Since no public library, then, can supply the demand, it is better, since 

 novels are cheap, that the Mcintosh Library, or the 'Booklovers' Club, or the 

 bookseller, should be patronized by those making this unhealthy demand; 

 and that the public library should only aim at keeping those novels which 

 have gained the place of being good literature. 



NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. 



For a well-provided newspaper and magazine room in a public library 

 a better plea can be made than for fiction. These are read on the premises. 

 A large portion of our city people come from or have acquaintanceships and 

 interests in the cities or towns of the country west of us. They also are 

 fond of glancing over the local home newspaper to learn what they are doing 

 " away back east." No one can subscribe for all the papers which he might 

 desire to run over for five minutes now and then. No man could take the 

 hundred magazines, any one of which he might desire to consult, particularly 

 if they were arranged, indexed, and cross-referenced to save his time. 



But a few hundred dollars — say four or five hundred — will give 1 00 

 newspapers and 100 magazines. 



That would be money well spent by the library, for hundreds of people 

 can read them, while only half a dozen are able to seize at one time the 

 latest novel. If this were done, the best newspapers and magazines could 

 every year be bound and form really the only complete source for furnishing 

 contemporary facts. These passing publications, bound and well cata- 

 logued, are most valuable for supplying the history of our own times. 



A CIRCULATING LIBRARY. 



A real public library may be called the people's college. H"re books 

 should be provided to interest, educate and stimulate all classes of citizens, 

 i hough the expense of renewals is great on account of the destruction of 

 books in the circulating library, yet it is universally conceded as necessary 

 that books should be lent out for one or two weeks to readers to cultivate the 

 taste for home reading. In Great Britain there is very much more home 

 reading than we have in Winnipeg or in any part of Canada. Mudie's 

 Circulating Library does an enormous business in sending out to the remotest 

 corners of the British Isles all classes of books of convenient size and 

 character. 



