The organization of the average library consists of the following component parts:

1. Board of Trustees.—The main function of the board of trustees is to look after the financial interests of the library, to see that the buildings and equipment are properly cared for, and to decide broad questions of policy. Trustees should be (but are not always) elected from the elite of the community. It is expected that in them will be found a genuine culture, an appreciation of things pertaining to the arts and sciences, combined with the advantages of education, travel and sufficient leisure to look after public interests. “Cultivated men,” says Edward Edwards, “familiar with books from childhood, have usually a very inadequate perception of the toil and thought which have to be given to the good arrangement, the accurate cataloging, and the ready service of a library. What, then, is to be expected if a dominant share in the management of a library be placed in the hands of men with just enough of elementary education to bring into broad daylight the intensest ignorance, in union with the most stolid self-conceit?” “A little bookishness in a committeeman,” said Justin Winsor, “may be as dangerous as a sip from the poet’s Pierian spring, particularly if there is no deeper learning in any of his associates. He knows just enough of books not to know that he knows nothing of libraries.”

2. The Librarian.—“A librarian,” said Henry Bradshaw, “is one who earns his living by attending to the wants of those for whose use the library under his charge exists, his prime duty being, in the widest possible sense of the phrase, to save the time of those who seek his services.” The librarian has been variously compared to the commissariat in the republic of letters, whose business is not to fight himself but to put others in fighting trim,—or to the host at the banquet of knowledge who is assiduous in securing the comfort of the guests and in placing before each one just the kind of food he likes and requires. He knows that what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Enthusiasm for the work is a prime requisite in the librarian. Even a good staff cannot overcome the deadening influence of daily contact with a chief lacking in enthusiasm.

To the librarian should be left the details of administration. The librarian is the executive officer of the board of trustees and the latter, if wise, will look to the librarian for getting the results desired and will allow that officer as free a hand as possible. If the librarian is not capable of administering the library, or worthy of the fullest confidence, the sooner one is secured who measures up to this standard the better.

3. The Library Staff.—The duties of the staff vary with the size of the library. In the smallest libraries the librarian may be the only one engaged in the actual work of the library, but in such cases the library hours must be restricted to such as one person can take care of. The next step in growth is to have some one relieve the librarian at the desk and to do the more clerical work. Next come special assistants to look after special tasks like cataloging and classifying, desk work and so on. The staff, whether large or small, should consider itself responsible to the librarian and should not, except in extraordinary cases, go directly to the board of trustees with petitions. The librarian should always be the spokesman for the staff. Going over his head indicates a lack of sympathy and cooperation between the librarian and staff that argues badly for the welfare of the institution.

Qualifications for Library Work.—The best preparation for library work is a thorough, systematic general education. To this should be added a special preparation secured either through apprenticeship, a training class, or a regular library school. Different positions call for different qualities in assistants but library service in general demands tact, perseverance, adaptability, habits of precision and accuracy, with a fair amount of speed, ability to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials, and a strong desire to be of service. A certain familiarity with books and famous characters in history and in fiction is expected of every one in a library. Personal neatness, good temper, and a sense of humor are valuable assets in this as in other lines of work. No one will succeed in library work who goes into it merely for the money that can be got out of it.

Loyalty to the institution and its officers is essential to efficient service. If the assistant cannot feel this sense of loyalty, the sooner a new position is secured, the better for all concerned.

Dignity, self-possession, and self-reliance are valuable qualities in any part of the library, but are especially needed by assistants at the reference desk.

Qualities that unfit one for library work in general are physical weakness, deformity, poor memory, a discontented disposition, egotism, a lack of system in one’s method of work, and inability or unwillingness to take responsibilities, a tendency to theorize, criticise, or gossip, inability to mind one’s own business, fussiness, and long-windedness.

One librarian advocates listing the virtues and personal qualities of the staff and apprentices by having a questionnaire like the following filled out for each assistant:

Mr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, gives the following advice to aspirants for library positions:

“First, secure the best possible general education, including, if possible, a college course or its equivalent; second, acquire a reading knowledge of at least French and German; third, add to this a training in a library school; fourth, if a choice must be made between the special training in a library school and a general course in a college, choose the general course, but make every effort to supplement this by the special course if only for a brief period; fifth, if an opportunity occur for foreign travel, utilize it; sixth, if you have not been able to contrive either a thorough general education or special training, your best opportunities in library work will be in a small library where your personal characteristics may be such as to offset these other deficiencies; seventh, without at least a fair reading knowledge of French and German you cannot progress beyond the most subordinate positions in a large library.”