THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF IRELAND. 303 



Free Trade joins older ones on the same subject, and so on. The technique 

 of this is simple, but what will interest non-professional minds is the extra- 

 ordinary value as an instrument of culture gained for the Library by the 

 juxtaposition in clusters, of books on the same subject. The Decimal 

 system was introduced in the National Library by Mr. William Archer, 

 F.R.S., the Librarian from 1877 to 1895. It has been adopted in several 

 admirable English Libraries — at Manchester, Glasgow, Croydon. 



The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, except on Sundays, 

 and on three weekdays at Christmas, four weekdays at Easter, and twelve 

 weekdays in August. The attendances of readers in 1878 numbered 

 27,452. In 1900, the twenty-third year of the Library, the attendances 

 numbered 148,405. The attendances in 1849 were estimated at over 8,000 

 per annum. The number of volumes is estimated at 130,000. In 1849 the 

 number was estimated at 19,000. The Library is still the only considerable 

 popular Reference Library in Dublin. The collection of printed books is 

 greater than any other in Ireland (except that of Trinity College, where 

 there are probably more than twice as many). An effort is bemg made to 

 collect, bind, and preserve a considerable number of the newspapers of 

 Ireland, and activity in this, as in many other directions, is conditioned by 

 the desire to make the Library match the title it bears and the responsi- 

 bilities thus implied. It is the State Library — the tiny British Museum of 

 Ireland. 



With the accession of the Joly Collection the Library will be very rich in 

 books on Irish topography, history and biography. From its connection 

 with the Museum of Science and Art, and the Metropolitan School of Art, 

 acquisitions in Botany, Zoology, the Fine Arts and Archaeology have always 

 been frequent. There are very few novels on the shelves — practically only 

 the classics of fiction are purchased. 



