H.—32a.

is scope for development of the request service for informational books and material. More direct contact between the Country Library Service and the reader with specialized needs would assist in the exploitation of the informational resources of the Service. The local library should not be excluded from this contact, but it is not always the best sole medium for it. Booh Stock in Small Libraries. Differences in the amount spent locally on books, ranging from under £10 to £180, are far greater than can be accounted for by difference in size. Some of the books bought could be supplied more effectively and economically on a circulating basis if expansion of the circulating book-supply could be brought about. Need for a larger supply of books from the Country Library Service is felt most now in the smaller of the free libraries. The extra fifty books allotted to all libraries during the year will have eased the situation for them somewhat, but it is probable that in the case of towns with a population of up to 1,500 a better service would result if the Country Library Service assumed a more complete responsibility for the book service and offered to provide, not necessarily upon an entirely free basis, sufficient books to keep the library going. In any small unit of population (and this applies to populations above the 1,500 mark) a static book stock tends to become little used after a few years, even though the books in it are good. There are two ways, other than the supply of a larger proportion of stock from the Country Library Service, of mitigating that appearance of " sameness " on the shelves which readers find depressing. The "E " service has potentialities as a means of freshening the stock of some "A " as well as " B " libraries, though the wear-and-tear factor limits the extent to which it can be used. Another method would be for some central agency such as the Country Library Service to take from local libraries, either for a small cash payment or on an exchange basis, books which need repair, bind them, and use for distribution elsewhere. This would not only freshen the shelves, it would save the time which conscientious local librarians now spend on rebacking books. Administration. This last point is not so trivial as it may sound. A substantial amount of the time of the staff in many libraries is spent on repair work which, however carefully done, is inferior to a competent tradesman's job. It is this repair work which is partly responsible for the discrepancy which exists between the use made of a library and the time spent by the librarian in it. This discrepancy is due to the fact that although the number of readers in small libraries could be dealt with in a very few hours a week the inconvenience to the public of very limited hours of opening is so great that committees decide to open the library for much longer hours than the use made of it justifies. The only economical way out of the difficulty is to combine the library with some other activity, so that its supervision during quiet periods can be carried on concurrently with other work. A start in this direction has been made in several " A " libraries by staffing the library from the Town Clerk's Office. It is possible tha,t there are other local institutions with which the library might be even more profitably and conveniently connected. Another factor in the hours for which a librarian is employed is the practice, probably justified in small libraries, of adding cleaning to the librarian's duties. In view of the scarcity value of labour for cleaning it is odd that labour-saving devices such as vacuum cleaners are almost unknown. The book-card method of recording issues which has been installed in all participating libraries works satisfactorily. Time and care devoted to cataloguing and classification are erratic, often non-existent, but in the circumstances in which many small libraries function these tasks are, perhaps, less important than the professional librarian is wont to suppose. Far more important is the skill and energy local librarians exhibit in making use of the opportunities for service provided by their contact with the public. Some local libraries possess librarians who are themselves keen readers, who are observant of their readers' interests and quick to connect these interests with books in the library stock or offered to them by the Country Library Service ; but the idea that part of the librarian's duty is to take active steps to exploit the books in his or her charge has not yet penetrated everywhere. Non-participating Libraries. Fifty libraries serving populations of under 10,000 but not participating in the Service were visited during the year. Thirteen of these —i.e., 26 per cent, of the total—have since decided to fulfil the conditions of participation, and are now receiving, or about to receive, books from the Country Library Service. Although here and there objections on principle to going free are still found, the main obstacle to the participation of more local libraries is that in most cases the minimum standard of efficiency demanded, together with the loss of subscriptions, would involve the local authority in some additional expenditure. In this vital matter of the amount of local expenditure necessary to maintain a library at a reasonable standard of efficiency the development of pay collections—by which part of the library's stock is rented, as in a commercial book club—is important. A complete year's figures from such libraries as Levin, Feilding, and Hawera will give more data than is available at present as to the relationship between receipts in an active subscription library and total receipts in the same library if it " goes free " and establishes a pay collection for light, popular fiction. This relationship affects the amount of the subsidy necessary from local funds —the factor upon which the decision regarding participation usually hinges. Not all local Councils judge proposals for the improvement of the local library solely in terms of the amount of expenditure involved. Some are interested in the relation between money spent and value obtained.

6