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PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL
MEETING
OF THE
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
HELD AT
KAATERSKILL, N. Y.
JUNE 23-28, 1913

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
78 E. WASHINGTON STREET
CHICAGO, ILL.
1913

CONTENTS

KAATERSKILL CONFERENCE
JUNE 23-28, 1913

FIRST GENERAL SESSION
(Monday evening, June 23)

The PRESIDENT: The Thirty-fifth Annual Conference of the American Library Association begins this evening. Custom has decreed that the presiding officer shall deliver a message, and the present presiding officer has not sufficient independence of mind to depart from that long-established custom.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

The World of Print and the World's Work

I

Turning for a text to Victor Hugo's stirring epic of Paris, these words may be found in the section for May, and in the third chapter thereof:

A Library implies an act of faith
Which generations still in darkness hid
Sign in their night, in witness of the dawn.

When Johann Gutenberg in his secret workshop poured the molten metal into the rough matrices he had cut for separate types, the instrument for the spread of Democracy was created. When early Cavaliers and Puritans planted the crude beginnings of free public schools, the forces of Democracy were multiplied. When half a century ago the first meager beginnings of the public library movement were evolved, Democracy was for all time assured. Thus have three great stages, separated each by a span of two hundred years from that preceding, marked that world development whose ultimate meaning is not equality of station or possession, but equality of opportunity.

Not without stress and strife have these yet fragmentary results been achieved. Not without travail and difficulties will universal acceptance be accorded in the days to come. But no one may doubt the final outcome which shall crown the struggle of the centuries. The world was old when typography was invented. Less than five centuries have passed since then, and in this interval—but a brief period in the long history of human endeavor—there has been more enlargement of opportunity for the average man and woman than in all the time that went before. Without the instrumentality of the printed page, without the reproductive processes that give to all the world in myriad tongues the thought of all the centuries, slavery, serfdom and feudalism would still shackle the millions not so fortunate as to be born to purple and ermine, and fine linen.

II

The evolution of the book is therefore the history of the unfoldment of human rights. The chained tome in its medieval prison cell has been supplanted by the handy volume freely sent from the hospitable public library to the homes of the common people. The humblest citizen, today, has at his command books in number and in kind which royal treasuries could not have purchased five hundred years ago. In the sixteenth century, it took a flock of sheep to furnish the vellum for one edition of a book, and the product was for the very few; in the twentieth, a forest is felled to supply the paper for an edition, and the output goes to many hundred thousand readers. As books have multiplied, learning has been more widely disseminated. As more people have become educated, the demand for books has increased enormously. The multiplication of books has stimulated the writing of them, and the inevitable result has been a deterioration of quality proportioned to the increase in quantity. In the English language alone, since 1880, 206,905 titles of books printed in the United States, have been listed, and 226,365 in Great Britain since 1882. Of these 433,270 titles, 84,722 represent novels—36,607 issued in the United States and 48,115 in Great Britain. Despite the inclusion of the trivial and the unsound in this vast mass of printed stuff, no one can doubt the magnitude of the service performed in the advancement of human kind. The universities have felt the touch of popular demand, and in this country at least some of them have attempted to respond. Through correspondence courses, short courses, university week conferences, summer schools, local forums, traveling instructors, and other media of extension, many institutions of higher learning have given recognition to the appeal of the masses. Logically with this enlargement of educational opportunity, the amplification of library facilities has kept pace. The libraries have become in a real sense the laboratory of learning. Intended primarily as great storehouses for the accumulation and preservation rather than the use of manuscripts and books, their doors have been opened wide to all farers in search of truth or mental stimulus.

In a report to the English King, Sir William Berkeley wrote as governor of Virginia in 1642: "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both."

Governor Berkeley's sentiments, expressed by him in turgid rhetoric, were held in his day by most men in authority, but that did not prevent the planting of little schoolhouses here and there, and men of much vision and little property bequeathed their possessions for maintaining them. Many a school had its origin in a bequest comprising a few milch kine, a horse or two, or a crop of tobacco; in some instances, slaves. From such beginnings, with such endowments, was evolved three hundred years ago the public system of education which today prodigally promises, though it but niggardly realizes, sixteen years of schooling for every boy and girl in the land.

If the span of years needed for the development of the free library system has been much shorter, the hostile attitude of influential men and the privations that attended pioneer efforts were no less marked. As recently as 1889 the writer of an article in the North American Review labeled his attack: "Are public libraries public blessings?" and answered his own question in no uncertain negative. "Not only have the public libraries, as a whole, failed to reach their proper aim of giving the means of education to the people," he protested, "but they have gone aside from their true path to furnish amusement and that in part of a pernicious character, chiefly to the young." And he added: "I might have mentioned other possible dangers, such as the power of the directors of any library to make it a propaganda of any delusive ism or doctrine subversive of morality, society or government; but I prefer to rest my case here."

And it was somewhat later than this that the pages of the Century gave space to correspondence in opposition to the establishment of a public library system for the city of New York.

These were but echoes of earlier antagonisms.

III

For the documentary material dealing with the beginnings of the public library movement, the searcher must delve within the thousand pages of a portly folio volume issued by the British government sixty years ago. If one possesses patience sufficient to read the immense mass of dry evidence compiled by a parliamentary commission and "presented to both houses of parliament by command of Her Majesty," some interesting facts in library history will be found. A young man of twenty-three, then an underling in the service of the British Museum, afterwards an eminent librarian, was one of the principal witnesses. Edward Edwards had the gift of vision. Half a century before public libraries became the people's universities, as they are today, his prophetic tongue gave utterance to what has since become the keynote of library aims and policies. Badgered by hostile inquisitors, ridiculed by press and politicians, he undeviatingly clung to his views, and he lived to see his prophecy realized.

Great libraries there had been before his day; remarkable as a storehouse of knowledge in printed form was, and is in our own day, the institution with which he was associated. But in these rich reference collections intended for the student of research, the element of popular use was lacking. To have suggested the loan of a single book for use outside the four walls of the library would have startled and benumbed everyone in authority—and without authority—from the members of the governing board to librarian, sub-librarians, and messenger boys. This stripling faced the members of parliament, and without hesitation proclaimed his thesis.

"It is not merely to open the library to persons who, from the engrossing nature of their engagements of business, are at present utterly excluded from it, but it is also that the library may be made a direct agent in some degree in the work of national education. Let not anyone be alarmed lest something very theoretical or very revolutionary should be proposed. I merely suggest that the library should be opened to a class of men quite shut out from it by its present regulations."

Then he added: "In such a country as this there should be one great national storehouse. But in addition to this, there should be libraries in different quarters on a humbler scale, very freely accessible."

One of the ablest members of parliament, William Ewart, of Liverpool, became intensely interested in the views expressed by young Edwards, and from that day was counted the consistent champion of library privileges for the common people. Largely through his instrumentality, aided by such men as Richard Cobden, John Bright and Joseph Brotherton, parliament passed an act "for the encouragement of museums." Out of this measure grew the later public libraries' act. This notable step was not accomplished without bitter opposition.

"The next thing we will be asked to do," said one indignant member on the floor of the House, "is to furnish people with quoits and peg-tops and footballs at the expense of taxpayers. Soon we will be thinking of introducing the performances of Punch for the amusement of the people."

Events in England influenced similar movements in the United States. In a letter to Edward Everett, in 1851, Mr. George Ticknor gave the first impetus to the establishment of a free public library in Boston—the first in the new world to be maintained permanently by the people for the people.

"I would establish a library which differs from all free libraries yet attempted," he wrote. "I mean one in which any popular books, tending to moral and intellectual improvement, shall be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons can be reading the same book at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the whole people when they most care for it; that is, when it is new and fresh."

Sixty years after the date of Mr. Ticknor's letter, and chiefly within the last two decades of the period, the public library movement has assumed a place in public education, which, relatively, the public school movement attained only after three hundred years of effort. When Thomas Bodley died, in 1613, in all Europe there were but three libraries accessible to the public—the Bodleian, the Angelo Rocca at Rome and the Ambrosian at Milan. In 1841 the Penny Cyclopedia devoted about four inches of a narrow column to the subject of libraries, ancient and modern, and limited its reference to American libraries to one sentence, obtained at second hand from an older contemporary:

"In the United States of America, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, the principal libraries are, or were in 1831, that of Harvard College, containing 36,000 volumes; the Philadelphia Library, containing 27,000; that of the Boston Athenaeum, containing 26,000; that of Congress, containing 16,000, and that of Charleston, containing 13,000."

It is only since 1867 that the federal government has deemed it worth while to compile library statistics, and the first comprehensive figures were gathered in 1875. It is worth noting that then they embraced all libraries comprising 300 volumes, and that in 1893 no mention is made of collections containing less than a thousand volumes, while the most recent official enumeration makes 5,000 volumes the unit of consideration. From these official figures may be gleaned something of the extraordinary growth of libraries, both numerically and in size. In 1875, including school libraries there were 2,039 containing a thousand volumes, ten years later there were 4,026, ten years after that 8,000, and at this date there are in this class not less than 12,000, while the recorded number comprising three hundred volumes or more reaches the substantial total of 15,634, and 2,298 of these catalog in excess of 5,000 volumes each.

IV

These figures show phenomenal growth, but even more impressive are the facts that give their full meaning in detail. From a striking compilation issued in Germany by Die Brücke a few weeks ago, together with figures extracted by means of a questionnaire, supplemented by statistical material gathered by the Bureau of Education, the facts which follow have been deduced: Counting the great libraries of the world, the six continents abutting the seven seas possess 324 libraries whose book collections number in excess of 100,000 volumes each, and of these 79—or approximately one-fourth—are located in the Americas. Of the 79 American libraries 72 are in the United States, including university, public, governmental and miscellaneous institutions, with a combined collection of 19,295,000 volumes. If this statistical inquiry is pursued further, a reason becomes apparent why millions are starved for want of books while other millions seemingly have a surfeit of them. The rural regions, save in a handful of commonwealths whose library commissions or state libraries actively administer traveling libraries, the book supply is practically negligible. Even the hundreds of itinerating libraries but meagerly meet the want. All the traveling libraries in all the United States have a total issue annually less than that of any one of twenty municipal systems that can be named. The public library facilities in at least six thousand of the smaller towns are pitifully insufficient and in hundreds of them wholly absent. The movement to supply books to the people was first launched in the rural regions seventy years ago. Indeed the movement for popular education known as the American Lyceum, which forecast the activities of the modern public library just as the mechanics' institutes of Great Britain prepared the soil for them in that country, flourished chiefly in the less thickly settled centers of population. The early district school libraries melted away in New York state and Wisconsin and other states, and the devastated shelves have never been amply renewed. The library commissions are valiantly and energetically endeavoring to supply the want, but their efforts are all too feebly supported by their respective states. In this particular, the policy is that which unfortunately obtains as to all educational effort. More than 55 per cent of the young people from 6 to 20 years old—about 17,000,000 of them—live in the country or in towns of less than two thousand inhabitants. According to an official report from which this statement is extracted, there are 5,000 country schools still taught in primitive log houses, uncomfortable, unsuitable, unventilated, unsanitary, illy equipped, poorly lighted, imperfectly heated—boys and girls in all stages of advancement receiving instruction from one teacher of very low grade. It is plain why, in the summing up of this report, "illiteracy in rural territory is twice as great as in urban territory, notwithstanding that thousands of illiterate immigrants are crowded in the great manufacturing and industrial centers. The illiteracy among native-born children of native parentage is more than three times as great as among native children of foreign parentage, largely on account of the lack of opportunities for education in rural America." In Indian legend Nokomis, the earth, symbolizes the strength of motherhood; it may yet chance that the classic myth of the hero who gained his strength because he kissed the earth may be fully understood in America only when the people learn that they will remain strong, as Mr. Münsterberg has put it, "only by returning with every generation to the soil."

If the states have proved recreant to duty in this particular, the municipalities have shown an increasing conception of educational values. The figures make an imposing statistical array. In the United States there are 1,222 incorporated places of 5,000 or more inhabitants, and their libraries house 90,000,000 volumes, with a total yearly use aggregating 110,000,000 issues. Four million volumes a year are added to their shelves, and collectively they derive an income of $20,000,000. Their permanent endowments, which it must be regretfully said but 600 of them share, now aggregate $40,000,000. Nearly all of these libraries occupy buildings of their own, Mr. Andrew Carnegie having supplied approximately $42,226,338 for the purpose in the United States, and the balance of the $100,000,000 represented in buildings having been donated by local benefactors or raised by taxation.

The population of these 1,222 places is 38,758,584, considerably less than half that of the entire United States. Their book possessions, on the other hand, are nine times as great as those in the rest of the country; the circulation of the books nearly twelve times in volume. Closer analysis of these figures enforces still more strongly the actual concentration of the available book supply. The hundred largest cities of the United States, varying in size from a minimum of 53,684 to a maximum of 4,766,883, possess in the aggregate more books than all the rest of the country together, and represent the bulk of the trained professional service rendered. The great majority of the 3,000 graduates whom the library schools have sent into service since the first class was organized in 1887, are in these libraries and in the university libraries. Forty per cent of the books circulated are issued to the dwellers in these one hundred cities, and in fifteen of them the stupendous total of 30,000,834 issues for home reading was recorded last year. Without such analysis as this, the statistical totals would be misleading. The concentration of resources and of trained service in large centers of population, comparatively few in number, makes evident the underlying cause for the modern trend of library development. A further study of conditions in these human hives justifies the specialized forms of service which have become a marked factor in library extension within a decade. With increased resources, with vastly improved internal machinery, with enlarged conception of opportunity for useful service, have come greater liberality of rules and ever widening circles of activity, until today no individual and no group of individuals, remains outside the radius of library influence. If this awakened zeal has spurred to efforts that seem outside the legitimate sphere of library work, no undue concern need be felt. Neither the genius or enthusiasm of the individual nor the enterprise of a group of individuals will ever be permitted to go too rapidly or too far: the world's natural conservatism and inherited unbelief stand ever ready to retard or prevent.

V

Specialization has been incorporated into library administration chiefly to give expeditious and thorough aid to seekers of information touching a wide variety of interests—business men, legislators, craftsmen, special investigators and students of every sort. This added duty has not diminished its initial function to make available the literature of all time, nor to satisfy those who go to books for the pure joy of reading. The recreative service of the library is as important as the educative, or the informative. For the great mass of people, the problem has been the problem of toil long and uninterrupted. The successful struggle of the unions to restrict the hours of labor has developed another problem almost as serious—the problem of leisure. Interwoven with this acute problem is another which subdivision of labor has introduced into modern industrial occupations—the terrible fatigue which results from a monotonous repetition of the same process hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Such blind concentration in the making of but one piece of a machine, or a garment, or a watch, or any other article of merchandise, without knowledge of its relationship to the rest, soon wears the human worker out. There must be an outlet of play, of fun, or recreation. The librarian need not feel apologetic to the public because perchance his circulation statistics show that 70 per cent of it is classed as fiction. If he wishes to reduce this percentage to 69 or 68 or 61, let him do it not by discouraging the reading of novels, but by stimulating the use of books in other classes of literature. But well does he merit his own sense of humiliation and the condemnation of the critics if he needs must feel ashamed of the kind of novels that he puts upon his shelves. To quote a fellow librarian who expresses admirably the value of such literature, "A good story has created many an oasis in many an otherwise arid life. Many-sidedness of interest makes for good morals, and millions of our fellows step through the pages of a story book into a broader world than their nature and their circumstances ever permit them to visit. If anything is to stay the narrowing and hardening process which specialization of learning, specialization of inquiry and of industry and swift accumulation of wealth are setting up among us, it is a return to romance, poetry, imagination, fancy, and the general culture we are now taught to despise. Of all these the novel is a part; rather, in the novel are all of these. But a race may surely find springing up in itself a fresh love of romance, in the high sense of that word, which can keep it active, hopeful, ardent, progressive. Perhaps the novel is to be, in the next decades, part of the outward manifestation of a new birth of this love of breadth and happiness."

VI

Many of the factory workers are young men and young women, whose starved imaginations seek an outlet that will not be denied. In lieu of wholesome recreation and material, they will find "clues to life's perplexities" in salacious plays, in cheap vaudeville performances, in the suggestive pages of railway literature, in other ways that make for a lowering of moral tone. The reaction that craves amusement of any sort is manifest in the nightly crowded stalls of the cheap theaters. Eight million spectators view every moving picture film that is manufactured. It is estimated that one-sixth of the entire population of New York City and of Chicago attends the theaters on any Sunday of the year. One Sunday evening, at the instance of Miss Jane Addams, an investigation was made of 466 theaters in the latter city, and it was discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge; the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's betrayer; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained honor. And of course these influences extend to the children who are always the most ardent and responsive of audiences. There is grave danger that the race will develop a ragtime disposition, a moving picture habit and a comic supplement mind.

VII

It is perhaps too early to point to the specialized attention which libraries have given to the needs of young people as a distinct contribution to society. Another generation must come before material evidence for good or ill becomes apparent. That the work is well worth the thought bestowed, whether present methods survive or are modified, may not be gainsaid. The derelicts of humanity are the wrecks who knew no guiding light. The reformatories and the workhouses, the penal institutions generally and the charitable ones principally, are not merely a burden upon society, but a reproach for duty unperformed. Society is at last beginning to realize that it is better to perfect machinery of production than to mend the imperfect product; that to dispense charity may ameliorate individual suffering, but does not prevent recurrence. And so more attention is being given prevention than cure.

I gave a beggar from my little store
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore
And came again, and yet again, still cold
And hungry as before.

I gave a thought, and through that thought of mine,
He found himself a man, supreme, divine,
Bold, clothed, and crowned with blessings manifold,
And now he begs no more.

VIII

If numbers and social and industrial importance warrant special library facilities for children, certainly the same reasons underlie the special library work with foreigners which has within recent years been carried on extensively in the larger cities. Last month the census bureau issued an abstract of startling import to those who view in the coming of vast numbers from across the waters a menace to the institutions of this democracy. According to this official enumeration, in but fourteen of fifty cities having over 100,000 inhabitants in 1910 did native whites of native parentage contribute as much as one-half the total population. The proportion exceeded three-fifths in only four cities. On the other hand, in twenty-two cities of this class, of which fifteen are in New England and the Middle Atlantic divisions, less than one-third of the population were native whites of native parentage, over two-thirds in all but one of these cities consisting of foreign-born whites and their children.

In his Ode delivered at Harvard, Lowell eloquently referred to

"The pith and marrow of a Nation
Drawing force from all her men,
Highest, humblest, weakest, all,
For her time of need, and then
Pulsing it again through them,
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,
She of the open soul and open door,
With room about her hearth for all mankind!"

This was written in 1865. Since then the rim of the Mediterranean has sent its enormous contribution of unskilled and unlettered human beings to the New World. There have been three great tides of migration from over-seas. The first came to secure liberty of conscience; the second sought liberty of political thought and action; the third came in quest of bread. And of the three, incomparably the greater problem of assimilation is that presented by the last comers. Inextricably interwoven are all the complexities which face the great and growing municipalities, politically and industrially and socially. These are the awful problems of congestion and festering slums, of corruption in public life, of the exploitation of womanhood, of terrible struggle with wretchedness and poverty. Rightly directed, the native qualities and strength of these peoples will bring a splendid contribution in the making of a virile citizenship. Wrongly shaped, their course in the life of the city may readily become of sinister import. Frequently they are misunderstood, and they easily misunderstand. The problem is one of education, but it is that most difficult problem, of education for grown-ups. Here perhaps the library may render the most distinct service, in that it can bring to them in their own tongues the ideals and the underlying principles of life and custom in their adopted country; and through their children, as they swarm into the children's rooms, is established a point of contact which no other agency could so effectually provide.

Under the repressive measures of old-world governments, the racial culture and national spirit of Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, Balkan Slavs, and Russian Jews have been stunted. Here both are warmed into life and renewed vigor, and in generous measure are given back to the land of their adoption. Such racial contribution must prove of enormous value, whether, as many sociologists believe, this country is to prove a great melting pot for the fusing of many races, or whether as Dr. Zhitlowsky contends, there is to be one country, one set of laws, one speech, but a vast variety of national cultures, contributing each its due share to the enrichment of the common stock.

IX

Great changes have come about in the methods that obtain for the exercise of popular government. In a Democracy whose chief strength is derived from an intelligent public opinion, the sharpening of such intelligence and enlargement of general knowledge concerning affairs of common concern are of paramount importance. Statute books are heavily cumbered with laws that are unenforced because public opinion goes counter to them. Nonenforcement breeds disrespect for law, and unscientific making of laws leads to their disregard. So the earliest attempts to find a remedy contemplated merely the legislator and the official, bringing together for their use through the combined services of trained economists and of expert reference librarians the principles and foundation for contemplated legislation and the data as to similar attempts elsewhere. Fruitful as this service has proved within the limitation of state and municipal officialdom, a broadened conception of possibilities now enlarges the scope of the work to include citizen organizations interested in the study of public questions, students of sociology, economics and political science, business men keenly alive to the intimate association—in a legitimate sense—of business and politics, and that new and powerful element in public affairs which has added three million voters to the poll lists in ten states, and will soon add eleven million voters more in the remaining thirty-eight. The new library service centering in state and municipal legislative reference libraries, and in Civics departments of large public libraries, forecasts the era, now rapidly approaching, when aldermen and state representatives will still enact laws and state and city officials will enforce them, but their making will be determined strictly by public opinion. The local government of the future will be by quasi-public citizen organizations directing aldermen and state legislators accurately to register their will. When representative government becomes misrepresentative, in the words of a modern humorist, Democracy will ask the Powers that Be whether they are the Powers that Ought to Be. To intelligently determine the answer, public opinion must not ignorantly ask.

X

This has been called the age of utilitarianism. Such it unquestionably is, but its practicality is not disassociated from idealism. The resources of numberless commercial enterprises are each in this day reckoned in millions, and their products are figured in terms of many millions more, as once thousands represented the spread of even the greatest of industries. But more and more, business men are coming to realize that business organization as it affects for weal or woe thousands who contribute to their success, must be conducted as a trust for the common good, and not merely for selfish exploitation, or for oppression. As the trade guilds of old wielded their vast power for common ends, so all the workers gave the best at their command to make their articles of merchandise the most perfect that human skill and care could produce. Men of business whose executive skill determines the destiny of thousands in their employ, are growing more and more to an appreciation of the trusteeship that is theirs. A humane spirit is entering the relationship between employer and employed. Great commercial organizations are conducting elaborate investigations into conditions of housing, sanitation, prolongation of school life, social insurance and similar subjects of betterment for the toilers; but a brief span ago they were concerned chiefly with trade extension and lowering of wages, all unconcerned about the living conditions of their dependents. They too are now exemplifying the possession of that constructive imagination which builds large and beyond the present. For results that grow out of experience and of experiment they also are in part dependent upon the sifted facts that are found in print. The business house library is a recent development, and in ministering in different ways to both employer and employed, gives promise of widespread usefulness.

XI

With the tremendous recent growth of industrialism and the rapid multiplication of invention, the manifest need for making available the vast sum of gathered knowledge concerning the discoveries of modern science has evolved the great special libraries devoted to the varied subdivisions of the subject. Munificently endowed as many of them are, highly organized for ready access to material, administered to encourage use and to give expert aid as well, their great importance cannot be overestimated. What they accomplish is not wholly reducible to statistics, nor can their influence be readily traced, perhaps, to the great undertakings of today which overshadow the seven wonders of antiquity. But there can be no question that without the opportunities that here lie for study and research, and—no less important—without the skilled assistance freely rendered by librarian and bibliographer, special talent would often remain dormant and its possessor unsatisfied. Greater here would be the loss to society than to the individual.

XII

Thus the libraries are endeavoring to make themselves useful in every field of human enterprise or interest; with books of facts for the information they possess; with books of inspiration for the stimulus they give and the power they generate. Conjointly these yield the equipment which develops the constructive imagination, without which the world would seem but a sorry and a shriveled spot to dwell upon. The poet and the dreamer conceive the great things which are wrought; the scientist and the craftsman achieve them; the scholar and the artist interpret them. Thus associated, they make their finest contribution to the common life. The builders construct the great monuments of iron and of concrete which are the expression of this age, as the great cathedrals and abbeys were of generations that have passed. Adapted as they are to the needs of this day, our artists and our writers have shown us the beauty and the art which the modern handiwork of man possesses. With etcher's tool one man of keen insight has shown us the art that inheres in the lofty structures which line the great thoroughfares of our chief cities, the beauty of the skylines they trace with roof and pediment. With burning words another has given voice to machinery and to the vehicles of modern industry, and we thrill to the eloquence and glow of his poetic fervor.

"Great works of art are useful works greatly done," declares Dr. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, and rightly viewed the most prosaic achievements of this age, whether they be great canals or clusters of workmen's homes worthily built, or maybe more humble projects, have a greatness of meaning that carries with it the sense of beauty and of art.

In medieval days, the heralds of civilization were the warrior, the missionary, the explorer and the troubadour; in modern times, civilization is carried forward by the chemist, the engineer, the captain of industry, and the interpreter of life—whether the medium utilized be pen or brush or voice. Without vision, civilization would wither and perish, and so it may well be that the printed page shall serve as symbol of its supreme vision. Within the compass of the book sincerely written, rightly chosen, and well used are contained the three chief elements which justify the library of the people—information, education, recreation.

The urge of the world makes these demands; ours is the high privilege to respond.

The PRESIDENT: We have a very interesting ending to tonight's program in that we have secured from eminent men and women in the United States and Great Britain brief expressions touching our own work. A circular letter was sent to a number of these eminent ladies and gentlemen represented in professional and business life, to the following effect:

"Librarians realize that they can profit from seeing themselves 'as others see them.' At the coming annual conference of the American Library Association to be held in Kaaterskill, N. Y., it is planned to present to the assembled librarians of the United States and Canada brief messages from leading thinkers and recognized authorities in the arts, sciences and letters, and in public life, commenting upon such library activities as are related particularly with their own special interests. Each message may take the form either of criticism or suggestion. We shall esteem it a privilege if you will consent to contribute to this symposium. While we shall be glad to hear from you on any phase of library work which most appeals to you, we venture to suggest the following topic for your comment: (Here was inserted a specific topic suggested for individual discussion.)

Sincerely yours,

HENRY E. LEGLER,
President."

Most of these questions will be apparent as the answers are read. We have distributed these responses among a few of our own members who will serve as proxies for the most distinguished contributors to a program which the American Library Association, I believe, has ever had.

Selections from these letters were then read by Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites, Mr. C. B. Roden, Miss Mary Eileen Ahern and Mr. W. P. Cutter.

(The following is a list of the questions which were asked in these letters and the replies received follow.)

Are our public libraries succeeding in their effort to bring to men and women the "life more abundant?"

What can the library do to encourage the study of American history?

Should our public expect the library to supply all the "best sellers" hot from the press?

Are our public libraries making returns in service adequate to funds appropriated?

How could our tax supported public libraries be of greater usefulness to business men?

Is the negro being helped by our public libraries?

Does the public library do as much as it might to encourage the reading of the classics?

Is the public library helping to improve dramatic taste?

Is co-operation between the public school and the public library developing in the right direction?

Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?

Is the public library a factor in the recent development of a public conscience?

Should the public library exercise censorship over the books it circulates?

What is a dead book?

What rank should the library have in the scale of the community's social assets?

What is your conception of the ideal librarian?

Is it wicked for our libraries to amuse people?

Are the art departments of our public libraries quickening the love for the beautiful?

Are our libraries helping to make better citizens of those from over-seas?

Is the modern city library engaging in activities outside its proper sphere, e. g., lectures, storytelling, art exhibits, victrola concerts, loan of pianola rolls, etc.?

Is the library doing as much as it might to be a true university to the people?

What do you consider the most valuable accomplishment of the public library movement in the past decade?

Need librarians apologize for circulating a large percentage of contemporary fiction?

New York, April 7, 1913.

Dear Mr. President:

You ask "what do you consider the most valuable accomplishment of the public library movement in the past decade?"

Answer—

The spread of the truth that the public library, free to all the people, gives nothing for nothing; that the reader must himself climb the ladder and in climbing gain knowledge how to live this life well.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

Cornwall-on-Hudson, N. Y.,
April 11, 1913.

My father[1] has asked me to write to you in reply to your letter concerning the conference of the American Library Association to be held in Kaaterskill, N. Y. Neither my father nor I have any chance to see in any detail what our public libraries are doing to make life more abundant. One little incident, however, has come within my experience. The New York Public Library sends its discarded books to various hospitals and camps instead of destroying them. I have been able to get some of these discarded books for use in a Boys' Club here in Cornwall. They were well chosen for what I wanted and the boys have been responsive and interested in taking them out. This is simply one of the things that the public libraries are doing with the books they are through with and can use no more.

[1] Lyman Abbott.

Yours very truly,

BEATRICE VAIL ABBOTT.

London, England,
April 15, 1913.

In reply to your letter of April 1st, written on behalf of the American Library Association, I do consider that to a certain extent the fiction circulated in the public libraries of the United States does help to enlighten the people on social and economic problems. But I am bound to say that I think that we novelists might do a very great deal more in this direction if

we would avoid sentimentalizing the truth in order to make it seem more palatable, and also if we would adopt the habit of describing more completely the general social background against which our leading figures live and move.

Believe me, Yours faithfully,

ARNOLD BENNETT.

Drama League of America,
Chicago, Ill.

In the last three years the American people as a whole have begun to awaken to a realization of the vast importance of our amusements in the nation's life. We are realizing that we are far behind the other civilized countries in the development of our dramatic taste, and we are beginning to be uneasy over the danger of being too careless in regard to our recreation. The people at large are commencing to take a genuine interest in the problems presented by our theater, and the character of the plays they give.

We have arrived at a period of prosperity when we have time, at last, to pay attention to the arts, and especially the last to be developed, the dramatic art. We are uneasy over the conditions in our theaters today.

Vaguely the people as a whole are feeling around for one means or another to correct these conditions, to create a great national art and to restore drama to her proper place among the arts. One movement after another has aimed to meet these conditions—new theaters—municipal theaters, censorship laws,—every sort of reform. It has remained for the Drama League of America to place its finger upon the really vital issue. For the actual fault of the present situation lies with the easy going American public. You cannot create a New Theater without a public to support it; you cannot force art on an unwilling public no matter how large an A you use in spelling it. In fact, your reforms must begin the other side of the footlights; and if we are to have better plays upon our stage, if we are to do away with the meretricious plays now too frequently there, we must work with this great pleasure-loving good-natured public, and cultivate in it a taste for better drama.

We must create a demand for good drama and the supply will follow—the dramatist, actor and manager are only too willing to fall into line, if the public can be induced to refuse the worthless play and support better drama. The really vital and necessary thing is to secure a public which will enjoy and support good plays. Hence, it has become an important and basic matter to improve the dramatic tastes of the country. In fact, in the opinion of many, this is one of the great problems we have before us as a nation today.

Organized with this very object, the Drama League of America has worked for three years on the problem. In those three years it has discovered many things. One of these is, that there is a real and genuine response to the appeal of the written drama; that the message of the play need not be restricted to the city with a theater, but that through the printed play every community may be reached. Another point worked out by the league is the absolute assurance that the best and in fact the only way to improve the dramatic taste of the country is to inculcate a thorough knowledge of good drama—an intimate acquaintance with the best plays written. As many of these plays are rarely acted now, or if acted are confined to the big cities, the third point easily follows, that by means of the printed play we can gradually so inoculate the entire nation with a knowledge of good drama and what it really is that it will turn instinctively from the cheap and worthless play and demand better things. Consequently the first and most important matter is to make good drama accessible to every one. By spreading knowledge of the best plays of the past and present, all over the country, we are improving the dramatic taste of the nation and paving the way for better conditions in the theaters.

In this effort to increase the reading of plays the Drama League not unnaturally turned early in its career to the libraries, feeling itself largely dependent upon them for the full development of its work. The keenest response has come in return. Over 73 libraries are represented in our membership and keep on file the league literature. The testimony from these libraries is most encouraging. On every side we find the libraries eager to help in this development of public dramatic taste.

Since the only way to improve dramatic taste is by acquiring a thorough knowledge of plays, it is palpably apparent that the libraries can be the greatest possible help in this new movement. To illustrate concretely—The Drama League enters a medium sized town with one public library, inducing the two or three women's clubs to take up each a course in modern drama, interesting the teachers in the high school in the league's high school course, even persuading the grade school to do drama work with the younger pupils. Usually there are formed also several little reading circles. Of course, the first demand is for the published plays. The students flock to the libraries to get the desired dramas.

In Chicago the testimony has come many times that since the organization of The Drama League public interest has been so keen that the demand for dramas has been phenomenal. Is the library content merely to recognize this condition? By no means. The Drama Department has had to quadruple its supply, and even then is frequently obliged to hold the books in for reference only in order to meet the demand. But see what this has meant to the league to have that quadruple supply of the dramas demanded by its members. From Washington comes the testimony that the organization of the league has increased the demand for drama books; from Los Angeles came a large order for special dramas and reference books needed by our members. The Massachusetts State Library has offered to meet any demands made upon it. Librarians in various communities are officers and directors in this new movement.

May I suggest a few ways in which the libraries can help us? In the first place, it will be a real benefit to any community if its library will become a member of The Drama League and keep its literature on file. In this way the community is kept informed through the Drama League bulletins of the best current plays by its critical analysis; it has access also to the study courses and bibliographies on drama prepared by the league's experts. Secondly, it would be an inestimable help in this task of improving dramatic taste of the community if the library would be sure to have on hand all the dramas listed in our study and reading courses. Thirdly, if the libraries would arrange a handy shelf of worthy drama where "he who runs may read," where the passerby would be attracted by a drama and pick it up to read it, it might induce a taste for better plays, a knowledge of good drama in a previously heedless theater goer. In Evanston, Illinois, for three years this shelf has been maintained in the library by the Drama Club. Every few weeks a new selection of dramas is placed on this little book rack which stands near the main call desk. It is much used and very popular.

The library could also helpfully publish a separate list of its books on drama and dramas, or better yet arrange them in a separate section. Such a list is published yearly by the Evanston Library and several other libraries have recently adopted this plan—notably the Newberry Library, Chicago, and the Kansas City Library.

Another way in which the libraries can co-operate in raising dramatic taste, is by making it easy for the playgoer to read the dramas which have been published and are to be presented in his city. By co-operation with the Drama League the library might receive word in advance when a published worthy play is to be given in town. It could then see to it either that its copy of that play is withdrawn from circulation and held for reference only, or it could secure extra copies of the play to meet the extra demand. If it could be thoroughly understood that the library was doing this, interest in reading the play could be stimulated. For instance, the library could post a notice stating the coming of the play to town, side by side with the league bulletin or criticism of the play, and the announcement that it could be secured at the book shelf. With this active help of the libraries we might go far toward securing a trained dramatic taste on the part of our theater goers. There are several magazines of special value to the student of drama. It would be a very great help if the libraries made a special point of including these among their subscriptions and of listing them under the Drama Department—as for instance, the Drama Quarterly, and Poet Lore print in each issue a play which has never been printed in translation before, and which cannot be secured elsewhere. These are extremely valuable to the drama student. The Drama Quarterly, moreover, is especially adapted to the needs of the student of drama, and should be accessible to him. It aims to criticise the various books on drama and dramas of special excellence, also publishing notices of the most recent drama movements in this country and abroad. It is not used for league propaganda, but was taken over by The Drama League merely because it was in danger of being abandoned. Moreover, in Current Opinion and Hearst's Magazine are frequently printed very valuable portions of unpublished new plays. With every issue of L'Illustration is published a new French drama in French. It would be an excellent thing if the larger or better equipped libraries could excerpt the plays from these magazines and have them sewed up simply, each complete by itself, and kept with the other dramas. In this way the library could make an excellent modern drama department readily accessible to the league members, obtainable in no other way, and at very slight cost to the library.

A very important way in which the Library Association might help is one which may not be practical, but which your convention might be able to work out for us. It is in the nature of loan libraries. As we introduce our study courses into the small towns we frequently find no library facilities along our lines. One of our workers made an investigation of the Drama Department in libraries in small towns of five to ten thousand inhabitants in the Middle West, and found that without exception all of those she visited, had only Shakespeare and Faust, with occasionally a volume of L'Aiglon. It is easy to see how difficult it will be for clubs and individuals to take up a study of drama under such conditions. Is there any way in which the large state libraries can prepare a loan library at very slight cost, made up of books desired for this special work, which could be borrowed by the local library for the use of its clubs? Of course, in some states, as in Wisconsin and New York, and probably many others, this is covered by the traveling libraries; but there are very many where this is not so. Cannot the libraries go even farther in their effort to improve dramatic taste and meet the demand for dramas and books on dramas, a demand which the Drama League is attempting to create?

Several libraries in various cities, as notably Chicago and Washington, have opened their rooms for Drama League meetings. Cannot this be done in other cities? Surely any way in which you, as public institutions, can increase the interest in good drama, is a part of your proper function. The league work must go hand in hand with the libraries. Without you and your resources, your wisdom and your co-operation, we would be much crippled and sadly curtailed in our possibilities of achievements. On the other hand, now that the development of a national taste for better drama is becoming recognized as a necessity in order to effect any improvement in the conditions of our stage today, now that we fully recognize that the best way to create a better dramatic taste is by familiarity with the best in drama, now that we are working to make the reading of plays popular and wide spread, does it not become a very important branch of the library's activity to take every step possible to increase the reading of plays and the thorough knowledge of dramatic literature on the part of young and old?

The real opportunity is with the children. Here we can create a fine dramatic taste for the future, and here, too, the library can help. In your junior corner, can you not have the plays recommended on our junior list, as suitable for children in order that they may have them for their play acting? Can you not start a Junior League Drama Circle to read and act little children's plays, just as you have your story hour? In this way the library is helping us prepare the audiences of the future which shall not only support better drama, but being thoroughly inoculated with an instinctive dramatic taste, will positively demand worthy drama. So will the libraries and The Drama League, representing the universities, schools, clubs and individuals in general have aroused the public conscience to a realization of its responsibilities for the amusements of the people.

MARJORIE A. BEST (MRS. A. STARR BEST) President, Drama League of America.

The Macmillan Company, New York, N. Y.,

May 5, 1913.

In reply to your esteemed letter of May 2nd I may say that the matter which seems to me to be of the greatest interest to publishers, and possibly also to librarians, at the present time is the dissemination among the public at large of that correct information in regard to the ever increasing tide of new books which will enable the public to learn of really meritorious works which are published, and avoid the trash which is now being so freely distributed.

Almost the only way at the present time of reaching large numbers of book readers is through the libraries, and this seems sufficient excuse for bringing this, which seems to me to be the most important matter, to your notice and of begging that it may be given publicity among your fellow librarians in order that we may have suggestions for the solution of the difficulty.

Yours very truly,

GEORGE P. BRETT,
President.

Brown University, Providence, R. I.,

April 29, 1913.

In reply to your letter of April 21 I can only say that I am not familiar enough with the conduct of American libraries to make any new suggestions on the question you propose. I think the plan followed by the Providence Public Library is the best one to encourage the reading of the standard works of literature. It has, as you of course know, a pleasant room, easily accessible, in which attractive editions of the best authors can be read. Would it be feasible to supplement this plan by publishing, from time to time, interesting, short descriptions of standard books, giving prospective readers some notion of the subject and peculiar attraction of each—somewhat after the manner of publishers' alluring (or would-be alluring) notices of new books?

Yours sincerely,

W. C. BRONSON.

Northampton, Mass.,
May 16, 1913.

Your letter of the fourteenth, inviting me to contribute to a symposium of thought concerning library work in America and suggesting the topic, "What is your conception of the ideal librarian," does me great honor. But it brings to my mind very clearly my inability to offer a definition which I could possibly hope would be enlightening or stimulating to a convention of librarians.

The library work of our present day has expanded into such liberal bounds and taken on such a missionary, and at the same time scientific, spirit that one who is merely its beneficiary cannot give himself the hardihood to offer words of criticism or of counsel. I know no work which shows such splendid contrasts to what it was when I began life as does the profession of the public librarian and the professional conception of the library's mission to the world.

It has been my great joy and honor to bring up a large family whose members are now separated and busy in the world's work and it gives me great pleasure to say of them, as of myself, that the modern management of public libraries has made life worth incalculably more than it could have been under the limitations of forty years ago.

With every good wish I beg to remain ever

Yours truly,

GEORGE W. CABLE.

Santa Barbara, Cal.,
May 5, 1913.

It gives me great pleasure to attempt a brief answer to the question you suggest—"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" I should be inclined to answer the question decidedly in the affirmative. In addition to the letters I receive from persons whose only access to modern fiction is through the public library, concerning my own work, I have, in the course of political campaigns, and in places in various parts of the country where I have made another sort of address, held many conversations with men and women in the audiences. These have interested me greatly. My own experience corroborates a fact to which I have heard several librarians attest (and it is to me the most hopeful phenomenon in our American life), that the American public—mainly through the libraries—is reading more widely and more intelligently than those who do not come into direct contact with a large portion of it guess. Four or five months ago I received a letter from a poor woman who lives on a farm near one of the larger towns of Massachusetts giving me a list of the books she had got from the library during the past year. She had read them all; and they included, in addition to two good biographies and Royce's "Loyalty," several of the best recent novels, both English and American, dealing seriously with the problems of modern life. And finally, the other day when I was in San Francisco, I had a long conversation with an ex-burglar who had served a term in the penitentiary, and who has reformed and has been for the last eight years making an honest living, on the subject of such novels as you mention. His comments on them were not only interesting but often valuable. His source was, of course, the public library. Hence, I am glad of this opportunity to pay my tribute to the librarian, and to express, as an American citizen, my appreciation of the work he is doing.

Sincerely yours,

WINSTON CHURCHILL.

Bureau of Education,
Washington, D. C.
April 29, 1913.

The public libraries have no better opportunity for effective service than that offered through generous and intelligent co-operation with the public schools and especially with the high schools and the highest grades of the grammar schools. Ideas and ideals gained through reading in childhood and youth effect the character more fundamentally and more permanently, and determine moral conduct for a longer time than ideas and ideals gained later. It should also be remembered that children have more time to read than men and women immersed in the strong current of adult life.

The public library in every city and town should be open on the freest terms to all school children and they should feel that they have the heartiest welcome to it. Not only should the teacher encourage children to use the library; librarians should invite them to do so and make all possible preparations to serve them. There should be in the libraries a sufficient number of reading rooms to accommodate children of different grades. In these should be assistant librarians who know the very best in literature for children and youth and who know also how to deal with children and how to make the rooms attractive. It is all important that the reading rooms and those in charge be attractive, respected, liked, and loved. It is especially important that children be led to read those things that have permanent and eternal value. No one should be permitted to direct the reading of children who thinks it necessary to have books written down to them or who does not know that the greatest books are the simplest and the most wholesome. The children's librarians should also be whole minded and whole hearted people with a broad and interesting knowledge of the world and life. It will be fatal if they are narrow, prejudiced, sectarian, or over-provincial.

The public library should have the services of one or more good story tellers who know the best stories of the world and can tell them in an interesting way. As often as once a week at least there should be a separate hour for all the children. The children should, of course, come in sections—primary, grammar grades, and high school.

In addition to the services rendered as here suggested at the library, all the children in school or out should have library cards and for the convenience of the children every school building should be made a branch library for the use of children at least. I see no reason why it should not also serve as a branch library for the older people. It would not cost much to have some one or more teachers at each school serve as librarians under the direction of the librarian of the central library. Through the branch library at the school many parents and other older members of the family could be reached who never can be reached through the ordinary central and branch library buildings. Attractive statements about books, especially new books should be sent to the parents by the children and books might be ordered and returned through the children. It would not be difficult to induce pupils and teachers to arrange reading circles and clubs among the adult members of families living near the school, the books used by the reading circles to be ordered from and returned to the school branch library. Teachers and principals would also be willing to arrange for weekly meetings for the members of these reading circles and clubs, the meetings to be held at the school. Certificates and diplomas might be given for the reading of certain groups of books.

The library should own in sets books helpful to teachers and children in their studies and should, at the request of superintendents and principals, place sets of these in the several schools for use in school, but not to be taken out except over night or over Saturdays and Sundays and holidays.

Libraries should also own large collections of illustrative pictures and lantern slides. These should be cataloged as books are and lists of them should be in the hands of school superintendents, supervisors, principals, and teachers. The pictures and slides should be loaned the schools freely upon their request. School officers and teachers should be asked to assist in selecting these and all other collections for the use of children.

The library should serve in this way not only the schools of the city, but also the country and village schools in the counties in which they are located. Through the country schools more good can be accomplished, frequently, than through the city schools. Country boys and girls are more eager to read than city boys and girls. They have more time for it and will read better books. The library should have a direct relation with every school and every teacher in the county. Of course, the county should pay for this service, but it should have it whether it pays for it or not. The city cannot afford to withhold it. The city depends on the country for its prosperity and life. The children now in the country will make up a large part of the population of the city twenty or twenty-five years from now.

In many places the public libraries are doing all these things to some extent; in no place to as great an extent as is possible. By using to the best advantage the opportunities here suggested, public libraries may double their usefulness.

Yours sincerely,

P. P. CLAXTON,
Commissioner.

New York City,
April 4, 1913.

The Negro American is being helped greatly by public libraries wherever he is given reasonable encouragement to enter them. Often in the North, he is not made to feel welcome in these libraries and in most of the public and private libraries of the South, he is rigorously excluded. It would seem that a statement from the American Library Association to the effect that the color line in literature is silly, is much needed at present.

Very sincerely yours,

W. E. B. DU BOIS.

Mayor's Office,
Boston, Mass.

Of course, the financial return for money expended to maintain a public library cannot be definitely stated, as may be done in connection with municipal activities which deal solely with material things.

It is impossible to trace along commercial lines the influence upon the community of an institution whose prime purpose is not profit, is not even a product that can be expressed in terms of dollars, but is the enlargement of the individual life, and the promotion of higher standards of citizenship.

On the lowest and most sordid plane however, an institution like the Boston public library is worth many times its cost to the city merely on account of the number of persons from abroad who are attracted to the building as an example of monumental architecture, or because it contains exceptional works of art in its mural decorations, or who visit it as a museum of rare and interesting books. These visitors number thousands yearly; many of them stay in the city for several days, and their entertainment and their expenditure of money while they remain, add to the commercial prosperity of the city.

In somewhat the same way, but on a much higher plane, directly within the scope of the library function, numbers of students are yearly drawn to the city by the advantages the library offers for intellectual research. And the library enhances the importance and value of the various schools and colleges within our borders, by enlarging their intellectual resources.

In other directions the value of the library to the community is evident. The fact that it is here adds something to the value of every estate in the city. Persons seeking a desirable place of residence prefer a city or town which has good schools and a well-equipped and adequately supported library to a place without these institutions, even if no direct use is made by such persons of either. The influence of a good library on the general conditions in a community is therefore a profitable asset.

In assimilating the different elements of a mixed and rapidly growing population, the work of the library is obvious, and its results far outweigh their cost. And the increased efficiency of individuals, which the library promotes, has its effect in inestimable public benefits. For example, to take a single possible case out of many, here is a young man without money or influence but who has talent which, if properly fostered may become the source of power. Through the opportunities for study given by the public library he perfects an invention, or writes a poem, or enters a useful profession by means of which he ministers to the comfort and enjoyment of his fellow-men and confers honor upon this city. How can one over-estimate the social value of such lives, or the part which the library has played in their development? Such instances are by no means few, and unquestionably they supply an affirmative answer to the question as to whether or not the library is making an adequate return for its cost.

JOHN F. FITZGERALD.

Chicago, Illinois,
May 10, 1913.

Your question, "Is the fiction circulated by our public library helping to enlighten people on social and economic problems?" is one which I can answer promptly and affirmatively. Looking at fiction in the mass, it is without doubt an enormous educational influence. Leaving out of view for the moment the historical novel, or the sociologic novel, and taking merely the local novel, the novel which vividly portrays the life of a special village, or country, or nation, we find it of the greatest service in teaching the people of one country, or class, how the people of other countries and other classes live. Such books bring the ends of the earth together. They unite the north and the south, the east and the west, in common sympathy and understanding. They contribute very largely to the higher patriotism, as well as to the profounder social brotherhood.

It would be easy to criticise fiction for other and less valuable content, but speaking generally, I believe it to be second only to the stage in its power to affect the young student of life and manners.

Very sincerely yours,

HAMLIN GARLAND.

Ithaca, N. Y.,
May 16, 1913.

You ask for comment—as "related particularly with their own special interests" and at the risk of being charged with "talking shop," I have been brutally frank. Yet I hope it will cheer these splendid workers for civilization.

The library is not "doing as much as it might to be a true University to the People." Books alone will not attract the insensitive or indifferent, nor will handsome buildings. Equal to other necessity of the library to be "a true university to the people," is that of arousing interest, awakening curiosity and alluring into path ways that lead to books and reading. I know of nothing better than to have cheap, popular, illustrated lecture courses that constantly refer to books and the special theme.

Does the local librarian or do active directors, attempt seriously to tap the knowledge of the local specialist, professional man, or public spirited speaker? Do the library people emphasize the necessity of close, personal contact, as far as possible, with the individuals and with the people? Libraries must be more human. No machinery, or salaried personnel, however costly or efficient, within chosen lines of activity, can do without that same human sympathy, which in other professions, is known to outweigh in value, all edifices, or the paid professional corps; yes, even in religion or philanthropy. Not all, but most libraries—and I have looked in, and at, and around many—are too self-centered.

Yet with this criticism, honestly called for and as honestly given, none can appreciate the librarian more than I. To guide youthful reading, warning as well as advising and alluring them to high flights, is to make the librarian's calling second to none in our complex civilization.

With all good wishes to the librarians of the United States and Canada.

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM ELIOT GRIFFIS.

P. S. Every library should have a lecture hall and not be afraid even of the "fit audience though few."

Clark University,
Worcester, Mass.,
May 17, 1913.

My experience is a long one with university libraries, but I have had far less to do with public libraries.

The greatest need of the specialist and expert is help in finding all, and especially the latest, often very scattered, literature on the special point on which he is conducting his research, and I believe that in the future every academic library will have a few specialists with a good knowledge of languages, of Ph. D. rank, who can do just this. We have one such here, to whom my work owes more than to anybody else. If I ask her to find me, e. g., all the recent references on a topic, be it ever so special, including perhaps a score of archives and special journals, back for three or five years as I may specify, up to the latest arrival, I get this list, which always includes many things our library does not have, then take it to the librarian, who can generally get about everything by borrowing far and near. These, together with the resources here, are placed upon a table in an alcove where I can work or take the books home. This makes a perfectly ideal condition, and it is at the same time indispensable for advanced special work, and everything in a university library should be plastic to this end.

A public librarian, it seems to me, should study all the changing interests in a community or in special parts of it, and be able to print in the daily press whenever any topic is prominent a little article telling in a few lines the point of a few books or articles; e. g. a manual training high school is opened. The daily paper should state that the library has a good collection of literature up to date on that subject (if it has), and give a few points from a few of the best books, naming them. A few titles are not enough.

Another point that interests me greatly is the library story telling. I think more should be done, not less, in this line for children, and that books illustrating topics in geography, history, etc., should be not only laid before teachers but that the classes should meet there and have the things shown to them. Why does not the public library go into some of the wonderful illustrative material in the above and other topics, which is so characteristic of German schools, and of which American schools know almost nothing? Our educational Museum here has lately spent thousands of dollars and collected thousands of these illustrations all the way from wall pictures to bound pictures, illustrating material from primary grades up into college, which we loan as we do books to teachers, parents and others. There is a very great new departure possible here. Why does not your Association look into this? It has been a great find for us. And about everything in our large collection and its use, to my mind, might be done by public libraries although none of them that I know of has done much of anything along that line. I am

Very truly yours,

G. STANLEY HALL.

The University of Chicago,
Chicago, May 16, 1913.

While I am not at all a specialist in library science and art, I am daily a debtor to your profession. In answer to the question—"What rank should the library have in the scale of the community's social assets?"—I should indicate the following hints of an argument: The income of every family is increased by the possession and use of a public library. This item is never found set down in the accounts of a family as a part of their income, and the students of budgets are too apt to overlook it; but all communal property, as lake fronts, parks, playgrounds, public schools, public free libraries and reading rooms, are so much addition to the enjoyments of all who have the taste and inclination to use them. As the library contains the very best thoughts of the greatest men and women of all time, I should say that the public free library is among the very highest possessions of the people.

When we consider the dangers of idleness or of a depraved use of leisure, and when we consider the splendid opportunity of spiritual growth which comes from intelligent and systematic daily use of the library, we must place this institution among the highest agencies of social amelioration and progress. Every year sees improvement in the administration of this noble trust by the professional custodians and administrators. There is manifest everywhere a spirit of courtesy, patience and enterprise, which does honor to this branch of the profession of educators. The librarian and his assistants are colleagues of instructors in all institutions of every grade, and those of us who are teaching feel ourselves to be under profound obligations to our companions in service.

Sincerely yours,

CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON.

Chicago, April 7, 1913.

I have your letter of April 2nd in which you are good enough to ask me to write a few lines on the topic: "Should the public library exercise censorship over the books it circulates?"

I suppose there is no question that the good public library should have somewhere in its shelves all books of serious intent, and should circulate in a restricted and properly guarded way any book no matter what its subject matter. So the question comes down to the propriety of circulating generally without restriction all sorts of books. I should hesitate to say that a public library should exercise no supervision over its circulation, although I myself have suffered from what I consider unjust and unmerited notoriety—due to the prescient sensibilities of certain librarians, as you know. But when you will admit the principle of censorship, the matter is a delicate one, of course. It would seem to me, for example, unwise to circulate freely books of medicine. As to fiction—or what publishers call "the general list" of books, I think an intelligent librarian should hesitate a long time before putting on his or her index expurgatorius any publications vouched for by the imprint of a reputable publishing firm. For such books have actually passed a severe censorship before being put out. I realize it is all a personal matter, for what to me is good red meat may be poison to my brother. I think, for instance, that such a novel as The Rosary is infinitely more pernicious than the Kreutzer Sonata, La Terre, or Germinal, but the average librarian wouldn't. So I am afraid the matter will have to stand just where it is today—a book will be censored as unfit or unclean according to the whim of the individual librarian. Presumably the public librarian is at least abreast of, if not superior in culture and idealism to his community, and as our communities improve our librarians will become persons of wider intelligence and culture than they are now in some cases and exercise their censorial powers with more real discrimination.

Apropos of this matter you may be interested to know that a few months ago the New York Post in an editorial protest against certain young American realists and their treatment of sex—instanced Mr. Howells and myself as examples of "clean American reticent realism!" This, after all the roar over "Together" is an amusing illustration of growth in critical opinion. Mr. Howells sent me the editorial but I haven't it with me.

Truthfully,

ROBERT HERRICK.

P. S. My own views on the proper treatment of sex in fiction will be briefly touched upon in an article on American fiction to be printed in the Yale Review before long.

Chicago, May 17, 1913.

You ask me "is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" That is a question which a librarian can answer better than any author. In general, it seems to me, magazine fiction is doing more in that line than book fiction. Some of the greatest circulations ever attained by periodicals have been built upon a shrewd knowledge of the American materialism. One editor voices it:—"Americans are interested about two-thirds in business, and one-third in love." That editorial policy has won in this country.

As to social and economic problems, more properly considered, I don't think fiction is doing much for the people. This really is the fault of the people, or of human nature, or rather of American human nature. I think we are one of the most neurotic and hysterical people in the world, which means that presently we shall be one of the most swiftly decadent people in the world. For this reason, we have sudden fashions in fiction. Just now we like to read about "action" of heroic sort—precisely as we pay to see baseball games instead of playing baseball ourselves. Also, we are for the time given over to a wave of erotic fiction, just this side of indecent. At one time we were crazy over historical fiction, before that, over dialect fiction, before that over analytical fiction. Therefore, I should say that our book fiction does not and cannot do much in the way of handling social and economic problems at the present day. Once in a while, we have a political novel, machine-made, and like all other political novels. Sometimes, we get a business novel, in turn like all other business novels. We don't have really very many thoughtful novels good enough to be called big. I fancy it would not pay authors to write them, or public libraries to buy them. We are having a period of business and political sack cloth and ashes, but, drunk or sober, broke or prosperous, the American character seems to me annually to grow more hectic and hysterical, and less inclined to care for big things and good stuff. Part of this is the fault of our newspapers, but most of it is our own fault. We care for making money and for little else, and we spend money whether we have it or not. The public libraries would be the natural agency for correcting some of these things, but frankly I don't know how they could do it.

Yours very truly,

EMERSON HOUGH.

New York City.

Why should not the libraries amplify the work they are already doing by the promotion of the public schools as well as libraries as social and civic centers? Schoolhouses should be constructed with all equipments for branch libraries, just as they are now equipped with gymnasiums and baths. The library should not be an accident in the public school; it should be an integral part of it. The schoolhouse is the natural place for the library. To it the children come daily—little messengers who would secure books from printed slips for their parents, too tired or too distant from the library to serve themselves. The library should be the school rest and reading room. It would relieve the tedium of regular school work. It would lend variety to education; it would enrich it and beautify it.

In addition, great economy would be effected by converting the school into a library; there would be a saving in construction, in maintenance, in operation. The fine social sense of the modern librarian would have a reaction on education and would lead to other activities being introduced into the schools.

The American library is the model of the world in many ways. It has led the movement for the widening of public services to old and young. It is one of the most inspirational achievements of the American city, and it could do a substantial service by promoting the social center idea, which is so actively engaging the minds of people all over the country.

(Signed) FREDERIC C. HOWE.

New York, N. Y.
April 30, 1913.

In response to your kind invitation to send a brief message on the subject—"Can public libraries legitimately attempt amusement as well as instruction of the people?" I would reply to the affirmative. If literature is an art, and if libraries are to be as they should be—reservoirs of literature—they surely cannot be complete without giving an important place to arts' most human appeal, amusement. The novel, invented to amuse, stands today as the vital force in literature. Of course, by "amusement" I do not mean a vaudeville. Shakespeare wrote to amuse; and if he does not offer a popular line today it is because modern writers are better chosen to amuse our century. Indeed, if you remove the fiction department—the amusement section—from your library you reduce it to the plans of a machine—an admirable machine, perhaps—but without a human soul to drive it.

Sincerely yours,

WALLACE IRWIN.

Carnegie Institution of Washington,

Washington, D. C.,
June 5, 1913.

The specific question which you propound, "What can the library do to encourage the study of American history?" is one which I suppose must have very different answers for different sorts of libraries. In the case of libraries of moderate size in small cities, it has sometimes appeared to me that the money used in the purchase of books on American history was too exclusively used in buying the less expensive sort of books, those in one or two or three volumes, of which it is perfectly easy to get a considerable number out of each year's appropriations; while on the other hand, the purchase of certain books of value in expensive sets was never made, because it could not easily be made in any one given year. If the purchasing policy were given a somewhat longer range, extending over several years, one might plan to redress this inequality. To avoid speaking as if I were recommending any one long set of Americana for purchase, let me adduce as an instance a library of forty or fifty thousand volumes with which I am familiar which has in the past twenty years bought a great many books of English history, without ever yet having afforded the purchase of the Dictionary of National Biography, obviously because it was too large a morsel for any one year's budget.

If I were to proceed to make any suggestion for the larger libraries, I might select for comment the relative lack of co-operation among such libraries in respect to the pursuit of the more expensive specialties. It is plain that the interest of students are, in respect to restricted specialties of this class better served on the whole by their being able to find relatively complete collections in one place, rather than scattered fragments of such collections in various places. The ambition of libraries for possession might well be tempered by some closer approach to systematic organization of these things, whereby certain ones should be recognized as belonging plainly in the field of a certain library without competition on the part of the others. I am speaking, of course, of things which only a few students are seeking, and which they must expect to seek by travel, and not of those things for which there is a separate effective demand in every large city.

May I also suggest the question whether it is not a legitimate use of the funds of a public library to pay recognized experts, resident in its city or summoned from elsewhere, to go over the shelves relating to a particular subject and carefully signalize those gaps which are almost certain to occur; to name, in other words, any important books which have been omitted but which are necessary to make the collection a well-rounded one for the needs of the particular locality as the librarian sees them. I think also that university and college libraries are particularly in need of such periodical redress, because professors are so prone to request books needed for the immediate purposes of their classes, and to exhaust their appropriations by such requests, forgetting the need of building up rounded collections for general purposes; and the librarian, on his part, feels a certain delicacy about suggesting books for which the professor has evinced no desire, though often he will agree they were desirable, if their absence were called to his attention. Believe me

Very truly yours,

J. F. JAMESON.

Hadley, Mass.,
May 20, 1913.

I have your recent letter asking for some brief comment on such phase of library work as most appeals to me.

At present, in accord with the trend of current thought in other matters, I am inclined to lay stress on efficiency; and under that head I would urge that librarians, especially in the smaller places, do much strenuous and persistent weeding among the books that find their way to the shelves. Feed the furnace with the books that are no longer useful in your particular library, or in some other way absolutely dispose of them.

Much of the fiction, both for grown-ups and young people, should go, after the first interest in it has waned. Many also of the information books decline in value with the passing years and should not remain a permanent incubus. Very few of the government publications are of practical use in the average library.

We have altogether too much veneration for printed matter. Library housecleanings to discard the literary rubbish and misfits are a real need. Quality is decidedly more important than quantity, if you would have charm and the widest usefulness.

Yours very truly,

CLIFTON JOHNSON.

April 11, 1913.

In response to your kind letter of April 5th, and after refreshing my mind by consultation with librarian friends, with your kind permission I may say a word on the theme, "That librarians should sometimes take account of stock," that they should consider the reasons for their existence and find out how nearly their present day activities coincide with the purposes for which they are established.

With one or two notable exceptions public libraries in the United States are a development of the last quarter of the 19th Century. Until about 1895, or possibly 1900 the efforts of librarians were directed toward perfecting methods of administration, cataloging, etc. Then having arrived at mutual agreement as to forms of procedure they devoted themselves more and more to library extension. They realized that only fractions of their respective communities were in touch with the libraries. In a city of 400,000 inhabitants perhaps 40,000 or 10 per cent would make use of library privileges, and the circulation of a million volumes per year meant the use of only 2½ books per year for each inhabitant. Then commenced the era of branch libraries, deposit stations, libraries in schools, libraries in factories, in fire-houses; a resort to every possible means to extend usefulness of the library throughout the whole community. Not satisfied with these expedients other forms of extension are being adopted. I am told that "one library publishes a weekly paper heralding the advantages of its city. It has established a business man's information branch, compiled an index to the products manufactured within the city, and holds itself ready to give information as to where the best tennis balls, suit cases and everything else can be purchased." Undoubtedly this is a public convenience, but it seems to be getting a little away from original library purposes. There is a tendency for libraries to so scatter their energies that they lose sight of the main objects of their being. They exhibit the same tendency which can be seen in the curricula of many colleges which offer courses upon every conceivable subject, the lasting value of which to those who pursue them is certainly questionable.

Libraries are not exempt from the prevalent tendency of municipal, state and federal agencies to extend their activities and increase the burden of taxes. It is safe to say that in many public libraries the budgets have been more than doubled in the last 15 years. It is a question whether the real service to the community has gained in proportion. It is not necessary to make hourly deliveries to downtown delivery stations of the latest thing in fiction, but it is essential that the libraries should do their utmost to maintain ideals. The library which has set apart in a separate room a collection of standard literature has performed a notable service for its community and furnished an example worthy of imitation. It is a part of the best work of the library to assist in perpetuating only that which is worthy of survival.

Very truly yours,

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

The French Embassy,

Washington, D. C.,
May 8, 1913.

On the question you put me: "Are our libraries helping to make better citizens of those from over-seas?" I must decline to give an answer. It would be somewhat bold on the part of one who is not himself a citizen of this country and whose opportunities have been scant, for studying such a problem, to express an opinion.

Concerning librarians, as such, I may say that my experience with them, under many climes and skies, has ever been of the pleasantest. Their keeping company with the thinkers and writers of all times, spending their days in those temples where the wisdom, the folly, the dreams, the beauty of ages is stored for the contemplation or warning of succeeding generations, gives them, of whatever nationality they be, a philosophical turn of mind, a benevolent desire to help, a friendliness to the untutored who want to know more. For me they are the typical men of good will for whom there will be peace.

Believe me,

Very truly yours,

JUSSERAND.

Chicago, May 5.

"Can public libraries legitimately attempt amusement as well as instruction of the people?" Since you ask me the question, I feel obliged to answer it in all seriousness. In my opinion the public library ought not to be turned into a place of amusement. Let us have this one institution left as a refuge from amusement. The general desire of the public to be amused has caused it to become almost impossible for one to go anywhere or see anything without becoming conscious of the fact that the first and generally the sole purpose of everything is to amuse. The preachers make their sermons amusing, the poets make their poems amusing, the artists make their pictures amusing, the merchants make their shops amusing; one cannot eat in a public place without being amused. Steamships and railway trains are operated for the amusement of passengers; every vacant storeroom will by tomorrow have become a place of amusement and plans are already being made to convert funerals into amusing affairs. Spare to us the one place in which we may hope to escape from amusement. Let the public library remain grand, gloomy and peculiar.

Sincerely yours,

S. E. KISER.

Chicago, April 9, 1913.

In reply to your letter of April 5, 1913, would say—The modern city library is covering a most desirable field in meeting the needs of a large element of the public, which looks to it almost exclusively for information along library and allied lines. A popular library should be able to supply information on all subjects of a general character and should not proceed along lines of reference facilities except in a general way. This ground is covered by private gifts and educational institutions. The city library should, it seems to me, be constituted along liberal lines, adapted to entertain as well as instruct. Any means adapted to stimulate the public desire for the use of its privileges properly guarded, cannot fail to be of general benefit. Thus lectures, story telling, art exhibits, and even victrola concerts, loan of pianola rolls, etc., may serve to induct the mind into the wealth of knowledge embraced within its wonderful collection of books. The portals of the city library should be made insidiously alluring, with the expectation that once within them, the reader will go farther.

Very truly yours,

C. C. KOHLSAAT.

Northampton, Mass.,
June 12, 1913.

To My Fellow Workers in Libraries,
Greetings:

I always feel a little bashful when I go into a strange library as I sometimes do and happen on a librarian who confronts me with things I say about librarians in the "Lost Art of Reading." Usually I speak up quite quickly and say to a librarian, "Oh, but you know I do not mean YOU!"

But in speaking as I am now to all the librarians there are in the United States and Canada this seems to be inconvenient.

I am afraid that if there were any nice thoughtful benignant way of taking each librarian in this great mass meeting, of all the librarians there are, one side and whispering to him quietly, "Oh, but you know I do not mean YOU," I would probably do it!

But being driven to it and being faced out this way as I am today, two or three thousand to one, there seems to be nothing for it but to face the music and to look you in the eye a minute and say once for all, "I DO mean you, I mean each of you and all of you," and I accuse you of not taking immediate, powerful and conclusive steps to convince donors of libraries and the public of the rights of librarians, of your right to perform your duties under decent, spiritual conditions as members of a high and spirited calling, as professional men and women, as artists and as fellow human beings and not as overworked, under-assisted, weary servants of books.

The charges against the library donors and managers that I brought out in my new book "Crowds," more particularly the chapters, "Mr. Carnegie speaks up," and "Mr. Carnegie tries to make people read," are charges that are going to be answered most successfully by people who admit that they are largely true and who will then proceed tomorrow, before everybody, to turn them into lies. The sooner the librarians and trustees and public men of this country proceed to make what I am saying today about public libraries hopelessly ridiculous and out-of-date, the sooner I will be happy.

If I were to move into a strange community and wanted to be a valuable citizen in it, the first thing I would do would be to go to the public library and ask the librarians and their assistants this question, "Who are the interesting boys in this town?"

If the librarians could tell me I would linger around, and in one way or another, get acquainted with those boys, follow them up and see what I could do to connect them with the men with the books, and ideas and ambitions and opportunities that belong to them.

If the librarians could not give me a list of such boys I would ask them why.

If they told me that they had not time to attend to such things I would ask the trustees why.

If the trustees had not selected librarians naturally interested in boys and books and had not provided such librarians with the necessary assistants so they would have time and spirit to do such things I would turn to the people and I would challenge the people to elect trustees for their library who knew what a library was for.

I sometimes think of the librarian in a town as the Mayor Of What People Think, and if he does not have time to read books and to love ideas and inventions in himself and in other people and does not take time to like boys and get the ideas and boys together, he cannot be in a town where he lives, a good Mayor Of What People Think.

We shall never have great libraries in the United States until the typical librarian exalts his calling and takes his place in our modern life seriously—as the ruler of our civilization, the creator of the environment of a nation and as the dictator of the motives and ideals of cities, the discoverer of great men and the champion of the souls of the people.

I candidly ask you all: What is there that can be done in America in the way of letting librarians keep on being folks?

One almost wishes that all the members of the library association of America would write to Andrew Carnegie, snow him under with letters from the nation, asking him to try the experiment of having at least one of his libraries in the United States fitted up as elaborately and as elegantly with librarians as it is with dumb waiters, marble pillars, book racks and umbrella stands.

When we go into a library—some of us—we want to feel our minds being gently exposed to cross-fertilization. We may not want librarians to throw themselves at us—come down plump into our minds the minute we enter whether or no, but we do want when we come into a library to be able to find (if we steal around a little), eager, contagious, alluring librarians who can make people read books and from whom people cannot get away without reading books. Every library ought to be supplied with at least one librarian in each department, stuck all over with books, like burrs, so that nobody can touch him or be near him without carrying away a book on him that he's got to read and that he will long to read and will read until somebody drives him to bed!

Faithfully yours,

GERALD STANLEY LEE.

Northampton, Mass.

Greetings and good wishes to the men and women who hold the keys:

I saw in England, last year, a very old library where the books are chained to the shelves. They have always been chained there; at first because they were valuable and human nature was weak, and now to preserve the tradition. But in general, either because the value of books is less or because human nature is less weak, we trust our public with its books unchained. The shelves of most libraries, I understand, are open freely and the loss of books is small—small enough to be disregarded, you tell me, in relation to the general good.

And not only is the public freely admitted. In Northampton I have seen, many times, the books put on wheels and traveling out to the public; they are in a kind of clothes-basket set on a truck with tiny wheels; and the janitor trundles the truck to the trolley, and the trolley carries the books to Leeds or Florence or Williamsburg, it may be—I do not know their destination. I only see them traveling away on wheels. This is only A-B-C to all of you. Most of you could tell me much more interesting things that libraries are doing. Some of you have already seen that it is not enough to put the books on wheels and trundle them out to the public, but that the public itself must be followed and captured. You tell me that in the future the library that would be really up-to-date must catch its readers where it can and chain books to them.

Presently we shall need wings to follow life and bring it back to its books. For life moves swiftly; and you who hold the keys and who are putting books on wheels and sending them out will not stop till the life in books and the life of the world are come together again. Presently we shall all work for this. You have freed the books, you have sent them out, you have reached out to give them to us freely. Presently you will unlock the books themselves and open the pages; and the time when a child studied only a few books will belong to the past; the living use of books will be a part of the life of every child that is born into the world. Presently we shall all work together for this—with you who hold the keys.

JENNETTE LEE.

New York, N. Y.,
April 3rd, 1913.

I'd like to do as you request—but I have no facts to contribute. I feel sure that the public library is doing much to improve dramatic taste—but I can't adduce any evidence.

Yours truly,

BRANDER MATTHEWS.

Philadelphia, Pa.

The librarian's constant difficulty is now, what shall a library try to collect, what shall it keep? This has become a grave question. Being myself book greedy, a gourmand of print, I am a poor judge of what to reject.

Soon or late the average man, who is presumed to represent common sense, will ask, "What is the use of these accumulations of books?" This average man can never consider a library with comment of imagination. A book is for him a book, whereas for you or me a book is a saint, a hero, a martyr, a fool, a seraph of light bearing science. Let us drop him with a word of scorn. We shall not ever understand one another. Nor would he have the faith in books of that Samonicus who, for the cure of a tertian fever in the Emperor Gordian, ordered the fourth book of the Iliad to be applied to the head of the patient. That has long puzzled me—why the fourth? But Mr. Average awaits a quotation. A voice out of the splendid day of Elizabeth shall say it: "Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred of a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink."

S. WEIR MITCHELL.

The Nation,

New York City,
May 5th, 1913.

I fear you must be charging me with discourtesy for delaying so long my reply to your letter of April 19th. I have in fact had the intention of writing to you rather fully on the subject of public libraries and best sellers, for use in your conference in Kaaterskill. One obligation after another, however, has kept me from doing this and now I can only express to you briefly my conviction that the public library ought by no means to undertake "to supply all the best sellers hot from the press." It has always seemed to me that the office of any institution such as the library is as much to direct and restrain public taste as it is to supply what is demanded.

With regret that I cannot reply at greater length to your flattering request for my opinion, I am

Very truly yours,

PAUL E. MORE, Editor.

Washington, D. C.,
May 17, 1913.

When your letter came I was, I believe, away from home. At least I never had an opportunity to answer it until just now, having been absent a good deal since its date. Although you do not set the time of the coming conference, I assume that it is not too late to answer your question and I am writing now simply to acknowledge receipt of your letter. I will, however, say that I believe that the circulation of fiction by our public libraries does help to enlighten the people on all problems whatsoever, for, in the first place, fiction contains many of the standard novels which certainly have a tendency for good; and secondly, however trashy novels are, in the main they have an educating effect.

Yours very truly,

THOMAS NELSON PAGE.

4 Newbury Street, Boston, Mass.,
April 29, 1913.

I cannot better comply with your request (made on behalf of the American Library Association) than by giving you a leaf from my own experience of twenty-five years, as President or managing director of a rural library, which serves the public in a mountain town where I chiefly reside, and yet is a private institution, receiving no aid whatever from town or state. And my message is to libraries of small means and resources, so situated that trained librarians or assistants are not to be had.

We have by this time about 5,000 volumes, all obtained through gift or purchase, of which less than half are works of fiction; and the list, on the whole, includes most standard works. From one benefactor we have a good stone building, erected last year upon a lot of our own; and by the time the testamentary provision of another benefactor takes effect hereafter we shall have an endowment fund ample enough to place our institution upon a permanent footing of liberal expenditure. Hitherto our annual income has been small and met by life memberships, special entertainments and personal gifts, in which summer visitors and the townspeople combine.

In order that our books should be classified but without too much effort I introduced, some years ago, the following scheme: A, denotes works of fiction; B, biography, history, travels, etc.; C, poetry, essays and miscellaneous; P, periodicals and pamphlets (by bound volumes or in cases); R, books of reference. Juvenile books under these respective heads are marked by an added J.

We have no card catalog and find our patrons served more to their liking, and perhaps more economically, by issuing printed lists, frequently, which give the author and the title simply; the number, and letter, as printed, indicating the subject. About 1905 a pamphlet catalog was brought out which gave our list complete to that date. Since that time, supplement lists have been printed at convenience; while the latest books are always posted in the library on written sheets. When the supplements become sufficiently numerous we expect to issue a second full pamphlet catalog; and so on. We cannot pay for expert assistance to keep up a card catalog properly, with our present means; and what our patrons most want is to have individual printed lists that they can readily consult.

About 90 per cent of our circulation consists of A or AJ books, but we try to increase the demand for the B and C books. So, too, the books most eagerly sought are those last added, but we encourage the reading of standard authors wherever we may.

Yours very truly,

JAMES SCHOULER.

Indianapolis, Ind.,
April 24, 1913.

"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?"

George Meredith, in a letter written in 1884, said:

"I think that all right use of life, and the one secret of life, is to pave ways for the firmer footing of those who succeed us.... Close knowledge of our fellows, discernment of the laws of existence, these lead to great civilization. I have supposed that the novel, exposing and illustrating the natural history of man, may help us to such sustaining roadside gifts."

Merely "entertaining" fiction is comparable to vaudeville or to tight-rope walking; its use may be to amuse the tired laborer of all sorts; its overuse, however, tends to become a habit and produce flaccid minds. Save for this, all fiction which depends on "plot"—always a hash of used meats—or on farcical or melodramatic "situation," is almost negligible. But on the whole, and because of this flaccidity, I believe, it would be a good thing if all merely "entertaining" fiction could be destroyed.

A very small portion of that fiction which is produced by artists seeking to know and reveal life, deals with economic problems. Except for the work of a few writers (Mr. H. G. Wells, for instance,—he includes economic discussions) it concerns itself with social relations and "the natural history of man." Its circulation must certainly help to enlighten people upon social problems. Here I must fail you, for I do not know what type of fiction has the circulation you mean; the most general circulation, I take it. A novel is helpful as it is a revelation of truth; it is always harmful when it is written from a false or assumed point-of-view; it is very likely to be harmful when it is founded upon shallow observation or a cocksure philosophy. Most of the fiction produced in our country today is founded upon nothing except the desire to circulate; therefore it shouldn't!

Very sincerely yours,

BOOTH TARKINGTON.

Elizabeth, N. J.,
May 16, 1913.

The question you ask is not debatable. The public library is among the foremost aids the American boy has today. As great a help as the library is the librarian. Much depends upon his personal interest, enthusiasm, judgment, appreciation of the book and the boy. "The man behind the book," provides the power.

Librarians undoubtedly are a help not only to the boy, but to the writer of boy's books. But like all other classes there are librarians and librarians. Some are efficient, some too theoretical, some visionary, some without the capacity to understand the normal boy, and a few are deficient. As far as I have observed, the limitations of the librarians are not so much in their knowledge of books as in their understanding of boys. Every profession has its special peril. The minister may become dogmatic, the judge autocratic. The peril of the purely bookish man is that of becoming a prig. The pre-conceived opinion of what a boy ought to be sometimes prevents the discovery of what he really is. Among some there is a tendency to magnify the unusual boy at the expense of the normal boy. Such librarians would confer a benefit if they would discover what has become of the prodigies of our boyhood.

It is sometimes forgotten that boys must be led into better reading, not forcibly transplanted. There are steps and stages in this journey as in every other. A taste for good reading is something to be cultivated, not forced. A healthy boy has about the same appetite for observing the ready-made opinions of his superiors that he has for donning the made-over garments of his ancestors. Many librarians understand the boy as well as the book. The combination is fruitful, and divorce here has its own penalty as well as elsewhere. If the American boy (as in many places he is) can be made to feel that the librarian as well as the library are for his benefit, a double good will result.

Cordially,

EVERETT T. TOMLINSON.

Arlington, Mass.,
May 29, 1913.

In reply to the question proposed to me by your Association, "Is the public library helping the boy to become a useful man?" I reply emphatically in the affirmative. Of course, the degree of helpfulness must depend largely upon the library, and still more upon the character of the boy. To one of low tastes, with no ambition beyond the hour's indulgence, the finest library will have little meaning; but to one having a thirst for knowledge, and aspirations for self-improvement, access to any fairly well chosen collection of books cannot but prove of inestimable service in stimulating and developing his nobler qualities. My own early experience convinces me of this. In my recollections of a backwoods boyhood ("My Own Story," pages 44-46) I have told something of my indebtedness of a small subscription library, in which were found the works of a few great writers, among those Byron, Shakespeare, Plutarch, Cooper, and Scott, and a History of England, which was the first book I turned to after reading "Ivanhoe." The world was transformed for me by the poets and romancers that smiled on me from those obscure shelves. I repeat here what I once wrote of that golden opportunity of my boyhood. The town has a vastly more attractive and comprehensive library today; but the value of such an institution depends, after all, upon what we ourselves bring to it. The few books that nourish vitally the eager mind are better than richly furnished alcoves amid which we browse languidly and loiter with indifference. This is true alike of the boy and the man.

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.

Toledo, Ohio,
May 14, 1913.

You ask, "Is the public library a factor in the recent development of a public conscience?"

I suppose that by the term public conscience you mean that undoubted quickening of the public sense, shall we say public decency?—which America has felt in the last ten years, though as yet it has undertaken no fundamental reforms, and is too apt to degenerate into a mere hue and cry after some individual whom it would make a scape-goat for the sins of the people.

Now, in the development of this feeling, or of this public conscience, it is doubtful whether the public library has been much of a factor. It depends altogether upon the librarian. There are a few instances, no doubt, in which the public library has had this effect, and there are many librarians in the country who, as wise and intelligent men like yourself, are interested in vital subjects, and therefore able to interest others in them. By a judicious exposure of books these subjects are made so inviting and so attractive that the patrons of the library are led on and on in an ever widening exploration of the subject. The library does offer to any one who wishes to make inquiry the opportunity of gratifying his desires, and in this way it no doubt exercises a considerable influence. There is a profound and tremendous influence, silent and indirect, from its mere existence, its mere presence, which must do good in a city, just as in a home in which there are many books, even though they were never read, there is the atmosphere of culture. The librarian, however, should be a sort of teacher, helping the public mind, assisting in the development of the public conscience, for I fear that the public, if left to themselves, would rather read the six best sellers, and in the realm of general ideas engage, to recall a phrase of Henry James "in the exercise of skipping."

Yours sincerely,

BRAND WHITLOCK.

SECOND GENERAL SESSION
(Tuesday morning, June 24, 1913)

The PRESIDENT: We are to start this morning with the committee reports. Unless, however, undue objections are made we shall read these by title and, like the members of Congress, ask leave to print. A number of them indeed are in printed form and have been distributed and you have doubtless found them on the chairs as you entered the hall. I may say that some of these reports are unusually strong in that they represent the work of a year of very careful thought and investigation by their members. If you will take the time, either at this conference or after you get home, to read these reports, you will greatly profit from the labors of these respective committees. The printed reports comprise those of the secretary, the treasurer, the trustees of the endowment fund, the publishing board, the committee on bookbinding, the committee on bookbuying, the committee on federal and state relations; and reports have also been received in manuscript, by the secretary, from the committees on co-operation with the National Education Association, library administration, library training and work with the blind. Unless it is requested that any particular one of these reports be read at this time we shall pass them over and commit them to the secretary for inclusion in the printed conference proceedings.

The above mentioned reports are here printed in full.

SECRETARY'S REPORT

The third report of the present secretary and the fourth since the establishment of a headquarters office is here submitted to the association. The material conditions of headquarters are practically identical with those reported a year ago; we are still the recipients of the generosity of the board of directors of the Chicago public library, the large room furnished free by them being more and more appreciated as we compare our commodious quarters with those greatly inferior where a rent is charged which would be prohibitive to the funds of the A. L. A. For the continued courtesy and unfailing kindness of the librarian of the Chicago public library and his able staff I cannot find adequate words. It is unquestionably a decided advantage for the executive office of the A. L. A. to be in close proximity to a large reference collection and to a competent corps of library experts. In these respects we are fortunate not only in the Chicago public library, but also in the John Crerar and Newberry libraries which so admirably supplement each other in forming reference facilities of a high order.

The routine work of the year has much of it so closely resembled in kind that of last year that the secretary feels it unnecessary to rehearse it again in detail, but respectfully refers inquiry on this point to his report at the Ottawa conference. In quantity it is rapidly increasing; there are more letters to write; there is more proof to read; more personal calls from librarians and others as the establishment of the office becomes known; there are more arrangements to be made for the many-sided interests of the Association. The Publishing Board's work is likewise increasing, and with the removal of the Booklist office from Madison to Chicago headquarters, which will be made in the near future, additional duties will devolve on the general office, even though that periodical has its own special staff. These things, however, are as we desire they should be and we are pleased to see indications that the funds of the Association are going to permit the enlargement of the work as this is found advisable.

The Office as an Information Bureau—In no way is this growth quite so noticeable as in the increased correspondence through which the executive office is used as an information bureau on library economy. For a time after the establishment of the office this correspondence was naturally almost entirely with librarians. The letters of the past year, however, have shown that our existence is becoming known to others. We are being told the problems of the library committees of women's clubs; of manufacturers who wish to get their workmen interested in a business library; of business men who are thinking of establishing such a library; of young men and women who are considering librarianship as a vocation and do not know the proper steps to take to get the necessary training and experience; and of publishers and of booksellers who are referring various matters to our office. These things in addition to the steady daily stream of correspondence with librarians in every state of the union. Last year we recorded that our actual correspondence averaged 67 letters a day for a period covering several months. It has been considerably greater the past year. This includes, of course, all correspondence relative to publications, membership matters, and business routine. Several months ago the secretary printed 10,000 little leaflets mentioning some of the ways in which the A. L. A. can assist in library informational lines. About half of these have been distributed, mainly in channels outside of regular library work and among those who perhaps had not previously learned of headquarters and of our publications.

Membership—Last year it was the privilege of the secretary to report that the membership was larger than ever before in the history of the Association. We are now glad to be able to say that there is a substantial increase in membership over last year. In January, the secretary mailed with the annual membership bills an appeal to members to help again this year as they did last in securing new members. This appeal has been very effectual; many have been instrumental in securing one or more new members and the secretary desires here to thank all those who have so kindly assisted in this campaign. During the late winter and early spring many personal letters were written to librarians and library boards asking them to have their libraries become institutional members of the A. L. A., and many have responded favorably. Several hundred personal letters were also addressed to those who had recently, according to the news columns in the library periodicals, changed their positions, presumably for the better financially.

When the last handbook was printed, in October, 1912, there were 2,365 members of the A. L. A. Since then to June 1st, 1913, 192 new individual members and 40 new institutional members have joined, a total of 232. On the other hand, the association has lost 11 members by death, 35 have resigned, and judging by the experience of previous years about 160 members will probably fail this year to renew their membership and will consequently be dropped from the rolls. It is likely that enough new members will join at the Kaaterskill Conference to offset in numbers those whose membership lapses and that the net membership in the 1913 handbook will probably be about 2,550 or a gain of about 185 over 1912.

The income from membership dues is in consequence steadily increasing. For the calendar year 1911 the total amount from this source was $5,325.46 (including exchange on checks); in 1912, $6,236.18; and for 1913 we hope the total amount will not be far short of $7,000.

Publicity—The usual methods to secure as much publicity as possible have been followed. The library periodicals have, of course, been kept informed of what the office was doing that would interest the library public. We have sent news notes from time to time to the Dial, Nation, New York Times Review of Books, Bookman, Education Review, American City, and other magazines, and to about 180 of the prominent newspapers of the country. Several articles regarding the conference were given to the Associated Press, and to news syndicates. Before the Ottawa Conference, the Associated Press sent to all their subscribers a multi-graphed portion of the president's address. The Association needs more money for this publicity work and more time should be spent on it than the secretary has been able to spend. Its results at present are far from satisfactory and we hope that with growth of income a more systematic publicity department can be organized, perhaps modelled somewhat after the excellent methods employed by Prof. J. W. Searson, who conducts the publicity work of the National Education Association.

Registration for library position—The executive office has from its inception been something of a free employment bureau for librarians and library assistants, who for proper and sufficient reasons desire to change their positions. This year the work has been somewhat more systematized by the use of a printed registration blank, which is sent on request to any member of the association. The questions asked on this blank are as follows:

Date of this registration.

Name in full.

Address (permanent).

Address (temporary, or until ...).

State fully all schools (above grammar grade) and colleges or universities you have attended, with period of attendance at each.

Degrees, when and where obtained.

Have you traveled abroad? When? Where? How long?

Languages you read easily.

Languages you read with assistance of a dictionary.

Library training and experience.

Positions held, with approximate dates; and salary received.

Nature of appointment desired.

Salary expected.

Part of country preferred.

Physical condition.

References.

Forty-two librarians have thus far registered on these blanks and five or six of these have been helped to new positions. The secretary has helped in the filling of some fifteen library positions aside from those using the registration blank.

If, however, the service to those seeking positions, and to those seeking capable librarians and assistants is to be as important and far-reaching as we wish to make it, the office must have knowledge of vacancies as well as of persons wanting positions. Library boards and librarians are cordially invited to correspond with the secretary when in need of library workers.

Library Plans—During the year a number of valuable additions have been made to our collection of architects' plans of library buildings. We want more, particularly good plans of buildings costing from $25,000 to $75,000, as these are most in demand. Will librarians and boards who have recently acquired new buildings bear our needs in mind? These plans have from the beginning proved useful, and if a fair number of the latest type of plans could be added the collection would be increasingly useful and used.

Library Pension Systems—During the year the secretary has been making efforts to collect information about pension systems in operation in libraries or plans being made for pensions. No great progress has been made, due perhaps to the fact that not many libraries are as yet contemplating a pension system. The secretary will be glad to receive information from any librarian or board who has not yet written him on this subject.

A. L. A. Representatives at State Meetings—President Legler was the official representative at the Ohio meeting, Newark, October 21-24; at the Illinois-Missouri joint meeting, St. Louis, October 24-26; and South Dakota conference, Mitchell, November 25-27. He also addressed the Long Island Library Club on the work of the A. L. A. on October 17th.

Mr. T. W. Koch, member of the Executive Board, was the official representative to the Indiana state meeting, Terre Haute, October 17-19.

Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick, ex-president of the A. L. A., represented the Association at the North Dakota conference, Mayville, October 1-2; Minnesota meeting, Faribault, October 2-4; and Iowa meeting at Nevada, October 8-10.

Secretary Utley represented the A. L. A. at the Illinois-Missouri meeting, St. Louis, October 24-26; Oklahoma meeting, Muskogee, May 14-15; and was present unofficially at Niagara Falls, "New York library week," September 23-28. The secretary has also lectured before the New York state library school, the Training school for children's librarians of the Pittsburgh Carnegie library, and the University of Illinois library school.

Necrology. The Association has lost by death eleven members since the conference of a year ago. The list includes an ex-president of the A. L. A., and one of the most prominent librarians of the country; a business man who had for years taken a deep interest in library progress; an eminent churchman who has for many years maintained his connection with the national association; the librarian of a large university; the librarian of a well known public library; and several others who at their several posts have faithfully performed their duties and rendered their contributions to the work in which they were engaged.

The list follows:

Clarence W. Ayer, librarian of the Cambridge (Mass.) public library, died April 12, 1913. He was previously connected with Western Reserve University, but had been engaged in library work in Massachusetts for a number of years. He had been a member of the A. L. A. since 1900 (No. 1984) and had attended four conferences.

Dr. John Shaw Billings, director of the New York public library, died March 11, 1913. Successful as an army surgeon during the war between the states, he later assumed charge of the Surgeon-General's library and brought it to recognition as one of the most celebrated medical libraries in the world, and compiled an index catalog that has taken a place among the permanent monuments of bibliography. Coming to New York in 1895, he began the stupendous work of bringing the various libraries of that city under one great system, releasing funds tied by legal complications, and superintending the erection of a central building costing nearly ten millions of dollars. These tasks he lived to accomplish and they remain as his lasting monument. He was president of the A. L. A. for the year 1901-02, and presided at its Magnolia conference. He joined the association in 1881 (No. 404) and attended six of its conferences. See Public Libraries, 18: 148-9; Library Journal, 38, 212-14.

Bertha Coit, assistant in the New York public library, died July 22, 1912. She joined the Association in 1904 (No. 3167), and attended the conferences of 1904 and 1907.

Right Rev. William Croswell Doane, Bishop of Albany, and for many years vice-chancellor of the University of the State of New York, died May 16, 1913. He joined the A. L. A. in 1893 (No. 1125) and although he attended none of the conferences had steadily maintained his interest in library work and retained his membership in the Association.

Jennie S. Irwin, first assistant in the Mt. Vernon (N. Y.) public library, died Nov. 8, 1912. She joined the Association in 1902 (No. 2437) and attended the conferences of 1906 and 1908.

Walter Kendall Jewett, librarian of the University of Nebraska, since 1906, died March 3, 1913. He was previously librarian of the medical department of the John Crerar library, and had been notably successful in his library work. He joined the Association in 1904 (No. 3109) and attended four conferences.

Charles A. Larson, editor of publications of the Chicago public library, died August 19, 1912. He had been connected with the Chicago library for many years and was highly valued. His able work in the reference department will be long remembered. He joined the Association in 1901 (No. 2373) and after lapsing membership rejoined in 1910. He attended the Mackinac conference.

Rev. William Ladd Ropes, librarian-emeritus of the Andover Theological Seminary, at Andover, Massachusetts, died December 24, 1912. He was well known to the librarians of an earlier generation. He joined the A. L. A. in 1877 (No. 106) and attended three A. L. A. conferences, and the London international conference of 1877.

Charles Carroll Soule, of Boston, long identified with the book publishing business and interested in library work, died Jan. 7, 1913. He was trustee of the Brookline (Mass.) public library from 1889-1899, member of the A. L. A. Publishing Board from 1890-1908, second vice-president of the A. L. A. in 1890; and a member of the Council 1893-96 and 1900-05. Mr. Soule was an expert on library planning, having written a book, and numerous articles on this subject. A pamphlet on "Library rooms and buildings" was issued by the A. L. A. Publishing Board as one of its tracts. He joined the A. L. A. in 1879 (No. 216) and had attended 18 conferences. No librarian was better known to librarians than this interested layman. See Library Journal, 38:89; Public Libraries, 18:57.

Nelson Taylor, bookseller of New York, of the firm of Baker & Taylor, died June 26, 1912. He had been a member of the A. L. A. since 1906 (No. 3531).

Bertha S. Wildman, secretary to the librarian of the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh and a member of the faculty of the Training school for children's librarians, died February 19, 1913. She was a graduate of Pratt Institute library school and previous to her connection with the Pittsburgh library had been the organizer and first librarian of the Madison (N. J.) public library. She joined the A. L. A. in 1900 (No. 1945) and attended four conferences.

GEORGE B. UTLEY,
Secretary.

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

REPORT OF THE TREASURER, January 1—May 31, 1913

Respectfully submitted,

C. B. RODEN, Treasurer.

Chicago, June 1, 1913.

REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE

To the American Library Association: Ladies and Gentlemen:—

In accordance with the provisions of the constitution, the Finance Committee submit the following report:—

They have duly considered the probable income of the Association for the current year and have estimated it at $21,915.00, and have approved appropriations made by the Executive Board to that amount. The details of the estimated income and of the appropriations are given in the January number of the Bulletin. The committee have also approved the appropriation to the use of the Publishing Board of any excess of sales over the amount estimated.

On behalf of the committee, the chairman has audited the accounts of the treasurer and of the secretary as assistant treasurer. He has found that the receipts as stated by the treasurer agree with the transfer checks from the assistant treasurer, and with the cash accounts of the latter. The expenditures as stated are accounted for by properly approved vouchers. The bank balance and petty cash, as stated, agree with the bank books and petty cash balances. The accounts of the assistant treasurer have been found correct as cash accounts.

On behalf of the committee, Mr. E. H. Anderson has checked the securities now in the custody of the trustees, and certifies that their figures in regard to the securities on hand are correct. He finds that at par value the bonds and other securities amount to $102,500.00 for the Carnegie fund, and $7,000.00 for the principal account. He certifies that to the best of his knowledge and belief the accounts submitted are correct.

All of which is respectively submitted for the committee.

CLEMENT W. ANDREWS,
Chairman.

With the completion of the ninth volume of the A. L. A. Booklist Miss Elva L. Bascom severs her connection as editor and as head of the editorial department of the Publishing Board. For five years Miss Bascom has carried on this work with signal ability and with devoted industry, and it is with sincere regret that the members of the Board have accepted her resignation. During this period of editorial activity Miss Bascom has maintained the excellent standards established by her predecessors, Miss Caroline Garland and Mrs. Katharine MacDonald Jones, and has given to the publication a standard of judgment in selection and critical appreciation that has made the A. L. A. Booklist invaluable to thousands of librarians and as many library trustees in the selection of current books for their respective institutions. The A. L. A. Booklist is everywhere recognized as a publication wholly untrammeled by commercial consideration in the listing of books and the recommendation which these are given.

Miss May Massee has been elected as Miss Bascom's successor and will enter upon the work early in August. Her experience as a member of the staff of the Buffalo public library and her training prior thereto commends her for the position.

Concerning the A. L. A. Booklist there are no new facts to report, comments noted in previous reports being applicable as well at this time. While renewed representations have come to the members of the Board, suggesting a change of size, form, and character, and the arguments in behalf thereof have been given due weight, it has not seemed wise to alter the policy which has been continued for a period of nine years.

With the beginning of the new volume the place of publication and therewith the editorial headquarters will be transferred from Madison, Wis., to Chicago. By consolidating the editorial headquarters of the Publishing Board with the headquarters of the American Library Association both will be materially strengthened and some financial economies can be affected.

Periodical Cards—The Board received word last fall from the Library Bureau that they would have to advance prices for the printing of the analytical periodical cards. The matter was placed in the hands of a committee, and after some negotiation, unexpectedly prolonged by the illness of the representative of the Library Bureau, a rearrangement of the work was made which will enable the Board to continue the service to the present subscribers without change in prices. This has been accomplished by giving an order for sixty-five copies of all titles and thirty-five additional titles of the periodicals most in demand. Hereafter, subscriptions must be made either to the full set of approximately 2500 titles, or to the limited set of 200. A revision of the list is now in progress.

Concerning the periodicals issued during the past year Mr. William Stetson Merrill has submitted the following report as editor:

The sixteen shipments of A. L. A. periodical cards prepared and sent out during the year ending May 31, 1913 have comprised those numbered 284 to 299, which were received by subscribers June 18, 1912 to May 14, 1913. These shipments have included 3459 new titles and 136 reprints, making a total of 3595 titles. The time of preparation has been reduced from thirteen to ten and a half weeks.[2]

[2] By "time of preparation" is here meant the interval between the receipt of copy, and receipt of cards by the subscribers.

In February of the present year the editor took occasion to check up the work currently done, with the titles of periodicals given in the printed list as indexed by the Publishing Board. It was then discovered that in the case of thirty-five periodicals no titles had been indexed during intervals ranging from two to five years to date. These facts were brought to the attention of the collaborating libraries, which later reported upon these arrears as follows: Periodicals for which no issues later than those indexed had been received by the library, 12; discontinued, 3; now indexed by the Library of Congress, 2; overlooked or indexing postponed by the library, 10; dropped, 2; record card wrong, 1; no indexer, 5. The collaborating libraries at once took up the work of bringing their indexing up to date and at the time of writing only three current periodicals are not indexed to date, with the exception of those for which there is at present no indexer.

The preparation of the distribution and charges sheets has been in the hands of Mrs. S. L. Hitz and Miss Jane Burt under the supervision of the editor, who has also attended to all the correspondence connected with the card work.

New Publications—New publications since the last report was submitted include the following:

Aids in library work with foreigners, compiled by Marguerite Reid and John G. Moulton. (2000 copies).

How to choose editions, by William E. Foster. (Handbook 8) (2500 copies).

Buying list of books for small libraries, compiled by Zaidee Brown,—new edition revised by Caroline Webster. (1000 copies).

List of economical editions, by Le Roy Jeffers. (2nd edition). Revised. (1000 copies).

Periodicals for the small library, by Frank K. Walter. (3000 copies).

A. L. A. Manual of library economy, 5 new chapters.

Chap. V. Proprietary and subscription libraries, by Charles Knowles Bolton. (1000 copies).

Chap. X. The library building, by W. R. Eastman. (2000 copies).

Chap. XIII. Training for librarianship, by Mary W. Plummer. (2000 copies).

Chap. XXVII. Commissions, state aid and state agencies, by Asa Wynkoop. (In press).

Chap. XXXII. Library printing, by Frank K. Walter. (1500 copies).

A normal library budget and its items of expense, by O. R. Howard Thomson. (Handbook 8.) (1500 copies).

Index to library reports, by Katharine T. Moody. (1000 copies).

List of Polish books, compiled by Mrs. Jozefa Kudlicka. (Foreign Booklist 6). (1000 copies).

Forthcoming Publications—How to start a public library, by G. E. Wire, M. D. Second and revised edition. (Tract 2).

Graded list of stories for reading aloud, by Harriot E. Hassler; revised by Carrie E. Scott.

Reprints—During the past year the following publications have been reprinted:

Guide to reference books, by Alice B. Kroeger. (1000 copies).

Cutter's Notes from the art section of a library. (Tract 5). (1000 copies).

Catalog rules, compiled by committees of the American Library Association and the Library Association (of the United Kingdom). 1908 edition (1000 copies).

Essentials in library administration, compiled by Miss L. E. Stearns. (2nd edition). (Handbook 1). (2000 copies). Revised.

Mending and repair of books, by Margaret W. Brown. (Handbook 6). (1000 copies).

U. S. Government documents in small libraries, by J. I. Wyer, Jr. (3rd edition). (Handbook 7). (1000 copies).

A. L. A. Catalog—The success of the A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, has been greater in point of sales than the most sanguine of us had expected, 3471 copies having been sold since its publication a year ago. There is still a reasonably steady demand, 321 copies having been sold during the first five months of 1913. The book has been more extensively advertised than any of the Board's other recent publications, special efforts having been made to make it known to high schools, college professors and book lovers generally, but the sales have, nevertheless, been largely confined to libraries, library commissions and library schools.

Manual of Library Economy—Fourteen chapters of the Manual have thus far been printed, each as a separate pamphlet, and one is now in press. The list is as follows:

1. American library history, by C. K. Bolton.

2. The Library of Congress, by W. W. Bishop.

4. The college and university library, by J. I. Wyer, Jr.

5. Proprietary and subscription libraries, by C. K. Bolton.

9. Library legislation, by W. F. Yust.

10. The library building, by W. R. Eastman.

12. Administration of a public library, by A. E. Bostwick.

13. Training for librarianship, by Mary W. Plummer.

15. Branch libraries and other distributing agencies, by Linda A. Eastman.

17. Order and accession department, by F. F. Hopper.

20. Shelf department, by Josephine A. Rathbone.

22. Reference department, by E. C. Richardson.

26. Bookbinding, by A. L. Bailey.

27. Commissions, state aid and state agencies, by Asa Wynkoop. In press.

32. Library printing, by F. K. Walter.

The chairman of the Committee the manual, J. I. Wyer, Jr., reports that seven other chapters are known to be in an advanced state and may be expected soon.

Advertising—The Board's publications have as usual been advertised in Library Journal and Public Libraries and in one or two special numbers of the Dial. Review copies of publications are sent to library periodicals and a number of other papers and magazines, such as the Bookman, American City, Nation, Dial, New York Times Review, Chicago Post (Friday review), Springfield Republican, Boston Transcript, etc. Our best returns, however, continue to come from direct circularization of libraries, library commissions and library schools, about 11,000 pieces of mail advertising our publications having been sent out since the last conference.

No new large publication has appeared since the A. L. A. Catalog, 1904-11, was published a year ago. Although thirteen new publications have been printed and two more are forthcoming they are all, with one exception, small in size and with price ranging from ten to twenty-five cents a copy. Consequently the amounts from sales are but small in the aggregate. Would it not be well for the Board to endeavor to put forth at least one publication each year which shall be of sufficient size, usefulness and importance to make it rank as the "opus major" of the year? There are surely subjects enough within our scope that can be handled to the advantage of the libraries and the profit of the Board.

Foreign lists—The Board has not felt greatly encouraged to undertake the publication of lists of foreign books because of the unfortunate financial experience with those already issued, only one of the five having paid for itself. This spring, however, when the manuscript of the long-expected Polish list was received a new policy was adopted. The secretary circularized those libraries whom he thought would be interested in this list, stating that the publication of the list depended upon the receipt of a sufficient number of subscriptions, requesting those libraries who were able and disposed to do so, to subscribe for at least four copies at 25 cents each. By this means enough subscriptions were readily secured and the Polish list has been printed. If libraries are willing to subsidize the publication of these lists, or putting it another way, to pay for several copies more than they perhaps need, other lists can be undertaken, and the Board will welcome suggestions as to what languages should be taken up. It has been suggested that a Yiddish list would be useful, also Italian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Spanish lists.

HENRY E. LEGLER, Chairman.

FINANCIAL REPORT

SALES OF A. L. A. PUBLISHING BOARD PUBLICATIONS.

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE CARNEGIE AND ENDOWMENT FUNDS

To the President and Members of the American Library Association:

The Trustees of the Endowment Fund of the American Library Association beg leave to submit the following statement of the accounts of their trust—the Carnegie and General Funds—for the fiscal year ending January 15, 1913.

There has been no change in the investments, and all interest has been promptly paid. The Trustees are pleased to call attention to the credit to the General Endowment Fund of nine life memberships, and would recommend that more of such memberships be taken as they are about the only source of addition to that Fund.

On January 31, 1913, the usual audit of the investments and accounts of the trust was made by Mr. E. H. Anderson, of the New York public library at the request of the chairman of the Finance committee of the Association. As evidence of the audit, Mr. Anderson furnished the Trustees with the following copy of his report made to the Finance committee:

Feb. 1, 1913.

My dear Mr. Andrews:

Yesterday, January 31st, I went to the vaults of the Union Trust Company at Fifth avenue and Thirty-eighth street, this city, and with Mr. Appleton and Mr. Kimball, trustees of the endowment fund of the American Library Association, checked up the bonds now in their custody. I enclose herewith their typewritten statement concerning the funds in their hands, and I certify to the correctness of the figures as to the bonds on hand. These I have checked in black ink after a personal count of them at the vaults aforesaid. At their par value they amount to $102,500 for the Carnegie Fund, and $7,000 for the general endowment fund.

I have not examined the bank book of the trustees nor the vouchers for the amounts transmitted to Mr. Roden, the treasurer. Mr. Roden's records should verify the amounts transmitted to the treasurer. If you think it worth while I can examine the bank book of the trustees, but personally I do not think it necessary. If you feel that it should be done, however, return the enclosed typewritten statement for comparison with the bank book. Mr. Roden will also be able to check the receipts for life members. I think Mr. Appleton said that two more had been received since January 15th.

I hereby certify that to the best of my knowledge and belief all of the accounts on the typewritten sheets enclosed herewith are correct.

Very sincerely yours,

(Signed) E. H. ANDERSON.
Respectfully submitted,
W. W. APPLETON,
W. C. KIMBALL,
W. T. PORTER,
Trustees Endowment Fund A. L. A.

May 1, 1913.

CARNEGIE FUND, PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT

In addition to the above we have on hand at the Union Trust Company $150 profit on the sale of the Missouri Pacific Bonds, which we have carried to a special surplus account.

CARNEGIE FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT

ENDOWMENT FUND, PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT

ENDOWMENT FUND, INCOME ACCOUNT

BOOKBINDING COMMITTEE

In last year's report it was stated that a special collection, showing the kind of work done by library binders, had been started by this committee. During the past year this collection has been materially increased by samples submitted by different binders; it now includes work from 34 binders covering the entire country from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific. The collection was formed so that when librarians write to ask about the work of specific binders, the work itself can be examined and intelligent answers given.

Notices of the collection were printed in the various library periodicals and a certain numbers of requests for information have been received; a smaller number than the committee hoped for, but sufficient to warrant keeping the collection up-to-date.

In view of certain criticisms of this collection, it may be well to state that it is not the purpose to print criticisms of the work of different binders, or to grade them in any way. When asked for information the committee will not compare the work of one binder with another, neither will librarians be advised to desert one binder and employ another. All that will be done will be to send suggestions as to ways in which the work of the binder in question can be improved. In order to do this the work of the binder must be available for examination. The committee fails to see how any binder can take offense at this method, or claim that other binders are being officially recognized by the A. L. A.

The announcement of the publishers of the Encyclopaedia Britannica that they were about to issue a Yearbook which would be printed only on India paper called forth a protest from this committee against the use of thin paper—a protest which had no effect whatever until letters protesting against its use had been sent to the publishers by 50 librarians of the larger libraries. Even then the sole concession that the publishers made was to agree to bind 750 copies on ordinary paper, provided that we could guarantee a sale of that number. For this reason the committee asks that those who wish to purchase a thick paper edition of the Yearbook register their orders with the committee. If the total number by July 1st amounts to 750 copies, the publishers will be notified to that effect. Many librarians have refused to buy the India paper edition, and it is evident that if all librarians would refuse to get it, the publishers would realize that the demands of librarians in this respect should be heeded.

There have been comparatively few reference books published or announced during the year which the committee felt would need to be bound especially for library use. It was thought advisable, however, to submit our specifications for binding the new editions of the Standard Dictionary and Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography. The publishers of the Standard Dictionary adopted practically all of the specifications and the publishers of the Cyclopaedia of American Biography now have them under consideration.

In this connection it is worthy of notice that the publishers of reference books are not only giving studied attention to binding processes, but they also realize more fully than they did a few years ago the necessity of using leather which is free-from-acid. Until within the last two or three years it has been difficult to get leathers tanned according to the specifications of the Society of Arts. Recently, however, several firms in this country have begun to specialize in leathers free-from-acid; and in addition to this, the Government Printing Office insists on having a certain amount of such leather and calls for it in its proposals for bids. These are encouraging signs that in the future we may hope to get leather which will not disintegrate so rapidly as that which we have been obliged to use for many years past.

With assured standards of book cloths and leathers, which manufacturers, publishers, binders and librarians each year are recognizing more and more as vital to the proper construction of a serviceable book, there remains only paper to be carefully standardized. Some efforts are being made by private companies and by the government to discover which papers are best for certain uses, but at present the librarian at least knows little of the subject and is practically at the mercy of the publisher.

ARTHUR L. BAILEY,
ROSE G. MURRAY,
J. RITCHIE PATTERSON.

COMMITTEE ON BOOKBUYING

At the Ottawa meeting of the American Library Association this committee reported simply progress, without giving details of its work during the past year, but it had submitted the following report to the Executive Board, which we now submit to the Association at large, and follow it up with a further report of the action of your committee during the past year.

To the Executive Board of the American Library Association.

The A. L. A. Committee on bookbuying met with a committee from the American Booksellers' Association in Cleveland on May 13, 1912 for the purpose of discussing book prices and discounts to libraries. As it was found impossible to come to any satisfactory understanding before the annual meeting of the associations, it was decided to make only a report of progress. It was, however, further agreed that a more detailed report should be made to the Executive Boards of the associations to ascertain if the Executive Boards deemed it wise that the discussion should be continued.

The Booksellers' Association at its annual convention held in New York in May has accepted the report of progress, and has reappointed its committee.

During the year 1910-11 your committee had much correspondence with the officers of the American Booksellers' Association, with the librarians and with the booksellers throughout the country on questions of the upward tendency of book prices and the efforts which were being made to decrease the discounts to libraries.

At a meeting of the American Booksellers' Association held in May, 1911, a committee on "Relations with libraries" was appointed to take up the matter with the committee of the A. L. A. Shortly after this committee was appointed, your committee asked that a time be set for a meeting. As the chairman of the Booksellers' committee was abroad, the matter was postponed until September. In September the A. L. A. committee was asked to prepare a statement and submit it to the committee of the American Booksellers' Association, to which they agreed to make a reply, the two papers to form the basis for a discussion at a meeting to be held as soon as the Booksellers' reply had been prepared. We submitted the statement requested in October, 1911. Although repeated requests for a reply were made, we did not succeed in getting a copy until March, 1912, and notwithstanding repeated requests for a meeting to discuss the matter, none was held until May 13, 1912, on the eve of the annual conference of the American Booksellers' Association.

We attach a copy of the statement made by your committee and the reply by the committee of the American Booksellers' Association. The attitude of the members of the committee of the Booksellers' Association at the meeting referred to did not differ from that taken in the reply excepting that they were willing to modify the expressions in the reply to a considerable degree. It urged that special attention should be given to the tables of business loss and profit, which had been prepared in the book store of Brentano's. In connection with these figures the net books should be most considered so far as the new books are concerned. At the present rate of increase of books so issued it will be but a short time before all books are so published.

Your committee was asked to admit that it was morally wrong to demand that the booksellers should do business at any such profits, or loss, shown by these figures. Your committee did not feel that it was justified in taking that position, nor would it be even if it were more certain of the accuracy and fairness of the figures.

Without doubt there is much that is wrongfully asked or required of the booksellers by some of the library people, which must of necessity add materially to the cost of doing business, but this, we believe, should be paid for by those asking the special favors, and should not be covered by a regular charge upon all library business. There was much to be said in favor of the booksellers' increase of prices if it needs to cover such expenses.

On the other hand, it is thought that the bookseller is not justified in all of the increases which have been made in the prices of books to libraries; as, for example, the discounts now allowed to libraries from prices of the net fiction and net juveniles.

It is believed that, with the right spirit of coöperation, there are certain changes that might be made which would help the bookseller, as well as the librarian. If what we understand to be the present attitude of the booksellers remains unchanged, if they are unable to give as well as to take, your committee feels as though the discussion might as well come to an end. We believe that there exists considerable difference of opinion among booksellers as to the justice of the terms now being offered to libraries as large buyers of books.

It will be a matter of great regret if there cannot be established most cordial relations between the libraries and the Booksellers' Association. At the same time, we do not think that the A. L. A. should establish such relations upon terms made wholly for the benefit of the booksellers.

We think that the Executive Board should know the present condition of the negotiations, so that it might, if it sees fit, instruct its future committee.

(Signed)

WALTER L. BROWN,
CARL B. RODEN,
CHARLES H. BROWN.
Committee on Bookbuying.

Statement Made by the Committee on Bookbuying of the American Library Association to the Committee on Relations with Libraries of the American Booksellers' Association.

October, 1911.

To the Committee on Relations with Libraries, American Booksellers' Association.

Gentlemen:

We send you herewith a brief statement of the position of the Book Buying Committee of the American Library Association in relation to the subject which we hope to discuss with you.

The relations between libraries and the book trade should be placed upon a business basis, and the discussion of them upon any other ground is not asked for by the libraries.

There is no question as to the desirability and the necessity of improving the conditions of the book trade, and we are in sympathy with the apparently successful efforts now being made toward that end.

The libraries ask that at this time of reorganization and radical changes a careful and just consideration should be given to their claims as large buyers of a special character. This has always been recognized in the past, and is the reason for the special discounts allowed them by the booksellers.

The library trade as a factor in the book business is of increasing importance. While it may not be considered as "Wholesale business" if, as it is claimed, that term implies the purchase in quantities of single titles and involves a business risk in such purchases, yet it differs so much more from the character of the retail trade that in the new adjustment of discounts there would seem to be little justice in charging against it the expenses of retail trade.

We believe that the amount of library trade, and its peculiar character warrant your association in having appointed a committee to consider its claims.

In dealing with libraries many of the largest items of the expense involved in the conduct of the retail business are wholly unnecessary. It can be conducted as well by dealers on back streets or in lofts as it can be by those who have the most luxurious and expensive stores to attract the retail trade, it does not call for the advertising of their wares by the dealers; all skill of salesmanship is eliminated, and no accounts have to be charged off because of failure.

It is claimed that there are other expenses as great, perhaps, as those mentioned, which are peculiar to the library trade, but in reality are not called for in the business of many libraries, and while, perhaps, they are customary, they are really necessary in but few cases, if any. These expenses would seem to be rather the result of bookselling methods than because of any peculiar demands of the business. These "bad features," as they were called in your recent convention, were pointed out as being

(a) Very slow pay,

(b) Its approval feature,

(c) The practice of asking for competitive bids with the lack of ability to judge squarely of such bids.

We cannot see that any of these features are of vital importance to the library. To many libraries, as we have said, they do not apply at all, and probably others would be better off if they were not allowed by the trade.

The "approval feature" which was made much of by one of your officers, is, we believe, quite as much the fault of the dealers who wish to urge the sale of their stock as it is the fault of libraries who wish to examine the books before purchasing. Many books are sent out to libraries on approval which have already been passed upon, or are entirely outside the range of their purchase, and involve an expense of time to the library, which is forced upon it by the bookseller.

We agree that no library should ask for competitive bids on itemized lists, for the gain to the libraries who do this is much smaller than the expense involved. It is probable that such lists would show a lack of bibliographical detail and would require much time in wasted effort on the part of the bookseller. Library authorities purchasing books in this manner might, perhaps, be expected to show a "lack of ability to judge squarely of such bids." We believe that the bibliographical work of the bookseller in searching for the best (or more often the cheapest) edition to quote on such a list is the most expensive work the bookseller would have in this trade. Such work is wholly unnecessary, as the selected lists of recommended books published by the American Library Association, as well as those published by the state and local associations and the large libraries, are in the habit of stating the edition, the publisher's name and the price. It is safe to say that all libraries are supplied with such bibliographical aid to the extent of their needs and purchases.

This question, however, has little to do with the trade of the libraries conducted according to modern methods. The best libraries do not send out for competitive bids on itemized orders, and they do place the necessary bibliographical detail on their orders, and we might add that their officers are fully capable of judging squarely the editions supplied and the price quoted.

We should like to see the book trade classify the library business as peculiar to itself. Taking the best library trade as a standard, it might suggest some requirements which should be asked for in return for obtaining the library discount. If the business is free from these faults with which it is more or less justly charged, it should be profitable to the bookseller.

We believe that libraries have a right to protest against the increasing charges made to them for the passing of the books of the publishers through the hands of the booksellers, and that some concessions should be made in the discounts now granted. We believe that there is ample room for increasing the booksellers' profits by the reformation of its methods, or perhaps we should say the library methods, which are now accepted by them. The general increase and the tendency toward further increases in the charges for the handling of books for libraries by the rules of your association we believe to be unjust, and that we are fully justified in asking that a careful consideration be given to this question with a view toward making more liberal discounts to this trade.

We do not believe that the last move of your association in making the same discount on net fiction as upon other net books is warranted, for we think it would be only fair to grant the libraries a proportion of the larger profit which the bookseller receives by reason of the extra discount allowed by the publishers on net fiction. If no other concession is made, we believe that a better price should be offered to libraries on their purchases of net fiction.

We should regret to have the booksellers take action which would give the libraries the impression that their trade was a burden to the booksellers; that the members of your association required a larger profit from them than what is amply satisfactory to the jobbing trade and many dealers.

It is to the interests of the library to foster friendly relations with the local booksellers. We believe that together they can be of more service than when working against each other; it is good for the community; we believe that it is also to the interests of the booksellers to keep the library trade, not only because of sentimental reasons, but because it pays. Not only are the library accounts practically guaranteed and the requirements of display, advertising and salesmanship minimized, as we have already stated, but the library is often the only buyer of many books which are received by the booksellers. No other one customer keeps the stock moving to such an extent as the library. None other wears out books and calls for so many duplications after the period of popular demand, taking from the bookseller's shelves books which he need not re-stock. Much of this kind of trade prevents actual loss which the bookseller would have without the library customer.

We are not at all convinced that the booksellers are losers in the library trade, nor do we wish to be placed in the position of receiving special favors. The libraries like to feel that the booksellers are giving them fair prices so they will not be constantly shown by out-of-town dealers how much cheaper they might have bought their new books by waiting a brief time after publication.

Wide margins of profit always lead to the cutting of prices unless the trade is absolutely controlled, which is not the condition in the book trade at this time.

We wish to be in a position to urge all libraries to buy of the regular dealers in their localities, and trust that your committee may be able to see some way of recommending further concessions to the library trade.

Answer to the Foregoing Statement

Answer to the library Committee on Relation with Booksellers, as proposed by Charles E. Butler, Brentano's, New York.

1. We agree that the relations between librarians and booksellers should be on a business basis, and that there is no question as to the desirability of improving the condition of the book trade.

2. We are in hearty sympathy with the desire of the libraries, that a careful and just consideration should be given to their claims for better discount as large buyers collectively of a special character.

3. It is the most earnest desire of the book trade to be absolutely fair and just toward the libraries. We fully and most sincerely believe that the libraries would not for a moment desire or expect that their purchases should be made at the sacrifice of a trade, whose very existence depends on what reasonable profit can be made by them in their business transactions.

4. The libraries believe that the booksellers can make better discounts than they do now, if they carry on their business along the lines indicated by them, while the booksellers claim that the present condition of buying and selling prohibits them from making a profit, but is actually productive of loss, and that the method proposed by the libraries is not possible.

5. The booksellers are of necessity the agent of the publisher. If his business is not self-sustaining, he must fail. The reduction of real booksellers, by a most liberal construction of what constitutes a bookseller, from about 3,000 when our population was 40 millions to about 2,000 with our population at 90 millions, is evidence of the truth of this assertion. The booksellers are entitled to sell to everyone who buys books, libraries or others.

6. The libraries are not booksellers, therefore they are not entitled to booksellers' discounts, which they are now getting from certain sources. Thus, booksellers are deprived of the library business.

7. The bookseller is an important factor in any community in which he is placed. He is taxed by city and state. His educational influence cannot be estimated. His capital, his brains and physical effort are all invested in making his business a success. To do so, he needs reasonable profits, and it is business folly to do any part of his business that results in a loss.

8. A great majority of the libraries are created and supported by direct taxation, by charitable contribution, endowment, legacies and the like. It is true, the libraries have to be conducted in a careful, businesslike way simply keeping within their means. Doing this, they are free from the booksellers' anxieties and difficulties as a merchant.

9. The unique position enjoyed by libraries in the community as to their capital and freedom from commercial risk, and exemption from taxation and rent, has raised the question: "Why should they receive discounts on books?" Do they, as libraries, get special discounts on their building, their shelving, light, heat, electricity and supplies, etc., etc.?

10. The libraries state that in booksellers dealing with libraries many of the largest items of the expense involved in the conduct of the retail business are wholly unnecessary.

"It can be conducted as well by dealers on back streets or in lofts as it can be done by those who have the most luxurious stores to attract the retail trade; it does not call for the advertising of their wares by the dealer; all skill of salesmanship is eliminated and no accounts have to be charged off because of failure."

11. The bookseller establishes himself in every community, in such locations as will attract trade—generally the best—limited only by his capacity to pay rent and expenses. This is vital to his success. A bookseller locating himself on a back street for the purpose of doing business to enable him to give the library a large portion of his small earnings would speedily end his career. He could not get enough library business to exist on and his chances of doing a general retail business, on a back street, would be very small indeed. He would become solely a 25 per cent or 30 per cent buyer, 10 per cent which he gives to the libraries, with a possible 28, 25 or 20 per cent expense account. We do not believe that the libraries would knowingly ask anyone to do business under such circumstances for their benefit. Will the libraries figure this out?

12. Presuming, for the sake of argument, a bookseller does locate himself on a back street for the purpose of doing library business: He must be a bookseller to get a wholesale rate. A mere agent not carrying stock, but simply buying on orders, would not be supported or supplied by the publishers, as he does not carry stock or assume the risk of the business.

13. He would therefore have to carry a reasonable amount of stock to be considered a bookseller. The libraries may not know that the discount given the bookseller is qualified by the quantity purchased of each item. Thus, the average trade discount now prevailing on net books and net fiction is 30 per cent in small quantities. If he purchases 10 to 25 copies of a title, he gets an extra 5 per cent. If he purchases 50 to 250 of a title (according to the publisher and the book offered) he gets an extra 10 per cent. The libraries familiar with this discount, and being misguided as to the results, argue that a better discount than they now get should be given them by the bookseller. We have not included here the great number of books published at such discounts as 25 per cent, 20 per cent, 15 per cent, and even 10 per cent, to which must be added transportation and other charges. More of such books are bought by libraries than by the retail buyer, such as educational books, scientific books, medical books, law books, subscription books, etc.

14. Now this is what really happens to the man on the back street, as well as to the bookseller on the principal thoroughfare. It is safe to say that out of the purchase of 100 new books of any one house, say for a period of a year, about 90 per cent would have to be bought in small quantities at a discount of 30 per cent, about 5 per cent at the extra 5 per cent discounts, and 5 per cent at the extra 10 per cent discounts. Thus, buying 90 per cent of his stock at 30 per cent and selling to libraries at a discount of 10 per cent leaves 20 per cent to do business, with an average expense cost to the bookseller of 28 per cent on every dollar of sale. The 10 per cent at better rate would improve matters very little, as can readily be seen. It does not seem as if the bookseller could make better discount than he does to the libraries and it really is a question whether he is justified in giving as much as he does now, if able to give any at all, except at a loss to him.

15. The theory has been advanced by the libraries that all their business should be considered by booksellers as an independent element in the business and not chargeable with the 28 per cent cost per dollar of sale, but that the library business should be charged with a much less ratio of expense, thus enabling the bookseller to gratify the desire of the libraries for a further discount. They base this proposition on the following claims:

• 1. It does not call for the advertising of their wares by the dealer.
• 2. All skill of salesmanship is eliminated.
• 3. No accounts have to be charged off because of failure.

The facts are that the smaller libraries, and to some extent the larger libraries, are constantly supplied by publisher and bookseller with circular matter regarding new and forthcoming publications, letters and personal visits as to special publications, as well as sending the new books, as issued, on approval, at considerable cost and trouble, and some loss of sale, because books are not available for display to possible buyers who visit the dealer's place of business. The proper handling of library orders to any reasonable extent requires skilled clerks with good knowledge of books, the use of catalogs and the ability to work out titles correctly that are incorrectly given, and which is so often done. It is true that no accounts have to be charged off, but library accounts require much care and trouble in making duplicate and triplicate vouchers, many have to be sworn to before notaries, in some cases depositing money as security that goods will be supplied at prices quoted, and generally a long wait before the bills are paid, and many minor troubles annoying to both libraries and dealers.

16. As a business proposition, the making of a library department a separate one from the business, and determining its exact cost of maintenance, and basing the library discount thereon is not feasible, for the reason that the bulk of its operations are so interwoven with the business, requiring the assistance of the entire force at many stages that it would be impossible to pick out and determine what each operation costs. Again, the profits and loss of a business can only be finally determined at the end of the fiscal year, when the stock is taken, and the books closed—a very anxious moment indeed for the bookseller. He then knows, to his joy or sorrow, how much it has cost him to make one dollar of sale, and what profit or loss he has made on each dollar of sale, on every class of merchandise he has sold, the library trade included. This percentage of sale is his guide for the following year, and as a good business man, he must eliminate every class of merchandise he sells that does not produce some profit. No business can work successfully otherwise.

17. The following table will show the various ramifications of a special library department in the business, if carried out as proposed. What suggestions would the libraries make in a case like this?

Work of the library clerk.

• Clerks.
• Writing to libraries
• for trade.
• Sending circulars
• and book information
• to libraries.
• Certain reference
• catalogs.
• Receiving order for
• estimate and
• price.
• Looking up same
• and selecting editions
• and pricing.
• Writing to publishers
• about special
• books to be
• priced.
• Correcting librarian's
• errors.

Store Assistance.

• Correspondence in
• general.
• Typewriters, machine,
• paper, etc.
• Advertising for out-of-print
• books and
• general advertising.
• Assistance of other
• clerks.
• Order department
• and laying out order
• and getting
• shorts.
• Receiving department.
• Bookkeeping department.
• Packing and shipping
• department.
• Catalog—reference.
• Freight and express
• on goods bought.
• Returns and credits.
• Postage.
• Loss on bad accounts.
• Theft.
• Depreciation
• of stock.
• Rent.
• Heat.
• Light.
• Care and keep of
• store.
• Salaries and wages.
• Interest.
• Store supplies.
• Insurance and taxes.
• Auditing.
• Cost of books on approval—going
• and
• coming.
• Good will and reputation.

18. The libraries state that

They have a right to protest against the increasing charges made to them for passing of the books of the publishers through the hands of the booksellers, and that some concession should be made in the discounts now granted.

19. In this, the libraries should consider they are not a trade organization, who, like the booksellers, depend on their trade for a living. Publisher and bookseller are one in interest—producer and distributor, and it is economically proper that the publisher's product should pass through the hands of the bookseller, and to whom?—to their clientele, the public. What relation does the library have to the bookseller, other than as a buyer, the same as the rest of the community? It is claimed that libraries are large buyers collectively, but the general public are larger buyers collectively, by many millions of dollars. If the library theory holds good, would not the same theory hold good if the citizens of each community were to combine in their purchasing and demand discounts accordingly? Would this not result in the booksellers' sudden and complete annihilation, instead of a gradual one, as it has been?

20. As to the "increasing charges," there is no more increase to the libraries than to the general public. What brought about these "increasing charges?" The necessity of self-preservation of both publisher and bookseller. Till the beginning of the net system and for some years thereafter books were published at the traditional prices of more than fifty years ago (and later a period of ruinous competition to the bookseller) the discounts to the trade remaining about the same, and this in spite of the fact that the cost of everything pertaining to book-making and its selling had greatly increased, and had not advanced in price, while almost every other article of merchandise, labor, material and the necessities of life, has greatly increased in cost, and increased in selling price.

21. The libraries state:

We should regret to have the booksellers take action which would give the libraries the impression that their trade was a burden to the bookseller, that your members required a larger profit from them than what is amply satisfactory to the jobbing trade and many dealers.

22. The booksellers do not feel that the libraries are a burden to them. They are anxious to have trading relations with them, but on a mutually satisfactory basis. The library does not need profit for its existence, supported as it is, but the bookseller needs it for his very existence. Were the libraries aware of the actual facts of the case, they would undoubtedly learn to their surprise that the trade done by "the jobbing trade and many dealers" was anything but satisfactory, and were their dealings with the libraries closely analyzed they would find they had made small profit, if not loss, on the total of the books sold to them. The dealers have only shown existing conditions, and have asked for relief.

23. The libraries are not sole buyers of net books. A very large proportion of their purchases are of non-net books, which are sold to them at little or no margin of profit, and at the same discount as the booksellers get. This is ruinous competition.

24. Why then do the trade desire library business under existing conditions? They do not seek this business for its profit-making on general publications, regular and net, for that is almost nil, but for such stock as can be bought at much better discount than the regular trade rates, such as jobs and the like, that they can sell the libraries, and also for the real value of the libraries to the bookseller that their orders often enable him to dispose of certain stock—even at cost—which might take a long time to dispose of. Finally, there is a certain amount of pride—surprising as it may seem—that the bookseller has. He wants to sell the library in his own community, he wants to do all the business of his community, and he feels it keenly that his library is the only one with whom he cannot do business, except at a very small profit or loss; and which trade goes to some other town or state.

25. We trust we have made clear to the libraries the exact business situation as it relates to the bookseller, jobber, and the like. To some extent, what is stated here is no new story. The general assertion has been made by the bookseller that the library business is unprofitable, while the libraries state they believe otherwise is or should be the case, and suggest their ideas as to a remedy.

26. It can be proved, we think, to the entire satisfaction of the libraries, that in spite of the net system and corresponding maintenance of price, the bookseller, jobber and the like, will be happy indeed if he can show the smallest margin of net profit as a result of a year's work in selling regular and net books to the libraries and the public as well.

27. The booksellers, jobbers and the like desire the library business. They believe that it rightly belongs to them in their own locality, and to no one else, be they large or small.

28. They believe the discount given to libraries by booksellers, jobbers and the like, should be uniform the country over, and leave a small margin of profit to the seller.

29. They believe that competitive bidding by the libraries has been detrimental to booksellers, jobbers and the like, as well as to the libraries in many ways, direct and indirect.

30. They believe that the libraries desire to be fair in this matter and not ask for unreasonable terms, and that a knowledge of the real facts of the case of the condition of the booksellers, jobbers and the like, will convince them that the booksellers, jobbers and others are doing all, if not more than they can, in giving the libraries a discount of 33 1-3 per cent on regular books, and 10 per cent on net books, as at present.

31. Booksellers, jobbers and the like fully believe that they can be of great assistance to the libraries and the libraries to them, and it is their earnest hope that close and harmonious relations may be brought about, and that they will do all in their power towards it. The booksellers most heartily endorse the great and good work the libraries perform to the community, and from a selfish point of view, the bookseller freely admits the great assistance derived by them from the influence of the libraries in creating a desire for reading and the possession of books, and the general educating and elevating of the community, and the bookseller also feels that his presence in any community is likewise educating and elevating and that his interests should be reasonably conserved.

32. The booksellers complain that when libraries become publishers, as many of them do, they make their prices net but give the trade little or no discount therefrom. Such books sold by the bookseller, cost him considerable in addition to the published price.

33. They cordially invite the librarians to go into any facts and figures they may desire to be informed about, as to the cost of booksellers doing business and as to the conditions affecting the relationship of both, with a view that all difficulties may be removed, to our mutual satisfaction.

34. We are pleased to learn that the libraries believe—-

1. The approval feature can be dropped.

2. That no library should ask for competitive bids on itemized lists.

3. The bibliographical work is entirely unnecessary by the bookseller and can be dispensed with.

4. That the relations between libraries and the book trade should be placed upon a business basis.

5. That there is no question as to the desirability and the necessity of improving the condition of the book trade, and that they are in sympathy with the apparently successful efforts now being made toward that end.

BOOKSELLERS SELLING TO LIBRARIES AND THE RESULT, IN PROFIT AND LOSS TO THE BOOKSELLER.

The following tabulation is compiled, from actual purchases made from four prominent publishers, by a large bookseller, during a period of one year. These purchases included books in all classes of literature, fiction, biography, science, travel, etc., etc., which would fairly represent the book purchases of a number of libraries for the period of one year. These books were bought at varying discounts, viz.:—2/5, 2/5-5, 2/5-10, ¼, ¼-5, ¼-10, 3/10, 3/10-5, 3/10-10, 1/3, 1/3-5, 1/3-10. Every advantage was taken where possible, to obtain by quantity buying, the extra 5 and 10 per cent, given by the publishers. The amount bought of these four publishers at published price was about $37,035.87, which cost the bookseller about $24,000.00, and included both regular, net and special books.

Let us assume that this bookseller sold these books from his stock to the libraries, at a discount from the published prices, on regular books, of 1/3 and a discount of 10% from the published prices of net books.

It is here shown, what the result of the operation would be to the bookseller, as to profit or loss. The cost point of doing business by booksellers the country over, has been fairly well determined to be on the same average, 28% per dollar of sale. This may fluctuate according to circumstances and location, between 30% and 25%. In order, however, to clearly and fully cover all possibilities in the matter, the expense per dollar of sale has been calculated at 28%, 20%, 15%, 10% and 5% per dollar of sale.

In all these calculations per dollar of sale, no allowance is made for depreciation of stock, fixtures, bad accounts, etc., etc.

It is hoped that a careful analysis of this table will help solve the library problem.

TABLE NO. 1.

TABLE NO. 2.

The following tabulation is compiled on the same basis as Table No. 1, but showing the result to the bookseller, as to profit and loss, if the bookseller increased the discount to the libraries, on regular books, from 1/3 to 2/5, and on net books from 1/10 to 1/5.

June, 1913
Report of the Bookbuying Committee of the American Library Association, 1912-13

In November, 1912, your committee was notified by the secretary that the executive board asked it to continue its negotiations with the committee on libraries of the American Booksellers' Convention.

A meeting with the latter committee was immediately arranged for, and such meeting was held in New York City on November 25th, which was attended by two representatives of the Booksellers' Association and by two members of the committee on Book Buying of the A. L. A. A discussion lasting over three hours, when all the details and conditions were gone over, resulted in a definite agreement, the ratification of which the committee of the American Booksellers' Association promised to recommend to that Association.

This agreement was in the nature of a small concession on the part of the Booksellers' Committee. While the concession was small, it was accepted as at least showing a disposition on the part of the Booksellers to co-operate with the libraries in the promotion of a better feeling between them. The Booksellers' Committee agreed to allow the libraries a discount of 15% from the net price on new fiction, instead of 10%, which is now allowed. The 15% discount was to be given during the calendar year in which the novel was published, as given on the title page.

A few days after this agreement was made, the acting chairman of the American Booksellers' Association committee announced that he could not carry it out, because of his finding that the booksellers could not afford to do what he had promised to recommend, and at that time submitted figures which he thought proved his contention. These figures differed in no particular from those which were formerly submitted, and which are a part of this report, and which, we believe are on a false basis of an exaggerated cost of doing library business, and of misleading statements as to discounts allowed by the publishers to booksellers on new fiction.

At the annual meeting of the American Booksellers' Association, which was held in May of this year, a statement was made by its committee on Relations with libraries, but this statement does not form a part of the published report of the proceedings of the convention, and your committee has not been able to obtain a copy of the stenographer's notes. The acting chairman of the Booksellers' Committee informs us that he made no report, but that he submitted and supplemented the foregoing statements of the committees, with quotations from the correspondence of the two committees. It, therefore, probably differed but little from the original statements made by the two committees.

We would, therefore, call your attention to the reasons given in the Booksellers' "Statement" for holding the uniform higher prices which the libraries are paying for books because of the short discounts allowed by the Booksellers' Association. As the position taken by the Booksellers' Association is not agreed to by all of the individual booksellers, such action may or may not be looked upon as a "restraint of trade."

The estimate of the cost of doing business by retail booksellers is 28%, and the contention is that no profit is made from any item which does not net them a sum greater than 28% above cost. This would mean that they wish to force the libraries into becoming retail customers because library business as a wholesale trade is regarded by the retail booksellers as too costly, and the Booksellers' Committee believes that it should not be welcomed by them. All booksellers do not take this view any more than they would wish to endorse that expressed in paragraph 8 of the "answer" of their committee, which reads as follows: "A great majority of the libraries are created and supported by direct taxation, by charitable contributions, endowments, legacies and the like. It is true that libraries have to be conducted in a careful, businesslike way, simply keeping within their means. Doing this, they are free from the booksellers' anxieties and difficulties as a merchant."

Your committee believes that there is no question as to the desire of all libraries to encourage good feeling between the booksellers and themselves, nor is there any question as to the desirability of having a bookstore in every community.

We believe that the local booksellers should be encouraged, but not at the expense of the taxpayers through the library.

The libraries, as wholesale buyers, should, we believe, be allowed greater discounts on the net books. As the retail booksellers seem not included to make any compromise, we believe that your committee on Book Buying might, in the immediate future, be of service to the libraries by calling their attention to the advantages of buying many replace books from booksellers who are desirous of obtaining and keeping the library business and to those who deal in remainders and second-hand books, both here and abroad.

Inasmuch as the Booksellers' Committee on Relations with libraries did not keep its verbal promise, and has reassumed its former position which allows no concession whatsoever, although asking and expecting co-operation from the libraries, we believe that there is nothing to be gained by further negotiations with the Booksellers' Association Committee on Relations with Libraries as it is now constituted.

Respectfully submitted,

WALTER L. BROWN,
CARL B. RODEN,
CHARLES H. BROWN,
Committee on Bookbuying.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CO-OPERATION WITH THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

The committee of the American Library Association on co-operation with the National Education Association, while having no special accomplishment to present, still seems justified in reporting the year as being one decidedly of progress. Never before in the experience of the committee has there been a more friendly expression of a desire to co-operate on the part of the N. E. A. than has been the case this year.

President Fairchild sent an invitation unsolicited for a representative of the American Library Association to take a place on the general program of the meetings of the National Education Association in Salt Lake City. The committee has not been able to find a proper representative to accept the invitation, owing to the great distance from library centers of the place of meeting.

There has been an increased amount of discussion by correspondence of the members of the committee as to the work that could be done more thoroughly to create a sympathetic attitude toward the work of the public library as an integral part of public education.

An increasing number of schools are turning to the libraries for help, and one association of college librarians has strongly emphasized the need of instruction in library methods for the students of high schools.

The committee has been active in its efforts to co-operate with the library department of the N. E. A., and has received a written expression of thanks for its work this year from the officers of the department.

M. E. AHERN,
Chairman.

COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL AND STATE RELATIONS

The committee reports that its chief activity throughout the year, has been the endeavor to secure a cheaper postal rate upon books, in which effort it has been unsuccessful. Attempts were made to have books included in the parcel post bill of 1912, and also to have the rate on books made the same as the second class rate on magazines when sent by individuals. At the regular and extra sessions of Congress, the Chairman of the Committees of Congress on Post Offices and Post Roads, were interviewed, and the Postmaster-General was urged to give the favorable influence of his department toward the end desired. There seems to be no probability of an immediate alteration in the rate upon books, unless a complete revision of the parcel post section of the postal laws be made, and there is some question as to whether it is desirable for books to be included in the parcel post, with the present zone system, inasmuch as under it, the postage upon books within certain zones would be actually greater than under the existing law. The activity of those desiring a one cent postage upon letters, also causes members of Congress to hesitate in making any reduction such as we desire.

When the new tariff bill was introduced in the House of Representatives, the Committee addressed a communication to the Committee on Ways and Means, so as to secure the retention of the privilege of free entry for books imported by public libraries. The Treasury Department on April 19 decided "that small importations through the mails for colleges or other institutions entitled to import books free of duty under Par. 519 of the Tariff Act will be passed without requiring an affidavit in each instance, provided such institutions will file with the Collector of Customs a copy of its charter or article of association showing it to be entitled to pass such importations free of duty." Libraries desiring to avail themselves of this privilege should forward this information promptly to the Collector of Customs at the port where they receive books.

BERNARD C. STEINER, Chairman.

COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION

Part of your Committee's report is simply supplementary to that of last year, constituting with it a survey of methods used in certain libraries in carrying out two common operations—accessioning and the charging of issue. Last year the selected libraries were asked simply to describe these operations closely, being urged to leave out no detail, no matter how trivial and unimportant. It was thought that no set of questions, however minute, would provide for all such details, and that a questionnaire might result in many omissions and make the operations, as performed by the contributing libraries, appear to be more uniform than is really the case. The event proved, however, the necessity of some sort of a questionnaire, and after a study of last year's results the following was prepared by Mr. George F. Bowerman, of this committee, and sent out by the chairman both to the libraries named in the last report and to certain others. Data have been received from the following institutions:

Public or Circulating Libraries

• Butte, Montana
• Atlanta
• Pittsburgh
• East Orange
• Forbes Library
• Jacksonville, Florida
• Lincoln Library, Springfield
• Los Angeles
• New York
• Pratt Institute
• St. Louis
• Salt Lake City
• Seattle
• Washington

College or University

• Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
• Westminster College, Fulton, Mo.
• Harvard
• Kansas
• Syracuse
• Tulane

State Libraries

• Indiana
• Iowa
• New York
• Virginia

Special Library

• John Crerar, Chicago

Society Libraries

• Medical Society of the County of Kings
• New York Society
• New York Bar Association (accession only)

We give below the questions sent out with a summary of the various answers by numbers. The original blanks are on file at A. L. A. headquarters, showing answers in greater detail, together with the names of the answering libraries.

Summary of Reports on Accession Routine

[Harvard University library did not answer each question in detail, as it keeps no accession record in the usual sense. A record is kept each day of the number of volumes and pamphlets received by gift and by purchase, from which statistics are made up at the end of the year. A file of continuation cards for annual reports and similar continued publications and a record of gifts from individuals are useful supplements to the daily record. Bills for books are filed alphabetically under dealer's name each year, and order slips, giving agent, date of order and date of receipt, are preserved.]

(1) When do you accession, before or after cataloging? Before cataloging—14.

(2) Are all books that are cataloged accessioned? Affirmative, 24 (exception, 11).

(3) What method of keeping your accession record do you use?

All use accession book except Los Angeles and Forbes Library, which use bill method, and Washington, D. C., which uses order cards as accession record.

East Orange does not believe accession book essential.

Pittsburgh, which accessions only adult books, is inclined to believe book unnecessary. Their method of treating juveniles is especially interesting.

Seattle notes that their book has fewer items than the A. L. A., and says the use of order cards as accession record is an excellent method.

(4) Which of the following items do you enter in your accession record?

The number following the item indicates the number of libraries reporting its use:—Author, 19; title, 18; publisher, 17; place of publication, 13; date of publication, 18; size, 10; edition, 13; number of volumes, 23; binding, 11; publisher's price, 8; cost, 18; source, 20; date of bill, 10; date of entry, 14.

(5) Do you enter facts about re-binding in the accession record?

Affirmative, 3; negative, 20.

(6) a. Do you use your accession record to obtain statistics of additions?

Affirmative, 19; negative, 5.

b. What items do you include?

Some of these questions were not answered, so it is inferred that the statistics obtained are for total additions only. Following items were reported on:—Class, 7; source, 8; branch, 2; language, 2; circulating or reference, 2; adult and juvenile, 2.

(7) Do you maintain a numerical record of accessions according to classification? Department or branches? Does it cover expenditures for each main class? Department or branches?

Negative, 14; record according to classification, 6; branch or department, 3; separate record of expenditures, 4.

(8) Where do you place accession number?

Page after title page, 6; title page, 3; title page and first page, 1; title page and page 101, 1; book plate and page after title page, 1.

(9) Do you write price and date of bill as well as accession number in the book. Do you write cost of a set in the first volume?

Affirmative, 6; negative, 13 (both questions); cost, 1; date, affirmative, 3; negative, 1; cost in volume 1 of set, 6.

(10) How do you indicate the branch or department to which a book is assigned?

Not indicated, or there is no branch, 14; stamped or indicated in accession book, 5; books stamped or marked, 5; separate accession book for each branch, 3; order card and book stamped, 2.

(11) In case of replacements do you keep a record of the accession number which has been replaced or do you regard replacement as if it were an added entry or duplicate, disregarding old number entirely?

Replacement is regarded as an added entry or duplicate, and no record kept of the old number, 16; New number given to replacement but make note of the number replaced, 6; Old number used, 3.

Butte, Mont., reports:

"We enter each new copy in the shelf list as copy 2-3, etc., keeping a record of each book."

New York City Bar Association reports:

"Do not use numbers, but dates. A book added to replace is not counted for the annual statistics."

(12) Do you note in the accession record when a book is withdrawn, or do you keep a withdrawal book?

Note in accession record, 9; note on shelf list, 4; note in accession book and keep withdrawal book, 3; have withdrawal book, 2; have no withdrawals, 2; files book cards, 1; keeps record on cards, 1; keeps cards withdrawn from public catalog, 1; not noted at all, 2.

New York City Bar Association reports:

"We keep all books except in very rare cases. The only notes made are in catalogs and in statistical record."

Summary of Reports on Charging Systems

1. What charging system do you use?

Newark system, 12; Brown system, 2; Borrower's record, 2; Single file—Book file under date or class, 4; Double file—Borrower's file and book file, 6.

2. The process of charging.

a.1. Do you issue books on borrowers' cards? 18.

a.2. Do you charge by means of call slips? 4.

a.3. Permanent or temporary book cards? 5.

b. How many cards are issued to one borrower?

One card, 10; two cards, 4; three cards, 1; temporary borrower's cards, 2; temporary book cards and no borrower's cards, 9; borrower's pocket instead of borrower's card, 1.

c. If a borrower presents his own cards and those of others also, do you issue books on all cards presented?

Affirmative, 13; negative, 1 (cards, slips or pocket held at the library, 12).

d. Do you issue privilege or teachers' cards?

Affirmative, 9; negative, 7.

e. How many 2-week books of fiction are charged on one card?

e.1. One book of fiction on a card for 2 weeks—10.

Two books of fiction on a card for 2 weeks—2.

Three books of fiction on a card for 2 weeks—1.

Tulane University—Faculty can withdraw any number at one time; students, only 3.

No discrimination between fiction and non-fiction—3.

No limit—Virginia State.

No exact time limit—2.

e.2. One 7-day book on one card, 11; three 7-day books on one card, 2; unlimited (East Orange), 1; no 7-day books, 2.

e.3. One 4-week book of fiction on one card, 5; two 4-week books of fiction on one card, 2; three 4-week books of fiction on one card, 2; unlimited (East Orange), 1; none issued for 4 weeks, 6.

f. How many pay duplicate books may one borrower draw at a time?

Number unlimited, 8; three at one time, 1; five at one time, 1; as many as cards presented, 1. (Libraries having no pay collection, 16.)

g. Do you issue books and magazines on the same card?

Affirmative, 14; negative, 4; no circulation of magazines, 4.

h. How many books are issued on privilege or teachers' cards?

Unlimited, except for fiction, 5; 12 books, 1; 10 books, 2; 5 books, 3; no special cards issued, 16.

i. Are books stamped on the date of issue—8.

Are books stamped on the date of return—10.

j. Do you use different colored pads for charging and discharging?

Affirmative, 5; negative, 18.

k. Do you use different colored pencils for different dates?

Affirmative, 5; negative, 19.

l. Do you use different sized type for different dates?

Affirmative, 1; negative, 24.

m. Is the assistant at the charging desk required to use a mark or initial of identification on the book card?

Affirmative, 11; negative, 15.

n. n.1. Do you stamp fiction and non-fiction on the same card?

Affirmative, 12; negative, 5; no distinction made, 1.

n.2. Do you stamp fiction and non-fiction on different parts of the same card?

Affirmative, 5.

n.3. In combination? 3.

n.4. Do you use the same colored ink for fiction and non-fiction?

Affirmative, 9; negative, 2.

o. Are the class numbers of non-fiction written on a teacher's or privilege card?

Affirmative, 5; negative, 4.

p. How many places do you stamp—Book card? Borrower's card? Date flap? Book entry? Call slip?

3 stampings, book card, borrower's card, date flap—12.

2 stampings, book card, borrower's card—2.

2 stampings, book card, date flap—3.

2 stampings, call slip, date flap—3.

1 stamping, call slip—4.

1 stamping, temporary book card—1.

1 stamping, borrower's pocket—1.

q. Do you renew books more than once?

Affirmative, 11; negative, 14.

r. Do you renew books issued for 7 days?

Affirmative, 3; negative, 15.

s. Do you renew books issued for two weeks?

Affirmative, 19; negative, 2.

t. Do you renew books issued for four weeks?

Affirmative, 12; negative, 3.

u. Is the process of renewal like original charge?

Affirmative, 19; negative, 2.

3. Counting of Circulation.

a. Do you verify your count by having it checked by a second person?

Affirmative, 3; negative, 21; no count kept, 2.

b. Do you verify your filing in the same way?

Affirmative, 4; negative, 20.

c. Are records kept in different departments combined daily in a single statistics record?

Affirmative, 10; negative, 7; daily and monthly, 4; yearly count, 1.

d. Do you send collections of books for home circulation to places outside the library?

Affirmative, 16; negative, 11.

e.1. Do the custodians of these places furnish circulation figures?

Affirmative, 14; negative, 3.

e.2. How often? Monthly, 6; bi-monthly, 1; yearly, 3; weekly, 1.

f. Is any record kept of the reading (not home circulation) of these collections?

Affirmative, 2; negative, 14.

g. If no circulation figures are obtainable, do you count the original collections sent as books issued?

Affirmative, 13; negative, 4.

h. is omitted.

i. For what periods are such collections sent on deposit? Varied, 16; two months, 2; two weeks, 1.

4. Filing of cards.

a.1. Are fiction and non-fiction cards separated under the day's issue?

Affirmative, 12.

a.2. Or are all cards filed in alphabetical order according to author or otherwise.

Accession number, 1; author, 2; author and accession number, 1; borrower's name, 2; call number on slips, 2; class number, 6; title, 1.

b. Do you use different colored book cards?

Affirmative, 13; negative, 14.

c. Do you have separate files for 7-day cards, or do you file them daily with 2-week books issued one week previously—also 4-week books issued 3 weeks previously?

Separate files, 4; no separate files, 5; filed daily with 2-week books issued one week previously, 8.

d. Do you have separate files for cards issued to teachers? For renewed books? Foreign books?

Teachers—Affirmative, 6; negative, 17; renewed books—Affirmative, 1; negative, 22; foreign books—None.

e. Do you use guide cards to separate the classes of non-fiction or do different classes have different book cards?

Guide cards, 2; guide cards and colored book-cards, 1; colored book cards, 4; neither, 15.

f. Have you separate files for books loaned to staff members, trustees, etc.?

Affirmative, 8; negative, 19.

g. Are special records kept of books in quarantined houses?

Affirmative, 14; negative, 12.

h. Do you keep your file of collections loaned as deposits separate from ordinary circulation?

Affirmative, 18; negative, 4.

5. Discharging of books.

a. Do you stamp on borrower's card or slip the date book is returned?

Affirmative, 15; negative, 2.

b. Do you keep on file at the library all cards of borrowers when in use?

Affirmative, 14; negative, 13.

When not in use?

Affirmative, 16; negative, 5.

c. Do you retain at the library a borrower's card on which there is a fine?

Affirmative, 16; negative, 1.

d. Do you issue receipts for books without cards?

Affirmative, 5; negative, 17.

e. Do you give the receipt to the borrower to be returned with card for cancellation of date or do you keep file of such receipts at the library?

Receipt file kept at library, 4.

f. Do you discharge books before stamping off borrowers' cards?

Affirmative, 5; negative, 10. Discharging and stamping off done at the same time, 9.

g. If not do you look up book cards overdue before you stamp off borrower's card?

Affirmative, 8; negative, 3.

h. Do you inspect book while borrower waits? Affirmative, 15; negative, 11.

i. Are books discharged near your return desk or away from it?

Near or at desk, 28.

j. Do you inspect carefully all books returned?

Affirmative, 18; negative, 8.

k. Is this inspection made when books are discharged or when shelved?

When discharged, 8; before shelved, 8; at both times, 3.

The most interesting thing brought out by this investigation is the fact that it has taken your committee two years to ascertain and tabulate the simple facts regarding methods of procedure, in a very limited number of institutions, in the performance of only two of the many operations that go to make up their current work. From this it may be imagined how long and difficult a task it would be to carry out a really comprehensive survey of all the work of all kinds of libraries as currently performed. And yet such a survey would appear to be a necessary preliminary to a study of the subject whose aims should be definite suggestions toward the improvement of this work in the direction of greater efficiency. It would seem, at present, a task beyond this committee's powers, although we may be prepared to take general advisory charge of such a work if others can be induced to undertake the details. Possibly some of the library schools may regard this as profitable employment for their students.

In the next place we are struck with the complete negative that our results place upon the general impression that the various details of modern library work are becoming—possibly even have already become—thoroughly standardized. No one thinks, of course, that everyone does everything alike; but we are apt to believe that there are now a few generally approved ways of doing each thing, and that each library selects from these the one that suits its own conditions and limitations. On the contrary, we seem to be in an era of free experiment. Nothing in the two sets of operations that we have studied—not even the existence and value of the operations themselves—would appear to be regarded as sacred. Everyone has his own methods and is apparently satisfied, either with them, or with his own ways of departing from them and groping after something better.

We cannot regard this as altogether desirable. Doubtless no one most efficient way of doing any of these things can be settled upon, so long as conditions differ, but we cannot believe that differences so fundamental and complexities so varied as those revealed in this report are due merely to differing conditions, and that each is the best in the place where it is practised. We must conclude, therefore, that many of our libraries are doing these particular things, and by inference others also, in wasteful, inefficient ways.

Having made a survey of the facts, the next step would be to inquire concerning all variations from a method selected as the simplest in each case—possibly accessioning as practised at Pratt Institute Free Library or the Public Library of the District of Columbia and the charging system at Pittsburgh or at East Orange, New Jersey. The cost of these variations in time and money and the skill necessary in carrying them out, should be ascertained and the practical value of each, if it has any, should be found. It may then be possible to select, for a library of a given type, a standard method of procedure, which will be, all things considered, the most efficient for it.

In regard to cost, the report of the sectional committee on the cost of cataloging, to be made at this conference, will doubtless throw some interesting light on the problem.

Questionnaires

The use of the questionnaire by this committee may require some justification in the light of the growing feeling among librarians that the multiplicity of such demands upon their time is becoming a nuisance; and possibly some general recommendations on the use of library questionnaires may be in order.

We feel that the value of the questionnaire, and the way in which it should be received, regarded and disposed of, depend primarily on the purpose for which it is intended and also largely on the skill and tact of the questioner. We distinguish three main classes of library questionnaires: (1) Those intended to gather data for the information of librarians in general; (2) those intended for the use of single libraries; (3) those intended for the information of individuals. Those of the first class, it seems to us, it is the duty of all librarians to answer, as far as possible. They include questions sent out by A. L. A. or state association committees and those put by individual libraries or librarians with a promise to publish the results or to put them into shape that will make them available to the public, provided, of course, the information sought appears likely to be of value when tabulated.

Questionnaires of the second class will generally be answered, not so much as a matter of public duty as of personal courtesy. They include requests from one librarian to another about details of administration for guidance in making improvements or alterations in method. A librarian feels usually that it is good policy, if nothing more, to comply with such requests so far as his rules permit, for he may at any time desire to make a similar request on his own part. It is suggested, however, that whenever possible such data as these should be asked in a way, and from a sufficient number of libraries, to warrant throwing the results into a form that will make them generally available.

The third category includes most of the questionnaires that excite the ire of librarians and cause a feeling that questions of all kinds are nuisances demanding abatement. They come from students writing theses, from assistants preparing papers for local clubs, from individuals obsessed with curiosity, from reporters, from persons of various degrees of irresponsibility. There is no reason why any attention at all should be paid to these and we recommend librarians to return to them merely a stereotyped form of polite acknowledgement and refusal.

It is hoped that the Headquarters of the Association may become more and more the clearing house for systematized information of this kind, saving thereby much wasteful duplication of material and effort. We recommend that the originators of legitimate questionnaires send to Headquarters before making up their list of questions, to see how many can be answered in this way.

Much of the feeling against questionnaires is due to lack of good judgment on the part of the framers. It is obviously unfair to ask another librarian to answer questions that could be answered from the resources of the questioning library, even if the latter would require a little more time and trouble. A large proportion of the items in questionnaires of all three grades specified above are of this character. If it is desired that all the answers shall appear in the same form on one sheet, answers obtainable in the questioning library may be written in before sending out the list, and the attention of the correspondent may be called to this fact. In any case a statement should accompany the questionnaire that the information asked cannot be obtained by any other means at the asker's disposal.

In some cases questions are asked that require the collection of unusual data regarding the current work of the library. The answers to such questions can evidently not be given, even if the library is willing and anxious to undertake at once the additional work of collection, until the expiration of the period for which the figures are asked—generally one year. The usual method seems to be to send out such questions to a large number of libraries in the hope that a few will be able to answer them at once. A better way would be to send out to a large number of libraries a statement of the desired data, asking those willing to undertake their collection to notify the asker. At the expiration of the period of collection the sender of the questions would then have accurate data and he would not expect them before the end of this period—whether one year or less.

It would seem to be unnecessary to remind those who receive and answer questionnaires that returned blanks should bear the name of the library to which they refer, were it not for the fact that this is so often omitted. In one recent case the name was given simply as "Carnegie library," with no address.

Briefly set forth, the recommendations of this committee, regarding the use of library questionnaires, are, then, as follows:

(1) That questionnaires should always be for the information of librarians in general, or for improving the service of one library in particular, preferably the former.

(2) That no questions should be included that can be answered in the questioning library or at A. L. A. Headquarters.

(3) That questions requiring the collection of current data over a specified period of time be asked proportionately in advance of the report desired, in cases where the data are not such as are usually recorded.

(4) That those who answer questionnaires be careful to include the name and address of their library.

Labor Saving Devices

It is a commonplace of library history that librarianship has contributed the card catalog idea to commercial life. The library in turn is indebted to commercial life for many labor-saving devices. Very likely a few of the largest libraries utilize all available labor-saving devices to the utmost. Your committee is, however, of the opinion that the medium size and smaller libraries might reduce the cost of administration through the more general use of mechanical appliances. We recommend that at a coming meeting of the Association there be held an exhibition of all available competing labor-saving devices adapted to library use. The assembled demonstration of such devices should prove most instructive to the members of the association and would itself be a time-saving device. Such an exhibition could probably not be advantageously assembled except in a large city. Your committee therefore recommends that either it or a special committee be authorized to arrange for such an exhibition and demonstration.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chairman.
GEORGE F. BOWERMAN,
JOHN S. CLEAVINGER,
Committee on Administration.

COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY TRAINING

At the beginning of the year the committee began the consideration of an outline, prepared by the chairman, of possible points considered in the proposed examination of library schools. This outline was submitted to the members of the committee individually and valuable suggestions obtained and was afterwards discussed by such members of the committee as were present at the January meetings in Chicago.

This outline which is appended to the present report is not to be considered as necessarily final, for the committee invites criticisms and suggestions from other members of the profession. What the committee desires if library schools are to be examined, is that the schools should be examined from the point of view of the needs of the profession, not simply from the point of view of the interests of the library schools. The real vital questions lying at the foundation of the examination of library schools are these: Does this method of obtaining recruits for the profession give the best results which can be secured by such a method? Do the library school trained workers prove in actual experience that their training has been of the right sort? These questions cannot be answered from an examination of the records of any one or even any half dozen library school graduates, but only from the examination of many such records.

As was before said, criticisms on the outline are invited from members of the profession and from any of the library schools, as the desire of the committee is to make an absolutely thorough, and impartial study of the whole library school problem.

At the January meeting in Chicago the members of the committee were rejoiced to learn that the executive board had re-appropriated the appropriation for 1912 with a like amount for the work of 1913.

With these financial limitations in mind the committee considered the question of an examiner, and one having been agreed upon, made the proposition with great confidence, only after considerable delay to have it declined. Further search through the field discovered another person who seemed equally suitable and she was approached only to decline.

The real difficulty evidently lies in the fact that we are asking the examiner to undertake a large piece of professional work and practically offering only expenses and the cost of a substitute for the regular work during such times as it is necessary to leave it. Naturally enough, it is not easy to find anyone willing to take this additional burden.

The committee now have in consideration other names and hope, if reappointed, to be able to announce an examiner before the beginning of the next library school year to such schools as indicate their readiness to receive an examination.

For the Committee.

AZARIAH S. ROOT, Chairman.

Appendix
Scheme of Efficiency Tests for a Library School

(Note.—In its general outline this scheme is indebted to the admirable Test of College Efficiency prepared by Dean Charles N. Cole of Oberlin College.)

I. THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION

A. Government and control of the school:

1. Trustees:

(a) How chosen. Fitness to direct library training;

(b) Tenure of office;

(c) Meetings, how often;

(d) Ad interim power vested where;

(e) Determination of policy: does it lie with trustees, president, director or faculty.

B. Equipment of the school:

1. Connection with other educational work:

(a) With college or university;

(b) With other institutions;

2. Connection with a library:

(a) Of what type;

(b) What constituency and to what extent used;

(c) How far equipped with modern library methods;

(d) Actual practice work in library by students;

3. Bibliographical apparatus:

(a) General reference books;

(b) Trade Bibliographies;

(c) Special Bibliographies;

(d) Library economy;

(e) Samples of library blanks and supplies;

4. Housing:

(a) Recitation rooms;

(b) Study or work rooms;

(c) Rest and social rooms;

(d) Library facilities.

C. Administration of the school:

1. Officers:

(a) How many;

(b) How obtained;

(c) Qualifications;

(d) Tenure of office;

(e) Estimate of work;

(f) Compensation;

(g) Vacation;

2. Faculty:

(a) Do new teachers have a voice in determination of educational questions;

(b) Faculty meetings, how often;

(c) Committees, how many; what duties.

D. Instruction in the school:

1. Faculty:

(a) How obtained;

(b) Qualifications;

(c) Tenure of office;

(d) Estimate and adjustment of work;

(e) Requirements of teachers;

(f) Number of hours of instruction given by each teacher in a school year;

(g) Compensation;

(h) Vacation;

(i) What supervision of teachers' work;

2. Students:

(a) How admitted, examination, certificates, etc.;

(b) How far does actual practice differ from catalog statements;

(c) Requirements for admission;

(d) Requirements for admission of students to advanced standing (in two year courses);

3. Supervision of student work:

(a) Regulation of amount of work;

(b) Guidance in choice of studies;

(c) Requirements for passing grade;

(d) What is done about conditions and failures;

(e) What methods for enforcing the regularity of work;

(f) What provision for the individual help of weak students;

(g) Graduation;

(h) Records, how kept, etc.;

4. Curriculum:

(a) Arrangement and order of studies;

(b) Length of time devoted to each subject;

(c) System of required studies;

(d) System of electives;

(e) What training for special fields of library work, e. g., children's librarians, legislative reference librarians, etc.

5. Class Room Work:

(a) Size of classes;

(b) What part of the course is class room work;

(c) Method of conducting class room work;

6. Practice Work:

(a) What part of course is practice work;

(b) How revised and supervised;

(c) What is the purpose in practice work;

(d) Is this purpose realized;

7. Informal Instruction:

(a) Lectures, etc.;

(b) Opportunities to see work of libraries;

(c) Actual experience in libraries other than that connected with the school.

E. Student Life and Work:

1. Number of students:

2. Work of students:

(a) What seem to be the scholastic ideals of the students;

(b) To what extent do the students seem to have professional enthusiasm;

(c) What studies do they elect when there is an option;

(d) Outside activities of students;

(e) Social life and cultural development of students;

(f) Environment particularly with reference to breadth of culture;

(g) Room and board; are students housed under sanitary and elevating conditions;

(h) Health;

(i) Social conditions and standing of students;

(j) Previous educational advantages;

(k) Literary, musical and artistic opportunities during library school course;

(l) Opportunities to form personal relationships with members of the faculty.

II. THE TESTING OF SCHOOL WORK IN PRACTICAL ACTIVITY

1. What has been the professional success of the graduates:

(a) To what extent have they taken prominent places in the library world;

(b) Omitting as far as possible personal qualities, is there any general characteristic stamping the students of the school;

(c) Do the interests of the graduates seem to be broadly professional, or narrowly confined to a particular type of work which they have entered;