6 



student as well as to the amateur, and the results are shown by the 

 flourishing condition and the increasing number of Art Societies 

 springing up in our midst, which it is hoped may one day become the 

 incentives to Technical Education. 



In order to maintain the general efficiency of the institution, the 

 Members of the Committee have fully realized the responsibility which 

 has been cast upon them in their individual capacity. A redistribution 

 of the work has recently taken place, in which they have to acknowledge 

 the willing co-operation of the Librarians and Curators of the several 

 departments. 



Signed on behalf of the Committee, 



EDWARD SAMUELSON, 



Chairman. 



REFERENCE LIBRARY. 



The Statistics to which paramount importance must always be attached, 

 show that there have been issued during the past year 444,649 volumes. 

 Compared with the issues of last year, this shows a decrease of 57,649 

 volumes. The decrease has been proportionate in the several classes of litera- 

 ture into which the books are divided, except Latin and Greek Classics, 

 which exhibit an increase of 485 volumes. The volumes added during 

 the year number 2,404. The effect of good and bad trade upon employ- 

 ment is always apparent in the work of the Library by the decrease 

 or increase of the books issued to those frequenting the Reading Rooms, 

 and the present improvement in trade is no doubt the direct cause of 

 the diminution of books issued both this year and last ; and the books 

 borrowed from the Lending Libraries also show a decrease to the 

 extent of 42,106 volumes, due no doubt to the same cause. The 

 number of books referred to which have been classified in the following 

 table by no means represents the whole of the work of the Library. 

 The issues of quarterly, monthly, and weekly periodicals which are 

 placed in the Picton Reading Room, so that readers may select for 

 themselves the periodical wanted without the necessity of making 

 a formal apphcation, are estimated at 111,143. These periodicals are all 

 of a strictly scientific or literary character. In the BroM'n Reading 

 Room, where the literature issued is of a more recreative and popular 

 kind, the various periodicals lent, in addition to the volumes of prose 



