e:

_Number._ _Volumes_.

500- 1,000 Volumes 925 592,510
1,000- 2,000 " 762 983,953
2,000- 3,000 " 362 816,928
3,000- 4,000 " 236 765,010
4,000- 5,000 " 156 667,874
5,000- 10,000 " 264 1,703,271
10,000- 20,000 " 152 2,013,660
20,000- 50,000 " 82 2,329,305
50,000-100,000 " 10 640,617
100,000-200,000 " 7 926,727
Over 200,000 " 2 599,869

What is to be the future of American libraries? The most obvious
discernible facts are that the popular energies are likely to be given
to the support of free town libraries, and that the aggregate of book
accumulations will be enormous, though no individual collection now
presents the likelihood of rising to extreme proportions; the increase
will come by the growth of the numerous small libraries. The mercantile
institutions have done and are continuing a good work, but they have
prepared the way for a step beyond. Free town libraries are quite in
sympathy with American ideas, and will be supported. They are capable of
being made good means of disseminating information. It is fortunate that
in this country novels belong to the cheapest publications, most of the
good ones appearing in fifty-cent and dollar editions. More solid works
are also costlier, so that a popular library can with good reason give
its energies to the collection of really good works, leaving the people
to supply themselves with the cheaper novels.

Numerous as are the views which have been expressed upon the proper
scope and quality of the library of the future, we propose to add one
to the list of suggestions. It is that the next founder of a library
should confine it entirely to _periodicals_. It is through current
literature that every kind of science and every tendency of thought now
finds expression. The profoundest discussions in philosophy,
discoveries in knowledge, keenest studies of life and character, are
now made through the world's weekly and monthly publications. Books are
often no more than summaries of what has been printed before in
separate magazines. We have in fact heard of one gentleman who broke up
the library he had spent years in collecting, and gave his attention to
periodicals