and the wreck of blazing libraries,
uttering loud newspaper wails at each new instance of destruction,
forgotten in a week, then cheerfully renewing the business of building
libraries that invite the flames.

Nothing here said should be interpreted as advice not to insure any
library, in all cases where it is not provided with iron cases for the
books, or a fire-proof building. On the contrary, the menaced destruction
of books or manuscripts that cannot be replaced should lead to securing
means in advance for replacing all the rest in case of loss by fire. And
the experience of the past points the wisdom of locating every library in
an isolated building, where risks of fire from other buildings are
reduced to a minimum, instead of in a block whose buildings (as in most
commercial structures) are lined with wood.

You will perhaps attach but small importance at first thought, to the
next insidious foe to library books that I shall name--that is, wetting
by rain. Yet most buildings leak at the roof, sometime, and some old
buildings are subject to leaks all the time. Even under the roof of the
Capitol at Washington, at every melting of a heavy snow-fall, and on
occasion of violent and protracted rains, there have been leaks pouring
down water into the libraries located in the old part of the building.
Each of these saturated and injured its quota of books, some of which
could only be restored to available use by re-binding, and even then the
leaves were left water-stained in part. See to it that your library roof
is water-tight, or the contents of your library will be constantly
exposed to damage against which there is no insurance.

Another besetting danger to the books of our libraries arises from
insects and vermin. These animated foes appear chiefly in the form of
book-worms, cockroaches, and mice. The first-named is rare in American
libraries, though its ravages have extended far and wide among the old
European ones. This minute little insect, whose scientific name is the
_anobium paniceum_, bores through the leaves of old volumes, making
sometimes holes which deface and mutilate the text. All our public
libraries, doubtless, have on their shelves old folios in vellum or
leather bindings, which present upon opening the disagreeable vision of
leaves eaten through (usually before they crossed the sea) by these
pernicious little borers. It is comforting to add, that I have never
known of any book-worm in the Congressi