CHAPTER XXVII

GENERAL REFERENCE LIBRARY METHOD

=407. Character and Scope of the Department.=--The reference library is the communal study, bureau of information, and muniment house, when it is developed to its full possibilities. A definition of reference work turns upon a definition of a reference book to a large extent, and it is not easy to give more than an approximate one. A reference book is one which is consulted to obtain some particular fact or matter from it and not one that is read through as a whole. All works in dictionary, encyclopædic, chronological, periodical and similar forms are of this character. But any book which may be consulted in the way indicated is also legitimately a reference book. Further, all literary and graphic material which may so be consulted, whether in MSS., printed, photographic or other form, is rightly a part of such a library. The encyclopædic work is therefore the basal stock of the department; and standard treatises on every branch of literature, whether in actual reference form or not; the definitive editions of the classics, as for example the Variorum Shakespeare, must be included. Transient or permanent small reference material, such as pamphlets, magazine articles, broadsides, news-clippings, trade catalogues, illustrations, maps, etc., should all find a place in it; in fact, much of the most valued information work is done with the aid of such small material; important facts are frequently found in seemingly insignificant material; and the work of bringing it in relation to other similar material is one of the first-class services of the reference library.

From such a statement of the nature of the stock the purpose of the department may be deduced. Primarily, as its name implies, it is a place where references to books are made; but, although this is primary, it is too limited a statement of the functions of the department. In it continuous reading, research, and prolonged study are all carried on, and if a library does not provide facilities for these it is to that extent inefficient. These considerations give rise to certain necessary arrangements, the first of which is freedom of access to quick-reference material.

[Illustration: FIG. 151.--The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. A recent large reference library, with a great central reading-room, and several special departments.]

[Illustration: FIG. 152.--Plan of Islington Reference Library.]

In the arrangement of the library building it is essential that the most quiet part of the building which is accessible to the public should be devoted to the reference department. It should be a room which in its design and proportions is dignified, and produces by these things and its furnishing and decorations an atmosphere conducive to mental tranquillity and study. It is impossible to define such an atmosphere, but it exists in all really successful reference libraries, and these may be studied at most of our great cities and towns, as at Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, in the British Museum, and elsewhere. The decorations, for example, if there are any beyond the merely architectural, such as painted ceilings, walls, etc., should indeed be artistic, but are appropriate only when they are restrained, inobtrusive, and do not divert readers from the main purpose of the room or encourage visitors to come merely to stare at them. Some reference libraries, built on ecclesiastical models, have stained-glass windows which are beautiful features, but the same principles apply in this form of decoration.

=408. Furniture.=--The library furniture must depend upon the size, shape and lighting of the room, but the alcove system, as it exists at the Bodleian and similar older libraries, has never been surpassed from the point of view of _study_, although it is possibly not so good as the rotunda of the British Museum, or that of the Library of Congress, and the Picton Reading Room at Liverpool, for merely reference purposes. Again, the alcove system occupies more space than one in which the cases are fixed against the walls and arranged in other parts of the room to secure the maximum of shelf accommodation. As regards tables and seating accommodation the older reference departments in municipal libraries has usually been defective in that they merely allowed seats at long tables, with about twenty-four inches of sitting space and a half of a two- or three-foot table in front, often with provision, equally scant, for a reader to sit opposite. The reference reader requires not only isolation, to a considerable extent, as is provided at the British Museum, but plenty of space in which to spread out his books and papers. Moreover, nothing is more disconcerting and uncomfortable to a reader than the unpleasant proximity of other people, and no student or reader who makes extracts, or has to wrestle with obstinate facts in history, science or philology, can do so if he is environed by others similarly or otherwise engaged, at very close quarters. This is recognized in the British Museum and similar libraries, where each reader has what is virtually a desk to himself so constructed as to secure the maximum of privacy. The provision of small, self-contained separate tables as described in Section 161 is probably the best that can be made. These not only give plenty of space at the top, but also provide a definite amount of space for books, etc., under the tables themselves. For the consultation of elephant folios and similar very large books the special slope outlined in Fig. 33 and described in Section 153 is a reasonable and necessary provision. One or two large flat tables for use in special cases are also to be desired.

[Illustration: FIG. 153.--The Islington Reference Library. Note the special tables.]

=409. Access.=--For successful reference work a certain measure of open access is essential, and is allowed by most libraries which otherwise are arranged on the closed system. The British Museum, Birmingham and other large reference libraries allow readers free choice from a selected assortment of books, numbering from a few to 20,000 or more volumes, of quick-reference character, including atlases, gazetteers, dictionaries, directories, encyclopædias, codes, etc., which answer everyday questions and which are wanted without delay. These, in themselves, form a fairly considerable reference library, and that fact should be recognized when the question of access is under consideration. Other libraries allow freedom of access to nearly the whole collection; but none allows it to the whole. There are in many libraries unique books, records, and other works to which access is wisely limited, in the interest of their preservation as records and from other points of view. These, however, form an infinitesimal part of the stock of average municipal collections. All it is wished to emphasize here is that open access without any formality whatever should be allowed to the obvious quick-reference works of the kind enumerated above. A much-occupied business man who wants an address, the definition of a word, or a cable code is not likely to endure the bother of filling up application forms patiently; and to insist upon it may mean the loss of the patronage of a valuable class of the community. For the general part of the reference library where open access is in vogue admission is usually gained by signing the visitors’ book. Such signing has not definite safeguarding value, but is to some extent a moral check upon would-be defaulters, and is useful as a means of registering the number of readers. The plans given in