ry of to-day was comparatively rare. In
those libraries every subscriber knew the librarian, and the librarian
was personally acquainted with every book on the shelves. To bring the
books and readers into congenial relationship was the business and
usually the pleasure of the librarian. The personal element was the
heart from which the circulation of the books radiated--if the presiding
personality lacked vitality and enthusiasm the library was a failure.

With the era of the democratic free libraries, with their more rapid
growth, with their doors open to men, women and children of all classes,
the human element, the personal relation of librarian to the reader
suffered a gradual eclipse, until, in some libraries more perfectly
developed on the technical side, the personal equation vanished
altogether. The library became a great machine, into which a number was
dropped, and out of which a book was dropped like corn from the hopper.
We all know how formidable this mechanism is to those unaccustomed to
modern library methods. To the uninitiated the card catalog is an
abomination, an unsolved problem, a delusion and a snare. The boy who is
interested in athletics, fumbling over the card catalog in Micawber-like
fashion, hits upon the title "Morning and evening exercises"; he
straight away hands in the number thinking he has found a prize. It is
discouraging and depressing when the machine shoots out to him a volume
of devotional compilations. He has tried his luck and it has failed, and
as he was reminded only last week that a book cannot be exchanged the
same day on which it is drawn out he retires with "Morning and evening
exercises," a sadder, but not a wiser boy. It is in accord, therefore,
with the process of library evolution that a closer personal relation
between reader and librarian should be developed through some such
medium as is here outlined under the designation "the library friend."

One of the library problems just now is this: given on the one side
100,000 books and on the other 50,000 people. How is each individual to
be brought into contact with the particular book that he wants? Where
open shelves are practicable a great advantage--to the discriminating
reader, an inestimable advantage, is gained; but the majority of
librarians have not room to throw any department open to the public; and
even among open shelves the person whose judgment of books is wholly
untrained often misses what he is looking for