LOCKLAND.

LOCKLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY AND FREE READING ROOM.

The Lockland Public Library and Free Reading Room was opened December 2, 1887. At first a membership fee of one dollar a year was charged. Additional funds were raised for its support from lectures, concerts, fairs and donations. In 1890 the library was turned over to the town. It has since been supported by taxation. It is conveniently located, is kept open day and evening, and is well patronized by the reading public.

MT. VERNON.

MT. VERNON PUBLIC LIBRARY.

The idea of the library originated in 1882, when the Lutheran church was sold and the mission school occupying it was forced to seek other quarters. It was then proposed to buy the old United Presbyterian church and fit it up for library, Y. M. C. A. and other purposes.

Pending a discussion of plans, the church was sold at sheriff's sale and purchased by Messrs. Frank L. Fairchild, Desault B. Kirk and Henry L. Curtis, on the 12th of February, 1883. About this time a subscription was raised for building the railroad shops and the library enterprise was superseded by the manufacturing interest. So a compromise organization was formed and the building was deeded to the city in trust. From 1884 to December, 1887, the Trustees, Mr. F. L. Fairchild, A. R. McIntire, Henry L. Curtis, Dr. Holbrook, Dr. Larimore and John M. Ewalt worked faithfully for a library, soliciting subscriptions, planning the remodeling and keeping up an interest in the project. February 15, 1888, the library was opened with an all day reception. Including the purchase price of real estate and its subsequent improvements, the remodelling, painting, decoration and furnishing of the building, the cost of the library was $5,500. This included 2,200 new books. Miss Jean Colville was the first librarian and the open shelf system was adopted which proved most satisfactory from the start. Miss Colville resigned to take charge of the library in Northfield, Mass., and Miss Emma Day was appointed her successor, which position she held almost to the time of her death. During Miss Day's administration the library made steady progress.

The building was improved by a slate roof, and hard wood floor, while a cement sidewalk was constructed around the entire property. A reference room was fitted up, and the nucleus of a good reference library started.

The present Librarian is Miss Gertrude Baker. The editorial department of the Cumulative Index of which Miss Baker had charge in Cleveland was moved to the Mt. Vernon Library, February, 1900, with Miss Harriet Goss as editor. This gives the library the use of the periodicals indexed by the Cumulative Index.

The Browne charging system has been put in lately and a most successful exhibition of pictures loaned by The Helman-Taylor Co. was held last spring.

The Trustees of the library are six in number and two are appointed each year by the council from a list of names handed by the Trustees to the mayor. The Trustees at present are the following:

MANSFIELD.

MEMORIAL LIBRARY.

The best historians concern themselves largely with beginnings. The beginnings of this Association must be sought in the winter of 1886 and 1887, when women talked over the need of a library which should be free to all, and discussed the propriety of themselves taking steps toward founding one. The more sanguine thought only of beginning, the more cautious hesitated, appalled by the magnitude of the work of going on. But everybody agreed that "we ought to have a Library." The thought was in the air, but it first took root and grew to action at the home of Mrs. Mary Burns Mitchell, when three persons determined to call a meeting of the women of the city to organize for the accomplishment of the desired object. Too modest to affix their names to the call, which they issued in the daily press, they set on foot the movement which gave to the city this grand building, and the library which we to-night dedicate. Mrs. E. O. Huggins, Mary B. Mitchell, Helen P. Weaver all honor to the brave three. Mrs. J. E. Dickson, Assistant Librarian to Columbia College, a woman well posted in library work, was invited to be present to address the meeting and suggest plans. In answer to the call about fifty women met at the home of Mrs. Weaver, February 17, 1887, and a temporary organization was effected. At this initial meeting it was decided to make the library a memorial to the soldiers and sailors of Mansfield and Madison Township. The surviving veterans and the citizens were called upon to aid us in procuring a building which should be, with the library, the noblest monument which a grateful people could raise to the heroic defenders of their country.

The proposal to erect a Memorial Building met with the heartiest response from both soldiers and citizens. What followed, as far as the building is concerned, is too well known to need reiteration. Its history is enduringly written in its noble proportions, its magnificent masonry, its elegant finish, its honest workmanship, and in these, too, is written the history of the untiring vigilance with which the Trustees of the building discharged the arduous duties devolving upon them.

By the advice of General Brinkerhoff, who has ever been one of our staunchest friends and best advisers, we at once applied for a charter, and on March 2, 1887, we were incorporated as the Memorial Library Association, of Mansfield, Ohio. On March 4 a constitution was adopted and on March 16 a permanent organization was effected by the election of the following officers: President, Mrs. E. O. Huggins; Vice President, Dr. M. J. Finley; Secretary, Mrs. Mary B. Mitchell; Treasurer, Mrs. H. P. Weaver; and the following Trustees: Mrs. R. L. Avery, Mrs. H. P. Weaver, Mrs. T. T. Dill, Mrs. M. D. Harter, Dr. M. J. Finley, Mrs. P. Bigelow, Mrs. R. B. Maxwell, Mrs. M. B. Mitchell, Mrs. E. O. Huggins. Mrs. Harter was selected Chairman of the Library