pleasure; and in them he hopes to awaken a taste for reading
something--in time something good. To attract the children it will be
wise to have on file a few juvenile journals and picture papers and
illustrated magazines. As to the standard and popular monthlies
and quarterlies there seems to be no question; they should be taken
freely. The magazines furnish us with the best fiction, the best
poetry, the best essays, the best discussions of all subjects, old
and new, and the latest science. It is a question if many a village
library would not do more, vastly more, to stimulate the mental life
of its community, and to broaden its views and sympathies, and to
encourage study, if it diverted a far larger part of its income than
it now does from inferior books, and especially inferior novels, to
weekly journals and popular and standard magazines. It is not yet
fully impressed upon us that the thing the community needs is not a
"library"--it may have a street lined with "libraries" and still dwell
in the outer darkness--but contact with the printed page. Get
this contact first, then, by means of attractive rooms, and clean,
wholesome, interesting periodicals and books, and let the well rounded
students' collection of books come on as it will.

From 5 to 20 per cent can very often be saved on the cost of
periodicals by ordering them through a reliable subscription agency.

The custom is extending of taking extra numbers of the popular
magazines and lending them as if they were books though generally for
a shorter period and without the privilege of renewal. When this is
done, put each magazine in a binder made for the purpose, and marked
with the library's name, to keep it clean and smooth, and to identify
it as library property. Similar binders are often put on the magazines
which are placed in the reading rooms. (See Library Bureau catalog.)