138 THE RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR. 
exchange ; while the Athenaeum which is less public in its 
character than the others, not confining itself to any special 
line, except perhaps its foreign scientific publications, would 
gain by not being obliged to duplicate the costly books to 
be found in the other libraries. It was also agreed by the 
conference, that the librarian of the Public Library should 
be authorized to issue a card addressed to the librarian of 
either of the other libraries which would entitle the holder 
to consult any work of reference on the shelves of those 
institutions. The l^enefit to be derived from such an ar- 
rangement will grow more and more apparent as the years 
go by. It is already becoming a serious problem how to 
properly dispose of the growing accumulation of books 
especially in our larger cities where space means money 
and sometimes a good deal of money. No library, not 
even the largest, can expect to be complete enough to meet 
the wants of all classes. But if the difterent libraries will 
work in unison each striving to make as complete as possi- 
ble its own specialties much greater and better results will 
be attained. In this connection it would be well if the 
donors of books to the various libraries would understand, 
that unless there were some request to the contrary, their 
donations, to whichever library sent, would be distributed 
among the other libraries in accordance with this plan of 
specialization. 
It is hoped that the coming year may see some further 
progress made towards preparing for a catalogue of the 
library. During the past year considerable work has been 
done in arranging and classifying the books in the differ- 
ent rooms and when this is completed, a card catalogue of 
each room should be prepared, as a beginning for a com- 
plete catalogue of the Avholc library. 
The attendance at the rooms of the library has increased 
during the past year and the librarian hopes that the time 
