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The freshmen are given this course for two reasons: (1) to enable them to use the library to better purpose thruout their college course, and (2) that they may have some library training to be used in their homes and schools if they have to drop out of school before graduation, as many of them do.

The course for the seniors is arranged to give such instruction as is needed in the formation and care of a school library. It includes the following: selection of books-books suitable for the different grades, best editions for school libraries most useful government publications, book-buying, classification, book numbers, accessioning, cataloging, shelf - listing, charging-systems, picture bulletins, care of books, mending books, making of picture bulletins, state school-library law, state library list. One period a week in class for the second term is given for this course.

The librarian does the teaching.

We have a model school library in the classroom, consisting of the books in the State Library list, which is used by the students in all the practice-work given in the course.

These courses are not all we hope to make them after longer trial of them. If a school library is large enough to justify and require a professional librarian for all of his time and can afford such an officer, the regular library school can and will supply him. Most, if not all such schools, give training for work with children and children's books in addition to the regular library training. I do not believe that normal schools can profitably or successfully undertake the training of professional librarians, and I am glad to know that this opinion is shared by others who have given the subject earnest thought. So experienced a librarian as Mr. G. M. Walton, of the Michigan State Normal College, writes me in a recent letter:

Any library of 1,000 volumes or more should be looked after by someone who has had more experience in library methods than it is judicious to offer in the normal school. This is my opinion after fifteen years of experimenting and observing the work of other normals.

The report of the committee on instruction in library administration, made to the library department of the National Educational Association at its last meeting, seems to uphold this view. The recommendation of that committee as to library work in normal schools may well be taken as a guide by all normal schools undertaking such work.

The committee suggests that the instruction offered ought to cover the following subjects:

School libraries: place and value both as general collections and for special instruction; types; how to organize.

The public library and the public school: the field of each and general relations; loans; bulletins; classroom libraries; museums.

How to use a library: books as tools; care of books; book-making; reference books. The school-library room: location; light; heat and ventilation; equipment. Selection and ordering of books; authority of librarian; sources of material; aid in selection; sales catalogs; methods of ordering and accounting.

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Children's reading: finding lists-for teachers; for children.

Incoming books: invoices; accessioning; marks of ownership.

Cataloging and classification: systems of each; forms; preparation of cards.
Library routine: loan and charging system; call-numbers; shelf list.

Binding: material, pamphlets, general care, repairs.

Library associations: national, state, local; library schools.

State laws relating to school libraries.

In conclusion, then, I would say that what is imperatively needed and must be done is not for normal schools to train professional librarians for publicschool libraries, for these libraries cannot afford such luxuries even if they needed them, but to train teachers in library methods and in the use of books so that they may manage effectively the public-school libraries in connection. with their teaching, and in doing this may do much better teaching and render a much greater service to education and the state than they could possibly do otherwise.

INSTRUCTION OF ALL PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS IN THE
CONTENTS AND USE OF LIBRARIES

ELIZABETH T. SULLIVAN, CRITIC TEACHER, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL,
LOS ANGELES, CAL.

The question for our consideration is-is there need for instruction of prospective teachers in the contents and use of libraries, whereby student energy may be directed? The testimony of librarians and county superintendents is valuable to us here. The experience of these two classes of public officials leaves us in no doubt as to the general need for instruction in the contents and use of libraries. That the same complaint can be made by librarians in normal schools receiving students from high schools and universities would indicate that mere exposure to libraries for from twelve to sixteen years is not sufficient to teach the use of libraries. The inability of even these classes of students to use a library economically is indication enough of the need of direct and systematic instruction in library method.

Indeed, there are two sides to this question of students' general inability to properly use a library, and in justice to the student, both sides should be considered in this connection. There seems to be a tendency among library management to provide for the distribution of books of reference to the patrons of the library, thus saving time on the patrons' part and subsequent labor on their own. One can well see the argument for this arrangement, but does it not preclude entirely the friendly contact of students with shelves of books whose covers alone suggest much that lures the incipient student-mind to fertile fields of knowledge? This ready library service, it seems to me, has its drawbacks.

Then, too, the tendency, in secondary schools and universities for instructors and professors to furnish students with classified reference lists of subjects, while excellent in itself, as any student will testify, is a direct drawback in giving ability in looking up work. These books are asked for at the

librarian's desk and if all are out the student has a legitimate excuse for appearing in the recitation and answering "not prepared," if he happens to be called That general browsing about in libraries which in itself teaches the run of libraries is unwittingly being discouraged.

on.

These evils, for such I feel they are, are brought about by overearnestness of instructors for the progress of their own subjects. They may not be evils from the standpoint of the student, technically considered, i. e., one registered in a class to meet the demands of the instructor of the class. As a student he is getting along comfortably on the instructor's crutches and when he receives his diploma he will then throw aside his crutches and exercise his own legs in business or other branch of activity where a limited use of books is required, if any at all.

For those then who are guided thru the educational system until they have acquired something that passes for education, this systematic service rendered in the choice of books and in the supplying of them by the librarian is not especially harmful. But how does it affect the student who terminates his school days early in life? He has no instructor's guide to serviceable books, nor has he a syllabus of his subject to aid him in asking for books from the librarian. Modesty, pride, or a weak student spirit may keep him from making the advance to the desk, while free access to the shelves with some definite idea of how to use their contents to serve his ends might make a real student of him.

Make your way into any library any day but more particularly any evening. Take up your stand where you can see into the reading-room of the men and boys. What an interesting motley of humanity is represented! The ones that most touch the heart are the care-worn and toil-worn, yes, dirty and ofttimes ragged middle-aged men and boys. Watch the eagerness with which they read. You wonder what they are reading. Ask the librarian what they get from the shelves, or what they ask her to direct them to when they ask at all. The current fiction? The light magazine? No. She will tell you that they have come to spend an evening with the best minds in science and history and ofttimes to read Plato and Aristotle in the original. Pity changes to admiration for the mind that is "the standard of the man." And these are the men and boys who have no time to waste. What time they are taking now they are taking from their rest. These are the people who need instruction in their limited school days in how to conserve their energy; in how to find a book on a subject and how to tell at a glance whether that book contains what they are after.

Again, familiarity with the arrangement of a library, together with the habit of frequenting one, may become the salvation of many a young man and woman stranded in a strange city without friends. It gives them a safe and wholesome place to spend an evening away from much evil that abounds in all large cities.

But to one class of students more than to any other is the need of instruc

tion in the use of books more urgent. I refer to the normal-school students. They are not of the class that lays aside books when school days are ended. They are not of the class whose school days end early. They form a distinct class and in meeting their needs you meet the needs of the other two classes, for is it not on these that the other two depend?

For normal-school students, then, instruction in the generally accepted subjects is not enough. Preparation in the economical use of the tools of the various subjects cannot be neglected. Let us consider for a moment the positions in which normal-school graduates find themselves where a knowledge of libraries is demanded. As county-school principals they have the expenditure of the library fund for books. As librarians and grade teachers they have the suggesting of material for the library. They serve in this capacity both in starting a library and in adding to a nucleus already started. Should this work be undertaken wholly without preparation? What should determine the selection of books in starting a library? What should influence the choice of books to be added to one already started? Shall it be the public taste, which, in a certain case, was used as the standard of selection, with the result that the girls wept over Bertha Clay's novels and the boys fought over the biographies of Frank and Jesse James?

Is there any reasonable excuse that this important feature in public instruction should be left to the whims and tastes of the unthinking? When we would furnish a laboratory we call in the advice of a specialist. When we would furnish the tools for any other department of work we call on an expert for advice; but when it comes to the supplying of a school library which is to furnish the material for the carrying-on of general school instruction, including the special phases as well, we are content to leave the matter somewhat to chance.

The primary-teacher will generally demand full sets of easy readingmatter for her work. The grammar-grade teacher, believing that the success of a school library depends on the number of books read, will choose full sets of Jack Hazzard, the "Pansy Books," and the like, which are read by a few good readers. Still another class of teachers, influenced by persuasive book agents, will run the district into debt by buying several large dictionaries and a set of encyclopedias, which the teachers may not use at all because it may not be expedient for them to do so.

It is readily seen that this important phase of instruction cannot be left to chance. Definite and systematic instruction in it should be provided for in normal schools. This instruction should set forth the principle guiding the choice of books for a small library and that guiding the choice of books for a more fully equipped library. Young teachers should be cautioned against exercising the book-buying prerogative merely as a prerogative. Books should rarely be bought at the beginning of a teacher's term in a school. Rather should the choice of books grow out of the needs of the school as made evident by some weeks of work.

Systematic instruction should be given somewhere in the normal schools, and, by the way, generally is given, I believe, in the training-department, in the profitable handling of work by means of a few copies of supplementary books, thus making possible a greater variety of choice. Interest of classes varies from year to year and extensive sets of books may go practically unused as far as systematic instruction is concerned. In most cases large sets of books should not be bought for the three early grades. These children rarely can read them themselves. Their teacher or parents must read for them. One or two books of each set are sufficient and thus a wider range of interests is met by the same expenditure of money.

To instruction in the choice of books for libraries should be added instruction in some simple system of classifying, cataloging, numbering, arranging, and distributing of them by the librarians.

Thus far we have dealt with the mechanical side of the supplying of books. It remains to consider the professional side, so to speak, of the proper use of the books when supplied. If there is need of instruction in the first and simpler phases of the work, how much more need is there for instruction in the latter and more difficult phase. Let instruction in the use of books be a subject in the normal department and one to be handled with the children in the training-school as well. Let this work be done under the guidance of the librarian or other person appointed to do the work, after the manner of other subjects. This need not entail any waste but be done in connection with all other subjects, making use of the reference lists of the several teachers. Prospective teachers who have this opportunity of forming habits of study are better able to assist those who may come under their charge in forming similar habits.

Certainly it is not asking too much to require all normal-school students to be familiar with the classification of libraries that generally obtains in the United States and Canada, namely the Dewey decimal system. To know this alone is to make one feel at home in any library.

The next step of importance is to obtain a knowledge of the card catalog; how it is made; what uses it serves; what the numbers mean and how a book may be found on the shelves.

The book having been found, it is of advantage to be able to determine at once whether it contains what is wanted. Instruction in the use of indices and tables of contents is imperative. The ability to quickly cull a book is indispensable to any student who expects to get things done. The book may give but a hint of what is required and the use of several collateral, or reference books may often be necessary to "run down" a subject. All students need this training. It takes patience on the part of both teacher and student, but knowing how to consult books for information is often of more value than the facts themselves. Too often now this work, for lack of ability on the part of the class in general, is given to the brighter students to do.

Early in the course should come instruction in gathering all that may be gathered from that wonderful storehouse of information—a dictionary. Even

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