OUR PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2472, 9 March 1882, Page 3

OUR PUBLIC LIBRARY.

To the Editor of the Olobe.

Sir, —Will you have the kindness to insert the following queries re the Public Library in your valuable paper ; First—ls the present accumulation of rubbith and the paucity of sterling works which adorn the shelves of the circulating library—the unwholesome and repulsive condition of the public reading-room—and the generally extraordinary unique management which has been allowed to prevail at the Public Library for so many years, until it has at last, apparently, become chronic—due to the employment of a librarian whose services are utilised elsewhere, who is, in fact, an absentee librarian, or to the incompetency or neglect of the governing body to observe and rectify the blunders and eccentricities of the Library committee, which is selected and appointed by them, being of them ? or to the general inefficiency of the committee to perform the work undertaken by them ? or, admitting the committee to be competent, to the neglect by them of the datles voluntarily undertaken by them ? Why little or no consideration has been shown by the Board to the suggestions offered to them through the medium of the “ suggestion book ” placed in the circulating department nominally for that strict purpose, as well as to suggestions offered to them by private letters ? Which of the Governors was it who lately succeeded in bringing the peculiar management more prominently into ridicule by causing light ephemeral literature, such as illustrated periodicals, magazines, &c.. to be placed upon the tables of the reference library, a department usually supposed to be devoted to study, reference, and research only, and to which act the Board has shown their approval and concurrence by permitting such works to remain and be renewed from time to timo, evidently unconscious of the quiet but unmistakeable satire thereby conveyed on the efficiency of their management, clearly proving how little is really understood of the object for dividing the Library into various special departments, or the relative difference in the value of books ? Yours. &o, QUIB CU3TODIET CUSTODES.