College and Research Libraries


Review Article 
Public Administration and the Library. 

Arnold Miles and Lowell Martin. 

University of Chicago Press, 1941. xiii, 

3 1 3 P- $ 3 -

IN 1933 the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago undertook 
a general study of the relation of the public 

library in the United States to govern-

ment. T h e third and last volume of this 

so-called trilogy, Public Administration 

and the Library by Arnold Miles and 

Lowell Martin, is not directly connected 

by the authors with the second volume, 

People and Print by Douglas Waples, but 

it is very closely associated with the first, 

The Government of the American Public 

Library by Carleton B. Joeckel. 

D r . Joeckel directed his study to gov-

ernment rather than to administration: 

Our field of interest is primarily in the 
library as a piece of governmental machinery 
and its efficiency as such. The practical prob-
lems of internal administration—the detailed 
operation of the machine—have in general 
been considered to be beyond the scope of 
the inquiry. In other words, the field cov-
ered may be regarded as extending from the 
state and city down to and including the gov-
ernmental authority in direct control of the 
library. Below that level there has ordinarily 
been no attempt to go. 

In the light of both this distinction and 

the title they have chosen, one might expect 

the authors of Public Administration and 

the Library to continue the inquiry from 

the "governmental authority in direct 

control" to "the practical problems of ad-

ministration," an expectation that is en-

couraged by their statement of general 

purpose: "the examination of public 

262 COL 

library organization and management in 

terms of emerging principles of public 

administration." Public administration is 

defined as "management in the area of 

public controls and services," and manage-

ment, in turn, is referred to Fayol's 

"planning, organization, command, coordi-

nation, and control" and Gulick's "plan-

ning, organizing, staffing, directing, 

coordinating, representing, and budgeting." 

" T h e fundamental point," according to 

Miles and Martin, "is that the librarian is 

a public administrator. . . . In accomplish-

ing his purposes the librarian performs ad-

ministrative operations essentially similar 

to those of other public agencies." Ex-

tended consideration of these "adminis-

trative operations," however, is disclaimed 

in the preface: " T h e area of internal 

library management is only touched upon, 

and the important task of developing the 

theory of internal library administration 

remains to be accomplished." In the sense 

in which D r . Joeckel used the terms, Miles 

and Martin devote a third of their space 

to topics in administration; two thirds to 

topics in government. 

Recapitulation 

T h e bulk of the book is in part a 

recapitulation and in part an extension of 

The Government of the American Public 

Library. Chapter two offers the best 

summary treatment in print of the library 

functions of state government: services to 

state departments and agencies; services to 

local agencies in providing supplementary 

book and bibliographic aid, library pro-

motion and supervision, and state library 

planning; and direct services to the pub-

EGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



lie, particularly in rural areas. T h e r e is 
also a statement of the principles that 
should govern the organization and re-
organization of state library services. 

Obstacles to the extension of library 
service to unserved areas are judiciously 
reviewed in chapter three. A t t e n t i o n is 
also given to the problem of reorganizing 
both urban and rural services in larger 
units, parallels and precedents being drawn 
freely from other fields. 

In chapter four the authors tilt w i t h the 
controversial subject of the public library 
and education. N o n e w data are adduced. 
T h e chapter advances rather as an exer-
cise in dialectic, reviewing arguments pro 
and con, to the conclusion that "competi-
tion, duplication, and incompleteness in 
the community's educational system, 
whether at the adult or the juvenile level 
can be avoided. . . . It is through volun-
tary coordination of effort that progress 
must be made." 

Library Finance 

Library finance is the subject of chapters 
five and six. T h e topics treated include 
the current tax situation, the future of 
library revenue, the independence of 
library revenue, types of intergovern-
mental financial adjustment, financial as-
sistance and central control, state aid, and 
proposals for Federal aid. T h e esssential 

facts of this difficult subject are selected 
and marshaled w i t h great skill. T h e s e 
admirable chapters need to be read, pon-
dered, and applied by every public li-
brarian. 

Chapter seven epitomizes the argu-
ments for and against the board form of 
library organization. T h i s concludes the 
portion of the book dealing w i t h library 
government. 

T o p i c s in library management are noted 
cursorily throughout the volume and four 
are selected for somewhat fuller treatment. 
T h e relevance of centralized purchasing to 
library extension, w i t h which it is com-
bined in chapter three, escapes the re-
viewer, but the observations offered on 
this head are sensible and deserve wider 
application. T h e discussions of budgets 
and cost accounting are appropriately em-
bedded in the chapters on finance and gain 
from the association; they justify the au-
thors' method of exhibiting a subject first 
in its f u l l setting, w i t h parallels from 
other fields, and gradually narrowing it 
d o w n to the point or points of immediate 
applicability in library practice. Discus-
sion of the fourth topic, library measure-
ment, has never been surpassed in rele-
vance or insight by any treatment of equal 
l e n g t h . — R a l p h A. Beals, Public Library 
of the District of Columbia, Washington, 

D.C. 

JUNE, 1942 263