Writing is a device for the storage of ideas--the only device for this purpose prior to the invention of the phonograph, and not now likely to be generally superseded. A book consists of stored ideas; sometimes it is like a box, from which the contents must be lifted slowly and with more or less toil; sometimes like a storage battery where one only has to make the right kind of contact to get a discharge. At any rate, if we want people to use books or to use them more, or to use them better, or to use a different kind from that which they now use, we must lose sight for a moment of the material part of the book, which is only the box or the lead and acid of the storage battery, and fix our attention on the stored ideas, which are what everybody wants--everybody, that is, except those who collect books as curiosities. The subject of this lecture is thus only library advertising, about which we have heard a good deal of late, but we shall try to confine its applications to this inner or ideal substance which it is our special business as librarians to purvey. And first, in considering the matter, it may be worth while to say a word about advertising in general. Practically an advertisement is an announcement by somebody who has something to distribute. Announcements of this kind may be classified, it seems to me, as economic, uneconomic and illegitimate.
The most elementary form is that of the person who tells you where you can get something that you want--a simple statement that someone is a barber or an inn-keeper, or gives music lessons, or has shoes for sale. This may be accompanied by an effort to show that the goods offered are of specially good quality or have some feature that makes them particularly desirable, either to consumers in general or to those of a certain class. This is all surely economic, so long as nothing but the truth is told. Next we have an effort not only to supply existing wants and to direct them into some particular channel, but to create a new field, to make people realize a lack previously not felt; in other words to make people want something that they need. This may be done simply by exhibiting or describing the article or it may require long and skillful presentation of the matter. All this is still economic. But it requires only a step to carry us across the line. Next the enthusiastic advertiser strives to make someone want that which he does not need. As may be seen, the line here is difficult to determine, but this sort of advertising is surely not economic. So long as the thing not needed is not really injurious, however, the advertising cannot be called illegitimate. It is simply uneconomic. The world would be better off without it, but we may look for its abolition only to the increase of good judgment and intelligence among consumers. When an attempt however, is made to cause a man to want something that is really injurious, then the act becomes illegitimate and should be prevented. Another class of illegitimate advertising is that which would be perfectly allowable if it were truthful and becomes objectionable only because its representations are false. It may be ostensibly of any of the types noted above.