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We now come to consider the annual reports of librarians. These should be made to the trustees or board of library control, by whatever name it may be known, and should be addressed to the chairman, as the organ of the board. In die preparation of such reports, two conditions are equally essential---conciseness and comprehensiveness. Every item in the administration, frequentation, and increase of the library should be separately treated, but each should be condensed into the smallest compass consistent with clear statement. Very long reports are costly to publish, and moreover, have small chance of being read. In fact, the wide perusal of any report is in direct proportion to its brevity. This being premised, let us see what topics the librarian's report should deal with. 1. The progress of the library during the year must be viewed as most important. A statistical statement of accessions, giving volumes of books, and number of pamphlets separately, added during the year, should be followed by a statement of the aggregate of volumes and pamphlets in the collection. This is ascertained by actual count of the books upon the shelves, adding the number of volumes charged out, or fu the bindery, or in readers' hands at the time of the enumeration. This count is far from a difficult or time-consuming affair, as there is a short-hand method of counting by which one person can easily arrive at the aggregate of a library of 100,000 volumes, in a single day of eight to ten hours. This is done by counting by twos or threes the rows of books as they stand on the shelves, passing the finger rapidly along the backs, from left to right and from top to bottom of the shelves. As fast as one hundred volumes are counted, simply write down a figure one; then, at the end of the second hundred, a figure two, and so on, always jotting down one figure the more for each hundred books counted. The last figure in the counter's memorandum will represent the number of hundreds of volumes the library contains. Thus, if the last figure is 92, the library has just 9,200 volumes. This rapid, and at the same time accurate method, by which any one of average quickness can easily count two hundred volumes a minute, saves all counting up by tallies of five or ten, and also all slow additions of figures, since one figure at the end multiplied by one hundred, expresses the whole. 2. Any specially noteworthy additions to the library should be briefly specified. 3. A list of donors of books during the year, with number of volumes given by each, should form part of the report. This may properly come at the end as an appendix. 4. A brief of the money income of the year, with sources whence derived, and of all expenditures, for books, salaries, contingent expenses, etc., should form a part of the report, unless reported separately by a treasurer of the library funds. 5. The statistics of a librarian's report, if of a lending library, should give the aggregate number of volumes circulated during the year, also the number of borrowers recorded who have used and who have not used the privilege of borrowing. The number of volumes used by readers in the reference or reading-room department should be given, as well as the aggregate of readers. It is usual in some library reports to classify the books used by readers, as, so many in history, poetry, travels, natural science, etc., but this involves labor and time quite out of proportion to its utility. Still, a comparative statement of the aggregate volumes of fiction read or drawn out, as against all other books, may be highly useful as an object lesson, if embodied in the library report. 6. A statement of the actual condition of the library, as to books, shelving accommodations, furniture, etc., with any needful suggestions for improvement, should be included in the annual report. 7. A well-considered suggestion of the value of contributions to the library in books or funds to enrich the collection, should not be overlooked. 8. The librarian should not forget a word of praise for his assistants, in the great and useful work of carrying on the library. This will tend to excite added zeal to excel, when the subordinates feel that their services are appreciated by their head, as well as by the public. The preparation of an annual report affords some test of the librarian's skill and judgment. It should aim at plain and careful statement, and all rhetoric should be dispensed with. Divided into proper heads, a condensed statement of facts or suggestions under each should be made, and all repetition avoided. Such a library report should never fail to set forth the great benefit to the community which a free use of its treasures implies, while urging the importance of building up the collection, through liberal gifts of books, periodicals, or money, thus enabling it to answer the wants of readers more fully, year by year. It will sometimes be a wise suggestion to be made in a librarian's report, that the library still lacks some specially important work, such as Larned's "History for Ready Reference," or the extensive "Dictionary of National Biography," or Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, or a set of Congressional Debates from the beginning; and such a suggestion may often bear fruit in leading some public-spirited citizen to supply the want by a timely contribution.

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