s employed in the library
should be paid by the treasurer.

The meetings of the trustees should be attended by the librarian, who
must always be ready to supply all information as to the workings of the
library, the needs for books, etc. Frequently the trustees divide up the
business before them, appointing sub-committees on book selections, on
library finances, on administration, furnishings, &c., with a view to
prompt action.

If a library receives endowments, money gifts or legacies, they are held
and administered by the trustees as a body corporate, the same as the
funds annually appropriated for library maintenance and increase. Their
annual report to the council, or municipal authorities, should exhibit
the amount of money received from all sources in detail, and the amount
expended for all purposes, in detail; also, the number of books purchased
in the year, the aggregate of volumes in the library, the number of
readers, and other facts of general interest.

All accounts against the library are first audited by the proper
sub-committee, and payment ordered by the full board, by order on the
treasurer. The accounts for all these expenditures should be kept by the
treasurer, who should inform the librarian periodically as to balances.

The selection of books for a public library is a delicate and responsible
duty, involving wider literary and scientific knowledge than falls to the
lot of most trustees of libraries. There are sometimes specially
qualified professional men or widely read scholars on such boards, whose
services in recruiting the library are of great value. More frequently
there are one or more men with hobbies, who would spend the library funds
much too freely upon a class of books of no general interest. Thus, one
trustee who plays golf may urge the purchase of all the various books
upon that game, when one or at most two of the best should supply all
needful demands. Another may want to add to the library about all the
published books on the horse; another, who is a physician, may recommend
adding a lot of medical books to the collection, utterly useless to the
general reader. Beware of the man who has a hobby, either as librarian or
as library trustee; he will aim to expend too much money on books which
suit his own taste, but which have little general utility. Two mischiefs
result from such a course: the library gets books which very few people
read, and its funds are diverted from buying many