k to the reader who stands in need of immediate use and
reference. We have to take it for what it is--a collection of masterly
treatises, rather than a handy dictionary of knowledge.

The usefulness and success of any library will depend very largely upon
the sympathy, so to speak, between the readers and the librarian. When
this is well established, the rest is very easy. The librarian should not
seclude himself so as to be practically inaccessible to readers, nor
trust wholly to assistants to answer their inquiries. This may be
necessary in some large libraries, where great and diversified interests
connected with the building up of the collection, the catalogue system,
and the library management and administration are all concerned. In the
British Museum Library, no one ever sees the Principal Librarian; even
the next officer, who is called the keeper of the printed books, is not
usually visible in the reading-room at all.

A librarian who is really desirous of doing the greatest good to the
greatest number of people, will be not only willing, but anxious to
answer inquiries, even though they may appear to him trivial and
unimportant. Still, he should also economise time by cultivating the
habit of putting his answers into the fewest and plainest words.

How far the librarian should place himself in direct communication with
readers, must depend largely upon the extent of the library, the labor
required in managing its various departments, the amount and value of
assistance at his command, and upon various other circumstances,
depending upon the different conditions with different librarians. But it
may be laid down as a safe general rule, that the librarian should hold
himself perpetually as a public servant, ready and anxious to answer in
some way, all inquiries that may come to him. Thus, and thus only, can he
make himself, and the collection of books under his charge, useful in the
highest degree to the public. He will not indeed, in any extensive
library, find it convenient, or even possible, to answer all inquiries in
person; but he should always be ready to enable his assistants to answer
them, by his superior knowledge as to the best sources of information,
whenever they fail to trace out what is wanted. In any small library, he
should be always accessible, at or near the place where people are
accustomed to have their wants for books or information supplied: and the
public resorting to the library will thus