Chapter II. THE URBAN LIBRARY SERVICE. (a) The place of the public library in the national life. 87. A survey of the statistics of which we have presented a summary reveals three things very clearly; first, a remarkable progress much accelerated of recent years in the library movement as a whole; secondly, the existence of serious deficiencies, which need to be made good; and thirdly, the consequent need of linking up the efforts which are being made by many zealous persons in many quarters. We are convinced that the public libraries, wherever they are well administered, are doing a great work, but that their efficiency can be much increased by various methods of co-operation. 88. The public libraries in the great cities, and in many urban areas of medium size, have developed notably during the last generation, and have established themselves as an indispensable element in the life of the community. They provide information essential for the progress of commerce and industry; they make research possible in every department of intellectual life; they aid solitary students in their investigations; they provide relaxation and refreshment for every class of the population. They are administered by men who, working often with little public encouragement, with very limited means, and with scanty personal remuneration, have by their enthusiasm built up a great organisation, and have created a demand by furnishing a supply. There was a time when the public response to these efforts was disappointing; but that time is passing away. The public interest in libraries has greatly increased, and we believe there is now a far healthier belief in the value of knowledge, and in the importance of intellectual life, in all the busy centres of national activity, than in any previous period of our history. In such centres the public library is no longer regarded as a means of providing casual recreation of an innocent but somewhat unimportant character; it is recognised as an engine of great potentialities for national welfare, and as the essential foundation for the progress in education and culture without which no people can hold its own in the struggle for existence. All that we have to say as to the means by which the urban libraries can be strengthened and made yet more efficient is based upon our recognition of the existence of a large number of active libraries, and on our belief that the public appreciation of their importance is steadily growing. 89. It would, however, be idle to deny that there are many parts of the country in which library activity, and the appreciation of its importance, fall short of a satisfactory standard. (28840) The B 3 statistics quoted above leave no doubt on this head. There are too many libraries which, either for lack of funds or for lack of public interest, do very little to stimulate or assist the intellectual life of their districts. We have given much thought to the remedy which may be suitable to such cases. Is it desirable to apply any measure of compulsion by some central authority? Can any useful system of inspection be devised? Would it be proper to assist backward areas by grants of public money or by any other form of national support? 90. Our answer to all these questions is in the negative. We believe an atmosphere of freedom to be an essential condition of healthy library progress. Compulsion can only lead to resistance, to grudging compliance, to resentment, which will ensure unpopularity for the very idea of a library. Persuasion and example are the stimuli on which we should rely. If a library service is backward by reason of local distaste for the idea of study or recreation conducted by means of books, or an inadequate conception of the proper standard of library service, we should trust to the pressure of public opinion, stimulated by the example of other localities, and the unflattering comparisons which are apt to be made to the disadvantage of unprogressive communities, to bring about an improvement. Self-interest, as well as pride, is likely to provide the required remedy. 91. In most cases, however, we are willing to believe that it is the poverty, and not the will, of a community that consents to a condition of backwardness. A small town or a rural district cannot afford the sums necessary to establish an adequate library service. Such areas are in every way deserving of help, but it is not necessary that this should take the form of grants from the national exchequer. For them the remedy is to be found in cooperation, in association with a centre from which circulating supplies of books can be drawn, while a fixed stock of books is being gradually built up. Subsequent sections of this Report will show in what ways such systems of co-operation can be organised without infringing the local autonomy of the weaker areas. 92. We propose to deal first with the urban library service, which has acquired an established place in the general educational system of the country-using the term education in its widest sense. We shall subsequently deal separately with the much newer, but highly important, system of county libraries which is still only in the earliest stages of its creation. But first it is desirable to say a few words as to the place which we conceive the public library should occupy in the national life. 93. The need for a supply of books for the use of the general population is a very modern development of civilisation. It is the outcome of a national system of education. So long as the bulk of the population could not read, they had no use for books. An educated country was then one which possessed a considerable class that had learnt to read and to appreciate intellectual culture, and no one considered that such culture was any affair of the labouring classes in general. Such glimmerings of it as they received were acquired orally, and largely by such means as sermons and the drama. The occupations of the people were mainly agricultural and domestic, and were carried on according to traditional usages. With the growth of industries, the application to them of machinery, and the development of competitive commerce, the extension of knowledge became imperative. The industrial revolution of the eighteenth century opened the eyes of ever-widening circles of the population to the need for knowledge, and education became a prime necessity of national life. The nineteenth century saw its rapid extension, culminating in national systems of compulsory education. Education implies books; and the need for books accessible to all classes of the population led to the movement for the establishment of public libraries which we have summarised in our first chapter. 94. Even now we should not venture to say that the possibilities of the public library are always adequately recognised. It is not long since the reproach that public libraries existed mainly for the supply of indifferent fiction for the poorer classes had too much truth in it to be easily repelled. But with the coming of the second generation brought up under the system of universal education the conception of the use of books has widened. Commerce and industry have learnt, more slowly in this country than in America, but still have learnt, that study and research are essential, not merely for progress but for survival in the struggle for existence. The war of 1914-18 brought home this necessity with irresistible force, and few would now deny that if a crowded industrial population, such as that of Great Britain, is to continue to hold its own, it can only by the utilisation of its best brains and by the application of all the resources of knowledge and intellectual culture. 95. The public library, should be the centre of the intellectual life of the area which it serves. That intellectual life covers all stages, from the incipient curiosity of those whose intelligence is only beginning to awaken to the advanced research of the highlytrained specialist. The library has to serve not only the earnest seekers after knowledge, but also those who are merely gratifying an elementary curiosity, and those who are seeking relaxation and recreation. We are very far from decrying the recreational use of libraries. On the contrary, we believe it to be one of their most valuable services to supply that intelligent refreshment which we all need; and if for some that recreation is found in literature which does not appeal to more highly cultured minds, it is to be regarded as a foundation for better things, and as, at worst, preferable to other modes of recreation which exist as alternatives. 96. The principle underlying the library service is that it exists for the training of the good citizen. It must aim at providing (28840) B 4 all that printed literature can provide to develop his intellectual, moral, and spiritual capabilities. If, therefore, it begins with, and always includes, a service of newspapers, it is enabling him to form an opinion on the public affairs-good or bad, according to the quality of the papers that he reads, but at any rate better than none; and by the variety of papers that it provides it gives him the chance of not being the slave of one. By the provision of periodicals, it provides him with harmless recreation and disseminates knowledge in popular forms; and if the proportion of indifferent fiction is high, and actually demoralising food is sometimes offered to the intellectual palate, it is the function of education to lead people to discriminate between the better and the worse, and to arrive at a higher standard. We have all gone through the stage of enjoying what we subsequently regard as rubbish; and a nation has to go through these stages as well as an individual. The remedy for the danger of a little knowledge is more knowledge. 97. The librarian aims, therefore, at supplying recreational literature of as good quality as his public can digest; at placing at their disposal the information necessary for the ordinary duties of a citizen; and at supplying all their needs for intellectual culture and for the knowledge that they require in their several professions and occupations. It is his duty to see that, so far as the means placed at his disposal permit, the books that they require, whether for recreation, for information, or for research, are on the shelves of his library; and he has besides the important function of acting as their guide to the use of the treasures which he holds for them. It is the purpose of this chapter of the Report to show by what methods these duties are discharged in the urban public libraries of this country, and to suggest in what ways their efficiency may be developed and increased. (b) Public libraries and local education authorities. 98. In county boroughs, municipal boroughs, and urban districts (with which alone we are concerned in this portion of our Report), the library authority established by the Public Libraries Acts is the council of the borough or district. The council, however, normally works through committees; and the Library Committee is normally the body directly concerned with the administration of the library. The first problem concerns the relations between this Committee and another Committee with functions which obviously overlap those of the library, namely, the Education Committee. The subject is one on which strong opinions have been expressed on both sides. In 1919 it was fully considered by the Adult Education Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction, under the presidency of Mr. A. L. Smith, Master of Balliol College, which summed up strongly in favour of the transfer of library activities to the control of local education authorities. Its recommendations are summarised in the following sections of its Report : (54) "Our proposal is that the scheme of education for a local area in England and Wales should include its library and museum programme as well as its proposals relating to the work of its schools. The activities of the libraries and museums would then be taken into account by the Board of Education in assessing the total amount of State grants to be alloted to the local authority. In this way both museums and libraries would receive assistance from the national exchequer, and the many-sided activities of a locality would be more closely knit together." (55) "It will be seen from the earlier sections of our Report that we are strongly in favour of a full co-operation between local education authorities on the one hand, and public libraries and museums on the other. We think that the local education authority should be the authority responsible for the administration of public libraries and museums in order to secure the closest relationship between the activities of schools, libraries, and museums. In England and Wales local authorities for higher education should be the authorities for libraries and museums, though in the case of those Part III authorities which now possess their own public libraries it would be advisable at any rate for the present, not to disturb the control of their libraries, but to arrive at a working agreement between authorities for elementary education and the county authority. (56) "The public libraries and museums should be remitted to special committees of the education authority. On each of these Committees it would be desirable to co-opt representatives of voluntary organisations and societies specially interested in the work of the Committees, such as local educational bodies, scientific societies, and art clubs. Librarians and curators should, of course, have direct access to their respective committees and the fullest scope for their powers and special knowledge." 99. On the other hand, this proposal has met with the most emphatic opposition of the authorities and organisations representing the public libraries. The Library Association, which had declared its opposition to the principle before the appearance of the Report of the Adult Education Committee, has maintained its opposition not less strongly since, and in a memorandum prepared for our Committee, after recapitulating the arguments against subordinating the libraries to education authorities mainly interested in schools and regarding as of minor importance the unsystematic and recreative reading" carried on in the public |