THE PUBLIC TASTE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3827, 30 October 1936, Page 9

THE PUBLIC TASTE

A LIBRARIAN’S COMMENT. 5 ’ Liverpool’s public libraries seem to take the highest place among the libraries in England, where the demand for works of fiction has decreased and 'that decrease has been balanced by the greater interest hi wonks of the non-fiction type. Tift chief librarian of Croydon (Mr Berwick Sayers), who delights in the sympathetic study of public taste ih reading, when asked of his experience, said that while a small percentage of the people who only waiit books that will amuso them have fallen away from his library—and K‘ did not consider their defection important—there had been a consife erable rise in the issue of books & a more seirious character. It looked, says the “Manchester Guardian,” as if the rather smaller number of readers were taking their reading moie seriously. He was interested in tKc figures from Liverpool nearly 70,000 more serious books were issued—but pointed out that they we«|b inconsiderable in regard to the millions of books issued annually. » I