Page 59 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP

library exercises no smaU influence. The
Special Report of the U. S. Bureau of Edu-
cation on " Public Libraries in the United
" "
States prepared in 1876 stated that The
influence of the librarian as an educator is
rarely estimated by outside observers, and
probably seldom fully realized even by him-
self. Performing his duties independently of
direct control as to their details, usually
selecting the books that are to be pm^chased
by the library and read by its patrons, often
advising individual readers as to a proper
course of reading and placing in their hands
the books they are to read, and pursuing his
own methods of administration generally
without reference, to those in use elsewhere,
the hbrarian has silently, almost uncon-
sciously, gained ascendancy over the habits
of thought and literary tastes of a multitude
of readers, who find in the public hbrary
their only means of intellectual improvement.
That educators should be able to know the
direction and gauge the extent and results of
this potential influence, and that librarians
should not only understand their primary
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