Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/114

 102 The Library. lection of from 500 to 600 volumes. In this calculation we have adopted the most favourable method of dealing with the question, by taking the whole county and equally dividing the income. As a matter of fact, the difficulties and expense of inauguration would be very greatly increased if each parish adopted the Public Libraries Act for itself, or even combined with a few adjoining places for the purpose. Having shown that the parish is not the best area to adopt for library purposes, let us endeavour to point out an alternative which would be infinitely more satisfactory. Suppose, for example, that each county council was empowered to adminster the public libraries within its own bounds, and suppose that Parliament gave it the power of collecting from every parish council a rate of one penny in the pound, to be devoted to the pur- poses allowed by the " Public Libraries Acts." We at once get an income adequate in amount, and a control removed from the petty jealousies and animosities of small areas. The income, in the case of most counties, would be insufficient for the purpose of enabling libraries to be established in every village or even parish ; but it would be enough to establish a series of travelling libraries, giving every inhabitant of the county access to thous- ands of well-selected books, instead of to a very few hundreds. The common idea of a travelling library is that of a box of books after the style of the itinerating Haddingtonshire libraries, es- tablished early in this century by Mr. Samuel Brown, and imi- tated more recently by the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institu- tions, and by the State of New York and other bodies at home and abroad. Our idea, on the contrary, is of an actual library of