The Library World Volume 32 Issue 9

PUBLIC librarians have had some experience of economy in this last month at the considering of annual estimates. In many towns, unfortunately, an increase in the general rates is reported, and in all such times libraries are likely to suffer. The note we make below on Yarmouth does not show that one of the causes of the curious municipal hysteria it reveals was the burning desire to reduce the rates. That desire is in itself wholly laudable, and librarians can acquiesce in economies that do not discriminate against libraries. Our trouble is that libraries have nowhere yet been adequately financed, and reductions are more serious for them than for many departments which have never suffered from utter lack of means.