the fact that there is some perfectly well-known and adopted system of
classification which will answer all his purposes, and be a great deal
more satisfactory in its adaptability to the needs of his library than
the one he has been struggling to evolve. Then he exclaims in despair:
If I had only known of that at the beginning! He feels that the hours
which he has spent in rearranging his books, taking them out of one
class and putting them into another, although hours of such hard work,
are in reality so many hours of wasted time. And he is right; for
every minute spent in unnecessary work is so much lost time. Not only
that, but it is unnecessary expense, and one of the most important
things which a small library has to consider is economy.

Is it not of value to the library that its librarian should know how
best to expend the money given him to use? that he should not have to
regret hours of time lost over useless experiments? Surely if training
teaches a librarian a wise expenditure of money and an economy of
time, then training must be valuable.




CHAPTER VIII

Rooms, building, fixtures, furniture


The trustees will be wise if they appoint their librarian before
they erect a building, or even select rooms, and leave these matters
largely to him. They should not be in haste to build. As a rule it
is better to start in temporary quarters, and let the building fund