ABSTRACT
I remember an enthusiastic librarian in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, who astonished those attending a regional librarians’ meeting by suggesting that one of the prime missions of the public librarian should be to see to it that books were available in unlikely places. Her thesis was, very simply, that the public library building was one very excellent reason for poor circulation. It was her suggestion (and this was what shocked her colleagues) that librarians should establish small collections of books in such places as drug stores, hardware stores, grocery stores and public bars. To these she added a list of other unlikely places where books might be expected to reach an audience: bake shops, furniture stores, haberdasheries and beauty parlors. The idea is intriguing, and the fact that it has not actually been used serves as a commentary on the traditional mind of the librarian more than on the idea’s impracticality. This idea, incidentally, is akin to the suggestion made in the 1930s by Christopher Morley, who wrote in his pleasing Christopher Morley’s Briefcase’.
