The people of Worcester act more wisely. They empty their attics into
the rooms of the American Antiquarian Society or those of the local
Society of Antiquity. Housekeepers there, too, dispose similarly of such
books as turn up in spring cleaning and are found to be in the way. An
extensive system of exchange is in operation under the auspices of the
former society, and books and pamphlets sent to the rooms of either
society, find their way to persons and libraries where they are needed,
and the two antiquarian societies enrich their collections by the
exchanges made.

[5] It is conceivable that after a lifetime of buying whole attics of
rejected books and preserving those which no one would buy at any
price, out of an immense stock there might be a ton of duplicate
schoolbooks, incomplete volumes, and other books and pamphlets which
could not even be given away to any library; since the large libraries
would have copies and the smaller ones would not esteem them worth
shelf room.--M.D.

Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson recently stated that a trustee of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, told him that he spent a considerable part
of his time in refusing gifts offered to the museum. This trustee is
probably wise in declining gifts. There are many books and pamphlets
offered to libraries which they would not find useful. These should be
accepted only on condition that they may be placed wherever they will be
most valuable.

Differentiation is specially desirable in the smallest libraries. When
but little money is available for buying books the small amount should
be spent with closest regard to actual needs of the constituency. Not
infrequently intelligent entertainment and elementary instruction will
be the principles that should guide in selecting books for small
libraries. With intelligent cooperation several small neighboring towns
might adopt to advantage the suggestion that each of them spend a few
dollars a year on a specialty, such as botany, geology, zoology; every
town taking a different specialty and all lending to one another.

This paper favors in the main the selection of books with special
reference to the actual existing needs of the users of the library. Such
an institution as the flourishing public library of Providence, R.I.,
might properly, if allowable for any library in cities of moderate size,
add to its general work some specialty of limited interest. Mr. Foster,
its librarian, has recently stat