Page 49 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career
P. 49

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

         Obviously the trustees are responsible for
       the administrative policy of the library, the
       librarian being their executive agent to carry
       out their wishes thoroughly, cheerfully and
       promptly.   If they have a trained and ex-
       perienced librarian, who is tactful, energetic
       and possessed of executive ability, they will
       do well to leave the management of the
       library to him and aid him only in so far as
       this will lighten his work.  If the librarian
       is a failure, their obvious duty is to select a
       more competent person.
         A library trustee should be of sound char-
       acter, possessed of good judgment and com-
       mon sense, public spirited and with a capacity
       for work. He should represent fairly the
       best in the community. Good literary taste^
       is helpful, but inasmuch as the trustee's func-
       tion is mainly administrative, the qualifica-
       tions that make for a successful administrator
       must determine his fitness and selection.
         Upon the board of trustees and upon the
       library committee rests the responsibility of
       seeing that the library is a paying business,
       that its influence and service is wide and as
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