County Libraries

The system began with the periodical supply of boxes of books to village centres, usually in schools, and the boxes were sent by railway or other carriers. An increasing number of counties now have their own motor-vans, which are fitted with shelves and form small travelling libraries, affording the local volunteer librarian some opportunity of choosing books on the spot. Here and there, local interest or the philanthropy of some well-wisher has resulted in the formation of small stocks of reference books, and even the opening of a village reading-room. Special provision is usually made, so far as resources permit, for adult classes, and special collections are formed for teachers. The problem of the community of io to 20 million inhabitants embraced by a county area is gradually being solved by the method of differential rating, small libraries of the municipal type being established in such places. Middlesex is an excellent example of the policy of co-ordinating the municipal library and the rural system. Two other experiments that will be watched with attention are being carried out in Cornwall and Northern Ireland. In Cornwall, seven borough and two urban district libraries have been brought into a co-operative scheme for the whole county. The Belfast library has been encouraged by a liberal grant from the Carnegie Trustees to become the centre of a regional scheme of co-operation for the whole of Northern Ireland. Merely fractional rates, as low as one-tenth to one-fourth of a penny were raised by the county authorities in the first instance. In some places these have risen to a half-penny, or even more. But it is admitted that the county services are seri ously under-financed, and that as the public realizes the benefits and opportunities within their scope a much more liberal provision will be demanded.

Post-war Developments.

In both county and town, prog ress since the act of 1919 would have been far greater but for the general anxiety to keep down the rates. That act abolished the rate limit in England and Wales, and next year the limit in Scotland was raised to threepence, and in Ireland the same, with an extension to sixpence in county boroughs. (In Northern Ire land the penny rate limit was re-established in county council areas, with a possible differential rating for urban districts, to a maximum of threepence, with Government consent.) Most of the municipal libraries proceeded to levy rates in proportion to their necessities. But, with the increase in the prices of books, other expenses, and the persistent demand for retrenchment, it has been difficult to maintain efficiency in municipal libraries at the high level desired, and the pay of the assistant is still incon sistent with the idea that he is entering a learned profession. The public libraries committee offer various recommendations for the general improvement of the service, particularly by schemes of co-operation ; but they were not of opinion that the urban libraries should be transferred to the education committees, or that the numerous library districts in the metropolis should be unified under the London County Council. Only one member pressed for the latter reform.

The Central Library for Students.

Most important among

these schemes for general or local co-operation was the plan for developing the Central Library for Students, as a national library forming a special department of the British Museum, to be a supplemental supply to the municipal and county libraries throughout England and Wales (Scotland and Ireland being sup plied from the depots at Dunfermline and Dublin), and to under take such other urgent duties as the preparation of a union cata logue, the organization of an information bureau, and the issue of periodical book-lists. This library was started in 1917, largely to provide books for adult classes; but has grown from a collec tion of 3,00o books to a collection of 37,56o, a large proportion of them costly works, supplying, in 1927, no less than 465 libraries with books they were unable to afford. The Central Library is mainly financed by an annual subsidy of £3,000 from the Car negie Trustees. By a mutual arrangement with a large number of outlier libraries, comprising various public libraries, and such important research libraries as the Science library at South Ken sington, those of the London School of Economics, the Linnaean, Folk-Lore, and Royal Asiatic Societies, the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Colonial and Royal Anthropological Institutes, and the Royal Irish Academy, it is able to satisfy the needs, not only of students, but also of advanced research in all parts of the coun try. The public libraries committee outline a system of co operation in which public libraries would be grouped round regional centres, usually the great urban libraries, with a federa tion of special libraries pooling their resources, and a central library acting as centre of the whole system. They recommend that an interim grant of .15,000 a year should be made by the Government to the Central library to establish it on a sound basis, and that the Science library should have an additional £3,500 a year to enable it to act in co-operation as the central supply for research students in science. The aggregate cost to the national exchequer of their proposals for the development of the Central library and of the Science library, and of the agency for central cataloguing, would not exceed a year; and the benefit to scholarship, research, industry and commerce would be incalculable.

Co-operation with Special Libraries.

The growth in num bers and extent of special libraries of all kinds has been re markable during the period reviewed. The valuable work of the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux, estab lished in 1925, has been a main factor in promoting this; and the publication of their Directory, "Aslib" (1928), another work financed by the Carnegie Trustees, is an immense benefit to librarians and users of libraries, since it is the first systematic sur vey of the special library resources of the nation. Similarly, the work of the joint standing committee on (university) library co-operation is doing much to facilitate the mobilization of the resources of university and other learned libraries, and the publi cation of the World List of Scientific Periodicals has materially contributed to the same object.