- 
ters and made a child of eight a woman of 
thirty in thought and action, but he caught 
many of the interests of children and he gave 
us a story which even to the young child is 
quaint but interesting; for "Goody Two 
Shoes" appears to children as a child. 

Any contemplation of the great moral 
school and of the Taylors and Maria Edge- 
worth raises the question of the value to 
children of a literature which to the grown- 
up is so exaggerated in its teaching and so 
mechanical in its method. But we must re- 
member that all great lessons in idealistic 
literature which are for the primitive mind 
and the child are drawn with the boldest 
lines. Do we not readily except the exag- 
geration of the fairy tale because it appeals 
to our fancy! Certainly the means by which 
Little Red Riding-Hood is taught has a very 
picturesque quality, and it is much stronger 
in its lesson than The Three Bears because 
it is more exaggerated. In the same way we 
must accept the methods of the didactic 
school, even though it appeals to us as over- 
drawn according to our mature ideas of the 
values of life. This exaggeration is neces- 
sary because children are imaginative, emo- 
tional and impulsive, and they are so de- 
tached from the laws of life that they must 
learn what the governing forces are. The 
basic principles are virtues which must be 
inculcated when life is young honesty, 
truth-telling, obedience, bravery, along with 
the formation of habits of cleanliness, indus- 
try, etc. Such qualities are the foundation of 
a fine moral character, and in this connection 
both the idealistic and didactic literature 
have their function. The two great lessons 



of idealistic literature are lessons of a 
primitive people bravery and obedience. 
In acquiring these lessons through the 
imagination they become a part of moral 
fiber, and the child can be brave and obedi- 
ent from impulse. However, the very fact 
that we are a product of a civilization and 
the myth is of primitive man means that the 
myth and the folklore do not teach all of the 
lesser virtues which we wish to inculcate. 
Moreover, the fine moral being will not only 
be able to do right from impulse; he must be 
able to see the wrong and choose the right, 
for thereby is moral judgment developed. 
This is the opportunity of the didactic school. 
The theme of the Edgeworth school is the di- 
rect result of the choice of right or wrong 
elaborated upon with great detail, which 
gives reality to the story, while the incidents 
are so entirely within a child's comprehen- 
sion that the force of the lesson is given. 
Maria Edgeworth's work is the product of 
her talent as an author and her intimate ex- 
perience with her innumerable brothers and 
sisters; it was from their need she drew her 
theme. Nowhere else can we find the simple 
nursery virtues taught with such intricacy of 
plot which illustrates the truth of their value. 
Simple Susan's honest, heroic nature, as 
shown by her sacrifice of her pet lamb in her 
efforts to save her father from the army, 
stands in contrast to Barbara's deceit, which 
is so true to a petty, spiteful disposition, and 
at the close of the story the reader's sympathy 
is entirely with the good. To the adult the 
most serious detraction is the strong, mate- 
rialistic side of the story, the attitude that 
honesty is the best policy ; but this strong ma- 
terialistic phase is balanced by the spirituality 
of the child reader. The principle for use is 
this : all literature which has great exaggera- 
tion should be given to young children. "Rosa- 
mond" and the poetry of the Taylors belong 
to children before they are eight or nine, 
while the "Parent's assistant," because of 
its detail of plot, belongs to children of 
eleven and twelve. "Rosamond," more than 
any other child's book, has been pointed to 
by the finger of scorn. Pedagogically, it re- 
futes the very principle which the author 
wished to teach the value of the absence 
of external authority. Its vitality lies in the 



BURN IT E 



109 



universality of illustration, and it undoubted- 
ly develops judgment in the child who reads 
it. . 

It was the Lambs who first recognized the 
vitality for children in great idealistic lit- 
erature, but it was also with an appreciation 
of its didactic qualities. In his preface to 
Ulysses, Lamb interprets giants, sirens, en- 
chanters as "things which denote external 
force or internal temptations, the twofold 
danger which a wise fortitude must expect 
to encounter in its course through the world." 
Until Lamb interpreted Shakespeare children 
had c6me in contact with life in its simple 
forms only. He broadened their horizon by 
bringing within their understanding the com- 
plexity of life, and all who wish to interest 
children in Shakespeare must use his method 
of dealing with such characters as Hamlet and 
Lear. His lucid analysis of psychological 
situations required a master mind. "Mrs. 
Leicester's school," which is largely Mary 
Lamb's work, marks another radical de- 
parture and is a wonderful bit of realism 
in its delicacy of delineation of the tender 
sensibilities of young children. Mrs. Moles- 
\vorth later took up the same theme as ex- 
emplified by "Carrots," and both of these 
books have great value to the student in 
showing how apart children are from actual 
life. Mary Lamb's stories have more plot 
and a more didactic atmosphere than Mrs. 
Molesworth's, but "Mrs. Leicester's school" 
has that exquisite refinement of feeling which 
always belongs to any book of the Lambs. 

Harriet Martineau brought to children's 
literature her peculiar ability to delineate 
national life and its problems by means of 
individual example. She is realistic both in 
her theme and in her method. There is no 
indication that she was inspired by any early 
children's books. Her "Feats on fjord" is a 
masterly delineation of the influence upon the 
people of national customs. With a well 
constructed plot, she pictures the stultifying 
'effect of superstition and its slow eradica- 
tion from the peasant mind, with a clearness 
which makes one believe that all things are 
understandable to young children if it comes 
to them by the hands of genius. In "Crofton 
feoys" she was far ahead of her time. There 
she confines herself entirely to a picture of 



English school life and the development of 
a boy's character under its influence. This 
book is a forerunner of "Tom Brown," and, 
in its very truthful delineation of child life, 
of Miss Alcott and Mrs. Ewing. 

It is interesting to notice the motive of the 
first American author who acquired a repu- 
tation as a writer for children Peter Par- 
ley. He began to write about the close of the 
first quarter of the last century, and he un- 
doubtedly gained his impulse from the mem- 
bers of the English school who wrote mainly 
to impart information. The Aikens' "Even- 
ings at home," which is now the best-known 
book of that school, elucidates all manner of 
subjects from the manufacture of paper to 
the transmigration of the soul. While a 
book of such character naturally touches upon 
many things which are beyond children, it 
has the attraction of the modern magazine 
for desultory reading, which children as well 
as grown-ups enjoy. Peter Parley was quite 
as versatile as the Aikens; his main subjects 
were history, biography, travel, astronomy, 
natural science, and his books had a tremen- 
dous popularity. He had a certain mental 
quality of childlike love of wonder which gave 
his work the naivete which is charming to 
the grown-up, but it is doubtful if his books 
could ever be resuscitated. American chil- 
dren's literature at no time showed any 
breadth of imagination or any unity of 
spirit. The work of each author seems quite 
detached from the work of others. Jacob 
Abbott, who wrote later, has some claim for 
a permanent place in literature based at least 
on his atmosphere of rural New England life. 
He shows fine ability for detail and an excel- 
lent knowledge of children's interests, but he 
lacks entirely a sense of the dramatic, and, 
unfortunately, the life of the modern Ameri- 
can child is too fast moving for much sym- 
pathy with these pictures of quiet, wholesome 
life. Now and then a child will show great 
fondness for his books, but they cannot be 
popularized unless, perhaps, in that section of 
the country in which they were written. 
Hawthorne was the first American who 
showed an appreciation of great idealistic 
literature when he wrote his "Wonder 
book," but his method was realistic in that 
he avoided the classic spirit and gave the 



no 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



myths modern habiliments. Kingsley, in 
England, followed soon after with his "He- 
roes," in which he takes great care to pre- 
serve the classic spirit. We should say that 
with Hawthorne's more doubtful metho'd 
none but his genius could achieve his suc- 
cess. It would certainly be a greater loss to 
a child never to read the "Heroes" than never 
to read the "Wonder book," although the 
latter is more attractive to children because 
of that touch which is realistic to the child. 

About this same time Dickens wrote his 
"Child's history," which was preceded some 
twenty years by Scott's "Tales of a grand- 
father." It is entirely fitting that Scott 
should be the one to appreciate the value to 
children of another class of idealistic liter- 
ature the legend. Scott's method and abil- 
ity for such work has never been questioned, 
while it is now an accepted theory that Dick- 
ens's strong partisanship unfitted him for 
historical work. However, his method is 
right, although there may be unpardonable 
inaccuracies. He approaches his subject 
through legend and he clothes it with reality. 
He is the main historical basis we have for 
children of all that is picturesque in the 
past of England. 

The peculiar fitness of the semi-historical 
romance for young girls was seen by Grace 
Greenwood, who, in her "Merrie England" 
and "Bonnie Scotland" rewrote the romantic 
legends. While her work cannot be called 
historical, she gave the spirit and atmos- 
phere of early times with a touch of pure 
feminine sentiment which shows her strong 
sympathy for a young girl's craving for ro- 
mance. She is one of the very few fine 
authors who have produced books which 
belong peculiarly to girls. 

No cursory glance at the development of 
a literature for children is complete without 
a mention of the Sunday School books which 
sprung from the great religious revival of the 
i8th century. The spirit of this appeal was 
through the emotions, as instanced by 
Dinah's preaching in Adam Bede. The 
methods used were those of the moral school, 
the over-accentuation of a virtue, usually 
self-abnegation ; but while this was a legiti- 
mate means in the didactic school because it 
appealed to the judgment and reason in an 



impersonal way, it was an illegitimate use in> 
the religious book because the appeal is so 
entirely personal that the judgment is unbal- 
anced and the real meaning of life and one's- 
relation to it is destroyed. However, about 
the middle of the igth century we find a 
saner method of religious teaching in both 
verse and prose. Dr. Watts's doctrine 

"Twas to save thee, child, from dying, 
Save my dear from burning flame" 

becomes with Mrs. Alexander, 

"We may not know, we cannot tell 

Whatt pains He had to bear, 
But we believe it was for us, 
He hung and suffered there." 

The great opportunity of the religious story 
was shown by Miss Yonge when she wrote 
her home stories. With even greater detail 
than is usual for such books, and with an anal- 
ysis which is entirely realistic, she pictures a 
girl's small faults and their gradual correction 
by means of the practical application of the 
Christian ideal to the trials of everyday life. 
It is possible for a girl to see in one of 
Miss Yonge's books her own place in the 
home life as well as to realize the possible 
evolution of a noble character. Such books 
as "The daisy chain" are the only sane re- 
ligious stories we have and should be used 
with faith in their ethical value. 

The period of 1860-1880 marks the greatest 
development in children's literature. Then 
were created the most truthful pictures of 
that child life which had been presaged in 
Blake's "Songs of innocence" and "Crofton 
boys" and "Mrs. Leicester's school." In this- 
period, in Miss Alcott and Mrs. Ewing, we 
find childhood as we know it to be. Blake's 
interpretation of childhood was entirely 
idealized and spiritual. The child is his sym- 
bol of purest life. Indeed, we sometimes feel 
that he may not have written for children; 
except that he says : 

"And I wrote my happy songs 
Every child may joy to hear." 

Certainly the appeal he makes is entirely tO' 
the mystic child. His "Little lamb, who made 
thee?" is his best-known and most fitting 
poem for children. It remained for Mrs. 
Ewing, who stands at the close of our his- 
torical view, to combine the spiritual quality- 



BURN IT E 



III 



of Blake which is universal to children with 
that seed of heroism which also belongs to 
all children and to picture in a more tangible 
way the child spirit. In all children's litera- 
ture she is the classic author, the one who 
measures highest when judged by accepted 
standards. There is sometimes a tendency to 
compare her to her discredit with the modern 
authors /of girls' books because the latter is 
more popular. One might as well compare 
a Meissonier with a Verestchagin because the 
latter would attract more attention in a gal- 
lery. Mrs. Ewing has cast her stories in 
such an exquisite mould that children who 
have read mainly the mediocre cannot find 
easily the kernel. Children enjoy "Jackanapes" 
and "Timothy's shoes" and others of hers 
when they are disclosed to them. 

A study of the development of the literature 
for children is one of the cultural sides of 
our work. It develops our appreciation of the 
place which children's literature has in all 
literature, to know that great minds bent 
their powers in its direction when it had 
no place, and consequently they had no rea- 
son to expect that tilling in its fields could 
bring them either name or fame. With few 
exceptions the books mentioned are not 
those which children seize upon, but those 
which, even though naturally disregarded, 
have their value. 

LIST OF BOOKS ILLUSTRATING THE BEGIN- 
NINGS OF A LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN 

[This is a selected list of books to illustrate the 
subject and does not include all early books which 
may be recommended for use in a children's room. 

Only modern editions are noted, and in the in- 
stance of Mother Goose and Grimm only editions 
which are practically reprints of the earlier ones. 
As far as possible, cheap editions are given as well 
as the expensive, which are more ideal. 

The date is that of first publication.] 

1715 WATTS 

& Divine and moral songs 
1720 il. by Gaskin. Page $i 

1765 GOLDSMITH (?) 

History of Goody Two Shoes. 
ed. by Welsh. (Home & school class- 
ics) Heath 200 

1786 TRIMMER 

Fabulous histories. 

History of the robins; ed. by Hale. (Home 
& school classics) Heath 2oc 



1789 BLAKE 

Songs of innocence. 
il. by Geraldine Morris. Lane is 6d 

1793-5 AIKIN & BARBAULD ' 

Evenings at home. Routledge is 6d 

1796 EDGEWORTH 

Parent's assistant. 

Tales; il. by Thompson. Stokes $1.50 

1804 TAYLOR, JANE & ANN 

Original poems for infant minds 

Original poems & others; ed. by Lucas; il. 
by Bedford. Stokes $1.50 

Little Ann & other poems; il. by Greena- 
way. Warne 33 6d 

1807 LAMB, CHARLES & MARY 

Tales from Shakespeare. (Everyman's li- 
brary) Dutton is 
il. by Price. Scribner $2.50 

1808 LAMB, CHARLES 

Adventures of Ulysses. 
il. by Squire & Mars. Harper $2.50 

1808 LAMB, CHARLES & MARY 

Mrs. Leicester's school. 
il. by Green- Macmillan $2.25 

1809 COTTIN 

Elizabeth; or, The exiles of Siberia. 
Peck soc 

1809 LAMB, CHARLES & MARY 

Poetry for children. 
il. by Green. Dent 23 6d 

1818 SHERWOOD 

18428: History of the Fairchild family. 
1847 il. by Rudland. Stokes $1.50 

1822 EDGEWORTH 

Rosamond. Routledge is 6d 

1823 PEARSON & SHARPE 

Dame Wiggins of Lee and her seven won- 
derful cats. 
ed. by Ruskin. Allen is 6d 

1824 GRIMM, J. L. K. & W. K. 

German popular stories; with designs by 
Cruikshank. 

tr. by Edgar Taylor; with an introd. by 

Ruskin. Chatto 6s 6d 

While these tales were collected for their 
value to the folklorist, the first English trans- 
lation was designed for children. 

1828-30 SCOTT 

Tales of a grandfather. 4v. Houghton, 
$4.50 

1833 MOTHER GOOSE 

Only true Mother Goose melodies; an exact 
reproduction of the text & il. of the original 
ed. of 1833. Lee 6oc 

This is not the earliest edition of Mother 
Goose. 



112 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



1841 MARTINEAU 

Crofton boys. Routledge, is 6d 

1841 MARTINEAU 

Feats on the fjord. Routledge, is 6d 

1841 MARTINEAU 

Peasant & the prince. Routledge, is 6d 

1841 MARRY AT 

Masterman Ready. Burt $oc 
il. by Pegram. Macmillan $1.50 

1846 ANDERSEN 

Wonderful stories for children; tr. by 
Mary Howitt. 

This included but ten stories 

Stories & tales. Houghton $i 

Wonder stories for children $i 

The most complete edition ; recommended 
for the student of Andersen. Editions more 
attractive to children are the Lippincotts, il. 
by Stratton $2; Nister, il. by Hardy $2.50; 
McLaughlin 75C (no. 821) 

1848 ALEXANDER 

Hymns for little children. 

il. by John & Dorothea Drew. S. P. 

C. K. is 

1850 ABBOTT 

Franconia stories. 10 v. in 5. Harper, $5. 

ABBOTT 

Biographies. Harper, 300. 

Select the lives which appeal most directly 

to children, such as Hannibal, Alexander, 

Mary Queen of Scots. 

ABBOTT 

Rollo books; Rollo's travels in Europe. 10 
v. in 5. Mershon, $2.50. 

1851 HAWTHORNE 

Wonder books for girls & boys. Houghton 
$1.25 
il. by Crane. Houghton $3 

1851 RUSKIN 

King of the golden river. Page, joe. 
1853 CRUIKSHANK 
Fairy library. 

Cruikshank fairy book. Putnam $1.25 
1853 HAWTHORNE 

Tanglewood tales for girls & boys. Hough- 
ton, $1.25. 
il. by Edwards. Houghton $2.50 

1854-5 DICKENS 

Child's history of England. (Gadshill ed.) 
Scribner $1.50. 

il. by Wilson. Dent 53 

1856 KINGSLEY. 

The heroes. Macmillan $i 
il. by Robinson. Nister ?s 6d 

1856 YONGE 

Daisy chain. Macmillan, 33 6d 

1857 HUGHES 

Tom Brown's school days. (Cranford ed.) 
Macmillan, 35 6d 



1865 DODGSON 

Alice in Wonderland; il. by Tenniel. Mac- 
millan $i 

1866 YONGE 

Dove in the eagle's nest. Macmillan, 35 6d. 

1 868-69 ALCOTT 

Little women. Little, $1.50. 

1869 ALDRICH 

Story of a bad boy. Houghton, $1.25. 

1870 MACDONALD 

At the back of the North wind. Burt, $i. 

1871 ALCOTT 

Little men. Little, $1.50. 

1872 EWING 

Six to sixteen. S. P. C. K., is 6d 

1872 EWING 

The miller's thumb. 
Jan of the windmill. S. P. C. K. is 6d 

First published in Aunt Judy's Magazine- 
under the title of "The miller's thumb." 

1873 GARY, ALICE & PHOEBE 

Ballads for little folks. Houghton, $1.50. 

1873 EWING 

Lob Lie-by-the-fire; il. by Caldecott. S-. 
P. C. K. is 

1874 CRAIK 

Little lame prince. Harper, 6oc. 

1876 ANDREWS 

Seven little sisters. Ginn, $oc. 

1876 MOLESWORTH 

Carrots. Macmillan, 2s 6d 

1879 EWING 

Jackanapes; il. by Caldecott. S. P. C .K. is- 

GOOD COLLECTIONS 

LUCAS, ed. 

Old fashioned tales; il. by Bedford. Stokes, 
$1.50. 

Well chosen stories from Thomas Day, Ma- 
ria Edgeworth, the Lambs, Jacob Abbott, Pe- 
ter Parley & others 

LUCAS, ed. 

Book of verses for children. Holt, $i. 

Poetry of the moral school under chapter 
headings: Compressed natural history Un- 
natural history, Old-fashioned girls, Old-fash- 
ioned boys 

MACDONALD, ed. 

Babies' classics; il. by Hughes. Longmans,. 
4S 6d 

Collection of poems for young children, 
from Blake, the Taylors, Watts, Mary Howitt; 
George MacDonald, Kingsley & others 

SCUDDER 

Children's book. Houghton, $2.50. 

Many of the best old poems & stories under 
chapter headings: A few songs, The book of 
stories in verse, The book of familiar storie*. 



BISHOP 



IIS 



SUBJECT HEADINGS IN DICTIONARY CATALOGS* 
BY WILLIAM WARNER BISHOP, Reference Librarian of Princeton University 



~M" O library worthy of the name fails to 
give its readers some sort of clue or 
guide to the contents of its collections. Its 
first purpose is, generally speaking, to pro- 
vidi an inventory of its books as they stand 
on the shelves (the shelf-list), then to give 
an inventory by authors (the author catalog), 
and last, perhaps because most difficult, comes 
the index, or guide, or key to the subject mat- 
ter of the books. Most librarians are fairly 
well satisfied with their shelf-lists and author 
catalogs if they are reasonably up to date and 
accurate. But few librarians and fewer 
scholars who use libraries are thoroughly 
well satisfied with their subject catalogs. 
The principles of author entry are indeed not 
all determined. Few matters engage our in- 
terest more keenly than the long-expected 
agreement between our association and the 
British association in this particular. But 
the comparative simplicity of the rules now in 
force, and the substantial progress already 
made toward uniform and sane entries en- 
courage us to think that we are pretty well 
off on the side of author cataloging. Our 
methods of indicating to readers what the 
library possesses on the subjects of interest 
to them are by no means so simple or so 
uniform. It may not be out of place, then, 
to discuss some of the important problems 
of subject cataloging. 

It must be laid down as the prime essential 
of all subject catalog work that the end 
in view is the rapid and easy consultation of 
the catalog by the student who uses it. I 
say "student/' because no one spends much 
time on a subject catalog who is not inter- 
ested in some subject to the extent of want- 
ing to see what books the library has on that 

*In this paper I have limited myself strictly to 
my individual opinion on the matters treated, and 
have in no way endeavored to set forth the practice 
or theories of the Princeton University Library with 
regard to subject cataloging. I wish to make this 
statement, not because of any lack of sympathy with 
the practice of the library in which I am at work, 
but simply in order that my personal views may not 
be held to be an expression of Princeton's policy. 



topic. Now he must not be discouraged at 
the outset by any formidable and intricate 
machine which only an expert can use. The 
catalog must be so constructed that he can. 
discover easily and quickly what he wants to 
know. This seems a simple requisite. Yet 
practice shows that it is one of the most dif- 
ficult ends to secure. No amount of ingenuity 
can make a subject catalog which shall be 
absolutely without flaw in the matter of uni- 
formity ; no one can always consult it without 
effort. The student who knows at least a. 
little of his subject and related subjects must 
then be the normal "public" of a subject cat- 
alog. But his road must be made straight 
and the rough places must be made plain for 
him. Ease of consultation, then, may be laid 
down as a fundamental basis for work. 

Rapidity and ease of consultation will be 
secured only by most careful planning. There 
are certain decisions which must be made 
by every librarian beginning or revising; 
a catalog of subjects. Once taken, these 
decisions must be adhered to, while a change 
once decided on must be carried out root 
and branch. Too many of our subject cata- 
logs of all sorts are medleys of opposing 
decisions of different catalogers, all made 
in good faith and with the best of motives. 
As compared with an author catalog there 
are few means of checking divergences. 
Careful planning, then, is half the battle. 
It matters little, from one point of view, 
what the decision is. The important thing is 
to have a conscious policy and to stick to it. 

The larger the library the greater is the- 
need for uniformity in the matter of subject 
headings. The small library need not bother 
itself greatly about principles of subject entry. 
When its books are all easily accessible, its 
readers and the library staff alike will rely 
on classification and current bibliography 
rather than on catalogs. When you can go* 
straight to the shelves and pull down in a 
few minutes all the books in the library hav- 
ing any possible bearing on the thing you- 
want to know, you don't care much for a set- 



H 4 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



of cards in a tray. But the library which 
confidently expects to become large must 
needs beware. The day when the librarian 
or reference librarian with his ordinary 
tools can answer all ordinary questions will 
pass suddenly, and then, if the subject cata- 
log work has been badly or inadequately done, 
comes confusion and trouble. Particularly is 
this true of the college libraries. Their cata- 
logs are likely to get out of hand easily, and 
they are liable to periods of sudden inflation 
by gift, and the most careful attention is 
needed lest the entries under subjects be- 
come the butt of students and faculty, the 
despair of the reference librarian, and the tor- 
ment of the cataloger. 

One of the greatest obstacles to successful 
work in the field we are considering is 'the 
unfortunate fact that fashions in nomen- 
clature change rapidly. Such headings as 
Mental Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, 
Fluxions, and scores of others current not 
so long since would hardly help the student 
of to-day. But more puzzling to him than 
these odd and old-fashioned forms will be 
the vague sort of "catch-all" headings that 
so frequently get into catalogs which do not 
have to be subjected to the test of cold 
print. "Practical Piety" in one card catalog 
I have seen was made to cover all modern 
sociological and economic works. The one 
essential for securing continuity and correct- 
ness in subject work is definition of the 
subject heading combined with sharp direc- 
tions as to its use in the library's practice. 
It is not enough to determine on a heading. 
It must in all doubtful cases be defined most 
carefully and the definition preserved. The 
manner of interpreting the definition in prac- 
tice must also be indicated. In other words, 
a (card) list of subject headings in use with 
all needed notes should be kept in every cat- 
aloging room. The extent to which these 
notes should appear in the public catalog is 
a matter for individual judgment. 

In this paper there will be no discussion 
of the relative merits of classed, partially 
classed and dictionary catalogs of subjects. 
These matters have been long before us, and 
their respective claims are well understood. 
The dictionary catalog has for good or ill 
been generally chosen in our American 



libraries. Hence our study will be directed 
toward certain typical difficulties which are 
met with in actual work. 

Before taking these matters up in detail, 
let me call attention to one source of assist- 
ance and guidance which we too often over- 
look. Since the seventeenth century the 
makers of encyclopaedias have been working 
at this problem. Scores of excellent encyclo- 
paedias have been in constant use in our 
reference rooms and even in our catalog- 
ing rooms but have they been studied dili- 
gently as models for headings? We may be 
very sure that they have been studied by 
their makers with exactly our chief problem 
in mind ; and that is how to choose a cap- 
tion which shall in a single easily understood 
word or phrase express the topic to be treated 
so clearly and definitely that it may be found 
and comprehended at once. The good ency- 
clopaedias do not show the fatuous entries 
and references found in even our good Cata- 
logs. There is doubtless a reason. I sus- 
pect it lies partly in the excellence of the 
editorial supervision for which publishers can 
afford to pay, and partly in the undoubted 
fact that each encyclopaedia is based on half 
a dozen, or perhaps half a hundred, prede- 
cessors, and thus the headings as well as the 
articles are in a continual state of revision. 
The fact that the headings are all in print 
in convenient form, and are easily seen and 
found, is also a great aid in producing uni- 
formity of editorial treatment. Still the fact 
remains for us to ponder. Encyclopaedias 
seem to present fewer difficulties in consulta- 
tion than subject catalogs, and are familiarly 
and easily used by many people to whom a 
card catalog is a bugbear. 

Everybody is agreed on the fundamental 
principle that in dictionary cataloging the 
"specific 1 ' subject must be our norm. We 
want to get exactly the caption which fits 
our book and no other. Especially do we 
wish to avoid general headings for treatises 
covering a limited field. A man looking for 
a book on trees does not want to be sent to 
look through all the cards on botany, nor 
does the inquirer for information about Nel- 
son want to see all the cards on British 
naval history and biography. He wants what 
we have about Nelson. As I have said, 



BISHOP 



everybody admits this. The smallest pos- 
sible unit must be sought out and made the 
basis for the subject heading. 

But the library has also books many 
thousands of books, probably which do not 
deal with one small, particular topic. It has 
treatises on Botany and British naval he- 
roes. Hence there arises of necessity a set 
of subjects of a general nature, which are in 
effect identical with the large divisions of 
the classifications. We have general treat- 
ises on Philosophy, on Religion, on Sociology, 
on Philology, and so forth. And, further, we 
have general works on such topics as Physics, 
Electricity, Mathematics, Latin literature, 
Hydraulics, Political Science, Psychology, 
side by side with works of equal bulk and im- 
portance on divisions of those subjects, such 
as Heat, Alternating currents, Differential in- 
variants, Latin pastoral poetry, Canal locks, 
Proportional representation, the Sense of 
touch. There must be general headings, 
class headings, if you please, in your diction- 
ary catalog. The difficulty is to use them 
wisely. These general headings must never be 
used for anything but general treatises of an 
Inclusive sort. They will be the same in a 
classed and in a dictionary catalog, and 
should be treated alike in both. Moreover, 
a first-rate dictionary catalog will use under 
these class headings or headings common to 
both sorts of catalogs a few of the simple 
and large subdivisions of classification, such as 
History, Essays and addresses, Outlines, syl- 
labi, etc. In doing this it will not violate 
the dictionary principle. 

But we should stop right here. Let us 
use the class headings when needed, but let 
everybody understand that they are strictly 
limited in their scope. Put it on the guide 
card so that all may see that "General works 
only are listed under this caption. For special 
treatises consult the cards with the heading 
of the particular subject wanted." An ex- 
ample should be given in each instance, and 
more than one, if necessary. In the case of 
the guide card for Chemistry there should be 
a statement that works on particular chemi- 
cal products and compounds are to be sought 
under their own names. The illustration 
might perhaps take such a form as this "for 
example, treatises on Chloroketodimethyltet- 



rahydrobehzene will be found under that 
word." 

It should be said, further, that caution is 
necessary at this point. Because some head- 
ings must be the same in any sort of catalog, 
and because some which are definitely group 
headings have to be used as a practical mat- 
ter of common sense in a dictionary catalog, 
you will find catalogers continually revert- 
ing to these class headings. It's vastly easier 
to label a book Sociology than to pin its gen- 
erally elusive contents down to one particular 
phase of social inquiry. We all tend to 
move unconsciously along the lines of least 
resistance. We shall never get our catalog 
of specific headings without constant vigil- 
ance, constant self-criticism, and drastic revis- 
ion. We must have class headings so long 
as our libraries are not composed wholly of 
theses for the doctorate. And we must avoid 
them as much as possible. 

There is a special form of class heading 
which bobs up serenely with exasperating 
frequency. I refer to the so-called "forms of 
literature," such as poetry, ballads, essays, 
orations and fiction. Shall we leave these 
out of our subject catalogs? Many libraries 
do. Shall we say to the student looking for 
German ballads, "You'll find them all classi- 
fied in number so and so"? But then, you 
know, he won't. There are dozens of vol- 
umes of them in collections of one sort and 
another, for one thing. Shall we let our 
novels go without subject cards and depend 
on a special finding list of fiction? Shall we 
lump them all under Fiction in the subject 
catalog? Shall we subdivide fiction and the 
"forms" by language, or perhaps by nation- 
ality? Or shall we classify fiction in our 
subject catalog, and put historical novels with 
the history divisions to which they suppos- 
edly belong? These are burning questions 
with many libraries. Probably every one of 
them represented here has a policy already 
decided on and in force in this matter. Here 
I will content myself with saying that it is 
my observation that the form divisions in a 
subject catalog when thoroughly made and 
kept up to date are a great help in reference 
work. (And the reference work should be 
in close touch with the catalog work for 
their mutual good.) It is, moreover, a con- 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



siderable advantage to carry out the principle 
that every author card, generally speaking, 
should have a subject card matching it. In- 
cidentally I may remark that I have found 
a mild form of the classification of fiction a 
great help. I refer to such headings as U. S. 
History, Civil war, Fiction, which have sat- 
isfied many a lazy body who wished to take 
his history diluted and disguised. 

There are few librarians who will not fol- 
low us up to this point. We all know that 
we cannot wholly escape headings which are 
the same as the major divisions of any classi- 
fication, and most libraries make some sort 
of subject lists of their works of so-called 
pure literature. But when we come to those 
large subjects which from their very nature 
suggest a geographical subdivision we leave 
uniformity behind. There is hardly any such 
thing, for example, as a treatment of Mathe- 
matics, or Logic, by countries, although we 
do find works on Greek Mathematics. These 
are, however, incidental to a certain period 
in the development of the science, and not a 
proper regional division such as may well 
be demanded in the case of Agriculture, or 
Geology, or Architecture. The pure sciences, 
then, do not enter very largely into this prob- 
lem. But a very large proportion of the sub- 
jects about which books are written offer a 
double interest. They may be considered 
from the view-point of the region or country 
described, or from that of the subject treated. 
A work on the geology of Texas, for instance, 
may seem to belong to Texas, and to require 
the subheading Geology; or it may appear to 
have its chief interest for the geologist, in 
which case it goes under Geology, with the 
inevitable subhead Texas. This is all familiar 
enough. Mr. Cutter (Sec. 164) insisted that 
the only satisfactory solution of this problem 
was that of double subject entry. With this 
view I cannot agree. A consistent policy with 
regard to this class of subject headings which 
will rigorously enter under either the topic 
or the country is demanded in the interests 
alike of economy and of common sense. 
Whatever decision is taken, a reference must 
be made from the opposite form. Thus, if 
the library decides to enter under Geology. 
Texas, there should be a subject reference 
from Ttxas.Geology. Such a subject ref- 



erence is much better than duplication of 
hundreds of subject cards. 

But what shall the policy be? The prac- 
tice of our leading printed catalogs is ex- 
tremely varied. On the one hand we have a 
tendency to provide long lists of subheads 
under each country. This is the practice at 
least impliedly recommended in the Ameri- 
can Library Association's "List of subject 
headings" by the printing of the long list of 
subheads to be used under country and state. 
On the other hand, to cite but a single in- 
stance, the Subject Index to the British Mu- 
seum Printed Books (1881-1900) restricts 
vigorously the entry under the country or 
region, and allows but few subheads. Be- 
tween the two plans there is a great gulf 
fixed. One assumes that a reader thinks 
along geographical lines when he wants a 
book, and looks under Greece for a book on 
Greek Architecture or Mythology, or for a 
treatise on the Geology or Agriculture or 
Education of that country. Perhaps he does. 
The other presumes that a reader considers 
his subject first, and then runs down its 
geographical ramifications later. Is there any 
principle on which this matter may be de- 
cided? Must we always make special de- 
cisions? There is at least one principle which 
favors grouping by countries rather than by 
topics. It is generally held that the diction- 
ary catalog should supplement rather than 
copy the classification. Now the books will 
doubtless be classified on the shelves by sub- 
jects rather than by country in these topics 
which admit of double treatment. Therefore 
if books treating of such topics as Educa- 
tion, Missions, Agriculture, Slavery, Archi- 
tecture, Painting, etc., from a regional or 
national point of view as Central African 
Missions and not covering the whole field, 
are entered under the country or region, the 
subject catalog will show more about those 
regions than the classification will at any one 
point. This seems to me the sole argument 
for making use of this form of entry. 

Now, on the contrary, I believe that the 
British Museum practice and that of the Li- 
brary of Congress are more nearly in line 
with the habit of readers and the view-point 
of the makers of books. If we leave out the 
historical sciences, the main interest is the 



BISHOP 



117 



topic and not the region. In the pure sci- 
ences we have already eliminated the regional 
or national principle. In the applied sciences 
and the arts, both useful and fine, we may 
safely do the same thing. These divisions 
are very extensive. I advocate, then, a de- 
liberate policy of restricting the entries under 
the country or region to those topics which 
have a strictly local interest, i.e., the field 
of the historical sciences, and such of the 
social sciences as depend for their value on 
local conditions. To be specific, I would not 
put a book on the geology of Texas under 
Texas, but under Geology with the subhead- 
ing Texas. I would limit the subheads under 
a country to those which seem absolutely 
necessary. For everything else which might 
be expected under country I would make a 
subject reference card. This may be begging 
the question. It may be abandoning the 
search for a guiding principle. But it seems 
to me that the habit of most readers and 
authors is a fair guide for us. After all it is 
for them that the catalog is made. 

One word before leaving this topic. At 
no other point of subject catalog work is 
definite adherence to a fixed rule more neces- 
sary than here. A decision once taken in 
this matter should be rigidly executed. If 
this is done, the people who use the catalog 
will quickly learn to follow the principle 
adopted and will in consequence consult the 
catalog with ease. 

If the practice of restricting the entries 
under subheads of countries or locality be 
followed, we at once encounter the difficulty 
of the so-called "national adjective." Having 
eliminated France.^rf, are we going to cut 
out French Art, Greek Mythology, Roman 
Roads? Certainly we must. We must say 
ArtFrance, Mythology, Greece, Roads.Rome, 
or we shall soon find ourselves in a maze 
of confusion. It will, however, be necessary, 
in my opinion, to use the national or lin- 
guistic adjective with the literature or lan- 
guage of a country or region. We shall 
probably be obliged to say French language 
and French literature, since France.Lan- 
guage and France.Literature do not necessa- 
rily express the same ideas. As in the case 
of France, so also in many other instances 
the national and linguistic areas are not 



identical. German language and German lit- 
erature, for example, are wider in their scope 
than the political boundaries of the present 
German Empire, and the same is true of the 
English language. The linguistic and na- 
tional areas are different in Switzerland, in 
India, and in many other regions. Another 
objection to the use of the national adjective 
is found in the fact that we have all sorts of 
corporations and institutions whose names 
begin with American, British, French, etc. 
Read the headings beginning with either 
"American" or "British" in the published cat- 
alogs made on the dictionary principle of 
any of our libraries, and see what a medley 
is produced by the mingling of names and 
topics. I hold that the national adjective 
should be eliminated from subject headings, 
save for the two linguistic usages mentioned. 
This will cause some trouble, for a great 
many people are accustomed to think of 
American Indians, British commerce, French 
porcelain, etc. But the practice will save 
trouble, too. It will reduce the number of 
places in which one must look for a topic 
(the chief drawback of Poole's Index), it 
will obviate much apparent confusion in the 
arrangement of headings, and it will intro- 
duce some system into alphabetical subject 
catalogs at a point where system is much 
needed. The practice of the encyclopaedias 
is against the extensive use of the national 
adjective.* 

It may be objected to this that we merely 
transfer our excessive use of subheadings 
from the country heading to the subject or 
topic heading. It may be urged that by this 
plan the subdivisions under topics become 
very unwieldy. In answer I would say that 
the subheads undoubtedly become more nu- 
merous under the topic, but that they belong 
there rationally, and there will be plenty left 
under the country. The person consulting the 
catalog is obliged, it is true, to run his eye 
over many guide cards, and perhaps over 
several trays to find his particular books. 
But that is far easier for him than going 
from one part of the catalog to another, look- 
ink now under France and now under Spain 
for a work on the mineralogy of the Pyrenees, 

There are some exceptions, notably the most 
recent edition of Brockhaus. 



n8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



for instance. Again he remains certain, after 
looking at the subdivisions under Mineralogy, 
that he will not have to look also at the cards 
headed Pyrenees Mts. he has all the cards 
before him for Mineralogy. We can't elim- 
inate subheadings from our alphabetical sub- 
ject catalog. At least, if we can, no one has 
arisen to show us how. If a separate guide 
card is used for each heading and subheading, 
we shall find the difficulty of consultation very 
greatly diminished. And with all the admit- 
ted difficulty of finding a small subdivision 
of a big topic, we still get it more quickly, 
I think, by this method than by the classed 
catalog with its alphabetical index. 

It will have occurred to those who have 
followed this discussion thus far that a good 
many subheadings under both country and 
subject might be avoided by the use of in- 
version. We might say, "Roads, Roman," 
"Architecture, Gothic," "Psychology, Social," 
etc., and everybody would understand what 
we mean. The use of inversion has its chief 
defense, it seems to me, in the fact that it 
keeps together related topics. It is certainly 
convenient to have "Psychology, Animal." 
"Psychology, Comparative," "Psychology, 
Morbid," "Psychology, Social" in orderly se- 
quence and close together. But despite this 
convenience, as a matter of form of heading, 
the practice of inversion is to be regarded as 
fully as pernicious in the subject catalog as 
in the author catalog. The objections to it 
are patent and well known. There is one 
catalog which regularly and always inverts, 
which enters under an adjective form only 
in the rarest instances. I refer, as most 
of you will surmise, to the magnificent Index 
Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Library. 
No one will dispute the high authority of 
this catalog as a scientific product. It is 
the most remarkable thing of the kind ever 
done in this country. But I imagine that 
despite its example we may be more truly 
scientific if we set our faces squarely against 
inversion. The worst thing about inversion 
is the utter lack of certainty as to which 
several forms may be used. If in our author 
catalogs we have come to the point where 
we can write "Michigan. University," why 
should we not write "Psychology. Animals"? 
There is not time to elaborate in this paper 
the argument against inversion. We must 



be content to dismiss it with the single pro- 
viso that well established phrases beginning 
with an adjective such as Republican Party, 
Political Science, etc., need not be called in 
question either by those who would always in- 
vert to serve their convenience, or those who 
are steadfastly against the practice of inver- 
sion. The larger question whether the 
ordinary phrase, e.g., Comparative anatomy, 
Animal psychology, should not always be 
employed instead of some device where- 
by the noun remains in the first po- 
sition is well discussed by Mr. Cutter in 
his Rules. My own opinion is for the regu- 
lar use of the phrase in current use in the 
form in which it habitually occurs in titles, 
save in the numerous cases in which a caption 
with proper subhead better expresses the idea. 

There is one class of subjects which gives 
trouble alike to classifiers and catalogers. 
Wherever a classification or a catalog is sub- 
livided on a geographical basis, or wherever 
geographical headings are given, the fact 
stares us in the face that "geographical ex- 
pressions," to use Prince Metternich's 
phrase, are by no means permanent or 
dependable. The map of the world has suf- 
fered startling changes since books began to 
be made. Certain difficulties which confront 
us in geographical headings deserve attention. 

Even the continents give trouble. The 
terms America and Asia are used very loosely 
in popular speech, and even in indexes of 
subjects. Does North America include Mex- 
ico and Central America? Where does West- 
ern Asia leave off and Central Asia begin? 
Does the term America as a heading or sub- 
heading include both North and South Amer- 
ica? Shall we write America, North or 
North America? What do we mean by Cen- 
tral Africa? These are questions which 
have but to be asked to raise sharply the 
point that definition and consistent adherence 
to definition are essential in the geographical 
terms to be used. I say nothing of the for- 
midable adjective American, for I hope we 
may largely banish initial geographical ad- 
jectives from the catalog. But the official 
catalog of subjects should certainly contain 
very carefully planned directions as to the 
use of continental designations, as well as of 
the smaller divisions of geography. 

But troublesome as ill-defined geographical 



BISHOP 



119 



concepts may be, they are nothing in the way 
of difficulty compared to the name of regions 
which have ceased to represent present po- 
litical conditions. There are a number of 
countries which no longer exist as states, 
whose political life as separate entities has 
ceased. A region such as Poland, for ex- 
ample, which has been absorbed by one or 
more countries offers a most perplexing prob- 
lem. The word Poland corresponds to noth- 
ing on the map or in official gazetteers, but 
it is still in everybody's mouth. Travellers 
still use the old national name on title pages 
of descriptive works ; historians and others 
write on former or even present-day condi- 
tions. And yet in our 'larger libraries we have 
official documents and other works treating 
of this once independent state from the stand- 
point of Prussian, Austrian and Russian 
provinces. I do not believe that we can get 
around the difficulty by lumping everything 
under the popular name. Neither do I be- 
lieve that we can ignore it in the case of 
travel and descriptive "works. (Of course I 
am not referring to books on Poland before 
the partition.) There are plenty of similar 
cases, although few with such complications. 
It seems to me that the common name must 
still be used where it is employed on title 
pages, and that the official regional designa- 
tion of the present day must be employed 
where needed because of either the title or 
the contents of the work. This will neces- 
sitate a lengthy "See also" reference, a thing 
to be avoided wherever possible. 

Ancient and mediaeval states and countries 
with no continuing name or precise modern 
geographical equivalent give less difficulty. 
Their ancient names may safely be used. The 
trouble is, however, that both descriptive rnd 
historical works dealing wholly with present- 
day (or at least modern) conditions frequent- 
ly employ the ancient name in titles. In such 
cases the modern form of name should be 
regularly used as a heading. Such ancient 
regions as Pontus, Epirus, Dacia, Africa, 
Gaul, Granada (Kingdom) may well receive 
separate subject entry, but it will instantly be 
seen how much confusion would arise from 
using these headings for modern works deal- 
ing with present conditions. Take "Africa," 



for example. Properly used it means in an- 
tiquity the single Roman province erected on 
the ruins of the Carthaginian city-state, lim- 
ited in its extent to about the boundaries of 
modern Tunis. So used the term has a dis- 
tinct value. But a modern work on Tunis, or 
even a discussion of archaeological problems 
occurring in the limits of the ancient province 
should not receive the heading of Africa. 
There is, then, great need for care and a well- 
defined policy in these matters of ancient geo- 
graphical designations which have no precise 
modern equivalents. Somewhere a very care- 
ful working out of the proper limits of the 
subject heading adopted for such countries 
and regions must be accessible to the catalog- 
ing staff, and perhaps to the public. It will 
not do, for instance, to say merely, "Tunis 
See also Africa (Roman province)"; "Africa 
(Roman province) See also Tunis." These 
loose "See also" references are the refuge of 
careless catalogers. In their stead must be a 
careful explanatory note giving the dates and 
boundaries within which the heading is ap- 
plicable. 

It may be worth while to stop at this point 
for a word as to these "See also" references. 
It was a rule at some time in the dim and dis- 
tant past of cataloging to make "See also" 
references from each subject named on a 
title page to every other subject so named. 
All students of cataloging methods well know 
some of the ludicrous results of this rule. It 
is creditably reported that as a result of this 
rule rigidly applied such references as these 
were made and printed. "Brain, See also 
Cheek, Tumors of the:" "Cheek, Tumors of 
the, See also Brain," because forsooth both 
subjects got into one of the long-winded 
titles of earlier days. Probably these "See 
also" references cannot be wholly eliminated 
from catalogs. It is a very good thing at 
times to have a student reminded of allied 
topics and similar headings. But the tendency 
to their abuse is so great that it would seem 
a better course to make carefully worded ex- 
planations rather than to multiply these refer- 
ences. And I believe we should not suffer 
greatly were they excluded entirely from the 
subject catalog. They frequently give the im- 



I2O 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



pression unjustly, of course that the cat- 
aloger is either trying to show off his knowl- 
edge of subjects, or considers that the user of 
the catalog has none. 

To return to matters geographical. Few 
problems are more difficult as matters of ac- 
tual practice than the making of a perfectly 
clear arrangement in a card catalog of easily 
understood and intelligible headings for coun- 
tries or regions which have had a continuous 
written history from ancient to modern days. 
The most conspicuous of these are Egypt, 
Greece, Rome, and Syria. The boundaries of 
Egypt have been practically the same from 
antiquity to the present day. Hence we are 
not so much troubled by the question of the 
physical extent of the heading. But we are 
directly "up against" the question whether 
we shall say Egypt (Ancient), Egypt (Grseco- 
Roman), Egypt (Saracenic), Egypt (Turk- 
ish), Egypt (Modern), or something of this 
sort, or whether these headings should be 
used as second subheads following the recog- 
nized subdivisions under the country. For 
example, Taxation is a frequently employed 
subheading under country, and we happen 
to have a great mass of material on tax- 
ation in Egypt in many ages. Shall we 
write Egypt ( Ancient). Taxation, Egypt 
(Graeco-Roman).ra;raft0n, etc., or Egypt. 
Taxation.( Ancient), Egypt.Taxation (Graeco- 
Roman) period, etc.? The second method 
keeps the country as the main heading and 
places the period last, and is therefore pref- 
erable, in my opinion. But in neither case 
can we get away from three alphabets in ar- 
rangement. The method advocated, namely, 
of keeping the period division last and consid- 
ering the topic as the more important matter, 
falls in with our ordinarily received method 
for modern states. Thus we generally find 
such headings as this: United States. Taxa- 
tion (Colonial period), rather than United 
States (Colonial period). Taxation. Which- 
ever method is adopted, whether we break up 
the country's history into certain well-defined 
periods and treat these as if they were sep- 
arate wholes, or whether we regard the coun- 
try in all its history as one and arrange topics 
under it with chronological divisions, the 
dates of the different periods will have to be 



worked out with care and recorded in the 
official list of headings. When this is done it 
will probably be found that the books seldom 
fit the dates previously arranged. What to do 
with overlapping books books which fit into 
no general scheme is a sore problem in 
cataloging as in classification. We must 
either go on forever making new and more 
minute subdivisions and arranging the sub- 
ject cards chronologically by the first date in 
the heading, or else we must assign the sub- 
ject by the preponderance of interest of the 
book itself, placing it in that division of the 
subject where most of the narrative or dis- 
cussion falls. The majority of catalogers will 
doubtless prefer the latter method. The spe- 
cific dates may be put in the heading as a 
matter of guidance to the person consulting 
the catalog, but in this case they will be ig- 
nored in filing. 

Rome presents worse difficulties than Egypt. 
In the first place we have to encounter the 
fact that both the city and the state origin- 
ally one have a voluminous literature. Con- 
fusion here is disastrous, and yet it is found in 
many catalogs. The city of the seven hills 
must be a subject by itself, reserved for sep- 
arate treatment. Its municipal history is 
to be kept separate where possible 
from the march of the mighty empire, 
and its monuments must receive treat- 
ment distinct from that of Roman re- 
mains in general. It would seem a very 
good plan in arranging cards to put the coun- 
try heading first, then the city heading, and 
finally the heading for its numerous monu- 
ments and regions. Thus I would have such 
classes of headings as 'Rome.History.Em- 
pire, Rome (city).History.Middle Ages, Rome 
(city) .Forum Romanum. If this distinction 
between the city and the state is not made 
in this and other cases, we shall have a 
confusion which will make our catalogs un- 
usable. Moreover, in treating the Roman 
state it will be as necessary to define dates and 
boundaries as in the case of Egypt. I will 
not go on to speak in detail of Greece and 
other countries having a continuous recorded 
history of many centuries. Enough has been 
said to show the need for careful planning in 
giving subjects to works on such countries. 



BISHOP 



121 



Still another cause of confusion is closely 
allied to these we have just been considering. 
We have numerous cases in which ancient and 
modern geographical terms do not mean the 
same thing. I have already cited Africa as 
an example. The loose habit of catalogers of 
projecting modern geographical terms into 
the past is most discouraging to students. 
Take, for example, such designations as Ger- 
many and Austria, to cite large regions. Their 
boundaries are not to-day what they were 
even fifty years since, and books describing 
particular regions not formerly in their limits 
and referring wholly to former times should 
not be listed under the modern caption, if suit- 
able ones can be found in the older names. 
This is merely the principle of the specific 
heading applied to geographical problems. 
Again in certain particulars the modern geo- 
graphical term may represent a much smaller 
area than the same term at an earlier date. 
Venice and Genoa are instances in point, and 
many more might easily be cited. A book on 
the Venetian remains in the Greek islands 
hardly deserves a subject, Venice.Description 
and travel, although one on the Venetian su- 
premacy in the Levant might well have a sub- 
ject for Venice. Separate geographical enti- 
ties such as islands and peninsulas are more 
easily treated as a rule than other regions, as 
confusion is less likely to arise in their cases. 

Finally a word should be said in protest 
against subject headings of an indefinite sort 
for frontier or partially settled regions. "The 
West" in American history is one such. The, 
phrase "Old Southwest" is another. The ob- 
jection lies rather against the indefinite nature 
of the heading than against its use, if once it 
be well defined. The various regions in Cen- 
tral Africa offer similar difficulties. 

If countries having a continuous recorded 
history present difficult problems to the cata- 
loger, so also do subjects of inquiry which 
have given occupation to generations of schol- 
ars. Such studies as political science, eco- 
nomic:, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry, 
botany, medicine, theology, rhetoric, etc., had 
their beginning for our Western world in 
Greece and are live topics to-day. History 
and description of countries show the same 



long line of writers. Now it is obvious that 
seme discrimination is needed in cataloging 
the authors who for twenty odd centuries 
have discussed such important subjects as the 
theory of the state, the art of healing, or the 
science of mathematics. The distinctions 
which a printed catalog can show by varieties 
of type and the rapid view of many pages 
with their headings are of course impossible 
in a card catalog. If it is manifestly im- 
proper to compel the student seeking the li- 
brary's best treatise on agriculture to turn over 
numerous cards for editions of Cato and the 
other Scriptorcs de re rustica, so also is it un- 
wise to neglect the fact that agriculture and 
all other sciences have their historical side. 
If we are going to give subjects to all our 
books, then Cato must have a subject card 
somewhere under agriculture. Here is where 
the average dictionary catalog breaks down. 
It furnishes under such topics as those we 
have mentioned a dreary array of cards, fre- 
quently many trays of them, through which 
the discouraged student must work to find his 
modern books. Every hundred thousand vol- 
umes added to the library but increases the 
task of consultation. The cards thus become 
what no one wants, an alphabetical list of all 
the writers who have ever treated of a given 
topic. The catalog must either distinguish 
books whose value for the subject is purely 
historical, or it must arrange its cards chro- 
nologically (by author), putting the latest 
works first. In other words, the alphabetical 
principle of sub-arrangement must be aban- 
doned under subjects, or else we must intro- 
duce another division under these subjects 
having a continuous history, i.e., a class of 
books having an historical value only. 

But when does a book begin to have a 
merely historical value? There's the rub ! It 
is not possible to determine this by chronology 
alone. Can we consider Aristotle of merely 
historical importance in the discussion of poe- 
try or drama, of political science or ethics? 
Most assuredly not. But yet his works on 
physics and natural history are absolutely 
without profit to the average student of to- 
day. No one will say that Kant's writings are 
out of date, and yet his psychology would 



122 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



hardly benefit the modem student in our col- 
lege classes. It is plain that discrimination 
of the highest order must be employed in this 
matter, or else we must adopt some mechan- 
ical arrangement such as the filing of cards 
in chronological order, which after all works 
a sort of rough justice in the matter of rela- 
tive values. Let us be severely honest with 
ourselves here. Who of us can say that the 
trays headed Theology or Law in most of our 
catalogs of libraries of over one hundred 
thousand volumes are practically useful as 
they stand to-day? Who would not rather 
consult a good bibliography and then the au- 
thor catalog for books on those topics than 
attack the direful array of cards in the hope 
by some means of at length securing an inter- 
esting and valuable set of references? 

In formal political history and in economic 
history as well the sources should certainly 
be distinguished from the recent treatises. 
The Germania of Tacitus, for instance, is an 
excellent source for the early history of the 
German Empire, but it is positively foolish 
to list it side by side with the works of Von 
Sybel and Ranke under Germany.f/i'.y/0ry. 
The subhead of "Sources" under history is a 
convenient and valuable limbo for bygone 
works and for collections of documents. 
There is opposition, and sensible opposition, 
however, to using it for merely obsolete treat- 
ises. 

We might adopt some such scheme as this : 
Political Science. Modern works (since 1850) 

and important earlier works. 

Works between 1500 and 1850. 

Mediaeval works. 

Ancient works. 

The divisions suggested here might perhaps 
be the same in all cases, or they might better 
be made to conform to well-recognized di- 
visions in the history of each topic. The al- 
ternative plan is the arrangement of cards by 
date of publication, or by first date of the 
author (to keep editions together). I confess 
I prefer the latter, although I am far from 
wishing to put myself in the position of as- 
suming that the most recent work is necessar- 
ily the best. Still the chances are that it rep- 
resents the most recent stage of investigation. 



Almost every librarian is willing to concede 
this in the matter of bibliographies, acknowl- 
edging that the last to appear should first meet 
the eye of the person consulting the catalog. 
W r hy not adopt the same principle for every 
topic, as is done in some of our libraries? We 
have, be it remembered, the author catalog at 
hand for every one who already knows the 
authors he wants. Why compel the seeker 
after information to wade through another 
author list under each topic? It may be ob- 
served that an annotated catalog would be al- 
most forced to put first its cards for the books 
most highly recommended. 

There are a few practical points which I 
wish to take up before closing this paper. 
First, shall we definitely limit the number of 
subject cards to a given book? In view of 
the immense size to which our card catalogs 
are growing is it wise to say that when the 
library reaches a certain size say 500,000 
volumes it will henceforth assume that the 
necessity for making cards for any other than 
the subject of prime interest in a book has 
passed? Shall we take it for granted that 
there will always be other works which cover 
the topics of secondary interest? This view 
is maintained in some libraries whose author- 
ity we all acknowledge. I venture, however, 
in opposition to this idea, to call attenlion to 
the statistics of our Princeton work published 
in the Library Journal for June, 1906. It was 
there shown that the number of subject cards 
per main entry was 1.47, and per title 1.2, al- 
though no restriction was placed on the cat- 
alogers other than a rigid insistence on the 
specific heading in all cases. This is so nearly 
the result aimed at in the rule that I submit 
that it is a better way of attaining the desired 
restriction of the unduly rapid growth of the 
card catalog than the strict limitation to one 
subject per book. It permits the liberal han- 
dling of a book which treats definitely of sev- 
eral topics, and yet it does not too greatly 
burden the subject catalog. The device of 
using but one subject entry for the various 
editions of a work whose value is chiefly his- 
torical would diminish the per cent, of subject 
to author cards to less than one in our library. 

Again, it may not be amiss to urge that the 



HASSE 



123, 



revision and co-ordination of subject head- 
ings shoiild be definitely assigned to one per- 
son. Only thus can continuity and uniform- 
ity of the work be secured. Particularly is 
this provision needed in our largest libraries. 
I urge also as a most vital matter of practice 
that the chief reference librarian should be in 
constant touch with the cataloger who passes 
finally on subject headings. They will work 
together to great mutual advantage. 

Moreover I wish once more to set forth 
the imperative necessity for an official list of 
headings in use in the library. This should 
be kept up to date with the utmost care. Each 
cataloger should have in convenient form a 
list of all subheads previously authorized un- 
der each class of topics, together with defini- 
tions of all these subheads. The list \\ithout 
definitions and interpretative notes will be of 
some small value, but with them will be vast- 
ly more useful. It should be kept where 
every cataloger can consult it, preferably in a 
case of trays made to swing on a pivot so that 
it may be consulted without disturbing the 
one at whose elbow it must be placed. The 
American Library Association list and the 
Sydney list, admirable as both sre in their 
own way, will not suffice for any large library. 
An up-to-date list of subjects with adequate 
definitions kept on cards, is an absolute ne- 
cessity in a well-ordered catalog department. 
Is all this worth while? Is the card catalog 



of subjects alphabet ically arranged a real ser- 
vice to an institution? Most assuredly it is. 
When once it is made on consistent principles,, 
when the student no longer has to fumble 
long trays of cards without headings or 
guides, filled with all the contradictory accu- 
mulations of generations of catalogers, when 
the specific topic stands out prominently, when 
each subject capable of two interpretations is- 
sharply defined on a guide card, when con- 
sistency in geographical matters and uniform- 
ity of entry and sub-entry in topics of de- 
batable form have been reached, there is no 
reason why a student should not find the card 
catalog of subjects self-interpreting, inclu- 
sive, useful. It has the all-important merit 
of definitcness and point. It tells any one 
who knows his topic what he can get directly 
on it. It lists both the obsolete book and the 
dead and gone state by themselves. It opens 
up to the reader the contents of the library. 
It is, in short ,an alphabetical subject index 
to the books. If this is not worth while, what 
library effort is? If this be formal, dry-as- 
dust work, why are we working with books 
at all? Our aim as librarians is not merely to- 
accumulate books. It is to help the reader to- 
the books he wants or ought to want. In a 
large library the only tool which accomplishes, 
this result is the catalog, and of this the sub- 
ject catalog is the part most difficult to make,, 
most useful when well made. 



SUBJECT HEADINGS FOR STATE DOCUMENTS 
BY ADELAIDE R. HASSE, Chief of Document Department t New York Public Library 



TT is only proper that I should say at the 
outset that the theories which I advance 
in the course of this paper are my own, and 
that -they in no way represent any library. 
It is, however, also proper to say that those 
theories are not based on speculation. My 
first seven years' library experience was 
gained in a typical public library, a gov- 
ernment depository, and brought me into 
contact with the document problem as it 
obtains in probably 450 out of the 500 depos- 



itory libraries. Next came two years' ex- 
perience in organizing the library of the 
Superintendent of Documents, bringing me 
into close touch with the entire range of 
American federal documents, many of which 
are not common in depository libraries. 
After that came the privilege of nine years' 
work in building up the document department 
of the New York Public Library from a 
collection of 10,000 pieces to one of 185,000 
pieces, representing almost all states of the 



124 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



globe. This sums up what I believe I can 
say without arrogance is an experience 
unique so far as handling public documents 
is concerned. During the last nine years 
particularly, it has been necessary to make 
studies which have sometimes led me to take 
issue with standard cataloging rules where 
these applied to documents. It must be 
remembered that when these rules were first 
compiled the question of public documents 
had not been raised. The fact that subse- 
quent amendments to these original rules 
particularize concerning documents, would 
seem to indicate the feeling of a need for a 
special code pertaining to this literature. 
It must, furthermore, be remembered that 
this literature is technical, and that the dis- 
tinguishing feature of technical literature is 
not its form of issue but the subject which 
it represents. The cataloging rules are largely 
confined to provisions for the various forms 
of issue. It would be unwise for any libra- 
rian, as librarian, to dictate concerning the 
details of technical literature unless he were 
also specialist in that literature. As librarians 
we are all to prone to remark upon the effects 
of a specialist undertaking the duties of 
librarian. The rule works both ways. 

In discussing subject headings for state 
documents you are touching upon a phase of 
the question for the first time. You have 
discussed author headings, always, however, 
confining yourselves to American federal 
documents. You have arrived at no con- 
clusion in general, but you have two excel- 
lent models to aid you, namely, the Library 
of Congress cards and the session catalogs 
of the Superintendent of Documents. 

In taking up subject headings I shall con- 
sider no documents the subject of which 
comes within the range of public economics 
or of the sciences. This eliminates at once 
from this paper all finance, tax, bank, in- 
surance, geology, forestry, education, meteor- 
ology, agriculture, land, road and similar re- 
ports. The fact that books dealing with these 
subjects happen to be government publica- 
tions does not in the slightest affect the sub- 
ject headings for them. Subjects of the re- 
ports mentioned are not peculiar to public 
documents, and, in drawing up a schedule of 
headings, you will need to confer with the 



economists and scientists. The only con- 
sideration these reports could have in a 
discussion of subject headings for state doc- 
uments is not the assignment of headings, 
but the arrangement of headings after assign- 
ment. Thus, shall government reports on 
education, for instance, be arranged with 
periodicals, shall they be made a group by 
themselves under the subheading "govern- 
ment reports," or shall they be arranged 
geographically by state and country? 

You ask, if the reports mentioned are 
eliminated from this paper, then what is there 
left? I answer that which is left represents 
the two fundamental powers of the state and 
belongs to Law and Government. 

Law 

For the sake of discussion we will divide 
the literature of the law into two groups, on 
the one hand polemics and exposition, on the 
other the textual literature. The latter com- 
prises reports (used in the legal sense), 
statutes, treaties and proceedings of arbitra- 
tion tribunals. Your method of subject entry 
for the former group, whether it is dictionary 
or class, is irrelevant to this discussion. I 
am presupposing that in using the dictionary 
method your system of cross references is 
perfect, and that, in theory, therefore, your 
class of law is intact in your subject catalog. 
Taking up first the reports, your author entry 
is "Country. Courts," or, "Country. Ju- 
diciary." Your subject entry is either "Law. 
Courts," "Law. Reports," or "Courts." The 
question I raise for discussion here is, what 
purpose is served by duplicating these entries ? 
Is it customary to duplicate them? If not, 
what is the custom? In discussing this sub- 
ject you should not stop with merely the 
entry word, but you should consider sub- 
arrangement of the reports of the courts of 
common law and of equity. 

In the case of statutes your author entry 
is "Country. Laws," etc., or "Country. 
Statutes." Here again I raise the question 
of expediency of duplication. In both of 
these cases you have three alternatives, 
namely, to use both author and subject, 
author only with reference from subject, or 
subject only with reference from author. 



HASSE 



125 



The reports and statutes form such a large 
mass of alvays current literature, thus neces- 
sitating continual additions to the catalog 
record, that, on the ground of library economy 
alone, some recommendation for an econ- 
omical method would be desirable. The rules 
are, I believe, silent concerning this detail. 

While I have suggested the possibility of 
merging author and subject headings in the 
case of reports and statutes, in the case of 
treaties and arbitration tribunals I recom- 
mend such mergers. In the case of 
treaties the rules at present say: enter under 
each country party to the compact. In the 
first place, this rule does not pro\ide for 
collections of treaties, and in the next place, 
providing for two or more authors for 
single treaties, the question arises, which 
author is the cataloger to use in making the 
subject entry? I have five editions of the 
Jay treaty. Am I to make ten author cards, 
five for Great Britain and five for the 
United States? And when it comes to the 
subject, which of these cards am I to use? 
That is the actual dilemma in which the 
rule, as it is to-day, places the cataloger of 
implicit confidence. Economically, the rule 
is a violation. Bibliographically, it is also 
disastrous. The five editions are cataloged 
at different times. The titles are not the 
same. The common practice is to arrange 
titles alphabetically under author. Your five 
editions of the Jay treaty may therefore 
be in five places under each of your two 
author entries. Does not the practical opera- 
tion of this apparently harmless rule appeal 
to a sense of the ludicrous? I am perfectly 
prepared to have you describe my proposed 
alternative in the same way. I recommend, 
namely, the abandonment of author entries 
for all treaties, single and collected, and the 
concentration of all this material under the 
heading Treaties, if your catalog is of the 
dictionary model, or International law, 
Treaties, if it is a classed catalog. Under the 
heading of Treaties I would arrange, first, 
general collections, then collections by 
country, and then single treaties in chrono- 
logical order. There would be references 
from "Country. Treaties," from personal 
compilers and from popular name of treaty. 
The chronological arrangement should in- 



clude month and day of conclusion, and, 
whenever there i s a popular name, that 
should be added in brackets. It should not 
be forgotten that in many cases a treaty may 
be the subject of a considerable literature. 
Some provision should therefore be made to 
keep together the text of a treaty and the 
literature about that treaty. 

The next point I raise is the treatment CJ 
arbitration proceedings. I am not supposed 
to touch on author entries to-night, but be- 
fore we can assign subject entries, we must 
have an author entry. Let us take as an 
example the Geneva arbitration for the settle- 
ment of the Alabama claims. I am sure most 
of you have worried over the six red cloth 
bound volumes in which the United States 
has printed the arbitrations under the treaty 
of Washington of 1871. Under this treaty 
there were four arbitrations, namely, under 
provisions of articles I, 12, 22 and 24, that 
of the so-called Geneva arbitration settling 
the Alabama claims, that of the mixed com- 
mission, settling civil war claims other than 
the so-called Alabama claims, the Halifax 
commission settling fishery disputes, and the 
Berlin arbitration settling the northwest 
water boundary. 

I will ask you to recall only your treat- 
ment of the arbitration under article i of 
the treaty of Washington, viz., the Geneva 
arbitration settling the Alabama claims. The 
United States and Great Britain are the two 
countries involved, and they agree, by treaty, 
upon a tribunal whose arbitration shall settle 
the differences they could not settle with 
each other. Each country presents to this 
tribunal an argument, a statement of its case, 
and a counter case. These arguments, cases 
and counter cases are printed in each country 
as a whole and als* in parts. Now if w 
enter the edition of the whole arbitration 
which is printed in the United States under 
"U. S. State Department," which I find is 
the common practice, and the same arbitra- 
tion as printed in London under "Great 
Britain. Foreign Office," are we not making 
two author entries for two editions of the 
same book? And when you stop to think 
a moment, what reasonable excuse have we 
to make the United States Department of 
State or the British Foreign office either, the 



126 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



authors respectively of the proceedings of a 
specially appointed tribunal or court? The 
case becomes more complicated when you 
try to catalog according to the rule of 
country entry a separate of the American 
case, let us say, printed in London. Shall 
you enter it under United States because 
it is the American case, or shall you enter it 
under Great Britain because it is printed in 
London? Are you not sensible of the in- 
congruity of your action in either case? Is 
it not reasonable to admit that popular cus- 
tom here, as well as in the case of treaties 
is a compromise? And if it is a compromise, 
why we cannot put a finger on the difficulty, 
and settle upon some simple, rational way out 
of it? Why should we be any more timid 
to decide a case with the evidence in hand 
than were our predecessors to lay down gen- 
eral rules with apparently no consideration 
for specific cases? I have cited only the 
most prominent features of one of four arbi- 
trations under the treaty of Washington. The 
cataloging of all editions of all four arbitra- 
tions and the retention of their connection 
with the treaty of Washington makes Mr. 
Crandall's famous instance of "part 2 of 
part 2 of volume 4 of part 5 of no. I of 
part 2 of volume 14" a simple proposition. 
The latter is an editorial idiosyncrasy and 
does not affect the cataloger ac much as 
the collector. The former is an obstacle 
which the cataloger must overcome or be 
overcome by. 

This matter of author entry for arbitration 
tribunals is one that cannot be decided with- 
out some deliberation, and until it is de- 
cided there does not seem much point in talk- 
ing about subject headings. A brief review, 
however, may be of help to both phases of 
the difficulty. The large majority of arbitra- 
tions relate to either claims, boundary or 
fishery disputes. Many of these litigations 
are best known by popular names as Beh- 
ring Sea Controversy, Alabama Claims, etc., 
and many catalogers use these popular 
names, some as authors, some as subjects. 
As I have suggested to you the desirability 
of formulating some rule for author entry, 
so I now recommend the desirability of a 
uniform subject entry. I would suggest 



some heading which would prevent duplica- 
tion of entry. If you follow the first impulse 
and use a country, either as main subject,, 
or as sub-arrangement, as Alaska. Bounda- 
ries, for the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, or 
Fisheries U. S. for the Behring Sea Con- 
troversy, for international proceedings, you. 
are unavoidably driven to duplication. For 
if it is Alaska. Boundary it is also Canada. 
Boundary, and if it is Fisheries, U. S. it is 
also Fisheries. Great Britain. I would sug- 
gest as a simple substitute : Boundaries. 
International Disputes; Fisheries. Interna- 
tional Disputes, etc., with a chronological 
sub-arrangement. You have now a focus and 
can refer from Alaska. Boundary; Canada. 
Boundary; U. S. Boundary disputes; Great 
Britain. Boundary disputes; Alaskan Bound- 
ary Tribunal, etc. You will object that no 
reader would look under Boundaries. To- 
this I would reply that ordinarily the reader 
looks for that word which to him individu- 
ally is most familiar. If the press has pop- 
ularized a phrase for a certain controversy 
your reader will look for that phrase, as 
Alaskan Boundary Tribunal. Your rules,, 
customary or written, tell you to put Bound- 
aries under country or countries. There is 
conflict. You have got to compromise. With 
whom? With what? On the other hand, 
if the local press has not popularized a con- 
troversy, as the Venezuela-British Guiana 
boundary dispute, is not a reader just as apt 
to look under one as the other country? 
Your objection, therefore, to follow the 
reader in cases of this kind is not always 
valid. 

Government 

I had intended to consider here subject 
headings for those general publications of the 
state, included under parliamentary proceed- 
ings, government newspapers, hand-books, 
general reports, such as the American fed- 
eral annual report of the Interior Depart- 
ment, etc., but there is no time. If you do 
nothing more than open up a discussion on- 
the points raised, viz., duplication of entry 
for reports, statutes and treaties, and the- 
proper entry for international proceeding's,, 
you will have accomplished much. 



VAN VALKENBURGH 



127 






COMMON SENSE IN CATA LOGING SMALL LIBRARIES 



BY AGNES VAN VALKENBURGH, Head Cataloger t Milwaukee (Wis.) Public Library 



"^ O doubt many of my audience, driven 
by a sense of duty, have attended, in 
former years, the meetings of the Catalog 
Section, and some of the bravest of you may 
have read our printed reports and have 
been discouraged thereby. The year that I 
was an officer of this section we spent nearly 
the whole of a lovely summer afternoon dis- 
cussing the burning topic, "Shall the colla- 
tion and series note be on a separate line 
immediately after the date and preceding 
other notes?" with the corollary, "Shall the 
collation precede the contents?" The battle 
as to whether 32 or 33 size cards are prefer- 
able has been waged up one side and down 
the other, and after quantities of oratorical 
blood have been spilt, the invariable result 
is that each side is more than ever convinced 
that they are in the right. The question of 
indicating size notation by letter or figure, 
or by giving the actual measurements of the 
book, has employed the brightest intellects 
of our profession during long spaces of 
time. 

Attending these sessions has always pro- 
duced in me a feeling of ignorance and de- 
pression. Now, depression is not a normal 
state, and ignorance is something which no 
cataloger can endure for a moment, so seek- 
ing a way to soothe my feelings without 
compromising my self-respect, I was inspired 
with the knowledge that these things are not 
for us. The Library of Congress, historical 
and university libraries are for scholars, and 
bibliographical details are important for them ; 
but for any public library, small ones in par- 
ticular, they are of no importance. If our 
entries should stray one-sixteenth of an inch 
too near the top of the card, nobody knows 
and nobody cares. Colophons and collation, 
thickness of cards and color of ink are as 
if they were not, to our grateful and careless 
public, who rise up and call us blessed if we 
can quickly give them what they are looking 
for ; or better still, if we can enable them to 
help themselves to the library's resources. 



The catalog of a public library may mean 
either a printed list or a catalog on cards. 
For the small library, however, the printed 
catalog is out of the question because of its 
expense ; then it is out of date before it is in 
the hands of the people, and the American 
public is so progressive it always insists on 
having the very latest thing. There is a 
library in Michigan, with an annual appro- 
priation of $2100, which spent $1526.70 in 
hiring an amateur to print a catalog for 
them. It was worth the money as a curios- 
ity, and had the added charm of being up to 
date for a long time, as they could not afford 
to buy any books for nearly two years, but 
somehow it was not regarded as an unquali- 
fied success. At any rate they never did it 
again. 

As a substitute for a more formal printed 
list, the local paper is nearly always willing 
to print a weekly column furnished by the 
library, either notes on new books or special 
lists taken from the card catalog, and the 
printer will usually run off as many extra 
copies of the lists as are wanted, for the cost 
of the paper. To print even a title-a-line 
finding list is beyond the reach of most small 
libraries, so this talk will be confined entirely 
to the card catalog, as that, like the poor, is 
always with us and often seems to be re- 
garded with dread by the person destined by 
Providence and the library board to be the 
maker thereof. 

A catalog is, or should be, the means of 
placing the contents of a library at the dis- 
posal of the public in the clearest, simplest 
and easiest form; the dictionary definition 
of this word differs from this and is not 
entirely satisfactory, but librarians should 
unite in adopting the revised version. The 
cataloger who bears this definition always in 
mind will find her duties greatly simplified. 
It is also desirable for her to remember that 
she is making the catalog for the public and 
not for herself; if she finds that her patrons 
are confused by cards of various colors, 



128 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



written in inks of divers hues, let her drop 
the rainbow scheme and stick to black and 
white. 

It is well to use the capitalization in ordi- 
nary use by the best writers; it is unpatriotic 
to write American with a small letter, lese 
majeste not to give the King his due honor, 
blasphemy to show so little respect for saints 
and martyrs, and lack of courtesy to deny any 
gentleman, but a Frenchman, a capital for Mr. 
Now that the linotype has done away with 
the scarcity of capital letters in type, let us 
stop being a warning instead of an example 
in this respect, and join the teachers in their 
efforts to instruct the young in the correct 
use of written English. 

If it is necessary to consult a memorandum 
or look at a sample in order to remember 
how many times to underscore the principal 
word of a title, it will be perfectly safe to 
omit the underscoring altogether, as a detail 
which has so little significance for the cata- 
loger will not greatly benefit the general 
reader. 

Title entries are very simple, as it is only 
necessary to ask oneself if any one would 
look for the book by its title and make the 
entry accordingly, but author and subject 
cataloging are more complex, and present 
many difficulties to the beginner. 

It is customary to make a very full entry 
on the author card, but for the small library 
it is only necessary to give the author, all of 
the title which will serve to explain the con- 
tents of the book, translator or editor, series 
if well known, and date. Of course one must 
beware of the man who has written a "Hand- 
book of botany," a "Manual of botany," a 
"Text-book of botany," and a "Treatise on 
botany"; his titles will not bear shortening, 
but such monotonously prolific writers are 
fortunately uncommon. It is unnecessary to 
give either the publisher or the size of the 
book on the catalog card, since all these 
details are given in the accessions book and 
may easily be consulted there. 

The error of abbreviation to the point of 
confusing the patrons is to be carefully 
avoided in the struggle for simplicity. No 
community has ever yet been found which 
takes kindly to colon substitutes for Chris- 
tian names. "J:" never seems to mean John 



to the non-professional intellect, and is 
usually translated as an error in punctuation 
and a complexity in arrangement. 

Give the Christian name in full if there 
is but one; if two or more, give the first 
in full and initials for the others, unless the 
author elects to place the emphasis on his- 
middle name, when we will be courteous 
enough to follow his lead, only gratuitously 
adding the first name in full for the sake of 
the alphabetical arrangement. Whichever 
way one decides about authors who use 
pseudonyms, the choice will be regretted ; but 
what is the use in making every one who 
wants Anthony Hope's books look under 
Hawkins? Of course it will increase the sum- 
total of human knowledge, but will not in- 
formation so acquired be more than over- 
balanced by the mental irritation of the 
patron? It also seems the only gracious pro- 
cedure to take a man's name as he himself 
prefers it. Why should an unholy joy fill 
the cataloger's heart when she has searched 
the records and restored to an author a 
middle name or a few initials which he has 
discarded as superfluous? Librarians seem 
to be the only people in the world who have 
a constitutional unwillingness to let a man 
overcome the injustice or prodigality of 
his sponsors in baptism. This officiousness at 
times brings its merited punishment, for 
one library at least duplicated a set of the 
"Philosophical works" of Kuno Fischer, in- 
eight volumes German at that because a 
too zealous cataloger supplied him with two 
additional names and neglected a cross refer- 
ence card. 

The idea of giving a brief biographical 
sketch of each person on every card written- 
is a wicked waste of the most precious thing 
in the world. Catalogs are not unknown 
where there are 30 entries, each saying 
"Washington, George, first President of the 
United States, 1732-1799." Isn't that dread- 
ful? If the patrons of a library do not 
already know who was the first president of 
their country, they are past helping by reiter- 
ation on a catalog card; but with a mistaken 
idea of helpfulness these catalogs will prob- 
ably go on offering that truthful but abso- 
lutely useless bit of information until the end' 
of time. Dates of birth and death are unneces- 



VAN VALKEN BURGH 



129 



sary on /'ny card, unless to distinguish mem- 
bers of those fortunate families where the 
gift of authorship has proven hereditary. 

The most important part of cataloging is 
the indexing of subjects, and here comes into 
play every scrap of knowledge which has ever 
been acquired. This is the only profession 
where a smattering of everything is of more 
value than an exhaustive knowledge of any 
one branch. Breadth, not depth of learning, 
is the desirable thing for a cataloger, and the 
only way to acquire this rather superficial 
knowledge is to listen when wiser folk talk, 
and to read, read, read. Read everything, 
prose and poetry, religion and the magazines, 
limericks and philosophy, good books, and 
those not so good ; one can never become 
learned by following this course, but she will 
increase her usefulness, and that is better. 

Entries for articles in b<5bks of collected 
essays or biographies ("analyticals" so 
called) form the most useful feature of a 
catalog. Any one can find a life cf Milton 
on the shelves, but not every one knows that 
an illuminating essay about him is contained in 
Lowell's "Among my books"; the librarian 
might even forget it for the moment, but a 
good catalog does not forget. 

The ability to judge of the importance of 
articles grows with experience ; but it is bet- 
ter to include the doubtful one than to omit 
it and then regret it when too late. In this 
also it is well to season zeal with discretion; 
to enter Mrs. Alexander's "Forging the fet- 
ters" under "Slavery" or that old nursery 
classic, "The motherless turkeys," under 
"Poultry" is ridiculous but not unknown. A 
list of subject headings is absolutely neces- 
sary, and as this work has been done by 
experts so much better than any amateur 
could hope to do it, one should buy the 
"American Library Association list of sub- 
ject headings" even if it means some sacrifice. 
It is not necessary to follow these headings 
exactly if others are preferred ; it is always 
well to have a little independence in one's 
work, and each librarian knows the needs and 
peculiarities of her readers better than any 
one else can, and she should have courage 
to stick to the results of her own experience. 
Subject entries should be made as easy to 
understand as possible; there was once a cat- 
alog where Catherine 11. of Russia masque- 



raded as "Yekaterina," because, forsooth, 
that is a transliteration of the Russian name. 
Of course librarians are familiar with the 
Latin names of plants and animals; but the 
small boy who has never heard of the 
merula migratoria looks in your catalog for 
"robin" and should find under that heading 
all which the library contains about that so- 
ciable bird. 

Cross-references are so called from the 
effect they have upon the patron, but they 
are nevertheless essential and should be freely 
used. A cataloger should never be afraid to 
make entries in her catalog; it is a very desir- 
able thing for librarians to have a good 
memory ; but unfortunately, when they die, 
as does sometimes happen, they are compelled 
to take their memories with them as their re- 
ward or punishment, and an entry on a cata- 
log card is of more stability than they. It 
is always a good plan to keep an eye on the 
topic which is of local interest in one's own 
town or state. When the Woman's Club 
has decided to study Russian history, Art in 
Spain, Earthquakes, and Cleanliness of 
slaughterhouses, all at the same time (many 
times the subjects are more diverse) the 
catalog should have as much as possible to 
say on each topic. 

Fortunately one can catalog only one book 
at a time, and if it is impossible to determine 
what it is about from preface, table of con- 
tents, index or by dipping into it oneself, 
it may be handed to some specialist for his 
decision ; or wanting such a coadj utor, one 
may consult the state library commission or 
the nearest cataloger who has had more ex- 
perience. In many cases a book which is 
unintelligible in the afternoon may be as 
clear as day the next morning, so it is well 
not to feel that the perplexing ones must be 
done on the instant. 

The librarian of the small library has so 
many duties that cataloging must be sand- 
wiched in between janitor work and labors 
at the desk, and there is little time which can 
be devoted strictly to that branch; but after 
all it is not so very formidable, and the odds 
and ends of time cannot be more profitably 
employed. Made with a spirit of patience 
and courage and common sense, the catalog 
will come to stand for the two best things in 
the world, simplicity and helpfulness. 



130 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON BOOKBINDING 



GEORGE F. BOWERMAN, Chairman; W. P. CUTTER, ARTHUR L. BAILEY. 



A T the St. Louis meeting of the American 
Library Association the chairman of this 
committee presented to the Council on behalf 
of Mr. J. C. Dana (then absent in England) 
a request that a committee be appointed to 
investigate the subject of bookbinding for li- 
braries, including book papers and publishers' 
bindings, leathers and methods and processes 
.generally. The Council took the matter under 
advisement, and not many weeks previous to 
the Portland meeting appointed such a com- 
mittee, with Mr. Dana as the natural chair- 
man. On his declining to serve, on the 
.ground that he was preparing for publication 
a book on the subject, the committee was con- 
stituted with its present membership, and at 
the Portland meeting presented a mere formal 
report. We now report as follows : 

The committee soon became convinced 
that although Mr. Dana would not retain a 
place on the committee, yet because he has 
shown more interest in the subject than any 
other member of the Association, and be- 
cause he was systematically investigating the 
subject for the purpose of preparing a brief 
work on it, now in the hands of the profes- 
sion in his recently published "Notes on 
bookbinding for libraries,"* no good purpose 
would be served by duplicating his work and 
everything expected of the committee would 
be secured by the adoption of his conclusions 
in so far as they cover the work assigned to 
the committee. 

As a further application of the principle 
of not doing independently what is being done 
as well by some one else, the committee, 
having found that the Leather and Paper 
Laboratory in the Bureau of Chemistry of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture is making 
elaborate tests of leather and paper similar 
to those carried on by committees of the 
Society of Arts in Great Britain and by the 
German government, will therefore not take 
up this subject independently. The ultimate 

'Published by Library Bureau, Chicago. 



purpose of these investigations by our govern- 
ment laboratory is to establish standards for 
leather and paper. These results will, when 
completed, be published by the Department of 
Agriculture. 

Your committee will, therefore, confine its 
report to emphasizing some parts of Mr. 
Dana's book, with dissent from or supplements 
to statements made in it, to summarizing the 
results thus far obtainable from the govern- 
ment Leather and Paper Laboratory and to 
offering certain supplemental information con- 
sidered useful to libraries. 

Before taking up systematically the points 
to be covered it is desirable to restate the 
problem before the committee and librarians. 
It is a matter of common observation that 
publishers' book papers and bindings (in most 
books more accurately called casings) are 
steadily growing poorer; also, partly as a re- 
sult of this, that with increases in circulation, 
bookbinding bills are steadily consuming dis- 
proportionately larger shares of annual appro- 
ations. This is partly due to the fact that 
the first rebinding of books in active demand 
is often not effective and partly due to the 
fact that leathers most used on periodicals 
and other reference books are so poor as often 
to require renewal. The question, therefore, 
is one of great moment to all types of libra- 
ries from the point of view of economical 
administration. 

DANA'S "NOTES ON BOOKBINDING" 

The committee cordially commends Mr. 
Dana's "Notes on bookbinding for libraries" 
to all librarians. It is not and does not pro- 
fess to be a systematic treatise on bookbind- 
ing. Readers of it are directed by Mr. Dana to 
Cockerell for such a work. But it does cover 
from the point of view of the librarian the 
most pressing of the questions involved in the 
field proper to this report not finally, but 
tentatively, as any book or report must which 
deals with questions that have been so long 
largely neglected. What is also of great 



BOWERMAN 



importance, the book serves to arouse interest 
on the part of librarians to make independent 
studies of the subject and to put them on the 
alert to get good value for the money ex- 
pended. The experiences of both Mr. Dana 
and this committee in collecting statistics of 
the wearing qualities of original bindings and 
rebindings would seem to indicate a general 
indifference to this subject. If this report 
can do no more than to lead librarians to 
study the subject each for himself, it will be 
worth while. 

Your committee, therefore, directs special 
attention to the following portions of Mr. 
Dana's introduction : 

"In considering the subject of economical 
binding and reminding for libraries, we find 
that we are entirely without standards. We 
have no figures for comparisons. Librarians 
have, save in a very few cases, made no study 
of the comparative value of bindings, either 
of original cloth or of the rebindings they 
"have had put on their books. . . . The test 
of a binding, whether publisher's original, spe- 
cial from the sheets, or a rebinding, lies, for 
ordinary lending books, in the ratio of its cost 
to the number of times the book it covers is 
lent for home use before being discarded. 
This ratio has rarely been systematically 
noted. To the inquiry, does the method of 
rebinding which my library now employs give 
the best possible return for the money spent? 
most librarians must reply that they do not 
"know. Reference and college libraries are 
often also much in the dark. The continued 
quite general use for permanent bindings of a 
leather which tests have shown will not last 
over 25 or 30 years at the most is an evidence 
of this. In England, as is well known, a good 
n.any years of careful observation and com- 
parison of experiments have led a large num- 
ber of librarians to the conclusion which 
some American librarians also accept, that 
first-class bindings, even at what seems like a 
high figure, put on before a book has received 
any wear at all, directly from the publishers' 
sheets, is the part of sound economy." 

Mr. Dana proceeds to give a mathematical 
demonstration of the economy of the plan of 
buying books bound directly from the pub- 
lishers' sheets, based on the life histories of 
74 books in 18 libraries. These 74 books cost, 
including first price, rebinding and cost of 
handling for rebinding, an average of $1.38 
each. They circulated an average of 79 times 
each before and after binding, and were out 
of use an average of 5 weeks while being 



rebound. Similar books can be bought so 
bound from the publishers' sheets that they 
will never require rebinding or repairing, and, 
circulate 100 to 150 and sometimes 250 times 
before being discarded, for $1.50 each. Of 
the 79 books reported on, 52 were rebound a 
second time at an average cost, including 
handling, of 40 cents, and were again out of 
use an average of 5 weeks. They then cir- 
culated an average of 43 times. These 52 
books, therefore, cost an average of $1.78 each, 
circulated 122 times each and were out of use 
10 weeks, as opposed to a cost of $1.50 for 
books bound from publishers' sheets that cir- 
culate from 100 to 250 times, with no repairs 
or loss of use necessary. Incidentally, it 
should be said that these figures are fully 
substantiated by statistics collected by and ob- 
servations on the part of this committee. 

The introduction to the book is so filled 
with sensible advice on this subject that it 
is hard to choose the best things from it. 
Mr. Dana controverts the idea that the high 
grade binding put on books bound from the 
sheets last too long, that is, until after the book 
is too much soiled. He points out that a book 
well bound, opening easily and lying flat 
without pressure keeps clean many times 
longer than one that opens hard, as is the 
case with books sewed on cords or with the 
whipstitching applied to most rebinding. 

Speaking generally of American binding Mr. 
Dana says : 

"One may frankly say that the character of 
binding done in nearly all libraries in America 
has been, up to the present time, a discredit 
to the library profession. We owe it to our- 
selves to take up this craft and do what we 
can to elevate it." 

After his introductory chapter, from which 
we have quoted so largely, Mr. Dana describes 
the various processes of binding, machine 
work, the ordinary binding on sunken cords 
and the preferred flexible method of sewing 
on tapes with French joints, including the 
use of guards for plates and for end papers 
and first and last signatures, and a process of 
overcasting to produce flexible bindings. 
Binding materials suitable for books to be 
subjected to different kinds of use are given, 
based on experience and specifications de- 
signed to secure binding that will come up to 



1 3 2 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



the standards outlined in the book. The 
latter are excellent as far as they go, but in 
certain points are hardly specific enough to 
secure from a binder accustomed to current 
methods and wedded to them, the recom- 
mended bindings. 

A useful chapter is the one entitled "The 
literary side." By many examples it points 
out the necessity, often overlooked by libra- 
rians, of studying each book presented for 
rebinding, to determine whether it would not 
be more economical to replace it; whether 
the stock of that particular title or its demand 
require its retention at all, and whether if 
bound it requires a covering for hard use 
or only for occasional references. In order 
that the librarian may know the bearing of 
these things on the question of economical 
administration, not only knowledge of me- 
chanical details of book-making but also 
knowledge of literary values, popularity of 
books and authors, editions and prices is re- 
quired. 

Two practical chapters are those outlining 
the process of paper-making and giving 
notes on leather. In the latter is summarized 
the report of the committee on leather for 
bookbinding of the Society of Arts. Impor- 
tant information is also given, in alphabetical- 
ly arranged lists, of leathers, book cloths and 
imitation leathers, technical terms used in 
bookbinding and styles of ornament. 

Under the heading of "Repairing books" 
Mr. Dana begins by giving as a universal 
rule "Don't." He then proceeds to give very 
useful suggestions for making the necessary 
repairing most effective, and what is quite 
as important, least harmful. He frequently 
dwells on the point of the harm to be done 
by repairing, using such expressions as "Mend 
sparingly, rebind early." He also gives a list 
of the machines and tools necessary for repair 
work. An exceedingly useful feature of the 
book is the one giving the names and addresses 
of firms from which binding materials may be 
secured. The book is concluded by a bibli- 
ography of bookbinding, paper and leather. 

The foregoing review of Mr. Dana's book 
n-a;; written before the publication in the 
june number of Public Libraries of parts of 
the book from which we have made copious 
extracts. Readers of that publication will 



agree that we are justified in the emphasis- 
we place on the passages we quote. 

The committee has arranged with Mr. 
Douglas Cockerell to supply enough copies of 
his pamphlet, entitled "A note on bookbind- 
ing," so that free copies will be sent to- all who- 
apply to the chairman, as soon as the stock 
arrives from England. This pamphlet, re- 
ferred to in Mr. Dana's bibliography, summa- 
rizes the most practically useful parts of the 
Society of Arts report on "Leather for book- 
binding," including the specifications for li- 
brary binding. 

LEATHER AND PAPER 

Thus far this report has been chiefly con- 
cerned with methods and processes. Among 
the other important factors which shorten or 
prolong the life of a book are the paper on 
which it is printed and the material with-< 
which it is covered. In the case of paper and 
original bindings we must now take what 
the publishers give us. With American fic- 
tion, juveniles and illustrated books it is a 
matter of common knowledge that they are 
usually bad. Book cloths offer an improve- 
ment over papers, especially where buckram' 
is used, but are still not suited to library 
use. Most American leathers, except some 
(by no means all) moroccos, are likewise by 
common observation known to be short lived. 
It is certain that hundreds of dollars are being 
wasted by libraries, always short of funds,, 
by using leathers that will have to be replaced 
in 10 or 15 years. 

Abroad, efforts for improvement in these 
matters have been made through the agency 
of the imperial government in Germany, which" 
conducted elaborate physical and chemical 
tests of paper, and in England by committees- 
of the Society of Arts which have investigated 
both paper and leather. Our own federal 
government, through its Department of Agri- 
culture, has established a Leather and Paper 
Laboratory in the Bureau of Chemistry. We 
are able, through the courtesy of Mr. F. P. 
Veitch, the chief of the laboratory, to give a 
brief account of the progress of the work> 
with plans for the future. He writes: 

"In reply to your request for a brief state- 
ment of our proposed work on book papers- 
and binding materials, which may be laid be-- 



BOWERMAN 



133 



fore the Library Association at its next meet- 
ing, I beg to say that it is our purpose, to ex- 
press it in a few words, to make such a study 
of papers and leathers, of their manufacture, 
and of causes of deterioration as will enable 
us to specify the characteristics which these 
OTcterials should possess for various uses, and 
to outline the conditions under which they 
may be best and most usefully preserved. Of 
course, we fully realize that much of this in- 
formation has already been obtained in a gen- 
eral way, but it does not appear definite 
enough nor as generally disseminated among 
those having to do with leather and paper as 
it should be. 

"It is our desire not only to add to our pres- 
ent knowledge, but bring the whole subject- 
more fully before those who should be ac- 
quainted with it. Our investigation will em- 
brace a thorough chemical and physical ex- 
amination of these materials to show in paper 
the kind of stock used, the kind and quality 
of sizing and loading material present, the 
presence of chemical residues resulting during 
the manufacture of the paper, and the effect 
of all these constituents, as well as of the 
character of finish, on the strength, durability 
and value of the paper under the conditions 
of use. The same points will be covered in 
the work on leather for binding. 

"You can readily see that there is a great 
deal of work to be done here, and that it will 
take some time to accomplish it. The mem- 
bers of the Library Association can material- 
ly assist us in this work by calling our atten- 
tion to and sending samples of those papers 
and leathers which have come to their atten- 
tion by reason either of durability or of lack 
of durability, stating as far as possible the 
conditions under which the materials have 
been kept and the most apparent cause of de- 
terioration where this has occurred. 

"We also hope at a later date, when we 
have the foundation laid, and our methods of 
work well developed, to offer the services of 
this laboratory to public librarians in testing 
paper and binding materials and advising as 
to the value of samples submitted by them. 
This feature of our work, however, will not 
be in shape for at least a year yet. 

"We would be glad to have you call the at- 
tention of the Library Association to these 
matters, particularly that relating to the ex- 
perience of the members with various papers 
and leathers and the factors of deterioration. 
We cannot receive too much information of 
this kind, and the help thus offered will be 
gratefully received and duly acknowledged, 
and summarized with our results, which will 
bring the experience of each to the assistance 
of all in this important matter." 

Although it is not specifically so stated in 
Mr. Veitch's summary, the purpose of the 



work is nothing less than that of establishing 
standards for leather and paper. When these 
are established and the Leather and Paper 
Laboratory is able at the request of libraries 
to test samples of leather which it is proposed 
to use for binding, and paper which it is pro- 
posed to use for catalogs, reports and bul- 
letins, for example, libraries will have placed 
in their hands an effective means of enforcing 
these standards on those who cater to them. 
The publications of the United States govern- 
ment are notable as possessing nearly all of 
the bad features found in trade publications. 
These include the use of glazed paper, heavily 
loaded with clay, light quality of book cloth, 
case work, and sheep bindings that soon 
crumble into dust. Of course, the first effort 
in this reform must be directed to overcom- 
ing the conservatism of bureau chiefs and to 
securing legislation that will make possible 
the use of the best materials for the preser- 
vation of the printed records of the govern- 
ment. Little improvement, perhaps, can be 
expected in the production of works that are 
ephemeral, and are so regarded by their 
publishers, until the permanent records of the 
government are issued in permanent form. 

When the government itself invariably uses 
good paper, leather, cloth and buckram, the 
force of example will do something to im- 
prove commercial work. If, however, an 
appeal can be made to the self-interest of 
tanners and leather dealers, it may be possible 
for librarians to effect some improvement even 
before the government standards are estab- 
lished and published. If librarians, generally, 
will systematically include a clause in binding 
contracts that leather used shall come up to 
the Society of Arts' standards, the library 
binding business is of sufficient importance 
to make American tanners and leather mer- 
chants take notice. Leather so guaranteed 
may be ordered in New York or can be im- 
ported. Of course, librarians must expect to 
pay for it, but it is worth the difference. 

In the case of paper, perhaps systematic 
effort is less easily possible or effective. The 
importation of English editions is one means 
of making American publishers heed our 
demands. Where there are competing edi- 
tions of non-copyrighted works the systematic 
choosing of editions having good paper is 



134 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



another means. Just what can be done in this 
direction of securing better paper and better 
original bindings will be best shown by a 
report of our negotiations with the publishers. 

COMPARATIVE WEARING QUALITIES OF PUBLISH- 
ERS' BINDINGS 

An attempt has been made by the committee 
to get statistics showing the relative wearing 
qualities of books of different publishers. 
Although 19 libraries sent statistics, yet the 
results do not, in the opinion of the committee, 
indicate anything of great value. Several of 
the largest libraries were unable to send 
statistics, and the statistics which were sent 
were not sufficient to make a large number 
of volumes recorded for any one publisher. 
In order to make any adequate comparison, 
a circulation of at least 500 volumes of a 
publisher should be obtained. The highest 
number received in the experiment of the 
committee was 362, and the number of vol- 
umes for most publishers fell below 150. If 
it is possible for all the larger libraries during 
a period of six months or more to keep a 
record of the number of times each volume 
has circulated before it is first sent to the 
binder, the average ought to show the rela- 
tive wearing qualities of books of the different 
publishers. These figures should be kept sepa- 
rate for fiction, juveniles and class books. In 
the recent experiment of the committee only 
rthe records for one month were kept, except 
in the case of two libraries. 

In view of the fact, as will be shown in this 
report, that many of the publishers express a 
willingness to issue their publications in bind- 
ings suitable for library use, it does not at 
present seem wise to publish a list showing 
the relative rank of the publishers graded 
according to the wearing qualities of their 
"books. It is sufficient at this time to report 
that the statistics collected indicate that the 
books of 18 of the leading publishers are sent 
to the binder after circulating an average of 
irom 13.7 to 35.96 times. 

The committee recommends that unless 
there is devised a working plan for inducing 
publishers to issue books in special library 
bindings, further records of the circulation 
of books of different pubishers be kept and 
the detailed results, together with those now 



in the hands of the committee, be published 
for the benefit of libraries and publishers. 

NEGOTIATIONS FOR BETTER PUBLISHERS' BINDINGS 

An effort has been made both by correspon- 
dence and by personal interviews to induce the 
leading publishers to issue fiction and juvenile 
works in editions bound for the special use 
of libraries. About 25 publishers were asked 
to consider the plan. Of these, three refused 
outright, 16 showed interest and willingness 
to meet the committee half way in any dis- 
cussions, and 6 made no reply whatever to the 
Letters of the committee. 

Although many publishers expressed inter- 
est and a desire to meet the needs of libraries 
for better binding, they were almost unan- 
imous in saying that it would be impossible 
to issue a special library binding unless as- 
surance could be given of the number of 
copies that libraries would order. It must 
be said at once that no attempt to induce 
the publishers to better their bindings for 
library use will succeed unless librarians de- 
vise some plan of letting publishers know the 
number of copies they will need. At the same 
time actual orders must go through the regu- 
lar channels, for it is certain that any attempts 
to centralize orders will meet the opposition 
of booksellers. In personal interviews, sev- 
eral of the leading publishers in New York 
expressed a purpose to protect local book- 
sellers. 

At present only one plan for learning the 
number of copies wanted by libraries has oc- 
curred to the committee. It is suggested that 
libraries wishing to order new fiction or to 
replace standard works such as the Alcott 
and Brownie books, send to the A. L. A. 
headquarters a statement of the number of 
copies of each work wanted. These state- 
ments might be tabulated at the A. L. A. 
headquarters and a notice sent to each pub- 
lisher once a month, or perhaps oftener, that 
so many copies will be needed of such and 
such books. The publishers can then bind in 
a specially strong binding the number of cop- 
ies wanted and the libraries can order through 
their regular agents. In this way neither 
publisher nor bookseller would be obliged to 
carry in stock for any length of time two 
different styles of the same work 



BOWERMAN 



135 



We learned that several years ago Double- 
day, Page & Co. issued all their fiction in a 
special binding for library use, but they 
found the demand from libraries so very 
small that they were obliged to abandon the 
plan. Copies of these books were examined 
by the committee and found to be so strongly 
bound that it was almost impossible to pull 
them apart. The failure of librarians to take 
any interest in this effort of Doubleday, Page 
& Co. to provide specially for their needs 
shows great neglect of a very important part 
of library economy. No attempt to get better 
bindings from the publishers will meet with 
success unless librarians all over the country 
give it systematic support. 

In the communications with the publishers, 
they were asked to estimate the extra cost 
of books bound according to the following 
specifications : books to be sewed on tapes, 
first and last signatures guarded with muslin, 
and good muslin used on the back instead of 
the coarse super ordinarily used. All pub- 
lishers agreed that the cost of books bound in 
such a way would not be increased more than 
ten cents a volume; that is, fiction now cost- 
ing libraries $i would cost $1.10, or less. It 
is certain, however, that books well bound 
according to such specifications would last at 
least twice as long as the ordinary case bind- 
ing. Instead of a circulation of 35 or less in 
the original covers a liberal average as 
shown by the statistics collected from libraries 
by this committee books so bound ought to 
circulate at least 70 times. 

The number of copies to be issued in a 
special binding is an important point in all 
calculations of publishers. Although one pub- 
lisher mentioned 100 copies as a minimum 
number for undertaking such editions, most 
publishers stipulated that they be assured a 
sale for 500 copies or more. 

The actual results of the efforts of the 
committee to induce the publishers to issue 
books in a special binding for libraries are 
as follows : 

George W. Jacobs Co. will issue according 
to the specifications submitted by the com- 
mittee without special charge if 100 copies or 
more are needed. 

D. Appleton & Co. are willing to publish in 
a special binding at an additional expense of 



"ten cents a copy over the regular edition," 
provided libraries place orders with them for 
500 copies. 

E. P. Button & Co. agree to quote on any 
books on their list. As they have agreed to 
issue the works of Mrs. de la Pasture without 
extra charge, it is fair to assume that they 
can be relied upon to do this in the case of 
other fiction. 

A. S. Barnes & Co. will issue in the special 
binding at an additional cost of six cents to 
the net price of the book and make no stipula- 
tion as to the number of copies. They are 
willing to issue in "full cloth, head bands, 
sheets to be folded in i6s, book to be sewed 
on tapes," without extra charge if 500 copies 
are ordered. 

Doubleday, Page & Co. have made no defi- 
nite promise, but it is the opinion of the com- 
mittee, based on a personal interview, that 
they will again try the experiment which they 
made several years ago, if they can be as- 
suied of a reasonable sale. Five cents a copy 
would cover the extra cost. 

Little. Brown & Co. agree to issue books in 
a special binding at an extra cost of eight 
cents a volume on editions of not less than 
500. 

McClure, Phillips & Co. think that seven to 
ten cents would cover all extra cost and give 
250 copies as a minimum. 

A. C. McClurg & Co. estimate five cents as 
the extra net cost, but are unwilling to under- 
take it for any number of copies less than 500. 

L. C. Page & Co. add five cents to the cost 
and make no stipulation as to the number of 
copies. 

Henry Holt & Co. write that they are will- 
ing to bind according to the specifications of 
the committee, at an extra cost of five cents a 
volume for an edition of 500 copies. 

The Century Co., after a visit from mem- 
bers of the committee and a practical demon- 
stration of the instability of ordinary binding, 
agreed to consider the strengthening of all 
their work, but did not think it feasible to 
issue in two different styles. It was learned 
from them that the Cleveland Public Library 
had bought many copies of the Brownie books 
in a special cloth edition at an extra cost of 
ten cents a volume. Mr. Brett reports that 
these books wear much longer and show soil 
much less quickly. These books have not been 
sold by the Century Co. through the trade, 
but directly, to one or two libraries. Later 
the Century Co. agreed to issue the Brownie 
books in cloth, in accordance with the specifi- 
cations of the committee, at $1.10 if ordered 
in moderate quantities. 

Charles Scribner's Sons have, at the sug- 
gestion of the committee, agreed to issue 
Hopkinson Smith's "Tides of Barnegat" in 
an edition to conform with our specifications. 
The publishers will send announcements to 



136 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



libraries direct. We urge upon librarians the 
importance of responding promptly, thus mak- 
ing the experiment a success, and thus prov- 
ing that co-operation between librarians and 
publishers is possible. 

No other publisher has given a definite an- 
swer, but it is fair to assume that if the A. 
L. A. can remove the great and practically 
the only objection, namely, the present in- 
ability to find out the number of copies wanted 
by libraries, most publishers will be glad to 
meet the desires of librarians. It is the opin- 
ion of the committee that all that is necessary 
to assure success in this matter is the earnest 
co-operation of librarians. The publishers are 
willing to meet us at least half way, and per- 
manent failure will be charged to librarians 
rather than to the publishers. 

LIBRARY AND CONTRACT BINDING 

In the preparation of this report it seemed 
well to learn of the experience of American 
public libraries that are conducting their own 
binderies by direct employment and those that 
have work done by contract, either in library 
binderies or in outside shops. Inquiries ad- 
dressed to 44 public libraries brought 41 an- 
swers. Of these Boston, New York, Cleve- 
land, Milwaukee and Seattle, among large li- 
braries, and Easton, Pa., among small libra- 
ries, conduct their own binderies by direct 
employment. In the case of Easton, the reg- 
ular library staff does the binding work. The 
public libraries of Philadelphia, Newark and 
Washington have well-equipped binderies in 
their own buildings in which bindery work is 
dene by contract. The Carnegie Library of 
Pittsburgh has its binding done by contract 
in its own building, but does not own machin- 
ery or tools. The other 31 libraries answer- 
ing our questions have binding done by out- 
side binders. 

The Boston Public Library has conducted 
its bindery for many years and finds the plan 
satisfactory. It employs 29 persons in its 
bindery, nearly all of whom receive union 
wages. Last year 35,720 volumes were bound. 
For fiction the estimated cost was 28 cents 
for I2mos bound in art canvas. About 15 per 
cent, of the product of the bindery is repair- 
ing, map and photo mounting, periodical cover 



making, stitching and trimming library pub- 
lications, etc. Cost of equipment about $2000. 

The Milwaukee Public Library has con- 
ducted its own bindery for 15 years, and last 
year bound 11,350 volumes. The estimated 
cost of I2mo fiction was 40 cents; binding, 
half roan. Seven persons are employed. Cost 
of equipment, about $650. 

The Seattle Public Library has run its own 
bindery for 10 years, starting with $200 worth 
of second-hand machinery, type, etc., and with 
one man and a girl. Four persons are now 
employed and the value of the machinery and 
tools now amount to $641. Last year 4308 
volumes of all sizes were bound at a cost of 
$3520. The usual mending, lettering, maga- 
zine cover making, etc., were also done in the 
bindery. The cost of I2mo fiction in imperial 
morocco cloth is estimated at 55 cents. Labor 
and material are high at Seattle and only the 
best of both are used. 

The New York Public Library has con- 
ducted its own bindery with satisfaction and 
economy since Jan. I, 1887, and until within 
recent years has done all the library's bind- 
ing. With the expansion of the library sys- 
tem, about three-fourths of the binding is now 
done outside. When the new central building 
is occupied it will be possible to enlarge the 
library bindery. The bindery equipment cost 
about $800; six persons are employed and 
13,643 volumes were bound last year. Ordi- 
nary I2tno fiction is bound in full art vellum, 
sewed on tapes, with strong cloth hinges. The 
cost approximates 25 cents a volume, not in- 
cluding lettering. 

The Cleveland Public Library has had a li- 
brary bindery for 12 years. It has been found 
that the expense is less than by contract; the 
work is excellent and the delays are a great 
deal less frequent. The estimated cost of the 
equipment is $1373 and 21 persons are em- 
ployed. The product of the bindery in 1904 
was 17,359 volumes bound and rebound, 34,- 
544 volumes repaired and 23,280 volumes 
numbered and lettered, besides miscellaneous 
work. The cost of I2mo fiction is about 35 
cents, bound in art vellum. As some work 
is now done by contract, there is a good 
chance for comparison. Fiction bound in art 
canvas costs from 36 to 45 cents. Only at 



BOWERMAN 



137 



the latter price is it as satisfactory as work 
done in the library bindery at 35 cents. 

That the plan of conducting a library bind- 
ery is not limited to large libraries is shown 
by the interesting experience of the Easton 
Public Library, as outlined in the Library 
Journal, 30:796-7 (Oct., 1905). The cost of 
the equipment is given as $127.30, lessons in 
binding $50, materials and interest on money 
invested for fourteen months $44.16. In that 
time 2544 books were repaired at a cost of 
..017 each and 293 volumes were resewed or 
-rebound at a cost of $11.72, or an average of 4 
-cents a volume. This reckons the labor as 
nothing, inasmuch as it is stated that all work 
-is done by the regular staff, and as no more 
time is given to this grade of work, which is 
real binding, than would be required by the 
repair work ordinarily done in libraries, the 
utility of which is often doubtful. 

Among the advantages to be noted in the 
plan of conducting a library bindery are the 
following: the greater safety of the books be- 
ing bound, the ability to consult them while 
tbey are being bound, greater promptness, the 
saving of the profit that would accrue to the 
contractor, the greater flexibility of the meth- 
od over contract work, enabling the library to 
try experiments with new methods or mate- 
rials, the opportunity to do special work such 
as picture and map mounting and the doing of 
repair work by skilled workmen, instead of 
by library employes who by their zeal to re- 
pair many books injure many. Among the 
disadvantages are the difficulty of getting a 
satisfactory foreman in whose judgment of 
materials, methods and workmen you can 
have confidence. This feature is so impor- 
tant that speaking generally, rarely can any 
but the largest library afford to employ such 
a man, when one can be found. A librarian 
already has so many administrative problems 
that ordinarily he ought not to undertake a 
new one involving a highly skilled craft and 
the purchase of materials the imitations of 
which deceive even the elect, unless he can 
-secure as foreman a man in whose judgment 
Tie has perfect confidence. However, if the 
difficulties of getting good bindings in other 
ways prove very great, he may be forced, in 
order to get good work for his library, to 



master the subject for himself to such an ex- 
tent that he can personally supervise his own 
bindery. 

The public libraries of Newark, Philadel- 
phia and Washington have found it desirable 
to fit up binderies of their own and then have 
the work done by contract, while the Carnegie 
Library of Pittsburgh has work done by con- 
tract in its central btn'lding, where room, heat, 
light and janitor service are furnished. The 
plan has many of the advantages of conduct- 
ing one's own bindery and at the same time 
eliminates most of the disadvantages. It 
shifts the responsibility of everything but re- 
sults from the librarian to the contractor. If 
one secures a contractor sufficiently progres- 
sive, if one is willing to pay him for trying 
experiments, and if the contract is subject to 
frequent revision to include new and ap- 
proved methods, this plan is, in the judgment 
of this committee to be preferred to the one of 
direct employment. 

Of the four library binderies run by the 
contract plan, three are conducted by Mr. 
Gilbert D. Emerson, of Philadelphia, a per- 
sonal element that has undoubtedly been a 
large factor in their success. The bindery 
equipment of the Philadelphia Free Library 
cost about $1000. The cost of binding I2mo 
fiction in half cowhide, with cloth sides, is 35 
cents. The Newark Public Library's bindery 
equipment cost $875; the cost of I2mo fiction 
in half cowhide, with keratol sides, is 37 
cents. The bindery equipment of the Public 
Library of the District of Columbia cost 
about $800; that for the repair work now run 
separately, about $60. The cost of I2mo fic- 
tion is at present 43 cents for full buckram, 
50 cents for half cowhide and 60 cents for 
half morocco. These prices are exorbitant 
and the work is unsatisfactory. Arrange- 
ments are being made for a more favorable 
contract for another year. 

A summary of the reports from some of 
the libraries having rebinding done by out- 
side contractors is as follows : 

For the Chicago Public Library 27,698 vol- 
umes were bound or rebound last year by four 
contractors at a cost of 35 cents for half roan 
and 50 cents for half morocco for i2mos. The 
work is considered very satisfactory. The 
advantages of the plan are stated to be these : 



138 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



The annual advertisement for bids brings 
enough competitors to keep down prices and 
at the same time keeps work in the hands of 
those having experience. Contracts are en- 
forced by bonds, if not found satisfactory. 
Labor troubles are unknown. Odors of paste, 
glue, etc., inseparable from a bindery, are 
avoided. Contract covers the books in con- 
stant demand on "rush" orders. It is re- 
garded cheaper for the library to have bind- 
ing done by the competitive system than by 
a non-competitive system, as would be the 
case in direct employment. 

There is the greatest possible variety in the 
reports from the various libraries on the re- 
sults of contract work, prices paid and satis- 
faction with the work. Cloth bindings range 
all the way from 22 cents paid at Paterson 
for I2mo fiction said to be satisfactorily bound 
in buckram, including lettering of titles and 
class numbers, and 25 cents paid at Spring- 
field for satisfactory binding in imperial 
morocco cloth, up to 50 cents paid at Salem 
for binding in half art canvas, black lettered 
and only fairly satisfactory, and 60 cents paid 
at Atlanta for buckram binding. In leather 
bindings prices range from 30 to 35 cents paid 
at Grand Rapids for half cowhide which is 
not wholly satisfactory up to 50 cents paid 
at Wilkes-Barre for only fairly satisfactory 
binding in buffing, and the same price paid 
by the Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn and 
New York public libraries for satisfactory 
binding in pigskin by Mr. Chivers. The 
average price paid for rebinding seems to be 
about 40 cents for half leather and about 35 
cents for cloth. 

Although a considerable portion of the an- 
swers indicate that librarians are perfectly 
satisfied with the results obtained, yet a large 
number are dissatisfied and would like a 
change. Several would like to have their own 
binderies if they had the space. 

It is significant that several libraries re- 
ported their entire satisfaction with the books 
they have bought bound from the sheets by 
Mr. Chivers. The Medford Public Library 
has for six years sent its books to be rebound 
at Bath, England, at a cost of about 35 cents 
in durabline. The New York and Brooklyn 
public libraries and the Pratt Institute Free 



Library are having much rebinding done by 
Mr. Chivers, both in Brooklyn and in Eng- 
land. 

A WORKING BASIS 

A study of these reports only serves to 
show the absence of standards of economical 
binding among American librarians. Another 
generalization that may be made is that only 
rarely in America have we binders who have 
any adequate conception of good binding from, 
the point of view of the library. Since the 
librarians are without standards and binders 
do not have any conception of the needs of 
libraries, it is a case of the blind leading the 
blind. This report may not shed much light 
on the subject, except to show us what we are 
doing, and set us to thinking and point the 
way so that each may work out his own bind- 
ing salvation. It does not profess to be more 
than tentative. As a working basis until more 
definite rules may be laid down your com- 
mittee recommends the following : 

1. Master Dana's "Notes" and follow the 
advice there given for all the points it covers. 

2. If you have a good binder keep to him, 
pay him adequately for his work and lead him 
to give good, honest, craftsmanlike work. 
Make sure that the work you are getting will 
stand the test of many home circulations, 
without the need for any repairing whatever 
or a second rebinding. If asked to suggest 
the number of times a book should circulate 
after being rebound we would say that under 
ordinary conditions of cleanliness (that is, 
outside of the soft coal smoke belt), the min- 
imum should be 75 times. 

3. Large libraries are recommended to do- 
their own binding, but even then only pro- 
vided it is impracticable to get good contract 
work. This advice is in line with that given 
in England in Mr. J. D. Brown's "Manual 1 
of library economy" (p. 330) and by a writer 
in the Library Association Record, 8:74-78 
(March, 1906). For the convenience of those 
who are thinking of opening binderies we 
give as an appendix to this report a list of 
suggested equipment for binderies for small 
libraries. 

4. Wherever possible to secure well-made 
publishers' original editions librarians have a 
duty of co-operation with publishers and a 



BOWERMAN 



139 



duty to their own libraries to buy these edi- 
tions that bid fair to last until so soiled as to 
require withdrawal without rebinding. Where 
it is not possible to buy such well-made pub- 
lishers' editions, it is the part of sound policy 
to buy replacements especially and new books 
that are sure to have long use, strongly 
bound from the sheets, thus saving repair 
work, loss of use and much of the cost of re- 
binding. The committee has thus far only 
heard cf one binder, Mr. Cedric Olivers, who 
systematically furnishes libraries with books 
strongly bound from the sheets. His books 
are used with great satisfaction in a large 
number of American libraries. If any criti- 
cism can be passed upon them it is that, they 
are somewhat awkward and clumsy in appear- 
ance. In our correspondence with publishers, 
some of them preferred not to make special 
editions for libraries, but recommended that 
libraries secure their publications bound from 
the sheets, and one firm specifically recom- 
mended Mr. Olivers. 

Many important binding questions have not 
even been touched upon in this report. Among 
them are the questions of magazine covers, 
pamphlet bindings and bindings for music. 
These and revised judgments on the ques- 
tions here considered might well be covered 
by bulletins to be issued in the future by the 
A. L. A. committee on bookbinding and book 
papers. Your committee has only to point 
out again that it has considered these ques- 
tions solely from the point of view of eco- 
nomical administration, and not from that of 
expert knowledge of binding as a craft. 

APPENDIX 
EQUIPMENT FOR A SMALL BINDERY 

The committee has had considerable corre- 
spondence with dealers in bookbinding mate- 
rials concerning the equipment necessary for 
small library binderies. Extracts from some 
of the letters are here given. 

J. L. Shoemaker & Co., of Philadelphia, 
write as follows: 

"A very small bindery containing the es- 
sential tools for binding library books in the 
simplest way could be had for about $250, to 
include the following items : 

"One small wood frame standing press; I 
pair of table shears; I laying press, plow, 



knife and pin; I pair backing boards; i fin- 
ishing press ; i sewing bench ; about a dozen 
cherry press boards ; i lettering pallet ; i gold 
cushion and knife ; i type cabinet ; i small fin- 
ishing stove, for gas or oil ; I glue pot ; I 
round and one flat burnisher ; i hammer ; I 
paring and i cutting knife ; 6 bone folders ; I 
paste brush; small assortment of finishing 
rolls and stamps, and small quantity of brass 
type. 

"Should the work increase to any extent, 
some larger machine would be needed, name- 
ly, a job backer costing about $70 and a cut- 
ting machine costing about $175. However, 
with a good mechanic all the work of a small 
bindery could be done with the items first 
named." 

The O'Bannon Corporation, of New York. 
gives the following as necessary for a small 
bindery : 

"One 30- inch lever paper cutter; i 3.3-inch 
iron table shear; i No. 6 standing press; I 
2i-inch job backer; i gold cushion 8 x 16 
inches; 2 sewing benches 28 inches; i 15- 
drawer type cabinet; 12 16x24 inch press- 
boards ; i finisher's press 24 inches ; i pattern 
pallet ; I gas stove ; finisher's tools." 

The cost of this equipment they give as 
about $550. 

Louis de Jonge & Co., New York, give the 
following itemized equipment, which totals 
about $425. 

"One standing press ; i pair board shears ; 
i stamping press; I pair 2i-inch backing 
beards; i small size finishing stand; I 7-case 
type cabinet: i lettering pallet; I laying 
press without plow; i finishing press, 2r 
inches between screws ; I sewing bench, 24 
inches between screws ; 6 pressing boards, 
16x24 inches; 6 pressing boards, 10x13 
inches ; 4 pressing boards, 8 x 12 inches ; I 
single finishing gas stove; I 12-inch back saw: 
3 bone folders; i glue kettle and gas heater ; 
glue and paste brushes ; i beating hammer ; I 
flat steel polisher; 2 agate burnishers (i flat 
and i round) ; knives and shears; I forming 
iron; i pair compasses; joint rods; I book- 
binders' hammer, best steel ; rolls and stamps." 

Inasmuch as some libraries may wish to 
have a well-equipped repair room it may be 
\vcrth while to enumerate the equipment of 
the repair shop of the Public Library of the 
District of Columbia, which cost $60. It 
follows : 

One sewing bench ; 6 brass keys ; 12 cherry 
boards (small) ; 4 cherry boards (large) ; i 
press; L finishing press; I nickel paper holder 
and cutter ; 2 pairs shears ; 6 paste brushes ; 
6 glue brushes ; i shoemaker's cast hammer ; 
6 bone folders ; i saw. 

Addresses of dealers in binding machinery 
and materials are given in Mr. Dana's 
"Notes." 



140 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC DOCUMENTS 



By ADELAIDE R. HASSE, Chairman 



To the American Library Association: 

"V7"OUR committee on public documents 
respectfully submits the customary re- 
port on current legislation and publication : 

The committee suggests the expediency of 
excepting its report from the rule requiring 
committee reports to conform to the calendar 
.year. The major part of the reports of this 
committee relate properly to federal and state 
legislation bearing upon public documents. 
Congress does not convene until the first 
Monday in December, and the majority of 
state legislatures sit during the early part of 
the winter. If the rule is suspended so far 
as this committee is concerned, then the 
committee will be enabled to report to the 
Association on new legislation concerning 
documents while it is new. If the rule is 
enforced for this committee, the subject mat- 
ter of the committee's reports will always be 
a year old. 

Although laying itself open to the charge of 
violating the present rules, the committee 
believes that the document problem is of 
sufficient importance to libraries to warrant 
the transgression on the grounds stated. 

NATIONAL DOCUMENTS 
AMERICAN 

i. Federal 

The Commission to Investigate Public 
Printing, the appointment of which was 
announced in the last report of this com- 
mittee, made its first reports during the 
present session of Congress. An examination 
of the reports shows that an extensive in- 
quiry into the printing of documents was 
made. No changes materially affecting the 
depository libraries have been recommended. 
In a report dated March 26, 1906, the com- 
mission lays stress on congressional distribu- 
tion as one of the greatest evils in the 
ousting printing abuses. Although no men- 
tion is made of depository libraries, the 
commission did take steps to ascertain the 



attitude of these libraries towards either pos- 
sible retrenchment or graduated distribution. 
The practical unanimity of replies received 
from depository libraries has induced the 
commission to believe that all depositories 
are in a position to maintain the trust which 
the government imposes on them. On the 
other hand, the Superintendent of Documents, 
in his report of 1905, states that since the 
organization of his office, 800,000 volumes 
have been returned to him by depositories, 
as being duplicates. 

There is, without question, a defect in a 
system of distribution which serves the small 
library of limited income on the same com- 
pulsory basis as it does the largest libraries. 
When designated depository libraries ap- 
proach this question in a liberal spirit many 
of the abuses in the depository distribution 
of public documents can undoubtedly be 
corrected. The comparatively limited use of 
public documents in the majority of libraries 
when compared with the cost of cataloging 
and maintenance, probably makes them one 
of the most expensive assets of a library. 
If they are carted away into cellar or attic, 
there is a breach of the trust which exacts 
that these books be made and kept available. 
If they are shelved, then a disproportionate 
amount of shelf room is being given by most 
libraries to a class of books for which there 
is very limited demand. If, finally, they are 
cataloged by the library, their cost to the 
library is enormously increased. It is also 
difficult to understand why congressional 
selection should be made the basis of these 
grants. Libraries neither originate nor do 
they develop coincidentally with congres- 
sional representation. 

Legislation 

The following acts relating to public doc- 
uments have been introduced during the 
present session of Congress. As Congress 
is still in session no final report can be made : 



HASSE 



141 



1905. Dec. 5. Res. in House facilitating dis- 
tribution of documents to members. H. res. 
17. Referred. 

13. Res. in House relative to printing 

of engravings, drawings and maps with ex- 
ecutive documents. Congr. Record, 59 
cong., I sess. (daily ed.) : 324. 

1906. Jan. 13. Bill making- libraries of land 
grant colleges depositories of government 
publications. H. R. 11785. Referred. 

27. Bill making state historical socie- 
ties designated depositories of public docu- 
ments. H. R. 13301. Referred. 

Feb. 15. Bill to promote civic education 
through reprints of public documents at 
private expense. H. R. 15066. Referred. 

Mch. 20. Bill to furnish public documents 
to those entitled to admission to press gal- 
leries of Senate and House. H. R. 17042. 
Referred. 

30. Joint resolutions to correct abuses 

in public printing, and so forth. H. J. Res. 
127. Approved. 

Joint resolution on prevention of un- 
necessary printing and binding, etc. H. J. 
Res. 128. Approved. 

Apr. ip. Amendment in Senate making 
appropriation for indexing documents, bills 
and hearings during sessions of Senate. 
Cong. Record. 59 cong., I sess., p. 5108 
(daily ed.). 

Reports, etc. 
(Official.) 

1906. Jan. Report on public printing by 
committee on department methods. 12 pp. 
4. 

Executive order directing that head of 

each Executive Department shall appoint 
advisory committee on printing and pub- 
lication, and assigning rules governing an- 
nual reports of departments. I p. f. 

1906. Feb. Amendments and additions to 
printing laws; published t>y Government 
Printing Office. 77 pp. 

Mch. 24. Report of Committee on Print- 
ing on H. J. Res. 127 on correction of 
abuses in the public printing, etc. I p. 
(House rept 2652). 

Same on H. J. Res. 128 on prevention of 

unnecessary printing and binding, etc. I p. 
(House rept. 2653). 

26. Report from Printing Investigation 

Commission. 92 pp. (Senate rept. 2153.) 

This report, without the tabular 
matter, is also printed in the Con- 
gressional Record of March 26. 

(Non-official.) 

5905. Sept. The problem of federal print- 
ing; by Wm. S. Rossiter. (Atlantic Mo. 
Sept., 1905.) 



1905-6. Monthly List of Selected Public 
Documents ; issued by Free Library of Phil- 
adelphia, and prepared by Wm. Reinick, 
chief of dept. of public documents. 
Sold at $i per annum. 
Very useful work. 

1906. U. S. government documents ; by 
James I. Wyer, Jr. Albany, 1906. 78 pp. 
(N. Y. State Library Bull. 102.) 

Reviewed in L. J., May, 1906: 233. 
Manual of method of great practical 
use. 

April. What shall we do with public doc- 
uments?; by Wm. S. Rossiter. (Atlantic 
Mo., April, 1906.) 

Offices created and abolished, etc. 
(Including changes in publications.) 
1905. July 17. Daily consular reports; title 
changed to Daily consular and trade re- 
ports. With change publication transferred 
from the Bureau of Statistics, Department of 
Commerce and Labor, to Bureau of Manu- 
factures. Change occurred with no. 2310. 

2. STATE 

The third part of Mr. Bowker's "State pub- 
lications" has been issued during the year. 
It includes the states of Minnesota, Iowa, 
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, the two Dako- 
tas, Montana and Dakota territory. Libra- 
rians will ever owe to Mr. Bowker a debt of 
gratitude for venturing on this undertaking. 
It will always remain a foundation for every 
subsequent bibliography pertaining to this 
subject. 

The project for the indexing of American 
state documents, referred to in the last re- 
port of this committee, is proceeding under 
the most favorable circumstances. Indexes 
for the states of Maine, Vermont and New 
Hampshire have been completed and are 
ready for the press. Early publication is 
anticipated. It is hoped that librarians will 
be enabled, by this new tool, to find increas- 
ing use for a hitherto most forbidding mass 
of material. Both the arrangement and the 
references to documents have been made as 
simple as possible in order to facilitate the 
use of trie indexes. 

It is to be regretted that librarians gen- 
erally do not make more use of the indexes 
to legislation issued by the New York State 
Library. In order that librarians may have 
an opportunity to collect a file of this very 
useful publication a collation of the series is 



142 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



given below. The current number of the Cal. 

"Review of legislation" is the first to report 

especially on public printing. 



Comparative Summary and Index of Legislation 

1. 1890. Legislation bull. no. i. 

2. 1891. Same, no. 2. 

3. 1892. Same, no. 3 and App. 3, 76 Ann. rept. 

State Library. 

1893. Same, no. 4 and App. 4, 77 same. 

1894. Same, no. 5 and 4, same. 

1895. Same, no. 6 and App. 2, 78 same. 

1896. Same, no. 7 and App. 2, 79 same. 

1897. Same, no. 9 and App. 2, 80 jam*. 

1898. Sawtf, no. 10 and App. i, 81 same., 

1899. Same, no. ii and App. 2, 82 same. 

1900. Same, no. 13 and App. 3 in part 83 same. 

1901. Same, no. 15 and App. 2 in part 84 came. 

1902. Same, no. 18 and App. 2 in part 85 same. 

1903. Same, no. 21. 



4- 

e! 

7- 
8. 
9- 

10. 

ii. 

12. 
13- 
14- 

IS- 

1 6. 



1904. Same, no. 24. 

1905. Same, no. 28. 



Review of Legislation 

1. 1901. Legislation bull. no. 16 and App. 2 in 

84 Ann. rept. State Library. 

2. 1902. Same, no. 19 and App. 2 in part 85 tame. 

3. 1903. Same, no. 22. 

4. 1904. Same, no. 25. 

Digest of Governors' Messages 

1. 1902. Legislation bull. 17 and App. 2 Ann. 

rept. State Library. 

2. 1903. Same, no. 20 and App. same. 

3. 1904. .Same, no. 23. 

Same, no. 27. 



1905. 



1903- 
1904. 



book of Legislation 

Contains Legislation bulletins 20-22. 
Contains Legislation bulletins 23-25. 



Trend of Legislation in the U. S. 

i. 1900. Legislation bull. no. 12 and App. 3 83 
Ann. rept. State Library. 

Legislation 

The following acts relating to public docu- 
ments have been passed by those states, 
excepting Hawaii, holding sessions in 1905. 
An examination of the laws of 1905 shows 
that 34 states and territories legislated 
changes in their fixed administrative branches. 
These changes numbered 129. To the docu- 
ment librarian, however, those offices only 
which are specifically required to make re- 
ports will have a more direct interest than 
do those whose duties are supervisory or in- 
spectorial merely, without the responsibility 
of handing down reports for publication. 
The following tabulation of reports so re- 
quired may, therefore, be of use to that offi- 
cial in the performance of his duties. 

Ari. Office of Public Examiner to enforce uni- 
form system of county accounts; annual 
report to Gov. 9 ('05 ch. 40, 16 Mr.) 



Col. 
Del. 
Fla. 



Id. 
111. 

Ind. 
Kan. 

Me. 

Mass. 

Mich. 

Minn. 

Mo. 
Mon. 

Nev. 
N. J. 

N. M. 
N. Y. 



N. C. 

N. D 



State Bd. of Forestry; annual report to Gov. 

('05 ch. 264, 18 Mr.) 
Bureau of Building and Loan Supervision; 

annual report to Gov. ('05 ch. 504, 21 Mr.) 
State Bd of Nurse Examiners; biennial re- 
port to Gov. 8 ('05 ch. 136, ii Ap.) 
Division of Public Records; biennial report 

to Gov. 58 Cos ch. 77, 16 Mr.) 
State Bd. of Accountancy; annual report to 

Gov. 9! CS ch.54, 5 Je.) 
Bd. of Control of State Educational Inst.; 

biennial report to legislature. 40! ( 05 

ch. 13, 5 Je.) 
State Live Stock Sr.nitary Bd.; annual report 

to Gov. 398 ('05 p. 39, 6 Mr.) 
State Bd. of Pharmacy; annual report to 

Gov. ('05 p. 319, Mr. 7.) 
State Geological survey; annual report to 

Gov. ('05 p. 3. 12 My.) 
State Highway Com'n.; annual report to 

Gov. 7 ('03 p. 74, 18 My.) 
State Civil Service Com'n.; annual report 

to Gov. 37 ('05 P- US, ii My.) 
State Bd. of Veterinary Medical Examiners; 

annual report to Gov. and State Veterin- 
ary Medical Ass'n. 17! C5 ch. 98, 4 Mr.) 
State Live Stock Sanitary Com r. ; annual 

report to Gov. 32! ('05 ch. 495, 4 Mr.) 
State Bd. of Control of State Charitable 

Inst.; annual report to Gov.; biennial, to 

Leg. 54l Cos ch. 475, 4 Mr.) 
State Bd. of Veterinary Examiners; annual 

report to Gov. ('05 ch. 17, 22 F.) 
Bd of Registration in Embalming; annual 

report to Gov. io ('05 ch. 473, 26 My.) 
Pathologist of State Asylums for Insane; 

annual report to Gov. 98 ('05 ch. .'40. 

Bd. of Accountancy; annual report to Gov. 
('05 ch. 92, 4 My.) 

State Highway Dep't.; biennial report to 
Gov. 178 ('05 ch. 146, i Je.) 

State Highway Com'n.; annual report to 
Gov. ('05 ch. 163, 13 Ap.) 

State Bureau of Child and Animal Protec- 
tion; annual report to Sec. of state. 68 
('05 ch. 274, iS Ap) 

State Dairy Com'r.; annual report to Gov. 

8 ('05 P- 133. 8 Ap.) 

Bureau of Child and Animal Protection; 
biennial report to Gov. n ('05 ch. 96, 
4 Mr.) 

State Veterinarian; biennial report to uov. 
1 4 ('05 ch. 135, 15 Mr.) 

State Bd. of Forest Park Reservation 
Com'rs.; biennial report to Leg. 128 
('05 ch. 47, 22 Mr.) 

Com'r of Charities and Corrections; annual 
report to Gov. 6S ('05 ch. 57, 25 Mr.) 

State Bd. of Equalization; annual report 
to Leg. 128 ('05 ch. 67, 29 Mr.) 

Territorial Irrigation Engineer; biennial re- 
port to Gov. 428 ('05 ch. 102, 16 Mr.) 

Insurance Dep't.; annual report to Gov. 
('05 ch. 70, 14 Mr.) 

Territorial Coal Oil Inspector; annual report 
to Gov. ('05 ch. 66, 14 Mr.) 

Bd. of Inspectors in Optometry; annual re- 
port to Gov. 168 ('05 ch. 96, 16 Mr.) 
Com'n to investigate sources and disposi- 
tion of available water supply; annual re- 
port to Leg. io ('05 ch. 723, 3 Je.) 

Com'n. to regulate gas and electric light 
rates and supervise lighting Corp.; annual 
report to Leg. 228 ('05 ch. 737, 3 Je.) 

State Geological Bd. ; biennial report to Leg. 
78 ('05 ch. 542, 6 Mr.) 

State Bd. of Embalmers; annual report to 
Gov. 98 ('05 ch. iii, 28 F.) 

State Bd. of Bar Examiners (reports are re- ' 
quired, but it is not specified at what 
time or to whom they are to be made.) 88 
('05 ch. 50, 18 F.) 



HASSE 



143 



N. D. State Banking Dep't. (reports and note as 
above). 42! ('05 ch. 165, 6 Mr.) 

State Historical Soc. to be trustee of state; 

biennial publications. 4$ ('05 ch. 25, 

16 Mr.) 
Bd. of Water Cctn'rs. ; biennial report to 

Gov. 64! ('05 ch. 34, i Mr.) 
Or. State Library Ccm'n. ; biennial report to 

Leg. 68 ('05 ch. 44, 9 F.) 
Pa. State Water Supply Com'n. ; annual report 

to Gov. 9 ('05 ch. 236, 4 My.) 
Dep't. of Health; annual report to Gov. 

('05 ch. 218, 27 Ap.) 

Dep't. of Public Printing and Binding; 

annual report to Gov. 42! ('05 ch. i, 

7 F.) 
Tenn. Dep't. of Game, Fish and Forestry; biennial 

report to Leg. 9 ('05 ch 455, 15 Ap.) 
Vt. Office of Atty.-Gen. ; biennial report to Leg. 

io ('04 ch. 57, 18 N.) 
Wash. State Railroad Com'n.; annual report to 

Gov. 27 ('05 ch. 81, 7 Mr.) 

Bd. for Promotion of Uniformity of Legis- 

lation in U. S.; biennial report to Leg. 
4$ ('05 ch. 59, 3 Mr.) 

State Bd. of Tax Com'rs. ; biennial report 

to Gov. 68 ('05 ch. 115, 9 Mr.) 
State Oil Inspector; annual reports to Gov. 
io| ('05 ch. 161, ii Mr.) 

State Highway Bd. ; biennial report to Leg. 

I2 ('05 ch. 174, 13 Mr.) 

W. Va. State Bureau of Archives and History; 
annual report to Gov. 58 ('05 ch. 64, 
18 F.) 

Dep't. of Mines; annual report to 'Gov. 

5l ('05 ch. 46, 24 F.) 

Wis. State Tax Com'n.; biennial report to Gov. 
('05 ch. 380, 15 Je.) 

State Bd. of Forestry; annual report to 

Gov. 24! ('05 ch. 264, 25 My.) 

State Civil Service Com'n. ; biennial report 

to Gov. ('05 ch. 363, 14 Je.) 

Wy. Com'r. of Public Lands; biennial report to 
Leg. n ('05 ch. 36, 15 F.) 

State Bd. of Pardons; annual report to Gov. 

4 ('05 ch. 56, 20 F.) 

State Bd. of Horticulture; biennial report 

to Leg. ('05 ch. 50, 1 8 F.) 

Bureau of Mining Statistics, provision for 

establishment of by State Geologist; latter 
to report annually to Gov. 68 ('05 ch. 
92, 21 F.) 

Dairy, Food and Oil Com'r.; annual report 

to Gov. 88 ('05 ch. 49, 18 F.) 

For the benefit of the document librarian, 
the following list of reports of special state 
inquiries required by the laws of 1905 is ap- 
pended : 

Cal. Joint legisl. committee; cattle industry as 
affected by national forest reserves; time 
of report not specified. ('05 p. 1074.) 

Joint legisl. committee; system of revenue 

and taxation; time of report not *peci- 
fied. ('05 p. 1067.) 

Col. Commission; location of irrigation reser- 

voirs; time of report not specified. ('05 
ch. 130.) 

Conn. Commission; law for uniform municipal 
charters; report to legisl. of 1907. ('05 
special acts ch. 399.) 

Joint legisl. committee; compensation of 

state officials; time of report not specified. 
('05 special acts ch. 135.) 

Commission; corrupt practices; report to 

legislature of 1907. ('05 special acts ch. 
499-) 

Fla. Commission; relocation of insane hospital; 
report to legislature of 1907. ('05 ch. 83.) 



Fla. Board of commissioners; Indian war claims; 

report to legislature of 1907. ('05 ch. 80.) 
Ga. Joint legislative committee; examination of 

convict camps; report to legislature of 

1906. ('05 p. 1257.) 

Commission; registration of !and titles; ex- 

tended; report to legislature of 1906. 
('05 p. 1257.) 

Committee; erection of state sanatorium for 

consumptives; report to legislature of 1906. 
('05 p. 1255.) 

Joint legislative committee; public park; re- 

port to legislature of 1906. ('05 p. 1255.) 
joint legislative committee; revision of tax 

laws; report to legislature of 1906. ('05 

P. I2 59-) 
111. Commission; internal improvement; report 

to legislature of 1907. ('05 p. 40.) 

Commission; industrial insurance and old 

age pensions; report to legislature of 

1907. ('05 p. 401.) 

Ind. Commission; tuberculosis hospital; report to 
legislature of 1907. ("05 ch. 172.) 

Kan. Commission; coal mine explosion in S. E. 
Kansas; report to present legislature. ('05 
ch. 534-) 

Board of r.r. com'rs, to investigate rates 

in Kansas and neighboring states; report 

to Gov. in 6 mos. ('05 ch. 540.) 
Mass. Commission; technical education; report to 

legislature of 1906. ('05 r. 94.) 
Committee; taxation of forest lands: report 

to legisl. of 1906. ('05 r. 60.) 

Bd. of Gas and Electric Light com'rs. to 

investigate sliding scale for gas rates; re- 
port tp legisl. of 1906. ('05 r. 101.) 

Minn. Commission; state hospital for crippled in- 
digent children; report to legisl. of 1907. 
('05 ch. 78.) 

N. H. Joint commission with Me. and Vt. ; bridges; 
report to legisl. of 1907. ('05 ch. 119.) 

N. J. Commission; poor law revision; report to 
legisl. of 1906. ('05 p. 565.) 

Commission; master and servant law codifi- 

cation report to legisl. of 1906. ('05 ch. 
94-) 

Commission; revision of corporation laws; 

report to legisl. of 1906. ('05 ch. 30.) 

Commission; granting and taxation of public 

franchises; report to legisl. of 1906. 
('05 ch. 261.) 

Commission; improvement of judicial tys- 

tern; report to legisl. of 1906. ('05 
ch. 88.) 

Commission; turnpikes and public roads; 

report to Gov. in 1905. ('05 p. 564.) 
N. Y. Commission; reconstruction of prison build- 
ings; report to legisl. of 1906. ('05 ch. 
718.) 

Commission; investigation of probation sys- 

tem; report to legisl. of 1906. ('05 ch. 
7I4-) 

Oreg. Commission; tax code; report to legisl. of 
1907. ('05 ch. 90.) 

R. I. Joint legisl. committee; school for feeble- 
minded children; report to legislature not 
specified. ('05 r. 93.) 

Metropolitan park commission to report to 

legisl. of 1905 on system of public parks 
for Providence. ("04 ch. 1204.) 

Joint legisl. committee; modification of gen- 

eral election laws; report to present legisl. 

('05 r. 91.) 
S. C. Joint legisl. committee; terrapin and shell 

fish culture; report to legisl. of 1906. 

('05 ch. 569.) 
Tenn. Joint legisl. committee; rates of Cumberland 

telephone, etc., co.; report to legisl. by 

Mr., 1905. ('05 p. 1318.) 
Utah. Commission; consolidation of Univ. of Utah 

and Agric. College of Utah; report to 

legisl. of 1906. ('05 ch. 104.) 



144 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Vt. Tuberculosis commission continued; report 

to legisl. of 1906. ('04 ch. 142.) 

Wis. Board of control to investigate hinder twine 
plant in prisons of other states; report to 
legisl. of 1907. ('05 p. 989.) 

Commissioners on Dells of Wisconsin con- 

tinued; report by Mr., 1906. ('05 ch. 169.) 

Forest commission to examine water power; 

time of delivery of report not specified. 
('05 ch. 95.) 

Geological and Natural Hist. Survey to co- 

operate with U. S. Geol. Survey relative 
to water power; time of delivery of report 
not specified. ('05 ch. 475.) 

Wyo. Commission; codification of laws relating to 
water rights; to report to legisl. of 1907. 
('05 ch. 32.) . 

Reports, etc. 

The most notable contribution to the Lit- 
erature of American state documents is the 
report on state archives made by members of 
the Public Archives Commission, and printed 
in the annual report of the American Histor- 
ical Association for 1904: 487-649- While 
relating largely to the state archives there is 
much information of value to the collector 
of state documents. The present report 
covers the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kan- 
sas, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. For 
purposes of reference, a summary of similar 
previous reports is given: 

Alabama. (5 A.R. Pub. Arch. Com. 1904:487-553-) 
Colorado. (4 ib. 1903: 4'5-437-) 
Connecticut, (i ib. 1900: 26-36.) 
Georgia. (4 ib. 1903: 439*478.) 

same; supplementary. (5 ib. 1904: 555 -596-) 
Indiana, (i ib. 1900: 37-38.) 

Iowa, (i ib. 1900: 39-46.) 
Kansas. (5 ib. 1904: 597-601.) 
Massachusetts, (i ib. 1900: 47-59-) 
Michigan, (i ib. 1900: 60-63.) 
Nebraska, (i ib. 1900: 64-66.) 
New Jersey. (4 ib. 1903: 479-541.) 
New York, (i ib. 1900: 67-293.) 
North Carolina. (2 ib. 1901: 345-352.) 
Oregon. (3 ib. 1902: 337-355-) 
Pennsylvania. (5 ib. 1904: 629-649.) 
Rhode Island. (4 ib. 1903: 543-644.) 
Texas. (2 ib. 1901: 353-358.) 
Virginia. (4 ib. 1903: 645-664.) 
Wisconsin, (i ib. 1900: 294-297.) 

Offices Created and Abolished 
A list of state offices legislated out of 
existence is given below. Offices newly cre- 
ated can be traced from the items under the 
heading of Legislation preceding. 

Cal. Bd. of Comrs. of Loan Assns. (created by '93 
ch. 1 88;) replaced ('05 ch. 504, 21 Mr.) 

Kan. Bd. of Examiners of Barbers (created by '03 
ch. 70;) abolished ('05 ch. 70, 25 F.) 

Bd. of Trustees of State Charities and Correc- 

tions ('01 ch. 99;) replaced ('05 ch. 475, 
4 Mr.) 

Live Stock Sanitary Comn. ('01 Rev. G.S. 

7421 et seq. ;) replaced ('05 ch. 495, 4 Mr.) 



Neb. State Architect (created by C.S. "03 5976 - 79;> 
abolished ('05 ch. 149, 30 Mr.) 

N. J. State Board of Taxation (created by '03 ch. 
208;) abolished ('05 ch. 67, 29 Mr.) 

Utah. Utah Silk Comn. (created by '96 ch. 92;) abol- 
ished ('05 ch. 59, 9 Mr.) 

Wis. State Forest Comrs. (created by '03 ch. 450;) 
replaced ('05 ch. 264, 25 My.) 

AMERICAN DEPENDENCIES 

No material changes have taken place since- 
the last report of this committee. 

In December, 1905, the Bureau of Science 
of the Philippine Islands was created by the 
consolidation of the former Bureau of Gov- 
ernment Laboratories and Mining Bureau. 
For further note see Monthly Catalogue,. 
December, 1905: 582. 

FOREIGN DOCUMENTS 

The present is the first report of this com- 
mittee since the merger of the former public 
documents committee and the foreign docu- 
ments committee became operative. 

The committee submits for inspection as 
an appendix to this report a list of the sum- 
maries of foreign legislation which have 
been printed in Great Britain and France. 
These, together with the lists of summaries 
of American state legislation, will give to 
this report the nature of a general bibliog- 
raphy on the subject. 

Your committee has believed it to be ad- 
visable thus to bring together such current 
source material on a general subject as is 
readily accessible before undertaking any bib- 
liographic work on its own account. 

The field for such work is rich and well 
defined. But as there would clearly be very 
little object in even planning such work 
without having at first the unanimous sanc- 
tion of this Association, and as the committee 
is annually appointed with no further in- 
struction or suggestion for its work, a re- 
view of what might be accomplished is 
submitted for your consideration. 

In general the committee would propose 
to confine itself entirely to printed adminis- 
trative documents. In doing this the work 
would not conflict with that of any other 
existing body, but would supplement that of 
the several agencies reporting on legislation 
and on manuscript material. There would 
seem no doubt of the utility to the library- 



HASSE 



as well as to its patrons of such report. 
Authentic information, even though but an- 
nually issued, on the more important recent 
foreign documents bearing on commerce, pub- 
lic works, taxation, agriculture, fisheries, 
shipping, local administration, etc., is at pres- 
ent not available without considerable re- 
search. The fact that we have so long done 
without such a report is surely no argument 
in favor of doing without it longer. The 
chief value to the librarian of such informa- 
tion would depend not on its bibliographical 
completeness nor yet on the fullness with 
which the documents of any one country 
might be reported, but rather on a concise, 
topical comparative report on the more im- 
portant economic and administrative sub- 
jects, with as general a regional representa- 
tion as possible. 

The material for such a report is perfectly 
accessible, nor is it at all probable that the 
report need assume any proportions not com- 
mensurate with its usefulness. 

A body, however, empowered to prepare 
such a report could work to better advantage 
if it had less of the temporary composition of 
a committee. In view of the recommenda- 
tion already made to except this committee 
from the calendar year rule, the further rec- 
ommendation is made that this committee be 
given a fixed term of service, to report to the 
Association annually on American legislation 
affecting public documents and on foreign 
and American state administrative documents. 

Legislation 

The two best known foreign sources of 
comparative legislation are the Journal of the 
Society of Comparative Legislation and the 
"Annuaires'' of the Societe de Legislation 
Comparee. The annual review of legislation 
in the Journal of the Society of Comparative 
Legislation is but a feature of the contents 
of this publication, whereas it makes up the 
contents of the French serial. Until its 
seventh issue the British review was con- 
fined to imperial legislation. Thereafter it 
extended to foreign as well as to British 
legislation, including sketches of that of Den- 
mark, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the 
United States, and a summary of Egyptian 
decrees. 



2, 


1896. 


Sam 


3- 


1897. 


Sat>i 


4- 


1898. 


Sam 


5- 


1899. 


Sam 


6. 


1900. 


Sam 


7. 


1901. 


Sam 


s. 


1902. 


Sam 



The following are the annual reviews 
which have appeared in the Journal of the 
Society of Comparative Legislation: 

I. 1895. Review of legislation of the British Em- 
pire (Jnl., etc., i : i - 133.) 
(ib. 2 : 141 - 258.) 
(ib. n.s. i : 81 - 192.) 
(ib. 449 - 580.) 
(ib. 2 : 520 - 647.) 
(ib. 3 : 275 -433.) 
(tb. 4 : 176 - 390.) 

(ib. 5 : 291 - 487.) 

9. (current) 1903. Same. (ib. no. xiv : 299 - 505.)' 

The following is a collation of the "Annu- 
aires" of the Societe de Legislation Com- 
paree : 

Annuaire de legislation frangaise. 

Annee i 18. 1880-1904; and, Table decennale, 

tome i - 10. i v. 

Annuaire de legislation etrangere. 
Annee i - 30. 1872 - 1900. 

ib. n.s. annee 1-3 (whole no. 31-33.) 1901- 
1903; and, Table des matieres contenues dans- 
les trente premiers volumes, i v. 

INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTS 
There seems little inclination as yet, on the 
part of librarians, to differentiate this class 
of documents from those which are the: 
product of a single government. The tend- 
ency of the greater powers to arbitrate their 
differences and to engage jointly in works 
of scientific and other undertakings, is pro- 
ducing an ever-increasing mass of interna- 
tional documents. It would seem expedient,, 
therefore, that this literature should be form- 
ulated from the librarian's point of view, 
which is neither quite that of the international 
lawyer nor of the historian. Two factors, 
operate to make a collection of international 
documents useful, viz., the collector, or cura- 
tor, and the cataloger. The former is more- 
or less equipped for his task with the various 
bibliographies on international law, and to 
him is due the character of the collection in 
bulk. But even though the collection may 
be a well-balanced one, if it is one to which 
the reader, is not allowed access, its useful- 
ness depends upon the cataloger. Owing 
largely to failure to differentiate interna- 
tional documents, this latter individual has 
sometimes been the author of incongruities 
which tend unduly to confuse the reader. The 
two greatest needs on this subject for the li- 
brarian are first a bibliographical index of 
international documents and second a code of" 
rules for the use of the cataloger. 



146 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION 



BY W. R. EASTMAN, HILLER C. WELLMAN, CORNELIA MARVIN 



To the American Library Association: 
\7 OUR committee on library administra- 
tion at the meeting of 1903 at Niagara 
Falls, recommended the preparation of a 
schedule of library statistics with a view to 
uniformity of reports. They were instructed 
to prepare such a schedule. At the meeting 
of 1904 at St. Louis they proposed 3 
forms of library report, one for prelim- 
inary statement containing certain descrip- 
tive and more or less permanent items ; an- 
other form for annual use to show the library 
work of each year in its simplest outline, and 
a third supplemental form with more details 
intended for such libraries as might desire to 
use it. These forms were subsequently 
printed on 3 separate sheets, precisely as if 
prepared for actual use in collecting statistics, 
and were then submitted to each of the state 
library commissions for revision. The re- 
sults of this revision were embodied in the 
committee' s report to this association at 
Portland in 1905 submitting the same tables 
with some slight modifications. Copies of the 
revised schedules of 1905 were then distrib- 
uted to all state commissions for further re- 
vision and were also offered by advertise- 
ment in library papers to any interested 
person. 

The committee have received during the 
last year returns and valued suggestions 
from New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecti- 
cut, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Min- 
nesota, Nebraska, Washington and Oregon, 
while Indiana has copied the blanks as pro- 
posed. 

These n are about one half the number of 
existing commissions. The other half by 
silence give their consent. Of those who 
reply, New Hampshire, Georgia, Indiana and 
Washington accept the committee's forms. 
Nebraska thinks the forms too complicated, 
does not ask its own libraries for exact 
totals of circulation, considering a weekly 
average sufficient, doubts the propriety of 
separating children from adults in the re- 



turns; and desires each year to ask some ad- 
ditional questions to set librarians thinking. 
Vermont, also, is inclined to lay stress on 
special inquiries, at least for the present year 
and prefers to ask questions in the colloquial 
manner rather than by the use of a single 
word for each heading. There are also some 
criticisms regarding space, type, time of end- 
ing the year, etc., which do not touch the sub- 
stance of the material in hand. Connecticut 
would be glad to use the form as a whole, 
but also would ask a few locally pertinent 
questions which cannot well be changed. 
Pennsylvania approves, but makes an excep- 
tion as to the emphasis laid on the use of 
fiction believing that the time has come to 
deal with fiction precisely as we do with any 
other class of literature, reporting it as one 
class out of 10, but not setting it apart as 
one of two classes to be held in contrast with 
the combined total of all the rest. Oregon 
wishes to see more interpretation of statistical 
tables, written explanations, and, in many 
cases, a separate showing of expenses in the 
different departments of a library to deter- 
mine at what points the outlay shows the 
best returns. The publication of such details 
would often prevent wasteful expenditures. 
Minnesota submits a statistical blank prepared 
for their own use which includes all the items 
proposed by the committee, and expands some 
of them. This state also prefers a different 
grouping of topics. Wisconsin sugggests a 
number of minor changes, transferring cer- 
tain items from one form to another and 
would add a few items such as number of 
"Country readers" and total number of bor- 
rowers. 

The committee is greatly indebted to one 
and all of these correspondents for the light 
thrown by them on so many different phases 
of the subject under discussion. It is more 
and more evident that an exact agreement in 
the details of a form of report is neither to 
be expected nor desired. A certain adjust- 
ment to local conditions and to the plans and 



EASTMAN 



147 



views of each individual commission or libra- 
rian ;s not only inevitable but imperative. 
And yet underneath some variety of detail, 
it is now becoming possible to discern the 
-distinct outline of a desired result. 

There are some points on which a general 
agreement is possible 

1 A report required by an authority out- 
side the library itself should be extremely 
simple and contain few items. 

2 One descriptive report of each library 
should be separate from the annual report. 

3 The annual report, after giving name, 
place and date, properly contains only such 
items as bear directly on the year's work, 
indicating changes, growth, service, and pres- 
ent condition. 

4 Intelligent comparison of the extent of 
circulation of books by many libraries re- 
quires uniform rules for counting results. If 
our statistics are to have any comparative 
value we must agree on such rules. 

5 Many libraries owe it to their constitu- 
ents, their neighbors and themselves to re- 
port in greater detail than required and in 
order to secure a general conformity a supple- 
mental form of report may properly be pre- 
sented to them. 

6 Active libraries will not confine their 
reports to any schedule. While answering 
questions and giving figures they will also 
interpret and explain the facts and fully dis- 
cuss the library situation with a view to 
direct results in their own communities. 

7 Special information of local or temporary 
significance will often be deemed important 
by state commissions and can best be ob- 
tained by special circulars apart from the 
annual report. 

8 The forms of questions and subdivision 
of items in the report blanks of different 
states may differ widely without impairing 
essential unity so long as they call for sub- 
stantially the same things. How much detail, 
beyond a certain point, is worth while and 



when it is worth while is a question for each 
state to decide for itself. 

In conformity with these principles and be- 
lieving that definite action at this time will 
be in the interest of the libraries your com- 
mittee resubmit the forms proposed by them 
in 1905, which have been in the hands of all 
the state library commissions with the re- 
sults stated above, and now ask for a vote 
of the Association to express their judgment 
on the' following points : 

1 That each library should place on file 
at the library headquarters of its own state 
its official report giving the general features 
of its organization, history, resources, and 
methods of work substantially as shown in 
accompanying Form i. for Preliminary report. 

2 That every library should report at the 
end of each year the work of that year includ- 
ing for substance the items shown in accom- 
panying Form n. for Annual report with 
such other items, not inconsistent with the 
general plan, as the library authorities of its 
state may propose. 

3 That for the purpose of establishing a 
basis of comparison of circulation among free 
lending libraries the circulation of books 
should be counted in accordance with Rules 
contained in accompanying Form n. 

4 Every library circulating 5000 books a 
year or distributing books through branches 
or schools should make a supplemental re- 
port, substantially as shown in accompanying 
Form in. 

5 Every public library serving a city or 
large center of population should also issue 
annually its own report containing the items 
named above with considerable enlargement 
and interpretation of the same and with such 
discussion of the library situation as will 
tend to secure public interest in the work. 

[NOTE. This report was adopted by the American 
Library Association July 4, 1906, and the Executive 
Board later continued the committee with authority 
to promulgate the recommendations made in the re- 
port.] 



I4 g NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 

FORM I. 

Form proposed by A. L. A., 1906 

Preliminary Library Report 19 

to state library commissioni 

Name of Library 

Place 

Postoffice 

Date of present organization or control 

Under what law 

Trustees Number 

Chosen by 

Term of office 

If the library is connected with another institution as a college, church or association, a. 
statement of that fact will take the place of the report on trustees. 

Source of income Local taxation $ 

State aid 
Endowment 
Membership fees 
Gifts 
Other sources 



Total, $ 

State income from each source for current year. 

Terms of use Free for lending 

Free for reference 
Free to limited class, as students 
Subscription 

Underscore words that apply or add explanation. 

Building Date of completion 

Material 
Cost 

Source of building fund 
Book capacity 
Facilities for special work 
Other particulars 

If the library occupies rooms in a building not its own a statement of that fact will take 
the place of the report on building. If rent is paid the amount should be stated. 



EASTMAN 149 

Number of volumes 

Count only by volumes. 
System of classification 

Catalogue Accession book 

Card 
Printed 
Manuscript 

Underscore words that apply and add any needed description suctt as "author," 
"dictionary," "classed," etc. 

To what extent have readers free access to shelves? 
Charging system by cards 

ledger entrv 
Underscore words that apply and add any needed description. 

Number of books allowed to each borrower at one time. 
Number of books of fiction allowed to each borrower at one time. 
Librarian Name 

Salary 

Number of assistants 

Salaries of assistants 
Number of branches 
Number of delivery stations 

Give details of branches and delivery stations on separate paper, giving name and 
location of each. 

Additional information as to previous history, present conditions and plans for 
the future, giving da'tes of important changes. 

Use separate paper if needed for complete statement. 



Librarian 
Date 

I have carefully read this report, have caused an exact copy to be filed with 
the library records, and with the consent of the library board it is submitted to 
the state library commission. 

President of 

Whenever any changes in the items above reported occur, the fact should be noted in 
the next annual report under the head of "Additional Information." 



150 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



FORM II. 

Form proposed by A. L. A., 1906 

Annual library report for year ending 19 

to 

N?jne of library 
Place 
Postoffice 

Terms of use Free for lending 
Free for reference 
Free to limited class, as students 
Subscription 

Underscore words that apply. 
Days open during year 
Hours open each week for lending 
Hours open each week for reading 
Number of volumes at beginning of year 

added during year by purchase 
" added during year by gift 

" " lost or withdrawn during year 

Total number at end of year 

Count bound books only. 

Number of volumes of fiction lent for home use 
Total number of volumes lent for home use 

See other side of sheet for rules for counting circulation. 

Number of new borrowers registered during the year 
Number of newspapers and periodicals currently received 
Number of persons using library for reading and study 



Adults Children Total 



Receipts from 

Unexpended balance ... $ 

Local taxation 

State grants 

Endowment funds .... 
Membership fees .... 
Fines and sale of publications. 

Gifts 

Other sources 



Total 



Payments for 

Books $ 

Periodicals 

Binding 

Salaries, library service . . 
janitor service . . 

Rent 

Heat 

Light 

Permanent improvements 

Other expenses 

Balance on hand .... 

Total . $ 



EASTMAN 151 

Additional information 

Here insert statements regarding changes in organization, brief description of new 
rooms or building, increased facilities and any benefactions announced but not received, with 
names of givers and amount, object and conditions of each gift, together with any other 
information useful for the summary of library progress printed in the report to the Legislature. 



Librarian 

Trustees' names Term expires 

19.... 
19.... 
19.... 
19.... 

19.... 
Date 

I have carefully read this report, have caused an exact copy to be filed with 
the library records and with the consent of the library board it is submitted to 

President 
Rules for counting circulation 

1. The circulation shall be accurately recorded each day, counting one for 
each lending of a bound volume for home use. 

2. Renewal of a book under library rules at or near the end of regular terms 
of issue may also be counted, but no increase shall be made because books are read 
by others or for any other reason 1 . 

3. Books lent directly through delivery stations and branches will be in- 
cluded, but the circulation from collections of books sent to schools or elsewhere 
for distribution will not be included. A separate statement of such travelling 
libraries will be made. 

4. Books lent for pay may be included in the circulation, but must also be 
reported separately. 

In these rules there is no intent to determine the policy of any library as to 
the manner or terms of circulation, but only to place the count on a uniform basis 
which will render comparison possible. 



152 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



FORM III. 

form proposed by A. L. A., 1906 

Supplemental library report for year ending 19 

to 

Name of library 
Place 

Postoffice 

/ 

Number of branches 
Number of delivery stations 

Give on separate sheet the statistics of branches and stations, including name, location, 
volumes in branches and circulation. 



Classes of books added and total In library 



Classes 


Additions 


Total No. in Library 


Circulating dep't 


Reference 


Circulating dep't 


Reference 


Adults 


Children 


Adults 


Children 


General works 














Philosophy 


Religion 




T>ane r uae r e 


Natural science 
Useful arts 


Fine arts 


Music scores 


Literature 


Travel 


History 


Biosraohv 


JFiction 


U. S. documents .... 
State documents .... 
Books in foreign languages 
(Specify language.) 
Total ...... 

















Number of unbound pamphlets 

Number of maps, pictures, manuscripts, etc. 
Other library material 



EASTMAN 
Classes of books lent 



153 



Classes 


From main library 


From branches and stations 


Total 


Adults 


Children 


Adults 


Children 




s 












Philosophy 


Religion 


.Sociology 


Language 


Natural science 


Useful arts 




.Music scores 


Literature 


Travel 


History 


Bioerauhv 


.Fiction 


Books in foreign languages . 
(Specify language.) 
Total 















Number of schools to which books were sent 

Number of books sent to schools 

How long retained by schools (average) 

Number of other travelling libraries sent out 

Number of books in other travelling libraries 

How long retained in places other than schools (average) 

Number of Sundays the library has been open 

Number of children using library for reading or study 

What departments in library other than delivery and reading rooms? 

Give account on separate sheet of work done for children, schools, clubs and 
societies. 

Give account on separate sheet of any other form of special service, as country 
circulation, etc. 

Additional information 



Librarian 



Date 



154 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



REPORT OF THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION PUBLISHING BOARD* 

BY WILLIAM 'C. LANE, Chairman 



HP HE chairman of the Publishing Board 
is compelled to make his report of the 
board's transactions for 1905 a brief one be- 
cause the "Portrait index," which has been 
passing rapidly through the Government 
Printing Office, has engrossed the time of 
chairman, secretary, and all our staff, and 
has made it necessary to let all other duties 
take, for the time being, a secondary place. 

At the expiration of the terms of Messrs. 
Fletcher and Wellman, at the American Li- 
brary Association meeting of 1905, their place 
on the board was taken by Mr. H. E. Legler, 
of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 
and Miss E. C. Doren, of the Western Re- 
serve University Library School in Cleveland. 
Mr. Fletcher had been identified with the 
board from the beginning, and his associates 
were glad to put on record a minute in re- 
gard to the value of his services (printed 
in the Library Journal, October, 1905, 30: 
813). Mr. Wellman had served on the 
board for only a single term, but had shown 
a generous readiness to devote time and 
thought to its affairs, and his suggestions and 
advice were always to the point. The addi- 
tion of Mr. Legler and Miss Doren brought 
us new strength by making more close our 
connection with the library commissions and 
the library needs of the West. For many 
years the members of the board had been 
.drawn from a comparatively narrow territory, 
and meetings could be called as often as 
necessary for the consideration of new busi- 
ness. But with the distribution of its mem- 
bership between the East and the middle 
West, frequent meetings became impossible, 
and it was therefore agreed that meetings 
should be limited to three each year with 
the Association in the summer, at Lake Placid 
in the fall, and at Atlantic City in the spring. 
The fall meeting of 1905, at Lake Placid, was 
adjourned to Boston, in order that the new 
members might have a better opportunity to 
become acquainted with the work and meth- 
ods of the board. 



Provision was made for conducting the 
business of the board by correspondence in 
the intervals between meetings, the chairman 
being instructed to submit new propositions, 
to sub-committees for investigation, and to 
transmit to the other members of the board 
the reports of such committees in duplicate,, 
one copy to be kept by the member, the other 
to be returned to the secretary with comment 
If the opinions are in substantial agreement,, 
the chairman or secretary is to make pro- 
vision for their being carried into effect. If 
there is a sustantial difference of opinion, 
the comments of all the members are to be 
submitted to each member for a further ex- 
pression of opinion. Other matters on which 
the secretary requires guidance, if they in- 
volve any change of plan or new instructions,, 
will be submitted in the same manner, la 
voting by correspondence, two adverse votes, 
when the question has been re-submitted to 
the consideration of the board, will prevent 
action. In this way it is hoped that action; 
in regard to new matters may be taken with 
reasonable promptness in spite of the fact 
that frequent meetings cannot be held. 

The accompanying tables show, first, the- 
general character of the year's transactions,, 
and second, the receipts and expenses for the 
year connected with each of our publications. 
In the first table we find, on the one hsnd, 
the available cash capital with which we- 
began the year ($1278.98), the $3000 re- 
ceived from the Endowment Fund trustees,, 
and the net balance of profit from the sale 
of our publications ($590.88), and, on the 
other hand, the expenses of our office and 
staff ($3046.34), the money spent on the- 
"Portrait index" and one or two other sim- 
ilar items, and finally, the balance at the 
end of the year available for the business of 
1906 ($768.06). 

It should, of course, be remembered that 
we have a stock of publications on hand 
which also constitute part of our capital. 

On Jan. i, 1905, this stock was valaecf! 



LANE 



155 



at $874.42; on the 3ist of December its 
valuation was $2920, the basis of valuation in 
both cases being the cost of manufacture 
rather than the selling price. In other words, 
we manufactured during the year, in excess 
of what we sold, over $2000 worth of stock. 

In the second table, showing cost of publi- 
cations and receipts from their sale, it should 
be remembered that the cost includes in general 
only expenses of manufacture, and not any 
of the expenses of running our office. The 
total sales of 1905 amounted to $5679.50, 
or $5401.38 after deducting the receipts from 
the sale of "Books for girls and women," 
Larned's "American history," and its supple- 
ment by Wells ($278.12), all of which have 
to be paid over to Mr. lies ; the total of ex- 
penses for manufacture incurred during the 
year was $4810.50, to which must be added the 
$278.12 paid over to Mr. lies, making $5088.62, 
and leaving a net balance of receipts over 
expenses of $590.88. To this might properly 
enough be added the $2000 by which the valu- 
ation of our stock on hand has been increased. 

Mr. E. C. Hovey has made out for the 
board a valuable series of tables, showing the 
history of, and the net result from, each of 
our publications from the beginning. The 
details cannot be given in this report, but it 
is interesting to note that at the end of 18 
years the net result of our book publications, 
including both those which have brought us 
a good profit, like the "List of subject-head- 
ings" and Kroeger's "Guide," and those 
which have never paid for themselves, like 
the "Reading for the young," the "Bibliog- 
raphy of fine arts," and our "Library tracts,'' 
is a profit of $1921.27, with stock on hand 
worth almost $3000; while the net result of 
our card publications, current cards for print- 
ed books, periodical cards, bibliographical 
cards, miscellaneous sets, etc., is a profit of 
$9742.03, making together $11,663.30. We do 
not expect this balance to be sufficient to pay 
the salaries and running expenses of our 
business, as is the case with an ordinary pub- 
lishing house, but they have gone a good way 
toward providing the $15,198.33, which sal- 
aries and office expenses have amounted to 
in 18 years, toward the $1638 expended on the 
"A. L. A. cp.talog," and the $4255 spent on 
the "Portrait index." 



The "Portrait index,'' I am happy to state, 
is now all in type in the Government Print- 
ing Office, about two-thirds of the proof has 
been corrected and passed along, and samples 
of the first 64 completed pages are at hand 
for inspection. The book promises to be 
something over 1200 pages. After careful re- 
vision of the material and of its arrange- 
ment, made with a view to diminishing the 
number of corrections to be made in the 
proof, work began at the Government Print- 
ing Office April 16 and the whole was put 
into type before June 25, eleven monotype 
machines having been employed at once. It 
is needless to say that the reading and cor- 
rection of proofs in our own office has not 
kept pace with this rapid work, though it has 
been pushed as fast as care and a reasonable 
degree of correctness would allow. The sell- 
ing price will probably not be over $3. 

The A. L. A. Booklist, now (1906) in its 
second year, has taken a good deal of the 
board's time, attention and money. It has 
been somewhat enlarged during the cur- 
rent year, and it may be that the price 
will have to be slightly raised next year 
in order to meet the cost of manufacture. 
The board considers that the expense of 
editorial work and of the preparation of 
copy may be properly borne by the in- 
come of the Carnegie Fund, but that the 
sales and subscriptions ought to cover the 
cost of manufacture. For the year 1905 the 
receipts from sales came to $712.65, and the 
cost of manufacture was $649.45, giving us a 
safe margin; but for the current year (1906) 
the sales will probably fall considerably short 
of covering the cost. This is because we 
have enlarged the List, are printing an edi- 
tion of 5000 copies, and are distributing the 
List free to all members of the American 
Library Association, with the natural result 
that our subscriptions have fallen off. The 
subscription price is 50 cents a year, but the 
numbers are sold to library commissions at 
$2 per 100 copies. About 3000 copies are 
taken monthly by the several library commis- 
sions, and about 1500 copies are now sent 
free to the members of the Library Asso- 
ciation. Another year we shall probably print 
12 numbers a year instead of eight, but we 
shall try to keep the size down so that copies 



156 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



may be sold in quantities at the present price. 
The annual subscription will, however, prob- 
ably be raised from 50 cents to 75 cents or $i 
a year, and we must consider making a nom- 
inal charge of 25 cents to members of the 
American Library Association so as to avoid 
a wasteful distribution. 

At the September meeting of the board, the 
scope of the Booklist was carefully discussed, 
and it was then decided that the Booklist 
should include (i) current buying lists for 
small libraries; (2) current buying lists for 
larger libraries; (3) official news and an- 
nouncements of the American Library Asso- 
ciation, its committees and affiliated organ- 
izations ; (4) select bibliographies and special 
topic lists (to be reprinted separately and 
sold at cost of paper and press work) ; (5) 
lists of reference topics in library bulletins 
and similar publications ; (6) bulletins of the 
American Library Association committee on 
book buying; (7) advertisement of the pub- 
lications of the American Library Associa- 
tion Publishing Board. For the year 1906 the 
List has been published on these lines, but 
some modification may be found necessary 
in 1907. 

Two tracts have been added during the 
current year to our series No. 7, "Catalog- 
ing for small libraries/' by Theresa Hitchler, 
of the Brooklyn Public Library, 84 pp., and 
No. 8, "A village library in Massachusetts; 
the story of its upbuilding," by Mary A Tar- 
bell, librarian of the Brimfield Public Li- 
brary. 

Two of our recent tracts Miss Hitchler's 
"Cataloging for small libraries" and Miss 
Stearns's "Essentials in library administra- 
tion" have been so much larger than our 
other publications of the same series, that 
the board decided to transfer them to a new 
series, to be known as "Handbooks," and the 
later copies of these papers have been issued 
tinder this name. They will not be distrib- 
uted gratis as freely as the others, and they 
are sold at 25 cents each, instead of at the 
merely nominal price of the "Tracts." 

Of all the numbers of our Tract series, 
17,000 copies had been printed up to January 
i, 1906, at a cost of $866.29. 11,376 copies had 
been sold or distributed gratis, the receipts 
froje those sold being $380.31. The expense, 



therefore, of providing this somewhat ex- 
tensive missionary literature has been but 
$485. The board had expected to issue more 
Tracts before the present meeting of the 
American Library Association, several papers 
having been offered by the League of Library 
Commissions. The board stands ready to 
print in this way whatever the league asks 
to have printed, and to make the printed 
copies as freely useful as possible to the com- 
missions of the league and to other library 
workers throughout the country. A tract or 
handbook on library architecture will prob- 
ably be our next publication. 

At the request of the publicity committee, 
appointed at the last meeting of the Associa- 
tion, several of the papers contributed to the 
last meeting have been issued as reprints in 
a "Reprint series." The expense of printing 
from 500 to 1000 copies each of 10 papers has 
been about $170. About half the stock was 
placed in the hands of the publicity commit- 
tee for missionary use; the other half has 
been held by the board subject to the order 
of library commissions and others, and of 
nearly all the reprints the entire stock is 
now practically exhausted. The board stands 
ready to co-operate to the extent of its ability 
in any similar missionary work. 

The "List of subject headings" has again 
proved a source of income to the board 1 , 356 
copies having been sold during 1905. Of 
this useful list, we have now printed 4000 
copies, of which 3534 have been sold up to 
Jan. i, 1906, at a profit to the board of 
$2647.01. It is quite time that a new edition 
was prepared, and steps have already been 
taken in this direction, Miss Doren and Miss 
Browne having been appointed a committee 
to collect suggestions and material for a new 
and enlarged 1 edition. 

Another publication which it would be de- 
sirable to reissue is a new edition of Sturgis 
and Krehbiel's "Bibliography of fine arts." 
The first edition, it is true, never brought us 
back the money put into the manufacture, but 
it was a thoroughly good piece of work, the 
cost of preparing which was borne by Mr. 
lies. The board would now be glad to find 
the means of having the list revised and 
brought up to date, but it has not yet seemed 
advisable to incur the necessary expense. 



LANE 



157 



Miss Kroeger's "Guide to reference books" 
also continues to sell, 270 copies having been 
disposed of in 1905. In all 1950 copies have 
-been sold of the 2500 which have been 
printed. 

Our stock of the "A. L. A. index" ran 
out during 1905, and a small new edition was 
printed. In spite of the expense involved 
in this reprinting, the receipts from sales 
have at last begun to exceed the expense of 
manufacture, and for the first time we have 
been able to pay over to Mr. Fletcher a 
rsmall balance, in accordance with our original 
agreement with him. 

The issue of printed cards for the contents 
of periodicals has gone on with little change 
during this, the eighth year of the undertak- 
ing. To the so-called "miscellaneous sets" 
of catalog cards, comprising cards for ex- 

tcnsive works or series of reports of mis- 
cellaneous contents, we have added only the 

cards for Reed's "Modern eloquence." The 
reprint of the cards for the National Museum 
reports will be the next thing which we shall 

.give to the printer. The cost of these cards 
up to January i, 1906 mainly printing 

charges had been $3346.59. From their 
sale we have received $4441.01, which shows 

a profit of $1094.42. The 250 sets of cards 
for Warner's Library have now all been sold, 

-at a profit to the board of $281.72. 

Early in the year the librarian of Clark 
University asked us to print for the univer- 
sity annotated catalog cards for the articles 
in one of the Clark University publications, 
the American Journal of Religious Psychol- 
ogy and Education, intending to distribute 

the cards with the magazine to subscribers. 
This seemed to open an interesting derelop- 

tnent of printed card's, but so far we have 
not been asked to continue the work. 

At the meeting of the board in October, 
1905, definite arrangements were made for 
work on the list of children's books, which 
has been talked of for some years, Miss 
Moore being asked to take editorial charge 
of compiling the lists. It was the intention 
to enlist the services of a number of persons 
who had had good experience in work with 

-children, and to make each responsible for a 
section of the list. The board intended to 

apply to the libraries in which such persons 



might be engaged and to ask permission that 
the editors should be allowed time for the 
work, in order that it might not be too heavy 
a burden on the individuals, and might not be 
long delayed, as it might be if all the labor 
had to be taken from outside time. In the 
spring, however, the board learned that Miss 
Moore was obliged to give up the editorial 
charge, and at the time the best way of con- 
tinuing the work seemed to be in connection 
with a similar publication about to be under- 
taken by the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library. 
A further discussion of the project shows that 
the Pittsburgh library can best be left to do 
the work on its own initiative, and that we 
shall be able to make some arrangement with 
that library, by which we may reprint their 
list and give it a wider circulation. 

The largest and most generally useful un- 
dertaking which the board now has before 
it is an "Index to the economic material con- 
tained in state documents." This index has 
been compiled, state by state, by Miss Hasse, 
of the New York Public Library, or under 
her direction, for the Committee on Econom- 
ics and Sociology of the Carnegie Institution. 
The committee for whose use the index was 
first made did not contemplate printing it, 
but they are willing that the index should be 
offered to us in manuscript, and that we 
should print it for general circulation. The 
work has been done with great care and in 
great detail, and includes a large amount of 
useful material. The expectation is to print 
it one state at a time, and finally to issue the 
indexes for all the states in a combined vol- 
ume, or volumes, with some general index 
which will give a clue to the contents. Work 
will probably be begun on this in the course 
of the summer, and now only awaits some 
final action by the Carnegie trustees. 

The committee on catalog rules, appointed 
by the board, has continued its work, and 
reports that it has a new and revised code of 
rules ready to issue at an early date. Its 
work has been very much assisted by the 
Library of Congress, which has printed an 
advance edition of the rules, and has been 
interested to see that its own methods as 
adopted for printed cards should agree, so far 
as possible, with the rules adopted by the com- 
mittee. The committee has also succeeded 



158 . NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 

to some degree in gaining the co-operation of gan to employ a paid secretary and required 

an English committee in the attempt to es- desk room for its work. So far, its rent 

tablish a uniform international code. Mrs. charge has been a merely nominal sum, and 

Fairchild having been obliged to resign from it feels that when it joins the other officers 

the committee on account of ill health, Mr. of the Association in occupying headquarters 

W. S. Biscoe, of the New York State Library, elsewhere, its income should not be perma- 

was appointed in her place. nently burdened with a charge for rent, al- 

The board waits with interest to see what though it is quite willing for a time, as a 

action will be taken by the Association in temporary and preliminary measure, to as- 

regard to the establishment of general head- sume a part of such charge in connection with 

quarters. It holds itself ready to co-operate the Association. 

in this matter with the Association, and to Up to the first of April, 1906, we had the 

establish itself wherever headquarters are advantage of commanding a part of Mr. Ho- 

opened, but it is glad that, up to now, it has vey's services, and we have been glad to take 

been able to remain in the convenient rooms advantage of his experience in business mat- 

which have been for so long placed at its ters and in book-keeping. We hope to derive 

disposal by the Boston Athenaeum. For its further benefit of the same kind by a close 

work up to the present time, no more con- connection with the executive offices and offi- 

venient place could have been found, and the cers of the Association, and we hope to be 

Association is under great obligation to the able in return to place the experience and 

trustees of the Athenaeum for the comfortable skill of our secretary at the service of the 

quarters which have been at its service in the Association in its correspondence with in- 

Athenaeum library ever since the board be- quirers so far as this is practicable. 

A. L. A. PUBLISHING BOARD 

FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR THE YEAR 1905 

January zst, 1905. Cash on hand $833 .25 

" " " Bills receivable 1*7983 

$2113.08- 
Less bills payable 834.10 

Available January ist, 1905 $1278.98 

Receipts during the year : 

From Endowment Fund $3000.00 

From bank interest 17.01 

From other sources 46.24 $3063.25 

Total resources $4342.23. 

Total sale publications $5679.50 

Total cost publications 5088.62 

Profit $590.88 $590. 8& 

*4933- 
General expenses : 

Salaries $2109 91 

Travel 49-97 

Postage and stationery 175.50 

Rent no.oo 

Advertising no oo 

Sundries 47-83 

Telephone 46.61 

Insurance 36-53 

$3046.34 

Expense on Portrait Index 1097.46 

Expenses of Catalog Rules Committee 21.25 $4165-05 

Balance available Dec. 31 $768 .06 

Add bills payable Dec. 31, 1905 1463-59 

$2231.65 
Deduct bills receivable Dec. 31, 1905 1351 .54 

Cash on hand Dec. 31, 1905 $880.11 



HALL 



PUBLICATIONS (lQO5) 



A. L. A. Booklist 


Cost. 


Sale. 


Loss. 


Gain. 


$i"4-45 

310.50 
3.93 


$7". 65 
329.00 
5.00 
5-53 
175-03 
23 23 
64.05 

2.20 
40.02 

355-1 

213.20 
210.73 
17.60 
1048.31 
1785-97 

3.30 

8.05 

571.85 
144.00 
25.90 


$411.80 




Proceedings 




$18.50 
3.07 
5-5* 

56 53 


Bibliographical Cards 




Boys and Girls 


118.50 
41-53 




Christmas Bulletin 


18.30 


Eng. Hist. Cards 


64-05 

3.3O 
181.42 


French Fiction 






Girls and Women* 


40.02 
173-68 

313.20 
600.14 
3.8? 
1077.11 
I3I8.SS 

6-94 




Kroeger's Guide 


Larned's Amer. Hist.* 




Library Tracts 


389-43 




Mass. Pub Doc 


14-73 
507.42 


Misc. Cards 


38.90 


Periodical Cards 


Political Economy List 


3-74 


Reading for the Young 


8.05 

438.55 
144.00 


Subject Headings 


133-3 




Warner Cards 




Wells' Supplement* 


35.90 




Net Gain 






$5088.63 
590.88 


$5679.50 


$852 16 
590.88 


<443-04 






5679.50 


$5679 50 


$1443.04 


$443 04 



REPORT ON GIFTS AND BEQUESTS TO AMERICAN LIBRARIES, JANUARY 

i TO DECEMBER 31, 1905 

By DREW B. HALL, Librarian The Millicent Library, Fairhaven, Mass. 



HP HE data have been gathered, as hereto- 
fore, from the daily press, the profes- 
sional journals, and chiefly from replies to 
nearly 1000 circulars sent to commissions, 
clubs and individual libraries. I realize fully 
how great the task of answering such circu- 
lars often is, and I wish to offer my sincere 
thanks to all those who have courteously lent 
their assistance. Despite this assistance and 
the greatest care in cross checking and in 
comparing data, errors, especially in the cor- 
rect names of libraries which were often 
omitted on the returns, will probabdy be 
found, and omissions most certainly will be, 
for an inquiry directly addressed to only one- 
eighth of the 8000 libraries in the country 
mrst fail to discover many interesting gifts. 
I should like to urge the Executive Board to 
take under consideration plans for more full 
and accurate reports, possibly by the central 
office of the Association or in connection with 
the report on libraries by the United States 
Commissioner of Education. 



This report attempts to show the number, 
value and kinds of gifts and bequests received 
by American libraries during the calendar 
year 1905. By the recent decision that each 
report should cover the calendar year, not 
that between conferences, this is in effect the 
first of a new series, and for ease of compari- 
son the excellent arrangement, even the 
phraseology of previous reports has been fol- 
lowed with all apologies to previous reporters. 
It is required by the A. L. A. year after year 
with the purpose I take it of recording past 
and stimulating future interest in library 
growth among public-spirited citizens. It has 
also seemed that the interest of the giver and 
the service of the gift is rarely accurately de- 
noted by the mere size, for the hundred dol- 
lars raised by an entertainment of school 
children means more to the little village li- 
brary than the many thousand dollar fund to 
the great city. Because of these facts I have 
not observed the minimum limit of 250 vol- 
umes and $500 of previous reports, but have 



* Receipts from sales paid over to George lies, who paid first cost of manufacture. 



i6o 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



asked information concerning all gifts. In 
the first draft of the table the previous limits, 
however, were observed; gifts below the 
limit being set in a separate column. Except 
under "Books" these were in every case less 
than 10 per cent, of the gifts above the limit, 
so that in the final table herewith printed all 
are included. So large were the receipts 
of pamphlets and volumes from various 
sources that I have introduced under "Books" 
two new divisions, "Various" and "Pam- 
phlets." 

In reckoning the number of gifts which is 
set down in the first column as 680 each li- 
brary's "Various" record was counted as one, 
as is that of "Pamphlets," even though hun- 
dreds of givers were in fact concerned ; this 
method was followed, since large libraries ac- 
cumulate such masses chiefly through their 
institutional connections and not through spe- 
cial personal interest. They may readily be 
separated from the individual gifts by exam- 
ination of the detailed statements in the al- 
phabetic list of states. 

Ten gifts are recorded in Canada (8 from 
Mr. Carnegie), and 080 in the United States. 
The 680 represent 234,649 volumes, 111,497' 
pamphlets, 9 collections, 6 sites, 4584 pictures 
and other objects, buildings and sites valued 
at $313,100, and $5,609,266. 

An analysis of the gifts in money shows 
that $658,723 were for endowment funds for 
general library purposes; $81,900 for the es- 
tablishment of book funds; $90,879 for the 
cash purchase of books; 211 amounting to 
$3,162,140, of which $2,247.740 is listed as ac- 
cepted, from Andrew Carnegie, for buildings; 
$1,492,253 from other donors for buildings; 
$500 for sites; and $21,571 for objects largely 
unknown. 

The money gifts other than those of Mr. 
Carnegie amount to $2,347,126. Of this sum 
the total of ii gifts of $20,000 and more from 
individuals is $1,712,000, given as follows: 
$20,000 from Mrs. Walter Hurlburt to Roches- 
ter, Minn.; $25,000, a bequest from Mrs. 
Helen G. Coburn to Andover, Mass. ; $35,000 
to Wooster (Ohio) University, from H. C. 
Frick; $40,000 to New London, Ct., a bequest 
from Mrs. H. C. Haven; $50,000 to Phillips 
Exeter (Mass.) Academy, a bequest from 



Benjamin P. Davis; $50,000 to Lynchburg r 
Va., from Mrs. George M. Jones ; $58,000 to 
Providence, R. I., from the estate of C. C. 
Hoskins; one-third of the $400,000 estate of 
E. M. Walker to Springfield, Mass. ; $150,000, 
a bequest from C. H. Hackley to Muskegon, 
Mich., for the purchase of pictures; $150,000' 
to Syracuse University from friends ; $1,000,- 
ooo to Harvard College, a bequest from 
William F. Milton. In connection with these 
gifts should be noted those of a building and 
site valued at $20,000 to the People's Library, 
Newport, R. I., from Christopher Townsend; 
a building and site at $30,000 to Menominee, 
Mich., from Augustus Spies ; and a building 
at $90,000 to Salt Lake City from J. Q. 
Packard. 

Among the notable collections of books may- 
be mentioned 10,000 volumes, the educational 
library of Henry Barnard, from J. Pierpont 
Morgan to the Wadsworth Athenaeum of 
Hartford, Conn., and deposited in the Wat- 
kinson Library ; 1000 volumes, the collection- 
of William C. Prime on the "history of illus- 
tration by printed pictures," to the Watkinson- 
Library, from Mrs. Annie T. Slosson ; the- 
Squier letters and the Breckenridge and Van- 
buren papers to the Library of Congress; 
Professor S. I. Curtiss' bequest to the Chi- 
cago Theological Seminary of 4000 volumes- 
on the Old Testament ; looo volumes and 
2300 pamphlets to Bowdoin College from the 
library of Alpheus S. Packard ; 1000 volumes 
to Andover Theological Seminary from the 
library of Professor E. C. Smythe ; the library 
of Professor C. E. Norton from friends to- 
Harvard College and 838 sheets of its topo- 
graphic map from the government of Japan ^ 
914 volumes on music to Fitchburg, Mass., 
from H. I. Wallace; 3000 volumes on horti- 
culture to Grand Rapids from C. W. Garfield ; 
278 volumes, Great Britain state papers, to- 
Minneapolis, from G. W. Peavy; 7000 vol- 
umes, the library of Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, 
bought for $3000 by friends of William JewelF 
College, Liberty, Mo. ; to Cornell University, 
special collections from Willard Fiske, A. D. 
White, G. C. Caldwell, T. F. Crane, an* 
Theodore Stanton (see detail under Ithaca, 
N. Y.) ; 1160 volumes Scandinavian literature- 
to North Dakota State University; 1354 vol- 



HALL 



161 



umes oriental literature and folklore to Cleve- 
land from J. G. White; 1000 volumes on 
zoology and geology to Oberlin College from 
Professor A. A. Wright; 1500 volumes and 
3000 pamphlets from the library of Professor 
Alpheus S. Packard to Brown University, and 
58 letter? of George William Curtis from Mrs. 
E. M. O. Connor-Calder ; and 1000 volumes 
of Germanic languages to Norwich University 
from Professor Adrian Scott. It is also of 
interest that James J. Hill has given $5000 to 
the University of Wisconsin for the develop- 
ment of a library on transportation ; and that 
Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft "in disposing of 
his famous library to the University of Cali- 
fornia accepted $150,000 as payment, thus vir- 
tually making a gift of $100,000." 

Portraits, statues, basts, plants and clocks 
are reported among other gifts; and in par- 
ticular may be mentioned that Northwestern 
University, Evanston, 111., and Charlotte, N. 
C, West Stockbridge, Mass., and others re- 
ceived funds for books from plays given by 
students and school children ; $250 made nt a 
fair paid the expenses in Centreville, Mass., 
for a year; and $8000 was given by C. C. 
Wolf and his wife to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church of Parkersburg, la., on condition that 
the building include public library rooms ; 2700 
oriental coins and 150 volumes on numis- 
matics to Essex Institute, Salem, Mass., from 
John Robinson ; Grand Rapids received five 
memorial libraries for sick and crippled chil- 
dren costing $50 to $75 each for box, books 
and bookplate, part of their Sunshine Work; 
$35 for a stereopticon lantern to be used for 
the children's story hour from A. E. Howell 
to the Carnegie Library, Nashville, Tenn. 

By the data I have been able to gather, Mr. 
Carnegie s gifts in the United States number 
211 and amount to $3,162,140; and in Canada 
they number eight, amounting to $53,415. In 
their distribution the North Atlantic division 
of states received $717,200 in 31 gifts, the 
South Atlantic $331,700 in 18, the South Cen- 
tral $326,000 in 21, the North Central $1.498,- 
240 in 117, and the Western $289,000 in 24. 
Ohio ranks first with 19 gifts, Indiana, Illinois 
and Iowa are second with 18 each, Wisconsin 
third with 17, California fourth with 14, then 
Kansas 9, Pennsylvania 7, Minnesota 6, Mas- 



sachusetts, Vermont and New York, North 
Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Michigan 
5 each, Alabama 4, Maine, Georgia and Mis- 
sissippi 3 each; 13 states with 2 each and il 
with i each, and only the District of Colum- 
bia, Utah and Arkansas of the 47 states and 
territories received none. The larger amounts 
were four of $40,000 each to Pomona College, 
Claremont, California; Marietta (Ohio) Col- 
lege ; Miami University, Oxford, Ohio : and 
University of Tennessee, Knoxville ; eight of 
$50,000 each to De Pauw University, Green- 
castle, Ind. ; Drake University, Des Moinesr 
Western College, Toledo, Iowa ; Radcliffe Col- 
lege, Cambridge, Mass. ; University of North 
Carolina, Chapel Hill; Zanesville, Ohio; 
Washington and Lee University, Lexington, 
Va. ; and Lawrence University, Appleton, Wis- 
consin; $75,000 to Pittsfield, 111.; $100,000 to 
Toledo, Ohio ; $125,000 each to Wellesley and 
Oberlin Colleges; and $150,000 each to the 
City Library, Springfield, Mass., and Brown 
University, Providence, R. I. It will be noted" 
that most of the larger amounts went to col- 
leges ; and an examination of the details show 
that 50, or one-fourth of the 211 gifts amount- 
ing to $1,525,600, or one-half the total, were 
made to schools and colleges. 

ALABAMA 

AUBURN. Alabama Polytechnic Institute. 
$30,000 for library building from Andrew 
Carnegie. . 

DECATUR. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

ENSLEY. Public Library. $10,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

MONTGOMERY. Alabama State Normal SchooL 
$15,000 for library building from Andrew 
Carnegie. 

ARKANSAS 

TEXARKANA. R. R. Y. M. C. A. 300 volumes, 
annual gift from Miss Helen M. Gould. 

50 volumes on medicine from a local 

doctor. 

CALIFORNIA 

BERKELEY. University of California Library. 
$1000 from Mrs. W. H. Crocker for books- 
on physiology. 

$140 from R. B. for Californiana. 

$190 from Ladies of Temple Emanuef 

for Semitic philology. 

$300 from J. K. Moffitt for books. 

3594 volumes from various sources. 

looo volumes, the Marius J. Spinello li- 
brary, presented by his friends. 



1 62 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



BERKELEY. University of California Library. 
"Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft in dispos- 
ing of his famous library to the university 
accepted $150,000 as payment, thus virtually 
making a gift of $100,000." 

CLAREMONT. Pomona College. $40,000 for a 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

COLUSA. Free Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. Accepted. 

CORONA. Public Library. $10,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

$i5o additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

COVINA. Public Library. $8000 for a building 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

$1000 additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

Site from Mrs. Italia I. Cook. 

FRESNO. Free Library. $400 received from 
entertainment given by school children for 
benefit of the children's room. 

FULLERTON. Public Library. $7500 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

LONG BEACH. Public Library. $12,500 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MONROVIA. Public Library. 600 volumes be- 
queathed by Mrs. Stickney. 

$10,000 for building from Andrew Car- 
negie. 

OAKLAND. Free Library. $2000, bequest from 
Mrs. Caroline C. E. Ver Huell. 

Mills College. $20,000 for building from 
Andrew Carnegie. 

ONTARIO. Public Library. $10,000 from An- 
drew Carnegie. 

PALO ALTO. Leland Stanford Jr. University. 
$150 for books from Prof. James Barr 
Ames. 

100 volumes relating to law from differ- 
ent donors. 

Public Library. Chairs to the value of 
$132, trees $8, labor on grounds $14. 

RED BLUFF. Public Library. $10,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
SAN DIEGO. Free Public Library. $18 for 

books from Wednesday Club. 
SAN FRANCISCO. Public Library. $5000 from 

Andrew B. McCreery for books for the Mc- 

Creery branch. 
SAN MATEO. Public Library. $10,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
SAN PEDRO. Public Library. $10,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
SELMA. Public Library. $6000 for a building 

from Andrew Carnegie. 
VACAVILLE. Public Library. $5000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 

COLORADO 

BOULDER. University of Colorado, Bucking- 
ham Library. $80,000 building and site 
from state. 

1825 volumes from various sources, prin- 
cipally government. 

COLORADO SPRINGS. Public Library. 370 vol- 
umes, including a collection of books on 
pottery, given by College Women's Club. 



SALIDA. Public Library. $9000 for a building 

from Andrew Carnegie. 
SILVERTON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 

CONNECTICUT 

BRISTOL. Free Public Library. $1000 bequest 
from Charles S. Treadway. 

DARIEN. Public Library. $5000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

FAIRFIELD. Fairfield Memorial Library. 300 
volumes from Miss Jennings. 

480 volumes from Oliver G. Jennings. 

$800 from unmentioned sources. 
HARTFORD. Connecticut Historical Society. 

$400 for an endowment fund from anony- 
mous giver for books. 

$250 for books from the Wadsworth 

Athenaeum. The books to be deposited in 
library of Connecticut Historical Society, 
but technically to be owned by the Athe-* 
naeum. 

$1000 from state of Connecticut for 

printing and issuing the society's publica- 
tions. 

1139 volumes and pamphlets from va- 
rious donors. (For year May, '04- April, 

'OS-) 

Public Library. $6314 from estate of Miss 
Esther Pratt. 

IVatkinson Library of Reference. 10,000 
volumes, the educational library of Henry 
Barnard, which was presented by J. Pier- 
pont Morgan to the Athenaeum of Hartford, 
has been permanently deposited in the Wat- 
kinson Library. 

From Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, the 

collection of the late William C. Prime. 
"The history of illustration by printed pic- 
tures," about looo volumes. 

HUNTINGTON. Plumb Memorial Library. 
$500 from Mrs. Horace Plumb. 

MADISON. E. C. Scranton Memorial Library. 
$500 from Miss Scranton. 

MERIDEN. Curtis Memorial Library. $1000 
for an endowment fund. 

MIDDLETOWN. Berkeley Divinity School. 650 
volumes from various sources. 

Wesleyan University Library. 3300 books 
and many pamphlets, the library of the late 
Prof. J. C. Van Benschoten, purchased for 
$1500 and presented to the library. 

MILFORD. Taylor Library. $50 from estate 
of Mrs. Jacob Bristol. 

NEW BRITAIN. New Britain Institute. $5000 
from J. B. Talcott. 

NEW HAVEN. Free Public Library. $5000 
from Philo S. Bennett. 

NEW LONDON. Public Library. $40,000 be- 
quest from Mrs. Henry Cecil Haven upon 
the death of her husband and sister. 

PROSPECT. Public Library. $5000 from Mrs. 
Bronson Tuttle. 

ROCKVILLE. Public Library. $2500 from J. 
Alice, Francis T., William and Robert Max- 



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163 



well, to be known as the Emily Kingsbury 
Kellogg fund, the income for the purchase 
of books. 

477 volumes from the above. 

SAYBROOK. Deep River Public Library. $1000 
from Mrs. J. W. Marvin. 

.SUFFIELD. Kent Memorial Library. 212 vol- 
umes, of which 32 are state and government 
publications. 

Portrait of the late Sidney A. Kent, the 

donor of the library. 

THOMASTON. Public Library. $1700 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

WASHINGTON. Gunn Memorial Library. 
$3000. 

WINSTEAD. Beardsley Library. $8025, en- 
dowment fund, bequest from Amanda E. 
Church. 

DELAWARE 

GEORGETOWN. Public Library. $6000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

WASHINGTON. Library of Congress. Very 
numerous and valuable books, mss., prints, 
etc., including in particular the Breckin- 
ridge and the Van Buren papers, the Squier 
letters, and reproductions from the German 
and French governments. 

Public Library. $100 from James T. Du 
Bois for technological periodicals. 

FLORIDA 
MARTIN. Fessenden Academy. $5000 for 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
WINTER PARK. Rollins College. $20,000 for 

library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

GEORGIA 

ALBANY. Public Library. $10,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

ATHENS. State Normal School. $10,000 for 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

ATLANTA. Carnegie Library. $4000, to be 
continued for three years, from Andrew 
Carnegie for library school. 

648 volumes relating to sociology and 

literature. 

COLUMBUS. Public Library. $25,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MACON. Mercer University Library. 850 vol- 
umes from Dr. P. D. Pollock. 

IDAHO 

BOISE. Public Library. $5000 additional from 

Andrew Carnegie. 

ILLINOIS 
BUNKERHILL. Public Library. $7500 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
CHICAGO. Chicago Historical Society. $250 

for manuscripts from Dr. Otto L. Schmidt. 
1823 volumes and 609 maps, broadsides, 

etc., from members of the society and its 

friends. 
Various works of art. 

Chicago Theological Seminary, Hammond 



Library. 4000 volumes, bequest of Prof. S. 
I. Curtiss, relating to Old Testament. 

The John Crerar Library. 700 volumes and 
pamphlets relating to charities from Hull 
House. 

8480 volumes and pamphlets from 1155 

donors. 

University of Chicago Library. $18,650 for 
books in modern and classical languages. 

10,215 volumes from various sources. 

DE KALB. Public Library. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

EL PASO. Public Library. $6000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

EVANSTON. Free Public Library. Site from 
city of Evanston valued at $31,600. 

$25,000 for a building, also from city. 

$1000 additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

Northwestern University Library. $150, 
proceeds of German play, for books in Ger- 
man literature. 

GALENA. Public Library. $12,500 for build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

GREENVILLE. Public Library. $1000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

HARVEY. Public Library. $12,500 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

JOLIET. Public Library. $200 for books from 
Col. John Lambert. 

Two fine pictures for children's room. 

LEWISTON. Public Library. $5000 for build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

LINCOLN. Public Library. 75 children's books 
from Hon. S. A. Foley. 

MON MOUTH. Monmouth College. $30,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie, if an 
equal sum be raised for maintenance fund. 

MOUNT CARROLL. Public Library. $10,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

NAPERVILLE. North Western College. $25,- 
ooo for library building from Andrew Car- 
negie. 

OREGON. Public Library. $7000 for a building 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

$3000 additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

PITTSFIELD. Public Library. $75,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

PLANO. Public Library. $1250 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

SALEM. Public Library. $1500, a bequest of 
P. S. Bennett, of New Haven, Conn., for 
library purposes, if W. J. Bryan give an 
equal amount, and the city provide main- 
tenance. 

$1500 and a site from Hon. W. J. Bryan. 

SAVANNA. Public Library. $1350 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

SYCAMORE. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

INDIAN TERRITORY 

MusKOGEE. Public Library. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

TAHLEQUAH. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 



164 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



INDIANA 

BATESVILLE. Public Library. $8500 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DECATUR. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

DELPHI. Public Library. $12,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

FOWLER. Public Library. $7000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

FRANKFORT. Public Library. $17,500 from 
Andrew Carnegie. 

GREENCASTLE. De Pauw University. $50,000 
for a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

GREENFIELD. Public Library. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

HAMMOND. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

MARTINSVILLE. Public Library. $12,500 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

Mr. VERNON. Public Library. $1500 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

MUNCIE. Public Library. 100 volumes of the 
American Journal of Medical Science from 
Dr. G. W. H. Kemper. 

POSEYVILLE. Public Library. $500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

RENSSELAER. Public Library. $2000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

RICHMOND. Earlham College Library. $30,- 
ooo from Andrew Carnegie for a building. 

$iop from Benj. Johnson for books on 

education. 

$100 from E. Cecil for books on history. 

ROCHESTER. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

SALEM. Public Library. $1500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

TOPEKA. Sycamore Corners Literary Society. 
$4000 for a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

$4000 from Jacob Strauss. 

UNION CITY. Public Library. $1000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

WHITING. Public Library. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

10 WA 

ALBIA. Free Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

COUNCIL BLUFFS. Free Public Library. 55 
volumes from Gen. G. M. Dodge relating to 
Philippine Islands. 

35 medical books from Drs. McCrae, 

Dean and Rice. 

DES MOINES. Drake University. $50,000 
from Andrew Carnegie for a library build- 
ing on condition that an equal amount be 
raised. 

DUBUQUE. Carnegie-Stout Free Public Li- 
brary. 6000 volumes from Hon. W. B. Al- 
lison relating to finance and government 
documents. 

$11,500 from Andrew Carnegie for ad- 
dition and improvement of building. 

F AIRFIELD. Parsons College. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 



GUTHRIE CENTER. Public Library. $5000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

INDIANOLA. Simpson College. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

$2000 additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

IOWA CITY. State University of Iowa Library. 
400 volumes relating to classical literature 
from Mr. Frank A. Low den. 

LEON. Free Public Library. $6000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MANSON. Public Library. $6000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

NASHUA. Free Public Library. $5000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

$690 additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

OSAGE. Public Library. $10,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

OSKALOOSA. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

OXFORD JUNCTION. Free Public Library. 
$3500 from estate of John Wrigis. 

PARKERSBURG. $8000 from Mr. and Mrs. C. C. 
Wolf for a Methodist Episcopal Church 
which is to contain library rooms free ta 
all persons in Parkersburg and vicinity. 

$2000 for books from Mr. and Mrs. C. C. 

Wolf and a set of encyclopedias. 

PELLA. Library Association. $10,000 from C. 
C. Wolf. 

PERRY. Public Library. $600 additional from 
Andrew Carnegie. 

SPIRIT LAKE. Free Public Library. $6000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

TOLEDO. Western College. $50,000 from An- 
drew Carnegie. 

VINTON. Public Library. $2500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

WATERLOO. Public Library. $5000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

KANSAS 

ABILENE. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

CHANUTE. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

DODGE CITY. Public Library. $7500 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DOWNS. Public Library. $5000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

$1140 additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

GERARD. Public Library. $8000 for a building 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

INDEPENDENCE. Public Library. $20,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

LINDSBORG. Bethany College. $20,000 for li- 
brary building from Andrew Carnegie. 

PAOLA. Free Public Library. Property 
worth $500 from the heirs of J. W. Spon- 
able. 

PLAINVILLE. Public Library. $40 for books 
from citizens. 

RUSSELL. Public Library. $5000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 



HALL 



105 



KENTUCKY 

BEREA. Berea College Library. 3293 volumes 
from various donors ; also 5463 unbound 
numbers of magazines and 10,013 papers. 

DANVILLE. Central University of Kentucky. 
$30,000 for library building from Andrew 
Carnegie. 

ELIZABETHTOWN. Public Library. $7000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

LEXINGTON. Public Library. Site valued at 
$9000; also house and lot which sold for 
$8000, which is to be invested for a perpet- 
ual fund for books, and about 14,000 vol- 
umes, all from the old Lexington Library 
Company. 

$6000 for endowment fund from city and 

county for general expenses and books. 

SOMERSET. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

WINCHESTER. Kentucky Wesleyan College. 
$15,000 for a library building from Andrew 
Carnegie if an equal amount be raised. 

$6500 additional from Andrew Carnegie 

for equipment. 

LOUISIANA 

JENNINGS. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MAINE 

BELFAST. Free Library. 89 volumes from the 
library of Judge Joseph Williamson. 

BRUNSWICK. Bowdoin College Library. $300 
from class of 1893 for a collection of "Long- 
fellow" portraits. 

1000 volumes and 2300 pamphlets from 

A. Appleton Packard in memory of Prof. 
Alpheus S. Packard, relating to natural sci- 
ence, entomology and evolution. 

500 miscellaneous books from many dif- 
ferent donors. 

FAIRFIELD. Good Will Home Association. 
$15,000 from Andrew Carnegie for a library 
building if an equal sum be raised. 

FREEPORT. Public Library. $6500 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

KENNEBUNK. Free Library Association. $15,- 
ooo for a building from George Parsons, of 
New York. 

MADISON. Public Library. $3000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

MARYLAND 

ANNAPOLIS. St. John's College. $16,700 for a 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

BALTIMORE. Maryland Diocesan Library. 500 
volumes from various sources, principally 
on theology. 

MASSACHUSETTS 

ABINGTON. Public Library. 200 volumes 

from the library of the late Rev. Jesse H. 

Jones. 
AMHERST. Amherst Library Association. 

$500 for an endowment fund from Miss 

Sarah P. Ferry- 



ANDOVER. Public Library. The trustees of 
Phillips Academy have given a portion of 
the income of a fund established by Lieu- 
tenant Governor Phillips for non-sectarian 
religious books. 

$25,000 bequest from Mrs. Helen G. Co- 
burn for the endowment fund of the memo- 
rial hall and library. 

Theological Seminary Library. $900 for 
books from various donors. 

looo volumes from estate of the late 

Prof. E. C. Smythe, D.D., relating to the- 
ology. 

175 volumes from other donors. 

ASHBY. Public Library. Portraits of Edwin 
Chapman, the donor of the library building, 
and of Mrs. Chapman. 

BARNSTABLE. Hyannis Free Public Library. 
$100 for books. 

BOLTON. Public Library. $25 toward cata- 
loging from Mrs. J. Wyman Jones. 

BOSTON. Boston Medical Library. Valuable 
collection on vaccination from Dr. F. C. 
Martin. Very numerous books and period- 
icals in special lines. 

Public Library. $14,516 for an endowment 
fund from the late Joseph H. Center, and 
real estate from the same yielding $1560 
yearly. 

$100 from Andrew Carnegie (annually) 

for the purchase of books relating to 
women, or by them. 

12,812 volumes and 663 photographs 

from 3570 givers. 

BKEWSTER. Ladies' Library. 3600 volumes, 
bequest from Rev. Thomas Dawes. 

50 volumes and subscriptions to 10 mag- 
azines from individuals. 

BRIDGEWATER. Memorial Public Library. 
$500 endowment fund from Miss Sarah T. 
Bates. 

$5000 endowment from the Gilbert es- 
tate. 

$1000 endowment fund from Miss Cora 

Thompson. 

Archaeological reviews from Rev. W. C. 

Winslow. 

Flag from G. A. R. Post 205. 

Flag staff from Mr. S. P. Gates. 

CAMBRIDGE. Harvard College Library. $i,- 
ooo.ooo bequest from the -late Willam F. 
Milton, to become available after the death 
of his widow. Specific bequests and trust 
funds are named, the rest of the estate, es- 
timated as above, is left to Harvard for the 
erection of a library building, or the income 
may be used for special investigations. 

$500 for books on Venice from Francis 

Skinner. 

$1070 for books and 5824 volumes from 

Prof. A. C. Coolidge. 

The library of Prof. C. E. Norton was 

secured by subscription from his friends. 

$8500 from friends of Prof. C. E. Nor- 
ton, income to be used for books suggested 
by him. 



i66 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



CAMBRIDGE. Harvard College Library. 548 
volumes of legislative proceedings and pub- 
lic documents from the German and Prus- 
sian governments. 

838 sheets of the topographical maps of 

Japan from the government of Japan. 

$10,000 from Mr. Amory Gardner to- 
ward a new library building. 

$2500 from class of 1881, income for 

books for the Division of Chemistry. 

$18,797 f r immediate use from various 

donors for books on various subjects. 

Radcliffe College. $50,000 for library build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

CARVER. South Carver Public Library. $500 
bequest from William E. Savery. 

CENTERVILLE. Public Library. $250 was made 
at a fair which paid library expenses for -a 
year. 

CHESHIRE. Public Library. $93 from a fair. 

DIGHTON. Public Library. $6000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

DOUGLAS. Public Library. $6000 bequest 
from the late James Smith, the income to be 
used for books. 

$15,000 endowment fund from James M. 

Fairfield for care of building and grounds. 

EASTHAM. Public Library. $15,000 from 
Robert C. Billings estate. 

EASTHAMPTON. Public Library. $100 from 
West Boylston Mfg. Co. 

EVERETT. Public Library. Mr. Albert M. 
Parlin paid for extensive improvements of 
the library grounds. 

FITCHBURG. Public Library. The Jenks music 
library of 914 volumes from Herbert I. 
Wallace. 

GRANVILLE. Public Library. A building for 
the acetylene gas plant has been given by 
M. B. Whitney and Ralph B. Cooley. 

GREENFIELD. Public Library. 85 volumes 
from Mrs. Anne W. Cushman. 

HAMILTON. Public Library. The library has 
received the "Book of records of the Hamil- 
ton Second Social Library," commenced 
Feb. 10, 1817. 

$1000 bequest from the late Miss Au- 
gusta Dodge for furnishing a reading room 
as a memorial to her sister, to be known 
as the Gail Hamilton Reading Room. 

HARDWICK. Public Library. $12,000 for 
building from fund left by the late Lucius 
R. Page, D.D. 

HOLBROOK. Public Library. $200 from Miss 
Mary W. Holbrook. 

HOLYOKE. Public Library. Articles of Jap- 
anese art, valued at about $500, have been 
given by citizens. 

Mounted collections of botanical speci- 
mens. 

HOPEDALE. Bancroft Memorial Library. 72 
vo'imes on technical subjects from Mrs. C. 
L. Bailey. 

Cararra marble fountain, surmounted by 

a statue of Hope, by Waldo Story, from 
Mrs. Susan Preston Draper. 



HOPKINTON. Public Library. $2000 bequest 
from the late James A. Woolson, the in- 
come to be used for running expenses and 
the purchase of books. 

$5000 bequest from Mrs. Sarah A. 

Crooks. 

HYANNIS. Free Public Library. $100 for 
books from Gustavus Hinckley. 

LANCASTER. Town Library. $200 for books 
from John E. Thayer. 

$50 for art books. 

Portrait of the late Hon. Henry S. 

Nourse, for many years a library trustee, 
has been presented by Miss L. A. Nourse. 

LENOX. Library Association. 500 volumes 
from fund collected by friend and given as 
a memorial of the late Ethel Latimer Cram. 

LEXINGTON. Cary Library. Building and site 
from Miss Alice B. Cary. 

LUDLOW. Public Library. 145 volumes from 
the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates. 

LYNN. Public Library. $500 bequest of Dr. 
Martha J. Flanders. 

$500 bequest of Horace N. Hastings. 

Several works of art. 

LYNNFIELD. Public Library. $4000 bequest 
from the late George N. Blake, the income 
to be used for books. 

MANSFIELD. Public Library. $1000 bequest 
from the late Mrs. Fanny J. Morse. 

MARLBOROUGH. Public Library. A collection 
of letters and papers in connection with the 
history of the town, from the estate of the 
Rev. Horatio Alger. 

MATTAPOISETT. Public Library. $500 for 
books from Mr. and Mrs. C. A. King. 

MELROSE. Public Library. $25 for children's 
books from Miss Mary L. Charles. 

34 volumes relating to the history of 

Boston from Hon. John W. Farwell. 

Cabinet filled with relics and articles of 

historic interest from Faneuil Hall Chapter 
D. A. R, 

looo volumes presented by the late Dan- 
iel W. Gooch. 

NEWBURYPORT. Public Library. $1000 be- 
quest from the late George Haskell. 

$1050 from William H. Swasey for the 

building fund for the South End Reading 
Room. 

NEWTON. Free Library. $200 from estate of 
Miss E. L. Rand. 

$500 bequest from the late John C. 

Chaffin, the income for books. 

A portrait of Mr. Chaffin, and also one 

of Miss Hannah P. James, a former libra- 
rian. 

NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH. Public Library. 25 
volumes of children's books from Mr. and 
Mrs. H. F. Barrows, Jr. 

A gift of books from the library of the 

late Henry Rice, containing a complete set 
of the North American Review. 

NORTH BOROUGH. Public Library. One hun- 
dred dollars' worth of children's books from 
Mrs. Louise Dudley Brooks. 



HALL 



l6 7 



OAKHAM. Public Library. $4000 bequest for 
a building from the late Charles Fobes. 

Site from Mrs. Maria T. F. Rugg. 

OSTERVILLE. Public Library. $100 bequest 
from Mr. Gustavus Hinckley. 

$100 towards a children's room. 

PLYMOUTH. Public Library. $20 for books 
from Miss Mary Pratt. 

$500 legacy from Miss Laura Russell. 

PRINCETON. Public Library. $1000 bequest 
from the late Edward A. Goodnow. 

RCCKLAND. Public Library. Portraits of 
Miss Amelia Pool, a former librarian, and 
of the late Maria Louise Pool have been 
given. 

SALEM. Essex Institute. Mr. John Robinson 
has presented his collection of about 2700 
oriental coins of the countries to which 
Salem ships have sailed, together with 150 
volumes on numismatics. 

Public Library. $500 from Capt. William 
J. Chever. 

SANDWICH. Public Library. $25 from a citi- 
zen. 

140 books from other citizens. 

SHARON. Public Library. $1622 from estate 
of Mrs. Olin E. Hayden, with a portion of 
which a library site has been purchased. 

SOMERSET. Public Library. $2500 bequest 
from Mrs. Sarah Hood for building. 

SOUTH HADLEY. Mount Holyokc College Li- 
brary. $500 for the new building from 
Miss Helen Gould and $760 for furnishings 
from alumnae. 

$500 for an endowment fund from Mrs. 

Sarah A. Adams Cooley for books and pe- 
riodicals relating to mission work. 

$500 from various sources. 

275 volumes and 350 pamphlets from the 

library of the late Prof. Annah May Soule. 

200 volumes from Prof. Charles A. 

Young and several other books from indi- 
viduals. 

Public Library. $15,000 bequest from Will- 
iam H. Gaylord, the income to be used for 
running expenses. 

SOUTH HADLEY FALLS. Public Library. $10,- 
ooo for a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

SPRINGFIELD. City Library Association. $150,- 
oop for a building from Andrew Carnegie 
without conditions. 

$100 for books on wood engraving and 

specimens. 

$12,000 from various citizens to clear the 

library association from debt incurred in 
purchase of additional land and erection of 
heating plant. 

Under the will of the late Edward M. 

Walker, the association will in time receive 
the income of one-third of his estate annual- 
ly, to be used for the development and im- 
provement of its science museum. The es- 
tate is supposed to be somewhat over $400^- 
ooo. 



SPRINGFIELD. City Library Association. 41 
opera scores from Mrs. William P. Mat- 
toon. 

SUNDERLAND. Public Library. 153 volumes, 
valued at $500, from Henry W. Taf t ; New 
England history and genealogy. 

SWANSEA. Public Library. $500 from estate 
of John S. Brayton, to be known as the 
John S. Brayton fund, the income for books. 

TOWNSEND. Public Library. $50 from Ed- 
ward Ordway to help pay for cataloging. 

UXBRIDGE. Public Library. $5000 bequest 
from the late Mrs. Julia Thayer. 

WALPOLE. Public Library. $500 bequest from 
the late Mrs. Catherine Leland ; also a clock. 

WAREHAM. Free Public Library. $500 be- 
quest from Mrs. Betsey Besse. 

WATERTOWN. Free Public Library. 83 vol- 
umes, 3419 papers and pamphlets from A. 
N. A. Groeschner, by bequest. 

545 volumes, 981 papers and pamphlets. 

WAYLAND. Public Library. $4000 bequest 
from the late Mrs. Cynthia C. Roby. 

WELLESLEY. Wellesley College Library. $125,- 
ooo for a building from Andrew Carnegie, 
conditioned on raising a like sum. This 
sum has not been raised yet. 

WENDELL. Public Library. $800 real estate 
mortgage from Miss Fannie Hinsdale. 

WEST STOCKBRIDGE. Public Library. $86 
from entertainment for library furnishings. 

WEST YARMOUTH. Public Library. $10 and 
35 books. 

MICHIGAN 

BIRMINGHAM. Public Library. $8000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DETROIT. Public Library. Site from James 
E. Scripps, valued at $10,000. 

GRAND RAPIDS. Public Library. $1300 equip- 
ment for historical room from M. A. Ryer- 
son. 

1000 volumes from Bissell House Asso- 
ciation by transfer. 

3000 books and pamphlets from C. W. 

Garfield on horticulture. 

9300 books, pamphlets, etc., from various 

sources. 

-Five memorial libraries for sick and 

crippled children, costing $50 to $75 each 
for box, books and bookplate, part of what 
is termed Sunshine Work. 

MARQUETTE. Peter White Public Library. 
$165 for scientific books from club mem- 
bers. 

250 volumes from various sources. 

MENDON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MENOMINEE. Spies Public Library. Building 
and site, valued at $30,000, from Augustus 
Spies. 

$2000 from city for an endowment fund. 

$1142 for books from citizens. 

271 books from various persons. 

MORENO. Public Library. $5000 for build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 



i68 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



MUSKEGON. Hacklcy Public Library. $150,- 

ooo for the purchase of pictures, a bequest 

from Charles H. Hackley. 
PORTLAND. Public Library. $10,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
SAGINAW. Hoyt Public Library. $660 for 

books frcm four friends. 

$100 from Woman's Club. 

ST. JOSEPH. Pubhc Library. $1000 additional 

from Andrew Carnegie. 

MINNESOTA 

ALBERT LEA. Public Library. Mission clock 
from the Ladies' Auxiliary Committee of 
Albert Lea College. 

ALEXANDRIA. Public Library. $2000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

Two carbon prints, Jeremiah and the 

Delphica, by Michelangelo, from the Wom- 
an's Club. 

.Electric clock from Chris Raiter. 

Bronze bust of Irving with pedestal from 

H. A. Foeller. 

ANOKA. Public Library. Statue of Minerva, 
clock, and portrait of Shakespeare from 
the Philolectian Society. 

AUSTIN. Carnegie Public Library. Collection 
of curios from Greenland, Japan and China 
from Consul James W. Davidson. 

Wrought iron lamp for entrance from 

senior class of high school. 

FERGUS FALLS. Public Library. Bas relief of 
Hiawatha from Vernon A. Wright. 

GRAND RAPIDS. Public Library. $10,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

HUTCHINSON. Public Library. Wrought-iron 
andirons from the Ladies' Art Society. 

MADISON. Public Library. $8000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

MANKATO. Public Library. Oil painting of 
Andrew Carnegie by Thorp from Hon. J. 
T. McCleary. 

MAPLETON. 'Public Library. $5000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MINNEAPOLIS. Public Library. 278 volumes 
from George W. Peavy relating to calen- 
dars of state papers of Great Britain. 

53 misceMarieous volumes, 530 pamphlets 

and 5 Japanese prints. 

MONTEVIDEO. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MORRIS. Public Library. Clock from the 
Mothers' Club. 

NORTHFIELD. Scoville Memorial Lib'.ary of 
Carleton College. $50 from an undesig- 
nated fund. 

30 volumes from various sources. 

Bronze memorial tablet of John Chan- 
dler Williams from his son, Rev. Edward 
M. Williams. 

RED WING. Carnegie-Lowther Library. 
Bronze portrait bust of Rev. J. W. Han- 
cock from Edmund D. Brooks. 

ROCHESTER. Public Library. $20,000 from 
Mrs. Walter Hurlbut as an endowment, to 



be known as the "Walter Hurlburt book 

fund." 
ST. CLOUD. Public Library. Four Arundel 

prints from the Ladies' Reading Room 

Society. 
ST. PAUL. Minnesota Historical Society. 

$1000 bequest of Judge Greenleaf Clark 

for endowment. 
STILLWATER. Public Library. $10,000 bequest 

from Mrs. Sarah A. Murdpck to found the 

Hollis R. Murdock memorial fund. 
Young folks' library, edited by T. B. 

Aldrich, from Mrs. Harriet S. Jenks. 
76 volumes of bound magazines from 

Mrs. Helen M. Torimus. 
VIRGINIA. Public Library. $10,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 
WINONA. Free Library. Two paintings 

"An old Flemish town," by C. Warner 

Eaton, and "Spring in the Berkshires," by 

H. Bolton Jones from citizens of Winona. 

MISSISSIPPI 

MERIDIAN. Public Library. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

OXFORD. Mississippi State University. The 
trustees announced on June 7 that they had 
declined Andrew Carnegie's offer of $25,- 
ooo, on the ground that his condition of an 
equal amount placed the state in the posi- 
tion of a mendicant. 

UNIVERSITY. University of Mississippi. $25,- 
ooo for library building from Andrew Car- 
negie. 

MISSOURI 

ALBANY. Public Library. $2500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

FULTON. Westminster. $2075 from a friend 
for books and equipment. 

LIBERTY. William Jewell College. The li- 
brary of Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, 7000 
volumes, was bought for $3000 and given 
to the college by friends. 

MARYSVILLE. Public Library. $1500 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

PARKVILLE. Park College Library. $50 for 
books from Park College graduates in 
Chile for the department of history. 

RICHMOND. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

ST. Louis. Public Library 3500 volumes 
from various sources. 

MONTANA 

ANACONDA. Hearst Free Library. $1000 for 
books from Mrs. P. A. Hearst. 

85 children's books from Anaconda 

school district, 61 books from private citi- 
zens. 

LEWISTON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

NEBRASKA 

McCooK. Public Library. $10,000 for .1 build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 



HALL 



169 



NEW HAMPSHIRE 

BERLIN. Public Library. 17 etchings, copies 
from the old masters, and numerous photo- 
graphic prints, all beautifully mounted and 
framed, nine busts and two reliefs. 

CLAREMONT. Fiske Free Library. Bust of 
Beethoven from Clarement Music Club. 

DURHAM. College of Agriculture and Me- 
chanic Arts. $20,000 for library building 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

EXETER. Phillips Exeter Academy. $50,000 
for a library building; a bequest from Ben- 
jamin P. Davis. 

NEW JERSEY 

CAMDEN. Public Library. $10,000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

EAST ORANGE. Free Public Library. $20,000 
for two buildings from Andrew Carnegie. 
(The matter is now referred to the city 
council and will doubtless be accepted.) 

1257 volumes from citizens. 

456 pamphlets, 2926 periodicals, 1721 

newspapers, 90 photographs, one fan palm 
and several vvorks of art. 

ELIZABETH. Public Library and Reading 
Room. $122 for books from Local Board 
of Women's Clubs. 

$25 for books from Peter Engenolf. 

HACKENSACK. Johnson Public Library. $650 
for books from citizens of the town. 

JERSEY CITY. Free Public Library. Collec- 
tion of minerals, marine curios and piece of 
statuary from Miss E. C. Ogden. 

MADISON. Drew Theological Seminary. 4000 
volumes from various sources. 

NEW BRUNSWICK. Free Public Library. 1200 
volumes from estate of Rev. A. A. Murphy. 

NEWARK. Free Public Library. Howard W. 
Hayes memorial collection of rare bronzes, 
porcelains, rugs, books, and paintings. 

New Jersey Historical Society. 578 vol- 
umes on history from Samuel H. Hunt. 

PJ.AINFIELD. Public Library and Reading 
Room. $100 for books from Mason W. 
Tyler. 

-Two window transparencies and $60 for 
two others. 

362 volumes from various sources. 

PRINCETON. Princeton University Library. 
$6000 for administration and library fur- 
nishing from anonymous givers. 

6210 volumes from sundry persons. 

NEW YORK 

ALBANY. New York State Library. 10,176 

volumes from Oct. i, icx>4-Sept. 30, 1905. 
53>39 pamphlets, 257 maps, 410 pictures, 

ai.J 3184 other gifts from Oct. i, i9O4-Sept. 

30, 1905. 
AUBURN. Seymour Library Association. A 

copy of William Gilbert's "Treatise on the 



loadstone," a valuable book costing prob- 
ably several hundred dollars. 

Bronze tablet to the memory of founder 

of the library, presented by Willard E. Case. 

AURORA. W ells College Library. $500 for 
books from private individuals. 

BALLSTON SPA. Public Library. $30.000 for 
a building from Mrs. Helen M. Knicker- 
backer and her son. The village agreeing 
to appropriate $600 yearly for maintenance ; 
the donors also agree to furnish an endow- 
ment. 

BROOKLYN. Public Library. 437 volumes for 
the blind from the Church of the Messiah. 

7173 volumes from Hebrew Educational 

Society. 

3541 volumes, 300 unbound volumes, 

3342 pamphlets, 4528 periodicals, from va- 
rious donors. 

CANTON. St. Lawrence University-Herring 
Library. 162 volumes, bequest from Dr. 
Prello Cone relating to theology. 

157 volumes from All Souls Church, 
Brooklyn. 

ITHACA. Cornell University Library. 12,500 
volumes from Willard Fiske by bequest, re- 
lating to Petrarch, Dante and Iceland. 

456 volumes from Andrew D. White; 

historical. 

406 volumes from the family of George 

C. Caldvvell ; scientific. 

373 volumes from T. F. Crane ; ro- 
mance, philology. 

530 volumes from Theodore Stanton ; 
English literature. 

JAMESTOWN. James Prendergast Free Library. 

$1000, a bequest from Elial F. Hall in trust 

to Mary E. Hazeltine for the purchase of 

such books as in her judgment the testator 

would prefer. 
LONG ISLAND CITY. Queensborough Library. 

$5 from D. A. Ausbacker. 

166 volumes from two friends. 

NEW YORK. Columbia University Library. 

$10,000 for books from anonymous donor. 
$3500 for additional shelving from 

anonymous donor. 
15,000 volumes from sundry donors. 

Public Library. 1034 volumes and 3910 
pamphlets from various sources. 

Young Men's Hebrew Association. $10,- 
ooo from Mrs. Joseph B. Blpomingdale in 
memory of her husband ; the income for the 
purchase of books on engineering, chemis- 
try and allied subjects. 

PATCHOGUE. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

PGUGHKEEPSIE. Vassar College Library. $800 
for books in English literature from class 
of 1900. 

$300 for books in romance languages 
from Mrs. Edgar J. Bowen. 

SCHENECTADY. Public Library. $5000, a be- 
quest from Albert J. Pitkin. 
SKANEATELES. Skaneateles Library Associa- 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



tion. $1000 endowment fund from estate 
of Joseph C. Willets. 

$95 from various sources. 

239 volumes and 41 subscriptions to pe- 
riodicals. 

SYRACUSE. Syracuse University Library. 
$150,000 for an endowment fund from per- 
sons desiring names withheld, the income to 
be used for both general expenses and 
books. 

TICONDEROGA. Public Library. $2000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

WALKILL. Public Library. $3000, a bequest 
from Penelope Borden Hamilton. 

WARSAW. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

WELLSVILLE. Public Library. $7500 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

WHITE PLAINS. Public Library. $4500 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

NORTH CAROLINA 

CHAPEL HILL. University of North Carolina 
Library. $175 from societies of the univer- 
sity for recataloging part of library. 

429 volumes from various sources. 

$50,000 from Andrew Carnegie, condi- 
tional upon raising equal amount. 

CHARLOTTE. Biddle University. $12,500 for 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

Carnegie Library. $100 for books from 
performance of "Pinafore'' by school chil- 
dren. 

$226 from ladies for book fund. 

448 volumes merchants of the city, "to 

the most popular institution." 

$10,000 additional from Andrew Carne- 
gie for lecture room and extension of stack, 
making a total of $30,000. 

DAVIDSON. Davidson College. $20,000 from 
Andrew Carnegie for a library building on 
the usual conditions. 

GREENSBORO. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

SALISBURY. Livingstone College. $12,500 for 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

NORTH DAKOTA 

FARGO. Fargo College. $15.000 for library 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

FARGO. North Dakota Agricultural College. 
$18,400 for library building from Andrew 
Carnegie. 

GRAND FORKS. State University of North 
Dakota Library. 1160 volumes from Scan- 
dinavians in North Dakota relating to Scan- 
dinavian literature. 

-362 volumes from North Dakota State 

Historical Society relating to medicine. 

287 volumes from Mrs. John M. Coch- 

rane relating to history and literature. 

OHIO 

BROOKLYN. Public Library. $1800 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 



CANTON. Public Library. $500 for children's- 
books and a marble statue of Sappho by 
Dupre, from V/m. S. Hawk. 

CEDARVILLE. Cedarville College. $7500 for a 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

CINCINNATI. Historical and Philosophical 
Society of Ohio. 458 volumes and 51 maps 
relating to Civil War from family of H. M. 
Cist. 

$1000; the balance of $6000 bequest from* 

estate of Margaret A. King. 

369 volumes from many different donors. 

Public Library. Deeds to five sites from- 
the city. 

276 books and unbound magazines from 

Dr. E. G. Betty. 

CLEVELAND. Public Library. $34 for books- 
for the blind from the library assistants. 

1354 volumes relating to oriental litera- 
ture and folklore from John G. White. 

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS. Public Library. $10,- 
ooo for a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

COLUMBUS GROVE. Public Library. $10,000- 
for a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DEFIANCE. Public Library. $4500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

EATON. Public Library. $10.000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

GERMANTOWN. Public Library. $10,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

MARIETTA. Marietta College Library. $40,000- 
from Andrew Carnegie on condition that 
an equal sum be raised for remodelling the 
present building as a recitation hall. 

OBERLIN. Obcrlin College Library. $125,000- 
from Andrew Carnegie, on condition that 
$100,000 be raised as a new endowment 
fund. 

$1250 endowment fund from friends of 

the college. 

$575 from friends of the college for 

books and general expenses. 

About looo volumes from Prof. A. A. 

Wright on zoology and geology. 

OXFORD. Miami University. $40,000 from 
Andrew Carnegie for library if an equal 
sum be raised. 

ROCKPORT. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

SALEM. Public Library. $2500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie, making $20,000. 

SANDUSKY. Sandusky Library Association. 
$125 for books from a friend. 

15 volumes on genealogy from Mozart 

Hallup. 

SPRINGFIELD. Warder Public Library. Por- 
trait of the late ex-governor, Asa S. Bush- 
nell, from Mrs. Bushnell. 

Bust of Schiller from the German So- 
ciety of Springfield. 

TIFFIN. Heidelberg University. $25,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

TOLEDO. Public Library. $100,000 for several 
branch library buildings from Andrew Car- 
negie. No action taken. 



HALL 



WARREN. Public Library. $7000 additional 

from Andrew Carnegie. 
WAUSEON. Public Library. $500 additional 

from Andrew Carnegie. 
WESTERVILLE. Otterbein University. $20,000 

from Andrew Carnegie for library if an 

equal sum be raised. 
WOOSTER. University Library. $35,000 for 

addition to building from H. C. Frick. 

698 volumes from various sources. 

XENIA. Public Library. $3500 additional 

from Andrew Carnegie. 
ZANESVILLE. Public Library. $50,000 for a 

building from Andrew Carnegie. 

OKLAHOMA 

SHAWNEE. Public Library. $500 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

OREGON 

DALLAS. Public Library. $350 from citizens. 

EUGENE. Public Library. $10,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

FOREST GROVE. Pacific University. $20,000 
for library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

PORTLAND. Library Association. $6000 from 
the directors for furnishing and renovating 
hitherto unused portion of library building. 

88 volumes relating to medicine from 

Oregon Medical Society. 

PENNSYLVANIA 

CHEYNEY. Institute for Colored Youth. $10,- 
ooo for a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DUNMORE. Public Library. $15,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

GEORGETOWN. Public Library. $6000 for > 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

GROVE CITY. Grove City College. $2000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

HAVERFORD. Library of Haverford College. 
$160 for books. 

506 volumes from various source?. 

HUNTINGTON. Juniata College. $28,000 for 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

OIL CITY. Public Library. $4000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

PHILADELPHIA. Girard College Library. 47 
volumes on architecture from Mr. John H. 
Converse. 

Library of College of Physicians of Phila- 
delphia. 4231 volumes from 289 donors, on 
medicine. 

8513 pamphlets and reprints. 

Library of the University of Pennsylvania. 
$4000 for books from miscellaneous sources. 

PITTSBURGH. Carnegie Library. 2056 vol- 
umes, 2169 pamphlets. 

SLATINGTON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

TITUSVILLE. Benson Memorial Library. $6000 
from Mrs. Emerson to be known as the 
Charles F. Emerson fund, the income for 
the purchase of books. 

WARREN. Public Librarv. $5000. endowment 



fund for books, magazines and papers by 

the will of Judge Lansing D. Wetmore. 

$195 from several persons. 

Portrait of wife and daughter of Mr. 

Thomas Struthers. founder of library, given 

by Struthers estate. 

RHODE ISLAND 

NEWPORT. People's Library. Building and 
site valued at $20,000 from Christopher 
Townsend. 

$8000 from trustees. 

$6700 endowment fund from Christopher 

Townsend. 

$5000 from G. H. Norman. 

PAWTUCKET. Deborah Cook Sayles Public 
Library. 73 volumes of the Jesuit Relations- 
from the estate of the late Rev. John Harty. 

PROVIDENCE. Brown University Library. 
$150,000 for a building from Andrew Car- 
negie, conditional upon raising a like sum. 

$1000 endowment fund from Samuel C. 

Eastman for books of American poetry. 

jpg volumes from Samuel C. Eastman- 
relating to American poetry. 

I5 oo volumes and 3000 pamphlets relat- 
ing to natural history from A. Appletorv 
Packard. 

58 letters written by George William 

Curtis given by Mrs. E. M. O. Connor- 
Calder. 

Providence Athenteum. $2000 for an en- 
dowment fund for books from Mrs. Thomas 
P. Shepard. 

$1200 for renovating of reading room,. 

raised by a friend. 

156 volumes from various sources. 

Mr. Isaac C. Bates has had the canvas 

copy of Stuart's portrait of Washington re- 
stored and the frame regilded. 

Public Library. $58,216 for an endowment 
fund from Charles C. Hoskins estate. This 
is in addition to amounts already received. 

$328 from various sources. 

WESTERLY. Memorial and Library Associa- 
tion. Author's autograph Japan edition of 
"Paris known and unknown," by William 
Walton, 10 volumes, value $300. 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

ANDERSON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

GREENVILLE. Furman University. $15,000 for 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

SPARTANBURG. W 'afford College Library. 
$10,000 for a building from the late Miss- 
Julia Smith. 

300 volumes relating to French and Ger- 
man literature and European travel from- 
students. 

SOUTH DAKOTA 

MILLBANK. Public Library. $7000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 



172 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



TENNESSEE 

CHATTANOOGA. Public Library. $10,000 for 
an endowment fund from Mrs. Caroline E. 
Richmond, the income to be used for young 
people's department. 

$4000 for books from a number of our 

leading citizens. 

7257 volumes from citizens. 

A large Copley print, Sir Galahad, sev- 
eral potted palms and ferns, year's sub- 
scription to eight magazines, and young 
people's department equipped and furnished 
by Mrs. C. E. Richmond. 

$15,000 from Andrew Carnegie for a 

branch library for negroes. 

CUMBERLAND GAP. Lincoln Memorial Univer- 
sity. $20,000 for library building from An- 
drew Carnegie. 

HUNTINGTON. Southern Normal University. 
Gifts amounting to about $250. 

JEFFERSON CITY. Carson and Newman Col- 
lege. $10,000 for a building from Andrew 
Carnegie, on condition that an equal amount 
be raised. 

300 volumes from Capt. W. W Wood- 
ruff. 

KNOXVILLE. University of Tennessee. $40,000 
from Andrew Carnegie, if an equal sum be 
raised. 

MEMPHIS. Cossitt Library. 603 volumes, 896 
pamphlets, 730 periodicals and 98 maps and 
charts. 

NASHVILLE. Carnegie Library. $35 from Mr. 
A. E. Howell to buy a stereopticon lantern 
to be used for children's story hour and free 
lectures. 

240 volumes and 588 pamphlets from 
\arious sources. 

30 volumes of classic stones for chil- 
dren. 

Fisk University. $20,000 for library build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 
TEXAS 

AUSTIN. University of Texas Library. $100 
for books by southern writers from Mr. H. 
P. Milliard. 

1350 volumes from Miss Florence Ral- 
ston Brooke. 

DALLAS. Public Library. $500 for books from 
Mrs. A. H. Belo, Sr. 

GALVESTON. Rosenberg Library. 5000 vol- 
umes from the City Library, given by city 
of Galveston, and 1300 pamphlets. 

NACOGDOCHES. Public Library. $10.000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

SAN ANTONIO. Carnegie Library. $55 from 
G. W. Brockenridge for books. 

$25 from Mrs. E. B. Chandler for chil- 
dren's books. 

-Bronze bust of Dr. Ferdinand Huff by 

his friends. 

UTAH 

PKOVO CITY. Free Public Library and Read- 
ing Room. 1800 volumes from citizens. 



PROVO CITY. Free Public Library and Read- 
ing Room. $63 from Womans' Clubs. 

$90 from entertainments. 

SALT LAKE CITY. Free Public Library. $90,- 
ooo building from John Q. Packard, who in 
1900 gave site worth $30,000. 

417 volumes from various sources. 

VERMONT 

BELLOWS FALLS. Public Library. $15,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

BENNINGTON. Public Library. $8000 for a 
building by bequest from G. E. F. Dodge, 
of Nashua. 

BURLINGTON. Library of the University of 
Vermont. Pedestals of verd antique for 
two busts. 

CASTLETON. Free Public Library. $500 en- 
dowment fund from Mrs. Mason S. Stone. 

50 volumes from Mrs. Emma Gurney. 

FAIR HAVEN. Public Library. Site valued at 
$5000 from citizens. 

$8000 for building from Andrew Car- 
negie. 

LUNENBURG. Alden Balch Memorial Library. 
Universal cyclopedia from Womans' Club. 

L\NDONVILLE. Cobleigh Public Library. $16,- 
500 for building from E. W. Cobleigh and 
$3000 from estate of I. W. Sanborn; the 
building will be completed this year. 

MIDDLEBURY. Middlebury College Library. 
$1000 for books from Dr. M. Allen Starr. 

iioo volumes, the library of the late 

Prof. W. W. Eaton, from Mrs. Eaton. 

NORTH FIELD. Norwich University. $25,000 
for building from Andrew Carnegie ; ac- 
cepted May, 1905. 

200 volumes from Gen. G. M. Dodge. 

600 volumes from the library of Major 

H. E. Alvord. 

A library of the Germanic languages, 

about looo volumes, from the late Prof. 
Adrian Scott. 

RUTLAND. Public Library. $6000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

SHELLBURNE. Free Library. $50 for books 
from Mrs. W. Seward Webb. 

60 volumes from Mrs. W. Seward Webb. 

SHOREHAM. Free Library. $53 for books 
from supper for benefit of library. 

$72 for historian's history of the world. 

WILMINGTON. Public Library. $5500 for 
building from L. F. Pettee. 

Site valued at $1500 from town. 

VIRGINIA 

LEXINGTON. Washington and Lee University. 
$50,000 for a library building from Andrew 
Carnegie on condition that an equal amount 
be raised. 

LYNCHBURG. Public Library. $50,000 from 
Mrs. Geo. M. Jones for a building as a 
memorial to her husband ; also a site. Mrs. 






HALL 



173 



Jones will also give a maintenance fund of 
$50,000. 

"NORFOLK. Public Library. 511 volumes, ex- 
clusive of public documents. 

$1402 from various persons. 

'ig8 volumes of bound newspapers from 

various sources. 

WILLIAMSBURG. William and Mary College. 
$20,000 for library building from Andrew 
Carnegie. 

WASHINGTON 

CLARKSTON. Public Library. Mr. E. T. Libby 
has given a lot for library building. 

FAIR HAVEN. Public Library. $3500 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

SPOKANE. Public Library. $10,000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

25 volumes from Robert Keith; litera- 
ture. 

Etching of Shakespeare from Arthur G. 

Duncomb. 

Portrait of Andrew Carnegie from D. E. 

Fultz. 

WALLA WALLA. Public Library. $500 from 
Mr. Henry Osterman for books. 

WEST VIRGINIA 

BETHAXY. Bethany College. $20,000 for a 
library building from Andrew Carnegie. 

PARKERSBURG. Public Library. $9000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

WISCONSIN 

AFPLETON. Lawrence University. $50,000 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

ARCADIA. Public Library. $5000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

BELOIT. Public Library. $100 for books from 
Daughters of American Revolution. 

$27 from East End Club for mechanical 

department. 

CUMBERLAND. Free Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

DURAND. Public Library. $7500 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

EDGERTON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

ELROY. Public Library. $10,000 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

EVANSVILLE. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Almon Eager. 

HAYWARD. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

XAUKAUNA. Public Library. $2000 from An- 
drew Carnegie for fixtures for building. 

LA CROSSE. Public Library. $450 for furnish- 
ing and decorating children's room. 

MADISON. Free Library. $50 for children's 
room from Mrs. W. W. Hobbs. 

80 volumes of eclectic magazines from 

Mrs. B. J. Stevens and daughters. 

Bust of Webster from Mrs. S. N. Pin- 

ney. 



MADISON. Free Library. Photograph of 
Roman Forum from Mrs. Conover. 

University of Wisconsin Library. $5000 
from James J. Hill for the development of 
a library on transportation. 

Books valued at $800 from John Kremer. 

MANITOWOC. Public Library. $463 for books 
from various sources. 

$100 from William Rahr Sons Co., to 

open library during hours 6 to 7 as hereto- 
fore. 

OSHKOSH. Public Library. $500 from Mrs. 
Leander Choate for purchase of Pickett In- 
dian relics. 

PORTAGE. Public Library. $12,500 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

RJCHLAND CENTER. Public Library. $10,000 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

RIPON. Public Library. $2000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

Ripon College. $12,000 for a building from 
Andrew Carnegie. 

STOUGHTON. Public Library. $10,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

WATER-TOWN. Public Library. $20,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

WAUSAU. Free Public Library. Site from 
Hon. Walter D. Alexander; valued at 
$6000. 

$25,000 for a building from Andrew Car- 
negie. 

WAUWATOSA. Public Library. $6000 for ad- 
dition to library from Andrew Carnegie. 

WYOMING 

GREEN RIVER. Public Library. $20,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 

CANADA 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 

NEW WESTMINSTER. Public Library. $2000 
additional from Andrew Carnegie. 

VICTORIA. Public Library. $2415 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie. 

ONTARIO 

BELLEVILLE. Public Library. $10,000 from 
H. Carby. 

COLLINGWOOD. Public Library. $2000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

LUCKNOW. Public Library. $7500 for a build- 
ing from Andrew Carnegie. 

NIAGARA FALLS. Public Library. $12,500 for 
a building from Andrew Carnegie. 

ST. THOMAS. Public Library. $2000 addi- 
tional from Andrew Carnegie. 

SARNIA. Public Library. $5000 additional 
from Andrew Carnegie, making $20,000. 

STRATHCONA. Public Library. $10,000 from 
Lord Strathcona on the completion of a 
building. 

WOODSTOCK. Public Library. $20,000 for a 
building from Andrew Carnegie. 



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PLUMMER 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY TRAINING 

BY MARY W. PLUMMER, HENRY E. LEGLER, J. C. DANA, ELEANOR ROPER, GRACE ROSE, 
ISABEL E. LORD, W. C. KIMBALL, A. S. ROOT 



*T*HE committee on library training, con- 
tinued at the Niagara Conference in 
order to report to the Association at the 1905 
conference, on standards for schools of li- 
brary training, made its report at Portland 
and was discharged. Another committee was 
formed, according to recommendations made 
at Niagara, and this committee, composed 
of one member of a state library commis- 
sion, one library trustee, one librarian of 
a college library, one librarian of a public 
library, one member of the faculty of a 
library school, and three graduates of library 
schools engaged in library work, presents 
the following report : 

It seemed wise to the committee, meeting 
at Atlantic City in March, to take the tentative 
report on standards presented at Portland as 
a basis for its work, for two reasons. One, 
that it had already, as a reprint, been sent 
out to schools and librarians by the Wiscon- 
sin Free Library Commission, and the other, 
that the commissions had seemed to look 
upon the standards suggested as desirable. 
It was decided, however, to use only that 
part of the report which referred to schools, 
and, for the present, to suggest no standards 
or regulations for apprentice classes and cor- 
respondence courses ; also to rearrange the 
matter in more convenient form. 

This being done, so that under the head- 
ing "Winter schools" and "Summer schools" 
the recommendations of 1905 were grouped 
under the subheads "Entrance requirements," 
"Instruction," "Tests and credentials," and 
"Subjects of instruction," these recommenda- 
tions were sent out to the present committee 
to be adopted or rejected or modified. 

The comments of the committee were tab- 
ulated, and where no expression was made 
on a given point, it was taken for granted 
that that meant approval, or at least not dis- 
approval, of the recommendation on that 



subject formulated the year before. This 
gave a majority vote to the following recom- 
mendations : 

WINTER SCHOOLS 

1. Entrance requirements : 

Three years beyond the high school prepa- 
ration; or, an entrance examination in his- 
tory, literature, language and economics. 

2. Instruction : 

a. At least one-third of the instructors 

to have been trained in and gradu- 
ated from a recognized library 
sch'ool. 

b. At least one-third of the instructors 

to be experienced in other libraries 
than those connected with the 
school. 

c. Some of the instructors to have li- 

brary duties. 

d. One instructor to every ten students 

in laboratory work. 

e. At least one-sixth of the students' 

time to be given to practical library 
work under supervision. 

3. Tests and credentials. 

The giving of a certificate or diploma at the 
end of the course, which shall certify to the 
satisfactory completion of the course, and 
the fulfilment of tests, but not to fitness for 
library work. 

4. Subjects to be taught: 
Classification. Decimal 

Expansive. 

Cataloging. Classed 

Dictionary. 

Library economy. Accession-work 
Shelf-listing 
Loan systems 
Binding and rebinding 
Supplies and statistics 
Order work. 

Reference-work, lectures and problems. 



176 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Bibliography, Trade. 

Book-selection. 

The majority test of the recommendations 
produced a set almost exactly like those of 
last year, as will be seen; and these recom- 
mendations were sent to the following 
schools, or departments : 

1. New York State; 

2. Pratt Institute; 

3. Drexel Institute; 

4. Illinois University; 

5. Carnegie School for Children's Libra- 
rians ; 

6. Simmons College; 

7. Western Reserve; 

8. Southern Library School ; 

9. Wisconsin Library School; 

10. Indiana; 

11. Syracuse University; 

making in all 11 sources of instruction giving 
a winter curriculum. 

Entrance requirements. Of the eleven, nine 
require at least three years beyond high 
school work, or an examination. Two of 
these nine (Indiana and Carnegie) do not 
examine in languages, and two which have 
not examined in economics will probably do 
so this year in response to the committee's 
recommendation. One of the other two 
(Syracuse) admits on high school prepara- 
tion, taking the high school certificate, and 
one (Wisconsin) expects to add a month of 
practical library work to this requirement. 

Instruction. In regard to instruction, all 
the schools but one (Syracuse) meet the 
first two recommendations, as to the instruct- 
ors being graduates of recognized library 
schools and experienced in other libraries. 
The exception has one instructor in five (not 
a graduate) from a recognized library school, 
the remainder being of its own training. It 
has one instructor with public library ex- 
perience, the remainder knowing of other 
libraries only through visits. 

All the schools report some instructors 
with library duties; all observe the propor- 
tion of one instructor to every ten students 
for laboratory work. 

Three (New York State, Syracuse [accord- 
ing to its catalog] and Indiana) fail to meet 
the requirement of one-sixth of the students' 
time to be spent in practical library work. 



One (Indiana) reporting one-tenth will meet 
the requirement another year. 

Tests and credentials. There are two ex- 
ceptions to the certificate and diploma require- 
ment, both in the interests of greater care, 
however; one school (Simmons) granting its 
certificate only after three months of ap- 
proved work in some library, and one (Car- 
negie) certifying to fitness for a definite div- 
ision of library work, since it is a specializ- 
ing school. 

Minimum number of subjects taught. 
Three schools (Simmons, Wisconsin and 
Western Reserve) do not yet give classed 
cataloging, and two report that they do not 
teach the Expansive classification (one, at 
least, ''with any thoroughness,' 1 to use its 
own words). Otherwise, the requirements 
as to subjects seem to be more than met. 

On the whole, the committee feels that this 
is a good showing. 

SUMMER SCHOOLS 

As to the recommendations of 1905 for sum- 
mer schools, they were adopted almost as they 
stood by the present committee, the majority 
agreeing as to the entrance requirement, 
which was stated as follows: 

A paid position as librarian or assistant, or 
a definite written appointment to the same. 

Instruction. 

a. The committee with no exception 
agreed to the recommendation that there 
should be at least one instructor trained in a 
recognized library school, and with one ex- 
ception only, that there should be 

b. at least two instructors with experi- 
ence in other libraries than that connected 
with the school. The excepting member 
wished all instructors to have had experience 
in a small library. 

c. It was unanimous in recommending 
at least one instructor to every fifteen stu- 
dents. 

d. The recommendation of the propor- 
tion of one-fourth practical work was ac- 
cepted by a majority. 

Tests and credentials. Five out of eight 
voted for the pass-card, stating subjects, 
rather than the certificate, and the three 
others agreed that the certificate should state 



PLUMMER 



plainly that the course completed was a sum- 
mer school course. 

Minimum number of subjects. The com- 
mittee, with one exception, agreed as to the 
list of subjects recommended in 1905, the ex- 
ception not being prepared to discuss the 
question. 

The recommendations of the majority were 
sent to the following summer schools: 

New York State. 

Chautauqua. 

Wisconsin. 

Minnesota. 

Indiana. 

Iowa. 

New Jersey. 

Washington, with the following results: 

All the schools except two (New Jersey 
and Washington) have of their own accord, 
by their own judgment, adopted the recom- 
mended entrance requirement, one, however, 
exempting such people as volunteer unpaid 
workers such as college settlement people, 
an obviously just exception. 

It is hoped that the schools which have 
not adopted this recommendation may see 
their way to do so another year, as history 
shows that the others have found it expe- 
dient. 

The two requirements as to instruction, 
"a" and "c," are met by all the schools but 
Washington, which has not reported on this 
point; "b," requiring at least two instruc- 
tors with experience gained in other libraries, 
was met by all but three (New Jersey, Iowa, 
and Washington), two of which did not re- 
ply at all on this point, though the commit- 
tee believes in one case this was simply en 
oversight, and that it does meet the recom- 
mendation. 

"d" in regard to one-fourth practical work 



for beginners (i.e., persons under appoint- 
ment) is observed by three schools, and two 
others will require this proportion this sum- 
mer. One school (Chautauqua, per M. E. 
Robbins) as a reason for not doing so states 
that theory is what the inexperienced stu- 
dent needs, as practice will come afterward, 
and another (Wisconsin) dissents, because it 
does not admit beginners (i.e., persons with- 
out experience), requiring all to secure some 
experience before coming. 

Tests and credentials. All the schools 
meet the recommendation that their creden- 
tials show the course to be a summer school 
course. 

Subjects. All the schools give instruction 
in the recommended list of subjects, the 
New York State School, however, devoting 
each year to a specified subject, leaving the 
general course to Chautauqua. 

It would seem as if the committee would 
have to set its recommendations still higher, if 
it wishes to prove any school appreciably 
below standard. Even a school which be- 
gins with the impression that a high standard 
will frighten students away, comes gradually 
to see that instead of this it attracts a more 
desirable class of students, and so by de- 
grees the school raises its own requirements. 
The only hopeless source of training is the 
one that cannot see any difference between 
itself and others, even when the differences 
are pointed out. But it is to be hoped that 
enough good schools, in accredited hands, 
may spring up to do away with the chances 
of success for poor ones. 

The committee hopes to present next year 
a statistical showing of all organized sources 
of library training, tabulated in such a way 
as to form a convenient pamphlet for refer- 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



THE PROCEEDINGS 



NARRAGANSETT PIER, R. L, SATURDAY, JUNE 30 TO FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1906 



FIRST SESSION 

{BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, SATURDAY 
AFTERNOON, JUNE 30) 

THE first general session of the Narragan- 
sett Pier Conference was called to order by 
the president, FRANK P. HILL, at 2.30 o'clock. 

The PRESIDENT: As president of the Amer- 
ican Library Association I declare the 
Twenty-eighth Conference open and ready 
for business. As we meet in the state of 
Rhode Island, it is quite proper that the first 
day should be "Rhode Island Day," and it is 
quite as appropriate that we ask a librarian 
from that state to preside at this first meet- 
ing. Therefore I have pleasure in introduc- 
ing to you Mr. Harry L. Koopman, librarian 
of Brown University, as chairman for. the 
afternoon. (Applause.) 

Mr. KOOPMAN : Ladies and gentlemen, 
clothed with this brief but not little author- 
ity, I have the honor to present to you the 
Lieutenant-Governor of the State of Rhode 
Island, the Honorable Frederick H. Jackson, 
who will address you in behalf of the state 
of Rhode Island. (Applause.) 

Lieut.-Gov. JACKSON: Mr. Chairman and 
ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasing duty 
to welcome you to the state of Rhode Island 
and Providence plantations. I believe there 
"have been but three meetings of your associ- 
ation in New England. Consequently we feel 
flattered to have this assembly of earnest 
and gifted men and women gathered in our 
state. You can readily understand why we 
should feel aggrieved were you to measure 
the degree and the heartiness of our welcome 
by the degrees of latitude and longitude with 
which our little state is fettered. So as we 
tand here upon the shore looking to our 
farthest horizon we look eastward and assure 
you that all is yours, and we trust that the 
sea, the sky and the air may conspire with 
our little commonwealth in our welcome to 
you, so that the days that you are with us 



may be days full of profit and joy and fel- 
lowship long to be remembered, and so com- 
plete as to make you forget anything that 
may be lacking in our hospitality. Through 
the munificence of some of the sons and 
daughters of Rhode Island we have, in our 
state, libraries that might well be the pride of 
any municipality or community. Generation 
after generation will have cause to bless the 
names of Brown, Hazard, Sayles, Hale, Har- 
ris, Rogers and Wilcox. Nevertheless, we 
look with anticipation as the direct out- 
growth of this meeting, to a new and deep- 
ening interest in libraries for the smaller 
towns and rural communities in our state. 
With the rapid influx of foreigners no 
greater safeguard to American ideals could 
possibly be reared than the multiplication of 
libraries throughout the state, managed under 
such auspices as shall be best calculated to 
awaken an interest in a higher and more 
wholesome sort of literature than now finds 
its way into the homes of the common people. 
In all that is being done in the way of educa- 
tion nothing is of higher importance than the 
cultivation of a love for good literature among 
the people in general, and that is what libra- 
ries can arid must do. It must be their con- 
tribution to the development of the nation 
and the perpetuity of its institutions. Inas- 
much as it is more blessed to give than to 
receive, I hope you may be blessed in your 
meeting here far beyond your farthest an- 
ticipations and ambitions, because of the 
inspiration and impetus to needed effort 
throughout Rhode Island which your coming 
may arouse. Again welcome to Rhode Island. 
(Applause.) 

Mr. KOOPMAN : I now have the pleasure of 
presenting to you Rowland G. Hazard, Esq., 
of Peace Dale, who will speak to you in be- 
half of the local committee. (Applause.) 

Mr. HAZARD: Mr. Chairman, ladies and 
gentlemen, I have hastened home for the 
purpose of telling you how glad South Kings- 



FIRST SESSION 



179 



ton is to welcome this society. In coming 
from New York yesterday on a very crowded 
train as some of you did also I had to 
sit with an Irishman, one of the "common 
people" who form the sinew of this common- 
wealth and of all the other commonwealths. 
He was afflicted with curiosity on two points, 
and he incessantly demanded to know, first, 
when we should reach Long Island, and, 
second, "What makes this crowd?" His sec- 
ond point was the most difficult one, for I 
assured him that Long Island was to be seen 
from the car window and pointed it out. He 
was greatly disappointed, but he admitted 
that that answered his first question. His 
second one, however, stayed by him and he 
offered two suggestions. First, he said 
"I have it. It's them Christian Scientists 
going to Boston." (Laughter.) 

But he soon weakened on that, for I told 
him that I didn't think it looked like it. 
Then his eye fell upon a group I think there 
were six ladies in the group, and they occu- 
pied three seats; but in that group there was 
also a man. How he was seated you may 
imagine for yourselves; but it was a very 
crowded train. This gentleman was a very 
communicative individual, and he gave out 
information freely and continuously to the 
ladies. The Irishman's observant eye fell upon 
him and he offered a suggestion. He said: 
"If it wasn't so far East I should believe that 
he was a Mormon elder." (Laughter.) 

The Narragansett country, to which I have 
the honor of welcoming you, is one of the 
oldest settled parts of the United States, of 
the New England coast. This part of the 
state has, particularly, a habit of welcoming 
strangers, and it has had this habit for 
many years. We have welcomed strangers 
of all sorts among the feathered tribes. There 
was heard here three years ago, for the 
first time in Rhode Island, the note of the 
cardinal bird. I dare say you all know the 
cardinal bird. I notice that the libraries show 
the pictures of the cardinal bird in some parts 
of this country, and he is sometimes shown in 
New England by mistake, because only his 
note is heard here. For it is not the cardinal 
bird that we have welcomed, it is the great 
Carolina wren who, according to Nuttall, 
rejoices more particularly to imitate the car- 



dinal bird than any of the birds in his reper- 
toire. We had the cardinal bird by grace of 
the Carolina wren three years ago through 
a whole season. And so we welcomed that 
stranger. Then among the flowers that grow 
here we have only to point out to you the 
flower which is just beginning to bud, grow- 
ing upon the sandy shores of our ponds, the 
sabatia, that beautiful flower that comes 
from the South, this being its northern limit. 
And upon the hills in the country south of 
us there are the rhododendrons growing in 
as full profusion as upon any mountainside 
in Carolina. So that we are in the habit of 
welcoming strangers of the bird and flower 
tribes ; but you, coming as the harbingers of 
the season, are doubly welcome. It is with 
real feeling that I utter the sentiment which 
I know prevails throughout this region in 
welcoming you to South Kingston. (Ap- 
plause.') 

Mr. KOOPMAN : I stand here now a repre- 
sentative of the librarians of Rhode Island, 
but not to make a speech. I have been asked 
several times by reporters for a copy of my 
address on this occasion. I avoided them 
as best I could, and now I am going to tell 
you why I cannot make a speech at this 
time. I had two very good speeches, but 
they have both been taken away from me. 
(Laughter.) When I first heard that I was 
to appear before you at this time I thought 
it would be a good idea to prepare an ad- 
dress giving you something of the history 
and description of Rhode Island libraries, and 
so I wrote an address that I thought would 
be very interesting and would not have taken 
more than an hour to deliver, but some of my 
friends heard of it and asked to see it, and 
they straightway sent it to the printer and so 
I was robbed of that speech.* And for my 
other speech, a few days ago the Rhode 
Island librarians met and coached me. They 
said, "All that is wanted of you is not to 
make a speech, but simply to give them a 
warm welcome." I came down here yester- 
day and I found that the weather had got in 
ahead of me (laughter), and there was no 
one left here who would be willing to listen 
to a warm welcome. 

*See "Library progress in Rhode Island," p. 10. 



i8o 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



But perhaps you will allow me to refer to 
just a few points which may be of interest. 
One is the name of the state of Rhode 
Island. A few of you in Providence the 
other day saw a letter written by Roger Wil- 
liams 241 years ago, in which he gives the 
meaning of the words "Rhode Island." You 
can still read it in the John Carter Brown 
Library, in his handwriting. He says, 
"Rhode Island is an isle of roses" a 
beautiful name, and those of you who have 
taken a ride on the Sea View Railroad or 
have wandered along our byways will realize 
how appropriate it is this month, and as next 
June comes around and finds you somewhere 
else, and succeeding years come with their 
train of roses, I hope they will remind you 
of Rhode Island, and then you will remember, 
I trust, how glad we all were to see you, 
what a good time you had at Narragansett 
Pier and how much profit you derived from 
this Narragansett Pier meeting of the Amer- 
ican Library Association. 

Just one more point. Not all the visitors 
within hearing this afternoon may realize 
that not every state in the Union is able to 
entertain so large a company of guests as 
now come to our American Library Associa- 
tion meetings; but Rhode Island is fortunate 
in having two summer resorts where you can 
be entertained. One of them is this one, on 
the eastern shore of the Narragansett country, 
and the other is at the extreme southwest 
point of the state. When we met together 
to decide where we should invite you, no 
sooner was the other place mentioned than 
we all said, "That is entirely superfluous 
this year. If they go to Narragansett Pier 
they can do both," and so, ladies and gentle- 
men, while you have now met at Narragan- 
sett Pier, I invite you for the rest of the 
season to "Watch Hill!" (Applause.) 

The PRESIDENT: It is a pleasant duty for 
me to acknowledge in behalf of the Associa- 
tion the greeting which has come to us and 
our sincere appreciation of it, and to thank 
our friends for the very kind words which 
they have spoken you, Governor Jackson, 
for making us feel at home; and you, Mr. 
Koopman, for bringing us into your state ; 
and you, Mr. Hazard, as representing the 
committee which has borne the burden and 



heat of preparation, for the completeness of 
your arrangements. (Applause.) With such- 
an auspicious opening it seems to me that the 
sessions ought to be productive of lasting- 
benefit to all concerned. 

Mr. HILL then delivered the 

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS: ONE PHASE OF LIBRARY- 
DEVELOPMENT 

(See p. 3-) 

The secretary read a letter to Mr. Hill 
from HENRY R. TEDDER, of the Athenaeum 
Library, London, regretting his enforced ab- 
sence from the meeting, and saying: "I do- 
not think it is of any use sending you a 
written paper, as the only value or interest 
in whatever remarks I have to make would 
be in its personal character, not reproducible 
in a written essay, so that I beg you will 
excuse this omission. I assure you that I 
wish you and the American Library Associa- 
tion every success and happiness." 

The secretary read also the following let- 
ter from Dr. A. S. STEENBERG, of Horsens r 
Denmark : 

I send the best wishes for the 28th annual 
meeting of the American Library Associa- 
tion. I trust that the meeting will bring the 
American library work a large step onward 
on its glorious progress. 

I feel very glad for having many friends 
present at the meeting, friends who through 
years have helped me id my work. It will in- 
terest them to hear, I am sure, that also in 
Denmark the library movement is going for- 
ward. 

Last year we have had a renewal of the 
work for school libraries (both pupils' and" 
teachers') ; we have begun to work for sol- 
diers' libraries ; and, what I think the most 
important thing, we have got a library asso- 
ciation. 

The work for children's libraries has not 
the same form in Denmark as in America. 
We have no library buildings with reading- 
rooms for children, and we have very few 
trained librarians. We therefore had to give 
the work over to the school. It is the munici- 
palities who own the libraries (in Denmark 
the public school is municipal), and the state 
gives grants to the libraries, not exceeding 
the sum which the municipality itself spends- 
on the library. The state library commission 
distributes the grants to the libraries and" 



FIRST SESSION 



181 



.gives advice and instruction to them. I have 
written a small book, "The school and the 
library," which has been sent to all schools in 
Denmark, and to many schools in Norway 
and Sweden also; in this I have tried to show 
how reading can best be connected with the 
other work of the school, and have given rules 
for the management of the library. 

Because with us it is the school which man- 
ages the children's libraries, it is of the greater 
importance that the teacher himself be fond 
of books and well informed about reading. 
Last year the state resolved to give grants to 
the teachers' libraries; the library commis- 
sion helps these libraries just as it helps the 
children's libraries ; and I have for some years 
given lectures on books, reading and library 
work on the normal schools. 

For some years there has been a movement 
for using a part of the time, during which the 
young men get their training as soldiers (in 
our country all healthy young men must go 
in for soldiers and are trained during six or 
12 months) to forward their enlightenment. 
The library commission has got to distribute 
grants to soldiers' libraries, as well as to the 
other libraries. 

The good old truth about "strength in 
union" has at last taken hold on the Danish 
librarians. They have formed an association: 
"Danmarks Folkebogsamlingtr" (the popular 
libraries of Denmark). The first result of 
the union was that the libraries got a discount 
of 25 per cent, on all new books. Then the 
association published in May the first number 
of the first Danish library journal, Bogsam- 
lingsbladet. On the program of the associa- 
tion stands the development of a system of 
travelling libraries and the founding of more 
reading-rooms in connection with the lending 
libraries. But besides all this, the association 
will, I am sure, create a love for the library 
work and a hope for its future in those peo- 
ple who, spread over the country, have worked 
for the libraries and have felt very often how 
difficult it is to work separately, when you 
wish to bring forward a new movement. 

Surely our library work is then advancing, 
although in a slow pace. And for our work 
we also in the future will go to our American 
colleagues for models and for help. 

The president announced 

TELLERS OF ELECTION 

as Arthur L. Bailey and J. T. Jennings ; and a 

COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS 

as Dr. J. H. Canfield, Miss Anne Wallace, 
Miss Katharine L. Sharp. 



The secretary presented the 

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL 

(See Transactions of Council.) 

first summarizing the business transacted at 
the two interim meetings of Council, held at 
Lake Placid, Sept. 25-30, 1905, and at At- 
lantic City, March 10, 1906.* For the two 
sessions of Council held at Narragansett Pier 
there were reported selection of place of 1907 
meeting as Asheville, N. C, with acknowledg- 
ment of invitations from Virginia; nomina- 
tions (with announcement that ticket would 
include any supplementary nominations sent 
in signed by five members) ; appointment of 
Council committee to report on A. L. A. 
district meetings ; and action taken regarding 
library post, "A. L. A. catalog" five-yearly 
supplement, and report of the delegates to 
copyright conferences. 

The PRESIDENT: No action being necessary, 
this report will simply be considered as pre- 
sented to the Association. 

We will now listen for a moment to Mr. 
Hazard, who did not give us quite light 
enough on the subject of the library here at 
Narragansett. 

Mr. HAZARD: If you will allow me to add 
a word that I intended to say before, Mr. 
President, there were two of us who started 
out from Peace Dale this afternoon upon 
missions somewhat dissimilar one to inves- 
tigate a colony of gypsy moths which has 
taken up its residence in our neighboring 
village of Wakefield; the other, myself, who 
came down here to investigate very much 
the same thing, an army of bookworms who 
have invaded Narragansett Pier. (Laugh- 
ter.) But we have no idea of extermina- 
tion in regard to the bookworms we believe 
in bookworms, and we have evidence of that 
belief in the establishment long ago, in the 
year 1854, of our little library at Peace Dale. 
It is still a very modest little library, and 
we would like very much to welcome every 
member of this conference to the library at 
Peace Dale. We hope you will take ad- 
vantage of such opportunities as you may 

'(For transactions of Council at these interim 
meetings, see Library Journal, Nov., 1905, p. 862; 
April, 1906, p. 176.) 



182 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



have to visit us, to give us your ideas, tell 
us what we need, and to look us over. At 
all events, you shall have a very hearty wel- 
come. Thank you again. (Applause.) 
J. I. WYER read the 

SECRETARY'S REPORT 

The secretary's report will cover certain 
matters of interest to the Association at large 
which do not naturally fall within the prov- 
ince of any of the regular committees or 
officers : 

Amendments to constitution and by-laws 

At the Portland Conference of 1905 the 
Council voted and the Association in joint 
meeting approved the amendment to section 
12 of the constitution by adding thereto the 
words, "It shall have authority to include in 
the publications of the Association so much 
of the program, notices, circulars and proceed- 
ings of affiliated associations as it may deem 
advisable." Similarly section 17 was amended 
by adding thereto the words "It may by two- 
thirds vote upon suitable conditions affiliate 
with the American Library Association other 
organizations kindred in purpose." 

In accordance with section 26 of the consti- 
tution these amendments must be approved 
by the Association in open session at two 
successive meetings, and they will, therefore, 
be presented for final adoption at the pres- 
ent conference. 

The purpose of these amendments is to 
facilitate mutually satisfactory affiliation with 
associations and societies of national scope 
having related aims and work, and upon their 
final ratification by the present conference 
the executive board will be able to act form- 
ally and distinctly upon the applications now 
before it from the League of Library Com- 
missions and the National Association of 
State Libraries. Should the Bibliographical 
Society of America be disposed to make sim- 
ilar overtures for affiliation the relation will 
assuredly be welcomed. 

At the meeting of the executive board held 
in Atlantic City, N. J., March 10, 1906, the 
board recommended to the Council an amend- 
ment to section I of the by-laws by inserting 
after the word "January" the words "save that 



for the first year the dues for individuals shall 
be $3. Any person renewing membership shall 
pay all arrears of dues or dues required from 
new members.'' This recommendation was 
duly adopted by the Council and the by-laws 
thus formally amended. The effect of this 
action is to create an entrance fee of $i for 
new members. It does not change the 
annual dues of the Association, which are $2 
per year as heretofore. It will not affect in 
any way the sum paid by any member of the 
Association who joined before June i, 1906, 
or who maintains regular membership year 
after year. The executive board and Council 
considered it a wise step as encouraging con- 
tinuity of membership, and in adopting the 
change the American Library Association is 
but following the practice and policy com- 
mon to nearly all associations similar to our 
own. It was felt that continuance of mem- 
bership is a professional duty which may 
not unreasonably be expected from all library 
workers; and as ample notice was given of 
the amendment before it went into effect 
abundant opportunity was afforded to forestall 
its provision. Twice within the past year the 
executive board have considered a proposi- 
tion brought before it to increase the annual 
dues to $3, and upon each occasion have 
refused to take the step as tending to dis- 
courage regular membership among the rank 
and file of the library profession. 

Representation at Liege Conference 

The Association was represented by Pro- 
fessor C. M. Gayley, of the University of 
California, and Mr. P. L. Phillips, of the 
Library of Congress, at an international con- 
ference held at Liege in August, 1905, to 
consider the systematic reproduction of val- 
uable manuscripts. 

Copyright revision 

During the past fifteen months three impor- 
tant conferences have been held (the initiative 
coming from the Librarian of Congress) look- 
ing toward an harmonious codification, with 
necessary revisions, of our inconsistent 
American copyright laws. These meetings 
have been attended by representatives of the 
various interests concerned, chiefly the pub- 
lishers, authors, and printing trades. Libra- 



FIRST SESSION 



183 



ries have been affected chiefly in the pro- 
visions touching importation of books from 
other countries, a matter of much greater 
importance to all libraries than is realized 
by those who do not buy foreign books at 
first hand. The whole question is one so 
complicated that it is impossible to under- 
stand it thoroughly without careful study. It 
is of interest to this Association to know 
that library interests have been represented 
and safeguarded throughout by two delegates 
appointed and instructed by the Council, to 
whom the Association is greatly indebted for 
a vast deal of good service in securing results 
which have been approved by the executive 
board and Council of the Association. The 
resulting bill, which is in the hands of the 
congressional committee on patents, has not 
failed of considerable opposition among indi- 
vidual librarians, which has been presented 
at public hearings before the committee 
within the present month. It cannot become 
law at the present session of Congress, so 
that no change in the present importation 
statute will occur before next winter. 

Membership 

The number of members in good standing 
at the close of business June 14, 1906, was 
1841. This is the largest number that the 
membership roll of the Association has ever 
carried. The growth during the past four 
years is indicated by the following figures, 
showing the number of new members re- 
ceived during the last four years, ending 
May 31 : 



1003 
1904 
1905 
1906 



232 
207 
310 
523 



As the total number of members enrolled 
during the 30 years' life of the Association 
has been 3844, it appears that one-fourth of 
them has been added in the last 4 years. 

Several causes contribute to the very grati- 
fying and unusual increase during the past 
year. 

I. The efforts of the ways and means com- 
mittee, which while they have been primarily 
directed towards the securing of funds for 
the establishment of permanent headquarters 
have also brought before several thousand 



library workers in the country who are not 
now members of the Association, the import- 
ance and professional obligation of joining. 

2. An eastern conference, widely adver 
tised in advance, and following two distant 
meetings, has attracted many new members. 

3. The action of the executive board in 
establishing an entrance fee of $i on June I, 
1906, has without doubt resulted in hastening 
the action of many librarians who wished to 
avail themselves of the old rate before tha 
date on which the new one became effective. 

4. The secretary's office has given more at- 
tention than usual to the names of those who 
have allowed their membership to lapse; and 
especially to enrolling the students in library 
schools, and those who have just come into 
library work, or who have been promoted 
from assistantships to independent positions 
and on that account feel the increased pro- 
priety of membership in the American Libra- 
ry Association. 

5. The executive board has made member- 
ship more attractive by arranging during the 
past year to send the Booklist free to all 
members. 

While the new members for the past year 
have included a fair number of libraries as 
institutions, it is not unreasonable to fed 
that there should be a further and very con- 
siderable increase in library memberships, and 
it is earnestly urged that all librarians whose 
institutions are not members of the Associa- 
tion should make a special effort to induce 
them to become so. It is encouraging to 
report that several state library associations 
and two library schools have become mem- 
bers of the American Library Association 
within the past two years. It is hoped that 
more local associations, all of which are more 
or less directly offshoots of the American Li- 
brary Association, will feel that the small 
annual sum necessary to carry an American 
Library Association membership is an ap- 
propriate and commendable charge upon their 
funds, and is but an inadequate though fitting 
recognition of the parent association and its 
increasingly useful work for American 
libraries. 

It may not be amiss at this point to indi- 
cate briefly just what significance attaches 
to membership in the American Library Asso- 
ciation. Considered merely as a quid pro quo. 



1 84 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



it offers in return for the annual fee of $2 
the volume containing the "Papers and pro- 
ceedings" of the annual meeting; the Hand- 
book, the completes! current directory of 
American library work and workers; the 
A. L. A. Booklist, a useful and authori- 
tative guide to what to buy and how to buy 
it. Its chiefest significance, however, is far 
other and more than the mere matter of 
value received. If the American Library 
Association has done or is now doing 
anything for American librarians, with a 
small and slowly growing membership and 
consequently a very slender and inconsider- 
able income, it can surely do immeasurably 
more when it has at its back what is en- 
tirely possible a steady membership of from 
three to five thousand library workers. A. L. A. 
membership, then, means holding up the hands 
of the chiefest library organization in the 
land, enabling it to accomplish for all of us, 
through the strength of union and co-opera- 
tion and in a dozen useful lines of work 
which are crying to be done, what none of 
us, singly, could even attempt. The bare 
mention of the library fields, white for har- 
vest, leads naturally to the next topic to 
which your attention is called, namely, 

Permanent headquarters 

For 30 years, since its organization until 
the present moment, the business and admin- 
istrative work of this Association the work 
of its treasurer, its secretary, its recorder, the 
trustees of its permanent funds, and to a 
great degree the administration of its most 
considerable business enterprise the work 
of the Publishing Board all these have been 
done as a labor of love, in most cases abso- 
lutely without money remuneration, and when 
payment in money has been made it has been 
always so nominal a matter as to be practi- 
cally a negligible quantity, entirely incom- 
mensurate with the worth of the service per- 
formed. Money cannot measure the worth 
of such distinguished and conscientious ser- 
vice as has been rendered to the American 
Library Association in its formative period 
and often at distinct personal sacrifice as 
president, e.g., by Justin Winsor, who was 
eleven times elected to its highest office; by 
Dr. Hill and Dr. Dewey, who together 
served for 24 years as secretary ; by Mr. Carr 



and Mr. Jones, whose joint services as treas- 
urer cover 17 years; or by Mr. Fletcher and 
Mr. Soule in their years of service on the Pub- 
lishing Board and endowment fund. Within 
the past five or six years, however, the busi- 
ness of the various American Library Asso- 
ciation offices has grown so that it is not 
only impossible for busy men to live up to 
the manifold opportunities, abundant en 
every hand, but it is almost unjust to the 
active officers and quite unjust to the Associ- 
ation to ask them to assume these consider- 
able and steadily increasing obligations. 

The Publishing Board now finds itself a 
full fledged publishing concern employing a 
capital of $100,000. The trustees of the en- 
dowment fund are asked to invest, take care 
of and keep books for a sum of about $i 10,000. 
The normal annual income of the Associa- 
tion from all sources is now about $8000 per 
annum. The volunteer service of the treas- 
urer has grown to a laborious routine in one 
state; the constantly enlarging work of the 
secretary's office has been carried on in an- 
other and sometimes a distant state ; the Pub- 
lishing Board has its offices still elsewhere. 
The work of all suffers from lack of cen- 
tralization, and it has become apparent that 
the business affairs alone of the Association 
need a permanent headquarters, not to men- 
tion the inspirational, instructional and mis- 
sionary opportunities of an ideal library head- 
quarters such as were outlined in the library 
journals a few years ago. 

It has been hoped that some generous ben- 
efactor would come forward with a gift suf- 
ficient to inaugurate the ideal plan, and it 
seems only a reasonable belief that a real 
national library headquarters in the broadest, 
deepest sense, realizing to the full the cer- 
tain and suggested possibilities, would render 
a large return on any endowment, in increased 
library efficiency throughout the land. It 
would seem that a liberal gift specifically de- 
voted to advancing the standard of adminis- 
tration and esprit de corps within the four 
walls of our libraries is but a rational com- 
plement of that generosity which has provided 
the buildings themselves. However, no such 
gift has been forthcoming, and believing that 
the Lord helps those that help themselves, 
about 15 months ago your executive board 
employed a field agent and appointed a com- 



FIRST SESSION 



185 



.mittee on ways and means to provide funds 
for the consolidation and conduct of at least 
the most pressing of the Association's busi- 
ness functions under one roof and manage- 
ment at some metropolitan point. The report 
of this committee on ways and means will 
be presented at a later session of this confer- 
.ence, and will be heard with interest by all 
those who have at heart the best interests of 
the American Library Association. 

This brief statement of the gradual de- 
velopment of the needs of the Association 
for permanent headquarters is made so that 
the Association may be fully informed as to 
the reasons for the present effort to secure 
.them. It is not in place here to discuss 
plans for them in any detail. If it appears 
that sufficient funds are available, the execu- 
tive board will work out carefully the many 
important and difficult arrangements as to 
scope, organization and administration. And 
.in definitely turning our back upon the old 
regime of loyal and earnest work by those 
who have loved our Association, believed 



heartily in its purpose and given of their best 
time and strength to its upbuilding, the ex- 
ecutive board and the Association must not 
lose sight of the fact, for it is a fact, that 
there are some qualities and assets far more 
fruitful and significant than mere money in 
the successful conduct of the best work of 
an association like our own. There must 
be no hint of commercialization of the Amer- 
ican Library Association. If permanent head- 
quarters are to become a reality they will 
succeed in just the measure and to exactly 
the extent that the old spirit which has 
prompted and inspired the best work done 
for the American Library Association during 
the past 30 years shall be found in those 
who may be chosen to administer the new 
American Library Association. It will still 
be a high-minded and devoted personnel 
which will outweigh all funds or endowments. 

Voted, that the report be accepted and 
placed on file. 

GARDNER M. JONES presented the 



TREASURER'S REPORT 
Balance on hand, Jan. i, 1905 (Portland Conference, p. 126) 

Receipts, Jan.-Dec., 1905 
Fees from annual members : 

From I member for 1903 

85 1904 

1064 1905 

" 127 " " 1906 



$1628.17 



1277 members at $2.00 2554.00 

From i member for 1906, on account l.oo 

Fees from library members : 

From 2 libraries for 1904 

" 30 " " 1005 

7 1906 

39 libraries at $5.00 195.00 



Life memberships : 

Nina E. Browne, T. Franklin Currier, Mary A. Keach, 3 at $25.00. . . . 

Registration of non-members for Portland and Alaska excursion, 21 at $5.00.. 

From Corrmittee on Ways and Means, contributions from 15 persons 

From trrstees of the Endowment Fund for expenses of Committee on Book- 
binding 

National Association of State Libraries, their proportion of cost of their 
proceedings, including 500 extras 

Interest on current deposits at Merchants National Bank, Salem 



2750.00 

75.00 

105.00 

1550.00 

50.00 

70.50 
31-54 



$6260.21 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 

Payments, Jan.-Dec., 1905 

Proceedings, St. Louis Conference : 

Feb. 22. Helen E. Haines, preparation of index 10.00 

Mar. i. Publishers' Weekly, printing, binding, and delivery 1238.92 

" i. reprints 12.65 

Apr. 4. H.75 

May 18. postage 5.00 



$1278.32* 
Proceedings, Portland Conference : 

Oct. 17. Publishers' Weekly, reprints 20.25 

" 17. Helen E. Haines, preparing index 10.00 

" 30. Publishers' Weekly, printing, binding, and delivery 1110.62 

Nov. 24. postage and telegram 1.82 

" 24. extras for National Association of State 

Libraries 35-SO 

" 24. Publishers' Weekly, reprints 15.88 



1194.07 
Stenographer 

Aug. 26. Charles H. Bailey, reporting Portland Conference 150.00 

Handbook : 

Oct. 16. Jacob North & Co 149.10 

Secretary's salary : 

Apr. 17. J. I. Wyer, Jr., $50.00; June 12, $75.00; Sept. 13, $50.00; Dec. 

18, $75.00 250.00- 

Secretary's and conference expenses : 

Mar. 13. J. I. Wyer, Jr., preliminary announcements, stationery, post- 
age, etc 50.37 

Apr. 17. J. I. Wyer, Jr., stenographer, envelopes, etc 24.50 

" 17. F. W. Faxon, travel announcement and postage 4I-5O 

May 26. E. C. Hovey, stamped envelopes, etc 76.61 

June 12. H. M. Hight, printing 5.50 

12. J. I. Wyer, Jr., petty expenses 12.25 

" 18. Wright & Potter Printing Co., final announcements 19-75 

July 8. Nygren & Hedeen, signs 10.50 

" 8. John P. Morton & Co., programs and advance attendance 

register 39-8o 

" 8. J. I. Wyer, Jr., postage, stenographer, etc 31.05 

Sept. 13. J. I. Wyer, Jr., printing letter heads, postage, etc 25.40 

" 13. E. C. Hovey, sundries 10.03 

Oct. 30. J. I. Wyer, Jr., postage, stenographer, etc 44-85 

Nov. 24. Wright & Potter Printing Co., circulars and envelopes 69.75 

" 24. T. W. Koch, illustrated programs and lantern 38.75 

Dec. 18. J. I. Wyer, Jr., express, postage, and stenographer 17.58 

28. Wright & Potter Printing Co., circular and envelopes 63.35 

" 28. A. L. A. Publishing Board, postage and express 4.62 



586.16 
Treasurer's expenses : 

Feb. 22. Newcomb & Gauss, circulars 2.25 

Apr. 4. Gardner M. Jones, envelopes and postage 32.50 

Jtme 12. Library Bureau, Boston, slips j.yo 

" 12. Raymond & Whitcomb Co., travel expenses, Portland and 

return 141.00 

" 18. Gardner M. Jones, clerical assistance, etc 27.90 

Aug. 4. Gardner M. Jones, balance expenses attending conference. .. . 46.00 

Oct. 17. Gardner M. Jones, stamped envelopes 42.80 

Dec. 28. Gardner M. Jones, clerical assistance, postage, etc 39-91 

" 28 Newcomb & Gauss, bills and envelopes 9.50 

^ " 28. Newcomb & Gauss, delinquent notices 2.50 

$346.06 



FIRST SESSION 187 

Committee on Bookbuying: 

Feb. 22. J. C. Dana, postage and express 3.58 

22. Library Bureau, Chicago, mailing bulletins 13-35 

22. Baker Printing Co., bulletins, No. Q, 10, n J3-95 

Mar. 13. Library Bureau, Chicago, mailing bulletins 13-35 

Apr. 4. Baker Printing Co., bulletins, No. 12, 13, 14 12.50 

4. Baker Printing Co., bulletin, No. 15 4.75 

4. Leader Printing Co., bulletin, No. 16 7.50 

4. J. C. Dana, express and postage 3.12 

4. New York Public Library, postage and express 2.48 

May 18. J. C. Dana, postage and express 2.17 

June 12. Library Bureau, Chicago, mailing bulletins 44-54 

12. B. C. Steiner, travelling expenses 10.00 

Aug. 4. Baker Printing Co., bulletins, No. 17, 18 23.50 

4. Library Bureau, Chicago, mailing bulletins 14.44 

4. j. C. Dana, postage and express 6.17 

4. New York Public Library, postage .82 

Oct. 17. Library Bureau, Chicago, mailing bulletins 16.13 

Dec. 28. Baker Printing Co., bulletin, No. 19 12.50 

" 28. J. C. Dana, postage and express 2.62 



$207.47 
Committees, Sections, etc. : 

Mar. 13. F. P. Hill, expenses, travel committee 12.00 

Apr. 4. C. F. Williams, reports, committee on library administration. 13.50 
May 18. Snow & Farnham, circulars and envelopes, reporter gifts and 

bequests . .' 19.28 

Aug. 26. F. W. Faxon, printing, postage, etc., travel committee 46.26 

Sept. 15. E. C. Hovey, travelling expenses, travel committee 42.55 

Dec. 2. E. C. Hovey, stenographer, postage, etc., ways and means 

committee 23.36 

" 2. E. C. Hovey, travelling expenses, travel committee 24.35 

181.30 

4342.48 
Trustees of the endowment fund : 

Life memberships for investment 100.00 

Refund on account registration for excursions to individuals who could not go. 20.00 

Balance on hand Dec. 31, 1905 : 

New England Trust Co 27.10 

Merchants National Bank, Salem 231.07 

" Savings Dept 1534.56 

Cash 5.00 

1797-73 



$6260.21 

The number of members in good standing on The count of annual and i ibrary members 

Dec. 31, 1905, was as follows : includes only those who had paid for 1905, 

Honorary members 9 or, in advance, for 1906. 

Perpetual member I During the year 1905, 258 new members 

Life fellows 2 joined the Association, and 9 members died. 

Life members 45 In conformity with custom, this report 

Annual members 1162 covers the calendar year 1905, but in order 

Library members 34 that members may understand the present 

financial condition of the Association, a fur- 

1253 ther statement is necessary. 



i88 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



The receipts and expenditures from Jan. I 
to June 23, 1906, were as follows : 
Receipts: 

Dues $3308.00 

Life memberships 225.00 

Ways and means committee 1180.00 

Interest 37-65 



$4750.65 

Payments: 

Secretary's salary $50.00 

Secretary's and conference expenses. 199.87 

Treasurer's expenses 3 2 -95 

Committee on book buying 101.22 

Committees, sections, etc 180.14 

Assistant secretary 975-48 

Trustees of the endowment fund... 225.00 



$1764.66 

The balance on hand June 23 is $4783.72. 

The unexpended balances of appropriations 
for the year 1905-06 amount to $2484. 
This includes the salary of the assistant sec- 
retary to August i, but makes no allowance 
for further payments on headquarters ac- 
count. Some of the other items are likely to 
exceed the estimates. 

I thank the members of the American Li- 
brary Association for the honor they have 
conferred upon me by electing me treasurer 
of the Association for the past nine years. 
The work has been agreeable, but it has in- 
creased so as to be burdensome, and I must 
now ask to be relieved from further service. 
GARDNER M. JONES, Treasurer. 

The following account of audit was ap- 
pended : 

These accounts have been duly audited and 
found to be correct, the proper vouchers be- 
ing shown. 



THEODOSIA E. MACURDY, 

Voted, That the report be accepted and 
placed on file. 

Necrology 

I. Rache Berry (A. L. A. no. 3185, 1904) 
died March 24, 1005. Miss Berry was born 
March I, 1853. In the fall of 1902 she, with 
two friends, started the McCook (Nebraska) 



Public Library, and she devoted all her time 
and attention to the same until the time of her 
death. She was a trustee of the library and 
president of the Nebraska State Library Asso- 
ciation, having been elected to that office in 
October, 1903. She attended the St. Louis 
conference. 

2. John Clarkson Houghton (A. L. A. no. 
161, 1878) died at Lynn, Mass., July 26, 1905. 
He was born in Lynn July I, 1823, and was 
educated in the public schools of Lynn and at 
Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham. He was for 
six years a teacher and for 22 years in the 
shoe business, both in his native city. He 
served on the common council and in the state 
legislature, and was for 10 years a member of 
the school committee. On the organization of 
the Lynn Public Library, in 1862, Mr. Hough- 
ton was chosen a trustee, holding this position 
until his election as librarian in 1877. On 
June I, 1904, he resigned on account of ill 
health due to his advancing years. In all he 
gave 42 years of consecutive service to the in- 
stitution. He was a vice-president of the Mas- 
sachusetts Library Club for the year 1891-2. 

Library Journal, August, 1905. 

3. Sophia A. Mery (A. L. A. no. 1877, 
1899) died Sept. 10, 1905, in Lakeside Hos- 
pital, Cleveland, Ohio, after an illness of two 
years. Miss Mery was a graduate of the To- 
ledo High School in 1892. After teaching 
several years in the public schools, in Decem- 
ber, 1898, she was appointed assistant in the 
juvenile department of the Toledo Public Li- 
brary, and a year and a half later was placed 
in charge. In August, 1903, Miss Mery took 
her vacation preparatory to a year at the Pratt 
Institute Library School, a leave of absence 
having been granted by the library board, but 
failing health prevented her carrying out the 
plan. 

4. Leonard Dwight Carver (A. L. A. no. 
ico8, 1892) died in Augusta, Me., Sept. 16, 
1905. Mr. Carver was born in Lagrange, Me., 
Jan. 26, 1841. He was educated in the com- 
mon school, and was fitting for college at 
Foxcroft Academy when the Civil War broke 
out. He at once enlisted in the Second Maine 
regiment, and took part in every engagement 
until the regiment was mustered out in 1863. 
He then resumed his studies and graduated 
from Colby College in 1868. He taught school 
for six years and then studied law, being ad- 
mitted to the bar in 1876. He practiced law 
in Waterville, Me., from 1876 to 1800, when 
he was appointed state librarian. In 1892 he 
joined the A. L. A. and attended many of its 
conferences. He took an active interest in 
the work of the National Association of State 
Libraries, serving as its president and upon 
its committees. He was the leading spirit in 



FIRST SESSION 



189 



the Maine Library Commission and a friend 
and adviser of the state library association. 
Library Journal, October, 1905. 

5. James Read Chadwick, M.D. (A. L. A. 
no. 108, 1877), was found dead outside his 
summer residence at Chocorua, N. H., early 
in the morning of Sept. 24, 1905. It is sup- 
posed that he fell from the piazza roof some 
time during the night. Dr. Chadwick was 
born in Boston, Nov. 2, 1844. He graduated 
from Harvard College in 1865 and from the 
Harvard Medical School in 1871. After two 
years of study in Europe he returned to Bos- 
ton and began the practice of his specialty, 
gynecology, in which he soon gained high 
distinction. He was instrumental in founding 
the American Gynecological Society in 1876 
and was its secretary for six years. He was 
elected president of the society in 1897. Dr. 
Chadwick was an ardent booklover, and in 
1875 founded the Boston Medical Library, 
which is a monument to his foresight, his en- 
ergy, and his devotion to the science of medi- 
cine. He was its librarian from its founding 
to his death. In 1904 he was elected president 
of the Association of Medical Librarians. He 
was also a life member of the A. L. A. 

Library Journal, Nov., 1905; Boston Transcript, 
Sept. 25, 1905. 

6. William Phineas Upham (A. L. A. no. 
107, 1877) died at his home in Newtonville, 
Mass., Nov. 23, 1905. Mr. Upham was born 
in Salem, Mass., Jan. 19, 1836. His father 
was Hon. ?nd Rev. Charles W. Upham, au- 
thor of the standard history of Salem witch- 
craft, and his mother was a sister of Dr. Oli- 
ver Wendell Holmes. He graduated from 
Harvard College in 1856, then studied law 
and was admitted to the Essex county bar. 
He seldom appeared in the courts, but did 
much work in examining titles and was fre- 
quently consulted by other lawyers because 
of his exhaustless fund of information about 
the early settlers of the county. He wrote 
many pamphlets and articles on local his- 
torical and genealogical matters, and is said 
to have furnished most of the facts con- 
tained in his father's history of Salem witch- 
craft. He was librarian of the Essex Insti- 
tute from 1869 to 1888, and a life member of 
the American Historical Association and 'of 
the Massachusetts Historical Society. Al- 
though he attended but one conference of the 
A L. A. (Boston, 1879) and was probably 
known to few of its members, he showed his 
interest in its work by maintaining continuous 
membership by the payment of annual dues 
since his joining in 1877. 

Boston Transcript, Nov. 25, 1905. 

7. Edward Browne Hunt (A. L. A. no. 
1980, 1900) died suddenly on the train from 



Boston to Dedham on Feb. 9, 1906. Mr. Hunt 
was born in Sudbury, Mass., Feb. 19, 1855. 
He was a graduate of the Boston Latin 
School and of Harvard College, class of 1878. 
From 1878 to 1881 he was an instructor at a 
private school in Newburyport, Mass. Later 
he became tutor to the son of Hon. R. J. C. 
Walker, of Williamsport, Pa., and afterwards 
served Mr. Walker as his private secretary 
in Washington. Mr. Hunt entered the service 
of the Boston Public Library June I, 1883, as 
an assistant in the catalog department, and 
by successive promotions he became chief of 
the department on Feb. i, 1900. His entire 
service covered nearly 23 years. His natural 
qualifications and his exact and scholarly 
methods made him one of the most valuable 
members of the staff. 

Monthly Bulletin of the Boston Public Library, 
March, 1906. 

8. Richard J. Blackwell (A. L. A. no. 1433, 
1896) died at his home in London, Ontario, 
Canada, March 19, 1906. He was 51 years of 
age and spent almost his entire life in Lon- 
don, where he was well known. For many 
years he was engaged in the book business, 
and when the public library was opened in 
1895 he was appointed librarian. 

London (Ont.) Advertiser, March 19, 1906. 

9 Weston Flint (A. L. A. no. 156, 1878) 
died at his home in Washington, D. C., April 
6, 1906. Mr. Flint was born in Pike, Wyom- 
ing county, N. Y., July 4, 1835. In 1858 he 
graduated from Alfred Academy, and in 1860 
from Union College. After teaching in New 
York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio he went to St. 
Louis in connection with the hospital service 
of the army. From 1866 to 1869 he was at- 
torney for claims in St. Louis and active in 
state politics. Later he became editor and 
publisher of the St. Louis Daily Tribune and 
organized the second board of the state geo- 
logical survey, of which he was secretary. 
From 1871 to 1874 he was U. S. consul to 
Chin Kiang, China, returning to engage in 
literary work, lecturing, and the study of law. 
He was admitted to the bar in 1878. From 
1877 to 1887 he was librarian of the scientific 
library of the U. S. Patent Office, and in 1889 
he was appointed statistician of the U. S. 
Bureau of Education, having in charge the 
1893 report on the libraries of the United 
States and Canada. On Sept. 29, 1898, he 
was appointed librarian of the newly organ- 
ized Washington (D. C.) Free Public Library 
(now the District of Columbia Public Li- 
brary). This position he resigned in June, 
1904. He was a member of many associa- 
tions and a life member of the A. L. A. 

Library Journal, May, 1906. 

CHARLES C. SOULE read the 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE ENDOWMENT FUND, FROM DATE OF LAST REPORT, 
MAY 31, 1905, TO JUNE I, 1906 

CASH ACCOUNT 

Receipts 

1905, June I. Balance brought over .................................... $5985.07 

" 12. Life memberships, T. F. Currier and M. A. Keach ...... 50.00 

" 24. Interest on Watson mortgage .......................... 62.50 

" 29. Interest International Trust Co., on deposit to June I, 1905. 47-26 

July 8. Interest of Am. Tel. & Tel. bonds (Carnegie Fund) ...... 100.00 

Sept. 15. Life membership, N. E. Browne ........................ 25.00 

Dec. 28. Interest on Watson mortgage .......................... 62.50 

" 29. Interest International Trust Co., on deposit to Dec. i ..... 56.27 

1906, Jan. 3. Interest Union Trust Co. to date (Carnegie Fund) ...... 2410.77 

3. Principal Carnegie Fund, withdrawn from Union Trust Co. 95,175.00 

" 16. Interest Am. Tel. & Tel. bonds (Carnegie Fund) .......... 100.00 

Feb. 15. Life memberships, L. M. Hooper, A. G. Chandler, T. L. 

Montgomery, H. Tutt, W. J. James ................. 125.00 

Mar. 2. Interest on Mo. Pac. bonds (Carnegie Fund) ............. 375-OO 

" 2. Interest on Seabord Air Line bonds .................... 200.00 

Apr. 10. Life memberships, J. Ritchie, Jr., M. E. Ahern, C. B. 

Tillinghast ......................................... 75.00 

May 15. Interest Cleveland Term. & Valley R. R. Co. bonds ...... 300.00 

" 31. Life membership, G. L. Hinckley ......................... 25.00 

June I. Interest to date, Int. Trust Co ......................... 85.71 

" I. Interest Chelsea Savings Bank to April 15 ............. 41.20 

" i. Interest Brookline Savings Bank to Jan. 8 .............. 49-72 



$105,351.00 
Payments 

1905, June 14. To the A. L. A. Publishing Board $1000.00 

1 5- Typewriter 50.00 

15. State St. Safe Deposit Co., bond box to June 15, 1906. . 15.00 

19. Portion of Assistant Secretary Hcvey's salary (rest paid 

by Publishing Board) 62.50 

" 20. Asst. Sec'y Hovey, toward Conference and travel expenses. 225.00 

Sept. 13. Same 133.63 

13. Asst. Sec'y Hovey, portion of salary for July and August. 150.00 
Oct. 5. Same, for September 75-OO 

5. To A. L. A. Publishing Board looo.oo 

12. State St. Safe Deposit Co., record box to April 15, 1907. 10.00 

27. Assistant Secretay Hovey, salary for October 125.00 

Dec. i. Same, portion of November salary 50.00 

14. Same, portion of December salary 85.47 

1906, Jan. 16. To A. L. A. Publishing Board 1500.00 

Feb. 8. Bonds for investment 59,723.6o 

9- " 15,075-00 

10. . 4504.38 

19 " " " 10,720.83 

23. Account books 1.80 

28. Bonds for investment 5356.25 

Apr. 3. Special deposit Brookline Savings Bank, account Carnegie 

Fund 616.67 

May 15. State St. Safe Deposit Co., bond box to April 15, 1907.. 30.00 

15. To A. L. A. Publishing Board 1000.00 

June i. Interest redeposited in Chelsea Savings Bank 41.20 

I. Same, in Brookline Savings Bank 49-72 

i. Balance at Int. Trust Co.. June I, 1906 3749-95 

V-, $105,351.00 



FIRST SESSION I9I 

CONDITION OF PERMANENT FUNDS 

<arnegie Fund (as in last report) $100,000.00 

Invested as follows: 

Am. Tel. & Tel. Co. collateral bonds, due July, 1929, 4 per cent. . $15,000.00 
Cleveland Term. & Valley R. R. first mortgage gold bonds, due 

Nov. I, 1995, 4 per cent 15,000.00 

Missouri Pacific R. R. coupon notes, due Feb. 10, 1908, 5 per cent. 15,000.00 

Missouri Pacific R. R. bonds, due Jan. i, 1917, 5 per cent 15,000.00 

N. Y. Central & Hudson R. R. R. Lake Shore collateral coupon 

bonds, due Feb. I, 1908, $ l / 2 per cent 15,000.00 

Seaboard Air Line R. R., Atlanta-Birmingham, first mortgage bonds, 

due May i, 1933, 4 per cent 10,000.00 

Western Union Tel. Co. collateral trust bonds, due Jan. I, 1938, 

5 per cent 15,000.00 



Face value 100,000.00 

Cost of above, cash 99,383.33 

Special deposit in Brookline Savings Bank, 4 per cent 616.67 



Carnegie Fund (principal) 100,000.00 

Endowment Fund (per last report) 6437.94 

Less interest improperly carried to this account 251.10 



6186.84 
Plus 12 life memberships at $25 300.00 



Invested or deposited as follows: 

Watson mortgage (Conveyancers' Title Insurance Co., Boston, 

Mass.), 5 per cent 2500.00 

Deposit, Brookline, Mass., Savings Bank, 4 per cent 1000.00 

Redeposit, same, 4 per cent 280.82 

Deposit, Chelsea, Mass., Savings Bank, 4 per cent looo.oo 

Redeposit, same, 4 per cent 61.20 

Deposit, Int. Trust Co., Boston, Mass., 2 l / 2 per cent 1644.82 

6486.84 

INTEREST ACCRUED AND AVAILABLE 

Carnegie Fund (for use of Publishing Board only) : 

On deposit International Trust Co., 2 J /2 per cent 1484.75 

Endoivment Fund (to be used at the discretion of the Council) : 

On deposit International Trust Co., 2^2 per cent 620.38 

Total funds in hand $108,591.97 

FUNDS AVAILABLE FOR THE YEAR IOo6-7 (ESTIMATE) 

For Publishing Board, Carnegie interest on hand 148475 

Income from investments 4400.00 



588475 

For use of the Association, on hand 620.38 

Income from investments, etc 270.00 

$890.38 

The following report of audit was ap- We find evidence of assets amounting to 

nended- $108,591.97, of which $106,486.84 is the in- 
vested principal and $2105.13 is interest ac- 

At the request of Charles C. Soule, treas- crued and available. 

urer of the Endowment Fund of the Ameri- S. W. Foss, ) Finance 

can Library Association, we have examined DREW B. HALL, 

liis accounts and securities. THEODOSIA E. MACURDY, 



192 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Voted, That the report be accepted and 
placed on file. 

S. W. Foss presented the 

REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE 

Mr. Foss: All finncial details relating to 
the American Library Association have been 
embodied in the two previous reports just 
read, and I will simply say for our committee 
that we have examined carefully all the bills 
that have been presented to us by the treas- 
urer and have examined the accounts and the 
vouchers of the treasurer and found them cor- 
rect, and also examined the accounts of the 
endowment fund and their bonds and secur- 
ities and their accounts, and found them in 
every instance correct. 

Received and accepted. 

ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK read the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON BOOK-BUYING 

Since the last report, presented to the Port- 
land Conference, the committee on book-buy- 
ing has issued seven bulletins of the usual 
postal card size, containing in all 17^ pages, 
and one on letter-size paper with an en- 
closed postal card for answer. The infor- 
mation contained in these bulletins has been 
of practically the same kind as that given in 
previous issues, consisting of selected lists 
of dealers and their catalogs, notices of 
special bargains in books, especially those to 
be obtained through importation, with no- 
tices of special sales and dealers in foreign 
books, and of useful small bibliographies for 
small libraries. It has also been our aim 
to keep the readers of these bulletins in- 
formed regarding the rules of the American 
Publishers' Association and the workings of 
the net price system, both here and abroad, 
and regarding the progress of the revision 
of the copyright laws so far as it has ap- 
peared likely to affect the interest of the 
libraries. We have also reprinted from time 
to time extracts from articles in leading 
papers which it appeared would be interest- 
ing to librarians in connection with the pur- 
chase of books, and in Bulletin no. 27 we 
have tried to emphasize the value of concerted 
action by librarians and to give them an op- 
portunity to initiate such action along cer- 



tain lines. In Bulletin no. 19 we printed ar> 
alphabetical index to the contents of all pre- 
vious bulletins, thus making them more 
accessible and useful. 

We have felt that the bulletins might be 
still more useful if members of the Associa- 
tion could be induced to give us information, 
which might be used in them for the general 
good ; but we regret to say that most of our 
attempts so far to secure such information 
have failed. In our last report we spoke of 
our effort to secure a list of out-of-print 
books in general demand at libraries. We 
have renewed this effort, but received in 
response only one or two lists not enougb 
to serve as a basis for action until a re- 
turn postal was used, with which we have had 
better results. Our request in Bulletin no. 19 
for simple statistics regarding book pur- 
chases for the Irst library year brought only 
one or two answers, so that we were unable 
to give the promised table based on these 
statistics. There was no response to our 
inquiry as to whether it would pay to reprint 
numbers of the bulletin that have become or 
are likely soon to become out of print. 

Besides distributing the bulletins we made 
arrangements with the publishers of the Book 
and News Dealer to send to each member 
of the Association a copy of their publication' 
containing information of value to book pur- 
chasers. From the beginning of the publica- 
tion of the A. L. A. Booklist the edit- 
ors of that periodical began to insert 
our bulletins in full, and as soon as the 
Booklist was sent free to all members of 
the Association we removed from our 
mailing list the names of all members in 
order that useless duplication might be 
avoided. This left on our list something; 
more than a thousand names, and if the Pub- 
lishing Board should find it possible to send' 
the Booklist free to these addresses, or at 
least such copies of it as contain our bul- 
letins, we could then suspend independent 
publication altogether and should be able tO' 
carry on our work with only a small appro- 
priation for travelling expenses. It may be,, 
however, that the members of the Associa- 
tion think it best to still keep up independent 
publication for the sake of making complete 
sets of the bulletins in this form, and we- 



FIRST SESSION 



193 



should very much like an expression of 
opinion on this point. 

The chairman of this committee has by 
direction of the executive board continued 
to act as a delegate of the Association to the 
conferences on copyright, but as the delegates 
present a separate report to the Council it 
is unnecessary to speak further of this mat- 
ter here. 

Our effort to aid librarians in the purchase 
of books to good advantage has been di- 
rected particularly towards helping the small- 
er libraries, and we are encouraged from what 
we hear continually from these libraries that 
we are meeting with some measure of suc- 
cess, but we feel that our success would be 
much greater if those who receive the bul- 
letins and benefit from them would be freer 
with their sugestions and with the contribu- 
tion of items of interest which may come 
under their personal observation and which 
might be interesting and valuable to librarians 
in general. 

The certificate of receipt required by the 
custom house authorities for the free entry 
of books continues to add a vexatious for- 
mality to the troubles that beset the import- 
er of books. This regulation seems never to 
have been enforced in regard to books and 
scientific apparatus at any port of the 
United States until the year 1903. At that 
time and since, protest has been made, but 
without effect. Action in the matter, how- 
ever, has never been taken by this Associa- 
tion and it would seem to be desirable that 
this should be done. We are informed that 
such action at this time might possibly have 
weight in inducing the Secretary of the 
Treasury to reconsider his action. The cer- 
tificate of receipt now required appears to be 
no further preventive of fraud than the affi- 
davit previously furnished by the librarian 
and importer, but simply to be a vexatious 
provision requiring much extra work and 
tending to discourage importation. We there- 
fore recommend that the proper committee 
be authorized to make to the Treasury De- 
partment representations to this effect on 
behalf of this Association. 

In closing we renew our recommendation 
of last year that this committee be made one 
of the standing committees of the Associa- 
tion. 



Voted, That the report be accepted and the 
recommendations favorably reported to the 
Council. 

W. I. FLETCHER read the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON TITLE-PAGES AND 
INDEXES TO PERIODICALS 

Your committee regret to have very little 
to report, beyond an honest effort, made 
rather late in the year, to promote the object 
of their appointment through co-operation 
with the Association of Periodical Publish- 
ers. Owing to circumstances beyond their 
control, this movement, which seemed likely 
to reach some conclusion before this meet- 
ing, is yet in a formative state, but is likely 
to result favorably very soon. 

The committee has held one meeting in 
New York on April 18, 1906, all the members 
being present. No new views were present- 
ed, but it was agreed that an effort should be 
made to reach a practical co-operation with 
the Association of Periodical Publishers, 
along the lines of improvement indicated in 
the report of this committee in 1902. 

The association referred to had a meeting 
in New York on the same day, to which the 
chairman of this committee was invited, and 
where he was given an opportunity to pre- 
sent the committee's views, which were dis- 
cussed by some of those present. There 
seemed to be a general feeling that the cir- 
cular issued by the committee in 1902 was 
too radical and missed its object by asking 
for too many things at once. The associa- 
tion appointed a committee of one, Mr. J. M. 
Chappie, of the National Magazine, to work 
with our committee in the preparation of a 
basis of reform or improvement in the mat- 
ter of periodical title-pages and indexes, 
which should be submitted to the Association 
for their approval. A few days later this 
committee drew up such a paper, and sub- 
mitted it to Mr. Chappie, since which time 
we have endeavored in vain to secure a 
meeting with him or agreement by corre- 
spondence. We have no reason to ascribe 
this failure to anything but untoward cir- 
cumstances and feel sure that with a little 
more time satisfactory results will be reached. 
It is evident that our hope of co-operation 
with the publishers is in putting forward a 
simple and self-evidencing proposition to 



194 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



begin with, expecting to secure further ad- 
vances gradually. To establish the principle 
of this co-operation and a method of carry- 
ing it out has been our aim. 

Following is the draft of the proposed 
agreement: 

SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE ISSUE OF TITLE- 
PAGES AND INDEXES (OR CONTENTS) TO 
PERIODICALS: DRAWN UP BY A COMMIT- 
TEE OF THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCI- 
ATION AND APPROVED BY THE ASSOCIA- 
TION OF PERIODICAL PUBLISHERS. 

1. It is desirable that all periodicals should be 
distinctly marked off into volumes, and that title- 
pages and some sort of index or table of contents 
should be printed for each volume, for the benefit 
of those who wish to bind their numbers. 

2. When practicable, it is very desirable that the 
title-pages and index shall be sent out fastened into 
each copy of the concluding number of a volume. 
The committee are inclined to lay stress on the desira- 
bility of having the closing number of a volume con- 
tain the title-page and index, especially in order that 
volumes may be completed without involving purchas- 
ers in the necessity of looking up those essential pages 

elsewhere than in the number where they are most 
useful. Many publishers of periodicals may have 
failed to appreciate the extent to which their numbers 
are sought for binding, and the consequent im- 
portance, from a business point of view, of such 
an enhancement of the value of back numbers. 

3. There may be cases of periodicals issuing large 
editions for sale beyond those for subscribers where 
such a practice as is recommended above is hardly 
feasible. In such cases it is recommended that Ihe 
title-pages and contents be printed and held subject 
to the order of those desiring them, enough copies be- 
ing printed to ensure a supply equal to demand, fu- 
ture as well as present. On this point we would cite 
the testimony of Mr. F. W. Faxon, manager of the 
Boston Book Co., extensive dealers in sets of peri- 
odicals for public and private libraries. Mr. Faxon 
has had much experience in making up sets for 
binding and speaks with authority when he says: 

"The present practice of issuing magazine titles 
and indexes in limited editions, to be secured only 
by separate application to the publishers, usually 
every time a volume is completed, is causing much 
annoyance, to put it mildly, to all who desire to 
bind their volumes. In cases of change of manage- 
ment, or fire, the supply is often made unavailable, 
and while it is almost always possible to find an odd 
number somewhere second-hand, it is never possible 
to pick up a loose title-page and index. 

"The supplying and replacement of sets to libraries 
is our business, and the present practice of the 
publishers means that no files, even of such popular 
periodicals as Harper's Montlily and Everybody's 
Magazine, to mention but two of a large .irmy, 
can be made up complete because certain titles and 
indexes are exhausted. We have calls in our busi- 
ness for from 10 to 25 titles and indexes a month, 
from libraries in this country who, in most cases, have 
failed to get them through the publishers. Had the 
entire edition of the final number of each volume 
carried with it the title-page and index, which I 
assume every subscriber or purchaser is entitled to 
with his subscriptions, no such trouble could possibly 
arise. Furthermore, I am sure that any publisher 
would actually make money by issuing the title and 
index with the last issue of every volume of his 
entire edition, though the opinion now is among the 
magazine publishers that, because perhaps a small 
percentage of buyers wish to bind, it is a useless 
-expense to put a title and index in every volume 
issued. This idea is wrong, and can be proved 
-wrong. But publishers should consider the larger 



question of satisfying all their subscribers, which 
there is no question they would do if the entire edition 
had titles and indexes supplied." 

4. It is strongly recommended that title-pages and 
contents, when issued with a number, be printed on 
separate sections from reading matter and advertise- 
ments, so that they can be taken off and properly 
bound where they belong without the necessity of 
separating single leaves which must be pasted in. 

5. This last recommendation also applies to the in- 
jurious practice of combining advertising leaves and 
leaves of reading matter in. one section, when by a 
little care, in the make-up, the sections may be 
separate. Of course, this applies only to periodicals 
in which the advertising pages are generally removed 
before binding the numbers. 

W. I. FLETCHER, 
A. E. BOSTWICK, 
E. LEMCKE. 
Received and accepted. 

The president read a letter, sending greet- 
ings and good wishes to the Conference, 
from Mrs. S. C. FAIRCHILD. 

GEORGE F. BOWERMAN read the 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON BOOKBINDING AND 
BOOK PAPERS 

(See p. 130.) 

C. W. Andrews, vice-president, took the 
chair. 

Voted, That the report be accepted and re- 
ferred to Council with recommendation that 
the committee be continued. 

The secretary read a telegram presented 
by Mr. J. P. Kennedy, renewing invitation 
to meet in Jamestown, Va., in 1907, and 
signed by various officers of the city of 
Jamestown and the Jamestown Exposition 
Co. 

Adjourned, 5.50 p.m. 

AUTHORS' READINGS 

(BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, SUNDAY 
EVENING, JULY i) 

On Sunday evening an informal session 
was held, devoted to singing, authors' read- 
ings, and stereopticon views. Upon motion of 
the secretary a resolution was passed sending 
the greetings and sympathy of the Association 
to Mr. F. M. Crunden, senior ex-president of 
the Association, in his illness. The singing, 
under the direction of Mr. Albert T. Briggs, of 
Cambridge, was general, and admirably con- 
ducted. The authors' readings were opened 
by Harry L. Koopman, librarian of Brown 



SECOND SESSION 



195 



University, who read a poem entitled "The 
librarian of the desert" (see p. 25). Rob- 
ert Gilbert Welsh, dramatic critic of the New 
York Telegram, read a short story and two 
poems. Sam Walter Foss, librarian of 
the Somerville (Mass.) Public Library, 
followed with several poems, including 
^The song of the library staff," written 
for the occasion (see p. 35) ; and Miss 
Dotha Stone Pinneo, librarian of the 
Norwalk (Ct.) Public Library, closed the 
readings with a short original story. After 
the readings a series of stereopticon views, 
illustrating the social side of the last twelve 
conferences (and post-conferences) of the 
Association, were displayed with running 
comment by Frederick W. Faxon, chairman 
of the travel committee. 



SECOND SESSION 

(BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, MONDAY 
MORNING, JULY 2) 

President HILL called the meeting to order 
at 9.30, and announced that this session 
would be a joint meeting of the Library De- 
partment of the National Educational Asso- 
ciation, and the American Library Associa- 
tion, under the chairmanship of Dr. James 
H. Canfield. 

Dr. Canfield then took the chair. 

The CHAIRMAN : It is a full decade since 
the library people and the public school 
people began to realize that they were en- 
gaged in. a common cause, against a common 
enemy, Ignorance. About ten years ago, 
I think, the first committee was appointed by 
the American Library Association to seek 
co-operation with the National Educational 
Association, and the Library Department of 
the National Educational Association was 
started the following year. The Library 
Department took up work with the com- 
mittee appointed by the American Library 
Association, and the two together formulated 
.a definite and very valuable report, which 
appeared in the proceedings of the Nation- 
al Educational Association for 1897, and 
was also published separately and widely dis- 
tributed throughout the country. We may 
take that as the initial point of a movement 



which, to my mind, means much for both 
the library and the public school, and means^ 
perhaps for the first time, putting the public 
library in a position and upon a foundation 
which settles for all time the relations of / 
the library to the public and of the public 
to the library. This movement went forward 
steadily, not with misunderstandings but 
with a lack of understanding, not with mis- 
appreciation but with a lack of appreciation, 
on both sides, perhaps with a little feeling of 
intrusion on the part of the schools toward 
the librarian and a little feeling of intrusion 
on the part of the librarian toward the 
schools. For some years Mr. Dana was 
chairman of the committee on co-operation, 
and a large gain was made while he was at 
the head of that committee. Circulars were 
sent out, letters of information and of in- 
spiration went from the Library Association to 
the different departments, officers, members 
of the Educational Association, and in every 
way everything was done to cultivate the 
ground, to sow good seed, and to await re- 
sults. At the St. Louis meeting of the Li- 
brary Department of' the National Educa- 
tional Association the matter came up defi- 
nitely again, and from that time on the 
progress made is expressed completely in the 
"Report of the special committee on instruc- 
tion in library administration in normal 
schools,"* prepared for the American Li- 
brary Association committee and just pub- 
lished by the National Educational Associa- 
tion. This report I now hold in my hand, 
and copies are here for distribution, pre- 
sented as the report of what has been done by 

the COMMITTEE ON CO-OPERATION WITH NA- 
TIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. There is 
an error in this report which I must 
take as entirely my own. Not sufficient 
recognition is given to the fact that this 
committee was originally a committee of 
the American Library Association. In 
the taking over of the committee's work by 
the Educational Association, and in the prep- 

National Educational Association. Report on in- 
struction in library administration in normal schools; 
prep, by Eliz. G. Baldwin; submitted to the National 
Council of Education by a committee on co-operation 
between public schools and public libraries. . . . 
May, 1906. 72 p. O. 



196 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



aration of the letter of transmittal, I must 

plead guilty to not making that fact nearly 

x as clear as it ought to have been made; and 

x s I can only say that I will take pains to see 

- ^ that due credit and full credit to this Associ- 

^ation and to its committee as representing 

this Association will be given hereafter. 

We have, then, this morning, this topic of 
the relation of libraries to the schools, coming 
to us through this report the final step 
after these ten, years of arduous labor. We 
have also what seems to be a very marked 
realization of all we have been striv- 
ing for, in the presence of the president of 
the National Educational Association, who 
comes to bring us greetings from that asso- 
ciation and to assure us of sympathy, of ap- 
preciation, and of most hearty co-operation 
from this time forth. It gives me very great 
pleasure to present to you Dr. Nathan C. 
Schaeffer, Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion for the state of Pennsylvania. (Ap- 
plause.) 

ADDRESS OF DR. SCHAEFFER 

Dr. SCHAEFFER: When I accepted the in- 
vitation to meet the American Library Asso- 
ciation on this day I made up my mind that 
I would resist the masculine tendency to 
give advice. The proverb, 'tis more blessed 
to give than to receive, must have been writ- 
ten of advice. I am here rather for the 
purpose of glorifying the vocation of the 
teacher and the librarian and of uttering a 
sort of Macedonian cry, "Come over to us 
and help us"; for the National Educational 
Association especially the library section 
needs very much the help and co-operation 
of the American Library Association. We 
need that help quite as much as the teacher 
needs the help of the librarian, and I might 
announce my point of view as being strictly 
in accord with the sentiment expressed in 
this report, namely, that the library as well 
as the public school forms an integral part 
of a system of free and public education. 

We who teach and supervise schools need 
your help, for the sake of uplifting the in- 
dustrial classes. Will you look at this mat- 
ter for a few minutes from my point of 
view? I live in the richest agricultural 
county in the United States, a county that has 



more money deposited in its national banks- 
than any one of seven Southern states that 
might be named, and the wealth of that 
county is due to the fact that it is a great 
tobacco county. Now there is perpetual war- 
fare between the school and the tobacco fac- 
tory. The boy and the girl leave the school 
just as soon as the law allows them to go to 
work, in very many cases, and the owner of 
one of those industrial establishments assures 
me that during the noon hour the telephone 
is kept in constant use by the young people 
who are engaging seats upon the roof garden 
for the evening-. I confess to you I have 
sympathy for those young people. I have 
heard of industrial establishments where it 
takes 22 persons to make a pin; where the 
leather passes through 64 hands before the 
shoe is ready for the market. I have never 
been able to ascertain through how many hands 
the tobacco passes until it ends in smoke and 
ashes. But think of a human being spending 
his time on every working day from the first 
of January until the last day of December 
making the twenty-second part of a pin, the 
sixty-fourth part of a shoe, the infinitesimal 
part of a cigar, and you can realize for your- 
self the monotonous drudgery of that sort of 
life and the innate influence leading those 
operatives to seek recreation. Now, how 
much better would it be if these workers in- 
the tobacco factory and in other industrial 
establishments could at the close of the day 
go to the public library and there find the 
recreation which their nature craves, instead 
of seeking that recreation in the saloon and' 
upon the roof -garden. So long as our work- 
ers, our industrial classes, do not frequent the 
library, there to associate with the choice 
spirits of all the ages, but seek recreation 
in lower forms of enjoyment, so long, I 
claim, there is important work to be done- 
both by the teacher and by the librarian. 

And I am not willing to accept for the 
teacher all the blame for this state of affairs 
among our industrial classes. I find that 
when anything goes wrong in the public life 
of the American people, people always look 
to the school for a remedy and the teacher is 
blamed for what is wrong, or at least she 
is expected to correct it. See what the teach- 
ers are expected to do. If, for instance, some- 



SECOND SESSION 



197 



one is found cruel to an animal, straightway 
there is legislation that teachers must give 
instruction upon the humane treatment of the 
brute creation; if it is found that cigarettes 
and stimulants sap the life of the nation, 
straightway we have legislation that in every 
school we must teach physiology with spe- 
cial reference to the effect of narcotics and 
stimulants upon the human system ; if too 
many boys leave the farm to go to the city, 
the school is expected to give instruction in 
agriculture in order to revive an interest in 
country life; if there is danger that our 
forests will be all cut down and reach ex- 
tinction, straightway there is legislation for 
Arbor Days, in order that the children may 
know how to plant trees and take care of 
them ; if there is trouble in learning a trade, 
straightway we must have manual training, 
in order that the boys, and the girls even, 
may learn how to use the tools that lie at the 
basis of all the different handicrafts ; and 
if there is trouble in getting domestic help, 
straightway we must have the introduction of 
domestic science into the school curriculum. 
Indeed, no prophet can tell what problems 
will be shied at the school in the next 50 
years. We arc now to celebrate the i8th 
of May in order to prepare the world for in- 
ternational arbitration, and somebody out in 
the state of Ohio, which is prolific in new 
ideas, recently proposed that the school chil- 
dren of this country through their teachers, 
shall raise $400,000 to build a bronze ship in 
memory of those who died in the explosion 
of the Maine. 

Now I am prepared to say that the school 
can, of course, help to solve some of these 
problems ; but here is the difficulty, and it 
should come very near to the hearts of you 
librarians : the things which did not originally 
belong to the school curriculum have been 
emphasized to such an extent that many 
teachers have a bad conscience with regard 
to their legitimate school work. Many teach- 
ers feel conscience stricken if somebody 
catches them teaching the three R's ; and I 
have found it absolutely necessary to show 
the fundamental relation of that which called 
the school into existence to the preservation 
of our modern civilization. There are many 
people who think that the library and the 



school are a burden which our modern civ- 
ilization must carry. I claim, on the other 
hand, that modern civilization is a burden 
which the school and the library must carry. 
Once a good woman who, in preparing her- 
self for the duties of the school room, goes 
to summer schools and annual gatherings of 
teachers, came to me and in a tone of de- 
spair said, "I would like to know what we 
are to teach?" "Well," said I, "what makes 
you ask that question?" "Why," she 
answered, "the editor of the Ladies' Home 
Journal says that a crime is being committed 
before the eyes of American parents through 
the overcrowding of the school curriculum, 
whilst President Eliot says that the school 
curriculum must be enriched." Said she, 
"I have listened to a professor from Chicago 
who advocated that no child should be taught 
to read until it reaches the ninth year; and 
another professor gave us an interesting lec- 
ture on a whale, and another lecture on a 
butterfly, and still another lecture on a Bal- 
timore oriole, and he made us feel that this 
is the kind of information that we should 
give in the school room." 

I saw that this woman's notions of the 
original purpose of the school needed clari- 
fying before she could again be happy in 
her school work, and I said to her: "You 
know as well as I do that Pennsylvania has 
been made the dumping ground for the illiter- 
ate populations of southern Europe. Let 
us watch one of these men who cannot read 
and write, let us see his experiences during 
a day. I saw one of them get on the train 
in the vicinity of Pittsburgh not long ago to 
go to some point where he was sent by the 
firm that employed him. Every now and 
then he asked the brakeman the name of the 
next station for fear he might be carried be- 
yond his destination; he couldn't read the 
names that have been put up on tablets on 
each side of the station. When the noon 
hour came he was sent to a hotel to get his 
dinner, and there he was confronted by the 
hotel register. He made some excuse about 
his name and got the clerk to write it. 
When he entered the dining room he was 
confronted by the bill of fare, but he couldn't 
read a word of it. In despair he asked for 
something to eat. That evening he got a let- 



198 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



ter from his daughter who was attending 
the public schools. The child thought this 
was a fine opportunity to show papa she 
could write a letter. But he couldn't read a 
word of it. There were ink and writing ma- 
terial in that hotel, free to everybody, but 
he could not do what he wanted to do, write 
a letter to the dear ones at home. Somebody 
handed him a newspaper. Not willing to 
acknowledge his illiteracy, he held it in the 
customary position, but soon there was a 
laugh, for some one saw that he was holding 
the paper upside down. Now what was it 
that that man needed all day long? Was it 
knowledge of a whale, of a butterfly, of a 
Baltimore oriole, or was it the ability to read 
and to write?" 

The good woman said, "Hereafter I shall 
teach reading and writing as though the fate 
of the nation depended upon it." (Ap- 
plause.) 

The illiterate man is not adjusted to out 
modern complex civilization, and no matter 
what the school teaches, the school is a fail- 
ure if it does not develop ability to read 
and in addition to that the reading habit 
and the library habit. (Applause.) 

Look at this whole question from the point 
of view of John Fiske and Lewis Morgan 
and other scholars who hold their views with 
regard to the development of ancient culture. 
I believe that if you look at your own work 
for a few moments from that point of view 
every one of you will go home an inch taller, 
glorifying your work as librarians in a way 
that you never magnified that work before. 
According to this theory, you will recall 
there were three great epochs in the develop- 
ment of ancient culture. The lowest, the 
stage of the savage, which had in it three 
upward steps : first, man lived on nuts and 
fruits, then man learned to fish and how to 
build a fire, finally man learned to hunt with 
bow and arrow. Did any one of those occu- 
pations call the school and the vocation of 
the schoolmaster into existence? Far from it. 
And the next stage came when man stepped 
from the savage to the barbarian plane of 
life. And there I would like to make my bow 
to a woman. Did it ever occur to you that 
whenever the average girl begins to study a 
history she wishes she were a boy? And 



why? Because our text-books on history de- 
vote about 499 pages to the achievements of 
men, and if women get half a page in the or- 
dinary text-book on history the sex is 
fortunate. The average girl is made to think 
that everything heroic in the world yes, 
everything worth doing belongs to the other 
sex. Now I want to say that I had a good 
deal of sympathy for that New England 
woman who, when an assembly glorified the 
Pilgrim fathers and talked of the hardships 
that the Pilgrim fathers endured, rose and 
proposed a toast to the Pilgrim mothers, who 
endured all the hardships of the Pilgrim 
fathers and then had to endure the Pilgrim 
fathers besides. (Laughter.) 

Three epochs man passes through before 
he reaches civilization. First, his life is no- 
madic and his wealth consists in cattle graz- 
ing on the adjacent hills. But does that call 
the school and the - library into existence ? 
Far from it. The teacher and the librarian 
come later. The next upward step is made 
when man learns how to till the soil, to 
practice the art of the husbandman. But 
does that call the school and the library into 
existence? Although the school makes the 
farmer a better farmer, still farming did not 
call the school nor the library into existence. 
The next great upward step was made when 
man learned to work in iron, in metals. But 
that did not call the school into existence. 
According to John Fiske and Lewis Morgan 
civilization dawned when man learned how to 
record his thoughts and how to transmit them 
to distant peoples and to future generations. 
It is in the need of recording man's thoughts 
and achievements and of preserving them for 
future generations that you have the origin 
of the school and the origin of the library. 
So that the vocation of the schoolmaster and 
of the librarian lies at the basis of our mod- 
ern civilized life. And civilization, I repeat, 
is the burden which the school and the library 
must carry and preserve. 

Now, from that point of view we can well 
glorify these two vocations. The library is 
of course useless if the teacher fails to 
teach the children how to read and write. 
On the other hand, as this report points 
out, the school life of the average child 
in this country is five years and the rest 



SECOND SESSION 



199 



jf life belongs to the librarian and to the 
library if the reading habit and the library 
habit have been developed in these five years. 
Undoubtedly even during the short period of 
the school life of the child it is possible not 
only to teach the child how to read and she 
is the best teacher who with the least expendi- 
ture of time and energy makes the child ?.n 
independent reader but it is also possible 
during that school period, if the librarian 
and the teacher work together, to develop in 
the child a love of good books, to develop 
the power to use books aright; and in spite 
of all the talk we have had about things 
against words, the school is a failure if it 
does not teach the right use of books. And 
it is at that point that the teacher needs the 
help of the librarian. 

To my mind the vocation of the librarian 
has the earmarks of a profession. What are 
they? Well, in the first place, every profes- 
sion has its own esprit de corps, and the first 
thing I heard when I got into this building 
was talk about "the library spirit." There is 
a professional spirit springing up in this 
organization that will finally pervade the en- 
tire vocation in this country. Then, in the 
next place, every profession requires technical 
training, and you have your library schools 
fulfilling that function. More than that, every 
profession presupposes a liberal or a general 
education, and the day has come when the 
brightest of those who graduate from our 
schools do not hesitate to use their learning, 
their training, their liberal culture, as a 
basis upon which to build the vocation of the 
librarian. In addition, I notice that every 
profession has certain operations that are 
not merely mechanical but that are based 
upon science. Anybody can chop off an arm, 
but it takes a skilled surgeon to amputate 
an arm. There is science at the basis of 
that professional operation. You throw a 
man, however learned, into a modern library 
and let him manage it, and he will find how 
little he has of the technical training and the 
science that underlie the work in our libra- 
ries. And then, last of all, I find that every 
profession has a noble aim. The theologian 
seeks to save souls, the physician seeks to 
save life and the librarian has a noble aim. 
It is to fit men and women, not only to get 



knowledge from the bookshelves or the books 
on the shelves, not merely to get recreation, 
but it is to enable men and women to live 
the higher life of thought. So many of our 
industrial classes are dissatisfied because 
they think money makes life worth living 
and because they think the millionaire has 
that which they themselves cannot get. Now, 
money stands for food and drink, for the 
garments we wear and the houses we live 
in and things of that sort; but let it never 
be forgotten that money cannot make life 
worth living. If you have plenty of money 
you can buy a fine house, but you cannot 
buy a happy home; that must be made by 
you, and by her who occupies it with you. 
If you are rich you may buy a fine copy of 
Shakespeare, but you cannot buy the ability to 
appreciate a play of Shakespeare. 

Plato wrote above the door of his academy, 
"Let no one enter here who is destitute of 
geometry." Why did he value geometry so 
highly? Not merely because he thought it 
was the best introduction to the study of 
philosophy, but Plato had an idea and he 
expressed it when he says "God geom- 
etrizes." Plato had an idea that when a 
youth learns to think the thought of geom- 
etry, he is thinking God's thoughts and he is 
tasting the pleasures of a life that does not 
turn upon what we eat and drink and upon 
the things that the almighty dollar will buy. 
When Kepler discovered the laws of plan- 
etary motion he exclaimed in ecstasy, "O 
God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee!" 
And when the youth at school learns to think 
the thoughts that God has put into the starry 
heavens above and into all nature around us, 
that youth is learning to think God's thoughts 
and is enjoying the pleasures of the higher 
life of thought. 

Here is where I glorify the library and the 
vocation of the librarian. No human being 
can expect to discover for himself all the 
thoughts that God has put into the starry 
heavens above and into all nature around us, 
but if he has acquired the library habit he will 
find upon the shelves of the library the books 
that give what man has discovered of the 
thoughts that God has put into the heavens 
above and into nature around us; he will 
learn that the books upon the shelves of the 



200 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



library enable him to associate with the 
choice spirits of all the ages and to think 
the best thoughts of the best men whenever 
he enters that library and makes a right use 
of books. 

For that reason I believe that all over this 
land teachers and librarians should empha- 
size as one of their chief functions the ac- 
quisition of the power to make the right use 
of books, the development of ability to en- 
joy a good book. And it is there that the 
library must help the teacher, for few teach- 
ers have leisure enough to select the best 
books upon the shelves of the library. It is 
there that the librarian must act as a guide 
to both teacher and pupil. 

Now one word about the National Educa- 
tional Association. We have a library de- 
partment of the National Educational Associ- 
ation, as you have been told, and when I 
was president of the department about 600 
special letters of invitation to the meeting of 
that department were sent to people in differ- 
ent parts of the country. What response did 
we get? I think we had present at St. Louis, 
if my memory serves me right, four librarians 
and less than a score of teachers. The Na- 
tional Educational Association has money; 
it has an invested fund now of about $150,- 
ooo, and some of its finances have been used 
to print this library report, which has come 
into being largely through a committee of the 
American Library Association. I am not here 
to advocate either organic or federal union 
between these two organizations, but I wish 
to raise in your minds the question whether 
it is not possible to have a closer affiliation 
between the librarians and the teachers, es- 
pecially between the National Educational 
Association and the American Library Asso- 
ciation. 

I rejoice in this opportunity to bring to you 
the greetings of the National Educational 
Association, and I shall never miss an oppor- 
tunity to glorify the work which you librarians 
are doing for humanity and for civilization. 
(Applause.) 

The CHAIRMAN : It is hardly necessary, 
after the expression which has been made 
b)' those who are present and who have had 
the pleasure and the delight of listening to 



you, sir, for me to say a single word expres- 
sive of our pleasure and our gratification at 
having you with us this morning, both offi- 
cially and personally. I will only add that 
from this time forth whenever the National 
Educational Association shows that you are 
to be one of its speakers, you may expect an 
avalanche from this Association. (Applause.) 
Miss CLARA W. HUNT read a paper on 

THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY AS A MORAL FORCE 

(See p. 97.) 
Miss L. E. STEARNS read a paper on 

THE PROBLEM OF THE GIRL 

(See p. 103.) 

The CHAIRMAN: These two papers are 
given in this general session by the courtesy 
of the Children's Librarians' Section, where 
they were to have been presented; but they 
seemed peculiarly fitting for presenting here. 
Had they been presented in that section Miss 
Isabel Lord was to open the discussion, and 
I will therefore ask Miss Lord if she will be 
kind enough to do it now? 

Miss ISABEL E. LORD: It is from the ad- 
ministrative point of view, I suppose, that a 
few remarks were requested of me, and it is 
with some amusement, with much pleasure, 
that I find what I wish to say has been largely 
forestalled by a statement in Miss Stearns' 
paper, a statement of a fact which I did not 
know, that the Carnegie Library of Pitts- 
burgh, which always does first the -things that 
we all want to do, is to establish in its new 
building an intermediate department. Since 
Miss Stearns made this only as a brief state- 
ment, I will take a moment to speak of the 
necessity of such a department, or its advis- 
ability, from the point of view of the admin- 
istrator, as I have seen it, in a much smaller 
library. Children coming into the children's 
room sometimes come at the age of six or 
seven. The great majority do not come until 
they are nearing, within two or three years, 
the age limit at which they ought to leave. 
Even if in the children's room we could give 
them all the attention they all need which 



SECOND SESSION 



201 



is a counsel of perfection that we none of us 
have reached and none of us, with the present 
growth of the population, and the popularity 
of the children's room, can hope to reach 
still it would be a very short training they 
would get in the children's room. As it is, the 
little children are and must be most impor- 
tant. To them must be given the first atten- 
tion, the most careful attention, and the older 
children, as they are nearing the age limit, 
usually 14, at which they are allowed to pass 
to the adult room, as they approach that 
limit and begin to feel restless at being classed 
with the little children, are given necessarily 
less and less attention ; they find a large pro- 
portion of the books on the shelves too young 
for them, and I think the experience of all 
children's librarians is that they often leave 
the room before they are really ready to go 
up into the adult department, because, as Miss 
Hunt says, they have read everything in the 
children's room, and yet they are not, in the 
opinion of the children's librarian, ready to 
go to the adult department. 

When transferred to the adult department 
the child is turned loose in a collection made 
primarily, as it must be, for the adult. The 
young girl, who is a much greater problem 
than the boy, starts straight for the fiction 
shelves, open fiction shelves which we all of 
us have now, containing novels ; a great many 
of which we would rather older people did 
not read and we certainly do not want 
younger people to read. Yet there they are 
turned loose, with the feeling that they are 
now grown up and will do as they choose. 
In that department the first claim is and must 
b-i that of the adult. We cannot keep older 
people, who are using the library often for 
serious purposes of study, waiting while we 
attend to the children. Already the adult 
readers complain of the influx of children 
from 14 to 18 years old ; they find the way 
blocked by them as they come into the library 
and they dislike it. From the adminstrative 
point of view, as I have looked at it in my 
own library and as we have tried to work it 
out, we can see no solution except an inter- 
mediate department with a large but careful 
selection of books for the younger readers. 
I am sure we shall all be very much inter- 



ested in what is done in the Carnegie Library 
at Pittsburgh. 

Just a word for those who cannot possibly 
have an intermediate department, but who 
may wish to make some sort of selection. In 
our own library we take out a selection of 
books and call them books for younger read- 
ers, and young people from 14 to 18 are not 
allowed to go back into the general stack 
without permission. If they ask, of course 
they may go to a particular subject; but there 
is a careful selection of about 2000 books to 
which we find a great proportion naturally go. 
Such a feature is of course possible in any 
library, even though it is not possible, as I 
think it should be, to have the tactful, right 
person to direct the reading without seeming 
to direct it. 

The CHAIRMAN : I have always felt that it 
was not kind and was in fact only a little 
short of an outrage that the secretary of an 
organization should only be known as a 
notice-monger, and I am going to ask Mr. 
Wyer to appear before us for a few moments 
in another capacity. Will you say just a word 
to us on this subject, Mr. Wyer? 

J. I. WYER: I have had some experience in 
children's work and children's reading but 
it is limited to two children. {Laughter.) 
I approve cordially of what Miss Stearns said 
about reading aloud in the family to children. 
That is about the best thing that anybody can 
do, and it is ordinarily as good as the work 
that you can get in any children's department 
in any library, if it is constantly followed out 
and you use the good things that the chil- 
dren's librarians will tell you about to read 
to your children. Another thing is libraries 
at home. I am aware that the great per- 
centage of work done by the children's de- 
partment must be done with children from 
homes where there are no libraries, where 
there perhaps can be no libraries. But there 
is a great class of the community that can 
have libraries, and the more books there are 
in a house, as long as they are books of which 
you would not be ashamed, the better, and I 
do not see why you should limit a child to the 
children's room or the intermediate room or 
any other room if he wants to read anything 
you have in the library. You ought not to 



202 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



have in your fiction room, or your general 
library anywhere else, anything that you do not 
care to have children read. Keep your libra- 
ries pure and wholesome and clean and it does 
not matter much whether they are all adults' 
books or all children's books or whether you 
have one in one case and one in another. 

Miss JESSIE WELLES : Our plan for an in- 
termediate department is in such an undevel- 
oped condition that I am afraid to speak of it 
at all, but I think that people who have been 
practically working with the public find that 
it is quite true about the older boys and girls, 
especially, being in the way of the older peo- 
ple. We greatly desire that the older people 
shall find no such annoyance, and we equally 
desire that the younger people shall have a 
fair chance. It happens that in our plans for 
the new building we were given a T-shaped 
room, and the suggestion naturally arose that 
one of the wings would be a good place to put 
the books for the older boys and girls. The 
plan is ''that those books shall be selected by 
the staff of the adult department, and by Miss 
Olcott, chief of the children's departments, 
and that there should be at least one assistant 
or probably two or three who will be sched- 
uled, both in the children's department and in 
the loan department, so that when the boys 
and girls come from the children's department 
they will find familiar faces and won't have 
that strange feeling of being adrift in the 
world, that they often have when they come 
from the room where they are constantly 
helped to the room where they have to learn 
to help themselves. That is about as far as 
we have gotten in our plans; we mean to 
have a selection of wholesome fiction and non- 
fiction which young people might not pick out 
from the big collection, and people who can 
give them intelligent help enough to take 
them over from the room where they have 
been guided so constantly. 

Miss THERESA HITCHLER: I have not been 
scheduled to speak at this meeting, but I want 
to refer to one point that Miss Stearns dwelt 
upon in her paper and to which Mr. Wyer 
referred afterwards. That was the point of 
mothers reading aloud to the children. Now 
I do not think it has been clearly brought out 
that most of the children who come to our 
libraries haven't mothers like us. (Laughter.) 



We forget the great class of families to which-. 
Dr. Schaeffer referred, the parents who them- 
selves cannot read and so cannot intelligently 
guide the reading of their children. A few 
years ago I was asked to address a mothers' 
meeting in a grammar school in New York, 
where the great majority of mothers present 
could not read, and I advocated that they 
make their children read aloud to them, and 
in that way they could see whether they were 
reading proper books. (Applause.) 

Mrs. MINERVA SANDERS : It is generally sup- 
posed that the large libraries have an advan- 
tage over the smaller ones. But there are 
things in which the smaller library has the 
advantage, and one is in dealing with chil- 
dren. The small library can meet the children- 
and exert personally an influence that cannot 
be given by the large library unless there is a 
special trained librarian, and not always then. 
I have always advocated a child's coming to 
the library as soon as he could climb the 
steps. In that way the child learns to love 
books. In our library just as soon as a child" 
can write his name he has a card. Our chil- 
dren also have the privilege of going to all 
the books. Our shelves are open, and the 
children go to the shelves when they please. 
The little ones don't want to go, but a child' 
at 14, in my experience, has judgment enough 
to go among the books that we have on our 
shelves. If we have books for adults that we 
don't want children to read and, by the 
way, let me say children wouldn't understand 
those books we put them on another tier of 
shelves ; the children do not go to them. And 
I take pains to examine the books selected by 
the children. I am surprised at their selec- 
tion ; I think sometimes they select better than 
I would for myself. But this idea of keeping 
the children away from the adult books, or 
out of the reading room for adults until they 
are over 14 years old, or 15 or 16, I do not 
agree with at all. I find also that having all' 
books charged at the regular desk is an ad- 
vantage both to the children and to the adult ; 
the older people are gracious to the children, 
and we have never found any trouble be- 
tween our older people and our children. 

Mr. H. H. BALLARD: I would like to ask 
the teachers of the public schools if they 
would kindly teach the children to read. I 



THIRD SESSION 



203 



have rarely known a boy or girl of the age of 
16 to 18 able to read a book aloud intelligent- 
ly, easily, and so that listening was a pleasure. 
Adjourned. 



THIRD SESSION 

(BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, MONDAY 
EVENING, July 2) 

President HILL called the meeting to order 
at 8 o'clock. 

The PRESIDENT: The secretary will present 
an amendment to the constitution which 
should be acted upon at this time. 

AMENDMENTS TO CONSTITUTION 

The SECRETARY : The constitution was 
amended at Portland, by the Council, in two 
sections, 12 and 17. The general association 
voted its approval to these amendments at the 
Portland meeting, but the constitution pro- 
vides that this approval shall be repeated at 
a second consecutive session. The amend- 
ments come up this evening for final ratifica- 
tion, if this general meeting shall approve 
them. 

To Section 12 the amendment adds these 
words : "It shall have authority to include in 
the publications of the Association so much of 
the program, notices, circulars and proceed- 
ings of affiliated associations as it may deem 
advisable." The initial pronoun "it" refers 
to the executive board, and the object of the 
amendment is to secure the necessary print- 
ing in A. L. A. programs for such organiza- 
tions as may be affiliated with us. 

Section 17, providing for the same object 
in another way, is amended by adding these 
words : "It may, by a two-thirds vote, upon 
suitable conditions, affiliate with the American 
Library Association other organizations kin- 
dred in purpose." In this case "it" refers to 
the Council. 

The purport of the two amendments is to 
enable the Council to affiliate organizations 
kindred in purpose and national in scope, and 
to provide that the executive board may print 
the programs of such organizations for them 
or include their programs in our own and 
publish their proceedings in our annual vol- 
ume of papers. 



I move the ratification of these two amend- 
ments to the constitution. Voted. 

The PRESIDENT : The president has only one 
duty to perform. As chairman he should not 
be long-winded. He ought, rather, to be like 
a door which should be opened with as little 
squeak as possible to admit the real speakers. 
It is hoped that the door will squeak in such 
a small degree as to be hardly perceptible. 
The subject which we have for this evening 
relates to the public library as a municipal 
institution, and the speakers who are to ad- 
dress us appear in the relation of a trustee 
and of a librarian. In introducing the first 
speaker I may be permitted to say that some 
few years ago some women in the city of 
Brooklyn wanted a free public library. They 
went to the then mayor of the city and se- 
cured his co-operation. A bill was framed 
with his consent, his sanction, and with his 
help. That bill was presented to the legisla- 
ture and became a law. Under that law the 
city of Brooklyn received for its public li- 
brary the first year $5000. It is spending to- 
day about $400,000, such is the growth of 
that institution. And the man who was the 
then mayor became a trustee of the first board, 
and has remained a trustee of the Brooklyn 
Public Library ever since, and has been its 
president all the time. I have pleasure in in- 
troducing a proved friend to libraries, the 
Honorable David A. Boody. (Applause.') 

DAVID A. BOODY read a paper on 

THE RELATION OF LIBRARIES TO MUNICIPAL 
GOVERNMENT 

(See p. 28.) 

The PRESIDENT : After a library has received 
money from the city it is necessary to spend 
that money, and it is easy for us to do it ; but 
it is another matter so to expend it that we 
get the greatest return, and it is quite appro- 
priate that we should hear from the library 
side as to the best way of spending the money 
which the municipality has given the library 
for its maintenance. It is appropriate, too, 
that the one who speaks should come from a 
library which we have looked upon for many 
years as an example that we have been glad 
to follow. I have pleasure in introducing: 
Mr. Horace G. Wadlin. 



.204 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Mr. H. G. WADLIN read a paper on 

"THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AS A MUNICIPAL INSTITU- 
TION : FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE STAND- 
POINT 

(See p. 30.) 

The PRESIDENT : In the absence of Dr. Mel 
vil Dewey, who was to present the next num- 
"ber on the program on behalf of the League 
of Library Commissions, his paper will be 
read by title and printed in the proceedings. 
Mr. DEWEY'S paper is as follows : 

THE FUTURE OF LIBRARY COMMISSIONS 

Had it been possible to get to the meeting 
my thesis to be maintained orally in such time 
as could be spared from the other speakers 
"was as follows : 

1. Library commission work will be estab- 
lished in every state as certainly as is the 
public school department. 

2. The chief honor to be conferred on the 
ablest men and women of the state will be 
membership in this commission. Its executive 

officer directing this great department will 
have the finest opportunities for usefulness af- 
forded any citizen. 

3. The commission will become permanent, 
taking the name "department" instead of 
"'commission," which carries a flavor of tem- 
porary service. 

4. This department will have full charge 
of all the state's library, book and publishing 
interests. Through its influence there will be 
greatly increased efficiency and economy in 
state publications. 

5. It will have charge also of all home edu- 
cation interests, travelling libraries, study 

clubs, extension teaching, museums and allied 
agencies. 

6. As a part of the library interests under 
its control it will absorb the management of 
the state library. The boards of ex officio 
trustees will willingly give place to the new 
library department. These trustees, usually 
eminent state officers, are seldom fitted either 
"by taste or experience to guide a great mis- 
sionary educational movement, though often 
admirably qualified to act as trustees for the 
law library, which was the major part of the 
traditional state library. In the trend towards 



consolidation the greater will absorb the less, 
and there can be no question that the li- 
brary commission with its state-wide inter- 
ests and activities, calling to its service the 
foremost citizens who are willing to give their 
best to the public good, greatly outranks in 
dignity and importance any ex officio board 
entrusted with the old type of state library. 
Local circumstances in some states will make 
it best to have two or more agencies, but no 
greater harm can be done than consolidating 
into one, two or more institutions which are 
doing the work better or cheaper and working 
in harmony. But the general tendency will 
be toward a state library department, grow- 
ing out of the present library commission, and 
including under the comprehensive name "li- 
brary" all those agencies and methods which 
make for culture and education outside the 
regular teaching institutions. 

The PRESIDENT: The next subject is "The 
effects of earthquake and fire on San Fran- 
cisco libraries." This subject was assigned 
to Mr. Frederick J. Teggart, librarian of the 
Mechanics-Mercantile Library, of San Fran- 
cisco, who had voluntered to prepare a paper, 
but at the last moment he was unable to come 
and Mr. Charles S. Greene, of the Oakland 
Public Library and a trustee of the State Li- 
brary of California, kindly consented to fill 
Mr. Teggart's place. 

EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE ON SAN 
FRANCISCO LIBRARIES 

CHARLES S. GREENE: On April 18, 1906, at 
5.15 o'clock in the morning, the state of Cali- 
fornia was visited by an earthquake, the 
severest that has been felt in that region 
since it was visited by civilized man. It ex- 
tended from Fort Bragg, in Mendocino 
county, on the north, 150 miles southward to 
Salinas in Monterey county and beyond, pass- 
ing off into the sea on either side. The 
scientists have told us that the cause was a 
fault, a slip of the earth, that moved the 
country to the west of the line of the fault 
eight feet or more to the north, or else 
moved all the rest of the country eight feet 
to the south. The damage done was confined 
to a few places, but in certain localities it 
was very severe. Fort Bragg was badly 
shaken ; the city of Santa Rosa had nearly 



THIRD SESSION 



205 



every brick building thrown down ; San Fran- 
cisco was severely shaken; Oakland on the 
other side of the bay had its share; San 
Jose, farther south, had many of its brick 
buildings thrown down; the insane asylum 
-at Agnew was almost totally destroyed; the 
beautiful buildings of Stanford University 
were damaged to the extent of several mil- 
lions of dollars. The damage in San Fran- 
cisco by the earthquake is hard to estimate. 
Perhaps three or four millions of dollars 
would have covered all except the damage 
done to the city "hall ; perhaps as much more, 
or 20 millions, would have covered the total 
damage in the state by the earthquake. 

But there was more to come. In San 
Francisco the earthquake shock was followed 
by a multitude of fires springing from crossed 
wires, from overturned stoves and furnaces, 
-and in other ways, and when the alarm was 
sent in and the fire department promptly re- 
sponded, the terrible situation was faced that 
the earthquake had destroyed the water 
mains and there was no water to fight the 
fire. Furthermore, the fire chief, old and 
experienced, was so injured that within a 
few days he died, without ever knowing that 
the calamity that he had predicted for San 
Francisco had come upon it. So San Fran- 
cisco, without water, without its fire chief, 
with fires springing up in scores of places 
at once, was given over as a prey to the 
flames. I cannot tell you the horrors of 
those next three days. You have read of 
them plentifully. We in Oakland watched the 
great pillar of fire by night and the pillar of 
smoke by day, and our hearts were full as 
we watched, and seemed fuller yet when there 
came from the ferry by every boat thou- 
sands of destitute people bringing with them 
only such little belongings as they could 
carry in their hands a canary bird, a par- 
rot, a cat, a dog sometimes ; trifling things 
that they had caught up in their hasty leav- 
ing. Of 250,000 homeless people, 150,000 
came across the bay in those three days to 
he taken care of in the cities of Oakland, 
Alameda and Berkeley. Every church, every 
organization was turned into a relief society, 
and the relief beginning there spread out into 
the country until all the world had come to 



the help of San Francisco in her hour of 
need. There has been no such outburst of 
sympathy, as there has been no such great 
fire, destroying some three hundred millions 
of property, nearly three thousand acres of 
buildings, all of the business section except 
the water front and much of the best resi- 
dence section of that great city. That is 
enough, perhaps, for the story of the earth- 
quake. 

The effect on the libraries was commen- 
surate. The whole effect it would take too 
long to tell. The exact physical effect is 
not so difficult to state. The losses in build- 
ings and books have been listed, and I will 
note the principal ones : Berkeley, $1000 dam- 
age to building. University of California lost 
1007 books in the bindery and some 250 others 
in the hands of instructors in San Francisco, 
besides its loss in the great damage to the 
Charles Doe estate, from which it was to 
receive a bequest for a new building. The 
building of the library at Haywards was 
damaged $1750 worth, and at Martinez $1400. 
The Napa Library was seriously damaged. 
My own building at Oakland was damaged 
to the extent of about $3000; the Redwood 
Public Library, $5000; the San Mateo Public 
Library, the old building condemned; Santa 
Rosa Library, $7000; and at Stanford the 
beautiful library building, which cost about 
$300,000, was so wrecked by the swaying of 
its steel tower that the whole masonry was 
destroyed. 

The San Francisco losses, with the loss by 
fire added to the smaller loss by' earthquake, 
show large figures. In the San Francisco 
Public Library there were 105,000 books de- 
stroyed. Of all of the books in the main 
collection, I saw the only one that had been 
saved, and that was a book that the secretary 
had put in a safe the night before. The 
Astronomical Society of the Pacific lost 
1400 volumes; Bnai Brith Library, 12,000; 
Bohemian Club, 5000, many of them auto- 
graph and presentation copies from distin- 
guished writers ; California Academy of Sci- 
ences, 12,300; the Chamber of Commerce, 
oooo; French National League, 25,000; Me- 
chanics'-Mercantile, 200,000; St. Ignatius, 50- 
ooo; Microscopical Society, 2500; San Fran- 



2O6 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



cisco Medical Society, 5000; Reading Rooms 
for the blind, 400 small, but all it had; 
San Francisco Verein, 4400; San Francisco 
State Normal School, 8500; Supreme Court 
Library, 17,000; Theosophical Library, 1000; 
University Qub, 2500; Wells Fargo Library, 
5000; Y. M. C. A. Library, 2500; San Fran- 
cisco Law Library, 35,000; Sutro Library, 
100,000; Society of California Pioneers, about 
5000. That makes a total of 610,000 books 
lost, and damage to buildings $394,450. Be- 
sides, there were the books lost in book stores 
and in private libraries, making the total loss 
of books not less than a million volumes. The 
law libraries, for example, were so totally 
lost that there were only about two working 
libraries left in all San Francisco, and those 
were libraries of lawyers who had working 
libraries at their residences in addition to 
those at their offices. 

So much for the loss ; but if I should stop 
here it would be a pitiful showing of the 
effect of the earthquake and fire upon Cali- 
fornia libraries. The final effect of that 
earthquake and fire will come in the re- 
building of those libraries. San Francisco 
will be rebuilt more grandly, more beauti- 
fully, more wisely than ever before. No- 
body in San Francisco doubts that. I have 
been asked the question in the East, but never 
have I heard it raised on the West coast of 
this country. Let me tell you about some of 
the plans. The San Francisco Public Library 
had already bought a site for its new build- 
ing, paying $670,000 for it. It had $1,000,000 
bonds voted, which bonds had not yet been 
sold and now can be sold and made available 
for a new building. Mr. Andrew Carnegie 
gave a fund of $750,000 to San Fran- 
cisco for library buildings, with the stipula- 
tion that one-half of it should be used for 
branch libraries. That sum, I believe, will 
be still available and will be used to make the 
San Francisco Public Library more beautiful 
in its housing and better than it ever was 
before, and the insurance money, some $60,- 
ooo on the library, will be used imme- 
diately to buy books. The branch library 
buildings that are left have already been 
reopened and the new city will find the new 
library keeping pace with it. The Mechan- 



ics'-Mercantile Library sustained a loss of 
200,000 books, and yet I am told that they 
have $150,000 in sight to buy books to- 
take the place of the ones destroyed. Now, 
$150,000 to buy new books exactly fitted 
to the needs of the city as it now stands,, 
will make a better library than any it 
has lost. 

And all the libraries are going to rebuild. 
They accept the lesson of the fire not that 
San Francisco shall not rebuild, but that 
she shall build better than ever before. 
Every large building that was destroyed is to 
be rebuilt and to be built better, with con- 
struction that will stand fire, that will stand 
such earthquake shocks as may come, that 
will make a city that shall never again be 
visited by such a calamity. There will be a 
new San Francisoo in twenty-five years, in 
ten years yes, I will say in five years. She 
will summon the American Library Associa- 
tion back to see a new, a better, a stronger 
San Francisco, with better, stronger libraries, 
more fitted to their needs, and prouder of it- 
self than ever before. 

The PRESIDENT : This report of library losses 
only brings into closer view the serious effect 
of fire and earthquake in California, and I 
would like to say that those libraries will be 
glad to receive any books that are of value to 
any circulating or reference library. Some 
libraries have already made up packages of 
books and sent them, and, answering for one, 
I can say that the Californians, the San Fran- 
ciscans particularly, are very grateful for 
gifts of that kind. 

DREW B. HALL gave a summary of the 

RKPORT OF COMMITTEE ON GIFTS AND BEQUESTS 

(See p. I59-) 

Received and accepted. 
W. C. LANE read the 

REPORT OF A. L. A. PUBLISHING BOARD 

(See p. 154.) 

Received and accepted, 
Adjourned. 



FOURTH SESSION 



207 



FOURTH SESSION 

-(BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, WEDNES- 
DAY, JULY 4) 

President HILL called the meeting to order 
at three o'clock. 

Miss JOSEPHINE RATHBONE read the 

KEPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PROSE FICTION 

The committee on prose fiction believed 
that the most important service it could ren- 
der would be to ascertain if there exists any 
need for a subject-index to fiction which is 
not met by the indexes now in the field, and, 
if so, what form of index would best meet 
that need. They therefore published in the 
Library Journal and in the Public Libraries 
of January a request that all who felt that 
they could do their work better if they had 
some other fiction subject-index than those 
now available would write to the chairman 
stating their experience and their need. 

Opinions were asked especially on the fol- 
lowing points : 

1. Would you prefer a list containing novels 
having subject value entered under the spe- 
cific subject? For example, "Alton Locke," 
under Chartism ("Chaplet of pearls, under 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew; "Trilby," un- 
der Hypnotism;" "Phra the Phoenician," un- 
-der Transmigration of souls), with references 
from the broader inclusive class-headings 
after the general plan adopted by Mrs. Dixon 
-in her Index? or, 

2. Would a list aranged under broad general 
heads, as Sociological novels, Psychological, 
Scientific novels, with the heading Historical 
fiction subdivided by country, with notes to 
bring out the specific subject covered by the 
book, better meet the need? 

3. Would an author index suffice for these 
subject lists, or would an arrangement of au- 
thors and subjects in one alphabet be prefer- 
able? 

4. Do you desire a select list of say 2000 or 
3000 titles, or would one more broadly inclu- 
sive be preferred ? 

The committee's effort was rewarded by a 
result of 10 letters. Of these ten, eight de- 
sired a subject index of fiction; five of these 
were in favor of the first plan, an index with 
specific headings; three preferred a grouping 
under broad general classes. Four of our 
correspondents wanted an author index; two 



an alphabetical arrangement of authors and 
subjects; one did not care for an author ar- 
rangement at all, and one inferentially did not 
care for it, as it was not mentioned. Five per- 
sons preferred a select list; two, one more 
broadly inclusive, one expressed no opinion 
on the matter. One of our corespondents 
writes: "I think a really well made subject- 
index of fiction would be of much practical 
value, but I have lost all faith in co-operative 
work unless it is in the hands of a clear- 
headed and strong-minded editor who would 
need to give a great deal of time to the work. 
I wish such a person might be found and that 
a good plan could be adopted, otherwise I do 
not think the effort worth while." 

Another correspondent, not the librarian of 
a public library be it said in passing, protested 
against the whole undertaking in the follow- 
ing forceful words : "For goodness sake do 
your best to stop this nonsense of subject- 
indexing fiction. The novel should be read 
for diversion, not for information. To en- 
courage the idle person whose reading is con- 
fined to fiction in the belief that information 
is being acquired, is a contribution to the 
pinchbeck culture of the day, of which, heaven 
knows, we are having a constantly increasing 
supply." 

The committee is forced to the conclusion 
that there does not now exist any such de- 
mand for a subject-index to fiction as would 
warrant it in recommending that the Ameri- 
can Library Association should include this 
among its activities for the present. It would 
seem, however, from the standing of the libra- 
rians who expressed a wish for such an index, 
that some of the progressive libraries are be- 
ginning to desire such an aid in their work, 
and that the time is undoubtedly coming when 
the demand shall have to be met by something 
more adequate than any of the indexes now 
in the field. 

JOSEPHINE ADAMS RATHBONE. 
BEATRICE WINSER. 

Accepted and approved. 

The secretary read a telegram of greeting 
and good wishes sent to Mr. Crunden on be- 
half of the Association, and a letter received 
from Mr. and Mrs. Crunden. 



208 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Under the direction of Mr. Albert T. Briggs 
the audience joined in singing two verses 
of "America." 

The PRESIDENT: Naturally we turn to the 
state for an example of patriotism and we 
feel complimented to-day in having with us 
its highest officer. We feel complimented be- 
cause the state took the precaution to send 
its lieutenant-governor ahead to see what 
sort of a body we were and whether it was 
safe for the governor to come. The report 
which the lieutenant-governor took back 
must have been satisfactory, because of all 
the invitations which the governor has re- 
ceived for to-day he felt that he could with 
safety and propriety accept the one which 
came from the American Library Association. 
I have pleasure in introducing to you the 
Governor of the state of Rhode Island, Hon- 
orable George H. Utter. (Applause.) 

ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR UTTER 

Gov. UTTER: Ladies and gentlemen, it 
is very true that the lieutenant-governor 
brought back flattering reports from this 
gathering. He told me that they had very 
large bunches of grapes down here, grapes 
so big that possibly two men could not carry 
them, but certainly one man and one woman 
could. (Laughter.) 

I am particularly pleased to see you here; 
I am particularly pleased also to see so many 
people at one time in the state of Rhode 
Island and to have you all go home and tell 
your neighbors that the state was not 
crowded. There seems to be a feeling 
throughout the country that if we get two or 
three people in the state of Rhode Island we 
are crowded. Now we are not, are we? We 
shall expect each one of you hereafter to be 
an apostle of truth so far as it relates to the 
size of the state of Rhode Island. I am 
not inclined to ask whether you are all libra- 
rians. I hope that some of you are, and I 
am going to take it for granted that whatever 
you are you are here in the interest of libra- 
ries, and also, therefore, in the interest of 
truth, because no library can be complained 
of if it is based upon truth. We are very 
glad indeed to see you in the state of 
Rhode Island. It is a small bit of land in 
acres, but it is one of the largest bits of 



territory in history and in principle. Massa- 
chusetts tried to steal it from us ; Connecticut 
tried to steal it from us when they argued 
as to whether this stream of water that lies 
here at my left was the division line in the 
old charter. We have fought for this land 
and it is all historic ground. Of course you 
know that the birth of religious freedom was 
here. We like to pride ourselves upon it, 
although we do have to reflect that while we 
stood for religious freedom with Roger Wil- 
liams, it took us almost a hundred years be- 
fore we granted religious freedom to every- 
body who did not believe in the same way we 
did. There is another fact that even some 
librarians may not know. And that is that 
the first real Declaration of Independence was 
passed by the general assembly of the state 
of Rhode Island on the 4th of May, 1776, two 
months before that wonderful document was 
written in Philadelphia and was enacted. So 
you see that two great principles on which 
our whole government stands were born here 
within our own state. It has given of its 
men, it has given of its life in order that 
the country might live. It was among the 
first that struck a blow for original free- 
dom. Its people were represented from Que- 
bec to the Carolinas; they fought from 
Brooklyn to Stony Point ; they were wherever 
trouble was, wherever there was a call for 
American patriotism; and during the late 
Civil War it was the second state in all the 
Union to send men to the front in propor- 
tion to its population. And to-day it is 
reaping the benefit of all that. 

From the very first the state of Rhode 
Island has given largely to its educational 
work, and that is what you are engaged in. 
The man who looks at a library otherwise 
than as a part of a supplemental education 
has got a false notion of what a library is. 
Did you ever see an educated man, outside of 
the high school graduates, who ever thought 
he was educated? The man who recognizes 
the fact that his education is never complete, 
that is the man who is dependent on the work 
of libraries. A man goes through public 
school, college, university, then he enters 
into life. He finds one thing continually 
meeting him he wants more information, 
he needs continued education. The library 



FOURTH SESSION 



2CK> 



does this supplemental work. In our own 
state money that is given by the state for 
public libraries is expended through the state 
board of education. There is about $8000 
every year expended on the libraries of the 
state. To receive this aid a library must be 
a free library, and it must also select its 
books from books which are approved by the 
state board of education, and only one-third 
of the money spent can be spent for fiction. 
Then we have also our state library. The 
state is therefore spending something like 
$13,000 per year on its libraries, and it is 
spending it as supplemental education to the 
public schools. 

Personally I don't know anything about 
libraries. As governor of the state I ought 
to know everything and I ought to give 
advice to librarians. That is one of the priv- 
ileges of a governor. But there are two 
things I want to say to you in regard to 
libraries. I hope the librarians here will 
recognize two things regarding their work. 
Their work is their own opportunity. A 
man in a busy life wants help, he must know 
where to find the information, and he goes 
to a librarian for it. The work of a libra- 
rian, therefore, is not simply the knowing 
where information is to be found, but the 
ability to discriminate regarding the informa- 
tion which he passes out to a man or woman. 
It is not enough simply to know that a given 
fact is in this book, that a book is on that 
shelf, that certain books are in this section. 
It is necessary for a person who has ability 
as a librarian to know whether the fact in 
this book or the book on that shelf is what 
this man is seeking for ; and the librarian who 
does that becomes a wonderful help to the 
man who is engaged in active life. This is a 
great responsibility. There is another oppor- 
tunity for librarians. A librarian has a great 
deal to do with the selection of books; he 
owes it to a library to see that it is prop- 
erly balanced. It is not enough that it should 
be a popular collection of books; it must also 
be balanced by books of reference. 

And I want to ask if you are willing to 
give of your life to library work to help the 
young folks? One of my dearest friends 
was a man who yielded up his life almost 
twenty years ago ; he was a clergyman ; he 



was interested in the community in which he 
lived; and among other things he persuaded 
a man to give liberally of his funds to estab- 
lish in that community a library; it was in a 
small community noted simply because it 
was the center of a large lumber district. 
After this friend had been dead two years it 
was my privilege one day to stand in that 
library by the side of the librarian, and there 
came in at the door a small boy, barefooted 
and bareheaded, because he carried a soft 
straw hat in his hand, clad in an undershirt 
and a pair of overalls, and under his arm was 
a book. He walked up to the librarian, left 
his book, handed in a card, received another 
and went out. I turned to the librarian and 
asked, "Is that boy the exception?" And she 
said, "Oh, no, he is the rule." And I said 
to myself, "If this friend of mine has been 
called of God sooner than seemed for us the 
time for him to go, surely a man that has 
made opportunity for boys like that has not 
lived in vain." Now it is given to some of 
you librarians perhaps to direct these young 
people who are seeking to know more, who 
are looking for opportunities that are new for 
them. How are you going to direct them? 
What are you going to offer to them? Are 
you going to offer them the popular novel of 
the day, or are you going, little by little and 
step by step, to open to them the wonderful 
treasures that have come down to us in the 
printed book on the back of which is 
"Thackeray" or "Dickens" or "Longfellow" 
or "Lowell"? The boy of ten or twelve 
years old, mark my word, is just as suscep- 
tible to the wonderful story of Tiny Tinv 
or the story of the old Colonel Newcome, or 
the wisdom of the "Biglow papers," and to 
the beauty of the verse that flowed from our 
great American poet Longfellow, as he is to 
this cheap trash. It is for you people to 
shape that boy, to direct his mind. The 
state of Rhode Island is striving to instil 
into the minds of its boys the knowledge 
that equal opportunity comes to every Ameri- 
can boy, that equal results can come to no- 
American boy save as that boy makes equal 
use of opportunity. And as you go back to 
your homes, as you undertake to open the 
stores of the wonderful storehouses that are 
in your charge, may I ask of you simply 



2IO 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



this: will you try to open for these young 
fellows the thought that American liberty, 
American ideals, American future, American 
possibility are only bounded by the use which 
the boy makes of opportunity. Opportunity 
is what our country lives for, and it is for the 
people with work like yours whether it is 
being done in the library or the public 
schools, in the home or in the private life 
to make the future of our country by inspir- 
ing in the minds of these young people the 
high ideals that make for purity, for manli- 
ness, for godliness. (Applause.) 

The PRESIDENT: Governor Utter, your 
words only add to the obligations which we 
owe to those who have received us in Rhode 
Island so warmly, and we cannot let you go 
without expressing publicly our appreciation. 

The program for to-day has more of a lit- 
erary than technical flavor. We thought that 
we would like to see some of those men who 
had written books, as we have seen men who 
read books, and as we have begun with a 
word from the governor of the state, it is 
quite natural that we should be followed by 
the president of the state's great university, 
Dr. W. H. P. Faunce, the head of Brown 
University. 

Dr. W. H. FAUNCE gave an address on 

THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVIL- 
IZATION 

(See p. 18.) 

The PRESIDENT: The next speaker ought to 
be introduced to you as The Man Without a 
Name; but if I call him "The Virginian" I 
think you will recognize him. (Applause.) 

Mr. OWEN WISTER read a paper on 

SUBJECTS FIT FOR FICTION 

(Sec p. 20.) 

The PRESIDENT: The only disappointment 
that we feel, Mr. Wister, is that you did not 
tell us why you didn't fit the name to your 
hero. (Laughter.) 

Because of the absence of Dr. Canfield I 
am somewhat embarrassed as to the way in 
which I should introduce the next speaker, 
Mr. Brander Matthews. Dr. Canfield and 
myself conspired to get an invitation to Pro- 



fessor Matthews, to have him accept the in- 
vitation; he did accept it, and he came here 
expecting to find both conspirators, but one 
has gone. Dr. Canfield has fled, and now, 
in introducing Mr. Matthews, I can only 
place myself, as the remaining conspirator, at 
his mercy and leave him to do what he wishes 
with me and with you. Professor Brander 
Matthews. (Applause.) 

BRANDER MATTHEWS : I am extremely glad 
that your president has stated that I am not 
a volunteer to-day. I was pressed for ser- 
vice. I came down to Narragansett Pier, as 
I have done off and on for nearly a score of 
years, expecting to rest, but Dr. Canfield said 
it was my duty to come here and speak on the 
Fourth of July afternoon, and I promptly 
accepted because I had an ulterior purpose; 
and then when I met your president and said 
that I thought this was an excellent oppor- 
tunity to explain to you the advantages of 
simplified spelling, he said he thought you 
would rather have a patriotic Fourth of July 
speech. 

As far as simplified spelling is concerned, I 
will say that there are some of our circulars 
still available here, and a full set will be sent 
to any library on application to The Simplified 
Spelling Board, No. I Madison Avenue, New 
York City. Now I close that subject. 

Mr. MATTHEWS then read a paper on 

THE INFLUENCE OF IMMIGRATION ON AMERI- 
CAN DEVELOPMENT* 

President HILL : Professor Matthews, in be- 
half of the American Library Association I 
thank you for allowing yourself to be im- 
pressed into service. (Applause.) 

After the audience had joined in singing 
"'The star spangled banner" E. C. HOVEY 
read the 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND 
MEANS 

Your committee on ways and means begs 
leave to report as follows : 

Its duties divided into two separate feat- 
ures, each having to do with an increase in 
the income of the American Library Associa- 

*This paper could not be supplied for publication. 



FOURTH SESSION 



211 



tion. The first has reference to an increase 
in membership. Your committee reports that 
it has issued a circular, addressed to libra- 
ries, their trustees, librarians and assistants, 
setting forth the past work of the Association 
and calling attention to other fields of useful- 
ness awaiting development, asking finally for 
a more general support from those engaged 
in library administration. When your com- 
mittee assumed its duties in September, 1905, 
there were on the membership roster exactly 
1500 names. Of these, however, 426 were 
delinquent, not having paid their dues. To- 
day the Association counts 1677 fully paid 
members. These figures represent an in- 
crease in membership of 603 and in income 
of approximately $1300. Personal effort, 
through visits or correspondence on the part 
of the chairman, of your committee, with the 
earnest co-operation of the publicity com- 
mittee, has brought about this result. Your 
committee is firmly convinced that continued 
effort on the part of the American Library 
Association, through its officers and indi- 
vidual members, would result in a startling 
increase in membership. We take this occa- 
sion to urge all libraries, whose funds will 
permit of such disbursement, to be annual 
subscribing members of the Association, 
firmly convinced that such expenditure is no 
more than a just return for the benefit re- 
ceived. Not less than 500 libraries in the 
United States should be enrolled among us. 
Circulars but open the way to personal appeal. 
Each librarian should consider it to be her 
duty, not to the Association, but to her 
library, to see to it that the Association re- 
ceived its support through the annual pay- 
ment of $5. It is not conceivable that the 
trustees of any considerable number of libra- 
ries will decline such assistance, if only the 
librarians will place the matter properly be- 
fore them. We have to-day 70 library mem- 
berships. We can easily have 250 one year 
from to-day if we but half try. As to 
individual memberships, a like gratifying re- 
sult can be reached. Such membership to-day 
is 1828. The members of the American Li- 
brary Association should see to it that the 
Handbook for 1907 shows a total enrolment 
of not less than 3000 members. 

The other duty assigned to your committee 



was the raising of a fund which should war- 
rant your executive board in establishing 
permanent headquarters, where much valuable 
work, heretofore impossible of accomplish- 
ment, might be carried on. Your committee 
reports that it has received, either in cash 
or pledges, the following sums from the fol- 
lowing sources: 

Montreal $1000 

Boston 3000 

New York 200 

Brooklyn 450 

Chicago loo 

Philadelphia 900 

Pittsburg 250 

St. Louis 50 

Amounting to $595O 

From this total there should be deducted 
the sum of $600 properly chargeable against 
this fund, leaving the net sum of $5350 avail- 
able for the purpose indicated. 

Your committee is of the distinct opinion 
that the American Library Association 
should begin to help itself now that the pub- 
lic has so generously subscribed to the fund. 

There is no reason why the American Li- 
brary Association should not be self-support- 
ing or largely so. It is much easier to raise 
money for those who have shown a willing- 
ness and earnest desire to help themselves. 
Several plans looking toward this end will be 
submitted for your consideration during the 
conference, and it is hoped that the members 
will give serious attention thereto and bring 
to their fulfilment the same earnestness and 
energy of action which they develop in their 
professional work. 

In closing this work, the committee desires 
to place on record its sincere thanks for the 
hearty co-operation which has come to its 
members from individual members of the 
Association. 

WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE, 
BY E. C. HOVEY, Chairman. 

E. C. HOVEY: Before I take my seat I 
would like to say a few words, speaking per- 
sonally. I have made out a statement show- 
ing all that needs to be done for us to have 
3000 members one year from now. Of course 
the burden will be heavier on states like 
New York and Massachusetts than it will on 



212 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



some of the other states whose membership 
in the American Library Association is still 
small. Massachusetts needs to add to the 
membership of the Association 150 members, 
and she will do it. New York needs to add 
to its membership 240 members. And I de- 
sire to say here that this is the first time in 
the history of the Association, unless it 
might have been during its early days, when 
New York had more members in the Ameri- 
can Library Association than Massachusetts. 
For instance, if the state of Iowa will con- 
tribute 20 new members, and other states in 
like proportion, we shall have the 3000 mem- 
bers which we desire. Now are we willing 
to do this? Are we willing to sacrifice a 
little time in order that we may have a mem- 
bership that will count? 

Let me put this before you in a few words, 
because they are very important. To-day we 
are giving you three publications for your 
two dollars. We have out of that two dollars 
80 cents left for administrative purposes. 
That is due to the fact that we are giving our 
members the Proceedings which are paid for 
by a very small membership. Increase our 
membership to 3000 and the cost of the Pro- 
ceedings, instead of being 84^2 cents, as they 
were last year, will be reduced to 50 cents, 
leaving in the treasury of the American Li- 
brary Association 34^2 cents for each mem- 
ber for the general administrative expenses 
of the Association. So that if we get to- 
gether 3000 members one year from to-day, 
we shall pay our expenses liberally and shall 
have from $2500 to $3000 to apply to the sus- 
taining of headquarters. There is the situa- 
tion, fellow members, in a few words, and 
I hope going back as I do 16 years to the 
time when I attended my first Association 
meeting, and remembering how we then 
raised a sum of money which has been bear- 
ing interest ever since I do hope that I may 
hear from a few people here saying that they 
will pledge their states, their libraries, their 
library members, either to money or to new 
members, so that we may go away from here 
and feel that the work that has been done 
this year will be increased all through the 
next year. I trust, Mr. President, that you 



will permit the meeting to respond for a short 
time at least to this appeal, which is very close 
to the hearts of the ways and 1 means committee. 

The PRESIDENT: Before asking for response 
I will merely say that the report will be ac 
ccpted in the usual form. 

C. A. NELSON : I wish, sir, to aid the fund 
for the American Library Association by put- 
ting into its treasury one dollar for every 
year of my service since I began library work. 
(Applause.) 

Miss HITCHLER: The ladies will never fol- 
low that example. (Laughter.) 

The PRESIDENT: Then rise above it. 

Louis N. WILSON : I would like to pledge 
Clark University Library, of Worcester, 
Mass., for membership at $5 a year, and I 
want to say that when I get home I intend to- 
call my staff together for a general discus- 
sion of this meeting and try and find out 
what they got out of it and what criticisms 
they have to offer, and I am also going to try 
to get each member of the staff to join the 
Association. I will also say, with Mr. Nel- 
son, that I will give one dollar for every year 
that I have been a librarian, to this fund. 
(Applause.) 

Mr. SOULE: I want to speak as a member 
of the Publishing Board, to suggest to the 
librarians present a reason why they should 
pay more this year than ever before. 
Heretofore we have been very willing to give 
our two dollars membership fee knowing that 
the return we got was the annual conference, 
the inspiration and fellowship that we got 
here. In the future we hope to have also a 
headquarters, to continue that work from 
year to year right through the year, to main- 
tain a place to which you can report your 
troubles and difficulties with the assurance 
that they will be answered; a place where in- 
terest will be taken in all that you are doing 
during the year ; and it seems to me that you 
individually can well afford to urge your 
fellows to join the Association and that you 
can put before your trustees not only the 
advantage but the necessity of taking library 
membership. 

Mr. RANCK : I think the members here pres- 
ent would be much interested to hear a word: 



FOURTH SESSION 



213 



or two from Mr. Hovey with reference to the 
plans for headquarters. The report said very 
little about that. A knowledge on the part 
of members of what can be done and what is 
expected to be done at the headquarters is 
essential to the success of this work, so far 
as getting libraries to join is concerned. The 
library which I represent has joined the 
American Library Association, and we expect 
to have a full share of the libraries of Michi- 
gan and of the individual librarians from 
Michigan, and more too, added to the mem- 
bership of this Association during the com- 
ing year. But I should be glad if Mr. Hovey 
would say a word about the work to be 
done by headquarters. From our own point 
of view I will say that during the past year 
there have been single days and single weeks 
when inquiries that have come to our library 
have required the writing of from four to ten 
letters. On one day as many as four 
letters were written about matters relating to 
the general work of the Association or to 
the work of libraries in general. Such let- 
ters should come from a general headquarters, 
and to that extent a permanent headquarters 
would be an advantage and a saving to the 
libraries throughout the country and at the 
same time would give a unity to the whole 
library movement. 

Mr. HOVEY: This is not within the pur- 
view of the committee on ways and means. 
TTiere is a committee on permanent head- 
quarters and above them is the same body 
from whom we get our being, namely, the 
executive board, who form the plans. 

The PRESIDENT: The president would say 
that the executive board has the matter of 
the work to be carried on at headquarters 
under consideration, and has been waiting 
for this good report from the ways and means 
committee, because without the ways and 
means we cannot go very far. 

C. W. ANDREWS : It might be well for those 
members of the Association who have not 
followed the discussion on the question of 
permanent headquarters, to know that there 
is in print, in the Proceedings of the St. 
Louis Conference,* the plan of the perman- 



Papers and proceedings, St. Louis Conference, 
1904, p. 249 - 230. 



ent headquarters committee, which outlines 
some eight different lines of activity which 
that committee, not composed of enthusiasts, 
but rather of men who would look at propo- 
sitions calmly, thought possible with moder- 
ate means. 

The PRESIDENT: That report was made to 
the Council, I think, and not to the Associa- 
tion. . 

It will now be as interesting to hear the 
report of a committee whose relations are 
somewhat close to that of the committee on 
ways and means, a committee which has 
done so much this year to make the work 
of the Association known throughout the 
country. I ask for the report of the com- 
mittee on publicity, Mr. John C. Dana, 
chairman. 

Mr. DANA: This report has very little 
almost nothing to say about the reasons 
for publicity. We do not attempt to argue 
the question as to whether or no it is wise 
for the librarians of this country to make 
known to the people at large the fact that 
there are public libraries and college and 
university libraries, and to- make known also 
the purposes for which they exist. I would 
say, however, that the report just made by 
Mr. Hovey seems to fit, as your president 
has just said, very admirably with our re- 
port, for the work that Mr. Hovey and his 
committee wishes to do that of raising 
money depends, of course, almost entirely 
on the general public interest in library work. 
That public interest is born only of knowl- 
edge, and the general idea of your publicity 
committee is not simply to advertise libra- 
ries, but to let the people at large know what 
libraries are, what they are trying to do, in 
order that, as the result of that knowledge, 
they may have an interest and a correspond- 
ing sympathy in their work and a willing- 
ness to help them. 

Your committee was first named last Au- 
gust. It was first constituted in October; 
but in its present form, consisting of myself 
as chairman, Mr. Wright and Mr. Ranck. it 
was not formed until March of the present 
year. Consequently as a committee we have 
had only a few months to work. During thru 
time the report shows what we have at- 
tempted to do. 



214 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Mr. DANA read the 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLICITY 

The committee have written to librarians, 
editors and others several hundred personal 
letters. 

They have helped to plan and put through 
the press nine reprints of Portland Confer- 
ence papers. 

They have distributed to journals 1600 of 
these reprints, most of them accompanied by 
typewritten notes. 

They have sent out 900 copies of different 
library news letters to several hundred differ- 
ent journals and papers. They have com- 
piled a list of the newspapers and literary 
and educational journals, 100 in number, 
which they thought most ready to print 
library news. This list they have sent to 232 
libraries and asked those libraries to send 
to the papers on the list copies of their last 
annual reports. From these librarians they 
received a total of 79 replies, of which 56 
were favorable and 22 unfavorable. This 
means that about 4000 library reports have, 
on the suggestion of this committee, gone to 
newspapers and journals. 

They have prepared a list of reprints of the 
Portland Conference and distributed to libra- 
ries, newspapers and individuals 1400 copies 
of the same. 

They have sent to 66 librarians a request 
that they establish a column or department of 
general library news in some of the leading 
papers in their respective cities and states. 
To this they received a few favorable 
replies. 

They have sent a second letter to the 
same persons requesting information about 
all the library news columns already estab- 
lished. The replies to this and other queries 
show that about 16 newspapers and jour- 
nals now print with considerable regularity 
items of library news. Their names are as 
follows : 

New York State 
Albany Argus 
New York Evening Post 

New England 

Boston Evening Transcript 
Providence Journal 
Lewiston (Me.) Journal 
Springfield Republican 



Missouri 

St. Joseph News-Press 
St. Joseph Star 
Sedalia Democrat 

Kansas 

Topeka Daily Capital 

New Jersey 

Newark Evening News 

Iowa 

Des Moines Mail and Times 

Michigan 

Grand Rapids Herald 
Grand Rapids Evening Press 
Grand Rapids Daily News 
Traverse City Eagle 



They have compiled a revised list, in three 
parts, of newspapers and journals to which 
they think it best to send reports and news 
items. These three parts cover respectively 
the East, the middle West, and the far West 
and South. A copy of this list is appended 
hereto and made a part of this report. 

They have sent to 34 of the persons who 
take part in this Conference asking for 
copies of their papers or reports or abstracts 
thereof, or outlines of meetings they are to 
conduct, for use in reporting the meeting it- 
self. In answer to this, 25 people, prior to 
the meeting, sent in papers, reports or ab- 
stracts. 

They sent to 300 librarians a circular letter 
about the Portland reprints, saying that they 
had been published and that very few copies 
had been purchased. 

They sent to 300 librarians and assistants 
a request that each send to his or her local 
paper at least one letter or report about the 
Conference from the Conference itself. 

To this they received (June 28) 50 replies, 
of which 47 are favorable. 

They arranged with Dr. G. E. Wire to 
report the Conference for the Associated 
Press, finding the Associated Press most 
courteous and ready to aid the Association in 
every way in its power. They sent to all 
who take part in this Conference over a 
hundred ' a second letter June 28, asking 
them to hand copies of their papers or re- 
ports or abstracts thereof at once to Dr. G. 
E. Wire. 

They sent to the Associated Press, June 
26, notes on this meeting and a number of 
papers and abstracts and reports. 

They sent on June 27 a note of reminder 



FOURTH SESSION 



215 



to the 47 people who promised to send let- 
ters from the Conference to their home 
papers. 
The committee recommend: 

1. That the work it has been doing be con- 
tinued at the central office or headquarters 
of the Association. 

2. That this work cover the following, among 
other, things: 

a. Acquire, advertise and distribute, in part 
free, not less than 24 reprints of papers 
read at this meeting. These reprints to 
be without covers, and each to be ac- 
companied by a sheet of information 
about the other reprints, the Association 
in general and especially its publications. 

b. Advertise widely the Association's pub- 
lications of every kind. 

c. Establish centers throughout the coun- 
try, usually by an agreement with an in- 
dividual librarian, for the distribution of 
library news. Urge library commissions 
to become such centers ; and if they pub- 
lish bulletins to have full news depart- 
ments and ask librarians to contribute 
thereto. 

d. Gather and distribute, first to certain 
journals, next to the centers mentioned, 
library news. 

: e. Establish general and local library news 
columns and departments in newspapers 
and magazines. In doing this make it 
plain that library news in a given city or 
town need not be confined to news of the 
local library. This point the committee 
has found it difficult to make clear, even 
to those willing to try to establish li- 
brary departments in local papers. Sub- 
scribe for 10 copies of Library Journal 
and Public Libraries and mail direct to 
editorial writers on important papers. 

/. Publish at an early date a library news- 
letter, after the usual style of such pub- 
lications, and send same to selected pa- 
pers in each state marked released for 
publication on specified dates. 

g. Prepare news notes for the publishers of 
ready-printed parts of country papers. 

h. Secure articles by special request from 
individuals, topics to be chosen by the 
central office or the writers, and offer 
same at appropriate times to the journals 
for which they seem especially adapted. 

i. Urge the Publishing Board so to change 
the name of the A. L. A. Booklist that it 
will indicate plainly its purpose. 

j. Urge the Publishing Board to change 
the form of the Booklist by doubling the 
the size of its page, and to include in it 
> all official news of the Association. 



k. Keep a complete record of all library 
news columns which appear with fair 
regularity throughout the country. 

3. That those who prepare material for the 
press avoid library technique for the most 
part and place stress on books, journals 
and writers. 

4. That librarians remember that in many 
towns more could be made in the local 
press of the resources of periodical lit- 
erature. Many reading rooms are looked 
after by people who know little of the 
riches that pass through their hands. 
More references could be made to the 
wealth of technical and scientific informa- 
tion which comes to us in this way. 

5. That we remember that a few of the great 
libraries of the country are of national 
importance and in any town can be occa- 
sionally be written up in the local press 
for example, the Congressional, the New 
York, the Boston, the Harvard, and in the 
West the Crerar and the Wisconsin His- 
torical. 

6. That more general library news be printed, 
if possible, in the bulletins of library com- 
missions. 

7. That the A. L. A. Booklist print occasion- 
ally lists of topics suitable for discussion 
in the public press like 

The Publishing Board, its activities. 

Education for librarianshij) to-day. 

The "A. L. A. catalog" : distribution to date, 
future plans. 

The A. L. A. Booklist. 

The State Library Commissions and the 
League thereof. 

The state libraries and their association. 

The price-of-books question. 

The quality of bookmaking. 

Bookbinding. 

The Library of Congress. 

Work with schools. 

The public school teachers' working knowl- 
edge of books. 

The library assistants' working knowledge 
of books. 

The catalog and printed catalog cards. 

The old-fashioned librarian and the new. 

The growth of medical libraries. 

Libraries and museums. 

The college student's working knowledge 
of books. 

The volume of proceedings of the A. L. A. 

8. That every library which prints an annual 



2l6 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



report be urged to send copies thereof to 
newspapers and journals, to as many and 
of such a character as the size, importance 
and location of each library make ad- 
visable. 

9. That all library associations be urged to 
devote some of their energies and a part 
of their income to making known in their 
respective states or cities the existence, 
work and purpose of libraries. 

90. 

That the library schools add to their 
courses one on how to prepare material re- 
lating to the library for the press. 

10. That those who are sensitive about pub- 
licity and have a little instinctive aversion 
to it, remind themselves that shyness is 
as often the child of a conceit that does 
not dare as of a conceit that is unduly 
proud; and also that taxes are paid by 
people who wish to know how they are 
spent and like to know what librarians are 
doing with their share of the public funds ; 
and also that the librarian is as much in 
duty bound to make known to his public 
the value and utility of the library he is 
building as is the author to publish the 
book he is inspired to write. 

iOa. 

That publicity for the library and library 
affairs in general may be so managed as to 
have little reference to the local librarian 
himself. 

J. C. DANA, 
) S. H. RANCK, 

PURD B. WRIGHT. 

Report accepted and its recommendations 
adopted. 

The PRESIDENT: The chair would state that 
the committee on permanent headquarters has 
no additional report to make. Dr. Putnam, 
the chairman, is not here; but I would ask 
a member of the committee, Mr. Andrews, 
to say a word for that committee. 

COMMITTEE ON PERMANENT HEADQUARTERS 

Mr. ANDREWS: The committee on perma- 
nent headquarters considers its function as 
advisory on the general policy of the head- 
quarters, on the projects to be carried out 
and not on the details in which they are to be 



carried out. Therefore, its chief report is 
the one to which I have already alluded, 
which is in print. The committee has seen 
in the years since then only added reasons 
for its conclusions there stated as to the 
necessity of many of these activities, and I 
think that its members are most heartily in 
favor of the establishment of headquarters 
as soon as the executive board feel that 
it will be safe financially to do so. The dis- 
tribution of power between the three com- 
mittees, of ways and means, of permanent 
headquarters, and of the executive board of 
the Association, may not be plain to the 
Association at large, but it is very plain to 
the members of the committees, and, there- 
fore, unless a man happens to be a member 
of all, as I do, he is careful not to trench 
on the field of his colleagues. I can speak, 
therefore, perhaps, a little more freely than 
the chairman. We have made no formal 
report because we have nothing new to pro- 
pose. Anybody who has any suggestion for 
the work of the Association headquarters 
should send the suggestion to Dr. Putnam, 
the chairman, who will secure the opinion of 
his committee on its desirability and will 
ask the executive board to carry it out if 
they can. 

ADVANCE PRINTING OF CONFERENCE PAPERS 

Mr. DANA: I would like to make a motion 
of considerable importance, and perhaps you 
may feel that there are not enough of us 
here to pass upon it without more considera- 
tion than we can give it now. But the pub- 
licity committee has found in the course of 
its work, and especially since we came here, 
that we have been very much hampered in 
what we would like to do by the fact that 
we could not get, in sufficient time, advance 
copies of papers that are to be presented here. 
If we could have had in type two weeks ago 
all the papers that have been read here they 
could and would have been sent over the 
country, partly by ourselves and partly by 
the Associated Press, and printed in a large 
number of newspapers; not all of them, of 
course, in full, some of them not at all, but 
not a few of them would have received re- 
spectful consideration by papers in the larger 
cities in the West. Now I want to suggest 



FOURTH SESSION 



217 



that hereafter papers be received and passed 
upon by the executive board at least two 
weeks before the date of the meeting; that 
they then, in accordance with the wishes of 
the executive board or the headquarters 
people, be put into type and distributed 
through the country, as may seem fit. I will 
therefore make the motion that hereafter 
papers that are to be presented at meetings 
of this Association shall be placed in the 
hands of the executive board at least two 
weeks before the date of the meeting. 

Mr. Louis N. WILSON : I second the mo- 
tion. 

Miss AHERN : I am very glad indeed to 
hear Mr. Dana make that motion. There has 
always been considerable trouble in finding 
out before meetings what was to be and what 
was not to be on the program. I know, 
from my connection with the National Edu- 
cational Association, that no paper may be 
read before that association that is not only 
not in the hands of the secretary's department, 
.but is not also accompanied by an abstract 
for the use of the Associated Press. There 
seems to be no good reason why this pre- 
cedent should not be followed by the Ameri- 
can Library Association, and I should like 
to ask if it be possible to have this matter 
referred to the Council with the request or 
with the intention of having a by-law added 
to the constitution to the effect that no paper 
be read before the Association whose author 
is not present and does not read the paper. 
That is also one of the rules of the National 
Educational Association. 

Mr. ANDREWS : I wish I could think that 
Mr. Dana's motion was something more 
than a pious wish. I have had some experi- 
ence as secretary of a society in trying to 
get papers before they were read, for the 
proceedings. I think that we ought to have 
some such lever as he proposes, but in its 
exact wording I am afraid it is rather 
peremptory and demands decidedly too long 
a time. I do not see why he mentions two 
weeks. If papers are in the hands of the sec- 
retary at the beginning of the conference 
it would seem to me a reasonable provision. 
The two weeks before a conference meets 
might change many a man's ideas on a sub- 
ject, and I think several speakers might re- 



fuse an invitation to address us if they had 
to present their address in writing two weeks 
before the convention met. 

Mr. DANA: To have the papers here only 
at the time of the conference would not pro- 
duce the effect we desire. We need these 
papers in order that news may be sent about 
the country as the executive board sees fit. 
It does not necessarily follow that every paper 
that is presented will be sent out by the ex- 
ecutive board, nor will it be necessary for 
the executive board to send out any paper 
whose author does not wish to have it sent 
out; and I do not think there would be any 
difficulty about allowing an author, after he 
has turned in his paper, to make any changes 
that the rapid march of events during the last 
two weeks before the Association meeting 
seems to him to demand. 

Mr. HENRY J. CARR: I am heartily in ac- 
cord with the point Mr. Dana desires to 
obtain. It does seem to me, knowing the 
spirit of our constitution, our method of 
working, that that is a matter that should be 
relegated to the Council for decisive action 
in the shape of a by-law; that our vote 
should be in the nature of a recommendation 
to the Council and not an action to bind the 
Association. 

The PRESIDENT: The chair would like to 
state from experience that we ought to creep 
before we walk; that this year we have a 
program on a little different plan, and we 
have attempted to get abstracts from all the 
writers. We did not succeed except in part, 
and it was with some difficulty that we got 
these in time for inclusion in the program. 
The start has been made and it will be easier 
another year to carry on the work. I would 
ask whether the same end would not be 
reached if, instead of making this compul- 
sory, the matter be referred to the Council 
as the expressed wish of the Association, and 
that the Council take it up as Mr. Carr has 
suggested? 

Mr. DANA: If it is true that when we say 
we want a thing done it is just the same as 
saying that we would like to have the Coun- 
cil think of it, then we might just as well 
say we would like to have the Council think 
of it, and I think Mr. Carr is right about it. 
We cannot say in this meeting that we want 



2l8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



to have anything done. We direct the Coun- 
cil to do something and the Council take it, 
no matter how we may direct them, as a 
recommendation. That is the way we have 
arranged the thing and it seems to work in 
most cases very well. I will, in accordance 
with Mr. Carr's sugggestion, change my mo- 
tion to this: "That the Association recom- 
mends that the Council secure the passage of 
a by-law, which shall say that papers to be 
presented at this Association must be in the 
hands of the executive board at least two 
weeks before the date of the meeting." 

Now I do not go on to make exceptions 
of persons whom we ask to deliver informal 
addresses like those we heard this afternoon. 
I take it that the executive board and the 
Council are people of ordinary good sense, 
and it is not necessary to lumber up the 
by-law or my motion with any exceptions 
of that sort. As the matter now stands, it 
is a recommendation of this meeting to the 
Council to see that a by-law is passed, pro- 
viding that papers shall be in the hands of 
the executive board at least two weeks before 
the date of the meeting at which they are 
to be presented. 

Motion accepted by seconder as amended 
and carried. 
HENRY J. CARR read the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN LIBRARY 
ASSOCIATION EXHIBIT AT JAMESTOWN EX- 
POSITION 

This special committee, at the outset of its 
term, had some correspondence with certain 
heads of departments engaged in organizing 
the exposition, in an advisory way relative to 
sizes and form of printed matter intended for 
distribution to visitors there. Judging by 
the instances of that nature which have thus 
far been sent out for publicity purposes, how- 
ever, it cannot be said that the recommenda- 
tions of the committee had much effect. 

The committee, when together at Atlantic 
City in March last, discussed the various 
phases and possibilities of an exhibit in 
behalf of library interests. There has also 
been considerable correspondence "between 
the chairman and the members, and with 
some other persons, by way of gathering sug- 
gestions. 



Mr. William Henry Sargeant, librarian of 
the Norfolk (Va.) Public Library, urged that 
a collection and exhibit of "Virginiana" be 
made, including both early books about Vir- 
ginia, books by Virginians, and books pub- 
lished in Virginia. Mr. John P. Kennedy, li- 
brarian of the State Library of Virginia, ex- 
presses great willingness to aid in the prepa- 
ration and making of such an exhibit; and 
the committee is unanimous in the opinion 
that any exhibit of that kind (that is to say, 
books, prints, etc., which though kept in 
libraries are historical more than biblio- 
graphical), had better be committed entirely 
to the state library. 

The agreed recommendations of this com- 
mittee touching any exhibit to be made by 
the American Library Association (if such 
may be decided upon, and funds provided for 
meeting the expense thereof), are as follows: 

1. Books. In one corner a small number of 
books of different kinds say 50 altogether. No 
children's books here, but technical books to 
be included. All books to have a simple 
book-plate, and be pocketed for Browne 
charging system ; also labelled on outside. 
Classification by D. C. and E. C. (half and 
half), with Cutter numbers from two-figure 
table. Fiction without call numbers, and 
biography with plain Cutter numbers. Shelves 
to be labelled. 

2. Desk. By this corner a simple desk, with 
charging tray for Browne system, and the or- 
dinary equipments of clips, etc. If this room 
is to be unguarded, whole desk could be cov- 
ered with showcase top. 

3. Children's corner. Second corner with 
low case for children's books, with careful se- 
lection ; arrangements like that of books for 
adults. Low table and small chairs near, with 
picture books. Bulletin for children, on wall 
near by. 

4. Wall space. Work with schools. Lists 
of school room libraries, and clipped accounts 
of work. 

5. Wall space. "Making the library known." 
Selected "Information for borrowers," from 
several libraries. Selected copies of library 
bulletins. Selected copies of library lists, 
mimeographed and written, showing different 
ways of telling people of books. Picture bul- 
letin with reading list. Social library notices, 
invitations, and signs meant to help readers. 
Newspaper clippings, showing notes of li- 
brary. 

6. Wall space. "Some American libraries."" 
Selection of photographs of interiors and ex- 
teriors. 



FIFTH SESSION 



219 



7. Table, with selection of good library re- 
ports, samples of Library Journal, Public 
Libraries, A. L. A. publications, the "A. L. A. 
catalog," and other library "helps." If these 
must be guarded, lock in a showcase, from 
which they can be had for examination on 
application. 

8. Standing newspaper rack. 

9. Periodical rack. 

The whole space should be made to look 
as informal and inviting as possible. In 
gathering material, other things will doubt- 
less come up. The intention of this plan is 
to suggest the public library as an active ed- 
ucational agency, rather than merely a depos- 
itory of books and a user of mechanical 
devices. 

There should also be included, as a fur- 
ther feature, some characteristic cases of 
travelling libraries from those put forth by 
the Seaboard Air Line Railroad under the 
direction of Mrs. Heard, and from the State 
Library of Virginia, both of which are under- 
stood to be typical of such work and in- 
structive in kind. Graphic charts that would 
catch the attention of casual visitors, and 
small pamphlets on prominent library topics 
that those interested can carry home, might 
be added to good purpose. 

It is possible that the necessary furniture 
may be loaned as a business matter by man- 
ufacturers of such specialties ; and perhaps 
the desired books themselves contributed by 
publishers and others. If so, the chief item 
of any other cost would be that of installa- 
tion through the personal visit of some one; 
and more or less oversight, or attendance, 
during the period of the exposition. 

It is not yet known how much space can be 
had for placing a library exhibit as recom- 
mended above; nor whether the exposition 
authorities, or others, would make appro- 
priations towards the expense. 

It is further recommended that the execu- 
tive board again appoint a special committee 
on the proposed library exhibit; one or more 
of whom should be situated as near the expo- 
sition as possible. The members of the com- 
mittee now reporting are so distant and 
scattered that it is hardly practicable for 
them to do this work. The committee rec- 
ommend also the adoption of a resolution in 
favor of the suggested collection and ex- 



hibition of "Virginiana" by the State Li- 
brary of Virginia. 

HENRY J. CARK, 
ISABEL ELY LORD. 

The resolution recommended is as follows : 

"Resolved, That the Council of the A. L. A. 
cordially commends the proposed collection 
and exhibition, by the State Library of Vir- 
ginia, at the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, 
of 'Virginiana' to include both early books 
and printed matter about Virginia, books by 
Virginians, and books published in that state." 



W. R. EASTMAN read the 



Accepted. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMINIS- 
TRATION 

(See p. 146.) 

Mr. Andrews, first vice-president, took the 
chair. 

Voted, That the report be accepted and re- 
ferred to the Council with recommendation 
for adoption. 

Adjourned. 



FIFTH SESSION 

(BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, THURS- 
DAY AFTERNOON, JULY S) 

The meeting was called to order by Presi- 
dent HILL at 3 o'clock. 
ADELAIDE R. HASSE read the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC DOCUMENTS 

(See p. 140.) 

Accepted and recommendations referred to 
executive board. 

Miss HASSE : It has occurred to me since 
writing this report, in talking to some of the 
librarians here, that instead of a committee 
reporting regularly on public documents, it 
might be advisable to provide on our pro- 
grams, among the various sections, a per- 
manent place for the discussion of public 
documents, an opportunity which is not given 
after the reading of a general report at a 
general session. If such provision were 
made, questions could be brought up by the 



22O 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



people most concerned, difficulties that are 
met in daily work, for there is really no pro- 
vision on a general program for such dis- 
cussion. (Applause.} 

W. L. POST: I suppose, as acting- Superin- 
tendent of Public Documents, I take a more 
vital interest in this question than probably 
any one else in the room. There should be 
at least 487 librarians in this country, who 
also take a lively interest in public documents, 
as that number receive gratuitously from the 
United States Government a very valuable 
collection of state papers. I want to empha- 
size one point, which I was requested to em- 
phasize to you by the congressional joint 
committee on printing, in a conversation a 
few days ago with the secretary of the joint 
committee, of which Senator Platt is the 
chairman. The question of distributing pub- 
lic documents came up and the matter of 
redistribution of government publications was 
referred to. I was forced to admit that the 
librarians of the country, not only designated 
depositories but other libraries, were abus- 
ing the privilege of receiving government 
publications. For instance, government de- 
positories are to receive everything printed 
for the executive departments for distribu- 
tion, and it is the endeavor of the Public 
Printer and of the Superintendent of Docu- 
ments to furnish these libraries with every- 
thing printed that comes under this head; 
but the libraries do not wish to retain every- 
thing that is sent them under this head. Yet 
when we send out circulars asking if they 
will allow us to discriminate for them, or if 
they will send us lists so that we may know 
what they want, they refuse absolutely to do 
this, thinking, no doubt, that the franking 
privilege costs Uncle Sam absolutely no- 
thing. I should like to say that it costs us 
5 cents a pound to send or take back public 
documents. So when you request us to send 
you everything, and then you look it over and 
request the Superintendent of Documents to 
send you franks and sacks for the return 
of what you don't want, you are causing 
great expense to the government. If you 
will furnish the Superintendent of Docu- 
ments with lists of those publications you 
find most desirable (omitting the sheep set, 
which we will not allow you to break), we 



will be glad to see that you do not get 
superfluous matter. But if you continue to 
demand everything I am afraid that the 
committee on printing, in this age of re- 
form, will cut down your privileges and that 
you won't get as much as you are getting 
now. I only give this as a warning. 

One word more, and that is this : I heartily 
approve Miss Hasse's suggestion that there 
be made possible some discussion of public 
documents during these conferences. I hope 
the matter will receive attention. 

The PRESIDENT: The subject chosen for tfie 
present session is one of the greatest im- 
portance to librarians throughout the coun- 
try library architecture. The program com- 
mittee has secured speakers who represent 
different phases of the subject. The consult- 
ing architect is to be heard, the librarian is 
to be heard, the architect as an individual 
and as a member of an architectural commis- 
sion presents his views, and we are to hear 
from one of our old members who has given 
the subject more thought and attention prob- 
ably than any other member. We will now 
take up this subject. 

RAYMOND F. ALMIRALL read a paper on 

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF BRANCH LIBRARY 
BUILDINGS 

(See p. 46.) 
CHARLES C. SOULE read a paper on 

THE NEED OF AN AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIA- 
TION COLLECTION OF LIBRARY PLANS 

(See p. 45- ) 
BERNARD R. GREEN read a paper on 

LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND BOOK STACKS 

(See p. 52.) 
W. H. BRETT read a paper on 

LIBRARY ARCHITECTURE FROM THE LIBRARIAN'S 
POINT OF VIEW 

(See p. 49-) 
Prof. A. D. F. HAMLIN read a paper on 

THE VIEWS OF A CONSULTING ARCHITECT 

(See p. 57-) 



FIFTH SESSION 



221 



Mr. WILLIAM ABBATT: There may have 
teen a use actually made of the prism form 
of light in library practice, but I have never 
seen it. In commercial matters it is very 
widely used, and it seems to me it would 
solve many of the problems of light for li- 
brary use, and meet to some extent the crit- 
icisms or suggestions of Mr. Green. It solves 
the question of shade also, because the light 
coming through the prism light, as it is 
called, is mellowed and the glare of the sun 
is taken away. 

Mr. DUDLEY : Mr. Soule has been so long 
known as the author of the Ten Command? 
ments of library architecture that nobody 
was surprised at the valuable paper which 
he read here to-day. The American Library 
Association, as some of you may have been 
told, was formed thirty years ago. It has 
had committees working on nearly every 
subject of activity in the line of library 
economy except architecture. The papers 
read this morning are worth more than all 
that has been said on that subject at other 
conferences. I believe that we should take 
up the matter of library architecture in a 
thorough and systematic manner through a 
committee, following the suggestions made 
by Mr. Soule, and I therefore move that the 
executive board be requested to appoint a 
committee of five on architecture. 

Voted. 

Dr. E. C. RICHARDSON read the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RE- 
LATIONS 

This committee is the lineal successor of 
last year's committee on international fed- 
eration and was appointed at the suggestion 
of the chairman of that committee, Dr. Put- 
nam. It consists of Cyrus Adler, J. S. Bil- 
lings, W. C. Lane, Herbert Putnam and E. C. 
Richardson, chairman. The committee last 
year reported that the overtures as to the 
practicability of some formal international 
co-operation or federation had resulted in 
pleasant communications, but; not in any 
practicable scheme for formal union, and that 
no definite suggestions for international co- 
operation had been made save as to matters 
of a 'possible co-operation in the indexing of 



periodicals, and uniformity of treatment in 
regard to cataloging rules. 

As a matter of fact, enterprises in both of 
these suggested lines were then and are still 
going on, and I have the honor to report 
for the committee this year progress both 
as to international cataloging rules and on 
the "International catalogue of scientific lit- 
erature." 

International Catalog Rules 

A special report will be made on this subject 
by the A. L. A. committee to the Publishing 
Board. It will be enough to say here that the 
English rules and the advance American rules 
have been worked over together carefully by 
each committee, and have been brought into 
accord at a great number of points, so that 
there remain less than a half dozen points of 
positive disagreement at the present time. It 
is hoped that an edition of rules will be 
printed in the near future and that this will 
contain not more than four cases which differ 
so far that both rules need be printed. 

Great skepticism was expressed by the offi- 
cials of the Gesamtkatalog last year over the 
possibility of any understanding between Ger- 
mans, English, and Americans in this matter 
of rules, but discussion with the very repre- 
sentatives who expressed this skepticism last 
year has brought out the fact that a certain 
amount of approaching in this regard is not 
inconceivable, e.ven with continental libraries. 

International Catalogue of Scientific Literature 

The matter of the International Catalogue 
of Scientific Literature, although in no sense 
an A. L. A. enterprise, has always been stead- 
ily kept in sight by this Association, and par- 
ticularly through Dr. Adler, who is connected 
with the enterprise, and who is a member of 
this committee. He reports regarding the 
state of the enterprise and its new lease of life 
for five years as follows : 

The most important recent event connected 
with the International Catalogue of Scientific 
Literature was the meeting of the First Inter- 
national Convention in London on July 25 
and 26, 1005. 

In the International Convention is vested 
the absolute control of the catalogue, and at 
this meeting, among other questions consid- 
ered, were whether to continue the publica- 
tion beyond the first period of five years, and 
also to decide as to the value and efficiency 
of the classification schedules used during the 
first period and what improvements, if any, 
were needed in them. 

As to the first question it was resolved : 
"That in view of the success already 



222 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



achieved by the International Catalogue 
of Scientific Literature and its great im- 
portance to scientific works, it is imper- 
ative to continue the publication of the 
catalogue at least for a further period of 
five years." 

The growing appreciation shown for the 
work among scientific investigators has fully 
demonstrated the need of this index to scien- 
tific literature, and the success of the under- 
taking seems now assured, as sufficient guar- 
anteed subscriptions have been made to sup- 
port it for the second period, that is from 
1906 through 1910. 

The catalogue may be said to have passed 
the experimental stage, and to have become 
the standard international reference work to 
general scientific literature. 

The zoological section of the catalogue has 
absorbed the Zoological Record, and begin- 
ning with the index to the literature of 1906 
this old and famous year book will be pub- 
lished in connection with the zoological vol- 
ume of the International Catalogue. This 
consolidation of interests is a cause for mu- 
tual congratulation. 

The staff in charge of the Zoological Record 
will be able to eliminate the expense and 
labor connected with the publication and dis- 
tribution of this year book and save also to 
a large extent the trouble of collecting and 
classifying the necessary data. The various 
Regional Bureaus will prepare the references 
and submit them for approval to experts of the 
Zoological Society of London, who in the fu- 
ti-re as in the past will be in charge of the 
Zoological Record. The International Cata- 
logue will by this method gain the services 
and advice of some of the foremost zoologists 
of the world. 

The classification schedules, which are the 
vital and essential means by which a vast 
literature is rendered instantly available to 
specialists, naturally received full considera- 
tion by the convention, who by the advice of 
the makers of the catalogue authorized many 
minor and some important changes and ad- 
ditions to be made. These changes will go 
into effect with the cataloguing of the litera- 
ture of 1906. 

After an experience of over five years the 
original schedules have proved their worth 
and the wisdom of their framers, but experi- 
ence has pointed out many unfilled needs and 
the necessary changes will be made. 

Since the beginning of the undertaking in 
1901, 57 volumes of the catalogue have been 
published. Some idea of the amount of scien- 
tific work being done may be gained by the 
fact that from the Smithsonian Institution 
are now being sent to the London Central 
Bureau to be incorporated in the catalogue 
about 25,000 references each year. 



Some members of the committee, and a 
good many other librarians, have expressed 
themselves to the chairman of this committee 
as greatly wishing that the index might be 
compiled and issued in a form more useful to 
libraries. It is not universally felt that the 
confidence of Dr. Adler and the makers of the 
index in its essential practicability is wholly 
justified, although the present accomplish- 
ment and more splendid possibilities of use- 
fulness are very generally recognized, and 
the wish to have its scope extended to his- 
torical and other learned periodicals very 
widely expressed. The thing to be desired 
is that all learned periodicals should, after 
due study of the experience of this index, 
be indexed in one consistent method under 
one central organization. 

It is not felt, in view of the responses last 
year, that any attempt at organized federa- 
tion with foreign associations is practicable, 
but it is felt that we may properly urge the 
appointment of committees of foreign asso- 
ciations similar to this committee, and that by 
the selection for these committees of mem- 
bers who may be by way of visiting and 
comparing notes, some valuable methods of 
co-operation may be developed. 

It is suggested by Mr. Lane, and many will 
agree, that the most important single matter 
with which this Association should concern 
itself internationally and at once is some 
effort to secure from some German source 
the printing of cards for German publica- 
tions in such form that they may be of use to 
and obtained by American libraries. 

By far the most interesting and far reach- 
ing matter which has come to the attention 
of the committee during past years is the 
overture of the German Government to the 
United States Government in behalf of a 
proposition to take part in the direct inter- 
national lending of manuscripts and printed 
documents, according to a suggestion made 
by the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. 
This proposition is in effect to extend to 
American libraries the same system of ex- 
change which now exists between various 
European nations. It contemplates mutual 
loan, under proper conditions and safeguards, 
at the expense of the borrowers, of such man- 
uscripts or documents as may properly be 



SIXTH SESSION 



223 



loaned. This proposition was submitted by 
the Department of State to the Librarian of 
Congress for an expression of views, and he 
reported, expressing appreciation of the 
value of the proposed system and indicating 
the willingness of the Library of Congress 
to act as intermediary exchange, under cer- 
tain circumstances, when the exchange would 
not be better made direct, and to furnish 
such information as would facilitate the ex- 
change for those institutions which are pre- 
pared to undertake it. He also agreed to 
communicate the undertaking to the Ameri- 
can Library Association at this meeting and 
has done so by transmitting a copy of the 
correspondence to this committee. 

It is a matter of extreme congratulation 
that this beginning should have been made 
in a matter which has been recognized at our 
meetings, and is generally recognized among 
scholars and in institutions of learning, as 
one of great possibilities of scientific profit. 

It must be confessed that we in America 
are more by way of getting than of giving 
in such exchanges ; but, on the other hand, 
the increase of manuscript collections in this 
country has been rapid in recent years, and 
there are now many thousands of manuscripts 
in this country which might be wanted by a 
European scholar, and might suitably be 
loaned, so that some reciprocity at least can 
be made. 

It is suggested that in the acceptance of 
this report the Association should express its 
gratification that the proposition to extend 
the system of exchange of manuscripts and 
printed documents to American libraries has 
been made, and should express also its hope 
that the American government will see fit to 
further in every practicable way the adequate 
inception and operation of the system. 
E. C. RICHARDSON, 
For the committee. 
Report accepted. 

W. C. LANE: I should like to move that the 
Association express, through the Librarian 
of Congress and the Department of State, 
to the German Government its appreciation 
of the offer which has been so generously 
snade. 

The PRESIDENT: Under the rules the mo- 



tion will be submitted to the committee on 
resolutions for formal draft, but I will put 
it as made by Mr. Lane. 

Voted. 
H. E. LEGLER read the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY TRAINING 

(See p. I7S-) 

Report accepted. 

Mr. ANDREWS, first vice-president, took the 
chair. 

Mr. LANE: May I make a motion in con- 
nection with the report of the committee on 
international relations? I, for one, should 
like very much to see some definite steps 
taken toward realizing the suggestion which 
was made in that report the possibility, 
that is, of some German Government de- 
partment or library being induced to do for 
current German books what the Library of 
Congress does for current books here. It 
would be a useful step in the development of 
German libraries ; but what interests us main- 
ly, of course, is the advantage it would be to 
American libraries if, when we import Ger- 
man books, we cculd import cards to catalog 
them by. I move that the executive board 
be requested to take up in whatever seems to 
it to be the proper way the matter of in- 
ducing the German Government to print 
cards for current German publications. 

Dr. RICHARDSON : Would you accept as 
amendment that the executive board instruct 
the committee on international relations or 
the corresponding committee, if appointed for 
another year, that it make a special effort to 
have this done? 

Amendment accepted and motion carried. 

Adjourned. 

SIXTH SESSION 

(BALL ROOM, MATHEWSON HOUSE, FRIDAY 
MORNING, JULY 6) 

President HILL called the meeting to order 
at 9.30 o'clock. 

PERMANENT HEADQUARTERS 

President HILL: You will be pleased to 
know, I think, of the decision of the execu- 



224 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



tive board, as reported to the Council last 
evening, to the effect that American Library 
Association headquarters will be opened as 
soon after the ist of September as it is 
possible to secure adequate quarters, and 
that Mr. E. C. Hovey has been selected to 
be in charge of the headquarter?. (Applause.) 
A. L. BAILEY read a summary of the report 
of the tellers, giving results of 

ELECTION OF OFFICERS 

Total vote cast, 384. 

President: C. W. Andrews, 353; (scatter- 
ing, 5). 

ist vice-president: E. H. Anderson, 348; 
(scattering, 7). 

2d vice-president: Katharine L. Sharp, 345; 
(Mary W. Plummer, i). 

Treasurer: George F. Bowerman, 240; 
(Drew B. Hall, 107; T. L. Montgomery, 5). 

Recorder: Helen E. Haines, 324; (Joseph- 
ine A. Rathbone, 5). 

Trustee of Endowment Fund: D. P. Corjy, 
345- 

A. L. A. Council: Alice S. Tyler, 297 ; Purd 
B. Wright. 284; Herbert Putnam, 277; 
George S. Godard, 241 ; T. W. Koch, 207. 
(H. G. Wadlin, S. H. Ranck and Isabel Ely 
Lord received from 117 to 194 votes each.) 

The PRESIDENT : At the moment I will only 
congratulate Mr. Andrews upon his elec- 
tion to the highest office in the gift of the 
Association and at the same time congratu- 
late the Association upon the excellence of 
its choice. (Applause.) 

C. W. ANDREWS: Mr. President, when I 
shall take over the commission which you 
lay down I shall do so with pleasure, as com- 
ing from a personal friend, and with pride 
in being the last to fill the roll of presidents ; 
and I hope that I may be able to show to the 
Association my appreciation of the honor. 
To you, ladies and gentlemen, I can only say, 
wi'th all sincerity and earnestness, simply 
the words I thank you. To this Association 
I owe many of my warmest friends and many 
of my most pleasant acquaintances, much of 
my professional advancement, and a great 
deal of my professional knowledge. There- 
fore I should be most ungrateful if I did not 
try in some way to show my appreciation of 
what it has been to me. At the same time 



I am so conscious of my own deficiencies; 
and inadequacy as a presiding officer that I 
must ask you to bear with me in the same 
spirit of loyalty to the Association which you 
have always shown. The announcement of 
the president as to the decision of the out- 
going board, which will surely be ratified by 
the incoming board, to begin the work to 
which we have been looking forward so long 
and with such hope the opening of perma- 
nent headquarters I would like to impress 
upon you, does not mean or should not mean 1 
any diminution of your personal loyalty to 
each other. I hope that the headquarters 
will prove simply another means of bringing 
each of us through the year in contact with 
the one man or woman in the Association 
who can help us in our province, and that we 
shall feel the influence of this conference- 
throughout the year. (Applause.) 

President HILL: The program for this day 
is special, as has been the program of each 
day. We now take up the subject of "The 
library in relation to special- classes of read- 
ers." "*. 

Miss EMMA R. NEISSER read a paper on 

BOOKS FOR THE BLIND 

(See p. 78.) 

Mr. ANDREWS, first vice-president, took the 
chair. 

SAMUEL H. RANCK: Before plunging into 
discussion of libraries and books for the 
blind, I should like to call attention to 
two or three fundamental principles which 
it seems to me we should keep in mind 
in all our work, because we will then 
understand perhaps more clearly the rea- 
sons for the public library taking up work 
for the blind 1 . I like to think of the public 
library as an institution for the dissemination 
of ideas and ideals rather than for the mere 
circulation of books or the reading of maga- 
zines. In its dissemination of ideas and 
ideals the library establishes lecture courses,, 
exhibitions of prints, pictures, and so on, and 
it appeals to the intelligence of the com- 
munity in various ways other than through- 
the printed book. 

As a public institution the public library 
should endeavor to reach every class in the- 



SIXTH SESSION 



22$ 



community, because all classes are citizens. 
It should endeavor to reach the professional, 
industrial, racial or national classes and it 
should endeavor to interest them. And here 
I should like to say that I do not like the 
term "advertising" as applied to libraries. I 
rather prefer the phrase "interesting the pub- 
lic," because if we can have public interest 
in our work that is what we want. 

In interesting the public we can work 
through special classes, and the blind are a 
special class. In working with the blind the 
library will soon discover that there are a 
considerable number of difficulties to be con- 
sidered. One is the cost of books in em- 
bossed print. Another is the fact that so 
relatively few of the people in the city can 
read any one style of embossed print. There 
are five or six different styles of embossed 
print. In the city of Grand Rapids we have 
on our list some 20 blind persons. Of that 
number only six or seven can read any style 
of embossed print and only three or four any 
one style of embossed print. For instance, 
we have the New York point and the Ameri- 
can Braille, the English Braille, the conti- 
nental Braille, the Moon type and the Bos- 
ton line letter, and the library must consider, 
first, which of these or which two or three 
of these it is going to use, or which are 
adapted to the readers in that particular com- 
munity. 

Another difficulty is the fact that the great 
majority of persons who are blind become 
so late in life. Years ago the majority of 
blind persons became blind in infancy. That 
does not mean that they were born blind, but 
in the first days or weeks of infancy, through 
neglect and ignorance, the sight of the child 
was destroyed. Through the extension of 
knowledge and the passage of laws, the num- 
ber of blind in this country who become 
blind in infancy has been reduced to a very 
small percentage, so that now the average age 
of persons who become blind is, in some of 
the states at least, in the neighborhood of 
40 years. This brings the difficulty of 
teaching persons who become blind so late 
in life how to read embossed print, and that 
brings us back again to the difficulty of hav- 
ing five or six different styles of embossed 
print to select from. 



If a library should decide to establish a de- 
partment of books for the blind, to purchase 
books or do any sort of work for the blind, 
it seems to me that there is one fundamental 
principle which should be ever kept in mind, 
and that is that libraries should help to dis- 
seminate ideas among the blind, not because 
of sympathy or because they are unfortunate, 
but simply because they are citizens. 

Miss Neisser refers to the recent enactment 
of laws by the United States Congress per- 
mitting books to be sent through the mails 
free of postage to blind readers. In some 
cities a new difficulty has come in the way. 
Many of these books in this country this is 
not true of books published in England to so 
great an extent are so heavy that the let- 
ter carriers in a large city will not deliver 
them, and it becomes necessary for the blind 
citizens to go or to send to the post-office to 
get them, and in some cases that means a 
journey of three, four, five or six miles, and 
they are no better off than they were before 
when obliged to go to the library. Another 
difficulty is that blind persons are often un- 
able to go about the city. In many cases it 
is necessary, for this reason, to provide 
guides. 

A few weeks ago in Grand Rapids we in- 
vited all blind persons to meet at the library, 
to talk over with the library staff and one of 
the officers of the board of library commis- 
sioners the whole matter of work for the blind 
as related to that particular city. All these 
points were discussed thoroughly and fully, 
and as a result of that conference, and in def- 
erence to the wishes of the blind there rep- 
resented, a series of readings were instituted 
for blind persons every Tuesday afternoon. 
The matter to be read is selected by the blind 
themselves, and the reader is provided by the 
library, and we are looking forward later 
on to some better solution of the question of 
providing books. 

This matter of assembling the blind at a 
library and reading to them has been, in cer- 
tain quarters, criticised most severely, es- 
pecially on the part of the schools for the 
blind. There is a strong feeling that it is a 
dangerous thing to bring blind persons to- 
gether in this way, as I have learned in talk- 
ing with the principals of different, institu- 



226 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



tions for the blind; and the chief argument 
they use against it, especially as regards 
young persons, is the danger that the library 
may become in this way a matrimonial bu- 
reau. They argue that it is a crime against 
the state to permit two blind persons to 
marry. And this is another matter that has 
to be considered. 

Last August, at Saginaw, Mich., there was 
held a conference of workers for the blind, 
and as a result of this conference there was 
formed the American Association of Workers 
for the Blind. This includes members of 
various organizations of the blind, and it 
also includes the principals and teachers in 
schools for the blind, and all others who are 
interested in this work. As a result of this 
conference the following resolution was 
adopted, which expressed the feeling of that 
conference with reference to the work of pub- 
lic libraries for the blind: 

"Resolved by the conference of workers for 
the adult blind, at Saginaw assembled, that 
it is the sense of this convention that the pub- 
lic libraries of the country may more profit- 
ably expend effort and money in the sending 
out of embossed books and home teachers 
who are blind, rather than in the establish- 
ment and maintenance of reading rooms with 
sighted readers for the blind in the library." 

You will notice that the sentiment of that 
conference was to the effect that the public 
library /should provide teachers for the blind, 
should teach people who become blind late in 
life how to read, rather than to have public 
readings with sighted readers. 

The other morning, at this A. L. A. confer- 
ence, a number of persons who are interested in 
work for the blind met, and as a result of that 
meeting there was drawn up a request which 
will be presented to the executive board ask- 
ing for a full and adequate study of this 
whole subject to be presented to this Asso- 
ciation one year hence. The idea was that 
there are so many divergent views on this 
matter and so many difficulties that those 
interested would like this Association to ap- 
point a committee to study and offer recom- 
mendations upon this whole perplexing and 
important subject. (Applause.) 

Miss E. J. GIFFIN : The greatest question 
is the size and the prices of the books; they 



are so very expensive and also so very cum- 
bersome. I have here a few of the foreign 
books which are much more easily handled 
and much less expensive. I do not think we 
have such books in this country that you 
could get for 20 cents or 40 cents. Here is 
one from the British and Foreign Blind Insti- 
tution, and I wish to call special attention to 
the paper and binding. This is sulphite paper ; 
it is very light, and the binding is simply 
straw board and silk cloth. All of these 
wear well and give a light, easily handled 
volume. Any one who is familiar with books 
for the blind has seen our immense books, 
larger than a dictionary and, when wrapped, 
often weighing almost ten pounds. They are 
also very troublesome to read, being so large 
that the blind person has to lean clear over 
in order to read the top of the page. Then, 
besides, our books cost prohibitively, and that 
is a great drawback to all libraries. Now 
the British and Foreign Blind Institution, at 
Great Portland street, London, with their up- 
to-date machinery and apparatus for drying 
embossed pages, can make an ordinary book, 
70 plates, 50 copies, for about $80. The blind 
are employed in making these books. Also 
in France, the blind emboss the plates from 
which the books are made. In Edinburgh 
the Braille Printing and Publishing Co. has 
a new process which is called the brailleo- 
type. It is a machine driven by electric 
power which can emboss one thousand sheets 
an hour, each sheet having four pages. The 
embossing does not damp the paper, the sheets 
can be bound immediately, and the copy can 
be set up by blind people, thus giving them 
employment. If a mistake is made or a line 
omitted it can be easily and quickly rem- 
edied. For every sheet turned out by the 
older method the new machine will turn out 
1500. They also publish a weekly paper, the 
price of which is one penny. And I am 
happy to say that there is a similar move- 
ment on foot here now; a generous lady who 
does not wish her name known has promised 
to furnish a fund for the publication of an 
up-to-date magazine that shall be sent free 
to the blind. There will be short and long 
stories and essays and departments for music 
and book reviews. If any librarian or any 
person who knows of a blind person, even 



SIXTH SESSION 



227 



though they do not yet read, will send the 
name to Mr. Walter G. Holmes, care of Paul 
Block, Flatiron Building, New York City, 
as soon as the magazine is ready the per- 
son named will receive it. 

I wish we might have many more books 
printed. The blind who have attended the 
schools have read, of course, almost every- 
thing that is in the school libraries. They 
want new books. Then those who have lost 
their sight late in life; for instance, the last 
person that I helped to read is a graduate of 
Harvard. Naturally he has read all that 
everybody else has read and we have nothing 
to offer him. What I hoped very much might 
result from the resolutions which were drawn 
up rather hastily the other day was that we 
might in some way arrange to have several 
librarians pu/. on the committee with the 
school educators who decide on the printing 
of books for the blind. This is done by the 
Government, which gives $10,000 annually to 
the American Printing House at Louisville, 
and I hope that we may have an equal num- 
ber of librarians appointed on the committee 
for selecting the books. 

ASA D. DICKINSON: I should like very 
much to make a special plea for the need of 
co-operation, combination and organization 
in library work for the blind. Those are 
three long words, but three very good ones, 
and words which seem to be most necessary 
in this work. Mr. Ranck has told us some- 
thing of his experience in Grand Rapids, and 
his experience, I think, is typical of many 
more places of the same size. A public li- 
brary becomes interested in work for the 
blind and perhaps $200 are appropriated; the 
field is canvassed, and then perhaps, as Mr. 
Ranck has told us, 20 blind people are dis- 
covered who are interested. Then it is 
found that perhaps a third of the number 
have become blind early in life and have 
gone to a blind school and been taught 
to read; the others not having been taught 
to read, the books are of no value to them 
without home teaching. Of the remainder, 
then, we have a dozen people; they have 
been taught, if they are young, some one or 
other of the several point systems, it is im- 
possible to tell which, their use being nearly 
equally divided throughout the country. Well, 



our twenty books the twenty titles that we 
can buy with our $200, in the present ex- 
pensive state of the market for blind books 
and the bulky way in which they are print- 
ed our twenty books in perhaps three se- 
cure frames, are placed before our readers, 
and then it is found that of those books only 
a very small proportion, two or three prob- 
ably, can be read by any one of the very 
small proportion of readers. When those 
books have been read by all who are able to 
do so, they are thrust up in the attic or down 
in the cellar, and that is the end of them 
except when the librarian thinks of the mis- 
take he made and the money he squandered. 
I wish very much that something could be 
done to enable us to exchange such books 
throughout the country that there could be 
some national organization or some two or 
three central organizations which could pro- 
vide the books for our use in this way. The 
possession of the books is but a fraction of 
library work for the blind ; we must hunt out 
the people and interest them ; and, above all, 
teach them ; and I should like to make a pica 
for co-operation among libraries in this work 
for the blind. I have been told that Miss 
Neisser, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Hodges, 
of Cincinnati, who are foremost in the work 
in their libraries, have more books than they 
know what to do with, and I would sugggest, 
in the present absence of any national or- 
ganization we have a few state libraries 
which furnish books for the blind, but they 
are all too few that any small city taking 
up library work for the blind would do better 
to expend the greater part of its money in 
home teaching and to borrow the books if pos- 
sible, and as long as they hold out, from Miss 
Neisser and Mr. Hodges. (Laughter.) Then 
perhaps in time we could make some arrange- 
ment whereby each state should contribute 
a certain quota of books to a general store, 
and when in one locality the books bought 
there have outlived their usefulness, they can 
be passed on to some other community to 
which they are fresh, where they may have a 
new lease of life. What seems to me the thing 
most necessary for us to do now is to em- 
phasize the need in this work for co-operation, 
combination and organization. (Applause.} 
The secretary read the following letter 



228 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



from B. B. HUNTOON, superintendent of the 
American Printing House for the Blind: 

LOUISVILLE, Ky., June 18, 1906. 
To the American Library Association: 

DEAR FRIENDS: In the name and on behalf 
of the reading blind of our country, I thank 
you for what so many of your members have 
done in establishing departments for the blind 
in 36 of the libraries in our land. 

No greater boon has been conferred on the 
blind in the last 20 years than this. 

It is a joy and a comfort to those whose 
hours of darkness are many, far greater than 
can be told in words. 

And the establishment of such a department 
is so simple, especially since Congress has 
given free transportation for loaned books, 
that I earnestly hope that there may be soon 
not a state without one or more such depart- 
ments in its libraries. 

Books for the blind are large, owing to the 
great size of the type required, and costly 
owing to the small size of each edition. 
Cooper's "Pilot," Thackeray's "Henry Es- 
mond," and "Scott's "Ivanhoe," all embossed 
in 1896, have had a sale of respectively 65, 48 
and 78 copies. 

In poetry the record is better. Selections 
from Longfellow, Whittier and Holmes, em- 
bossed in 1883 and '84, have had a sale re- 
spectively of 330, 224 and 220 copies. 

In books for children, Hans Andersen's 
"Fairy tales," embossed in 1884, has had a 
sale of 224 copies, and Kipling's "Jungle 
book" of 1894 of 128 copies, and "Robinson 
Crusoe" of 1898 of 46 copies. 

These figures show why books for the blind 
can be printed only as a benefaction. 

Owing to the wisdom of the government in 
providing for the printing of educational 
books, and of the munificent generosity of the 
New York State Library in expending, during 
the past six years, over $5000 for embossing 
books not specially educational, the list of 
titles is not inconsiderable. 

The practical result of the working of the 
department for the blind, as shown in the re- 
ports of the various libraries, is eminently 
satisfactory. 

It is a vindication of the broad, progressive 
spirit that characterizes the American libra- 
rian, which has led to the cultivation of new 
fields from which have come noble harvests. 

I acknowledge with admiration what you 
have already done, and am 

Gratefully yours, 

B. B. HUNTOON. 

The CHAIRMAN : The chair has one or two 
questions which he would like to put for the 



Association generally one to Miss Giffin 
in regard to comparative prices of these 
books. 

Miss GIFFIN : The American Printing 
House for the Blind, at Louisville, prices De 
Foe's "Robinson Crusoe," in 2 volumes, at 
$6; the same at the British and Foreign Blind 
Institution, in 3 volumes, which makes it 
much more convenient to handle, is 6 shil- 
lings and sixpence, or $2.44; Charles Dickens' 
"Christmas carol" (Louisville), I volume, 
$2.50; the same at the British and Foreign, 
in 2 volumes, 5 shillings; Drummond, "The 
greatest thing in the world," I volume 
(Louisville), 75 cents; the same, I volume 
(British), i shilling and 8 pence. "Undine," 
I volume (Louisville), $2.50; the same 2 
volumes (British), 7 shillings, or $1.68. Both 
of these institutions receive aid, ours through 
the government and the British through con- 
tributions. I think we should all be willing 
to have the books printed on less expensive 
paper and to use a simpler binding, and not 
have to pay so much for them. 

President ANDREWS : The other question 
was, Miss Neisscr, whether the provision of 
the recent law permits free transportation be- 
tween libraries? That is to say, whether Mr. 
Dickinson's proposition would throw any 
burden either on the receiving or the distrib- 
uting library? 

Miss NEISSER : We have already been send- 
ing under this law books to several libraries 
for the use of the blind. We sent to blind 
persons in care of libraries in Pennsylvania 
and in Connecticut and there has never been 
any trouble about it. 

Mr. RANCK : There is one more point that 
the American Association of Workers for 
the Blind is very much interested in, and I 
think it will interest this audience also, and 
that is, that they have a committee, in con- 
nection with a committee in Europe, at 
work to obtain a uniform system of embossed 
print, and it seems to me that anything that 
this Association can do to aid in that attempt 
would simplify matters very much, not only 
in this country but throughout the world. 
(Applause.) 

H. H. BALLARD: May I suggest the use of 
the phonograph for blind persons? It is 
possible now to procure blank records at the 






SIXTH SESSION 



229 



rate of 10 cents or less, and any person can 
prepare a record very easily that will be lis- 
tened to by a blind person for from two to 
four minutes. A phonograph, which can be 
procured for five dollars, can be kept in the 
library and loaned to a blind person, with the 
records. This is a very practical plan where 
you have not the printed books and 
cannot go to great expense. I have tried 
it in one or two cases and know that it 
will work. 

Mr. DICKINSON : I think a few dollars, say 
ten dollars, spent in purchasing plaster casts 
would be very enlightening to the blind cli- 
entele of a library. I have had personal ex- 
perience of the appreciation of plaster casts 
by one or two blind persons who have come 
in contact with them, and it would be a mode 
of enlightenment which would perhaps recon- 
cile Mr. Ranck to the lesser joy of giving 
them a little simple recreation. 

C. S. GREENE: The trouble seems to be, in 
this matter of giving books to the blind, in 
the small number of blind persons to be 
found in any one place. It seems to me that 
we ought to enlarge the unit to the state li- 
brary. In California the state library under- 
takes to supply books for the blind through- 
out the state. It has been doing this not much 
over a year; last year it sent out 93 books to 
the blind and it has already 139 blind readers, 
with about 542 books. We have lately offered 
to the libraries throughout the state to sup- 
ply small collections of these books if they 
will undertake to see that the blind in their 
neighborhoods are induced to read those 
books. 

Mr. BOSTWICK: The New York Public Li- 
brary, which has a very large collection of 
books for the blind, is circulating its books in 
three states New York, Connecticut arid 
New Jersey and any library or any blind 
individual who wishes to take out books from 
the New York library may do so, taking ad- 
vantage of the free postage act. We shall 
be glad to respond to any demand that may 
be made. 

Miss ALICE S. TYLER: The Iowa commis- 
sion has been circulating these books in Iowa 
with the aid of the state institution for the 
blind. We have not undertaken the prob- 
lem of teaching, but it certainly is practic- 



able to circulate books for the blind from a 
state center, by means of the travelling library 
system. 

Miss GIFFIN : California is doing the same 
good work. They not only loan books to in- 
dividuals, but they will send a travelling 
library to any little town that will promise to 
circulate the books. The great need is to get 
more books. If we could have more books 
I am sure more states would take up the 
work. 

President ANDREWS : It seems to the chair 
that the new headquarters has one line of 
work very plainly marked out for it, in cor- 
relating and making known these various 
agencies which are at work on the lines re- 
ferred to by the speakers. 

Miss M. E. HAWLEY : It may be of interest 
to know that there is an international organ- 
ization of blind students. It was recently 
brought to my attention by a circular sent 
me from Switzerland, and its object is to 
assist students who are pursuing higher 
courses of study. Any student who has 
taken ^a university course or is intending 
to take a course in a university or any high- 
er institution of learning, is eligible to mem- 
bership. One object of this association is 
to procure a circulating library in different 
languages, and to promote acquaintance 
among students of different nationalities, and 
familiarity with the different modern lan- 
guages. The only type spoken of is Braille. 
The headquarters is in Geneva, and the sec- 
retary issues from there every year a report 
and a list of the best publications that have 
been issued during the year in all the differ- 
ent languages. The present membership con- 
sists of about 38 members scattered all over 
the countries of Europe; I did not see in the 
list any from the United States. 

President HILL resumed the chair. 

Mr. Bostwick gave a summary of Dr. J. 
H. CANFIELD'S paper on 

BOOKS FOR THE FOREIGN POPULATION 

(See p. 65.) 

Mr. BOSTWICK read a paper on the same 
subject. 

(See p. 67.) 



230 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



Miss J. M. CAMPBELL read a paper on the 
same subject. 

(See p. 70.) 

Miss L. E. STEARNS: I think something 
should be said with reference to the small 
library as regards this subject. Take a small 
community, and there may be just a handful 
of foreign-speaking people. You want to do 
something for them. If they are Germans 
you want to buy German books. You find 
these are expensive and only a few of the 
older people read them; the young do not 
ask for them. After they have been read by 
the older people there is constantly a cry for 
more German books, which you can hardly 
afford to purchase. In one of the Western 
states a number of libraries have combined, 
recognizing this need and realizing that 
funds are small. This could be done, of 
course, without the aid of a commission, 
but through a commission each of these 
libraries has bought one travelling library, 
paying about $35 for 35 or 40 books. These 
are purchased at wholesale by the commis- 
sion, made up in travelling libraries, and sent 
to these smaller communities for six months 
at a time. Then each library in turn is sent 
back to headquarters, to be exchanged in 
return for another library purchased by an- 
other community, and in that way enough 
varied German reading is available for 
twenty years. 

The secretary presented the 

REPORT OF COUNCIL 

(See Transactions of Council.) 

The PRESIDENT: The resolutions of Dr. 
Canfield and Miss Campbell will be referred 
to the Council for consideration. 

HARRISON W. GRAVER read a paper on 

SUPPLY AND USE OF TECHNOLOGICAL BOOKS 

(See p. 72.) 

W. E. FOSTER: Several months ago the 
president of the Association requested me to 
take part in this discussion. As the subject 
appeals strongly to my interest I consented. 
But after making several appointments with 
Miss Garvin, who is at the head of the In- 



dustrial Department in our library, for the 
purpose of comparing notes, it seemed entire- 
ly inappropriate, Mr. President, that I per- 
sonally should present the results of her ex- 
perience in that field, and the president 
agreed to substitute her name for mine. 
Miss ETHEL GARVIN read a paper on 

USE OF INDUSTRIAL COLLECTIONS AT THE PROV- 
IDENCE PUBLIC LIBRARY 

(See p. 76.) 

Miss ISABEL E. LORD: The president asked 
me to say a few words about the working out 
of this problem in our library, which is nei- 
ther a large one as compared with the Car- 
negie of Pittsburgh, nor a small one, as that 
word is ordinarily used. We have 85,000 
volumes in the library, 25,000 of which are in 
the reference departments. The latter are 
four, two general, one for art and one for 
what we call applied science. It is only of 
the applied science reference room that I 
mean to speak. First, as to the practical 
side. We do not intend this department pri- 
marily for trained people, for engineers, 
graduates of advanced schools, but for the 
untrained worker or for those of very little 
training. In order to make it as easy as 
possible for the men to use we chose as the 
room which we were to open a year ago last 
December the one easiest to get into, the one 
nearest the front door. In this room the 
equipment is that of reference books, about 
500, not of course what are ordinarily termed 
reference books, but almost entirely books 
that are duplicated in the circulating depart- 
ment ; bound periodicals, of which we have 
66 files, more or less complete, including trans- 
actions; 115 current trade periodicals, cover- 
ing various subjects; a collection of labor 
union papers, of about 50, are now received 
regularly ; a collection of over 600 trade cata- 
logs, which are, of course, of great value ; and 
a collection of cuts of machines and mechanical 
devices, which are bound separately and may 
be used by any one who is interested in a 
particular subject that can be thus illustrated. 
We circulate no book from this room, ex- 
cept under extraordinary circumstances, but 
send people across the hall to the circulating 
department. This is a disadvantage, but it 



SIXTH SESSION 



231 



has also the advantage of making the refer- 
ence room as such more quiet, and there 
would be no space there, in any case, to put 
a circulating collection. 

As to making this room known, it is very 
difficult to do this in a great community like 
Brooklyn, where our own limited area is only 
five city wards. We have no local press, for 
25 or 30 city newspapers are read in that neigh- 
borhood, so we have to use other means. A 
printed notice of the room has been sent out 
very widely to the factories, the labor unions, 
through the churches, etc., telling what the 
room is, what it is for, and how to get there. 
Then the newspapers sometimes, of course, 
give us notices, and the head of the room 
visits the factories of the neighborhood and 
has completed a most interesting industrial 
chart of the five wards, showing where the 
factories are located, the work they do, the 
number of men employed, etc., while several 
times we have been able to get some member 
of a labor union to speak before his union 
upon what they could find in the library. 
One thing that we have tried to do is to make 
this department known through publication ; 
and we have begun with the very practical 
and easy subject of electricity. We have 
issued a little list, of which there are 50 
copies here, of something over 230 titles of 
general books on electricity, each one an- 
notated. In our work with untrained workers 
we have found the greatest difficulty is that 
men choose a book from the title without 
knowing just what it is, whether it is for ele- 
mentary or advanced use. The notes given 
here are meant to show how useful each book 
would be to any untrained person. We hope 
the notes are practical, and hope to go on 
publishing further lists of that sort. 

Miss CORA STEWART read a paper on 

LIBRARIES IN RELATION TO SETTLEMENT WORK 

(See p. 82.) 

Miss LINDA EASTMAN: My discussion of 
this subject is based largely on local condi- 
tions. In Cleveland there are three social 
settlements and two other institutions which, 
in all but the residence feature, are doing 
settlement work. In each of three of these 



institutions the public library has, almost 
from their beginning, operated a station or 
btanch, the settlement furnishing room, heat, 
light and janitor service. The other two in- 
stitutions are located two and three blocks 
respectively from the main library and one 
of the larger branches, and co-operation with 
them has for the most part taken the form of 
furnishing books for clubs and classes, and in- 
the helpful interchange of information be- 
tween the settlement workers and the libra- 
rians. 

In our settlement libraries by far the larger 
part of the work done is with the children, 
who, I regret to say, by their very numbers, 
keep away many adults who would use these 
libraries more were there larger quarters with 
separate rooms for adults. This need is rec- 
ognized, the settlements are endeavoring to 
help to meet it and we believe sooner or later 
larger and better quarters for these libraries 
will result. The librarians in charge of these 
branches endeavor to identify themselves with 
the work of the settlement as far as possible, 
in some cases becoming residents. In no other 
department of the library do the workers gain 
so intimate a knowledge of their readers, nor 
is it anywhere else so greatly needed. It is 
here that we study at closest range our for- 
eign population and the needs which Dr. 
Canfield has set forth cannot be urged too 
strongly. 

It is, as Miss Stewart said, in the settle- 
ments that the problem of the girl is the 
most insistent. In our Italian settlement it 
is not at all startling to have a young girl 
return a copy of the "Red"' or "Blue" fairy 
book with the statement that she wants no 
more books because she is going to be mar- 
ried. It is a far cry from the Lang fairy 
books to the books on domestic economy 
with which we hope to improve conditions of 
home life ; but even these girls have already 
made great advance on a long line of fore- 
bears, not one of whom could read a word. 

It is in the settlement libraries even more 
than elsewhere that the greatest hope lies in 
the children and in catching them young 
enough. I believe that in these libraries, 
through the story hour and in the book selec- 
tion and suggestion, there should be spe- 



232 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



cially emphasized the homely virtues of truth, 
honesty and morality, and the principles of 
good citizenship. 
Miss ANNE WALLACE presented the 

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON RESOLUTIONS 

The members of the American Library As- 
sociation desire to record their acceptance of 
the free public library as an integral part of 
the American system of free public education. 
The public library continuing the work of 
education exerts its influence through all later 
years, and adds information, recreation, and 
general culture which are so necessary for 
that highest form of effective citizenship in 
which both men and women join. 

The members of the American Library As- 
sociation also desire to place on record their 
appreciation of the opportunities which have 
contributed so largely to the success of this, 
the 28th annual meeting of the Association. 

The general program has emphasized the 
free public library as a factor in the educa- 
tional growth of our modern cities and sec- 
tion meetings have been devoted to affiliated 
activities. 

The location has been an ideal one, and the 
elements of earth, air, and sky have been con- 
ducive to our welfare. 

The soft salt air, the blossoming hedge- 
rows, the tangle of roses, the music of ma.ny 
birds, the rich foliage, the low, gray-roofed 
cottages, the restful roads through sun and 
shade have become a part of our life, and this 
sojourn in the state of Rhode Island will long 
be remembered. 

We extend the thanks of the Association to 
His Excellency Governor George H. Utter, 
and to Lieutenant-Governor Frederick H. 
Jackson, to the Honorable Rowland G. Haz- 
ard, to Dr. Nathan C. Schaeffer, president of 
the National Education Association, to Pres- 
ident W. H. P. Faunce, to Professor Brander 
Matthews, to Professor A. D. F. Hamlin, to 
Mr. Raymond F. Almirall, to Mr. Owen Wis- 
ter, and to Mr. Robert Welsh for their gen- 
erous and helpful participation in the sessions 
of this meeting. We recognize with keenest 



appreciation the courtesy of the general and 
auxiliary committees manifest in the arrange- 
ments which have added so much to our en- 
joyment, and of the proprietor of the Mathew- 
son in giving the use of rooms for special 
meetings. We express our sense of obligation 
to our officers who have so successfully 
planned and administered each detail of this 
conference. We rejoice in the inspiration 
which we have all experienced here ; and we 
close the session with high hope and new 
cot-rage for all the future. 

JAMES H. CANFIELD. 

ANNE WALLACE. 

KATHARINE L. SHARP. 

Adopted. 

The PRESIDENT: It would appear that we 
have come to the end of our work. What- 
ever success has attended this convention is 
due to three causes: first, the efficient ser- 
vices of the secretary, the treasurer, recorder, 
chairman of the ways and means committee 
and the travel committee ; second, to the large 
attendance which we have had and the pa- 
tience of the members who have been pres- 
ent; and, third, to the complete arrangements 
made by the local committee. I have attend- 
ed a number of conventions, I have had to do 
with the secretary's office and with the travel 
committee; but never before have I seen the 
work of the local committee so well planned 
and so perfectly executed. (Applause.} 

In laying down the gavel I feel a respon- 
sibility to the Association greater than ever 
before. Dr. Poole used to say that there 
was only one position in the American Li- 
brary Association higher than that of presi- 
dent, namely, that of an ex-president. To 
that honored position I am now elevated. 
I declare, therefore, the 28th Conference of 
the American Library Association adjourned 
without day. 

Adjourned. 



COLLEGE AND REFERENCE SECTION 



233 



COLLEGE AND REFERENCE SECTION 



*T* WO sessions of the College and Refer- 
ence Section were held in connection 
with the Narragansett Pier Conference, the 
chairman, J. T. Gerould, librarian of the 
University of Missouri, presiding. In the 
absence of the secretary of the section, Miss 
Fanny Borden was appointed secretary pro 
tcm. 

FIRST SESSION 

The first session was held on Monday after- 
noon at three o'clock in the Solarium of the 
Mathewson House. 

The chairman, J. T. GEROULD, read a paper 
on 

CO-OPERATION IN LIBRARY STATISTICS * 

The questions most frequently asked by the 
progressive librarian are: Is this method the 
best? Is our practice in this particular the 
most effective? These questions may be 
answered, i, by personal experience; 2, by 
experience of others. It is suggested that a 
co-operative report be prepared, presenting 
information regarding all college libraries of 
the country, bringing out facts regarding cost, 
character and equipment of buildings, number 
and character of books, amount and allotment 
of funds, powers and functions of librarian, 
and data regarding staff, methods, privileges 
to readers, salaries, etc. This suggestion is 
referred to the section, in the hope that a 
committee may be appointed to consider the 
plan and report next year on the feasibility 
of undertaking it. 

Discussion followed on the suggestion in 
Mr. Gerould's paper that the section appoint 
a committee to compile a report on statistics 
concerning college libraries including, in ad- 
dition to regular statistics, information about 
policy and management. Mr. Johnston sug- 
gested that the new commissioner of educa- 
tion would probably be willing to collect such 
statistics in his report. Mr. Briggs answered 
that the reports appeared in print so late 
that they would not answer the need of libra- 
rians for up-to-date information. Mr. Wil- 
son (Clark University) suggested that a 
committee should submit to the commissioner 



an outline of what is desired and that future 
action should be based upon his reply. 

Mr. Bishop stated that the annual reports 
of college librarians are seldom published 
and that statistics are not readily obtained as 
in public libraries. 

The question was asked whether such a 
report was not recently compiled for the libra- 
ries of the middle West. Mr. Gerouid 
answered that questions were sent out from 
the library school of the University of Illi- 
nois with such a report in view, but too few 
replies were received to be of value. 

Mr. Severance said that it would be impos- 
sible to get the information desired unless 
the librarians knew in advance the plan of 
the report so that statistics might be kept 
with the questions in mind. It was moved by 
Mr. Severance and voted by the section that 
a committee be appointed by the chair to 
investigate the proposed plan and report at 
the next meeting of the section. 

It was voted that nominations for officers 
for next year be made by a committee to be 
appointed by the chair to report at the next 
meeting. 

Mr. Jones (University of Maine) moved 
that a committee of three be appointed to 
consider the advisability of a more definite 
organization of college librarians. A brief 
discussion followed on the desirability of 
separate organizations for college and refer- 
ence librarians. The motion was passed 33 
to 18 in favor of the appointment of a com- 
mittee. 

Miss ISADORE G. MUDGE read a paper on 

THE STIMULATION OF GENERAL READING * 

covering the following points : 

Not enough general reading is done by Ihe 
average college student. The encouragement 
to such reading that may be given by a pro- 
gressive, well-organized college library pre- 
supposes, first and most important, a capable 
and enthusiastic reference librarian, and in- 
cludes careful expenditure of the book fund 
for general literature, specializing each year 



Abstract; received too late for publication in full. 'Abstract; received too late for publication in full. 



234 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



in a few subjects of timely interest; display- 
ing new books and books sent on approval ; 
keeping a collection of current dealer's cata- 
logs available for the students' examination 
and use; and systematic co-operation with 
college literary clubs and provision for spe- 
cial lists and book reserves. These means 
persistently employed help in improving the 
quality and quantity of general reading. 

Miss Etta M. Newell, of Dartmouth, opened 
the discussion of the paper. She said that 
all methods of stimulation of general read- 
ing in the college library must be based on 
free access to books, attractive surroundings 
and strong personal influence. She described 
the methods used at Dartmouth. The discus- 
sion was continued by Mr. Burnet from his 
experience at the University of Georgia. 

Mr. Wilson said that the question had been 
approached from the librarian's point of view, 
that it would be interesting to have the stu- 
dent's point of view. He asked that in the 
investigation of the student's point of view 
about to be undertaken at Clark University 
librarians give their help, that it may prove 
as effective as possible. He said that college 
students could never become real students 
until they had free access to the shelves. 
Mr. Keogh said that much of the use of the 
library depended upon the co-operation of 
the librarian and the instructors, especially 
in connection with English courses. A brief 
discussion followed on vacation privileges in 
college libraries. 

Mr. W. C. Lane emphasized the import- 
ance of a selected collection of books on 
open shelves where the size of the library 
makes free access impracticable. The Har- 
vard library has not room for a large open 
shelf collection, but it is supplemented by 
the Harvard Union Library of attractive 
reading selected by a student committee with 
Mr. Lane as chairman. He spoke of the 
great importance of comfortable quarters in 
influencing men to read. 

Mr. T. W. KOCH read a paper on 

STUDENT CIRCULATION IN A UNIVERSITY 
LIBRARY * 

which presented the following points: 
In 1856 the privilege of borrowing books 
'Abstract; received too late for publication in full. 



from the library of the University of Michi- 
gan was withdrawn from the students ; in 
February, 1906, this privilege was restored. 
In time the debarment from home use of 
books and the lack of open reference shelves 
resulted in great and constant congestion at 
the delivery desk in the reading room. This 
was partly met by installing an open-shelf 
reference room, and later a set of questions 
was sent to leading college librarians asking 
their views on home use of books by under- 
graduates. The answers were strongly favor- 
able to such use; and these have been borne 
out by the results of the change granting 
this privilege. It has cost almost nothing in- 
additional service, has not interfered with the 
use of the library by the faculty, is valued 
by the students and approved by the profes- 
sors. 

Discussion of the paper was opened by 
Mr. Jones (University of Maine), who talked 
on several questions of detail not covered in 
Mr. Koch's paper: How many books shall 
be reserved? How many books may a stu- 
dent draw? What shall be the time limit?" 
Shall circulation be allowed in department li- 
braries? How shall faculty use of books be 
controlled? He spoke also on the obligations 
of a college library to those outside the 
college community, especially the duty of 
a state university library to be of service 
throughout the state. The discussion was 
continued by Mr. Keogh, who described the 
practice at Yale. Of the library of over 
500,000 volumes all may be circulated except 
reference books and books of special value 
on account of age, etc., not more than l /2 of 
i% restricted. Books on the reserved shelves 
in connection with class work (the number 
varies from 500 to several thousand) may be 
drawn out only overnight. The library 
proper is a circulating library. The plan of 
selecting certain books for undergraduates 
has been followed from the beginning. The 
number is now kept at 25,000. From 600 to 
looo are added annually and an equal num- 
ber withdrawn. There is free access to these 
books to all students, undergraduates may 
take out four volumes at a time for three 
weeks each. Permission is given for access 
to the shelves in the main library with slight 
formality. 



COLLEGE AND REFERENCE SECTION 



235 



Miss Lettie M. Crafts (University of Min- 
nesota) continued the discussion. After ten 
years' experience in a college library which 
is a strictly reference library, she believed 
that the plan was not justified. The excuse 
for non-circulation is the proximity of the 
public library, but she believed that results 
would be better with circulation. 

The chairman appointed the following com- 
mittees : 

On nominations: Mr. Little, Mr. Andrews, 
Miss Olive Jones. 

On statistics: Mr. Koch, Mr. Wilson, Mr. 
Canfield. 

On proposal to organize college librarians 
more closely: Mr. Jones, Mr. Lane, Mr. 
James. 

The meeting adjourned on motion. 



SECOND SESSION 

The second session was held in the Solar- 
ium of the Mathewson House on Thursday 
morning, July 5, at 9.30 o'clock. 

Mr. Little reported for the nominating com- 
mittee the following nominations for officers 
for 1907: For chairman, T. W. Koch (Uni- 
versity of Michigan) ; for secretary, P. L. 
Windsor (University of Texas). The report 
was accepted and adopted. 

Mr. Koch reported for the committee on 
co-operative library statistics that the com- 
mittee had decided to undertake the work of 
sending a circular to representative libraries 
and would present statistics at the next meet- 
ing. The report was adopted. 

Mr. Jones reported for the committee on 
the proposal for separate organization for 
college libraries that in the opinion of the 
committee the forming of such an organiza- 
tion was inexpedient. A brief discussion fol- 
lowed on the original intention of the section. 
The report of the committee was adopted. 

Mr. Nelson offered a resolution that the 
section should include all librarians of educa- 
tional institutions and all persons interested 
in reference work. The resolution was 
adopted after discussion. 

Miss BERTHA E. BLAKELY presented the 
plan and description of 



THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING OF MT. HOLYOKE 
COLLEGE 

(See p. 62.) 

Discussion followed on the best material 
for the floor of a reading room and on the 
cost of various new library buildings per 
cubic foot of contents. The figures quoted 
varied from .18 to .50. 

Mr. Louis N. Wilson presented and de- 
scribed the plan of the Clark University Li- 
brary. 

Concrete block construction was discussed 
for libraries. 

F. W. SCHENK read a paper on 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF LAW LIBRARIES * 

He added an appeal that all librarians in 
charge of law libraries join the newly formed 
association of law librarians. 

Dr. B. C. Steiner opened the discussion of 
Mr. Schenk's paper. He would make two 
rather than three divisions of law libraries 
exclusive of law departments in general li- 
braries: I, Libraries of law schools in which 
the entire time of the professors is not 
given to instruction and ordinary county bar 
libraries; 2, Large city and state law libra- 
ries and the libraries of large law schools in 
which the entire time of the professors is 
given to instruction. 

Libraries of the first class should have a 
small collection carefully selected. Libraries 
of the second class should include everything. 
In those of the first class the users go directly 
to the shelves. In those of the second they 
are dependent on runners. The classifica- 
tion of those in the first class should be 
methodical; that of those in the second class 
an arrangement fitted for the quickest service 
by runners. He agreed with Mr. Schenk's 
classification in general, but would include 
place for international law, jurisprudence and 
constitutional and legal history. 

The great need is that law students should 
be trained in the knowledge of aids in the use 
of libraries. 

Brief discussion followed on the selection 
of law books for general libraries. 

The meeting adjourned on motion. 

*Not received for publication. 



236 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



CATALOG SECTION 



nr WO sessions of the Catalog Section of 
the American Library Association 
were held in connection with the Narragan- 
sett Pier Conference, Miss Theresa Hitchler, 
chairman, presiding. 

FIRST SESSION 

The first session, devoted to "Advanced 
problems," was held in the ball room of the 
Mathewson House, Saturday evening, June 
30. The chairman brought the topic of the 
evening's conference, "Subject headings," be- 
fore the meeting by a few preliminary re- 
marks, pointing to the increasing prominence 
accorded to problems of cataloging by reason 
of the great increase in size of the present- 
day library and the consequent growth and 
complexity of the present-day catalog. She 
then introduced the speakers of the evening, 
WILLIAM WARNER BISHOP, who read a paper 
on 

SUBJECT HEADINGS IN DICTIONARY CATALOGS 

(See p. 113.) 
and 

ADELAIDE R. HASSE, who read a paper on 

SUBJECT HEADINGS FOR STATE DOCUMENTS 

(See p. 123.) 

After the reading of the papers, Miss 
Hitchler declared the meeting open for gen- 
eral discussion. Mr. Hanson, of the Library 
of Congress, responded, calling the attention 
of the members to the length of time that 
had elapsed since the American Library 
Association had given its attention to the 
question of subject headings. He stated that 
in the main he agreed with Mr. Bishop's 
point of view. He emphasized the importance 
of definition of subject headings and added 
the suggestion that such definitions as were 
adopted be placed in the public catalogs of 
libraries as well as in their official records. 

He differed from Mr. Bishop as to the im- 
portance of form entries, stating that he had 



become increasingly conservative in his views 
as to their usefulness. On the other hand, he 
agreed with the speaker's solution of the 
problem of place under subject vs. subject 
under place; namely, the subordination of 
geographical position to subject in the arts 
and sciences, but the subordination of sub- 
ject to place in historical lines, as, travel, 
economics, etc. In this connection, Mr. Han- 
son called the attention of the members to 
a pamphlet just issued by the Library of 
Congress, entitled "A preliminary list of sub- 
ject subdivisions under names of countries 

. . . and of subject headings with coun- 
try subdivisions." In this list, the headings 
in which place is subordinated to subject are 
indicated by black faced type. 

In opposition to Mr. Bishop's restriction of 
the use of the national adjective to the sub- 
jects of language and literature, Mr. Hanson 
interposed a plea for its general usefulness 
in other classes, as, for instance, in the fine 
arts. He would, however, place the adjec- 
tive after the subject, not before, i.e., Por- 
celain, French, not French porcelain. In 
closing, he suggested a modification of Mr. 
Bishop's chronological arrangement of cards 
under subject, proposing a modified chrono- 
logical method, namely, a division of subject 
by appropriate periods of say thirty years, 
a hundred years, or what not, and an alpha- 
betical arrangement under these periods, by 
author. 

Mr. Finney, of Michigan, followed Mr. 
Hanson's remarks with a prayer that the 
general public might in some manner be in- 
stilled with the cataloger's love of definite- 
ness and so be led to make known its wants 
to the desk assistant in a way to be under- 
stood. He cited the instance of a woman who 
asked for a book on Greece when she really 
wanted to know the number of inches around 
the waist of the Venus of Milo. 

Miss Hitchler then waived the restrictions 
that bind a presiding officer and entered the 
debate. Referring to Mr. Bishop's paper, she 
stated that while definition was of course 



CATALOG SECTION 



237 



necessary in every official list of subject 
headings, she did not follow Mr. Bishop in 
his insistence on a card-tray for the pur- 
pose, that an interleaved copy of the A. L. A. 
list was adequate for all practical purposes 
and was also more convenient. She also 
differed from the speaker of the evening in 
his abandonment of place entries in subjects 
covering the arts and sciences, advocating 
instead the double entry system ; for example, 
she would use Texas. Geology and Geology, 
not relying merely on a cross reference from 
Texas. Geology to Geology. Texas. She said 
that she had found, in public libraries at least, 
a necessity for gathering together all material 
relating to a country, in the arts and sciences 
as well as in other subjects under the name 
of that country. She referred to Mr. Cut- 
ter's advocacy of this system of double 
-entry. 

In closing, she referred to a matter already 
touched upon, namely, the use of a single 
subject card answering to several author en- 
tries, in the case of works published in vari- 
ous editions, by the use of the note on this 
single subject card: "For other editions of 
this work see author cards." This method, 
she stated, proved a labor-saving deuce in a 
large system like the Brooklyn Public Li- 
brary where many branches naturally include 
many editions of a single work. 

Mr. Biscoe expressed a wish that the Library 
of Congress would print on cards for dis- 
tribution such definitions as Mr. Hanson in- 
dicated were in use in the public catalog of 
that library. Mr. Hanson replied that about 
looo such definitions were in use and that 
these could be printed for distribution if a 
demand for them was felt. 

Miss Nina Browne stated that the Ameri- 
can Library Association Publishing Board 
would gladly receive any suggestions for the 
new edition of its list of subject headings. 
Mr. Gardner M. Jones, of Salem, pointed 
out a practical difficulty to be met in the 
matter of a new edition of this list, namely, 
the conflict of the American Library Asso- 
ciation headings with those printed on the 
Library of Congress cards. The use of 
these cards by an increasingly large number 
of libraries brings forward this question. 

Miss Hitchler then closed the discussion 



by remarking that the indications seemed to 
point to co-operation between the American 
Library Association Publishing Board and 
the Library of Congress. The meeting then 
adjourned. 

SECOND SESSION 

The second session of the Catalog Sec- 
tion, devoted to "Elementary problems," 
was held Wednesday morning, July 4, in 
the ball room of the Mathewson. The 
meeting was called- to order and a nominat- 
ing committee appointed by the chair to re- 
port a ticket of officers for the ensuing year. 
The committee consisted of Mr. Biscoe, Mr. 
Osborn and Miss Grace E. Tobey. 

Miss AGNES VAN VALKENBURGH read a 
paper on 

COMMON SENSE IN CATALOGING SMALL LIBRA- 
RIES 

(See p. 127.) 

The meeting was then opened for general 
discussion. 

One member asked how the printed Li- 
brary of Congress cards could be made con- 
sistent with written cards already in a cat- 
alog, to which Miss Van Valkenburgh re- 
plied that since the Library of Congress 
cards could not be made consistent in all 
particulars with the written ones they were 
better left unchanged and filed intact in their 
appropriate places among the written cards. 
Miss Hitchler added that in the Brooklyn 
Public Library she likewise did not attempt 
to be consistent in this matter except as to 
headings for purposes of filing. 

Miss Robbins, of Simmons College, Boston, 
asked what, in the matter of headings, was 
the best practice in entering the names of 
"much married" women. Miss Van Valken- 
burgh recommended entering under the 
maiden name if the author had written under 
that name. Miss Hitchler followed the same 
rule, but added to the author heading the 

phrase "(afterwards Mrs. )" if the 

room on the card permitted without rewriting 
the card. 

The next question raised for discussion was 
the advisability of analyzing for the catalog 



2 3 8 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



of a library collections of essays already in- 
dexed in the American Library Association 
or other index. Miss Hitchler spoke in the 
negative. Miss Van Valkenburgh agreed 
with the chairman and advised keeping the 
indexes near the catalog. Mr. Biscoe said 
that small libraries were troubled in using 
printed indexes by the fact that such indexes 
invariably referred to a great number of 
volumes not on their shelves. This diffi- 
culty was met by the suggestion that '.he 
index be checked up by entering the call 
number of such volumes -as the library pos- 
sessed in the margin of the contents, i.e., the 
table of works analyzed. 

A member asked if anyone present had 
tried the cumulative plan in printing cata- 
logs. Miss Van Valkenburgh said her ex- 
perience had been interesting, that she had 
intended cumulating her bulletins every two 
years, but that the printer had declared it 
cheaper to begin all over again. Mr. Wil- 
son, of Clark University Library, said that 
the difficulty usually was with the printer, 
that he was himself experimenting in this 
matter, and hoped later to be able to report 
something definite to the American Library 
Association. Miss Mann, of Pittsburgh, said 
that the Carnegie library had successfully em- 
ployed the method ; that by using proofs from 
slugs kept by its printer for a period of years, 
it was saved the work of composition, though 
not, of course, of revision. Mr. Davis, of 
Laconia, N. H., stated that he was issuing 
a quarterly bulletin, wherein he prints lists 
that later can be cumulated and form the cat- 
alog of his library, for these lists are en- 
tries for the books he is reclassifying, and 
since he is going over the whole library class 
by class, the cumulated result will be a 
classed catalog. 

Mr. Stevens, of the Homestead (Pa.) Car- 
negie Library, turned the attention of the 
meeting to what he termed the increasing 
technicality of catalogs, and made a plea for 
greater simplicity. Miss Hitchler pointed out 
that this danger of making a catalog too 
technical, and therefore difficult to use, would 
be avoided if the cataloger would keep in 
mind the point of view of the general reader. 
This done and each new borrower given a 
few hints as to the use of the catalog, most 



difficulties vanish. Miss Williams, of the 
Maiden (Mass.) Library, suggested that the 
reference librarian was useful in making the 
connection between the public and the cata- 
log, and Miss Hitchler added that the cata- 
loger herself should be in close touch with 
the reference department as well as with the 
public. Miss Bragg, of Worcester (Mass.) 
Public Library, suggested that the difficulty 
was being solved by the schools where the 
children were being taught how to use a 
catalog, to which Miss Hitchler replied that 
if difficulty existed it was not with the chil- 
dren, but with the adults. Miss Van Valken- 
burgh interposed, "How lovely for the next 
generation of librarians !" 

Miss Hitchler then called on Mr. Foss, of 
the Somerville Public Library. He said he 
had never been a cataloger, but that since he 
had heard Miss Van Valkenburgh's paper 
he felt that some day he might aspire to be 
one. Cataloging he conceived as the art of 
conveying wisdom from one who has it to 
one who has it not, in a simple manner. 

The chairman then emphasized the neces- 
sity of not being hidebound in adherence to 
rules. The catalogers of small libraries, she 
stated, sometimes followed printed rules to 
the letter out of fear of adverse criticism 
from other librarians. Her advice was, 
"Adapt and do not be afraid." A member 
offered as an adaptation, the introduction into 
the catalog of a form of reference card in- 
tended to guide young readers from one field 
of reading to a better one. For example, 
under Henty, he places a reference: "If 
you have read these books, read Cooper,'* 
and under Cooper : "If you have read these 
books, read Parkman." 

Mr. Hensel, of Columbus, Ohio, suggested 
that entries for references worked out in 
the reference department be introduced into 
the catalog. Miss Van Valkenburgh object- 
ed to having such material in the public cat- 
alog. Miss Hitchler, on the contrary, 
favored such use of all material once found. 
She suggested the use of colored cards to 
indicate the temporary character of the en- 
tries. 

Miss Elliott, of the Wisconsin Library 
School, reverted to the subject of making an 
intelligent explanation of the use of the cata- 



TRUSTEES' SECTION 



239 



log to each new borrower to start him on 
the right road. Mr. Merrill closed the dis- 
cussion by pointing out that after all the 
catalog was made for the average person and 
the average person could use it. 
The nominating committee then announced 



the names of the candidates : for chairman, 
Mr. William Warner Bishop, of Princeton 
University; for secretary, Miss Van Valken- 
burgh. They were unanimously elected. The 
meeting then adjourned. 

EDITH P. BUCKNAM, Secretary. 



TRUSTEES' SECTION 



A MEETING of the Trustees' Section of 
the American Library Association was 
held on the afternoon of Monday, July 2, in 
the ball room of the Mathewson House. The 
chairman, Washington T. Porter, called the 
meeting together at 3 o'clock. 
Dr. JAMES H. CANFIELD read a paper on 

THE BASIS OF TAXATION FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES 

(See p. 36.) 

W. I. FLETCHER: Theoretically the address 
we have just listened to is well nigh if not 
quite perfect; but certain thoughts which I 
had previously on this subject are raised 
anew in my mind in connection with the 
words "and more" which Dr. Canfield used 
when he spoke of the public library as doing 
what the public school does, "and more." I 
have never been willing to have public library 
taxation stated as justifiable on so nearly the 
same ground as public school taxation, as 
Dr. Canfield has stated it. Go to-day into the 
homes where you will find books from the 
public library. How many of those books in 
any fair sense can be said to represent the ed- 
ucation of the people ? Possibly a great many, 
but how large a proportion of the whole? 
They represent several things and these come 
in under the "and more." They represent, 
in one sense, taxation for economic benefits. 
The public library provides books by which 
a man becomes better acquainted with his 
trade. That, of course, is education in a 
sense, but a great deal of it is nol quite what 
we should include in education. Then there 
is the great number of books taken out and 
read for recreation. It is not true, as some 
allege, that a very large share of money raised 
by taxation for the library goes to pay the 
expense of circulating recreative reading, be- 



cause there is so great a difference in the 
proportion of that reading and the propor- 
tion of taxation that goes to that reading 
that it almost renders the criticism nugatory. 
However, I like to feel that the community 
is justified in paying out money raised by 
taxation for recreative reading on the same 
ground that it spends money to support parks. 
I would like to see a little more stress laid 
upon the recreative value of the library. 
Recreative reading is one of the best things 
we can possibly furnish if it is as good as 
most of the recreative reading we do furnish. 
And another thing that comes under the 
words "and more" is that vague thing which 
we call culture. Our schools are often said 
to exist for the culture of the community, 
but there is a line between education and cul- 
ture, and the library stands for something 
higher in standing for culture than the 
schools do in standing for education. I like 
to feel that it is in this aesthetic element, in 
this cultural element, different from what we 
expect our schools to furnish, that public 
money spent for the public library finds its 
real and highest justification. 
Mr. ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK read a paper on 

THE WHOLE DUTY OF A LIBRARY TRUSTEE 

FROM A LIBRARIAN'S STANDPOINT 
(See p. 40.) 

The CHAIRMAN : Finding that Dr. Wire 
was occupying both the position of trustee 
and librarian, I have asked him to respond to 
this, and speak on 

THE WHOLE DUTY OF A LIBRARY TRUSTEE 

FROM A TRUSTEE'S STANDPOINT 

Dr. G. E. WIRE: I think I am one of the 

few who are both a librarian and a trustee; 



240 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



that is, I am most of the time a librarian and 
part of the time a trustee. As Mr. Bostwick 
has said, the main idea seems to be to pick 
out a good man or woman for a librarian and 
supply all the money that can be raised and 
let them do the rest. That is rather the ideal 
conception of a trustee from a librarian's 
standpoint, and in a great many cases it is 
also the idea of the trustee. But it should 
vary according to the circumstances in the 
case. You will all recognize that there are 
some types of libraries where the trustees 
must do a good share of the work. In a 
great many of our New England libraries 
the librarians are getting but very little money 
perhaps $50 or $100 a year and naturally 
they have not the requisite technical skill to 
administer the library properly, and the trus- 
tees have to do, and in many cases do, quite 
an amount of the librarian's work. Of 
course I do not mean that the trustees dis- 
charge or charge books or catalog them or 
make out bulletins; but they look after many 
details. As a trustee I consider it the duty 
to look after the broad general management of 
the library, if it is possible, and let the libra- 
rian, if competent, do the rest. There are 
but few trustees who have the technical 
knowledge to understand many of the details 
of library administration. The newly ap- 
pointed trustee has to go through a certain 
amount of technical education before he 
knows what he is there for, and until he has 
been educated he is liable to do more harm 
than good. But I have in mind many trustees 
who are doing, as we all know, the very best 
work, are informing themselves concerning 
library matters, have pleasant and cordial re- 
lations with t'heir librarians, and are, as 
Mr. Bostwick has said, really ideal trustees. 

The trustee is directly responsible to the 
public, and is the one who is held responsible 
by the public in many cases if the library is 
not carried on aright, and properly so. He 
may have an incompetent librarian, or a libra- 
rian or a regime which has got into a rut and 
is not easily changed. In that case the pub- 
lic should be a little merciful to the trustees 
and give them time to get out of the rut. 
But there are one or two things that the trus- 
tee should know, perhaps in some cases a 



little better than he does know them. What 
we term the philanthropic side of library 
work, what we call the "library spirit," he 
should understand. Some trustees are used 
to large business enterprises and they want to 
run the library much as they run a shop. 
But it is, to all intents and purposes, an edu- 
cational institution ; it cannot be run on a 
time schedule, with fines for non-attendance 
and all that sort of thing; the employees are 
supposed to be of a superior grade of intelli- 
gence and are not to be held to the hard-and- 
fast rules of the shop. Some trustees might 
well consider that library employees are ex- 
pected to give more than a few dollars' worth 
of time a week to the library; they are sup- 
posed to put into their work, as do the teach- 
ers, a certain amount of devotion and per- 
sonal work which as librarians we know about,, 
which they are often not given credit for; 
they frequently have to work over hours, and 
if, by reason of sickness of other causes be- 
yond their control, they should be absent, 
that should not be laid up against them. They 
should not be considered as shop workers. 
But I am happy to say that from my observa- 
tions, particularly on the librarian's side, 
trustees throughout the country are coming 
more and more to the position of ideal trus- 
tees. 

The CHAIRMAN: I take pleasure in pre- 
senting to you the Hon. David A. Boody, 
president of the board of trustees of the 
Brooklyn Public Library; and I will ask Mr. 
Boody to say something to us on the subject 
of the 

CARNEGIE DONATIONS 

Mr. BOODY : Criticism is frequently heard 
of Mr. Carnegie's donations, indicating that 
it was still a debatable question whether it 
were wise on the part of Mr. Carnegie to 
give or wise on the part of the public to 
accept his donations with the conditions at- 
tached. Just a word in reference to that 
point. Is it a good thing for a man to de- 
fend his country when his country is assailed? 
Is it an honorable thing for him to place his 
life between his country and her assailer? 
We know that when men do these things 
they are honored, we know that we carry 
a grateful remembrance of such deeds in our 



TRUSTEES' SECTION 



241 



hearts, and we know that over their graves 
monuments rise. But, you may say, what is 
the special relation between the giving of 
money and defending a nation's life? It 
seems to me it is nearer than we may think 
at the first glance. These ideas that give to 
men a conception of duty come from the 
work of libraries, from the books which are 
read, from such acts as those of Mr. Car-- 
negie, in establishing all over this land these 
schools of thought, these inspiring sources of 
action. 

Many questions are asked concerning the 
character of public donations their effect 
is feared on the person who receives them, 
that it may take from him that energy neces- 
sary to the establishment of character and to 
the success of business. But think of the pe- 
culiar character of Mr. Carnegie's donation. 
It never weakens a hungry man to give him 
food; it never impoverishes an intellect to 
give it intellectual food. If there be a kind 
of donation in all the world that should be 
free from such criticism as we hear bestowed 
upon the act of giving generally, it is this kind 
of donation. This kind of giving is for the 
purpose of helping men to help themselves. 
There is a fear in this land that wealth in 
some form or other will destroy the charac- 
ter of our people. It is no more dishonorable 
to be a rich man than it is to be governor or 
President, providing always that the same 
degree of honor and integrity has been pur- 
sued in the one case as in the other, and I 
beg you to remember that this country affords 
opportunities for great distinction and for 
winning great prizes. Men with integrity 
and intelligence and push can hardly fail to 
become rich men. The point is, how will 
they use their money? Will they allow it to 
destroy ideals of American citizenship or will 
they carry back this wealth to the people and 
thus enrich all of the inhabitants? 

C. W. ANDREWS read a paper by MELVIL 
DEWEY on 

THE IDEAL RELATIONS BETWEEN TRUSTEES AND 
LIBRARIAN 

(See p. 44-) 

The chairman introduced Miss M. E. 
AHERN, to speak on 



WHAT AN EDITOR THINKS OF TRUSTEES OF 
SOME TRUSTEES 

Miss AHERN : There are trustees and trus- 
tees. I like the word "trustee," one to whom 
a trust has been given or with whom a trust 
lies. A little clearer vision on the part of 
some of the trustees as to just what consti- 
tutes the trust might produce better re- 
sults for the library, for the community, for 
the librarian and for the trustee himself. 
Oftentimes the thought of the trustee is 
that his trust lies altogether in bricks and 
stone, in providing for the physical comfort 
of the community, in providing a suitable 
dwelling, to seeing that the plumbing and 
the lighting and the heating and the furnish- 
ings and the fittings are what they should be, 
and that there are books on the shelves, and 
that then his trust is carried out, forgetting 
that there remains with him also a duty to see 
that the people for whom all these things 
have been prepared are made acquainted with 
the provision that has been made for them. 
Trustees should be men and women in the 
community who have demonstrated by their 
own lives and by their own business accumu- 
lations that they have the ability to conduct 
business on proper lines, who can differentiate 
between things that are essential and those 
that are non-essential, who have pride in their 
community and a love for their own people. 
A number of librarians have suggested that 
in these remarks I should say something in 
their behalf, and I have invariably replied, 
"If you have a trustee who comes to the 
American Library Association Conference 
there isn't much need of saying anything for 
you, because he is there to see and hear, 
and if he is of the material that he should 
be he will see and hear, and if he doesn't see 
and hear, nothing that I or you or anybody 
can say will help him much. The thing 
that needs to be said needs to be said in your 
home town." But I would refer briefly to 
the matter of sending the librarian to the 
annual meetings of either the American Li- 
brary Association or the library association 
in his home state. I do not know that I can 
put it any more strongly than by ' repeating 
again what a business man said as he talked 
to me and to a librarian, that when he sends- 



242 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



his engineer over into another state to see the 
machinery of a large factory, to hear how 
a new plant is working, to get pointers for 
his own work, he does not expect that en- 
gineer to pay his own way, but he expects to 
send him at the expense of the factory, and 
expects to use the information received on 
this visit in furthering the interests of his 
own business. I think any trustee who is a 
business man will agree with that point of 
view and will see its application to the library. 
H. T. KELLY: We have all been entertained 
and benefited by the papers read to-day, and I 
would like to make a suggestion to the offi- 
cers of this section. I arrived here when 
the meeting started, after 27 hours of steady 
travel, and I find that the Trustees' Section 
gets simply one meeting during the whole 



Conference. Now would it not be possible 
to have a second afternoon during future 
conferences, devoted to discussion of the 
papers which have been read at the first 
meeting of the Trustees' Section? There 
are many things that occurred to me before I 
arrived here, there are more that have oc- 
curred to me since I have heard these papers, 
and I think we should all derive a great deal 
of benefit from opportunity for general dis- 
cussion. I throw out this suggestion be- 
cause I think one of the great benefits to be 
derived here is not simply to hear the papers, 
but to discuss them also. 

Officers were elected as follows: Washing- 
ton T. Porter, chairman ; Thomas L. Mont- 
gomery, secretary. 

Adjourned. 



CHILDREN'S LIBRARIANS' SECTION 



*T* HE Children's Librarians' Section was 
represented at the second general ses- 
sion of the American Library Association 
Conference on Monday morning, July 2, 
when papers were read on 

THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY A MORAL FORCE 
by CLARA W. HUNT. 

(See p. 97-) 



and 



THE PROBLEM OF THE GIRL 



be LUTIE E. STEARNS. 

(See p. 103.) 

A meeting of the section was held on the 
morning of Thursday, July 5, in the ball 
room of the Mathewson House, the chairman, 
Mrs. Arabelle H. Jackson, presiding. The 
meeting was called to order at 10 o'clock by 
Mrs. Jackson, who said : 

It is three years since the Children's Li- 
brarians' Section has had a meeting. Two 
years ago, at the St. Louis Conference, there 
were no section meetings, and a year ago at 
Portland the section had only a business 
meeting for the election of officers. While the 



section has been glad during these years to 
have its papers presented in the general ses- 
sions of the American Library Association, 
we are very glad of this opportunity to have 
a regular section meeting again, because we 
feel that some questions in regard to chil- 
dren's work can be discussed to a little better 
advantage in a section meeting, where we 
take it for granted that all those present are 
interested in the particular subject. 
A paper on 

THE BEGINNINGS OF A LITERATURE FOR CHIL- 
DREN 

by CAROLINE BURNITE 

(See p. 107.) 

was read by J. I. Wyer, Jr. 

The CHAIRMAN: Miss Burnite has pre- 
pared and had printed a list of early chil- 
dren's books, some of which she has men- 
tioned, and I am sure this list will be of 
great interest to all who are interested in 
children's work. The paper is now open for 
discussion, and we should be glad to hear 
from Charles S. Greene, the librarian of the 
Oakland Public Library. 



CHILDREN'S LIBRARIANS' SECTION 



243 



C. S. GREENE: I am glad to appear before 
an audience of children's librarians, though 
not because the West has anything particu- 
lar to boast of in that line. We are still in 
some of the inchoate stages of evolution, and 
we are glad to imitate the methods that have 
been wrought out by our Eastern friends. 
This list is a most suggestive one for us. 
We have not, of course, made any special 
historical study of the bibliography of chil- 
dren's books. We have simply taken them as 
we could get children to read them and have 
made the best use of them that we could. 
We have, however, used a good many books 
that are found on this list, and the list will 
be of great value to us in making more com- 
plete our lists of books in the historical sec- 
tion. One thing that struck me about Miss 
Burnite's paper quite specially was the 
strong spiritual note through it all, the 
ethical bearing of it. It shows that in chil- 
dren's library work, as in a great deal of 
other work connected with libraries and with 
books, the spiritual, the ethical, even the re- 
ligious basis is the seed from which 
it sprang. The first of our modern literature 
sprang from religious motive. The monks 
through the Middle Ages preserved all that 
was best in the ancient literature and added 
to it from strong religious motive ; our 
drama sprang from the religious drama first, 
the church was the foundation of that; and 
even the latest literature we have developed, 
and that is the books for the children, have 
the same origin. In the same way the first 
books that were printed for blind people 
were religious books, printed by tract soci- 
eties in order that the blind people might 
consider their latter end. And so in this 
paper Miss Burnite has treated the child not 
as a lump of clay to be moulded, not as a 
blank sheet of paper to be written upon, 
but as a creature, compact of spirituality, of 
imagination, of impulses in short, as a liv- 
ing soul. 

Miss HEWINS: Miss Burnite's paper has 
given us all a great deal to think of. There 
is one author whom she has omitted, prob- 
ably because it is very hard now to find her 
stories in print; but they are very well worth 
reprinting. At just about the time when 



Peter Parley was beginning, or perhaps even 
a little before, Lydia Maria Child began to 
publish her Juvenile Miscellany in Boston. 
For seven or eight years it appeared ; some- 
times it was published every month and some- 
times every two or three months. I have 
nearly all the numbers. And Mrs. Child was 
writing in it stories for children which are 
remarkable for their simplicity, for their 
clear English, their absence of didacticism 
and their knowledge of children and of what 
they like. She wrote also sometimes little 
historical and biographical articles, lives of 
famous musicians and famous dwarfs, and 
she had contributions from people like Mrs. 
Sigonrney and others who were well known 
at the time, and she had also translations 
from the German. Indeed, the first transla- 
tions from the German that I know of in 
children's books are in that Juvenile Mis- 
cellany. The first mention of a Christmas 
tree that I know appears there. Then later 
the stories were collected in book form. One 
of them was called "Flowers for children," 
and there was a favorite tale of mine called 
"Laraboo," which was in the "Flowers for 
children," and which I found a few years 
ago back in the Juvenile Miscellany about in 
1830. It was a tale of an African woman who 
was seized, with her child, by a hostile tribe, 
and, going across a desert, a sandstorm 
overtook them. The child before that had 
been thrown away into the desert. She 
escaped into the sandstorm and found an 
oasis, a little cave where there was a panther, 
and she and the panther became friends and 
remained friends for some time, and at last 
the panther was accidentally shot just as 
they were getting to a villege. I remember 
reading that most thrilling tale to some of 
my staff a year or two ago, and one of them 
said immediately, "Why, that is Balzac's 
'Passion in the desert.' " It appeared in the 
Juvenile Miscellany just about the year that 
Balzac first published that story about 
1830. Mrs. Child had evidently read it in 
French, had seized upon it as something that 
would interest children, and had changed it 
a little. And it remains one of the most in- 
teresting, delightful and thrilling stories for 
children, I think, that has ever been written. 



244 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



We have in our children's room pictures of 
famous places, and just now I am reading 
to children of the seventh and eighth grades 
those who choose to come some stories 
about the faces that are mentioned in the 
pictures, and one of them is Windsor Castle. 
I read to the small audience the other day 
Grace Greenwood's story about King James L 
of Scotland and Lady Jane Beaufort, and 
later Mrs. Child's story of the "Royal rose- 
bud," the little daughter of Edward iv., and 
the style of these stories delighted the chil- 
dren so much that you could have heard a 
pin drop in that room for the hour while I 
was reading. So that I am sure it would be 
a good thing if those stories of Grace Green- 
wood and Mrs. Child could be reprinted for 
the use of children. 

H. H. BALLARD: I was interested to see in 
this list one book of Mrs. Ewing. There is 
a book by Mrs. Ewing's mother, "Parables 
from nature," by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, which 
was published, I think, in the "fifties" or per- 
haps the early "sixties," which is of great inter- 
est and of great value to young persons, and 
is of interest from a library standpoint as 
showing the fountain of literary beauty and 
strength from which Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gat- 
ty's daughter, drew her inspiration. Mrs. 
Gatty was for many years the editor of 
Aunt Judy's Magazine, published in England, 
which contains a larger proportion of litera- 
ture excellent for young persons than any 
other young persons' magzine ever published, 
not excepting St. Nicholas. If the old files 
of that magazine can be obtained by any 
library that library will secure a great treas- 
ure because it contains the beginnings of Mrs. 
Ewing's writings as well as the flower and 
fruit of Mrs. Gatty's ripe scholarship and 
intelligence and sympathy with young per- 
sons. 

Mrs. JACKSON read a 

REPORT ON LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN 

(See p. 89.) 

S. H. RANCK: This admirable report I feel 
is one of the most important reports on this 
work that has ever been presented to a 
meeting of librarians. There is only one 



thing in the report that I should like to 
refer to, and that is the reference to disor- 
der and lawlessness in libraries or branch 
libraries in good residential sections of the 
city. In the city of Baltimore, where I was 
engaged in library work for many years, we 
had the greatest trouble on account of law- 
lessness and disorder in the branch library 
that was in the best residential section of 
the city, and I have found that to be the 
case, not only in that city, but in a number of 
other cities. The boys who created the 
trouble came from the homes of well-to-do- 
people, where there seemed to be no, or, ap- 
parently, very little discipline and they 
thought that they were better than other 
people, that they had more rights than other 
people, and that they were laws unto them- 
selves, and as a result the library suffered 
from a great deal of disorder and lawless- 
ness in that particular branch. 

Now I should like to say a word or two 
with reference to Miss Hunt's paper, pre- 
sented the other morning. It seems to me 
that one of the most important features was 
not sufficiently emphasized in that excellent 
paper, and that is the personality of the chil- 
dren's librarian. To my mind, the personality 
of the children's librarian is of equal import- 
ance with the books that are in the library. 
We all know that in the history of the world 
the great movements and the great things 
that have been done have been due very 
largely to the personality of a few men or a 
few women who stood back of the idea, who 
stood for an idea. Frances Willard stands 
for an idea, and it was her personality, in my 
judgment more perhaps, or just as much 
as the idea itself which was the cause of 
the great movement that swept over the 
world and for which she stood. And so, from 
Plato to Phillips Brooks, the great moral 
teachers of the world and the great men and 
women who have influenced the world have 
done that largely through their own person- 
ality, and in all work with children it seems 
to me that we should emphasize the person- 
ality of the children's librarian first of all. 
I will go further and say that, in my judg- 
ment, the public library movement to-day is 
weakest in that one point,- in the fact that 



CHILDREN'S LIBRARIANS' SECTION 



245 



we do not get into our work enough person- 
ality, and that we should constantly endeavor 
to put in our work, not only with children 
but with adults, a greater amount of person- 
ality and personal force. The selection of 
books, the character of the books is vital and 
is important; but we must not forget that 
the personality of the men and women in 
the library who are coming in contact with 
the people should ever be kept in mind, and 
the children's librarian, most of all, has the 
opportunity to make the personality of her 
work and of herself felt in a way which is 
impossible or which is not so possible in the 
other departments as it is in the children's 
department. 

In closing, I should like to urge upon li- 
brarians in general the importance of regu- 
lating the work of the children's librarian 
especially so that her time is not absorbed 
in details and routine, so that she may have 
plenty of time to do personal work. If the 
children's librarian feels that so many books 
must be disposed of or a great amount of 
routine work must be done eveiy day, this 
personal work cannot be done ; but it should 
be thoroughly understood and imbued in the 
minds of every one about the library that 
when the opportunity for personal work is 
present the library gives all the time that is 
necessary to do that work not only freely 
but gladly. (Applause.) 

H. H. BALLARD: As was evident in this 
report to which we have listened this morn- 
ing, the question of fines seems to have 
caused us all a good deal of trouble. I 
think there is no doubt that fines are of little 
value unless they are regularly collected. 
The primary reason that it is difficult to col- 
lect fines from the children's room is that 
the children do not like to report to their 
parents that fines are due on their books, and 
if a memorandum is given to a child to carry 
home it is apt to be carelessly or intention- 
ally lost. We have found in our library the 
same condition which was reported from sev- 
eral libraries, that there was a large accumu- 
lation of back fines and no method had yet 
been devised by which those back fines can 
easily be collected. We have, however, now 
solved that problem, and within the last three 



weeks all of the fines running back for the 
past year, some five or six hundred of which 
had accumulated, have been collected, with 
the exception of perhaps 25 or 30. It was 
done in this way: the question arose, Has the 
public library a legal right to collect its 
fines? If so, Is it desirable to do so? The 
question was submitted to lawyers and we 
found that the right in our city at least 
was undoubtedly in the hands of the trus- 
tees. We therefore went to the district at- 
torney and got him to sign, as district attor- 
ney, a simple statement to this effect. We 
then prepared a printed notice stating that a 
fine was due, that the library was authorized 
to collect this fine by entering suit if neces- 
sary, but .to avoid trouble and to reinstate 
the offender in library privileges this notice 
was sent. - jThese notices were sent out by 
registered mail, at a cost of ten cents, giving 
practically 'the service of a trained mes- 
senger, -and bringing back formal receipt cer- 
tifying that the notice had been delivered. As 
a result "of this process we recovered within 
two or three weeks about 75 or 80 per cent, 
of all back fines. 

Among methods of influencing children to 
read there is the method of meeting large 
groups of children personally in their school 
room. I had the privilege of speaking a 
while ago to 500 children at once, and there 
is great economy in this arrangement. In 
your children's room you may have but a 
few at a time, and it is somewhat difficult, 
even in the reception room or lecture room 
of a library, to accommodate large numbers 
of children. Moreover, in the school room 
they are in their quiet seats, they are com- 
fortably seated, and they are under the dis- 
cipline of the school, so that you have per- 
fect attention. You then can speak to 
anywhere from 30 to 500 children at once, 
according to your opportunities. And the 
best plan which I have ever found to inter- 
est children in a given book is to take the 
book to the school and read from it, closing 
with the statement that the rest of the story 
may be found in the book at the library. I 
have found that there has never been a 
single occasion in which a book has been in 
that way partly read to a school or class of 



246 



NARRAGANSETT PIER CONFERENCE 



children that it has not happened that within 
three or four days there has not been any- 
where from six to a hundred calls for that 
book at the library. 

With regard to the care of books, there is 
one suggestion, and that is that it is quite 
important for the librarian in charge to mani- 
fest in the presence of the children that 
respect and regard for books which he would 
like to encourage in them. If the librarian 
throws out books to the children in a care- 
less manner, and receives them and throws 
them back on some table as if they were 
so much merchandise, it will be difficult to 
instil into the children that reverence and 
care for books which they ought to man- 
ifest. 

C. W. SMITH : I can only speak in a gen- 
eral way, for a moment, about the feeling 
that I have regarding children's work. I 
presume you have heard it over and over 
already. It seems to me that it is the one 
work of the library where we can see results, 
where we can see the work of our hands as 
we do it day by day and year by year. It 
is almost the only work that gives us real 
encouragement to go on with the detail, the 
everlasting round of duty, maintaining the 
public library and hoping for its influence 
on humanity. And so it certainly is worth 
doing well. It must be done well, it must not 
be wronged or belittled in any way. We can 
afford to make mistakes with grown-up 
people; perhaps we cannot hurt them very 
much, perhaps we cannot do them very much 
good. We have an axiom that we cannot 
help an adult very much about his reading: 
but a child we are certainly forming like clay 
in the hands of the potter. 

W. H. SARGENT: In asking me to take a 
part in the discussion of this subject Mrs. 
Jackson expressed the opinion that my rea- 
sons for the organization of a children's room 
in my library might be of some help to 
others. Recognizing the fact that the ex- 
pansion of ideas of library management 
would make the children's room inevitable 
in planning our building, I made due pro- 
vision for such a room and fully equipped it 
for the purpose, though I did not expect to 
put it in operation immediately. 



The extremely valuable paper by Miss 
Hunt which we listened to last Monday cov- 
er