Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/55

 Proposal for Establishment of District Public Libraries. 43 whether the libraries were open every evening, or only on certain evenings per week. The labour of these assistants would not be beyond the capacity of untrained villagers, and consequently the cost of such assistance would be trifling. A printed catalogue for each library would be a more serious item of expense, but in this the plan now proposed shows how great an economy may be practised in its production. THE PLAN. The libraries should be denominated at the Central office by letters, say : A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K. One half of each library should be the same in all and its catalogue on sale sim- ultaneously in ten villages. The remaining half of each library would differ in each village from that in all the rest, and would remain in each place in succession for say twelve months. When the annual move on took place the unsold catalogues of each itinerant library would move on too with the several collections, and so would have a sale in ten villages in succession. Each village would then in the course of ten years have had access to a permanent library of five hundred volumes and to ten itinerant libraries of five hundred volumes each in all to five thousand five hundred volumes. Is this quite clear ? Village No. i would have itinerant library A this year, B next year, C the following year and so on. Itinerant library A would be at village No. i this year, No. 2 next year, No. 3 the following year. The printed catalogue of the whole of the books in any one village at one time would be in two parts that of the permanent and that of the itinerant collection. Eleven catalogues would be required for the whole system and they would have a sale in ten parishes. If it were thought better the itinerant libraries might be worked in two circuits of five parishes. There would be some advantages in this arrangement ; it would fit in with a quinquennial revision of the collections and the catalogues, and would allow of the purchase of 2,500 books in duplicate. There are, of course, obvious economies in the bills for general print- ing, office stationery and other expenses, and the purchase of ten copies of each of five hundred volumes at one time. These economies need not be dwelt on before practical men. The principle of the plan proposed is elastic enough and would apply equally well to a system of branch libraries in a