Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-29
Scientific Library Work
By Frederic j. HaSkin

Yale and William and Mary following,
in 100. In more than century ana
half of existence Harvard was aple
to accumulate only $4,000 volumes. IN
terest In libraries has been mainly OF
recent growth. There are more than
go 600. 600 volumes i'm the Libraries or
the United States and Canada. twenty
million volumes would have been
liberal estimate in 1880:
The major portion of the interest
that has been brought about is due
to the establishment Of the modern IL
brary system, which dates from 1910.
1t was in that year that the American
Library association was formed, ana
from its organization dates the pc
ginning of the card index and all the
other conVeniences which make the
materials of the library readily accessl-
BILE to the ordinary reader or student.
The first free circulating library IN
the United states was founded in 1888
by a Unitarian clergyman living at
Peterborough, N. II. Since then there
have been several thousand estab-
lished. The first attempt TO support
circulating library by public taxation
was in New York state. IL was pro-
county or municipality could establish
library and levy taxes for its sup
port, but soon it was discovered that
the smaller political subdivisions were
not willing to tax themselves for such
purposes. and thereafter the state
took direct charge of the matter.
The wonderful range which the mod
ern card catalogue takes is illustrated
by the fact that in the CLASSIFICATION
which now obtains there are more than
20 900 subjects. With even so great
range the regular user of card cata-
logue will still discover other subjects
which might advantageously be lncor-
porated in the list.
The library of congress has lent its
hand to the movement for uniformity In
library practice, and one of its staff is
chairman of the committee that is Ia
boring to secure absolute uniformity In
cataloguing. The changes which have
been recommended by the library of
| congress have been adopted by it, and
inasmuch as it supplies cards to other
libraries it has proved a great factor
| in promoting this desirable end. Next
year there is to be held in Germany
conference of the Librarians of the
whole civilized world, and the uniform
practices which have been agreed upoa
by England and America are expected
to be adopted as the world standard.
Much progress has been made in the
system of cataloguing, but there are
still things left to be desired by the or
binary investigator. often a single
! book will discuss half dozen subjects.
and no subject catalogue will suffice
to disclose the true contents of the
work. Yet the investigator will not be
able to locate what he Is looking for
that may be contained therein unless
he happens to be acquainted with the
varying contents of the book. OF
course 1t would be impossible complete
ly to index the contents of all the
books contained in a big library, but it
ms mr. he fe,rfah n hnrap that a
scheme of indexing may be devised
whereby all the leading topics may ap-
pear in the card index.
Another thing the library reader has
often expressed a hope for is that In
binding magazines which have no an
nual index and which are not indexed
in the annual periodical indexes, in
dexes to the several numbers of a vol
ume might be grouped together at one
place in the volume. This practice is
not now generally followed. Many a
man has expressed the wish that some
one would undertake to form an index
of the important matters of a group
of leading newspapers. Some of
the best contributions to the gem
eral fund of information that have
been made have been used in the news
papers, and yet there is no index by
which they can be located. The Lon
don Times gets out its monthly index
almost before the month is ended, and
its annual index follows closely on the
heels of the New Year. Yet not
single American newspaper, so far as
the library Of congress has Informal
ton, has indexed its contents for 1907.
The preferences of children in select
ing their reading matter is always an
interesting investigation, and what is
the most called for book in one library
is not in much demand in another. Re-
Gently the New York public library UNI
dertook to investigate the question and
kept record of books issued to juve-
niles. 1t was found that Louisa May
Alcott's Little Women" stood first:
second was Sara Crew and third was
"Uncle Toms Cabin" BLACK Beauty
was the fourth most called for book
The public libraries of the country have
had a remarkable effect on the tastes
of juveniles for literature. 1t used to
be that the yellow back novel was the
prime favorite with the boys. Today
the popularized scientific works are
much in requistion, and the magazines
which devote themselves to scientific
matters from the layman's standpoint
are the hardest used in the reading
room. Popular science and simplified
mechanics and technology have me
much to interest the boys in things
which lead to success in life.
Copyright. 1909, by Frederic ], Haskin).