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Sundays, Wednesdays, and Bank Holidays); ½d. for the next three subsequent
days, excluding the above-mentioned days; and thereafter at the rate of 1d. per
week or part of a week until such book is returned, and in default of payment
the Ticket will be detained and no books issued till the fine has been paid.
Livesey Library Junior Department.
The necessary alterations having been completed, the new
Junior Department at the Livesey Library, Old Kent Road,
was opened on the 9th October, 1929.
There is now a Junior Department at each of the Public
Libraries in the Borough.
Union Catalogue of London Borough Libraries.
The Council at their meeting in July, 1929, received the following
report from their delegates to the Conference held in London on
May 9th, 1929, with reference to compiling a Union Catalogue of
the non-fiction books in the London Borough Libraries:—
Madam and Gentlemen,—The Conference of Representatives of the
Metropolitan Borough and the Guildhall Library was held at the Swedenborg Hall,
Hart Street, Bloomsbury, W.C.I, at 3.30 p.m. on Thursday, May 9th, 1929, to
consider the compilation of a Union Catalogue of the London Borough Libraries
and the Guildhall Library.
Mr. Thomas Gorrie, the Convener of the Library Sub-Committee of the
Carnegie Trust, presided.
The Chairman in his introductory statement stated,
That the question of a complete catalogue of the Libraries of London had
been under consideration for many years past, and its necessity was now so urgent
that, influenced by the considerations set out below, the Carnegie United Kingdom
Trustees have agreed to meet the capital expenditure involved (£1,050) in the
London Union Catalogue proposal, and to make an annual grant for current
expenditure of £850 for three years: the total grant offered thus being £3,600.
The Trustees wish to receive progress reports in December, 1929 and 1930, and
about the middle of the third year to confer in detail as to the work which remains
to be done. They do not close the door to a further grant for a fourth or even a
fifth year.
The Carnegie Trustee's decision to incur so large a measure of responsibility
is due to the following considerations:—
(а) A Union Catalogue of London Libraries should be a bibliographical
asset of high value to students, and might well be the nucleus of the
national Union Catalogue which the experts know to be necessary;
(b) This measure of co-ordination not only should be a lead to other
potential regional schemes, but should also be a source of strength to
the participating libraries;
(c) The participating libraries will themselves be making a substantial
contribution in the form of service;
(d) The proposal, though superficially local, should have national reactions
of great experimental value.
There is little doubt of the value of such a compilation. Immediate knowledge
of where the nearest copy of any book may be seen, and in special circumstances
borrowed, is a benefit of such service that its value is not realised until the necessity