WOMEN FOR LIBRARIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21090, 16 July 1938, Page 11

WOMEN FOR LIBRARIES

EDUCATION NEEDED EXACTING TASK ; At the Sydney Public Library there is a staff of young women who combine the physical agility of the mountain goat with the mental activity of scholars, states an Australian writer. They are the ibrary officers, the cataloguers, and reading-room assistants, who spend their days among 300.000 books, directing their highlytrained minds into myriad channels of information; balancing precariously on ladders 14 feet high, or clinging to hand-rails high up near the roof; and meeting requests for information—some of them extraordinary—from all sorts of people. The 39 women at the Mitchel and Public Libraries are not the book-worm type that has been so mercilessly cariI catured in literature—with morbid expression and huge horn-rimmed spectacles. Some of them are not specially interested in literature. They are all vital young women, interested in everything, and modern in outlook. One can sec them at the library any time, neatly dressed in blue, courteously heping some seeker of information, scanning an index, labouring along an endless corridor with books piled high in their arms, or descending from some nest high in the ceiling with a folio volume balanced in each hand. In Pursuit of Information “We are information bloodhounds,” one of them said laughingly as she slid to the floor, triumphantly carrying a slim volume that would probably alter the course of some person's life. “We spend our lives pursuing and co-ordin-

ating knowledge. Wo bring people into contact with books; and no two people, i or two books, are the same. The search ' for a certain book is sometimes lengthy, ■ boring and hazardous, but always there is the comfortiing thought that the information we seek may change the whole course of a business or a human life. The spirit of the hunt in an integral part of our library lives.” The Public Library is a vast storehouse of information where reference to any subject can be found. Each of the 300.000 books has been catalogued, classified and relegated to its preordained niche in the maze of bookshelves. The key to the wealth of this library is the catalogue which is virtually a detailed index. Cataloguing is highly specialised work. It calls for a vast general knowledge. Each book has to be classified as dealing with an individual subject. As a great percentage of the books are on technical subjects, the cataloguer’s knowledge must be all-embracing. Education is Essential Education is therefore essential in library officers. Any girl who joins the staff must have a first-class Leaving Certificate and a strong, healthy body. If she intends to graduate to a higher position on the professional staff, a university degree is essential. Competitive examinations and a system of lectures are conducted within the library. A knowledge of Latin, French and Greek is preferred. The Sydney library examination is acknowledged to be the most difficult of its type in the world. Women are preferred for : general library work because of their patience and capacity for detail. Men with university training would not be prepared to stay in a job where advancement was slow', perhaps even unlikely. Miss N. B. Hibble is in charge of the research department of the library and has spent the last 20 years looking up references to many thousands of subjects at the request of manufacturers, professional men and private people. Her memo book of subjects includes the food value of peanuts, and information on the toughening of glass. In many cases 30 and 40 books on or containing references to a certain subject are assembled. Miss Hibble has made 271,000 researches, details of which appear in the research indexes.