Tuesday a. m. NOVEMBER 26, 1912 The purpose and place of the school library Dr Sherman Williams, Chief, School Books that children like Miss May Massee, Buffalo Public Library Professional training for school librarians Miss Mary E. Ahern, Editor, Public Libraries, Chicago, Illinois Business and election of officers Tuesday p. m. Joint session with the rural schools section What the district superintendent can do for school libraries Superintendent Walter S. Clark, West Discussion opened by Superintendent Henry Dann, Lancaster There will be an exhibit showing methods and possibilities of school library work. This is under the charge of Mr Russell J. Forbes, Buffalo Public Library. Frank K. Walter, Vice Director, New York State Library School, Chairman Addie Hatfield, Principal, training school, Oneonta State Normal School, Secretary NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY SCHOOL The New York State Library School is now occupying its new quarters in the State Education Building. The studyroom, which provides space for about seventy students and for those faculty members and staff assistants whose work in some way is related to the work of the school, is supplied with students' desks and individual bookcases of special design. Two lecture rooms have been provided, as well as an office and a typewriting room for students' use. This increased space will provide much better accommodation for the summer session than has ever before been possible. Plans are already under way for the 1913 summer school, and a detailed outline will be printed in the February number of New York Libraries. In order to make the work of as direct Sunday opening again value as possible to the smaller libraries of the State, librarians are invited to send suggestions of subjects which would be of special service to their own libraries to Mr F. K. Walter, Vice Director New York State Library School, Albany, N. Y. The 26th annual session of the regular school began October 2d. A reunion of former students of the school and of visiting librarians took place on the evening of October 14th, preceding the library session of the general dedication exercises of the State Education Building. The school received many notable tributes in the addresses made at this celebration, as will be seen in the report of the celebration soon to be issued. The most significant and comprehensive statement, perhaps, was that of Dr J. C. Schwab, librarian of Yale University, who was given a leading place on the program. “The library school of this State," he said, "whose twenty-five years of service we are commemorating today, has the proud record of leading the world in effectively training the leaders in the library world of America. I venture to say that no institution has ever made relatively as large a contribution toward uplifting and ennobling a learned profession. Its influence is felt everywhere in the growing importance of libraries throughout the country and through them in the rising scale of general intelligence." QUESTION BOX The question of opening the public library on Sunday is being earnestly discussed in this community. Please give your judgment in regard to the matter. This opinion is personal and does not in any way commit the Department to either side in the controversy. It is that every village and city library which has a suitable reading room, should at least be open to the public Sunday afternoons for reading and reference. Further, if there be in the community a considerable number of people to whom the privilege of borrowing books on Sunday would increase the value and usefulness of the library, and it be possible to secure the means for this added service without crippling the institution at some other point, this privilege also should be granted. People use the library mainly in their hours of leisure, and there is no other period when so many people have leisure as on Sundays. When the churches were in the library business, providing about all the free library privileges that were offered, it was on Sunday and Sunday only that they fulfilled this service. Now that the public libraries have so largely taken the place of the Sunday school libraries, is there any less reason why people should have the free use of books on that day? A. W. Helps in teaching use of library We are interested in the question of giving systematic instruction to school children in the use of books and libraries. Please name some published aids that will help in starting such work. Hopkins, F. M. Outlines of instruction of high school students in the use of the library. Detroit Central High School. 4 C Outlines a course of eight lessons. Especially valuable for its lesson on the use of indexes and books of general reference. Ward, G. O. Practical use of books and libraries. Boston Book Co. $1. Teaching Outline. Boston Book Co. 50c The author of this manual is supervisor of high school libraries in Cleveland, Ohio, and a foremost advocate of systematic instruction of school children in library usage. Most helpful and practical. Gilson, M. L. Course of study for normal school pupils on the use of a library. Elm Tree Press, Woodstock, Vt. Part of the course was prepared for use in the Newark, N. J., High School, and is elementary enough for such purposes. 75c Sherwin, Cody. Dictionary habit; teaching What libraries are doing in cities of about 15,000 population I am to prepare a paper on the needs and proper work of a public library in a city of about 15,000 population. Please give statistics showing facilities, privileges, activities, public use and annual expenditures of well-equipped libraries in cities or villages of this State having somewhere near that population. The following statistics are taken from the last reports submitted to the Education Department. Figures given for number of borrowers registered furnish no basis for comparison of libraries, as for each library they cover different periods of time. They are given merely for the sake of a general average. securing NOW CAN WE ON a week for lending attendance Reading room 11 626 66 36 32 72 Number of NON periodicals taken 14 828 586 13 526 43 396 4 570 55 Are Judging from the numerous inquiries from parents, teachers, librarians and grown-ups generally, it would seem that there is a crying need for more magazines for children. In considering the matter carefully, a few questions have been uppermost in my mind. Is there any demand for this kind of reading matter from the children themselves? not we older people, because of our fondness for this kind of literature, needlessly exercising ourselves in our eagerness to supply children with the same sort? Will not the children come to scrappy literature early enough in their careers without any encouragement from their elders? Are not children better pleased with good books? Of the story magazines, do not St Nicholas and the Youth's Companion meet the child's needs, and for practical interests, does not Popular Mechanics do it? Library problem of small hamlets This is a small hamlet of about 100 people. Through the interest of a women's club, the people have been supplied for several years with traveling library privileges. We are now thinking of starting a public library, but for the immediate future, can hardly expect to raise regularly more than $25 a year for library support. By a series of entertainments we think we can soon raise the $100 needed for a provisional charter. Under these circumstances would you advise us to attempt to establish and maintain a public library or would it be wiser for us to limit ourselves to the traveling library service? If suitable quarters and proper library service can be secured free of cost, and there be enough local interest to raise $100 and to guarantee an annual income of $25, we think it decidedly advisable to start a free or public library in your hamlet. This will enable you to draw immediately $100 from the State for buying books and will entitle you to an annual allotment of $25 for the same purpose. You will thus from the start be in possession of from 200 to 300 carefully selected books, and each year can add to your supply from 40 to 50 of the best new books. By applying $3 or $4 of the year's income to fees for traveling libraries, the new library may secure for its readers, in addition to its own new books, the use of some 200 fresh books a year, and may secure the temporary use of any desired in the great collection of the State Library which is free to go outside its walls. Thus the use of the State Library, which you are now enjoying in a degree through the traveling libraries, will be greatly facilitated and enlarged by the organization of a library of your own, and you will have the great advantage of permanently possessing the books, such as reference sets and standard works of history, biography, science and literature for which there is a permanent and continuous need. A. W. How much shall be spent for new books The Public Library has a collection of 11,000 volumes and circulates an average of about 40,000 volumes a year. It has an annual income of $2500. Kindly advise as to what amount, according to your judgment, should be applied yearly for new books, binding and replacements. The amount that should be so applied for any particular year depends somewhat on the rapidity with which new books have been accumulated in years immediately preceding. For a library which wishes to maintain its popularity and proper standing in the community, there are, however, certain average requirements in the matter of book purchases that can not be ignored. In the first place, a library that is to hold its own must make good each year its losses from material wear and occasional neglect or dishonesty of borrowers. In the New York Public Library, which buys its popular books in reinforced binding and has experts to keep them in repair, it is found that a book is worn out and discarded for every 70 issues. This is a very high average of issues for a book, and no ordinary library can equal it. In the average library, the life of a book will hardly suffice for more than 50 issues. It would thus appear that for a circulation of 40,000 a year, there will be worn out and discarded each year, even at the low average of mortality reported by the New York Public Library, 570 volumes, and at the higher rate that commonly obtains, 800 volumes. Thus merely to keep up your stock, without adding to its growth or value in the least, you will need to apply for new books between $600 and $800 a year. Anything less than this would mean that the library is positively deteriorating and going backward. But a library can not retain its proper place in public regard merely by holding its own. It must aim to grow in richness and variety each year, and it is safe to say that a minimum of at least $200 a year additional should be applied for such growth. Add to this a minimum of $100 to be used for binding periodical material and rebinding worn books, and you have a total of at least $900 a year which should be available for your book fund. Anything less than this means a failure of true economy and efficiency in your library. Who shall select the books A. W. By whom should the books for the public library be selected? Is not this the proper function of the librarian? In this library the selection is made entirely by a book committee and the librarian is only incidentally consulted in the matter. Where the librarian has been selected because of special fitness for the position (which unfortunately is not always the case), the principal responsibility for the selection of books should be left with him. or her. Books should always be selected according to some logical plan whereby provision shall be made for meeting the reading needs of everybody in the community. Every phase of life and interest there represented should have access to the best books calculated to meet its needs. One mind and one plan must dominate in the building up of a well-balanced library, just as one mind and one plan must dominate in the furnishing of a house or the stocking of a store, and the librarian is the only person in the community who is in a position and who occupies a relation both to the books and to the constituency of the library which makes possible the formation and carrying out of such a plan. "The librarian," says Miss McCollough, writing on this subject in the Wisconsin Library Bulletin,1 "is the only person in the community whose business in life is to eat books, think books, sleep books and prescribe books all around the clock. The interest of all other individuals, even the best and most faithful of books committees, must necessarily, because of the pressure of modern life, be more or less spasmodic. Then too, the librarian is the only person who is in a position to see the problem as a whole, whose fingers never leave the book pulse of the people. To aid such a librarian, a good book committee, able to supplement and balance her ideas and judgment, is essential. The best team work is usually done when the interests of the members of the book committee are as varied as possible. Too often do we find the hobby of one man running rampant on the shelves ofthe small library." A. W. NOTES AND NEWS OF NEW YORK LIBRARIES Albany. From the eight libraries or branches in the city which are supplying the people of Albany with free library facilities, there were circulated last year 333,097 volumes. About one-third of this total was supplied by the central branch of the Young Men's Association Library, which reports a circulation of 104,052. 1 Wis. Lib. Bul. 7:1. From the Pruyn Library were issued 81,757 volumes; from the Albany Free, South Pearl Street branch 42,411, Pine Hills branch 38,371; from the Union Free 32,511; from the Y. M. C. A. 20,567; from the High School Library 6600 and from the R. R. Y. M. C. A. of West Albany 6768. The total stock of books in these libraries |