Part 3

THE PROVISION OF BOOKS 349

The Librarian and His Constituents. (Library Journal, 1886, p. 229.) 351 REUBEN BROOKS POOLE.

The Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns. (Library Journal, 1883, p. 227.) 359 THERESA HUBBELL WEST.

Address at the Dedication of the University of Pennsylvania Library. (Library Journal, 1891, p. 108.) 365 TALCOTT WILLIAMS.

COLLECTION OF INFORMATION 379

Libraries As Bureaus of Information. (Library Journal, 1896, p. 324.) 381 SAMUEL SWETT GREEN.

The Library Friend. (Library Journal, 1901, p. 197.) 387 WINIFRED LOUISE TAYLOR.

CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING 395

Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the Rapid Increase of Public Libraries. (Library Journal, 1885, p. 234.) 397 BRADFORD KINNEY PIERCE.

Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities. (Library Journal, 1887, p. 395.) 401 MINERVA AMANDA SANDERS.

Presidential Address, Lake Placid Conference. (Library Journal, 1894, Conference No., p. 1.) 411 JOSEPH NELSON LARNED.

The Library as an Inspirational Force. (Public Libraries, 1899, p. 102.) 419 SAM WALTER FOSS.

The Use of the Public Library; Ryerson Library Dedication Address. (Library Journal, 1904, p. 592.) 425 JAMES BURRILL ANGELL.

COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE 431

The Library as a Social Centre. (Public Libraries, 1906, p. 5.) 433 GRATIA ALTA COUNTRYMAN.

The Library and the Social Centre. (Wisconsin Library Bulletin, 1911, p. 84.) 439 LUTIE EUGENIA STEARNS.

Where Neighbors Meet. (From St. Louis Public Library report, 1916-17.) 443 MARGERY CLOSEY QUIGLEY.

What of the Future? (Library Journal, 1897, Conference No., p. 5.) 453 FREDERICK MORGAN CRUNDEN.

INDEX 459

THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY

Recent progress in all directions--political, educational, industrial, hygienic--has been marked by the growth and strengthening of a social consciousness. It is this chiefly that has differentiated the modern library from its predecessors and has made prominent our present insistence on the reader as well as the book, as a fundamental element in what we are doing. At first evident only in a general and somewhat vague recognition, by writers and speakers, of a vital relation between libraries and the communities that they serve, it later crystallized into definite discussions of their reciprocal service--that of the community to the library, consisting of financial, material and moral support expressing itself partly in the appointment of adequate boards of trustees and their proper backing, and that of the library to the community, showing itself largely in the provision of books, the collection of information, the control and guidance of reading, and so-called "community-centre" service. These facts have guided the grouping and sequence of the papers and addresses that make up the present volume. The authors, it will be noticed, include more statesmen, publicists, and professional men, and fewer librarians, than was the case with the two previous volumes, thus reflecting the greater generality and wider interest of the subject.

GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS

In the following group have been included papers and addresses largely by publicists or educators interested in libraries from the general civic standpoint, and affected by the general trend toward what has been termed here "socialization." They have been loosely arranged in three groups--general ideas on the field, function and possibilities of the library, papers on books and their uses, as affected or promoted by the library, and general addresses, chiefly at the opening of library buildings. Within these groups they are given in general in their chronological order, although with some exceptions whose purpose will be self evident. Through them all runs the thread of consciousness that service to the community must be the primary object of the library, although the breadth and extent of that service, as it was destined later to grow and develop is not generally realized and in some cases doubtless would have been deprecated by the writers or speakers, could they have foreseen it. But in all these pronouncements we may clearly see the dawning light of a new library day.

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN AMERICA AND ITS TRUE FUNCTION IN THE COMMUNITY

This comprehensive sketch, by Professor Tyler of Cornell University, forms part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Sage Library, at West Bay City, Michigan, Jan. 16, 1884.

Moses Coit Tyler was born in Griswold, Conn., Aug. 2, 1835 and graduated at Yale in 1857. He was professor of English at Michigan University in 1867-81 and from the latter year to his death, Dec. 28, 1900, held the chair of American History at Cornell.

In this address, Prof. Tyler has added to his equipment as a philosophical historian his personal knowledge and experience of the service that a properly administered collection of books may render to a community.

Looking over the entire course of American society, from its rough and hardy beginning, in the first years of the 17th century, I find six distinct stages of development with reference to the possession and use of books by the people. The first stage is that of private libraries; the second is that of special institutional libraries, like those of colleges and other learned corporations, and intended for a limited and rather scholastic class in the community; the third is that of association or joint stock libraries, i.e., libraries of a more miscellaneous and general character, but for the use only of those whose names are on the subscription list; the fourth is that of common school libraries; the fifth is that of endowed libraries, i.e., public libraries founded and sustained entirely by private endowment and thrown open to the public without any cost whatever to the public; and finally, the sixth is that of free public libraries created, it may be, by private benefaction, but sustained in part at least at the public cost, i.e., uniting the two elements of private help and public selfhelp, and cherished by the public only as people will cherish that which costs them something, and of which they have some sense of real ownership.