8 
about 7,000, and an increase in the daily issue of 29, which now 
reaches 637, as against 438 in November, 1885, when I first entered 
your service. The first year of the Children’s Library has been an 
unqualified success. The daily average for the whole year is 81, bnt 
for the month of March it was 112, and on one Monday evening, no fewer 
than 202 books were issued. The lowest month for issues is August, 
and the lowest day of the week, Wednesday. I am very glad to be 
able to report once again that there is little fault to be found with the 
way that the books are used. 
Tables 3 and 4 deal with the Reference Department. Here we have 
increased our stock by 130 volumes, about the normal rate, for in the 
286 reported last year, there were 122 volumes of Patents, none of which 
appear in this year’s list. The daily issue is less by 9 than last year, 
but the fact that there were 1,000 less Patents consulted, and that 
there was only one course of University Extension Lectures will 
more than account for the slight falling off. It must be also borne 
in mind that now the great majority of those who use the Reference 
Library are students, and are not, as was formerly the case, largely 
mixed with those who simply come to look at picture-books. 
Table 5 gives miscellaneous information. From it we learn that 
the new borrowers during the year reached 1,350, of whom 468 were 
children. The sexes are pretty equally divided, and Table 6 shows in 
a classified form the occupations of the last thousand. The same 
thousand borrowers reside in the wards shown in the following Table, the 
reading population varying little from former years in its distribution. 
| PER THOUSAND. 
WARD. _ Actual CS hearceee : 
| Number of according to 
Borrowers. Population. 
ATborebumMss ae lee ste 123 168 
levee oo) Gg ob fad 163 122 
Becket boty rom aie, kes 246 198 
Oastlescu hits, ses dle Save 59 115 
Derwent, vases wel) wwe 59 64 
Hrian (Gate cae. ates M sete 122 inl} 
King’s Mead .- .. «. 120 145 
Patchurch se eae es 108 75 
649 over-due books had to be written for, and a proof of the popularity 
of the bespoken system is to be found in the fact that 1,175 books were 
bespoken. 2,760 books passed through the binders’ hands for greater or 
