Part 12

The immediate advantage of combining all the local libraries of London and Greater London into one system, all available to any one living or working in any quarter, and supplementing each other by a simple method of interchange, is manifest. The majority of the reference libraries should be shut up at once, and the space used for library purposes that have hitherto been neglected. Provided that every branch has a good collection of quick-reference books, there is no need for most of these--many of them are legacies of the still more parochial government of London before the present boroughs were formed. A proportion of the contents should be used to augment the stock of the Central Library for Students, which is now, in a small way, a central depot for the lending libraries of both London and the country. The remainder, after all useless and obsolete material had been sent to the destructor, would be brought together to form the initial stock of some six or eight really excellent reference libraries, so placed that every potential reader would be within the radius of a tram-ride. Six or eight large central libraries might be selected for the purpose, and would require little alteration beyond the removal of the lending department, for which room would have been found elsewhere.

Whenever the present haphazard library service of London is superseded by a unified system, there will be a possibility of incorporating into it, or associating as auxiliaries, various public or semi-public libraries not belonging to the municipalities. London is not poor in its bibliothecal possessions, though badly served. In 1910, Mr. R. A. Rye calculated that in the public and administrative libraries and those belonging to various institutions, Greater London had a total of eight and a half million volumes, of which one and a half million are inaccessible to the general public.[29] This gave a supply of one volume per head, which may be compared with Berlin’s two volumes, Dresden’s three, and the four per head in Paris. Such comparisons, it should be observed, are not a matter of simple arithmetic. A larger community may find its account in a smaller relative stock, be that organized for use. A family of five with ten books would be badly off. A town of 50,000 with 100,000 volumes would be opulent. London, with a system of centralization and distribution comprehending all these varied resources, would probably be as well off as any city in the world. It is largely a question of realizing the intellectual capital that is now paying such poor dividends. Special libraries, such as that of the Patent Office, the National Science and the National Art Libraries at South Kensington, the Public Record Office, and others, like the various economic and sociological, historical, medical, legal, and other libraries attached to technical or scientific institutions, would continue to stand apart, but would stand in a definite relation to the general service.

The proper balance between local control and the superintending departments--and sub-departments, if the nation’s libraries are reorganized as several great territorial systems--would not be difficult to contrive, so as to preserve and foster the rights of each community to self-expression. It is not proposed to work these out in detail here. Briefly, the functions of the central board would be:--(1) to install and operate the machinery for interchange and central supply, the latter ultimately superseding the former altogether; (2) to see that the local libraries and more especially the selection of books are maintained at a proper level; (3) to undertake such wholesale services as cataloguing and the compilation of aids to readers, work which is now done over and over again by individual library staffs at great expense, or else is neglected; (4) to organize and finance the training of librarians, and see that they are properly paid. Ultimately, librarianship might be organized as a sort of civil service; at any rate, librarians ought to be as carefully looked after by the State as are the teachers.

Many other enterprises of vast public benefit could be, most appropriately, engineered by the central office; for example, the publication of large editions of non-copyright books in a form suitable for lending library use. Bookbinding is another item of local expenditure that calls urgently for mass treatment. It is not proposed, however, that the central library authority should set up a binding factory in opposition to the trade. This would be unnecessary, for it would be in such a commanding position, as by far the largest purchaser in the market, that it could dictate its own terms to publishers, printers, binders, and even to paper-makers. The fact is, the rebinding of books in public libraries might, for the most part, be done away with, if paper, covers, and binding were originally designed to stand the wear. As a leading authority on the subject, Mr. Douglas Cockerell recently said, “Publishers still design books to meet the fancy of the casual buyer, and very largely ignore the requirements of the libraries, which are for many books their largest customers.”[30] Light, fluffy paper is selected by publishers solely to bulk out books; the thicker the book the higher the price. “Now the public may like to pay for fluff and wind, but the librarian’s interests are directly opposed to this. Increased bulk means more shelf-room, and the use of this paper means that the books will fall to pieces after a very short time.” But our central authority would surely see to it that a book produced for library use should be printed on paper of good quality and cased in split boards, which “should last in ordinary library circulation until the librarian is forced to discard it on account of the dirt it has picked up.”

Another need of paramount importance to all engaged in the pursuit of knowledge is that the contents of the numerous periodicals produced throughout the world, registering advances in all branches of science and research, should be abstracted and indexed, so that the material should be rendered accessible or at any rate its existence fully known.[31] Mention has already been made of the Subject-Index to Periodicals, in which some hundred and fifty periodicals are systematically indexed. This important undertaking was initiated some years ago by Mr. E. Wyndham Hulme, late librarian to H.M. Patent Office; it has been carried on successively under the auspices of the “Athenæum” and of the Library Association. It is at present a heavy burden upon a few devoted shoulders, although a very large part of the labour is performed by volunteers; yet its scheme is susceptible of indefinite expansion, if all the requirements of scientific and technical workers are to be, even approximately, met. It is eminently a task pertaining to the library, the university and college library, the special library, and the research department of all types. Were there a central library department in existence, it would undertake this as part of its ordinary routine. It would also undertake the collateral task of preparing and publishing a union catalogue of the long sets of periodicals of all kinds to which the Subject-Index gives the references, and it would indicate where these sets are to be found. Besides the indexing, it would perhaps carry out the further but hardly less valuable work of drawing up and issuing systematic digests of important new knowledge contained in the learned periodicals. It has been recently proposed that the British Museum should carry out this necessary piece of national work, the cost of which, sales being allowed for, would not be excessive.[32]

Such results, however, invaluable as they would be to the whole nation, through the services rendered to several classes of workers, would be only a by-product of the centralizing and systematizing process, the immediate object of which would be the betterment of our libraries. Let us return then from this digression. In the middle of last century and towards its end, Edward Edwards and then his biographer, Thomas Greenwood, both stated their conviction that central control was necessary, and that one of its most useful instruments would be systematic inspection. Greenwood quotes the following from Edwards:--

“If every Library in this country on which the public has any fair claim, could be brought distinctly under public view, by a precise and periodical statement, comprising at least three particulars: (1) what it _is_; (2) what it _has_; and (3) what it _does_; a long train of improvements would inevitably follow. But the systematic inspection of Public Libraries to be effective must be national.”[33]

He goes on:

“The present writer is convinced that there will never be a full measure of health and vitality in libraries generally until some central control of this nature is established. The largest and best of the public libraries do not need it, but would welcome it to secure the welfare of the library body politic. But there is a class of libraries, and it is to be feared that it is not a small one, which seriously need to have light from the outside brought to bear upon their administration. Such libraries are managed in a narrow, illiberal manner, with rules which hamper rather than help the public. The staff is selected without regard to conditions of suitability, training, or merit, and every method adopted is of the tamest and least efficient kind. Only national and systematic inspection can alter this state of affairs. His Majesty’s inspectors of public schools perform an efficient and salutary work without curbing local aspirations, and similar inspectors of public libraries would be able to carry out an equally useful task in connection with the municipal libraries. But it is plain that no form of public Government inspection would be agreeable to existing library authorities, unless accompanied by some kind of substantial State aid.”[34]

Government inspection of libraries is not unknown in other countries, on both sides of the Atlantic, and appears to cause no friction but a spirit of good feeling and mutual help. It is carried on, for instance, in Canada, and it is one of the functions of the State library commissions in the United States. The libraries accept it in the spirit which Edwards saw would animate the efficient library authority, and, further, welcome it as a potent means for extending their benefits into regions hitherto unreached. In Ontario the Minister of Education is responsible for the administration of the Public Libraries Act, and assigns this part of his duties to the Public Libraries Branch, of which the Inspector of Public Libraries is superintendent. But in Ontario the local authorities are so whole-hearted in their zeal that the energies of the Branch are mainly confined to general work in the interest of libraries, to routine inspections, the collection of statistics, and the payment of grants. Yet, it is admitted, the majority of librarians and library trustees would welcome a demand for a minimum standard of efficiency.

The American State commissions usually include the State librarian, other professional librarians, prominent educators, literary men, library trustees, and business men interested in the work. “Instead of regarding with jealousy the assumption by the State of powers like these, librarians generally welcome the increase of systematic work fostered by State aid and control. They are active everywhere in efforts to establish State commissions, where such do not exist, and the opponents of their efforts are usually persons unfamiliar with the modern library movement, or politicians who see in such action no benefit to themselves. In some cases, where legislatures have refused to enact a proper State library law, State library associations, voluntary bodies of librarians, have agreed to initiate and carry on, at their own expense, some of the activities usually supervised and financed by the State.”[35]

“A former agent of the Massachusetts Free Library Commission won for himself the title of ‘the travelling bishop,’ descriptive both of the estimation and affection with which he was regarded.” “State library commissions exist at present in thirty-seven states. In a few states such as in California, New York, and Utah, the State library or the State board of education, in lieu of a library commission, exerts the functions that such a commission would have.”[36]

The question of State grants to local authorities is perhaps important, but certainly not so important as some critics would make out. Equalization of burdens would of course have to be arranged. Yet, on the other hand, there should be nothing to prevent a very enterprising authority from spending a great deal more if it chose on further developments of its library service. Progress would ultimately come to a standstill if there were not this liberty; uniformity, at any level, is ultimately stagnation. The Adult Education Committee speak of State grants to local exchequers; but, apparently, these were to have been calculated on the measure of a local authority’s zeal in co-operating with educational work in the narrow sense, and not made a handle for beneficent central control. It might or it might not be advisable to assist local effort or reward enterprise by a policy of grants in aid. Anyhow, it should be borne in mind that the material benefits of such a scheme of centralization as has been roughly outlined would be tantamount to a large financial contribution by the State, though it should cost the State nothing. Apart from equalization of burdens[37] and, perhaps, rewards for noteworthy efficiency--or the converse, fines or refusal of grants for failures in efficiency--there seems to be little use in discussing what proportion of the cost of our systems of libraries should be defrayed by local rates and contributions from local authorities and what by the State. Both rates and taxes come ultimately from the same source, and, so far as that source, the rated and taxed individual, is concerned, he might as well spend his time debating which pocket he should keep his purse in. Inspections and grants from the local exchequer would, obviously, go hand in hand; but the allotment of grants would certainly not be the sole or the principal end of the system of inspection.

If all the libraries in the kingdom were linked together in a national system, the division into urban libraries and rural systems would to a large extent disappear. A large number of the urban libraries would be absorbed into groups of town and country libraries, analogous to the American county groups; and large rural areas, with small village libraries and a service of boxes, would have their focus in new central institutes easily accessible to readers in the vicinity and available for occasional visits by students at a greater distance. Many populous areas would remain much as they are at present, with some increase of facilities. But, instead of one Central Library for Students, there would have to be, sooner or later, several large supplemental libraries in convenient spots, forming magazines supplying, not individual readers, but the scattered libraries; and, probably the British Isles would have to be divided for library purposes into several provinces, each centering in one of these. Supervision of library activities in such provinces would devolve upon regional committees, elected by the county and borough authorities in each province, the central board exercising co-ordinating functions and carrying out such work as is for the general welfare.

These central supplemental libraries would be built up largely by a careful redistribution of existing resources. There is hardly a library of any size that does not contain many books which are very seldom used, books, however, which no librarian would dare to jettison, because he knows that some fine day a reader is sure to come along to whom one volume or another will be of priceless importance. There are many other books so infrequently called for that it would be an immense convenience to store them elsewhere, and utilize the valuable shelf-space for books in continual request. Books of this sort should be kept at the supplemental library, duly catalogued, and ready to be sent to any library throughout the area served, when readers require them. The supplemental libraries would, of course, be always buying more books; they would have to keep abreast of the latest advances in all subjects; but the works just described would form an important part of their original contents, and would be transferred to them free of cost. Local libraries are constantly put to the expense of buying books for one or two users; such users are, no doubt, among the most deserving of all their clients, and it is but just that their urgent wants should be satisfied. But it is a tax upon the capacities of small libraries that should be met somehow else; they would be spared it by the new system, and the cost of the supplemental library would be saved over and over again, the local library then having more funds to maintain the stock of books in regular demand.

The present Central Library for Students is a step in the right direction, but it is only a step; the work will have to be done on a very large scale. This library was an outgrowth of the efforts to supply students attending university tutorial and W.E.A. classes with books to carry on systematic reading. At the end of 1915, the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust undertook to provide £600 to assist in the establishment of the library, £2,000 for additions to the stock, and £400 yearly for five years, if £320 were raised by subscription. The subvention was afterwards raised to £1,000 a year, and in 1920 the issues of books numbered 15,500. The Adult Education Committee were deeply impressed by the exceptional value of the work performed by this library, and proposed that it should be made the nucleus of a central circulating library to supplement the local library service all over the country. With an assured income of £2,000 a year for ten years, they calculated that an annual circulation of at least 40,000 volumes would be attained; their estimate being based on an estimated cost of 1s. per volume issued. The actual cost of each issue, under our present benevolent postal regime, is considerably more. The figure is now probably not less than 1s. 6d. Add return postage to this, and you will see that, after borrowing a book two or three times, you might as well have bought it outright. The method of sending out books singly is too expensive. And a circulation of 40,000 a year would be a mere drop in the ocean; any small provincial library has an annual circulation of at least 40,000; a large borough library system in London expects an annual circulation of about a million. The thing must be done on a vast scale to be worth doing at all, and then it can be done cheaply, even if, as might reasonably be expected, the Post Office declines to grant a large rebate on the transmission of books issued from the national libraries. The proper method is to make our central library or libraries an integral part of the whole machine, supplying to all other libraries all, or nearly all, of the books that are not imperatively necessary on the spot for everyday purposes. Then the issues from the central library will not be in twos and threes, but in large batches, and the average cost will be reduced to an economic amount.

Mr. John McKillop produced a workmanlike scheme in 1907 for such a supplemental library in London as would have provided all the students and other hard working readers throughout the twenty-eight municipal boroughs with all the books required in the most exacting course of study. He proposed that it should be established by the Education Committee of the London County Council, since its greatest immediate effect would be to supply students with expensive works not now within their reach.

“With eighty-five municipal libraries already established in London, it would be useless duplication for the Education Committee to undertake all the work of registering borrowers and issuing volumes to them and safeguarding their return. It is suggested that the contents of the Council’s collection should be lent on application to the public libraries and the libraries of educational institutions which could then lend them to their clients. This method would avoid the necessity for a very large staff. The central collection would have as borrowers merely the eighty-five libraries and branches already established, and those which may be added from time to time by the boroughs in the future, together with the fifty or so polytechnics, and such other of the institutions for higher education as may care to avail themselves of the facilities offered. In any case its borrowers could not exceed a couple of hundred, and though each of these might daily draw and return large numbers of books, the clerical labour required would be but a fraction of that necessary in a smaller library, where a large number of borrowers withdraw and return one or at most two volumes each.”[38]

Mr. McKillop based his estimate of cost on the number of volumes contained in the Patent Office Library, viz., 105,000 volumes, which comprehend a very large proportion of modern scientific works. “If we take 35,000 as the number of volumes required for a modern working science library of reference (_i.e._, excluding the smaller text-books and class-books), and if we allow four times this number for the needs of departments other than science, we get a total of 165,000 volumes as the size of the collection. As a basis to calculate the capital cost of the collection probably 5s. is too little and 10s. too much per volume. Taking 7s. 6d. as a working figure the total cost would be about £62,000 (one penny rate in London produces £171,000). But it would be impossible to spend for this purpose wisely and economically such a sum as £62,000 within less than ten years, and the collection could be got together with reasonable rapidity by the expenditure of not more than £10,000 in any one year. The average expenditure would probably be nearer £5,000. In regard to administration the cost would be probably easily covered by £5,000 a year when in full working order, but would be four or five years in getting up to that figure.”[39]

If the cost of Mr. McKillop’s scheme was to be £5,000 a year in pre-war money, we can hardly expect much from £2,000 a year now, especially when the whole of the United Kingdom, and not London alone, is to be supplied. Further, it is hardly too optimistic to conjecture that the number of students and other serious readers in the population is a great deal higher now than it was in 1907, and, accordingly, that the demands upon our supplemental libraries would be proportionately more exacting. No, the Adult Education Committee have not looked far enough: a much bigger scheme is required, and the expenditure of much larger sums than they contemplate. But there is no need to be frightened by the cost; one may safely affirm that the general economic saving will be in direct proportion to the outlay on the establishment and upkeep of the experimental libraries. Whatever is spent at the centre, will be far more than made up by savings at the circumference.

Mr. McKillop put the case of the student of science and technology, for whose difficulties he felt most concern, although there are numerous others whose state of destitution is no less pitiful, with a cogency that cannot be bettered.