OtO.T \\ "a_ < o s e, ; P\ Ajfc\?*v Ax VToTAtn VS v> y Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library I'-, M32 Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae VOL. XI NO. 2 October, 1917 WOMEN IN LIBRARIES ADELAIDE R. HASSE Chief of Economics Division, N. Y. Public Library Of course it is about the possibilities for women in library work that the readers of the Journal would expect a woman librarian to write. I always hesitate to discuss this subject because, while I am quite sure of my convictions, they do not happen to coincide with those of the majority of my colleagues. That it is expected of every one today and especially of the working woman to be efficient goes without saying. Just what the preparation should be that speeds up to this efficiency in library work is the subject about which many of my colleagues and I differ. They say there is nothing like training and I agree with them but we differ as to the kind of training. The graduates of the library schools today, I maintain, stop learning when they leave school. I am speaking of the average of course. Many below the average have never begun to learn. To attend lectures, even to pass an examination, does not necessarily imply the possession of the learn- ing mind. A learning mind is not necessarily a learned mind, but a learning mind is what every library worker should have. There is not in the library school curriculum of today suffi- cient specialization. A student may be utterly unfitted by tempera- ment and taste to become a cataloguer, yet to secure her diploma she must give full time to this technical discipline. There is no discrimination on the part of the schools between the technical and the professional part of library work. It is the technical to which most weight is attached, but it is the professional work which makes the greatest demands upon the equipment of the worker and which requires qualifications far more unusual than does the technical work. Individuals responsible for the library school curriculum 74 Association of Collegiate Alumnae seem not to realize that any careful person with ordinary natural faculties can be trained into a cataloguer. A reference or pro- fessional worker, on the other hand, is born, not made. This state- ment will not be admitted readily by librarians in general. But reference work is the one great undeveloped part of library work. It is that part having the most far reaching and worth-while possi- bilities. The failure to appreciate the possibilities of professional library work, the unconscious, but nevertheless regrettable depreciation of this phase of the work, has without doubt been one of the prime causes in keeping library salaries for the rank and file as low as they are. The reader may examine Bulletin 25, 1915, of the United States bureau of Education, for a showing of the salaries paid to librarians. One or two positions there are which run into five figures. Of the four-figure salaries $8,000 is conspicuous, even the five-thousand-dollar salaries make a small group. The maximum for women is, I believe, $3,000. The salary group from $2,000 to $4,000 represents the group that does real work, the higher salaries being secured as often through favoritism as through any inherent ability. The training to be obtained in the library schools as they are at present arranged is perhaps sufficient for those library activities with which the public does not come in direct contact. But fancy this situation. A corporation maintained for the sole purpose of doing business directly with the public is confined in the selection of its personnel largely to the output of schools whose curriculum is confessedly weakest in exactly those subjects most vitally required by the corporation. If specialization were practiced and encouraged not only would the incentive for individual effort be greater, but by raising the level of the specialties through this pressure from below, the level of the mass would be raised. The situation as it exists today presents a dead level of mediocrity. The inspira- tional reaction is almost entirely absent. With one or two excep- tions I do not remember any unusual work being done by library school graduates. But it is difficult to see how an occupation, sought by the great majority of those engaged in it as a refuge rather than as a career, could be other than the grave it is. As an illustration of the perverting effect of training for training’s sake let me cite an incident which has just occurred in my division. A young woman with an excellent record in her library school as well as for subsequent actual service was recently transferred to my division. I congratulated myself and received WC NEI^ \ Women in Libraries 75 the congratulations of my fellow workers. My division is almost entirely a research department, one in which mature men and L ~women do advanced research work. A student who had been at work in the division foT nearly three years, had during this time accumulated a mass of material and from time to time, as he re- quired them, books were brought to him from the general collection. The man was doing a very important and highly scientific piece of work for an out-of-town organization. At the time of the arrival in the division of the new, trained library worker this man’s table was covered with books, pamphlets, notes, a typewriter, etc. It was a student’s work-table, ready, convenient, everything at hand. A large part of the material consisted of obscure pamphlets of which the student, relying on our appreciation of his work, did not always keep references. The trained assistant looked about. The first thing she espied was this table. An eye-sore, of course. Without asking any questions of any one she took it upon herself to remove our student’s working material and return it to the shelves! Through this orderly piece of vandalism a work, now nearly three years in progress, was effectively interfered with. The trained library worker’s standard was complied with, but we shall have to change such standards if the library is to exist for anything other than itself. Libraries need women of the student type, mentally and sympathetically in contact with live issues and knowing the meaning and the value of service. The Inez Milholland type is sadly needed among us to vivify the inertia of existing conditions. American women have shown in their suffrage campaigns of recent years a tremendously brilliant organizing power. Inasmuch as library work does offer an undeniably attractive scope to ambitious, in- telligent women, and inasmuch as this scope is held in abeyance, by lack of initiative in the general plan of library administration, might it not be well for organized women to institute an inquiry into this poorly adjusted field of women’s work? Here is some- thing for the A. C. A. to think about. As an indication of the possibilities lying within the scope of the great public library it may be profitable to compare it with some of the great technico-professional service institutions of the federal government. Suppose we take the largest American public library, viz: the New York Public Library. The expenditures for maintenance of this institution in 1915 were $1,423,730. In that same year the United States government expended for main- tenance of the Geological Survey, with its great corps of experi- 76 Association of Collegiate Alumnae enced scientists, investigators, compilers, etc., the sum of $1,405,520. In the same year the government spent for the maintenance of the Weather Bureau the sum of $1,667,270. The Weather Bureau today maintains one hundred and ninety-nine stations furnishing principal reports upon which weather forecast- ing is based and over four thousand five hundred sub-stations. The daily forecasts are available by telephone to more than five million subscribers and by mail to more than one hundred thousand ad- dresses. Distribution by wireless is made for nine states. The work of the Geological Survey is almost too well known through its publications to make it necessary to refer to it at all here. However, during 1915, the Geological Survey was engaged in its project of mapping the 3,000,000 square miles of the United States. It continued its studies of the underground-water resources of the United States. The areas of these studies at the present time cover half a million square miles of those parts of the United States in which impure water supplies involve the greatest danger. The value of these surveys in conserving public health has already been demonstrated, for it is noted that wherever an adequate sup- ply of deep-well water has been obtained, typhoid fever, amoebic dysentery and malaria have abated. The two thick volumes en- titled “Mineral Resources,” published annually by the Survey are more than a statistical compilation, they are a record of industrial progress of the year. The division directly responsible for these volumes in 1915 sent out 210,042 pieces of first-class mail matter, comprising chiefly inquiries for material needed for the reports. In all sixty-two persons are engaged in the compilation of these volumes, forty solely and the remainder cooperatively. These are only a few of the many great projects of the Geological Survey. Not one of them but has a direct bearing on the economic life of the country. The salary roll of 1915 of the corps of scientific assistants and the office of the director of the Geological Survey was $65,240. The total salary roll of the Weather Bureau for the same year was $327,270. The salary roll of the New York Public Library for 1915 was $844,468. It can hardly be said that the two former institutions are less important than the latter. Indeed if the Weather Bureau were to cease functioning for one day the ex- changes, lake and river navigation and agriculture would all be affected. Some of the lesser federal services were maintained in 1915 as follows: The Bureau of Fisheries for $863,971, the Foreign and Domestic Commerce Bureau for $446,988 and the Federal Women in Libraries 77 Meat Inspection Bureau for $375,000. The administration of the Navy Department in the same year cost the Government but $867,715. Why is it that the same amount of money which produces such tremendous results in the Government bureaus (I have barely in- dicated them) produces such pitifully negligible results when spent for public libraries. Is it because the old idea of a library as a storage-house still obtains? Obtains in spite of the schools, in spite of the modern idea that such institutions exist for service? Is it because the material which goes into the schools is below par ? There must be a reason for such flagrant divergence of results. The course of world events points to sweeping changes in the political and the economic life of nations. We are now under- going a transition from the belief in old, formal established things existing for themselves to the greater idea that anything worth maintaining must be of use. How will our libraries meet this change? With a large proportion of these institutions still strug- gling in the coils of arbitrary technique and tentative administra- tion, it is a matter of grave doubt whether as at present conditioned they will be able to respond effectively, let alone efficiently, to the new demand. They are a dead weight on the spirit of progress. Not one of them is thoroughly qualified today for giving the in- formation service required by this new public attitude even in its present incipient development. And yet there is opportunity — exceptional opportunity — both for individual expression and for service of a high order in library work. But it is not in libraries as such that the movement has begun. Large industrial and financial corporations throughout the country are increasingly supporting their departments of scientific and statistical research. A large part of this new development is library work, viz : the assembling and routing of information in print to the experts of the corporation. The details and import- ance of this work were aptly described by Mr. Matthew C. Brush, President of the Boston Elevated Railway Co., in an address be- fore the Special Libraries Association, June 25, 1917, on “The So-Called Librarian’s Real Duties.” Mr. Brush said : “It seems most unfortunate that the title of an employee qualified to assist every officer and executive in the performance of his duties should tell so little of the work actually per- formed .... “The employees of a company must look necessarily to the librarian to provide them with indexes for ready reference, 78 Association of Collegiate Alumnae with books on the subjects they are constantly studying, with magazines and periodicals pertaining to their business, with pamphlets appropriate to the work in hand, and with book reviews that they may become acquainted with the latest books printed, and moreover they should become confident in pre- dicting that all or nearly all of the up-to-date literature they may desire relative to their work can be found in the company library. They should feel that when a question is asked no stone will be left unturned in the search for information as to the latest or best article on the specific subject; that if a negative answer is given they can bank on its being so ; that if little reading matter is forthcoming it is because little has been written ; and that if the answer is not immediately given it is due to their question not having been indexed as asked, or else it has been hidden away in an obscure article. They should feel confident that once the librarian knows their wants he will continue to find matter on the subject until directed to stop; that if new ideas on an old subject come to hand they will be advised of the same; that where information is desired the inquiry will receive immediate attention ; that the librarian is in fact an assistant to them in their work. They should be made to feel that he is glad of the opportunity to be of assist- ance to them, and not made to feel that information is given as a favor. He should show as much enthusiasm over the inquiry of an office boy as he shows for the perplexing ques- tions of a highly paid expert. “The stafif of a company can unquestionably use a librarian as an assistant on many matters, since he has an opportunity to become fmiliar with the various trade magazines, and peri- odicals, is able to note and read articles that they have so little time to read, and can systematically call their attention to articles of special note ... “The librarian must anticipate the executive’s wants re- garding literature on subjects akin to the business, and be prepared with fitting references and apt extracts of reviews regarding the many and varied matters liable to develop in the conduct of the business. He must instinctively know what subjects are bound to come up for discussion at some future time and accumulate material to aid the executive in the proper study of the question with the least amount of time. The material should not consist of stacks of books or pamphlets dumped upon his desk to such an extent that the executive Women in Libraries 79 groans at the sight of the job before him, but should consist of specially marked pages or paragraphs in books, reviews, etc., bearing directly on the subject, so that the executive may grasp what has been written with the minimum amount of personal work. In fact, if possible, the extracts should be summarized and the important points in a long article con- densed into a sentence or two. . . . “The opportunity of being of assistance to the executive depends entirely upon the librarian. If he intimately ac- quaints himself with the work the executive has on hand he can make himself valuable, and really be an assistant on many matters. If he can keep in touch with life outside of his vocation, he may be useful materially to the executive. If he can grasp what is desired without lengthy explanations, he helps save time. In fact, the so-called librarian can build a permanent place for himself in every firm, corporation or company, if he desires to do so ; and if he possesses an intimate acquaintance with the various methods of getting information aside from books, periodicals, pamphlets, etc. standing as he should at the elbow of an executive, demonstrating his ability to advise how various matters have been viewed by different minds, and reporting why certain schemes were a success or failure, it would seem as if a more fitting title could be thought of for him than that of librarian.” Now it appeals to reason that not every corporation com- mands the necessary material from which to cull this information for the experts and executives. Indeed some corporations do not yet support their own library departments, but depend on the pub- lic library; and they have a right to do so. So has the public generally. But they are not served adequately. The exceptional resources of our great metropolitan libraries exist but are not available. They will not be available until library executives have a point of view similarly directed with that of corporation exec- utives. If a corporation executive deems the installation of a local information service justifiable, is it not conceivable that the library executive should be willing to put his plant on the same utility basis? Yet, in spite of the enormous sums expended for American public libraries, not one has attempted to do this. These institu- tions still depend on archaic catalogues and sporadic indexes to supply the needs and just requirements of an alert public, and if this public is alert today, what may we expect of it in five, ten years from now with our economic horizon continually broadening? 80 Association of Collegiate Alumnae Undoubtedly a middleman agency will be developed which will simply rework the library resources to meet the public require- ments and sell the new product back to the library and to the public. There is here then (it need not be charted and dia- grammed), an opening for developments of peculiar interest to the American college woman of broad outlook and serious purpose. Public libraries are the logical agencies to do this work, but not until the balance of fitness of library personnel is on the side of professional as opposed to technical equipment can they operate as such agencies. A firm stand by college women against libraries as institutions and in favor of libraries as public service plants will do much to help. NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND \ AGNES h. ROGERS X M.A., St. Andrews; Moral Sciences Tripos, Cambrige; Lecturer in EducationaVJPsychology, Teachers Colleger Columbia The spirit of thev pioneer commands a^ention and compels interest and a similar aNuring and arresting charm clings around pioneering institutions. That spirit was irever more intimately ex- perienced than in Newnham\?ollege, Cambridge, England, for its founders yet live in the hearts of tho^e now guiding the institution and are in truth the inspiration afyf soul of the place. To Bedford College it was gjweht to be the first institution for the higher education of Britisbr women. It was opened in 1849. Women were even admitted /o degrees>by London University as early as 1878. It is true aflso that GirtorkCollege was an earlier foundation, being virtually established in 18^9, when Miss Emily Davies rented a house an Hitchin near Cambridge and instruction was given along the A ines of the University retirements to the students under her ymarge by certain resident tutors and university professors. Nevertheless, there was no woman who played so widely influential a part in the education of the women of Great Britain as Anne Jemima Clough, who in 1871 practicably started Newnham College, when she undertook the care of fiv\ women who wished to attend lectures in Cambridge. These five students soon added to their number and in 1875 Newnham Hall was opened. B^ore that date Miss Clough had played a prominent rolXin the general movement for improving the education of girls. Sne ha^Lbeen president for the year 1873-4 of the North of Englancr Opportunities for Women in Finance 293 interviews. The outlying districts are generally covered by assign- ing ^ach salesman certain cities o,r counties but here in Xew Yorl^he young hopefuls are frequently turned out on th^vorld without! single name. Personality (which someone ha&rdefined as good character plus good health), a knowledge of thybusiness, persistence\nd tact, are the assets which have enabled many young men and a very creditable number of women to surmount the really great difftailties and discouragements of the wdrk. A good deal\)f selling is done by letter. Sine/ “the written word remained!’’ it\s quite important to the house /hat the writer be accurate and conservative in his statements./ Discrimination between the needs of difficult types of customer is necessary to results for here personally is eliminated and /ie letter triumphs by sheer force of fitness o\not at all. Some /ouses have a pains- taking system of following Vp salesmens’ c^ls by letters and of keeping in constant touch witmeach man, gliding him every night bits of office gossip, records orche days’/best sales, market com- ment and information on new isakes. The trading department buys ^on/ and sells to other houses. The work is done over the telephonafcmd at very high speed. It requires not only a knowledge of nri^t and of the specialties of each different house but tranquil Zierve^and an unusual amount of endurance. There are some excellent vtomen traders. The main business of a amck exchange house is to transmit to its representative on the fWor of the exchange customers’ orders to buy or sell. The bankmg and delivery departments are well developed but unless investment customers als(\are sought such a house has no buying />r sales department. The customers’ mom is the distinctive featu!^ Here each sale as it occurs oy the exchange is reported by t^ ticker and is frequently copiofu on black boards and charts, while the news tickers grind out^ill day long every rumor and fact, polmcal, com- mercial or financial, that might conceivably send any stolk up or down. The oostomers’ man, as he is called, must know quotations, what the present trend of the market is and why, and thekprice record oythe popular issues. Kathleen Taylor who holds Ysuch a position renders her customers further service by keeping her- self well informed as to earnings, prospects, etc. of a large nt ber /f companies. Now about getting a position. First of all let me say 11 capital letters DON’T LEARN STENOGRAPHY if you hav< iny ambition to go beyond it. Stenographers, because of the 1 294 Association of Collegiate Alumnae loise of their machines, are generally kept together in a sort of haVem remote from the pulse of the business. Their work is toe mechanical to teach them much. They are too busy to study too welhpaid to break away into other departments most of wl pay less for the first few years. In finomg and filling your first position special tracing in law, economiW finance and statistics is helpful but not/necessary. You do not ne^d higher mathematics. The essential in finance are the qualities\that make for success everywhere— good health, very good health, good breeding, tact, perseverance, self-confidence and the ability to speak and write your moth e/ tongue. Will you find a great wall of prejudice raised up agamst you? No, just a little fleecy cloud of itxlingering here animply extended the work of these institutions by carrying the bene- 298 OPEN LETTERS [The following letters were omitted from the December Journal owing to lack of space.] To the Editor of the Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae : — May I call your attention to Miss Hasse’s article in the October number of your Journal, entitled, “Women in Libraries,” which ' conveys an entirely erroneous idea of library school graduates, and of library work as a whole, to the readers of this magazine? In the opening paragraph, Miss Hasse says, “My convictions do not happen to coincide with those of the majority of my col- leagues,” — which is very true, and I will not argue this point with her. Next, the writer states, “The graduates of the library schools of today, I maintain, stop learning when they leave school. I am speaking of the average, of course. To attend lectures, even to pass an examination does not necessarily imply the possession of a learning mind. But a learning mind is what every library worker should have.” Such remarks only further tend to make our profes- sion quite misunderstood, and certainly there is already plenty of misunderstanding of it on the part of the layman. These remarks are not fair to librarians in general. To say that the average librarian stops learning when she leaves library school, is perfectly preposterous. There are exceptions, of course, and these Miss Hasse must be thinking of, but I heartily disagree with her when she says the average. For most modern librarians realize that unless they are constantly learning, their libraries will not be giving the right kind of service, neither will they be taking their rightful places in the community. And from a purely selfish standpoint, in a profession that is constantly being added to by clever, capable library school graduates (and others who are not) most librarians realize that unless they are on the alert to learn, unless they have constantly the open mind, they will very quickly be superseded. Miss Hasse lauds the Government reports and seems to think that Uncle Sam gets every cent’s worth of his money invested there, and that the taxpayers of the public library do not. She states that the administration of the Navy Department in the year 1915 cost the government but $867,715 while the salary roll of the New York Public Library for 1915 was $844,458. “Why is it,” she asks, “that the same amount of money which produces such tremendous 311 312 Association of Collegiate. Alumnae results in the Government Bureaus produces such pitifully neglible results when spent for public libraries ?” Now I venture to assert that the work accomplished by the New York Public Library in 1915, while it did not compare in quality with the work of the Navy Department, more than held its own in quantity. Quoting from the article again, “The inspirational reaction is almost entirely absent. With one or two exceptions, I do not re- member any unusual work being done by library school graduates. But it is difficult to see how an occupation sought by the great majority of those engaged in it as a refuge rather than as a career, could be other than the grave it is.” Miss Hasse is evidently not familiar with library work and workers in the Middle West (and I do not feel that I am getting personal when I speak of the Middle West, for I have been here but a short time) where there are many very much alert library school graduates that have been for several years making their libraries a real and vital force in their com- munities. Moreover, they are doing unusual work, and the in- spirational reaction is not by any means, absent. The library schools of the day should not be criticized for not preparing specialists instead of general public library worker:'. They do not claim to do this; the making of specialists is an after development, and probably some day in the future a graduate school for the training of specialists will be established. In the meantime I hold a brief for the library school graduate of today, — that the average are of a learning mind, constantly on the alert, and constantly progressing and making their work and their libraries of real and effective service to the people. Almira R. Wilcox, Librarian Carnegie- Stout Free Public Library, Dubuque, Iowa. Editor of the Journal : Miss Hasse’s articles always stimulate me immensely al- though they come at too infrequent intervals, but this week I have had the pleasure of reading two with only a three-day interval — one in the Library Journal for October and the other in the Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. These articles have struck strong chords of response in me and my enthusiasm cannot longer be repressed. I want to thank Miss Hasse for expressing with such vigor and clarity what I have Open Letters 313 been passionately but dumbly feeling for many months. I agree thoroughly with the stand taken by this brave capable woman on a question of such importance and urgency to our libraries. I am a librarian in the federal department of Agriculture and am filled with a deep appreciation of the possibilities of the work and an abounding joy in its performance in so far as my ability goes. If the attitude of one’s mind is right one cannot do reference work and not grow and so long as one is growing one is living fully. Every reference question is really a quest after the unknown; it is pioneer work in a sense full of the best sort of compensation. I thank Miss Hasse from the depths of my heart and mind for those articles. Mary G. Lacy. To the Editor: I have read Miss Hasse’s article in the October number of the Journal and am rejoiced to find that she is condemning the wooden library system prevailing so commonly. It has been some years since I was in a public .library and my reason for this has been a realization of the inability of the libraries to adapt themselves to public methods. Frederic Burk, State Normal School, San Francisco. 'rom the Paris Headquarters of the Red Cross a requ^^fpr well-pumps. When the German^**rtfSated from certain districtS^kfwleft the wells filledwi^Kfubbish and in many cases they destroy earhe^umps.^£Wlf7se families who have gone back to their devastated£5k<^to try to restore them dare not drink from the %ells*tfmil they kun^S^ey are safe. After a well has been dpidfST and purified the peopi^NlQck to it for miles aroim0-e Ann Arbor branch of the Association centers y^round the work it has undertaken in connection with the university union in Europe. At the last meeing a most interesting letter from Prof. (Sharks Vibbert, Michigan’s representative in Paris, was read. Rrof. Vibbert told of the change of lo