38 



for the perusal only of periodicals and newspapers) would cost about iGllO 

 a year each, or a total of £220. The superior advantages and comparative 

 cheapness of the Library Reading Rooms are apparent. 



If success attends the New South Library and Reading Room, and of 

 this there can be no reasonable doubt, then the establishment of an East 

 Library and Reading Room ought to follow at the earliest possible 

 opportunity. The site might either be in Low Hill, Hall Lane, or in some 

 good public thoroughfare a little further southward. It is a mistake no 

 less injurious to the success and popularity of a library and reading 

 room, than it is to many other places of business and public institutions, 

 to erect or open it where it cannot make itself well known, or in common 

 phrase, advertise itself. 



After this the North Library ought certainly to be dealt with by the 

 erection of a New Library and Spacious Reading Room, on a site further 

 North than the present Library, and somewhere say in Scotland Road, near 

 to where it joins Stanley Road. 



Three branch libraries, with reading rooms attached, more or less on 

 the plan of the proposed New South Library and the eight branches which 

 Manchester has obtained so deserved a reputation for having established, 

 supplemented by the five school evening reading rooms, would do much 

 towards satisfying the reading wants of the many inhabitants of the city 

 who are compelled to live at a considerable distance from the reading rooms 

 of the Central Library. 



How the necessary funds for the erection and maintenance of these 

 branches are to be provided may not be easy of solution in the Committee's 

 present financial position, but no doubt they will give the subject full and 

 due consideration, as it is felt by many persons that some development 

 of the library system in the direction of additional lending libraries and 

 reading rooms, particularly in the neighbourhoods indicated, is urgently 

 required. 



T. B. HALL, 



Chairman. 



