Natural History Museums and the Library 



By GEORGE H. SHERWOOD 



MUSEUMS and libraries are alike in 

 that they are both educational 

 agents of the community — the 

 former through their explorations, researches 

 and exhibits: the latter through their books. 

 The purpose of each is the diffusion of 

 knowledge, but naturally the methods of im- 

 parting this knowledge differ. The method 

 of instruction in the museum is primarily 

 an appeal to the eye and is based on the 

 inherent curiosity of the individual. It is 

 therefore elemental. The method of instruc- 

 tion in the library is a direct appeal to the 

 mental traits of the individual. It presup- 

 po.ses previous instruction. The value of each 

 is dependent upon the extent to w^hich it is 

 used. Both are faced with the same prob- 

 lem — namely, how to arouse and maintain 

 the interest of the community. 



The museum attracts the casual visitor 

 and his natural curiosity is turned into a 

 desire for further knowledge. He accordingly 

 seeks the library as the means of satisfying 

 this desire. The museum therefore is one 

 of the natural feeders of the library. On the 

 other hand, the desire of the reader to see 

 in concrete form the objects about which he 

 is reading, leads him to enter the exhibition 

 halls of the museum. In such cases, the 

 Ubrary becomes one of the natural feeders 

 of the museum. There is a wide field then, 

 for cooperation between the museum and the 

 library, and especially between the natural 

 history museum and the library. The means 

 of carrying out this cooperation will differ 

 considerably according to the location, char- 

 acter and size of the institution, but the same 

 general principles will underlie all methods. 



In 1907, The American Museum of Natu- 

 ral History made its first efforts to bring its 

 work into closer touch with the libraries of 

 New York City, and it was felt that the best 

 results would be obtained by working through 

 the juvenile departments of the libraries. 

 Conferences were held with the supervisor of 

 the children's hbraries, and several small col- 

 lections for exhibition in the libraries were 

 prepared. These collections were designed 

 to stimulate the reading of good books relat- 

 ing to the subjects which the specimens illus- 

 trated. The material was selected with due 



regard to the general character of the district 

 in which the library was located, and the 

 results in some instances were very striking. 

 An Eskimo exhibit was placed in a branch 

 library on the lower West Side, which has a 

 cosmopolitan population. In less than four 

 weeks the call for Arctic books increased from 

 nothing to four hundred, and to meet the 

 demand the librarian found it necessary to 

 draw on Arctic books from other branches. 

 The results warranted the continuation of 

 this work and for several years it has been 

 carried on in a more or less energetic way. 

 That it has not developed still more rapidly 

 was due in part to the absorption of the 

 Museum's department of education in organ- 

 izing and carrying out other features of 

 museum extension. 



Early in the current year the American 

 Museum was in a position to give more atten- 

 tion to this phase of museum work and the 

 matter of cooperation with the libraries was 

 taken up as a special branch of the Museum's 

 department of public education, all loans being 

 made through this channel. Libraries were 

 visited in order better to understand their 

 needs, and the children's librarians came to 

 the Museum, suggesting the type of exhibit 

 that would appeal to their patrons. From 

 this data, a number of special circulatmg col- 

 lections were prepared for use in the children's 

 rooms of the libraries. Each collection was 

 planned to be a unit in itself, to consist of rela- 

 tively few specimens completely labeled, and to 

 be scientifically accurate as well as interesting. 



If you really want a friend to read a book 

 you do not give it to him but loan it. Our 

 experience in providing circulating nature 

 study collections for the public schools of 

 New York City had emphasized the impor- 

 tance of making the collections "loan collec- 

 tions," and not leaving them for an indefinite 

 period in the schools. This same idea was 

 applied in connection with the library circu- 

 lating collections, and it was decided to limit 

 the loan period to four or to six weeks. The 

 results of the year's work have fully justified 

 this decision. During the spring six collec- 

 tions were completed and put in circulation. 

 These were designated as follows: 1 — Spring- 

 time Collection; 2 — The Eskimo; 3 — In- 



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