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THE GIFT OF
Michigan State Library
aláínhá
(URDUK MAKING, AMALK
ELAINEESIE

MICHIGAN
STATE BOARD OF LIBRARY
COMMISSIONERS.
THE CARE OF SCHOOL LIBRARIES
AND SOME HELPS WHICH ARE AVAILABLE.
BY
FRANK K. WALTER, NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY SCHOOL.
PRINTED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
1911
AMIDALISANDE
JOKATELESS UND ANTAANVANKEMUNING CHAINSLATE, AN UND SO FASLA RAKHEDI BAWAH DAN MENINA
SUGAR DENEN OPERAR AFTER STESSA KORVAREMONT'ETENSKA STRONG CAREER AMEKAPITULKY IN FESTOOL ENERGIERUNEKENARLEITT SINNFREMOS QUE REESTRELLASER POREKTITOARJEVESIK

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1

MICHIGAN
STATE BOARD OF LIBRARY
COMMISSIONERS.
THE CARE OF SCHOOL LIBRARIES
AND SOME HELPS WHICH ARE AVAILABLE.
BY
FRANK K. WALTER, NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY SCHOOL.
PRINTED BY PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
1911

4

THE CARE OF SCHOOL LIBRARIES AND SOME HELPS WHICH
ARE AVAILABLE¹
FRANK K. WALTER, VICE DIRECTOR, NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY SCHOOL
An oft-quoted definition of the public
library asserts that "the function of the
library is the development and enrichment
of human life in the entire community by
bringing to all the people the books that
belong to them." For the school library,
this may be paraphrased and restated as
follows: "The purpose of the school library
is the development of intellectual efficiency
in each pupil by making him acquainted
with the value and use of the different kinds
of books needed in his after life for increas-
ing his efficiency or enriching his life."
The public library is absolutely elective in
its educational appeal. Its patrons take
what they want when they want it. The
school library, on the contrary, unless it
aims to add to its original function the func-
tions of a public library, is primarily an aid
in the training of the pupils and as such its
work should be systematically directed.
Every book should be selected with some
purpose in view, every book should be used
intelligently.
One of the principal reasons why the
school library has often failed to do as much
for both teacher and pupil as it should have
done is the failure on the part of teachers
to realize that its use needs as much intelli-
gent direction as any other part of the school
equipment and that a badly chosen collec-
tion of books piled helter-skelter on the
shelves, taken at random by the pupils and
read without any oversight on the part of
the teacher, is not likely to produce desired
results much quicker than would a collec-
tion of apparatus intended to illustrate
physics or chemistry but used only as play-
things for the pupils at the noon hour or
recess. In either case the unusual student
would of himself pick up something helpful
but the average boy or girl would either
show no interest whatever or would gain
only a very small fraction of the possible
benefit to be obtained from the intelligently
directed use of books or apparatus.
Organization is necessary in every line of
work. The most untidy workman classi-
fies and organizes his workshop and tool-
kits: saws in one place, chisels in another,
hammers and planes and bits each in their
places. Why should the school library, the
mental workshop, be less in need of syste-
matic organization and use?
If the average school library is not well
organized and skilfully used, it is not due
to parsimony or neglect on the part of the
State. Public libraries are scattered every-
where and, with almost no exception, are
anxious to be of service to the teacher and
the school. Where there is no public li-
brary near at hand and the resources of the
school are scanty, the Educational Exten-
sion Division of the Education Department
will lend traveling libraries to supplement
the school collection. The Visual Instruc-
tion Division will furnish additional help
in lantern slides and mounted pictures to
illustrate science, history, literature and
other subjects. The School Libraries Divi-
sion and the State Library will give expert
advice on matters of technic. If the school
libraries of New York State fall short of the
best they could do, it is not from lack of
resources but from failure to use the re-
sources at hand.
Many teachers as well as many librarians
in charge of small libraries make the mis-
take of thinking that organization means
elaborate organization and that a collection
of a few hundred volumes requires all the
devices and methods in use in a library of
tens of thousands of volumes. This is as
absurd as would be the attempt to introduce
into a country school the schedule and ad-
ministrative routine of a large city high
school or to install in a corner grocery the
system of bookkeeping used in a metropoli-
tan department store. There is nothing
occult or intricate about library technic.
It is, in its best forms, only the application
of common sense to the special problems
involved in the purchase and use of books
intended for other than private use. Only
a few simple records and a very simple
organization are needed at the start, and
the wise teacher, already over burdened
by the great variety of demands on her
time, will do well to keep the routine as
simple as possible. Several useful manuals
1 Read at the annual meeting of the Library Section of the New York State Teachers' Association.
Rochester, December 28, 1910.
230661

have been published expressly for small
libraries, which give as well all the details
necessary in the organization of even a
good-sized school library. Some of the
most practical are:
Dana, John C. Library Primer. Chi-
cago. Library Bureau. 1910. $1
National Educational Association. In-
struction in Library Administration in
Normal Schools. 1906. Irwin Shepard,
Secretary, Winona, Minn. 10c
Also in the proceedings of the associa-
tion for 1906.
New York State Education Department.
Care of School Equipment. Albany.
State Ed. Dept. 1909. Free. (Hand-
book 30)
Plummer, Mary W. Hints to small libra-
ries. 1911. Chicago. American Library
Association. 75c
Salisbury, Grace E. Library Methods for
School Teachers. Whitewater, Wis.
The author. 1908. 25c
Stearns, Lutie E. Essentials in Library
Administration. 1905. Chicago. Amer-
ican Library Association. 15c
Whatever may be the final plan of organi-
zation adopted, the first obvious step is to
get the books. Do not buy from agents or
at random. Be sure that you really need
the book, that it is of high quality and see
that you get it at a fair price. Beware of
cheap reprints even though issued by edu-
cational publishers. Get good editions, with
opaque, unglazed paper and large, clear
type. The eyes of the children are worth
more than the additional cost of well-made
books. Get stout bindings, of a color that
will not easily soil. Flimsy bindings and
poor paper are always expensive in the end.
Do not waste money on poor half leather
binding if you can get a good strong cloth.
There are many easily available selected
lists which are excellent guides to the pur-
chase of good books. Many state depart-
ments of public instruction issue lists of
approved books for school libraries. These
lists can usually be obtained free or for a
nominal price from the State Superinten-
dents of Public Instruction. Among the
most useful are the Catalog for Public School
Libraries of Minnesota, 1909-10: the List of
Books for School Libraries of the State of Ore-
gon, 1907 (Pt 1, Elementary and Country
Schools: Pt 2 High Schools): and the List of
Books for Free High School Libraries in the
State of Wisconsin, 1909. It is needless to
emphasize the fact that every teacher in
New York State should base his purchases
on the lists included in the revised syllabuses
for elementary and secondary schools or in
Handbooks 4, 22, and 25 of the Education
Department. The Catalog of 8000 Volumes
for a Popular Library issued in 1904 by the
American Library Association and now
obtainable from the Superintendent of
4
Documents, Washington, D. C. at one dol-
lar is still one of the safest and most helpful
guides to the standard works in every
great department of knowledge. The List
of books for Classroom Libraries published
by the Buffalo Public Library and the vari-
ous lists issued by the Children's Depart-
ment of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
are recognized standards. Other lists of
children's books such as Miss Effie L.
Power's First Selection of Children's Books
for a Library are of service. For current
books, the Selection from the Best Books of
the Year, issued annually by the New York
State Library and obtainable from it on.
request, is eminently useful. All of these
lists have kept in mind not only the con-
tents of the books but have aimed to help
in the selection of desirable editions at
reasonable prices. The necessary approval
by the School Libraries Division of in-
tended book purchases by schools and the
willingness of this division and of the State
Library to give any reasonable amount of
advice as to choice of books, should insure
even the most unskilled teacher against
worthless books and exorbitant prices.
The fact that approval is not confined to
books on any single printed list gives the
teachers of this State a much wider range
of choice than is possible in those states
which issue a single list to which school
library purchases are confined.
After the books have been purchased the
necessary library records must be prepared.
The purpose of these records is to answer
the questions likely to arise in connection
with even the smallest library. Some of
these questions are: What books have we
in the library? (Answered in various ways
by the catalog, the shelflist and the acces-
sion book) Where are the books not on the
shelves and when were they taken? (An-
swered by the charging system) How
many books are in the library? How
many were bought the past school year?
How much did they cost? Was the money
given by the State all spent? (Answered
by the accession book) How many books
were taken from the library last Friday;
last month, last year? (Answered by the
charging system and the records compiled
from it.)
These questions indicate the four neces-
sary records for the library (1) The acces-
sion book, (2) The charging system, (3) The
shelflist, (4) The catalog. Detailed direc-
tions for the preparation and use of these
records will be found in the several manuals
already mentioned. Moreover, lack of
time will prevent in this paper anything
more than a brief statement of the purpose
and value of each of these records.
The accession book is the official inven-
tory of the library required in every library
receiving money from the State Treasury,

and in the form approved by the Educa-
tion Department, includes in a standard
ruled form, the author, title, publisher,
binding, cost, class number, number of
volumes, date purchased, and remarks. It
is evident that the accession book is of the
same value to the school district that the
inventory is to the merchant; it enables
the school authorities to know how much
library money was spent, when it was
spent and for what spent and what books
the district now possesses. The business
ability of the teacher is pretty well indi-
cated by the accuracy with which the ac-
cession book is kept. It may be well to
state that with all its drawbacks the acces-
sion book in a simple sensible form has
proved quite as easy a record to keep as
any substitute which has so far been pro-
posed to supersede it.
For the very small library, the accession
book may be the only permanent record
absolutely required. There is, however,
even in the smallest library, one other essen-
tial, though temporary record, the charging
system. This need not be complicated.
The only things required of any charging
system are to tell one what books are out
of the library, who has them and when he
got them. In most cases it is the book
rather than the person that needs locating.
For this reason, the old-fashioned ledger
charging book with its entry under person
is rapidly falling into disuse. Easy sys-
tems are those used in the traveling libra-
ries sent out from the State Library (see
forms below).
Book
Date Bor-
lent
rower's
name
Author
Title
Book
Old Form.
Author
Date
re-
turned
Title
Borrower's name
Date
lent
Present Form.
Bor-
lower's
name
Date
re-
turned
Due
These can easily be imitated on cards
of the same general size (about 3 x 5 inches
for the old form or 1 15-16 x 5 inches for the
present form) or even on stout paper by
the older students if the school is too
poor to buy printed supplies. Any sta-
tioner can supply the raw material. These
cards, which are taken from the book and
filed alphabetically when the book leaves
the room, may be made to show several
things, such as "How many books were
taken from the library at a given time?,
"What books are now out and who has
them?," "What books have been discarded
or are being rebound?"
}}
As long as the library is very small and
there are but few books to look over, it is
perhaps enough to have the books arranged
on the shelves alphabetically by authors.
When, however, the collection gets beyond
a very few hundred (perhaps 500 as a
maximum) the books should be classified,
that is, arranged in groups, all of the books
in each group dealing with the same general
subject so that the teacher or the pupil
may find together all the general material
on American history, agriculture or what-
ever the subject may be. Theoretically,
what scheme of classification is used makes
little difference provided teacher and pupils
can find the books they want without
wasting time, but for practical purposes,
it is almost always better to adopt the very
convenient system used in most of the well-
organized libraries of the country, the
Dewey Decimal System. So wide is its
use that there is little need of describing
its main features here. The synopsis of
this scheme given in the A. L. A. Catalog
of Books for a Popular Library is full enough
for any ordinary sized school library.
When the books have been classified it is
usually a good plan to make "Shelflist"
cards for all the books (see form below).
These cards are filed by class number and
serve (1) as a list of the books on any sub-
ject and (2) as a list of books in their order
on the shelves and as a check on the accu-
racy of the accession book.
Shelílist Card.
973 Fiske, John
Discovery of America, 2 v.
Last of all in necessity in a very small
library (though of first importance in a
large one) is the card catalog. Over-elabora-
tion of the catalog is the pitfall into which
many enthusiastic but untrained librarians
have fallen. The catalog of a school library
should be so simple that any pupil may
understand it and so accurate that the
most captious student will find it free from
mistakes. Space and time are lacking to
mention the necessary details. These may
be found in the manuals already mentioned
and in the following:
Hitchler, Theresa. Cataloging for small
libraries. 1905. American Library
Association, Chicago. 15c

Crawford, Esther. Cataloging; sugges-
tions for the small library. 1906. Li-
brary Bureau, Chicago. 25c
Perhaps the simplest of all the manuals
which deal with cataloging is the revised
edition of Miss Zaidee Brown's Directions
for the librarians of a small library reprinted
from the 21st annual report of the Free
Public Library Commission of Massachu-
setts, (Boston, Mass), who should be
addressed for copies of the reprint.
Particularly in the processes of classi-
fication and cataloging considerable techni-
cal knowledge is necessary. The untrained
librarian should seldom, if ever, attempt
any elaborate cataloging or classification
unaided by expert advice. The courses for
teachers given in many so normal schools
give quite enough instruction for any but
the professional librarian. The School
Libraries Division and the New York State
Library give expert advice whenever re-
quested. The New York State Library
School will admit to its six-weeks' summer
course any school librarian or teacher in
charge of a school library who wishes to
get some knowledge of the elements of
these technical subjects.
When the books have become worn they
may be given new life by rebinding, if care
was taken at the start to get well-made
books. It is not usually advisable or eco-
nomical to rebind books costing less than
fifty cents. If there is no money for re-
binding, the books may often be skilfully
mended. Excellent suggestions for this
work may be found in Margaret W. Brown's
Mending and Repair of Books, (1910. Chi-
cago. American Library Association. 15c)
If rebinding is done, insist on good sewing
and stout cloth with at least an attempt
at good taste in the appearance of the re-
bound book.
Dirt and stains should be removed at
once from the pages with soap and water
or a clean eraser. It is only poetic justice.
that the pupil responsible for the damage
be made to repair the damage he has done.
This matter of needless damage to th
books should be all the more emphasized
because of the almost universal neglect of
the proper physical care of the books of the
school library both inside and outside the
schoolroom. They should be protected
from direct sunlight which fades the covers,
from heat which destroys leather bindings,
from dampness which ruins paper and
bindings of all kinds and from excessive
6
dust which soils and otherwise injures
them. The pupils should at all times be
required to handle them carefully and
should be made to feel that they have no
more right to soil and tear books which are
public property than they have to soil or
tear the personal property of their school-
mates. Abuse of public property in the
form of books is only a short distance re-
moved from disregard of public property
and public rights in other forms. A few
plain talks on the need of care and cleanli-
ness in the use of books and a few practical
exercises in the use of soap and water as
occasions arise, would have no inconsider-
able ethical value. A little care, a little
realization of property rights and consid-
eration for others will greatly prolong the
life of the books and will increase their use
by keeping their appearance respectable.
That children who spend so much of their
time with books grow up to use them so
little for pleasure and profit is partly ex-
plained by a look at the average school
text-book or library book that has been for
any considerable time in active service.
Dog's-eared, smeared with dirt and grease,
with loosened pages and wobbly binding,
it is neither a thing of beauty nor a joy for-
ever and the person who would voluntarily
be attracted by it would be sadly lacking
in artistic feeling. Books will wear out
but their weaknesses should be the weak-
nesses of honorable age and long service
and not the scars of desperate encounters
with young barbarians at work or play.
|
In brief, in caring for books and getting
from the school library the best results it
is possible to obtain, these main points
should be kept in mind, whatever the size
of the library. First, the books should be
carefully chosen and any expert help ob-
tainable from book-lists or other manuals
should be utilized. Second, such records
be kept as will answer at any time any
reasonable question regarding the resources
of the library. These records should be
accurate and only as elaborate as the needs
of the users of the library require. Finally,
the teacher or school librarian, as the repre-
sentative of the public, should realize that
the books of the school library are intended
not to serve as ornamental furniture but to
be intelligently used and, on the other
hand, to be treated, as public property,
with such care and respect as will prevent
their speedy dissolution from wanton or
careless abuse.



Par
B..
Gaylord Bros.Inc
Makers
Syracuse, N. Y.
PAT. JAH 21, 1908
3 9015 06551 5499
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN


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