Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/81



certain honourable exceptions, the smaller municipal libraries of the United Kingdom may be said to become formed by a process which involves the accumulation of books to the exclusion of literature. In other words, the matter-of-fact business men who usually control such institutions, prefer in most cases to have quantity rather than quality, and desire to see a number of books, no matter how useless, rather than a well-selected library of representative literature. The reasons for this are quite obvious. A library being but a collection of books, it becomes business men to assemble as many as possible in the shortest time, in order, perhaps, to outshine an adjoining township, or to satisfy the ratepayers that they are hard at work in the interests of education! To many library committeemen a book is just a book, and like bricks, or paving stones, or potatoes, or other realizable stock, the bigger the accumulation the better. When the typical library committeeman is told that his library contains 5,000 71