WHAT PEOPLE READ.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1926, Page 2

WHAT PEOPLE READ.

FIGURES FROM THE LIBRARY. SYSTEM OF CLASSIFICATION. What do the people of New Plymouth read’ They read a good deal if the figures supplied by the public library can be taken as a criterion, There are 13,900 books in circulation to please the varying tastes of about 950 subscribers, including 100 children. Fiction, of course, is the most popular, and of the 7859 books issued during August, 8218 of them were novela taken by adults and 696 children's stories. But chronicles of real life meet with considerable favour, as is evident from the fact that biographies hold second place with a total of 182. Next come works dealing with travel, the number iesued being 155. Literature is third, a fair distance behind, with an issue of 57. The order following that in August was; History (47), sociology (40), fine arts (33), science (20), religion (16), philosophy (10), useful arte (8), and general works (1). Books on languages found no readers at all during the period, but 376 periodicals were izsuedi Classification of all these books !« done on the Dewey system, and the “book eard in book" method of issue is adopted. Their operation was explained to a Daily News reporter by the librarian (Air. E. B. Ellerin). Every book has a pocket inside the cover containing a card bearing particulars of its classification and before the book is taken out this is removed, stamped and placed in a tray in the office. White cards are used for novels, green for non-fiction, red for periodicals and yellow for children’s books. It therefore becomes a simple matter at the end of the day to find tlie totals ol tho number of books issued from each of the four sections. Non-fiction is again divided into ten main classes by means of number*. • Each subject classified has its particular number, which is written on the green card, and by the use of this method there is no difficulty in ascertaining how many books on one or more subjects have been issued. This classification may, however, be carried very much further than is at present found necessary in most libraries.