Part 16

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

A_x_ plus B_y_ plus C_z_ plus D_u_ ... 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

Is there still a place for the delivery station in the scheme of distribution adopted by libraries, large or small? This question is pertinent not so much because the use of the delivery station is being discontinued, but because of a general feeling that any system of book distribution that does not admit of seeing and handling the books is inferior to a system in which this is possible.

It will thus be noted that the question of the delivery station pure and simple, as opposed to the deposit station and the branch--a question once hotly debated--is at bottom simply that of the closed shelf versus the open shelf. The branch has won out as against the delivery station, and the open as against the closed shelf. It will also be noted, however, that none but small libraries find it good policy to place all their books on open shelves. There is and always will be a use for the closed shelf in its place, and the larger the library the more obvious does that place become.

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: