While few favored "weeding out" simply to gain room by getting rid of books little wanted, many believe in transferring to other libraries which have a distinctly greater need of them.--M.D.
A resident of a Massachusetts town to which the Commonwealth was about to give $100 worth of books came to secure my influence as a member of the State free public library commission to have a large part of the $100 spent for rare and expensive books on Massachusetts history. As a large and valuable library made up principally of books of that class was soon to be given to another small town in the same county, it would have been manifestly unwise to grant this request. It seems unwise also to place a students' library in a small town where there are few who will use it. It would be better to give the library to a flourishing institution at a county seat, on condition that it shall be open for free consultation by all residents of the county, and that, under proper rules, books may be lent from it to inhabitants of smaller towns for use at home.
In this way the library would be so placed that most persons wishing to make investigations would have the books near home, and the comparatively few investigators in the smaller towns, such as the man in the town first mentioned, would also have their interests provided for.
The trustees of the Thomas Crane Public Library at Quincy, Mass., have concluded, utilizing the experience of many years, that a working library of 15,000 volumes is sufficient to supply the general wants of the 20,000 residents of the city. It is proposed not to let the library grow beyond 20,000 volumes while the wants of the city remain what they are, and when it exceeds that number of volumes to cut it down by taking out books that never have been needed in a popular library like that in Quincy or that have become useless. It having become evident that an addition would presently have to be made to the building if the recent rate of increase should continue, it seemed best to the trustees to begin at once to reduce the size of the library. They proceeded, under the able leadership of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, to remove from the library large numbers of Government documents, unnecessary duplicates, books of an outgrown ephemeral interest, and those unsuited to the locality. Twenty-one hundred and forty-five volumes were removed immediately. The Quincy library, by adopting this course, relieves itself from very considerable prospective expenses and secures money to use in increasing its usefulness.