Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-13
Visit From the New York
State Library School.
AN INTERESTING WORK
HOW THE HANDLERS OF BOOKS
ARE TRAINED.
Other Schools to Look Over the Insti-
tutions Of Washington as Part
Of the Course.

scended upon the building and were taking
fairly complete possession Of it. About
forty young people were much in evidence.
and they were more searching in their in
vestigations than the usual visitor. They
did not join the long line of those who
| came to return books, nor hunt through the
open shelves, nor sit down in the reading
| room. Nor did they merely look around a
few minutes and then go out specializing
how much 1t all cost Carnegie" as is the
custom with strangers in Washington.
The first thing they did was to go up
stairs to the lecture hall and listen to
brief talk by the librarian. From this talk
it would have been plain that the speaker
was addressing listeners engaged in his
own line of work-those who were visiting
the library with the point of view of libra
r1ans rather than that of readers. The ma
ture of their interest would have been still
clearer afterward, for they went about in
little groups and penetrated into the In
| most parts of the bulding-went downstairs
| to see where the binding and mending is
done. and upstairs to look at the top floors
| of the book Stack-all the time talking in
strange language to the library assistants
about subject analytics,' "Shelf-liSts' and
other unintelligible matters.
Who They Were.
They were the students of the New York
| State Library School, now on their annual
| the second of four such schools to visit
Washington this spring for the members
| of the Library School of Pratt Institute
| have already been here, and during the
month a dozen or more students from a
| similar school at the Western Reserve Uni
versity in Cleveland will come, well as
those from the DreXel Institute in Phila-
! delphia-alI to visit the Library of Con-
gress, the public library and the other book
collections that Washington possesses.
| said noticeable when
| one discovers that an acquaintance is study
| ing at a library school he makes two re-
| marks. The first Is a venerable bit of joe
| osity: well, suppose you have to read all
the books in the library!'-a bit of faceu-
| BUSINESS that librarians soon come to regard
| as an old friend whose absence is missed.
| And the next is: Now, tell me just what
you study in library school. 1 don't see
how you spend two years over It," Then the
student, II unWary plunges into expla-
| nation, which leaves them both hopelessly
| befogged and the inquiring friend firmly
| convinced that a library school training is
but preliminary to that long and peaceful
| perusal of the latest novels in which many
| folk consider that a librarians career is
| spent.
The conduct of modern library, cfrculat-
| ing books among thousands of readers, is a
| highly complicated piece of work, and the
| object of a library school course Is to prepare
| the student for that work in order that he
| may strike the balance between confusion
| on one hand and reo-tape on the other. The
I
| or getting a card, or making any effort
| whatever before she took a book from
public library, remarking that it was all
| nonsense to require SO much of her-"at
| the lodge library all they had to know was
| that your husband belonged to the lodge
! this lady probably didn't stop to consider
| the effect on the MIND of the unfortunate
| library assistant who among 100000 people
| tried to recall exactly whose husbands did
| and did not belong to the lodge" On the
other hand, the librarians work lends itself
| easily to red tape and the creation of petty
rules and regulations justly annoying to
| readers. The librarian who brings this
spirit to his calling, whether he got it from
| a library school or from his own soul, had
better have kept to some other work.
Beginnings of the Work.
The rise and development of schools for
librarians followed the formation of the
American Library Association, the first
| publication of the Library Journal, and
other evidences of a renaissance in the IL
| brary world which became manifest about
| thirty years ago. Prominent librarians had
for some few years discussed the need of
| training for those persons who wished to
| work in libraries, but in 1887 Mr. Melvil
| Dewey opened at Columbia College, where
| he was librarian, the first library school.
| Two years later Mr.. Dewey became state
librarian and he moved the school with
| him to Albany, where 1t remains today.
| Graduates of this school have founded sew
| eral of the others, and besides these at
Drexel and at Pratt Institutes, at Western
| Reserve (Which was founded year or two
ago by gift from Mr.. Carpegie) there are
prosperous library schools at the Univer-
shy of Illinois and at Simmons College in
| Boston. There have been, moreover, an
amazing number of summer courses, cor
| reSpondence courses and classes of training
| for apprentices in colleges and Libraries
throughout the country. Westinghouse
| will recall the library course given a few
! years ago at the Columbian University.
The parent school at Albany has remain
ed usually the largest in numbers and cer-
tainy the only one where men have not
! been hopelessly in the minority. It Is a
| graduate professional school in the real
| sense now, for admission is had by college
degree only. 1t offers a two years course
| and rewards the faithful with the alluring
| title of bachelor of library science-though,
| for that matter, as Mr.. Dooley has pointed
| out, few people escape some sort OF a de-
| gree nowadays But the student who pur-
| sues the whole course at Albany soon finds
! himself working good ten or eleven hours
a day and unless ne went in for honors at
! college and was, in fact something of a
| grind he will be having an entirely new
| experience-work so persistent, so searching
/ and minute that he will end by living,
| thinking and dreaming nothing but libra
ries for two solid years. He will find no
optional courses and will discover that his
| stint Of FASTING together dilapidated books
| is quite carefully insisted upon as is the
| completion of the photography which he
/ complies in lieu of a thesis.
| Lie
During both years the student will have
study and practice in the use of biblf-
| ographies-those Of foreign countries and
| those on special subjects well. And
throughout both years he learns to cata-
| logue, no trifling matter. The various
| schemes of classification, the different
methods of recording accessions, the prin-
| ciples of dozen or more charging systems
the art of indexing, investigation of
bookbinding from the librarians point of
view-these and several other subjects each
| occupy course. The study of reference
books the founding and government of IL
| braries. the selection of books the archi-
| tectural requirements of the library, with
| the study of plans of well -known library
| buildings, the history of libraries. and of
printing and bookmaking, these help to fill
| the second year. Actual practice in the
state library, and the annual trip. covering
| Springfield, Worcester, Hartford. Provi-
dence and Boston one year. and New York.
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington
the next. these constitute the field work
and correspond to the "case-system'' of the
| law student or the hospital service of the
| beginner In medicine.
L noea TT pouS