It is then, every citizen’s business, as I conceive it, to inform himself or herself of the work that the public library is doing, of that which it is leaving undone, and of the possibilities of increased appropriations.  If the result is a realization that the library appropriation is inadequate, that realization should take the form of a statement that will sooner or later reach the ears, and tend to stimulate the action, of those directly responsible.  And it should, above all, aid in the formation of a sound public opinion.  Ours is, we are told, a government of public opinion.  Such government will necessarily be good or bad as public opinion is based on matured judgment or only on fleeting impressions.

Inadequacy of support is responsible for more library delinquency than the average citizen imagines.  Many a librarian is deservedly condemned for the unsatisfactory condition of his institution when his fault is not, as his detractors think, failure to see what should be done, or lack of ability to do it, so much as inability to raise funds to do it with.  This is doubtless a fault, and its possessor should suffer, but how about the equally guilty accessories?  How about the city authorities who have failed to vote the library adequate support?  How about the board of trustees who have accepted such a situation without protest?  And what is more to our purpose here, how about the citizens who have limited their efforts to pointing out the cracks in the edifice, with not a bit of constructive work in propping it up and making possible its restoration to strength and soundness?

In conversation with a friend, not long ago, I referred to the financial limitations of our library’s work, and said that we could add to it greatly and render more acceptable service if our income were larger.  He expressed great surprise, and said:  “Why, I thought you had all the money you want; your income must be all of $100,000 a year.”  Now, our income actually is about $250,000, but how could I tell him that?  I judiciously changed the subject.

Let us look next, if you please, at the library board and examine some of its functions.  There appears to be much public misapprehension of the duties of this body, and such misapprehension assumes various and opposing forms.  Some appear to think that the librarian is responsible for all that is done in the library and that his board is a perfunctory body.  Others seem to believe that the board is the direct administrative head of the library, in all of its working details and that the librarian is its executive in the limited sense of doing only those things that he is told to do.  Unfortunately there are libraries that are operated in each of these ways, but neither one relationship nor the other, nor any modification of either, is the ideal one between a librarian and his board.  The board is supreme, of course, but it is a body of non-experts who have employed an expert to bring about certain results.