XI. 3 
 
 Special Libraries 
 
 Vol. 5 
 
 WAY, 1914 
 
 No. 5 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION 
 
 Monthly except July and August. 
 
 Editorial and Publication Office, State Library, 
 Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 Subscriptions, 93 Broad street, Boston, Mass. 
 Entered at the Postoffice at Indianapolis, Ind., 
 
 as second-class matter. 
 
 Subscription .$2.00 a year (10 numbers) 
 
 Single copies 25 cents 
 
 President D. N. Handy 
 
 Insurance Library Association, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Vice-President R v H. Johnston 
 
 Bureau of Railway Economics,’ Washington, 
 D. C. 
 
 Secretary-Treasurer Guy E. Marion 
 
 Library, Arthur D. Little, Inc., 93 Broad 
 street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 EXECUTIVE BOARD 
 
 President, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer, 
 J. C. Dana, Newark Public Library ; Clarence 
 B. Lester, Wisconsin Legislative Reference 
 Library. 
 
 Managing Editor of Special Libraries : — John A. 
 Lapp, Bureau of Legislative Information, In- 
 dianapolis, Ind. 
 
 Assistant Editor, Ethel Cleland, Bureau of Leg- 
 islative Information, Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS 
 
 F. N. Morton, United Gas Improvement Co., 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 H. H. B. Meyer, Library of Congress. 
 
 D. N. Handy, Insurance Library Association. 
 
 Special Libraries and Shoes 
 
 The late O. Henry tells a story of a discouraged shop-keeper 
 who lived somewhere “up in the states” and who was persuaded 
 to embark in the mercantile business in Central America. A shoe 
 store seemed the right stepping stone to international fame and fortune 
 because of inviting representations of the special opportunities in this 
 business. Friends that lived in Central America wrote the shop- 
 keeper that their town, although it had a large population, had not a 
 single shoe store. The shop-keeper lost no time in preparing for shift- 
 ing his residence and seat of commercial activity. He sold out his 
 business in the “states”, invested the proceeds in a new stock of 
 shoes and loaded them on the steamer for Central America. When 
 he arrived in the town he found the representations previously made 
 with regard to the population were true, also, there were no shoe 
 stores in the town. A few days later, however, he discovered a 
 very important bit of information which he should have obtained be- 
 fore embarking in the shoe business in Central America. He learned 
 that ninety percent of the people of Central America went bare- 
 footed twelve months in the year. 
 
 If this disappointed shop-keeper had had access to a special 
 library on the shoe business and had known how to use it, he would 
 have been spared the humiliation of trying to sell shoes in a land 
 where people have no need for them and also v he would have 
 avoided a considerable loss of money, which is more important. 
 
 CARL MOTE. 
 
70 
 
 SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 The Evolution of the Special Library 
 
 By John Cotton Dana, Librarian, the Newark Free Library (Abridged from The Newarker). 
 
 The character of libraries, their scope 
 and the methods of managing them depend 
 ultimately on the character and quantity of 
 things intended to be read. When things 
 to be read were written upon stone, whether 
 in hieroglyphics or in sculptures or in orna- 
 ments of buildings, libraries were unknown. 
 When things to be read were impressed 
 upon bits of clay which were dried or baked, 
 and preserved as records, collections of 
 those records were made and kept, and 
 libraries began. When things to be read 
 were written upon paper or any of the 
 many kinds of material which were used 
 before paper was invented, it was clearly 
 wise to collect them, store them safely and 
 arrange them conveniently for use. Things 
 to be read thus gathered and housed formed 
 the first libraries properly so called. 
 
 The Ancient, and Surviving, Reverence for 
 Books. 
 
 After the invention of printing, things in- 
 tended to be read became more common; 
 but, as they were still quite rare and expen- 
 sive, the old methods of collecting and pre- 
 serving them were kept up and the habit 
 of giving them a certain reverence was con- 
 tinued. 
 
 The reverence was due in part to the 
 fact that few could either write or read, 
 in part to the rarity of books, in part to the 
 mystery attached by the ignorant to the art 
 of reading; but chiefly to the fact that writ- 
 ing and reading and the practice of preserv- 
 ing books were largely confined to expo- 
 nents of accepted religious cults. 
 
 As time went on and books increased in 
 number and reading became more common, 
 this reverence for the book decreased, but 
 it decreased very slowly. 
 
 Books were for the promotion of culture. 
 Culture was something which the upper 
 classes only had a right to get. Science 
 was pursued by few, and those few were 
 scarcely admitted to the aristocracy of book- 
 users. It is only within very recent years 
 that in England, for example, the study of 
 medicine and its allied subjects, even if car- 
 ried on to most helpful results, gave him 
 who followed it a good position in the social 
 hierarchy. 
 
 What Our Fathers Called “Real Books.” 
 
 The real books in the opinion of the edu- 
 cated among the upper classes, and, indeed, 
 among all of the members of the upper 
 classes who were competent to form opin- 
 ions, were held to be, first, the literary mas- 
 terpieces, the books which time had spared 
 
 because they were thought to tell things so 
 skillfully as to make them of interest and 
 value to all men for all time. Among these 
 were included all the older Greek and Latin 
 writings, which were looked upon in a cer- 
 tain awe, largely because they w T ere in 
 Greek and Latin. Second, books on these 
 classic books, studies, expositions, crit- 
 icisms. Third, books on religious subjects 
 and especially on theology in all its phases, 
 and including philosophy. These books con- 
 tinued to form the greater part of libraries 
 until within a few years. 
 
 Library Proprieties in 1876. 
 
 When the public library movement took 
 form and celerity in our country, about 
 forty years ago, the accepted field of library 
 book collection had widened to cover all 
 kinds of writings. Novels were still looked 
 on with a little disfavor, unless they were 
 by writers time had tried and the ministry 
 approved; science was closely looked at to 
 see that it did not incline to infidelity; and 
 discussions of sex and society and govern- 
 ment were feared as tending to promote im- 
 morality and insurrection. On the whole, 
 however, almost anything that had the form 
 of a book could find a place in the public 
 library of forty years ago, even though it 
 might not be thought proper to admit it to 
 the presence of a mere reader. 
 
 As a collection of all printed books the 
 library had arrived; as a something estab- 
 lished to gather all knowledge and all 
 thought that the same might be freely used 
 by all classes of the community, it had not. 
 
 The failure of the public library of forty 
 years ago to address itself to all the com- 
 munity without distinction of wealth, social 
 standing or education, and its failure, so 
 far as it did so address itself, to find its 
 advances welcomed and its advantages 
 made use of, were due to two factors chief- 
 ly: The tendency of the librarian to think 
 of his collections as rather for the learned 
 than for the learner, and the tendency of 
 the community at large to think of a col- 
 lection of books as rather exclusively de- 
 signed for those. who had been reared to 
 use them. 
 
 How the Library Idea Was Broadened. 
 
 This long-continued, self-imposed opinion 
 as to the proper limitations of the library- 
 using group was broadened in due course 
 for several reasons. 
 
 The output of print increased with great 
 rapidity; and the newspapers, to speak of 
 one form only of printed things, caused a 
 rapid growth in the reading habit and led 
 
SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 71 
 
 millions to gain a superficial knowledge of 
 many aspects of life and thought. 
 
 Public and private schools and colleges 
 taught more subjects and taught them bet- 
 ter, until finally the sciences were, a few 
 years ago, admitted as proper fields of 
 knowledge and tools of discipline even to 
 the most conservative of English univer- 
 sities. From acquaintance with a wide 
 range of required school reading it was but 
 a step to the demand that a still wider 
 range be furnished by the public library. 
 
 The habit of reading increased very rap- 
 idly among women. More of them became 
 teachers, more of them entered industrial 
 life, more of them joined study clubs, and 
 these changes in their forms of activity all 
 led to an increase of reading, to a wider 
 range of reading and to a notable and insist- 
 ent demand upon libraries that they furnish 
 the books and journals on whatsoever sub- 
 jects woman’s broadening interests included. 
 
 Indeed, a certain almost apostolic devo- 
 tion to the reading done by children and 
 an enthusiastic welcoming of women as 
 readers and students have been two of the 
 most marked features in the development 
 of the library work in the last twenty years. 
 
 The Radical Change in Library Work Now 
 Under Way. 
 
 Another change in library activities is 
 now taking place, and is being mainly 
 brought about by the increase in things 
 printed, already alluded to. And here it 
 may be well to refer to the opening state- 
 ment, that the character of library man- 
 agement is dependent on the character and 
 quantity of things to be read; and to call 
 attention to the fact that the immediate 
 causes of changes in the contents and ad- 
 ministration of libraries — newspapers, chil- 
 dren’s wider reading, women’s greater in- 
 terest in world-knowledge — are themselves 
 largely the results of the growth of print 
 and the resulting increase in things to be 
 read. 
 
 The Amazing Growth of Print. 
 
 Modem invention, making printing much 
 cheaper than formerly, has led inevitably 
 to a tremendous growth in output. And by 
 way of explanation of, though not as an 
 excuse for, the failure of librarians as a 
 class to realize the great changes in scope 
 and method of library management which 
 the growth of printing and of the use of 
 things printed will soon bring, it may be 
 said that printing and print-using gained 
 their present astounding rate of increase 
 only within the past ten or fifteen years. 
 Few yet realize that printing is only now, 
 after 450 years of practice of the art, at the 
 very earliest stages of its development and 
 is but beginning to work on mankind its 
 tremendous and incalculable effects. 
 
 The increase of print is marked in new 
 book production ; is far more marked in peri- 
 
 odical literature; perhaps still more in the 
 publications of public institutions and pri- 
 vate associations; still more again in the 
 field of advertising by poster, circular, pic- 
 ture and pamphlet; and perhaps most of 
 all in the mere commercial wrapper. 
 
 Print Grows by Being Consumed! 
 
 Every added piece of print helps to add 
 new or more facile and more eager readers 
 to the grand total of print consumers. As 
 commerce and industry have grown, print 
 has increased also, and naturally and in- 
 evitably more rapidly than either. 
 
 Considered merely as an industry and 
 measured by money invested and value of 
 output, print seems to be growing now fast- 
 er than any other of the great industries, 
 among which it is one of the first; and in 
 view of the fact that a like expenditure 
 each year produces, thanks to invention and 
 discovery, a greater output of things to be 
 read, it must be admitted that in its prod- 
 ucts, properly measured, print today stands 
 in the front rank of all our manufactures. 
 
 The Need of Mastering Mere Knowledge 
 
 and the Difficulty Thereof. 
 
 As modern production, commerce, trans- 
 portation and finance have grown and be- 
 come more complicated, they have found in 
 print a tool which can be well used in the 
 effort to master the mass of facts which 
 daily threatens to overwhelm even the most 
 skillful in their efforts at safe and profitable 
 industrial management. In spite of all that 
 is reported in print of things done, projects 
 planned, tests made, results reached, in the 
 ten thousand wide-ranging lines of the 
 world’s work — from a new gold reef of un- 
 exampled richness in the fastnesses of New 
 Guinea’s mountains, to the new use of a by- 
 product of a city’s garbage, much escapes, 
 or, being printed, is unknown to, him who 
 can use it to his advantage. And so our 
 worldy information goes on piling up; not 
 all of it in print, but so much of it in print 
 as to make that which is printed almost im- 
 possible of control. 
 
 Other-Worldly Literature. 
 
 The problem of efficient handling of 
 worldly information is difficult enough in 
 itself, but to this is added what we may 
 call in contrast other-worldly information. 
 Social questions which were seemingly quite 
 few in number only a generation ago, have 
 multiplied marvelously as modern indus- 
 trialism and universal education have pro- 
 duced their inevitable result of complicat- 
 ing our social structure. 
 
 These social questions demand solution; 
 societies to solve them straightway arise, 
 and proceed to inquire, to study, to investi- 
 gate, to experiment, and to publish results. 
 These published results inevitably throw 
 light on the daily routine of the industrial- 
 
72 
 
 SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 ist, a routine already complex enough; also, 
 they tend to modify public opinion or even 
 almost to create a new and hitherto un- 
 heard of public opinion, and this new-born 
 opinion again affects, and often most serir 
 ously, the industrialist’s routine^ Mean- 
 while this new social service spirit takes 
 hold upon questions of government, com- 
 plicates them, gives unexpected answers to 
 them, reverses the old ones* and, so doing, 
 affects in a startling way the attempts of 
 the industrialist to establish and maintain 
 his routine. 
 
 Of all this social-service and government 
 activity the printed output is amazingly 
 multitudinous. 
 
 In any city of moderate size the social 
 service institutions, including departments 
 of the city, county, state and national gov- 
 ernment, and the private and quasi-public 
 organizations which are attempting to mod- 
 ify opinions, customs, ordinances and laws 
 directly or indirectly, through study, experi- 
 ment, investigation, exhortation and de- 
 mand, are so numerous, so active, so per- 
 sistent and in the main so effective, and 
 publish annually so many thousand pieces 
 of things to be read, as to make it almost 
 impossible for any organization to have in 
 hand full knowledge of them all. Yet upon 
 every enterprise in that city many of these 
 countless institutions have already produced 
 an effect, or will tomorrow, next week or 
 next year. The wise industrialist would 
 take them into account in planning his cam- 
 paigns, and finds it extremely difficult to 
 do so. 
 
 The Literature of Science and the Arts. 
 
 Add to this other-worldly literature the 
 tremendous stream of worldly literature al- 
 ready alluded to, and include in the latter 
 the vast flood of trade, technical and scien- 
 tific journals, proceedings of societies and 
 books and brochures from individuals; and 
 then consider the difficulties which confront, 
 on the one hand, the industrialist who would 
 know of the social, economic, industrial, 
 technical and scientific changes, advances 
 and movements which may affect his enter- 
 prise; and confront, on the other hand, the 
 organization, be it public or private, which 
 is trying to keep him duly informed! More- 
 over, beyond all this is the vast field of re- 
 search within which countless widely scat- 
 tered workers, who for lack of swift inter- 
 change of knowledge of their respective 
 successes and failures are wasting their 
 time on misdirected and needless effort. 
 
 The Changes Demanded in Library Method. 
 
 The change which this swift growth of 
 things-intended-to-be read is today imposing 
 on libraries can now be roughly outlined. 
 
 They may properly continue to serve the 
 student, in the old sense of that word, the 
 child and the inquiring woman; they must 
 also serve the industrialist, the investigator 
 
 or scientist and the social service worker. 
 
 It is too soon to say in just what man- 
 ner this new form of service will be ren- 
 dered. The difference in the amount of ma- 
 terial to be mastered makes a wise method 
 of administration most difficult of discov- 
 ery; and added to this great difference in 
 amount is a difference in what one may call 
 the proper length of life. 
 
 The technique of the management of 
 printed material gathered by libraries has, 
 in its development in the past forty years, 
 been devoted almost solely to the accurate 
 description, complete indexing and careful 
 preservation of that material. So elaborate 
 was the ritual in this field which was es- 
 tablished and quite generally adopted some 
 twenty years ago that today it costs a 
 library of moderate size from twenty to 
 fifty cents merely to prepare and put on 
 the shelf each one of its collected items, 
 be the same a pamphlet of four pages cost- 
 ing nothing or a scientific treatise of a 
 thousand pages costing ten dollars. And 
 this takes no account of binding. 
 
 It would be useless to attempt here to 
 describe or to enumerate the countless 
 sources from which comes this mass of 
 material which confronts us, and demands 
 of the librarian a reasonable control. It 
 comes from governmental bodies, public and 
 quasi-public institutions and businesses; 
 from private bodies, scientific, artistic, phil- 
 osophic, educational, philanthropic, social; 
 and from private individuals. It even in- 
 cludes print which is designed to advertise 
 but informs as well; and in this line thou- 
 sands of makers of things are putting out 
 printed notes on optics, chemistry, travel, 
 food, machines, machine products and a 
 thousand other subjects, which often con- 
 tain later and fuller and more accurate in- 
 formation than can be gained elsewhere. 
 
 The Problem of the Print Which Is Useful 
 and Yet Ephemeral. 
 
 Nearly all this vast flood of print, to the 
 control of which libraries must now in some 
 degree address themselves, is in pamphlet 
 form, and, what seems to be of the utmost 
 importance in considering the problem of 
 how to handle it, nearly all of it is, as 
 already noted, ephemeral. Herein, also, as 
 already said, is a characteristic which dis- 
 tinguishes it from nearly all the printed 
 material with which librarians have hereto- 
 fore busied themselves. 
 
 Everything intended to be read which 
 comes into a library’s possession must be 
 preserved — such is the doctrine based on 
 the old feeling of the sanctity of print which 
 once was almost universally accepted. Even 
 to this day those are to be found who urge 
 the library of a small town to gather and 
 preserve all they can lay hands on of all 
 that is printed in or about that town. When 
 President Eliot of Harvard a few years ago, 
 seeing clearly, as can any whose eyes are 
 
SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 73 
 
 open to the progress of printing, that print 
 may overwhelm ns if we do not master it, 
 urged that great libraries be purged of dead 
 things, the voice of the spirit of print wor- 
 ship of a hundred years ago was heard pro- 
 claiming that nothing that is printed, once 
 gathered and indexed, can be spared. 
 Whereas, did any large library attempt to 
 gather, and set in order for use under the 
 technique now followed, as large a propor- 
 tion of all that is now printed, as it did of 
 what was printed in 1800, it would bankrupt 
 its community. 
 
 The amazing growth of the printing indus- 
 try is overturning the old standards of value 
 of things printed and the old methods of use, 
 has indeed already done it, though few as 
 yet realize that this is so. 
 
 To establish this fact is one of the pri- 
 mary purposes of the whole argument. To 
 emphasize its truth, two more things may be 
 mentioned, the moving picture film and the 
 phonographic record. Historically these are 
 as important as are any printed records of 
 our time. Yet what library dare take upon 
 itself the task of gathering and preserving 
 and indexing them? 
 
 Here we have two kinds of records of 
 contemporary life, both closely allied in 
 character to printed things, which the all- 
 inclusive library does not even attempt to 
 gather, list and index. Difficult as it would 
 be for any one library, or even any group 
 of large libraries, to collect and preserve all 
 these records of the human voice and of the 
 visible activities of men, still more difficult 
 would it be to gather and save all that is 
 printed today. 
 
 The Proper View of What to Do With 
 Print. 
 
 The proper view of printed things is, that 
 the stream thereof need not he anywhere 
 completely stored behind the dykes and 
 dams formed by the shelves of any library 
 or of any group of libraries ; but that from 
 that stream as it rushes by expert observers 
 should select ivhat is pertinent each to his 
 own constituency, to his own organization, 
 to his own community, hold it as long as it 
 continues to have value to those for whom 
 he selects it, make it easily accessible by 
 some simple process, and then let it go. 
 
 Both the expert and the student may rest 
 assured that the cheapness of the printing 
 process of our day and the natural zeal and 
 self-interest of inquirers, students, compil- 
 ers, indexers and publishers, will see to it 
 that nothing that is of permanent value, 
 once put in print, is ever lost. Not only are 
 there made in these days compilations and 
 abstracts innumerable by private individu- 
 als for their own pleasure and profit; but 
 also a very large and rapidly increasing 
 number of societies are devoting large sums 
 of money, high skill and tireless industry 
 to gathering, abstracting and indexing rec- 
 ords of human thought, research and indus- 
 try in all their forms. 
 
 The New Library Creed. 
 
 Select the best books, list them elabo- 
 rately, save them forever — was the sum of 
 the librarians' creed of yesterday. Tomor- 
 row it must be, select a few of the best 
 books and keep them, as before, but also, se- 
 lect from the vast flood of print the things 
 your constituency will find helpful, make 
 them available with a minimum of expense, 
 and discard them as soon as their usefulness 
 is past. 
 
 This latter creed has been as yet adopted 
 by very few practicing librarians. It is 
 gaining followers, however, in the fields of 
 research and industry whose leaders are 
 rapidly and inevitably learning that only 
 by having accessible all the records of ex- 
 periment, exploration and discovery pertain- 
 ing to their own enterprise, wherever made, 
 can they hope to avoid mistakes, escape 
 needless expenditures and make profitable 
 advances in any department of science or in 
 any kind of industrial or social work. 
 
 Special Libraries and Their Association. 
 
 In recent years has arisen an organiza- 
 tion called the Special Libraries Associa- 
 tion. It came into being in this way: 
 
 A few large enterprises, private, public 
 and quasi-public discovered that it paid to 
 employ a skilled person and ask him to de- 
 vote all his time to gathering and arrang- 
 ing printed material out of which he could 
 supply the leaders of the enterprise, on de- 
 mand or at stated intervals, with the latest 
 information on their work. 
 
 This librarian purchased periodicals, jour- 
 nals, proceedings of societies, leaflets, 
 pamphlets, and books on the special field in 
 which his employers were interested, studied 
 them, indexed them, or tore or clipped from 
 them pertinent material and filed it under 
 proper headings, and then either held him- 
 self in readiness to guide managers, fore- 
 men and others directly to the latest infor- 
 mation on any topics they might present, or 
 compiled each week or each month a list of 
 pertinent, classified references to the last 
 words from all parts of the world on the 
 fields covered by his organization’s activi- 
 ties, and laid a copy of this list on the desk 
 of every employe who could make good use 
 of it. 
 
 Roughly described, this is the method of 
 controlling the special information the world 
 was offering them which perhaps not more 
 than a score of progressive institutions had 
 found it wise to adopt up to five or six years 
 ago. 
 
 Newark’s Special Library. 
 
 At that time the public library of Newark 
 was developing what it called a library for 
 men of affairs, a business branch. This was 
 in a rented store close to the business and 
 transportation center of the city. The li- 
 brary’s management believed that men and 
 women who were engaged in manufactur- 
 
74 
 
 SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 ing, commerce, transportation, finance, in- 
 surance, and allied activities could profita- 
 bly make greater use than they had here- 
 tofore of information to be found in print. 
 They were sure that this useful industrial 
 information existed, for they knew that the 
 most progressive among men of affairs in 
 this country, and still more in Germany, 
 found and made good use of it. Indeed, they 
 knew that they already had in the main 
 library’s collections much material which 
 almost any industrial organization and al- 
 most any industrial worker could consult 
 with profit. Such material was already used 
 to a slight extent in the central building; 
 but they believed that if what might be 
 called “the printed material fundamental to 
 a great manufacturing and commercial 
 city” were so placed and so arranged that 
 it could be easily consulted by men of busi- 
 ness, the habit of using it would spread 
 very rapidly. 
 
 An Uncharted Sea of Print. 
 
 Prom the first it was evident that the li- 
 brary was entering a field not yet greatly 
 cultivated. There were no guides to selec- 
 tion of material; there were no precedents 
 to serve as rules for handling it when found. 
 Professional library literature did not help, 
 because this particular form of library 
 work had never been undertaken. It was 
 not difficult to learn that the old rule, gath- 
 er everything possible, index and save for- 
 ever, must here be in the main, discarded, 
 and the new rule, select, examine, use and 
 discard be adopted. 
 
 But to put the new rule into practice 
 was very difficult. 
 
 An Association of Inquirers. 
 
 This question naturally arose, are others 
 attempting work at all similar to this of 
 ours? Inquiry soon brought to light a few 
 librarians of private corporations, public 
 service institutions and city and state gov- 
 ernments which, as already noted, were also 
 working on the new line. Correspondence 
 and conference followed; an organization 
 for mutual aid promised to be helpful and 
 the Special Libraries Association was 
 formed. 
 
 Merely as a matter of history, and chiefly 
 because the active and skillful workers who 
 now have the movement in hand, promise 
 to make of this association an institution of 
 very great importance, it may be well to 
 state here that the suggestion of an organi- 
 zation of those engaged in what may be 
 called the sheer utilitarian management of 
 print, was made by the Newark library, 
 and that from that library and from the li- 
 brary of the Merchants’ Association of New 
 York, were sent out the invitations to a pre- 
 liminary conference at Bretton Woods, in 
 July, 1909. 
 
 Representatives of about a dozen special 
 
 libraries were present, and the librarians of 
 several public and university libraries as 
 well. 
 
 When is a Library Special? 
 
 The name Special Libraries was chosen 
 with some hesitation, and rather in default 
 of a better; but it has seemed to fit the 
 movement admirably. It may be said, of 
 course, that every library is in a measure 
 special, in its own field, and that state li- 
 braries, libraries of colleges and universi- 
 ties, of medicine, law, history, art and other 
 subjects may be called special. But a spe- 
 cial library, and the special departments of 
 more general libraries — like the business 
 branch in Newark — are the first and as yet 
 almost the only print-administering institu- 
 tions which professedly recognize the change 
 in library method that the vast and swiftly 
 mounting bulk of print is demanding; rea- 
 lize how ephemeral, and at the same time 
 how exceedingly useful for the day and 
 hour, is much of the present output of 
 things-intended-to-be-read, and frankly adopt 
 the new library creed as to print manage- 
 ment, of careful selection, immediate use 
 and ready rejection when usefulness is past. 
 
 The Growth of the New Idea. 
 
 The story of the growth and work of this 
 association of special libraries not only dem- 
 onstrates the truth of the statement that 
 the modern printing press is giving us a 
 new view of its own importance and help- 
 fulness, it also shows how rapidly the new 
 view is being taken by the world of affairs; 
 and, furthermore, it suggests some of the 
 methods to which adoption of the new li- 
 brary creed is giving rise. 
 
 The association began with about 30 mem- 
 bers, of whom more than half represented 
 special libraries that could be properly so 
 called. In one year the number of special 
 library representatives increased to more 
 than 70, and in the next two years to 125. 
 In January, 1910, the association began the 
 publication of a monthly journal. The dis- 
 tribution of this journal, which has been 
 very wisely and economically edited and 
 published by Mr. John A. Lapp, legislative 
 reference librarian of Indianapolis; the dis- 
 tribution of circular letters, reports and 
 articles in the public press; the meetings of 
 the association itself and of sub-divisions of 
 it and outgrowths from it, all have served 
 as an excellent and effective propaganda of 
 the idea of the systematic use of print in 
 the world of affairs. 
 
 A list of special libraries in this country, 
 published in Special Libraries for April, 
 1910, not including libraries of law, medi- 
 cine, history and theology and including 
 very few public, scientific and reference li- 
 braries, gave 118 names. 
 
 Most of the libraries that have joined the 
 association since its first year, 1909-10, have 
 come into existence since that year. They 
 
SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 75 
 
 { now increase in number so rapidly that it 
 j is impossible to keep the record of them 
 complete. One can only say that managers 
 , of scientific, engineering, manufacturing, 
 managerial, commercial, financial, insur- 
 [ ance, advertising, social and other organiza- 
 tions, including states, cities, government 
 i commissions and the like, are, as the records 
 ( of the Special Libraries Association show, 
 coming every day in increasing numbers to 
 ( the obvious conclusion, that it pays to em- 
 ploy an expert who shall be able, when 
 equipped with proper apparatus, to give 
 them from day to day news of the latest 
 I movements in their respective fields. 
 
 The Journal, “Special Libraries/' 
 
 | The Journal, Special Libraries, has pub- 
 ; lished a total of 35 numbers, over 400 pages, 
 and has printed scores of helpful articles 
 on such subjects as “The earning power of 
 special libraries,” “The value of the special 
 library for the business man, the salesman or 
 the shop expert,” “Industrial libraries,” “A 
 reference library in a manufacturing plant,” 
 and many carefully prepared lists of books, 
 magazine articles, new , legislative enact- 
 ments and the like, with titles like the fol- 
 lowing: Accounting, Motion pictures, Open 
 shop, Short ballot, Efficiency, Public Utility 
 rates. 
 
 This association and this journal are de- 
 scribed here thus fully because they seem 
 to point so clearly to the coming change in 
 general library method with which this 
 whole argument concerns itself. In this 
 journal we find recorded, as maintaining li- 
 braries for the special purpose of gathering 
 by world-wide search all that can throw 
 light on their work, their processes of man- 
 ufacture, their methods of sale and distri- 
 bution, such establishments as these: 
 
 The Amer. Banker’s Assn., N. Y. ; the 
 
 Amer. Brass Co., Waterbury, Conn. : The 
 
 Amer. Tel. & Tel. Co., N. Y. ; The Boston 
 
 Consol. Cas Co.; The National Carbon Co., 
 Cleveland; Stone and Webster, Boston; 
 United Gas Improvement Co., Philadelphia. 
 
 By no means all the industrial organiza- 
 tions which have what one may call pro- 
 prietary bureaus of research have become 
 members of the Association, directly or 
 
 through their librarians. In fact, as al- 
 ready stated, there must be many of these 
 special bureaus of which the Association 
 has as yet no knowledge. It is worth not- 
 ing, however, that representatives of many 
 firms, so far as they have expressed them- 
 selves, are enthusiastic over the success of 
 their new department. 
 
 The Limitation of the Older Type of 
 Libraries. 
 
 The fact that we now have an active 
 movement for the establishment within large 
 industrial enterprises of special depart- 
 ments for the proper control of all pertinent 
 printed information, is of itself good evi- 
 
 dence that the needs these departments sup- 
 ply are needs which public and college li- 
 braries of the conventional type are not sup- 
 plying. Other evidence could be set forth 
 from State libraries, municipal libraries and 
 libraries of legislative research. 
 
 It is not suggested that libraries of the 
 type of ten or even five years ago, public, 
 proprietary, State, historical, could ever do 
 the work which the enlightened industrialist 
 of today asks of the special print-handling 
 department he sets up in and for his own 
 organization. But this seems evident enough 
 from all that has been said, that the old type 
 of library must modify itself in accordance 
 with the new needs which the evolution of 
 knowledge and the growth of print have 
 created. Speaking of the free public library 
 only — tho’ what is true of this is true in a 
 measure also of the college, university or 
 historical library — it should try to master 
 so much of the flood of print as is of im- 
 portance to its community as a whole, and 
 to those aspects of industrial life which are 
 common to all men and women of affairs in 
 its community. 
 
 This paper has failed of its main purpose 
 if it has not shown that the public library 
 should equip itself to handle a vast amount 
 of ephemerally useful material, and should, 
 by its methods in this work, suggest to the 
 large business institutions how helpful they 
 would find the adoption of similar, work 
 within their respective fields. 
 
 Definite Suggestions: Co-operation. 
 
 One may here ask if any definite sugges- 
 tions can be made as to the selection of use- 
 ful print from the useless, the making it 
 temporarily accessible, and discarding it 
 with ease when its usefulness is past. As al- 
 ready stated, these are the questions now 
 confronting librarians. 
 
 As to solution, one plan already under 
 way may be mentioned. Mr. John A. Lapp, 
 director of the Bureau of Legislative In- 
 formation, Indianapolis, has established a 
 co-operative enterprise for the collection 
 and distribution of certain social and law- 
 making information. From 25 to 100 li- 
 braries and individuals each contribute $25 
 per year for maintenance. 
 
 The bureau, called “Public Affairs Infor- 
 mation Service,” collects announcements re- 
 garding information in the field of public 
 affairs, digests the same and distributes the 
 copies of the digests to subscribers. The 
 information concerns such subjects as these: 
 Agricultural Credit 
 Civil Service Commissions 
 Convict Labor 
 Dance Hall Legislation 
 Drinking Cup Question 
 Elimination of Party Politics 
 Occupational Welfare 
 
 Market’s, Reorganization in New York 
 City 
 
 Noise Prevention 
 
76 
 
 SPECIAL LIBRARIES 
 
 Municipal Lodging Houses 
 Rural Life, Bibliography 
 Prison Laws, Digest of 
 Under heads like t these a few lines give 
 information sufficient to guide one to the 
 source of printed material alluded to, with 
 a note outlining its scope. 
 
 These notes, manifolded on sheets con- 
 venient for clipping and filing, are sent out 
 to all the libraries, firms and individuals 
 co-operating, at the rate, at present, of about 
 two each week, each containing an average 
 of 20 notes. The notes vary greatly in 
 length. A recent one gave the results of in- 
 quiries into the progress, in every state in 
 the Union, of drinking cup legislation. 
 
 It is impossible to set any limit to the 
 growth of bureaus of information of this 
 kind. Every one must make for economy 
 of time and labor in the never-ending 
 search, going on in every ’ library, in every 
 law-office, in every large industrial and 
 commercial enterprise, for the latest news 
 on thousands of subjects of the day. 
 
 In Boston a bureau of information has 
 been organized by several libraries, which 
 has a central office in the public library of 
 the city, and tries to discover for any in- 
 quirer, on any topic whatsoever, the per- 
 son, book, library, document, report, or 
 what-not that can give the precise informa- 
 tion he needs ill the shortest possible time. 
 
 The League of American Municipalities 
 has long had in view a plan for establishing 
 a central municipal bureau which should 
 gather notes on the countless activities of 
 all our large cities and hold them in readi- 
 ness for any demand. Such a bureau would 
 not only save to every city department in 
 every city the cost of making its own in- 
 quiries as to new legislation, administra- 
 tion, experiments, tests of paving, lighting, 
 etc., it would also save to the country at 
 large much of the present vast expenditure 
 on new legislation and new methods of 
 many kinds which have somewhere already 
 proven failures. 
 
 Tentative Programme 
 
 Annual Convention of the Special Libraries Association, Affiliated with the 
 American Library Association, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Wednesday, May 27th — 2 p. m. 
 
 (Opening Session) 
 
 Note — At the request of the programme 
 committee of the American Library Asso- 
 ciation, the set parts of the programme have 
 been considerably shortened to give oppor- 
 tunity for visits to places of library interest 
 in Washington. 
 
 1. Opening: Brief review of year and ex- 
 planation of current programme and ends to 
 be achieved. 
 
 2. Subject of afternoon: Co-operative in- 
 formation getting: What has been and is 
 being done — What may be done. 
 
 (a) Report Methods followed and re- 
 sults achieved through co-operation of forty 
 legislative reference and similar libraries. 
 By John A. Lapp, Director, Indiana Bureau 
 of Legislative Information, Indianapolis, Ind. 
 
 (b) Report Methods followed and re- 
 sults achieved by “International Notes and 
 Queries,” an attempt at co-operation for the 
 getting of information. By Eugene F. Mc- 
 Pike, Secretary, American Railway Perish- 
 able Freight Association, Editor “Interna- 
 tional Notes and Queries,” Chicago. 
 
 (c) Report The New Index Office — Its 
 aims, methods and achievements. By A. G. 
 S. Josephson, Secretary, Chicago, 111. 
 
 (d) Report The Boston Co-qperative In- 
 
 formation Bureau in the light of three years 
 of service. By G. W. Lee, President, Boston, 
 Mass. 
 
 (e) Discussion from the floor. General 
 Theme: “What is the matter -with present 
 co-operative methods? Are the methods at 
 fault or are we ourselves a little bit queer?” 
 An opportunity for a delightful session 
 boosting and being boosted if everybody will 
 only unbend and dip in. 
 
 (f) Co-operation and the Special Li- 
 brarian — Can librarians themselves co-op- 
 erate in ways that will be helpful and at the 
 same time practical? Can co-operation be 
 reduced to a simple system which will work 
 itself? By R. H. Johnston, Librarian, Bu- 
 reau of Railway Economics Library, Wash- 
 ington, D. C. 
 
 Wednesday, May 27th 
 
 Evening Session — 8 p. m. 
 
 Round Table Discussion 
 
 Explanation — To give opportunity for the 
 informal consideration by small groups of 
 persons of matters of more limited interest, 
 the Executive Committee have arranged for 
 numerous Round Table conferences, each 
 presided over by a leader chosen because of 
 his fitness to guide the discussion into help- 
 ful and practical channels.