How to Form a Library, 2nd ed

Selden wrote in his Table Talk: "The giving a bookseller his price for his books has this advantage; he that will do so, shall have the refusal of whatsoever comes to his hand, and so by that means get many things which otherwise he never should have seen." And the dictum is as true now as it was in his time.

Many special points arise for consideration when we deal with the question—How to buy at sales? and Mr. Edward Edwards gives the following four rules for the guidance of the young book-buyer (Memoirs of Libraries, vol. ii. p. 645):

1. The examination of books before the sale, not during it. 2. A steady unintermittent bidding up to his predetermined limit, for all the books which he wants, from the first lot to the last; and—if there be any signs of a "combination"—for a few others which he may not want. 3. Careful avoidance of all interruptions and conversation; with especial watchfulness of the hammer immediately after the disposal of those especially seductive lots, which may have excited a keen and spirited competition. (There is usually on such occasions a sort of "lull," very favourable to the acquisition of good bargains.) 4. The uniform preservation and storing up of priced catalogues of all important sales for future reference.

A case of conscience arises as to whether it is fit and proper for two buyers to agree not to oppose each other at a public sale. Mr. Edwards says, "At the sales Lord Spencer was a liberal opponent as well as a liberal bidder. When Mason's books were sold, for example, in 1798, Lord Spencer agreed with the Duke of Roxburghe that they would not oppose each other, in bidding for some books of excessive rarity, but when both were very earnest in their longings, "toss up, after the book was bought, to see who should win it." Thus it was that the Duke obtained his unique, but imperfect, copy of Caxton's Historye of Kynge Blanchardyn and Prince Eglantyne, which, however, came safely to Althorp fourteen years later, at a cost of two hundred and fifteen pounds; the Duke having given but twenty guineas."[13 - Libraries and Founders of Libraries, 1864, p. 404.]

It is easy to understand the inducement which made these two giants agree not to oppose each other, but the agreement was dangerously like a "knock-out." Mr. Henry Stevens (in his Recollections of Mr. James Lenox) boldly deals with this question, and condemns any such agreement. He writes, "Shortly after, in 1850, there occurred for sale at the same auction rooms a copy of 'Aratus, Phaenomena,' Paris, 1559, in 4

, with a few manuscript notes, and this autograph signature on the title, 'Jo. Milton, Pre. 2s. 6d. 1631.' This I thought would be a desirable acquisition for Mr. Lenox, and accordingly I ventured to bid for it as far as £40, against my late opponent for the Drake Map, but he secured it at £40 10s., remarking that 'Mr. Panizzi will not thank you for, thus running the British Museum.' 'That remark,' I replied, 'is apparently one of your gratuities. Mr. Panizzi is, I think, too much a man of the world to grumble at a fair fight. He has won this time, though at considerable cost, and I am sure Mr. Lenox will be the first to congratulate him on securing such a prize for the British Museum.' 'I did not know you were bidding for Mr. Lenox.' 'It was not necessary that you should.' 'Perhaps at another time,' said he, 'we may arrange the matter beforehand, so as not to oppose each other.' 'Very well,' I replied, 'if you will bring me a note from Mr. Panizzi something to this effect: 'Mr. Stevens, please have a knock-out with the bearer, the agent of the British Museum, on lot **, and greatly oblige Mr. John Bull and your obdt. servant, A.P.,' I will consider the proposition, and if Mr. Lenox, or any other of my interested correspondents, is not unwilling to combine or conspire to rob or cheat the proprietors, the 'thing' may possibly be done. Meanwhile, until this arrangement is concluded, let us hold our tongues and pursue an honest course.' That man never again suggested to me to join him in a 'knock-out.'"

In another place Mr. Stevens relates his own experience as to holding two commissions, and the necessity of buying the book above the amount of the lowest of the two. The circumstance relates to a copy of the small octavo Latin edition of the Columbus Letter, in eight leaves, at the first Libri sale, Feb. 19, 1849. Mr. Stevens writes, "Mr. Brown ordered this lot with a limit of 25 guineas, and Mr. Lenox of £25. Now as my chief correspondents had been indulged with a good deal of liberty, scarcely ever considering their orders completely executed till they had received the books and decided whether or not they would keep them, I grew into the habit of considering all purchases my own until accepted and paid for. Consequently when positive orders were given, which was very seldom, I grew likewise into the habit of buying the lot as cheaply as possible, and then awarding it to the correspondent who gave the highest limit. This is not always quite fair to the owner; but in my case it would have been unfair to myself to make my clients compete, as not unfrequently the awarded lot was declined and had to go to another. Well, in the case of this Columbus Letter, though I had five or six orders, I purchased it for £16 10s., and, accordingly, as had been done many times before within the last five or six years without a grumble, I awarded it to the highest limit, and sent the little book to Mr. John Carter Brown. Hitherto, in cases of importance, Mr. Lenox had generally been successful, because he usually gave the highest limit. But in this case he rebelled. He wrote that the book had gone under his commission of £25, that he knew nobody else in the transaction, and that he insisted on having it, or he should at once transfer his orders to some one else. I endeavoured to vindicate my conduct by stating our long-continued practice, with which he was perfectly well acquainted, but without success. He grew more and more peremptory, insisting on having the book solely on the ground that it went under his limit. At length, after some months of negotiation, Mr. Brown, on being made acquainted with the whole correspondence, very kindly, to relieve me of the dilemma, sent the book to Mr. Lenox without a word of comment or explanation, except that, though it went also below his higher limit, he yielded it to Mr. Lenox for peace.... From that time I resorted, in cases of duplicate orders from them, to the expedient of always putting the lot in at one bid above the lower limit, which, after all, I believe is the fairer way in the case of positive orders. This sometimes cost one of them a good deal more money, but it abated the chafing and generally gave satisfaction. Both thought the old method the fairest when they got the prize. But I was obliged, on the new system of bidding, to insist on the purchaser keeping the book without the option of returning it." There can be no doubt that the latter plan was the most satisfactory.

Some persons appear to be under the impression that whatever a book fetches at a public sale must be its true value, and that, as the encounter is open and public, too much is not likely to be paid by the buyer; but this is a great mistake, and prices are often realized at a good sale which are greatly in advance of those at which the same books are standing unsold in second-hand booksellers' shops.

Much knowledge is required by those who wish to buy with success at sales. Books vary greatly in price at different periods, and it is a mistake to suppose, from the high prices realized at celebrated sales, which are quoted in all the papers, that books are constantly advancing in price. Although many have gone up, many others have gone down, and at no time probably were good and useful books to be bought so cheap as now. If we look at old sale catalogues we shall find early printed books, specimens of old English poetry and the drama, fetching merely a fraction of what would have to be given for them now; but, on the other hand, we shall find pounds then given for standard books which would not now realize the same number of shillings; this is specially the case with classics.

The following passage from Hearne's Diaries on the fluctuations in prices is of interest in this connection:—"The editions of Classicks of the first print (commonly called editones principes) that used to go at prodigious prices are now strangely lowered; occasioned in good measure by Mr. Thomas Rawlinson, my friend, being forced to sell many of his books, in whose auction these books went cheap, tho' English history and antiquities went dear: and yet this gentleman was the chief man that raised many curious and classical books so high, by his generous and courageous way of bidding."[14 - Reliquiæ Hearnianæ, 1869, vol. ii. p. 158.]

These first editions, however, realize large prices at the present time, as has been seen at the sale of the Sunderland Library. It is experience only that will give the necessary knowledge to the book buyer, and no rules laid down in books can be of any real practical value in this case. Persons who know nothing of books are too apt to suppose that what they are inclined to consider exorbitant prices are matters of caprice, but this is not so. There is generally a very good reason for the high price.

We must remember that year by year old and curious books become scarcer, and the number of libraries where they are locked up increase; thus while the demand is greater, the supply diminishes, and the price naturally becomes higher. A unique first edition of a great author is surely a possession to be proud of, and it is no ignoble ambition to wish to obtain it.

CHAPTER III.

Public Libraries

Libraries may broadly be divided into Public and Private, and as private libraries will vary according to the special idiosyncrasies of their owners, so still more will public libraries vary in character according to the public they are intended for. The answer therefore to the question—How to form a Public Library?—must depend upon the character of the library which it is proposed to form. Up to the period when free town libraries were first formed, collections of books were usually intended for students; but when the Public Libraries' Acts were passed, a great change took place, and libraries being formed for general readers, and largely with the object of fostering the habit of reading, an entirely new idea of libraries came into existence. The old idea of a library was that of a place where books that were wanted could be found, but the new idea is that of an educational establishment, where persons who know little or nothing of books can go to learn what to read. The new idea has naturally caused a number of points to be discussed which were never thought of before.

But even in Town Libraries there will be great differences. Thus in such places as Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, the Free Libraries should be smaller British Museums, and in this spirit their founders have worked; but in smaller and less important towns a more modest object has to be kept in view, and the wants of readers, more than those of consulters of books, have to be considered.

Mr. Beriah Botfield has given a very full account of the contents of the libraries spread about the country and associated with the different Cathedrals in his Notes on the Cathedral Libraries of England, 1849. These libraries have mostly been formed upon the same plan, and consist very largely of the works of the Fathers, and of old Divinity. Some contain also old editions of the classics, and others fine early editions of English authors. In former times these libraries were much neglected, and many of the books were lost; but the worst instance of injury to a library occurred at Lincoln at the beginning of the present century, when a large number of Caxtons, Pynsons, Wynkyn de Wordes, etc., were sold to Dr. Dibdin, and modern books purchased for the library with the proceeds. Dibdin printed a list of his treasures under the title of "The Lincolne Nosegay." Mr. Botfield has reprinted this catalogue in his book.

The first chapter of the United States Report on Public Libraries is devoted to Public Libraries a hundred years ago. Mr. H.E. Scudder there describes some American libraries which were founded in the last century. One of these was the Loganian Library of Philadelphia. Here is an extract from the will of James Logan, the founder—

"In my library, which I have left to the city of Philadelphia for the advancement and facilitating of classical learning, are above one hundred volumes of authors, in folio, all in Greek, with mostly their versions. All the Roman classics without exception. All the Greek mathematicians, viz. Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, both his Geography and Almagest, which I had in Greek (with Theon's Commentary, in folio, above 700 pages) from my learned friend Fabricius, who published fourteen volumes of his Bibliothèque Grecque, in quarto, in which, after he had finished his account of Ptolemy, on my inquiring of him at Hamburgh, how I should find it, having long sought for it in vain in England, he sent it to me out of his own library, telling me it was so scarce that neither prayers nor price could purchase it; besides, there are many of the most valuable Latin authors, and a great number of modern mathematicians, with all the three editions of Newton, Dr. Watts, Halley, etc." The inscription on the house of the Philadelphia Library is well worthy of repetition here. It was prepared by Franklin, with the exception of the reference to himself, which was inserted by the Committee.

Be it remembered,

in honor of the Philadelphia youth

(then chiefly artificers),

that in MDCCXXXI

they cheerfully,

at the instance of Benjamin Franklin,

one of their number,

instituted the Philadelphia Library,

which, though small at first,

is become highly valuable and extensively useful,

and which the walls of this edifice

are now destined to contain and preserve:

the first stone of whose foundation

was here placed

the thirty-first day of August, 1789

Mr. F.B. Perkins, of the Boston Public Library, contributed to the Report on Public Libraries in the United States a useful chapter on "How to make Town Libraries successful" (pp. 419-430). The two chief points upon which he lays particular stress, and which may be said to form the texts for his practical remarks, are: (1) that a Public Library for popular use must be managed not only as a literary institution, but also as a business concern; and (2) that it is a mistake to choose books of too thoughtful or solid a character. He says, "It is vain to go on the principle of collecting books that people ought to read, and afterwards trying to coax them to read them. The only practical method is to begin by supplying books that people already want to read, and afterwards to do whatever shall be found possible to elevate their reading tastes and habits."

A series of articles on "How to Start Libraries in Small Towns" was published in the Library Journal (vol. i. pp. 161, 213, 249, 313, 355, 421), and Mr. Axon's Hints on the Formation of Small Libraries has already been mentioned. We must not be too rigid in the use of the term Public Libraries, and we should certainly include under this description those institutional Libraries which, although primarily intended for the use of the Members of the Societies to which they belong, can usually be consulted by students who are properly introduced.

Of Public Libraries first in order come the great libraries of a nation, such as the British Museum. These are supplied by means of the Copyright Law, but the librarians are not from this cause exonerated from the troubles attendant on the formation of a library. There are old books and privately printed and foreign books to be bought, and it is necessary that the most catholic spirit should be displayed by the librarians. The same may be said in a lesser degree of the great libraries of the more important towns.

In England the Universities have noble libraries, more especially those of Oxford and Cambridge, but although some colleges possess fine collections of books, college libraries are not as a rule kept up to a very high standard. The United States Report contains a full account of the college libraries in America (pp. 60-126).

The libraries of societies are to a large extent special ones, and my brother, the late Mr. B.R. Wheatley, in a paper read before the Conference of Librarians, 1877, entitled "Hints on Library Management, so far as relates to the Circulation of Books," particularly alluded to this fact. He wrote, "Our library is really a medical and surgical section of a great Public Library. Taking the five great classes of literature, I suppose medicine and its allied sciences may be considered as forming a thirtieth of the whole, and, as our books number 30,000, we are, as it were, a complete section of a Public Library of nearly a million volumes in extent."

The United States Report contains several chapters on special libraries, thus chapter 2 is devoted to those of Schools and Asylums; 4, to Theological Libraries; 5, to Law; 6, to Medical; and 7, to Scientific Libraries. For the formation of special libraries, special bibliographies will be required, and for information on this subject reference should be made to Chapter VI. of the present work.

When we come to deal with the Free Public Libraries, several ethical questions arise, which do not occur in respect to other libraries. One of the most pressing of these questions refers to the amount of Fiction read by the ordinary frequenters of these libraries.

This point is alluded to in the United States Report on Public Libraries. Mr. J.P. Quincy, in the chapter on Free Libraries (p. 389), writes, "Surely a state which lays heavy taxes upon the citizen in order that children may be taught to read is bound to take some interest in what they read; and its representatives may well take cognizance of the fact that an increased facility for obtaining works of sensational fiction is not the special need of our country at the close of the first century of its independence." He mentions a free library in Germanstown, Pa., sustained by the liberality of a religious body, and frequented by artisans and working people of both sexes. It had been in existence six years in 1876, and then contained 7000 volumes. No novels are admitted into the library. The following is a passage from the librarian's report of 1874: "In watching the use of our library as it is more and more resorted to by the younger readers of our community, I have been much interested in its influence in weaning them from a desire for works of fiction. On first joining the library, the new comers often ask for such books, but failing to procure them, and having their attention turned to works of interest and instruction, in almost every instance they settle down to good reading and cease asking for novels. I am persuaded that much of this vitiated taste is cultivated by the purveyors to the reading classes, and that they are responsible for an appetite they often profess to deplore, but continue to cater to, under the plausible excuse that the public will have such works."

Mr. Justin Winsor in chapter 20 (Reading in Popular Libraries) expresses a somewhat different view. He writes, "Every year many young readers begin their experiences with the library. They find all the instructive reading they ought to have in their school books, and frequent the library for story books. These swell the issues of fiction, but they prevent the statistics of that better reading into which you have allured the older ones, from telling as they should in the average."

At the London Conference of Librarians (1877), Mr. P. Cowell, Librarian of the Liverpool Public Library, read a paper on the admission of Fiction in Free Public Libraries, where he discussed the subject in a very fair manner, and deplored the high percentage of novel reading in these libraries. At the Second Annual Meeting of the Library Association (1879) Mr. J. Taylor Kay, Librarian of Owens College, Manchester, in his paper on the Provision of Novels in Rate-supported Libraries, more completely condemned this provision. He concluded his paper with these words: "Clearly a hard and fast line must be drawn. A distinct refusal by the library committees to purchase a single novel or tale would be appreciated by the rate-payers. The suggestion of a sub-committee to read this literature would not be tolerated, and no man whose time is of value would undergo the infliction. The libraries would attain their true position, and the donations would certainly be of a higher class, if the aims of the committees were known to be higher. Manchester has already curtailed its issues of novels. It has been in the vanguard on the education question: and let us hope it will be true to its traditions, to its noble impulses, and lead the van in directing the educational influence of the free libraries, and striking out altogether any expenditure in the dissemination of this literature."

This question probably would not have come to the front if it were not that the educational value of Free Libraries, as the complement of Board Schools, has been very properly put forward by their promoters. With this aim in view, it does startle one somewhat to see the completely disproportionate supply of novels in the Free Libraries. This often rises to 75 per cent. of the total supply, and in some libraries even a higher percentage has been reached. There are, however, exceptions. At the Baltimore Peabody Institute Fiction did not rise to more than one-tenth of the total reading. The following are some figures of subjects circulated at that library above 1000:—

Mr. Cowell says that during the year ending 31st August, 1877, 453,585 volumes were issued at the reference library alone (Liverpool Free Public Library); of these 170,531 were strictly novels. The high-percentage of novel reading is not confined to Free Public Libraries, for we find that in the Odd Fellows' Library of San Francisco, in 1874, 64,509 volumes of Prose Fiction were lent out of a total of 78,219. The other high figures being Essays, 2280; History, 1823; Biography and Travels, 1664. In the College of the City of New York, of the books taken out by students between Nov. 1876, and Nov. 1877, 1043 volumes were Novels, the next highest numbers were Science, 153; Poetry, 133; History, 130.[15 - Library Journal, vol. ii. p. 70.]

In considering this question one naturally asks if the masterpieces of our great authors, which every one should read, are to be mixed up with the worthless novels constantly being published in the condemnation of Fiction; but, to some extent, both Mr. Cowell and Mr. Kay answer this. The first of these gentlemen writes: "As to the better class novels, which are so graphic in their description of places, costumes, pageantry, men, and events, I regret to say that they are not the most popular with those who stand in need of their instructive descriptions. I could generally find upon the library shelves 'Harold,' 'The Last of the Barons,' 'Westward Ho!' 'Hypatia,' 'Ivanhoe,' 'Waverley,' 'Lorna Doone,' etc., when not a copy of the least popular of the works of Mrs. Henry Wood, 'Ouida,' Miss Braddon, or Rhoda Broughton were to be had." Mr. Kay corroborates this opinion in his paper.

Most of us recognize the value of honest fiction for children and the overwrought brains of busy men, but the reading of novels of any kind can only be justified as a relaxation, and it is a sad fact that there is a large class of persons who will read nothing but novels and who call all other books dry reading. Upon the minds of this class fiction has a most enervating effect, and it is not to be expected that ratepayers will desire to increase this class by the indiscriminate supply of novels to the Free Libraries. Some persons are so sanguine as to believe that readers will be gradually led from the lower species of reading to the higher; but there is little confirmation of this hope to be found in the case of the confirmed novel readers we see around us.

The librarian who, with ample funds for the purpose, has the duty before him of forming a Public Library, sets forward on a pleasant task. He has the catalogues of all kinds of libraries to guide him, and he will be able to purchase the groundwork of his library at a very cheap rate, for probably at no time could sets of standard books be bought at so low a price as now. Many books that are not wanted by private persons are indispensable for a Public Library, and there being little demand for them they can be obtained cheap. When the groundwork has been carefully laid, then come some of the difficulties of collecting. Books specially required will not easily be obtained, and when they are found, the price will probably be a high one. Books of reference will be expensive, and as these soon get out of date, they will frequently need renewal.

CHAPTER IV.