LIBRARIES AND CULTURE

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 57, 30 November 1935, Page 7

LIBRARIES AND CULTURE

Views at Conference TOO MUCH IGNORANCE The view that libraries should be the storehouse of cultural inheritance was expressed by Alderman J. Thornton, chairman of the Libraries and Arts Committee, Leeds, in an address on "The Library and the Electors” at the recent conference of the Library’ Association in Manchester. Their job as members of library committees or as officers of those services was to persuade their electorates that, those services were the essentials of any life worth living. Libraries should also be the distributing agencies by means of which their cultural inheritance was passed on to each generation, and they should be vital intelligence centres of specialised knowledge. The task of the members of the conference was to equip thir libraries with books of every tyi>e and class and then to guide their borrowers to the best in the department he or she favoured. Good work was being done in that direction, but there was still an astonishing amount of ignorance on the part of the average elector and even the average representative as to the scope, extent and variety of their municipal systems. Change of Attitude. "In the past—and not so long ago in some districts—a councillor without any special abilities or ‘pull’ was apt to be hidden away on the libraries committees,” said Aiderman Thornton. ‘‘When one of these gentlemen, after some years of service, had to be rewarded with a chairmanship, the idea seemed to be, ‘He is not quite good enough for a really important committee —give him the chairmanship of the Libraries and Arts.’ “A better attitude is now apparent. We all know that real interest in the cultural side of life is no particular asset for a municipal candidate, nor is a complete absence of any such interest any barrier to success at the polls. When therefore, a man or woman with these qualities does happen to combine them with the ability to cajole the electors or fit in with the party machine, it is more or less a lucky accident"There is, however, a growing tendency to place members of councils upon committees where their special bent can have scope.” He considered that in no other department of municipal organisation was the right type of public servant so important. Their library staffs came into daily contact with the electorate in a way no other service approached. With the increased development of library activities, there was more scope for ability and special aptitude than in the old days when both electors and councillors seemed to think that all there was in the work was sticking rubber stamps on library books. It was the mark of the barbarian everywhere and in all ages to despise or destroy libraries. It was the mark of the wise to cherish them. The Ideal Public. A plea for a more generous attitude toward the work of the public library was made by Mr. W. C. Berwick Sayers, chief librarian of the Croydon public libraries. Mr. Sayers said the librarian needed the faith of the public In his work. In that, perhaps more than any other man, he had been at a disadvantage for the past 80 years. There had never been lacking an important minority in the community who knew how great would be the poverty of the people if it were not for the public library. On the other hand, there had been a very obstructive and parsimonious section of the community which had written down the library as a luxury. He considered that an ideal public would produce an Ideal librarian; an ideal public was one that took an intelligent interest In public affairs, such interest being practical and critical, and appreciative. The library buildings in a town should, in his opinion, be a source of pride and satisfaction to the inhabitants, and the libraries should be controlled by library committees who represented the people but who had free minds so that they could take advantage of all developing phases of the educational, intellectual and social wants of the community. In the purchase of books, the cost of the book should always be a minor consideration. He further considered that there was no library in England whi n h had an adequate staff. In the session. devoted to “Service Standards for Various Types of Population,” Mr. Duncan Grey, city librarian of Nottingham, said a library serving 25,000 people should have a floor space of not less than 3500 or 4000 square feet. Fourpence per head of the population a year was adequate expenditure on books, the average life of a book being 75 readings. Resort Libraries. Dealing with the seaside imputation, Mr. W. Smettem, chief librarian of Scarborough, said the interavailability of tickets for visitors to seaside resorts was a question which required a decision in these days of a foreshadowed national library service. As seaside legislation thought mainly of the provision of attractions and re-venue-producing activities it was no accident that, with certain laudable exceptions, seaside resorts had been among the last towns in the country to be provided with a public library service. It had to be recognised that the dominating fact in the life of such towns was “the season.” That libraries were an essential activity of a seaside local authority had been proved by the success which had attended recently-established services in such towns. The most popular section of the library service in a sen»id“ resort was the lending library.