The first step towards the enlarged use of the library was to
separate the children's books and classify them. We had had a
fixed location up to that time, and I had not yet broken loose
from it, but I numbered them according to the best light I had,
though in a very short time I saw that with the increased number
of duplicates we had to buy, only a movable location was of the
least practical use. It was several years before the Dewey
classification was finally adopted for the children, although we
classified our grown-up books by it before we opened to the
public.
When the library became free, in 1892, the annual circulation of
children's books rose at once to 50,000, 25 per cent of the
whole, and as large as the largest total in the subscription
days. We immediately had to buy a large supply of new books,
carefully chosen, and printed a too fully annotated list, which
we found useful for some years and discarded when we were able to
open the shelves. We had only a corner for children's books,
almost none for children under ten, and no admission to the
shelves. We struggled on as well as we could for the next few
years.
A dialogue between a reader and the librarian in 1897 shows what
we were trying to do at this time. It is really true, and
illustrates the lack of knowledge in one of the most intelligent
women in the city of the many points of contact between the
library and the boys and girls of the city.
Reader: "There ought to be somebody in the library to tell
people, especially children, what to read."
Librarian: "Have you ever seen the children's printed list, with
notes on books connected with school work, and others written for
older readers but interesting to children, hints on how and what
to read, and a letter R against the best books?"
Reader: "No, I never heard of it."
Librarian: "It was ready the day after the library opened, was
sold for five cents, and the first edition of a thousand copies
was exhausted so soon that a second had to be printed. Have you
ever heard of the lists of interesting books in connection with
Greek, Roman and English history given to high school pupils' or
the records kept for years by the North School children of books
which they have read, and sent to the librarian to be commented
on and criticised in an hour's friendly talk in the school room,
or the letters written on the use of the library by pupils in the
other schools?"
Reader: "No."
Librarian: "Have you ever seen the lists of good novels for boys
and girls growing away from books written for children and also a
list of interesting love-stories for readers who have heard of
only a few authors?"
Reader: "No."
Librarian: "Have you ever noticed the printed lists of new books,
with notes, hung on the bulletin board every Monday?"
Reader: "No."
Librarian: "Do you know that the library has twelve hundred
volumes of the best books by the best authors, fifty of each, for
use in the public schools?"
Reader: "No."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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