Manual of Library Economy Third and Memorial Edition

CHAPTER XXVII

Chapter 286,746 wordsPublic domain

GENERAL REFERENCE LIBRARY METHOD

=407. Character and Scope of the Department.=--The reference library is the communal study, bureau of information, and muniment house, when it is developed to its full possibilities. A definition of reference work turns upon a definition of a reference book to a large extent, and it is not easy to give more than an approximate one. A reference book is one which is consulted to obtain some particular fact or matter from it and not one that is read through as a whole. All works in dictionary, encyclopædic, chronological, periodical and similar forms are of this character. But any book which may be consulted in the way indicated is also legitimately a reference book. Further, all literary and graphic material which may so be consulted, whether in MSS., printed, photographic or other form, is rightly a part of such a library. The encyclopædic work is therefore the basal stock of the department; and standard treatises on every branch of literature, whether in actual reference form or not; the definitive editions of the classics, as for example the Variorum Shakespeare, must be included. Transient or permanent small reference material, such as pamphlets, magazine articles, broadsides, news-clippings, trade catalogues, illustrations, maps, etc., should all find a place in it; in fact, much of the most valued information work is done with the aid of such small material; important facts are frequently found in seemingly insignificant material; and the work of bringing it in relation to other similar material is one of the first-class services of the reference library.

From such a statement of the nature of the stock the purpose of the department may be deduced. Primarily, as its name implies, it is a place where references to books are made; but, although this is primary, it is too limited a statement of the functions of the department. In it continuous reading, research, and prolonged study are all carried on, and if a library does not provide facilities for these it is to that extent inefficient. These considerations give rise to certain necessary arrangements, the first of which is freedom of access to quick-reference material.

In the arrangement of the library building it is essential that the most quiet part of the building which is accessible to the public should be devoted to the reference department. It should be a room which in its design and proportions is dignified, and produces by these things and its furnishing and decorations an atmosphere conducive to mental tranquillity and study. It is impossible to define such an atmosphere, but it exists in all really successful reference libraries, and these may be studied at most of our great cities and towns, as at Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, in the British Museum, and elsewhere. The decorations, for example, if there are any beyond the merely architectural, such as painted ceilings, walls, etc., should indeed be artistic, but are appropriate only when they are restrained, inobtrusive, and do not divert readers from the main purpose of the room or encourage visitors to come merely to stare at them. Some reference libraries, built on ecclesiastical models, have stained-glass windows which are beautiful features, but the same principles apply in this form of decoration.

=408. Furniture.=--The library furniture must depend upon the size, shape and lighting of the room, but the alcove system, as it exists at the Bodleian and similar older libraries, has never been surpassed from the point of view of _study_, although it is possibly not so good as the rotunda of the British Museum, or that of the Library of Congress, and the Picton Reading Room at Liverpool, for merely reference purposes. Again, the alcove system occupies more space than one in which the cases are fixed against the walls and arranged in other parts of the room to secure the maximum of shelf accommodation. As regards tables and seating accommodation the older reference departments in municipal libraries has usually been defective in that they merely allowed seats at long tables, with about twenty-four inches of sitting space and a half of a two- or three-foot table in front, often with provision, equally scant, for a reader to sit opposite. The reference reader requires not only isolation, to a considerable extent, as is provided at the British Museum, but plenty of space in which to spread out his books and papers. Moreover, nothing is more disconcerting and uncomfortable to a reader than the unpleasant proximity of other people, and no student or reader who makes extracts, or has to wrestle with obstinate facts in history, science or philology, can do so if he is environed by others similarly or otherwise engaged, at very close quarters. This is recognized in the British Museum and similar libraries, where each reader has what is virtually a desk to himself so constructed as to secure the maximum of privacy. The provision of small, self-contained separate tables as described in Section 161 is probably the best that can be made. These not only give plenty of space at the top, but also provide a definite amount of space for books, etc., under the tables themselves. For the consultation of elephant folios and similar very large books the special slope outlined in Fig. 33 and described in Section 153 is a reasonable and necessary provision. One or two large flat tables for use in special cases are also to be desired.

=409. Access.=--For successful reference work a certain measure of open access is essential, and is allowed by most libraries which otherwise are arranged on the closed system. The British Museum, Birmingham and other large reference libraries allow readers free choice from a selected assortment of books, numbering from a few to 20,000 or more volumes, of quick-reference character, including atlases, gazetteers, dictionaries, directories, encyclopædias, codes, etc., which answer everyday questions and which are wanted without delay. These, in themselves, form a fairly considerable reference library, and that fact should be recognized when the question of access is under consideration. Other libraries allow freedom of access to nearly the whole collection; but none allows it to the whole. There are in many libraries unique books, records, and other works to which access is wisely limited, in the interest of their preservation as records and from other points of view. These, however, form an infinitesimal part of the stock of average municipal collections. All it is wished to emphasize here is that open access without any formality whatever should be allowed to the obvious quick-reference works of the kind enumerated above. A much-occupied business man who wants an address, the definition of a word, or a cable code is not likely to endure the bother of filling up application forms patiently; and to insist upon it may mean the loss of the patronage of a valuable class of the community. For the general part of the reference library where open access is in vogue admission is usually gained by signing the visitors’ book. Such signing has not definite safeguarding value, but is to some extent a moral check upon would-be defaulters, and is useful as a means of registering the number of readers. The plans given in Chapter VII. give some idea of the disposition of the ordinary reference library, and no one plan can be called the best. All that can be affirmed positively is that ample reading space should be allowed, that good light, natural and artificial, and ventilation, ease of administering the stock, close classification and the fullest cataloguing possible should be aimed at. The commonest error, as we have hinted, is crowding and insufficiency of seating accommodation. A well-administered reference library creates its own reading public, and accommodation which may be ample at the opening of the library often proves in a few years to be inadequate.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | CAREVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY. | | | | REFERENCE DEPARTMENT. | | | | No Book must on any account be removed from this room, or | | transferred to other readers. | | | +----------+-----------------------------+-----------------------+ | Book No. | Author and Title of Book. | Initial of Assistant. | +----------+-----------------------------+-----------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +----------+-----------------------------+-----------------------+ | | | Name of Applicant............................................. | | | | Address....................................................... | | | | Date................................... | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------+

FIG. 154.--Reference Library Application Form (Section 409).

Where access to shelves is not allowed, and application forms are used, it is customary to supply blanks similar to that shown in Fig. 154, on which particulars of the book wanted are entered. In some libraries these slips are placed on the shelves in the place of the books issued, and remain there till the books are replaced. To ascertain that no books are missing an assistant examines the shelves every morning, and notes any slips still remaining which represent books issued on the previous day. To facilitate this operation a differently coloured slip may be used on alternate days--white to-day, blue to-morrow--so that on a white day the presence of a blue slip will instantly draw attention to a misplacement or a missing book. In other libraries the slips are filed near the point of issue, and remain there as a check against the shelves and the readers until the books are returned. Some libraries return the slips to the borrowers as a receipt, and compile their statistics from the books; others retain the slips and make up their statistics from them. Some libraries also insert an issue label in the inside front of each book, which is stamped every time the book is issued, and thus a record is made of a book’s popularity or otherwise, which should prove useful when discarding has to be considered. Application forms, or for that matter signatures in visitors’ books, are no protection against thefts of books. Readers have simply to give a false name and address, and walk off with any book they please, if they intend theft.

=410.= It is the common practice in open access reference libraries to have notices displayed of this nature:

Or, they may be required to return them to the assistant; in any case it is better for readers not to return them to the shelves personally. Either of the methods recommended enables the staff to make records of the use of books. The consultations can be entered up in a rough-ruled and classified book kept for the purpose, and the staff can replace the books at once. It will be recognized that complete statistics are practically impossible in open access departments, because only books so left on the tables or taken to the tables can be counted; but much valuable work is done by readers in the shape of rapid consultations at the shelves with immediate replacing of the volumes consulted.

Whatever may be his general method, the wise librarian will never limit a reader to one or any number of books at a time. Sometimes a dozen--we have known fifty--books are required to settle a comparatively small point. They are forthcoming in a good reference library. Students of recognized regularity may even be released from overmuch form-filling; fifty forms for the fifty books we have named would be an interminable demand.

=411. The Stock.=--The building-up of a reference stock demands the highest skill and prevision in the librarian. The purpose which it is intended to serve must be clearly before his eyes, and this may, and does, differ with differing places. A library in a distinctly commercial and industrial area faces needs obviously different from one in a purely residential area. But in all libraries every kind of dictionary and encyclopædia, general and special, philological, technical, scientific and historical, is a prime requisite. On these the stock will be balanced with a view to procuring the best and latest statement of knowledge in every field. This end the too-often neglected bibliographical collection subserves. Every general and special bibliography from the British Museum catalogue to the small select catalogues issued by local libraries, every index, every special catalogue, indeed every catalogue within reason of other libraries which a librarian can procure, is a necessary tool in building up the collection and in tracking information when it is complete. There have been many select bibliographies, but there is still room for many more. The average bibliography of a subject is not selected; it aims at completeness, and seems to assume that its users are people who want to spend a lifetime on the subject. There are such, no doubt, but to the average reader it presents a formidable if not paralysing array of entries. What is needed, both from experts and from libraries, is a series of very brief lists which contain only the best books given in order of their value, comprehensiveness, historical character, and so on. Knowledge of bibliographies and the methods of using them is the chief part of the equipment of the reference librarian.

In this work there are two ideals, as was shown when the general question of book selection was under consideration: one the museum ideal, in which every kind of book of every age is collected; the other which limits the stock to books of proved or probable utility to the population served. The former is the business of the national libraries and those of the great centres of population, such as Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, etc., and to a certain extent those which are at great distance from such large centres; and special libraries within their own fields should be exhaustive. But this ideal is not for other libraries, except in so far as it applies to the local collection; that should contain everything of whatever value. Otherwise the live book is what is wanted. The ordinary reference library should therefore be revised periodically, obsolete and dead stock should be discarded, and no book should be included because it does not appeal to lending library readers or has been received as a gift for which there seems to be no other depository--these are emphatically books to be excluded. With these general provisions a brief survey of the principal requirements of the stock may have its uses.

I. Quick-reference works of every type.

II. Bibliographies, general and select, and catalogues of every type.

III. The best editions of the classic authors in every language.

IV. The most comprehensive compendiums and treatises on every subject.

V. All material on the predominating local industry.

VI. All books, pamphlets, and all other literary, pictorial and graphic matter relating to the locality. This will be dealt with more fully in considering the Local Collection.

VII. Permanent files of at least _The Times_, and all local newspapers; and temporary files of other newspapers most in demand.

VIII. Sets of periodicals, as indexed in the Library Association _Index of Periodicals_. This is a rather large business, and should be attempted only by libraries that can afford the cost. Others should elect to keep only those of such character as to add permanently to the book-strength of the library, and to use the Periodicals Loan Library, which is worked in conjunction with the _Index of Periodicals_, for other periodical material. All periodical indexes, whether general, as Poole’s, _The Review of Reviews_, _The Athenæum_, and The Wilson Company’s, or particular, as _The Times_, the indexes to _The Quarterly_, _The Edinburgh_, etc. The value of these in large libraries is obvious; it is not always so clearly recognized that they have even a greater value for smaller libraries as clues to accessible material which may not be in their stocks. In any case the Library Association index should be taken.

IX. The publications of the major learned and scientific societies, as the Royal Society, the Royal Geographical, the Historical and similar societies. These present knowledge well in advance of that contained in books as a rule.

X. Clippings from newspapers and periodicals which have definite facts, in addition to those contained in books, and on current happenings of moment, matters of “useful” character (the day to day changes in rationing rules, etc., during the war are a case in point) and similar material having an immediate, and real, if transient value.

XI. Government publications, which in most libraries may be selected after a brief interval. Many of the reports of commissions, surveys, etc., have a high permanent value.

This conspectus is not necessarily complete, nor is all the material named of equal value or equally in demand; but every librarian should review these headings in relation to his reference department. To place rigid limits upon the stock is absurd, seeing that utility and not mathematical or other precision is the object of the work. If, therefore, a librarian finds some other special field of material is demanded he should add it without hesitation if he is convinced that the demand is not frivolous or very restricted. For example, to add an expensive and recondite (say) archæological treatise in Modern Greek at the behest of one reader is a case in which his decision might wisely be for refusal.

=412. Classification.=--In its classification the reference library presents more physical problems than the lending library. The most minute classification is the best undoubtedly, and this should be used; but the size problem is a real one. While the greater number of reference books are of octavo size, quartos, folios, and even larger books are many. They cannot stand together in class sequence without an impossible loss of space. The simplest method is to have three sequences, for octavos, quartos and folios respectively, in appropriately sized shelves, in three different parts of the room. But this means various journeys across the room when all the books on a subject are required. The distance is abbreviated if the octavos, quartos and folios follow one another in each class. A third method which has proved most successful is to divide every tier (which is presumed to have adjustable shelves) into three parts and to run three parallel sequences in each, the octavos occupying the top part, the quartos the middle, and the folios the bottom. The parallel can be only approximate, but it is sufficiently close for the reader or the staff to review any subject completely and readily. With any of these methods broken order may be resorted to if it is thought well. The arranging of all quick-reference books in a separate complete sequence nearest the entrance or the place of service is a case in point; and special separate classifications may well be given to periodicals, to local literature, to the predominating industry, and so on without limit. Again, convenience is the supreme law.

=413. Cataloguing.=--The catalogue of the department should aim at the maximum of fulness and be in as many forms as are necessary to bring out the entire resources of the department; there should be no retrenchment of time or labour in producing the best here, as a small collection of books adequately catalogued will give greater service than a larger one catalogued poorly. It is not an unfair paradox to say that the smaller (within reason) a reference library is the more detailed should be its catalogue. This being so, whatever kind of catalogue may publish the basal stock, the general current needs of the library can be kept supplied only by a card or slip catalogue of unlimited expansibility. The reference catalogue, even for books already in stock, can rarely be complete, and any fixed form of printed catalogue, unless it is supplemented by a MS. catalogue, will soon fail signally as a guide to the collection. As to the cataloguing form, experience proves that a mere author catalogue has a very limited value in reference work. It should be provided in some form, of course, but for one reader who inquires for a book by its author, a score require something about subjects, usually specific subjects such as the Horse, Verdun, Violin strings, Election Law, Tithes, Date of a Battle, Arms of Sussex, Birthplace of Douglas Haig, Words of a Poem, etc. There must therefore be some form of subject catalogue, and there is much virtue in the fully classified card or sheaf catalogue, with author and subject indexes. These, if carried out efficiently and minutely, will do the work that is required. By fulness of entry we mean that titles should be abbreviated as little as is possible within common-sense limits; that all bibliographical particulars, number of volumes, size, pagination, date, illustrations, maps, diagrams, glossaries, indexes, bibliographies and date and places of publication (except when London) should be indicated. Moreover, annotations of obscure books, and indicating sequences, commentaries, missing parts, and so on, are of special value here. Added entries may, and should, be carried as far as the cataloguing resources of the library allow, all books of composite character, miscellaneous works, transactions, many periodicals, etc., being analysed and displayed in the catalogue under their class headings. It is also most useful to collect in the catalogue references to bibliographies of all kinds contained in works which are in the lending library. For examples, the Home University Library and the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature are not books to be found in the average reference library, but they contain excellent little select bibliographies which the reference librarian will find useful, and an entry of each of these should be made. Every item which goes into the library should be catalogued, pamphlets and excerpts from other works, however small, included, if it is intended to preserve them, as well as maps. Photographs and prints probably need a separate catalogue, as certain considerations, dealt with later on, enter into their cataloguing, but in a card catalogue provision can be made for nearly every kind of material. Temporary material may be entered on a coloured card, which permits of rapid revision of the entries.

=414. Pamphlets.=--Pamphlets and magazine excerpts form a large part of every reference library and are often difficult to deal with effectively. When not bound in volumes, they may be stitched in manila wrappers, and stored in boxes of various sizes, such as 8vo, 4to, etc., of the kind specified in Section 306. Each pamphlet should be lettered on the side of its wrapper, with its author, title, date, class letter and number and accession number. The collection might be commenced with an 8vo box for each class, and gradually extended from this nucleus as the stock increased, the contents of boxes being divided and subdivided, and placed in new boxes with changed lettering. As these would be arranged in class order, there would be no more difficulty in finding a single pamphlet than in finding a book. With miscellaneous collections of pamphlets bound in volumes, the best plan is to renumber them in a progressive series, and carry the volume number against the catalogue or other entry. It is not advisable to run more than one series of numbers, and if by chance a collection is acquired which is already numbered, these should be covered over with the continuation numbers of the library’s own progressive series. On the whole it is better not to bind pamphlets, partly owing to their miscellaneous nature, which prevents any real classification or even approximate subject order in the volumes composed of them, partly because of their very temporary value as a rule and because of the impossibility of inserting new ones into bound volumes. A student or discoverer frequently advances his first conclusions in a pamphlet, and sooner or later these are superseded by books, and many pamphlets are merely statements of views upon political and other questions of much immediate but usually quite passing interest. In the average library they become dead stock in a few months or years. Pamphlet collections should be weeded out more frequently than book collections.

=415.= The vertical file is the most adequate method of dealing with cuttings, broadsides and similar separate matter. If the folders are closely classified, the ordinary printed index to the classification scheme used is a fairly good key; but a slip index of some kind will exhaust the file better and accelerate reference. If a brief index entry is made before the cutting is dropped into its folder, in some such form as follows, the work will not be unduly burdensome:

FIG. 158.--Clippings-index Slip (Section 415).

=416. Accessories.=--Every means of comfort and every reasonable aid to study should be given to readers. We have dealt with reading tables. The chairs deserve almost equal consideration. They should be comfortable; an arm-chair is better than other forms. The view at one time expressed that seats without backs in some way induced to mental alertness was that of some stupid theorist; as a matter of fact ease of body is essential to elasticity of mind. Chairs should have rubber tips or silent castors to prevent the nerve-racking scritching which moving chairs too frequently make, but when metal castors are used they should not be of the slippery variety that slides readers unexpectedly on to the floor. Reading stands with clips for holding books open should be on every table, or provided in sufficient numbers to meet all probable needs. At certain tables the use of ink should be permitted, and blotting pads, ink, pens, etc., should be provided. Tracing may be permitted from most illustrated books, prints, etc., but as a protection a sheet of xylonite should be available and the reader be required to interpose it between the copy and his tracing paper. Sheets in several sizes should be kept for use with books of different sizes. Rulers, [T] squares, a map measurer, a reading glass, compasses, etc., may all reasonably form part of the equipment and be lent on request. Scrap paper for notes, both at the catalogues and at the tables, is another reasonable provision, as is a small stock of foolscap which readers may purchase at cost price. Some libraries have the rule that letters must not be written in the room, and it has its uses, as cases are not unknown where nomadic business men, election agents, etc., have monopolized tables for hours or days for the distinctly non-literary and non-library purpose of addressing circulars; but the writing of occasional correspondence, if it does not exclude other readers from the writing tables, may safely be winked at. Other libraries do not allow the reading of other books than those from the shelves in the department, but the absurdity of such a rule, if carried to its logical conclusion, is patent. It may not be superfluous to add that every reference library should be equipped with a stand for hats, coats and umbrellas, but readers may be warned by notice that the library does not accept responsibility for their safety.

All the forces of the library stock in all departments should be at the disposal of the reference reader; thus any book in the lending libraries, except perhaps current novels of the popular kind, which may be on the shelves, should be allowed to be requisitioned, as also should any newspaper, periodical or other material in files which may not form part of the department. A good plan in open access libraries is to give the reference reader a pass admitting him to consult the lending library catalogues or shelves, but after he has selected books from them to have them brought from the lending library by the staff. Such uses of lending library books should count as reference consultations.

=417. The Lending of Reference Books.=--Whether or not reference library books should ever be lent away from the building is a question upon which librarians are sharply divided. It is argued that a reference library is a place where a reader has a right to expect every book in stock to be available at all times, and this is a reasonable theory. That reader, however, is a hypothetical person as a rule, and too rigid a policy of refusal has some disadvantages. Experience tells every librarian what books ought not to be lent in ordinary circumstances, if in any; and these are quick-reference books of all kinds, and any book the loss of or damage to which would be irreparable. Occasionally, however, a real student really requires the home use of a reference book which is not in everyday demand, and the library would suffer little and might gain much by lending it. If the ordinary loan periods are thought to be inadmissible, much can be said for lending over week-ends or at hours when the library is inaccessible to readers. It is a question which every librarian must settle for himself. In one successful reference library which lends, when a reasonable cause is shown, every book not excluded by the exceptions just named, and has done so for twenty years without the least inconvenience, a form of application, which is also a charging form, is used. This is a card 6 inches × 5 inches, which folds in the middle and files as a standard-sized catalogue card (3 inches × 5 inches):

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | _Purpose wanted for_ ............................................ | | _Why Book cannot be studied in Library_ ......................... | | | | (Do not write below this line.) (See inside.) | | | | Allowed to be returned within ............ days. | | (_Signed_) .................... _Chief Librarian._ | | | | If application is not signed request is disallowed, in which case | | explanation is enclosed. | | | +----------------------------(_Fold._)------------------------------+ | | | _Date_ .............. | | | | APPLICATION FOR BORROWING A REFERENCE BOOK FOR HOME | | READING. [See Special Notice inside before filling up.] | | | | _Name_ ......................................................... | | _Address_ ...................................................... | | _Occupation_ ................................................... | | _Book Required: Author_ ........................................ | | _Title (brief)_ ........................................ | | _Class No._ ..................... _Time required_ ...... | | (Do not write below this line.) (See over.) | | _Issued_ ........... _by_ ......... _Rtd._ ....... _by_ ......... | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+

FIG. 159.--Application for Loan of Reference Book (Section 417).

One side of it is worded as shown above, and the other side, to which the attention of the applicant is specially directed, is worded as follows:

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | SPECIAL NOTICE. | | | | As every book removed from the Reference shelves may mean incon- | | venience and disappointment to some other reader, _a reasonable | | case must be made out for permitting it to be taken away_. Such | | a vague indication as “reading” is not sufficient. Quick- | | reference books, such as encyclopædias and dictionaries, very | | expensive or rare books, and books in constant demand, will not | | be issued under this regulation. | | | | The applicant must be a resident in the Borough, and if not of | | some standing or sufficiently known to the Librarian or his | | Staff, should be prepared with some recommendation from a clergy- | | man, head teacher, or other person of standing in the Borough. | | Should the application be granted, _failure to return the book | | within the time allowed_ may entail the refusal of all further | | applications. | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+

FIG. 160.--Application for Loan of Reference Book (back) (Section 417).

When the applicant is unknown to the staff and the conditions required in the last paragraph on the form are not fulfilled, a separate slip is handed to the applicant, which reads as follows:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | _Re_ APPLICATION FOR BORROWING A REFERENCE BOOK FOR HOME READING. | | | | The Librarian regrets that he is unable to accede to the | | accompanying request without a signed recommendation from a | | clergyman, head teacher, or other person of standing in the | | Borough. | | | | Every facility, however, will be accorded for consulting the book | | in the building. The Reference Library is open each week day from | | 9.30 A.M. to 9 P.M. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

FIG. 161.--Refusal Form: Loan of Reference Book (Section 417).

When the book is unsuitable for lending purposes another slip is used:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | _Re_ APPLICATION FOR BORROWING A REFERENCE BOOK FOR HOME READING. | | | | The Librarian regrets that he is unable to accede to the | | accompanying request, as the book applied for-- | | | | a quick-reference book; | | very expensive; | | is rare; | | in constant demand. | | | | Every facility will be accorded for consulting the book in the | | building. The Reference Library is open each week day from 9.30 | | A.M. to 9 P.M. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

FIG. 162.--Form showing Reason for Refusal (Section 417).

The application forms, when completed and allowed, are filed alphabetically under the name of the borrower. There are so few of them (probably a dozen weekly) that any other form of charging has been found to be unnecessary. The assistant concerned in the work examines the file weekly, and books overdue are written for immediately. Borrowers guilty of retaining reference books beyond the allowed time are denied the privilege of borrowing thereafter.

=418. Staff.=--It is fair to say that there are too few reference librarians in this country; that is to say, persons who, in addition to ordinary scholarship and library technique, have trained specially in bibliography, the drawing out of readers and information-hunting. Perhaps as a result of the library schools now in course of organization a race of such useful librarians will arise. The staffing of the reference library is perhaps the greatest difficulty a librarian has to overcome. In the larger libraries the department is in the control of experts, or at any rate of the most efficient workers on the staff, but in smaller towns it falls to the keeping of an assistant, often a different person every day or even shift, who can be spared from the general staff; indeed, in some libraries reference work is so small that this is all that can be afforded. In such circumstances the best work is out of the question. The reference reader demands skilled attention. Libraries catering for a learned or special clientele have their own special problems; but the ordinary civic library has, in addition to numbers of such clients, the average man and woman to deal with who are not only unskilled in the use of books, but have also some difficulty in making known their actual needs. It is obviously beyond the power of a boy or girl assistant to draw out of these readers the exact nature of their difficulties; that is a task requiring address, sympathy and tact, which experience alone gives. In small libraries the librarian himself may consider it a privilege to work at busy times in this department; it will be well worth his while. The qualifications a reference librarian should aim to possess are a complete library technique, an intimate knowledge of the sources of information and of his stock, and a certain missionary spirit which loves knowledge for its own sake. In addition he must have sympathy with all classes of inquirers and be able to suffer fools gladly. On the technical side he will find in certain little books a good elementary grounding; among them is Hopkins’s _Reference Guides_, Kroeger’s _Guide to Reference Books_, and so on. All juniors in a reference department should go through a course based upon these, and courses in practical book-selection and bibliography. No question should be regarded as trivial; it is no part of the librarian’s duty to assess the value of any information asked; and patience even beyond what may seem reasonable limits is an everyday requirement. For example, the question once asked, “On which side of Cromwell’s nose was there a wart?” seemed frivolous enough, and it involved the consulting of dozens of books; but it proved to be wanted for the identification of what is believed to be a unique death mask.

=419. Records.=--All information the sources of which were not obvious should be recorded on cards, together with the sources from which it was given, in order that similar search may not be necessary when it is required again. Carbon copies of all special lists of books compiled should be filed for future use. Failures of the library are most important as showing deficiencies in the collection, and questions which could not be answered should always be recorded. When a reference library cannot supply information from its own resources, it should endeavour to find what neighbouring library can supply it, and either direct the inquirer there, or, better, borrow the book required. Mutual co-operation of this kind between libraries is easy to arrange, and few librarians do not recognize its value. It should always be borne in mind that to turn a reader away empty is a loss of prestige to the library, while a reader well served and satisfied is a potential friend and probable patron afterwards.

=420. Special Library Collections.=--In the average town it should be the endeavour to concentrate all the special libraries of institutions and societies in the reference library. It is obviously an uneconomy for special collections to be locked up for the greater part of the week in the private rooms of institutions and societies when they may be made available all day and every day to the members of these societies and to the general public in the municipal reference library. These bodies may often be induced to deposit their collection if some simple arrangement is made by which books may be lent as required to their members and may be available to everybody for reference purpose when not so lent out. By this means a useful reinforcement of the stock is made at the expense of shelf-room and administration only. It is usual to catalogue such collections exactly as other parts of the stock, but to add some individualizing symbol to the class-mark to show its ownership.

=421. Information Bureaux.=--Among the many possibilities of the department we shall confine ourselves in this chapter to its use as an information bureau, leaving such important considerations as the Local Collection, and its auxiliaries Regional and Photographic Surveys, and Commercial Libraries for treatment in separate chapters. The information desk or bureau is the name given to the department of the work which lays itself out to answer inquiries for business and other people. It is primarily quick-reference work and is done in proximity to the quick-reference collection. But it goes further in the direction of supplying such current information as the present population of the town, its rates, etc., the addresses of burgesses, the latest Derby winner, the cable code used by this or that firm, the plays available at the theatres, the social or other events of this, next or last week, and indeed any useful or convenient information whatsoever. Much of the material needed is in the quick-reference collection, much must be clipped from the newspapers, and some--as, for example, the programmes of local societies--must be sought for at first-hand. It may be objected that this information may, to an extent, be found in newspapers by the inquirers themselves. Admitted; but they have not always the required newspaper at hand, and the information bureau is always there. Briefly indexed vertical files, within hand-reach of a public telephone, are the means of working such bureaux. The telephone is essential to real success, and inquiries by telephone should be invited. Where there are commercial libraries in connexion with the library system, much of this work may be done in them, but there is, as the examples given above show, a large amount of work that can be done outside their field; and a ready and efficient information bureau is a real asset to any town.

=422. Indexes of Readers.=--Another useful work that in large libraries may properly be relegated to the cataloguing department may be conducted in smaller ones by the reference staff. This is the supplying of firms and individuals with lists of books of use in connexion with their industry or study. Some libraries supply such people with a small card catalogue of the whole of their subject as it is represented in the libraries, and send cards regularly for entries of additions. Other forms of catalogues can be used, of course, for this purpose. In conjunction therewith, and as a useful adjunct to other work, it is a good plan to make card entries of the special subjects affected by individual readers under the names of the subjects, and to advise the readers by post-cards of all additions made in those subjects.

=423.= BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bodleian Library. Manual for Readers and Visitors, 1912.

Dana, J. C. Library Primer, chapters xii.-xiii.

Hopkins, F. M. Reference Guides that should be Known, 1916.

John Rylands Library: A Historical Description of the Library and its Contents, 1906.

Kaiser, J. B. Law, Legislative and Municipal Reference Libraries, 1914.

Koch, T. W. Library Assistant’s Manual, 1913.

Kroeger, A. B. Guide to the Study and Use of Reference Books. Ed. by I. G. Mudge, 1917.

Library of Congress. Manual. _In_ Report of the Librarian, 1901.

Lowe, J. A. Books and Libraries: A Manual of Instruction in their Use, 1916.

Marcel, Henry, and Others. La Bibliothèque Nationale, 1907.

New York State Library. Material for a Course in Reference Study, 1903.

Peddie, R. A. The British Museum Reading Room, 1912.

Rawlings, G. B. The British Museum Library, 1916.

Richardson, E. C. Reference Department. A.L.A. Man. of Lib. Econ.,