CONSTITUENTS
THE USEFULNESS OF LIBRARIES IN SMALL TOWNS
LIBRARIES AS BUREAUS OF INFORMATION
CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING
PROBABLE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL OUTCOME OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES
POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF JOSEPH N. LARNED
THE LIBRARY AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE
THE LIBRARY AS A SOCIAL CENTRE
THE LIBRARY AND THE SOCIAL CENTRE
PREFACE
It may be desirable to repeat here the warning that the word “classics” in the title of this series is to be understood as meaning early and standard expressions of ideas that have later developed into prominence. The papers and addresses in this volume have been chosen especially with this in view, and as they emphasize social relations an effort has been made to include expressions from men of eminence whose names would not probably occur to the student of library economy as having expressed an opinion about the work of libraries or as having influenced it in any permanent way.
I desire to acknowledge the kindly assistance rendered in the selection and grouping of the articles by Mrs. Gertrude Gilbert Drury, chief instructor in the St. Louis Library School. It has been most valuable.
The original suggestion of this volume, and of the character of its contents, I owe to Dr. James I. Wyer, Jr., Director of the New York State Library.
Arthur E. Bostwick
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THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY
Recent progress in all directions—political, educational, industrial, hygienic—has been marked by the growth and strengthening of a social consciousness. It is this chiefly that has differentiated the modern library from its predecessors and has made prominent our present insistence on the reader as well as the book, as a fundamental element in what we are doing. At first evident only in a general and somewhat vague recognition, by writers and speakers, of a vital relation between libraries and the communities that they serve, it later crystallized into definite discussions of their reciprocal service—that of the community to the library, consisting of financial, material and moral support expressing itself partly in the appointment of adequate boards of trustees and their proper backing, and that of the library to the community, showing itself largely in the provision of books, the collection of information, the control and guidance of reading, and so-called “community-centre” service. These facts have guided the grouping and sequence of the papers and addresses that make up the present volume. The authors, it will be noticed, include more statesmen, publicists, and professional men, and fewer librarians, than was the case with the two previous volumes, thus reflecting the greater generality and wider interest of the subject.
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GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS
In the following group have been included papers and addresses largely by publicists or educators interested in libraries from the general civic standpoint, and affected by the general trend toward what has been termed here “socialization.” They have been loosely arranged in three groups—general ideas on the field, function and possibilities of the library, papers on books and their uses, as affected or promoted by the library, and general addresses, chiefly at the opening of library buildings. Within these groups they are given in general in their chronological order, although with some exceptions whose purpose will be self evident. Through them all runs the thread of consciousness that service to the community must be the primary object of the library, although the breadth and extent of that service, as it was destined later to grow and develop is not generally realized and in some cases doubtless would have been deprecated by the writers or speakers, could they have foreseen it. But in all these pronouncements we may clearly see the dawning light of a new library day.
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THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN AMERICA AND ITS TRUE FUNCTION IN THE COMMUNITY
This comprehensive sketch, by Professor Tyler of Cornell University, forms part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Sage Library, at West Bay City, Michigan, Jan. 16, 1884.
Moses Coit Tyler was born in Griswold, Conn., Aug. 2, 1835 and graduated at Yale in 1857. He was professor of English at Michigan University in 1867-81 and from the latter year to his death, Dec. 28, 1900, held the chair of American History at Cornell.
In this address, Prof. Tyler has added to his equipment as a philosophical historian his personal knowledge and experience of the service that a properly administered collection of books may render to a community.
Looking over
