A Library Primer

John Cotton Dana

Third Edition

Library Bureau, Chicago

1903

Copyright, 1899, by Library Bureau

To Samuel S. Green, William I. Fletcher, and Charles A. Cutter

PREFACE.

A library primer was published in the first six numbers of PublicLibraries in 1896. It was quite largely made up of extracts from anarticle by Dr W. F. Poole on The organization and management of publiclibraries, which formed part of the report on Public libraries in theU. S., published by the U. S. Bureau of education in 1876; from W. I.Fletcher's Public libraries in America; from Mary W. Plummer's Hintsto small libraries; and from papers in the Library journal and A. L. A.proceedings.

At the request of a number of people interested I have revised,rewritten, and extended the original draft for publication in bookform. Additional material has been taken from many sources. I havetried to give credit in good measure. The prevailing tendency amonglibrarians is to share ideas, to give to one another the benefit ofall their suggestions and experiences. The result is a large fund oflibrary knowledge which is common property. From this fund most ofthis book is taken.

The Library Primer is what its name implies. It does not try to beexhaustive in any part of the field. It tries to open up the subjectof library management for the small library, and to show how large itis and how much librarians have yet to learn and to do.

J. C. D.

The City library,
Springfield, Mass.

CONTENTS