the record of the books drawn out and returned. Usually, a room can be
had for library purposes in some public building or private house,
centrally located, without other expense than that of warming and
lighting. The services of a librarian, too, can often be secured by
competent volunteer aid, there being usually highly intelligent persons
with sufficient leisure to give their time for the common benefit, or to
share that duty with others, thus saving all the funds for books to
enrich the library.

The chief trouble likely to be encountered by a Library committee will
lie in the selection of books to form the nucleus or starting point of
the collection. Without repeating anything heretofore suggested, it may
be said that great care should be taken to have books known to be
excellent, both interesting in substance and attractive in style. To so
apportion the moderate amount of money at disposal as to give variety and
interest to the collection, and attract readers from the start, is a
problem requiring good judgment for its solution. Much depends upon the
extent of the fund, but even with so small a sum as two or three hundred
dollars, a collection of the very best historians, poets, essayists,
travellers and voyagers, scientists, and novelists can be brought
together, which will furnish a range of entertaining and instructive
reading for several hundred borrowers. The costlier encyclopaedias and
works of reference might be waited for until funds are recruited by a
library fair, or lectures, or amateur concerts, plays, or other evening
entertainments.

Another way of recruiting the library which has often proved fruitful is
to solicit contributions of books and magazines from families and
individuals in the vicinity. This should be undertaken systematically
some time after the subscriptions in money have been gathered in. It is
not good policy to aim at such donations at the outset, since many might
make them an excuse for not subscribing to the fund for founding the
library, which it is to the interest of all to make as large as possible.
But when once successfully established, appeals for books and periodicals
will surely add largely to the collection, and although many of such
accessions may be duplicates, they will none the less enlarge the
facilities for supplying the demands of readers. Families who have read
through all or nearly all the books they possess will gladly bestow them
for so useful a purpose, espec