Division I — Introductory
Memoir
On Christmas Day 1878 a Scottish lad of seventeen, having realized a cherished desire and obtained an appointment as junior library assistant at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, presented himself before the then unimposing portals of that institution at the north corner of Ingram Street, and found them closed. He concluded characteristically that this was because the librarian was an Englishman. The lad who endeavoured to begin what was his real life-work on this unusual day was James Duff Brown, who was to become in many ways the greatest practical influence of his time in the British public library movement, who lived through its most expansive period, codified and published its methods and results, experimented boldly, faced and overcame a remarkable force of opposition, and left behind him a memory which present librarians revere, and works which will not easily be forgotten.
We have no record of his earliest years, other than that he was born at Edinburgh on 6th November 1862, and during boyhood showed tenacity and mental acquisitiveness. At thirteen he became an apprentice in the publishing house of Edmonstone & Douglas in his native city, and in the same year, when Mr Douglas left that firm at the establishment of that of Douglas & Foulis, he remained with Mr Douglas. A year later found him at Glasgow with the firm of W. R. McPhun & Sons. The work done for these firms gave him an initiation of a kind into literature, but the earlier Glasgow period was never a happy memory of his, and his true career began at the Mitchell Library. Here he spent ten years, enlarging his knowledge, specializing thoroughly in librarianship, devoting much of his leisure to musical lore, and by ability and purposefulness working his way to responsible positions on the library staff. When he was twenty-one he began to collect material for his Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, which appeared four years later in 1886; at twenty-three was Glasgow correspondent to The Musical Standard; and he was the editor and reviser of the six large quarto volumes of Chalmers’s Caledonia which appeared 1887-90. The industry thus shown was inherent in his character. He told Mr T. A. Aldred that he acquired the early-rising habit in youth, and that most of his work was done in the mornings before he began his official day’s work at 9 a.m.; and the Mitchell was at some distance from his home. This habit, which few of us ever acquire, he retained through life. It is interesting to know that he served from 1886 to about 1888 in the Third Lanark Volunteers; a little booklet from his pen, A Volunteer Reconnaissance, records his experiences.
A large library, however liberally administered, does not often offer opportunities for a man’s larger initiative unless he occupies one of the chief positions; and the exercise of his gifts did not come fully until his appointment in 1888 to the newly-established Clerkenwell Public Library in London. The building is a comparatively small edifice occupying a triangular site, and hardly one in which experiments little short of epoch-making might be expected; but Brown was a man of ideas and courage who could make the most of such a building. Moreover, London offered him openings which he did not hesitate to take. Retiring in person as a rule, nervous in speech, and in appearance of no special significance, he yet threw himself with quiet energy into the work of the Library Association. It must be remembered that from about 1888 to 1898 the public library movement in England received its greatest impetus, probably because in those years the full effects of the Education Act of 1870 came into play. Few of the libraries founded in that period are entirely without marks of his influence. In 1891 he conceived the idea—very old in itself, but quite new in its application to municipal libraries in this country—of throwing open the shelves to the choice of readers; and he formulated a scheme, which he called by the somewhat tautological name of “safe-guarded open access,” and published it anonymously in The Library in a paper entitled “A Plea for Liberty to Readers to Help Themselves.” A visit to America in 1893, where he attended the Chicago Conference of the American Library Association as a delegate of the Library Association, confirmed him in his opinion of the practical desirability of the system, although he says, “There was no such thing as proper safe-guarded open access as now understood anywhere in America when I was there”; but free access there was, without the locking wickets and other safeguards which he introduced at Clerkenwell. In brief, his method was to admit readers to the shelves, but by way of a wicket at which their credentials were checked unobtrusively, and to allow them to pass out at another wicket at which the books chosen were charged. Thus the reader was locked in the library while making his choice. The results of his experiment were presented to the Belfast Conference in a paper he wrote in collaboration with one of his Committee, Mr Henry W. Fincham, entitled “The Clerkenwell Open Lending Library,” which was modest and restrained in tone; but although the discussion that ensued was generous and appreciative to an extent, it was the fiercest yet known amongst librarians, and the question became the most contested one in our work. So sharp were the divisions the simple suggestion created that the municipal library profession went into two armed camps, and friendships and good-feeling were frequently destroyed by it. It is difficult for younger librarians to realize the courage and confidence that were needed to champion open access twenty-five years ago against the active antagonism of 90 per cent. of the profession. There were not wanting men, however, who were drawn to the champion, amongst them Mr L. Stanley Jast, then librarian of Peterborough, Mr T. Johnston, librarian of Croydon, and Mr Brown’s own assistants, Mr Charles Riddle in particular, who opened the first library outside London on this system at Bournemouth in 1895. In 1896 Croydon adopted it, Hornsey followed in 1898, and although progress was slow at first, to-day it has so far won the battle that the opening of a new library on any other system is a matter for surprise, and many of the more conservative libraries, even in the largest cities, have adopted it at least in some part of their system; moreover, the question itself has become impersonal, and no librarian to-day would criticize another for any views he might hold in connexion with it. It was, as Sir J. Y. W. MacAlister declared in 1894, “the dawn of a new epoch; a hundred years hence the authorities of the greater municipal London, which will then be carrying on the work now only attempted by the present congeries of village communities, will pass a resolution ordering a tablet to be fixed to the wall of a quaint three-cornered building in Clerkenwell, to commemorate the fact that here, in 1894, the revolution had begun which in a few years had changed the entire system of public libraries throughout the land.”
Although safe-guarded open access was the principal practical contribution of Brown to library practice, he introduced other things of great importance. His Quarterly Guide was the first annotated library bulletin published in England. He invented an indicator, more compact and perhaps as effective as most others, as a challenge to another similar inventor. He improved the sheaf catalogue, and indeed many of the commonest appliances now in use were of his contriving. A description of these, and others, he gave in his Handbook of Library Appliances, 1892, published by the Library Association. As open access abolished the need for alphabetical indicator-keys, he was at liberty to consider the question of catalogues radically; and he advocated the classified catalogue and class-lists as fulfilling the needs of students and readers better than other forms. In this advocacy he secured the vigorous co-operation of Mr Jast; and in this matter also a great controversy ran for some years, dignified amongst librarians as “the battle of the catalogues.” The issue is still in doubt as to the entire desirability of the classified catalogue for all purposes and places, but to-day the classified catalogue is certainly as common as any other form.
His brain and pen were active throughout life. In 1897 he published, in conjunction with Stephen Stratton, a British Musical Biography, another valuable biographical dictionary. In 1898 he founded, and for many years was to edit, The Library World, an independent and radical journal of library methodology and politics, which has held its own to this day. Opinions of all kinds were expressed in its pages; Brown wrote innumerable articles for it; and many librarians of present distinction first saw themselves in print in its pages. Especially did Brown encourage through its pages the struggles of young and unknown men at a time when encouragement was of priceless value to them. A list of his works is given at the end of this chapter, and will be sufficient to show his energy; but the appearance of his Manual of Library Classification and Shelf Arrangement, 1898, which contained his Adjustable Classification, was a real event, because it was the first comprehensive treatment of a till then little understood and much abused subject; as was that of his greatest work, the Manual of Library Economy, which first appeared in 1903, and has influenced all library methodology.
Quiet as he was in many ways, he was of a social disposition, a trait which found an outlet to some extent at the Library Association, of which he was a councillor from 1890 to 1911; but for closer purposes of camaraderie he founded, with Mr Jast, the well-known Pseudonyms, a dining-club of librarians and their friends, which had its origin in the ‘nineties, and flourished for many years. The meetings were held in various Bohemian restaurants in Soho, professional and literary topics were debated, and Brown reported them in The Library World. The reports had little relation to the actual proceedings, and few people were more entertained, and, incidentally, astonished at their own wittiness (as reported) than the Pseudonyms themselves. This is but one instance of his humorous way of regarding all things. In conversation, and in writing of even the most dryasdust subjects, it seemed impossible for him to talk or write without humour.
Brown’s sixteen years at Clerkenwell made the library perhaps the most reputed in the country. Mr Jast may be quoted upon this: “Mr Brown’s influence and reputation extended far beyond his own country. Foreign librarians visiting London almost invariably made for two places; one was the large and handsome room overlooking a stately west-end square, which Mr J. Y. W. MacAlister occupied for so many years; and the other was a small room, high up in a rather dingy-looking triangular building, overlooking a dingier street in Clerkenwell, which was so hidden away that one rather stumbled upon it than found it, where Mr J. D. Brown worked in his official capacity as Librarian, before he was called to a sphere more worthy of his labours, in Islington. How many librarians, how many members of library committees, how many workers in the Library movement have been charmed, interested, and instructed in these two rooms?” Not only was he required to give advice in his own country; at different times he was called upon to lecture on “free public libraries” in the United States, in Holland and in Belgium. “A Bruxelles,” writes M. Paul Otlet, “il parla devant l’auditore du Musée du Livre et son succès fut très grand.” I cannot help thinking that his success depended more upon his subject and his clear writing than upon his speaking; he was on the whole an indifferent speaker, his nervousness was painful to himself and others, and his ineradicable Glasgow accent was a real obstacle. He told my wife that the only place in which he enjoyed speaking was the meetings of the Islington Staff Club; he confessed to a horror and nervousness in public speech.
In 1904 he was appointed the first Borough Librarian of Islington. Here the public libraries scheme had its very beginnings under his care, and he was responsible for the interior design of the fine central library and the north and west branches; probably also for the south-east branch, but of that I am not sure. These libraries, I dare affirm, represented the highest achievement in library-planning in this country, with their handsome, adequate and practical rooms, economy in working, and general suitableness for their purpose. Here he brought into practice two of his principal innovations. The first was the Subject Classification, a huge, minute scheme, which we describe in more detail in the later pages of this book, which challenged comparison with the great and more popular American schemes in its completeness, logical arrangement, and admirable notation. Its focus upon British requirements made it specially attractive to British librarians, and although it may never supersede the more universal Decimal System of Melvil Dewey, it is nevertheless a work of the greatest value to all librarians. The second and more revolutionary innovation was the exclusion of the newsroom as usually understood from the libraries. In his account of his visit to America, he mentioned with something approaching disapproval the absence of this department from American libraries and the sense of desertion which resulted there; but at Islington he adopted the American plan. I am told that the Islington public did not approve the omission quite as much as did its author, but the arguments he used for it were common-sense ones, although he has had few, if any, British imitators.
To give in detail all his work for Islington would be to occupy a disproportionate space in a memoir of this compass. Suffice it to say that he provided this not entirely grateful Borough with a system which is the admiration of our profession. He gathered round him an accomplished staff, published a model select catalogue, encouraged the formation of an excellent staff guild for his assistants, and did many other invaluable things. He had long been a teacher of young librarians. When the Library Association courses were inaugurated at the London School of Economics he became the lecturer in library organization and routine, and served in that capacity for many years. As one of his students, I can vouch for his conscientious, painstaking teaching, his care in clearing up difficulties, the encouraging and friendly way in which he answered our questions, marked our exercises, and generally made our work of interest and value. No librarian who turned to him for advice ever went unhelped, whatever his age or school of thought. He wrote hundreds of letters to such purpose in his beautiful minute handwriting, and a collection of these would form, I believe, an excellent journal of contemporary librarianship. He seemed, in particular, to have a minute knowledge of all librarians and library assistants, their capacities and work accomplished. His obvious sympathy with young assistants first drew many of us to him. From the day I met him in 1896 at Bournemouth to his death he showed me by constant signs his regard for younger men and women who had a real interest in the work that he himself loved. He treated us with equal consideration in his correspondence, and the youngest correspondent received the same courtesy as his elders. He drafted the constitution of the Library Assistants’ Association, which with slight modifications has proved most wise and successful; and he frequently, especially in his last years, attended the meetings of this Association, taking part in the discussions when invited to do so, but seldom intruding his opinions unasked upon his young listeners, who, be it remarked, were always eager to hear him.
It is a difficult task to sketch “the man in his habit as he lived,” but a few words may be written. The portrait which forms our frontispiece is almost life-like, with its thoughtful, quiet, and, if one looks carefully enough, intent and humorous face. In person he was small, but not too obviously so; fragile-looking, but yet compact and vital in appearance and movement; he had brown hair and beard, delicate features, deft and supple hands; he thought calmly, was a rapid, consistent, and persevering worker; what he began he finished. His writings have been pronounced by Dr E. A. Baker to possess unmistakable quality, although “he scoffed at the word ‘style’ as denoting some futile kind of verbal legerdemain” (I think he must have done so jokingly, as his own personal library showed that he was by no means blind to the qualities of literary expression). “Shrewd, practical common sense, rough on cranks and sentimentalists, unmerciful to muddlers, impervious to a good many ideas, but a steady assertor of those he had tried and approved—this was the stuff of Brown’s writing,” is Dr Baker’s estimate, and in the main it coincides with my own. His personal tastes may be inferred from his work. “He once told me,” writes Mr Aldred, “he knew three subjects only, viz., library economy, music, and Scotland. I forget the order in which he placed them. Being a Scotsman, probably Scotland came first. In many respects, however, J. D. B.’s knowledge was of the encyclopædic order—he appeared to know a little of any subject named.”
In early life he was pronounced to be consumptive, but he told me, “I have lived to see the doctors who condemned me in their graves,” by careful living, and probably by sheer will power. But in his later years he had to meet many difficulties at Islington, where the libraries became the sport of a political party and he had a committee which was unable to assess his powers. It is useless to revive this now, but it probably helped to bring about his early death. He first became seriously ill in 1911, and with a few intervals, when we believed him to be practically himself again, he gradually weakened. In the last few months of his life a stay at Bournemouth was tried as a final resource, and here he read musical biography assiduously and maintained the keenest outlook upon all things; but no improvement ensued in his health, and he returned to London a dying man. The end came at his house, 15, Canonbury Park South, Islington, on 26th February 1914; and he was buried, amid every sign of regret and affection, at New Southgate Cemetery. His only memorial to the present are his works; I believe they will be an enduring one.
To sum up: Brown entered upon his library career at a time when the library movement received its greatest impetus, and brought the whole force of a fertile and inventive mind and a ready pen into its service. He wrote the first text-books actually intended for English public librarians, collected and systematized all available methodology, and, thoroughly believing in his mission, this man more than any other in his generation fashioned in this country a living, interesting profession out of the despised materials of the popular library. An impression written by Alderman H. Keatley Moore, B.A., B.Mus., J.P., a veteran worker for public libraries, who made his acquaintance early, may serve to conclude this necessarily brief account of our author:
“What was it especially that made one feel so clearly that one was in the presence of a true man, of an absolute master of his subject, of one, in fact, whom it was an honour to know?
“I think it was that curious quietness, the repose of a man who has thought out everything fully for himself, and is content to leave the facts as he has arranged them to tell their own story. He was still, because he was so strong; he was undisturbed by clamour because he had been through it all, and now stood in the open with the conquered fortress behind him, its strength his strength made visible; one gradually grew rather timid of this shy talker because he always had the facts on his side.... He was the most unaffected and modest man of real mark that I have ever met in my long public life. I shall always be glad to have known him. I shall always remember the great services he rendered to me, to my town, to our country. Across my sincere regret at his loss flickers the whimsical thought of how he would wonder at the fuss we are making over him.”
Bibliography
The following is a list of Brown’s separate publications. His articles were legion, and will be found by reference to the indexes of all library periodicals and transactions. Nearly all the anonymously-written articles and editorials in The Library World from 1898 to about 1906 are his:
1886. Biographical Dictionary of Musicians: with a bibliography of English writings on Music. Paisley: A. Gardner.
1888. A Volunteer Reconnaissance.
1892. Handbook of Library Appliances: fittings, furniture, charging systems, etc. L.A. Series, 1.
1893. Guide to the Formation of a Music Library. L.A. Series, 4.
1897. Greenwood’s Library Year-Book. Scott, Greenwood.
(The second edition, 1900-01, was entitled British Library Year-Book.)
1898. Manual of Library Classification and Shelf Arrangement. Libraco Series. Library Supply Co.
(Chapter vi., which contains “The Adjustable Classification,” was published separately under that title.)
1903. Manual of Library Economy. Scott, Greenwood. Second edition, 1907. Library Supply Co.
1904. Annotated Syllabus for the Systematic Study of Librarianship. Libraco.
Classified List of Current Periodicals: a guide to the selection of magazine literature. L.A. Series, 8.
1906. Manual of Practical Bibliography. Routledge. Subject Classification. 1906, Libraco. Second edition, 1914, Grafton.
1907. The Small Library: a guide to the collection and care of books. Routledge.
1909. Guide to Librarianship: reading lists, methods of study, etc. Grafton.
(Supersedes the “Annotated Syllabus.”)
1912. Library Classification and Cataloguing. Grafton.
(Incorporates much of the matter in the “Manual of Library Classification” in revised form.)
1913. A British Library Itinerary. Grafton.
Works Written in Collaboration
1897. With Stratton, S. S. British Musical Biography: a dictionary of musical artists, authors and composers born in Britain and its Colonies. Birmingham: Stratton.
1901. With Moffat, Alfred. Characteristic Songs and Dances of all Nations.
1915. Stewart, J. D., and Others. Open Access Libraries: their planning, equipment and organization. With Introduction by J. D. Brown. Grafton.
(This work was planned by Brown.)