, but each should be condensed into the smallest
compass consistent with clear statement. Very long reports are costly to
publish, and moreover, have small chance of being read. In fact, the wide
perusal of any report is in direct proportion to its brevity.

This being premised, let us see what topics the librarian's report should
deal with.

1. The progress of the library during the year must be viewed as most
important. A statistical statement of accessions, giving volumes of
books, and number of pamphlets separately, added during the year, should
be followed by a statement of the aggregate of volumes and pamphlets in
the collection. This is ascertained by actual count of the books upon the
shelves, adding the number of volumes charged out, or in the bindery, or
in readers' hands at the time of the enumeration. This count is far from
a difficult or time-consuming affair, as there is a short-hand method of
counting by which one person can easily arrive at the aggregate of a
library of 100,000 volumes, in a single day of eight to ten hours. This
is done by counting by twos or threes the rows of books as they stand on
the shelves, passing the finger rapidly along the backs, from left to
right and from top to bottom of the shelves. As fast as one hundred
volumes are counted, simply write down a figure one; then, at the end of
the second hundred, a figure two, and so on, always jotting down one
figure the more for each hundred books counted. The last figure in the
counter's memorandum will represent the number of hundreds of volumes the
library contains. Thus, if the last figure is 92, the library has just
9,200 volumes. This rapid, and at the same time accurate method, by which
any one of average quickness can easily count two hundred volumes a
minute, saves all counting up by tallies of five or ten, and also all
slow additions of figures, since one figure at the end multiplied by one
hundred, expresses the whole.

2. Any specially noteworthy additions to the library should be briefly
specified.

3. A list of donors of books during the year, with number of volumes
given by each, should form part of the report. This may properly come at
the end as an appendix.

4. A brief of the money income of the year, with sources whence derived,
and of all expenditures, for books, salaries, contingent expenses, etc.,
should form a part of the report, unless reported separately by a
treasurer of the library funds.

5. The statist