V. I.

Lenin

There are quite a number of rotten prejudices current in the Western
countries of which Holy Mother Russia is free. They assume there, for
instance, that huge public libraries containing hundreds of thousands and
millions of volumes, should certainly not be reserved only for the handful
of scholars or would-be scholars that uses them. Over there they have set
themselves the strange, incomprehensible and barbaric aim of making these
gigantic, boundless libraries available, not to a guild of scholars,
professors and other such specialists, but to the masses, to the crowd, to
the mob!

What a desecration of the libraries! What an absence of the “law and
order” we are so justly proud of. Instead of regulations ,
discussed and elaborated by a dozen committees of civil servants inventing
hundreds of formalities and obstacles to the use of books, they see to it
that even children can make use of the rich collections; that
readers can read publicly-owned books at home; they regard as the pride and
glory of a public library, not the number of rarities it contains, the
number of sixteenth-century editions or tenth-century manuscripts, but
the extent to which books are distributed among the people , the number of new readers enrolled, the speed with which the
demand for any book is met, the number of books issued to be read at home,
the number of children attracted to reading and to the use of the
library.... These queer prejudices are widespread in the Western states,
and we must be glad that those who keep watch and ward over us protect us
with care and circumspection from the influence of these prejudices,
protect our rich public libraries from the mob, from the hoi polloi !

I have before me the report of the New York Public Library for 1911.

That year the Public Library in New York was moved from two old
buildings to new premises erected by the city. The total number of books is
now about two million. It so happened that the first book asked for when
the reading-room opened its doors was in Russian. It was a work by N. Grot,
The Moral Ideals of Our Times . The request for the book was handed
in at eight minutes past nine in the morning. The book was delivered to the
reader at nine fifteen.

In the course of the year the library was visited by 1,658,376
people. There were 246,950 readers using the reading-room and they took out
911,891 books.

This, however, is only a small part of the book circulation
effected by the library. Only a few people can visit the library. The
rational organisation of educational work is measured by the number of
books issued to be read at home, by the conveniences available to the majority of the population .

In three boroughs of New York—Manhatten, Bronx and Richmond—the New
York Public Library has forty-two branches and will soon have a
forty-third (the total population of the three boroughs is almost
three million). The aim that is constantly pursued is to have a
branch of the Public Library within three-quarters of a verst ,
i.e., within ten minutes’ walk of the house of every inhabitant, the branch
library being the centre of all kinds of institutions and
establishments for public education.

Almost eight million (7,914,882 volumes) were issued to
readers at home, 400,000 more than in 1910. To each hundred members of the
population of all ages and both sexes, 267 books were issued for reading at
home in the course of the year.

Each of the forty-two branch libraries not only provides for the use of
reference books in the building and the issue of books to be read at home,
it is also a place for evening lectures, for public meetings and for
rational entertainment.

The New York Public Library contains about 15,000 books in oriental
languages, about 20,000 in Yiddish and about 16,000 in the Slav languages. In the main reading-room there are
about 20,000 books standing on open shelves for general use.

The New York Public Library has opened a special, central, reading-room
for children, and similar institutions are gradually being opened at all
branches. The librarians do everything for the children’s convenience and
answer their questions. The number of books children took out to read at
home was 2,859,888, slightly under three million (more than a third of the
total). The number of children visiting the reading-room was 1,120,915.

As far as losses are concerned—the New York Public Library assesses
the number of books lost at 70–80–90 per 100,000 issued to be read at
home.

Such is the way things are done in New York. And in Russia?

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