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R. F. Stockton (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
newspaper and periodical press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about 2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased from 400,000,000 to over 4,500,000,000 copies. The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget, and many others of the best of the contemporary writers of fiction. Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half-dozen stories for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap libraries, which have flooded the United States with engaging literature available to almost any purse. In short, conditions have altered. A vast mass of light literature is now cheaply accessible to the individual which formerly could be
Herbert Putnam (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
Libraries, free public Free libraries have existed for less than half a century. Their establishment assumed that books are beneficial: but it involved also the assertion that it is the proper function of government to supply books to such of its citizens as may require them at the expense of the community as a whole. Herbert Putnam, librarian of Congress, writes as follows: Libraries of this special type do not yet form the major portion of the institutions supplying books on a large scale to groups of persons. Under the head of Public, Society, and School libraries, these institutions in the United States aggregate 8,000 in number, with 35,000,000 volumes, with $34,000,000 invested in buildings, with $17,000,000 of endowments, and with over $6,000,000 of annual income. Of these the free public libraries supported by general taxation number less than 2,000, with 10,000,000 volumes, and with less than $3,500,000 of annual income. They are, however, increasing with disp
Bret Harte (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
and periodical press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about 2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased from 400,000,000 to over 4,500,000,000 copies. The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget, and many others of the best of the contemporary writers of fiction. Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half-dozen stories for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap libraries, which have flooded the United States with engaging literature available to almost any purse. In short, conditions have altered. A vast mass of light literature is now cheaply accessible to the individual which formerly could be acquired o
Aaron A. Sargent (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
iew of society does harm to the reader, and is so far an injury to the community of which he is part. But even granting the premises, the conclusion is doubtful. We do not deliberately furnish poor art at public expense because there is a portion of the public which cannot appreciate the better. Nor when the best is offered, without apology, does the uncultured public in fact complain that it is too advanced. Thousands of ordinary people come to see and enjoy the Abbey and Chavannes and Sargent decorations in the Boston Public Library. No one has yet complained that the paintings are too advanced for him. The best of art is not too good for the least of men, provided he can be influenced at all. Nor are the best of books too good for him, provided he can be influenced at all, and provided they are permitted, as are the pictures, to make their appeal directly. They must not be secluded behind catalogues and formal paraphernalia. The practice which admitted the scholar to the s
Charles Scott (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
eneral curiosity do get prompt response, and the new novels are freely bought. How freely I have recently sought to ascertain. I asked of some seventy libraries their yearly expenditure for current fiction in proportion to their total expenditure for books. The returns show an average of from 10 to 15 per cent. In one case the amount reached 50 per cent., in others it fell as low as 2 per cent. The ratio for fiction in general is much higher on the average; but fiction in general includes Scott and Thackeray and other standards, an ample supply of which would not usually be questioned. At Providence and at Worcester, two of the most active and popular of public libraries, the purchases of fiction, current and standard, formed in a single year but 7 and 11 per cent., respectively, of the entire expenditure for books. At Boston there were selected but 178 titles of current fiction (out of nearly 600 read and considered). But some dozen copies were bought of each title, so that th
Kipling (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
d diffusion of the newspaper and periodical press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about 2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased from 400,000,000 to over 4,500,000,000 copies. The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget, and many others of the best of the contemporary writers of fiction. Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half-dozen stories for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap libraries, which have flooded the United States with engaging literature available to almost any purse. In short, conditions have altered. A vast mass of light literature is now cheaply accessible to the individual whic
Thackeray (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
sity do get prompt response, and the new novels are freely bought. How freely I have recently sought to ascertain. I asked of some seventy libraries their yearly expenditure for current fiction in proportion to their total expenditure for books. The returns show an average of from 10 to 15 per cent. In one case the amount reached 50 per cent., in others it fell as low as 2 per cent. The ratio for fiction in general is much higher on the average; but fiction in general includes Scott and Thackeray and other standards, an ample supply of which would not usually be questioned. At Providence and at Worcester, two of the most active and popular of public libraries, the purchases of fiction, current and standard, formed in a single year but 7 and 11 per cent., respectively, of the entire expenditure for books. At Boston there were selected but 178 titles of current fiction (out of nearly 600 read and considered). But some dozen copies were bought of each title, so that the entire pur
Edward Everett (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
er scholarship. Finally, to the services just described the public library has added another: the supply of books for purposes purely recreative. This service, if anticipated, was certainly not explicitly argued for; nor was it implied in Edward Everett's prediction that the public library would prove the intellectual common of the community. The common that Mr. Everett had in mind was a pasturage, not a base-ball ground, or lovers' walk, or a loafing-place for tramps. But as regards cerMr. Everett had in mind was a pasturage, not a base-ball ground, or lovers' walk, or a loafing-place for tramps. But as regards certain of the books customarily supplied, the ordinary public library of to-day is furnishing recreation rather than instruction. In fact, if we look at the history of free public libraries in this country, we find that the one point of practice on which they have been criticised is the supply of merely recreative literature. The protest has come from thoughtful persons, and it means something, lightly as it has been waved aside. The excuse that used to be given for the supply of inferior bo
1850 AD (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
worth while to consider whether the responsibility of public libraries has not been modified by the growth and diffusion of the newspaper and periodical press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about 2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased from 400,000,000 to over 4,500,000,000 copies. The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crock1850 it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget, and many others of the best of the contemporary writers of fiction. Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half-dozen stories for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap libraries, which have flooded the United States with engaging literature available to almost any purse. In s
1852 AD (search for this): entry libraries-free-public
ecture-hall. What an immense augmentation of function this implies! It implies that the library is no longer merely an aggregate of books, each passive within rigid limits; but that it is an active agent having under its control material which is kept plastic and which it moulds into incredibly varied shapes to suit incredibly varied needs. The experience of the Boston Public Library shows that in the case of books each increase of facilities creates an increased demand. The trustees of 1852 boasted that they were providing for as many as fifty readers at a time; the trustees of 1887 thought themselves venturesome in providing for 500 readers at a time; and within a month after the new building was opened it was forced to accommodate over 700 at a time. Every week over 30,000 persons enter the Central Library building, and every year 1,200,000 volumes are drawn for home use by the 65,000 card-holders. Yet these figures represent still but a portion of the persons to be reache
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