If the public is not admitted to the shelves, it will be necessary to supply catalogs for public use as well as slips on which lists of books wanted can be made out; but the fullest possible catalogs and the finest appointments in the delivery room cannot take the place of direct contact between librarian or assistants and the public. Wherever possible, the person to whom the borrower applies for a book should go himself to the shelves for it. The stranger in the library should be made welcome. Encourage the timid, volunteer to them directions and suggestions, and instruct them in the library's methods. Conversation at the counter having to do with wants of borrowers should be encouraged rather than discouraged. No mechanical devices can take the place of face to face question and answer. The public like to handle and examine their books, and it is good for them to do it. They like the arrangements in the library to be simple; they object to red tape and rules. They like to have their institutions seem to assume--through, for example, the absence of signs--that they know how to conduct themselves courteously without being told. They don't like delays. They like to be encouraged to ask questions. They like to be consulted as to their wants, and as to changes in arrangements and methods. They like to feel at home in their library. CHAPTER XXXIV The public library for the public The librarian of former times was almost invariably a bookworm, and was often a student properly so called. The older librarians of the present day, and the librarians of the great libraries of our cities, are also very commonly men of letters, men of learning, men who admire the student spirit and know how to appreciate it. The librarian of former days actually felt that the books of which he had charge were to be used, if they were used at all, chiefly, if not only, by persons who wished to make some careful and painstaking research; and the older librarians, and the librarians of the greater libraries of today, are also inclined to think that their libraries are best used, or at least are used as fully as they need be, when they are visited by those who are engaged in original investigation or serious study of some sort. As a fellow librarian once wrote me, for example, of one of his colleagues, "His whole trend is scholarly rather than popular; he appreciates genuine contributions to art, science, and industry, but has little taste for the great class of books that the main body of readers care for." This view of literature, libraries, and the use of books, and this special fondness for what may be called genuine contributions to art, science, and industry, are proper enough in their time and place; but it cannot be too often impressed upon the library world, and upon those who contribute to the support of libraries, and upon trustees and directors generally, that the thing that is of great consequence in the work of the free public library is