58. Where it is thought necessary to keep records of the occupations of readers, a blank line for the name of the occupation is included on the application voucher (see Section 368) from which the records are made.

59. It is not usual to keep formal statistics of the number of visitors to newspaper and periodical rooms; the attendances are either not recorded or are estimated. In some cases, however, a daily count is made at monthly or other intervals and the yearly attendance is gauged from this. It is obvious that such figures have no great value. A series of visits to the rooms will assure any librarian or member of committee of the amount of use that is made of them equally well.

60. Brief paragraphs, presenting the record of work weekly or monthly, and the number of borrowers, are sometimes sent to the local newspapers. This is a good plan, and the matter is more acceptable if presented in literary rather than in merely tabular form. At each meeting of the library committee a fairly complete statistical record of the work since the last meeting is presented, in which the factors we have discussed, together with the percentage of fiction issued, and comparisons with the corresponding weeks or months of the previous year, are made. The committee is thus kept closely acquainted with the results of its work.

61. The Annual Report.—The annual report of the library committee is the summary and crown of its labours, and is often the most direct means of contact between the committee and the community. Such reports deserve more attention than is commonly given to them by librarians, and in this matter the American librarian—who is essentially a business man and does not often produce useless documents—may give hints to his British brethren. A report should be a complete history of the operations of the library in all its departments; and if improvement is necessary it is in the direction of reducing the mere statistical and in increasing the literary matter to be included. Elaborate tables of issue, stock, etc., of central and branch libraries have a use for the librarian and may be kept at the libraries, but their publication is of interest to few other people, and they are better given in summary. Plain and clear reports, in which comparisons with other libraries by name should be avoided, and which present the salient statistics without the use of confusingly elaborate tables, give the best results. Illustrations and an occasional diagram rendering in graphic form the statistical results of work are not necessarily superfluous, and may brighten the report considerably. The report will not be a less authoritative document if it is attractive. The information which a library report ought to convey may be indicated briefly as follows:

Title-page.

List of members of committee and library staff.

Narrative report.

[This is the most interesting feature from the public point of view. It is usually a review of the year founded upon the statistics, etc., in the appendix, and is properly presented as if written by the committee and signed by the chairman. Frequently, however, it takes the form of a report written by the librarian to the committee, to be adopted as the[65] committee’s report. Each method has advantages. The committee can appeal to the council upon any part of its policy with greater authority than the librarian. On the other hand, the librarian can express views of the work and needs of the library from his own standpoint. The character of the document, however, would seem to require that a report should be the committee’s. Sometimes, as usually in America, the question is solved by having a brief report from the committee, followed by a longer one from the librarian.]

Appendix of documents:—The following forms may be used conveniently to present the statistical record:—

Stock

  Central. Branches. Total. Grand Total.
Class. Refer-
ence.		 Lend-
ing.		 Refer-
ence.		 Lend-
ing.		 Refer-
ence.		 Lend-
ing.		 Report
Year.		 Last
Year.
0 000 000 000 000 000 000 0000 0000
1
2
3
etc.
Total

Number of volumes added during the year, with proportions purchased and donated. Grand total purchased. . . . . . Do. donated. . . . . . . . Number of volumes worn-out and withdrawn. Other particulars in brief paragraph form.

Issues

  Central. Branches. Total. Grand Total.
Class. Refer-
ence.		 Lend-
ing.		 Refer-
ence.		 Lend-
ing.		 Refer-
ence.		 Lend-
ing.		 Report
Year.		 Last
Year.
0
1
2
3
etc.
Total
Averages

Columns for juvenile and other departments, if they exist, must, of course, be included.

Borrowers

Total number report year and last year. Number holding extra or students’ tickets.

Reading Rooms

Attendances at newsrooms, magazine rooms, etc.

List of donations.

Lists of periodicals and annuals (only if no other means of revising printed list is available).

Financial statement. (See Section 50.)

Memoranda relating to district, showing population, area, valuation, date when Acts adopted, date of opening building, other leading facts.

62. Library Association Summary.—The appendix outlined above may be reduced considerably by substituting for most of the items a summary in the form recommended by the Library Association. The financial statement, however, should always be given in full, even by libraries the accounts of which are kept by the municipal treasurer or accountant. It is clearly impossible to gauge the character of any library’s work if the distribution of expenditure in performing it is not shown. The summary recommended by the Library Association resembles a summary used in American library reports, and is the outcome of a suggestion made to a meeting of the North Central Library Association in 1916 by Mr E. L. Hetherington, then Secretary of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. Its purpose is not only to present the statistics of libraries in a succinct and simple manner, but by its general adoption to secure a uniform record from all libraries by which satisfactory comparisons may be made. No library report should appear without this summary, even if the librarian chooses to retain his more elaborate tables; and, in view of its utility and the proposed generalness of its use, we append it in full with the Library Association’s explanatory notes.

General Statistics:

(i) Population as at last Census.
(ii) Amount of rate in the pound.
(iii) Cost of Library Service per inhabitant.
(iv) Total Cost of Library per inhabitant.
(v) Number of Separate Establishments.
(vi) Number of Staff—Librarians and Assistants.
  (a) Whole Time—Male.
(b) Whole Time—Female.
(c) Part Time—Male.
(d) Part Time—Female.
(e) Total—Male—Female.

Income and Expenditure:

Income. £ s. d. % of Total
Income.
  (i) From rate    
(ii) From other sources
(iii) Total income
  £ s. d. % of Total
Expenditure.
Library
Service
Expenditure		 -   (i) Books    
(ii) Binding and Repairing
(iii) Printing of Catalogues
(iv) Newspapers and Periodicals not permanently retained
(v) Library Fittings and Furniture
(vi) Printing, Stationery, Office Requisites
(vii) Salaries of Librarians and Assistants
(viii) Total
  £ s. d. % of Total
Income.
Fabric
Charges		 -   (ix) Rents and Loans    
(x) Rates and Taxes
(xi) Upkeep of Buildings
(xii) Heating, Lighting and Cleaning, including wages
(xiii) Total
(xiv) Total Expenditure

Stocks.
  1
Lending.		 2
Reference.
(i) Number of volumes at beginning of year    
(ii) Volumes withdrawn during year
(iii) Additions during year
(iv) Total volumes at end of year
(v) Number of replacements during year
(vi) Volumes per head of population according to last Census
Issues.
  Total. Daily
Average.
(i) Lending Library Issues    
(ii) Children’s Reading Room Issues
(iii) Reference Library Recorded Issues
(iv) Reference Library Open Shelves (estimated)
(v) Issues from Lending Library (see (i) above) per head
of population according to last census
Borrowers.
(i) Percentage of Borrowers to population.
(ii) Number of Supplementary Readers’ Tickets held.
(iii) Total Borrowers’ Tickets in use.

Instructions to be Studied in Preparation of the Figures Detailed Above

General.

1. Asterisks with relative foot-notes should be placed against any figure which includes abnormalities; for example, if any item of the expenditure includes certain special or non-recurring charges, the amount of that expenditure should be detailed in a foot-note with an explanation of the item.

General Statistics.

2. Head (iii) should express in pence the cost of the total library service—per inhabitant according to last census.

3. Similarly head (iv) should express the cost of the total library expenditure per inhabitant.

4. Head (v) asks for the number of separate establishments. The[69] figure should include the central library, but if delivery stations are also included the number of such subsidiary establishments should be stated in a footnote.

Income.

5. Head (i) should be confined solely to the income from the library rate.

6. Head (ii) should include income from all other sources, whether from interest on investments, rents, sales of catalogues, fines or special subscriptions or donations.

Expenditure.

7. Under head (iv) should be included only the cost of periodicals not permanently retained. In cases of periodicals which are subsequently bound and added to the permanent library stocks, their cost should be included under head (i) books and head (ii) binding.

8. Care should be taken that head (vii) should be confined to the salary payments made to the library staff proper. All wages paid to caretakers, cleaners, messengers and the like, should be included under head (xii).

9. It will be observed that there is no separate heading for “miscellaneous” or “other items.” It is desired that all items of expenditure should be allocated to the headings detailed above.

Stocks.

10. It is recognized that the word book or volume has no definite technical meaning, and is usually an indeterminate expression useful for popular purposes.

It may therefore be useful to make the following definitions for the guidance of the Libraries:—

Volumes mean books as they stand on the shelves.

Pieces mean separate works or parts (each usually having a separate title-page to itself, as with pamphlets, parts of periodicals, and the like).

Papers mean lesser items, usually with less than 5 pages, as broadsides, cards, fly-sheets.

Items mean volumes, pieces and papers.

Works mean whole literary productions whether in several volumes or only one piece.

Thus: Ten pamphlets bound together, with five broadsides at end, are one volume, ten works or pieces, fifteen items. A dictionary in twenty volumes would count as twenty volumes, pieces and items, but one work, and in a sense one book.

Having regard to these definitions care should be taken, in recording the number of volumes in a library, to reckon ten pamphlets or parts as the equivalent of a single volume.

Issues.

11. Head (iii) should give the issues from the reference library actually recorded.

12. Head (iv) should give the estimated use made of the books from the open shelves of the reference library.

13. Sunday use of libraries should be separately recorded.

Bibliography

63. Statistics:

Hetherington, A. L. Library Statistics. In L.A. Record, v. 19, p. 3, 1917. [Also separately.]

For articles, see Cannons, E 135, Library Statistics.

64. Annual Report:

Bostwick, A. E. Administration of a Public Library. In A.L.A., Man. of Lib. Econ. Preprint of chapter xii., 1911.

For articles, see Cannons, E 136, Annual Report.