LIBRARY QUESTIONS. 153
the disease. Its symptoms we have in seum. It may not, like the library of
his '"Bibliomania," as well as many Paris, count its books by millions; but
notes on men who have spent their lives every volume must be like a sentinel on
in the collection of books " cheaply duty, and the arrangement must be such
bought with thrice their weight in gold." that it can be determined at once what
In his imagination an auction was a belongs to any department or subject,
skillfully manceuvered battle, and the The old world has beyond comparison
sale of a "Boccacio" u a Waterloo more resources for the scholar in its li-
among books." braries; but in rapidity of circulation,
But pleasant as this field may be to a inflexibility of management, in ability to man of leisure, and profitable as it is to reach the people, and in much that goes librarians, few are those who can indulge to constitute the true public library, Eu- the taste, or become book-hunters. An rope must yield to America. In fact it American librarian, with indexing, cir- claimed that the popular library, tak- culation and the books of the day crowd- ing that of Philadelphia as the represent- ing every department, must, in a majority ative, is older here than in England, of cases, consign bibliography as well The public library of the future is to be as antiquarian and many other kinds of like the school, within the reach of ev- research, to specialists. He must first ery one. It is to have the benefit of spe- be practical, and administer for the ma- cial laws and possibly special taxes, to jority, yet if he would be in the highest be paid the most cheerfully of all. sense successful, he must not only live Small assessments accomplish large re- in the atmosphere of the catalogue, but suits in furnishing reading, and there is also consider bibliography, with its more the constantly increasing assistance of than twenty thousand volumes, as a con- endowments. The commissioner of edu- tinually to be drawn upon andiuexhaust- cation notes that of thirty seven towns ible storehouse. and cities where libraries have been es-
A perfect library system is one of tablished, thirty-two voted unanimously those things which are many years in for them, and in the remaining five cities the future. We can tell some of the the vote was three to one in their favor, conditions which must enter into it and Eight states already have library stat- quite definitely many things which must utes and eleven states have public libra- be excluded. The old world has price- ries. It is noticable that of the li- less treasures in manuscripts and untold braries mentioned Massachusetts pos- wealth in volumes, but from the very sesses two-thirds, and the same ratio of bulk of the collections as fouud in the the 1,300,000 volumes. But while this large libraries, a change of system be- small part of our really public libraries cemes impossible. The past has be- has only a fifth more volumes than the queathed them methods cumbersome and British Museum, it represents a wide in- uusuited to the present and to a reading fluence in a circulation of nearly five people. The improvements in methods millions, and probably twice that num- of administration are not to he found in Der f readers. As the use of all classes the old collections, with their flavor of f libraries increases, so must the scien- scholarship and antiquity, but in the li- tific knowledge of how to use them, braries which have grown up in the And it is probable that in the future li- manufacturing places like Manchester brary manuals will become text books and Leeds. The model library is not to rather than catalogues, and that their be arranged by gilt edges as was said of principles will be deemed as essential to one old collection. It is not to be an in- readers as book-keeping to business men. accessible buried assemblage of books In colleges there is no sufficient reason and manuscripts like that of the Vatican. w hy a limited time should not be given And it must not be without an index, to the study of bibliography or some- aud hence open to the charge of being thing allied to it ; and any student would pathless, as is said of the British Mu- be doubly paid for the time given by the
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