Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/149



Rules and general arrangements made for readers in small municipal libraries should be as liberal and unrestrictive as may be considered consistent with efficiency and safety. In recent years a strong reaction has set in against the prison-like rules and conditions which governed the early public libraries, and in this country, the United States, the British colonies, and also in various parts of Europe, the tendency is all in favour of making libraries efficient every day workshops rather than bonded stores. Access to libraries is now rendered easy for everybody; age limits have been reduced; the borrowing right has been greatly extended, both as regards the number of books allowed at one time and the method of enrolment; while direct access to the shelves, which is the rule in most reference libraries, is also being extended to lending departments. All these, together with the adoption of exact classification and annotated cataloguing seem to distinguish modern from the older librarianship, which was more or less based on distrust of the public, and a failure to grasp the 139