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The public library

Chapter 9: FOOTNOTES:
By Ernest A. Baker
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History - BritishTeaching & Education

About This Book

The author surveys the origins and evolution of public library services, outlining their historical development, organizational forms, and social functions. He analyzes what constitutes an effective library service, outlines strategies for extension into urban and rural districts, and argues for coordinated national provision and professional training for librarians. The book combines descriptive sketches of notable collections and reading rooms with practical recommendations on legislation, funding, and adult education, emphasizing libraries' potential to foster self-improvement, broaden cultural access, and contribute to civic reconstruction.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] The modern public library believes that it should find a reader for every book on its shelves, and provide a book for every reader in its community, and that it should in all cases bring book and reader together. (Bostwick, p. 1.)

[16] The Adult Education Committee attribute the most obvious defects of adult education to-day, to the discontinuity of much of the work done, the tendency to rely unduly on lectures and to neglect classwork, and the inadequate supply of books to the students attending lectures or classes. “It is, in our judgment, essential that whilst regularity of attendance and seriousness and continuity of study should be insisted upon, there must be freedom of teaching and freedom of expression.” (Final Report, par. 146.) The Committee are strongly in favour of continuous courses of lectures, and of that grouping in classes of moderate size that makes for “the frank interchange of thought and experience which is essential to adult education,” and without which “the work carried on will lose its vitality or change its character.”

[17]

METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF POPLAR.

Lectures to Boys and Girls attending at the Libraries from Elementary Schools.

Synopsis.

How knowledge is handed down by books. During school-life advice and help can be obtained from the teachers: after leaving school guidance in reading and study can be obtained at the Libraries. Public Libraries, their ownership and the right to use them. The contents of the News and Magazine Rooms. Lack of home accommodation, and how the Reference Rooms can be used for quiet reading and study. Books in Lending Department on all subjects, elementary, intermediate, and advanced. Assistance given by staff. How to use the Libraries in conjunction with Continuation Schools and Evening Classes: also when learning a trade, business, or domestic arts and occupations. Children are urged to retain the knowledge gained at school and to supplement it. Wisdom of acquiring General Knowledge, and how to acquire it: with special reference to time-tables, directories, atlases, and dictionaries. The lighter side of Libraries:—Use of holiday guides; books of travel, manners and customs; music; home interests, such as gardening, poultry-keeping, pets and hobbies. The care of books. (Syllabus of one of the lectures described above).