LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY AND TECHNICAL SCHOOLS, ASHTon-under ... LYNE ... BOOTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND MUSEUM BOOTLE PUBLIC Library, GROUND FLOOR PLAN MUSEUM, AND ART GALLERY, GILSTRAP PUBLIC LIBRARY, NEWARK, GROUND FLOOR PLAN NEWCASTLE (STAFFS) PUBLIC LIBRARY AND MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS 183 NOTTINGHAM CENTRAL PUBLIC LIBRARY AND UNIVERSITY COL PAGE WINSFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY, GROUND PLAN 196 SALE PUBLIC LIBRARY 197 IPSWICH PUBLIC LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND SCHOOL OF ART 212 250 EDINBURGH PUBLIC LIBRARY, REFERENCE LIBRARY FLOOR PETERHEAD PUBLIC LIBRARY AND MUSEUM 258 SWANSEA PUBLIC LIBRARY, ART GALLERY, AND SCHOOL OF ART 275 PUBLIC LIBRARIES. PART I. TTM CHAPTER I. Introduction. HE most sanguine friends of the Public Library movement could scarcely have desired a healthier rate of progress than has been seen during the past few years. It is of comparatively recent date that the leaders of public instruction have had to lament that so few districts had availed themselves of the Public Libraries Acts, and voluntarily taxed themselves for the support of an institution, which should be the common property of the people, and the home of the productions of the great minds of past and present periods. After an interval of thirty-six years from the passing of the Ewart Act of 1850, only 133 districts had taxed themselves with the library rate. At the present time the total number of adoptions of the Acts is approaching 240, making an addition of more than 100 in five years. This indicates that we have reached a rung of the ladder in our national life when these institutions are now looked upon as one of the chief requisites of our modern civilized life, and as an inseparable corollary of our system of education. It is furthermore becoming an accepted principle that no district can be considered complete and possess a progressive character unless it has a building inscribed as a Public Library. Pessimistic writers are fond at times of assuring us that the loving study of books is a thing of the past, that the hastilywritten columns of the newspaper, with its list of murders, burglaries, railway accidents, prize-fights, and its sporting reports, have taken the place of literature in the estimation of the people. The facts hardly seem to warrant this assertion. District after district is seen adopting the Public Libraries Acts, purchasing, or collecting from the benevolent, sets of valuable books, and placing them at the disposal of the inhabitants of such localities. The |