Fiction in Our Public Libraries

Our public libraries are supported by the public purse. Is the public purse supposed to contribute toward the purchase of luxuries ? And is fiction a luxury or a necessity to modern life? — questions, I fear, as uninteresting as they are antiquated. Nevertheless, if the reader will be patient, I have a theory to propound.

From inquiry I find that the circulation of fiction ranges from — well, to be quite safe, let us say from forty to fifty and even sixty per cent as against all other kinds of reading. In Mr. Carnegie’s own library at Pittsburg it once reached seventy per cent. And this, be it remembered, is exclusive of “Juveniles,” that is, books for the young, of which, of course, a very large proportion is fiction also. So that, as a matter of fact, the reading of fiction comprises at least eighty or ninety per cent of all the reading done by the users of our expensively supported libraries.

And doubtless this fiction consists, not so much of the great masters, — Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Defoe, Scott, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Meredith, et al., — but probably of the newest and those most in vogue. Is it the function, I ask, of a public library, that is, is it the duty of the public purse, to cater to this appetite for novel, and for the most part ephemeral, fiction ?

This particular contributor speaks feelingly on this point; for, being a property-owner who rarely reads ephemeral fiction, I am nevertheless compelled by statutory legislation to pay annually a quarter of a mill on the dollar (it used to be half a mill) upon the assessed value of my (fortunately little) property toward the support of a library whose circulation of fiction is, though comparatively low, high enough and to spare. However, I do not want to be selfish. I am quite willing that those of my neighbors who really cannot read heavier literature, — though I think I could tell them of some essays and biographies and travels and histories, and even of some scientific works that were much lighter (and, to my thinking, much more interesting, and certainly more instructive) than their beloved novels, — that such neighbors should be able to get such books as they like. But — on certain conditions.

Emerson recommended people never to read a book that was not a year old! — preposterous advice that sounds nowadays, when a “successful novel” is usually dead, buried, and forgotten in half that brief interval of time. Nevertheless, it was good advice: it was tendered by Emerson. Well, suppose our libraries made it a rule never to buy a novel till it was a year old — except, let us say, one copy for purposes of reference only. Nobody could complain, for it is open to everybody to buy a book at once if he thinks it worth having.

Of course, every reader has his pet writers, and he likes to see the productions of his pet writers at once. But is it the function of the public purse to help people to purchase pet writers, any more than it is to help them to purchase pastry or puppies ? One novel in several hundreds may possess so great an educational value, or so high a moral tone, that its purchase by the State, that is, by the money of the community, might be plausibly upheld, as the money of the community is expended upon education or sanitation — I say, might be. But for the sake of one such novel among hundreds, are the shelves of our libraries to be crowded with trash, trash that collects dust and costs money to catalogue and keep ? Surely the function of a state-aided or privately endowed library is primarily and chiefly, if not solely, to aid and encourage research, — historical, political, literary, scientific, or artistic research; not to instill a taste for light reading. In the British Museum and in the Boston Library, I believe, some such rule as that advocated by Emerson obtains. I have the temerity to suggest that, so far as fiction is concerned, it shall be carried out in all libraries under public control.

This particular contributor was once a librarian in a public library himself. Accordingly he knows whereof he speaks. It was pitiful to see the crowds that thronged the “receiving desk” and the “delivery desk,” all seeking the latest novels — and they were generally “out! ” It was heart-breaking to see the clerks — nice, intelligent young ladies, many of them well educated, and all of them adding to their education by becoming daily more conversant with all sorts of books — to see his clerks rushing about, taking in and giving out tons, literally tons, of the veriest trash, trash that in a year or two would be worse than useless, trash that was crowding the already overcrowded shelves. To keep out fiction altogether is, I suppose, impossible; but I am sure my fellow librarians and my clerks would have welcomed some such little proposal as I am here advocating.

For think, not only how much time and labor would have been saved, but how much money — money for the purchase of really good and valuable books, documents, maps, reports, manuscripts, engravings, music, and what-not, that would increase, not decrease, in value, and in years to come would prove an asset instead of a nuisance!

If a year were to pass before the purchase of four or five copies of thousands of indifferent novels, I venture to say that not ten per cent of those novels would be thought of or asked for: those who wanted them would have bought them (thus putting legitimate profits into their writers’ pockets); those who were accustomed to demand them out of mere curiosity or habit (a pernicious habit fostered by this very prodigality and indiscriminateness of purchase on the part of the libraries) would have forgotten all about them.

A year is not long to wait for a novel. A statesman preparing a bill, or a scholar writing a book, must of course be able to have recourse to the latest information as rapidly as possible; but would the course of civilization really be so greatly retarded if the reading public had to wait twelve months or ere it had an opportunity to peruse gratis, say, some Dialogues of Dolly or some Slangy Fables — delightfully entertaining as, no doubt, these are ?

The modern world is under the obsession of fiction, and our public libraries have wantonly allowed themselves to come under its spell. It is time some one tried to exorcise the evil spirit.