PREFACE. B A ROOKLINE is believed to have been the first town in the Commonwealth to avail itself of the General Statute authorizing towns and cities to raise and appropriate money for founding and maintaining public libraries. At the annual town-meeting, on March 16, 1857, this subject was introduced, under an article in the warrant, and referred to a committee, consisting of Messrs. E. A. Dana, Abijah W. Goddard, Samuel Philbrick, G. F. Homer, and Charles Follen. This committee reported at the adjourned annual town-meeting, on March 30, 1857: and, upon their recommendation, the town promptly voted to establish a Public Library, and appropriated for its foundation and commencement the sum of nine hundred and thirty-four dollars, being at the rate of one dollar for each of the ratable polls in the town in the year preceding; and, for its maintenance and increase during the current year, two hundred and thirty-three dollars, - being at the rate of twenty-five cents per ratable poll. These sums were all that could be legally raised by taxation for this purpose. suitable place was provided, and other preliminary arrangements were made, so that the Public Library was opened for the delivery of books to the citizens of the town, on Dec. 2, 1857. The Library then contained about nine hundred volumes; but, with an annual increase of nearly one thousand volumes, it now contains more than seven thousand five hundred volumes. And, instead of occupying one room as when first opened, it now occupies four rooms. Half the books have been procured through the generosity of individual citizens, who have made donations in books or money: the remainder have been purchased with money appropriated by the town; and the annual appropriations of the town for the maintenance and increase of the Library have been all that it was authorized to make by the laws of the Commonwealth, - being, at the rate of fifty cents per ratable poll, about five hundred and fifty dollars per annum. The books purchased possess, in general, a standard value, and have been selected |