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 PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES

A SURVEY OF FACILITIES, NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES

 PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES
A SURVEY OF FACILITIES, NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES

A Report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York

by

The Bibliographical Planning Committee

of Philadelphia

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

PHILADELPHIA
1942
 Copyright 1942

T H E BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PLANNING COMMITTEE OF PHILADELPHIA

Manufactured in the United States of America

 PREFACE
THIS report is the product of many minds. Its first
faint outlines were drawn by a small group of scholars
many years ago when they began to plan for a U n i o n
Catalogue of Philadelphia libraries. T h e names of
that g r o u p deserve to be recorded, for they supplied
the original impulse, they prepared the working plans
they achieved the U n i o n Catalogue and they insisted
that the Catalogue was only the first essential step to-
ward the realization of the effective coordination of
the library resources of the Philadelphia Metropolitan
Area. T h e y are: Beatrice F o x Griffith, Evelyn Plum-
mer Read, Julian P. Boyd, Charles W . David, Conyers
R e a d and Paul Vanderbilt. T h o u g h , for one good rea-
son or another, four of these have had to withdraw
from active participation in the enterprise, their faith,
their loyalty and their fighting zeal still remain, as
they were in the beginning, the most valuable assets
in the treasury of our community library planning.
A f t e r the U n i o n Library Catalogue was well es-
tablished as a going concern, its Executive Commit-
tee joined with the Board of Trustees of the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania to elaborate plans for a further
integration of Philadelphia library resources and serv-
ices. A n appeal to the Carnegie Corporation of New
York for support yielded ample funds for the drafting
of these plans, and a joint committee of the Catalogue
and of the University was appointed to direct their ex-
penditure. T h a t committee, in its original form, had
six members, three—Julian P. Boyd, Charles W . David
and Paul V a n d e r b i l t — f r o m the Catalogue, t h r e e —
George A . Brakeley, Edward B. Krumbhaar and Con-
yers R e a d — f r o m the University, with Conyers R e a d
as Chairman. In the course of its work, this commit-
tee has lost from its membership Messrs. Boyd, Brake-
ley and V a n d e r b i l t and has added Charles Μ. B. Cad-
walader, John F. Lewis, Jr., George W . M c C l e l l a n d
and T h o m a s S. Gates. Paul Vanderbilt served as Di-
rector of the planning until a protracted illness, from
which he has now happily recovered, obliged him to
resign. H e was succeeded by Mary Louise Alexander.
Before the report had taken final form, but in an-
ticipation of its principal recommendations, the Bib-
liographical P l a n n i n g Committee secured a second
grant from the Carnegie Corporation to finance, for
an experimental period of 16 months (September
1940—December 1941), a Bibliographical Center. T h e
governing board of this Center was created by the
simple expedient of combining the Bibliographical
Planning Committee with the Executive Committee
of the U n i o n Catalogue, plus the Director of Plan-
ning, Mary Louise Alexander, and the Director of
the Catalogue, R u d o l f Hirsch. In the final stages of
preparing this report, the Bibliographical Planning
Committee has drawn freely upon the wisdom of its
colleagues in the Executive Board of the Bibliograph-
ical Center. It takes this occasion to express its grati-
tude to Dorothy Bemis, Gertrude Hess and A l b e r t C .
B a u g h for their wise counsel, which has prevented
many mistakes and contributed many constructive
suggestions.
T h e detailed work of collecting data for the report
has been done by the Director and the staff. Paul
Vanderbilt provided the original plan for the report
and defined the fields of research to be explored. Miss
Alexander, first as his associate and then as Director,
did most of the work of making detailed studies of
the important libraries within the area, of securing
their cooperation and of laying the foundations for the
various cooperative enterprises they have already ini-
tiated. T h e first published fruits of her work have al-
ready appeared in (1) A faculty survey of the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania libraries; (2) Philadelphia libraries
and their holdings. Mr. Hirsch and his associate, Mr.
Robert E. Kingery, did virtually all the research work
on the development of library cooperation elsewhere
in the world. Dr. James M. Herring of the University
of Pennsylvania collected the data upon which the first
chapter of this report is based. Chapter T w o , which
undertakes to describe individual libraries within the
area, has been read in part by librarians of virtually
all the important libraries in this area and amended
in accordance with their suggestions. T h e C h a i r m a n
of the Bibliographical Planning Committee wrote this
report, but it has been carefully revised by all his col-
leagues and may be taken to represent their joint con-
clusions. Marian Lokes Brown has seen the report
through the press and has prepared the index.
O u r thanks are due first of all to the Carnegie Cor-
poration, whose generosity has made this report pos-
sible. A n adequate list of our other benefactors would
include almost every figure of any significance in the
Philadelphia library world and many in the library
world outside Philadelphia. T h e Committee takes this
occasion to thank them all and to remind them all
that the realization of its plans rests in their hands
and will depend upon their continuing cooperation.
A great deal of time and thought and good money has
gone into the preparation of this report. It makes n o
pretense at literary merit. It is not marked by any
striking originalities of thought. It is dedicated to the
proposition that library cooperation is the best answer
to the library needs of a great metropolitan area, and
it has undertaken to show how well considered ideas
of cooperation developed elsewhere and applied else-
where can be applied to the Philadelphia library
world. W e think it is good medicine, but it can do
no good unless it is administered to the patient.
CONYERS READ, Chairman
CHARLES M . B . CADWALADER
CHARLES W . DAVID
T H O M A S S. G A T E S
EDWARD B . KRUMBHAAR
JOHN F . LEWIS, J R .
GEORGE W M . MCCLELLAND
 CONTENTS

Chapter page
PREFACE Ν

INTRODUCTION Ι

I. SURVEY OF T H E COMMUNITY 6

II. PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES Ю

III. DEVELOPMENT OF LIBRARY COORDINATION 26

IV. UNION LIBRARY CATALOGUES 30

V. THE INTER-LIBRARY LOAN 34

VI. COOPERATIVE CATALOGUING 41

VII. SPECIALIZATION 45

VIII. OTHER ASPECTS OF LIBRARY COOPERATION 48

IX. THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CENTER 56

X. THE LIBRARY PROBLEM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 59

APPENDIX

A. PHILADELPHIA AS A CULTURAL CENTER 63

Β. Ι. T H E UNION LIBRARY CATALOGUE OF T H E PHILADELPHIA METROPOLITAN AREA: A REPORT TO THE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL PLANNING COMMITTEE OF PHILADELPHIA, J U L Y I, 1940 66

11. EXTRACT FROM " A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CENTER FOR THE PHILADELPHIA METROPOLITAN AREA" . . . 80

C. THE A.L.A. CODE FOR INTERLIBRARY LOAN 81

D. INTER-LIBRARY LOAN QUESTIONNAIRE 83

E. INTER-LIBRARY LOAN STATISTICS 84

F. SPECIFICATIONS FOR A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 86

SUPPLEMENT: PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES AND THEIR HOLDINGS 91

INDEX 93
 INTRODUCTION
THE library problem in Philadelphia, as it appeared
to a small group of scholars some seven years ago, was
the problem of finding and getting hold quickly of
the particular book desired from a great treasury of
books. In the Philadelphia metropolitan area there
are 200 libraries, of which at least 150 have some in-
dependent claim to consideration and of which perhaps
twenty are libraries of first-rate importance. Seven
years ago there was absolutely no way of telling what
books were in what libraries except by an inspection
of the catalogue of each individual library unit. T o
that small group of scholars seven years ago it ap-
peared at once that the first step toward any effective
command of community library resources was an in-
ventory of those resources; in short, a union catalogue.
It took about five years of up-hill fighting to achieve
that first step. But it was achieved and it is now possi-
ble, by simply stepping to the nearest telephone, to
find out at once whether any particular book desired
is in the Philadelphia area and whereabouts in that
area it is. T h e work of building that catalogue has
been described in detail below, but it will not be in-
appropriate at this place to record that the master-
builder was Paul Vanderbilt, librarian of the Phila-
delphia M u s e u m of Art. He designed the technique
and he directed the staff. T o him the fame of the
achievement chiefly belongs.
But a union catalogue is, after all, no more than a
finding l i s t — a telephone directory. It was the essen-
tial beginning of the integration of our Philadelphia
library resources, but only a beginning. T h e second
step was the creation of a telephone exchange, the
development of machinery by which this treasury, re-
vealed in the union catalogue, could be drawn upon
quickly and easily. W e needed a base of operations,
we needed an improved inter-library loan system, we
needed a central point of reference. More than that,
we needed to explore the possibilities of major econo-
mies in book buying, in book cataloguing, in book
storage and the like by the development of large-scale
cooperation among the libraries in the area. In fact,
we needed to lay plans based upon the assumption
that all the libraries were engaged in the business of
serving the library needs of the community and wanted
to do so in the most efficient way.
A t this point in our thinking we became aware that
the University of Pennsylvania was planning a new
library for its own purposes. W e discovered that the
president of the University was enthusiastically in
sympathy w i t h our ideas, and we had no difficulty in
persuading him that the University should plan to
meet not only its own library needs but also the library
needs of the community at large. W e formed a joint
i
committee, formulated a course of procedure and
asked the Carnegie Corporation of New York to as-
sist us in more careful and detailed planning. T h e
Carnegie Corporation made us a grant of $20,000.
A n d so the Bibliographical Planning Committee of
the Philadelphia metropolitan area got to work.
A t the outset Mr. Vanderbilt undertook to direct
the planning until his work was interrupted by a
serious illness. H e was succeeded by Mary Louise Alex-
ander, sometime president of the Special Libraries
Association and a pioneer in the field of special library
work. She was in turn assisted by Rudolf Hirsch and
R o b e r t E. Kingery, both temporarily released by the
courtesy of Mr. Lydenberg from the New York Public
Library. T h i s staff worked under the general over-
sight of a committee of six, three from the governing
board of the U n i o n Catalogue, three from the Uni-
versity. Subsequently this Committee was enlarged
by the addition of the president of the Academy of
Natural Sciences and the president of the Mercantile
Library. Seven of the major libraries in Philadelphia
have been represented on this governing board, the
University of Pennsylvania by its president and its
provost, the Free Library by a member of its board of
directors, the library of the College of Physicians by
its president, the library of the Academy of Natural
Sciences by its president, the library of T h e Historical
Society of Pennsylvania by a member of its governing
board, the Mercantile Library by its president, the
library of Bryn M a w r College by a member of the
college faculty.
T h e original objective of the Bibliographical Plan-
n i n g Committee was to serve the research needs of re-
search students. W e were most of us scholars. But as
time went on we realized that there lay a vast inquiring
world outside the scholars' world which had needs to
be served, and so our vision broadened and we be-
gan to think in terms of all readers, even in terms of
all potential readers. A n d that led us to the conviction
that our first task was the task of studying the markets
our libraries were designed primarily to serve. W h a t
was the Philadelphia metropolitan area? W h o lived
in it? W h a t kind of people were they? W h a t kind of
library needs did they have? H o w far were our exist-
ing library facilities adequate to serve these needs?
W e put a trained sociologist on this job and the re-
sults were interesting. W e discovered, for example,
that the increase in population within the area was
chiefly by immigration from outside the area and that
this immigration was coming by and large from the
most backward cultural regions in the United States.
O u r native-born children were actually decreasing.
Under-educated adult immigrants were rapidly in-
2 PHILADELPHIA
creasing. W e discovered also that there was a well-
marked population shift from the city proper into the
suburban sections. W e discovered that we had a large
Negro element, a large Italian element, to deal with.
W e noted a disproportionate increase in the profes-
sional classes, notably the teachers; and in the tech-
nicians, notably the engineers; and in the graduate
students in the colleges and universities. W e noted
more secondary and high school students and college
undergraduates; we noted on the other hand a definite
diminution of students at the primary school level.
As we interpreted these facts in terms of library serv-
ice, we concluded that there was a rapidly increasing
potential demand for library service: (a) at the high
school and college level; (b) at the professional and
research level; (c) in connection with adult educa-
tion, particularly among the Negroes; (d) in the sub-
urbs.
W h i l e we were busily ascertaining these facts, we
were at the same time undertaking a realistic appraisal
of our library resources, not in terms of author cata-
logue entries but in terms of fields of knowledge cov-
ered and how well covered.
T h e libraries in the area fall into three classes: (1)
college and university libraries, of which there are
twelve worthy of special note; (2) the circulating and
subscription libraries, of which (counting the Free
Library and its branches as one unit) there are nine;
(3) some 133 specialized libraries, some of which form
special collections within the university and college
libraries. A m o n g the special libraries there is the wid-
est diversity. W e include in that group such great
special libraries as the medical library of the College
of Physicians, the biological library of the Academy
of Natural Sciences, and such modest but valuable
collections as the insurance library of the Provident
Mutual L i f e Insurance Company.
W e did not, and could not with the small staff
at our command, attempt any adequate survey of
all these libraries. 1 W i t h one exception, to be noted
1 E. W. McDiarmid, Jr. (The library survey, 1940) mentions as
points of investigation: (1) community background, (2) library
finance, (3) library administration, (4) library personnel, (5) li-
brary holdings, (6) library use, (7) potential use. Few of the many
published surveys take all these aspects into account, and our
own report is no exception. However, information is included as
follows: McDiarmid's point (1) is found in Chapter I; point (2) in
the Supplement, p. S11, and to some extent in Chapter II; in
regard to points (3) and (4) little has been contributed, as it was
clearly not our function to criticize in detail the administration
of about 150 libraries in the area; point (5) is dealt with exten-
sively in Chapter II and in the Supplement, pp. S12-14; the re-
port as a whole is concerned with points (6) and (7).
Of particular importance are surveys of holdings or, as we
might call them, inventories, although we agree with McDiarmid
"that qualitative measures of the book collection are of little
value unless interpreted with regard to other information about
the library and its community" (Op. cit., p. 118).
Of course, no standardized procedure for surveying libraries
can be elaborated, and it will always depend on the individual
situation. For a survey of one library, the Joeckel and Camovsky
investigation seems to cover all possible aspects and be a fully
satisfactory example. It is a decided step forward from surveys
LIBRARIES
presently, we tried to cover about fifty of the more im-
portant libraries, first, by a personal visit and inter-
view, and second, by a rather searching question-
naire addressed to the librarians. For our own purposes
we defined a good library in the following terms: O n e
that has a clear objective clearly defined and a good
collection of books in terms of that objective; one
that keeps its collections up to date by a well-directed
purchasing policy; one that is efficiently administered
and renders effective service; one that is well patron-
ized.
So far as the organization and the maintenance of
these separate library units were in question, we had
to rely upon the answers to our questionnaire, which
in some cases were very frank, in some cases incom-
plete. O u r chief concern, however, was with the treas-
ury of books, and we did compile enough information
on that subject to form the basis of a subject classi-
fication of community resources which enables us to
say with some assurance where our strongest collec-
tions in all the major fields of knowledge are located.
If you come to Philadelphia and want to work in the
libraries which are richest in materials in your partic-
ular fields of interest, we can tell you the libraries to
which you are to repair. If you are looking for specific
titles, we shall have to refer you to the U n i o n Cata-
logue. W e attempted a detailed survey of the University
of Pennsylvania libraries, which was completed and
published about a year ago. T h i s survey differs from
most library surveys in that it was made not by the
distributors of books but by the users of books. It
represents an appraisal of the library collections of
the University by experts in the several fields of knowl-
edge, attached to the University faculties. T h e Bib-
liographical Planning Committee owes a great debt
of gratitude to these collaborators, some eighty of
them all told, and particularly to Dr. Albert C .
Baugh, Chairman of the Library Committee of the
University of Pennsylvania, w h o directed the survey,
secured the cooperation of the University faculties,
and drove the enterprise through to completion in
an incredibly short time. It cost in the making next
to nothing. N o doubt it is uneven, no doubt it could
have been improved. A n d yet, from the point of view
of the workers in the several fields of knowledge, it is
one of the most informing surveys of a single library
extant. W e bow to the technical skill of the trained
librarian but we are entirely convinced that no librar-
ian, however well informed, is competent to survey
collections in different fields of knowledge as well as
the experts in those different fields. W e mean to at-
like the one of the Grand Rapids Public Library by Compton or
the Concord, New Hampshire survey by Ferguson. As for sur-
veys of large groups of libraries, the two classics are the Ameri-
can Library Association survey of public libraries made in 1926
and the survey of libraries made by the Library Association in
England and edited by L. R. McColvin; while neither Downs's
survey of southern libraries nor the American Library Associa-
tion survey of libraries for defense seems to fulfill standards set
forth by McDiarmid.
 INTRODUCTION
tempt surveys of the same sort of some of our other
great collections. One, that of the collection at the
Academy of Natural Sciences, is almost completed;
another, of the College of Physicians library, is, we
believe, in preparation; still another, of T h e Library
Company, is in contemplation.
What appears first from a bird's-eye view of the sur-
vey of libraries is that we have in the Philadelphia
metropolitan area a great treasury of books, a large
percentage of which are not to be found in the other
great libraries of the country. A comparison of our
Union Catalogue with the great national Union Cata-
log at the Library of Congress reveals the fact that
about thirty-three percent of the entries in our Union
Catalogue are not to be found in the Washington
catalogue.
Our survey also reveals that we have one great uni-
versity library and several good college libraries. T h e
good college libraries are, for the most part, located in
the suburbs of Philadelphia and, by reason of their
generous attitude toward the residents of the suburban
communities who are not members of the colleges, are
serving the general library needs of the community as
well as their own special needs.
T h e circulating and subscription libraries fall into
two classes, (a) the free public library with its branches,
(b) the private subscription libraries. Of the Phila-
delphia Free Library we can say in general only what
Dean Wilson has already said in his excellent book on
the geography of reading, 2 that Philadelphia ranks
very low among the great cities of the country in its
free library service, whether we look at the matter from
the point of view of the money spent, the books avail-
able, or the public use. Why this is so we are not pre-
pared to say. It is certainly not due to the poverty of
the community and it is certainly not due to illiteracy.
N o doubt the public library has received inadequate
support from public funds, but lack of public support
is simply another way of saying lack of public inter-
est. T h a t this state of affairs is not peculiar to Phila-
delphia, Joeckel and Carnovsky have demonstrated in
their recent survey of the Chicago Public Library. 3
But in Philadelphia it is uncommonly bad. If we
are to develop, as we must develop in Philadelphia,
an extensive program of adult education to take care
of the steady inflow of under-educated immigrants, we
shall need a much more adequate free library service
than we can at present command. An intelligent citi-
zenry, the essential foundation of free government, is
at stake. Something must be done. One of the gravest
problems that faces our committee is the problem as
to just what should be done. We don't yet know the
answer. But it is clearly part of our business to look
for it.
2
Louis R . Wilson, The geography of reading, Chicago, 1938,
cf. pp. 103, 112. Dr. Wilson's statistics are chiefly in terms of
states. Detailed statistics on cities can be found in A.L.A. Bulle-
tin, Feb. 1941.
3 of development in Philadelphia is the development of
Carleton B. Joeckel and Leon Carnovsky, A metropolitan li-
brary in action. Chicago, 1940.
3
As a matter of fact, although Philadelphia was the
first city in America to establish a circulating library,
it was very slow in developing a free library system,
which is now less than fifty years old. Our other circu-
lating libraries are virtually all subscription libraries.
T w o of them, the Mercantile Library and T h e Library
Company, have valuable collections, but taking them
both together, their circulating privileges are limited
to less than three thousand people in a metropolitan
area of about three million. It should, of course, be
pointed out that most of our private subscription
libraries, although limiting their circulating privileges
to members, are open to the whole reading public for
intramural use.
T h e richest part of our treasury of books is in our
special libraries. T h e library of the College of Physi-
cians, for example, is one of the finest medical libraries
in the world. T h e library of the Academy of Natural
Sciences is outstanding among the libraries of natural
history in America. T h e library of the Franklin In-
stitute is a superb collection for engineers and tech-
nicians. T h e library of T h e Historical Society is easily
the best library on Pennsylvania history extant and
contains one of the best American collections of eight-
eenth-century American imprints. T h e library of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, though limited in size,
is a model of judicious selection, organization, and
administration for advanced study in the fine arts. It
is a splendid example of what can be done with limited
resources by a librarian with the vision and imagina-
tion of Paul Vanderbilt. And there are, besides, some
notable special libraries which form part of our uni-
versity and college collections. We are thinking par-
ticularly of the Lippincott business library of the
University of Pennsylvania, a tribute at once to the
ability of Dorothy Bemis, the librarian, and to the
splendid cooperation of the faculty of the University
of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. We are thinking
also of the Biddle Law Library at the University and
we do not forget the great Carson Law Collection at
the Free Library or the very remarkable collection of
early American imprints at T h e Library Company. We
have had to leave out of account the private personal
libraries, although we hope the time will come when
the private collectors will permit some general in-
ventory of their treasures and provide some means by
which they can be examined by properly qualified
students.
T h e result of our survey of Philadelphia libraries
has revealed to us, (1) that taking everything into con-
sideration, the University of Pennsylvania library is
the richest treasury of books within the area and the
obvious nucleus for any integration of library re-
sources; (2) that our public libraries are not adequate
to their purposes; (3) that our special libraries in some
fields are superb. We incline to the opinion that for
research purposes at all levels the indicated direction
the special library. We feel that, in any case, if the
4 PHILADELPHIA
libraries would limit their objectives and strive for
completeness within these objectives, the growth of
our treasury of books w o u l d be more intelligent, more
systematic, and, by the avoidance of needless dupli-
cation, much less costly. For Philadelphia, at least,
we conclude that one all-embracing library is out of
the question. O n the other hand, we recognize that
increased specialization can serve the general purposes
of the community only if it goes hand in hand with an
adequate, inexpensive, and generous system of inter-
library lending. W e foresee the possibility of charting
our community resources in the whole field of knowl-
edge and apportioning major responsibilities for dif-
ferent parts of it to different library units. It might
even be asked whether some consolidation of libraries,
after the pattern of the famous consolidation in N e w
York, should not at least be considered.
O u r survey of libraries has further revealed that
in some special fields we are lamentably weak. W e
have no library equipped to render general business
services, no first-rate technical library open to all
comers, no library specifically directing its attention
to the service of special-interest groups, no library fac-
ing realistically the enormous problem of adult edu-
cation. As an experiment in what might be done to
develop library service for special interests, we under-
took, with the assistance of a small grant from the
University of Pennsylvania, to develop what we called
a W a r Documentation Service. O u r object was to help
libraries undertake the systematic collection of mate-
rial relating to the present European war. Unfor-
tunately, so far as our immediate objective was con-
cerned, this experiment made little headway in the
Philadelphia library world. It did, however, produce
some significant bibliographical material, the useful-
ness of which has been demonstrated by the fact that
all the bulletins issued by the W a r Documentation
Service have sold out.
W h i l e we were investigating the actual situation in
the Philadelphia library world, we were also making
an intensive study of the literature of library co-
operation and integration (a considerable task, as you
will agree). It took most of the working time of Mr.
Hirsch for over six months, but we think we have
made a careful survey of the important contributions
to the subject.
W e have no doubt at all that the basic requirement
of any integration of metropolitan library resources is
a union catalogue of those resources. W e are not pre-
pared to say what should be the geographical limits of
a union catalogue area. For our immediate purposes
we have concentrated u p o n the important library
units within the state of Pennsylvania and within a
radius of about twenty-five miles from the center
of the area. W e claim no theoretical justification of
this except that a restricted geographical area permits
the operation of an inter-library messenger service
which is or can be cheap and expeditious.
Following the lines of investigation indicated by the
LIBRARIES
literature on the subject, we have explored the possi-
bilities of cooperation in book buying, in book cata-
loguing, in book binding, in book storage, and in
the application of microphotography to library prob-
lems. O u r conclusions and recommendations on these
matters bulk large in the chapters which follow.
T h e last and in many respects the most difficult
problem we had to face was that of planning a new
university library to replace its present quite inade-
quate library facilities, which w o u l d not only serve the
immediate purposes of the university community, but
would also enable the University to play a leading
part in the development and integration of the library
resources in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. W e
all agreed that a new building adequate to provide
for all present needs and probable future needs for at
least a half-century was the best solution of the prob-
lem, but we all recognized that some compromise
might be necessary between what we wanted and what
we could get. W e have, therefore, undertaken first
to make an ideal plan and second to point out ways
in which the present library structure might be en-
larged and adapted to take care of some of the most
urgent demands.
T h e desirability and feasibility of library coopera-
tion is, from the point of view of the community as a
whole, not difficult to demonstrate. But the difficult
problem is to get the individual libraries to coordinate
their efforts. Outside of the Special Libraries C o u n c i l
there has been very little in the way of effective g r o u p
action among Philadelphia librarians during the past
decade. 4 T h e Bibliographical Planning Committee
has undertaken to develop group action by organiz-
ing conferences, and it has made progress, though it
has encountered a good deal of inertia and some posi-
tive opposition. W e are strongly of the opinion that
some integrating agency will have to be established.
For want of a better name we are calling this the
Philadelphia Bibliographical Center. T h a n k s once
again to the benevolence of the Carnegie Corporation
of New York, we have obtained a second grant of
$20,000 for the experimental establishment of such a
Center. T h a n k s to the whole-hearted cooperation of
the University of Pennsylvania, we have secured ade-
quate accommodations for such a Center on the Uni-
versity campus. It is already in operation, though we
have yet to provide for its maintenance beyond the
present calendar year. Its functions shall be: (1) to
serve as a focal point for the joint library resources
of the area; in this connection we expect it to main-
tain the U n i o n Catalogue and to have ultimately at
command the necessary bibliographical tools for a
central directional reference service; (2) to provide
working facilities for research students in all fields of
knowledge; (3) to promote and develop further in-
tegration of the library resources in the area and to
* A very hopeful recent development has been the organiza-
tion of the Philadelphia Metropolitan Library Council (May
'94')·
 INTRODUCTION
direct such common library services as are established;
(4) to study the library problems of the whole com-
munity in terms of the whole community and from
time to time to make such recommendations and to
take such action as the library needs of the community
demand.
We have in the aggregate a magnificent collection
of books in this good city. W e have the material at
hand to encourage a great awakening of its intellectual
and cultural life. W e have a plan of procedure based
upon the considered judgment of progressive library
thinkers in the library world. We have a Union Library
Catalogue and a Bibliographical Center already estab-
5
lished. But the essence of any cooperative enterprise is
cooperation. Without community support, without the
whole-hearted assistance of the individual library
units, we shall never be able to realize either this plan
or any other plan for the effective integration of our
metropolitan library resources. In the long run, it is
not a matter of financial support. Financial support
will be forthcoming if the need is recognized. What
we must have is a greater appreciation in the com-
munity at large of the importance of library service,
and a larger vision among our librarians of the part
they may play both in the advancement and in the
wider dissemination of learning.
 Chapter I
SURVEY OF THE COMMUNITY
THE library problem in any geographic area is to A
considerable extent determined by the social and eco-
nomic conditions within the area. Any attempt, there-
fore, to cope with the problem realistically should be
prefaced by a careful examination of these conditions.
Such an examination was made for the Bibliographi-
cal Planning Committee by James M. Herring of the
faculty of the Wharton School of Commerce and Fi-
nance, University of Pennsylvania, in the fall of 1939.
Dr. Herring thoroughly analyzed census reports and
other published information on population, occupa-
tion, commerce and industry, education and other cul-
tural activities in the Philadelphia area, often in com-
parison with other large cities. His study forms the
basis for this chapter. Certain tables are printed in
full in Appendix A.
Philadelphia as a political entity is the third largest
city in the United States. Its population in 1930 was
just short of 2,000,000. It is the center of a metropoli-
tan area as defined by the census of 1930 of over
3,000,ooo.1 It is primarily a manufacturing city, and
though fourth in the annual value of its manufactured
products, a larger proportion of its population is en-
gaged in some form of manufacture than that of any
other large city in America. It is the second largest sea-
port in the United States, it rates third among Ameri-
can banking centers, third also in the volume of whole-
sale and retail business, third as a publishing center,
third as a center of the book trade, third in its re-
1 On the limits of the metropolitan area cf. The Evening
Bul-
letin Almanac for 1939, p. 288: ". . . Such is Metropolitan Phila-
delphia. T h e term is easily understandable. But in its exact
definition, for map-making and statistical purposes, a formula is
necessary which must be more or less arbitrary. For this purpose
the Federal Bureau of Census has agreed upon population den-
sity as the governing base, and in the definition of Metropolitan
Areas throughout the United States uses as its yardstick those
civil divisions having a ratio of population of 150 to the square
mile. T h e limits are reached in every direction as soon as sub-
urban population density falls below that standard.
"On this calculation the map of Metropolitan Philadelphia
has been determined. T h e boundaries of the Metropolitan Area
are an irregular line, which may be roughly described as reach-
ing southeastward toward Atlantic City to points which are sub-
stantially at Burlington, Moorestown, Berlin and Clayton, in-
cluding Glassboro and Pitman on its way to the Delaware, but
excluding Mullica Hill and Bridgeport, and on the north cross-
ing the Delaware between Bristol and Tullytown, and extending
to Newtown, including the Langhornes. From Newtown the line
is irregular to its northwestern point near Souderton, including
Hatboro and Ivyland, dipping to Fairview Village and then turn-
ing northwestward again to Schwenksville on the Perkiomen,
thence to Royersford. T h e western line takes in Spring City and
Phoenixville, Malvern and Wawa and thence to the Delaware
State line which it follows to the river."
6
sources for entertainment. Statistics support Philadel-
phia's claim to be a city of homes. Of the dwelling
units in Philadelphia, 42.2% are owner-occupied as
compared to 34.5% for Washington and 16.1% for
New York. And 72.8% of the dwellings in Philadelphia
are of the single-family or row-house type as compared
with 53% in Washington and 12% in New York. It is
further to be noted that of the persons in occupied
dwelling units, 87.5% in Philadelphia live in units of
one person or less to a room as compared with 81.9%
in Washington and 79.8% in New York. This points
to a rather high level of comfort in the population as
compared with the population of other large urban
areas. Indeed, it is clear that in both its numbers and
its resources, Philadelphia is one of the richest areas
in the country.
In general, the trends of its population reflect gen-
eral trends in the United States as a whole. It is in-
creasing, but increasing at a decreasing rate. This is
the result of two influences: (1) a decline in immigra-
tion from outside the United States; (2) a decline in
natural increase. Foreign immigration has declined
to such a point that during the past decade it has be-
come a negligible factor. T h e crude birth rate in the
United States in 1800 was about 3У2 times as high as
it was in 1930. T h e death rate, to be sure, has also de-
clined, but far less rapidly than the birth rate. During
the period between 1915 and 1930, the death rate de-
clined 2.1%; during the same period, the crude birth
rate declined from 25.1% to 16.16%. Hence the rate
of natural increase declined from 11.5% to 5.1%, a
drop of more than half in 21 years.
T h e effect of these trends in population in the
United States as a whole is that the average age of our
people is continually growing older. In 1820, the me-
dian age was 16.7 years, in 1930 it was 26.4 years. Ac-
tually there were fewer people under five years of age
in the United States in 1930 than there were in 1920.
Cities generally have relatively fewer children and old
people than rural areas, and this is increasingly so as
the size of cities increases. In 1930, the age group 20-64
amounted to only 50% of the rural population, but
63% of the large city population.
Our population is becoming increasingly urbanized
and our large cities are growing more rapidly than
our small ones. Furthermore, the city of earlier days
is being replaced by a new entity, the metropolitan
community. Owing to the phenomenal development
of means of transportation, the large city unit has not
only brought under its control much territory that was
formerly rural, but it has expanded its influence far
 SURVEY OF THE
o u t into territory still classed as rural, w h i l e smaller
c o m m u n i t i e s w i t h i n a w i d e radius have lost m u c h of
their former isolation, provincialism, a n d independ-
ence. O u r large cities are always s u r r o u n d e d by a
cluster of satellite c o m m u n i t i e s v a r y i n g in n u m b e r and
size. G e o g r a p h y , industry, a n d the degree of annexa-
tion determine the n u m b e r of political entities, but
the same integrating social a n d e c o n o m i c forces are
seen at work in every m e t r o p o l i t a n district. T h e Bu-
reau of the Census has recognized this situation by
setting u p for statistical purposes ninety-six metro-
p o l i t a n districts. I n 1927 these districts occupied only
1 . 2 % of the land area of the country b u t contained
nearly 4 5 % of its total p o p u l a t i o n a n d 6 8 % of its
u r b a n inhabitants.
T h e foreign-born p o p u l a t i o n w i t h i n the U n i t e d
States is largely concentrated in the larger cities, par-
ticularly in those of the northeast. T h i s has been no-
tably true in the decade between 1920 a n d 1930 and
especially true of the large m a n u f a c t u r i n g cities.
O n e of the most significant movements in popula-
tion d u r i n g the past few decades has been the migra-
tion of Negroes into the northern cities. D u r i n g the
decade 1920-30 a b o u t three-fourths of the total natural
increase of the N e g r o p o p u l a t i o n in the U n i t e d States
m i g r a t e d to the northern cities.
N a t i o n a l statistics on schools a n d colleges reflect and
i l l u m i n a t e these p o p u l a t i o n trends in terms of the edu-
cational p r o b l e m w h i c h they present. T h e r e has been
a progressive decline since 1930 in the n u m b e r of chil-
dren in elementary schools a n d a m a r k e d increase in
the n u m b e r of children in secondary schools. In 1900,
3 . 3 % of p u b l i c school enrollments was in secondary
schools; in 1934, 2 1 . 4 % . T h e Federal Office of Educa-
tion in 1936 estimated that 6 5 % of all children be-
tween the ages of 14 a n d 17 were in secondary schools.
T h e r e has been an e q u a l l y striking increase in college
attendance. In 1910 less than 5 % of the p o p u l a t i o n of
college age was in attendance at institutions of higher
learning. I n 1930, this figure h a d increased to 1 3 % .
T h e large cities are the workshops of the U n i t e d
States, and the greater ones are also the managerial,
service, and commercial d i s t r i b u t i n g centers. Further-
more, the economic a n d social advantages of special-
ization and division of l a b o r can be a p p l i e d m u c h
more readily in the large concentrations of popula-
tion. H e n c e there are in the cities an increased concen-
tration of a n d an increased d e m a n d for specialists in
all forms of activity. Similarly it is in the large cities
that we must seek the arts a n d cultural activity because
it is p r e d o m i n a n t l y here that the facilities, personnel,
and other f a v o r i n g conditions prevail f r o m w h i c h a
rich intellectual and c u l t u r a l life can spring, a n d
t h r o u g h w h i c h it can be p r o m o t e d a n d diffused. L a r g e
cities accordingly draw to themselves the leaders in
business, the professions, the services, and the arts, re-
flecting a shift in n u m b e r s e m p l o y e d f r o m the produc-
tive a n d extractive occupations to the mechanical,
managerial, professional, a n d service occupations. Sig-
COMMUNITY 7
nificant in this is the fact that w o m e n constitute a n
increasingly large p r o p o r t i o n of the p o p u l a t i o n gain-
f u l l y e m p l o y e d , since they g o mostly into the mechan-
ical, professional, a n d service occupations.
Great cities d o not reproduce themselves, and g r o w t h
depends u p o n i m m i g r a t i o n . Since immigration f r o m
outside the U n i t e d States has diminished almost to the
vanishing p o i n t , o u r cities must be fed from our coun-
tryside. A n d since our rural areas are now less than
half o u r p o p u l a t i o n a n d since the rural birth rate is
also d i m i n i s h i n g , w e should contemplate a further
slowing d o w n of o u r u r b a n growth. It is notable also
that the highest birth rate is in the culturally less fa-
vorable rural areas, a n d it is f r o m these areas that the
bulk of o u r i m m i g r a t i o n must come. T h i s is notably
true of the N e g r o migration.
T h e significance of this is that w e have to face a
p r o b l e m of a d u l t e d u c a t i o n in o u r cities for those of
the lowest cultural levels, just as w e have to provide
increased educational facilities for the most b a c k w a r d
parts of o u r rural areas.
W i t h these general considerations in mind, we turn
n o w to investigate p o p u l a t i o n trends in the Philadel-
p h i a m e t r o p o l i t a n area.
I n this area, the slowing-up in the rate of increase
of p o p u l a t i o n conforms r o u g h l y to that of p o p u l a t i o n
trends in the country at large. D u r i n g the four decades
between i8go and 1930, the average rate of increase of
p o p u l a t i o n for the first three decades was about 19.8%;
f o r the last decade it declined to 1 5 . 6 % . It is notable,
however, that this decline has been d u e altogether to
the d e c l i n i n g rate of g r o w t h of P h i l a d e l p h i a proper
f r o m 2 3 . 5 % for the decade 1890-1900 to 6 . 9 % for the
decade 1920-30. O v e r against this is to be set the fact
that those parts of the m e t r o p o l i t a n area w h i c h lie
outside the city itself have actually been g r o w i n g at
a n increasing rate, rising f r o m 1 2 . 3 % for the decade
1890-1900 to 3 3 . 2 % for the decade 1920-30. D u r i n g the
40-year period, the p o p u l a t i o n of the district outside
the city increased 122.6%, the city proper only 83.2%.
T h e s e trends reflect a m o v e m e n t a p p a r e n t in metro-
p o l i t a n areas elsewhere, an o u t g o i n g s u b u r b a n move-
ment. L a r g e metropolitan areas tend to lose popula-
tion in their inner zones a n d to g a i n p o p u l a t i o n in
their s u b u r b a n zones.
T h e foreign-born p o p u l a t i o n of the area is concen-
trated mostly in the city proper, w h i c h contains 7 4 . 4 %
of the total. T h e r e are a p p r o x i m a t e l y half a m i l l i o n
foreign-born in the m e t r o p o l i t a n area, another 880,000
native w h i t e w i t h foreign or m i x e d parentage. I n
general, the rate of increase in the foreign-born pop-
u l a t i o n has been steadily diminishing. D u r i n g the
decade 1910-20 it increased only 7 . 6 % , d u r i n g the dec-
ade 1920-30 it actually decreased 2 . 5 % . It is to be
noted that the foreign-born, like the p o p u l a t i o n of
the area in general, are increasing more rapidly in
the suburbs than in the city proper. B u t in any case
the foreign-born present a p r o b l e m of d i m i n i s h i n g im-
portance, a n d programs of a d u l t education designed
8 PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES
f o r them are in less d e m a n d than those of a vocational
or a general cultural character for native Americans. 2
T h e most significant p o p u l a t i o n trend in Philadel-
p h i a has to d o w i t h the wholesale migration of Ne-
groes. T h i s element has been the o n e of most rapid
g r o w t h in the district a n d n o w totals a p p r o x i m a t e l y
300,000 for the m e t r o p o l i t a n area. O v e r a 40-year pe-
riod, the N e g r o p o p u l a t i o n of the district has in-
creased 3 3 2 . 1 % , in P h i l a d e l p h i a p r o p e r increasing
457.7%, in the district outside P h i l a d e l p h i a , 1 5 9 . 1 % .
It is n o t a b l e also that the most r a p i d rate of increase
occurred in the decade between 1920-30, w h i c h showed
a n increase of 5 6 . 4 % for the district, 63.6% for Phila-
d e l p h i a proper, a n d 3 9 . 1 % for the district outside Phil-
a d e l p h i a . T h i s suggests that the m i g r a t i o n of Negroes
h a d not yet reached its peak at the census of 1930; fig-
ures for 1940 may be expected to reveal a further in-
crease.
It is to be r e m a r k e d that these i n c o m i n g Negroes
are concentrated for the most part in the city proper.
T h e y have given rise to new or aggravated m u n i c i p a l
problems of sanitation, p u b l i c health, a n d education
at all age levels, o w i n g to the fact that these migrants
have come f r o m sections of the country or from classes
notoriously b a c k w a r d in cultural advancement.
A n a l y z i n g the p o p u l a t i o n of the district by occupa-
tions, it is to be noted first that the n u m b e r of those
ten years of age or older g a i n f u l l y e m p l o y e d increased
f r o m 466,791 in 1890 to 889,850 in 1930, an increase
of 90.4% as c o m p a r e d w i t h the general increase in the
p o p u l a t i o n d u r i n g the same period of 83.2%.
If w e attempt a classification by occupations of those
g a i n f u l l y employed, it appears that those engaged in
m a n u f a c t u r i n g a n d mechanical industries constitute
by far the largest single g r o u p , i n c l u d i n g about 4 0 %
of all those g a i n f u l l y employed. N e x t in point of num-
bers is the g r o u p of those engaged in trade, transpor-
tation, a n d c o m m u n i c a t i o n , 2 4 % ; n e x t to them, the
2
Of t h e f o r e i g n - b o r n in t h e m e t r o p o l i t a n district, 19.7% c a m e
f r o m Italy, 17.6% f r o m R u s s i a , 10.6% f r o m G e r m a n y , 8.7% f r o m
P o l a n d , 8.5% f r o m t h e I r i s h Free State, 7.7% f r o m E n g l a n d a n d
5-5% f r o m N o r t h I r e l a n d . Of t h e n a t i v e w h i t e of foreign o r
m i x e d p a r e n t a g e , t h e p a r e n t s of 18.8% c a m e f r o m Italy, 15.7%
f r o m G e r m a n y , 13.3% f r o m t h e Irish Free Stale, 11.9% f r o m
Russia, 8.6% f r o m E n g l a n d , 8% f r o m P o l a n d a n d 7.5% f r o m
N o r t h I r e l a n d . T a k i n g t h e f o r e i g n - b o r n w h i t e a n d t h e native-born
w h i t e of foreign o r tnixed p a r e n t a g e together, t h e derivation of
t h e nativity f o r t h e m e t r o p o l i t a n district is f r o m Russia, 6.1%;
f r o m G e r m a n y , 6.1%; f r o m t h e Irish Free State, 5.1%; f r o m
P o l a n d , 3.6%; f r o m E n g l a n d , 3.6%; a n d f r o m N o r t h I r e l a n d ,
3%. T h e s e figures a r e s t r i k i n g as s h o w i n g t h a t of those of for-
e i g n e x t r a c t i o n , by f a r t h e larger p r o p o r t i o n come f r o m coun-
tries w h o s e political p a t t e r n is q u i t e d i f f e r e n t f r o m , a n d a t t h e
m o m e n t definitely hostile to t h e A m e r i c a n p a t t e r n .
T h e i m p o r t a n t f o r e i g n g r o u p s in t h e P h i l a d e l p h i a area a r e
i n d i c a t e d by t h e f o l l o w i n g table:
Foreign-born Native white of foreign
Country white or mixed parentage
Italy 97,471 165,292
Russia 87,386 ios,323
Ireland 69,842 183,728
Germany 52,472 137,716
Poland 43.281 70,480
clerical workers, 1 2 % ; next to them, those in domestic
and personal service, 1 2 % ; those in professional serv-
ice, 6 % ; those in public service, 3 % ; and the agricul-
tural workers last of all.
In p o p u l a t i o n trends, the most striking increase in
the 40 years between 1890 and 1930 is in the profes-
sional classes (203.6%), w i t h those in transportation,
communication, and trade second (86.9%), a n d those
in clerical occupations third (80.2%). In short, occu-
pational trends are operating to increase the propor-
tion of the p o p u l a t i o n in w h a t we can roughly call
the white-collar class. A n d this means, particularly
w h e n w e contemplate the extraordinary increase i n
the professional services, an inevitable increase in the
d e m a n d for library services at the higher intellectual
levels. T h e professional man is by the very nature of
his work the largest user of books and the largest po-
tential consumer for library services at the research
level. Philadelphia is not only a great m a n u f a c t u r i n g
center but increasingly an artistic, cultural, educa-
tional, a n d scientific center.
A n attempt to analyze the professional g r o u p re-
veals the fact that in 1930 the most i m p o r t a n t groups
were the teachers, about 2 0 % ; the trained nurses,
about 1 3 % ; the technical engineers, a b o u t 7 % , a n d
the doctors, about 6 % . T h e most striking increase in
Philadelphia d u r i n g the 20 years between 1910 a n d
1930 has been in the technical engineers (340.8%), the
nurses (180%), the teachers (74%), and the chemists
and metallurgists (74%). T h e college professions have
increased 82%. H e r e again the rate of increase must
not be confused w i t h the actual numbers. T e a c h e r s
are still the largest professional group, b u t certainly
the engineers and the chemists are g r o w i n g dispropor-
tionately fast and creating demands for library a n d
laboratory service at high levels of scientific research.
Philadelphia, of course, follows characteristic metro-
politan trends in these particulars, b u t it still lags be-
hind Boston, N e w York, a n d C h i c a g o in the percent-
age of g a i n f u l workers in the professions. Boston has
8 . 4 % ; N e w York, 8 % ; Chicago, 6 . 8 % a n d Philadel-
phia, 6.6%.
A good deal of light is thrown u p o n library prob-
lems in the Philadelphia metropolitan area by trends
in public school enrollment. Between 1930 and 1938,
there has been a marked decline in enrollment in the
elementary schools (nearly 1 5 % ) and a marked in-
crease in enrollment in grammar a n d senior high
schools (nearly 3 5 % ) . Even more striking has been the
increase in enrollment in institutions of higher learn-
ing. Between i8go and 1930, the increase in the facul-
ties of these institutions has been 5 7 7 . 9 % , of graduate
students, 3,507.8%. T h e s e figures obviously point to
the notable expansion of education at the higher lev-
els, particularly at the highest levels, w h i c h goes pari
passu w i t h the increase in the n u m b e r of those en-
gaged in the professions, a n d creates an enormously
increased d e m a n d u p o n our libraries at the research
level. T h e trend in school enrollment f r o m the library
 SURVEY OF THE
point of view indicates decreasing demand for chil-
dren's books, increasing demand for books for ado-
lescents.
Trends in adult education are harder to measure
statistically because of the scope and informality of
programs in adult education. We cannot, for example,
ignore the radio educational programs. We cannot ig-
nore those attending special classes arranged as part
of unemployment relief programs. We cannot ignore
the university extension courses, courses in vocational
education, public school courses for adults, organized
education and health associations, public forums, mu-
seums, and most of all, libraries. But we have no ade-
quate measure of these. It is certainly unfortunate for
our purposes that there has been very little in the way
of a systematic attempt to analyze the users of our li-
braries, particularly of our public libraries. 3 We know
more about what books are taken out of libraries than
about who uses them, and we know extremely little
about the use of books on the shelves in libraries.
T h e expanding enrollments in evening school
courses offered in colleges and universities give some
inkling of the increased demand for adult education.
T h e figures we have on the subject are partial ones,
but if we take the available data for the three largest
institutions conducting evening school classes (Drexel
Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsyl-
vania, and Temple University) we note that whereas
in 1900 Drexel alone had an evening school, with a
total enrollment of 1,844, 1938 the Drexel enroll-
ment was 3,925, the University of Pennsylvania 3,063,
and Temple University 5,21ο. 4 This marked increase
in evening school classes reflects a definitely increased
demand for adult education.
Further expansion of adult education is inevitable
with a population whose average age is increasing.
Even today the majority of adults (59%) in the United
States have never had more than a grammar school
education, not more than 7.4% have completed a high
3
For bibliographies of reading studies cf. W. C. Haygood,
Who uses the public library. Chicago, 1938, p. 128-129, and D.
Waples, Investigating library problems. Chicago, 1939, p. 69-72.
For studies published after 1939 see Library literature.
* Figures for T e m p l e include also students in extension courses.
COMMUNITY
9
school education, and only 2.9% have had a college
education. T h e number of illiterates in the country
as a whole is nearly twice as great (5%) as the number
of college graduates. Furthermore, in a changing oc-
cupational world, maladjustments are numerous and
serious. Certain jobs vanish because of social or tech-
nological changes, workers become physically unable
to perform their regular jobs, and older workers are
forced out by younger ones. T h e results are that the
displaced must receive additional vocational training
if they are to find new jobs, while the young need ad-
ditional education to be employable at all. And quite
apart from the job, the increasing leisure arising out
of decreasing work hours presents a challenge to the
development of cultural interests or avocations on a
scale never before presented.
In considering the significance of these facts from
the point of view of library problems, it becomes ap-
parent (1) that population shifts from the center of
the city into the suburban areas create an increased
demand for library facilities in the suburbs; 6 (2) that
the decline in the number of children of elementary
school age and the increase in the number of children
of secondary and high school age indicate a decreas-
ing demand for children's books and an increasing
demand for books for adolescents; (3) that the increase
in our professional groups and our graduate school
groups indicates an increased demand for library fa-
cilities at research levels; (4) that the rapid increase
of under-educated adults in the area calls for a very
careful study of the whole problem and a far-reaching
program of adult education in which the libraries,
and particularly the public libraries, will be called
upon to play a very significant part.
5
T h i s increased demand at the periphery has conversely re-
sulted in a diminished demand at the nucleus. Many Philadel-
phia librarians complain that their " p u b l i c " is moving away
from them. T h e y may well ask themselves whether there is not
another " p u b l i c " to be served. T h e casual reader will use what
is near at hand and cannot be expected to support distant li-
braries; but those in search of information will go where infor-
mation can best be got. T h e libraries within the city proper
have a great opportunity to develop and to serve business, tech-
nical, and occupational interests which they have hardly begun
to realize!
 Chapter II
PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES
THE last edition of the Philadelphia library directory
(1937) 1 lists 209 separate libraries, but these include
libraries as far away as State College in Pennsylvania
and Princeton in New Jersey. Our survey of libraries
in the Philadelphia metropolitan area is restricted to
that part of the State of Pennsylvania which lies
within a radius of about twenty-five miles from the
city of Philadelphia. It does not include New Jersey
or Delaware and it does not include small local li-
braries in towns and villages outside of Philadelphia.
In the main it is restricted to those libraries which
are important enough to have a librarian in charge
and to those libraries likely to contain some printed
or manuscript material valuable for purposes of study
or research. We regard the problem of book distribu-
tion to the general reading public for recreational
purposes as a very important library problem, but we
are more immediately concerned with the aggregate
treasury of books available to those in search of in-
formation.
From this point of view we find that in the Phila-
delphia metropolitan area as we have defined it, there
are 157 separate libraries. These figures do not take
account of the branches of the Free Library or of those
special libraries which form parts of larger units, such
as the Rawle Law Library in the Free Library or the
Furness Library in the University of Pennsylvania li-
brary. These libraries, taken together, own approxi-
mately 5,500,000 books, employ about 1,000 librarians,
and spend something like $1,750,000 annually on
books, salaries and library upkeep. Roughly, these li-
braries fall into the following classifications: 15 college
and university libraries, 9 public and subscription li-
braries, and 133 special libraries.
T h e college and university libraries are as follows:
the University of Pennsylvania libraries, the Temple
University libraries, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford
College, Swarthmore College, Villanova College, La-
Salle College, Rosemont College, Immaculata College,
St. Joseph's College, Dropsie College, Girard College,
Brexel Institute of Technology, Chestnut Hill College,
and Beaver College, Jenkintown. Those that call for
special consideration are at the University of Pennsyl-
vania, Temple, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore,
and Drexel Institute.
From almost every point of view the University of
Pennsylvania libraries taken together constitute the
most important treasury of books in the metropoli-
tan area. It is not only the largest but also the best
1
Revised and edited by Elizabeth Stein and published by the
Special Libraries Council of Philadelphia and vicinity.
collection for general research purposes. It contains
about 900,000 books and maintains a staff of approxi-
mately 90 people. It has 19 departmental libraries and
many special collections segregated within the main
library. N o attempt need be made here to appraise
its riches since a detailed survey of it has recently
been published. 2 It includes collections of national
importance in law, in business, and in education, and
is remarkably strong both in the social sciences and
in the humanities. It is two centuries old, but its
growth was not remarkable until after it was removed,
with the University, to West Philadelphia in 1872. At
that time it contained a scant 20,000 volumes. It has
grown since then at a steadily accelerated pace, par-
ticularly under Provost William Pepper, who main-
tained that "a rich and well-arranged library is as
necessary to the growth and activity of a university
as is an active circulation to the health of the body."
Its present library building was erected in 1889 to
house 100,000 volumes but was expanded through the
Duhring bequest (1915) and again through the Lea
bequest (1924) to hold over 850,000 volumes. At the
present time it is fast reaching the limits of its capac-
ity, notwithstanding the fact that about one-third of
the total collection is housed in other buildings.
It is intended primarily, of course, to serve the Uni-
versity, but the University welcomes its use by serious
students from all quarters. It is one of the two local
depositories for the Library of Congress catalogue and
owns, besides, a large number of catalogue cards of
other important American libraries and of the Vatican
Library at Rome. 3
2
By the Bibliographical Planning Committee under the title,
A (acuity survey of the University of Pennsylvania libraries.
Philadelphia, 1940.
3
It should perhaps be observed, however, that the University of
Pennsylvania expenditures for library purposes compare unfavor-
ably with those of other large universities. In a compilation of
library expenses in thirty of our largest universities, taking as a
basis of comparison the proportion of the university budgets
spent on the library (omitting books and equipment), the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania was 27th on the list with 1.47* ^ com-
pared with Harvard 7.0, and Vale 5.74; cf. Wilson, Geography
of reading, p. 143.
According to the figures on college and university library ex-
penditures issued annually by the American Library Association
(A.L.A. Bulletin, Feb. 1941, p. 104), the University of Pennsyl-
vania spent for library operating expenditures in 1940, $16.5
per student as compared with $68.8 at Yale, $51.3 at Harvard,
$48.5 at the University of Chicago, $37.9 at Columbia, etc., etc.
A.L.A. figures, however, must be used with caution. We can
never be sure that the figures for different institutions cover the
same operations, that is, that expenditures and holdings include
all libraries under the jurisdiction of the university and that they
include light, heat, and janitorial service as well as staff, books,
 PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES

It has been selected as the best place in the area at morial Library is a useful undergraduate library and,
which to establish the Union Catalogue and the best since its use is unrestricted, it serves the community as
base for the operation of a bibliographical center. T h e a convenient place of reference in the fields of general
University authorities are deeply interested in the culture, education, and business. 4
problem of integrating the library resources of the Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore college li-
area and have been cooperating actively to that end. braries 5 are all designed primarily to serve the needs
T h e y have already provided accommodations for the of their suburban college constituencies, although each
Union Catalogue and are seeking funds to endow it one of them is very liberal in its attitude toward the
and to maintain a bibliographical center. community in which it is placed, and each one to a
T e m p l e University is the second largest university certain extent serves the more serious reading needs
library in the area, with 205,027 books, 1,600 current of its community. Bryn Mawr is the largest and, in
periodicals, and a staff of 32 people. T h e larger part many respects, the most important from the point of
of the collection is housed in the Sullivan Memorial view of its research resources. T h i s is notably true of
Library, erected only five years ago, which contains its collections in art and archeology, in ancient and
about 162,800 volumes and has a staff of 28. T h i s main medieval history, and in Greek, Latin, English, and
library serves the College of Liberal Arts, the School the Romance languages. It works in close cooperation
of Commerce, the Teachers College, and the School of with Haverford College library, has a joint catalogue
Theology. Of its 162,800 volumes, 17,000 are bound and, to some informal degree, a joint purchasing pol-
volumes of periodicals, 10,000 are in the reference col- icy. Haverford and Swarthmore are both rich in manu-
lection, 23,000 in the business library, 1,700 in the script and printed material on the history of the Quak-
browsing room; the remainder form a circulating gen- ers, Haverford for the Orthodox and Swarthmore for
eral collection made u p of standard and current works the Hicksite branch. T h e Friends Historical Library,
in the fields of general culture. Probably its greatest housed in a w i n g of the Swarthmore library, is sep-
strength is in the fields of education and business. T h e arately administered, although supported by the col-
reference section is uncommonly strong, particularly lege. It is uniquely rich in the early official records of
in bibliography. In other parts of the city T e m p l e the Quakers. Both Haverford and Swarthmore are
maintains small libraries of law (18,300) and medicine good college libraries, though outside their material
(11,500), of dentistry, of chiropody, of pharmacy, and on Q u a k e r history neither of them contains much
of art, generally restricted in use to students of which is not to be found in the larger libraries in
T e m p l e . T h e r e is very little of unique importance
the area. Haverford is remarkably strong in books on
in any of the T e m p l e libraries, but the Sullivan Me-
medieval and on English history and in the Romance
languages. Swarthmore has a fine collection of books
etc. I t is in this r e s p e c t t h a t u n i v e r s i t y figures are particularly
difficult of comparison. There are innumerable special grants, from private presses. A l l three of these college libraries
endowments, and departmental f u n d s in w h i c h l i b r a r i e s share, are located in quiet and lovely countryside and are,
which may be carefully accounted for by the institution but are within the scope of their collections, delightful places
n o t r e f l e c t e d in t h e figures reported for the library. O f t e n build- in which to work. A l l of them are very generous to
ing maintenance figures are not broken d o w n for departmental
outsiders and all of them throw open their stacks vir-
libraries at all a n d s o m e t i m e s n o t f o r the m a i n l i b r a r y itself.
U n t i l a l l u n i v e r s i t i e s s t a n d a r d i z e t h e i r s t a t i s t i c a l r e p o r t s , it is
tually without restriction. T h e i r collections are in
m e a n i n g l e s s to j u d g e l i b r a r i e s b y t h e i r e x p e n d i t u r e s p e r s t u d e n t every case well selected in the broad field of general
o r p e r f a c u l t y m e m b e r , o r e v e n to c o m p a r e t h e i r t o t a l holdings culture.®
a n d staff. W e d r a w n o c o n c l u s i o n s as to s t a n d a r d s , t h e r e f o r e , b u t
only report the most complete information we have on the
Drexel Institute's library is considerably smaller,
U n i v e r s i t y of Pennsylvania. with 71,524 books, 584 periodicals, and a staff of 9. It
is designed primarily for the use of faculty and stu-
Library Expenditures
dents in connection with the four schools of the In-
(for all libraries a d m i n i s t e r e d b y t h e University)
stitute: H o m e Economics, Business Administration,
Salaries $ 90,981.93
Books and periodicals 49,4"2-Ю Engineering, and Library Science. T h e use of its fa-
C u r r e n t expenses (binding, supplies, etc.) 15,771.20 cilities is open for research to outsiders, and materials
Equipment 2,137.08
Building m a i n t e n a n c e (main library o n l y ) . . . . 14,386.42
* For several years T e m p l e h a s t a k e n gTeat i n t e r e s t i n micro-
Total $172,748.73
p h o t o g r a p h y . A special gift m a d e possible the purchase of com-
Student Enrollment p l e t e p h o t o g r a p h i c e q u i p m e n t , a n d a s p e c i a l r o o m is set a s i d e f o r
Regular 6610 t h e w o r k . T h e l i b r a r y possesses a b o u t 2,000 titles o f r a r e m a t e r i a l
Part time 3301 on film.
Extension 1227
Evening 3042
5 B r y n M a w r h a s 171,000 b o o k s , 750 p e r i o d i c a l s , a n d a staff o f
12; H a v e r f o r d h a s 145,000 b o o k s , 500 p e r i o d i c a l s , a n d a staff o f
Total 14,180
6; S w a r t h m o r e has 119,000 b o o k s , 622 p e r i o d i c a l s , and a staff
Faculty of 14.
Full t i m e 6S5 6 Charles B. Shaw, Swarthmore's librarian, has given special
Part time 929 a t t e n t i o n t o t h e n e e d s o f a c o l l e g e l i b r a r y . H i s List of books for
college libraries is w e l l known.
Total I>584
12 PHILADELPHIA
from its collection may be borrowed on inter-library
loan. It contains the strongest collection in Philadel-
phia of works on library science. T h e Drexel library
school, although limited to fifty students, is the only
one within the area, and its director, Dr. Marie H.
Law, is one of the outstanding trained librarians in
Philadelphia. In any development of plans for the in-
tegration of library service within the area and for
the careful study of library problems as they arise,
Drexel Institute provides the best laboratory we have.
G E N E R A L CIRCULATING LIBRARIES
T h i s report is concerned in the main with books as
sources of information on specific subjects of inquiry,
but it cannot ignore the much more voluminous de-
mand for books as a source of general culture and
recreation.
T o satisfy this demand, Philadelphia proper has its
public library system with a main library and thirty-
six branches; two large membership libraries, T h e
Library Company and the Mercantile Library; and
five smaller circulating libraries, which, although pri-
vately endowed, render free service: the Apprentices'
Library, the Philadelphia City Institute, the Friends
Free Library of Germantown, Starr Centre, and the
German Society. T h e Athenaeum, though its books
circulate, has such a restricted membership that it
should be classed as an exclusive book club. W i t h i n
the area but outside the city limits are fifty small
towns that maintain circulating libraries. T h e y own
about half a million books and spend perhaps a quar-
ter million dollars a year. 7
T h e line between the research library and the li-
brary for general reading purposes is not an easy one
to draw, and certainly any attempt to segregate the
libraries of this area in these terms would be entirely
misleading. It has been pointed out already that sev-
eral of our academic libraries, such as Bryn Mawr,
Haverford, and Swarthmore, are serving very useful
general community reading purposes. It must be
pointed out also that many of the libraries that we
are about to classify as general circulating libraries
are rich in old and rare book treasures. T h i s is notably
true of T h e Library Company. It is true of the Phila-
delphia Free Library, it is true to a lesser extent of the
Mercantile Library. But the m a j o r purpose of these
circulating libraries, with the exception of T h e Li-
brary Company, is general service to the general pub-
lic, and their book rarities should probably be re-
7 T h e second table of p a r t III of the S u p p l e m e n t presents a
short s u m m a r y of p u b l i c libraries in the s u b u r b a n districts of
the m e t r o p o l i t a n area, as listed in the American library directory
for 1939. T h i s list is partial a n d does not i n c l u d e m a n y privately
s u p p o r t e d s u b u r b a n libraries. It is to be noted that the o n l y
c o m p l e t e figures are f o r the book stocks. Figures of income a n d
book e x p e n d i t u r e s are so i m p e r f e c t that no importance s h o u l d
be attached to the totals in those columns. A c o m p l e t e consid-
eration of library facilities a n d practices and actual library de-
mands in s u b u r b a n districts is called for.
LIBRARIES
garded rather as accidental accretions than as acces-
sions secured in line with a conscious, planned de-
velopment program. 8 N o t that it matters much, so
long as the treasures are in the area and so long as
they are easily accessible to properly qualified re-
searchers; but it does complicate somewhat the prob-
lem of administration.
In any case, we may for the time being ignore that
feature of our libraries. A t the moment we are pri-
marily concerned with the problem of circulation.
In general we associate this problem in America
with the free public library system. Before we turn to
any consideration of the Philadelphia Free Library it
may not be amiss to point out that the state of Penn-
sylvania in general and the city of Philadelphia in
particular have a rather disgraceful record in their ex-
penditures for free public library service. Pennsylvania,
for example, ranks twenty-fifth among the forty-eight
states in terms of provision for free library service to
its inhabitants. It ranks thirty-third in the number of
volumes in its free public libraries per capita of popu-
lation. It ranks twenty-sixth in its free library ex-
penditures per capita, thirty-second in its free library
circulation per capita. A n d yet in income per capita,
Pennsylvania ranks ninth among the states. Indeed,
there is a greater discrepancy in Pennsylvania between
income per capita and library expenses per capita
than in any other state in the Union. In proportion
to our wealth we are spending less on free library
service than any other state in America, and this in
spite of the fact that we have a smaller proportion of
illiterates in Pennsylvania than there are in Massa-
chusetts or New York, both of which rank high above
Pennsylvania in the index of free library develop-
ment. 9
T h i s condition calls for investigation and correc-
tion. A s matters now stand, it is apparent that there
is less public support to be expected for any intelli-
gent plan of library development in this state than
elsewhere. A policy of education in the significance of
the library is called for. T o a considerable extent the
evils of the situation feed upon themselves. Generally
speaking, the per capita use of public libraries has a
direct relation to the per capita expenditures for pub-
lic libraries. 10 T h e fact is that our public libraries are
unable to meet the public demands and have become
somewhat discredited. As they become discredited,
they weaken their claim to public support, and so
their services are still further curtailed and their repu-
tation still further damaged.
T h e r e is one other general consideration to be
borne in mind in connection with community library
service, and that is that in Philadelphia the public
8 The Free L i b r a r y , w i t h i n the scope of its slim resources,
u n d e r t a k e s to b u i l d u p its special collections, notably in art,
architecture, a n d music, etc.
9 O n this subject cf. W i l s o n , op. cit., passim.
1 0 Cf. W i l s o n , op. cit.
 PHILADELPHIA
free library system came late into the picture. T h e
early circulating libraries were all of them subscrip-
tion libraries, and many of these subscription libraries
still survive and still possess great treasures, though
their circulation is often restricted to a very small
clientele and always on some basis of paid subscrip-
tion. T h e Library Company was organized in 1 7 3 1 ,
the Athenaeum in 1814, the Mercantile Library in
1 8 2 1 , the Philadelphia City Institute in 1852, the
Friends Free Library of Germantown in 1884, and
the Free Library of Philadelphia not until 1891.
T h e Free Library of Philadelphia, according to its
published report for 1939, owns approximately 734,000
books, currently receives over 3,000 periodicals and
more than 200 newspapers, and has a staff of approxi-
mately 435 people. 1 1 It operates from a large, hand-
some building on the Parkway and has 36 branches
scattered throughout the city. 12 It serves a population
of just short of 2,000,000 people and so shows an
average of .376 volumes per capita of population
served. This is the lowest figure per capita in a list
of 43 cities with a population in excess of 200,000,
according to the statistics prepared by the American
Library Association. 13 T h e highest per capita figure is
2.4 for Cleveland, with a general average for 43 cities
of .962. T h e same statistics show a public library book
circulation per capita in Philadelphia of 1.67, the low-
est of the 43 cities in question, Cleveland being high-
est with 9.9, and the median figure being 5.12. In pub-
lic library expenditures, the Philadelphia Free Library
shows a per capita expenditure of 37^ as against a
maximum of $1.20 for Rochester, and a median of
691/2^. It is to be noted that with one single exception
(St. Paul), Philadelphia spends a smaller proportion
of its total public library expenditures ( 1 1 % ) on books
than any other of the 43 cities, the maximum being
2 7 % (Omaha), the median 1 9 % . 1 4
T h e following extract from a published report of
the Free Library of Philadelphia gives some notion of
the situation there as it appears to the librarian (Re-
port for 1938):
Philadelphia as the third largest city in the United
States has a definite responsibility to supply books
and library service to its citizens. Just how far behind
Philadelphia has fallen is shown by the following
table, based on 1938 statistics, giving the average fig-
ures for the ten largest American cities for public li-
brary service:
11
Of these, 316 are librarians and clerical workers; 1 1 9 are
classified as janitors, engineers, and building force.
12
It maintains, besides, 116 other agencies of which 2 are in-
dustrial, 8 in hospitals, 18 in fire stations, 4 in community centers,
46 in school libraries, 38 miscellaneous. Cf. Library Report, 1939.
13
A.L.A. Bulletin, Apr. 1940, p. 268.
14
It ought to be pointed out, however, that the situation in
Philadelphia compares rather less unfavorably with that of the
large public libraries, to wit: Boston, 1 2 % , Detroit, 1 4 % , New
York Public Library, 1 5 % , Los Angeles, 1 7 % , etc.
LIBRARIES »3
Average
jor 10
largest
cities Philadelphia
Amount spent for books... . $149,372 $44,037
$ 105,300 below the average
Amount spent for book-
binding and repair 64,580 29,384
35,100 below the average
Number of books per capita 1.01 .38
approx. ι /3 of the average
Volumes circulated per cap-
ita 4.96 1.68
approx. ι /3 of the average
Cost of library service per
capita 90^ 36.4 ji
53 i per capita below the
average
Public libraries, like any other organization, cannot
operate without money. If the ten largest cities in the
United States have found it good business to grant
adequate support for their public libraries, why should
not Philadelphia? For seven years the appropriations
to the Free Library have been so drastically reduced it
has been impossible to maintain the stock of books or
render the service which the residents of Philadelphia
demand.
T h e Free Library of Philadelphia, with only one
third of the average number of books, and receiving
less than one half of the average support per capita,
with a book appropriation $105,300 per year below
the average for the ten largest cities, cannot hope to
attain the high standard of library service to which
Philadelphians are entitled. All ten cities cannot be
wrong, and if public library service is worth the sup-
port of these cities, it certainly should be supported
adequately by Philadelphia.
Considering the fact that the City of Philadelphia
spends more than thirty-two million dollars yearly for
children of school age, it is not unfair to expect for
the support of the Main Library, its 34 Branches and
1 1 8 Other Agencies, an appropriation of a million and
a half dollars, inasmuch as the Library serves the en-
tire community. This sum would be less than 90^ per
capita, the average now granted by the ten largest
cities in the United States.
Such an appropriation would enable the Library to
meet its three most pressing needs: (1) Books, (2)
Branches and (3) Equalization of Staff Salaries.
Books: T h e amount appropriated by the City of Phila-
delphia for the purchase of books, periodicals and
newspapers was only $25,000, the lowest appropriation
granted by any large city in the United States. 16 In ad-
dition the Board of Trustees expended from other
funds $19,000, making the total amount available for
books $44,000, a sum insufficient to replace one half of
the 81,849 books worn out in actual service during
1938. T h e Library added 61,634 books to its collec-
tions in 1938, of which 56,000 were gifts. G i f t books
were most welcome, and without them it would have
been almost impossible to operate, but nothing can
take the place of N E W , up-to-date books. Practically
no one will read books on aviation, banking, business,
15
It is gratifying to be able to report that the appropriation
for books for the year 1941 has been increased to $40,000.
ч PHILADELPHIA
radio, telephone and many other subjects, which were
written ten or fifteen years ago. T h e Free Library must
purchase more new books if it is to give proper serv-
ice. In these days, when special emphasis is placed on
A d u l t Education, the Library receives many demands
which it finds it impossible to meet.
Certainly every effort should be made to permit the
Library to adequately serve the more than twelve
thousand persons w h o visit its buildings each day.
During the past seven years the appropriations for
books have been so drastically reduced that the book
stock has reached a deplorable condition. For exam-
ple, when the " L i f e of Zola" was being shown at the
Philadelphia moving picture theatres hundreds of re-
quests were received for his works, but the Main Li-
brary had only one copy of one of his books in Eng-
lish. T h i s is typical of the condition at the M a i n
Library and many of the Branches, and it will re-
quire at least a half million dollars to replace the loss
incurred in the book stock during the years of the de-
pression. In addition a similar amount is needed to
buy the necessary books to restock the shelves with
up-to-date material. In spite of the volumes which
were added by both gift and purchase in 1938, there
were at the end of the year fewer books available for
home use in the Circulation Department, Music De-
partment, Library Extension Department and at many
Branch Libraries.
Branches: O w i n g to the financial condition of the
city, the Free Library has been unable to open any
new Branches for nine years. Each year the Board of
Trustees has received requests from various sections
of the city for Branch buildings. For the past three
years these requests have become more insistent.—
W i t h o u t funds the Library has been unable to act
upon these requests.
In view of these conditions it will be apparent that
the staff of the Free Library can hardly be censured
if they have been unable to make adequate provision
for the free library services which are in accordance
with progressive practices. A n d it cannot be wondered
that they have not been able to develop a larger pa-
tronage if they have not been able to serve the patrons
they have.
However, a more detailed study of the published
figures and a comparison with library service in other
large cities of the country raises certain questions that
seem worthy of investigation by the trustees or by the
city department responsible for the library budget.
Philadelphia is not alone in its poverty. In fact,
only four other cities in the United States have, in
toto, more money to spend than Philadelphia. A n d
many with far less have been able to keep in step
w i t h developments in the library profession by offer-
ing specialized service to professional groups in the
community not otherwise provided for by existing li-
braries. Other cities faced with a drastic reduction in
income have been able to shift their expenditures and
their personnel. For instance, in no other city does a
condition exist in which nearly four times as much
money is being spent for building force salaries as for
LIBRARIES
books. In most cities the book budget far exceeds the
building upkeep, and it should be possible to bring
the Philadelphia ratio more nearly into line with the
practice of other systems having similar building and
branch situations. In considering the mechanical staff
employed by ten or twelve of the largest libraries, it
is, however, necessary to remember that the type, prob-
lems, and organization of each library differ very
greatly, about the only point in common being that
each serves the residents of a large city. T h e size and
number of the branches vary, and in some cities many
of the branches are housed in buildings which are
maintained and operated by others; in other cities
some of the branches are so small that one janitor
takes care of two buildings. Several of the branch li-
braries in other cities purchase high-pressure steam
from a public utility, and in one case both mainte-
nance and operating costs of the main building are
not charged to the library. A l l these libraries differ as
to their classification between "mechanical" and "cler-
ical, pages, and other" services. Several of the larger
libraries do not report these figures at all or do so
only for the circulation departments. A n investiga-
tion made by the Free Library in December 1940 in-
dicated that the number of its mechanical staff com-
pares very favorably with other large libraries, several
of which have smaller main buildings.
T h e trend in library administration is definitely to-
ward specialization. Philadelphia's is one of a few large
public library buildings erected since 1924 that do not
provide for the major subject departments. T h e Bibli-
ographical Planning Committee strongly recommends
that some consideration be given to setting up small
service departments and segregating the information
needed by the business and technical groups in Phil-
adelphia. In this way, the Free Library might approxi-
mate the special departments now maintained by most
other large libraries.
O n e problem which all public libraries need to
face is some realistic analysis of the uses to which their
libraries are put and the nature of the demand upon
them. T o some extent this is reflected in the books
lent for home use, but only to a very limited extent.
W e need to know also what books were asked for and
not obtained, what books consulted but not withdrawn
for home use. W e need to know what the public li-
braries can do to build u p demand, by some realistic
analysis of potential library users. Like all other de-
partments of public education, the actual demand is
no adequate measure of the potential needs. It would
be useful if we could make some study of our Phila-
delphia Free Library users akin to that which Mr.
Haygood has made of the N e w York Public Library. 1 6
L a c k i n g that, an analysis of the statistics on the refer-
ence use of the Free Library might throw a good deal
of light on the needs of special-interest groups. In
1 6 W. C. Haygood, Who uses the public library. Chicago, 1938.
Cf. for further references the bibliography at the end of this
book.
 PHILADELPHIA
m o s t l a r g e cities p u b l i c l i b r a r i e s a r e d e v o t i n g m u c h at-
t e n t i o n to a d u l t e d u c a t i o n a n d c o m m u n i t y p r o g r a m s . 1 7
T h e P h i l a d e l p h i a F r e e L i b r a r y has h e r e t o f o r e l a g g e d
behind. T h e recent establishment of a P h i l a d e l p h i a
c h a p t e r of the A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n f o r A d u l t E d u c a -
t i o n , in w h i c h t h e l i b r a r i a n of t h e F r e e L i b r a r y is tak-
i n g a n a c t i v e p a r t , g i v e s p r o m i s e of b e t t e r t h i n g s .
I n any r a t i o n a l d i s t r i b u t i o n of f u n c t i o n s in t h e li-
b r a r y w o r l d of t h e m e t r o p o l i t a n a r e a , it is c l e a r t h a t
t h e p r o b l e m of l i b r a r y service f o r t h e c o m m u n i t y as
a w h o l e devolves largely u p o n the Free Library. T h e r e ,
if a n y w h e r e , w e s h a l l h a v e to h a n d l e r e c r e a t i o n a l de-
m a n d s , a n d there, if a n y w h e r e , w e s h a l l h a v e to de-
v e l o p the r e l a t i o n of l i b r a r y service to a d u l t e d u c a t i o n .
B u t it is i d l e to e x p e c t the f r e e l i b r a r y system to c o p e
w i t h these p r o b l e m s u n t i l the c o m m u n i t y is a r o u s e d to
s o m e l i v e l i e r sense of t h e i r i m p o r t a n c e a n d is m u c h
m o r e g e n e r o u s in its p r o v i s i o n f o r f r e e l i b r a r y n e e d s .
A l t h o u g h the F r e e L i b r a r y is c o n c e r n e d w i t h meet-
i n g the p o p u l a r d e m a n d s f o r b o o k s , it also possesses
s o m e s p e c i a l c o l l e c t i o n s of o u t s t a n d i n g i m p o r t a n c e . 1 8
In line w i t h the p l a n f o r m u l a t e d by Dr. J o h n
T h o m s o n , the first l i b r a r i a n , a n d l a t e r p e r f e c t e d by
M r . J o h n A s h u r s t , his successor, t h e F r e e L i b r a r y has
n o t a t t e m p t e d to i n v a d e fields c o v e r e d b y s p e c i a l li-
b r a r i e s in the a r e a . B u t there is a r e m a r k a b l y g o o d
c o l l e c t i o n of b o o k s o n art a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e , a l a r g e
c o l l e c t i o n of b o o k s o n c o s t u m e , a s t r o n g c o l l e c t i o n of
B i b l e s , a n d o n e of t h e g r e a t c o l l e c t i o n s in A m e r i c a o n
e a r l y E n g l i s h l a w , p a r t i c u l a r l y of B l a c k s t o n e . H o u s e d
i n s e p a r a t e r o o m s a r e o u t s t a n d i n g c o l l e c t i o n s of b i b l i -
o g r a p h i e s , d o c u m e n t s , a n d m a p s . A t t e n t i o n s h o u l d also
b e c a l l e d to t h e c o l l e c t i o n s of m e d i e v a l i l l u m i n a t e d
manuscripts, of Persian and other O r i e n t a l manu-
scripts, o f p o r t r a i t e n g r a v i n g s a n d b o o k s o n t h e his-
t o r y of e n g r a v i n g d o n a t e d b y t h e l a t e J o h n F r e d e r i c k
Lewis, and to the E d w i n A . Fleisher M u s i c C o l l e c t i o n ,
s a i d to b e the o n l y l a r g e c o l l e c t i o n of o r c h e s t r a l m u s i c
i n A m e r i c a w h i c h c o n t a i n s a f u l l set o f p a r t s f o r e a c h
1 7 O n this s u b j e c t cf. C a r l e t o n В. J o e c k e l a n d L e o n
Carnovsky,
A metropolitan library in action. C h i c a g o , 1940, p . 316-382.
1 8 It is a great pity t h a t t h e Free L i b r a r y , o w i n g c h i e f l y to
l a c k of f u n d s , has h a d to a b a n d o n its b u l l e t i n s , ten of w h i c h
w e r e p u b l i s h e d b e t w e e n 1898 a n d 1910. T h e most n o t a b l e of
t h e m , no. 8, was a list of serials of the p r i n c i p a l libraries in P h i l a -
d e l p h i a a n d its v i c i n i t y , p r e p a r e d by J o h n P. L a m b e r t o n a n d
p u b l i s h e d in 1908, a n d s u p p l e m e n t to t h e s a m e p u b l i s h e d in
1910. T h i s list, t h o u g h it n a t u r a l l y needs to be b r o u g h t u p to
d a t e a n d is to s o m e e x t e n t s u p p l a n t e d by the Union list of se-
rials, is a n o t a b l e p i e c e o f w o r k a n d bears t e s t i m o n y t o t h e
e n t e r p r i s e of o n e of P h i l a d e l p h i a ' s g r e a t l i b r a r i a n s , D r . J o h n
T h o m s o n . It c o n t a i n s a u s e f u l d e s c r i p t i v e list of 24 of t h e most
i m p o r t a n t P h i l a d e l p h i a libraries.
T h e A n n u a l R e p o r t of t h e L i b r a r y is also m u c h b r i e f e r t h a n
it m i g h t w e l l be, a n d in recent years has b e e n l a r g e l y d e v o t e d to
a n a p p e a l for b o o k s a n d m o n e y . It h a r d l y bears c o m p a r i s o n w i t h
t h e R e p o r t of t h e N e w Y o r k P u b l i c L i b r a r y . A m u c h m o r e elab-
o r a t e e x p l a n a t i o n of w h a t t h e F r e e L i b r a r y is d o i n g a n d w h a t
it is p l a n n i n g to d o m i g h t g o f a r to s t i m u l a t e interest a n d c o m -
m a n d s u p p o r t . L i b r a r i e s , l i k e all o t h e r enterprises, h a v e to sell
t h e i r wares. T h e r e is, f o r e x a m p l e , n o a d e q u a t e d e s c r i p t i o n in
a n y of the a n n u a l reports of t h e special collections.
LIBRARIES »5
i n s t r u m e n t , i n a d d i t i o n t o t h e s c o r e . 1 9 O t h e r collec-
t i o n s of i m p o r t a n c e a r e the c o l l e c t i o n of J u d a i c a a n d
H e b r a i c a , t h e R o s e n b a c h c o l l e c t i o n of e a r l y A m e r i c a n
c h i l d r e n ' s b o o k s , a n d c o l l e c t i o n s d e p o s i t e d b y the M u -
sical F u n d S o c i e t y , i n c l u d i n g t h e E d w i n I. K e f f e r col-
l e c t i o n of A m e r i c a n m u s i c .
I n a d d i t i o n t o the F r e e L i b r a r y w i t h all its b r a n c h e s ,
t h e r e a r e e i g h t o t h e r c i r c u l a t i n g l i b r a r i e s of s o m e im-
p o r t a n c e in P h i l a d e l p h i a . O f these, o n l y t h r e e a r e f r e e ;
t h e o t h e r five a r e s u b s c r i p t i o n l i b r a r i e s . O f t h e f r e e
l i b r a r i e s p r i v a t e l y m a i n t a i n e d , t h e largest is the F r i e n d s
F r e e L i b r a r y in G e r m a n t o w n (5418 G e r m a n t o w n A v e -
n u e ) , f o u n d e d i n 1884. It c o n t a i n s n e a r l y 40,000 vol-
u m e s , a n d its c i r c u l a t i o n is r e s t r i c t e d to n o n - f i c t i o n . It
h a s several t h o u s a n d r e g u l a r b o r r o w e r s a n d is espe-
c i a l l y u s e f u l to s t u d e n t s in the n e i g h b o r h o o d , f r o m
p r i m a r y g r a d e s t h r o u g h c o l l e g e . Its a n n u a l c i r c u l a t i o n
is j u s t s h o r t of 50,000 v o l u m e s . T h e e m p h a s i s is u p o n
g o o d p o p u l a r b o o k s , a n d l i t t l e a t t e n t i o n is p a i d to
s c h o l a r l y m a t e r i a l f o r specialists. It is, h o w e v e r , a cen-
ter f o r t h e O r t h o d o x b r a n c h of the Q u a k e r s a n d has
a s t r o n g c o l l e c t i o n of Q u a k e r i a n a . O u t s i d e o f this col-
l e c t i o n , it c o n t a i n s l i t t l e of interest to the r e s e a r c h
s t u d e n t , b u t it p l a y s a n i m p o r t a n t p a r t in the g e n e r a l
c u l t u r a l s e r v i c e of t h e c o m m u n i t y . It is f r e e to a l l .
T h e o t h e r t w o free c i r c u l a t i n g l i b r a r i e s p r i v a t e l y
s u p p o r t e d a r e s m a l l . O n e of t h e m , the A p p r e n t i c e s '
L i b r a r y at B r o a d a n d B r a n d y w i n e streets, h a s a ven-
e r a b l e h i s t o r y b u t it has r e l a t i v e l y f e w b o o k s (26,000)
a n d a l m o s t a l l of these a r e f o r g e n e r a l c i r c u l a t i o n . I t
serves a u s e f u l c o m m u n i t y p u r p o s e in a p o o r s e c t i o n
of t h e city a n d c o o p e r a t e s w i t h t h e p u b l i c s c h o o l s i n
t h e n e i g h b o r h o o d . T h e o n l y p a r t o f its c o l l e c t i o n t h a t
has m u c h i n d e p e n d e n t v a l u e is s o m e 500 b o o k s o n
travel w h i c h were mercifully spared w h e n a large part
of its treasures w a s d i s p o s e d of to m a k e shelf r o o m
f o r b o o k s in c u r r e n t d e m a n d .
T h e r e is also the S t a r r L i b r a r y at 725-27 L o m b a r d
Street, w h i c h is o v e r fifty years o l d a n d serves a u s e f u l
c o m m u n i t y p u r p o s e a m o n g s c h o o l c h i l d r e n in a l a r g e
a r e a ( F r o n t to B r o a d , W a l n u t to W a s h i n g t o n A v e -
n u e ) w h i c h l a c k s o t h e r f r e e l i b r a r y facilities. B u t it
has o n l y a b o u t 5,000 b o o k s a n d n o items o f i n d e -
pendent value.
M u c h m o r e s i g n i f i c a n t a r e the five l i b r a r i e s p r i v a t e l y
s u p p o r t e d , c i r c u l a t i n g p r i v i l e g e s in w h i c h are c o n f i n e d
to p a y i n g subscribers. O f these the o l d e s t a n d m o s t im-
p o r t a n t is T h e L i b r a r y C o m p a n y of P h i l a d e l p h i a .
T h e L i b r a r y C o m p a n y , l i k e so m a n y of t h e o l d e r
i n s t i t u t i o n s of l e a r n i n g in P h i l a d e l p h i a , w a s estab-
19 Attention s h o u l d p e r h a p s be called to the H . J o s e p h i n e
W i d e n e r B r a n c h of t h e F r e e L i b r a r y system, w h i c h is n o n - c i r c u -
l a t i n g . It is o p e n f o r r e f e r e n c e t o e v e r y o n e a n d is used by s o m e
40.000 readers a n n u a l l y . Its b o o k s a r e c a t a l o g u e d at t h e m a i n
l i b r a r y . A m o n g o t h e r t h i n g s it c o n t a i n s a b o u t 8,000 l a n t e r n
slides w h i c h are l e n t f o r g r o u p e n t e r t a i n m e n t w i t h o u t a d m i s s i o n
fee. It is o n e of the few l i b r a r i e s in P h i l a d e l p h i a w i t h a c o m p l e t e
set of t h e V i c t o r i a History of t h e C o u n t i e s of E n g l a n d . It has
a l s o a r a t h e r n o t a b l e c o l l e c t i o n of 530 i n c u n a b u l a f r o m 300 d i f -
f e r e n t presses. T h e earliest i t e m is a Fust a n d S c h ö f f e r i m p r i n t
of 1463.
l6 PHILADELPHIA
lished by Benjamin Franklin in 1731. It was the first
public and subscription library in the United States,
and served as the first Library of Congress when Phil-
adelphia was the national capital. In 1751 James
Logan, friend and business agent of W i l l i a m Penn,
willed his collection of 2,000 volumes, with an endow-
ment, to the city of Philadelphia. It was placed under
the trusteeship of T h e Library Company in 1792.
T h i s collection is the only private colonial library to
survive intact to the present day. Dr. James Rush in
1869 left a large fortune to T h e Library Company on
condition that part of it be applied to the establish-
ment of the Ridgway Branch in memory of his wife,
Phebe A n n Ridgway. T h e building was erected in
1877 and used to house the more valuable collections
of T h e Library Company. In 1938 the Board of Di-
rectors of T h e Library Company decided to get rid of
its headquarters on Locust Street and concentrate all
its collections at the Ridgway Branch. T h i s main es-
tablishment is now supplemented by a small distrib-
uting center on Rittenhouse Square for the circula-
tion of current books to members.
T h e Library Company membership is limited to
969 shareholders, each of whom pays an annual mem-
bership fee of $8.00. T h e use of books and periodicals
on the library premises is free to all, the circulation of
books outside the library building is limited to mem-
bers, though books in the Ridgway Branch may be
borrowed by non-members on a semi-annual or an-
nual subscription basis or by leaving a sum of money
on deposit as security against loss or damage. 20 T h e
income from the subscriptions is supplemented by in-
come from endowment and from special contribu-
tions.
T h e book collections of T h e Library Company ag-
gregate some 350,000 volumes. Additions are made at
the rate of approximately 2,000 volumes a year.
In its early days the library specialized, among other
things, in science, medicine, and philosophy, but with
the development of these subjects in modern times it
now leaves collecting along these lines to specialized
libraries. It still maintains the tradition of collecting
books on decorative and applied arts, archeology, cos-
tume, and gardening, and it has valuable holdings on
all of these subjects. But today it concentrates chiefly
upon history, art, and literature with emphasis upon
American history, American art, and American liter-
ature. O w i n g to the fact that it is a membership li-
brary, it purchases a large amount of "entertainment"
literature annually, but it attempts to select by qual-
ity and to widen the field to books not published in
America. T h e collections of T h e Library Company
have been aptly described as representative of two
centuries of educated and intelligent reading as op-
20 It ought to be noted that the service of T h e Library Com-
pany to non-members is steadily increasing. In 1940, out of about
42,000 books issued, 26,000 were for members, 16,000 for non-
members. T h e Library Company is following the current tend-
ency to become a public rather than a private library.
LIBRARIES
posed to popular reading on the one hand and schol-
arly reading on the other. As a result, it possesses first
or early editions of works of value not to be found
in other libraries in the area because they missed the
popular taste at the time of publication (e.g., Keats,
Shelley, W a l t Whitman).
T h e Library Company really comprises three sep-
arately endowed libraries, T h e Library Company (a
membership library), the Ridgway Branch, and the Lo-
ganian Library (both general reference libraries for
history, literature, and art).
T h e collections of T h e Library Company constitute
one of the chief library treasuries within the metro-
politan area. T h e greatest strength is in the field of
American history and literature, with important col-
lections of manuscripts, maps, newspapers, and Amer-
ican imprints.
It would be impossible here to appraise these riches
with any adequacy. T h e collections call for appraisal
by experts, of the sort recently published by the Bib-
liographical Planning Committee for the collections at
the University of Pennsylvania.
Altogether they contain about 3,000 European im-
prints significant for American history beginning in
1532; 7,000 American imprints between 1661 and 1800,
and, at a rough guess, 25,000 imprints between 1800
and 1850. T h e y are particularly valuable for Ameri-
can political and social history, for the early history of
American railroads and canals, for the history and
culture of the American Indians, and especially for
early American literature. 21
T h e manuscript collections include those of Dr.
Benjamin Rush, Dr. James Rush, Stephen Grellet,
and Dr. David Ramsey; the McAllister collection, the
Smith papers, the Breck papers, and, perhaps most
notable of all, the D u Simitiere papers, of which the
Historical Records Survey has recently (1940) pub-
lished an excellent catalogue.
T h e catalogues of T h e Library Company are in
bad shape. T h e r e is a printed catalogue of the Lo-
ganian collection, published in 1837. T h e r e is a
printed catalogue of the whole Library Company's
collections as they were in 1856. A manuscript card-
catalogue arranged both by authors and by subjects
covers the accessions from 1857 t o 1®92· A card-cata-
logue on modern principles covers accessions from
1892 to date. T h e r e are also other catalogues for
special collections. A new single and complete cata-
logue is in preparation, supported by a grant from
the Carnegie Corporation of N e w York.
T h e third largest of the circulating libraries within
the area, and the fourth largest single library in the
Philadelphia area, is the Mercantile Library at 16
South T e n t h Street. It is in the center of the old busi-
ness section of the city and was founded in 1821 by a
group of merchants and business men to serve as a
popular circulating library for business people. It con-
2 1 A good brief survey of the collection is printed in the Bulle-
tin of the Special Libraries Council, Sept. 1939, p. 2-5.
 PHILADELPHIA
tains over 225,000 volumes. A t present it has over
2,000 common shareholders in addition to 118 per-
petual memberships and 47 life members. A n n u a l
dues are $5.00 but non-members may borrow books by
leaving a deposit and paying a rental fee of ten cents
a week. T h e library is open to all comers for reference.
It contains little of unique value, though it is par-
ticularly strong in general literature of the nineteenth
century, when the library purchased virtually every-
thing in this field that was published. Its collection of
the writings of Junius is notable. Its Irish collection
of over 1,000 volumes is unique in Philadelphia. At-
tention should perhaps be called also to its collection
of Philadelphia City Directories (from 1785), of Phila-
delphia newspapers (from 1740), and of old library
and booksellers' catalogues. But it is primarily a circu-
lating library of current books and of relatively little
importance, considering its size, for the research stu-
dent. T h e Bibliographical Planning Committee feels
that the Mercantile Library in Philadelphia is ideally
suited to experiment with a special circulating collec-
tion for business men. Up-to-date books on marketing,
advertising, insurance, finance, management, and other
phases of business should prove of great interest to
executives and employees of the many business con-
cerns in the central part of the city. T h e Mercantile
has a real opportunity to add to its income and sphere
of influence and to make an important demonstration
for similar libraries in other large cities.
T h e r e are three other subscription libraries in the
Philadelphia area of sufficient importance to call for
some mention. O f these the oldest is the library of
the German Society at Marshall and Spring Garden
streets, founded in 1817. Its circulation privileges are
confined to the members of the German Society. It
contains about 40,000 volumes almost exclusively in
the German language. Its value for research and
scholarly purposes is limited, though it is strong in
German belles-lettres and therefore useful to students
of German literature. It contains some early Pennsyl-
vania German imprints and some early newspaper
files. 22 It is open to all comers for reference purposes.
T h e Athenaeum, 219 South Sixth Street, is another
old subscription library, founded in 1814 with a very
limited membership. T h e r e are only 162 shareholders
all told, and they pay an annual subscription of $5.00.
It circulates books to members only, but it does not
exclude other readers from the use of its collections
on the premises. It is, however, chiefly concerned with
the interests of an exclusive clientele. By reason of its
age it has some valuable items on its shelves. It con-
tains, for example, early runs of Philadelphia news-
papers, old periodicals, and directories. A careful anal-
ysis of its contents would probably reveal many other
treasures. A t the moment it is directing its book pur-
chases to the collection of outstanding contemporary
fiction, adding some 750 volumes a year to its shelves.
Last of all in this class of libraries is the Philadel-
22 E n u m e r a t e d i n the W . P . A . List of newspapers.
LIBRARIES 17
phia City Institute, 218 South Nineteenth Street,
founded in 1857. Its chief function is as a general
circulating library for adults and children. Altogether
it contains about 38,000 volumes, none of them, prob-
ably, of unique value. It falls somewhere between the
subscription library and the free library. Of its 1,374
borrowers, about one-third pay. Anyone may borrow
one book (new fiction excluded) at a time. A fee of
$2.00 enables the borrower to take out any two books
at a time; a fee of $3.00 enables him to take out any
three books at a time. T h e library offers little or
nothing in the way of research resources. It plays a
part of some importance as a circulating, community
library.
SPECIAL LIBRARIES
T h e r e are 133 special libraries worthy of mention
in the Philadelphia area, distributed as follows: A r t 7,
Business 15, Education 3, Government 4, History 8,
Law 4, Medicine 23, Newspaper 4, Religion 23, Science
and Technology 33, Miscellaneous 9. T h e s e are for
the most part connected with institutions of learning,
business corporations, or learned societies. T h e y are,
generally speaking, reference or research libraries with-
out circulating privileges. A n d they are generally open
to all properly accredited persons for reference use.
It seems expedient to classify them according to their
content and to analyze them in a general subject analy-
sis.23 Some few of them, however, call for detailed con-
sideration.
ART
In the field of art, the library of the Philadelphia
Museum of Art deserves special comment. T h o u g h it
is designed primarily as a tool for the Museum staff,
it has been developed by Paul Vanderbilt into a first-
rate reference art library. It is notably strong in art
bibliographies, art catalogues, and museum catalogues.
T h e research student in the field of art will find it an
excellent base for operations, with an uncommonly
well-selected collection of its own and exceptional fa-
cilities for exploring the great collections in the litera-
ture of art elsewhere. Pepper Hall at the Free Library,
with about 30,000 volumes and 100 periodicals, covers
the history of art, architecture, and related fields. It is
a well-rounded reference library. T h e University of
Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts is strong in archi-
tecture. Bryn Mawr has probably the best academic
collection for the study of the history of art.
BUSINESS
In the general field of business there is only one
good library, the Lippincott Library at the W h a r t o n
School of the University of Pennsylvania, though
T e m p l e University has the makings of one. 24 Of the
23 Cf. Supplement.
24 T h e Free Library, w h i l e not segregating the material, has
more than 80% of the material listed in Business and the public
library by Marian C . Manley. New Y o r k , 1940.
ι8 PHILADELPHIA
L i p p i n c o t t L i b r a r y it is unnecessary to speak here at
length, since there is a g o o d analysis of its contents in
the published survey of the University of Pennsylvania
libraries. It has been d e v e l o p e d primarily to serve the
needs of the W h a r t o n School, but it is well e q u i p p e d
for general service to the business c o m m u n i t y . Its pol-
icy is to b u i l d u p a g o o d collection of basic books o n
subjects related to business; it also maintains full files
of the better business periodicals, of official publica-
tions, of business research a n d trade organizations, a n d
of pertinent federal, state, a n d local documents. In de-
v e l o p i n g its collection it is able to draw on the expert
o p i n i o n of the W h a r t o n School faculty, a n d it is an
excellent e x a m p l e of w h a t may be d o n e w h e n a really
c o m p e t e n t librarian c o m m a n d s the cooperation of a
g r o u p of experts in a special field. H e r e if anywhere is
the obvious center for the d e v e l o p m e n t of business
services on a large scale, a n d here certainly is the best
place for the student of business problems to consult
the literature o n the subject.
T h e library of the P h i l a d e l p h i a C o m m e r c i a l Mu-
seum is considerably larger in the actual n u m b e r of
volumes on its shelves, b u t it is chiefly devoted to for-
eign trade a n d makes no pretension to adequate cover-
age of other fields of business. It is strong in govern-
ment documents, domestic a n d foreign, and has a
large collection of directories, trade catalogues, maga-
zines and newspapers, m a n y of w h i c h are preserved
only temporarily a n d d o not find a place in the cata-
logue. It is useful chiefly as a source of current infor-
m a t i o n about problems arising o u t of A m e r i c a n a n d
foreign trade.
T h e P h i l a d e l p h i a C h a m b e r of C o m m e r c e has a
small library w h i c h serves as ancillary to its Research
a n d I n f o r m a t i o n D e p a r t m e n t . T h e best of it is prob-
ably the data files c o n t a i n i n g various sorts of current
i n f o r m a t i o n on business organizations and business ac-
tivities. It w o u l d be of small v a l u e to the serious
student.
It is surprising, in view of the widespread develop-
ment of business libraries in the country, that the city
of P h i l a d e l p h i a has so few. O n l y one bank, the Fed-
eral Reserve, maintains a library, w i t h a small col-
lection of books, magazines, and pamphlets. Ristine
a n d C o m p a n y is the only investment house employing
a librarian. P h i l a d e l p h i a , as an i m p o r t a n t insurance
center, has one well-developed library at the Provident
M u t u a l L i f e Insurance C o m p a n y a n d a small collec-
tion on fire insurance at the Insurance Society of Phil-
adelphia. T h e firm of T o w e r s , Perrin, Forster and
Crosby has l o n g m a i n t a i n e d a private business library
chiefly consisting of material on g r o u p insurance, pen-
sions, and annuities.
T h e Curtis P u b l i s h i n g C o m p a n y has recently em-
p l o y e d a trained librarian to organize its books and
large data files on advertising and marketing. N. W .
A y e r and Son also has a small library covering the
same subjects. A few companies w i t h well-organized
technical libraries also collect i n f o r m a t i o n on certain
LIBRARIES
phases of business. T h e largest of these are the U n i t e d
Gas I m p r o v e m e n t C o m p a n y , the P h i l a d e l p h i a Electric
C o m p a n y , a n d the Philadelphia T r a n s p o r t a t i o n Com-
pany.
EDUCATION
T h e r e are two important libraries of education in
Philadelphia, the Pedagogical Library of the B o a r d of
E d u c a t i o n and the P e n n i m a n L i b r a r y at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania. T h e former is strong on current
material dealing w i t h the problems of p u b l i c educa-
tion, the latter u p o n the history of education and ped-
agogical problems in general. T h e P e n n i m a n Library
has been dealt w i t h in the survey of the University of
Pennsylvania libraries. T h e Pedagogical L i b r a r y is the
oldest and largest library of its kind in A m e r i c a . T e m -
ple University has a small but good collection on edu-
cation, and the West Chester State T e a c h e r s College
an excellent w o r k i n g library for teacher training.
GOVERNMENT
Libraries interested in governmental material are
few. Philadelphia has several depositories of docu-
ments, of w h i c h the one at the Free Library is the
largest and the best organized. O t h e r libraries collect
official publications in their o w n fields as, for example,
the Bureau of M u n i c i p a l Research. T h e University of
Pennsylvania ranks first for foreign government pub-
lications.
HISTORY
O f the libraries devoted exclusively to history, by
far the most important is the library of T h e Histori-
cal Society of Pennsylvania. It contains something like
a half-million books, pamphlets, newspapers, and
broadsides, besides a great deal of important material
in manuscript. A guide to the manuscripts, prepared
by the Historical Records Survey of the W o r k s Prog-
ress Administration, has recently been published. T h e
printed material deals largely w i t h the history of
Pennsylvania. T h e library contains perhaps the best
collection in the world of Philadelphia imprints (1693-
1825) and a large collection of Pennsylvania imprints.
It has also important early A m e r i c a n imprints. It is
rich in Pennsylvania G e r m a n , Swedish-American and
French-American material, and very rich in eight-
eenth-century American newspapers, particularly
those published in Philadelphia a n d N e w York. 2 5 It
has an important collection of A m e r i c a n colonial and
state laws (the C h a r l e m a g n e T o w e r Collection) and of
early American political pamphlets. In many respects
its collections of Americana are complementary to
those of T h e Library C o m p a n y . It is strong in gene-
2 5 C f . on this W . P . A . Historical R e c o r d s Survey, Check list of
Philadelphia newspapers available in Philadelphia. 2nd edi-
tion. P h i l a d e l p h i a , 1937.
C f . also W . P . A . Historical R e c o r d s S u r v e y , Check list of maps
pertaining to Pennsylvania up to 1900• P h i l a d e l p h i a , 1935-36.
 PHILADELPHIA
alogy. As an historical library in the broadest sense of
the word, it is far inferior to that of the University of
Pennsylvania, though in some fields outside its special
fields it supplies useful supplementary material, no-
tably in the publications of English local historical
societies.
T h e r e are, besides, a number of local historical so-
cieties in the suburban areas, the largest of which is
the Schwenkfelder Historical Library (Pennsburg)
with 20,000 volumes chiefly valuable for the history of
the Schwenkfelders, of the Mennonites, and of the
Perkiomen region. T h e other county historical socie-
ties listed are useful for the local history of the coun-
ties in which they are situated. Most of them are open
only to members. Special mention should perhaps be
made of the Chester County Historical Society, which
contains material on many phases of American His-
tory, and of the American Philosophical Society with
its outstanding collection of Frankliniana and its rich
materials on the American Revolutionary period.
LAW
T h e two largest law libraries in the area—that of
the Philadelphia Bar Association, 600 City Hall, and
the Biddle Law Library of the University of Pennsyl-
vania, 3400 Chestnut Street—are both important. T h e
Bar Association library serves the practising lawyer
and is chiefly valuable for current law literature,
though it contains unexpected material on the history
of the law. T h e Biddle Law Library is designed pri-
marily for the use of law students. It is easily the best
library in the area on the history of law and is notably
rich in early books on the history of English law. 26
Attention at this point should also be called to the ex-
ceptionally fine H a m p t o n L . Carson Collection on the
history of the English law at the Free Library and to
the Charlemagne T o w e r Collection on colonial and
early state laws at T h e Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania. A n interesting library in the field of law, and
one that is perhaps unique in America, is the Hirst
Free Law Library, Broad and W a l n u t streets, founded
in 1885 by a practising lawyer who felt that members
of the Bar who could not afford to join the Associa-
tion should have access to a legal library. A l t h o u g h
it has only one person on its staff, it is a busy, effective
library. Unfortunately it lacks sufficient funds to keep
its collections u p to date. T h e T e m p l e Law Library
is a small departmental library maintained by T e m p l e
University, with its use restricted to students and
faculty. In general the Bar Association library is the
most valuable collection in the area for the practising
lawyer, and the Biddle Library for students of law.
Use of both of them is restricted to the particular
clientele they are designed to serve, though neither
denies access to students with special claim to con-
sideration.
28
C f . Faculty survey of the University of Pennsylvania li-
braries, p . 139 et seq.
LIBRARIES
MEDICINE
T h e r e are no less than twenty-three medical librar-
ies in the area, most of them attached either to medical
schools or to universities. But the library of the Col-
lege of Physicians is from every point of view so much
the most important collection of medical books in the
area that all other collections may be regarded as s u p
plementary to it. It was founded in 1788 and has
grown steadily in size, in catholicity, and in general
community usefulness. T o d a y it is one of the greatest
medical libraries in America and one of the great
medical libraries in the world. Mr. McDaniel, the
librarian, writes,
T h i s library is open to all persons, but it can at-
tempt at present to give proper service only to those
working in medicine or the related sciences. Its re-
sources include in its 152,500 accessioned items over
500 ancient and modern manuscripts dating from the
13th century, over 400 medical and scientific in-
cunabula . . . thousands of very rare and in some
cases unique medical works of the 16th to the 19th
centuries, special collections such as those of the works
of W i l l i a m Harvey; probably the most complete in
existence in anatomy, in surgery, in ophthalmology,
medical historiography; thousands of portraits . . .
files of 1200 current periodicals as well as of many dis-
continued ones. T h e r e are also over 300,000 u n b o u n d
pamphlets of one sort or another. . . . A book list
reports monthly (September-June) the new acces-
sions. . . . T h e collection is adequately indexed in
some of its parts but not in others. . . . T h e funds
available permit neither appropriate salaries for the
assistants, supplementary indexing of important ma-
terial, nor adequate expansion at a time when medi-
cine itself is reaching out into new fields with alarm-
ing rapidity.
T h i s library is not only our greatest medical li-
brary either from the point of view of the history of
medicine or of the current practice of medicine, but
it is also our most public-spirited medical library.
T h e r e are no restrictions whatever limiting the pub-
lic right to read in the library, and the privilege of
withdrawing books from the library is very gener-
ously extended. More than that, the librarian's con-
cept of its function envisages the desirability of de-
veloping library service for the layman in the general
interest of public health and preventive medicine. 2 7
In short, there are few cities in America where such a
great treasury of medical literature is so accessible to
the general inquiring world.
Of other medical collections, the next in point of
size and importance is the library of the Jefferson
Medical College. It is a good medical school library,
the use of which, however, is restricted to the mem-
bers of the profession and to other specially qualified
persons. T h e medical, dental, and veterinary schools
of the University of Pennsylvania are surveyed in the
27 W e w i s h s p a c e p e r m i t t e d p u b l i c a t i o n i n f u l l of M r . M c -
D a n i e l ' s r e p o r t o n h i s l i b r a r y . I t is a m o d e l f o r t h e p u b l i c -
spirited a p p r o a c h to t h e special library p r o b l e m .
20 PHILADELPHIA
Faculty Survey. It might be noted that the library at
the University of Pennsylvania School of Dentistry
( T h e Evans Institute), very largely donated by Dr.
Edward C. Kirk, is probably the finest dental library
in the world. It is particularly rich in rare books o n
the early history of dentistry. Attention should also
be called to the library of the Pennsylvania Hospital,
the earliest medical library in the United States,
which is rich in medical and biological works of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 28 T h e library of
the Wistar Institute is notably strong in the field of
comparative anatomy. A great deal of literature perti-
nent to the study of medicine is to be found also in
the three important scientific libraries within the area,
the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Insti-
tute, and the American Philosophical Society.
NEWSPAPER LIBRARIES
O f the four newspaper libraries in Philadelphia,
that of the Evening Bulletin is the oldest (1902), that
of the Evening Ledger the largest. In general, they are
designed for the use of the newspaper staff and to
serve the query departments which those newspapers
maintain. T h e y are not open to the general public
but will usually transmit information from their li-
braries in answer to inquiries. T h e libraries of the
Bulletin, the Inquirer, and the Ledger maintain in-
dexes (not complete) of their own publications; that
of the Ledger has a good collection of data and sta-
tistics about notable Philadelphians. A l l of them have
deposited complete files of their publications in the
Free Library which is easily the best depository of
Philadelphia newspapers. T h e Inquirer began in July
1939 to make film copies of its own paper which are
available to the libraries which subscribe for them.
RELIGION
T h e religious libraries in the area are practically all
of them sectarian in character. T h e largest is the
R o m a n Catholic library of the Seminary of St. Charles
Borromeo, City Line and Lancaster Avenue, and it is
in some respects the richest, though its administration
seems quite indisposed to cooperate in any plan to in-
tegrate the library resources of the community. It is the
one important library in the area which has declined to
be included in the U n i o n Catalogue. It is intended pri-
marily for the service of the theological and philosoph-
ical departments of the Seminary, and is perhaps the
best library in the area in patristic literature, hagiog-
raphy, and scholastic philosophy. N e x t in size is the
library of the Presbyterian Historical Society, W a l n u t
and Juniper streets. It contains some 75,000 volumes
and is chiefly of value for its material on the Presby-
terian and Reformed churches. It has special collec-
tions on the Westminster Assembly and on Sunday
School singing books. T h e library of the Crozer T h e -
ological Seminary (Baptist) at Chester is a good gen-
2 8 Cf. F. R . Packard. " T h e earliest medical library in the
United States," in Virginia medical quarterly, June 1933.
LIBRARIES
eral religious reference library with particular em-
phasis on the history of the Baptists. Housed in the
same building is the library of the American Baptist
Historical Society. T h e Eastern Baptist T h e o l o g i c a l
Seminary, Lancaster A v e n u e and City Line, contains
a rather valuable collection of early Baptist literature.
T h e r e is only one library of some importance con-
nected with the Protestant Episcopal Church, the
W i l l i a m Bacon Stevens Library of the Protestant Epis-
copal Divinity School, Forty-Second and Locust
streets. It contains the Yarnall Library of T h e o l o g y , a
notable collection of patristic and medieval church
literature. T h e r e is one notable Jewish library, that
at Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learn-
ing, Broad and York streets. It is small and highly
specialized, but very well selected. It contains mate-
rials connected with biblical and rabbinical learning,
the Semitic languages, Jewish history, and Egyptology.
A b o u t ten per cent of its entire collection consists of
bound periodicals. Its books on the Bible make u p
about one-seventh of the collection. Its use for refer-
ence purposes is unrestricted. Of the other religious
libraries, the one at the Academy of the N e w Church
at Bryn A t h y n contains the best collection in the area
of Swedenborgiana. T h e collections on the history of
the Quakers, most of them already noted in connec-
tion with Swarthmore and Haverford libraries, are
important both for their manuscripts and literature
on Quaker history. 29 T h e r e is also much important
material bearing on the history of the Quakers at the
libraries of T h e Historical Society of Pennsylvania
and of T h e Philadelphia Library Company.
SCIENCE
T h e r e are twelve science libraries, but seven of these
are departmental libraries of the University of Penn-
sylvania and are surveyed in the survey of University
libraries, and two are not of sufficient importance to
call for detailed consideration. T h e two great inde-
pendent scientific libraries in the area are those of the
Academy of Natural Sciences and of the American
Philosophical Society.
T h e Academy of Natural Sciences, igoo Race Street,
contains one of the great libraries in its field in Amer-
ica. A survey of its treasures, patterned after the survey
of the University of Pennsylvania libraries, is in prep-
aration, so it will be unnecessary to consider it here
in detail. It is rich in almost all fields of science, no-
tably rich in the natural sciences: botany, zoology,
entomology, geology, and paleontology. It was founded
in 1812 and has been exchanging its publications
with other learned societies since 1817. It is notably
strong in unbroken files of scientific periodicals and
government reports and it regularly receives over 2,500
29 T h e Friends' Center, 304 Arch Street, contains some old
Quaker records (Orthodox branch), the Friends' Central Bureau
(Hicksite branch), 1515 Cherry Street, has transferred most of
its manuscript material to the Friends' Historical Library at
Swarthmore.
 PHILADELPHIA
scientific periodicals. It has a rare collection of o l d
books o n science a n d scientific discovery a n d explora-
tion and is very generous in its attitude toward visit-
ing scholars a n d in its inter-library lending. Its cata-
logue is a n t i q u a t e d a n d inadequate. T h e history of the
A c a d e m y comes near to b e i n g the history of Phila-
delphia as one of the great A m e r i c a n centers in the
study of the natural sciences. B o t h by reason of the
wealth of its collections a n d the progressive a n d pub-
lic-spirited character of its administration, it still re-
mains the obvious nucleus for the further develop-
ment of library resources in the natural sciences
within the area.
T h e A m e r i c a n Philosophical Socicty, f o u n d e d by
B e n j a m i n F r a n k l i n , is the oldest learned society in
America. It has a large e n d o w m e n t f u n d (about
$5,000,000) w h i c h provides generously for the subsi-
dizing of research, for a large p u b l i s h i n g p r o g r a m a n d
for a very well m a n a g e d library. T h e library, F i f t h
and Chestnut streets, contains more than 100,000 vol-
umes and receives over 2,000 bulletins a n d periodicals
by exchange or by subscription. Its o u t s t a n d i n g ma-
terials in order of their i m p o r t a n c e are m a n u s c r i p t
Frankliniana (the largest collection in existence, some
15,000 items), 30 publications of learned societies
throughout the w o r l d , books of historical and of cur-
rent significance on archeology, a n t h r o p o l o g y , a n d the
history of science. T h e library has recently established
a well-equipped d e p a r t m e n t for r e p r o d u c t i o n by mi-
crofilm of manuscripts in its o w n collection. 3 1
T h e membership of the Philosophical Society is
limited to 500, and the great majority of these reside
outside the m e t r o p o l i t a n area. T h e actual use of the
library by its members is consequently a very limited
one, but it is o p e n to all for reference purposes a n d
is very liberal in its policy of inter-library lending. It
is one of the foremost e x p o n e n t s of the cooperative
idea a m o n g the libraries in the area. In its policy of
book purchasing it has a w o r k i n g agreement w i t h the
Historical Society, the F r a n k l i n Institute, a n d the
A c a d e m y of N a t u r a l Sciences so as to avoid needless
duplication. It is well m a n a g e d , well to do, and eager
to play its part in the integration of P h i l a d e l p h i a
library resources. It has already c o n t r i b u t e d gener-
ously to the creation of the U n i o n L i b r a r y C a t a l o g u e .
T h e r e is a particular appropriateness in the fact that
it was f o u n d e d by B e n j a m i n F r a n k l i n , for it expresses
well Franklin's o w n sense of o b l i g a t i o n to the intel-
lectual welfare of his a d o p t e d city.
O n e other scientific library deserves to be m e n t i o n e d
if only because of its size, the W a g n e r Free Institute
of Science at Seventeenth a n d M o n t g o m e r y A v e n u e .
It does not, however, contain any material not f o u n d
30 A calendar of this collection has b e e n p u b l i s h e d by the So-
ciety. O t h e r v a l u a b l e collections of F r a n k l i n in P h i l a d e l p h i a are
at T h e Pennsylvania Historical Society a n d at the University of
Pennsylvania.
3 1 O t h e r fine e q u i p m e n t for work of this sort is at T h e His-
torical Society of Pennsylvania a n d at T e m p l e University.
LIBRARIES 21
in a b u n d a n c e in other scientific libraries in the area,
a n d t h o u g h it is generally accessible for reference use
by the public, it is badly located and its funds are so
restricted that it is not able to k e e p its collections u p
to date.
TECHNOLOGY
T h e r e is only one special library in P h i l a d e l p h i a
well e q u i p p e d in this field, a n d that is the library of
the F r a n k l i n Institute, t h o u g h the University of Penn-
sylvania has g o o d d e p a r t m e n t a l libraries in the M o o r e
School of Electrical E n g i n e e r i n g a n d the T o w n e Scien-
tific School. T h e F r a n k l i n Institute is over a century
old. It has a c k n o w l e d g e d a general educational pur-
pose from the very beginning. It established the first
high school in P h i l a d e l p h i a . T h r o u g h o u t its history it
has played a very active part in p r o m o t i n g technologi-
cal k n o w l e d g e . In its earlier days it organized twenty-
eight industrial expositions of the products of A m e r i c a n
m a n u f a c t u r e , was responsible for the I n t e r n a t i o n a l
Electrical Exposition of 1884 and the N a t i o n a l Ex-
ports Exposition of 1899. It furthers its aims by main-
taining the Bartol Research F o u n d a t i o n , a laboratory
for research in the physical sciences, at Swarthmore,
a n d the B i o c h e m i c a l Research F o u n d a t i o n . Its j o u r n a l ,
published since 1824, is devoted to the progress of the
useful arts and sciences. It maintains a large p u b l i c
m u s e u m and subsidizes p o p u l a r lectures. It began its
library at the time of its f o u n d a t i o n and opened its
first r e a d i n g r o o m in 1829. T o d a y its collections f o r m
one of the i m p o r t a n t technological libraries in A m e r -
ica, b e i n g notably strong in the physical sciences,
in chemistry, a n d in electrical engineering, a n d par-
ticularly in the earlier literature of these subjects. Al-
t h o u g h in general it has p a i d n o attention to material
on the natural sciences or the humanities, it has g o o d
collections on biochemistry, o n naval architecture,
a n d o n the graphic arts.
T h i s library is intended primarily for the use of the
1,400 active members of the Institute, but its privileges
as a reference library are e x t e n d e d to serious students
p u r s u i n g research w i t h i n the scope of its collections. 3 2
It supplies the obvious nucleus for technology in any
integration of the library resources w i t h i n the area. 3 3
T h e technological libraries of business corporations
should be considered, t h o u g h their normal use is of
course confined to the staffs of the corporations, a n d
n o n e of them can be regarded as of o u t s t a n d i n g im-
portance. T h e different libraries of the D u P o n t de
N e m o u r s C o m p a n y , all located just outside the area
but immediately a d j a c e n t to it, contain v a l u a b l e col-
lections on different branches of organic chemistry.
W i t h i n the P h i l a d e l p h i a area itself the corporations
3 2 A student m e m b e r s h i p (limited to those u n d e r twenty-five)
at $3 a year includes the use of the library. A c t i v e m e m b e r s h i p
is $15 a year. A c o m p a n y m e m b e r s h i p is offered at $50 a year,
w h i c h allows ten people in the c o m p a n y to use the library.
3 3 T h e W . B. Stephens M e m o r i a l L i b r a r y at M a n a y u n k , t h o u g h
it has a collection of some size, is little used a n d contains vir-
tually n o t h i n g of value f o r research purposes.
22 PHILADELPHIA
with the oldest and largest technical libraries are the
United Gas Improvement Company, the Philadelphia
Electric Company, the Philadelphia Transportation
Company, and the R C A Manufacturing Company.
Of libraries classified as miscellaneous, the most im-
portant one is that of the Curtis Institute of Music,
1726 Locust Street. It is an excellent musical working
library, covering the entire field of musical research,
technical musical training, and music for performance.
T h o u g h it cannot compare with the Edwin A.
Fleisher collection at the Free Library for orchestral
music, it is strong in operatic and choral music. It
maintains a collection of phonographic records, chiefly
of classical music, 34 but none of these is loaned for use
outside the school. Indeed the use of the library is
virtually confined to the staff and students of the In-
stitute, and a definite change of policy would be in-
volved were it to be adapted to the musical needs of
the community as a whole.
Attention should also be called to the library of the
Pennsylvania School of Social W o r k , which is unique
in its emphasis upon social problems; the library of
the Geographical Society, particularly valuable for its
files of geographical journals and its collection of
maps; the library of the Armstrong Association, de-
voted entirely to Negro problems, and the Edgar
A l l a n Poe house, which contains the largest collection
of Poe's works extant.
W e define a good library as one that has a clear ob-
jective, clearly stated, and a good collection of books
in terms of that objective; one that keeps its collec-
tions u p to date by a well-directed purchasing policy;
one that is efficiently administered; one that is well
patronized. W e do not undertake to criticize the ad-
ministration of our libraries, or to estimate their pa-
tronage, 3 5 but it may be worth while to look at the
libraries in the area as a whole in terms of their ob-
jectives, their collections, and the maintenance of them.
In terms of objectives, the University of Pennsyl-
vania library and the better college libraries all qual-
ify, though it is clear enough that in both cases the
immediate objective has been to some extent modified
by the assumption of certain community responsibili-
ties. T h e University of Pennsylvania, for example,
recognizes broad community obligations, not only to
the academic interests within the community, but also
to the business, professional, scientific, and artistic
interests. In its planning for a new library, it is taking
very definitely into account the accommodation of
scholars and research students, not only from the com-
munity at large but from the world at large. It is con-
templating plans for the establishment of a definite
type of library service to business and to <he profes-
sions. H o w much is done in this direction will be not
a matter of good intent but a matter of financial com-
34 Both the University of Pennsylvania and the Free Library
have large phonographic record collections.
35 It has been said not without some truth that most of our
libraries are bankrupt and most of them empty of readers.
LIBRARIES
petency. T h e Bibliographical Planning Committee,
with the entire approval of the University authorities,
is definitely planning to make the University library
the center and focal point for the integration of the
library resources of the whole metropolitan area. It is
apparent, in short, that the objective of the University
of Pennsylvania library is no longer the limited one of
furnishing library service to the immediate clientele
of the University, but is reaching out to embrace
within its scope certain kinds of library service to the
whole metropolitan area.
In the case of the college libraries, their generous
policy toward outsiders has resulted in their rendering
some library service to the suburban communities in
which they are placed, though it does not appear that
they have definitely undertaken to develop library
service in terms of these communities.
W i t h respect to the purchasing policy of these edu-
cational institutional libraries, it is uncommonly well
directed to its immediate objectives. Colleges and uni-
versities are fortunate in commanding the assistance
of experts in the subjects which their book pur-
chases cover. But the funds available for purchasing
vary greatly from institution to institution. T h e ad-
mirable collections at the University of Pennsylvania
have suffered greatly in recent years from lack of
funds to keep them u p to date. T h e University, in-
deed, as has been pointed out already, allots a smaller
portion of its budget to library purchases than any
of the other great American universities. Of the col-
lege libraries, Swarthmore is enviably rich, Haverford
rather well to do, Bryn M a w r relatively poor. For sev-
eral years T e m p l e University has spent large amounts
in the development of its collections. T h e others
struggle along trying to make bricks without straw.
Here as elsewhere in the Philadelphia library world,
the pinch of poverty is generally so great that the
librarians have become discouraged. T h e y see no hope
of a richer and more abundant life and have almost
ceased to think about it or plead for it, being chiefly
preoccupied with the grim business of mere subsist-
ence.
In college and university libraries, there is no lack
of patronage. In every case their shelves are over-
crowded and their reading-room and research facili-
ties are strained to the utmost. In virtually every
case they are under-staffed.
T h e question may perhaps be raised whether there
has not been a certain disposition on the part of some
librarians to enlarge their collections beyond the needs
of their clientele. W h e n college professors control or
direct book purchasing, they are sometimes disposed to
confuse their own research needs with the needs of
their institution. In the case of Bryn Mawr, where
there is a flourishing graduate school attempting to
operate on the basis of a college library, the problem
of satisfying at once the demands of undergraduate
and graduate students, to say nothing of the faculty, is
a tremendous strain on library funds. T o some extent
 PHILADELPHIA
this strain has been alleviated locally by a cooperative
buying policy with H a v e r f o r d a n d by a free distribu-
tion of books f r o m both libraries among the students
of the two institutions. A n d it must be admitted that
the distance which separates B r y n M a w r (ten miles)
from the larger research libraries within the area
necessitates the development of an independent re-
search library. It should be pointed out also that there
is arrangement for the free interchange of graduate
students among Swarthmore, H a v e r f o r d , B r y n M a w r ,
and the University of Pennsylvania. Indications are
that an even closer integration of work at the gradu-
ate level among these institutions might result in
substantial economies in the purchase of research
material.
Of the public and subscription libraries, it may
be said in general that their objectives are less clearly
defined. T h e management of the Free L i b r a r y has dur-
ing the past few years been so much preoccupied with
the business of providing for the bare necessities that
it has been unable to develop free community services
comparable with those of the most progressive p u b l i c
libraries elsewhere. T h e two great subscription li-
braries, T h e L i b r a r y C o m p a n y and the Mercantile
Library, have both suffered f r o m lack of funds. In
a vague sort of way. their objectives are defined by
the demands of their subscribers, and their purchas-
ing policy is to a considerable extent directed to the
satisfying of these demands. But in the case of T h e
Library C o m p a n y , part of its revenue from endow-
ment is earmarked for particular purposes, and within
the limits of the income f r o m endowment, T h e Li-
brary Company attempts to maintain and enlarge its
collections without specific reference to immediate
demand. From the point of view of the community as
a whole, the importance of T h e L i b r a r y C o m p a n y is
in its unique collection of books accumulated d u r i n g
the two centuries of its history; from the point of
view of its shareholders, its importance is largely meas-
ured by its ability to supply books in current demand.
In fact, it is too poor to carry out both of these func-
tions at one and the same time, i.e., to maintain and
service adequately its great collections and f u r t h e r
to meet the demands of its shareholders f o r current
reading matter. T h e important collections at T h e
L i b r a r y C o m p a n y fall in general within the field of
interest of T h e Historical Society of Pennsylvania or
supplement those of the A m e r i c a n Philosophical So-
ciety, and the question may well be raised whether
some sort of consolidation of T h e L i b r a r y C o m p a n y
with one or the other of these two great libraries
might not at least be considered. Probably it does not
present any greater difficulties in the way of realiza-
tion than the famous consolidation of the Astor, T i l -
den, and L e n n o x foundations in N e w Y o r k City. 3 ®
36
T h e major difficulty, it is realized, in the way of such a
fusion lies in the terms of the trust under which T h e Library
Company holds the Ridgway Branch and its endowment. These
LIBRARIES 23
T h e objectives of the special libraries are clear
enough, and in the case of the two greatest, those of
the College of Physicians and the Academy of N a t u r a l
Sciences, it is perfectly clear that in their special fields
and within the limits of their resources, both are
doing magnificent work and both are taking the most
generous attitude toward the needs of the area as a
whole. W h a t they lack is an adequate income to per-
fect the services which they render at present and to
extend their usefulness to other types of service of
which they dream. T h e same thing is true to a lesser
extent of T h e Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
T h e r e the resources are more adequate, but there the
transition has not been completed, as it has in the
other two libraries, from the library of a private society
to the special library of a community. Accredited re-
search workers are accommodated at T h e Historical
Society to the limits of its capacity. B u t its capacity is
very limited and no provision is being made, or ap-
parently even contemplated, for enlarging it. Its cata-
logue is still an antiquated affair, its cooperation in
inter-library lending reluctant. On the other hand,
T h e Historical Society has in the past generously
provided housing accommodation for the U n i o n Cata-
logue. It has set up an admirable department for the
supplying of photostats and microfilms of its rarities.
A n d both in its excellent magazine and in its oc-
casional publications it is making important con-
tributions in the fields of its special interest. T o a
considerable extent, its growth as a library has been
haphazard, since most of its treasures come by gift.
It does, however, within its resources, follow a fairly
consistent policy in r o u n d i n g out its collections on the
history of Pennsylvania, particularly on the Colonial
and R e v o l u t i o n a r y periods. Certainly this library is a
very significant one, and certainly it is very important
that there should be within the community some spe-
cial library devoted to the history of the city and
the state. T h e simplest way to increase its general
usefulness is by increasing its membership. It is open
to virtually everyone interested by payment of a mod-
est membership fee ($6.00 a year, $50 life member-
ship). A private society, financed for the most part by
endowment earmarked for special purposes, is hardly
free to extend its facilities to all comers on equal
terms. A n d yet there is clearly a need f o r a library de-
voted to local history, which shall be at least as gen-
erous to outsiders as the College of Physicians or the
A c a d e m y of N a t u r a l Sciences.
terms forbid the connection of T h e Library Company with any
other corporate body.
Before leaving the subject of subscription libraries we record
with satisfaction that both T h e Library Company and the Mer-
cantile Library have made frequent donations of their duplicates
to the Free Library. We urge the extension of this generous
practice. Fiction and popular non-fiction which has gone out of
fashion crowd the shelves of the two large subscription libraries.
These books are catalogued and ready for use but seldom if
ever circulated and could easily be loaned or given outright to
libraries where the demand is great and the shelves are bare.
24 PHILADELPHIA LIBRARIES
O f the other libraries classed as special, the library
of the A m e r i c a n Philosophical Society is perhaps the
most public-spirited. Its resources are ample, its staff
is competent. A n d it is directing its purchases to the
business of r o u n d i n g o u t its collections of learned
journals a n d of the publications of learned societies,
w i t h reference to the needs of the area as a whole,
avoiding d u p l i c a t i o n w h e r e sets are available else-
where w i t h i n the area, filling gaps where they exist.
A l t h o u g h it possesses many book rarities, it is wisely
resisting that constant temptation of all librarians to
enlarge its collection of rare a n d expensive books.
T h e F r a n k l i n Institute, o u r great technical library,
is primarily still a society library, t h o u g h it is avail-
able as a reference library to properly qualified appli-
cants. I n view of the disproportionate increase in the
n u m b e r of o u r technicians per capita of population, it
is apparent that w e shall have to face an increasing de-
m a n d for books in the field of technology. Obviously
the F r a n k l i n Institute is best e q u i p p e d to meet that
demand, a n d it is to be h o p e d that it will assume the
f u l l measure of responsibility for m e e t i n g it. If, how-
ever, it is to be recognized as the concentration point
for books o n technology w i t h i n the area, it must
necessarily be the chief agency for distribution of
books w i t h i n the area t h r o u g h inter-library loans.
T h e r e is virtually no inter-library l e n d i n g from the
F r a n k l i n Institute at present. It should be pointed
out, of course, that its active m e m b e r s h i p is open to
virtually all comers and carries w i t h it not only the
use of the library b u t the right to borrow books; but
its active m e m b e r s h i p fee is h i g h ($15.00) as compared
w i t h other subscription libraries w i t h i n the area.
T h o u g h it provides a student m e m b e r s h i p with li-
brary privileges for those u n d e r twenty-five years of
age at a m u c h more modest figure ($3.00) and a com-
pany m e m b e r s h i p for corporations, neither of these
meets the needs of the struggling y o u n g engineer.
In general the area is well s u p p l i e d w i t h books
in all the i m p o r t a n t fields of k n o w l e d g e , though the
prevalent poverty of our libraries has prevented the
maintenance of a liberal b u y i n g policy in many fields.
T h i s is notably true of the University of Pennsylvania
libraries, w h e r e n o t h i n g like completeness in pertinent
current literature can be m a i n t a i n e d . I n the case of
the Free L i b r a r y , fewer books for h o m e circulation
are added by purchase a n n u a l l y than are annually
removed f r o m the shelves. O u r special libraries, w i t h
a few exceptions, are equally hard p u t to it to keep
abreast of the current literature in their respective
fields. T a k i n g our library resources as a whole, we
have a great treasury of books in the aggregate, and
n o glaring weaknesses. T h o u g h w e are strongest in
the fields of medicine a n d the natural sciences, o u r
greatest strength is in the older works a n d our great-
est weakness in the current ones. In short, our fore-
fathers were m u c h more liberal in their provision for
library needs than w e are.
A n o t h e r weakness, not easy to discuss or define be-
cause no precise standards can be applied, is weakness
in personnel. Librarians need to c o m m a n d a mastery
of those professional techniques w h i c h are acquired by
formal training. B u t they need always to remember
that their work is not completed w h e n they have dis-
covered and applied the most efficient ways of order-
ing, cataloguing, and circulating books. T h e y must
remember that they are primarily educators, w h i c h
means that they must understand their clientele, a n d
not only serve its present needs but develop its poten-
tial needs. It means that if they are general librarians,
they must be people of broad learning, alert to the cul-
tural requirements of the c o m m u n i t y ; if they are spe-
cial librarians, they must be masters in the field of
their specialty. T h e difficulty w i t h many of our li-
brarians is that they get so immersed in the mere
business of operating the mechanics of a library that
they lose sight of its purpose a n d its objectives. W e
need in Philadelphia more librarians w i t h a realistic
sense of the cultural and social implications of their
position. Perhaps we need more trustees of libraries
w h o themselves appreciate the nature of the trust
w h i c h they are called u p o n to administer. In general,
library salaries are far too low. In general, library
staffs are s m a l l — n o t small, perhaps, as measured by
library use, but small w i t h relation to the size and
value of the collections administered. O n e very good
reason why so many fine Philadelphia libraries w h i c h
o u g h t to be busy research centers are idle is that the
librarians in charge are not fully aware of their
o w n treasures a n d are not taking adequate steps to
make them generally k n o w n . O u r library publicity is
very poor indeed. W i t h the most precious commodity
in the w o r l d to dispense, we do not apply one-tenth
of the energy to the advertising of it that goes into
the sale of a patent medicine.
A n o t h e r great weakness in o u r library system, as
it is at present constituted, is that a large part of
our book treasury is easily accessible only to a very
insignificant minority of our reading public. T h e
scholar is relatively well provided for, particularly
if he be attached to one of our institutions of learning;
the doctor is admirably provided for at the College of
Physicians; the lawyer, particularly if he be a member
of the Bar Association; the engineer if he be a mem-
ber of the F r a n k l i n Institute. B u t the great lack is in
library facilities for the great mass of readers w h o d o
not fall w i t h i n professional categories. W e have no
systematic library service for business men, a n d make
no systematic positive attempt to meet their library
needs. Indeed, the average business man has ceased
to regard library service as an important part of his
stock-in-trade, w i t h the result that libraries have to
a large extent lost one of their best customers. O u r
libraries are playing almost no aggressive, active part
in the w h o l e important field of adult education. It is
clear that we are faced in Philadelphia not only w i t h
the problem of greater integration of existing library
resources, but also w i t h the problem of a great en-
 PHILADELPHIA
largement of those resources and a more specific ap-
plication of them to the potential as well as to the
actual needs of the metropolitan area as a whole. T h e
Bibliographical Center, if and when it is firmly estab-
lished, will have more to do than servicing adequately
our existing treasuries of books. It will have to stimu-
late growth, plan for increased service, and generally
awaken the community as a whole to the importance
LIBRARIES 25
of the library in all walks of life and at all levels of
intelligence.
It is a very distressing fact that Philadelphia, which
was the recognized leader of the American library
world a century and a half ago, has slipped back
into a relatively obscure place, and that its chief
library glories are relics of the past, not creations of
the present.
 Chapter III
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBRARY COORDINATION
GIVEN the library resources of the Philadelphia area
as we have described them to be, we face the problem
of making these resources generally available with
a maximum amount of efficiency and at a minimum of
cost. At the outset this involves an act of faith. We
assume that libraries are interested in serving the li-
brary needs of the inquiring world, and that any plan
which enables them to serve these needs more ade-
quately and more economically will command their
support. T h e i r types of service will, of course, vary
with their resources and their objectives. It will be
one type from Dropsie College, for example, and
quite another type from the Philadelphia Free Li-
brary. But the ideal of the library as a public-service
institution we accept without debate, and we leave
out of account those libraries which cater solely to
the needs of a select and exclusive group. 1 It is dis-
tressing to discover that some of our older libraries,
founded though they were by public-spirited citizens
with broad democratic ideals of the place of the li-
brary in the community, have fallen into the control
of those who regard them rather as private hoards
than as centers for either the advancement of knowl-
edge or the wider dissemination of knowledge. But
fortunately, library councils are mortal and good
books last longer than those who seek to inter them
behind glass cases, fine bindings, and inhospitable
custodians. What one short-sighted, self-centered gov-
erning board can do, another broad-minded, public-
spirited governing board can undo. It is interesting to
observe that two of our greatest libraries which began
as little private group affairs are now recognized as
great national centers of research and are notoriously
generous in their care and consideration of all work-
ers in their special fields. We refer to the Academy of
Natural Sciences and the College of Physicians.
In the metropolitan area we have a great treasury
of books in the aggregate. If that treasury were gath-
ered into one great library, that library would be one
of the greatest libraries in America and one of the
great libraries in the world. But what if we could du-
1
W e admit, of course, that many privately owned a n d pri-
vately m a i n t a i n e d libraries are in a position to render impor-
tant p u b l i c services, but only in so f a r as they recognize a p u b l i c
obligation do they fall within o u r survey. T h i s p u b l i c obliga-
tion need not necessarily take the form of the extension of li-
brary privileges to the general public. Even in public libraries
the use of rare a n d valuable books may p r o p e r l y be restricted
to those competent to handle such books, just as we properly
restrain the public from h a n d l i n g fragile objets d'art in o u r
p u b l i c museums. B u t restriction of use based merely and solely
upon private property rights is to be condemned in any library
with any claim to consideration as a public-service institution.
plicate or at any rate approximate the facilities of such
a super-library by a close federation of existing libraries
and by the development of machinery by which we
could make the resources of all these libraries easily
accessible and bring them under easy control? We
have the books, we have all the modern facilities of
easy and rapid communication. T h e obstacles in the
way are man-made and can be man-unmade. No one
in his senses would deny the value of a very great
library for Philadelphia. Why can't we envisage such
a very great library, not housed, perhaps, under one
roof, but animated by one spirit and directed to those
two great ends, the advancement of knowledge and
the wider dissemination of knowledge? If we accept
these ends as desirable, it ought to be possible to de-
vise ways and means.
T h e idea of some coordination of the resources of
different libraries is neither new nor revolutionary.
T h e inter-library loan, for example, goes back prob-
ably to the Middle Ages. We know definitely of an
organized system of inter-library lending established
in 1599 between the ducal library at Wolfenbuettel
and the university library at Helmstedt. According
to E. C. Richardson, the late librarian of Princeton
University, 2 there was some foreshadowing of union
cataloguing, at least as far back as the libraries of
ancient Assyria. When in 1903 J a h r and Strohm pub-
lished a bibliography of cooperative cataloguing, 3 it
contained no less than 366 items. Stereotyping of cards
for cooperative use was proposed by E. C. Jewett in the
early 1850's, 4 photographic reproduction of titles for
cataloguing purposes by Henry Stevens (Patent 2590)
in 1871. Common depositories for little-used books
were advocated by the president of Harvard University
in 1902, and the conference of the American Library
Association in 1909 was devoted to a discussion of co-
operation. Even the idea of a bibliographical center
is not a novel one. Such centers have existed in many
European countries for many years. For example, the
Frankfort Union Catalogue, which serves also as an in-
formation center, was started in i8gi, and the Aus-
kunftstelle at Berlin in 1905. In this connection the
following quotation from an article by Sidney Webb,
written nearly forty years ago with reference to the
library situation in London, is pertinent:
T o the twentieth-century person the collective pro-
2
In A. B . B e r t h o l d , comp. Union catalogues. Philadelphia,
1936, p. v.
3
T . J a h r a n d A . J . Strohm, Bibliography of cooperative cata-
loguing. W a s h i n g t o n , 1903.
* C f . A . B . B e r t h o l d , op. cit., p. 6 1 , no. 3 1 5 .
 DEVELOPMENT OF LIBRARY COORDINATION
v i s i o n of b o o k s is as m u c h a m a t t e r of c o u r s e as t h e
c o l l e c t i v e p r o v i s i o n of roads. . . . T h e p u b l i c l i b r a r y
s e r v i c e is as m u c h a necessity of the l i f e of a c i v i l i z e d
city as a p u b l i c w a t e r s u p p l y .
B y the p h r a s e " l i b r a r y s e r v i c e " I d o n o t d e n o t e sim-
p l y t h e staff of officials w h o h a n d l e the b o o k s , b u t t h e
f u n c t i o n i t s e l f — t h e p r o v i s i o n of b o o k s accessible to
s t u d e n t s a n d readers of d i f f e r e n t classes. H o w is this
vast l i b r a r y service o r g a n i z e d ? T h e a n s w e r is t h a t it
is n o t o r g a n i z e d at all. E a c h of the . . . l i b r a r i e s h u g s
its o w n stores, has its o w n m o r e o r less i m p e r f e c t cata-
l o g u e o n its o w n p a r t i c u l a r system, k n o w s n o t h i n g of
w h a t exists o u t s i d e its o w n shelves, accretes its o w n
accessions in its o w n i n d i v i d u a l w a y , d e c i d e s o n its
o w n purchases without regard for what other libraries
m a y be a c q u i r i n g , a n d — a s f a r as I c a n l e a r n - — m a k e s
n o t t h e slightest pretense at r e g a r d i n g its o w n p a r t i c u -
l a r c o l l e c t i o n as m e r e l y o n e i t e m in [the city's] vast li-
b r a r y service, w h i c h c a n n o t , w i t h o u t o r g a n i z a t i o n
a t t a i n its m a x i m u m of efficiency. T h e l i b r a r y s e r v i c e
of a g r e a t city c a n a n d surely o u g h t to be s o m e t h i n g
m o r e t h a n a c o u p l e of h u n d r e d a l m o s t a c c i d e n t a l
h e a p s of m i s c e l l a n e o u s v o l u m e s , e a c h m a i n t a i n e d a n d
m a n a g e d in j e a l o u s i s o l a t i o n f r o m the rest, a n d l i m i t e d
in its p u b l i c u t i l i t y by the l a c k of c o m m u n i c a t i o n be-
t w e e n the h e a p s — e v e n , u s u a l l y by a d e n s e i g n o r a n c e
i n those in c h a r g e of e a c h h e a p as to w h a t m a y b e
h i d d e n in every o t h e r h e a p . . . I v e n t u r e t o b e l i e v e
t h a t . . . a c o m b i n e d survey of o u r . . . h e a p s w o u l d
d o u b l e t h e i r a g g r e g a t e u t i l i t y , a n d m a k e the m o n e y
available for new purchases go very m u c h f u r t h e r
t h a n it d o e s at p r e s e n t .
T h e difficulty of c o m b i n i n g in a n y o n e s c h e m e a
c o u p l e of h u n d r e d d i f f e r e n t l i b r a r i e s of v e r y v a r y i n g
c o n s t i t u t i o n , o b j e c t s , sizes a n d m a y I a d d , d e g r e e s of
p u b l i c s p i r i t a n d i n t e l l i g e n c e is, of c o u r s e , v e r y g r e a t .
. . . If w e w a n t l i b r a r y service to t a k e its p l a c e w i t h
t h e m e d i c a l service o r the t r a i n e d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e serv-
ice of the m o d e r n state, w e m u s t s h o w t h a t w e t h i n k
of it as a p u b l i c service of n o less i m p o r t a n c e a n d n o
less s c o p e t h a n t h e s e — w e must, it is c l e a r , e x p a n d o u r
ideas of its c o - o r d i n a t i o n , d e v e l o p m e n t a n d e d u c a -
tion.6
W e b b d i d n o t w r i t e in v a i n , a n d t o d a y the best-
k n o w n a n d possibly the best-organized p l a n of l i b r a r y
c o o r d i n a t i o n is in G r e a t B r i t a i n . N i n e r e g i o n a l g r o u p s
c o v e r t h e p u b l i c l i b r a r y system of E n g l a n d a n d W a l e s .
T h e y are coordinated by the N a t i o n a l C e n t r a l Li-
b r a r y . I n all, 454 l i b r a r i e s (340 p u b l i c , 55 c o u n t y , 16
u n i v e r s i t y , a n d 43 special libraries) c o o p e r a t e . Inter-
l i b r a r y l o a n s d u r i n g o n e y e a r (1936-37) a m o u n t e d t o
43,277 v o l u m e s , to w h i c h a r e to be a d d e d 82,507 vol-
u m e s l e n t d i r e c t l y by the N a t i o n a l C e n t r a l L i b r a r y t o
l o c a l l i b r a r i e s in B r i t a i n . T h e g r a n d t o t a l of 125,784
is i m p r e s s i v e . 6 T h e N a t i o n a l C e n t r a l L i b r a r y ' s p u r -
c h a s i n g p o l i c y is d i r e c t e d to the p u r c h a s e of b o o k s
a s k e d f o r a n d n o t f o u n d in a n y o n e of t h e c o o p e r a t i n g
libraries.
5I n L i b r a r y Association, Record, v. 4, p. 193-203, 1902.
β C f . G . C o l l o n , Cooperation entre bibliotheques regionales en
Angleterre. I n Revue du livre.—Nouvelle s i r i e — n o s . 4-6, p. 155-
'59· '939-
27
I n a d d i t i o n to this the S c i e n c e M u s e u m L i b r a r y
i n L o n d o n is the c e n t e r of a p p r o v e d r e s e a r c h institu-
t i o n s in t h e e x a c t a n d t e c h n i c a l sciences; it l e n d s t o
them, to individuals t h r o u g h libraries and to the
p u b l i c l i b r a r i e s t h r o u g h the N a t i o n a l C e n t r a l L i b r a r y .
A b o u t 18,000 v o l u m e s w e r e l e n t t h r o u g h this c h a n -
n e l in 1935. T h e s a m e l i b r a r y acts as a n i n f o r m a t i o n
c e n t e r f o r scientific a n d t e c h n i c a l i n q u i r y . 7
T h e B r i t i s h M u s e u m is r e c o g n i z e d as the l i b r a r y
c e n t e r f o r all r e s e a r c h . Its accession lists, p r i n t e d o n
o n e side o n l y , a r e a m o s t i m p o r t a n t m e d i u m f o r co-
o p e r a t i o n in c a t a l o g u i n g b y l i b r a r i e s in G r e a t B r i t a i n .
U n i o n lists p u b l i s h e d in G r e a t B r i t a i n a r e n u m e r o u s .
T h e y a r e listed in M u m m e n d y . 8
I n G e r m a n y the p r o b l e m of c o o r d i n a t i n g l i b r a r y
s e r v i c e is c o n s i d e r a b l y s i m p l i f i e d , by r e a s o n of the f a c t
t h a t a l m o s t a l l G e r m a n r e s e a r c h l i b r a r i e s a r e con-
t r o l l e d by t h e State. T h e u n i o n c a t a l o g u e of G e r m a n
l i b r a r i e s started o r i g i n a l l y as a u n i o n c a t a l o g u e o f
P r u s s i a n libraries.® T h i s u n i o n c a t a l o g u e ( G e s a m t -
k a t a l o g ) a n d the i n f o r m a t i o n c e n t e r ( A u s k u n f t s b u r e a u )
a t the S t a t e L i b r a r y in B e r l i n a r e w e l l k n o w n . 1 0 T w o
G e r m a n l i b r a r i e s p r o v i d e accession lists f o r use i n
c o o p e r a t i v e c a t a l o g u i n g , t h e P r u s s i a n State L i b r a r y
a n d t h e D e u t s c h e B u c h e r e i in L e i p z i g . T h e p u b l i c a -
t i o n of s u c h accession lists is w i d e s p r e a d t h r o u g h o u t
E u r o p e a n d has d e m o n s t r a t e d its m a n i f o l d u s e f u l n e s s .
Less k n o w n is the f a c t t h a t G e r m a n r e s e a r c h l i b r a r i e s
h a v e a u n i f i e d system of statistics p u b l i s h e d a n n u a l l y
in t h e V e r e i n d e u t s c h e r B i b l i o t h e k a r e , Jahrbuch der
deutschen Bibliotheken. I n t e r - l i b r a r y l o a n is w e l l or-
g a n i z e d a n d so is the system of s p e c i a l i z e d p u r c h a s i n g .
T h e N o t g e m e i n s c h a f t finances t h e a c q u i s i t i o n of im-
p o r t a n t material for different G e r m a n libraries. For
e x a m p l e , it subsidizes t h e p u r c h a s e of 3,586 f o r e i g n
p e r i o d i c a l s . U n i o n lists a n d u n i o n b i b l i o g r a p h i e s h a v e
b e e n p u b l i s h e d in G e r m a n y f o r m a n y y e a r s . 1 1
I n p r e - w a r A u s t r i a , c o o p e r a t i o n f o l l o w e d closely the
G e r m a n p a t t e r n . T h e N a t i o n a l L i b r a r y at V i e n n a
a c t e d as a n i n f o r m a t i o n c e n t e r a n d p u b l i s h e d a u n i o n
accession list.
Switzerland started c o m p a r a t i v e l y early w i t h regional
u n i o n c a t a l o g u e s . 1 2 T h e N a t i o n a l L i b r a r y at B e r n e is
n o w s e r v i n g as a c e n t r a l c o o r d i n a t i n g b o d y in accord-
a n c e w i t h a p l a n d r a w n u p by M . G o d e t a n d passed by
t h e F e d e r a l g o v e r n m e n t in 1 9 2 7 . 1 3 S w i t z e r l a n d p u b -
lishes a u n i o n list of serials a n d a n accession list of
7 C f . H . D. Spratt, Libraries for scientific research. London,
1936.
8 R. Mummendy, Bibliographie der Gesamt-Zeitschriften-Ver-
zeichntsse. 1939.
9 T h e o r i g i n a l p l a n c a n be traced b a c k at least as far as 1842.
C f . Serapeum, v. 3, p . 247-256, 1842.
10 Bibliography on t h e A u s k u n f t s b u r e a u , cf. F. M i l k a u , ed.,
Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft. L e i p z i g , 1933, ν. 2, p .
442-444. It d e a l t in 1932 w i t h 17,235 l o c a t i o n a n d 1,572 s u b j e c t
requests.
1 1 C f . M u m m e n d y , op. cit.
12 Z i i r i c h — 1 9 0 0 ; Geneva—1918.
1 3 It a n s w e r e d over 1,000 requests in 1931. C f . F. M i l k a u , op.
cit., v. 2, p. 452.
28 PHILADELPHIA
Swiss publications and maintains a well-organized sys-
tem of inter-library loans.
Denmark is noteworthy in the library world be-
cause of its interesting system of specialization. It is,
of course, a small country, and inter-library lending
is greatly simplified because distances are short, but
the Danish system might be applied in regional areas
of larger countries. In Denmark, responsibility for the
acquisition of foreign books is divided. T h e Royal
Library at Copenhagen covers the humanities, the
University Library the sciences. T h e r e is a Danish
union list of foreign books in Danish libraries and
a subject index of some 225 Scandinavian periodicals
(Dansk Tidsskrift-Index). T h e Statsbibliothek Aarhus
lends to all adults outside Copenhagen and a special
loan system has been established, under which some
270 scientific periodicals are circulated among 500
subscribers.
T h e situation in Norway also presents some features
of special interest. T h e library office in the Ministry
of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education furnishes books
to libraries, at a discount of from 10 to 20%, with
Dewey number, Cutter number, pocket, and one
printed card. A bookbinder under contract with the
same office does binding work for the libraries. In
addition to this, the Oslo University Library supplies
some research libraries with cards printed on its ad-
dressograph machine.
T h e Netherlands have a well-developed system of
documentation, a union catalogue (1922) for the four
university libraries, a centralized information service
which answered 21,515 requests in 1932, 14 and an
inter-library lending system. National developments
in France and in Belgium are less significant. How-
ever, in 1927 a Commission de Coordination des
Bibliotheques was created in France. Α Liste alpha-
betique des nouvelles acquisitions des bibliotheques
universitaires has been published yearly since 1891. 15
A n d in 1928 was started the Bureau d'Orientation at
the Biblioth£que Nationale.
Besides these national ventures in library coopera-
tion, there are some interesting developments in inter-
national cooperation. T h e U n i o n Catalogue of the
International Institute of Documentation in Brussels
is the nearest approach to an international union cata-
logue. In 1934 it contained 10,451,596 author entries
and 4,207,604 subject entries based primarily on
information extracted from printed library catalogues.
T h e International Institute of Intellectual Coopera-
tion in Paris, a subsidiary of the League of Nations,
was definitely devoted to the promotion of intellectual
cooperation among the nations. Forty-five nations were
represented. 1 6 It published in 1928 (reprinted 1933)
a Guide des services nationaux de renseignements.
1 4 Cf. N.I.D.E.K. Documentation
directories for the Nether-
lands. T h e Hague, 1937.
1 5 Cf. C. Beaulieux in Universiti de Paris. Annates, v. 8, p. 237-
268- 19ЗЗ·
1 6 Attention should be called to J. H . P. Pafford, Library co-
operation in Europe. London, 1934, where additional material
LIBRARIES
Library cooperation has not made as m u c h progress
in the United States as it has in Germany or Great
Britain or some of the smaller countries of Europe.
In general, American library cooperation of any ef-
fective sort has been local in its scope and more or
less haphazard in its development. W e do not mean
to imply that there has not been a great deal of
thought given to the subject and a great deal of in-
fluence in the direction of closer cooperation exerted.
T h e American Library Association and to a lesser
degree the Special Libraries Association and library
schools such as those at Columbia University and
the University of Chicago have done a great deal and
are doing a great deal to supply the basic facts for
any intelligent consideration of the problem. Never-
theless, if we except the very considerable contribu-
tions made by the Library of Congress to cooperation
and standardization in cataloguing, to the development
of inter-library lending on a national scale and to
the compilation of a national union catalogue, the
establishment of library cooperation on a national
scale in the United States has hardly got started. Local
cooperation has made most progress in areas where
book resources are slim and far-scattered and where
adequate funds for the development of good libraries
are lacking, chiefly in the south and far west. Much of
it has been stimulated and in large measure financed
by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
T h e complete story of the cooperative movement
among libraries in the United States has yet to be
written, and no attempt is made to write it here. It
has taken various forms. In Atlanta, Georgia, it has
resulted in a consolidation of three libraries (Atlanta
University, Morehouse College, and Spellman College)
and the cooperation of this unit with the libraries of
Morris Brown College, Clark University, and Gam-
mon Theological Seminary. In the same area, the li-
braries of Emory University, Agnes Scott College, and
the Georgia School of Technology have worked out a
program of cooperation. In North Carolina, the li-
braries of Duke University and the University of
North Carolina have established a close inter-library
loan relationship, have exchanged their catalogues and
have coordinated their purchasing policies. Both have
jointly received a grant of $50,000 (1936) which has
been used in equal parts for the purchase of items,
without duplicating material in either library. In
Richmond, Virginia, a working agreement among the
Virginia State Library, the University of Richmond,
the Medical School of Virginia, the R i c h m o n d Public
Library, the Virginia Historical Society, Virginia Me-
chanics Institute, and the Union Theological Sem-
inary has led to specialization in buying policy and
some cooperation in surveys of special fields. In Mis-
souri, a union list of serials for twenty-seven libraries
has been compiled and a union catalogue is under
and bibliographical notes can be found. A n urgent need exists
for a similar survey of cooperative movements in the United
States.
 D E V E L O P M E N T OF L I B R A R Y
construction. In New Orleans, Howard Library and
the library of Tulane University, while retaining their
individual identities, have consolidated under one li-
brarian. They have arranged to correlate their buying
policy with that of Louisiana State University. In
Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, the Pea-
body Institute, and Scarrett College have developed a
union catalogue, have coordinated their buying pol-
icy, and have pooled their resources for the purchase
of certain essential equipment (e.g., Library of Con-
gress depository catalogue and micro-photography
equipment). In Texas, the State University has coor-
dinated its buying policy for source materials with
that of Baylor University on the one hand and the
State Library on the other. And the University has
also created a union catalogue of Texiana. In Mary-
land, some coordination in buying books has been ar-
ranged between Johns Hopkins and the Peabody
Institute, and in Washington, D. C., an analogous ar-
rangement is in effect among the Carnegie Institution,
the Pan-American Union library, and the National
Academy of Sciences.
In New York City, over forty years ago, Columbia
University and the New York Public Library pro-
pounded a plan for coordination in book buying, in
which the major responsibility for ccrtain fields was
allocated. T h e plan was never fully applied but it
does, to some extent, still influence the buying policy
of both institutions. T h e consolidation of the Astor,
Lenox, and Tilden libraries is well known. Less am-
bitious projects have been undertaken in New York
City at various times. For example, the art depart-
ments of the New York Public Library, Columbia
University, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Brook-
lyn Museum inform each other of their accessions. In
Chicago a notable experiment in cooperation was em-
bodied in an agreement (1907) between the John
Crerar Library and the Newberry Library in which the
two libraries not only assumed responsibility for cer-
tain fields but actually transferred a large number of
books as a concrete expression of the arrangement.
Today the Newberry Library is the undisputed center
for study in the humanities in the middle west, and
the Crerar Library the center for science and medi-
cine.
There have been some interesting experiments in
cooperation in the far west. In Oregon, for example,
the libraries of the State system (seven libraries) have
been closely coordinated, a union catalogue has been
created, order work has been centralized, records,
forms, statistics, and cataloguing practice have been
standardized, inter-library loan has been fully devel-
oped, bibliographical and indexing work is being done
cooperatively, and the purchasing policy correlated.
This is cooperation in its most advanced form. Another
notable example from the West is at Denver, Colorado,
where a bibliographical center has been established,
a union catalogue of the region prepared, various es-
sential bibliographical lists assembled, and the work
COORDINATION 29
of developing a correlated buying policy among the
libraries within the region well advanced.
This is by no means an exhaustive account of the
development of library coöperation in the United
States, but it will serve to illustrate the progress of the
movement.
In general these local efforts when they do not go
so far as the consolidation of libraries take the form
of union catalogues, extended inter-library loans, and
the recognition of specialization in correlated book
buying. There has been little disposition to establish
a central purchasing agency, though a notable ex-
ample of that sort (under the supervision of Mr.
Bishop) financed by the Carnegie Corporation of New
York, was set up for a number of libraries. It has
spent over a million dollars and resulted in a consid-
erable saving in cost to the libraries cooperating. 17
Union catalogues have developed apace, 1 8 as have
union lists of periodicals. 19 Cooperative cataloguing
has been extensively developed.
What emerges from all these experiments and from
a survey of the pertinent literature on the subject is
that coöperation among libraries is far advanced in
Europe and is making considerable headway in Amer-
ica. Both in thought and in practice this coöperation
is defining itself in the following forms:
(a) Surveys of individual libraries or groups of li-
braries, particularly with reference to their adminis-
tration and their holdings. T h i s is generally recog-
nized as the indispensable preliminary to any plan of
coöperation among libraries.
(b) T h e allocation of responsibility for special fields
among a group of libraries.
(c) Coöperation in book selection and book buying.
(d) Coöperation in cataloguing and in the classifi-
cation and subject analysis of books.
(e) Coöperation in bibliographical work and in doc-
umentation.
(f) Coöperation in book storage.
(g) Coöperation in the development of inter-library
lending.
(h) T h e formulation, adoption, and standardization
of library policies, practices, and privileges.
(i) T h e preparation and maintenance of union cata-
logues for libraries of a certain group in a certain
area, and of information and bibliographical centers.
(j) Coöperation of libraries with other groups and
organizations.
In the following chapters we shall discuss more in
detail these recognized fields of coöperation and con-
sider their application to the problem of coordinating
the library resources of the Philadelphia metropolitan
area.
17
Cf. Bishop's account in Library quarterly, v. 7, p. 465 et seq.,
»937·
18
Cf. A. B. Berthold, op. cit. Mr. Berthold, in coöperation with
L. C. Merritt and J . P. Stone, is now working on an investigation
of union catalogues for the American Library Association, spon-
sored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
19
Cf. Mummendy, op. cit.
 Chapter IV
UNION LIBRARY CATALOGUES
THE first step in any systematic integration of the li-
brary resources in any geographic area is a union cata-
logue. In the Philadelphia metropolitan area this step
has already been taken. How the Philadelphia Union
Catalogue was created and has functioned during the
three years in which it has been a going concern is
set forth at length in Appendix B.
It is important at the outset to distinguish between
a union catalogue and a bibliographical center. A
union catalogue may develop into a bibliographical
center or it may serve simply as the indispensable tool
of a bibliographical center. Most of our cooperative
efforts in America have started by cooperation of one
variety and have little by little expanded to coopera-
tion of other varieties. It does not really matter so
much how the cooperative idea originates or how it
develops, but in any systematic approach to the whole
problem of cooperation it is desirable, in the interest
of clarity, to distinguish between those functions
which are primarily the purpose of a particular agency
and those which call for the development of other
related agencies. In Philadelphia, for example, the
Union Catalogue has come to be the effective instru-
ment for drawing into a common focus the libraries
of the area. It has been the active germinating nucleus
of the cooperative idea. Within the small group gov-
erning the Union Catalogue the whole concept of a
bibliographical center for the area was conceived and,
within its slender resources, the Union Catalogue of
Philadelphia has not hesitated to stimulate and sup-
port various types of cooperative library enterprises.
But it is apparent that the staff of a union catalogue
is not adequate to develop any such full program of
cooperation as has been envisaged in the concluding
paragraphs of our last chapter. It is, therefore, in no
critical spirit that we undertake to distinguish here
between what is primarily the function of a union
catalogue and what are the various other cooperative
enterprises to which a union catalogue may be an-
cillary.
T h e primary purpose of a union catalogue is to sup-
ply an inventory of the books available in libraries
within the area it covers and to indicate the location
of any particular item in that inventory. T h a t means,
of course, that it not only has to take account of the
common book stock but that it has to be organized
to record quickly any changes in that common stock,
either by addition or by subtraction, and, of course,
it must be in a position to transmit this information
immediately, not only to local inquirers but also to
inquirers from the world at large. It is not necessary,
it may not even be desirable, to open the catalogue
files to everyone wishing to make use of them, but if
not, it must be controlled by a trained staff and have
adequate telephone facilities.
T h e second important function of a union library
catalogue is to provide a model catalogue entry of
every item in its files. When it is remembered that
the union catalogue is nothing much more in essence
than a combination of all the catalogues of all the li-
braries embraced by it, and when it is further remem-
bered that individual libraries do not always supply
bibliographically correct cards of their holdings and
that their practices vary considerably, it is evident that
the task of editing the individual entries in the union
catalogue is a very great one. And yet it is hard to
imagine any greater service in the direction of stand-
ardizing cataloguing practice within the area than the
establishment of an authority file. T o a considerable
extent the editorial task can be simplified by the ac-
ceptance of the Library of Congress standard and by
the use of Library of Congress cards for every entry
which has been catalogued at the Library of Congress.
For that reason the union catalogue should be lo-
cated in close proximity to a Library of Congress de-
pository catalogue. But even so, there are so many
entries (an estimated 30%) in the Philadelphia Cata-
logue which are not duplicated in the Library of Con-
gress that the editorial work will still be a heavy and
prolonged task.
It has been pointed out, and it should be empha-
sized, that the task of keeping a complete, up-to-the-
minute inventory of the book stock is a different task
from that of supplying an authoritative entry for each
book in that stock. T h e danger of combining lies in
the fact that editorial care on individual entries in-
evitably leads to delay in posting inventory. T h e re-
port of the Philadelphia Union Catalogue indicates
that it is behind in its filing1 and very far behind in
its editing work; that it is often not receiving records
of new accessions from its member libraries regularly
or promptly enough, and that it is only very partially
informed of removals of books from stock. T h e state-
ment of these facts implies no criticism of the staff
work of the Union Catalogue, which has done won-
derful things with very inadequate resources. T h e
matter of accessions and removals is a matter for
which the Union Catalogue has to depend upon the
prompt cooperation of its member libraries. It must,
however, be borne in mind that many of the member
1
Corrected as of J a n u a r y 1, 1 9 4 1 , it amounts to less than 2,000
cards.
 UNION LIBRARY
libraries are themselves under-staffed a n d i n a d e q u a t e l y
financed. A s M r . T a u b e r has p o i n t e d o u t , 2 the cost of
s u p p l y i n g d u p l i c a t e c a t a l o g u e entries to the U n i o n
L i b r a r y C a t a l o g u e is n o t a light one. S o m e w a y m u s t
be f o u n d not o n l y to stimulate the zeal of the support-
i n g libraries, b u t also to s i m p l i f y p r o c e d u r e a n d also,
perhaps, to s u p p l y a solid quid pro quo f o r the ex-
pense i n v o l v e d . It has been suggested that the b u r d e n
o n the i n d i v i d u a l libraries w o u l d be c o n s i d e r a b l y
l i g h t e n e d if, instead of s u p p l y i n g finished c a t a l o g u e
entries, they w o u l d simply p r e p a r e for the U n i o n Li-
brary C a t a l o g u e a d u p l i c a t e c o p y of all their b o o k or-
ders a n d let these stand in the U n i o n L i b r a r y C a t a -
l o g u e as a t e m p o r a r y card u n t i l the e d i t o r i a l w o r k
c o u l d be d o n e , either t h r o u g h the s u b s t i t u t i o n of a
L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s card w h e n it was ready or, l a c k i n g
that, by some p l a n of c o o p e r a t i o n w h i c h m i g h t d o for
m a n y libraries w h a t m a n y of them are n o w u n d e r the
necessity of d o i n g for themselves. 3 In any case the
p r o b l e m has to be a p p r o a c h e d in a realistic spirit. Cer-
tainly the most i m m e d i a t e need is for an up-to-date
i n v e n t o r y , a n d all e d i t o r i a l p r o b l e m s may p r o p e r l y be
s u b o r d i n a t e d to that. A s M r . V a n d e r b i l t has p o i n t e d
out, a d e q u a t e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n is the i m p o r t a n t matter;
w h a t constitutes the essential b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l d a t a
a b o u t a book in a g i v e n entry is a m a t t e r w h i c h needs
to be considered ab initio *
G i v e n an up-to-the-minute inventory and g i v e n a
c a r e f u l l y e d i t e d card for every item in that i n v e n t o r y ,
the p r i m a r y f u n c t i o n s of a u n i o n c a t a l o g u e are per-
f o r m e d . It is easy to envisage all k i n d s of services
w h i c h the u n i o n c a t a l o g u e c o u l d render by reason of
its c o m m a n d of such an i n v e n t o r y . It m i g h t under-
take not o n l y to locate a p a r t i c u l a r b o o k b u t also to
organize an inter-library l o a n delivery service by
w h i c h the b o o k w a n t e d c o u l d actually be p r o d u c e d at
a g i v e n place w i t h i n a g i v e n time. It m i g h t m a k e im-
p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n s to p r o b l e m s of specialization,
book selection, o r d e r w o r k , d u p l i c a t e e x c h a n g e , card
r e p r o d u c t i o n , b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l problems, etc. B u t these
are not its p r i m a r y f u n c t i o n s , t h o u g h they m a y be val-
2 Library quarterly·, v. 9. p . 411-431, O c t . 1939. M r . T a u b e r (op.
cit., no. 38) shows h o w the cost of s u p p l y i n g 19,000 titles to t h e
U n i o n L i b r a r y C a t a l o g u e c o u l d b e r e d u c e d to S327.69 or ca.
1.71 per card p e r a n n u m . H e does n o t take i n t o a c c o u n t t h e
savings w h i c h m i g h t be effected in the r o u t i n e c a t a l o g u i n g a n d
o r d e r work of a l i b r a r y p u r c h a s i n g as m a n y as 19,000 books a
year by m a k i n g such use of the U n i o n L i b r a r y C a t a l o g u e as is
suggested in C h a p t e r V I b e l o w .
3 O n this q u e s t i o n , w e p r i n t in A p p e n d i x В p a r t of M r . V a n -
d e r b i l t ' s report on the s u b j e c t .
4 It o u g h t to be p o i n t e d o u t that (1) entries o n o r d e r slips d o
not necessarily a g r e e w i t h entries 011 L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s cards
or on the finished l i b r a r y card; (2) n o t all books are o r d e r e d , b u t
m a n y may be received by g i f t or e x c h a n g e . By a d o p t i n g d i f f e r e n t
p r o c e d u r e s f o r m a t e r i a l a c q u i r e d in d i f f e r e n t ways, t h e w o r k of
the l i b r a r y in s u p p l y i n g records of its accessions is c o m p l i c a t e d .
F o r these reasons it is o p e n to q u e s t i o n w h e t h e r the present
m e t h o d of m a k i n g r e t u r n s is n o t o n t h e w h o l e t h e simplest o n e .
A great deal w i l l d e p e n d u p o n w h e t h e r t h e U n i o n L i b r a r y C a t a -
l o g u e definitely assumes r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r m a i n t a i n i n g a n a u -
t h o r i t y file.
CATALOGUES
З 1
u a b l e in themselves a n d v a l u a b l e also in their p o w e r
to c o m m e n d the c a t a l o g u e f a v o r a b l y to its supporters.
T h e d a n g e r is that the energies of the staff may be di-
verted to t h e m at the e x p e n s e of the c a t a l o g u e itself.
If we p r o c e e d f r o m p r i m a r y f u n c t i o n s of the cata-
l o g u e to its most o b v i o u s secondary ones, w e s h o u l d
p e r h a p s p l a c e first a m o n g these its services as a liaison
b e t w e e n the b o o k treasuries of the P h i l a d e l p h i a area
a n d the b o o k treasuries a n d b o o k d e m a n d s of the
w o r l d at large. T h e most o b v i o u s c o n n e c t i o n here, of
course, is w i t h the great n a t i o n a l U n i o n C a t a l o g at
the L i b r a r y of Congress a n d w i t h such r e g i o n a l cata-
logues as that at D e n v e r . 6
W e must c o n t e m p l a t e a time w h e n the b o o k re-
sources of A m e r i c a a n d u l t i m a t e l y of the w o r l d w i l l
be r e g i m e n t e d to a degree w h i c h will e n a b l e any ter-
restrial reader to locate q u i c k l y a n d easily any ter-
restrial b o o k . In such r e g i m e n t a t i o n the r e g i o n a l u n i o n
catalogues w i l l i n e v i t a b l y play an i m p o r t a n t part a n d
they must not i g n o r e their destiny.
A n o t h e r very i m p o r t a n t field of activity lies in the
d i r e c t i o n of the f u r t h e r d e v e l o p m e n t of o u r w h o l e
c a t a l o g u i n g system. A m a t t e r to w h i c h w e h a v e g i v e n
very c a r e f u l c o n s i d e r a t i o n is that of a s u b j e c t cata-
l o g u e . T h e r e are two recognized parts of most library
catalogues, an a u t h o r or m a i n entry part and a sub-
ject part. M o s t A m e r i c a n libraries h a v e d i c t i o n a r y
catalogues, in w h i c h m a i n entries, a d d e d entries, a n d
subjects are interfiled. T h e a u t h o r a n d m a i n entry
c a t a l o g u e is g e n e r a l l y a d e q u a t e for i d e n t i f y i n g a n d
locating, if well edited a n d s u p p l e m e n t e d by f r e q u e n t
cross-references. T h e s u b j e c t c a t a l o g u e , if m a i n t a i n e d
by a c o m p e t e n t staff, is an e x t r e m e l y u s e f u l " a p p r o a c h "
to all interests represented in books, p a m p h l e t s , a n d
5 At present, search lists f r o m b o t h u n i o n c a t a l o g u e s a r e
p r o m p t l y c h e c k e d at t h e P h i l a d e l p h i a U n i o n C a t a l o g u e , a n d , in
t u r n , the L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s U n i o n C a t a l o g serves s p l e n d i d l y as
a liaison b e t w e e n the P h i l a d e l p h i a U n i o n C a t a l o g u e a n d re-
sources in l a r g e libraries in t h e U n i t e d States. It m i g h t be w o r t h
w h i l e to a d d a few w o r d s a b o u t t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n r e g i o n a l
a n d n a t i o n a l u n i o n catalogues. T h e r e g i o n a l u n i o n c a t a l o g u e
locates, p r i m a r i l y , m a t e r i a l in its area f o r users w i t h i n t h e s a m e
r e g i o n . S e c o n d a r i l y , it tries to l o c a t e f o r its o w n users m a t e r i a l
f o u n d a n y w h e r e in t h e c o u n t r y or e v e n o u t s i d e the c o u n t r y , in
c o o p e r a t i o n w i t h t h e n a t i o n a l U n i o n C a t a l o g a n d o t h e r agencies,
a n d tries to l o c a t e f o r persons o u t s i d e the area items f o u n d w i t h i n
t h e region. A s far as the r e g i o n a l service is c o n c e r n e d , local
u n i o n c a t a l o g u e s are in closer a n d faster c o n t a c t w i t h t h e i r
m e m b e r libraries t h a n t h e n a t i o n a l U n i o n C a t a l o g . T h e y also
are m o r e inclusive, w h i l e the n a t i o n a l c a t a l o g u e is, of necessity,
selective. E x p e r i e n c e of c h e c k i n g d e s i d e r a t a lists of t h e n a t i o n a l
U n i o n C a t a l o g at the U n i o n L i b r a r y C a t a l o g u e of the P h i l a d e l -
p h i a M e t r o p o l i t a n A r e a shows that a small b u t n o t i c e a b l e per-
c e n t a g e of entries s e a r c h e d f o r by t h e U n i o n C a t a l o g in W a s h -
i n g t o n (and t h e r e f o r e n o t i n c l u d e d in their c a t a l o g u e ) can b e
located in this area.
W e are o b l i g e d to M r . S c h w e g m a n n f o r the f o l l o w i n g d a t a :
O f t h e last 45 items located by t h e P h i l a d e l p h i a U n i o n C a t a l o g u e
for t h e L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s U n i o n C a t a l o g , 27 w e r e f o u n d i n
P h i l a d e l p h i a libraries o n l y . T h e r e w e r e 18 instances w h e r e t h e
s a m e w o r k was located e l s e w h e r e w i t h t h e f o l l o w i n g f r e q u e n c y :
5 items located in 1 l i b r a r y ; 4 located in 2 libraries; 2 located i n
3 libraries; 3 located in 4 libraries; 1 l o c a t e d in 5 libraries; 2
l o c a t e d in 6 libraries; 1 l o c a t e d in 11 libraries.
32 PHILADELPHIA
periodicals found in a library. It intends to be a com-
plete bibliographical guide to all the pertinent litera-
ture actually in the library on any given subject. This
ideal is, if taken to be all-inclusive, unrealizable. T h e
uninstructed user is frequently misled into believing
books found under a given subject are all the books on
the subject available in the library. Subject catalogues
vary in quality from institution to institution. They
cannot be satisfactory to all users. Even the best sub-
ject header is unable to evaluate objectively all im-
portant sections of a book, nor can he anticipate all
possible approaches to a book now and later.®
Another inevitable shortcoming of the non-classi-
fied subject catalogue is the impossibility of tying
together all the various related subjects found in al-
phabetical order in a dictionary catalogue. T h e gen-
eral reader will find enough material under the ob-
vious headings. T h e erudite will be familiar with
most specific headings under which he might find
material. But the average specialist, not satisfied with
surveys and obvious sources, and not familiar enough
with all possible subject entries covering his field of
interest, is unable, in a dictionary catalogue, to find
all the pertinent material even if it is to be found
somewhere under a subject classification. Few libraries
have classified subject catalogues. From the special-
ist's point of view, they seem to be the most satisfac-
tory solution if supplemented by an alphabetical
index and by files for form, geographical and chron-
ological approaches.
Should we attempt a subject classification of our
author or main entry cards in our Union Catalogue?
Our answer is "no." It would involve an enormous
amount of labor and expense if we attempted to do
it in accordance with any existing pattern and we do
not think it would be worth doing. But that is quite
a different thing from saying that the subject approach
to books is an unsound approach. In our opinion, it
is the only fundamentally sound approach. We turn
to books in search of knowledge, and the first question
we ask ourselves is what book serves best the purpose
of answering our problem. It does not do us much
good to know that a certain man has written a certain
book or to be able to locate that book. After we have
found out what the book we want is, then, of course,
we need a location file to help us in laying our hands
upon it. But we must first know the book, and some-
where in the community there ought to be a place to
which we can repair with the certainty that we can
β T h e s e approaches fall into four major classes: (1) Subject ap-
proach (e.g.. Commerce); (i) Form approach (e.g., Manuscript)·,
(3) Geographical approach (e.g., United States)·, (4) Chronological
approach (e.g., 19th century). T o fulfill or to satisfy as many of
these approaches as possible, a very elaborate system of cross-
indexing is necessary. For example, the subject United States—
Politics and Government (Library of Congress subject heading)
which falls into the above class 3, should also be repeated under
Politics and Government—United States. Material under Mathe-
matics—Early Works to 1800 should also be repeated in a vania Historical Survey, A description and an analysis of the
chronological file under the respective period or century, as for
example Middle Ages—Mathematics.
LIBRARIES
receive adequate guidance in our search. One of the
basic problems which has confronted the Bibliograph-
ical Planning Committee is the problem of just how
this demand should be met.
In the first place, we have to bear in mind that it
is virtually impossible to create a classification of
knowledge so comprehensive as to cover every pos-
sible question. T h e growth of knowledge, indeed, is
largely a matter of new combinations of old facts,
new syntheses of the material now classified accord-
ing to existing concepts in widely different categories.
In the second place, most subject indexes, with the
best will in the world, cannot be kept up to the
minute. Published bibliographies are obsolete before
they are off the press. Current book lists leave out of
account the fact that a large part of our current ad-
ditions to knowledge appear in periodicals. And, of
course, the contents of any one library or of any group
of libraries can give only an imperfect and a partial
picture of all the extant literature upon any particu-
lar subject. A location file is a local affair, a subject
analysis is a universal problem. When I am seeking the
answer to a question, I want to know the best book to
give the answer. If the book is near at hand, good;
but I certainly do not mean to abandon my inquiry
because my local facilities are inadequate. When I
know the book, then I can hunt for it through all the
catalogues in the world. T o o much of our scholarship
has assumed an incomplete and a provincial charac-
ter because our investigators have been content to
limit their inquiries to their local facilities. Local sub-
ject catalogues tend rather to accentuate than to cor-
rect this fault.
Subject catalogues are frequently prepared from
book titles, without expert examination of book con-
tents. They are often uncritical. Even if they are com-
plete within their scope, they can do no more than
give all the titles pertinent to a particular subject,
without attempting to distinguish among the good,
the bad, and the indifferent. T h e only person really
competent to supply a critical bibliography in any
subject is an expert on that subject. T h e subject ap-
proach to knowledge must be through such spe-
cialists.7
Now there is, of course, in print a vast amount of
bibliographical material prepared by experts, 8 and it
is worth considering whether a bibliography of bibli-
ographies might not appropriately supply the best
7 W e do not deny the value of subject classification of books,
however imperfect, and we are in fact undertaking to set up
some such subject classification of the Union Library Catalogue
based on the Library of Congress classification, to be limited for
the time being at least to Library of Congress cards of which
the Union Library Catalogue has duplicates.
8 An example of current effort in the field of exhaustive sub-
ject bibliography is the new bibliography of American literature
now in process of preparation by the Pennsylvania Historical
Survey under the co-sponsorship of the University of Pennsyl-
vania and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Cf. Pennsyl-
bibliography of American literature. Philadelphia, 1941.
 UNION LIBRARY
subject approach to a union catalogue; whether, in
short, we might not copy all bibliographical items
from our main entry file, arrange them under some
acceptable subject classification, the Library of Con-
gress classification, perhaps, or the Bliss classification,
and so have ready at hand a bibliography of bibliog-
raphies which would not only reveal the subjects in
which we are bibliographically well equipped but
would also reveal the lacunae and so provide a rough
outline of the uncharted areas. A variation of this plan
would be the application of the same principle to the
Library of Congress catalogue. 9
T h e r e are four glaring weaknesses. First, that the
bibliographies are selected out of some particular li-
brary or group of libraries and so are not exhaustive.
Second, that lists of books, like books themselves, are
not equal to one another in value and we need a cri-
tique of bibliographies just as much as we need a cri-
tique of books. A n d third, bibliographies found in
catalogues are generally confined to books and do not
include the voluminous bibliographical material in
serial publications. 1 0 A n d fourth, printed bibliogra-
phies are obsolescent at birth and rapidly become ob-
solete.
For all of these reasons it seems to us that an ade-
quate subject approach to knowledge will involve:
ι. Collecting information on existing bibliographies.
2. Critical appraisal of existing bibliographies.
3. Constant supplementing of bibliographies by con-
sultant experts who keep up to the minute in the
knowledge of the literature of their respective fields.
4. Constant stimulus to the preparation of bibliog-
raphies where none exist.
Work of this sort does not seem to us one of the
functions of a union catalogue, though we regard it
as a very important function of a well-organized bibli-
ographical center.
T h e r e are, however, certain kinds of information
which are acquired by a union catalogue in its primary
functioning which might, we think, be very appropri-
ately used as a basis for service. If a system could be
developed and perfected by which each particular li-
brary could record at once at the union catalogue not
only the books it acquires but also the books it intends
to acquire, the union catalogue would be in a position
to save a great deal of unnecessary duplication in book
purchases. Many important books and sets of books
are in very infrequent demand; the existence of one
copy of them within the area, provided that it were
made generally accessible, might satisfy the normal de-
mand for it within the area. Obviously such a book
should be located in the library where it is likely to
be in greatest demand. If the union catalogue were
in a position to say to all its participating units that
such and such libraries contemplated the purchase of
9 Here again no sane person can doubt the value of such a
compilation so long as its limitations are recognized.
10 T o some extent this can be met by such publications as
Bibliographic index, Biological abstracts, Chemical abstracts, etc.
CATALOGUES 33
such and such books, some of the contemplated pur-
chases might profitably be canceled, and to those con-
templating the purchase, some guidance might be
given as to the most appropriate unit to make the in-
vestment. Some such plan would be an indispensable
preliminary to any intelligent coordination of book
purchasing. Even without an elaborate program or ap-
paratus, the Philadelphia Union Catalogue has fre-
quently been used to avoid duplication of purchase.
Another kind of information which the Union Li-
brary Catalogue can accumulate is data on books
sought for and not found within the metropolitan
area. T h i s would furnish some sort of guide to the
books lacking in our book treasury and might serve
as a stimulus to the purchase of such books. 1 1 It
would not, we think, be sufficient in itself to supply
the basis for the rounding out of our collections, be-
cause the books actually asked for do not adequately
reflect the books actually or potentially desirable. In
our opinion, the Philadelphia Union Catalogue might
well promote the systematic checking of our book
collections against standard bibliographies and from
time to time point out shortcomings. It is also recom-
mended that a group of research workers acting as
consultants examine desiderata lists of other union
catalogues, particularly of the Library of Congress, to
determine whether items not located at the Philadel-
phia Union Catalogue are desirable for purchase or
could be filmed and thus made available in the area.
It might even be desirable, though this task would
seem to us to belong more appropriately to the Bibli-
ographical Center as a whole than to the Union Li-
brary Catalogue, as such, to prepare lists of significant
current publications in all fields of knowledge as a
guide to an intelligent purchasing policy. T h i s would,
however, be a task of large magnitude which could
perhaps be better handled by some allocation to par-
ticular libraries in particular fields.
In conclusion, we recognize the Union Catalogue as
the essential instrument for any integration of the li-
brary resources of the metropolitan area. W e define its
primary function to be the maintenance of an accu-
rate, up-to-the-minute file of our book treasures. W e
regard it also as the proper place to maintain an au-
thority file of all book entries. W e think it might well
serve as the medium for all contacts between libraries
of the area and the book resources of the world out-
side the area. W e believe it is the logical place from
which we can transmit demands upon our book treas-
ures from outside the area. Its service will reveal un-
satisfied demands upon our book resources and furnish
us with the basic information for completing them
where they are short. It will serve finally as the instru-
ment for the effective operation of various other kinds
of library cooperation. These we reserve for detailed
consideration in the chapters which follow.
1 1 T h e Philadelphia Union Catalogue has already inaugurated a
policy of the periodical publication of desiderata.
 Chapter V
THE INTER-LIBRARY LOAN
THE i n t e g r a t i o n of library resources in the area pre-
supposes a g e n e r o u s attitude o n the part of i n d i v i d u a l
libraries t o w a r d inter-library lending. T h e first step,
of course, is to locate the desired book w i t h i n the area.
T h e o b v i o u s second step is to provide means by w h i c h
the desired b o o k can be got to the desired place. A n y
research in any field of k n o w l e d g e presupposes the
a c c u m u l a t i o n of pertinent material at a spot where it
c a n be used in c o m b i n a t i o n w i t h other material of
the same sort. T h a t can be achieved most easily w h e n
o n e single library contains all the pertinent material.
F o r that reason scholars travel thousands of miles to
w o r k in the B i b l i o t h e q u e N a t i o n a l e at Paris, the Brit-
ish M u s e u m at L o n d o n , the B o d l e i a n L i b r a r y at O x -
f o r d , the Congressional L i b r a r y at W a s h i n g t o n , the
W i d e n e r L i b r a r y at C a m b r i d g e , Massachusetts. B u t
since P h i l a d e l p h i a cannot d r e a m of such concentrated
resources, it must, if it is to get the m a x i m u m a m o u n t
of service o u t of its scattered resources, provide means
f o r d r a w i n g u p o n them easily and quickly. A f t e r all,
if the p r i n c i p l e of a c o m m o n book treasury be ac-
cepted, the o n l y difference between h a v i n g books all
in o n e l i b r a r y and h a v i n g the same books scattered
t h r o u g h m a n y libraries is that the distance to be cov-
ered a n d the time to be consumed in focusing these
resources u p o n a particular p r o b l e m at a particular
place is greater. It o u g h t to be the business of any
g o o d inter-library l e n d i n g system to reduce to a mini-
m u m the obstacles of time and space i n v o l v e d in the
transfer of requests for books a n d the subsequent trans-
fer of b o o k s to the points w h e r e they are needed. W e
take for g r a n t e d , of course, that very m u c h the same
restrictions w h i c h l i m i t the use of books w i t h i n a g i v e n
library w i l l also limit their use in affiliated libraries.
B u t w e see n o sound reason w h y a qualified reader in
any recognized place should not be able to d r a w u p o n
the resources of any p a r t i c u l a r library w i t h no greater
restraint than w o u l d be imposed if he were c a l l i n g for
the items desired f r o m w i t h i n the confines of the li-
b r a r y itself.
T h e idea of the inter-library loan is an old one. It
reaches back to the M i d d l e Ages, has been elaborately
d e v e l o p e d in m a n y parts of Europe, notably in Ger-
m a n y a n d E n g l a n d , and it operates on a more or less
systematic basis in many parts of the U n i t e d States. 1
Its a d v a n t a g e s are o b v i o u s e n o u g h . If o u r libraries
cease to r e g a r d themselves as i n d e p e n d e n t entities and
1 The S m i t h s o n i a n I n s t i t u t i o n c i r c u l a t e d a q u e s t i o n n a i r e as
e a r l y as 1849 a s k i n g w h e t h e r there w e r e " a n y regulation bv w h i c h
b o o k s m a y be l e n t by courtesy to persons at a distance." (Its
Fourth annual report. A p p e n d i x , p. 5, footnote.) C f . also С . M .
W i n c h e l l , Locating books for interlibrary loan. N e w Y o r k , 1930.
c o m e to regard themselves as so m a n y d o o r w a y s to a
c o m m o n treasury of books, then they can apply their
f u n d s available for book p u r c h a s i n g to those b o o k s
not easily o b t a i n a b l e f r o m associated libraries a n d t o
those books for w h i c h the d e m a n d of their o w n cli-
entele is inordinately heavy. C o l l e g e libraries, for ex-
ample, can get more copies of books for prescribed
r e a d i n g in large classes, and look to the university li-
braries and the special libraries to meet a large p a r t
of their research needs. 2 So too, a q u i c k , c o u r t e o u s
inter-library loan will pave the way for a n u m b e r o f
other desirable enterprises w h i c h w i l l be discussed i n
detail in later chapters.
T h e o p e r a t i o n of any systematic inter-library loan is
c o n d i t i o n e d (1) by the policy of each i n d i v i d u a l li-
brary unit w i t h regard to book l e n d i n g ; (2) by the cost
in time and labor involved.
R e g a r d i n g P h i l a d e l p h i a library policy, practically
the only libraries w i t h i n the area w h i c h recognize re-
sponsibility to the w h o l e r e a d i n g p u b l i c w i t h o u t dis-
c r i m i n a t i o n are the Free L i b r a r y and the Friends' Free
L i b r a r y . A l l other libraries limit their c i r c u l a t i o n to a
restricted g r o u p . Some libraries d o not lend books for
outside use at all. N e x t to the p u b l i c libraries, the
university and college libraries are most liberal i n
their responses to the requests of the g e n e r a l r e a d i n g
w o r l d . O f course, no unified inter-library l e n d i n g sys-
tem c o u l d be c o n t e m p l a t e d before the i n d i v i d u a l li-
braries i n v o l v e d a d o p t e d a more u n i f o r m l e n d i n g pol-
icy. W e have to d o here not w i t h a g r o u p centrally
c o n t r o l l e d or federated u n d e r a c o m m o n law, but w i t h
a g r o u p of i n d e p e n d e n t units. A n y t h i n g in the n a t u r e
of a b i n d i n g rule w o u l d resemble an i n t e r n a t i o n a l
agreement a n d w o u l d b i n d only those libraries w h i c h
accepted it. T h e r e can be no t h o u g h t of any coercive
force stronger than p o p u l a r o p i n i o n . It should, how-
ever, be possible to devise rules for inter-library lend-
ing sufficiently flexible to cover all reasonable varia-
tions of library practice.
In general, the fact w o u l d have to be recognized
that libraries w h i c h d o not permit outside c i r c u l a t i o n
of any of their books are a u t o m a t i c a l l y e x c l u d e d f r o m
2 Another a d v a n t a g e p r o v e n by e x p e r i e n c e is that t h r o u g h
inter-library loan m a n y books l y i n g idle in one l i b r a r y can be
m o b i l i z e d f o r service w h e r e they are n e e d e d ; dead w o o d in o n e
library is t u r n e d into active service in a n o t h e r . T h e C i r c u l a t i o n
D e p a r t m e n t of the N e w Y o r k P u b l i c L i b r a r y , for e x a m p l e , f o u n d
that in 1938 1 7 % of the i n t e r - b r a n c h a n d inter-library loan was
satisfied by books f o r m e r l y taken o u t of c i r c u l a t i o n at branches
because of lack of d e m a n d . A report on the Newcastle Literary
a n d Philosophical Society states that most of the v o l u m e s l o a n e d
d u r i n g 1932 (total of 1,172 volumes) were idle. (M. C . Pottinger
in Library assistant, v. 26, p. 202-209. 1933.)
 THE INTER-LIBRARY
any systematic inter-library lending. It o u g h t to be
possible to show such libraries the error of their ways,
but their inclusion in an inter-library l e n d i n g system
w o u l d h a v e to be accomplished by conversion f r o m
w i t h i n a n d not by coercion f r o m w i t h o u t . In some
cases the g r o u p c o n t r o l l i n g the library admits n o
g e n e r a l o b l i g a t i o n to the r e a d i n g w o r l d at large a n d
directs library policy in the spirit of a private o w n e r
w i t h o n l y private, personal ends to serve. M a n y li-
braries, h o w e v e r , are in a stage of transition f r o m a
private to a p u b l i c status a n d o p e n to conviction in
the matter of inter-library l e n d i n g if certain d o u b t s
c o u l d be r e m o v e d a n d certain fears allayed. T h e s e fears
a n d doubts, w h e n they are not based o n mere exclu-
siveness or the collector's desire to m o n o p o l i z e w h a t he
has, generally are: that books may be lost; that they
may be d a m a g e d , defaced, or w o r n ; or that they may
not be p r o m p t l y recallable w h e n those w h o have the
first c l a i m u p o n them w a n t them. A n y p l a n of inter-
library l e n d i n g o u g h t to p r o v i d e a m p l e reassurance
o n all these points. O n e difficulty in the way of any
effective a p p l i c a t i o n of controls is that a large propor-
tion of those w h o borrow books on inter-library loan
are m e m b e r s of college faculties, w h o are notorious in
their abuse of library privileges accorded to them in
their o w n institutions and in consequence difficult to
discipline w h e n they are using books b o r r o w e d f r o m
other institutions. A n o t h e r difficulty is that librarians
are r e l u c t a n t to impose penalties u p o n their o w n cli-
entele in the interests of outsiders. T h e s e difficulties
must be m e t a n d p r o v i d e d against in any a d e q u a t e set
of rules. W i t h o u t a t t e m p t i n g to define these rules in
detail, it may be w o r t h w h i l e to point o u t w h a t w e
regard as the essential considerations.
In the first place, a line must be d r a w n b e t w e e n
books w h i c h may be lent o n inter-library loans a n d
books w h i c h m a y not. T h e location of this line w o u l d
n o r m a l l y be d e t e r m i n e d by (1) the rarity or irreplace-
ability of the book in question; (2) the d e m a n d u p o n
the book at the l e n d i n g library. T o go to extremes at
once, n o one w o u l d ever think of l e n d i n g a first f o l i o
Shakespeare o n inter-library loan, or a copy of W e b -
ster's D i c t i o n a r y , or a v o l u m e of the D i c t i o n a r y of
A m e r i c a n B i o g r a p h y . In a r o u g h sort of way, in cir-
c u l a t i n g libraries, one m i g h t rule that books w h i c h
the l e n d i n g library has not a l l o w e d to circulate to its
o w n clientele s h o u l d not be circulated t h r o u g h inter-
library loan, and yet this m i g h t be a p o o r rule because
it w o u l d be easy to hedge inter-library l e n d i n g a b o u t
w i t h restrictions and safeguards w h i c h c o u l d hardly
be imposed o n books in circulation. It might be pro-
vided, for e x a m p l e , that the b o o k lent c o u l d be used
only in the library to w h i c h it was lent or that m o r e
v a l u a b l e m a t e r i a l could be used only u n d e r special
protection such, f o r e x a m p l e , as the glass cases in
w h i c h manuscripts must be used in the British M u -
seum or the p r o h i b i t i o n of the use of ink in the English
P u b l i c R e c o r d Office.
T h e disposition on the part of some libraries to
LOAN 35
w i t h h o l d b o u n d volumes of periodicals f r o m inter-
library l e n d i n g seems to us u n f o r t u n a t e unless the pe-
riodical in question falls in the classification of rarities.
T h e mere cost of r e p l a c e m e n t does not seem to us to
debar inter-library lending, p r o v i d e d that in every
case the b o r r o w i n g library assumes c o m p l e t e financial
responsibility for the replacement of any item w h i c h is
lost, destroyed, or badly d a m a g e d . C o n s i d e r a t i o n s of
n o r m a l wear and tear should not, in o u r o p i n i o n , be
a l l o w e d to operate as a deterrent except in the case of
fragile items. In general we d e p l o r e the disposition to
h o a r d books. B o o k s are m e a n t to be read a n d the best
fate that can befall them is to be w o r n o u t by m u c h
reading.
A l l rules imposed should be subject to e x c e p t i o n in
special cases. It m i g h t well h a p p e n that two u n i q u e
copies of different editions of a book m i g h t be pre-
served in two different libraries a n d that some dis-
tinguished scholar m i g h t w a n t to collate these two
editions. If he c o u l d not somehow or other b r i n g the
two together his task w o u l d become a h u n d r e d f o l d
m o r e difficult. I n such cases, there o u g h t to be some
a v e n u e of escape f r o m all rules. 3
G e n e r a l l y speaking, irreplaceability a n d f r e q u e n t
d e m a n d at h o m e are in o u r o p i n i o n the o n l y s o u n d
bases for w i t h d r a w i n g a book from inter-library lend-
ing, p r o v i d e d the book lent c o m m a n d s at least the
same protection in the b o r r o w i n g library as it w o u l d
c o m m a n d in the l e n d i n g library.
T h e actual m e c h a n i s m of inter-library l e n d i n g has
been a matter of considerable study, and r e g u l a t i o n s
covering inter-library l e n d i n g p u b l i s h e d by the A m e r -
ican L i b r a r y Association in 1917 4 are pretty g e n e r a l l y
accepted as a satisfactory basis for control. T h e y h a v e
raised a g o o d many questions in their practical appli-
cation. T h e r e has, for e x a m p l e , been a g o o d deal of
discussion as to w h e t h e r inter-library l e n d i n g s h o u l d
be e x t e n d e d to undergraduates, but it appears that
the majority of libraries d o not hesitate to d o so, a n d
it seems to us that any l i m i t a t i o n based u p o n aca-
d e m i c status is w i t h o u t solid f o u n d a t i o n . 5 T h e time
a n d expense involved in b o r r o w i n g a book o n inter-
library loan and the limits of time n o r m a l l y a t t a c h e d
to the loan w o u l d almost invariably confine its appli-
cation to a definite a n d serious purpose. T h e r e has
also been some o b j e c t i o n to the l e n d i n g of books o u t
3 In this connection it m i g h t be w o r t h m e n t i o n i n g t h a t in
m a n y instances inter-library loan of originals can w e l l be re-
placed by l o a n or supply of r e p r o d u c t i o n s of the desired mate-
rials o n film or photostat. It is h i g h l y desirable that a center be
k e p t c u r r e n t l y i n f o r m e d o n facilities for p h o t o g r a p h i c r e p r o d u c -
tion and cost as s u p p l i e d by the different institutions. It m i g h t
also be well to envisage a w a y by w h i c h photostat or film copies
o n c e p r o d u c e d for specific purposes c o u l d be stored at o n e p l a c e
a n d be k e p t a v a i l a b l e for s i m i l a r requests.
* A . L . A . Bulletin, v . 1 1 , p. 271-274, 1917· A p r o p o s e d revision
is f o u n d in same, v. 34, p . igg-2oo, 216, 1940. P r i n t e d in f u l l in
A p p e n d i x C.
5 T h e new proposed rules of the A . L . A . suggest l i m i t a t i o n of
loans even to graduates. T h i s is in direct o p p o s i t i o n to e d u c a -
tional policies w h i c h e x p e c t scholarly a t t a i n m e n t s of c a n d i d a t e s
for h i g h e r degrees.
 PHILADELPHIA
of a set, though in the majority of cases investigated
no such restriction was imposed. It is clear, however,
that if this restriction is not imposed and the loss of
a single volume out of a set involves the purchase of
a whole new set, the borrowing library should be held
responsible for the full amount necessary to restore
the loss. We see no reason for debarring current fiction
except on the general principle that it is in heavy de-
mand at the lending library. And we see no way of
determining a priori whether the purpose of seeking
the loan is a frivolous one or not. It is quite possible
that the request for a novel or even for a comic paper
might be prompted by a serious literary or sociological
purpose. Suggestions that lending be limited to books
costing more than $5.00 or $10.00 seem to us unsound.
The price of a book is no measure of its value to the
scholar, and special libraries are often in a position to
supply pamphlet material which general libraries or
libraries specializing in a different field could not af-
ford to carry on their shelves.®
So far as the Philadelphia metropolitan area is in
question, the problem of inter-library lending really
resolves itself into two problems: (a) inter-library lend-
ing among libraries within the area; (b) inter-library
lending between libraries within the area and libraries
without the area.
Almost all of what has been printed on the subject
of inter-library lending has to do with relations of li-
braries at a distance. We have, for example, an esti-
mate of average cost on a single transaction involving
a single item which put the total figure at $3.50, of
which the cost to the borrower, including transporta-
tion charges, is $2.25 and to the lender $1.25. 7 Other
estimates8 are somewhat lower, but all published esti-
mates are so high that the question arises whether it
would not be cheaper to buy the book than to borrow
it. Of course, in many cases, purchase is out of the
question. The book is not to be had at all or to be
had only after long search and long delay. Further-
more, it must be remembered that the actual purchase
price of a book is only a fraction of the total cost to
the library accessioning it. There is the cost of order-
ing, receiving, checking, classifying, cataloguing, and
preparing the book for service, to say nothing of its
cost in maintenance. Taking all these into account, the
probabilities are that it would cost more to buy the
6 All these data apply to loans between libraries at a
K. J . Boyer (Library quarterly, v. 2, p. 1 1 3 et seq., 1932) in a
thorough-going analysis of practice of inter-library loan in col-
lege and university libraries shows that 53.7% of institutions
investigated lend to undergraduates; 7 1 % lend volumes from pe-
riodical sets; 49.7% lend to institutions only; 3 1 . 5 % to institu-
tions and individuals; 12.3% to institutions and alumni, while
6.4% gave no answer. 58.1% do not require use of books inside
the borrowing library's building, while 12.3% do make this re-
striction. Most libraries have restrictions for special materials.
Unfortunately this survey was made some time ago, but it is
probably fair to assume that the policy has not radically
changed.
7
Cf. С. H. Brown in Library journal, v. 57, p. 887 et seq.,
1932; also Ε. Hand in same, v. 55, p. 763-766, 1930.
8 12
Cf. M. J . Ewing in Library journal, v. 58, p. 918 et seq., 1933.
LIBRARIES
average book than it would to borrow it, even if
we accept the figure $3.50 as substantially correct. It
seems so ridiculously high that either the figure must
be held suspect or the technique applied must be
simplified. One considerable item of expense arises
apparently from the fact that incomplete or incorrect
bibliographical data about the book desired are sup-
plied. In consequence, a great deal of time in the lend-
ing library is wasted in checking and verifying and
correcting inquiries. The number of incorrect or in-
complete requests in some libraries is said to run as
high as 80%. Here clearly is a burden which should
not be imposed upon the lending library. It should
not be imposed even upon the borrowing library ex-
cept as part of its routine reference service chargeable
to that department. The great difficulty in so much of
library accounting is that there is no adequate check
upon charges imposed upon general overhead. In more
than one instance, it would probably turn out that by
adding all the charges assigned to overhead together,
the total reached would be several times the actual
overhead.
Out of 203 libraries investigated, less than 3% com-
plained that inter-library lending was a burden.®
There are no comprehensive data as to the extent of
inter-library lending in the country as a whole, but
the A.L.A. in 1938 published some figures on the sub-
ject which are illuminating. 10 It will be noted that
they are confined entirely to larger college and univer-
sity libraries. In general, the burden of lending falls
upon the larger libraries, and such figures as we have
show that the burden tends to increase in proportion
to their lendings, which we may take to mean that
there is an increasing disposition on the part of
smaller libraries to draw upon the resources of larger
ones. In any case, it appears that inter-library lending
is much less extensive in the United States than it is
abroad. Taking the twenty-three largest libraries in
Germany, inter-library loans amount to 7.7% of the
total circulation. 11 In the largest libraries of the
United States, it is probably less than 1 % .
Experience in inter-library lending so far as it has
been recorded shows that the loss of books is negli-
gible. 12 No information is available as to wear and
tear, but with proper attention it should be smaller
than in ordinary circulation.
distance. The problem of handling inter-library lend-
ing within the metropolitan area is not quite the same
one. The need for inter-library borrowing is perhaps
not so great, since it is relatively easier for the inquir-
ing reader to use the book where it is; the arrange-
ments for it can be made much more simply and much
9
K. J . Boyer in Library quarterly, v. 2, 1932.
10
American Library Association. College and university li-
brary service. Chicago, 1938. p. 32-33.
11
H. A. Krüss in A.L.A. Bulletin, v. 27, p. 728-730, 1933; G.
Abb. Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, v. 47, p. 453 et seq., 1930.
Cf. К. J . Boyer (op. cit.).
 THE INTER-LIBRARY
more cheaply, and the safety of it much more easily
assured. But before we consider the problem in the
large, it may be worth while to examine inter-library
lending within the metropolitan area as it operates at
the moment.
W e addressed a questionnaire 1 3 on the subject to
the principal libraries within the area, and the an-
swers we received shed as much light on the subject
as we have been able to get. Not all libraries answered
every question we asked, but twenty-five of the larger
libraries reported approximately 1,550 items borrowed
on inter-library loans in 1939, and 1,880 items loaned.
A b o u t 1/3 of these transactions were within the met-
ropolitan area, the other 2/3 outside. O u r figures can-
not be regarded as precise since we were not able to
get data from all library units and we are not able to
eliminate duplication. But we think it is safe to say
that an average of two or three books a day is now ex-
changed by libraries within the metropolitan area.
T h e main library of the University of Pennsylvania
is the most active unit within the area. It reports a
total of 700 volumes lent and 400 volumes borrowed
within and without the area. Five other libraries re-
port as many as 100 items lent per year (American
Philosophical Society, Crozer T h e o l o g i c a l Seminary,
Mercantile Library, T e m p l e , Bryn Mawr). T h e only
libraries borrowing over 100 items are the University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Provi-
dent Mutual L i f e Insurance Company, Swarthmore,
T e m p l e , and Bryn Mawr.
T h e information accumulated on the cost of inter-
library lending in Philadelphia is meager. In general,
the libraries kept no record of this item in their cost
accounting, and only a few of them would even hazard
a guess as to money costs. Of these, the highest figure
was $35.00 a year including transportation costs. N o n e
attempted to put a money value on the man-hours of
work involved, although the University of Pennsyl-
vania estimated an annual total of 1,950 hours,
T e m p l e 936 hours, Swarthmore 275 hours, and Bryn
Mawr 200 hours.
As for the type of material exchanged, books have a
heavy lead for all libraries reporting except the Col-
lege of Physicians, which estimates that 7 5 % of their
transactions were in periodicals, and T e m p l e that 2/3
of theirs were in ephemeral or miscellaneous material.
In types of libraries, colleges and universities d o
most borrowing and lending, with special libraries
second, and the public libraries last.
In general, most Philadelphia libraries, w h e n they
lend at all, have generous inter-library loan policies.
Few restrictions were reported except by half a dozen
libraries which decline to lend manuscripts or rarities.
Most Philadelphia libraries have no formal policies,
only five have special forms for inter-library loan
transactions, only two reported that they were guided
by the A . L . A . code.
13 Reproduced in A p p e n d i x D.
LOAN 37
W e reproduce in an a p p e n d i x 1 4 a tabular report
on our findings in this matter. O u r conclusion from
an actual survey of existing conditions in the area
is that there is surprisingly little inter-library lending
either within the area or within and without the area.
Except in the case of a few institutions, the number
of transactions was actually so small as to be negli-
gible. For that reason probably, the matter has never
been systematized, the value of it appraised nor the
cost assigned. It is possible to conclude, either (1) that
book users in Philadelphia find their library needs
adequately supplied out of their immediate library
contacts or (2) find it easier to go to where the desired
book is rather than to have the desired book fetched
to them or (3) are not sufficiently familiar with the
potentialities of the inter-library loan to resort to it.
Certainly on the basis of the revealed existing demand
there is little incentive to make elaborate plans for
systematizing an inter-library loan system. T h e r e is,
however, every reason to make the facilities of inter-
library loan better known to readers and to stimulate
it by simplifying the procedure. One distressing rev-
elation emerges from the questionnaires sent out to
libraries on the subject. A few of our most important
libraries do not participate in inter-library lending at
all. T h e Franklin Institute, our most important tech-
nical library, has so far declined to participate. T h e
Historical Society of Pennsylvania and T h e Library
Company of Philadelphia, our most important collec-
tions of local history, are hesitant in the matter. It is
to be hoped that all of these institutions in time will
come to appreciate the advantages both to themselves
and to others of a more cooperative attitude. Obvi-
ously if they do not lend, they can hardly expect to
borrow.
It is clear enough that so far as inter-library loans
within the area are concerned, the problem is enor-
mously simplified by the existence of a U n i o n Cata-
logue which enables us to discover easily whether or
not the item is within the area. 1 5 T h e time heretofore
14 Cf. A p p e n d i x E.
15 In this connection, the experience of the University of Penn-
sylvania library is illuminating. Mr. H . Glenn Brown, reference
librarian at the University of Pennsylvania, prints in a recent
number of College and research libraries, v. 1, p. 336-340, 1940,
some statistics on the subject. Between 1935 and 1939 the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania library handled 1,805 requests for inter-
library borrowing. In meeting these requests, the reference li-
brarian consulted the following sources of information for
location and tabulated the result:
(1) Depository catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania
which includes the L. C. catalogue and cards from a
number of other important libraries.
(s) Union lists of serials.
(3) Union Catalog at the Library of Congress.
(4) Union Catalogue of the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
(5) Other sources.
(6) N o location established.
T h e results he tabulates as follows: T h e number given indi-
cates the number of the item above, the percentage represent!
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 SWEET CARROTS. (ENTREMETS.)

Boil quite tender some fine highly-flavoured carrots, press the

water from them, and rub them through the back of a fine hair-sieve;
put them into a clean saucepan or stewpan, and dry them thoroughly
over a gentle fire; then add a slice of fresh butter, and when this is
dissolved and well mixed with them, strew in a dessertspoonful or
more of powdered sugar, and a little salt; next, stir in by degrees
some good cream, and when this is quite absorbed, and the carrots
again appear dry, dish and serve them quickly with small sippets à la
Reine (see page 5), placed round them.
Carrots, 3 lbs., boiled quite tender: stirred over a gentle fire 5 to 10
minutes. Butter, 2 oz.; salt, 1/2 teaspoonful; pounded sugar, 1
dessertspoonful; cream, 1/2 pint, stewed gently together until quite
dry.
Obs.—For excellent mashed carrots omit the sugar, add a good
seasoning of salt and white pepper, and half a pint of rich brown
gravy; or for a plain dinner rather less than this of milk.
 MASHED (OR BUTTERED) CARROTS.

(A Dutch Receipt.)
Prepare some finely flavoured carrots as above, and dry them
over a gentle fire like mashed turnips; then for a dish of moderate
size mix well with them from two to three ounces of good butter, cut
into small bits, keeping them well stirred. Add a seasoning of salt
and cayenne, and serve them very hot, garnished or not at pleasure
with small sippets (croutons) of fried bread.
 CARROTS AU BEURRE, OR BUTTERED CARROTS.

(French.)
Either boil sufficient carrots for a dish quite tender, and then cut
them into slices a quarter of an inch thick, or first slice, and then boil
them: the latter method is the most expeditious, but the other best
preserves the flavour of the vegetable. Drain them well, and while
this is being done just dissolve from two to three ounces of butter in
a saucepan, and strew in some minced parsley, some salt, and white
pepper or cayenne; then add the carrots, and toss them very gently
until they are equally covered with the sauce, which should not be
allowed to boil: the parsley may be omitted at pleasure. Cold carrots
may be re-warmed in this way.
 CARROTS IN THEIR OWN JUICE.

(A simple but excellent Receipt.)

By the following mode of dressing carrots, whether young or old,
their full flavour and all the nutriment they contain are entirely
preserved; and they are at the same time rendered so palatable by it
that they furnish at once an admirable dish to eat without meat, as
well as with it. Wash the roots very clean, and scrape or lightly pare
them, cutting out any discoloured parts. Have ready boiling and
salted, as much water as will cover them; slice them rather thick,
throw them into it, and should there be more than sufficient to just
float them (and barely that), pour it away. Boil them gently until they
are tolerably tender, and then very quickly, to evaporate the water, of
which only a spoonful or so should be left in the saucepan. Dust a
seasoning of pepper on them, throw in a morsel of butter rolled in
flour, and turn and toss them gently until their juice is thickened by
them and adheres to the roots. Send them immediately to table.
They are excellent without any addition but the pepper; though they
may be in many ways improved. A dessertspoonful of minced
parsley may be strewed over them when the butter is added, and a
little thick cream mixed with a small proportion of flour to prevent its
curdling, may be strewed amongst them, or a spoonful or two of
good gravy.
 TO BOIL PARSNEPS.

These are dressed in precisely the same manner as carrots, but

require much less boiling. According to their quality and the time of
year, they will take from twenty minutes to nearly an hour. Every
speck or blemish should be cut from them after they are scraped,
and the water in which they are boiled should be well skimmed. They
are a favourite accompaniment to salt fish and boiled pork, and may
be served either mashed or plain.
20 to 25 minutes.
 FRIED PARSNEPS.

Boil them until they are about half done, lift them out, and let them
cool; slice them rather thickly, sprinkle them with fine salt and white
pepper, and fry them a pale brown in good butter. Serve them with
roast meat, or dish them under it.
 JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES.

Wash the artichokes, pare them quickly, and throw them as they
are done into a saucepan of cold water, or of equal parts of milk and
water; and when they are about half boiled add a little salt to them.
Take them up the instant they are perfectly tender: this will be in from
fifteen to twenty-five minutes, so much do they vary in size and as to
the time necessary to dress them. If allowed to remain in the water
after they are done, they become black and flavourless. Melted
butter should always be sent to table with them.
15 to 25 minutes.
 TO FRY JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES. (ENTREMETS.)

Boil them from eight to twelve minutes; lift them out, drain them on
a sieve, and let them cool; dip them into beaten eggs, and cover
them with fine bread-crumbs. Fry them a light brown, drain, pile them
in a hot dish, and serve them quickly.
 JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES, À LA REINE.

Wash and wipe the

artichokes, cut off one end of
each quite flat, and trim the
other into a point; boil them in
milk and water, lift them out the
instant they are done, place Artichokes à la Reine.
them upright in the dish in which
they are to be served, and
sauce them with a good béchamel, or with nearly half a pint of cream
thickened with a rice-crustspoonful of flour, mixed with an ounce and
a half of butter, and seasoned with a little mace and some salt. When
cream cannot be procured use new milk, and increase the proportion
of flour and butter.
 MASHED JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES.

Boil them tender, press the water well from them, and then
proceed exactly as for mashed turnips, taking care to dry the
artichokes well, both before and after the milk or cream is added to
them; they will be excellent if good white sauce be substituted for
either of these.
 HARICOTS BLANCS.

The haricot blanc is the seed of a particular kind of French bean,

of which we find some difficulty in ascertaining the English name, for
though we have tried several which resembled it in appearance, we
have found their flavour, after they were dressed, very different, and
far from agreeable. The large white Dutch runner, is, we believe, the
proper variety for cooking; at least we have obtained a small quantity
under that name, which approached much more nearly than any
others we had tried to those which we had eaten abroad. The
haricots, when fresh may be thrown into plenty of boiling water, with
some salt and a small bit of butter; if dry, they must be previously
soaked for an hour or two, put into cold water, brought to boil gently,
and simmered until they are tender, for if boiled fast the skins will
burst before the beans are done. Drain them thoroughly from the
water when they are ready, and lay them into a clean saucepan over
two or three ounces of fresh butter, a small dessertspoonful of
chopped parsley, and sufficient salt and pepper to season the whole;
then gently shake or toss the beans until they are quite hot and
equally covered with the sauce; add the strained juice of half a
lemon, and serve them quickly. The vegetable thus dressed, is
excellent; and it affords a convenient resource in the season when
the supply of other kinds is scantiest. In some countries the dried
beans are placed in water, over-night, upon a stove, and by a very
gentle degree of warmth are sufficiently softened by the following
day to be served as follows:—they are drained from the water,
spread on a clean cloth and wiped quite dry, then lightly floured and
fried in oil or butter, with a seasoning of pepper and salt, lifted into a
hot dish, and served under roast beef, or mutton.
 TO BOIL BEET ROOT.

Wash the roots delicately clean, but neither scrape nor cut them,
for should even the small fibres be taken off before they are cooked,
their beautiful colour would be much injured. Throw them into boiling
water, and, according to their size, which varies greatly, as they are
sometimes of enormous growth, boil them from one hour and a half
to two and a half, or longer if requisite. Pare and serve them whole,
or cut into thick slices and neatly dished in a close circle: send
melted butter to table with them. Cold red beet root is often
intermingled with other vegetables for winter salads; and it makes a
pickle of remarkably brilliant hue. A common mode of serving it at
the present day is in the last course of a dinner with the cheese: it is
merely pared and sliced after having been baked or boiled tender.
1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours, or longer.
 TO BAKE BEET ROOT.

Beet root if slowly and carefully baked until it is tender quite

through, is very rich and sweet in flavour, although less bright in
colour than when it is boiled: it is also, we believe, remarkably
nutritious and wholesome. Wash and wipe it very dry, but neither cut
nor break any part of it; then lay it into a coarse earthen dish, and
bake it in a gentle oven for four or five hours: it will sometimes
require even a longer time than this. Pare it quickly if it be served
hot; but leave it to cool first, when it is to be sent to table cold.
In slow oven from 4 to 6 hours.
 STEWED BEET ROOT.

Bake or boil it tolerably tender, and let it remain until it is cold, then
pare and cut it into slices; heat and stew it for a short time in some
good pale veal gravy (or in strong veal broth for ordinary occasions),
thicken this with a teaspoonful of arrow-root, and half a cupful or
more of good cream, and stir in, as it is taken from the fire, from a
tea to a tablespoonful of chili vinegar. The beet root may be served
likewise in thick white sauce, to which, just before it is dished, the
mild eschalots of page 128 may be added.
 TO STEW RED CABBAGE.

(Flemish Receipt.)
Strip the outer leaves from a fine and fresh red cabbage; wash it
well, and cut it into the thinnest possible slices, beginning at the top;
put it into a thick saucepan in which two or three ounces of good
butter have been just dissolved; add some pepper and salt, and stew
it very slowly indeed for three or four hours in its own juice, keeping it
often stirred, and well pressed down. When it is perfectly tender add
a tablespoonful of vinegar; mix the whole up thoroughly, heap the
cabbage in a hot dish, and serve broiled sausages round it; or omit
these last, and substitute lemon-juice, cayenne pepper, and a half-
cupful of good gravy.
The stalk of the cabbage should be split in quarters and taken
entirely out in the first instance.
3 to 4 hours.
 BRUSSELS SPROUTS.

These delicate little sprouts, or miniature cabbages, which at their

fullest growth scarcely exceed a large walnut in size, should be quite
freshly gathered. Free them from all discoloured leaves, cut the
stems even, and wash the sprouts thoroughly. Throw them into a
pan of water properly salted, and boil them quickly from eight to ten
minutes; drain them well, and serve them upon a rather thick round
of toasted bread buttered on both sides. Send good melted butter to
table with them. This is the Belgian mode of dressing this excellent
vegetable, which is served in France with the sauce poured over it,
or it is tossed in a stewpan with a slice of butter and some pepper
and salt: a spoonful or two of veal gravy (and sometimes a little
lemon-juice) is added when these are perfectly mixed.
8 to 10 minutes.
 SALSIFY.

We are surprised that a vegetable so excellent as this should be

so little cared for in England. Delicately fried in batter—which is a
common mode of serving it abroad—it forms a delicious second
course dish: it is also good when plain-boiled, drained, and served in
gravy, or even with melted butter. Wash the roots, scrape gently off
the dark outside skin, and throw them into cold water as they are
done, to prevent their turning black; cut them into lengths of three or
four inches, and when all are ready put them into plenty of boiling
water with a little salt, a small bit of butter, and a couple of spoonsful
of white vinegar or the juice of a lemon: they will be done in from
three quarters of an hour to an hour. Try them with a fork, and when
perfectly tender, drain, and serve them with white sauce, rich brown
gravy, or melted butter.
3/4 to 1 hour.
 FRIED SALSIFY. (ENTREMETS.)

Boil the salsify tender, as directed above, drain, and then press it
lightly in a soft cloth. Make some French batter (see Chapter V.),
throw the bits of salsify into it, take them out separately, and fry them
a light brown, drain them well from the fat, sprinkle a little fine salt
over them after they are dished, and serve them quickly. At English
tables, salsify occasionally makes its appearance fried with egg and
bread-crumbs instead of batter. Scorgonera is dressed in precisely
the same manner as the salsify.
 BOILED CELERY.

This vegetable is extremely good dressed like sea-kale, and

served on a toast with rich melted butter. Let it be freshly dug, wash
it with great nicety, trim the ends, take off the coarse outer-leaves,
cut the roots of equal length, tie them in bunches, and boil them in
plenty of water, with the usual proportion of salt, from twenty to thirty
minutes.
20 to 30 minutes.
 STEWED CELERY.

Cut five or six fine roots of celery to the length of the inside of the
dish in which they are to be served; free them from all the coarser
leaves, and from the green tops, trim the root ends neatly, and wash
the vegetable in several waters until it is as clean as possible; then,
either boil it tender with a little salt, and a bit of fresh butter the size
of a walnut, in just sufficient water to cover it quite, drain it well,
arrange it on a very hot dish, and pour a thick béchamel, or white
sauce over it; or stew it in broth or common stock, and serve it with
very rich, thickened, Espagnole or brown gravy. It has a higher
flavour when partially stewed in the sauce, after being drained
thoroughly from the broth. Unless very large and old, it will be done
in from twenty-five to thirty minutes, but if not quite tender, longer
time must be allowed for it. A cheap and expeditious method of
preparing this dish is to slice the celery, to simmer it until soft in as
much good broth as will only just cover it, and to add a thickening of
flour and butter, or arrow-root, with some salt, pepper, and a small
cupful of cream.
25 to 30 minutes, or more.