Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public LibrariesBostwick, Arthur E. (Arthur Elmore)
Science
Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries
Bostwick, Arthur E. (Arthur Elmore)
Library science; Public libraries
restrictions are simply exhibits of our reluctance to place ourselves at
the complete social disposal of the community. A community is not a
community unless it has political and religious interests. If we are
going to become socialized at all, why balk at these any more than we
should exclude from our shelves books on politics and religion? I look
to see socialization, in this and other directions, proceed to such
lengths that the older library ideals may have to go entirely by the
board. Some of them are tottering now. I have said that I consider this
matter of the use of assembly rooms only one item in what I have called
socialization. It may all be summed up by saying that we are coming to
consider the library somewhat in the light of a community club, of which
all well-behaved citizens are members. Our buildings are clubhouses,
with books and magazines, meeting rooms, toilet facilities,
kitchens--almost everything, in fact, that a good, small club would
contain. If you say “then they have ceased to be libraries and are
something else,” that does not affect me any more than when you show
that we are no longer speaking Chaucer’s language or wearing the clothes
of Alfred the Great.
When we were trying to explain to the architects of the New York branch
buildings exactly what we wanted in those structures and met with the
usual misconception based on medieval ideas of a library, one of the
most eminent architects in the United States suddenly sat up and took
notice. “Why, these buildings are not to be _libraries_ at all,” he
said, “they are to be reading clubs.” He had learned in a few minutes
what many of us still see through a glass darkly.
An even more important manifestation of what I have called socialization
is the extension of occupation groups to which the library is giving
special attention and special service. The library has always had in
mind one or more of these groups. Once it catered almost entirely to a
group of scholars, at first belonging predominantly to the clergy. In
later years it added the teachers in schools and their pupils, also the
children of the community. These are definite groups, and their
recognition in the rendition of service is a social act. Other groups
are now being added with rapidity, and we are recognizing in our service
industrial workers, business men, artists of various kinds, musicians
and so on. The recognition of new groups and the extension of definite
library service to them is progress in socialization, and it is going on
steadily at the present time.
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