of trustees
have been suggested to me by observation of the happy results which have
followed the administration of the affairs of my own library, by a board
of directors who have governed themselves by rules almost identical with
those which I have recommended for use by boards of trustees and
directors generally.

THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY

This division of the subject is that which has been most
discussed, and its subject matter is that in which most
progress has been made. It is creditable to libraries that
what they do for the public has extended and developed to a
marvelously greater degree than what the public does for
them. Whether it is equally creditable to the public "is
another story." The first seven papers reproduced bear on
the subject of library service in a somewhat general manner
and are arranged chronologically.

SOME POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES

This is probably the first treatment of the subject in this
country, and is the leading article in the second number of
_The American Library Journal_, as it was then called. The
writer, William F. Poole was at the time librarian of the
Chicago Public Library. He mentioned objections only to
explain them away. It will be noted that none of them would
be described at present as "popular," and that only the
third is now much heard.

William Frederick Poole was born in Salem, Mass., 1821, and
graduated at Yale in 1849, where as librarian of the
Linonian and Brothers Library he founded Poole's Index to
Periodical Literature, by which his name is chiefly
remembered. He was librarian of the Chicago Public Library
in 1873-87, and at his death, March 1, 1894, he was
librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago, whose building
he designed on the departmental system, of which he was an
earnest advocate. He was the second president of the
American Library Association, serving in 1885-87.

In this paper I shall use the term "public libraries" as meaning free
municipal libraries organized under State laws and supported by general
taxation. This definition will exclude from our notice a large number of
libraries established on other foundations, some of them richly endowed
and partially accessible to the public.

The rapid increase in the number and importance of public libraries,
both in this country and in England,