tem and builds up in this way a strong feeling for co-operation. The rules to be adopted for inter-library loans in California will be those that experience shows are necessary, and are likely to give the best results for California conditions. J. L. GILLIS. COMMITTEE ON CO-OPERATION WITH THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION The Committee on Co-operation with National Education Association is in a position to report that an appointment has been made by the executive board of the National Education Association of a representative of the American Library Association to speak at the third general session of its meeting in Chicago on the place of the library in educational movements. The committee feels that this recognition of the work of the library on the part of the National Education Association is a decided victory, as for many years the authorities of the National Education Association have courteously but constantly turned away from the rèquest made by the American Library Assoclation committee for a representative on their program. A selection was made of Dr. Arthur E. Bostwick, librarian of the St. Louis public library, to present the library cause before the National Education Association. It is needless to add with full assurance, that the matter is safe in his hands. At the invitation of the president of the library department of the National Education Association, Mr. E. W. Gaillard of New York, the committee has endeavored as best it could in the short time allowed, owing to the lateness of the invitation, to make an exhibit of American Library Association material, booklists and material illustrative of the relations between libraries and schools, to be in place at the National Education Association meeting to be held in Chicago. It seems, therefore, that the work of the past year is one that should afford satis faction in the recognition that the American Library Association has received from the National Education Association. President George E. Vincent, of the University of Minnesota, who will deliver an address at the Ottawa conference, at the invitation of the American Library Association program committee, has been invited to present the official greetings of the National Education Association to the American Library Association. The committee through its chairman has advised with several groups of school librarians, but it has been the policy to confine action to affairs in which the national organizations as individual units were concerned. MARY EILEEN AHERN, Chairman, GEORGE H. LOCKE, J. C. DANA. gram and call for the committee reports first. The following reports were presented and received, all having been previously printed, with the exception of the supplement to the report of the committee on library administration and that on work with the blind. The committee on international relations stated that they had no report to make. COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL AND Your committee's chief activity has been along the line of a parcels post, as we have felt that was the most feasible measure for obtaining lower postal rates. The chairman of the committee had personal interviews with the chairmen of the House and Senate committees on Post Office, and filed with the latter a formal endorsement of the parcels post, as well as the resolution looking in that direction, passed by the Council at its meeting in January last. The committee recommends that the continuance of this advocacy be authorized by the association. We also recommend that the association endorse a movement for the better safeguarding of the national archives and rendering them accessible to students, feeling that the preservation of these governmental records is one of considerable importance, and one in which librarians have an especial interest, inasmuch as they have under their care manuscripts as well as printed books. The attention of depository libraries is called to the report of Senator Smoot, on the revision of printing laws (62nd Congress, second session. Report 414, p. 33 and following) which discusses the proposed amendments to the laws with reference to depository libraries. BERNARD C. STEINER. COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION Your committee has not been active during the whole year, the present chairman having been appointed to fill a vacancy. What it has done has been in the way of a small beginning toward a general survey of methods in public libraries, which it is hoped may be carried forward to completion in future years. The scientific position that the first thing to do, in making an investigation, is to find out the facts, has only recently been taken in work of this kind. It has generally been assumed by those who have desired to better conditions of any sort that the existing conditions were well known to all. The fact is that no one person or group of persons is in a position to know all the conditions thoroughly and that the elementary task of ascertaining them and stating them is usually by no means easy. It is now generally recognized that we must have a Survey-an ascertainment and plain statement of the facts as they are as a preliminary to action or even to discussion. It has seemed to your committee that the general feeling, shared by the educational and industrial worlds, that methods are not always efficiently adjusted to aims should find some place also in the library. We are spending large sums of public money, and investigations by "economy committees," "efficiency bureaus" and the like are taking place all around us. It will be well for us to take a step in advance of these and get for ourselves some sort of a birds-eye view of our work, from the standpoint of its possible lack of complete efficiency-adaptation of end to aim. In order to do this we must first have a survey, which we conceive to involve in this case a statement of just what libraries are trying to do and just how, in some minuteness of detail, they are trying to do it. Comparison and discussion of methods will naturally follow later. The method of taking up this matter was suggested by some very preliminary work done in the St. Louis public library. The head of each of the various branches and departments was asked to make a detailed written list of the various operations performed by the assistants in that particular department, dividing them into purely mechanical acts and those involving some thought or judgment. This in itself proved to be an interesting task and both information and stimulation resulted from it. Certain operations, common to the largest number of kinds of work, were then selected and tests were made, involving both speed of performance and efficiency of result. From a large number of such tests it is expected that some standardization of operations may result, or at any rate the cutting out of useless details and the saving of time for needed extensions of work. The object of an investigation of this kind is of course not to discover ways of making assistants work harder and faster but to find out whether the same amount of work, or more of it, may not be done with less effort. To extend this bit of experimental work, which has not progressed beyond its first steps, to all the libraries of the United States is of course impossible without modification. Your committee has not the machinery to handle detailed lists of operations from thousands of different libraries. Fortunately it is easy to select operations that are common to very large numbers of libraries of divers sizes and kinds and in all parts of the country. As examples of such operations, and as a small beginning, we selected those of accessioning, charging and discharging, and counting issue. Even with a narrowing of the field to two operations, however, it was impossible to investigate these in all our libraries, or even in a large number. After a discussion by correspondence, revealing some difference of opinion, we decided to select about twenty-five libraries, as representative as possible of different sizes, different institutions and different localities. The list as finally made up was as follows: The Committee on Library Administration of the A. L. A. is beginning a survey of simple operations common to all sorts of libraries, especially with a view to finding out whether there is much diversity of detail in them, and ultimately of noting particular methods that seem likely to result in time-saving or in better results. For the moment, however, a mere survey, involving a detailed description of the method of performing certain kinds of work is all that is aimed at. The Committee has selected 26 libraries of very different sizes and types, and yours is one of these. If you are willing to cooperate, will you kindly send at once to the chairman a description, in as minute detail as possible, of the following operations: Accessioning The counting of issue The discharging of books Please describe each step of these operations seriatim and in detail, not omitting such as are purely mechanical, and noting points where different assistants would be apt to act in different ways. A description of the operation of accessioning in the New York public library (Reference department) is enclosed as a sample. If you can not do this, please notify us immediately, that another library may be put on the list in your place. Yours truly, ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Chairman, HARRY M. LYDENBERG, ETHEL F. McCOLLOUGH, A. L. A. Com. on Administration. Sooner or later we obtained the desired data from 20 of the 26 libraries to which this letter was sent. Only one, the Grosvenor Library of Buffalo, returned no answer. Five declined on various grounds. The California State library wrote to us: "We do not feel satisfied with our present arrangements and do not believe we are in a position to offer any suggestions that would be of service in connection with this investigation." The Mercantile library of New York wrote: "We regret that we find ourselves unable to co-operate with your committee in this undertaking." The librarian of Trinity college, Hartford, writes that "with the exception of student assistants the librarian is the entire staff." The senior regent of Shurtleff college, Alton, Ill., writes: "Our building is not yet complete and in the management of the old, we are so nearly without a system that I hardly feel it worth while to try to reply to these questions." The librarian of the New York Engineering Societies writes: "This library has no charging system. Its system of accessioning will be abandoned as soon as possible. I suggest that you enter another library on your list." Replies such as these seem to imply a misconception of the nature and purposes of a survey. Our object is to ascertain facts, not to gather a selected number of ideal cases. though there will not be time for any study of these results or for recommendations based thereon. The reports from the various libraries will be on file at headquarters at Ottawa and will be accessible to all members of the association who desire to consult them. Regarding the question of the counting of circulation through traveling libraries, deposits and the like, which has been referred to your committee, we beg to report as follows: The sending of books from a library to a school, a club, or some other place where they are to be used or circulated may be regarded in two ways by librarians. It may be held that the sending of the books from the library is itself an act of circulation or that the place to which they are sent for use or distribution is a temporary station of the library, and that sending books thereto is no more circulation than if they were sent to a library branch or delivery station. Obviously, if the former view is accepted, no use that is made of the book after it reaches the station can be recorded by the library. When we have lent a book to a reader we do not inquire how many persons in the family use it or whether a neighbor borrows it. The library borrower is responsible for it and it simply counts as one in the issue. But if the For these five libraries the following place to which it goes is to be treated as were substituted: Westminster College, Fulton, Mo. Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. Washington State Library. New York Society Library. Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass. These furnished that data for which we asked, with the exception of the Washington State library, which declined. We have material, therefore, from 24 libraries altogether. The last of this body of data comes to hand just as this preliminary report goes to press, but it is being digested and tabulated and some of the results, at least, will be ready for the Ottawa meeting, al a station, then the use of the book at or from that station is part of the library record. If it is used in the school, club, or other place where it is deposited, such use is not circulation, however, but hall or library use, as if it had been used in a branch library. If it is issued from the station for home use, such issues, and every such issue, is properly counted with the circulation. It seems to your committee that the second of these alternatives is the one that should be recognized, both from theoretical and practical reasons. The sending of a collection of books to a place where it is to be used resembles much more closely the temporary transfer of such collection to a branch than it does ordinary circulation. Practically also, it is desirable to take account of whatever use is made of the books in such places and logically this can be done only on the second theory. On neither of the theories is it allowable to count the original sending as one issue and then to count or estimate issues from the station; or to count uses in the station as home issues. Some libraries report that they are unable to secure proper statistics of use at the station and that they must therefore either count the original issue or guess at the use in some way, or fail to report it at all. In cases of this kind, whatever is done should be made plain by a note in connection with the published statistics. To recapitulate, we recommend: (1) That the act of sending books from the library to a station of any kind, no matter how temporary, be not regarded as an issue to be counted in the circulation, although separate account of books thus sent should be kept and may be published if desired. (2) That books used in the station be counted as hall or library use and that books issued from the station be counted as home use. (3) That where it is found necessary to depart from this method in any way, such departure be plainly stated in a foot note to the published report. All of which is respectfully submitted. (Supplementary Report) As a supplement to that portion of its report which has already been presented, your committe now submits the following preliminary tabulation and discussion of results. As is usual, in such investigations, our questions have not been interpreted in the same way by all to whom they have been addressed. Supplementary questions must therefore be sent out in many cases and these must be framed separately for each case. This will be the next work of this committee, should you see fit to continue it as at present constituted. Your committee trusts that it is clearly understood that it does not desire to infer from the extremely small proportion of cases discussed anything that should be properly inferred only from a large number of cases. Facts are stated numerically, but no numerical conclusions are or can be drawn. At this stage of the investigation no recommendations at all can be made. Accessioning The material received varies so much in respect to the items reported upon, and the fullness with which each step is treated, that a second questionnaire must be sent out before there can be any uniformity of tabulation. For example: One librarian writes us, "We keep no accession book for ordinary circulating books, only for expensive art books" and fails to state what items are entered. Another reports that "the books are accessioned, each separate volume being given a separate accession number" but does not say whether an accession book is used or not. Two librarians write that "the Standard A. L. A. Accession book is used" and leave us to infer that every column is filled in. And two assure us that the promised material will be sent in soon. It is interesting to note, however, that only two libraries, the Boston Athenaeum and the Forbes library, use the Bill Method of accessioning. The other libraries all use an accession book, but differ widely in the number of items entered; for example, one library enters only author, title, source and price, and another has an accession book printed for its own use, including columns for the following: Date of entry, accession number, place of publication, publisher, date of book, size, class, additions classified (including a column for each of the main classes in the D. C. system, one for fiction, and one for juvenile books), volumes bought, volumes received as gifts, peri |