ild as he passes through the rooms comes into close contact with
a new collection each year. There are some advantages in having the
ownership and control of these libraries remain entirely in the hands
of the school board and the superintendent. The library, however,
is generally the place in the community in which is to be found the
greatest amount of information about books in general, the purchasing
of them, the proper handling of them in fitting them for the shelves,
cataloging, binding, etc., and the selection of those best adapted to
young people. It is quite appropriate therefore, that, as is in many
cities the case, the public library should supply the schools with
these schoolroom libraries from its own shelves, buying therefor
special books and often many copies of the same book.

If schoolroom libraries do come from the public library, they can
with very little difficulty be changed several times during the school
year. With a little care on the part of the librarian and teachers,
the collection of any given room can be by experience and observation
better and better adapted to the children in that room as time goes
on.

There are many ways of using the schoolroom library. The books forming
it should stand on open shelves accessible to the pupils whenever the
teacher gives permission. They may be lent to the children to take
home. Thus used they often lead both children and parents to read more
and better books than before, and to use the larger collections of
the public library. They may be used for collateral reading in the
schoolroom itself. Some of them may be read aloud by the teacher. They
may serve as a reference library in connection with topics in history,
geography, science, and other subjects.

Wherever introduced these libraries have been very successful.

CHAPTER LII

Children's home libraries

In a few cities the following plan for increasing the amount of good
reading among the children of the poorer and less educated has been
tried with great success. It is especially adapted to communities
which are quite distant from the public library or any of its
branches. It is, as will be seen, work which is in the spirit of the
college settlement plan. The "home libraries," if they do no more,
serve as a bond of common interest between the children and their
parents, and the persons who wish to add to their lives something of
interest and good cheer. As a matter of fact they do more tha