The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-02-05

6OCHSt8HS
 sometimes difficult to visualize the type of service rendered by Q ref- erence department. The following questions asked in this department on ono day in 1895 are given to illustrate the variety Of subjects on which people seek information:
 Distribution of wealth since lo3O; Study of old New England door, ways; Statistics concerning cotton manufacture in the United States; List of eye specialists in Boston What states have compulsory auto. mobile insurance.
 To answer the many questions asked each day, the reference de- partment depends not only on It's large collection Of general reference books but also on publications of the United States government and A great deal of miscellaneous paTn- phlet material all of which when c.taloged Is invaluable for refer. ence use.
 Requests for information in the business and industrial department numbered 2,28i. Approximately 1e,. 800 people used this room during the year. Books borrowed from the de- partment numbered TITO, Q gain of 388 over the 1894 figure and the only gain in circulation recorded for the year in any department Of the library. This department, !n addi' ton to books and magazines on business and industry, contains special investment services and . file of out of town telephone dtrec- tories.
 Publicity for the adult depart. ments of the library was obtained chiefly through the weekly 10 irlirs ute broadcaStS on books given throughout the year over station WATR. AS an experiment, these broadcaSts are now being given at l0:00 Q. m. on Monday instead of at 100 D. m. on Thursday. It s be- lievcd that we are reaching more people with this morning hour. A few of the broadcaStS given during i036, were:
 "Diamond Jim Brady; The Ra- dio Industry in Books: "Out Of the Whirlwind"; What Not to Read on your Vacation; Looking in Q book store window; Christmas Book Pa rade.
 Work With Children It would be hard to overestimate the importance of library work with children today when all education is directed toward developing In these elllrden the capacity for lead- ing rich and full adult lives. Con- trary to the belief of Booth Tark- ington that the moving picture, ra- dio and television will completely supplant the printed word in the lives of future generations, librar- ians are still sufficiently optimistic to entertain Q belief that books and reading will form an essential part of any well-rounded existence of the future, even as they do today Modern educational methods would seem to support this conviction, for to what end are the schools of to- day substituting for the formal textbook, collections of books and school libraries, thus emphasizing books and not any one book as tools and sources of Knowledge, if this training is not to establish habits which will carry over into adult life? It is true that losses in chil- dren,s circulation have paralleled losses in adult circulation during the past three years but this fact is not necessarily significant, for is 1t not 8 little soon to expect per- manent results from this new ed- ucation?"
 During the year 1885 circulation lossas from the children's room of the ,entral library and from the school deposit collections totalled some 28,000 volumes, and almost ex- actly equalled losses in adult cir- culation. At the branches, where children's books form 50 large 6 part of the collections, the loss was not so evenly divided, losses In childrens circulation doubling those in adult circulation. The actual number of children's books circu- lated throughout the entire library system, however, was l75,828 VOL tunes. This is the equivalent of l4 books for each child of school age in the city, actually higher aver age than that for the banner year 1892.
 Providing books for home reading is but one phase of library work with children. Throughout the school year many other activities are carried on by the children's de- partment staff, for example,:
 20 school visits were made, 83 classrooms being visited; 3 talks were given by the children's librar- ian to parent teacher and other or- ganizations; 8 classes came to the chiidrens room for instruction in the use of the library; 35 story hours were held at the branch It. braries, and 10 stories for children were broadcast over radio stations WATR and WIXBS, 3 of these dur ing Good Book Week (November l7- 23).
 During Good Book Week also, the following programs were given by school children, in the children'l room of the central library:
 Poetry reading, Elocurn school; In Dictionary Land: . play. Kingsbury school: gnow-White: a maTionette show. Bunker Hill school; The Three Wishes: ularlonette show Bunker Hill school; Mary Ann's Books: . play. Walsh school: Poetry reading, Anderson school.
 The entire picture collection wal revised and enlarged. Important ad- diti0ns to the collection included new pictures following the graded outlines for schools, and ten Comp