| Show SAWS SAMS BOOKS Wh wahington ington I 1 D C sept 14 1897 bad an hours chat today with mr john russell young as to his plans the new national library he I 1 lust just returned to his home after of over the various rooms with spofford Bp offord and the chiefs of the dif wt divisions and had before him fc iet of plans showing the floors and how each part of this great book ee e is to be ar ranged arranged mr youngs e is in now on new jersey avenue tta a few blocks of the library fusing to see him I 1 walked by the of the national capitol down the al 1 stairs of which a wooden eh h or chute has been built to the e boxes 0 of f books from the old y down into the wagons in i they are to be carried to the I 1 saw scores of workmen bring these boxes on their shoulders out capitol and putting them into ute lute men stood at the bottom cb the boxes as they came flying and as soon as one wagon was i i noticed that there was an there to take its place already al hundred thousand books have moved and it is expected that before Cong congress Tess meets thi this vast on of volumes and pamphlets stored away in its new home e J X give my y interview with mr let me tell you something the man some of the papers jo to look upon n him as a politician r than as a literary man this mistake inake mr young is almost a hi he began to write the ie newspapers long before he was althis lt of his teens he has been a stu all ali his life and today he has one 6 largest gest private libraries in the Q states tes his collection of amer at philadelphia numbers several d 1 volumes and he has rare of nearly all the great au his literary work has been op on all over the world for be was the head of the new herald er id bureau in london and eh spent much time in the brit museum um library he has also ed for months in the national sy of Ir brance rance he has had ac to the collections of spain at td and there is hardly a great of the world which he does not AS ao a writer he to is noted tor for the of his english and when he language is the purest anglo it so go worded that it could be pub t without revision he has al received elved high salaries I 1 am he 01 got a year from mr eft of the herald he must have we ell paid wh when en he was vice pres s the reading railroad and I 1 ae abb hiis work today is done more he belove love of it than tor for the 01 11 kiich 1 ch he gets from the govern ws been stated that mr youngs t was a severe blow to spofford the old librara librari daress ress this to is a mistake himself wrote the dent de t that he did not wish to be continued ti ud as chief and in his letter he himself suggested that mr young be chosen as librarian when president mckinley offered john russell young the position mr young said he could not accept it on account of his friendship for mr spofford said he mr president mr spofford and I 1 have been friends for over thirty years we like each other and I 1 would not for the world do anything that would affect our relations upon this president mckinley showed mr young mr letter and some weeks after that mr young accepted the appointment the relations of the two men are of the best nature they are working together spofford acting as literary assistant and young as administration head executive manager and in short as librarian ln in chief I 1 asked mr young to tell me something of the size of uncle sams book collection he replied it is hard to say as yet just what it Is for years thousands of pamphlets and volumes have been stored away in boxes packed up in bundles and piled up in all sorts of shapes in the basement of the capitol we know that we have altogether about books and pamphlets making a million in all we have I 1 judge something like unbound periodicals pieces of music and at least maps in addition to these there are manuscripts pictures and a vast amount of material the value of which can only be known when it ts Is properly arranged and classified but there must be a great deal of trash in such stuff mr young said sa i d 1 I no I 1 think not was the reply almost every bit of it is valuable in one sense or another you know the trash of one century becomes the classics of the next ola pamphlets which are thought worthless often become very valuable the american ones are especially so the library is the copyright record of what the great american brain is doing it is the great brain reservoir of the united states and it should contain everything published but does it do this I 1 asked yes I 1 think so far as the united states is concerned the law requires that two copies of each book copyrighted must be deposited in the national library we also get every foreign book registered under the international copyright law and our additions to the library alone amount to tens of thousands a year last yea there were over books pictures and other things copyrighted and th the increase of copyrights seems to be steady from year to year will not the library soon become full at this rate of increase I 1 asked no I 1 think not replied the librarian we can put all the books in one I 1 wing or stack of the new building we have shelving tor for years to come the library covers about three acres there are three stories which gives nine acres for books machinery offices and reading rooms nine acres is a great deal of space there are already miles of shelving and if necessary room could be made for more than books I 1 doubt whether we will fill the library within the next one hundred years the greatest library of the world today is that of paris it has volumes but the books are badly housed the british museum library is next with more than and I 1 think that st petersburg follows As for us we stand about eleventh in number but if congress is as liberal in providing books has it has been in putting up this book palace we will soon become third in rank and we may eventually be first in what features is the library especially strong I 1 asked it has a fine collection of american pamphlets and books published in america it is very strong in law lam political economy and history there are however many gaps in our col lection of french german and span ish literature and also in other things I 1 want to see the gaps filled up I 1 hope that congress will give us a big enough appropriation n to buy the the things which we have have not mr spofford and myself are now watching the catalogues cataloguer catal of sales all over the world in order to supply our deficiencies congress ought to give a good appropriation to the library and I 1 think the building will cause it to do better as to the book fund than it has in the past heretofore the library has had about a year and one third of this has gone to tte the supreme court the new hew library building cost the interest on the investment at 6 per cent ib a year cesi As long as the united states is paying a year tor for its library it ought to add the small sum of or more for the purchase of books which would keep it abreast of the great libraries of the world As it is we have a great many good nuggets in the library we have for instance the first folio edition of shakespeare a volume which is worth from to 1 I think we should have not only every book but all the editions of the greater writers that can be found there is one idea that I 1 would like to see grow in the minds of the rich men of the united states continued mr young and that is that one of the best places to leave their money to is the national library the british museum library was founded by the gift of a man named hns sloan one hundred and fifty years ago it was first kept in one of the ducal palaces and for a time was called the kings library george IV desired to sell it at one time when he was hard up but when he found that he could not do so he gave it to this the people it has since been largely increased by gifts xuat now I 1 1 I andl understand r that there to is a fine collection of burns bums works in this city it is owned by william R smith the superintendent of the botanical gardens and it to Is said to be one of the finest burns collections in the world I 1 have understood der stood that he expects to give it to the masonic library of washington but I 1 have written him that he should give it to the national library why should not some rich man buy a collection of this kind and give it to the library take some of our millionaires such as john mackey rockefeller and others what better monument could they leave for themselves than a big collection of some kind to be known in the library as their collection and to be always called by their name I 1 would like to see national pride aroused in the library it is a library for the people and we hope to make it so accessible that it will be at the command of every one who comes to washington I 1 Is not washington already one of the best literary centers of the union yes it is was the reply it is fast becoming the seat of great collections the national library is only one of a number there should be a general catalogue published of all the books in washington stating where they may be found we have here what is said to be the best medical library of the world this is known as the library of the army and medical museum it has more than volumes and about pamphlets comprising it is said copies of about three fourths of all the medical literature published and copies of nine tenths of all the medical books published within the last ten years doctors now come from all parts of the country to consult this library of the british museum and that of france the smithsonian library to is very rich in scientific matter it contains something like volumes and pamphlets there will be about of these books stored in the national library and accessible there then each of the great departments has a the patent office library Is one of the finest of its kind it contains about volumes and is rich in scientific works and periodicals period cals the state department has many valuable books and manuscripts and the war department and navy department part ment are rich in publications along their own lines the geological survey has a fine library of travel and science and there are other collections of value all of which are open to the public A great deal of scientific work is steadily going on in washington and there is no reason why it should not be the chief literary center of the country at this point mr young spread out the plans odthe floors of the library and showed me how he expected to arrange the different terent dlf departments we first took the third floor plan here said he ae we will have a lecture room which will seat BOO people and which may be used for scientific and literary conventions we shall use one of the rooms for the smithsonian institution collection so that it may be right near the lecture room in the south gallery we will have a collection of the graphic arts of the united states making here an art gallery in which people can see what our people have done along these lines since the government has been founded this collection is the outgrowth of the copyright law but hitherto owing to the lack of room it has not been shown walking around the third floor you next come to the side of the building facing the capitol here will be a department devoted to early americana and early printed works of americans on the north side ride of the building I 1 have decided to put the maps and charts this will be a very interesting collection there are many maps which were made by our officers during the revolutionary war some were drawn on the battlefields and not a few were made by british french and american engineers gi in the attic there will be a restaurant and the building will be so arranged that scholars who wish to work here will have all conveniences tell me something about the reading room mr young said 1 I here it is on the library floor replied john russell young as he took another plan and spread it out before me it is about a hundred feet in diameter and we have the desks already in though not the chairs I 1 think we shall be able to seat people and give them plenty of working space the librarians will be in the center of the room and they will be connected by telephone with every part of the building and with both houses of congress they will have pneumatic tubes running from their desk to every story of the book stacks there are carriers which run on endless chains from every part of the book stacks to the reading room so that within five minutes a librarian can get a book from any part of the library at the right of the reading room as you go out will be the office of mr spofford mr hutcheson and chers of the assistants in the northwest corner I 1 have decided to put a library for the blind we have a large number of books with raised letters printed for the use of the blind we could give these out in the main reading room but I 1 fear that the people reading in this way would attract attention and sightseers might bother them so I 1 have deci decided cled to give them a room to themselves here along the north side of the building on the library floor mr young went on will be the cata logging department this is a very important branch of the library the catalogue of a library is like the rudder of a ship we should be at sea without one we want to keep the book lists up to date we publish you know a bulletin every week of the copyrighted books which have come in we have already a good catalogue of the periodicals and of the volumes now in the library further on on the same floor in the northeast corner Is a room which to is to be devoted to the toner collection this collection consists of volumes it is very strong in documents manuscripts and books relating to george washington and I 1 have placed it in charge of one of the last of the family further around the building to the east there will be a department devoted to manuscripts you remember that some manuscripts were stolen from the library not long a ago go we shall have these kept under special lock and key and we hope to guard such treasures carefully then there will be a room devoted to research where people of good reputation who are known to be carrying on certain lines of study or research can have books brought to them and do their work apart from the regular reading room another important classification which will be in this part of the building is that of periodicals we have one of the most valuable newspaper collections in the world we have all the magazines that have ever been published in america and many of those of foreign countries these will be accessible and by card catalogue one will be able to get almost anything in them at the south end of the library floor floo r there will be the copyright department this bas baa been thoroughly systematized it to is now bringing in about 1000 a week the mail is kept right up to date and I 1 make it a point att have every days work done at the wl of the day if the clerks have L S work late I 1 tell them that they krabu have to rest the next day but the business must be kept up an in jle A to these departments there abs be a number of others in the baw 1 ment there is the mailing department we expect to have a bindery there we have a branch in which a right books are kept and in sho short rt we WB 6 hope eventually to have one of the A most complete libraries of the wo worm FRANK G CARPEN CARPENTER i |
