[ XXX ] 



They procured, at first, the leading authorities only on the especial brancho 

 of learning provided for in those libraries the common sources of reference for 

 readers of all classes, without which no library could be complete. 



They then filled in, on a liberal scale, all the books most approved in the 

 higher walks of professional, scientific, and technical branches of employment, 

 and provided largely all which bear on discoveries in physical science, and the 

 practical arts, and which help to unfold the natural and artificial resources of 

 the country. These primary wants having received the earliest and amplest 

 consideration, the Trustees were enabled to diverge into other directions, to fill 

 up the interspaces, and so to balance the supply by appropriating in succeeding 

 or alternate years certain sums greater or less to make good the deficiencies 

 in the respective departments; to regulate the expansion, and to enlarge the 

 sub-divisions so as to leave no class of literature wholly unrepresented. 



The result was, that while the gradual increase of the other Libraries was 

 going on, the growth of the Public Library was progressing also in a larger area ; 

 and it was estimated that when the contents of the four Libraries were about 

 110,000 volumes in the aggregate, the number of copies of the works of the 

 same authors repeated in the different libraries did not exceed 15,000. 



The Trustees regarded the Institution as a Public Library of reference, 

 consultation, and research, which ought to be characterised by a comprehensiveness 

 which would stamp it not merely as national, but universal. They considered 

 that it ought to contain all works required to meet the demands of all ordinary 

 readers, the wants of men of every profession, trade, calling, and occupation, the 

 desires of those who indulge in the pursuit of polite literature and of every 

 branch of human inquiry. 



They were of opinion that, as the community which partakes of the benefit 

 of the institution is composed of persons differing in nationality, quality of 

 education, and habit of thought, the Library ought to contain expositions of every 

 view of questions interesting to the public, and of every phase of opinion, in 

 all languages; moreover that means of reference to the works of contemporary 

 writers of the most active minds in all parts of the world ought to be found 

 on the shelves. 



They deemed it necessary also to acquire the most approved editions of 

 all standard works, and afterwards such books as by reason of the expenses 

 attendant on the production and illustration of them, are highly valuable in 

 yielding information of a special nature, in cultivating the taste and improving 

 the intellectual refinement of the readers, but which by their cost are placed 

 beyond the reach of individuals, professional men, and the general public. 



On the other hand they abstained from displaying on the shelves works of 

 injurious tendency, or of supplying an undue proportion of novels and of those 

 usually classed as works of fiction and of the imagination, of those which in 

 some catalogues are entered under the head of "literature for juveniles," of 

 such as are purely ephemeral and of transient value, unless connected with 

 some event of political or exceptional importance, such, also, as are regarded as 



