oroug^ of Qevby 



TWENTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE 



jfree Xibrarg anb flDueeum Committee, 



For the Year ended September 30th, 1894. 



Nr^HE F fee Library and Museum Committee have very much pleasure 



"M^ in presenting to the Town Council their Twenty-Third Annual 



Report, and are glad that in doing so they can testify to the 



undiminished popularity and usefulness of the Institution committed to 



their charge. 



The Statistical Tables appended to the Librarian's Report will be 

 found to contain many interesting details, and to those Tables all are 

 referred who are interested in the inner working of the Library. The 

 Committee feel, however, that they should draw attention to the increased 

 issues in the Lending Library, which amount to more than ten thousand 

 in the year just closed, and also to the fact that no fewer than 1,410 books 

 have been added during the same period, of which 522 were replacements 

 of books worn out, and the remainder entirely new. The Library stock 

 in the two departments now amounts to 28,086 works. It will very soon 

 become a question of shelf-room for the accommodation of the ever- 

 increasing number of books, and the Committee have at present under 

 consideration a scheme which will afford much relief, by the separation 

 of the Juvenile books from the others, and thus set a large quantity of 

 shelf-room at liberty, and also add materially to the comfort of adult 

 borrowers, and the facility with which they can be served. 



No new Supplementary Catalogue has been issued this year, but the 

 Committee feel that the time has now arrived when the Catalogue as a 

 whole should be grappled with, and they have adopted the suggestion of 

 the Librarian, that the whole should be republished, but in Sections, and 

 that Section dealing with Science, Art, and Technology is now in course 

 of active preparation, and it is hoped may be issued by about Christmas. 



