LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS AND TRAINING The first and largest association established for the study of librarianship was the American Library Association (1876), which includes Canada. The Library Association of the United King dom was formed in 1877, as an outcome of the first International Library Conference, held at London, and in 1898 it received a royal charter. It publishes a Year Book, the quarterly Library Association Record. It also holds examinations. The Library Assistants' Association was formed in 1895 and has branches in different parts of England, Wales and Ireland. It issues a monthly magazine entitled The Library Assistant. The Association des Bibliothecaires Francais was founded in 1906 and publishes an important journal. There are two associations in Germany, the Verein deutscher Bibliothekare, and the Verein deutscher Volks bibliothekare, which issues a year-book giving information con cerning the libraries of the country ; a similar organization in Austria-Hungary is now merged into the former. An Association of Archivists and Librarians was formed at Brussels in 1907, and there are similar societies in France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Den mark, Norway, Sweden, and, since 1927, in China also. In every country there is now some kind of library association.
The movement, since the World War, partly because of the financial crisis in Europe, and partly because of the increased consciousness of each other among the nations, has been one of co-operation and closer organization, so that the world's library resources are far better utilized.
Two agencies further international co-operation between libra ries: (I) The Institut International de Bibliographie, founded in 1897 at Brussels by Paul Otlet and Henri Lafontaine, but shortly to be moved to Geneva, aims at amalgamating the cata logues of the world's chief libraries into an universal card bibliog raphy. It has also produced a more thorough (decimal) classi fication for books and papers. (2) The Institut International de Co-operation Intellectuelle at Paris, an institution of the League of Nations, by its committee of library experts (mostly the heads of the great national libraries), has brought into mutual relations the national bureaux of bibliographical information, and publishes reports from them.
It has been calculated by E. Sparn (El Crecimiento de las grandes Bibliotecas de la Tierra) that the larger libraries of the Old World were doubled, and those of North America trebled, in content in the first quarter of the loth century.
The earliest libraries in the colonial period of America were private. Among the notable libraries of this kind were those of Elder William Brewster of Plymouth, Gov. Winthrop of Connecti cut, Dr. Cotton Mather of Boston, Col. Ralph Wormeley of Vir ginia and the Rev. John Harvard. Toward the end of the 17th
century the so-called Bray parish libraries began to appear. These were collections mainly of religious books sent to America through the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bray of London, designed particularly for the use of the clergy, though open to the public. The first subscription library in the colonies was projected by Benjamin Franklin in 1731 in Philadelphia. Many of the early subscription and proprietary libraries have become the founda tions of public libraries. A few of them, however, still flourish. The Boston Athenaeum (1807) had in 1928 a collection of 305,000 volumes and was especially rich in historical material. The Prov idence Athenaeum had 104,000 volumes. The New York Society library had a general collection of I 25,000 volumes. its special strength being in fine arts, early fiction and Americana. Endowed Libraries.—The gift or bequest of great private libraries or large sums of money for the erection of library build ings and the organization and maintenance of libraries for free pub lic use has been a favourite form of philanthropy in America. In New York the Astor library, founded by a bequest of John Jacob Astor, was incorporated in 1849 and opened to the public in 1854 as a reference library of the most valuable books on all subjects. The Lenox library was established in 1870 by James Lenox, a New York merchant and one of America's greatest book collectors. In addition to funds for a library building and endowment amounting to $1,247,000, he gave his valuable collection of books and art treasures. From the estate of Samuel J. Tilden, the City of New York in 1892 received the private library of the former governor of the State and about $2,000,000 for library purposes. In 1895 the Astor library, the Lenox library and the Tilden Trust were con solidated under the name of the New Yorl Public library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, which was soon to become the largest public library system in the world (2,971,209 volumes and pamphlets). In 1901 the New York Free Circulating library, with II branches, and later other circulating libraries, were consoli dated with the new system as the Circulation Department of the New York Public library. In 1901 also Andrew Carnegie gave $5,200,000 for the construction and equipment of free circulating libraries in Greater New York. Chicago has two important en dowed reference libraries, the Newberry library (1887), with 757 volumes and pamphlets, and the John Crerar library with 820,000. The Enoch Pratt Free library (1886) of Baltimore and the Providence (R.I.) Public library (1878) are typical of the numerous endowed public libraries, many of which are sup ported in part by municipal appropriations.