ian
of the books in his collection. He should also exercise perpetual
vigilance with regard to their safety and condition. The books of every
library are beset by dangers and by enemies. Some of these are open and
palpable; others are secret, illusive, little suspected, and liable to
come unlooked for and without warning. Some of these enemies are
impersonal and immaterial, but none the less deadly; others are
personally human in form, but most inhuman in their careless and brutal
treatment of books. How far and how fatally the books of many libraries
have been injured by these ever active and persistent enemies can never
be adequately told. But we may point out what the several dangers are
which beset them, and how far the watchful care of the librarian and his
assistants may fore-stall or prevent them.

One of the foremost of the inanimate enemies of books is dust. In some
libraries the atmosphere is dust-laden, to a degree which seems
incredible until you witness its results in the deposits upon books,
which soil your fingers, and contaminate the air you breathe, as you
brush or blow it away. Peculiarly liable to dust are library rooms
located in populous towns, or in business streets, and built close to
the avenues of traffic. Here, the dust is driven in at the windows and
doors by every breeze that blows. It is an omnipresent evil, that cannot
be escaped or very largely remedied. As preventive measures, care should
be taken not to build libraries too near the street, but to have ample
front and side yards to isolate the books as far as may be consistent
with convenient access. Where the library is already located immediately
on the street, a subscription for sprinkling the thoroughfare with water,
the year round, would be true economy.

In some cities, the evils of street dust are supplemented by the
mischiefs of coal smoke, to an aggravated degree. Wherever soft coal is
burned as the principal fuel, a black, fuliginous substance goes floating
through the air, and soils every thing it touches. It penetrates into
houses and public buildings, often intensified by their own interior use
of the same generator of dirt, and covers the books of the library with
its foul deposits. You may see, in the public libraries of some western
cities, how this perpetual curse of coal smoke has penetrated the leaves
of all the books, resisting all efforts to keep it out, and slowly but
surely deteriorating both paper and bindings. He