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Towards the close of the same year, the Estates Governors
of Dulwich College gave a capital site at the corner of Woodwarde
Road, and in the following April temporary premises were taken
in Lordship Lane, where a Lending Department and News and
Magazine Rooms were at once put into use. A good opportunity
presents itself for a Dulwich donor to do for that delightful district
what Livesey and Minet have done for their respective portions
of the Parish, and erect on the Dulwich Site what would prove a
permanent monument of munificence and a source of incalculable
good to future generations.
The Commissioners have thus the Minet (Joint) Library, the
Livesey Library, and two sets of Temporary Premises, Peckham
and Dulwich, under their administration. The Peckham premises
will shortly be vacated, as the Central Library in the Peckham
Road, the site for which was purchased in 1891, is nearing completion.
The unused portion of this site has been purchased by
the Vestry as an open space, and the £1,000 to be paid for it will
enable the Commissioners to largely diminish the loan raised for
the purchase.
A capital site at Nunhead in Gordon Road, near Nunhead
Green, has been secured, and with a good Library here, the Parish
would be well provided throughout.
During the comparatively short time the Libraries Acts have
been in operation in this Parish, no less than 1,407,369 books
have been issued to borrowers, a number which is certainly
phenomenal in the history of the libraries movement in London.
It is hoped that the Central Library will be opened in the
autumn; and the event will mark an interesting point in the
development of local history. In erecting a Central Library, the
Commissioners have recognised the necessity and widelyexpressed
desire for facilities to consult reference books which
could not be placed at the Branch Libraries.