Page 107 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

A special collection, limited to a subject or a
group of allied subjects, and a specialist in its
charge are essential to it. But the books and
other materials, as such, are of secondary
consideration in a special library. The use
to which the information within them is put
is primary. The special library collects
material only for the service which this will
render. It does not collect for the mere sake
of possession. Form, too, is only secondary
with it. If a page of a book is all that will
aid the organization with which it is con-
nected, only the page and nothing more will
be saved. If a newspaper chpping will give
the information better than a book, the
special library will keep the clipping.
The special library holds printed and other
matter only so long as this has the possibihty
of use ; as soon as this use is past the material
is discarded. This practice is characteristic
of the special library and of no other. John
Cotton Dana, librarian of the Free Public
Library of Newark, N. J., and founder of
the Special Libraries Association, has put
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