COUNTY BOROUGH OF DERBY. 



Ttmntymjctfy ilnnuaf (Reporf 



OF THE 



Free Library & Museum Committee 



For the year ended September 30th, 1898. 



CHE Free Library and Museum Committee have pleasure in laying 

 before the Town Council their Twenty-seventh Annual Report. 



The Library and Museum are in a prosperous condition. The 

 Library now contains 31,210 volumes — an increase of a little more 

 than a thousand during the year — -and full details respecting it 

 and its working will be found in the Librarian's Report to this Com- 

 mittee and the tables appended to it. The Committee have made no 

 new departure dui'ing the year, but the usefulness of the Institution 

 as a whole has been fully maintained. 



The Arboretum Branch Reading Room fully justifies its establish- 

 ment, and the numbers using it show a steady increase. In the four 

 months of the year in which the visitors were counted, the numbers 

 reached 40,091, giving a total for the year of 120,273, which is 

 6,700 more than last year, and 13,000 more than the first year in 

 which it was open. The special exit into Rose Hill Street, for 

 use during the last hour of the evening, has proved a great boon 

 and the Committee desire to acknowledge the readiness with which 

 the Arboretum Committee met their views when the subject came 

 under discussion. The cost of maintenance keeps well within the 

 Committee's estimate, although this year there has been special paint- 

 ing and cleaning to be provided for. 



The re-arrangemeut of the Museum still steadily progresses 

 under the direction of the Sub-Committee charged with the work. 

 Some valuable donations to the Museum will be found in the lists 

 this year, among the most important of which are a number of 

 horns from South Africa, presented by Colonel J. A. Spreckley, of 

 Buluwayo, a former townsman. To the same gentleman's good 



