The Public Library Service of To‐Day: The Carnegie Trust Policy

YOU have asked me to address you on the subject of The Public Library Service of To‐day and the Carnegie Trust Policy in relation thereto. The subject of libraries is large and important, but it is one which people refrain from studying because they are apt to think of a library as a room containing a collection of rather musty old books, and we have to dismiss that idea from our minds before we can actually appreciate what a library is, and what the library service means. I find that in 1692 a work was published under the title of “The Compleat Library or News for the Ingenious, containing several Original Pieces, Notes on Memorable Passages Happening in May, as also the State of Learning in the World, to be Published Monthly.” That was a description in the year 1692.