Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/161

 LIBRARY QUESTION'S.

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��LIBRARY QUESTIONS.

��BY C. W. SCOTT.

��When the first congress assembled at Philadelphia, that library which then opened its doors to the dele- gates, was one of the thirty possessed by the colonies, and had upon its shelves a tenth of the 45.000 volumes in similar collections north and south. A hundred years more, and when in the same city the congress of the world assembled to commemorate the success of that nation- al venture, the government laid before it a twelve hundred page volume to give but a brief account of our 3,700 libraries, with their 12,000,000 of volumes. The hundred years represent the growth from such libraries as was that of Brown University, to such as is that of the city of Boston. The first described by " 250 volumes, and they such as our friends could best spare;" the latter perhaps the best public library which the world has ever seen.

The libraries in their growth have been an exponent of general information and of public education. We have ceased to be sensitive over such subjects as wheth- er cultivated people read American books, and are considering how part of the American people can best get the material for reading, and how the rest can be made to read. But while there has been so large a growth in the num- ber and size of libraries, there has not been a corresponding advance towards uniform methods in their administration. Here and there have been devised and carried on at great expense, systems apparently perfect in their plan and suc- cessful in their operation; but towards a library science and its acknowledgment by the public, comparatively little has been done, and most of that little has been accomplished within a few years. It is a question whether the last ten

��years have not done more than the pre- ceding ninety towards the recognition, of such a science. The responsibility for having made no more progress must be decided between libraries and the public. Or perhaps to state it better, it results from the officials and the mode in which they have worked. There has been no special training for the majority of men who have taken charge of collections of books, and in many cases there has been no attempt to make up the deficiency, or to do better than second-class work. With that comfortable feeling of capac- ity which inclines the average American to believe that he can do everything, newspaper editing and office-holding in- cluded, nine men out of ten who have received more than a common school ed- ucation, or have a taste for reading, think, if they are out of employment, that they are fully equal to library ad- ministration. Hence a library has come to be considered as a kind of panacea for those ills which come to superannuated and unsuccessful men in all the profes- sions. This view is frequently seen in practice; in fact one can hardly meet with an article on library organization, where it is not mentioned. Many an ap- plicant for the position of librarian speaks of his qualifications much as did the Maine man, who upon presenting himself at a shipping station, said " he was not exactly a green hand, for he had tended saw mill."

Generally speaking, the man who draws a book thinks there is but little labor required to get it from and return it to the case, and he understands nothing of the real labor which lies back of this ; hence he sees nothing very intellectual in arrangement and management. With such the librarian will get little credit if

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