Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-02-02
OUR APPETITE FOR BOOKS
Every Volume In the Free Library
Read Four Times on an Average.
Earth Slips That Rock the World
BY GEORGE NOX Mccain
IoHN AsHHURsT, City, Librarian, {

BY GEORGE NOX Mccain
TOHN ASHHURST, City, Librarian, tells
= me that every year $4,000 books in the
library are baled up and sold for old paper
That means that 100 books a day, ap-
proximatcly. for every day in the year are
| destroyed.
1t seems an enormous waste, vet nothing
can be done to prevent It.
The books cast into the discard have been
| completely worn out.
They are soicd, torn, broken and their
corners' broken off by the ear -mark fepds
! who take that method of marking the place
Y in book instead of using a slip Uf paper or
! regular book marker.
| Before these volumes nrc destroyed they
nave been rebound two or three times.
| The torn pages have been mendcd with
transparent paper. The greasy edges have
been trimmed repeatedly.
Finally. repeated bindings and trimming
| of edges have gone so far and the book has
| become SO filthy and such n menace to
! health that 1t is destroyed.
y. .philadelphians apparently have voracious
literary appetites.
TVHE 100000 volumes which comprise the
L Philadelphia Library are read 1000, 900
times every year.
on this same bnsis and the thing were pos
siblc. that one book would be read 2,4DO,-
600, ,O00, 600 times.
Can there be any doubt as to the voracity
OF Ihiladclphians and their literary CO.
pacity?
Nor does this include the reference bools,
of which there are thousands.
rms portion of books of the Philadelphia
Library must be read or consulted without
being taken from the building.
In addition, there are hundreds of books
that visitors are permitted to examine only
under certain conditions.
Ihcrc are maps, plates. cngravings and
other rare riches.
T,llE Free Library this year will receive
l. from the city something over $4OO, 900.
:. only ~ per cent OF this. or say $4,000,
is spent for books
This seems odd. but it is a fact.
moreover, 1t Is fact that cannot be
rcmcdicd. unless the city wants to curtail
It's service to the book ok-reading public.
II such thing were tried, John Ashhurst
and his assistants would be showed under
with indignant protests.
Ot the city's appropriation TO the Free
Library. $500. 900 goes for salaries
notwithstanding this seeming dispropor-
tion. the library assistants of Philadelphia
are among the poorest paid in the country,
There are 400 of them, nearly all women.
Ihcy must be women above the average
In intelligence
Unframed assistants would be worse than
useless around one of our great modern IL
Drhries, ana so these women must undergo
system OF training. either in college or BY
probation In n library.
Then they go to work in PHILADELPHIA. on
the average, at less salafy than q stcnog-
raphcr receives.
NEXT to the item of salaries, which aver
~ age $3.50 per annum for each cmploye.
comes the matter of rent for branch libra
ries. This amounts to So. 900 a year.
Last year it cost $4,000 to bind the
books damaged and worn.
This year only $4,000 has been appro.
priatcd.
The electric light for the twenty eight
branches hes and all the various departments is
1t is the public that damages the books,
and it is the public that must foot the bills
You should see the condition of some of
INC books when they are returned TO us"
said d.. Librarian Ashhnrst.
"Thccy go 70 the bindery. where they are
cleaned and rebound, for if we did not do
thls they would have to be destroyed before
cnded.'' ' Wv"
The greatest lack of the Philadelphia Free
Library today is books for children.
lionairc, who was deprived of books to read
In tn" youthful days Of his poverty, will
provide Il trust fund that can be used OK.
clusiv"ly to provide books for the children
of the city.
Let US hope so. at least
CElSMOLOGISTS are the citizens at the
~ colleges and universities of the world
who sct traps for earthulIakCs
They are the official recorders of Old
Mother Mother, !Earth's attempts to do the
Brothers of the geologlst, they and their
Instruments known ns scismographs, keep
tabs on every shuddcr. trcmor, Quake or
convulsion Of the whirling earth within the
range OF the instruments power.
WITHIN the last sevcnty-two hours every
SeiSmOgraph on the Western lfemisphcrc has
recorded one Of the most violent conyulsions
of the earth ever known
According to the best indications, there
was, out in the Pacific Ocean west of Ore.
gon and possibly hundreds of miles below
sip.'
These things are going on all the time
somewhere, but they do not always manifest
themselves as this latest one has done.
these interior convulsions are not nearly
so unusual as similar phenomena on the
surface Of the earth.
rT1lIE people OF Ireland living in the vlcin-
l. ity Of the Flcsk Valley have good cause
t" remember this time twenty six years ago
1t witnessed the great land slide in
County Kerry.
roaring like the ocean, swept through the
valley.
It finally dumped itself into one of the
lakes Of Killarney.
1t destroyed houses and farms, bridges
and roads.
California, which seems to be the original
home Of the American earthquake. Ind q
similar experience about this time twenty-
two years ago.
One of the giant spurs of San ,Jncinto
| Peak fell into n valley beneath.
IT carried millions of tons of earth and
| rock with it.
1t was n remarkable occurrence for where
! th" valley once stretched the entire area he
| came an abyss.
The weight Of the falling mountain seemed
| TO have crushed the valley for hundreds Of
| feet below its former level.
| LNNGLAND is gradually sinking.
| IL There has been no sudden crumbling
or great slips of earth. IT is slow SUBJ
, Stlonpo