Librarian's Report -- 1933

• Reports and Other Documents

"Schools and libraries are not luxuries in a democracy."
--Gratia Countryman, 1934.

Seventy Years Ago...

In 1933, when the nation was in the Depression and prohibition had just been lifted, the Minneapolis Public Library was hard pressed to serve its public. The Annual Report of Director Gratia Countryman for that year talks of many of the same concerns we have today about our libraries. In 2004 we face a $4.6 million budget reduction, and library hours are being drastically reduced while bar hours are being extended. Reading Miss Countryman's report is disturbing but also comforting: the library system did endure and, despite the pains of today, there is hope for a bright future for your Minneapolis Public Library.

The public libraries of the country have suffered during this financial crisis more seriously from reduced budgets than any other tax supported institution, and our own Library has been among the worst sufferers. There have been magazine articles and newspaper editorials regretting the sad fact, and Houghton Mifflin has just published a book called, "Starving Libraries." But as yet the tax levying bodies have not changed their attitude toward this municipal agency.

In our own city, ever since 1930, we have taken a toboggan slide downward, and nothing seems to stop our swift descent. From a budget of $507,000 in 1930 to a budget of $339,000 in 1933, and an anticipated drop to $264,000 in 1934, is a drop which no institution can long survive and give any kind of adequate service. We are not using too strong a term when we say that the Library has been nearly wrecked in its downward fall. With shorter hours just when people needed longer hours, with few new books when people wanted to study and needed up-to-date books and periodicals, with fewer assistants when new patrons, unaccustomed to books, were crowding our reading rooms and needed personal assistance, we are surely right when we declare that as a functioning institution the opportunities of the Library for a real service during this period have been largely wrecked.

Roads and bridges, sewers and paving, have loomed larger in importance in fixing tax levies than the values of human life, the passing years of youth, the re-adjustment of older men and women to perplexing and overwhelming experiences. We must begin this year's report with recording a deep protest against a situation that is not necessary. However imperative it was that taxes be reduced, it was possible to make a re-distribution sufficient to give the Library a fair proportion. We are not politically minded, but we recognize that it is a distinctly unfavorable feature that the Library Board has no representative on the Board of Estimate to watch our interests in the final distribution, and we feel that future charter changes should give all municipal institutions an equal chance.

We wish also to record our deep disappointment that the voice of the Library administration was not re-inforced by the voice of the people, thousands and thousands of whom are dependent upon the Library for books which they can no longer afford to buy. They are unorganized and therefore inarticulate. They express their sympathy and appreciation over the Library desk, as individuals, where it does not benefit. But we believe that in some way there will need to be organized groups of citizens as Friends of the Library who will speak in no uncertain terms for its adequate support. We hope that the citizens who realize the value of continuous education, of the newly awakened belief in the possibility of adult education, will this year organize in sufficient strength to convince the Board of Estimate that the people want a Public Library that can serve them. From the inside we intend to conduct a system of publicity that will at least inform the public of what has happened to hamper the full operation of the Library.

We are submitting a comparative table which gives a picture of the increase in work aince 1930 and the heavy decrease in financial support. We call attention first to the item of books: In 1930 we spent $61,328 for books, not a large amount when you consider the service through 22 branches, school stations, hospitals, and business houses, in addition to the Central Library. The amount has declined each year until we spent the small amount of $15,562.00 in 1933 to meet increasing needs for new books and replacement of worn-outs at all of these points. In the coming year, 1934, the budget for books is practically wiped out. With all the tact possible we have turned people's attention to the older titles of good fiction, and it is surprising how many have been glad to be introduced to them. It has been noticeable that people are doing much more serious reading than heretofore, but the older books will not do when people are studying technical subjects or the issues of today. Moreover, one copy of a book is wholly insufficient for the many who want the same title. We might give a typical instance; Civil Service examinations have "been given recently for many positions, -- radio operators, oil inspectors, water meter readers, land appraisers, bridge inspectors. Often several hundred men have had to prepare through the use of only two copies of a book on the subject. They made regular appointments for an hour's use of a copy, and the two books were kept in use every hour of the day. Ordinarily, the Library would have been supplied with more copies.

With a circulation and a reading room use rapidly increasing, the very backbone of our book collection is wearing out. We have bound and rebound, and mended to the number of 75,896 volumes in our efficient bindery. We have kept rather disreputable looking books in circulation, and have discarded only 17,000 volumes this year,-- a smaller number than usual, in order to have something to use. Fortunately, a campaign for book gifts, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club, last winter, resulted in continuous gifts throughout the year amounting to more than 15,000 volumes, at least 50% of which were usable. While gifts are most acceptable, there are few new books among them, and they do not take the place of our own careful selection of the new titles which are current and necessary to a rounded collection. We should like to discuss here the lowered discounts which threaten us from publishers' codes, but they are not yet decided. We have also had to cut down our periodical subscriptlons from $7,023 in 1930 to $4,000 in 1933 and to $4,000 for 1934, which is nearly as regrettable as the book budget. Periodicals are the most timely, the most immediately informational, and the most valuable equipment of our reading rooms.

Now, turning to the volume of work, an interesting thing has occurred in our registration files. The table shows an increase of the number of borrowers who have registered for borrowers' cards. The increase amounts to 10,330 additional borrowers; but this gives no idea of the additional patrons who are crowding our reading rooms. The really interesting thing has been the number of entirely new people. In the eighteen months previous to 1933, over 45,000 new people had taken out cards, and during 1933, new borrowers to the number of 26,456 have registered. Of course the total has not increased by this number because five-year cards have expired and not been renewed for various reasons. But the large group of entirely new people are apparently from those who have not heretofore had the leisure to read. We notice it especially in the departments where books on vocations are shelved, the Technical Department especially, and also in the Art and Music Departments. But it spreads all over the Library system. These new borrowers have had to be taught how to use the Library and what books to borrow. The Information desk and the reference desk are constantly helping these new and often timid patrons, which takes time and sympathy and human understanding. This is the work which we should have been able to do particularly well, and which we feel that we have failed to do at all adequately because of shorter hours, fewer assistants, and diminishing bookfunds. The Readers' Advisory Service deals most directly with these new people with a new leisure who are renewing their interests. Older people these days seem to have what we have usually attributed to youth,--an openmindedness, and fresh interests. For instance here is Mr. Smith, after a lifetime spent in real estate, enthusiastically reading in meteorology; Mr. Jones, whose life has been given to raising livestock, now an invalid, reading substantial volumes on education. This Advisory Service has prepared 426 different reading courses for people. Many of these courses are taken by numbers of people, and we are now developing group study. Calling together the people who are taking the same reading courses, we have given them an opportunity to meet in the Library and discuss together under a leader the subjects they are studying. Such groups have developed on Short Story Writing, on Book Appreciation, and on English Literature, with several other groups probable. It has been very gratifying the past month that with the help of C. W. A. people we have been able to secure excellent leaders, without cost to us.

To return to our table, we note the increase in circulation since 1930, but the difference would have been much greater if we had not had a considerable loss in 1933 over 1932, due again to short hours and few new books. We feel that under the circumstances a circulation of 3,650,000 volumes to 183,170 patrons is an excellent record. We cannot expect to repeat it in 1934, with a prospect of no book fund and a possible closing period longer than any which we have had. We have used the rental fund to great advantage. With this fund we buy the best new fiction and popular titles of non-fiction which will pay for themselves. Later these titles are made free copies and to some slight extent fill the call for new books.

The administrative problems throughout the year have been many. In 1932 the budget compelled us either to close some departments or branches altogether or to shorten opening hours everywhere and spread the economy equally. We chose to maintain service everywhere on shorter hours. In 1933, the problem again arose in a more acute form, and again we chose to treat all localities alike instead of closing entirely at any points. Throughout the year we have closed all evenings but Mondaya, in all departments and branches except the Central Newspaper Room and Technical Department. With another revised and diminished budget in June, necessity caused a further closing of one day per week, and since July, the library has been closed on Wednesday. In addition, the Library was closed two weeks in late summer and finally to meet the budget a further closing during Christmas week. Altogether the library haa been closed 40 days, but in this way no branch nor department has been permanently closed and no locality deprived of book service. We could not have kept open on full time and met the increasing demand without hiring extra people to do the work. But by closing we reduced the number of employees from 303 to 240, as noted on the table, and the payroll likewise decreased. It stands to reason that with fewer assistants doing a much increased work, crowded into fewer hours, the work could not be done as thoroughly. The table shows how the work per hour has increased in 1933 over 1930 and the consequent load on each assistant.

A bright spot came in the fall through the help offered by the C. W. A. We were granted a bond issue of $5,000 for repair material and put on several repair projects, employing about 65 men at painting, repairing roofs, gutters, window shades, heating plants, sidewalks, floors, and plaster. Other projects allowed us trained librarians to help us repair/books and to enable us to open evenings at the Central Library and to function at the Branches. As long as we can keep these trained C. W. A. librarians, we can keep open evenings. When they go we will have to close again because we have not enough people on our staff to cover the hours.

The people's attitude toward closing hours, toward changes in our methods, and the many annoying little economies and charges, has been one of resignation, the average reader conforming without complaint. One branch librarian writes as follows: "Discouraged old men, the middle-aged bored with idleness, and the restless and somewhat defiant youths have filled our reading rooms from morning until night, finding a friendly and comfortable haven as well as the interest of books and magazines. Our work with the handicapped has increased: People so blind that we have to pick out their books, so deaf that we have to shout to them; old men enfeebled by a stroke, and classes of sub-normal children. One old man said that his wife told him, "You go up and ask those library girls and they'll tell you what to do." Our branches have been turned into social centers, with librarians serving as case workers in addition to regular duties, just because people have long been accustomed to asking any kind of assistance of friendly librarians.

But we are also getting other problems. At several branches this fall, young men and women, evidently high school students, have organized an assault of disorder and noise on Monday evenings, which has been hard to cope with. We are already getting "in person" some of those who are doing their bit to balance the budget by consuming overmuch newlylegalized alcohol.

The spirit of the staff can best be shown by some quotations from their reports such as these:

"The year has been of absorbing interest; through all the succession of cuts and changes, we have carried on steadily, starting the beginners, advising the convalescents, trying to please the whims of the elderly. We have shared in the thrills and fears of the nation, and we face the New Year with hopes high for the future."

Another: "This has heen a queer year with many surprising changes, but there has been a dramatic interest as well as an anxious one, somewhat as if we were watching a play. Human values have been dominant as never before."

Another: "There has never been in my thirty years' service a more worthwhile year. We have reached more people more vitally."

We sympathize with the following extract: "Frayed nerves and aching feet seem at times to wear out our enthusiasm. However, there is not a member of our staff who would let any member of the public suffer for lack of any service they could render."

I cannot refrain from adding this final allegory that came from one librarian. She ends her report thus: "And in conclusion; after the manner of the day's most popular tale: We first built a house of straw, straw made of that sense of security that nothing which was destructive, could come near a PUBLIC LIBRARY. But our straw house collapsed and was wafted afar when the big, bad Tax Delinquent Wolf huffed and puffed. Then we built another one of twigs, nice twigs, made of hopes that a public, whom we had so thoroughly served, might force adequate support for an institution they professed to love. But the incorrigible Tax Delinquent Wolf buffed our tiny hope house to the four winds. Now, undaunted, we have built our new house, built it of LIBRARY SPIRIT, that old, much maligned material used to build and maintain those first libraries when salaries were listed among the 'unmentionables.' And the wolf, being of more recent origin, knows nothing of that material and knows not how to wreck this house. It is an impregnable fortress, thanks to the courage of those splendid forbears whose prodigal use of the material but increaeed its measure and strength. ..."

Members of the Library Board; We believe that you have no reason to complain of the way your library staff are performing their work, or of serving, under great difficulties, the demands which are made by the 200,000 people who are using us, with an insistence which they have never shown before. But we cannot make bricks without straw. In the future, the Public Library will become an even more potent agency for self-education. Other organizations must depend upon the Library for reading and information. People have taken the Library too much for granted; they depend upon it without realizing that it takes money to maintain its service. We believe that the Library Board and other organizations must make strenuous efforts to preserve and build up this institution which supplies opportunities given by no other agency. It is in very truth the People's School. We plead for more earnest effort on your part. Your administrative staff have done their utmost.