Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/52

 duties are performed by a staff of about one hundred attendants, "dusters," and others.

The salaries of both chief and assistant librarians in "free" libraries in this country are painfully low. These institutions are supported by the ratepayers, most of whom are satisfied if the supply of novels is abundant, and they think rightly enough that the superintendent of this process is amply repaid with the salary of a curate. It is a matter for earnest consideration whether the mechanical systems that are making their way in popular libraries are not calculated to encourage this low estimate.

France.—The salaries of the best remunerated French librarians may be gauged from the scale of pay in the Bibliothèque Nationale: Administrateur-général, 15,000 francs; conservateurs (keepers), 10,000 francs; conservateurs-adjoints (assistant-keepers), 7000 francs; bibliothécaires, 3600 francs to 6000 francs; sous-bibliothécaires, 2400 francs to 3300 francs; stagiaires, 1800 francs.

Germany—Prussia.—It has been a constant source of complaint among German librarians that their services are more poorly paid than those of Government schoolmasters and officials in charge of records. An anonymous correspondent of the Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen (March 1885) gives some details bearing on the state of things in Prussia. The complaint is not made concerning the salaries of the chiefs of libraries, whose salaries are admitted to be equal, or slightly superior, to those of the headmasters of schools; but the library assistants