f 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.)

Complete volumes of the magazines are in great demand with the
borrowing public. The magazine indexes now available will make useful
to the student the smallest library's supply of periodical literature.

In small reading rooms the periodicals that are supplied should be
placed on tables where readers can consult them without application
to the attendants. Files and racks for newspapers, special devices for
holding illustrated journals, and other things of like nature, are to
be found in great variety.

Post up in the reading room a list of the periodicals regularly
received; also a list of those in the bound files.

A careful record should be kept of each magazine ordered, of the date
when ordered, the date when the subscription begins and expires, the
price paid, the agency from which it is ordered, and the date of that
agency's receipted bill. If the list of journals taken is small this
record can be kept very conveniently in a blank book. If it is large
and constantly growing or changing, it is best kept on cards, a
card to each journal, and all alphabetically arranged. It saves much
trouble when dealing with an agency to have subscriptions coincide
with the calendar year, disregarding the volume arrangements of the
publishers.

CHAPTER XV

List of periodicals for a sm