OUR PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2478, 16 March 1882, Page 3

OUR PUBLIC LIBRARY.

To the Editor of the Olobe, * Sir, —Since the appearance of certain letters re the Public Library in your valuable paper, the Board of Management has shown a desire to profit by information therein tendered, by instituting certain minor alterations. Will you. therefore, while the Board remain in this reasonable etate of mind, permit me to suggest yet another Improvement to them, and that Is that they should refrain from “going into committee” on almost every occasion when the affairs of the Library have -to be discussed. I think, Sir, that you will agree with me that this reprehensible practice of “ going into committee” upon almost every question connected with the affairs of the Library 1s very much to be deprecated, and it has a very ugly look when a public trust Is worked in private. I do not know whether the majority of the public are aware what going into committee signifies. It simply means working in secret. No reporter is admitted, and nothing that takes place in committee Is allowed to transpire outside, and each member, if he is not actually, is virtually bound to secrecy. Now, Sir, what can be the motive for these extraordinary precautions ? The mere fact of the Board admitting the existence of this necessity for concealment (which they do by their own act) infers that there is something to conceal—something to be kept from the knowledge of the public—and opens the door to, well, unpleasant Inferences, and yon must concede, bir, that the hypothesis that they (the Board) must be sensitively aware of their own incapacity to carry to a successful issue the duties of the office they have voluntarily undertaken, and therefore take precautionary measures to avcid that fair and honest criticism which to them appears only to mean the exposure of their shortcomings, is the most lenient view to take of their proceedings, although not complimentary. It is to be hoped, however, that the Board, upon reconsidering the system hitherto practised by them In discussing the affairs of the Library, will be led to recognise the obvious fact that even if only for the sake of appearances, it would be considerably more creditable to conduct the f.Hairs of a public trust in a manner that should be unquestionably open and patent to the just criticism of the public. I am, &c., QUIS ODSTODIET CUBTODES.