摘要：LIBRARIANSHIP has come a long way since the 1850's when Librarian John Langdon Sibley of Harvard made his often quoted remark to President Charles William Eliot. Sibley, hurrying across the Harvard Yard, said to Eliot: "The library is locked up and every book is in but two, and I know where they are and I am going after them."'" Actually, as Shipton has written, at Harvard as in other universities, the librarian was ordered "to get in every book and to lock the Library for a formal check and visitation performed by a committee of the Overseers." Sibley was merely doing his duty and was considered one of the wisest and ablest librarians of his time. But 100 years ago the important function of librarianship was the preservation of printed matter. Now preservation is taken for granted, probably too much so, and emphasis is placed on the interpretive function, that of making the contents of the library available to readers.
