Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901 — John Shaqi
Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901
Science
Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association: Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901
American Library Association; Library science -- Congresses
In times past our bibliographies have begun to need enlargement the
moment they left the bindery; in the present case that need is for the
first time to be supplied. Mr. Larned's titles come to the close of
1899; beyond that period current literature is to be chosen from and
appraised with the editorship of Philip P. Wells, librarian of the Yale
Law Library, who will issue his series in card form. We hope that he may
be ready with his cards for 1900 at the time that Mr. Larned's book
appears. Thereafter Mr. Wells' series will probably be published quarter
by quarter. Beginning with 1897, Mr. W. Dawson Johnston, now of the
Library of Congress, has edited for us a series of annotated cards
dealing with the contemporary literature of English history. Both the
form and substance of his series are capital. In so far as his cards go
directly into catalog cases, where readers and students must of
necessity see them, they render the utmost possible aid. If subscribers
in sufficient array come forward, Mr. Larned's book may be remolded for
issue in similar card form, with a like opportunity for service in
catalog cases. In the Cleveland Public Library and its branches useful
notes are pasted within the lids of a good many volumes. It is well thus
to put immediately under the reader's eye the word which points him
directly to his goal, or prevents him wasting time in wanderings of
little value or no value at all.
With Mr. Larned's achievement a new chapter is opened in American
librarianship; he breaks a path which should be followed up with a
discernment and patience emulous of his example. If the whole working
round of our literature were sifted and labelled after his method, the
worth of that literature, because clearly brought into evidence, might
well be doubled at least. Every increase in the availability of our
books, every removal of fences, every setting-up of guide-posts, has had
a heartening public response. So it will be if we proceed with this
effort to bring together the seekers and the knowers, to obtain the best
available judgments for the behoof of readers and students everywhere.
Economics and politics, so closely interwoven with American history,
might well afford the second field for appraisal. A good many libraries
still find aid in the "Reader's guide" in this department, although it
appeared as long ago as 1891. Next might follow the literature of the
sciences pure and applied, together with the useful arts. Among useful
arts those of the household might well have the lead, for we must not be
academic, or ever lose sight of the duties nearest at hand to the great
body of the plain people. Mr. Sturgis and Mr. Krehbiel, in 1897, did an
excellent piece of work for us in their "Bibliography of the fine arts";
their guide might profitably be revised and enlarged in its several
divisions, not omitting the introductory paragraphs which make the book
unique in its class. These tasks well in hand, we might come to such
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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