April, 1892. 



OUR COLUMNS. 



79 



Suggestions ano ^Enquiries. 



Mr. Edwin Ransom thus continues : — 



4. A precious bit of local history is the Fyshe Palmer book, full of local election 

 addresses and squibs, deposited last year at the Library with the offer, not yet accepted, of 

 many more racy posters of the kind — voices of old Bedford. Cannot efforts be made in 

 other quarters to enrich this collection ? 



5. Not without opposition was the old portfolio of prints of local celebrities turned to 

 account, the cream of the lot being transferred to the blank walls of the popular news 

 room. There, and in our great lumber room vestibule, is space for many more of these 

 gems, which can be obtained from the same portfolio, also, I believe, from three or four 

 descendants of the celebrities in question, as well as by exchanges for our numerous 

 duplicates and by purchase from shops of dealers. Each of these duplicates would have 

 to be priced first. 



6. When will an organised attempt be made to obtain the publications, both past 

 and current, of provincial archaeological societies and field clubs ? We have shelves 

 loaded with former issues of Bedfordshire literature of that character waiting to be 

 utilised for barter, w4iile for current publications of some such Societies Our Columns 

 is itself not too modest to offer in exchange for, e.g., the interesting little quarterly 

 jommal of the Hitchin Natural History Society, a body with which the new Committee 

 of our Council would find it advantageous to keep in touch. 



7. W^hat more honorable and ornamental for the w^alls of the Library than a pair, 

 ancient and modern, of Palestine maps, coloured, the three-eighths ordnance survey, 

 measuring five feet by three feet, and costing on rollers 12s. each? 



8. For the present I will stop with this quer)^ How long before the Council 

 think subscribers are entitled to the Library as much as to the News Room ? In other 

 words why should not the whole suite of rooms be open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. (N.B. — 

 Not a minute longar). There is no need to extend the hours for borrowing books, but the 

 mere return could be made at any time. This change need not entail more attendants, 

 though if the business still increases a second lad would not be expensive. 



The New Catalogue. — At last we are able to announce the publication of this long- 

 expected hand-book to the contents of the Library, in the shape of a thick, w^ell 

 printed, octavo volume of 344 pages. The valuable collection of books acquired by the 

 recent amalgamation with the Beds. Archasological Society, accounts, of course, for only 

 a small number of the additional 118 pages by w^hich the bulk of this volume exceeds 

 that of its predecessor, published twelve years ago, — for there has been a steady and 

 continuous monthly addition to the contents of the shelves during the whole of this 

 period, representing many thousand volumes in all departments of literature, to say 

 nothing of periodicals, pamphlets, and such small fry. The Catalogue is prefaced by a 

 history of the various Institutions which are now happily united under one government 

 in the Bedford Rooms, — their origin, progress, and subsequent absorption being illustrated 

 by a diagram, which forms a very appropriate frontispiece. An excellent classified 

 index, arranged under authors' names, is added to the end of the Catalogue. The work 

 reflects great credit on the diligence and care of Mr. Davis (the Librarian), who compiled 

 and arranged it, and on the printers, Messrs. Hill h Co., who have turned it out in so 

 presentable a form. 



