"READING" IN A "LIBRARY" OF SOUND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 201, 26 August 1930, Page 6

"READING" IN A "LIBRARY" OF SOUND.

i Many unusual services are offered by public libraries, but one of the most interesting recently noticed is that performed by a branch library of New York (says the "Christian Science Monitor"). It contains a sound-proof room equipped with a fine phonograph where people may go by appointment to hear their favourite music. Fifteen hundred records are on file, most of them symphonies, operatic numbers and other standard works. If the cry raised by educationists that taste in music is being lamentably lowered by the influence of the radio is to be believed, a project such as this would appear unlikely to prosper. But the contrary is true. The music room is patronised every minute of the nine hours a day it is open. Several hundred people apply every month and appointments are made weeks in advance. Besides music lovers who go to hear their favourite pieces, musicians, concert soloists and members of orchestra,s come to study different works as -gtufi igp. iwaaqns astasts.