se of a year nearly 35,000 new applications are made for the use of
its branch libraries, scattered over different parts of the city. What
brings these people to the library? This is no idle question. The number
of library users, large as it is, represents too small a fraction of our
population. If it is a good thing to provide free reading matter for our
people--and every large city in the country has committed itself to the
truth of this proposition--we should certainly try to see that what we
furnish is used by all who need it. Hence an examination into the motives
that induce people to make their first use of a free public library may
bring out information that is not only interesting but useful. To this end
several hundred regular users of the branches of the New York Public
Library were recently asked this question directly, and the answers are
tabulated and discussed below. In each of sixteen branch libraries the
persons interrogated numbered forty--ten each of men, women, boys and
girls. Thirty answers have been thrown out for irrelevancy or
defectiveness. The others are classified in the following table:

A B C D E F G H I J K L Totals

Men 6 64 10 .. .. .. 37 20 3 1 9 4 154
Boys 38 63 28 .. 4 3 9 6 5 .. .. 3 159
Women 12 67 14 4 .. .. 20 21 2 1 2 5 148
Girls 33 69 34 .. .. .. 5 3 3 .. .. 2 149
Total 89 263 86 4 4 3 71 50 13 2 11 14 610

Col. A: Sent or Told by Teacher
Col. B: Sent or Told by Friend
Col. C: Sent or Told by Relative
Col. D: Sent or Told by Clergyman
Col. E: Sent or Told by Library Assistant
Col. F: Through Reading Room
Col. G: Saw Building
Col. H: Saw Sign
Col. I: Saw Library Books
Col. J: Saw Bulletin
Col. K: Saw Article in Paper
Col. L: Sought Library

It will be seen that the vast majority of those questioned were led to the
library by some circumstance other than the simple desire to find a place
where books could be obtained. Of more than six hundred persons whose
answers are here recorded only fourteen found the library as the result of
a direct search for it prompted by a desire to read. In a majority of the
other cases, of course, perhaps in all of them, the desire to read had its
part, but this desire was awakened by hearing a mention of the library or
by seeing it or something connected with it. These dete