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
In short, the view taken in this paper may be briefly summed up as
follows: Lay control in libraries and elsewhere is a logical and proper
development. It would not, on the whole, be well for one who should wish
to endow a library to make an expert librarian sole trustee for life
with power to select his successor. That would be a fine thing for the
librarian, but it would be neither desirable nor proper. It is well that
the trustees should be responsible representatives of the lay public,
for whose benefit the library is to be conducted. But as the public is
interested chiefly in results, the trustees should confine themselves
largely to the indication and requirement of these results, leaving
methods in the hand of their expert staff of subordinates. And it is
eminently desirable that librarians should hear from a representative
body of trustees some expression of opinion regarding the extent of this
limitation.
THE WHOLE DUTY OF A LIBRARY TRUSTEE: FROM A LIBRARIAN’S STANDPOINT[4]
At a former meeting of this section the present writer had the honor of
reading a paper in which he made an attempt to show that the trustee of
the public library is the representative of the public and, as such,
interested especially in results as distinguished from methods, which
are the business of the librarian as an expert administrator. In making
this distinction I urged trustees to give particular attention to the
formulation of such results as they should consider desirable, that
librarians on their part might confine themselves more to the
consideration of appropriate methods for the attainment of these
results. So far as I know, however, this work remains to be
accomplished, and it is because I still think it desirable that I
welcome this opportunity of restating the situation and making some
attempt to illustrate it and to indicate what may and should be done in
the premises. According to this view it is not only the duty of a board
of trustees to consider what should be the results aimed at by its
library, to formulate its conclusions, to communicate them to the
librarian and then to hold him responsible for their attainment, but
everything that the board may properly do may be brought under this
head; and to state it broadly is therefore to set forth comprehensively
the “whole duty of a trustee,” which may serve as the justification of
my somewhat ambitious title.
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