e, will be best qualified for the service of the reading-room,
which involves the supply of books and information. In direct proportion
to the breadth of information possessed by any one, will be his
usefulness in promptly supplying the wants of readers. Nothing is so
satisfactory to students in libraries, or to the casual seekers of
information of any kind, as to find their wants immediately supplied. The
reader whom an intelligent librarian or assistant answers at once is
grateful to the whole establishment; while the reader who is required to
wait ten to twenty minutes for what he wants, becomes impatient and
sometimes querulous, or leaves the library unsatisfied.
One rule of service at the library desk or counter should be that every
assistant there employed should deem it his duty to aid immediately any
one who is waiting, no matter what other concerns may engage his
attention. In other words, the one primary rule of a public library
should be that the service of the public is always paramount. All other
considerations should be subordinate to that.
It is desirable that assistants in every library should learn all
departments of library work, cataloguing, supplying books and
information, preparing books for the shelves, etc. This will enable each
assistant to take the place of another in case of absence, a most
important point. It will also help to qualify the more expert for
promotion.
A second rule for internal administration in any library should be that
all books are to be distributed, or replaced upon their shelves, daily.
If this is not systematically done, the library will tend to fall into
chaos. And even a small number of volumes not in their places will
embarrass the attendants seeking them, and often deprive readers of their
use--a thing to be always sedulously avoided.
In the Library of Congress, the replacement of books upon the shelves is
carried out much more frequently than once daily. As fast as books come
in at the central desk by the returns of readers, they are sent back
through the book-carriers, to the proper floors, where the outside
label-numbers indicate that they belong, and replaced by the attendant
there on their proper shelves. These mechanical book-carriers run all
day, by electric power, supplied by a dynamo in the basement, and, with
their endless chain and attached boxes constantly revolving, they furnish
a near approach to perpetual motion. Thus I have seen a set of Macaulay
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