Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
Science
Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912
American Library Association; Library science -- Congresses
(2) Economical service. (a) The library that loans the book. Rather
than have a book, that has cost time and money, stand idle on the
shelves, the library owning it would be better repaid for the
expenditure if the book were used by more people. (b) The library that
borrows the book. Rather than purchase a book which would seldom be
requested, it would be better to borrow it, and use one's funds and
time and shelf room for books that would be in constant demand. For
example: take two special lines of library service here in California
at the present time.
(1) Books for the blind. Aside from a small collection in the San
Francisco reading room and library for the blind for the local blind,
and the small collection for the students in the Berkeley California
institute for the education of the blind and the deaf, the state
library has almost all the books and magazines used by the blind of the
state. It would not be economical for other libraries or individuals
to undertake to carry on this work, so the state library discourages
anyone else buying such books and undertakes to furnish them to
anyone needing them. If many want to read certain periodicals they
are duplicated several times and sent in order to the various blind
borrowers.
(2) Medical books and periodicals. The Lane medical library in San
Francisco and the Barlow medical library in Los Angeles have perhaps
the best medical collections in the state. The state library of course
has and is building up a collection in this line for the use of the
whole state, but it often borrows from the first two mentioned.
II. Scope.
There will be no limit, apparently, to the scope of inter-library loans
in California. Each library at present makes an effort to loan anything
asked of it by any other library. For example, the state library buys
no fiction, but from the union catalogs of the county free libraries
which is located at the state library, it is possible to tell where
a certain book is located and to direct one to the other for a rush
request of fiction.
Rare books are loaned by library to library and used by the borrower at
the library.
Newspapers it is not necessary now to loan as by cameragraphing the
needed extract from them, the expense, wear and tear, and risk of such
loans are avoided. The same applies to articles in unbound or bound
periodicals. Cameragraphing an article in a periodical also makes
unnecessary the duplicating of certain periodicals because of some
especially needed article. Cameragraphing is also economical in that it
keeps the files in the library and so more material is always available
for reference use.
Even reference books, however, are loaned or borrowed frequently to
meet certain needs. So the scope is of necessity a matter of judgment
of the particular case in question.
III. Extent of borrower's financial responsibility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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