CHAPTER I

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BUSINESS LIBRARY

What is meant by the word library? Twenty-five years ago it could be accurately defined as a collection of books on a series of shelves, and although this old definition still partially describes its present form, the true interpretation of what a business library really is, can be stated best by saying that it is a genuine service department, whose chief business is to give information to the members of a firm on subjects of vital importance in the conduct of their business.

The business library is not limited to a collection of books, but contains information in any form, namely, periodicals, pamphlets, trade catalogs, photographs, lantern slides, and also manuscript notes which are accumulated in connection with the specific work of an organization. The business library even goes so far in its service as to supply information which is obtained by "word of mouth" in advance of its appearance on the printed page.

The Evolution of the Business Library

Before the business library came into being as a special department of business organizations, and before public libraries were making a specialty of collecting information on business subjects, the business man picked up his supply of information in haphazard fashion. He was told by a business acquaintance, often a salesman of a special line who was doing business with him, of some trade literature or government documents in which he would find useful information, or he discovered references to valuable books, pamphlets or documents in his casual reading of newspapers and periodicals. As a last resort, in cases of emergency he telephoned to various business organizations whom he thought could tell, out of their experience, what he wished to know.

Business has, however, grown too large in its multiplicity of interests for the business man to get his information in so desultory and unorganized a fashion, for the business man must be a good forecaster and interpreter of conditions, not by means of guesswork but by the aid of obtainable facts, and he must study and analyze a large number of related subjects. The success of many of our richest industries is due in large measure to this particular element, the wise forecasting of conditions to come, for, as a recent periodical article stated, "business is a procession of problems; big or little, any business must keep moving ahead, finding its way past one pitfall and obstacle after another. In another sense business is a matter of vision; the foresight that looks long ahead to new opportunity and to the ways and means of realizing it, is an essential in the growth and progress that brings success."

Business men have long since recognized that rule of thumb methods have passed away, and that they not only can not learn by experience exclusively, but that the utilization of the knowledge of other men recorded in reliable business data is of the highest value.

Present day competition makes it imperative also that every business man knows as much as his competitor, and he must have therefore not something on a subject but everything of value on a subject, and it must be exact and authoritative information which he can trust. Business data must also be kept strictly up to date, which under present-day conditions is no easy task, as information is out of date almost before it is off the press.

The business man not only needs to collect accurate, exhaustive, up to date information, but he needs to have it so well organized that, at a moment's notice, he can put his fingers upon the exact information he desires. The systematic organization of information into quick working files means an enormous saving of time and money, and in large business organizations the employment of a trained librarian to do this work is a most valuable asset.

Check up if you can, the amount of time wasted annually by the average business man through lack of having the information he desires immediately at his service. Waste of time means waste of money. It is not worth while having an expert, whose time may be worth anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred dollars a day, waste any of it in trying to find information in government documents, which he is not particularly adept in locating, because he lacks a working knowledge of the enormous range of government publications.

The writer is acquainted with an engineering firm of national reputation, which has made a collection of library material, which has been cared for, or rather much neglected by a stenographer of the company, who has no time nor library experience to give to its adequate administration. This firm when urged to introduce organized library service, and thus make their collection effective, stated that their library was not used enough by their organization to warrant the expense. Investigation proved, however, that one of their expert chemists, whose time was valued more per week than that of a trained librarian would be per month, was making a systematic business of hunting his own library material, and had listed his references in many closely written notes, in order to be able to locate the material again if he should need it. The value of the time the chemist spent on his research would have covered a librarian's salary and made it possible for him to give more time to his firm on the problems which his expert knowledge was able to solve.

General Principles of Organization

The essential principles in organizing a successful business library can be briefly stated as follows:

1. Centralization of material within the business organization.

2. Coordination of the business library with the facilities of the public and special libraries of the city in which the business library is located.

1. Centralization of Library Material

The first step in establishing a library in a business organization is the centralization of all the printed material available in its different offices or departments. This is exactly what is not done in a large number of business houses. Books, pamphlets and other valuable information are scattered among the various members of the organization, who treat them as personal property and preserve them in their private desks as carefully as a squirrel hides his store of good nuts. In many business organizations the policy of the employes in regard to information seems to be, to hold on to everything of value for one's personal use, regardless of how much value the information might be to another member of the organization, and also regardless of the fact that the material has been paid for out of the company's funds.

It should be said, however, in defense of the practice of not putting information into a central library, that it is not always based upon thoughtless or selfish habits, but upon lack of confidence; there is a fear that if information passes out of the hands of the man into a central library, that when he wishes to use it again, in a hurry, that he may not be able to locate it promptly. This feeling is not without reasonable foundation, as it is based on the irritating experience which some business men have had in using central correspondence files which, in many offices, are poorly administered and cannot produce desired information promptly. The business library, when administered by a qualified librarian, not only can produce all filed material promptly, but in one large corporation, known to the writer, has so successfully handled material that the officers and employes send their information to the library, as a safer and more reliable place to keep it for quick reference, than the drawers of their own desks.

Centralization of library material gives all the departments the benefit of everything the company has collected on a special subject, and often makes it unnecessary to duplicate information for the use of several departments. Centralization makes it possible also to have in one place a complete record of all library material owned by the company which can be loaned as small working collections to any department.

The fact that a central library department has on record what material is temporarily or permanently kept in all the departments, makes it possible also for it to act as a clearing house between all departments in locating desired information. This principle does not apply of course to corporations of such magnitude that their activities comprise several distinct lines of business; in such a case each department would require a specialized collection of information, which would become the library of that particular branch of the industry.

It should be kept clearly in mind that the business library has a distinct province from correspondence files, which primarily take care of the letters accumulated in the transaction of business. The business library is in no wise concerned with such records. Its function is not to take care of the records which are created by the activities of the company, but to collect and bring into the company all possible knowledge and information of value from a large variety of outside sources.

The business library also has a distinct province of activity apart from the statistical department of an organization. The function of the latter is to correlate and interpret data which are created either by the activities of the organization or obtained from outside sources, because of value in relation to the various projects of the organization. The function of the library in relation to the statistical department is to supply the printed information which that department needs in its work of correlating and interpreting data.

Many statistical departments have made the mistake of endeavoring to collect and preserve material for their work, which particularly belongs in the business library, with the result that they have cumbersome files of heterogeneous information, badly classified and cataloged, and which do not yield, either quickly or accurately, information when desired. The files of the statistical department should cover only the data which are the result of the particular activities of the company, together with valuable original records which are neither correspondence nor library material.

2. Coordination of the Business Library with Public Libraries

After the resources for information which exist within the business organization have been adequately centralized the next important step is to coordinate these resources with all other existing library facilities of the city in which the business firm is located. There should be a thorough survey of these libraries in order to ascertain as far as possible the content and availability of their resources. This is an important factor in the creation of a business library, when one considers the problem of shelving much material, within the more or less limited space occupied by a business organization. Floor space in skyscrapers is too valuable to be used as a mere storehouse for printed material used only on rare occasions, and there is also the added expense of a staff of workers to care for a large collection. The business library must, therefore, be considered solely as a working laboratory, and care taken not to include in it material which will be seldom used, particularly in cities where business organizations congregate and where are located large public libraries having excellent resources which can be used to supplement the "working laboratory" collection of the business organization.

This principle will not apply, however, to those business libraries which are maintained at the headquarters of national associations. Such libraries must collect everything on their subjects, and be prepared to be a central bureau of information on their specialties, for their membership throughout the United States. For example, the libraries of the National Safety Council and the Portland Cement Association, located in Chicago.

This policy of coordination was expressed in the following words, by a large corporation several years ago when it organized its library: "We will keep our library down as far as possible to a small working collection, and our librarian shall be a go-between us and the other libraries of the city when we want information not available in our own collection." Thus the busy man of affairs is able to keep in touch, through his librarian, as proxy, with many avenues of helpfulness, which would be closed to him were it not for the fact that he had been far-sighted enough to employ a librarian to act for him in these matters of detail.

Public library facilities, while they supplement can never be a substitute for a library within a business organization, for different groups of business people who are vitally interested in one particular subject, or more often in only one phase of a subject, will naturally collect and know more about that subject than a general library serving a thousand and one interests can be expected to do.

The business librarian who is given the confidence of the officers of his organization, gets saturated with a knowledge of the business of the organization and is able to sense in advance what information will be needed, and will be prepared as far as possible for the emergency when it comes.

All librarians of public libraries will undoubtedly agree to the statement that they are not in a position to act as confidential library adviser to rival business corporations. The Public Library must deal impartially with all inquirers and cannot give precedence to any inquirer simply because he is in a hurry. Every man must wait his turn because the needs of other inquirers are equally important with his.

If the Utopian state should ever arrive when our public libraries have all the money necessary to meet the every information need of the community, the argument that the public library should serve the interests of business men, who are tax payers, in such a manner that it would not be necessary for them to have libraries within their business organizations, can be answered by a parallel suggesting that the public library should so serve all the interests of the public that no one need have a library in his own home. A business organization desires to make its own selection of material, on the basis of its needs and tastes; it wishes to have this material close at hand without any borrowing restrictions, so that it can be used quickly, without loss of time, and without the limitations which would be imposed if it were the property of some one else, and required particular care to keep it intact, for the business man often wishes to clip or give away the printed information in his possession.

The business library is, however, not antagonistic to the public library at any point. On the contrary, the business library must coordinate its resources with those of the public library and work in harmony with it.

The large business organization which can afford to employ a librarian, and the small business firm which cannot, will find a wealth of helpful material in the public libraries of their vicinity.

Many of the smaller public libraries which are not large enough to maintain special business departments are giving most excellent service to business men. A number of the large public libraries of the country are making a specialty of serving business needs through departments organized particularly to serve business men. Some of these are the Division of Economics and Documents of the New York Public Library, the Business Men's Branch of the Free Public Library of Newark, New Jersey, the Technology Department of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the Industrial Department of the Los Angeles Public Library. The John Crerar Library of Chicago is a free reference library covering sociology and natural and applied science, which cannot be excelled by any other library collection in the United States in the facilities which it offers to business men. Every business organization should get acquainted with the public library of its city and ascertain what that library is able to do for it.

The Cost and Value of the Business Library

The cost of maintaining a business library is in no sense comparable with its value; for the help which a business library may give in a single instance is often of sufficient value to offset its cost of maintenance for a whole year. For example, a business firm had a law suit in a distant city and sent one of its employes to give expert testimony in the case. This employe found as the hearings in the case progressed, that he could strengthen his testimony if he had at hand figures showing the market price of lead for the past ten years. There was no time to spare in obtaining these data. He sent a telegram to the home office, which was received at 11:30 A. M. saying that he would call them by long distance telephone at noon and to have the figures ready. The head of the department to whom the message was addressed, with some perturbation, appealed at once to the librarian of the company, who was able in ten minutes to produce a table giving a summary of the prices desired, which had been printed in a technical journal. The company won the law suit and in comparison with the large amount of money saved, the salary of the trained librarian who knew how to meet the emergency, was a very small item.

No two business libraries are comparable as to cost of maintenance. Each must allow for financing on the basis of its individual needs and the money it can afford to spend.

If a business firm owns the building which it occupies it does not have to consider the rental of floor space for the library. If it has a liberal policy of advertising in the best technical or trade journals, it will need to spend very little on periodical subscriptions, as it will receive copies free on account of advertising. If it is a liberal user of the publications of the United States Government, it will find they cost little or nothing, and in any case the amount spent by business libraries for information special to a particular industry is never very large, because often the most valuable data cost practically nothing to secure.

Mechanical equipment, which will be discussed in chapter seven, is largely the initial expense, and the amount of money to be spent each year for additions to the original equipment will be quite small. The principal annual expenses in maintaining a business library are the salaries of the librarian, and assistants if required, and the additional expense of stenographic and office boy service.

The great mistake made by some business firms in maintaining library service has been the employment of inadequately trained librarians who do not produce high grade results. It is this lack of library education and experience, on the part of a number of so-called business librarians, which has been a hindrance to the recognition of what the business library really is and what it can do. The writer saw, some time ago, the sorry spectacle of one of the largest corporations in the country trying to inaugurate library service under the direction of a fourteen-dollar-a-week file clerk, who had not a single educational requirement necessary for the success of the undertaking. Such firms generally proclaim business library work a failure, instead of admitting they have made a wrong start and that they should have employed a high grade trained librarian.

Many firms having well organized correspondence files, which are giving satisfactory service, have conceived the idea of adding to their established filing department, and to the duties of their head file clerk, the library service which they judge their organization demands. They fail to appreciate the fact that a filing department, while it has some mechanical technique in common with an organized library, has an entirely different purpose, and does not require on the part of those in charge, educational qualifications at all comparable to those required of a librarian who must have not merely a large knowledge of library technique, but also must know books, and have a knowledge of a broad range of sources, from which adequate information can be drawn when any problem arises; for the business librarian must be a thinker as well as a worker and not a mere clerical machine. On the other hand, the trained librarian is competent to supervise correspondence and any other kind of files if the situation demands it. The essential qualifications for successful business librarianship are stated in the last chapter.

In conclusion, it should be said, that in establishing library service, a business organization must be willing to give such service a reasonable length of time to grow into the work of the organization. A wisely selected collection of material, adapted to the needs of the business, and thoroughly organized to give quick and accurate results, should be tested just as a piece of machinery is tested, namely, set up the apparatus, put it in full operation under competent supervision, and in the case of the business library, the verdict cannot but conclusively be--"it works."

REFERENCES FOR ADDITIONAL READING

=List of special libraries= in United States and Canada (in American library annual 1916-17 p. 378-408).

=Carr, B. E.=

Formation of a financial library. Special libraries June 1919, p. 125-27.

=Day, M. B.=

Portland cement association library. Library journal Jan. 1919, p. 27-28.

=Glenn, M. R.=

Library of American bankers association. Library journal April 1917, p. 283-84.

=Johnston, R. H.=

Bureau of railway economics library. Special libraries June 1918, p. 129-31.

=Krause, L. B.=

The public utility library. Journal of electricity Dec. 15, 1918, p. 556-57.

=Greenman, E. D.=

The functions of the industrial library. Journal of industrial and engineering chemistry June 1919, p. 584.

=Macfarlane, J. J.=

Philadelphia commercial museum. Library journal April 1917, p. 278-79.

=Nystrom, P. H.=

The relation of the public library to the private business libraries. Special libraries Feb. 1918, p. 35-37.

Same article Library journal March 1918, p. 154-57.

=Parmelee, J. H.=

The utilization of statistics in business. American statistical association quarterly publication June 1917, p. 565-76.

=Purinton, E. E.=

Building an office library. Independent Dec. 16, 1918, p. 214.

=Rife, R. S.=

Functions of the library of a banking institution; pamphlet printed by Guaranty trust co., New York city, 1919.

=Rose, A. L.=

The service of a business library; pamphlet printed by National city bank, New York city, 1920.

=Secrist, Horace=

Statistics in business New York, McGraw-Hill 137 p. $1.75.

=Spencer, Florence=

Financial library of the National city bank of New York. Library journal April 1917, p. 282-83.

=Spencer, Florence=

What a public library cannot do for the business man. Special libraries Oct. 1917, p. 177-18.