A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private LibrariesSpofford, Ainsworth Rand
Science
A Book for All Readers: An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries
Spofford, Ainsworth Rand
Books; Library science
The great number and variety of such inquiries as are propounded by
readers should not appal one. Nor should one too readily take refuge from
a troublesome reader by the plea, however convenient, that the library
contains nothing on that subject. While this may unquestionably be true,
especially as regards a small public library, it should never be put
forward as a certainty, until one has looked. Most inquiring readers are
very patient, and being fully sensible how much they owe to the free
enjoyment of the library treasures, and to the aid of the superintendent
of them, they are willing to wait for information. However busy you may
be at the moment, the reader can be asked to wait, or to call at a less
busy time, when you will be prepared with a more satisfactory answer than
can be given on the spur of the moment. What cannot be done to-day, may
often be done to-morrow. Remember always, that readers are entitled to
the best and most careful service, for a librarian is not only the
keeper, but the interpreter of the intellectual stores of the library. It
is a good and a safe rule to let no opportunity of aiding a reader
escape. One should be particularly careful to volunteer help to those who
are too new or too timid to ask: and it is they who will be most grateful
for any assistance. The librarian has only to put himself in their
place--(the golden rule for a librarian, as for all the world besides),
and to consider how often, in his own searches in libraries, in the
continual, never-ending quest of knowledge, he would have been thankful
for a hint from some one who knew, or had been over the ground of his
search before; and then he will feel the full value to the novice, of
such knowledge as he can impart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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