A Librarian's Open Shelf: Essays on Various Subjects

A Librarian's Open Shelf: Essays on Various Subjects

The papers here gathered together represent the activities of a librarian in directions outside the boundaries of his professional career, although the influences of it may be detected in them here and there. Except for those influences they have little connection and the transition of thought and treatment from one to another may occasionally seem violent. It may, however, serve to protect the reader from the assaults of monotony. A.E.B. Return to Table of Contents Those who are interested in the proper use of our libraries are asking continually, What do readers read? and the tables of class-percentages in the annual reports of those institutions show that librarians are at least making an attempt to satisfy these queries. But a question that is still more fundamental and quite as vital is: Do readers read at all? This is not a paradox, but a common-sense question, as the following suggestive little incident will show. The librarian-in-charge of a crowded branch circulating-library in New York City had occasion to talk, not long ago, to one of her star borrowers, a youth who had taken out his two good books a week regularly for nearly a year and whom she had looked upon as a modelso much so that she had never thought it necessary to advise with him regarding his reading. In response to a question this lad made answer somewhat as follows: Yes, maam, Im doing pretty well with my reading. I think I should get on nicely if I could only once manage to read a book through; but somehow I cant seem to do it. This boy had actually taken to his home nearly a hundred books, returning each regularly and borrowing another, without reading to the end of a single one of them. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 13430
Author: Bostwick, Arthur E. (Arthur Elmore)
Release Date: Sep 10, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English