Part 27

Now, there has been one difficulty of late years in bringing about this result, in the most effective way, and that difficulty has been felt not only in this country, but throughout most countries--the fact that competition, not in quality but in "cut rate" price, has practically taken away the living of the commercial intermediary in the distribution of books, the hire of the laborer who is working in that particular vineyard. That has been true in Germany, in France, in England, and in this country. It has not prevented the sale of books; it _seems_ not to have limited the sale of books; but it is probably true that the dissemination of the best literature among the mass of the people, in private libraries, while it has been immensely improved by the library system, has not been promoted by the bookselling system under present conditions as it should be. In Germany, a movement has been on foot for a few years past, and has been quite successful, to give that particular kind of librarian, the bookseller, a fee more worthy of his function; a profit which makes it possible for him to keep that sort of library which is distributed into private libraries, _i.e._, the book store. In France a very curious difficulty is in illustration. There the price of books had come to be very low, so low that when a rise in the price of paper came, the publisher's business was found to be almost impossible. The remedy naturally took the shape of a general rise in price, a considerable rise in price in cheaper books, sufficient to meet that particular difficulty and to make possible at the same time a better recompense, a living wage, to the intermediary. Now, the whole tendency of modern industrial development is to get rid of the intermediary as much as possible; _i. e._, to have as few steps, of person and of cost, between the producer and the consumer as is practicable. This we may take as fundamental to-day. It remains true, nevertheless, that there must, as a rule, be somebody between the producer and the consumer, between the person in the great manufacturing center and the remote distributing points on the circumference to bring the thing wanted to the person who wants it; and it is only in view of that requirement that the bookseller is to be considered. In that sense, as I have said, he seems a complement of the librarian, and the book store the complement of the library. Now, a librarian cannot live without salary, though many live on very small salaries, in the hope of better things--and one of the accomplishments of the American Library Association has been to bring better things to the librarian. Both the dignity and the emolument of the library profession have been, I believe, increased greatly by the existence of this Association. The librarian receives a salary, and it is not true, as we all know, that books can be circulated freely from public libraries in the sense of their being circulated without cost. Indeed, we have occasion to lament often that the cost of circulating a single volume is so great. It is a fair question whether the cost of shelving, preparing for the public, and in many cases, of circulating a volume, is not greater than the fee which the bookseller asks as his profit, his wage in transferring that volume from the publisher to the reader. Therefore it seems to me that the suggestion of which Mr. Dewey is the apostle, that the public library should take the place of the book store, that it should exhibit recent books to the public and take the public's orders for those books, rests both on an economic and on a social fallacy. In a word, work cannot be done for nothing, and whether that work is paid for by the public in the shape of salaries or by the private buyer in the shape of profits is a matter of comparison.

About the time at which the A. L. A. was organized, in 1876, there was an attempt on the part of the book trade to deal with this question, and at Philadelphia, in 1876, a meeting was held at which a reform plan was initiated. That plan, it seemed to me then as it seems to me now, involved a fundamental mistake, in that it did not deal with the question of published prices. It is evident that books cannot be increased in price, unless there is a specific reason in the price of paper or some such reason, without interference with their sale and wide distribution. It is poor policy for the publisher to limit the sale of his ware by putting a higher price on it than the traffic will bear. At that meeting it was proposed not to alter the published prices of books, but to recognize formally the custom of giving twenty per cent. discount to the retail buyer. The reform proceeded upon that basis, and the system presently broke down. Within a year past there have been shaped two organizations, the American Publishers' Association and the American Booksellers' Association, which are working in harmony on another plan. That plan is that new books, new copyright books (fiction and some special classes excepted for the time), should be published at a price which recognizes the fact that the published price hitherto has not been the real or standard price. In other words, a book which was priced at $1.50 it is expected to publish at twenty per cent., more or less, below that price, and to make a $1.50 book, say, $1.25 or $1.20; a $2 book $1.60 or $1.50, and a $1 book 75 or 80 cents. This plan recognizes the existing situation, and the proposal is that the plan shall be enforced by the publishers declining to supply books to booksellers who fail to maintain those standard prices. The plan has worked out with other classes of specially owned articles, in that respect similar to books, and it has worked with fair success.

There is only one exception which the bookseller is permitted under the proposed regulations to make, and that is a discount to the library. That discount is limited to ten per cent., and I think it should fairly be stated that this may increase, perhaps by five or ten per cent., the actual prices which some libraries, at least, have been paying for their books. That is a disadvantage from the library point of view which must be faced. I do not know that it will increase the price in the case of libraries generally. In the case of the public, it has been true that while many have paid the lower price for the books, others have been asked the full published price, so that there has been an inequality of price where the person best equipped in one sense, least equipped in another, has had the advantage of the lower price. In other words, the person who had most books and knew most about them, got the book at a very low price, and the person who was really most in need of the book, because he knew less, had to pay the full price for it. I do not believe myself that that is the right or a good way of doing business. It would not be the method which you would permit in libraries, of treating one person differently from another, because the fundamental proposition of this Association is that the public should be treated equally and justly. Take it altogether, I for one believe that although in some cases there may be this slight rise in cost to the library, the whole library situation, or, I should say, the whole book situation, would be so much improved by the proposed change that it would be to the general advantage of the libraries to suffer that specific disadvantage.

Nevertheless, there is a good deal of grasping in human nature, and it might be very wise for the American Library Association, in one sense representing the public, to come into official relation with this matter and be the guardian of the buying interests, to the extent of making sure that there is a real reduction in the prices of books on this scheme. The large-minded publishers will doubtless see their interests in making the reduction throughout on the copyright books which are to be published on this plan. There are others who may not see this advantage, and who may attempt, under the new plan, to set as high a price on the book as under the old plan. If we had a committee of this Association on relations with the book trade, it might be possible for such a committee, known to be on the alert, to prevent or remedy cases of that sort, and I trust such a committee will be appointed by this body, or by its Council, as I shall take the liberty of moving.

I should feel some hesitancy in speaking to this Association from the two points of view, of relation with the book trade and of relation with the library interests; _i.e._, of speaking as the editor of the _Publishers' Weekly_ and as the editor of the _Library Journal_, but for the fact that I believe the interests to be one. I may, however, make the personal explanation that while it seems to me that a journalist cannot write that in which he does not believe, on the other hand, a journalist who is responsible for the conduct of a representative journal cannot interpolate his own opinion to the exclusion of the opinion of the class whom he is supposed to represent; for that reason I have taken the position in my own office that in case the library interests should come in conflict with the publishing interests, I will give over that particular subject to some librarian, who, using the editorial columns of the _Library Journal_, will represent distinctively, free from any interest in the book trade, the views of the Library Association and of the library interests at large. I take this opportunity to say that in case the opinion of this Association is adverse to the plan which I have been outlining, the _Library Journal_ will take that course in presenting fairly and fully the views of the profession. When the whole question is threshed out; when such a committee has discussed, perhaps with the publishers' association itself, whether there should not be a somewhat greater discount to the librarian, to equalize the old rates; when such a committee expostulates with individual publishers against an abuse of this plan, I believe that the result will be, on the whole, to promote the wide and useful dissemination of books, and I trust that any action which is taken, if action should be taken by the Association or by its Council, will be in view of the wider co-operation in which these two interests should work. Let me remind you that the bookseller cannot live without earning his living any more than the librarian, and it is not quite fair perhaps for those of us who are protected by salaries to impeach the fair living which the bookseller earns in another way. The book store should exist in every community, alongside the library. We know as a matter of fact that even our large cities, certainly our small cities, even more our towns, are very ill equipped with book stores; that in many places they are notable for their absence rather than for their presence. This element of active work in the distribution of books should, I believe, come back more to our American life. It cannot come back, apparently, under present conditions, and any movement, it seems to me, should have the helping hand of the A. L. A. that tends to put the American bookseller on a plane with the librarian as an agent for the dissemination of the best books at the least cost to the most people, and I emphasize "at the least cost," meaning the least cost at which the service can be rightfully performed.

Adjourned at 12.45 p.m.

_SIXTH SESSION._

(FOUNTAIN SPRING HOUSE, TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 9.)

The meeting was called to order at 2.15 p.m. by President CARR, who announced that the discussion would be continued from the morning session, on the subject

THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS.

MELVIL DEWEY: There seems to be an impression on the part of some that the attitude I have taken in regard to this question is for the sake of starting up discussion. I am quite sincere in what I say and in what I believe in regard to it. In the first place, I think nothing could be more unfortunate than for any of us to get into an attitude of antagonism with the publishers and booksellers. There was something like that twenty-five years ago; their organization and ours began at the same time. There were some who wanted to fight with the booksellers and publishers. I think that is all wrong. I am heartily in sympathy with nearly everything that Mr. Bowker said this morning, and with what has appeared in the columns of the _Publishers' Weekly_. I read every page of it. I believe so profoundly in the value of the bookman's work that, when formulating definitions of our university studies, as to what a full-fledged university should be, I insisted it should include publishing research and publication, not only the preservation of learning. It is because I have so profound a respect for what may be done by the book trade, as we call it, that I believe in these things. But the discussion this morning seemed to be very much on the line of Ruskin's attack on railroads, which he said always were devices of the devil, and he said it very eloquently. You heard the same talk about the trolley lines--about the whitening bones of the young innocents that had been killed by them. We were assured that bicycles were to destroy the horse trade entirely, yet horses now bring double what they did before. Twenty-five years ago, I remember a very prominent man most earnestly pointing out just what was pointed out this morning--that the A. L. A. and the public libraries were simply devices to injure the interests of publishers and booksellers. And the attitude of men on these things is based on what Mr. Bowker called "an economic and social fallacy." I like the phrase; only he was fitting it to me, and I fit it to him, and it is for you to decide which is right. The question hinges on what we understand the library to be. If the library is like a blacksmith shop, or shoe store, or something of that kind, then he is right. If the library is an essential part in our system of education and a necessity for our civilization, then I am right. In New York we still have the plank road and the toll-gate, and we are just taking them over for public use--buying them and abolishing the tolls, so that the public's right to use the roads has come back to them. All the arguments we heard this morning would fit the question of abolishing the toll-roads. A great many people keep no horses. Why should they be taxed to maintain the roads? We have the fire department. We do not tax only the people whose houses are on fire. It is a public necessity. We have the best illustration of the case in our schools. The tax-supported high school has killed off a number of private schools, and estimable people who were earning their living that way were thrown out of employment. And the tax-supported high school is in analogy with the public library. It has offered instruction free and has ruined the business of others. It is so with many professional schools. A transition has been going on very rapidly. The last big fight we have been having is over the business colleges, some of which are directed by mere charlatans, and others by those who are giving admirable instruction, doing their work well. But they have outlived their time. The public demanded that certain instruction of this kind should be made available cheaply to all the people.

Now, we have been charged with wanting to abolish the bookseller. I never said anything about abolishing him. It is like saying that because the tadpole is going to be a frog we are abolishing the tadpoles. It is nature that does it; it is a matter of growth. Or it is like saying that the entomologist in pointing out that the moth is going to develop into the butterfly, is abolishing all the moths. So the good booksellers, if they go on with the work of supplying the public with good reading, will do it through the agency of the public library, where they can do it cheaper. When we are sure that a certain thing ought to be done; that it is a good thing; and, secondly, when we are sure that it can be done cheaper than in any other way, we are not inclined to waste a great deal of time theorizing over anybody's philosophy as to whether it is a proper thing to do or not. We want the right things done in the best and cheapest way. I am sorry to see the old-time bookseller, who did good work, crowded out of the field. I do not see any way in which he can save himself, except in the largest cities. I am sorry to see a great many of the old schools, the secondary schools, crowded out of business and entirely replaced by the tax-supported schools. I do not understand that it is our purpose, either in this Association, or in life, to be studying how we are going to feed every man after the system which has fed him up to the present time is abolished. If the man is good for anything, he will earn his wages; and it is utterly fallacious to say a thing is wrong because somebody is going to lose his business. When the railroad was built a great many worthy men who drove stage coaches were driven out of business in just that way. Every modern improvement does that; new machinery of all kinds has the effect of driving people out of employment; but, in the long run, it pays.

I ought to say in the first place that the suggestion that the librarian would sell books for a profit is one of those queer things that crop out in connection with all great movements. I never yet heard of any library that was buying books and distributing them. I believe that the library will order books in connection with other work. My thesis is this: the book owned is a great deal better than the book loaned. I believe it is better for a man to own a book than to borrow it; that it is legitimate, at public expense, to show him that book in the library and hand it to him as his book--just as legitimate an expense, every way, as it is to employ a man to sell people books so that they won't patronize the Booklovers' Library. I think the whole thing hinges there. It is not a matter of theory, but of fact. If that is what we want to accomplish, can we do it best with the book store or with the library? I contend that it is impossible to rehabilitate the old bookseller, any more than the old private school, which could be done only by endless means in endowment. I do not believe we should try, because it can be done better and cheaper in another way; because the library has the books on its shelves. The statistics this morning showed that the bookseller is dying out. I believe it to be entirely impossible to rehabilitate that profession. If in the library it becomes a recognized principle that the library is supported at public expense for the purpose of lending books. I am confident that the public will demand it to be done in that way. I am confident of another thing. You have only to consult your catalogs to see the remarkable development of the last decade in publishing which is done by endowed universities and colleges and of learned societies. See the great body of technical journals that have been turned over the university presses. Every university that pretends to accomplish much now has a press, and is developing it with great rapidity. It was said this morning that the publisher hinged on the cash; that the bookseller hinged on that. Ladies and gentlemen, the cash profit is not a proper scale in which to weigh the questions in which we are interested. When you take questions of education, or religion, or philanthropy, and put them on a question of cash profit, you are in an absolutely false attitude. I do not mean by that that we must not regard business conditions. We must know how to pay for our coal and our rent, but not a dividend in dollars and cents. And the moment my antagonist says that this question is to be measured by a cash dividend, I say he is ruled out of court in any body of librarians who are giving their lives and their work at salaries not at all commensurate, but who make dividends on a higher plane. There is no occasion for an attitude of hostility; nor, I take it, for me to take issue on this new proposition in regard to prices to libraries. There is not a librarian in this room who has all the money he wants. If prices rise ten per cent., it will diminish the number of books he can buy. I followed the argument this morning. If it is correct, there is only one thing we can do. We, as librarians, are cutting into the revenues of these men, and we ought not only not to ask a discount but librarians ought to pay twenty-five per cent. in addition, because we are cutting into their revenues. We ought to appoint a committee, which without a bit of the spirit of antagonism, should meet the publishers and booksellers and point out all over the United States large consumers who buy for cash. I think it is a practical mistake to try to force up the price, and that we are bound as custodians of this money that is put in our hands, firmly and courteously, but, I am sure, with the most friendly relations on both sides, to see that the prices of our books shall not be cut down.

I say, therefore, in summing up, after an observation of thirty years, that I am confident that the library of this century is going to assume those educational functions, and that among the most prominent of these is the putting into the hands of the people who wish to make their lives wealthier in arts or trades the books of power and of inspiration. The public library cannot afford not to put into their hands at a minimum price the books they want to read. And, logically we shall be forced in that direction. You will find that this tendency is growing all the while, and we will have to put the library squarely alongside the high school. Indeed the library in its development is following exactly the line of development of the tax-supported high school and for that same reason, that in the high school we now offer instruction free, the library will offer books for sale without profit--there should be no profit in the library--and will lend books freely, and will with regret kill the local book store and supplant it by something that is worth a great deal more.