REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR FOR THE YEAR ending DecemBER 31, 1913 JOHN L. CADWalader, Esq., SIR: President of The New York Public Library. I have the honor to submit the following report of the Library for the year 1913: GENERAL SUMMARY Its During the year the Library has made substantial progress. growth, both in the size of its collections and their use, has been steady, if not spectacular. Today it is a factor in the work and pleasure of more people than ever before. Three facts stand out clearly as characteristic of the results of the year's work: First, the resources of the Library in books, prints, maps, periodicals, etc., are naturally greater through the accessions by gift or purchase. Considering only the central building, nearly 50,000 volumes and over 65,000 pamphlets were added, making a total of 1,227,309 volumes and pamphlets at the disposal of the public for consultation in the building. Prints to the number of 75,194; maps numbering about 14,000; newspapers, American and foreign, numbering 351; and 7,775 different current periodicals must be added to this list of available resources within the central building alone. To obtain a complete record, very nearly 1,000,000 volumes in the circulation department must be included in the total, thus increasing the number of books and pamphlets in the whole Library to 2,191,498. Second, a gain has been made in the facility with which these resources may be utilized by readers. Through additions to and changes in the staff there has been a gradual improvement in the Library's ability to serve the public efficiently and with reasonable promptness. Third, the readers of New York City and elsewhere are more generally recognizing their opportunity to use the Library. Increasingly the central building is becoming the workshop of specialists and students alike. More and more the branch library is taking its place as a community center, the natural rendezvous for the dwellers in its neighborhood, the logical meeting-place for clubs and organizations that represent the life of the community. To the central building there came during the year, either as visitors or readers, 2,102,824 persons, an average of 5,761 daily. Of these, 526,682 were actual readers who consulted 1,685,715 volumes. From the 40 branch libraries 8,320,144 volumes were issued for home use, an increase of 350,480 over the number issued in 1912. At the close of the year the general public catalogues contained 2,269,638 cards; the catalogues in special rooms, 1,625,941; and the official catalogue 1,184,239, making a grand total in the central building of 5,079,818 cards. The total expenditures for the calendar year were $1,230,343.33, of which $504,489.64 was for the reference department and $725,853.69 for the circulation department. Of the reference department expenditures $64,370.12, or 13 per cent., was for books, binding, and periodicals; $327,973.82, or 65 per cent., for salaries; $112,145.70, or 22 per cent., for all other purposes. Of the circulation department expenditures $189,057.12, or 26 per cent., was for books, binding, and periodicals; $418,208.44, or 58 per cent., for salaries; $118,588.13, or 16 per cent., for all other purposes. Of the circulation department expenditures $666,548.62 came from the City appropriation. At the close of the year there were 1,046 persons on the staff of the Library; 467 in the reference department, 579 in the circulation department. Of the reference department staff the number of librarians, assistants, etc., was 309; the number of engineers, janitors, pages, etc., was 158. Of the circulation department staff the number of librarians, assistants, etc., was 482; the number of janitors, pages, etc., was 97. These figures, however, convey no adequate idea of the extent and variety of the activities of the Library. This must be obtained from a reading of the details given in the succeeding paragraphs and the statistical tables in the appendix. REFERENCE DEPARTMENT INFORMATION DIVISION An increase in the use of the entire Library, which this Report clearly shows, as well as added general acquaintance with the fact that there is a staff assigned to the particular task of imparting information, has resulted in greatly increasing the work of this division, but how great this increase is there is no means of measuring. The addition of certain ready aids has proved of value in meeting this increased demand. For example, in the press of desk and telephone calls it is quite a different thing to have the "Cumulative Book Index" and the "United States Catalog" at hand rather than to have them available in another part of the building, as formerly. Likewise, the purchase of directories, lists, etc., which are frequently called for, even though some of them are a little outside the scope of the collections, has saved much annoyance. To please or help many people, sometimes at the rate of several to the minute, without allowing them to waste time, requires a kind of standardization of a very indefinite service. The time of the division is all theirs, but the apportionment is not always simple. The call of a single neighbor can spoil the forenoon of some ploughmen, but it is possible for a library assistant to take care of hundreds of casual queries and yet devote the energy of a morning to serious research. The relative importance of questions about curious or odd bits of information, or perhaps the latest fact connected with some practical pursuit, and those involving large collections and sources cannot be determined, but in the latter the Library doubtless gives greater satisfaction. The former are indeed stimulating in their constant variety as presented by so many people; but such a case as that of a professor from the middle west who explains that he cannot produce his articles and books at his university but has to come, between sessions, to one of two or three large reference collections, is surely significant. The work done here is perhaps expressed most accurately in the enthusiastic pleasure of one who studied the part mercenaries have taken in wars, and of another who was looking up the languages and literature of Australia. The satisfaction of a searcher at finding that the out-of-the-way references in his subject surpassed his expectation, may compensate for the dissatisfaction of another at not finding a compilation which he and one or two others might use once or twice and which would forthwith become out of date, valuable neither for record nor as a part of the literature of a subject. |