be done to-morrow. Remember always, that readers are entitled to
the best and most careful service, for a librarian is not only the
keeper, but the interpreter of the intellectual stores of the library. It
is a good and a safe rule to let no opportunity of aiding a reader
escape. One should be particularly careful to volunteer help to those who
are too new or too timid to ask: and it is they who will be most grateful
for any assistance. The librarian has only to put himself in their
place--(the golden rule for a librarian, as for all the world besides),
and to consider how often, in his own searches in libraries, in the
continual, never-ending quest of knowledge, he would have been thankful
for a hint from some one who knew, or had been over the ground of his
search before; and then he will feel the full value to the novice, of
such knowledge as he can impart.

He is not to forget that his superior opportunities for learning all
about things, with a whole library at command, and within elbow-reach
every hour of the day, should impose upon him a higher standard of
attainment than most readers are supposed to have reached. In the
intervals of library work, I am accustomed to consider the looking up of
subjects or authorities as one of my very best recreations. It is as
interesting as a game of whist, and much more profitable. It is more
welcome than routine labor, for it rests or diverts the mind, by its very
variety, while, to note the different views or expressions of writers on
the same subject, affords almost endless entertainment. In tracing down a
quotation also, or the half-remembered line of some verse in poetry, you
encounter a host of parallel poetic images or expressions, which
contribute to aid the memory, or to feed the imagination. Or, in pursuing
a sought-for fact in history, through many volumes, you learn
collaterally much that may never have met your eye before. Full, as all
libraries are, of what we call trash, there is almost no book which will
not give us something,--even though it be only the negative virtue of a
model to be avoided. One may not, indeed, always find what he seeks,
because it may not exist at all, or it may not be found in the limited
range of his small library, but he is almost sure to find something which
gives food for thought, or for memory to note. And this is one of the
foremost attractions, let me add, of the librarian's calling; it is more
full of intellectual variety, of wide-