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
Another suggestion; proper system in the management and control of one's
time demands that none of it be absorbed by trifles or triflers; and so
every librarian must indispensably know how to get rid of bores. One may
almost always manage to effect this without giving offense, and at the
same time without wasting any time upon them, which is the one thing
needful. The bore is commonly one who, having little or nothing to do,
inflicts himself upon the busy persons of his acquaintance, and
especially upon the ones whom he credits with knowing the most--to wit,
the librarians. Receive him courteously, but keep on steadily at the work
you are doing when he enters. If you are skilful, you can easily do two
things at once, for example, answer your idler friend or your bore, and
revise title-cards, or mark a catalogue, or collate a book, or look up a
quotation, or write a letter, at the same time. Never lose your good
humor, never say that your time is valuable, or that you are very busy;
never hint at his going away; but never quit your work, answer questions
cheerfully, and keep on, allowing nothing to take your eyes off your
business. By and by he will take the hint, if not wholly pachydermatous,
and go away of his own accord. By pursuing this course I have saved
infinite time, and got rid of infinite bores, by one and the same
process.
The faculty of organizing one's work is essential, in order to efficiency
and accomplishment. If you do not have a plan and adhere to it, if you
let this, that, and the other person interrupt you with trifling gossip,
or unnecessary requests, you will never get ahead of your work; on the
contrary, your work will always get ahead of you. The same result will
follow if you interrupt yourself, by yielding to the temptation of
reading just a page or a paragraph of something that attracts your eye
while at work. This dissipation of time, to say nothing of its unfair
appropriation of what belongs to the library, defeats the prompt
accomplishment of the work in hand, and fosters the evil habit of
scattering your forces, in idleness and procrastination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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