MAL-EMPLOYMENT IN THE LIBRARY[12]

Students of the labor problem have given a vast amount of attention to the unemployed, but comparatively little to the mal-employed. It troubles them—and very properly—that there should be large numbers of persons who are doing no work, who are contributing nothing toward the operation of the world’s machinery; they do not seem to be so greatly bothered that there are persons hard at work to no purpose or with evil result—whose efforts either do not help the world along or actually impede it or hold it back. Serious as is the case of those who are not employed at all, it is as nothing compared with those who are employed badly.

One reason for this neglect—which is at the same time a reason why it should no longer exist—is that the burden of unemployment bears most conspicuously on the individual, while that of mal-employment is predominantly civic. It is true that unemployment works civic injury, and that mal-employment, especially if it be criminal, is recognized at once as a possible harm to the individual. But what I mean is that the unemployed person, unless he is one of the idle rich, is greatly concerned about his lack of employment, which touches his pocket directly. He does all that he can to get back into the ranks of the employed, but once there it does not occur to him to ask whether what he is doing benefits society, or is of no value to it, or actually harms it. Even if he does so inquire, he is not likely to give up a job that pays him well simply because what he is doing is injurious to the world’s progress. The injury done is social and civic and we must look to increased social and civic consciousness for its abatement.

I owe this word mal-employment, in its contrasted use with unemployment, to William Kent, a member of Congress from the city of Chicago. In a recent interview, Mr. Kent gives it as his opinion that the sin of the day is waste—the expenditure of effort for naught or for positive ill. Of course, when we get down to details there is difficulty or even impossibility in deciding whether or not a given man is mal-employed—we may leave out of consideration here all persons engaged in criminal occupations. For instance, Mr. Kent considers that the small army of men engaged in the manufacture of champagne are all mal-employed. Whether we agree with him or not depends somewhat on our predispositions and our points of view. Many parents, in earlier days, thought that when children were at play they were mal-employed; most persons now regard this form of employment as necessary and beneficial, although Dr. Boris Sidis thinks that the same interest now employed in aimless play may be used to carry the child onward in the path of individual progress and development. How about the vast number of persons occupied in amusing or trying to amuse the public—employees of theatres, recreation parks, and so on? Many are well employed; some are doubtless mal-employed. Among persons that we should all agree are mal-employed are all those writing books or plays that are morally harmful, as well as those concerned in publishing such books or producing such plays, and, for the moment, all who are reading or witnessing them; persons engaged in manufacturing or distributing useless or harmful products; all who do work of any kind so badly that inconvenience or harm results; unnecessary middlemen whose intervention in the process of distribution only impedes it and adds to its expense. Anyone may add to the list by taking thought a little. If all these mal-employed persons should suddenly lose their positions the result would be beneficial to society, even if society had to support them in idleness; if they should all turn their attention from mal-employment to beneficial uses, how incalculably great a blessing they would bestow upon mankind! It is every man’s business, it seems to me, to inquire whether he is well employed or mal-employed, and if the occupation in which he is engaged is generally beneficial to society, then whether all those under his orders are well employed in carrying out its purpose.

Let us, as librarians, take up this civic task for a few moments. And first, let us not hastily conclude that we are necessarily well employed simply because we are librarians. A library may do harm; I have personally known of harm done by libraries. A group can be no better than its constituents; a collection of harmful books is assuredly itself harmful. More, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link; a fleet is no faster than its slowest ship; and we may almost say that a library is no better than its worst book. And we must not forget that a book may be bad in three ways: it may give incorrect information, teach what is morally wrong, or use language that is unfitting. It may be necessary that a library should contain any or all of these, but if they give it its atmosphere and control its influence as an educational institution, even unwittingly, it is anti-social and those who administer it are mal-employed. I have in mind a pseudo-scientific book for children that abounds in misstatements combined with beautiful illustrations; a book of travel full of ludicrous misinformation; a work intended to teach Italians English, whose English is screamingly funny. The library assistant who hands one of these to a reader is mal-employed. I can make a list (and so can you) of books that teach, directly or by implication, that what is universally acknowledged to be wrong is right—at least under certain circumstances; that theft is smart and that swindling is unobjectionable. The library assistant who circulates these is mal-employed. All of us can easily also place our hands on books whose only fault is that their language is objectionable—incorrect, silly or vulgar. They may be otherwise unobjectionable, yet I venture to say that the distribution of these books is also mal-employment. How about the librarian who administers such a library, and the staff who assist him? They are all mal-employed. No matter how well and how conscientiously the cataloguer may perform her task, no matter how clean the janitor may keep the front steps, they are only aiding to keep up an institution that disseminates falsehood, teaches unrighteousness, encourages vulgarity; and they are all mal-employed. This is what I mean when I say that a library may be no better than its worst book. If its output is bad, all exertion to accomplish that output is also bad. And as for the output itself, it may be that the good done by a thousand good books may not outweigh the ill done by a few bad ones.

A person is always mal-employed when he is leaving a more important thing undone, to do a less important one. The degree of mal-employment in this case is measured, of course, by the difference in value between the two things. Mr. E.L. Pearson, in one of his library articles in the Boston Transcript, calls attention to what he names “side-shows” in libraries, and asserts that the chief business of a library, the proper care and distribution of books, is often neglected that other things may be attended to, and that money needed for books is often diverted to these other uses. This is undoubtedly true in many cases, and in so far as it is true some librarians and library assistants are mal-employed. The scope of library work has broadened out enormously of late and libraries are doing all sorts of things that are subsidiary to their main work—things that will make that work easier and more effective. This is as it should be, provided that these numerous tails do not wag the dog. To take an extreme instance we will assume that a small library is in great need of books and that a small gift of money, instead of being expended for these is put into material for picture bulletins. We should have no difficulty in concluding that the person who makes the bulletins is mal-employed; and in so doing we should not be condemning picture bulletins at all or saying that money spent for them is wasted. Take again a case specially noted by Mr. Pearson, which is bothering the heads of some of our library trustees at this moment—the acceptance and preservation of full sets of the printed catalogue cards of the Library of Congress. There can be no doubt of the value of such depository sets to certain libraries, and as they are given free of charge the only expense connected with them is the cost of an assistant’s time in filing them, amounting perhaps to an hour or two a day, and that of cabinets in which to keep them. Whether this cost is far outweighed by the usefulness of the collection to the library and its patrons, or whether that usefulness is practically nil, making the outlay wasteful, no matter how small it may be, must be answered by each library for itself. In some cases, labor expended on the filing of L.C. cards is undoubtedly mal-employment.

Certain kinds of work which were either not mal-employment when they were adopted, or were not recognized as such, have become so by reason of a change, either in the conditions of the work itself or in the way in which it is regarded by those who are doing it and by the public that benefits by it.

Take, for instance, labor performed under an age-limit rule for children, such as nearly all libraries once possessed, and such as is still enforced in some places. If it is true that the library ought not to be used by children below a specified age, work done in ascertaining their ages and in excluding those barred out by the rule is necessary and valuable. If this is not true; if the exclusion of such children may be actually harmful to the community, it follows that all such work is the most flagrant kind of mal-employment.

But there may also be mal-employment in the course of work of undoubted advantage to the library and its public. If in the course of such work something is done that sets it back instead of helping it on, or that injures the library in some other way more than it helps by what it directly effects, labor expended on that thing is mal-employment. This is a more fundamental and elementary thing than lack of efficiency. If an assistant is cataloguing books well, but much more slowly than she ought, she is not efficiently employed, but neither is she mal-employed, for she is doing nothing that directly injures the work. If she were to stop, the library would be injured, not benefited. But if she is making egregious blunders in her work, causing undue labor in revision or making the catalogue confused or misleading in case her cards should get into it, it might be better for the library if she were to stop work, and she is surely mal-employed.

The public is apt to generalize from insufficient data. The user who is treated rudely or sullenly at the desk just once does not say, “I will make a record of this and of my subsequent experiences and see whether it is a usual thing or an abnormal one.” Not at all. He or she at once reports in conversation that the public library assistants are continuously rude and disagreeable, and the machinery is forthwith set in motion that makes or mars reputation. We may chafe at this; we may try to disregard it, but in the end we shall have to accept it as a fact of human nature. The public institution that wants to acquire that valuable asset, reputation, whether it is a reputation for kindliness, for helpfulness, for common sense, for scholarly acquirements, will have to make up its mind to be kind, helpful, sensible, and scholarly, not fifty per cent or seventy-five per cent of the time, but one hundred per cent of the time.

But entirely apart from such serious intervals of mal-employment as this, is it not probable that all of us are mal-employed for some little part of our time? Is it not probable, in other words, that our work would be improved if we should omit certain parts of it and do nothing at all instead? It is certain, for one thing, that no one could work continuously, day and night, without serious or fatal mal-employment. That is the reason why our working hours are limited to seven or eight in the twenty-four. Doubtless some workers are over worked and thus mal-employed in their hours of overwork—the sleepy railroad engineer, for instance, who misses a signal and sends a hundred passengers to eternity. We are doubtless free in the library from just this kind of mal-employment, except so far as it is forced upon us by assistants who work or play too strenuously outside of working hours. To go back to the assistant who is cross or careless for an hour every day; it is quite possible that she is in no condition for working during that hour; and this is not because the library hours of work are too long, but because she does not take needed rest outside of those hours. Sometimes this cannot be helped; often it is distinctly the worker’s fault, and it is surely putting the library in a false position to make it overwork its staff to their detriment and its own, just because the assistant puts in her best and freshest hours in work, or more often in amusement, outside the library.

Let me pause here to say that the reason we take vacations is to avoid the chance of this kind of mal-employment. The theory of the vacation is widely misunderstood. Some take it to be a period of amusement granted for services rendered. “I think I have earned a vacation,” they say. Others look upon it as play-time wrung from an unwilling employer—the more they can get the better off they are. Few realize that it is, or ought to be, simply an incident in the year’s work, an assignment to special duty, without which mal-employment would be more apt to result.

The mal-employed intervals of an otherwise valuable worker are often due to ignorance of conditions or sheer inability to meet them. In an interesting study of bricklaying one of the modern school of efficiency engineers found that most bricklayers kept their bricks too far from the point on the wall where they were to be laid, and that a long and wasteful carrying movement resulted. If the time occupied by this lost motion could have been eliminated and simply given to resting, even without doing any work, good would have resulted; these periods were hence intervals of mal-employment The engineer eliminated them easily and simply by bringing the pile of bricks within a few inches of the wall. It is easy to say, “Why, of course, any one would think of that!” Only no one ever did think of it. A large proportion of the most valuable inventions and discoveries have been of this character. Some one has remarked that in the earliest stage of an invention people say, “It won’t work;” later they say, “It may work, but it won’t be of any use.” Finally; when it is usefully running, they say, “What of it? Everybody has always known about it!” We don’t do these obvious things because they are elements in a series of acts that have grown to be habitual. We take care of them subconsciously. Also, they take up so little time individually that at first thought it seems foolish to try to improve or eliminate them. Suppose one does a useless, or even an injurious thing that lasts but three seconds? If he does it just once and then stops, it would doubtless be folly to change it. If, however, like the bricklayer’s useless and tiresome motions, it is repeated hundreds and thousands of times, the matter stands on quite a different footing. It is probable that all of us are habitually doing certain things in ways that involve, without our realizing it, elements of this kind, either mechanical or mental. Many things that we are doing by laborious repetition, wearying ourselves and using up valuable material, might be made to “do themselves” if we only knew how to utilize tendencies and forces that are all about us, unsuspected. One of the forces, for instance, is the desire of every person to do that which will give him pleasure. If the things we want done can be done in accordance with that desire, we can get others to do them for us. The classical example of the boys who whitewashed Tom Sawyer’s fence for him will occur to all. There is deep philosophy in this. I have known librarians to exhaust themselves by trying to get newspapers to publish what newspapers never would publish, while the reporters besiege others for items which they know will be just what they want. The rules of some libraries—both those for their public and those for their own assistants—all seem to run up hill—to “rub everyone the wrong way,” while those of others seem to get themselves obeyed without any trouble.

Sometimes the substitution of a mechanical appliance for brain-work is what we want. What, for instance, is the use of tiring one’s brain and impairing its usefulness for other needed work by forcing it to perform such a mechanical operation as adding a column of figures? Every library that can afford to own an adding machine ought to have one. The ones that can not afford it usually do not need it.

While we are discussing the mal-employment that does its harm by tiring out the worker, physically or mentally, and making him unfit for other work, we must not neglect to say a word about unnecessary talk. Nothing is so tiring to the brain as talk. I sometimes think that if we were all forced to do our work in silence we would get along more rapidly even if we had to communicate with each other in writing.

If a man were in charge of a piece of complicated machinery, and if he feared that something had got into it to clog it, while his knowledge of its elementary parts was still so slight that he could not tell which particular bit in all the moving mass was helping it on and which was hindering it, what would he do? He could remove the pieces, one by one, and watch the effect. If the machine refused to run without a certain piece, he would conclude that it was an absolutely necessary part; if it still ran, though with difficulty, he would conclude that the part, though not necessary, still promoted efficient operation; if removal resulted in no change at all, the piece was evidently either an unnecessary part, or an alien piece not so placed as to interfere with action. If the machine worked decidedly better after removal, the removed element must have been a clog—was, in fact, mal-employed.

How many of us feel like submitting to this test? If you should stop your work, would the library machine run along quite as usual? Or would it limp? Or would it refuse to run at all? Or would it—O distasteful thought!—would it jump ahead and function with greater speed and smoothness?

I believe in vacations; and yet I rather like to feel that the absence of an assistant on vacation makes a difference. And if every one in her department looks forward with fond expectation to her return and greets her with looks of satisfaction and sighs of relief, I cannot help feeling that she is a more integral part of the library machinery than if her return were generally regarded with indifference or were dreaded as a sort of calamity. When every one feels that she can work much better when Miss Blank is away, I am forced to inquire whether in truth Miss Blank is not a clog in the wheels instead of a cog, and whether a permanent vacation would not be the proper thing for her.

And how about your library as a whole? Suppose it should be leveled by a tornado, or swallowed up by an earthquake, or swept away by a flood? What effect would this have on the life of your town? Would the passer-by point to the ruins, or to the hole in the ground where once your library stood, with the same kind and amount of interest that he would show when viewing the stump of an old tree or the fragments of a blasted boulder? Or would every man, woman and child feel the loss? Would the teachers seek in vain for aid, the merchants for information, the workmen for data of use to them in their daily tasks?

In other words, is your library of such definite use in the community that it would feel your loss as it would that of a school house, a church, the railroad station, the principal retail store? Or would its loss affect that community only like the destruction of the monument on the green, or the fence around Deacon Jones’ pasture?

If we are to make the library a vital influence in the community we must so conduct it that its loss would be felt as a calamity—that it could be spared no more than the postoffice could be spared, or the doctor, or the school. And we must do our best so to carry on every part of its work, every element that goes to make up its service to the public, that this part or element is contributing toward that service and not injuring it or delaying it. It is better for the community that we should be unemployed than mal-employed, and if the community should ever find out that we are the latter, we may be assured that unemployment will shortly be our condition, whether we like it or not.

COST OF ADMINISTRATION[13]

The possibility of deducing a general method for calculating the probable cost of operation of a library.

The problem of ascertaining how the cost of administration of a library is related to the various conditions and factors that affect it is the problem of finding a formula in which, by simple substitution of numbers representing or corresponding to these conditions, a reasonable or approximate cost may be obtained. The data obtainable are the conditions and actual cost in a limited number of cases. The obstacles are the difficulty of stating certain of the conditions numerically and the difficulty of deciding on the form of the formula, which must be done in advance.

We must first agree, of course, that the legitimate cost of administration of a library should bear some relation to its conditions of work. Probably no one would quarrel with this, but the first thought of one who considers the subject is generally that a large number of the conditions could, by their very nature, not be susceptible of numerical statement. Such factors as size of circulation, number of cardholders, size of building, and so on, may be stated directly in figures, and many such influence the cost of administration; but how, for instance, shall be stated numerically the character of the locality—whether foreign or native-born, wealthy or poor, etc., which also indubitably affects the cost? In this particular case this factor exerts its influence through others that may be numerically stated. So far as it necessitates purchase of foreign books, a foreign population acts to increase cost; so far as the demand for certain classes of books is concerned, cost might be increased or decreased; but size of book collections and circulation are both numerically determinable. It is possible that all conditions which would seem at first sight not to be numerical might reduce in this way, to various numerical factors. Regarding the form of the function to be used for the formula, mathematicians tell me that its determination might prove a great obstacle. Personally, it seems to me that it is probably “linear,” that is, involving only the first powers of the quantities concerned, never their squares, cubes, etc. Thus, all other things being equal, increase of book collection increase of circulation, increase of staff, etc., would approximately mean increase of cost in direct proportion; or, at any rate, not in any way involving powers above the first. I should try at the outset therefore, a simple linear formula, such as

Ax plus By plus Cz plus Du ... equals R in which x might be circulation, y number of books, z number in the staff, u cubic feet in the building, and so on. It would then be required to find values for A, B, C, D, etc. This would require, of course, as many equations as there are of these coefficients. To get each equation we select a library that we are willing to accept as being conservatively and properly operated, and substitute for x, y, etc., its reported circulation, number of books, and so on, putting in place of R its total cost of administration. Solution of this system of equations gives the coefficients, A, B, C, etc., and furnishes the working formula required. Thereafter when we wish to see whether a library is run as conservatively as the typical ones selected, its statistics would be used to substitute for x, y, z, etc., and the value of R thus obtained would be compared with the actual cost.

The labor of reducing the system of equations would depend on their number, which must equal that of the conditions. This would doubtless be great—possibly twenty or twenty-five, but the work amounts simply to doing a great deal of figuring.

I believe that this thing is worth trying, and I intend to try it myself as soon as I can secure the necessary help in doing the work of figuring, which in any case would not be nearly as great as that done to calculate a comet’s orbit. Physicists and astronomers are daily doing work of this kind, and doing it, too, on subjects regarding which there is quite as much reason to doubt the applicability of the method as in the present case. Why not try it? It admits of satisfactory “proving,” for if applied to two groups of libraries with absurdly different results, it would at once be shown to be faulty as so applied.

I believe that we librarians use the experimental method too infrequently. When it is proposed to make some change or other, I constantly hear the objection, “That wouldn’t result at all as you expect; it would do so-and-so.” But why not try it? Try it and see what happens. That is the only real test Of course, if trying will cost a large sum, or involve some serious risk, we must count the cost, but in nine cases out of ten nothing is involved but a little extra work.

In this case we are trying our experiments daily—we can’t help it. We have libraries running under all kinds of conditions and we have statistical reports of those conditions and of the resulting cost. It is surely worth while to see if we can not connect these costs and these conditions in some useful way.

I venture to close with a parable. At a national meeting of civil engineers there was a discussion of the advisability—and possibility—of ascertaining the exact distance between New York and Chicago. In the course of the discussion it appeared that numerous measurements had already been made for various purposes by different parties and under divers conditions. No two of the results agreed precisely. It was suggested by a speaker that some method of combining the results might be found so as to arrive at a practical working estimate of the distance. Objection was at once made by various members. To many the very idea of such a proposal seemed a bit of pleasantry, and they greeted it with smiles. One speaker poked fun at the idea of treating so practical a question by abstract mathematical methods. Another pointed out that the measurements had been made with various objects in view; some for railroad purposes, others by government topographers; that instruments of varying makes had been employed and that the surveyors possessed differing grades of ability. He did not see, therefore, how there was any possibility of taking all these into account. Still another thought that the best way to get at the real distance was to send out a questionnaire to persons who had traveled from New York to Chicago and find out their opinions.

It seemed to be the consensus of belief that we should never ascertain the exact distance from New York to Chicago, and that it was extremely doubtful whether there really was any such distance. Probably it varied from time to time, which would account for the varying measurements.

Is it conceivable that engineers would ever talk in this way? It is not.

But we have all heard librarians do so. Why?

LIBRARY CIRCULATION AT LONG RANGE

Now circulation through a delivery station is nothing but long-distance closed-shelf issue—circulation in which the distance between charging-desk and stack has been greatly multiplied. And a legitimate reason for closed-shelf issue of this kind is that it is carried on under conditions where open-shelf issue is impossible—about the only excuse for the closed shelf in any case. Now no matter how many books may be in branches or in deposit stations, it is obviously impossible for the whole central stock to be at any one of them, still less to be at all of them at the same time. And there are cases where it is impracticable to use any deposit at all, while delivery from the central library is feasible and reasonably satisfactory. There will always continue to be, therefore, some circulation from a distant reservoir of books that cannot be seen and handled by the reader for purposes of selection.

Under these circumstances it is interesting to inquire whether this type of service has any good points to offset its obvious disadvantages; and it is consoling to find that there are such—not enough to cause us to select an unsupported delivery station deliberately where a deposit or a branch would be possible, but enough to satisfy us that a delivery station is worth while if we can use nothing better and to induce us to lay stress, if we can, on the particular features that make it satisfactory.

For myself, after three years in a library with a large station system, following an experience in institutions where there was nothing of the kind, I may say that it has gratified and surprised me to find that personal contact between librarian and reader is possible in such a system, to almost the same extent as in an open-shelf library, although the contact is of quite a different quality. The quality of the contact is related to that possible with the open-shelf precisely as mental contact by letter writing is always related to that by conversation. It is superior, if anything, to that usually obtained in short-distance closed-shelf circulation, although possibly not to that obtainable under ideal conditions.

The establishment of more or less personal relations of confidence between library assistant and reader takes longer and is less complete when the sole intermediary is written language. It is always harder and requires more time to become intimate by letter than by personal intercourse. In the former case the contact is purely mental, in the latter it is affected by personal appearance and conduct, by facial expression and manner. All this is one of the chief factors in the success of the open shelf. But the advantages are not all on the side of the direct personal contact, as the correspondence schools have been astute enough to find out. In the first place, litera scripta manet; one may read the same written communication several times, whereas the same spoken communication is of and for the moment. Then the very fact that the written message is purely intellectual and has no physical accompaniments may lend force to its intellectual appeal, when that appeal has once gained a foothold. When this is the case the writer may take his time and may plan his campaign of influence more carefully than the speaker. The effect of trivial circumstances, of unfavorable personal elements, of momentary moods, is obviated.

It may be, then, that if personal relations between librarian and reader can be set up through the written word, there may be something of this kind even in long-distance, closed-shelf circulation. This relation may be lacking, even when the circulation is at short range. It is usually lacking at the closed-shelf delivery desk, necessarily so in a rush, although at quieter times there is no good reason why it should not exist. I know that it sometimes does exist under these conditions, though a counter between two human beings, whether in a store, an office or a library, is not conducive to relations of confidence. It may even be lacking in the open-shelf room, when assistants on floor duty have not the proper spirit and a due conception of their own responsibilities and opportunities.

It may exist at long range. But does it? I can answer for only one library; but I have no reason to believe that our experience is by any means exceptional. Here are some instances, reported at my request from our own Station Department by Miss Elsie Miller, the department chief:

“(1) A short time ago one of the patrons of Station 27 sent in a slip asking to have his book renewed, and requested that we send him information on peace conferences. The latter was duly sent, but through some error the renewal was overlooked. Consequently six days later an overdue postal was mailed. This gentleman is always quite prompt in returning his books, and evidently had never before received a notice. So he was most perturbed, and wrote us a very long letter explaining the mistake. He said that he felt that the librarian should know that he was not at fault, had not broken the rules, and had a clear record. But in imparting this fact to the librarian, he wanted it understood that the assistant committing the error should not in any way be punished for it, because she had helped him greatly in his work, by sending the very facts on peace conferences that he was looking for. He asked that the assistant be praised for her good work rather than blamed for her error.

“(2) Celia R——, whom we have never seen but all feel well acquainted with, tried in vain for some time to borrow a certain little volume of Eskimo stories, but succeeded only in getting substitutes. About the middle of December she sent in with her card the following request: ‘Please give me “Eskimo stories,” because it is Christmas and you never send the right book.’

“(3) The cards of Mr. and Mrs. M——, of Station 54, come in with a slip, ‘Please send a novel.’ We know that the books must be 7-day adventure stories, and must have publishers’ binding and an interesting frontispiece or they will come back to us on the next delivery unread.

“(4) At least one of the S—— family’s cards is reported lost each week. We immediately recognize Mrs. S——’s voice when she telephones, and ask whether it is Ralph’s or Walter’s card that is missing this time. In a tone of despair she probably says, ‘No; it is Morris’s.’ We promise to look the matter up thoroughly. Then we do no more about it. After two days we call up and tell her we are very sorry we have been unable to trace the card. ‘Oh, we’ve found it here at home; thank you so much for your trouble,’ she answers. ‘And, by the way, we have not been able to find Nicholas’ card all day.’ So we look up Nicholas’ card in the same way. No S—— card was ever known to be lost outside of the S—— household.

“(5) C39 of Station 6 has this note clipped to her readers’ index: ‘Give overdue notices to Stations Department.’ We hold her notices a few days to give the books a chance to come in, because she uses a bi-weekly station. Each time that she receives an overdue notice, it costs her ten cents carfare to come to the library to investigate, and it costs the library a half hour of an assistant’s time to pacify her. Our new method works beautifully, and both library and reader find it economical.

“(6) An old gentleman of Station 15 (at least we have pictured him as old, for it is a trembling hand that writes the titles) for a long time sent in a long list of German novels which we marked, ‘Not in catalog:’. We were out of printed German lists at the time, so selected a good German novel and sent it to him. It was immediately returned. We tried again—in vain. Then again! We sent him everything that the average German finds intensely interesting. But the books always came back to us on the next delivery. One day we substituted ‘Im Busch,’ by Gerstaecker. He kept it two weeks, and then his card came in with a list of Gerstaecker novels, copied from the title-page of “Im Busch.” He read all our Gerstaecker books and then wanted more. We wrote him that he had read all the books of this author and again substituted. Then a fresh list of Gerstaecker came in, and now he is reading all those books a second time.

“(7) One of the station men watches our substitutions and looks over them to get ideas for his own reading. Once when we had substituted Leroux’s ‘Mystery of the yellow room’ the station man ordered a copy of that book for himself, and finding it interesting read all the Leroux books in the library.

“(8) Here is a letter from a youthful station patron:

“‘Please send me the III Grade, The golden goose book! Please do. Kisses.

XXX.’”

These incidents, which of course might be multiplied indefinitely, show at least that the service rendered by a delivery station is not, or at any rate need not be, a mere mechanical sending of books in answer to a written demand.

So much for the element of personal contact and influence. Next let us consider for a moment that of actual contact with the books from which selection can be made. This of course does not take place in any closed-shelf system—least of all in one at long range. But in certain cases this contact is of no special advantage. In particular, if a reader wants one definite book and no other, he may get it as surely, or be informed as reliably that he cannot get it, and why, at a delivery station as at a set of open shelves. The only drawback in “long-range” work is that the user must wait longer before he can get his book, provided it is on the shelves. Against this wait must be set the time and cost of a personal visit to the distant library building.

Of the “browsing” contact there can be none, of course. This seems a more serious matter to me than it would be to those who deprecate “browsing,” or at any rate discourage it. But there is no question that the alternative between library and delivery station, if squarely presented, should always be answered by choosing the library. Here the alternative is between the delivery station and no use at all. This brings up another point:

May it not be, in some cases, that we really are offering the reader an alternative between delivery station and library and that through indolence he takes the former? Doubtless this is often the case, and it should not be so. The location of every delivery station should be studied from this standpoint, and its continuance should be made a matter of serious question. When all is said and done, there will remain some stations where a minority of users would go to the library if the station were discontinued, and would be benefited thereby at the expense of a little more exertion. The fact that there are some real advantages in long-range circulation should enable the librarian, in such a case, to strike some kind of a balance, satisfy himself that this particular station is or is not of resultant benefit to the community, and act accordingly. It is also possible, in some cases, to combine the deposit feature with the delivery station, and it goes without saying that this should be done just as the delivery feature should be added to every deposit and every branch, where it is feasible.

Finally, the long range circulation may be adapted to the use of the busy by enabling them to kill two birds with one stone. Libraries are always trying, with doubtful success, to get hold of persons who are busy about something else—factory workers, shoppers, and so on. A residential district is a better place for a branch library than a shopping district, although the number of different persons who pass the door daily is larger in the latter, because there is more leisure in the residence street—less preoccupation and bustle. But if it is made possible for the shopper to use the library with practically no delay, while he is shopping, will he not take advantage of the opportunity? A recent experiment in the St. Louis Public Library convinces me that he will. We are now operating a downtown branch in the book department of a large department store, and we have an hourly messenger service between the library and this station. I believe this is the first time that such frequent delivery service has been tried. This makes it possible to leave an order at the beginning of a shopping trip and to find the book ready at the close of the trip. The interval would never be much over an hour, and might be as little as fifteen or twenty minutes.

There are two favorable factors here which it might be difficult to secure elsewhere: The shopping district here is near enough to the central library to make frequent delivery possible, and the management of the store where our station is located is broad enough to see that the possibility of borrowing a book free, from the library, even when presented as an immediate alternative to the purchase of the same book from the counters of the store, does not, in the long run, injure sales.

It is not absolutely necessary, of course, to operate this scheme from a department store, neither is greater distance an absolute bar to frequent deliveries. I believe that this kind of long-distance service is well worth the attention of librarians.

And, in general, I believe that a realization that all long-distance service has its good points may do good by inducing us to dwell on those points and to try to make them of more influence in our work.

CONFLICTS OF JURISDICTION IN LIBRARY SYSTEMS[14]

At bottom, a departmental system in a large institution is simply an outcome of the fact that its head requires aid in administration. At first, perhaps, he can actually do everything with his own hand; next he requires helpers, but he can oversee them all; finally, he must have overseers, who are the only ones with whom he deals directly and for whom he naturally classifies the work and divides it among them accordingly. This is not merely a symbolical or fanciful account of such a development. There are plenty of heads of institutions, educational, commercial and industrial, who have personally seen every stage of it—who are now administering a complicated system of departments where they once did everything themselves. In particular, there are now librarians, at the head of great libraries, who began library work by performing, or at least overseeing directly, the elementary acts of which library operation may be taken to consist, and who have watched such a simple system of superintendence develop year by year into something complex.

Such a development, as I have said, is naturally based on some kind of classification. If one could sit down and, foreseeing the growth of his institution for years to come, settle upon the way in which that growth should be cared for, his classification might possibly be more logical and workable than most classifications now are. The best of them are wofully imperfect, as no one knows better than we librarians. And when division into classes proceeds pari passu with growth, we are necessarily bothered with that troublesome thing—cross-classification. As our institution grows, one direction of growth and a corresponding set of conditions and needs comes into the foreground after another, and our basis of classification is apt to change accordingly.

In the library, for instance, territorial expansion has frequently claimed the right of way. It has been evident that wide regions within the municipality were not reached by the library’s activities; hence the establishment of branches—practically classification on a regional or territorial basis. Next, perhaps, some other need is pushed forward—say, the necessity for special care given to the children of the community. Here is a non-territorial basis for classification, founded only upon the age of the library’s users. These are not classes and sub-classes, but are entirely different primary systems of classification, whose dividing lines cross and do not run parallel. A man who should sit down and try to evolve, at first hand, some sort of classification of library work, might adopt one or the other, but not both. In one case he might divide his city into districts, with district superintendents and local librarians under each; in the other, he might divide his users by ages and tastes and have a superintendent for each. In neither case would there be cross-classification, with its over-lapping classes and consequent interferences of jurisdiction.

But this is not the way that things work out. The librarian finds it necessary to have his geographical subdivisions and also those based on age, and he adopts others also as they appear desirable, without much regard for the logic of classification. If he does take it into account, he feels that the troubles resulting from conflicts of jurisdiction will be more easily dealt with than those consequent upon a refusal to respond to the present demands of the work. Also—and this is an important factor—conflicts of jurisdiction, no matter how inevitable, are in the future, and the present demands of the work look vastly larger and press with insistence. Is there any wonder that he does what lies immediately before him and lets the future take care of itself?

Unfortunately, the future always does take care of itself very well indeed, and presents itself to demand a reckoning at the appointed time. The library, for instance, that has its branches for different regions and its children’s room in each gets along well enough so long as its cross-classification of work exists only on paper. But the time comes when departmental organization must begin, and this must be based on the classification. There may be a superintendent of branches and a superintendent of children’s work, or the branch librarians may report to the librarian directly, or there may be other dispositions with other duties and names. In any case, a children’s room at a branch library necessarily finds itself in two departments, under two jurisdictions and under two heads. If the branch librarian and the children’s superintendent are both yielding in disposition, the librarian may never have the conflict of jurisdiction brought to his attention. If either is yielding while the other is masterful, there will also be no trouble. In one case the branch librarian will run the adult end of her branch and leave the other to the children’s department; in the other there will be one branch, at least, where the children’s supervisor has little to say—a condition of things that may be tolerated, but is surely undesirable. But suppose that both heads are conscientious, assertive and anxious to push the work, fond of organizing administrative details and impatient of interference. Here we have the possibilities of trouble at once.

The first rumblings of the storm come usually in the form of complaints of interference, on the one side or the other. Then we have a demand from both sides for a definition of their respective rights and responsibilities. The librarian is asked, for instance, in just what respects the children’s librarian shall take her orders from the branch librarian and in what from the supervisor. This is a good deal like petitioning the legislature to pass a law specifying exactly when a child shall obey his father and when the mayor of the city. The librarian who enters on this plausible path will sooner or later be lost in the jungle. He has only himself to thank. Either he or his predecessor started the game and he must play it out to the end. We librarians are all responsible for each other’s faults. Let us see how he may play it.

In the first place, his is the power. What is done in any department is done by his orders or by the orders of some one endowed by him with authority to give orders. He has given two persons authority over the same field at one point, and it is his business to straighten things out. Here are some possible ways:

1. The authority of one head may be absolutely extinguished in the field where conflict exists. Here we have legalized the state of things described above as existing with a combination of one spineless department-head and one very spiny one. It works, but at the expense of everything that tends to the efficiency of the extinguished authority, and I do not recommend it.

2. An attempt may be made, as noted above, to draw a line between the two spheres of authority and keep each in its place. This appeals to those who are fond of detail, for it can be done only by considering and ticketing details. A line, defined by some one clear principle, cannot be drawn in a field of this kind between two things both of which logically cover that field. It is logical that the children’s librarian in a branch should be wholly under the authority of the branch librarian, since she is a branch employee like the others. It is just as logical that she should be wholly under the authority of the supervisor, of whose department she is a part. If we are to define the things in which she is to obey the one and the other, they must be enumerated one by one. And then other things will turn up that have not been thus enumerated, and we are in trouble again. This plan, as I have said, appeals to those who revel in regulations and specifications, but I can recommend it no more than the other.

3. One department may formally and distinctly be set above the other. Or, what is the same thing, the librarian may resolve, when a conflict arises, always to decide the matter in favor of one particular department. This means, in the special case that we have been using as an illustration, either that the children’s department shall be allowed to do nothing in a branch library without the consent of the branch librarian, or of the supervisor of branches, if there is one; or that all questions involving the administration of a branch children’s room must depend ultimately on the chief of the children’s department.

This may seem to be the same as the plan by which the authority of one department is absolutely done away in the disputed sphere. It is of the same type, but not so drastic. In the other plan one has not authority to do anything; in this, one must ask permission—not the same thing by any means. This plan is practically in effect at some libraries; it would probably be regarded as equitable by most department heads—provided their own department were put ahead of the other. The trouble is that it involves an arbitrary subordination—one that does not exist in the nature of the classification. And this subordination is local and partial; it cannot hold good for the whole department. No one would think of placing the branch department, as a whole, under the children’s department, or vice versa. And the objections, although not so strong as those to the extinguishment plan, are of the same kind. The efficiency of one department or the other is bound to suffer, and for this reason I do not consider this the best plan.

4. All department heads in conflicting spheres, may be regarded simply as advisers of the librarian and not as possessing authority in themselves to give orders. A conflict is thus reduced to contradictory advice from two sources. The librarian then pursues whatever course seems good to him. This plan has attractive features, especially to administrators of the type that like to keep a finger in every pie. There is doubtless danger in aloofness. The librarian must know what is going on, but I see no advantage in requiring him to decide questions of trivial detail at frequent intervals, as he must do under this plan; for conflicts generally begin in questions of detail and it is at the beginning or even earlier, in anticipation, that they must be caught and adjusted. This plan works, but it reduces the department head to a consulting expert and burdens the librarian with detail. It does not appeal to me at all.

5. The two conflicting departments may co-operate, intelligently and courteously without sacrifice of authority or self-respect, under the advice and orders of the librarian.

This is the plan that I recommend. It is the most difficult of all, and no regulations or specifications can be formulated for carrying it out. For this reason it will never be widely in favor. A wicked and rebellious generation demands a sign, and in this plan there is neither sign nor formula except that general principle of helpfulness and willingness to place the common whole above the selfish part that is at the antipodes of both wickedness and rebellion. It is a personal matter and it adds one important qualification to those already necessary in department heads—the ability to do team work. This qualification, however, is so important, quite apart from its necessity in connection with this plan, that we may consider it an advantage, rather than otherwise, that the plan puts it forward and insists upon it. On the whole I think that a library with mediocre department heads having this qualification is better manned, and will do more satisfactory work than one with a staff of supremely able experts, cranky, self-centered and all pulling different ways. The efforts of members of a body like a library staff are not to be measured arithmetically—they are what mathematicians call “vectors”—directed quantities, like force, velocity or acceleration. To know where a man will bring up one must have not only his speed, but its direction. The sum of two equal forces may be anything from zero up to their double, depending on their relative directions, and if the sum is zero, no matter how large the components may be, the result is precisely the same as if those components are small, or as if neither existed. It is this sort of thing that an eminent employer of labor had in mind when he advised, “If two of your subordinates don’t get along together, discharge both of them, no matter how good they are.” In this man’s estimation the relative value of team work evidently stands pretty high. I should not follow his advice, however, without giving everyone a fair chance. I have known the opinions of one department head about another and their ability to work together to improve greatly on acquaintance.

The part necessarily played by the librarian in this scheme may be regarded by some as an objection. I have already referred to administrators who, like the late Czar of Russia, prefer to regulate all the details of the kingdom by personal supervision. There is also the precisely opposite type, who like to make a good machine, set it going, and then let it alone. The trouble is that machines will not run of themselves. They need oversight, oiling, cleaning and repairing. The best require a minimum of all this, but all must have some of it. And such machinery as there is in this plan requires a maximum of oversight. It is, however, not the control of details but rather the watching of general methods and results. Is everything running smoothly, without “lost motion” or “backlash,” and turning out a satisfactory finished product? If not can the trouble be located? Yes; these two cogs do not work smoothly together. Let us find out which is at fault and adjust or replace it; but if our investigation is fruitless, possibly the best plan is to discard both.

I trust I have misled no one by treating here specifically of two departments. I might have substituted the names of a dozen others. All through library administration, and especially in the administration of a system of branch libraries, these possibilities of conflict occur. In branches they are generally between the branch administration and the central departments—finance, supplies, cataloging, book-orders, reference and circulation.

The handling of this whole matter depends, of course, on the librarian. He it must be who is to decide on general policies or go to his Board for a decision in cases so important that he feels their action necessary. If the work of departments overlaps in some field where the library’s policy has not yet been decided upon and defined, he has no one to blame but himself if the adjustment is difficult. And if policies are defined in advance and pains taken to inform department heads thoroughly of their existence and import, the likelihood of serious disagreement will be considerably lessened.

It must not be forgotten, also, that the success of any plan may be increased or diminished by skill, or lack of skill, in handling it.

I am confident that any of the plans about which I have spoken unfavorably above would work better under a good librarian than the best would work under a bad one. But I forget myself; we librarians are like Kentucky whiskey—some are better than others, but there are no bad ones!

THREE KINDS OF LIBRARIANS[15]

The human eye is so constituted that it can see clearly but a small part of the field of vision at one time. We have learned by habit to move it about quickly and comprehensively, so that unless our attention is called to the fact we do not realize this limitation; but it exists. In like manner, it is difficult for the human mind to take a comprehensive view of a subject. We are apt to fix upon some one feature and ignore the rest. In recent times we have been devoting our attention to the personal element. We talk about the “man behind the gun,” a good deal. I would not underrate him or what he can do; but it is surely necessary to have the gun itself before the man behind it can be effective. In fact the man per se is about the most helpless of animals. His superiority to the mere brute lies in his ability to use tools; his inferiority in the fact that he can do almost nothing without them. A man with a gun is indeed formidable; a wildcat can do nothing with such a tool, but then he is reasonably formidable without it. I have yielded thus to the temptation to depreciate the personal element somewhat, at the beginning of an address in which it is to be discussed, because this defect of the human mind, that tends to fix it upon one feature to the exclusion of others, has of late apparently led many to think that a man is valuable in himself and by himself, without anything to work with or anything to work on.

A man is making a failure of his job; the first thought is that he must be replaced. Nine persons out of ten fail to inquire whether anyone at all could have succeeded under the same conditions. Your cook prepares an inedible meal; you rage and call loudly for a new regime in the kitchen; whereas all the time your competent servant has been struggling with a faulty range, tough meat and bad flour.

Shall we, then, sit down and refuse to do anything at all unless our tools and our materials are of the best? By no means; one of the chief distinctions between a capable and an inefficient worker lies in the ability of the former to make the best of unpromising conditions. No one can do as well with poor tools and materials as with good ones; but the good worker will turn out a better job with the former than the inefficient one will.

These things apply of course to the library worker as to all others, especially to librarians in small towns where tools and materials are apt to be not of the best. Among tools we may reckon buildings, books, and all kinds of library appliances. The material is the community on which the librarian by proper use of her tools aims to produce a certain effect.

Now it is open to such a worker to view her task from any one of three different standpoints—to choose, we will say, from three different kinds of librarianship. She may be a librarian of the day before yesterday, of yesterday, or of to-day.

The librarian of the day before yesterday is the librarian of a part of the community. Not only does she make no effort to encourage the use of her library, but she distinctly discourages certain persons, and certain classes of persons, from entering it. This grade of librarian includes as many kinds as there are persons or classes of the community that may be discouraged. Some, for instance, exclude all the poorly-dressed, or all of inferior social status; others welcome just these and exclude the well-dressed and well-to-do. The philanthropic donor of a city branch library building once waxed very wroth when she saw a carriage standing in front of the building. Her library, she said, was for the poor, not for “carriage people.”

These ways of looking at things are sometimes an inheritance from former conditions. A subscription library turned into a free public library hesitates to welcome, all at once, the lower strata that have so long been banished from its doors. On the other hand, a public library that has developed from a charitable foundation regards these as its proper users and looks askance at the well-to-do, as in the case of the good lady with her “carriage people.”

When I speak of the exclusion of a class of persons, I do not mean that they are formally kept out or even consciously discouraged; this is why it is so easy to be a librarian of the day before yesterday. That day was a comfortable day; an easy day to be self-satisfied in; it had its libraries for the rich and its libraries for the poor. Some class was always named, even if some were always left out.

It may be that the exclusion operates through features that are in themselves excellent. I have seen, in a small community, a library building so fine, with such an atmosphere of quiet good-taste and so lady-like a librarian, that the great public no more dared to enter therein than if a fierce lion had stood in the doorway. I have known libraries, too, in which the books were too good. Certain classes in the community where not intellectually up to them.

I have also known libraries that were never used by the foreigners in their communities, or by the colored people. These latter, strange to say, were largely in the North. The South recognizes the Negro and pays him much attention—in its way. It settles his status and sees that it is observed. He has the last four seats on the trolley car and he has his separate library accommodations. In the North he is on an equality with the white man—in everything but reality. He is welcomed to the library in theory and he does not use it in practice. I fear that in this respect too many of us belong to the day before yesterday.

I trust that I have made it clear that the librarian of day-before-yesterday is not a bad librarian. He or she is just a librarian of day before yesterday—that is all.

Now we will step into one of Mr. H.G. Wells’ “Time machines” and take a short spin ahead into yesterday. The librarian of yesterday excludes no one at all from his library; for he is within one step of being up-to-date. He discourages no person nor any class of persons. He stands in his doors with outstretched arms and announces that his library is free to all, that it has books for all—rich and poor, old and young, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. The selection of books is well thought-out and adapted to the community in which it is. The accommodations are ample and fitting. Everyone is welcome. What more could you ask? Nothing at all; provided you are still in yesterday. Yesterday this sort of library was regarded as the last word in the popularization of the book, and it is indeed a long step in advance of day-before-yesterday. The librarian’s material is before him; he has good books; is more needed than this? Yea, verily. One may have a nail and a hammer to drive it; also an egg, and a pan to fry it, yet one cannot fry the egg with the hammer. Some selective action is necessary before we can attain the result that we want. A minister, presiding at a wedding, in which several couples were to be united at once, read the marriage service and then exclaimed: “I pronounce you men and wives; now you can sort yourselves.” The trouble is that things will not “sort themselves”; they must have some one to sort them—and this is what is the matter with the library and the librarian of yesterday. They fail to make connection between the man and the book, so that part of the fine collection remains wholly or relatively unused, and part of the community that it ought to serve remains apart from the library, despite the librarian’s outstretched arms and his words of welcome. If he had read his Bible as his great-grandparents used to do, he would have realized that to fill the table at the wedding feast of literature and life a simple invitation sufficeth not. We must go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in. The attitude of passive expectancy, of ability and willingness to serve those who come, was well enough for yesterday, but not for the new library day that has dawned in these United States of America. Apparently the library dawn moves eastward as the physical day moves westward, for over in the mother country only a few lofty peaks are yet gilded by its sunshine. Even in our own land there are gorges where the dusk lingers; there are even grottoes where darkness will always be. But we are mostly in the light. We realize that if we have a book on the dyeing of textile fabrics and if there is an unheeding man in our community who would be helped by that book, all the complacent receptivity that we can muster will not suffice to bring them together. And with this knowledge comes an awakening of conscience. Long ago we stopped crying out “Am I my brother’s keeper?” We realize that as members of the community we must bear our share of responsibility for what is done in the community and that collectively we must take measures for the community’s welfare. Each of us is a Roman dictator, in that it is our business to see that the Republic suffers no harm. Thus the community appoints special officers to look out for the interests of its members in certain directions. We public librarians are such officers. We are proud of saying that we stand on the same plane as the teachers in our schools and the professors in our colleges; nay, even a little higher, for the facilities for education over which we preside are offered long after school and college years are over.

Now the teacher does not stand in the doorway and announce that she is willing and ready to instruct all who may so desire in reading, writing and arithmetic—that she has a well-equipped schoolroom, blackboards, globes and textbooks for all who will take advantage of them. Not so; the community goes out and compels its members to take advantage of all these things. In like manner, also, the community makes all sorts of laws for its own preservation and betterment; it does not say “See, here are good laws; come ye who will and obey them.” On the contrary it goes out into highways and hedges and sees that all its members obey.

I would not push this analogy too far. No one expects that the community will require that every one within its borders shall use the public library so many times a month, or, indeed that it shall be used at all. The nature of the institution precludes such compulsion. But it should require that every effort be made to see that no section of the books on the library shelves shall lie idle and that no section of the community shall fail to use books, either through ignorance or through doubt of a welcome.

The librarian should say: Here is an unused book. Is it without value in this community? Then let it make place for a better. Has it value? Then why is it not used? Somewhere, in this community, is the man, woman or child, who, whether realizing it or not, would derive pleasure or profit, or both from reading it. It is my business to seek out that person.