Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/221

 Libraries and Education. 209 There the library, while fulfilling admirably all the needs of the people as a public library, is also an integral part of the college machinery, and the students of the technical classes regard the library as their own, just as a student in any of our ancient universities regards the university library. In course of time, libraries, as well as other educational agencies, will no doubt, be placed under one Government depart- ment ; and while I admit that there may be many objections to this, it will bring with it one very great advantage, viz., a con- centration of energy and a more economical management all round. At the present time much money and much labour is wasted in consequence of different people, in different places doing the same thing over and over again, which under a central organisation could be done in one place, by one, for all. But in the meantime, I think public libraries could do much to secure some of the benefits, without any of the disadvantages, by a voluntary co-operation with other educational institutions. To take that which lies nearest my hand, I would propose that the librarians of London should meet together and divide London among them, and make, as it were, a sort of industrial map. One library, the nearest, would undertake to supply the technical literature useful for the leather-dressers of Bermondsey, another would concentrate its energies on the metal-workers of Clerken- well. Chelsea would cater for the arts, and so on. I may be wrong in detail, but it does not affect the principle I am hinting at, when I say that a book on leather-dressing would be abso- lutely wasted at St. Martin-in the-Fields. In this way each library would come to be regarded as a special one, which, while providing the general and catholic library supplies for the ordinary reader, would concentrate its energies on those technical subjects which belonged to its district. The next step in my programme would be for each public librarian to invite the professors and masters of the educational institutions in his neighbourhood to confer with him, and to arrange a practical working scheme, by which the students of the district should be led to regard the library as a place for study and for help in the subjects being dealt with, from time to time, by their lecturers. The lecturers would furnish the librarian, from term to term, with his syllabuses, and the librarian would collect together for the use of the students all that his library contained on the different subjects, and if important books were wanting, they should be procured. Where possible an earnest effort should be made to