Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-03-12
Mr.. MucLeish's Program

Mr.. MucLeIsh's Program
The first annual report of Archibald
MacLeish as librarian of Congress
is document of more than ordinary
interest and Importance. 1t contains
a challenge of a sort for the friends
of learning in the United States.
"An effective program of acquisi-
ton" the librarian suggests, de
ponds upon a definition of policy as
to books to be purchased and a
definition of policy requires state
ment of ultimate detectives" The
declarations and practices" of his
predecessors in office, present
fairly clear picture of the Library's
purposes" but a reaffirmation and
an expansion of the constructive
philosophy of the past, Mr.. MacLeish
believes, will be useful. He recalls
that AinSWOrth Rand Spofford IL
brarian from 1864 to 1897, wrote of
the Library in 1875 as being, first,
"a library for the use of legislative
body" and, second, the library of the
American people, supported and con-
stantly enlarged by taxation"
Still quoting Mr.. Spofford, the
librarian now in charge repeats:
There should be in every nation one
great library, and that the property
of the whole people, which shall be
inclusive, not exclusive, in its char
acter" Accepting this doctrine as
his own, DR.. Herbert Putnam, serving
from 1899 to 1899, stipulated in an
article published in the Atlantic
Monthly in 1900 that the Library
should amaSS all that which
records the origins and developments
of the United States and of each Of
its component parts land no student
will be content to regard those
origins as dating from 1892; the
record of all legislation in every
country; and, so far as is practicable,
the record of the discussion which
has preceded and Of the con-
ditionS from which legislation arose
or to which it was to be applied:
All history therefore; constitutions,
statute law, administration, statistics
=; the literature of comparative
institutions; political science and
political economy sociology in its
largest sense; finance, transporta-
4io,o y,,,Iolio iY,oprOva,,,o ,otc odyootioo
international law, diplomacy"
But Mr.. MacLeiSh stresses some
what more particularly the pragmatic
value of the Library to the entire
population. "The Library of Con-
gress," he insists, lis, by creation and
primary responsibility, the library
of the elected representatives of the
people of the United States. But
Congress long ago extended the use
of its library to other officers and
Offices of the Federal Government
and to the people themselves, placing
at the disposition of the users not
only the rich collections with which
the Library was in time provided, but
the skilled services of the scholars,
the technicians, and the experts in
various fields whose first duty was
to make the collections serviceable
to Congress"
Such was the ideal Of Thomas
Jefferson, who referred to the Library
of Congress as "the Library of the
United States"-a phrase which Mr..
MacLeish interprets to mean spe-
officially "the library of the peoples
representatives in Congress, the
library of the officers of their Gov
eminent and the library of the people
themselves" For the immediate
future the program of the poet who
currently administers the work will
center about the faith that "the
Library of Congress is a peoples
library which provides to the people
through their representatives in Con-
gresS and their officers of Govern
ment, as we'll as directly, the written
record of their civilization. 1t is
also, and at the same time, a refer
ence library which provides scholarly
facilities for the study of that record
not to limited number of selected
scholars only but to the Government,
and to the people, of the United
States"
These words are meaningful. They
deserve to be pondered. Those who
instinctively share Mr.. MacLeish's
aspiration will rejoice that he has
set them forth.