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THE RATIONALE OF FREE PUBLKC LIERARIES. 39
of Sir Redmond Barry, whose recent death must be a serious
loss to the colony, the duplicates of the Melbourne Public
Library are placed in cases of oak, bound with brass clips, lined
with green baize, and divided by shelves. Each case containe
about fifty volumes, and is transmitted free of cost by railway
or steamer to any Public Library, Mechanics’ Institution,
Atbensenm, or corporate body which applies for a loan. When
a series of lectures on any subject are about to be given in some
remote part of tho colony, a box of suitable books bearing on
the subject mill be made up at Melbourne upon application.
The volumes may be retained for three months or more. The
number of volumes thus circulated in 1876-7 was 8,000, and by
tI10 multiplication of utility, they mere rendered equivalent to
33,000 volumes, in seventy-two towns of an aggregate population
of 440,000. A full description of tllis method of circulation
was givcn by Sir Redmond Darry at the London Conference
of Librarinns in 1877, in the Report of which important meeting
it mill bo found (pp. 134-5, 194-9) duly printed. An account
of an enterprising village library club in the New York county
will be found in the American “ Library Journal,” vol. iii. No.
2, p. 67.
This method of circulating libraries is not, however, so
novel as it might seem to the average Englishman. Not to
speak of the extensive systems of country circulation maintained
by Mudie, Smith, the London Library, and some other
institutions, there has long existed in East Lothian a system of
Itinerating Libraries, originally founded by Mr. Samuel Brown
of Haddington. The operation of these libraries is fully
described in a very able and interesting pamphlet upon 6‘ The
Free Libraries of Scotland,” written by an Assistant Librarian,
and published by Messrs. John Smith and Son, of 129, West
George Street, Glasgow. Samuel Brown’s plan was to make
UP a collection of fifty books, to be stationed in a village for
two years, and lent out gratuitously to all persons above the
age of twelve years who wonld take proper care of them. Ah
the ad of the two yeare tbe booka were called in and removed
to another town or pillage, a fresh collection of Srty Merent
W ~ rtaking h their place. The imperative need of novelty waa