STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 553 



ship canal between Manchester and Liverpool, besides large expendi- 

 tures for electric light and trams. F. J. Burgo3'ne" says: 



It is strange that the town which was the first in Britain to obtain parliamentary 

 powers to establish a public library should be content with a makeshift building as 

 a home for its splendid collection of books * * * ]\Ianchester has lagged behind 



I* * * 



This library has five branch reading rooms and distributes at thir- 

 teen places in the city books for reading at home.''' It has altogether 

 292,167 volumes, which were used in the aggregate during the last year 

 2,181,596 times, a dailj' average of 6,128. There were taken home 

 1,022,511 books by -16,456 persons provided with cards, and 657,121 

 in the boj's' rooms, five-sixths of whom were Sunda}' visitors. Since 

 the number of readers in the newspaper rooms aggregate 4,117,681, we 

 arrive at a total annual patronage of 6,138,996 persons. Even if we 

 omit the 4,000,000 newspaper readers, there still remains a formid- 

 able num))er, and the proper administration of all this is certainl}^ a 

 remarkable performance. The annual expenditure by the city for the 

 library amounts to $108,000, of which $44,000 are allotted to salaries 

 and $25,000 for l:)Ooks and periodicals.'" We nuist not overlook the 

 fact that in the large number of books used as stated, of the 1,022,511 

 lent for home reading, 841,198 related to fiction, of which there are 

 62,915 volumes. In this respect all these libraries serve the same pur- 

 pose as our German private circulating libraries, except that with us 

 a fee must be paid, whereas with them the service is free of charge 

 (compare also with the above what I have said in connection 

 witli the Chicago Public Library). In the Jieference Librar}-, on 

 the other hand, there is no fiction, but only books on theology, 

 philosoph}^ (9,638 volumes), history, biography, travels (29,685), 

 politics and trade (21,503), arts and sciences (22,422), literature 

 (31,133), and patents (7,064). The consultation of 441,074 books by 

 360,176 readers in the last 3"ear is, as already stated, not only note- 

 worthy from a technical library standpoint, l)ut it may also l)e taken 

 for granted that it has an influence on the education of the people of 

 the city. At an}- event, nowhere with us in German}' are so man}" 

 good books read b}" the people. The library has a printed catalogue 

 and publishes periodical lists of its acquisitions. The "Manchester 

 Public Free Libraries'' were established in 1852.'' Of the other 

 libraries of Manchester may also be mentioned the Portico Library, 

 with 80,000 volumes (English literature, English topography, books of 

 the eighteenth century). All in all, the public libraries of Manchester 

 comprise 800,000 volumes. 



« Library Construction, 1897, p. 171. 



'>The celebrated Boston Public Lilirary has now (IflO.'^) 156 agencies for the deliv- 

 ery or reading of books. 



'See Forty-ninth Annual Report to the Council of the City of INIanchester on the 

 Working of the Pul)lic Free Libraries, 1900-1901, 21 pages octavo. 



''See also J. J. Ogle, The Free Library, 1S97, pp. 158-105. 



