Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/214

* LIBRARIES. 190 who pay the fees. Their records and melliods are the simplest and cheapest, except for in- stitutions like Mudie's and Smith's in England, and the Booklovers with its Tabard Inn and other branches in this country. National .ind State libraries have a distinct function in preserving for posterity everything printed which they can obtain. They arc the central storehouses on which all local libraries in their licld may draw when necessary. This de- mands large provision for storage and facilities for sending books quickly and safely to students and libraries. They sliouUl have books, pam- phlets, manuscri]its, and other material which because of rarity or little demand arc seldom found in local collections. I'lie smaller libraries have learned that the first cost of a book is seldom its chief expense. It must be catalogued, classified, shelved, cleaned, and inventoried yearly even if never used. Libraries limited in funds cannot afford to accept as gifts books seldom used. The average liiirary is becoming one in a scries of sieves. The traditional con- ception of a library required it to keep all it could get. The immense growth in volume of books issued has enforced new ideas. A scholar outgrows certain bonks which he has kept on his table, and relegates them to the shelves of his private library. Later he sifts out books seldom wanted and sends them to the public library, where they will serve the whole locality instead of one person. Chili and subscription libraries make room by disposing fri'cly of books no longer needed. Recently thoughtful oliservers realize that even public libraries, except a few great central storehouses, must in turn take their place in the series of sieves and abandon the plan of keeping everything, selecting up to their capacity what will be most useful and sending the rest to State or national centres, to be destroyed if found to be duplicates too common to be worth keeping. SpEci.L Libraries. Every department of human endeavor is recognizing the library as its laboratory, with the result that special libraries are formed for special work. This gives libraries not only for law, medicine, theology, education, art. liistory, but for every distinct department. Thes<> libraries on special subjects are sometimes independent, but experience proves that they are more wisely treated as branches of the central collection and kept under super- vision of its director. The value of the best reading in giving to any class of people information that will help them to do their work better, or inspiration and recrea- tion which will broaden and sweeten their lives, has led to forming general libraries for special classes wherever people can be interested and command leisure to read. Owners of factories, stores, mines, and other employers have found it profitable to improve their employees' character and standards by furnishing such libraries. Gov- ernments put them in prisons, asylums, and other institutions. Cities send them to station and engine houses of police and fire departments. College Libraries. In these circulation is subordinate to reference work, the most impor- tant feature being to teach students how to use books and to give opportunities to handle them with a freedom thought impracticable in a public library, though recent experience with open shelves has shown that the public can be trusted LIBRARIES. far more than w.is ^ii[ipo>ed. In modern work every department tiiuU the library as necessary as its laboratory, so that the college library is not the rival but the liest ally of every professor in the institution. Some normal schools and col- leges give systematic instruction to their stu- dents in using books and in the mechanism of the librar.v: not to train them as librarians, but to give them the ability to get the most from books and modern libraries. Modern Movement. It was the chief duty of the old librarian to get and keep books. Their use was a suliordinate consideration. The library was a storehouse. But the modern liiirary is less a reservoir than a fountain. lt> lilirarian is an active, aggressive factor in ]io]iular education. He recognizes fully his duty to get and to keep, but puts far above this his greater duty to use. The old library was of interest only to the learned few. The modern liiirary has won an equal place beside the public school. The present will be known to historians as the liiirary age. In a single year 100 new general library laws have been passed by American States. In public interest and support, in liberal- ity of laws and ajipropriations, in magnitude of individual gifts, the modern library movement exceeds any other in history. It meets not with jealousy and antagonism, but with sympathy and cordial support from those concerned with the other half of education, the schools. The most potent and most economical inlluence to be exerted for good on young and old is through reading. It is the longest lever with which human hands have ever pried. Educa- tional experts declare that the chief intluence on the child is not father, mother, teacher, or school, but what he reads. This reading can be guided efi'ectively and economically by free public libra- ries. The vast percentage of children are able to secure, only the barest elements of education before becoming bread-winners. During life the rest is gained, whether of information or inspira- tion, from what they read. The birth-year of active, new work, of the modern libraiy movement, was 1870. In it was founded the American Library Association, a most potent national bodv. The Lihrnri/ Jnuninl was established as its ollicial organ. The Library Bureau, a centre for libraiy enterprises, started its work, which has giown from a few hundred dollars the first year to over a million dollars annually, and has introduced card indexes and other labor-saving devices into a score of coun- tries. Later the Uniteil States Bureau of Educa- tion published a volume of essays and statistics on pulilio libraries in the ITnited States. Cut- ter's Rules for a dictionary catalogue, and the decimal classification and relative index, ap- I'.eared. In 1880 the Lihnirn Journal was sup- plemented by Lihrririi Xofes. later replaced by I'ufiUc lAhrarifs, published since 1800 by the Library Bureau. In 1803, at thie Columbian Exposition, a national comparative library exhibit, prepared by the New York State Library, was a prominent fea- ture in the I'nited States Building. Similar exhibits, limited by lack of space, were made at the Paris Exposition of 1000 and the Pan- American of 1901. The .-1. h. .4'. Catalog of 5000 of the best books for a village library was a leading feature of the Chicago exhibit, and the