The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-01-01
HOW To USE A LIBRARY.


he go to work ? These efforts some
times have endless quotations al the way
from Moses to yesterdays newspaper
and facts and figures to crush one;
does the statesman evolve it all from his
inner consciousness and story of learn
ing? Hardly. He goes to the Con-
gressional library, finds the librarian and
says: "AIr. Spofford, am going to make
a speech on so and so; wish you would
send few books to my ROOM" In lit
tie time lot of books appear at the
Congressman's room, and the work of
making a speech begins. If the Con-
gresham has more time than money
and cannot use any clerk paid by the
government he perhaps struggles
though the matter himself, but more
common way is to so manage that Uncle
Sam pays somebody to sift out the ire
mendous array of quotations and the
like and perhaps to write the speech as
well. The Congressman may write his
own speech, but he is not infrequently
man schooled in political manipulation
rather than literary matters, prone to
confusioI in even the simpler walks of
the English tongue, to say nothing of
such matter as logic and ability to
grasp a subject and write an article,
with beginning, middle and end, and he
is forced to either get some clerk to put
the speech together or hire half-starVed
newspaper man to do it. When it is. to-
gether he very likely "gets leave to
print" which means that the House will
not listen to the thing, but will let the
government pay for printing it in the
| Congressional Record. After it is pub
lished in the Record it is printed separ-
ately and showered upon constituents,
these inOffending persons are impressed
in inverse proportion to their knowledge
of the facts, and the speech which was
not spoken serves its real end. The ma
terial was furnished by the librarian and
selected and arranged by somebody else
and perhaps nevei delivered at all, but
|
speech as he does everything else; as a
small move in politics. Perhaps the
Congressman is man of larger capacity
and writes and delivers speech to some
purpose, but still one thing is true-he
goes to Mr.. Spofford for the books.
Ainsworth r. Spofford is in his way
the most remarkable man in the world.
He has long been in charge of the Con-
gressional library and has wonderful
knowledge of the contents of unnum-
bered books. He has not the knowledge
of the scholar, but of the librarian. 1t
is his work to tell all corners what books
touch the subjects theyhave in hand and
his knowledge is such that there is
hardly any scholar in the world who can
not consult him with profit. He never
reads book, but reads almost every
book review published and runs his eye
over endless tables of contents. If the
table fails he will run through the leaves
rapidly in way to get the run of the
subjects touched and carry the result in
his memory ready for use at any time
for years. 1t constantly happens that
books touch subjects which the titles do
not indicate at all, and no practicable
catalogue or index serves the purposes
as does Mr. Spofford's memory.
There is only one Mr.. SpolTold, but
nearly every public library has some one
in charge who can give similar help, and
in many cases other librarians master
their smaller collections even more per-
fectly than Mr.. Spofford does his enor-
nous one. 1t is common thing to see
people wondering and puzzling at length
over the meaning or proper use of
word with dictionary right in the room
which would give the precise informa-
ton sought in moment. 1t is even
more common to find people anxiously
hunting high and low for some fact
which any library would give them in
five minutes. In one case they do not
think and in the other they often do not
know. People who have had no special
occasion to tdrn that way have in many
cases little idea of the case with which a
subject may be chased down with few
reference books.
w. F. Poole, one of the most famous
of the librarians in this country who is
now at the head of the great Newberry
reference library in Chicago, was for
long time in charge of the public library
in the same city and in that position
took special pains to teach the method
of using books of reference-of studying
in library. He used to get pupils from
the high school into the library and give
them object lessons in looking up sub
jects. He taught them to first read the
encyclopedias to get the skeleton state
ment and references to other books,
then followed the references or went
without them to general histories or
what not, and finally to biographies or
books on special subjects and magazine
articles to get at the utmost details. Mr..
POole's idea is that the public library is
closely allied to the public school and
should be made to serve a part of the
same purpose as closely as possible.
1t is undoubtedly true that public Ii.
braries would be used for reference or
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