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
Only the librarian must not mistake unintelligent imitation for
initiative. Imitation in itself is unobjectionable. If what someone else
has devised is obviously the very thing you have been looking for to
solve your problem, you would only waste energy in trying to devise
something else. But if you think you can create in your community a
library as good, we will say, as Mr. Dana’s in Newark, or Mr. Brett’s in
Cleveland or Mr. Jennings’ in Seattle, simply by copying every detail of
those institutions, you are as foolish as if you thought you could make
yourself look like your well-dressed friend simply by borrowing his
clothes. The library must fit the community; also, in some respects, the
librarian. I have recently visited Miss Hewins’ office in the Hartford
Public Library. I think it is the most fascinating office a librarian
ever occupied. But I certainly shall not go home to St. Louis and try to
make mine look like it.
This warning applies particularly to the added functions of which we
have been speaking above. They should be assumed in response to a
demand--expressed or latent. The demand may be obvious and insistent in
one library and non-existent in another. If you suspect a latent
demand, experiment will generally reveal or disprove its existence, just
as those few hundreds of Hungarian books brought out the demand for the
present thousands. We have on the east side of our library a broad
terrace, balustraded, elevated above the street, paved with brick and
stone. It is shady on summer afternoons, and swept by the south breeze.
What an ideal place to read in the open air, instead of in the stuffy
building! We equipped it with tables and chairs, relaxed the rules to
make it easy to take books and magazines there, did everything in our
power to encourage terrace readers. The public press saw and approved.
Everything worked well, except that nobody came! A failure, do you say?
Not at all. We had tried our experiment, tested for our possible latent
demand and found that there was none. We had asked our question and
received our answer. There are no tables and chairs on that terrace
to-day, but we are not discouraged: why should we be? A real experiment
never fails: you always get your answer--yes or no. Of course if your
experiment is a sham, and you have assumed that the answer is to be the
one that you want, you may be disappointed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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