[14] At Walthamstow this was done by a member of the Libraries staff.
We reach somewhat surer ground when we endeavour to collect municipal records. The older municipalities—Coventry, Stratford-on-Avon, etc.—have had some regard for their records, and have at least preserved them. Modern municipalities preserve them, too—that is to say, theoretically. A visit to the basement or attics of the average municipal building is, however, a woeful experience for the collector. Usually, in cob-webbed chaos, he will find the records that in a century (or much less) will have immeasurable interest for the student of local affairs. There are written minutes as distinct from printed ones of municipal committees, rate, assessment, receipt, wages, work, and numerous other books to be found in the confusion. It is not always easy to persuade the people concerned to hand over these books, and indeed the more recent of them probably ought not to be handed over; but a little persuasive tact has in more than one case secured the right of the librarian to take charge of and to classify and catalogue them. Sometimes limitations are placed upon their use (for example, books of the last ten years may not be exposed to general consultation), but in any case they ought to be secured for the collection if it is in any way possible. The records, it must be mentioned, are voluminous and bulky, and if in addition to the right of custody the municipality can be induced to provide a room for their reception, the relief will generally be a welcome one.
In some ways the most attractive of written records, the most human, are the private ones; and these are also the most difficult to obtain. Leases, wills, agreements, indentures, and similar deeds are naturally not stored systematically anywhere in the average town, and they must be searched out. Old inns are likely places, as are old solicitors’ offices, and auctions sometimes bring them to light. There are, of course, dealers who specialize in them, and most desirable deeds have been obtained cheaply from London dealers. Such documents throw more light on the changes, customs, and language of a locality than do any of the more formal records mentioned above.
Local literary manuscripts, autographs, manuscripts of local authors, letters, and similar written documents are so obviously desirable that more than a mention of them is superfluous; but we want, in this connexion, to urge that to-day will very quickly belong to the past, and that the collection of these things from the hands of living men is to be desired. When a librarian receives a letter from the mayor, a prominent alderman, or similar local celebrity, he does not as a rule think of it as something to be preserved in the local collection. Why not?
429. Pictorial and Graphic Material.—In recent years librarians have given systematic attention to the collection of pictorial records, although, indeed, they have long been recognized as a part of the collector’s province. These naturally divide into:
(We think we can extend the word “pictorial” to cover maps.) The presence of painted records may be questioned, but their value as records is undoubted, seeing that they give colour, atmosphere, and have other interpretative values which are absent from the more meticulously accurate photograph. Local prints and photographs should be collected without special regard to their artistic value; record is always the motto of the collector, not beauty, however much we may desire it personally. Care should be taken to secure photographs in a permanent process, but it is better to have them in the more evanescent processes, and to take special care of them, than not to have them at all. All gas-light photographic prints (with a distinct preference for platinotype, bromide and velox papers in this descending order) are practically permanent; but the finest photographic paper extant will not endure direct sunlight everlastingly. The question of the treatment of prints and photographs generally, however, deserves separate treatment, and here we are concerned only with what should be collected. The pictures, then, must represent distinctive things, interpretative of the life of the district. Pictures of individual flowers, which grow anywhere, trees which are not peculiar to the place, “pretty bits” which might be matched in any place in the kingdom, are of little or no value. Omitting these inessential things, practically everything else from the portrait of the Member of Parliament to that of the local amœba comes within the scope of the collection. The cheapest print from the cheapest periodical need not be despised. It may serve its turn.
430. Special endeavour should be made to secure a complete set of the maps of the region covered. In spite of the conventionality and inaccuracy of many early maps they are our original source of information on many points vital to the collection. For some counties the maps have been scheduled with exemplary thoroughness, and by basing his collection on one of these schedules the collector will be helped greatly, seeing that the old cartographers usually worked on several counties, and the map bibliography of Yorkshire, for example, may be expected to furnish useful clues to the maps of Kent. Old gazetteers, topographies, histories, encyclopædias and periodicals of general scope often contain maps, and the least prepossessing of such works should be consulted in order to obtain them.
431. Engraved records are fewer than any previously mentioned. They include local seals, crests, coins and tokens, and similar articles. Tokens, it may not be generally known, were coins, usually having the values of a farthing, a halfpenny, and a penny, which local traders were permitted to issue to supply the scarcity of a small coinage from the national treasury. These were issued mainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and generally had a local exchange value only, although a number were accepted in many counties. Clearly these tokens, which often carry the trade marks, signs, etc., of the trader issuing them, are a valuable and interesting part of local material. The Coventry Public Libraries possess what we believe to be an unique collection of tokens relating to that city. Various local medals should also be sought.
432. Sources of Supply.—There is something trite and unoriginal in the discussion of the methods of obtaining books for the local collection, but perhaps something useful may emerge from a recapitulation of the principal ones. So far as the municipal library is concerned, the common method must be by purchase, although much will be secured from private generosity when the collection has become known. It is important, in our opinion, not to leave the collection unmentioned in the annual estimates; a definite appropriation should be made for it, the amount of which will of course depend upon the resources of the library and upon the area covered. We have found at Croydon, where the collection covers extra-metropolitan Surrey, that much may be done on an appropriation of £35 a year. This need not be spent entirely upon the collection, nor should the collecting be limited to the purchasing power of this sum, but it seems to be very desirable to have money so ear-marked in order that attention may be focussed upon the collection as an important part of the activities of the library.
It is also essential, if the collection is to be successful, that the librarian should have discretionary power in the spending of the appropriation. Local literature disappears with a rapidity that is sometimes astonishing, and keen collectors on making discoveries in the catalogues of booksellers and dealers, usually secure the coveted books by telephone or telegram. The library would be a greatly handicapped competitor if the sanction of the libraries committee had to be awaited before purchases could be made. In some towns the discretionary power is vested in the chairman, and where he is immediately accessible to the librarian there are distinct advantages in this method, especially if he is sympathetic. It is a good axiom for the librarian to avoid responsibilities which can judiciously be distributed!
A certain amount of judicious advertisement of the needs of the library is desirable in this matter. Care should be taken that a note to the effect that local material is purchased should appear in Clegg’s Directory of Booksellers, and in other similar publications. On the notepaper of the library some such note as the following might be given in small type: “The librarian will be glad to hear of written or printed material relating to Selsey, either as a gift or for purchase.” This is especially useful, as the notepaper circulates mostly in the district itself, where much literature may be hidden, unvalued and neglected, which its owners would willingly add to the collection. With the directory entry before him the bookseller will generally report individual items, but in any case he will send his catalogues, and these must be perused diligently. As a rule the bookseller is sufficiently master of his business to enter likely material, under county and town headings, but not infrequently books which have a local appeal appear in other parts of the catalogue. In this work the librarian will naturally and wisely make use of his whole staff, and every inducement should be held out to assistants to help in the discovering of local material and to make suggestions for the extension of the collection. Generally, however, little inducement will be needed, as library workers as a whole are both keenly interested in and proud of the local collection.
Other sources of supply may be dealt with briefly. Donations will account for many of the most curious and useful, and these are best induced by exhibitions of material from the collection, by references made to the collection in books in the lending library (a slip can be inserted in all topographical books, for example, calling attention to the existence and scope of the collection), and by paragraphs, articles, etc., built up from local material, which may appear in the public press, and which the local press is only too glad to publish.
433. Photographic Surveys.—The current pictorial records, the photographs, can usually be obtained, by the expense of much energy and little money, through a Photographic Survey Society. As this matter has just lately received systematic and authoritative treatment,[15] it is unnecessary here to enlarge upon it further than to say that a photographic survey society is usually a band of photographers, professional and (mainly) amateur, who make photographic records in a systematic manner of a particular district, its history, antiquities, natural features, architecture, industries, current activities, and, in fact, everything that presents or interprets its life. Such societies are increasing in number, and have a social side in the shape of photographic excursions, reunions, etc., which make them rather more than gatherings where the cacophanous jargon of the dark-room pervades everything; hence they band together many people who are interested in a district and the preservation of its memories. As a rule the whole of the work of the survey, except the cataloguing and classifying—which are the business of the librarian—is done by members of the survey. The library usually supplies mounts, storage and cataloguing requisites.
[15] Gower, H. D., Jast, L. S., and Topley, W. W. The Camera as Historian: A Handbook to Photographic Record Work. 1916. Sampson Low.
434. Regional Surveys.—Similarly, but more recently, regional (or civic) survey societies have come into existence, which parcel out certain local areas, and study everything in them, from their geology to the last manifestations of the human intellect working in them, and record the results on maps.[16] Thus maps of the local strata, water-bearing beds, flora, rainfall, industries, old inns, milestones, boundary marks, and so on, have been made for the circle of twenty miles, centering in Croydon. This is a new form of work of the utmost value for providing data of current utility, and for preserving the record of local features. Such societies are already recognizing that the municipal reference library is the natural storing-place of such material.
[16] See Library World, vol. xix., pp. 32-34.
435. Cost.—Naturally the most important factor in collecting is the price of the material collected. This, not remarkably, often gives us considerable pause, as the present-day cost of local literature does not seem to bear any relation to its original cost; and to appraise the value of manuscript material, deeds and similar matter, is almost impossible. Scarcity and competition are the two factors in creating prices. In local literature the demand can be controlled if librarians do not traverse other fields than their own district in making their collection. A little consultation with brother librarians should bring about a workable division of any given county, with the result that the individual collection would be satisfactory, and the duplication of effort and expense would be avoided. Only the very large towns should attempt county collections. Moreover, this avoidance of competition would lessen the demand for the same book, and so help to bring down its market value. The competitor who can completely out-distance the average library is the keen private collector with a generous purse and unlimited leisure. In his case the librarian can only hope that his will contains a clause in which his collection and the library are in happy juxtaposition. With relation to actual buying, it is a good axiom never to purchase anything except “on approval.” It is really wonderful how attractive a commonplace and almost valueless item can appear to be in an agent’s catalogue. In few cases this “sending on approval” is refused by booksellers, but the majority are only too glad to do it, especially if the prospective purchaser undertakes to pay postage both ways in the event of rejecting the material. By this means large bundles of stuff which have only a nucleus of useful matter can be weeded out, and the price arranged according to the result. This is particularly desirable when dealing with deeds, which often prove to be incomplete, or of far less interest than (say) the entry, “Forty Surrey Deeds, 1542-1816,” would imply. One does not suppose that dealers in these things are one whit less honest than other men, but their prices are often in the region of the absurd. If the collector has reason to think that this is so, he should make a reasonable offer for the books he wants, and it will generally be found that the bookseller is amenable to this sort of argument. Naturally we are speaking of the general items for the collection. In every district individual items have a definite high value which cannot be reduced, and it is the lot of most local collectors to be compelled regretfully to pass by, as beyond their means, many things that they would gladly possess.
436. Mounting of Prints, etc.—It remains to devote some attention to the mounting, cataloguing and storage of material. Books and pamphlets are treated as in the general library, as are broadsides, cuttings and similar separate material. The photograph may be treated in various ways. At Birmingham, for example, the prints are mounted, and stored in what are virtually loose-leaf albums, which permit perfect classification and the insertion of any new photograph without dislocation. The more usual method is to mount the photographs on a uniform size mount—17 in. by 131⁄2 in. for large prints, and 121⁄2 in. by 101⁄2 in. for smaller (and the great majority of) prints have been found satisfactory. Nature papers of double strength have been used, and every effort should be made to secure an acid-free paper. When it is obtained the prints should be fixed by the dry-mounting process, if possible; nearly all adhesives have injurious chemical action upon photographic papers. The mounted prints and photographs are stored in boxes such as that shown in Fig. 118, or in the drawers of a vertical file.
437. Classification.—The classification of the local collection demands a much closer arrangement than any general scheme provides. Up to the present most librarians have constructed one for their own use; and there are two methods. One, and that most readily used, is a topographical arrangement with a subject sub-arrangement; the other is the converse—a subject arrangement with topographical sub-division. The choice may be determined by the answer the reader gives to the question: Which are users more likely to want—
The topographical arrangement of (say) a county survey is usually secured by adding to the subject number the number of the square on the key Ordnance Survey map of the county. That is, when the main arrangement is subjectival. When it is topographical the ordnance number precedes the subject number. A detailed example of the working of a local collection classification is given in Gower, Jast and Topley’s The Camera as Historian.
Every mount should bear upon it a label showing particulars of the subject, number, photographer, process, date, etc. This goes well into the left-top corner. The example given is that of the Surrey Photographic Survey. A similar label with the necessary adaptations is advisable on all prints which are not the property of such Surveys. In the case of surveys the label is filled in by the photographer, except the space for the class-mark, and the upper part is detached by the Survey Secretary and is pasted up in a guard-book to form his record. Only the label within the thick squared lines is affixed to the mount.
| THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY AND RECORD OF SURREY. |
Access to collection. | ||||||||||
| The collection is permanently housed
at the Public Library, Town Hall, Croydon, under regulations making it accessible to the public. |
|||||||||||
| Slip to accompany prints and lantern slides. | |||||||||||
| It is requested that you will fill in the required
particulars on this slip and forward it and your print or lantern slide to the Hon. Survey Sec., Mr H. D. Gower, 55 Benson Road, Croydon. |
Copyright. | ||||||||||
| The Copyright of a photograph remains the property of the contributor, unless specially ceded to the Association. |
|||||||||||
| CLASS NO.[1] | LOCALITY | No. of 6 in. Ord. mp. 1⁄4 sheet. |
SUBJECT | SURVEY NO[1] | |||||||
| SIZE | PROCESS | DATE PHOTOGRAPHED |
TIME a.m. p.m. |
[2]COMPASS POINT |
DATE RECEIVED[1] | ||||||
| plate | |||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | |||||||||||
| NAME AND ADDRESS OF CONTRIBUTOR | MEMBER OF THE FOLLOWING AFFILIATED SOCIETY— | ||||||||||
| Use one form for each print.Write clearly.Make description brief.[1] Leave blank. | |||||||||||
| PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY AND RECORD OF SURREY. [2] The compass point towards which camera is pointing. | |||||||||||
Fig. 163.—Label of Photographic Survey Prints (Section 437).
438. Cataloguing.—The cataloguing of the local collection should, of course, follow the code in general use; but certain amplifications are desirable. The size, pagination, date of publication, town of publication, and the names both of printer and publisher (if they are different) should be given. Omissions from titles should be as infrequent as possible, and when made should be indicated. The object is to make this catalogue as fully bibliographical as possible.
439. The cataloguing of prints is a fairly simple matter if treated in common-sense fashion. Inquirers only occasionally require the works of artist or photographer in connexion with such prints as are stocked by libraries. A subject-index appears to be the best form, with a local index; thus
Golf Course, Reigate.263.5
1
Reigate. Golf Course.263.5
2
Fig. 164.—Print-index Slips (Section 439).
are a sufficient cataloguing of a particular print. All the detail beyond that can be found on the prints, which themselves are in their arrangement a classified catalogue. Of course special prints would go under the artists’ names, or under their titles if their value warranted that course. Usually it does not.
440. Maps.—It is appropriate to deal with maps here, as the largest number of maps will probably be local ones. The classification methods suggested for prints apply to maps as well; that is to say, the predominating arrangement should be topographical, and the sub-arrangement subjectival, and the ultimate arrangement may be chronological. Thus a map of the geology of a particular town would arrange—
Class No. of Town.|Geology
No.|Date.
441. The cataloguing of maps may follow the Anglo-American rule, which runs:
Enter maps under the cartographer. If the name of the cartographer is not found, enter under the publisher; thus:
Gregory, C. C. M’Millan’s map of New Brunswick. Drawn by C. C. Gregory. Scale of statute miles ca. 8 to the inch.
Johnston, W. and A. K., pub. Johnston’s commercial and library chart of the world on Mercator’s projection.
This simple rule needs some amplification for a large collection of maps; and the following simple rules have been found to be satisfactory:
1. The Arrangement of entries is in chronological order, and where two entries occur under one date they are arranged alphabetically by the heading.
2. The Name adopted for Heading is that of the cartographer where found; where the cartographer is not found, the publisher, or engraver, or title (in this order) forms the entry word.
3. The unit of Scale wherever possible should be the inch.
4. Give the Size, measured from one inner margin to another, vertical measurements first, to the nearest quarter-inch below the actual size.
5. The Date of arrangement is that printed on the map; but modern maps illustrating places at a past period in history arrange under the period, the publication date being added to the entry merely as information. Undated maps from atlases or other works take the date of the work in which they appear.
All catalogues so arranged require topographical and subject indexes.
The filing of maps was dealt with in the chapter on Filing and Indexing.
442. Deeds.—Deeds are difficult to handle and store because of their shape and size, the seals attached to them, and for other reasons. For ordinary purposes flat filing in boxes similar to those used for maps will serve. The cataloguing of deeds has been variously done, but for local purposes a topographical arrangement, with a chronological sub-arrangement, is recommended. Examples of typical entries may be given:
Bagshot.
1715 21 June (i. George I.). Lease of Cottage and Land. Bagshot. From Walter of Busbridge to Grayham of Bagshot, 99 years at 4/- per ann. (consid. £24.3.0.).
dS69(333)
Cottage, barn, and 3a. land. Special condition under penalty of forfeiture of lease if broken.
“And goeing with sd. John Walter his heirs and assns. to the Eleccon of the sd. Co. of Surrey att any time when any Eleccon for Knights of the Shire shall be held, and vote for such person as the said John Walter his heirs, exors., admors., and assignes shall direct. . . .”
Beddington.
1490 2 July (v. Henry VII.). Bond for £500 (Latin). From James and Richard Carru [old spelling of Carew] to John Iwardby and Chris. Troppenell.
dS655(333)
Securities: The manors of Bedyngton, Bandon and Norbury; and other lands and tenements in Bedyngton, Croydon, Streteham, Bristowe [Burstow] and Horne; and the manor of Maitham in Kent.
Such a catalogue must be equipped with a name index at least, and an index of places is also desirable; these may be combined in one alphabet.
443. Local Collections:
No monograph. For articles see Cannons: G 56, Local Collections and Surveys; G 59, Maps; I 17, Cataloguing Rules; H 78, Classification; L 45, Bibliography.
444. Photographic and Regional Surveys:
Gower, Jast, and Topley. The Camera as Historian: a handbook for survey or record societies, 1916.
Fagg, C. C. The Regional Survey and Local Natural History Societies. In South-Eastern Naturalist, 1915, p. 20.
Westell, W. P. The New Doomsday. In My Life as a Naturalist, 1918.
For articles see Cannons: I 24, Cataloguing; H 85, Classification, etc.
445. General.—It is appropriate to devote a brief space to the consideration of reference libraries of municipal material, because the Library Association has affirmed the desirability of such libraries; although, so far as this country is concerned, the matter is in the prospective stage rather than that of accomplishment. In various Canadian and American cities such libraries exist and have proved their utility.
Municipal history would probably furnish many examples of independent attempts to solve similar local government and administrative problems, all conducted without that reference to one another which is implied in organization, and without full profit being derived from the successes or failures of former workers. It is true that before carrying out schemes appeal is made by municipalities to their official experts; but the experience of the latter, however wide, is usually circumscribed, and they can add to it only by personal visits to and correspondence with, similar experts. This limited knowledge, and the expenditure of time and money, could be avoided by any municipality which possessed an organized library of reference material.
It is, as we have shown, the business of every library to preserve in its local collection all publications of the authority to whom it belongs. The value of this limited work is obvious, but it does not necessarily demand a special department. When, however, an attempt is made to collect every kind of material, manuscript, printed, pictorial and statistical, which is likely to throw light on problems of local administration, including the municipal literature issued by other authorities, the task becomes so large that a separate and self-contained department must be devoted to it.
446. In almost every municipal office there is to be found a smaller or larger collection of the more obvious technical books for the reference use of its staff. Such books are treatises on engineering details, accountancy, and the Town Clerk has usually a small collection of acts, manuals, and other literature bearing upon municipal law. The collections are rarely if ever large enough to possess a representative and co-ordinate character, nor are they easily available for the whole of the staff of the local authority or for members of the town council and the public. There is a certain wastefulness in this method of providing books. One or two of the greater towns have more general municipal collections; Glasgow is an example; but there is no town in the United Kingdom which possesses a systematically arranged and professionally administered municipal library, or bureau of municipal research, if the term is preferred. Yet many things may be urged in favour of such a department. It would be an infinite advantage to any inquirer, whether an official or a member of the public, to be able to go to a specially constituted department and to study what has been the general experience of any question or scheme under consideration or in prospect.
Within the limits presumed the field of the municipal reference is a wide one. It would collect all books of an authoritative nature on local government, and every available municipal document, from the minutes of the local council to the small paragraph from the newspaper which would shed light on municipal administration. It is definitely bibliographical work and should be placed under the control of the libraries committee; moreover, it is expert work, and can only be conducted satisfactorily by a man or woman who has been trained in the collection, classification, filing, and particularly the minute cataloguing and indexing of literary material; in short, to be effective, it must be placed in the care of a professional librarian.
447. Such a library would demand fairly generous accommodation if it is to contain the material indicated, and would require a proper staff; it would cost money. Here, perhaps, we have the crucial factor in the situation, because it is difficult to convince the average municipal governor that books can bear a part in the solution of municipal problems. It is obvious that such a department cannot be supported out of the present resources of library committees—in fact, it is most undesirable, even if it is legal, that the cost should fall upon the library rate. It is special work to assist the government of a town, and should be paid for by the governing authority as a whole and quite apart from ordinary library funds. In Milwaukee, where the Public Library administers such a department, the city makes an annual appropriation of five thousand dollars from the general city fund to be added to the library’s revenue, and used only for municipal reference purposes. One thousand pounds a year would possibly seem an excessive amount to the average town council, but when it is remembered that such a library, by the information it would afford, might save many more thousands of pounds, the investment would seem to be an eminently satisfactory one.
448. America has anticipated us in this, as in many other library matters, and such libraries of this character as she possesses have proved to be quite successful. A large volume has already been devoted by Mr J. B. Kaiser to the discussion of the practical methods in vogue in this and collateral libraries. There, as here, stress is laid upon the economy resulting from such work. It prevents the adoption of ill-considered municipal schemes, or schemes which it shows to have been a failure elsewhere. It provides examples of the successes of other towns, and, therefore, gives the possessing town the best models upon which to frame its own work. It is insisted, too, that this is work for the librarian, and that it is useless to spend money upon the provision of material and to place it in the charge of people who are not specially equipped by education, experience, and technical training to understand and focus the information contained in the library. What is not so vital in America, because of the comparative wealth of libraries there (few of them are really over-financed), is the fact that while this may form an important branch of the public library, it must have a separate revenue.
Kaiser, J. B. Law, Legislative and Municipal Reference Libraries, 1914.
Moore, H. K. Municipal Reference Libraries. In Library Association. Public Libraries: their development and future organization, 1917.
For articles see Special Libraries, vol. ii., p. 22, 1911; and Cannons: G 60, Municipal Literature; L 122, Bibliography.
450. General.—The most recent development of library works which has justified itself in practice has for its aim the provision of information useful to commercial and business men. It is comparatively new to this country but has been in vogue in America for some years past, in particular in the Commercial Museum at Philadelphia, which is a separate, self-contained institution. In Great Britain commercial libraries have been established as part of the public library system at Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham, Leeds and elsewhere. The names of these towns indicate an important fact. Separate comprehensive commercial libraries are expensive institutions, and are only justified where a large demand for their services may be expected. Smaller libraries may indeed have commercial departments in connexion with their reference departments, but it is wiser to limit their stock and work to the definitely local trades than to attempt a general commercial service entirely beyond their means and probable needs.
451. The Commercial Department.—As distinct from the general commercial library as established in the great towns we have named, the commercial section in an ordinary library is a development of the Information Desk. It specializes in local industries and trade, and on that subject collects every form of printed and graphic material, the standard text-books and works of reference, directories, year-books, codes, reports and periodicals. These are classified and indexed minutely, and are so disposed that ordinary questions which a business man may be expected to ask can be answered as rapidly as possible. It is what the Americans call “quick-fire reference work,” in which immediacy of need and of its satisfaction are the prime requisites. We do not wish to set limitations to any branch of library service, and if a librarian can, without loss or inconvenience in other directions, include further features from those described in the following sections, he should certainly consider himself at liberty to do so; but this will rarely be the case. The separate, highly-developed commercial library is distinctly a work for the some half-dozen British cities which are centres of great commercial and industrial populations.
452. The Commercial Library.—The need has long been felt in this country for rapid access to current and standard commercial intelligence, although it has not always been realized, and the need has been accentuated by the Great War, which has made Great Britain more than ever a competitor in the world-struggle. The Board of Trade has established an intelligence department in London, and chambers of commerce exist in most towns which have intelligence-work as part of their reason for existence; but London is too far away for the provincial man of business who wants immediate information, and the chambers of commerce do not embrace in their membership more than a part of the business community. Hence the desirability of fully-equipped, skilfully-administered libraries.
At Glasgow, Liverpool and elsewhere the commercial library is housed in a commodious, appropriate department as near to the business centre of the city as possible. It is administered by the library authority, and is in the immediate charge of a librarian skilled in classification, filing and indexing, and the use of works of reference. The stock of the library has been defined by Mr S. A. Pitt, the chief librarian of Glasgow, as standard and current; the standard consisting of treatises, encyclopædic works, code books, Government reports, Parliamentary papers, and works on commercial law and business method; the current of all kinds of fugitive papers and material of great temporary, but probably very transient, interest, such as notices, reports, pamphlets, leaflets, news-cuttings, catalogues and price-lists. To the standard would be added directories of every trade, industry and profession, and of every country, county and important town; atlases, maps, charts and similar material would form an important part of the collection; and, perhaps most important of all, every financial journal, trade periodical, etc., in English, with a liberal supply of those in other languages. The consular reports, and other Government publications, including those of the Patent Office and other technical departments of the Crown, should be included. Some of these can be obtained as a free grant; many of them, strange to say, can only be obtained by purchase.
453. The methodology of such a library resembles that of the ordinary reference library, with special emphasis on minute filing and indexing. As much of the current information as possible should be on cards or in vertical files in the most concise form; the business man has no time to read lengthy material, nor can he afford to wait for it while the commercial librarian slowly produces it—that is, as a rule; there are times when a question demands a reference to London or to some other place, which involves delay; but in the ordinary course, a quotation, address, character of a firm, route, code, or some such information, is wanted, and it should be forthcoming on the instant. The card index and vertical file, and experience in the needs of readers, should eventually lead to effective service. Much of the work is done by telephone, and a complete telephone equipment is an essential of the library. The whole resources of the general library system of the town are also at the disposal of the user of the commercial library. The library also keeps records of the specialities of the various manufacturers, traders, etc., of the town, of changes in their scope, management, and so forth; and an index of translators, typing firms and others required at times by business people. It must revise its material regularly and systematically so that it may always be the latest.
454. To secure the best results co-operation with exchanges and chambers of commerce is desirable; and in many places this seems to have been forthcoming. At Glasgow, Bailie A. Campbell states that the commercial libraries, as projected by librarians, “are to meet the wants of the smaller commercial man, the tradesman, the man who pushes his way, the men who have risen from nothing”; the others, presumably, are provided for by the exchange and the chamber of commerce. At Manchester, however, the commercial library is actually in the Royal Exchange, and other cities have made their present progress through the co-operation of the representative organizations of commercial men. Unless this is forthcoming there seems not very much chance of success. It may be that the commercial library, as now initiated by librarians, will in course of time become the nucleus of a commercial institution or bureau in which the branches of the Board of Trade, the Chamber of Commerce, and the various Consuls may be housed, controlled in its operations by an expert paid a very high salary, who shall be for the district a sort of Minister of Commerce capable of guiding the commercial people. But that is in the region of speculation.
455. Technical Libraries.—While the commercial library furnishes information for the buyer and seller of commodities, the technical library is concerned with information for the manufacturer and operative; the question is therefore closely related to the question of commercial libraries, and in some districts is the more important. In large American libraries there is usually a separate department of the reference library devoted to technology, but in this country the supply of such books as this department would afford has been inadequate. Lately considerable attention has been devoted to technical libraries, and we may summarize a few of the results and recommendations.
456. Local Industries.—It is clear that municipal libraries have a special interest in providing all literature possible on local industries; text-books of the various trades, periodicals, patent publications, reports, catalogues and similar matter should be collected assiduously. This does not mean that every trade represented in the town need be treated in an exhaustive manner, but the leading industries, by which numbers of the townsfolk live, certainly should be. Examples of such collections are those on engineering at Coventry, furniture at Shoreditch, clocks and clock-making at Finsbury, coal-mining at Wigan, and the leather trades at Northampton. Some of these, however, are confined to books, in many cases perforce for lack of funds and personal service; but the ideal, too often unrealized, is a collection of material of all kinds of which books form only a part. Local means and opportunities must determine how far any library can carry such a collection—usually, at present, not very far; but as many works of recognized value on the predominant industries should certainly be stocked.
457. Technical Collections Generally.—Hitherto it has been the province of the municipal library to supply general works in technology, and the special libraries of individual industries have been provided by the industry. This, in the view of the Ministry of Reconstruction’s Adult Education Committee (Third Interim Report, Libraries and Museums, 1919, Cd. 9237), should be the prevailing method of the future. It is obvious that few public libraries can supply expensive treatises on technical questions in which their own district is not directly interested; even with a greatly increased library rate they could not do so in any large measure. The greater cities may perhaps acquire these books, but they could not supply more than one or two copies. Too limited a view should not be taken in great towns, because co-ordination and co-operation such as are implied in the Joint-Technical Catalogues published at Glasgow bring the whole resources of a wide area to a focus. In ordinary towns the present aim should be to obtain the largest possible number of general and special works in science and applied science, and to leave the supply of the more expensive, recondite, and valuable but rarely used treatises to a central reservoir library, which may be developed out of the Central Lending Library for Students, perhaps with the aid of the special libraries of the various institutions which represent trades and professions. The main aim of the Library Association is to have a central reservoir library established in London from which all libraries may draw important little-used books; and the Ministry of Reconstruction’s Committee adopt this idea as the basis of their scheme for the co-ordination and re-organization of libraries.
In building up technical collections a library benefits greatly by expert assistance; but the advice of several, and not one only, is very desirable, since experts rarely agree on minute questions of books, and each of any two experts cancels the idiosyncrasies of the other. But experts can usually be found from neighbouring universities, or big industrial concerns, who will give the library the benefit of their knowledge, especially in assessing the value of older books. No section of the library needs revision so frequently as the technical, unless it be the commercial. This is more especially likely to be the case in these next few years after the War, when all industrial advances made from 1914 onwards will probably be recorded, to the superseding of many previous books.
458. Commercial Libraries:
Dana, J. C, and Bull, S. B. Business Branch. In Modern American Library Economy, 1910.
Glasgow Corporation Libraries. Adams, Robert. A Commercial Library for Glasgow, 1913.
—— Pitt, S. A. The Purpose, Equipment and Methods of the Commercial Library, 1916.
Library Association. Interim Report on the Provision of Technical and Commercial Libraries. In Public Libraries: Their Development and Future Organization, 1917, p. 114 [and separately].
Ministry of Reconstruction. Third Interim Report of the Adult Education Committee: Libraries and Museums [Cd. 9237], 1919, p. 10.
Pitt, S. A., and Others. Commercial Libraries. In Library Association. Public Libraries (vide supra), p. 47.
Power, R. L. Boston’s Special Libraries, 1917.
Special Libraries, vol. i., 1911, and to date.
459. Technical Libraries:
See all literature in Section 458.
Hulme, E. W., and Others. Technical Libraries. In Library Association. Public Libraries (vide supra), p. 65.
The Library Association Record has been occupied largely with these subjects from 1916, and reference should be made to its indexes.
For articles see Cannons: C 459-61, Commercial, Industrial and Scientific Libraries; C 144, Commercial Libraries in U.S.; F 13, Library in Relation to Industrial Education; G 53, Industrial Collections; G 76, 78, Industrial and Trade Literature.
460. Newsrooms.—The chief difference which exists in the composition of British and American libraries is the frequent absence from the latter of general reading rooms in which the principal newspapers are displayed for public use. The newsroom has never been generally recognized in the United States as a necessary department of a public library, and, save in a few exceptional cases, these rooms are not to be found in the average American public library. The nearest approach to the British newsroom in America is the large magazine reading room, in which all kinds of weekly and monthly periodicals are displayed. This is substantially the same as a newsroom, but without the current numbers of daily newspapers. There are reasons why the Americans do not encourage newsrooms, and one is the enormous number of newspapers which exist in every large town. The display of a representative selection of newspapers and the cost of maintaining the department would occupy a large space, and the funds would be spent to a considerable extent in providing one of the least healthy forms of literature. But perhaps the real reason for the American indifference to the newsroom is the sensational and vulgar tone of a considerable portion of the newspaper press. Some American newspapers are free from such undesirable and objectionable features as sensational and untrue comments on current events, vulgar personalities, exaggeration and misrepresentation, objectionable and dangerous advertisements, and a very low level of literary merit, but many are not. The best fugitive work of American writers of any importance is to be found in the magazines and literary weeklies, which offer a marked contrast in every respect, save perhaps as regards advertisements, to the somewhat debased character of many American daily newspapers. These are all reasons why newsrooms on the British plan are not quite desirable in American libraries, and they apply to a large extent to the altered conditions of recent British journalism. Time was when the average British newspaper represented a high standard of accuracy, fairness and literary ability, but since the importation of many doubtful American methods, the character of the press has to a large measure degenerated. Moreover, few British newspapers are independent of political or corporation control, although exceptions exist, and impartial reports of and comments upon news are rare.
461. The stock arguments in favour of newspapers are reasonable, and have a strong element of truth in them. They attract a class of reader who would not otherwise come to the library at all, and satisfy the literary aspirations of some ratepayers who might receive otherwise no direct return for their rates. The presence of literary, technical and commercial periodicals in the newsroom is also said to attract a large number of interested readers, and no doubt it does; but this result might be achieved independently of the newspaper element. Newspaper readers are often a class apart; they rarely read anything else. Real newspaper readers are comparatively few, and besides those who come for the weekly periodicals, the newsroom attracts loafers, sporting men and all kinds of hopeless individuals, to whom the comparative comfort of the newsroom is an attraction. Mr George Gissing, in one of his sketches, has drawn an exaggerated picture of such a newsroom haunter, who suffers from a kind of neurosis which drags him irresistibly to a public newsroom, there to indulge his morbid olfactory sense. The main argument in favour of newsrooms is that they present representative journals of every shade of opinion, and give the opportunity which is badly needed of comparative reading. But it is a department which some librarians think costs rather more than is justified by its actual value. When the annual charges for periodicals, fittings, lighting, heating, oversight and proportion of loan are all added together, it will be found that a newsroom costs a very considerable amount, which could be applied to more permanent advantage in a reference or lending library. The smaller the library the greater is the proportionate cost, and committees may seriously consider the question of limitation in public newsrooms, at any rate so far as daily newspapers are concerned. It is clearly a department where continual supervision is necessary, where it is most difficult to enforce discipline, and one that gives rise to continual public criticism.
462. A few years ago the practice of blacking out the betting news was adopted in some newsrooms, as an experimental device to discourage the sporting element, which in some towns used to obstruct the greater part of the newsrooms. This is mentioned, not as an example to be followed, but as showing the shifts some library authorities have been driven to in order to prevent abuses. This practice of obliteration is now rare. Another suggestion for coping with the betting fraternity is to cease buying or displaying the evening papers, or to procure them so late as to make them useless for the purposes of the sporting element, while not in any way penalizing the reader who comes after 7 p.m. As a further suggestion for limiting the cost and obstructions of most newsrooms in large towns, it has been proposed (1) that only the morning daily papers be bought, for the benefit of the unemployed; (2) that the “Situations Vacant” columns only be displayed from 7 or 8 till 11 a.m.; (3) that the whole of them be removed at 11 o’clock, and their places occupied by maps, charts, pictures of current topics, or other similar broadside matter likely to interest and instruct.
463. In this way a newsroom might be greatly improved, and the character of its work changed, without interfering with the use of the illustrated periodicals, technical journals and trade papers displayed on the tables. By utilizing the wall space only for newspapers, good oversight is obtained and a certain amount of limitation is forced upon the authority by mechanical means. In arranging newspapers on the stands, care should be taken to separate the popular journals by a few less popular ones, so as to avoid continuous crowding at one or two points. The people who read newspapers should be distributed round the walls as thinly as possible, and this can only be effected by spreading the papers all round the available area.
464. In selecting newspapers for a newsroom great care should be taken to represent all political parties, and at the same time to avoid as far as may be the sensational element. All local papers should be taken, if not for display at least for permanent preservation. The leading London and provincial dailies should be taken, and a representative daily from Scotland and Ireland, and the leading foreign newspapers in French and German at least.