a great estate to understand the details of his garden, his stable, his kennels, as well as the experts to whom he entrusts them, is absurd. He may, of course, as a matter of amusement, busy himself in some one department, but if he tries to superintend everything personally, still more to understand and regulate matters of detail, he is wasting his time.
We must seek our analogy, then, both for lay control and for the attitude of the ordinary citizen toward it in that citizen’s management of his private affairs. He knows his own business—or thinks he does—and he finds it hard to realize that the details of that business could ever grow beyond his personal control.
But, after all, this progress is one towards the normal. Attention to details in the case of the poor man is forced upon him. Except in rare cases, he does not really care to shovel his own snow; he would prefer to hire a man to do it, and as soon as he can he does do so. So long as his sidewalk is properly cleared he is willing to leave the details to the man who clears it. He does not care whether that man begins at the north or the south end, or whether his shovelfuls are small or large.
Here, if we examine, we shall find a common characteristic of those kinds of work where laymen are in control—the persons for whom the work is done care very much about results; they are careless of methods so long as those results are attained. And in a very large number of cases the persons for whom the work is done will be found to be the public, or so large a section of it that it is practically a group of laymen so far as the particular work in question may be concerned.
A lay board of directors or a lay departmental head, then, is simply and properly a representative of a greater lay body that is particularly anxious for results and not particularly anxious about methods. Lay control is thus not illogical, but is the outcome of a regular and very proper development. But, as has been said, it is not the only method of controlling a great institution. An institution may be managed by a graded body of experts. So were the old guilds of craftsmen managed. So are many ecclesiastical bodies, notably the Roman Catholic Church. We may call this method of control hierarchical. It has some advantages over lay control and some disadvantages. We may imagine such a system applied to libraries. All the libraries in a state, we will say, would then be managed by the state librarian, and all these officers would be subject to the orders of the librarian of the national library, who would be supreme and accountable to no one. Without going into detailed discussion of this extremely supposititious case, we may say that the objection to it would be that the persons who are especially interested in the results of the work done are not represented in the controlling hierarchy. Where the persons interested are all experts, as in a guild of craftsmen, there can perhaps be no objection to control by experts; though even in this case we are leaving out of consideration the persons, generally laymen, for whom the craftsmen do their work.
In fact, any trouble that may arise from the lay control of a body of expert workers lies just here—in the failure either of the controlling authority or the trained subordinates to recognize and keep within their limitations. It should be the function of the supreme lay authority to decide what results it wants and then to see that it gets them—to call attention to any deviation from them and to replace those who cannot achieve them by others who can. It should be the part of the expert staff of subordinates to discover by what methods these results can best be reached and then to follow out these methods.
When the lay head attempts to direct the details of method, or when the trained subordinate thinks it his duty to influence the policy of the institution, then there is apt to be trouble.
Such results are apt to follow, on the one hand, the inclusion in a board of trustees of a man with a passion for detail and a great personal interest in the work under him, but without a keen realization of the necessity for strict organization and discipline in his expert staff; or, on the other hand, from the presence in that staff of a masterful man who cannot rest until he is in virtual control of whatever he concerns himself about.
I say trouble is apt to follow in such cases. It does not always follow, for the organization may adapt itself to circumstances. The interested trustee may play with ease his two roles, fitting into his board as a lay member and becoming practically also a part of the expert staff. The masterful subordinate may dominate his board so as to become its dictator, and thus do away for a time with his lay control. We have all seen both these things happen, not only in libraries, but in banks, in hospitals, in charitable institutions. In some cases it has been well that they have happened. But although an occasional stick is flexible enough to be tied into a knot, it would be hazardous to try the experiment with all sticks. Some may bend but more will break.
Is it not better to accept frankly the division of labor that seems to have been pointed out by the development of our institutions for the guidance of their management?
Boards of trustees in this case would find it necessary to decide first on the desirable results to be reached in their work. This is a phase of library discussion that has been somewhat neglected. What is the public library trying to get at? Not stated in vague terms, but in concrete form, so that the trustees can call the librarian to account if he fails to accomplish it? It is only fair to the librarian that he should be informed at the outset precisely what he is expected to do, and then it is only fair that he should be left to do it in his own way.
This is an unoccupied field, and it would be an eminently proper one for the Trustees’ Section of the American Library Association. We librarians should be very glad to know just what you expect us to accomplish, for on that depends our manner of setting to work. Do you wish us to aim at decreasing the percentage of illiteracy in the community? or the arrests for drunkenness? Are we to strive for an increased circulation? And will an absolute increase be satisfactory, or must it be an increase proportionate to population? Is it definitely demanded of us to decrease our fiction percentage? Shall we, in any given case, devote our attention chiefly to the home use or the reference use of the library? Shall we favor the student or the ordinary citizen? These questions, of course, cannot receive a general answer; they must be decided differently in different cases, but at least we may agree on the type of question that it is admissible to answer at all and on the degree of detail to which it is permissible to go in stating a requirement.
For instance, is it admissible for a board to say to its librarian, “The results that we require you to show include the following: A well-ordered collection of books classified according to the Dewey system, bound in half duck and distributed with the aid of the Browne charging system?” I think it will be granted that this would be an attempt to control the details of method in the guise of a statement of desired results. But where shall we draw the line? How specific may be the things that a board may properly require of its expert staff? That is the question whose solution by this Section would be an inestimable benefit to all libraries and librarians. At present there is wide difference of opinion and of practice on this point. Many people would not agree at all with the limitations that have just been laid down; even those who do agree would differ widely over their interpretation.
There is hardly time to anticipate and meet criticism. I shall be reminded, I suppose, that the funds for carrying on the library’s work are in the hands of the trustees, and that one of the main objects of their existence is to see that the money is honestly spent, not stolen or wasted. How can they do this without close oversight of methods? To this I would reply that this important function of the board is distinctly the requirement of a result, that result being the honest administration of the library. The method by which it may be administered most honestly is best left to the expert head. Naturally, if evidence of peculation or waste comes before the board the librarian will be held to account as having failed to achieve the required result of honest administration. In this and in other respects the necessity that the board should know whether or not the desired results are being attained means that the work of the executive officer should be followed with attention. It must be evident, however, that this does not involve control and dictation of methods.
It must also be remembered that what has been
