A library can never do its best work until its management recognizes the duty and true economy of providing skilled assistants, comfortable quarters, and the best library equipment of fittings and supplies.

For cases, furniture, catalog cases, cards, trays, and labor-saving devices of all kinds, consult the catalog of the Library Bureau.

Very many libraries, even the smallest, find it advantageous to use for book cases what are known as “steel stacks.”  The demand for these cases has been so great from libraries, large and small, that shelving made from a combination of wood and steel has been very successfully adapted to this use, and at a price within the reach of all libraries.  One of the principal advantages in buying such “steel stack” shelving, with parts all interchangeable, is that in the rearrangement of a room, or in moving into a new room or a new building, it can be utilized to advantage, whereas the common wooden book cases very generally cannot.

CHAPTER IX

Things needed in beginning work—­Books, periodicals, and tools

The books and other things included in the following list—­except those starred or excepted in a special note, the purchase of which can perhaps be deferred until the library contains a few thousand volumes—­are essential to good work, and should be purchased, some of them as soon as a library is definitely decided upon, the others as soon as books are purchased and work is actually begun.

I. BOOKS

American catalog of books in print from 1876-1896, 5v. with annual supplement.  The Publishers’ weekly, N.Y.  Several of the volumes are out of print.  All are expensive.  They are not needed by the very small library.  The recent years of the annual volumes are essential.

Card catalog rules; accessions-book rules; shelf-list rules; Library Bureau, 1899, $1.25.  These are called the Library school rules.

Catalog of A.L.A. library; 5000v. for a popular library, selected by the American Library Association, and shown at the World’s Columbian exhibition, Washington, 1893.  Sent free from the United States Bureau of education.

English catalog, 1835-1896, 5v., with annual supplement.  The annual supplements for recent years are needed by the small library; the others are not.

Five thousand books, an easy guide to books in every department.  Compiled for the Ladies’ home journal, 1895.  Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pa.  Paper, 10 cents.  Out of print, but can probably be found second-hand.

Fletcher, W.I.  Public Libraries in America, 1894.  Roberts Bros., Boston, $1.

Library Bureau catalog, containing list of library tools, fittings, and appliances of all kinds, 1898.  To be obtained of the Library Bureau, Chicago, 215 Madison St.; Boston, 530 Atlantic Ave.; New York, 250 Broadway; Philadelphia, 112 N. Broad St.; Washington, 1416 F St., N.W.