Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/58

 of art and science, and cause the same to be bound and repaired when necessary.

(2) The Library Authority may also appoint salaried officers and servants, and dismiss them, and make regulations for the safety and use of every library, museum, gallery, and school under their control, and for the admission of the public thereto.

(3) (This provides for the appointment of committees in urban districts.) Provided that a Library Authority being an Urban Authority may, if they think fit, appoint a committee and delegate to it all or any of their powers and duties under this section, and the said committee shall, to the extent of such delegation, be deemed to be the Library Authority. Persons appointed to be members of the committee need not be members of the Urban Authority.

A report on the working of this part of the Act, drawn up by Mr. John Ballinger, Librarian of the Cardiff Public Libraries, sheds a good deal of light on the question. The delegation of authority from the Urban Authority to the Library Committee appears to be universal, though in a few cases a// the members of the first body are also members of the second. The power of adding outsiders to the Library Committee is largely put into use, as appears from the subjoined table of the constitution of Library Committees (1894) : —

(a) Committees consisting of members of Urban Authority, proceedings subject to confirmation ....... 20

(b) Committees consisting of members of Urban Authority, proceedings not subject to confirmation ....... 10