This being premised, let us see what topics the librarian's report should deal with.

1. The progress of the library during the year must be viewed as most important. A statistical statement of accessions, giving volumes of books, and number of pamphlets separately, added during the year, should be followed by a statement of the aggregate of volumes and pamphlets in the collection. This is ascertained by actual count of the books upon the shelves, adding the number of volumes charged out, or in the bindery, or in readers' hands at the time of the enumeration. This count is far from a difficult or time-consuming affair, as there is a short-hand method of counting by which one person can easily arrive at the aggregate of a library of 100,000 volumes, in a single day of eight to ten hours. This is done by counting by twos or threes the rows of books as they stand on the shelves, passing the finger rapidly along the backs, from left to right and from top to bottom of the shelves. As fast as one hundred volumes are counted, simply write down a figure one; then, at the end of the second hundred, a figure two, and so on, always jotting down one figure the more for each hundred books counted. The last figure in the counter's memorandum will represent the number of hundreds of volumes the library contains. Thus, if the last figure is 92, the library has just 9,200 volumes. This rapid, and at the same time accurate method, by which any one of average quickness can easily count two hundred volumes a minute, saves all counting up by tallies of five or ten, and also all slow additions of figures, since one figure at the end multiplied by one hundred, expresses the whole.

2. Any specially noteworthy additions to the library should be briefly specified.

3. A list of donors of books during the year, with num

ber of volumes given by each, should form part of the report. This may properly come at the end as an appendix.

4. A brief of the money income of the year, with sources whence derived, and of all expenditures, for books, salaries, contingent expenses, etc., should form a part of the report, unless reported separately by a treasurer of the library funds.

5. The statistics of a librarian's report, if of a lending library, should give the aggregate number of volumes circulated during the year, also the number of borrowers recorded who have used and who have not used the privilege of borrowing. The number of volumes used by readers in the reference or reading-room department should be given, as well as the aggregate of readers. It is usual in some library reports to classify the books used by readers, as, so many in history, poetry, travels, natural science, etc., but this involves labor and time quite out of proportion to its utility. Still, a comparative statement of the aggregate volumes of fiction read or drawn out, as against all other books, may be highly useful as an object lesson, if embodied in the library report.

6. A statement of the actual condition of the library, as to books, shelving accommodations, furniture, etc., with any needful suggestions for improvement, should be included in the annual report.

7. A well-considered suggestion of the value of contributions to the library in books or funds to enrich the collection, should not be overlooked.

8. The librarian should not forget a word of praise for his assistants, in the great and useful work of carrying on the library. This will tend to excite added zeal to excel, when the subordinates feel that their services are appreciated by their head, as well as by the public.

The preparation of an annual report affords some test

of the librarian's skill and judgment. It should aim at plain and careful statement, and all rhetoric should be dispensed with. Divided into proper heads, a condensed statement of facts or suggestions under each should be made, and all repetition avoided.

Such a library report should never fail to set forth the great benefit to the community which a free use of its treasures implies, while urging the importance of building up the collection, through liberal gifts of books, periodicals, or money, thus enabling it to answer the wants of readers more fully, year by year. It will sometimes be a wise suggestion to be made in a librarian's report, that the library still lacks some specially important work, such as Larned's "History for Ready Reference," or the extensive "Dictionary of National Biography," or Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, or a set of Congressional Debates from the beginning; and such a suggestion may often bear fruit in leading some public-spirited citizen to supply the want by a timely contribution.

Of course, the annual report of every public library should be printed, and as pamphlets are seldom read, and tend rapidly to disappear, its publication in the newspapers is vastly more important than in any other form. While a pamphlet report may reach a few people, the newspaper reaches nearly all; and as a means of diffusing information in any community, it stands absolutely without rival. Whether the library reports shall be printed in pamphlet form or not is a matter of expediency, to be determined by the managing board. Funds are rarely ample enough, in the smaller town libraries, to justify the expense, in view of the small circulation which such reports receive, and it is much better to put the money into printing library catalogues, which every body needs and will use, than into library reports, which comparatively

few will make any use of. A judicious compromise may be usefully made, by inducing some newspaper, which would print a liberal share of the report free of charge, as news, for public information, to put the whole in type and strike off a few hundred copies in sheet form or pages, at a moderate charge.

This would enable the library officers to distribute a goodly number, and to keep copies of each annual report for reference, without the expense of a pamphlet edition.

In some of the larger and more enterprising of city libraries, reports are made quarterly or monthly by the librarian. These of course are much more nearly up to date, and if they publish lists of books added to the library, they are correspondingly useful. Frequently they contain special bibliographies of books on certain subjects. Among these, the monthly bulletins of the Boston Public Library, Harvard University Library, New York Public Library, Salem, Mass., Public Library, and the Providence Public Library are specially numerous and important.

The relations of a public library to the local press of the city or town where it is situated will now be noticed. It is the interest of the librarian to extend the usefulness of the library by every means; and the most effective means is to make it widely known. In every place are found many who are quite ignorant of the stores of knowledge which lie at their doors in the free library. And among those who do know it and resort to it, are many who need to have their interest and attention aroused by frequent notices as to its progress, recent additions to its stores, etc. The more often the library is brought before the public by the press, the more interest will be taken in it by the community for whose information it exists.

It is of the utmost importance that the library conductors should have the active good will of all the newspaper

editors in its vicinity. This will be acquired both by aiding them in all researches which the daily or frequent wants of their profession render necessary; and also, by giving them freely and often items of intelligence about the library for publication. Enterprising journals are perpetually on the hunt for new and varied matter to fill their columns. They send their reporters to the library to make "a story," as it is called, out of something in it or about it. These reporters are very seldom persons versed in books, or able to write understandingly or attractively about them. Left to themselves to construct "a story" out of a half hour's conversation with the librarian, the chances are that an article will be produced which contains nearly as many errors as matters of fact, with the names of authors or the titles of their books mis-spelled or altered, and with matters manufactured out of the reporter's fancy which formed no part of the interview, while what did form important features in it are perhaps omitted. The remedy, or rather the preventive of such inadequate reports of what the librarian would say to the public is to become his own reporter. The papers will willingly take for publication short "library notes," as they may be called, containing information about the library or its books, carefully type-written. This course at once secures accurate and authentic statements, and saves the time of the press reporters for other work.

Bear in mind always that the main object of such library notices is to attract attention, and encourage people to use the library. Thus there should be sought frequent opportunities of advertising the library by this best of all possible means, because it is the one which reaches the largest number. To do it well requires some skill and practice, and to do it often is quite as essential as to do it well. Keep the library continually before the public. What are