Full details regarding the issue in all departments will be found in the following tables:

iry Miscellany.

aphy and History.

paedias and Magazines.

An attempt at a rough classification of the current periodicals issued in the Reading-Room is presented in the following table:

The library was open every day in the year.

Particulars

regarding the Sunday and holiday issue, maximum, minimum and daily averages will be found below. The holiday issue justifies the policy of the board in keeping the library open, especially on those days that are not generally observed. On Washington's birthday, for example, 1280 volumes were drawn for home reading, and the total issue was 1965. The smallest record was on Christmas, with a home issue of 32 and a total of 274.

No account is kept of those who visit the Newspaper-Reading-Room on the second floor. From August 12, when the registers were put in, to April 30, less than nine months, 391,205 persons were carried up to the rooms on the sixth

After noting the character of the additions for the year no one will be surprised to find that there was a great increase in the ratio of fiction drawn for home reading. In my report for 1890 I called attention to the decrease of the fiction percentage in the preceding eight years from 62 per cent to 52 1-2. During the past year it rose again to 59 per cent. In view of the large influx of new readers, I expected it would go higher. It is gratifying to know from the records of this and former years that the novels issued oftenest are, in general and in the long run, the best

novels, those which the general consensus has pronounced the finest examples of imaginative prose. Each season has its passing favorite; but the great masterpieces of fiction, like Les Miserables and Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, Ivanhoe and Scarlet Letter, hold their high places year after year and decade after decade.

A careful compilation of the records for December, January and February showed that during those months the following twenty books were drawn more often than any others. They are given in the order of popularity with the number of times each was issued:

Pressure of more important affairs prevented the continuance of this collation of statistics through the months of March and April. If these months had been included Trilby would undoubtedly have ranked much higher. It may be of interest to note the circulation of a few books in other lines as evidence of the fact that all reading is not purely for entertainment. During a period of six months Bulfinch's Age of Fable (ten copies) was, issued 74 times; Mrs. Custer's Boots and Saddles, 27 times; Meadowcroft's A. B. C. of electricity, 22 times; Roe's Play and Profit in My Garden, 18 times; Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, 14 times, and George's Progress and Poverty, 12 times.

WORK OF THE ISSUE DEPARTMENT.

Every detail of library administration has one and the same aim; the activities of every one connected with it, from president to messenger boy, converge at the same point. The board determining the general policy of the institution and the apprentice pasting in labels are working towards the same end. That is to get books into the hands of the people, to offer them every facility for reading and every inducement to read, and to do this with as little expense as

is consistent with the accomplishment of what is the primary and the ultimate object of the library's existence. The end and aim of the public library is tersely and comprehensively presented by the motto of the American Library Association: "The best reading to the greatest number at the least cost."

All the details of the processes I have described have been chosen, or adapted, or invented, solely for the accomplishment of this object. If, then, the final process of issuing and receiving books is not well adapted to the end in view all of the previous work is of little avail. Next to intelligence and courtesy and activity on the part of the assistants in the issue department, the most important element of satisfactory service is a good method of issuing and receiving books and recording loans.

CHARGING SYSTEM.

The chief desiderata of a charging system are rapidty and accuracy. Statistics are a minor consideration. The public cares nothing for statistics: they are only a means to an end; and the end should never be sacrificed to the means. Our charging system possesses, I think, the highest degree of speed that is consistent with accuracy and the greatest accuracy consistent with the requisite rapidity; while it furnishes all the statistics that have any constant value. Twenty-five hundred volumes having been issued in a day, nearly all in ten hours, it is evident that during the busiest part of the day as many as 250 volumes per hour were given out. It would not be difficult to go far beyond this. A book can be received and receipted for within five seconds, provided everything is all right and there is no fine to be paid. It requires nothing but stamping the reader's card. The issuing of a book takes longer, involving the writing of the reader's number and stamping the "due date" in three places, but by putting on more clerks the rate can be indefinitely increased. In the hurry of receiving 2500 books and issuing as many more in a day, mistakes can hardly be altogether avoided; but our plan prevents the possibility of controversy with readers over charges believed by them to be incorrect. The question can be settled at