1868 shows that they have They are said to be distrib

The report of Manchester for bound their set in 3,831 volumes. uted regularly to more than fifty libraries throughout the British Empire and colonies. Our set has cost us for binding about a guinea, gold, per volume, or in round numbers an aggregate of near $10,000 so far. I calculate the plates and sheets, as issued, have now a cash value of over $30,000,- the only data for the computation at hand, however, is a statement that up to 1861 they had a value of £3,500 sterling. The only other sets in the country, so far as I know, are at Washington, in the Peabody Institute at Baltimore, at Philadelphia, in the Astor Library, and in the State Library at Albany. At the latter place they are kept in boxes in the loose condition in which they are received. The sets are bound, in accordance with the recommendations of the commissioners, I believe, in the other cases. The centrality of the set in New York City gives them a larger use than ours, since last year 1,072 persons had access to the alcove which contains them, in the Astor Library.

We keep a duplicate set of the American Patent Reports in a convenient position for ready access; and the increase in the use of those of the French Government has been so considerable that our set has been transferred to shelves better adapted to accommodate inquirers. Of the use in both these sets, we keep no record.

2. USE OF THE LOWER HALL.

Our enumeration of the number of volumes issued from the Lower Hall the past year is made from a count each morning of the slips of the previous day, which show all books issued for reading, those issued for reference not being reckoned. The footing for the year is 175,772, which is probably larger than ever before [see Appendix X]. Record is also kept of the cancelled slips, showing the books returned during the year, and these amount to 173,431, showing that 2,341 volumes were in

circulation at the year's end, July 31st [see Appendix XI]. No books were kept from circulation during the examination of the Library; but in revising the card-catalogue of the alcoves for poetry, drama and collections, it was necessary at times to withhold from use a small portion of the books in that depart

ment.

3. USE OF BATES HALL.

The same method of counting each day's work as in the Lower Hall gives us the result of the Bates Hall use of books, which is nearly 43,000, or almost a quarter more than last year (which was 31 per cent. more than the year previous), and it is nearly 150 per cent. more than when it was first opened, seven years ago.

Two years ago the home issues were for the first time in excess of those used in the hall, and have continued so ever since, the past year 54 per cent. being books taken home, while during the first year the hall was open such loans constituted only 42 per cent. of the entire use of its books.

The use of this hall will naturally lead to comparisons with the statements of the appendices regarding the frequency of visitors and the extent they use the books in other libraries of this country and of Europe. I am not aware, however, of another library in the world which puts over a hundred thousand volumes, of the average high character of this hall, at the disposal for use at home, of the general public of any city, with so little interposition of formality and restraint. Of the 124,000 volumes now in this distinct collection, there are perhaps 8,000 which cannot be taken from the building, because such a restriction was a condition of their gift; and this number includes the British Patent Specifications, and the Bowditch and Prince Libraries. Of the rest, there are of course many thousands loaned only for a sufficient reason, and this restriction is on account of their value or scarcity, or greater fitness for hall use. But, for

all this, by far the greater part of the collection is delivered on a simple application, for home use, to any who have registered their names; and for hall use to any who may ask. I believe no one has been refused a presentable book in the hall during the year. The restricted classes of books can always, if the urgency and the security are deemed sufficient, be likewise availed of on a statement of reasons.

This freedom must be remembered both for and against us in making the comparisons, afforded by the tables of statistics of other libraries given in the appendix; and it must of course be borne in mind regarding those libraries which are purely reference collections that a volume issued for home use counts but one, while the same use in non-lending libraries, extending over repeated visits, would count one for each. The Astor Library in its composition is probably of all our libraries nearest the counterpart of our Bates Hall, excepting that, in the literature of the last six or eight years, we are much stronger, though the collection is somewhat larger as a whole than this portion of our own. Its attractiveness, then, as a reference library is much the same as ours; and its constituency in a city like New York should be much larger. Its issue of 74,655 volumes to 28,154* persons in 1868, though much in excess of our count for this hall, does not, it seems likely, indicate a proportionately larger usc.

The City Library of Hamburg, with its 300,000 volumes, is the most actively administered of all the German libraries, and yet its issues for home use are hardly 5,000 a year; and other comparisons may, with some interest, be drawn from the Appendixes.

Of the Italian libraries, Mr. Edwards cites that of Genoa (40,000 volumes) as having over 50,000 readers a year, this ex

*Beside these hall readers in 1868, at the Astor, there were 4,145 admissions to alcoves, of which 1,072 were to the English Patents; 610 to the theological department; 461 to the fine arts department, etc.

tent being largely due to the fact that it is open more hours a week (90 hours) than any other; that of Bologna (103,000 volumes), 14,500 readers; and that of Ravenna (36,000 volumes), 451 readers.

4. BATES HALL CLASSIFICATIONS AND READING.

I refer to Appendix VII for the first complete statement that has been made of the proportions of the various classifications of the entire collection in the Bates Hall, exclusive of the sale and Parker duplicates. The table will be seen to represent this hall as strongest in the department of theology and ecclesiastical history, its 13,652 volumes, being eleven and eight-tenths per cent. of the whole. Next come the alcoves given to America, North and South, its geography and history, travels within and voyages about it, lives of its celebrated men, the official publications of its governments, general and local, and its polite literature as well as the collected works of its authors. A similar scope is given to the classification under the head of England, which, embracing a fine set of the parliamentary papers, and the patent specifications, comes next, and is nearly of equal magnitude to that of America. The class of periodicals and transactions is not much smaller. The three last departments, when confined to the general collection, show a greater number of volumes in each than that headed by theology, the strength of the Parker and Prince Libraries in this direction carrying that department foremost in the aggregate. In the additions for the year, the books under the head of America have been nearly one-fifth of the whole, and nearly double that in the largest of the other departments.

The system of our classifications is so different from other libraries that it is not easy to make comparisons of the relative strength in any department. Our ethnical divisions include classes like novels, travels, voyages, biographies, etc., which are

usually classed by themselves, independently of national lines, in the same way as medical science, law and other sciences, as well as arts, form separate departments with us. Our division under the head of countries keeps these subordinate divisious still distinct, but our printed returns of use have always followed the general and not subordinate heads, so that Mr. Edwards in his recent book is in error when he states that our "internal arrangements admit, as yet, of a very partial, and not a complete or even nearly complete classification of the books which are used."

It will be seen by Appendix XIV that the character of the reading from this hall preserves almost identically the character in division among classifications which it had last year. It would be curious to compare the demand upon various classes of books, as shown in our experience, and that of the Astor Library, if our departmental divisions were the same; but only in medicine and natural history does it seem possible to make an approximate comparison. And while with us medical science embraces 8 per cent. of the books used, at the Astor Library it is only 4 per cent.; but in natural science, we both seem to show a circulation equal to 3 per cent. of the whole use.

5. LOWER HALL CLASSIFICATIONS AND READING.

Out of 2,469 volumes added to this hall during the year, it would seem that three-quarters were either English fiction, prose or verse, narrative or dramatic, and those classes have embraced four-fifths of the reading, the tendency in this seeming to be to an increased proportion of fiction, which must inevitably follow upon freer purchases of duplicates of such books. Probably about one-half of the volumes in this hall are in these classes. English prose fiction of itself must fill more than onethird of the occupied shelves; while the use of such books is something more than three-quarters of the whole use.