Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/11

 The Public Libraries of Aberdeen.

N the occasion of the first visit of the Library Association to Aberdeen, it seems fitting to give some account of what may be regarded as its Public Libraries. Under this term I include the University Library, that of the Mechanics' Institution, now absorbed in the Public Library, the Public Library itself, and the Anderson Library at Woodside, now an integral part of the city. Other libraries there have been, and are, in the district which might by a little stretch of terms be brought within the scope of my paper, such as the Library of the "Advocates in Aberdeen," the Free Church College Library, and the small, but valuable, and highly interesting library at the Roman Catholic College at Blairs, a few miles out of town. But time and other considerations have deterred me from dealing with these, and with still more reason have forbidden any account of such private adventures as the library which was reared by the founder of a firm of booksellers in town, which as A. Brown and Co. is still vigorously extant, and of which the present convener of the Public Library book sub-committee was for long the sole representative. As far back as 1801 this library, as shown by the printed catalogue issued then, contained no less than 15,000 volumes, while about ten years after, having absorbed another similar circulating library, it acquired the name of the United Public Library, and is stated to have contained no fewer than 52,000 volumes in all departments of literature a sufficient witness of the literary enterprise and tastes of the citizens of Aberdeen of that far-off time. But the time at my disposal compels me to pass by these and kindred topics, however interesting they might be made, and to limit my efforts to tracing briefly and cursorily the history of the strictly public institutions I have already named.

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