Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/41

Rh lending library is wanted for each 80,000 inhabitants, and the experience of towns like Birmingham, Bradford, and Nottingham proves that the suburban residents who become readers and use the branch libraries freely, are those who would but rarely visit the central library. An indirect benefit of the multiplication of branches is, that they promote the personal intercourse of reader and librarian in charge, to an extent which would be impossible if the work was concentrated in one building. In Manchester this principle of taking the books to the readers has been carried even further. There is no central lending library, but fifteen well-equipped branches, each containing from ten to twenty thousand volumes, have been distributed over the city with the happiest results.

The position of the librarian's office and the work-rooms for the staff will depend greatly upon the size of the library. In some places the librarian seems to be considered as a kind of superior janitor or caretaker, and an attempt is made to so place his office that he can sit and watch the entrance hall and note each person entering the building. This is a wrong conception of a librarian's duties, and has come down to us from the dark ages, when it was thought a librarian's chief work was to preserve his books from the assaults of the would-be readers, instead of acting as a key to unlock the stores of his library. This old feeling is happily changing, and the readers are finding that the more "alive" a librarian is, the more useful to them he can be in assisting and directing their