- About Bookbinding -

Trustees, although usually, (at least the majority of them) persons of culture and intelligence, cannot be expected to be bibliographers, nor to be familiar with the great range of new books that continually pour from the press. They have their own business or profession to engage them, and are commonly far too busy to study catalogues, or to follow the journals of the publishing world. So these busy men, charged with the oversight of the library interests, call to their aid an expert, and that expert is the librarian. It is his interest and his business to know far more than they do both of what the library already contains, and what it most needs. It is his to peruse the critical journals and reviews, as well as the literary notices of -the select daily press, and to be prepared to recommend what works to purchase. He must always accompany his lists of wants with the prices, or at least the approximate cost of each, and the aggregate amount. If the trustees or book committee think the sum too large to be voted at anyone time from the fund at their disposal, the librarian must know what can best be postponed, as well as what is most indispensable for the immediate wants of the library. If they object to any works on the list, he should be prepared to explain the quality and character of those called in question, and why the library, in his judgment, should possess them. If the list is largely cut down, and he considers himself hardly used, he should meet the disappointment with entire good humor, and try again when the members of the committee are in better mood, or funds in better supply. It is very customary for boards of library officers to assume the charge of the administration so far as regards the library staff, and to make appointments, promotions or removals at their own pleasure. In most libraries, however, this power is exercised mainly on the advice or selection of the librarian, his action being confirmed when there is no serious objection. In still other cases, the librarian is left wholly free to choose the assistants. This is perhaps the course most likely to secure efficient service, since his judgment, if he is a person of tried capacity and mature experience, will lead to the selection of the fittest candidates, for the work which he alone thoroughly knows. No library trustee can put himself fully in the place of a librarian, and see for himself the multitude of occasions arising in the daily work of the library, where promptness, tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a success and the want of any of these qualities a failure. Still less can he judge the competency or incompetence of one who is to be employed in the difficult and exact work of cataloguing books. Besides, there is always the hazard that trustees, or some of them, may have personal favorites or relatives to prefer, and will use their influence to secure the appointment or promotion of utterly uninstructed persons, in place of such candidates as are known to the librarian to be best qualified. In no case should any person be employed without full examination as to fitness for library work, conducted either by the librarian, or by a committee of which the librarian is a member or chief examiner. A probationary trial should also follow before final appointment. The power of patronage, if unchecked by this safeguard, will result in filling any library with incompetents, to the serious detriment of the service on which its usefulness depends. The librarian cannot keep a training school for inexpert: he has no time for this, and he indispensably needs and should have assistants who are competent to their duties, from their first entrance upon them. As he is held responsible for all results, in the conduct of the library, both by the trustees and by the public, he should have the power, or at least the approximate power, to select the means by which those results are to be attained. In the Boston Public Library, all appointments are made by the trustees upon nomination by the librarian, after an examination somewhat similar to that of the civil service, but by a board of library experts. In the British Museum Library, the selection and promotion of members of the staff are passed upon by the trustees, having the recommendation of the principal librarian before them. In the Library of Congress, appointments are made directly by the librarian after a probationary trial, with previous examination as to education, former experience or employments, attainments, and fitness for library service.

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