He should avoid personal hobbies and be impartial on all controversial questions.

He should not be overconfident in his knowledge of what will elevate and refine the community.
It is better to buy 10 extra copies of a wholesome book wanted by the public than one copy each of 10 other books which will not be read.
Do not waste time, energy, and money--certainly not in the early days of the library--in securing or arranging public documents, save a few of purely local value.

Take them if offered and store them.
Do not be too much impressed by the local history plea, and spend precious money on rare volumes or old journals in this line.
Certain work can judiciously be done toward collecting and preserving materials for local history that will involve neither expense nor much labor, and this the librarian should do.

Do not turn the public library, which is chiefly to be considered as a branch of a live, everyday system of popular education, into a local antiquarian society; but simply let it serve incidentally as a picker-up of unconsidered trifles.

A wide-awake, scholarly librarian will like his town, and delight in at least some study of its antecedents.