LIBRARIES. 



LIHRARY DEPARTMENT. 



Chief Librarian's Report. 



The statistics of the Libraries and Reading Rooms show that their 

 popularity during the past year has in no way diminished. The 

 total issue of bound volumes numbers 1,636,292 : being an increase 

 of 150,768 over the issues of last year. Of magazines, reviews, and 

 periodicals of various kinds, the issue was 712, 321, which shews a 

 falling off of nearly 16,000. The number of persons Avho have con- 

 sulted the newspapers are estimated at 652,465, and if to these figures 

 we add the total of those persons who took advantage of the series 

 of Free Lectures given at the different centres, some idea will be 

 obtained of the work directed by the Library Committee during a 

 single year. Large as are these issues of books and magazines, they 

 would have been much larger but for the closing of the Picton 

 Reading Room during a whole month for painting and cleaning. It 

 may here be mentioned that it is thought the Reference Library 

 statistics of books issued are adversely affected by the recent innova- 

 tion made at the suggestion of the 'Chairman, Sir W. 13. Forwood, 

 of placing in the Picton Reading Room a large selection not only of 

 reference books, but of the new books added from week to week to 

 the Library, so that they can be consulted at pleasure without the 

 formality of asking for them in writing. This has given great 

 satisfaction to readers, and no less satisfaction to the management, 

 inasmuch as no losses as yet have been sustained of these particular 

 books. The fluctuation in the class of books read by readers always 

 possesses a certain amount of interest, though reasons for them 

 cannot always be satisfactorily adduced. Taking the Picton Reading 

 Room to represent the student readers (as books of a popular 

 character are excluded from it), we have a diminution of 3,000 under 

 the head of Theology and Religion, 400 under Natural Philosophy 

 and Mathematics, 800 under the Fine and Mechanical Arts, o,000 

 under Philology, Education, and Foreign Languages, and 400 under 

 Latin and Greek Classics. On the other hand, Natural History 



