1846 



The books thus lent are mostly duplicates of those in the General Library. 

 They are selected with due reference to the ordinary collections generally found to 

 exist in the Institutions to which these loans are made. When a series of lectures 

 is about to be given at any Literary Institution in the interior of the country, 

 one case or more containing works on the subject to be illustrated can be supplied 

 by the Committee. Assistance is thus afforded to the lecturer and the members 

 of his class or audience, who can pursue at their leisure the study of the works to 

 which they have been referred by him. 



Loans have been made to the institutions enumerated in the Appendix, and 

 the committees of many others have expressed a strong anxiety to avail themselves 

 of the privilege of borrowing. They have been deterred, however, by the expense 

 and risk of carriage especially in winter to great distances into districts to which 

 railways have not yet been extended. 



Donations have been made also by the Trustees of Photographs produced at 

 the Crown Lands Office by permission of the Minister. These, of large size 

 admirably well executed are representations of Pictures in the Dresden Gallery 

 in the National Gallery of this Institution, of Engravings by Albert Durer and 

 other eminent Masters. 



The area over which the system has been carried out as yet embraces a 

 population of about 130,000, and it has afforded to persons who frequent the local 

 institutions means of participating in the advantages offered by this branch of the 

 Library. 



Six thousand one hundred and ten volumes 6,110 volumes were circulated 

 in 1879, amongst the inhabitants of 25 towns, giving to each town the use 

 of from 800 to 1,600 in the course of one year. The use of each individual 

 volume has thus been multiplied five or six fold. 



The plan is capable of still further expansion, at a cost trifling in 

 comparison with the amount of benefit conferred on those resident in remote 

 parts of the country. 



It is calculated to increase the interest felt in the welfare of this 

 institution, to improve the relations between it and those in the interior, and 

 to lead, it is hoped, at no distant time, to the association with it of these 

 bodies as colleges of adults affiliated to a voluntary university of adults. It 

 furnishes, moreover, one of the most effectual modes of silencing the common 

 objection as to the propensity to concentrate and centralise the enjoyments of 

 intellectual culture in the Metropolis, at the expense of the Provinces. 



CONDITIONS UPON WHICH BOOKS WILL BE LENT BY THE 

 TRUSTEES TO FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES. 



1. Books will be lent to the Trustees or Committees of Free Libraries, 



Mechanics' or Literary Institutions, or to the Councils of Municipalities. 



2. The borrowers shall place the books lent in a suitable apartment to be 



approved of by the Trustees, and admit the Public to the use of the books 

 therein for such hours as may be appointed by the local committee, but 

 in other respects subject to the rules of the Public Library of Victoria. 



