Amateurs Dangerous
In looking back on the experience of thirty years, I am inclined to think that most danger in library planning lies in amateur interference. Not so much in amateur librarians. When a trustee gets interested in library methods he often graduates into the profession, and becomes a leader. For instance, Justin Winsor, who began as a trustee, became a librarian, and by vigorous work did more to make his occupation a profession than any other one American. Even when the trustee stops short of this, he may sometimes worry his librarian by half-knowledge and undue interference in administration, but such a man is not apt to impede in building, for his library zeal will move him to support the practical side in any discussion.
But when a trustee (or, alas! a librarian) is an amateur architect, one of those laymen who spend an English vacation all in cathedral towns, and a French tour all in the château district, he is apt to be troublesome, and to want what he considers good style in architecture rather than good methods of administration. If he is put on the building committee, and it selects a too artistic architect, one who magnifies “Venustas” unduly at the cost of “Utilitas,” the library is doomed. Its new building may be widely pictured in the magazines, but it will not be so much used by readers, or praised by librarians. Better modest ignorance, with common-sense, than too much half-knowledge and pseudo-taste in art or architecture.
Dry-rot Deadening
One of the greatest dangers in building is dry-rot—not in material or books, but human desiccation.
There is not much to fear from the architect. Unless he is too much wedded to precedents and styles, he will be progressive enough, under good advice. But a board of trustees, often composed of elderly men, may be ultra-conservative, remembering and clinging to the memory of library methods and especially old styles of library buildings, current when they were young. If they are wise enough, however, to choose a building committee of sane and open-minded men, whose recommendations, founded on expert advice, they will listen to, these votaries of tradition will not prove too obstructive.
After all, the real danger is from the local librarian who has stopped growing. Just as there are children in school who are bright scholars only up to a certain point, where they seem to stop growing, there are men and women librarians, very progressive at first, who come to an age of suspended growth, and absolutely exclude either new ideas or the comprehension of future development. They may have served so well in the past, or be so popular personally, or discharge many of their functions so well, that they are retained in their positions as librarians. They may still be useful in the every-day service of the public, but such stunted progress will utterly unfit them to act as building advisers, who require a large view of the future. If you have such a one as your local librarian, it is your first duty to get him the best expert you can find to spur him up. Unless the reactionary is also impracticable or jealous, he may work well in harness with an adviser, by giving full presentation of local needs.