Manual of Library Economy Third and Memorial Edition

CHAPTER XXVIII

Chapter 305,388 wordsPublic domain

LOCAL COLLECTIONS

=424. General.=--Of the departments of reference, other than the general working department, prior consideration may be given to the Local Collection on the ground that every municipal public library must have a collection of this kind. At any rate it should have as complete a collection as possible of material relating to its town. County collections are a much more serious matter and should only be attempted by towns of county rank, or the town in each county where the majority of the population is. There is hardly a county in England which can support two county collections, because rival collections are mutually inimical, and their competition for certain items causes the price of the latter to increase absurdly. The town is another matter. The one place where copies of books, pamphlets, photographs, etc., relating to a town ought to be found is its public library; and there are several principles, warnings and suggestions that may be enunciated in connexion with the work. The relative value of the material to be collected is hardly a matter for the librarian; often most despised material has great value when brought into relation to other material. The best general principle is: “Get everything and leave its evaluation to posterity.”

=425. Material collected.=--Primarily the words local collection are co-extensive with local bibliography. This last term, however, is too narrow, and the broad headings embraced by the collection may be set out, and then considered in detail. These are:

(_a_) Printed records. (_b_) Written records. (_c_) Pictorial records. (_d_) Engraved records.

All or most of these are found in every local collection, and their statement immediately raises the question: Can pictorial records, although undoubtedly a part of local history, come into the province of the library? Are they not rather in that of the art gallery? Similarly are not engraved records (bronze coins, tokens, rubbings of monumental brasses and seals) better placed in the museum? It may be urged that the art gallery is concerned with art, the museum with science, and the library (in this connexion) with history. Pictures and engraved articles are not collected by the librarian because of their artistic qualities--in fact, many of his most cherished possessions are artistic atrocities--but because they are records. On this argument a good case can be made for their retention in the library. No doubt, where a town has the three institutions named, and where the local collecting spirit is at work in each, and is definitely co-ordinated, it would be wise and economical to sub-divide the field; but where there is only the library, there can be only one principle, and that the one already emphasized--”get everything.”

=426.= When we come to consider the printed records of any locality, we are surprised at their extent. These, again, can be set out in a brief tabular form:

A. Books _of_ the locality.

1. By local authors. 2. Locally printed. 3. Newspapers and periodicals. 4. Public material: parliamentary, legal, etc. 5. Public material: municipal. 6. Trade material. 7. Programmes: theatre, cinema, music hall, concert hall, etc. 8. Posters.

B. Books _on_ the locality.

1. Topography. 2. History. 3. Biography. 4. Public material: parliamentary, legal, etc. 5. Novels, poems, and plays with local setting. 6. Newspaper and periodical references.

These headings cover a wide area, but the presence of every form of material named is desirable in the local collection.

=427.= For the purposes of the local collection an author may be defined as 1, a writer who is born, and educated in whole or part, in a town, or whose family is indigenous in it; 2, residents of some years’ standing or whose works reflect the locality; 3, authors of utterances or writings made in, or upon, or addressed to the locality; 4, public men, officials, etc.; 5, any minister, public speaker, etc., who holds office or meetings in the town; 6, all local bodies, public or private--the municipality, churches, societies, clubs, etc.; and 7, all local tradesmen--catalogues, etc.

It is a prime duty of every public library to collect locally printed books; the _lacunæ_ in our national bibliography have been lamentable in the past in regard to locally and privately printed books, owing to the lack of such collecting, and they are not likely to decrease if this duty is not vigorously undertaken by the librarian of to-day. The search must be specially eager for the privately issued volume, but however limited the author intends his circulation to be, he is usually quite persuadable as far as a copy for the local collection goes. Local newspapers, it is obvious, are material of cardinal value. Every one of them must be collected, bound, and to some extent indexed. And similar if somewhat lesser value attaches to every periodical whatsoever--be it the issue of a sect, school, institution, trader, party, club, or any other body--published in the town. It is a curious fact that few libraries possess, for instance, sets of the various church magazines. These are, usually, of course, made up of a London-published religious periodical inset in sheets dealing with the particular church that distributes them. The inset may be discarded, but the local part should certainly be collected from every such periodical issued locally. Few records are more important than this.

The local collection must certainly include all local acts, bye-laws, orders in Council that have a local bearing. It is remarkable how many of these there are for even supposedly insignificant areas.

Novels and other imaginative literature, which have a local setting, come clearly into the collection. It is a curious fact that the modern novel of this character is frequently missed. It seems all the more important to collect it when we know that the average “selling life” of a six-shilling novel is about six weeks, and its public life quite often not much longer. Only the local library can--or ought--to save much of this fiction and imaginative writing.

References to the district in outside newspapers and periodicals should always be kept. Even when they are founded on the material in the local newspapers they are usually coloured by the outside view, or are in better perspective than the local writer can bring to bear upon whatever is under discussion.

=428.= The basic records of a town, and, therefore, from the point of view of the local collection, its most important, are its written ones; and in these, generally speaking, libraries are most deficient, for the obvious reason that the ordinary municipal library is a newcomer, and that in modern days the printed record has largely superseded the written one. Not altogether, however, as we shall see. Written records are almost of as many types as are the printed--there are parliamentary, municipal, parochial, private business and personal manuscripts, of which every librarian should strive to obtain possession. A copy of the Domesday Book for his area, albeit impossible, except by successful burglary of the Public Record Office, would be a desirable beginning to the collection. After that, we may tabulate a list of the classes of written material which should be sought:

1. Parochial Records: Tithe Registers, Parish Registers, Rate Books. 2. Municipal Records: Rate Books, Assessment Registers, Minute Books. 3. Private business records: Leases, indentures, agreements. 4. Manuscripts, autographs, etc.

Parochial registers of all kinds, tax books, etc., were until comparatively recent years kept in the charge of the Church. Modern vicars have, as a rule, little interest in them, and are often willing to hand them over to the public library. Such books have an obvious value in resolving the whereabouts, rateable value and occupants of various types of property; and very interesting questions may be settled by their means. The actual parish registers--of births, marriages and deaths--are another matter, and the originals cannot, we believe, be transferred to the library. In some cases the staffs of libraries have obtained permission to transcribe these verbatim, and have actually done so.[14] It is undoubtedly a useful work, but scarcely comes into the province of the librarian as such; his work is to collect existing material, not to create material, although there are infrequent exceptions to the rule. In general we must wait until one of the publishing societies produces these registers, and in the meanwhile refer inquirers to the Church. All we need to emphasize here is the fact that for centuries the corporate life centred in the Church, and it is to the Church that we must look for our primary written records.

[14] At Walthamstow this was done by a member of the Libraries staff.

We reach somewhat surer ground when we endeavour to collect municipal records. The older municipalities--Coventry, Stratford-on-Avon, etc.--have had some regard for their records, and have at least preserved them. Modern municipalities preserve them, too--that is to say, theoretically. A visit to the basement or attics of the average municipal building is, however, a woeful experience for the collector. Usually, in cob-webbed chaos, he will find the records that in a century (or much less) will have immeasurable interest for the student of local affairs. There are written minutes as distinct from printed ones of municipal committees, rate, assessment, receipt, wages, work, and numerous other books to be found in the confusion. It is not always easy to persuade the people concerned to hand over these books, and indeed the more recent of them probably ought not to be handed over; but a little persuasive tact has in more than one case secured the right of the librarian to take charge of and to classify and catalogue them. Sometimes limitations are placed upon their use (for example, books of the last ten years may not be exposed to general consultation), but in any case they ought to be secured for the collection if it is in any way possible. The records, it must be mentioned, are voluminous and bulky, and if in addition to the right of custody the municipality can be induced to provide a room for their reception, the relief will generally be a welcome one.

In some ways the most attractive of written records, the most human, are the private ones; and these are also the most difficult to obtain. Leases, wills, agreements, indentures, and similar deeds are naturally not stored systematically anywhere in the average town, and they must be searched out. Old inns are likely places, as are old solicitors’ offices, and auctions sometimes bring them to light. There are, of course, dealers who specialize in them, and most desirable deeds have been obtained cheaply from London dealers. Such documents throw more light on the changes, customs, and language of a locality than do any of the more formal records mentioned above.

Local literary manuscripts, autographs, manuscripts of local authors, letters, and similar written documents are so obviously desirable that more than a mention of them is superfluous; but we want, in this connexion, to urge that to-day will very quickly belong to the past, and that the collection of these things from the hands of living men is to be desired. When a librarian receives a letter from the mayor, a prominent alderman, or similar local celebrity, he does not as a rule think of it as something to be preserved in the local collection. Why not?

=429. Pictorial and Graphic Material.=--In recent years librarians have given systematic attention to the collection of pictorial records, although, indeed, they have long been recognized as a part of the collector’s province. These naturally divide into:

1. Painted records. 2. Prints. 3. Photographs. 4. Maps.

(We think we can extend the word “pictorial” to cover maps.) The presence of painted records may be questioned, but their value as records is undoubted, seeing that they give colour, atmosphere, and have other interpretative values which are absent from the more meticulously accurate photograph. Local prints and photographs should be collected without special regard to their artistic value; record is always the motto of the collector, not beauty, however much we may desire it personally. Care should be taken to secure photographs in a permanent process, but it is better to have them in the more evanescent processes, and to take special care of them, than not to have them at all. All gas-light photographic prints (with a distinct preference for platinotype, bromide and velox papers in this descending order) are practically permanent; but the finest photographic paper extant will not endure direct sunlight everlastingly. The question of the treatment of prints and photographs generally, however, deserves separate treatment, and here we are concerned only with what should be collected. The pictures, then, must represent distinctive things, interpretative of the life of the district. Pictures of individual flowers, which grow anywhere, trees which are not peculiar to the place, “pretty bits” which might be matched in any place in the kingdom, are of little or no value. Omitting these inessential things, practically everything else from the portrait of the Member of Parliament to that of the local amœba comes within the scope of the collection. The cheapest print from the cheapest periodical need not be despised. It may serve its turn.

=430.= Special endeavour should be made to secure a complete set of the maps of the region covered. In spite of the conventionality and inaccuracy of many early maps they are our original source of information on many points vital to the collection. For some counties the maps have been scheduled with exemplary thoroughness, and by basing his collection on one of these schedules the collector will be helped greatly, seeing that the old cartographers usually worked on several counties, and the map bibliography of Yorkshire, for example, may be expected to furnish useful clues to the maps of Kent. Old gazetteers, topographies, histories, encyclopædias and periodicals of general scope often contain maps, and the least prepossessing of such works should be consulted in order to obtain them.

=431.= Engraved records are fewer than any previously mentioned. They include local seals, crests, coins and tokens, and similar articles. Tokens, it may not be generally known, were coins, usually having the values of a farthing, a halfpenny, and a penny, which local traders were permitted to issue to supply the scarcity of a small coinage from the national treasury. These were issued mainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and generally had a local exchange value only, although a number were accepted in many counties. Clearly these tokens, which often carry the trade marks, signs, etc., of the trader issuing them, are a valuable and interesting part of local material. The Coventry Public Libraries possess what we believe to be an unique collection of tokens relating to that city. Various local medals should also be sought.

=432. Sources of Supply.=--There is something trite and unoriginal in the discussion of the methods of obtaining books for the local collection, but perhaps something useful may emerge from a recapitulation of the principal ones. So far as the municipal library is concerned, the common method must be by purchase, although much will be secured from private generosity when the collection has become known. It is important, in our opinion, not to leave the collection unmentioned in the annual estimates; a definite appropriation should be made for it, the amount of which will of course depend upon the resources of the library and upon the area covered. We have found at Croydon, where the collection covers extra-metropolitan Surrey, that much may be done on an appropriation of £35 a year. This need not be spent entirely upon the collection, nor should the collecting be limited to the purchasing power of this sum, but it seems to be very desirable to have money so ear-marked in order that attention may be focussed upon the collection as an important part of the activities of the library.

It is also essential, if the collection is to be successful, that the librarian should have discretionary power in the spending of the appropriation. Local literature disappears with a rapidity that is sometimes astonishing, and keen collectors on making discoveries in the catalogues of booksellers and dealers, usually secure the coveted books by telephone or telegram. The library would be a greatly handicapped competitor if the sanction of the libraries committee had to be awaited before purchases could be made. In some towns the discretionary power is vested in the chairman, and where he is immediately accessible to the librarian there are distinct advantages in this method, especially if he is sympathetic. It is a good axiom for the librarian to avoid responsibilities which can judiciously be distributed!

A certain amount of judicious advertisement of the needs of the library is desirable in this matter. Care should be taken that a note to the effect that local material is purchased should appear in Clegg’s _Directory of Booksellers_, and in other similar publications. On the notepaper of the library some such note as the following might be given in small type: “The librarian will be glad to hear of written or printed material relating to Selsey, either as a gift or for purchase.” This is especially useful, as the notepaper circulates mostly in the district itself, where much literature may be hidden, unvalued and neglected, which its owners would willingly add to the collection. With the directory entry before him the bookseller will generally report individual items, but in any case he will send his catalogues, and these must be perused diligently. As a rule the bookseller is sufficiently master of his business to enter likely material, under county and town headings, but not infrequently books which have a local appeal appear in other parts of the catalogue. In this work the librarian will naturally and wisely make use of his whole staff, and every inducement should be held out to assistants to help in the discovering of local material and to make suggestions for the extension of the collection. Generally, however, little inducement will be needed, as library workers as a whole are both keenly interested in and proud of the local collection.

Other sources of supply may be dealt with briefly. Donations will account for many of the most curious and useful, and these are best induced by exhibitions of material from the collection, by references made to the collection in books in the lending library (a slip can be inserted in all topographical books, for example, calling attention to the existence and scope of the collection), and by paragraphs, articles, etc., built up from local material, which may appear in the public press, and which the local press is only too glad to publish.

=433. Photographic Surveys.=--The current pictorial records, the photographs, can usually be obtained, by the expense of much energy and little money, through a Photographic Survey Society. As this matter has just lately received systematic and authoritative treatment,[15] it is unnecessary here to enlarge upon it further than to say that a photographic survey society is usually a band of photographers, professional and (mainly) amateur, who make photographic records in a systematic manner of a particular district, its history, antiquities, natural features, architecture, industries, current activities, and, in fact, everything that presents or interprets its life. Such societies are increasing in number, and have a social side in the shape of photographic excursions, reunions, etc., which make them rather more than gatherings where the cacophanous jargon of the dark-room pervades everything; hence they band together many people who are interested in a district and the preservation of its memories. As a rule the whole of the work of the survey, except the cataloguing and classifying--which are the business of the librarian--is done by members of the survey. The library usually supplies mounts, storage and cataloguing requisites.

[15] Gower, H. D., Jast, L. S., and Topley, W. W. _The Camera as Historian: A Handbook to Photographic Record Work._ 1916. Sampson Low.

=434. Regional Surveys.=--Similarly, but more recently, regional (or civic) survey societies have come into existence, which parcel out certain local areas, and study everything in them, from their geology to the last manifestations of the human intellect working in them, and record the results on maps.[16] Thus maps of the local strata, water-bearing beds, flora, rainfall, industries, old inns, milestones, boundary marks, and so on, have been made for the circle of twenty miles, centering in Croydon. This is a new form of work of the utmost value for providing data of current utility, and for preserving the record of local features. Such societies are already recognizing that the municipal reference library is the natural storing-place of such material.

[16] See _Library World_, vol. xix., pp. 32-34.

=435. Cost.=--Naturally the most important factor in collecting is the price of the material collected. This, not remarkably, often gives us considerable pause, as the present-day cost of local literature does not seem to bear any relation to its original cost; and to appraise the value of manuscript material, deeds and similar matter, is almost impossible. Scarcity and competition are the two factors in creating prices. In local literature the demand can be controlled if librarians do not traverse other fields than their own district in making their collection. A little consultation with brother librarians should bring about a workable division of any given county, with the result that the individual collection would be satisfactory, and the duplication of effort and expense would be avoided. Only the very large towns should attempt county collections. Moreover, this avoidance of competition would lessen the demand for the same book, and so help to bring down its market value. The competitor who can completely out-distance the average library is the keen private collector with a generous purse and unlimited leisure. In his case the librarian can only hope that his will contains a clause in which his collection and the library are in happy juxtaposition. With relation to actual buying, it is a good axiom never to purchase anything except “on approval.” It is really wonderful how attractive a commonplace and almost valueless item can appear to be in an agent’s catalogue. In few cases this “sending on approval” is refused by booksellers, but the majority are only too glad to do it, especially if the prospective purchaser undertakes to pay postage both ways in the event of rejecting the material. By this means large bundles of stuff which have only a nucleus of useful matter can be weeded out, and the price arranged according to the result. This is particularly desirable when dealing with deeds, which often prove to be incomplete, or of far less interest than (say) the entry, “Forty Surrey Deeds, 1542-1816,” would imply. One does not suppose that dealers in these things are one whit less honest than other men, but their prices are often in the region of the absurd. If the collector has reason to think that this is so, he should make a reasonable offer for the books he wants, and it will generally be found that the bookseller is amenable to this sort of argument. Naturally we are speaking of the general items for the collection. In every district individual items have a definite high value which cannot be reduced, and it is the lot of most local collectors to be compelled regretfully to pass by, as beyond their means, many things that they would gladly possess.

=436. Mounting of Prints, etc.=--It remains to devote some attention to the mounting, cataloguing and storage of material. Books and pamphlets are treated as in the general library, as are broadsides, cuttings and similar separate material. The photograph may be treated in various ways. At Birmingham, for example, the prints are mounted, and stored in what are virtually loose-leaf albums, which permit perfect classification and the insertion of any new photograph without dislocation. The more usual method is to mount the photographs on a uniform size mount--17 in. by 13½ in. for large prints, and 12½ in. by 10½ in. for smaller (and the great majority of) prints have been found satisfactory. Nature papers of double strength have been used, and every effort should be made to secure an acid-free paper. When it is obtained the prints should be fixed by the dry-mounting process, if possible; nearly all adhesives have injurious chemical action upon photographic papers. The mounted prints and photographs are stored in boxes such as that shown in Fig. 118, or in the drawers of a vertical file.

=437. Classification.=--The classification of the local collection demands a much closer arrangement than any general scheme provides. Up to the present most librarians have constructed one for their own use; and there are two methods. One, and that most readily used, is a topographical arrangement with a subject sub-arrangement; the other is the converse--a subject arrangement with topographical sub-division. The choice may be determined by the answer the reader gives to the question: Which are users more likely to want--

1. The churches of a county or town as a whole? or 2. Material, including the church, relating to a town (in a county) or parish or ward (in a town)?

The topographical arrangement of (say) a county survey is usually secured by adding to the subject number the number of the square on the key Ordnance Survey map of the county. That is, when the main arrangement is subjectival. When it is topographical the ordnance number precedes the subject number. A detailed example of the working of a local collection classification is given in Gower, Jast and Topley’s _The Camera as Historian_.

Every mount should bear upon it a label showing particulars of the subject, number, photographer, process, date, etc. This goes well into the left-top corner. The example given is that of the Surrey Photographic Survey. A similar label with the necessary adaptations is advisable on all prints which are not the property of such Surveys. In the case of surveys the label is filled in by the photographer, except the space for the class-mark, and the upper part is detached by the Survey Secretary and is pasted up in a guard-book to form his record. Only the label within the thick squared lines is affixed to the mount.

FIG. 163.--Label of Photographic Survey Prints (Section 437).

=438. Cataloguing.=--The cataloguing of the local collection should, of course, follow the code in general use; but certain amplifications are desirable. The size, pagination, date of publication, town of publication, and the names both of printer and publisher (if they are different) should be given. Omissions from titles should be as infrequent as possible, and when made should be indicated. The object is to make this catalogue as fully bibliographical as possible.

=439.= The cataloguing of prints is a fairly simple matter if treated in common-sense fashion. Inquirers only occasionally require the works of artist or photographer in connexion with such prints as are stocked by libraries. A subject-index appears to be the best form, with a local index; thus

+-----------------------------+ | | | GOLF COURSE, REIGATE. 263.5 | | | +-----------------------------+ 1 +-----------------------------+ | | | REIGATE. GOLF COURSE. 263.5 | | | +-----------------------------+ 2

FIG. 164.--Print-index Slips (Section 439).

are a sufficient cataloguing of a particular print. All the detail beyond that can be found on the prints, which themselves are in their arrangement a classified catalogue. Of course special prints would go under the artists’ names, or under their titles if their value warranted that course. Usually it does not.

=440. Maps.=--It is appropriate to deal with maps here, as the largest number of maps will probably be local ones. The classification methods suggested for prints apply to maps as well; that is to say, the predominating arrangement should be topographical, and the sub-arrangement subjectival, and the ultimate arrangement may be chronological. Thus a map of the geology of a particular town would arrange--

Class No. of Town. | Geology No. | Date.

=441.= The cataloguing of maps may follow the Anglo-American rule, which runs:

Enter maps under the cartographer. If the name of the cartographer is not found, enter under the publisher; thus:

GREGORY, C. C. M’Millan’s map of New Brunswick. Drawn by C. C. Gregory. Scale of statute miles _ca._ 8 to the inch.

JOHNSTON, W. _and_ A. K., _pub._ Johnston’s commercial and library chart of the world on Mercator’s projection.

This simple rule needs some amplification for a large collection of maps; and the following simple rules have been found to be satisfactory:

1. The _Arrangement_ of entries is in chronological order, and where two entries occur under one date they are arranged alphabetically by the _heading_.

2. _The Name adopted for Heading_ is that of the cartographer where found; where the cartographer is not found, the publisher, or engraver, or title (in this order) forms the entry word.

3. The unit of _Scale_ wherever possible should be the inch.

4. Give the _Size_, measured from one inner margin to another, vertical measurements first, to the nearest quarter-inch below the actual size.

5. The _Date_ of arrangement is that printed on the map; but modern maps illustrating places at a past period in history arrange under the period, the publication date being added to the entry merely as information. Undated maps from atlases or other works take the date of the work in which they appear.

All catalogues so arranged require topographical and subject indexes.

The filing of maps was dealt with in the chapter on Filing and Indexing.

=442. Deeds.=--Deeds are difficult to handle and store because of their shape and size, the seals attached to them, and for other reasons. For ordinary purposes flat filing in boxes similar to those used for maps will serve. The cataloguing of deeds has been variously done, but for local purposes a topographical arrangement, with a chronological sub-arrangement, is recommended. Examples of typical entries may be given:

=Bagshot.=

1715 21 June (i. George I.). LEASE OF COTTAGE AND LAND. BAGSHOT. From Walter of Busbridge to Grayham of Bagshot, 99 years at 4/- per ann. (consid. £24.3.0.).

dS69(333)

Cottage, barn, and 3a. land. Special condition under penalty of forfeiture of lease if broken.

“And goeing with sd. John Walter his heirs and assns. to the Eleccon of the sd. Co. of Surrey att any time when any Eleccon for Knights of the Shire shall be held, _and vote for_ such person as the said John Walter his heirs, exors., admors., and assignes shall direct. . . .”

=Beddington.=

1490 2 July (v. Henry VII.). BOND FOR £500 (Latin). From James and Richard Carru [old spelling of Carew] to John Iwardby and Chris. Troppenell.

dS655(333)

Securities: The manors of Bedyngton, Bandon and Norbury; and other lands and tenements in Bedyngton, Croydon, Streteham, Bristowe [Burstow] and Horne; and the manor of Maitham in Kent.

Such a catalogue must be equipped with a name index at least, and an index of places is also desirable; these may be combined in one alphabet.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

=443. Local Collections:=

No monograph. For articles see Cannons: G 56, Local Collections and Surveys; G 59, Maps; I 17, Cataloguing Rules; H 78, Classification; L 45, Bibliography.

=444. Photographic and Regional Surveys:=

Gower, Jast, and Topley. The Camera as Historian: a handbook for survey or record societies, 1916.

Fagg, C. C. The Regional Survey and Local Natural History Societies. _In_ South-Eastern Naturalist, 1915, p. 20.

Westell, W. P. The New Doomsday. _In_ My Life as a Naturalist, 1918.

For articles see Cannons: I 24, Cataloguing; H 85, Classification, etc.