OFFICE ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT 611 



department has its own library, as these reference books are usually dis- 

 tributed among the offices of the people most interested in particular sub- 

 jects. If a central library were possible, with a librarian in charge, conditions 

 would be almost ideal, but few park departments can afford to go to that 

 expense. 



Probably just as useful and sometimes more useful than textbooks is 

 the information which is gleaned from the reading of various magazines 

 and newspaper articles by various divisional heads of park departments. 

 It is seldom that this information is jotted down as it is read and it soon 

 slips the minds of even the most alert. Were it possible for this information 

 to be gathered together and properly indexed, a great deal of useful current 

 information would be available at all times. 



In a park department large enough for two or three sub-department 

 heads, a very useful system can be worked out along the following lines: 

 Each of the department heads who reads an article which he considers of 

 material value, notes that article and gives reference to it to the file clerk. 

 The file clerk issues a listing of these articles, once every two weeks or 

 once a month, and the list is passed around to those interested in that 

 department, giving them an opportunity to call for these articles and to 

 read them. The result is that any article which one person reads which is 

 of interest to others in that department is automatically referred to them 

 in this manner. In the course of time a valuable collection of current ideas 

 and opinions on park matters is obtained. It now becomes necessary to 

 index the information. This the file clerk can do by devising a compara- 

 tively simple subject list, and we have then the foundation of an extremely 

 valuable business library on park activities. If this matter is continually 

 kept up to date and only the best of the articles retained, the value of the 

 library increases tremendously. 



This system might also be used by various employees who make trips 

 out of town to other park departments. If they would simply jot down on 

 memorandum cards little bits of information which they find of particular 

 note and give these to the file clerk upon their return so that others may 

 have the benefit of the observations, an additional usefulness becomes 

 available. Better still than jotting down the information as one sees it, it 

 should be made a practice in every park department that all of those who 

 are sent away at the expense of the department to other cities should be 

 required to make a complete report of their observations upon their return. 

 This report becomes a part of the business library and of course carries 

 comparatively more information than mere isolated memoranda. 



Filing and indexing. Comment is here made upon the subject of filing 

 and indexing, more to emphasize its importance than to describe particular 



