A Library Primer Part 22

If the a.s.sociation is large, if its meetings are well attended, if its proceedings as published show that the problems of library work are carefully studied, if the published proceedings are widely circulated, it is easier to persuade the intelligent part of the public that the librarian's profession is serious, dignified, and calls to its membership men and women of ability and zeal. If the public is persuaded of these things, the position of the humblest as well as of the highest in the profession is thereby rendered better worth the holding. To attend diligently to one's business is sometimes a most proper form of advertising one's merits. To be a zealous and active member of the A.L.A. is to attend to an important part of one's business; for one can't join it and work with it and for it and not increase one's efficiency in many ways.

State a.s.sociations have been organized in the following states: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa.

The following states have state library commissions: Connecticut, Georgia, Ma.s.sachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota.

The following cities have library clubs: Buffalo, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York city, Washington city.

An inquiry for information regarding any of these a.s.sociations or clubs, addressed to any librarian in the states given, will receive attention.

Much of what is said above about the A.L.A. applies with equal force to the a.s.sociation of one's state or neighborhood. Often, moreover, it is possible to attend a state a.s.sociation meeting at small expense of time or money.

CHAPTER XLVI

Library schools and training cla.s.ses

As libraries have become more thoroughly organized, as they have become more aggressive in their methods, and as they have come to be looked upon by librarians and others as possible active factors in educational work, the proper management of them has naturally been found to require experience and technical knowledge as well as tact, a love of books, and janitorial zeal. It is seen that the best librarians are trained as well as born; hence the library school. The library school--a list of those now in operation will be found at the end of this chapter--does not confine itself to education in the technical details of library management. It aims first to arouse in its pupils the "modern library spirit," the wish, that is, to make the library an inst.i.tution which shall help its owners, the public, to become happier and wiser, and adds to this work what it can of knowledge of books, their use, their housing, and their helpful arrangement. Perhaps the ideal preparation for a librarian today would be, after a thorough general education, two or three years in a good library school preceded and followed by a year in a growing library of moderate size.

A few libraries have tried with much success the apprentice system of library training, taking in a cla.s.s, or series of cla.s.ses, for a few months or a year, and at the end of the period of apprenticeship selecting from the cla.s.s additions to its regular corps.

List of library schools and training cla.s.ses

New York state library school, Albany; Pratt inst.i.tute library school, Brooklyn; Wisconsin summer school of library science, Madison; Drexel inst.i.tute library school, Philadelphia, Pa.; University of Illinois state library school, Champaign; Amherst summer school library cla.s.s, Amherst, Ma.s.s.; Los Angeles public library training cla.s.s; Cleveland summer school of library science.

CHAPTER XLVII

The Library department of the N.E.A.

The Library department of the National educational a.s.sociation holds meetings annually at the same time and place with the N.E.A.

The National educational a.s.sociation is the largest organized body of members of the teaching profession in the world. Its annual meetings bring together from 5000 to 15,000 teachers of every grade, from the kindergarten to the university. It includes a number of departments, each devoted to a special branch of educational work. The Library department was established in 1897. It has held successful meetings.

It is doing much to bring together librarians and teachers. It is arousing much interest in the subject of the use of books by young people, briefly touched on in the later chapters of this book.

Following the example of the N.E.A., many state and county a.s.sociations of teachers throughout the country have established library departments. At these are discussed the many aspects of such difficult and as yet unanswered questions as: What do children most like to read? How interest them in reading? What is the best reading for them?

CHAPTER XLVIII

Young people and the schools

If possible give the young people a reading room of their own, and a room in which are their own particular books. These special privileges will not bar them from the general use of the library. Make no age limit in issuing borrowers' cards. A child old enough to know the use of books is old enough to borrow them, and to begin that branch of its education which a library only can give. The fact that a child is a regular attendant at school is in itself almost sufficient guarantee for giving him a borrower's card. Certainly this fact, in addition to the signature of parent, guardian, or adult friend, even if the signer does not come to the library, will be guarantee enough.

Teachers should be asked to help in persuading children to make the acquaintance of the library, and then to make good use of it. To get this help from teachers is not easy. They are generally fully occupied with keeping their pupils up to the required scholarship mark. They have no time to look after outside matters.

Visits to teachers in their schoolrooms by librarian or a.s.sistant will often be found helpful. Lists of books adapted to schoolroom use, both for the teacher and for pupils, are good, but are very little used when offered, unless followed up by personal work. Brief statements of what the library can do and would like to do in the way of helping on the educational work of the community will be read by the occasional teacher. Teachers can sometimes be interested in a library through the interest in it of the children themselves. The work of getting young people to come to the library and enjoy its books should go hand in hand with the work of persuading teachers to interest children in the library. It is not enough to advertise the library's advantages in the papers, or to send to teachers a printed statement that they are invited and urged to use the inst.i.tution; nor is it enough to visit them and say that the books in the library are at their service.

These facts must be demonstrated by actual practice on every possible opportunity. A teacher who goes to a library and finds its privileges much hedged about with rules and regulations will perhaps use it occasionally, certainly not often. Appropriate books should be put directly into their hands, the educational work of this, that, and the other teacher should be noted, and their attention called to the new books which touch their particular fields.

Teachers' cards can be provided which will give to holders special privileges. It is a question, however, if such a system is necessary or worth while. Under the charging system already described any teacher can be permitted to take away as many books as she wishes, and a record of them can be easily and quickly made. To give "teachers'

cards," with accompanying privileges, is to limit to some extent the rights of all others. And yet teachers may very often properly receive special attention. In a measure they are part of the library's staff of educational workers. But these special attentions or favors should be offered without proclaiming the fact to the rest of the community.

Many cannot see why a teacher should receive favors not granted to all.

Take special pains to show children the use of indexes, and indeed of all sorts of reference books; they will soon be familiar with them and handle them like lifelong students. Gain the interest of teachers in this sort of work, and urge them to bring their cla.s.ses and make a study of your reference books.

CHAPTER XLIX

How the library can a.s.sist the school

Channing Folsom, superintendent of schools, Dover, N.H., in Public Libraries, May, 1898

We have to consider the teacher, the school, the pupil, the home. The teacher is likely to be conservative; to have fallen into ruts; to be joined to his idols; to make the text-book a fetish; to teach a particular book rather than the subject, so that the initiative in works of cooperation must come from the library side.

If, then, the library is equally conservative, if the librarian and the trustees look upon their books as too sacred or too precious to be handled by boys and girls, the desired cooperation will never be attained.

In beginning the desired work the librarian must have a well-defined idea of what is to be done and how. There should be a well-defined line of differentiation between material which the school should furnish and that properly belonging to the library province.

Of course all text-books, all supplementary reading matter for cla.s.sroom use, all ordinary reference books, should be furnished by the school authorities. But the more extensive and the more expensive dictionaries, gazetteers, cyclopedias, and books for topical reference cannot be so furnished. If they are to be used by public school pupils, the library must supply them, and make access to them as easy and as pleasant as possible.

It is within the scope of the library to improve the taste in reading among the pupils of the schools by compiling lists of the best books upon the shelves, and distributing these lists to the pupils. Such lists may be cla.s.sified as suitable to different grades or ages, or by subjects, as, History of different countries or epochs, Biography, Travels, Nature work, Fiction, etc.

The possible good that may be achieved in this way is immeasurable.

Although, according to Dogberry, to write and read comes by nature, we must remember that a taste for good reading is not innate but acquired, and that it is not ordinarily acquired under unfavorable conditions. To ensure the acquirement of this taste by the child, good reading must be made as accessible as the bad, the librarian and the teacher must conspire to put good reading, interesting reading, elevating reading in his way. The well-read person is an educated person. The taste for good reading once acquired is permanent. There is little danger of backsliding. It grows with indulgence. One writer says: No man having once tasted good food or good wine, or even good tobacco, ever voluntarily turns to an inferior article. So with our reading habits; a taste for good reading once acquired becomes a joy forever.

Teachers do not realize, as does the librarian, the low tone of the reading taste of the community. When they fully understand this, together with the fact that the acquirement of a reading habit and a love for good literature are largely dependent, in a majority of cases, upon the public school training, then will the librarian have to bestir himself to supply the demand for good books made by the school.

The habit thus formed, the taste thus acquired, will be of infinitely more value to them than the information gained. The latter may soon be forgotten, the former will stay with them through life; but the influence of good books taken into the homes of our school children, from the library or from the school, does not stop with the children themselves. It is impossible that such books should go into even an ignorant, uncouth, unlettered family without exerting an elevating and refining influence.

Thus the school opens to the library the broadest field for doing the greatest good to the greatest number, the shortest avenue to the ma.s.ses.

But the consciousness of good done will not be the only reward for the library. The reflex action upon the library of this intimate connection with the school will be highly beneficial. A generation will grow up trained to a.s.sociate the library and the school as instrumentalities of public education, demanding alike its moral and financial support, a generation that in town meetings and in city councils will advocate generous appropriations for the public library as well as for the public school.

Thus, your bread cast upon the waters shall return unto you after many days.