136 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



books. Most libraries in the future will undoubtedly be planned to 

 permit direct access to open shelves for a great part of their collec- 

 tions. There is, however, a point where this privilege ceases to be of 

 use to the public and to the library, and this fact is now very generally 

 recognized. 



Open shelves are but one manifestation of the missionary spirit. 

 Special rooms for children in charge of specially trained assistants are 

 another result of this desire to bring books and people together. The 

 creation of ' children's rooms ' has been on the whole a great blessing 

 to libraries. It has drawn away the younger children from the reading 

 rooms and delivery counters, and has perhaps ingrained the reading 

 habit in very many little ones. Certainly the children's room with its 

 cheerful and prettily decorated walls, its low tables and chairs and its 

 tactful, kind, experienced director has proved a boon to countless chil- 

 dren into whose homes none of these delectable things enter. This 

 particular form of library work is, however, as yet too young to enable 

 us to judge of its ultimate results. 



Another form which the missionary spirit has taken is a closer rela- 

 tion and a more effective cooperation between libraries and schools. 

 The desire for an organization to give opportunity for the public ex- 

 ploitation of this sort of work produced in 1896 the Library Section of 

 the National Educational Association. Not the schools alone, but 

 women's clubs and social settlements, and, in general, all organiza- 

 tions whose members use books in their work, have been brought into 

 friendly relations with the progressive libraries. In short we may 

 safely affirm that public libraries are studying the needs of their com- 

 munities as never before, and that the somewhat vague notion of aiding 

 the ' public ' is fast being replaced by concrete and tangible assistance 

 to organizations and individuals. 



The libraries in the large cities have been showing a most decided 

 desire to assist their clients in securing books. To this end the branch 

 library and the delivery station have experienced an almost marvelous 

 development in the past decade. There is hardly a public circulating 

 library of prominence in the country which does not maintain from 

 half a dozen to half a hundred reading-rooms with small collections 

 of reference books, as well as numerous stations for delivery of books 

 from the central library. The largest number of these branch libraries 

 will ultimately be found in New York, where Mr. Carnegie's gifts pro- 

 vide for eighty of these smaller centers in the greater city. Branch 

 libraries have not infrequently been established at the request of large 

 manufacturers or other employers of labor near their places of busi- 

 ness, and in some cases the running expenses have been paid by them. 



Among librarians also the spirit of mutual helpfulness which has 

 been so characteristic a feature of the library movement in this country 



