QuoteHunt. And a surprise: women.

I was reading this story, "Libraries vital to our community," when I read this quote attributed to Andrew Carnegie:

"Andrew Carnegie instituted a free library system throughout the country because he believed in giving to the 'industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others.'"

And I thought, wow, I don't remember hearing that "not those who need everything done for them" part before. And so I wanted to find the source for the quote.

I googled the quote and found a Wikipedia page with a link to the original essay, "The Best Fields for Philanthropy" from The North American Review Volume 0149 Issue 397 (December 1889).

Andrew Carnegie, pp. 682-699:

The individual administrator of surplus wealth has as his charge the industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others and the extension of their opportunities at the hands of the philanthropic rich. It is ever to be remembered that one of the chief obstacles which the philanthropist meets in his efforts to do real and permanent good in this world is the practice of indiscriminate giving; and the duty of the millionaire is to resolve to cease giving to objects that are not proved clearly to his satisfaction to be deserving.

So if this essay can be applied to public libraries as the author of the above article concludes (with the help of Wikipedia), then librarians are meant to use their wealth to assist the deserving, which is something with which I'm not sure I entirely agree... Oh, I'm just pulling your leg. I agree completely.

To every lazy person who has every approached and said, "do it for me," and especially the ones who snap their fingers and say, "come here and do it for me," and especially, especially the ones who say, "come here, snap my fingers for me and then do it for me," I say... oh, crap, I forgot what I was going to say with all this typing... but I'm sure it was cutting.

So I read a little from Carnegie, I check the Table of Contents for that issue of The North American Review and see this, "The Incapacity of Business Women" by Marion Harland. It's not related to anything, but I thought it might cheer you up.

Here lies the defective spot in the claim for equitable wages for working women. Physical disability apart, they do not work as men do. A man grasps his business with both hands. If his hands are not strong enough, he clamps it with his feet, and, rather than let it go, seizes it with his jaws. It is his life himself!
A woman, even when the daily bread of herself and her children depends upon a clerkship, or employment in a factory, or the teachers place in a public school, regards her labor as the means to an end. It is the ladder reared against the height she would win. A mans chosen craft or profession is the central stone staircase, built into the solid structure. Men work by the job, concentrating every energy upon the task of perfecting that which must pass or be rejected upon its own merit. Women go out by the day and watch the clock! Men have ambitions; women have hopes. The reasons assigned for these radical differences are led off in most essays on the subject, and pertinently, by the fact that women look forward to marriage as a definite means of support, and hold but loosely that which they may be called upon at any moment to give up.

Wow. I didn't know women were such poor employees. 100 years ago. And yes, Marion is (was) a woman. Google her.

The UnPublic Library

Fifty years ago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was a college student who wanted to use a public library.

[O]n July 16, 1960, Jackson staged a sit-in at the whites-only central library with seven other students: Margaree Seawright Crosby, Joan Mattison Daniel, Benjamin Downs, Elaine Means, Deedee Dorris Wright, Hattie Smith Wright and Willie Joe Wright.

They went to the library, picked up books, took seats and started to read. Police arrived in less than 20 minutes and arrested them.

Two months after the Greenville Eight were arrested, the Greenville library system was opened to all races.

...and I'm here on this blog making ass jokes.

The Greenville Eight, Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2010.

Smithsonian Catalogue System (1850)

Cool. The Internet Archive has a copy. For all you library scholars who want to read some early liberry history, for whatever good that would do, check it out; and it comes in Kindle!

I think it's cool that libraries had so few books that keeping an alphabetical catalog was actually desirable. At least according to this author. Remember, this is before Dewey and LC.

I wish I could remember if there was a publishing boom after the American Civil War...

from p. 14 of the Smithsonian Catalogue System (1850), with my thanks to Cornell University Library for keeping it safe this many years,

"If, however, it were possible to agree upon a system of classification, the attempt to carry it out would, in a work like that proposed, be fatal to uniformity. Where different men were applying the same system, their opinions would vary, with their varying intelligence and skill. This would lead to titter and irremediable confusion, and would eventually defeat all our plans.

Even were these objections obviated, the occurrence of fewer difficulties in constructing an alphabetical catalogue would still present a decisive argument in its favor. Even these are great. If increased, by an attempt at classification, they would soon lead to an abandonment of the work.

Another consideration of great weight is, that, in reprinting classified catalogues, and inserting additions, if the titles were kept in systematic order, the work of selecting those to be used, and of distributing them to their places, would have to be done by a person, who, besides being a practical printer, should be familiar with the bibliographical system adopted. This would be very expensive. Whereas, on the alphabetical plan, any printer could do the whole."

The Quiet Librarian.

I wanted to find the earliest reference I could find (with an easy search) about librarian stereotypes, like quiet, bookish, shushing, etc. and ended up finding some other stuff that made me glad I looked:

For example, there was a National Conference of Librarians. From the NYT, September 16, 1853.

"The tastes of Librarians were of too quiet a turn to enter upon long addresses and he [Professor C.C. Jewett, the Smithsonian Institution] hoped they would have a quiet, dignified, informal, social, genial conference together."

But in the same story, there's also some freaky crap about, "Too many bad books make their stealthy advances that need to tracked to their dens even as the pestilence that walketh in darkness needs to be hunted to its hiding place."

Yeah, hunting pestilence is pretty genial stuff.

And what's pretty cool is that this was before any standardized anything. Most libraries with smaller collections just arranged the book on the shelves in alphabetical order.

The President presented the members with some copies of the "Smithsonian Calalogue System," printed under his direction, requesting that they look it over, as he intended to make the system the subject of some remarks. The system embraces two plans:
1. A plan for stereotyping catalogues of libraries by separate titles, in uniform style,
2. A set of general rules, to be recommended for adoption by the different libraries of the United States, in the preparation of their catalogues.

I'd never even heard of the Smithsonian Catalogue System. Did it lose a fight with the Dewey Decimal Classification system?

Another goal of the convention was to create a

Library Manual, which shall embody the most important information:
1. The best organization of a Library Society, in regard to its officers, laws, funds, and general regulations
2. The best plans for Library edifices...
3. The most approved method for making out and printing library catalogues
4. The most desirable principle to be followed in the selection and purchase of books

And the most interesting find was that the Librarians at the Convention had their lunch choice of either baked chicken or vegetarian lasagna. Wow. That never changes.

From the Reading Eagle, Oct. 15, 1941, I learned that libraries have been, at times, loud:

You know how libraries are. About like church. Whisper loud and you get shushed by ten old gents reading movie fan magazines. Small wonder I started to call the cops when I heard fox trot music coming from our great main library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street a few nights back! Sacrilege! But when I poked in I found a dance going on in the sacred main hall-- a merry-making farewell to four library veterans, including Miss Anne Carroll Moore, long head of the library's work with children. It was a very nice party indeed. Next morning the big place was all dignity again.

And from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Sep 16, 1948, Librarians Must Know More Than How to Say "Shhh"

If most people were asked what qualifications are necessary for a librarian, probably most of them would say a soft voice with which to say "Shhh."

This story is about the Carnegie Library School with 24 students where the associate director said, "we could place five times that many" every year. Some of the students are men attracted by the new courses in science and technology. I don't have any idea what 1948 library technology might be. And I don't even have a joke.

From the San Jose News - Oct 26, 1943, I find that the librarian was already tired of shushing:

"We simply refuse to shush [the children] all the time, [Mrs. Gertrude Jansens, children's librarian] adds."

"Librarians today are utterly different from yesterday's bookworm."

Yesterday's?? So librarians have been fighting the stereotypical librarian image for over 60 years? So I'm guessing that people will always have that image regardless of my many eyebrow, lip and nipple piercings.

So how do these stereotypes persist? Are librarians, themselves, perpetuating this image? Is the uncool, unhip image something we maintain, by desire? If so, what is the goal?

Maybe we appreciate the stereotype because any advance we make in fashion will seem huge. Or maybe the pendulum swings regularly from librarian unhipness to hipness and it's an ongoing cycle, like caterpillar to butterfly.

Maybe it keeps us interesting. It keeps everyone guessing about us. If so, that's kinda cool.