come not only to rely upon him
for aid in their intellectual researches, but to appreciate and respect
him for the wide extent of his knowledge, and to consider him, in time,
an indispensable guide, if not leader, in the community. His reputation,
in fact, will depend upon the extent to which he has been able to help
others, as well as upon the number of people whom he has thus aided.

In a very high sense, the true librarian is an educator; his school is as
large as the town in which his library is situated. Very few people in
that town know what he is always presumed to know,--namely--to what books
to go to get answers to the questions they want answered. In supplying
continually the means of answering these countless questions, the library
becomes actually a popular university, in which the librarian is the
professor, the tuition is free, and the course is optional, both as to
study and as to time.

Most persons who come to make any investigation in a public library
require a good deal of assistance. For example, a reader is in need of
the latest information as to the amount of steel and iron made in this
country, and what State produces these important manufactures. He has not
the faintest idea where to look for the information, except that it may
be in the census, but the census is nine years old, and he wants recent
facts. It is vain to turn him over to the cyclopaedias, for there is not
one whose information upon such statistics comes anywhere near up to
date. You have to put before him a pamphlet annual, published by the
American Iron and Steel Association, which contains exactly what he
wants; and no other source of information does contain it.

Another inquirer seeks to know how to treat some disease. In such cases,
of course, the librarian should not go farther than to put before the
reader a work on domestic medicine, for it is not his function to deal in
recommendations of this, that, or the other method of treatment, any more
than it is to give legal opinions, if asked--although he may have studied
law. So, if the reader wants to know about the religious tenets of the
Presbyterians, or the Mormons, or the Buddhists, or the doctrines of the
Catholic Church, and asks the librarian's opinion about any controverted
question of belief, he is to be answered only by the statement that the
library is there to supply information, not opinions, and then pointed to
the religious cyclopaedias, which give full summar