LIBRARIAN'S REPORT 



TO THli COMMITTEE, 

 For the year ending September 29th, 1902. 



Gentlemen, 



THE time once more comes round for me to present to you my 

 Annual Report. With a year of ordinary progress it becomes 

 increasingly difficult to say anything new, and my successive 

 reports are necessarily very similar ; but perhaps there is an advantage 

 in being able to place before yon the leading features of the year's 

 work without giving you the trouble to wade through the accompanying 

 statistics. 



From these tables I lay before you the facts that in the Lending 

 Library we have now 22,1(37 books, of which .544 have been added during 

 the past year. In addition to these new books, we have replaced 265 

 of the worn-out books by new copies, and a similar number await 

 replacement. Altogether 674 books have been withdrawn, and these 

 include a considerable number of ancient theological works which it was 

 not thought worth while to include in the new Catalogue. Nineteen 

 books have been destroyed through having been in infected houses, ten 

 have been lost and paid for, and only one has been totally lost, which, 

 out of an issue numbering nearly 128,000, I think is very satisfactory. 

 Every month but one in the past year has shown an increased issue, 

 and the total daily issue is 48 in advance of last year's. All classes show 

 an advance except the departments of politics and commerce, where there 

 is a slight decline, which is probably accidental. The Reference Library, 

 in which the issues are much the same as usual, now contains 12,563 

 books, of which 290 are additions during the year. The number of new 

 borrowers enrolled during the year was 1,672. 



