Library Essays; Papers Related to the Work of Public Libraries. Arthur E. Bostwick

departments; but we all use statistics in this way. If a boy wants to go to the circus he first looks through his pockets to see whether he has enough cash. Here is the germ of a statistical investigation conducted for the specific purpose of getting information on which future action is to be based. Here sometimes, where the opportunity of collecting statistics is very great, and expense is no object, is a good excuse for gathering a great deal that would seem to be useless, with the expectation that some of it may turn out to be interesting and may suggest some line of work that had not previously been thought of. To go as far as this, the institution must be large and rich.

      But how many of us do anything with our statistics? How many collect statistics along special lines to assist in deciding what we shall do along those lines? How many of us, rather, consider that, when our statistics have been collected a disagreeable task has been done, and put them behind us till the year rolls round again?

      Perhaps we have had enough now of the philosophy of statistics. Let us see what concrete kinds of statistics are necessary and in what order of importance.

      First comes an itemized account of receipts and expenditures. This is so obvious that it is not generally considered as library statistics at all. But it may and should be extended a little. Look at all your other tables of statistics through financial spectacles. Compare your receipts with your population. How much does your town give per capita for library work? Compare this figure with the same for other towns. Compare your expenditures with your circulation. How much has your library cost you per book circulated? Compare your expenditure for books with the number purchased and tell us the average cost of a book and how this compares with the cost in former years. Do this for a half-dozen other phases of your work and put the result in as many brief, crisp sentences. If you haven’t room in your report, cut out some of the platitudes; we all insert them in moments of weakness and, once in, it sometimes requires an earnest search to detect and expunge them.

      Next in importance comes an account of your books—how many there are in the library, on what subjects, and how many have been added during the year in each subject; how many gifts you have had; how many books have been lost. This involves taking a careful inventory at least once a year. You see I am putting this before any account of circulation. A good many libraries take no inventory or take it at too infrequent intervals, because they have no time. You might as well say you have no time to keep a cash account. This is business and comes first. Leave off counting your circulation if you must, but keep count of the public property in your care as conscientiously as you keep count of the money in your cash drawer. If you can do nothing else make a simple enumeration of volumes without taking account of classes, but do it thoroughly. The trouble with the inventory is that, like the old-fashioned housecleaning, it is usually done all at once and becomes an annual bugbear. One way of making it easier is to spread it over the year, counting and reporting one class every month and treating it as a part of the regular routine. In this category of statistical records comes the list of your books, which you must surely have in some form, even though you may not have accession book, shelf list and dictionary catalog. For statistical purposes indeed, the last-named may be left out of account.

      Next in order of importance come statistics of circulation. You should know how many books are given out for home use every day and how these are distributed among the classes. Do not adhere too strictly to your classification. Subdivide and combine your classes so that the results will be of interest to your particular public. Always remember in discussing these statistics that they are not so much a record of work done as a rough proportional indication of that work, and are therefore of relative, not of absolute interest. You are not to attach any meaning to the fact, taken by itself, that your circulation was 5280 for the month of May, but if you find that it was only 3120 in the previous May you may justly conclude that the work of your library is increasing.

      In the circulation category comes the record of the hall or library use of books, the reference use, and the books outstanding at any particular time. Hall use is very difficult to keep in a free access library, but an attempt should be made to do so. It is not quite synonymous with reference use. If a man sits down in your library and actually reads a novel without taking it home, that is hall or library use, but not reference use. If he merely refers to the same book to find out about some character, that is reference use. It is evidently hard to separate these and many libraries do not attempt to do so. In others, where there is a separate reference room, any use of books in this room is recorded as “reference use.” The number of books outstanding should be taken at least once a month, simply by counting the cards in the circulation tray. This item is very easy to ascertain, very accurate, and is interesting and useful in more than one way.

      Last in the list of the necessary items of statistics comes that of readers or users of the library—the most interesting in some ways, and the most disappointingly vague. Presumably your users fill out some kind of blank form of application and have their names entered in a book. It is therefore easy to give, as is usually done, the total registration and its annual increase. But this is evidently not the number of actual users of the library. Who are the “actual users”? The expression itself is vague. To be complete you should have the numbers of those who have used the library within one, two, and three days, and so on back indefinitely. There is no place where the line may be drawn between “live” and “dead” cards. But such statistics are too elaborate to collect regularly, so that the ordinary library leaves this subject in its pristine mistiness. There are some pretty variations of it, however, which may be gone into if there is time. For instance, how are your users divided, according to occupation? This you can ascertain from your applications provided the applicant is required to state his occupation. Here again the result is for registered users, not actual users. Again, how are your users distributed topographically? The result of this inquiry may be shown graphically on a map, and it is particularly valuable when one is thinking of moving or of establishing a branch; but it takes more time than is at the disposal of most librarians.

      Here, I believe, ends the enumeration of necessary kinds of statistics. In each kind the collection may be reduced to a minimum; but the librarian must, if the library is to be maintained at all, keep a cash account, count the books, and make some kind of a list of them. Also, if at all possible she or he must be able to tell how many books are circulated and how many users’ names are on the books. This is the minimum; the maximum is fixed only by considerations of time and usefulness. First among the kinds of statistics that are not absolutely necessary, but interesting and often useful, is that of routine work done—letters written, visits made, cards written. This may easily be carried to excess. Then there is the enormous class in which the data are obtained not directly, but by comparison of other data. To this class belong the financial comparisons already noted. For instance, by comparing the circulation of separate classes with the total we get class percentages—a very useful type of statistics; by comparing circulation with books on shelves we get the average circulation of each book, etc. There is no end to the varieties of this class of statistics, and they may be rated all the way from “very valuable” to “useless” or even “nonsensical”. The whole class would require a separate paper to discuss.

      Let all these statistics tell the truth. Let them be clear. Tell exactly what they mean. Otherwise they will certainly mislead and are worse than useless. It is well to accompany every table with an explanatory note telling exactly how the data were obtained and whether they are of a high or a low degree of accuracy. In case you do not know, for instance, whether the word “juvenile” as generally used means the entire circulation among children, or the circulation in the children’s room, or is merely short for “juvenile fiction,” decide what it shall mean in your case and then state distinctly what it means. Read over other library reports critically and when you find any statistics that are vague, see to it that that particular kind of vagueness does not occur in your own tables.

      And after it is all over, ask yourself, Now what shall I do with all this? In this paper only a few suggestions can be made. Take first, the financial data. If you find that your town is giving less per capita or less per book circulated than the average, let it be your business to make it give more. There is a task that will fill up your spare moments. If you are paying for books more per book than other libraries, try to buy more cheaply. If your inventory shows a great loss of books by theft, try to reduce it next year by greater