I 



Xibvarian'8 IRepovt 



To the Committee, for the Year ended Septeviber 

 30th, 1899. 



Gentlemen, 



T gives me much pleasure to lay before you my Fourteenth Annual 

 Report. I propose, as in former years, to point out some of the 

 more prominent facts connected with the tables which accompany 

 It, in the hope that they may prove of interest, not only to yourselves, 

 but to the members of the general public who use the Library and are 

 interested in its work. 



Table I. deals with the Lending Library Stock, and it will be seen 

 that this now consists of 20,466 volumes, of which 813 have been added 

 during the year. Of the 562 withdrawn as worn-out, only 256 have 

 been replaced, many of the others being old books, or those of such 

 ephemeral interest that they are not worth replacing. Nine volumes 

 have been lost and paid for, and five have been totally lost. Table II. 

 shows the issues in the same department, and these are 5,000 less than 

 last year and 14 less in daily average. I find that my colleagues through- 

 out the country have had, for the most part, the same experience for the 

 last two years, and I can only point out, as I did last year, that the 

 continued briskness of trade decreases the time which can be given to 

 reading, while the exceptionally fine summer just over has led many of 

 our borrowers to find their recreation out of doors. The decrease is 

 principally in fiction and juvenile literature, the amount of solid reading 

 remaining at much the same level. This fact is emphasised by a small 

 increase in the books taken out of the Reference Department, where the 

 daily issues number 39 against 36 last year. The stock in this depart- ' 

 ment is 11,727 volumes, of which about 3,300 are Patent Specifications ; 

 195 volumes, other than Patents, have been added during the past yeari 

 and every effort is made to keep this department quite up-to-date. 



