PROCEEDINGS FOR 1901 XI 
Miscellaneous Library Statistics. 
“While library workers are gratified at the increased attention given 
library work and use, by students, critics and writers, believing that as a 
result of any public agitation, additional knowledge of these institutions will 
bring increased opportunities for good, they cannot but object to the plan 
which seems to be so generally adopted, of measuring the work accomplished 
by the percentage of the different classes of books issued for home use. 
Writers in recent publications take the ‘home use statistics’ of a number of 
prominent libraries, and because they find, from the circulation tables, that 
an average of three-fourths of the volumes so issued are classed under the 
heading of fiction, argue that it is questionable whether the public library is 
really a good thing for a community. 
“Tt is unfortunate, perhaps, that library reports do not give the exact 
‘quality’ of fiction circulated; that they do not say whether the library is 
closely classified or not; whether a great many or a few titles are placed in 
fiction which properly belong in other classes; whether juvenile fiction is 
placed under fiction pure and simple, or is reported under the general heading 
‘juvenile books’; for without this information, and a few other things which 
will be here referred to, no one can accurately judge of the work being done 
by any given library. 
“The main point, however, is the injustice done the library by the attempt 
to measure its value to a community solely by the books issued for home 
reading. A visit to any library of considerable size will reveal the fact that 
most of the real work is done in the library rooms; that for every book 
other than fiction taken home, from eight to fifteen will be used in the 
building, and that in certain seasons, and especially in educational centres, 
this proportion will be largely increased. This is true especially of the 
library small in comparison with the population of the city in which it is 
located and with limited means—this latter, a condition all but chronic west 
of the Allegheny Mountains. A large proportion of this use of books in the 
library is compulsory (if they are to be used at all) for various reasons, chief 
among which is the inability of the library to supply a sufficient number of 
copies of a given book or to provide enough other works upon the same 
subject to meet a large but temporary demand. For instance, a study club 
with an extensive membership or a high school or college class, is given a 
subject to look up with references to comparatively few volumes, the library 
should increase the ‘home circulation’ of books other than fiction by issuing 
these few volumes to the first comers of either the club or the class, while 
the other for various reasons, later applicants at the library would be 
deprived of the use of any of them. The rule in most of these libraries in 
these emergencies, is to reserve these volumes for use in the library on the 
basis of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number.’ With a number of such 
clubs and classes one may readily see how a library could change its circu- 
lation statistics if it would. Again, ose libraries unable to purchase more 
than one copy of valuable works or one set of periodicals, place them in the 
reference room for use in the library exclusively, where no record is kept of 
their use, these rooms and shelves usually being open to the public. Here 
at times they have a wonderfully extensive use. 
“Thus, a library of twenty-five thousand volumes in a city of 100,000 
inhabitants may be doing a large amount of commendable work, of lasting 
