Manual of Library Economy: Third and Memorial EditionBrown, James Duff
Science
Manual of Library Economy: Third and Memorial Edition
Brown, James Duff
Libraries -- Great Britain -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.; Library science -- Great Britain -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
=58.= Where it is thought necessary to keep records of the occupations
of readers, a blank line for the name of the occupation is included on
the application voucher (see Section 368) from which the records are
made.
=59.= It is not usual to keep formal statistics of the number of
visitors to newspaper and periodical rooms; the attendances are either
not recorded or are estimated. In some cases, however, a daily count is
made at monthly or other intervals and the yearly attendance is gauged
from this. It is obvious that such figures have no great value. A series
of visits to the rooms will assure any librarian or member of committee
of the amount of use that is made of them equally well.
=60.= Brief paragraphs, presenting the record of work weekly or monthly,
and the number of borrowers, are sometimes sent to the local newspapers.
This is a good plan, and the matter is more acceptable if presented in
literary rather than in merely tabular form. At each meeting of the
library committee a fairly complete statistical record of the work since
the last meeting is presented, in which the factors we have discussed,
together with the percentage of fiction issued, and comparisons with the
corresponding weeks or months of the previous year, are made. The
committee is thus kept closely acquainted with the results of its work.
=61. The Annual Report.=--The annual report of the library committee is
the summary and crown of its labours, and is often the most direct means
of contact between the committee and the community. Such reports deserve
more attention than is commonly given to them by librarians, and in this
matter the American librarian--who is essentially a business man and
does not often produce useless documents--may give hints to his British
brethren. A report should be a complete history of the operations of the
library in all its departments; and if improvement is necessary it is in
the direction of reducing the mere statistical and in increasing the
literary matter to be included. Elaborate tables of issue, stock, etc.,
of central and branch libraries have a use for the librarian and may be
kept at the libraries, but their publication is of interest to few other
people, and they are better given in summary. Plain and clear reports,
in which comparisons with other libraries by name should be avoided, and
which present the salient statistics without the use of confusingly
elaborate tables, give the best results. Illustrations and an occasional
diagram rendering in graphic form the statistical results of work are
not necessarily superfluous, and may brighten the report considerably.
The report will not be a less authoritative document if it is
attractive. The information which a library report ought to convey may
be indicated briefly as follows:
Title-page.
List of members of committee and library staff.
Narrative report.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account