SHALLOW VIEWS ON POPULAR READING

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1569, 12 October 1912, Page 9

SHALLOW VIEWS ON POPULAR READING

The "Morning Post" is publishing a series of articles on "What the People Head," and the third of them, which appeared yesterday, treats of "The Literary Leanings' of Lancashire." We might pursue the primitive method of alliteration with Little Light from Libraries, for the article is not much more than a review of Free Library statistics, and we do not feel that it is bringing us very near to anything. What stares us in the face again ami again is the very large proportion of novels read; perhaps it is too large, but wo decline to be depressed about it, and we may suggest that a better test than tho contract between tUe number of novels and of other books would bo to give these numbers, multiplied by tho days occupied—or presumably occna'— in reading the novels and the other ;s respectively.. Bolton, for instance, is distinguished by the low percentage of 43 in fiction, but as it has a legitimate prido in its Technical Library, tho booKs of which deal particularly with tho trades of tho town and are in great demand, it is probable that the time spent over fiction by the Bolton people is very much less, than 43 per cent, of tho whole. Wo "are-told that in St.' Helens fiction wins' by , ten to one, "that Wigan specialises in Mrs. Henry Wood,, and bns already worn out forty or fifty sets of her novels, that Ashton-under-Lyne has reduced the percentage of fiction irom GG to 55 by the expedient of giving borrowers access to the shelves, and that Preston's proportion of fiction is 72 per cent., although few novels are bought till "a certain lapse of timo has established their reputation." In Liverpool, too, the attempt is ninde to choke off tho demand for ephemeral novels, and the chief librarian says that' since the end of 1909 "novels bavo not been bought until a period of from six to twelve months after publication." This has greatly reduced the issuo of works'of fiction, which seems to be accepted as a positive good,' and the description "more important literature" is actually used is excluding fiction. In Manchester, where ( borrowers for home reading took novels' 1,421,134 times to 333,551' times of all other books together, there 'does' not appear to be any term of probation, but Manchester "takes a high stand in what it admits to its library shelves, and prides itself on the fact that its literary fare is superior to that found in the average circulating institution." Without committing ourselves to an opinion on the details of this policy we may at least approve it. Surely the best way is to :>et goo;l books into the library as soon as possible and to keep bad ones out altogether; a library committee need not cogitate for a year before admitting a novel by Mr. Conrad or Mr. Galsworthy. And, before we get into the way of scanning the percentages of fiction -as though they were the death-rate, we may remind ourselves that among books of travel, biography, theology, politics, and tho rest there is a great deal of rubbish,, and that, taking the best books of every class, tho standard of novel-writing is probably higher than that of any other.— Manchester Guardian." i