The Library World Volume 21 Issue 8 Available to Purchase

We rejoice to see that the Council of the Library Association has at last made a step in the direction of drawing the attention of local authorities to the parlous condition of libraries. A well‐worded circular has been sent to the Town Clerk of local councils asking them to signify that they will support a Bill for relieving libraries from the limited rate which has for sixty years stultified their work. We cannot estimate yet what the response is likely to be, but we hope that it will be very considerable and favourable. Even communities which hitherto have shown little enthusiasm for the proposal are now faced with the simple fact that as a mere business proposition they must furnish some relief to their libraries if they want them to continue at all; and the desirability of their continuance has been emphatically signified by the public, whose use of the libraries at present exceeds all precedent in many towns. A town council which voted against the libraries in the circumstances would be merely ridiculous.