day we discovered that what we had taken to be merely a blank book was in reality the authentic record book of the attendance of that first convention, the men having signed as they arrived in the hall, indicating the libraries they represented and, in many cases, the hotel at which they were stopping. Therefore, you see before you the actual record of the members of that first convention of librarians, of which this gathering is a descendant. Mr. President, on behalf of my sister and myself, I desire to present to this Association this document. hands the book to the president.) THE PRESENT TREND Sometimes a seer who looks down the corridors of time into the future finds that he is merely looking at a mirror and is seeing the path he himself has trod; and, after all, perhaps we all have to look at past history in order to get some conception of what the future may bring. Now, the path that we have trod covers, I should say roughly, about seventy years, from the date when George Ticknor, scholar and aristocrat, sounded, as the politicians say, the keynote of our present public li braries campaign. (Mr. Grant President ANDERSON: I need hardly say to Mr. Grant that I feel that I am authorized by you to accept this with our grateful thanks. It will be preserved in the archives of the Association at its headquarters in Chicago. President ANDERSON: I have asked the First Vice-President of the Association, Mr. Hiller C. Wellman, of Springfield, Massachusetts, to preside over this meeting, and he has very kindly consented. It gives me very great pleasure to turn over the gavel to Mr. Wellman, who will now have the responsibility of this session on his shoulders. (First Vice-President Wellman takes the chair.) Vice-President WELLMAN: So rapid has been the progress of the library movement in recent years that I have heard some unkind critics say that librarians were content to be moving without always knowing whither. I will not undertake to say whether there is any truth in that contention, but I want to reassure you. If there is any basis for such a grievous charge, it will be removed tonight; for we are to have the pleasure of listening to a paper on "The present trend" by a keen observer as well as As you may remem ber, he said that his ideal of the public library was not only to have books for culture, but also books for pleasant reading in time of leisure; and this conception of the public library, that it should contain popular literature for use at the right time, was so revolutionary that it threatened to break up the Boston public library. It seems to me that out of George Ticknor's letters, written in 1849, the public library movement in its present aspect has grown. It seems to me, also, that those seventy years have largely been years of preparation, although in that time there have been some choice souls with the missionary spirit. We have developed classifications; we have developed catalogs. You and I, who know something of the work in England and other countries, realize that this has really been a great achievement. We realize that it has been a very serious and real preparation-nevertheless it has been a preparation, just as we say the training of the child is a preparation for more serious things. I wish we could see whither we are drifting and to what this preparation is going to lead. Perhaps we are sometimes a little too anxious to know what the future will bring, and I do not know whether we are going to be contented to go slowly on our present way. Coöperation has been one of our watchwords. We talk a great deal about issuing cards by the Library of Congress, about the work the library ང journals are doing, the work the library clubs and societies are doing, and it seems to me that all that work of coöperation has been enormously beneficial to the present library movement. I think also the government document movement has been one of our great cooperative measures. I am sure many small libraries get much help from the government, but there would be a greater benefit if we librarians might get together and evolve some plan of distribution, by which documents and parts of documents which the small libraries want could be made available. For example, I do not see why we should not take from a document a chapter on manufacturing, to be issued for distribution to manufacturing communities; with another for mining communities, etc. I grant you we are trying to do something of that kind, but it seems to me that we have not yet reached the point where the average public reader may look in a document, which may be as interesting as a modern novel, and readily find what he wants. I am inclined to think that some sections of our public documents might be made more available to the general reader, more interesting and more satisfactory in every way if brought out in small fractions. Admitting the many benefits and advantages of coöperation, I am yet sure these coöperative movements in many ways hurt the initiative in small towns; not that coöperation is not good, but I think we shall find many cases where coöperation will not do all we wish. There is, also, the decentralization idea. In New England we have had some experience in centralized control of transportation, and we have come to the conclusion that this panacea of centralization cannot always do for the public all that men claim it can do. It seems to me that the modern public library building represents the high-water mark of centralization. We have been putting from $1,000,000 to $10,000,000 into one building and it is a beautiful building. I do not give place to anyone in this au dience in my admiration for architecture, but it seems to me we have reached the high-water mark for expenditure for the central building and the centralizing influence. I am going to be so bold as to say that hereafter we are to elaborate the branch library instead of the central library. The central library is sure in many cases to become the victim of a shifting population. We have a very expensive, a very elaborate building, which gradually is going to go from the best point in the city's population to a very disadvantageous point. Therefore it seems to me it would be better policy to put our money more largely into beautiful and useful branch libraries, leaving the central library simple and inexpensive, as an administrative center and a storage center. These branch libraries in some cities already are being used as civic centers. In some instances the library is a place for social gatherings, with a kitchen; a place for public dances; for a swimming pool; for all the activities that now go on. In some states such an institution is apart from the library. I am inclined, however, to think it is a good deal better business to have the library share in that work, just as the Roman baths were used for civic purposes as well as for baths. We are coming back, perhaps, to something of the old Roman idea that books and learning are not things apart from everyday life, but are just as much a part of the everyday life as the swimming pool and the public dance. The movies, I think, have come to stay for a good while. Just to take one case: the advent of the moving-picture show was fought for a long time in Brookline. Now the moving pictures are allowed under supervision, and have become a serious menace to the saloons a mile away. It seems to be an extraordinary and a significant situation that the proprietors of saloons a mile away have become uneasy because the moving-picture shows are so successful. I understand that, in some institutions such as I am describing, the library itself and the library building are under the administration of the librarian, while the rooms in which social affairs are carried on are not managed by the librarian. That is, the success of a welfare movement or like neighborhood work depends so largely upon the personality of the individual behind it, that it is a good deal better to have the different institutions gathered under one roof and the building itself administered by the library, though all the activities are not managed by the librarian. Some of the best observers consider that policy wise, and it seems likely to grow. It seems to me also there should be some change of policy in branches in our large cities, and I speak more, perhaps, from the point of view of New England, where we have a great foreign population. These branches should pay more attention to good literature and less attention to the books of the day. We librarians have laid great stress upon having new books, instead of having standard books in new dress. Certainly the immigrant population, as we see them in New England, want the best books. They do not care whether they were issued this year, last year, or ten years ago, but they do want them attractive. There is another trend of centralization, and of that I speak with some hesitation. That is the question of putting the library under the educational system. In the new charter of Minneapolis the library is to be put under the school system. For my part, I think that a very doubtful move. It may be that is the coming plan, but it certainly looks as though the librarian would lose his efficiency and some of his initiative if he is to be subject to the school department which, practically speaking, trains through only onehalf or one-third of a person's career. Of course education goes through our whole lives, but the technical business of education does not, and the technical business of the librarian does. Therefore, I look with some hesitation upon what seems the growing scheme of the West, to put the library under the board of education. Another thing which is growing in the library business is the pushing of the book. Sometimes we call it the advertising of the library business. Looking at it in a broad way, many people think the state library is going to do a large part of the work for the small town. In some places, however-in Massachusetts, for example-it is perhaps better to have several large cities do the work for their adjoining towns and for the neighborhood. In either case it seems to me that there is still a great deal of work to be done in getting certain books, like scientific books, that are not so much called for, into the hands of the people in the country towns. Some of the systems, such as have been adopted in California, go far to meet that difficulty. Another scheme is of interest just now-the house-to-house delivery. In crowded suburbs of large cities I do not see why it should not be a success. In country towns it seems to have the same danger the rural free delivery has. The rural free delivery is "cracked up" to be a very fine thing, and of course on a rainy day it is a very fine thing; but the rural free delivery has isolated the farmer even more than he was isolated in the past. We are talking a great deal about making farm life attractive. Farm life, to be attractive, must mean that the farmers get together, and I am afraid the rural free delivery does not help to get them together. The house-to-house delivery of books will not encourage their coming together, and it does away with the very inspiration of books which comes from being among them, though it may have great advantages which will outweigh the disadvantages. We are also going to push more vigor. ously our work with business houses. I could name one or two very large cities in New England where practically nothing is done for the business districts. In some sections of the country a great deal can be done along this line. A great deal can be done with the trades. One city in Europe has a library for cab-drivers. I do not know what cab-drivers read, but I suppose they read about lords and ladies-that is human nature. Another innovation is the legislative reference library. Its advantages are very manifest to all of us, but there are to be some disadvantages, unless the legislative reference library is very closely guarded. The first use of the word "democracy" in literature was as a diseasea disease of constitutional government. Every good scheme, like the legislative reference library, has its disease, and I think the disease in this case is the forming of a bureau of experts, which is perpetual. That means that the bureau of experts is going to have, unless it is carefully guarded, an undue influence upon laws. Now I should like to say a word about our profession itself, though I am not so sure that it has as yet come to the point where it is a true profession. Only today a man spoke to me on the street about the lack of leadership among librarians. It seems to me we still train too much in our library schools for assistants and sociological workers. Not but what they are desirable and necessary, but are we getting a fair proportion of leaders? I have just been looking over the new volume of Who's Who in America, noting the twentyfive librarians mentioned from the largest libraries in this country. The results are not discouraging; on the whole, I think they are very good, for almost all of the twenty-five have some interests outside of their library work. great city, perhaps in any community, there is a great deal of work which must be done, and it must be unpaid work. Every banker, lawyer, doctor, or clergyman expects to do his share of that work to keep the machine going. I am afraid if you look over the biographies of those twenty-five men and women you will find they are not doing a very large proportion of the world's work outside of their jobs. In any It is often said, when some of our distinguished librarians die: "Who can take their places?" I do not doubt that many of us would be willing to take their places, but are we going to find enough men and women of large caliber and wide sympathies who measure up to these places? It seems to me that we, who are in the larger libraries, or in the library schools, need to be on the lookout for younger workers, and should push ahead those who have special aptitude. We ought, I suppose, to take into the library profession more foreign-born people. At any rate, when it is a fact that in a place like New Bedford, out of every ten people you meet, nine are foreign-born or bred, there is need to get very near to the foreigners. As Jane Addams says, we should do a great deal better with our foreign population if we tried sometimes to learn something from them instead of trying all the time to teach them something. Many small towns, where librarians are employed only a part of the time, need some kind of supervision, even more intimate than the state can give. They need a county supervisor, or district supervision, more intimate than the state so far has been able to offer. Indeed, with as many towns as we have in Massachusetts, no one supervisor can get through the whole list of towns with sufficient frequency. I think a district superintendent, or supervisor of libraries, will be created in all parts of this country. A thing also which cripples our profession is the placing of the individual above the office or the service to be rendered. I speak feelingly when I say there are a good many administrative officers who do not know what to do with aged and respectable assistants who will not die and will not marry. We must devise some way by which we may keep out some who would be better employed in writing poor books than in cataloging good ones. That suggests the pension system, which it seems to me will grow enormously throughout the library world as well as throughout other public and utilitarian institutions. The temper of the time is toward an easy-going way, toward the moving-picture show, toward the historical novel instead of the study of history, toward the translations instead of the classics. All of this is really leading us toward an ignoble conception of life. We, as librarians, must take the future somewhat seriously, and whatever of high endeavor we plan we ought to carry through. Vice-President WELLMAN: We have listened with pleasure to the forecast of library progress of the future, and we shall now recur to library progress in the near past. You may remember that in 1907 Miss Anne Wallace, then librarian of Atlanta, now Mrs. Howland of Boston, read a paper summarizing library progress in the South to that date. We shall have the pleasure of having this record brought to the present by Miss Wallace's successor, Miss KATHARINE H. WOOTTEN of Atlanta. LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN THE SOUTH SINCE 1907 "The American library is no longer a mere house of books sleepily reposing on a side street. It is no longer static. It is dynamic." So said the syndicated Frederic J. Haskin in a recent article on the American library, and these words describe accurately the library condition of the southern states. At the Asheville conference in 1907 Miss Anne Wallace, of blessed library memory, reminded you that, in spite of vastness of territory, absence of many large cities which act as centers of culture, a large rural population, in an agricultural section, which lives out of doors at least nine months of the year, library progress since 1899 had been greater in the South and in the Middle West than in any other sections of the country, and, speaking now for the South, it is gratifying to tell you in 1914 that this development has been continuous, and has kept pace with the great commercial progress of this section. While the rapidly increasing population has virtually decreased its area by bringing people nearer together, the good roads movement has served its purpose of facilitating communication, so that the southern farmer is no longer isolated, but is practically a citizen of the nearest city, and has all the privileges of citizenship, except that of paying taxes! Southern conservatism, with its aversion to paternalism, has finally accepted the free public library as a necessary educational institution, as is shown in the establishment of approximately ninety-one libraries in fourteen southern states since 1907, representing an expenditure of more than $1,500,000. Balanced against the now thoroughly awakened appreciation of the public li brary, the opposition to its development is virtually negligible. The voice raised in protestation that the library is only for the idle rich, the indigent tramp, or the dreamy bookworm is still heard, but it is almost always silenced by the investigation of some nearby public library which the protestant is forced to make, guided by some ever-present library enthusiast, and in most cases the protestations cease, and praise takes the place of blame. A tribute to the vitality of the public library movement as it has become more and more a part of our daily life in the southern states, has been the winning over to its side of the older generations of educated citizens, men and women. There are I suppose nowhere in America, perhaps nowhere in the world, greater and more persistent readers than are found among this class, who have an inherited tradition that the best works of all litera tures are to be read. And from this tra dition has come a taste so discriminating that their requests for books are a guide to the libraries, the problem being, in the beginning, how to satisfy them with the |