The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-10-01
POOR COLLECTION
SOME GOOD BOOKS THERE BUT
MANY LACKING.
LIBRARY NOW USED FOR REFERENCE ONLY
Some Expert Buying Needed as Well as Ar
ranging to Round the Library Out A
Reading Room and What-there
is to Read in it.

AS great as is the Improvement that
has been wrought by the classification
cataloguing and Encouragement of the
State Library the change in one particu-
lar is "a distinctively distasteful one
it enables you to see for the first time
what a miserably poor library the State
of North Carolina has. Before the re-
arrangement the patriotic citizen could
walk in, survey the congiomeration in
all its heterogeneity and impenetrable
confusion and, Judging solely by bulk in
the absence Of any other possible method,
go away feeling that it the State had no
library it at least had tolerable "col-
lection of books" Now he cannot
soothe himself with amy such sweet de-
lusion.
Not that there are not many highly
valuable, useful and even rare books in
the State Library-there are. But some
how as you run over the shelves you get
the impression that a roulette wheel was
responsible for the make up of the
lbrary-it is such hap-hazard of val
liable books and of the most ahject pro-
ducts Of the printing press, of fine fcath-
RIS anu u rags VI )uit %Olh kiid AAlt
east up dross of the ages-a glaring eX-
ample of the no-system way Of doing
things and stern Indictment of the
habit Of setting men to do things that
they know little of. One does
not object so particularly to the sorry
books that are in the library because
they don't IVORY you if you let them
alone-it is the thought that good money
was expended on them while thousands
OK books that belong in every re-
spectacle library find no place on the
shelves. 1t doubtless takes all sorts IF
books to make public library just as
it takes all sorts of men To make a
public-but if one had the task Dc con
stituting Il public he would Seccs the
valuable citizens first and chunk i'll the
riff-raff in his leisure moments to add
variety and spice-he would see that all
the worthy men got in whatever bccame~
Of the rest. Not so with the makers or
our public library--to them the Weary
Willies of literature havesfallcn ready
and copious victims.
| would not in this connection be
understood as criticising any man or set
of men-the trouble has been with the
system or rather the lack of itgiyen the
the conditions precedent the results are
logical and inevitable. While some
trash has been put in, most of the books
bought recently have been well worth
a place in the library-but the buying
has been sporadic and apparently with
out reference to the needs of the library,
and in utter defiance of uniformity and
continuity. 1t is as though house
holder should put in a good enough lot of
furnishings for his house but omit the
beds or the chairs, or the kitchen range.
The. remedy for the condition of the
library is obvious enough, though little
likely to be applied. The work OF classi-
fication was needful and has been well
done 10y an expert. The next thing
needed is a committee of expert book
buyers, men who know exactly what
hooks should in any case go into a libra
ry, to 90 over the catalogue of books that
are already on the shelves and make out
supplementary lists of what is impera-
lively needed and then let this list be
followed in making the purchases until
the unseemly gaps that yawn on every
shelf of the library are filled and the
whole is rounded out. This is a work
that nobody but experts can do properly
and the library trustees would perhaps
be the first to recognize the advantage
and necessity of it.
This, of course, is said on the hyIiothe-
sis that the only legitimate end of
State library is to give the citizen Of
every class and calling access to the
books that will make most for has use
and pleasure-not all the books but ut
least those books that by the concensus
Of opinion among intelligent men are
judged to be indispensable to Il we'll
equipped library. Judged by any such
standard our State library is not a mat
ter of pride.
TO take up the library by the classes
in which the books are arranged let us
begin, say, with Fiction. There is an
excellent edition in uniform binding OF
Balzac. A good edition Of Cooper. much
thumbed Then Corelh in nine sunptu-
Gus volumes (sweet MarieD. Charles
Dickens is there of couse-Dickens al
ways is-hut he is collection that
would have been a winner in his Old
Curiosity Shop-eight bindings, colors and
sizes by actual count. Doyle. Dumas.
then George Eliot of three sorts And
next the Elsie series (save the markD
in twenty uniform volumes. any Of
which would be justifiable provocation to
any youth to scalp the cat for relaxation.
Continued on Second Page.)