Part 6

But even this is not all. It is a maxim of this strenuous age that all things are good or bad according to the results to which they lead, not in the narrow sense that “the end justifies the means,” but in the broader sense that we must know things by their fruits. The man who said “I go, sir,” and went not, was judged by his acts, not by his words; and no matter how much knowledge we store up and how many tables of data we collect we shall be derelict in our duty if we regard this as an end in itself. The state of mind in which the Mahatma spends his life in impassivity, contemplating inward things and making no outward motion, may have certain advantages, but it is not consonant with the spirit of this age and this land. By which I mean that when we have found out something from our statistics we must do something with it. More; we must so direct our statistical investigations that they bear directly on a possible course of action. This is done by the great manufacturing concerns that maintain statistical departments; but we all use statistics in this way. If a boy wants to go to the circus he first looks through his pockets to see whether he has enough cash. Here is the germ of a statistical investigation conducted for the specific purpose of getting information on which future action is to be based. Here sometimes, where the opportunity of collecting statistics is very great, and expense is no object, is a good excuse for gathering a great deal that would seem to be useless, with the expectation that some of it may turn out to be interesting and may suggest some line of work that had not previously been thought of. To go as far as this, the institution must be large and rich.

But how many of us do anything with our statistics? How many collect statistics along special lines to assist in deciding what we shall do along those lines? How many of us, rather, consider that, when our statistics have been collected a disagreeable task has been done, and put them behind us till the year rolls round again?

Perhaps we have had enough now of the philosophy of statistics. Let us see what concrete kinds of statistics are necessary and in what order of importance.

First comes an itemized account of receipts and expenditures. This is so obvious that it is not generally considered as library statistics at all. But it may and should be extended a little. Look at all your other tables of statistics through financial spectacles. Compare your receipts with your population. How much does your town give per capita for library work? Compare this figure with the same for other towns. Compare your expenditures with your circulation. How much has your library cost you per book circulated? Compare your expenditure for books with the number purchased and tell us the average cost of a book and how this compares with the cost in former years. Do this for a half-dozen other phases of your work and put the result in as many brief, crisp sentences. If you haven’t room in your report, cut out some of the platitudes; we all insert them in moments of weakness and, once in, it sometimes requires an earnest search to detect and expunge them.

Next in importance comes an account of your books--how many there are in the library, on what subjects, and how many have been added during the year in each subject; how many gifts you have had; how many books have been lost. This involves taking a careful inventory at least once a year. You see I am putting this before any account of circulation. A good many libraries take no inventory or take it at too infrequent intervals, because they have no time. You might as well say you have no time to keep a cash account. This is business and comes first. Leave off counting your circulation if you must, but keep count of the public property in your care as conscientiously as you keep count of the money in your cash drawer. If you can do nothing else make a simple enumeration of volumes without taking account of classes, but do it thoroughly. The trouble with the inventory is that, like the old-fashioned housecleaning, it is usually done all at once and becomes an annual bugbear. One way of making it easier is to spread it over the year, counting and reporting one class every month and treating it as a part of the regular routine. In this category of statistical records comes the list of your books, which you must surely have in some form, even though you may not have accession book, shelf list and dictionary catalog. For statistical purposes indeed, the last-named may be left out of account.

Next in order of importance come statistics of circulation. You should know how many books are given out for home use every day and how these are distributed among the classes. Do not adhere too strictly to your classification. Subdivide and combine your classes so that the results will be of interest to your particular public. Always remember in discussing these statistics that they are not so much a record of work done as a rough proportional indication of that work, and are therefore of relative, not of absolute interest. You are not to attach any meaning to the fact, taken by itself, that your circulation was 5280 for the month of May, but if you find that it was only 3120 in the previous May you may justly conclude that the work of your library is increasing.

In the circulation category comes the record of the hall or library use of books, the reference use, and the books outstanding at any particular time. Hall use is very difficult to keep in a free access library, but an attempt should be made to do so. It is not quite synonymous with reference use. If a man sits down in your library and actually reads a novel without taking it home, that is hall or library use, but not reference use. If he merely refers to the same book to find out about some character, that is reference use. It is evidently hard to separate these and many libraries do not attempt to do so. In others, where there is a separate reference room, any use of books in this room is recorded as “reference use.” The number of books outstanding should be taken at least once a month, simply by counting the cards in the circulation tray. This item is very easy to ascertain, very accurate, and is interesting and useful in more than one way.

Last in the list of the necessary items of statistics comes that of readers or users of the library--the most interesting in some ways, and the most disappointingly vague. Presumably your users fill out some kind of blank form of application and have their names entered in a book. It is therefore easy to give, as is usually done, the total registration and its annual increase. But this is evidently not the number of actual users of the library. Who are the “actual users”? The expression itself is vague. To be complete you should have the numbers of those who have used the library within one, two, and three days, and so on back indefinitely. There is no place where the line may be drawn between “live” and “dead” cards. But such statistics are too elaborate to collect regularly, so that the ordinary library leaves this subject in its pristine mistiness. There are some pretty variations of it, however, which may be gone into if there is time. For instance, how are your users divided, according to occupation? This you can ascertain from your applications provided the applicant is required to state his occupation. Here again the result is for registered users, not actual users. Again, how are your users distributed topographically? The result of this inquiry may be shown graphically on a map, and it is particularly valuable when one is thinking of moving or of establishing a branch; but it takes more time than is at the disposal of most librarians.

Here, I believe, ends the enumeration of necessary kinds of statistics. In each kind the collection may be reduced to a minimum; but the librarian must, if the library is to be maintained at all, keep a cash account, count the books, and make some kind of a list of them. Also, if at all possible she or he must be able to tell how many books are circulated and how many users’ names are on the books. This is the minimum; the maximum is fixed only by considerations of time and usefulness. First among the kinds of statistics that are not absolutely necessary, but interesting and often useful, is that of routine work done--letters written, visits made, cards written. This may easily be carried to excess. Then there is the enormous class in which the data are obtained not directly, but by comparison of other data. To this class belong the financial comparisons already noted. For instance, by comparing the circulation of separate classes with the total we get class percentages--a very useful type of statistics; by comparing circulation with books on shelves we get the average circulation of each book, etc. There is no end to the varieties of this class of statistics, and they may be rated all the way from “very valuable” to “useless” or even “nonsensical”. The whole class would require a separate paper to discuss.

Let all these statistics tell the truth. Let them be clear. Tell exactly what they mean. Otherwise they will certainly mislead and are worse than useless. It is well to accompany every table with an explanatory note telling exactly how the data were obtained and whether they are of a high or a low degree of accuracy. In case you do not know, for instance, whether the word “juvenile” as generally used means the entire circulation among children, or the circulation in the children’s room, or is merely short for “juvenile fiction,” decide what it shall mean in your case and then state distinctly what it means. Read over other library reports critically and when you find any statistics that are vague, see to it that that particular kind of vagueness does not occur in your own tables.

And after it is all over, ask yourself, Now what shall I do with all this? In this paper only a few suggestions can be made. Take first, the financial data. If you find that your town is giving less per capita or less per book circulated than the average, let it be your business to make it give more. There is a task that will fill up your spare moments. If you are paying for books more per book than other libraries, try to buy more cheaply. If your inventory shows a great loss of books by theft, try to reduce it next year by greater vigilance. If your circulation is decreasing ask the reason why. Get at it if you can and remedy it if possible. If your circulation shows a sudden increase in a particular class, investigate that and meet it, if proper, by increased purchases in that class. If a class that should circulate well has fallen, try to find out why. Is your collection in this class small and poor? Make it richer and larger. Has interest in the subject fallen off? Try to stimulate it.

In short, instead of regarding your work in connection with statistics as done when they have been collected, think that it has not yet begun. So far as your own work is concerned, let them serve only as an indication of the weak spots that must be strengthened and of the promising growths that must be encouraged. There are statistics and statistics. Some are dead; some are alive--vitalised and vitalizing. Not all of the library’s work can be stated in figures. The largest part, the best part, you cannot put into statistical tables at all. Yet rightly used, your statistics may so guide and direct you along the lines of least resistance, even in this broader and finer work, that your energies may be put forth in it to the best effect--that you may aim right and that your shots may not go astray.

OLD PROBABILITIES IN THE LIBRARY--HIS MODEST VATICINATIONS[6]

“Don’t never prophsey onles ye know,” says Hosea Bigelow. I beg to call attention to the fact that this means “Don’t prophesy at all”--perhaps it was so meant by the shrewd Hosea. We never can know--and yet we continue to prophesy. The best we can do, of course, is to estimate probabilities. Probabilities! That is a good word. They have dropped it from the weather reports and call their estimate a “forecast.” I like the old word better. Let us see, then, what some of the probabilities are in library work.

“Everything flows,” said the Greek philosopher. Nothing in the world is stable; change is the order of the day. But note the word he uses. That which flows is in a state of orderly change in a definite direction. Everything progresses; and the library and its work are being borne along in the general current. Now the writers on hydro-dynamics, who are experts on blow, tell us that there are two ways of studying a current, which they name the “historical” and the “statistical”: In the former the attention is fixed on a definite particle of the moving fluid whose change of velocity and direction is noted as it passes along; in the latter a definite locality of the stream is selected and the fluid’s changes of form and density at that particular place are observed. In like manner we may study the library movement historically or we can select a definite point in its course--the present time--and note the conditions and their alteration. The latter plan, I venture to think, is the more favorable one for the would-be prophet.

Let us, then, take a few of the salient features of library work as they exist to-day and inquire: (1) What is the present situation with regard to each; (2) Is that situation changing; and whither and how fast; (3) Is its rate of change altering, and (4) are the conditions that affect it and its alteration, likely to remain as they are. If we can answer all these questions we can at least make an attempt at estimating the probable situation at a given future time. We must bear in mind, however, that in the library world, as elsewhere, there are sudden or abrupt changes, or catastrophes, and that these generally defy prediction. And this is equally true of unexpected aids or beneficient influences. The library benefactions of Mr. Carnegie would have upset the most careful and logical estimate of library progress made twenty years ago.

First let us take up the status of our stock in trade--our supply of books. President Eliot warned us two years ago that our books are piling up too fast. His warning has met with scant heed because experience has not brought it home to most of us. Malthus warned us long ago that the progress of population was toward overcrowding the world. We laugh at him because there is still plenty of room and means of utilizing it unknown in his time. Yet population increases, and it will overcrowd the world some day unless something occurs to prevent. In like manner our stock of books increases faster and faster. The ordinary American public library is a thing of yesterday; small wonder that it does not yet begin to feel plethoric. Our oldest large libraries are those of our universities, and Harvard’s president has told us that to them the evil day is within sight. Librarians have not received with favor President Eliot’s plea for getting us out of our future difficulty but this is neither here nor there. To judge by our present attitude either our library buildings must increase indefinitely in size or our stock must be weeded out. It must be remembered, however, that our books are perishable, and are growing more so. I do not regard this as an unmixed evil. Rather than to make our books unwieldy for the purpose of preserving them we prefer to make them usable and to rely on reprinting for their perpetuation. Thus what is not wanted will pass away. Perhaps this will solve our problem for us. But in any case it looks as if the future library building and its contents were to be greatly larger than those of to-day.

What are to be the style and arrangement of the future library building? The present situation can hardly be described in general terms. As in all building operations, there is a strife between the architect, representing aesthetics, and the administrator, representing utility. At present the architect seems to be having his way outside and the librarian his way inside. But why this contest? Is it not the architect’s business to make utility more beautiful but not less useful? And should not the administrator wish his surroundings to please the eye? Apparently the two are drawing a little closer together of late. We are having fewer temples of art that have to be made over to fit them for use as libraries and fewer buildings that are workable but offensive to the eye. The tendency seems to be toward simple dignity, although we certainly have some surprising departures from it. Probably the library of the future will be a simple and massive structure of much greater size than at present, with its decorations largely structural, and combining ample open-shelf and reading facilities with greatly increased capacity for book-storage.

There is one particular in which the architect has been specially out of touch with the administrator. The open-shelf is now all but universal, but many architects seem not to have heard of it. Many buildings, actually intended for administration on the free access system, seem yet to have been planned as closed-shelf libraries and opened to the public as an afterthought. A library without a special stack-room for book-storage is an unthinkable thing to most architects. And yet in many small libraries book-storage is not necessary, and in most branch libraries, where only books in general use are to be placed, it will never be necessary. To get the maximum advantage from open shelves, with a minimum of risk, the books should be placed on the walls as far as possible and such book-cases as stand on the floor should be as low as an ordinary table, so as to be easily overseen. A stack-room, it seems to me, is distinctly a closed-shelf arrangement. I believe this is coming to be recognized and that in the future library the books will be on or near the walls.

But how about the open-shelf system itself? At present there are few libraries that do not have it in some form, and some of these are libraries that continued strongly to disapprove of it even after it had become well and widely established. The indications are nearly all that it has come to stay. I say nearly all; for there is still a feeling among many people that it is not good administration to abandon so large a percentage of our books to thieves. In libraries in small communities where the loss is small, this question does not arise; but in New York, for instance, where we lost 5000 books last year, it is serious. We librarians may say and believe that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, but trustees and municipal authorities are hard to convince. In New York we have taken what many will consider a backward step, by partially closing, as an experiment, the shelves of two of our branches. So that although we may safely say that free access has come to stay, I do not look to see it applied very generally to large collections. One thing seems to me clear. Library administration is becoming increasingly business-like, and it is not business-like to accept a large annual loss without an attempt to minimize it. We must at least investigate regularly and rigidly the sources and character of this loss.

As for the other features that we have become accustomed to regard as distinguishing the new library era from the old--special work with children, co-operation with schools, travelling libraries, etc.--it is evident that these, too, have come to stay. Their spheres are widening and their aims are diversifying, however, so that he who should venture to predict their precise status in the future would be rash.

In fact, the library idea itself is beginning to suffer a sort of restless change that is quite distinct from its orderly progress. The activities of the library are at present a good deal like those of the amoeba--stretching out a tentacle here, withdrawing one there; improvising a mouth and then turning it into a stomach; shifting and stretching about; somewhat vague and formless, yet instinct with life, appetite and caution, and vitalized with at least the germ and promise of intelligence. Such a state is an unpromising one for prophecy. Is this or that new development of activity the beginning of an orderly march in a straight line, or is it to be withdrawn or reversed to-morrow? Is our work with children to include much that now seems to belong to the kindergarten, the museum, and the art gallery? Are our travelling library departments to sell books in the future as well as lend them? Are we to deliver books free at our user’s homes? Are our Boards of Education to turn over to us the superintendence of all such work as deals with books and their use? Many questions like these would have been answered in the affirmative yesterday but in the negative to-day. I might be inclined to say “yes” to some of them now, when to-morrow would prove them out of the question. But there is one assertion that we can make boldly. Whatever the library has tried to do or to be, whether success or failure has attended it, it has never ceased to be a library--a keeper and purveyor of books. Whatever else it may undertake, we may be sure that this will continue to be its chief reason for existence, and that its other activities, if such there be, will grow out of this and group themselves around it. Is the library to grow into a bookstore? I do not know, but if so its commercial functions are likely to be subsidiary. Certain libraries have already added to their duties as free institutions the functions of pay-libraries, and the commercial feature has thus been introduced. It seems to be spreading, and it may prove an entering wedge for a system of actual sales to supplement that of paid loans. A powerful deterrent, however, will be the influence of the book-trade. Following the line of least resistance, the activity of the library as an aid to the ownership as well as the reading of books is perhaps more likely to manifest itself in advice than in actual trade. Some libraries are now making special effort to give their readers information about book-prices, and about places and methods of purchase; and it seems likely that this kind of aid, since it can arouse no opposition, will increase.

The position in which we find ourselves, of opposition to those who make and sell books, is unfortunate. The situation has been growing more and more tense and it may continue so to grow, perhaps up to the point where all discount will be withheld from libraries and where new legislation may discourage importation, but I do not believe that it will keep on indefinitely. No one who looks into the matter closely can help believing that in the long run libraries advertise the book-trade and help it by promoting general interest in literature. This view of the matter was taken by a majority of the New York Booksellers’ League at a recent dinner at which the question was discussed. Even purely as a matter of business, the library deserves special privileges and it will doubtless continue in some measure to receive them.

It does not, however, seem probable that the average cost of books to a public library will ever be as low again as it was, say, ten years ago. In fact this may be said of all library expenses. Salaries are rising and ought to rise higher; our buildings are larger and finer and demand more expensive care. We are heating them with more costly apparatus and lighting them with electricity. The library of the future will doubtless cost more to maintain in every item than the library of the past--but the public will receive more than the difference.