Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1901-07-06
More Room Is Needed
For Books.
Annual Report of Miss
Edgerton Submitted.
Matters of General Interest Dis.
cussed-Board Meeting.

There is much food for thought in |
the annual report of Miss M. Pauline
Edgerton, City librarian.
1t was submitted to the Library
Board at the regular meeting Friday
evening. The report is complete in
every detail, giving facts and figures
relative to the circulation of books
now owned by the city, calling atten
tion to the needs and necessities of the
library and recommending a number
OF changes that should be made.
The complete report follows:
ANNUAL REPORT.
Gentlemen:
In making my annual report for the
year ending June 80, 1901, 1 cannot
call your attention to any unusual
development in the work of the library
The possibility of library
building was offered us long enough
to give vision of comfortable rooms
and every convenience, and was then
banished to the commodius shelter of
many of our aspirations. Free from
the debt incurred by our change of
quarters, new books have been pur-
chased freely. The partial filing Of
| the broken sets of magazines will
seem of great benefit. No set of refer
| ence books is used as much as Pools
Index to Periodicals. The more COM
plete the magazine files, the more sat
isfactory the research. 1 would rec
ommend that this department of the
library be generously considered each
year in the purchase of books.
FICTION IN DEMAND,
The issue of books for home reading
varies little from that of last year.
There has been AN increase in the
juvenile readers, and slight decrease
in the issue of fiction. Thomas Gray,
of Elegiac fame, bas said, ''To lie
upon a couch and read new novels is
no bad idea of paradise" Whether
the issue of 80 132 novels during the
year past has afforded just so many
glmpses of paradise is matter OF
conjecture. 1t is undoubtedly true that
) they have afforded recreation to great
many. Reports Of libraries with re-
cussion in the new spapers and mag
azines, and the enevtable dramatlZa'
tion, have all tended to the circulation
of fiction. Author after author has
been heralded as a future George
Eliot or an Embryo Thackeray, to be
superseded in turn by IL youthful
Shakespeare.
The circulation of books during the
year among the 4.SS4 ticket holders
was as follows:
Fiction, 3O,132.
Juvenile, 1916
+ German, 1,495.
History, 1900.
Biography, 1,403
Science, 2,660.
Miscellaneous, 2,314.
Poetry, 1908.
y Nine hundred and seventy.six vol
@ umes of music were circulated--1, ,46
e volumes have been added to the Ii
;. brary and AL volumes discarded.
Total number of volumes on th
shelves is 20,357. A portion only Of tn
new German books has been place
on the shelves.
Five thousand and three volume
It have been mended in the library, an
|, $27975 has been expended in binding
A complete catalogue of fiction, incluC
ing juvenile fiction, was printed in Sci
= tember. Cards have been written fc
~ all new books added, and indexin
has been done where the subject d.
m manded.
is ADDITIONAL ROOM NEEDED.
d. Our shelving capacity is about e.
rs haustcd. The book cases the rea
of the room might be moved near'
together. making room for new ro