8 



CITY LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 



request that it be called to the attention of employees ; and a list of recent 

 educational publications which, together with a professional course of 

 reading for teachers prepared by the state and distributed by the library, 

 was doubtless the cause of the increase noted in the circulation of this 

 class of books. In view of the interest in charter revision, the library's 

 collection of muncipal charters has been expanded and brought to date. 

 The reports of the Harvard Economic Committee on the conditions of 

 business and industry will be a valued accession whenever funds permit 

 of their purchase. 



Reference Work in Rice Hall. 



The important work conducted by the reference department in Rice 

 Hall is difficult to summarize. The requests and inquiries pouring in from 

 day to day are of astonishing variety, such, for example, as the best 

 personal memoirs written in the reign of Louis XIV; the width of a street 

 and tree belt in Hadley ; the names and addresses of all retail coal dealers 

 in New England; an account of Langmuir's postulates, for a scientific 

 student; the comparative advantages of welding or riveting the seams of 

 boilers, for a manufacturer; the latest development in the flotation proc- 

 ess of ore concentration, for an investor. Perhaps no feature of the work 

 has shown more growth the past season than the gathering and reserv- 

 ing of reference collections of books for study purposes. Besides such 

 customary service to the high school and junior college classes, books 

 were set aside on special shelves for ten different university extension 

 classes, several classes from Northeastern University, and half a dozen 

 other groups or organizations. While the library cannot, of course, 

 attempt to supply the necessary textbooks, it should provide the vol- 

 umes required for reference and collateral reading; and it is gratifying to 

 find that every group in the city organized for serious study seems to be 

 turning naturally to the library and finding there reasonable facilities, 

 although when two hundred members of one course desire the same book 

 within a few days, it is not possible to satisfy their wants as promptly as 

 is desired. Books have been reserved for between one and two thousand 

 students, and the total number of volumes thus set aside was 2,416, some 

 two and one half times as many as in any previous year. 



Lectures, Meetings, and Exhibitions. 



The number of exhibitions, lectures, and meetings of educational, 

 Uterary, philanthropic, and civic associations in the hbrary halls, all 

 open freely to the pubhc, has greatly increased, the use of the halls in 

 winter being of almost daily occurence. The Reading Circle of the Blind, 

 the Art League, and the Poetry Society have continued their useful activi- 

 ties, the latter having enjoyed the most successful 3^ear in its history 

 under the leadership of Mr. N. P. Ames Carter. Noteworthy exhibitions 

 were held under the auspices of the Art League, including exquisite 

 colored aquatints by Boutet de Monvel, the usual spring exhibition of 

 paintings and handicraft by artists in the Connecticut valley, and a 

 splendid representation of work by contemporary American painters 

 shown in the fall. Many of the exhibitions arranged by the staff in the 

 Art Room were planned with relation to the art studies in the high 



