TO THE COMMITTEE FOE THE YEAR ENDING 

 SEPTEMBEE 29tli, 1908. 



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Gentlemen, 



I have much pleasure in presenting to you my Twenty-third 

 Annual Eeport, which I fear will jJvesent no new features, as it is 

 extremely difficult to find anything fresh to be said about the work- 

 ing of an Institution which has long passed the experimental stage, 

 and the details of the work of which vary little from year to year. 



The usual tables accompany this repoit, to which I beg to re- 

 fer you for full information, the most I am able to do being to 

 po'int out the salient features of the tabulated returns. First as 

 to Library Stock; the Lending Library now contains 24,215 

 volumes, which number includes 2,300 Children's Books, and the 

 Eeference Library 14,313. This shows an advance on last yeai-'s 

 figures of 515 in the Lending Library and 277 in the Reference; 

 our total Library Stock being now 38,528. The actual number of 

 new books added during the year is 844, and the number of worn 

 out volumes which have been replaced is 601 The process of weed- 

 ing out obsolete and useless books is steadily going on at the same 

 time, or the increase in the total number of volumes would have 

 been much larger. Our Annual Stocktaking showed an excellent 

 result, only two Children's books being unaccounted for, out of an 

 annual issue of 171,927. A small number of books have been 

 lost and paid for; near.y 500 books have bce:i rebound, and about 

 2,235 have passed through the binder's hands for smaller repairs 

 and numbering. The average daily issue has risen from 609 to 

 627. Among other interesting details I may mention that 1,166 

 postal applications have been made for overdue books, and that 

 the number of new tickets issued during the year reaches a number 

 only three short of two thousand, this including both renewals and 

 new borrowers. As will be seen from these figures the purely 

 clerical work involved in the working of a large Libraary is no trifle. 



