Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-06

frontier pluming herself upon having
| served in a petty clerical capacity in
| the library of congress and the Astor
| library of New York. l have solemn
/ conviction that she could not again Sc
| cure a place in either of these institu-
| tions where she worked about three
years.
| She worked that long in each because
/ she was given no responsibility. She
/ got out here and had her first response
! BILE position, and it went to her head.
/ l have already printed some of the re-
| ports made by her superiors in the in
! stitution where she was small cog IN
/ a very large wheel-"and not up TO the
| standards of her class" Out OF her
| condescending wisdom she tells US:
| "The Los Angeles public library is pri-
marily a free public circulating library,
with a reference department. This fact
has long been lost sight Of and refer
ence library is being built within ana
at the expense of the circulating IL
brary.'
ter of Los Angeles. Article OF SAID
charter, section 81, does not seem to
agree with the lady. 1t says nothing
about "a free public circulating library
with reference department" What 1t
does say is this: ''fFhe public library
and reading room. known as the Los
Angeles public library, is hereby con-
tinued in existence and shall be free
of access to all citizens of said city
and the general public, subject to such
rules and regulations for the govern
ment and the management thereof as
may at any time be adopted by the
board of directors of said library, mere
matter provided"
Miss Blandy is not herself a scholarI
nor guide for scholars, and she is one
of the class that believe in a library
for the three R's-reading, 'riting and
'rithmetic. Her own attempts at Sc
lecting textbooks for the branches were
as grotesque in scholarship as they
were absurd in business proportions
She knows neither textbooks, juVenileI
books fiction, nor standard literature
She did not even know enough to con-
suit the heads of departments who do
know these things. The reference de-
partment is the glory of this and of
every other library. 1t is the place
where the high school boys and girls
and the normal pupils, the mechanics
the Greek professors, and club women
and other thoughtful women, and art
lists and architects and motormen and
self-making boys that work all day and
study at night-it is where they all
come to improve their minds. Before
God this public library always Will be
Just that kind of a thing, whether / am
here, or the kickers are here, or what
ever is here. This isn't a provincial
CAtA'NAOAAf
lie libraries are organized. They still
have a great deal to learn; but they
are trying to learn. There are some
things they have learned, and one of
the first things is to get along without
people of the Blandy class.
Perhaps nothing can better define
Miss Blandys three-year upheaval than
a closing quotation from her own pitt
full screed: "While all the patrons at
the delivery desk are being turned
away without books, or with books they
do not want, or with books so ragged
and dirty they are ashamed TO carry a
them the most expensive" etc. are
being bought in the most lavish way.
Also manuscripts and expensive
typewritten copies of manuscripts
and other fads of this sort"
If they are "all turned away without
books" etc, It Is a wonder what pc
came of the 100000 books taken annu-
ally and the million books consulted
annually. Perhaps they evaporated
frazzled by the imported temperature
from Washington.
In the same breath and in the same
campaign of Blandy complaints one
patron laments that there are not
enough novels-and Miss Blandy com
plains that a reference library is be
inp- bllilt within and at the expense of
the circulating library" Another COM
plains that the library should have
more serious books" If these anony-
NOUS complainants would send their
complaints to the library board or the
librarian-as they probably would II
thew wished results-they would get
either relief or information. This per-
son states that the Fiction readers can
obtain all they desire to induce mental
disability-but the man whose ire S
work is serious will not find his materi-
al here"
Another person complains that we
"have not any works on mining dated
within twenty years" another that we
have none of "the enormous and superb
works illustrated with prototypes OF
mans travel and research in al lands.
We have over 50 of the latest and best
books on mining dated within five
years, besides the classics of older date.
We have the best list of mining and
technical journals and reports of any
library in the far west. The list is open
to inspection. We bought S2OOO worth
of the best textbooks in applied science
last year: we shall buy many more
next month.
We have no more branches today
than when I took the librarianship al
most four years ago. The difrerence is
that we cut out branch which aver
aged to circulate eighteen books day
and substituted a branch which circu-
lates 1873 books a day. Even this branch
is on probation for a year, and Will
have to keep up its record before the
library adopts 1t and its expenses.
Another anonymous correspondent
complains that we have "only miser-
able abridged school edition of John
Stuart Mills Principles Of Political
Economy" That we have no copy of
Iandor's across Widest Africa" that
we have not Balzacs works.
We have Landor's book We have a
full set of Balzac in French, fifty vol
umes. We have Mill's political Econ
omy" in the 1896, 2-volume, edition. The
complaint is also made that the libra
rv does not contain single work or
modern chemistry which is of value"
Possibly your correspondent would so
designate the following list which is in
the library as among the latest on
chemistry-but critics do not count
these works, which are small part or
our holding: =.
Arnold. Compendium OF Chemistry:
Holleman, Textbook or organic
Chemistry"
Fresenius, Qualitative Chemical An
alysis."
Milroy, practical physiological
Chemistry
Tomsen, Introduction to the Study
of Chemistry; Laboratory Manual"
Roscoe, '"Treatise on Chemistry
Treadwell, analytical Chemistry"
Another correspondent wants to know
"where the money goes" The public
library prints an annual report (Which
is used as a textbook in a good many
eastern libraries). In the front of this
report is the official statement of all
expenditures The report of the public
library, by the way, is a pretty good