Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1899-07-12
CITY pUBLICLIBRARY.
It Has Proven a Great Success and Is a Popular Re-
SQUIRT 'or Old and Youus-risst Annual Report Of
the Beard as Rendered to the City Council.

The library was opened to the public
or May 10th, 1898, and the following
table shows the number of books with.
drawn since that time up to July 1899:
May. 1898. $50, June 748, July 100 An
gust 100. September 500, October 1.02O,
November 1,0S6, December 81. ,Janu-
airy, 1899, 1856, February S53, March
909, April 791, May S1a, June S31. Total
for IA months, II. S27.
OF the above number 5, 300 have been
Withdrawn by children under Is and
|, 52I by persons over that age. With
drawals by sex are 1850 by males and
7,577 by females.
The classification of books withdrawn
is as follows: History. biography, trav-
el and miscellaneous, /, 1853; fiction, 5907
juvenile, 4.657.
The reading room in connection with
the library, has been kept open during
every week day, afternoon and evening,
and a portion of the time during the
forenoon. An approximate account of
the number of visitors (actual readers)
is as follows; May, 1898, 288, June AZ,
July 451, August 427, September 476,
October STA, November asa, December
512, January, 1893, 400, February 374,
March 440. April 313, May 345, June
1927. Total, 6,179. These figures show
that the public reading room has become
an institution for permanent good,
affording to a very large class oppor-
tunities in the way of becoming familiar
with the best class of periodical litera-
ture that cannot be enjoyed within the
home circle. The magazines, papers
and periodicals kept upon the reading
room tables are of the best class of cur
rent literature, and it is the intention of
the board to bind many of them in per-
manent form as additions to the library.
At the time of opening the library in
May, 1898, there were on hand donaxad
by the old library association, 424
volumes; at the date of the present re-
port there are on hand I, 035 volumes or.
n gain of GIL. These volumes are regis
tered and numbered and constitute the
circulating books of the library. There
are in addition to the above number
about 300 miscellaneous pamphlets and
government reports, unregistered, which
are used for reference. OF the above
accessions to the registered volumes
lat volumes have been contributed by
various persons and 465 volumes have
been purchased at a cost of $349. 40. The
aim of the board of directors has been
to keep the expense of maintenance as
low as possible and add as rapidly as
possible to the stock of books; in the
purchase of books it has been the pur-
pose of the board to supply popular
books in the various branches of itera-
ture; a public library can only be made
popular by keeping the clientage sup
piled with popular literature. The IL
brary is still deficient in many essentials,
but it is the purpose of the board to
gradually supply the shelves with
standard literature which is still lack
ing. Comparison with the reports of
other libraries of about the same size
show that the Viroqua library. is much
better ~patronized than most of them.
The salary of the librarian, Rev. Vim.
Haughton, was originally fixed at 5000
per year; on January LIST, 1899, it was
raised to $240 per year, which is deemed
by the board sufficient, having in view
the number of patrons and the resources
of the board. At the present time there
are S64 card holders which represents,
approximately, the number of persons
taking books from the library; it is esti-
mated that this number represents
nearly every family in the city.
OF the stock of registered volumes on
hand at the date of this report the CLASH
cation is as follows: