The Frankfort roundabout. [volume] (Frankfort, Ky.) 1882-1908, 1893-01-28
A PUBLIC LIBRARY.
A Great Need for Want of Which
Ladies Will Organize a Pri-
vate Circulating Library
That May Yet Take
Wider Steps.

This city, the Capital of the State,
center of refinement and culture,
has no public library, from which
those who are too poor to buy good
reading matter, can obtain the loan
of books or the use of chair in a
room with fire and light to read by
in peace and comfort, away from the
cares and sorrows of life and out Of
sight and hearing of loafers, gossips
or other enfeebling or vicious infu-
ences, to which, without counter at
traction, they might readily succumb.
Poor people have no means by which
they can provide their children, aside
from school text books, with such
reading as their tastes may lead them
to select, and, in consequence, such
children grow up in comparative ig-
norance of history, biography, po-
etry, science and general literature,
which often give the mind direction
and power. The ladies of Midway
and greensboro and other towns in
this State a few months ago success
fully established public library from
the proceeds of entainments and the
cooperation Of those who were dis
posed to aid the cause by the contri-
button of books or money, and now
the citizens Of those towns refer to
their institutions with pride as
place of great resort and public ne
cessity. The sum of one hundred
dollars, judiciously expended, would
buy at the present low prices of
books, at least one hundred and fifty
well bound volumes, which, if sup
plemented by a small contribution
from the many private selections in
the city of such works as the owners
may not care to preserve any longer,
or may have in later or more COM
plete editions, duplicated copies,
would give the movement start that
would not cease until. the public Ii
brary of Frankfort was established
on a secure and permanent basis,
wide reaching in the scope OF its in
huence and furnishing the strangers
the evidence of general culture in the
city that a private library reflects
upon the individual in his home.
AS a public library appears to be
one of the unattainable things for
Frankfort, a number of ladies in the
city have conceived the plan of or
private circulating library,
with the ultimate purpose in view
that if it should prove agreeable to
the club the books might be retained
as a nucleus for public library, to
which they would be donated when
ever the number would justify the
opening of such an institution, or the
people of the city would show dis
position to take hold of the matter
and inaugurate a movement to that
end. At present, however, it is pure
ly private club that a number of
ladies on the South Side intend to
form, at a meeting to be held for that
purpose next Wednesday afternoon,
at the residence of Mrs. Kate Mauer.
On Shelby street. Already twenty la
dies have signified their intention of
becoming members, and by the time
IF the first meeting it is believed that
ls many as forty will have subscribed
% the movement. The initiation fee
will be one dollar, and dues ten or
fifteen cents a month. With this
money such books will be bought as
zach member may indicate, and at
stated periods a general exchange
will take place until the round of
he club has been made with the /
copies purchased. There will be no
duplicate copies and each book will {
20 numbered, and at the end of the