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
But the personal relations of the librarian and her assistants with the
public belong as much in the third section of our subject as in the
second. The importance of them cannot be exaggerated. I am not sure that
I should not prefer a sunny-faced, pleasant-voiced, intelligent,
good-tempered assistant in a tumble-down building with a lot of
second-hand, badly arranged books, rather than the latest Carnegie
library stocked with literary treasures if these had to be dispensed by
a haughty young lady with monosyllabic answers and a fatigued
expression. I know of no more exasperating duty than that of continually
meeting a library public--and I know of no pleasanter one. For the
public is just you and me and some other people, and like you and me it
is various in its moods. The mood of the public in a library is often a
reflection of that of the librarian. The golden rule here is direct
personal contact; and don’t forget the last syllable--tact. Don’t force
your services or your advice on people that neither wish nor require
them, but don’t forget that you may have pleasant, intellectual
intercourse without offering either aid or advice. When an aged man who
knows more of literature than you dreamed of in your wildest visions
wants “The Dolly dialogues,” don’t try to get him to take “Marius the
Epicurean” instead. But if you get into the habit of talking with him it
may make the library seem pleasant and homelike to him, and, besides, he
may tell you something that you do not know--that is a not remote and
certainly fascinating possibility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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