time there was no emergency relief act in sight and we were asking $60,000 more with which to run the library, than our Budget Commission had ever before granted. The issue was squarely faced and stated. Without this amount, the Public Library must close for an indefinite period. Due notice was published. And we set forth to explain why the stigma of a closed Public Library should not be allowed to fall upon Dayton.

The City, the Schools and the County were also seeking large sums at this time to meet their respective obligations. For three months the decision hung in the balance. Finally, yielding to the logic of the situation and to the widely manifested interest of the public on behalf of the Library, as expressed through the pulpit, the press and by individual petitions, the Budget Commission saw its way to granting for the first time in five years an increased budget sufficient for the immediate needs of the Library.

LIBRARY GROWTH 1913-1922

Notwithstanding these vicissitudes, perhaps even because of them, the Library has grown apace. The book needs of our citizens became more apparent as the means for satisfying them from their own libraries vanished through the Flood. Thus was re-discovered, as many have told us, the value of the Public Lib

rary.

Although for the half-year following the Flood, the sole public library agency in Dayton was so small as to be accommodated on one floor of the Main Library building, its scope has rapidly increased to eleven agencies now open 468 hours each week as compared with 74 hours in 1913. The opening in February, 1914, of the two Carnegie Branch libraries was followed year after year by new school branch libraries in widely separated communities, the sixth having been opened March, 1922. These have established library relations in new centers of popu'ation without drawing patronage from the Main Library. Preparations are now in progress for opening branch libraries in three more school buildings. The removal of the Medical collection in 1919 to the Fidelity Building and of the Museum in 1921 to the Steely Building have afforded opportunity for extending reading and reference room privileges urgently needed at the Main Library.

By successive apprentice training classes and the appointment of five library school graduates and several college women in addition to heads of departments, trained in our own two-year

library course, the Library staff has become a well-rounded and efficient instrument of public service. In numbers it has been increased from 13 to an equivalent of 72 full-time persons; in organization, from four departments, including the Museum, to thirteen departments. To have accomplished this restoration of personnel under the prevailing post-war conditions has been indeed a very great task, for it has involved selection, training and supervision and much sifting from a list of nearly three hundred applicants for library positions.

The number of books has been increased from less than 48,000 volumes remaining after the Flood to 127,118 volumes active. The rehabilitation of catalog and official records and the current cataloging, except for a small collection of books released to the public on the temporary catalog slips of the Order department, is likewise virtually complete. Sunday opening and public telephone service for reference and circulation desks in all departments of the library system have been realized as one of the most important extensions of service in the past five years.

THE USE OF BOOKS AND PER CAPITA COST

1913-1922

In the fiscal year ending August, 1922, the per capita cost of library service, (exclusive of expenditures for Museum) was 69.7 cents being nearly one-third less than the per capita amount officially recognized as necessary for the support of good libraries by the Trustees Section of the American Library Association. The average per capita cost of library service for the nine years was only 41.3 cents and covered not only books and service but flood rehabilitation of the Main Library and of the public and official catalog records. For this outlay on the part of the taxpayers, over 3,102,243 volumes were issued for home reading, 704,848 volumes for reading room use and over 431,314 reference questions have been answered. Fifty and eight-tenths per cent of the home reading was by children, the total issue of fiction to both adults and children averaging 55.5 per cent. In the nine years, the population increase of the city was 35,000 or about 27 per cent, while the gain in library patronage in the same period has been 133 per cent.

But although there have been purchased during the past nine years over 90,000 volumes, including books now in preparation for the shelves and replacement of worn out stock, still the ratio between population increase and book increase shows that the per

Main Library-Main Floor Open Shelf

(Upper) Reference Desk: Miss Helen Mar Ranson, Head (Lower) Delivery desk, Circulation Department

capita volume rate remains about stationary, being only .7 volume per person. This fact taken together with that of distances that must be traversed to secure a chance for the book that is wanted indicates two great needs of the library besides that of a new Main Library building; namely, funds to increase the book collection more rapidly and substantially and adequate means for placing books within easy reach of the homes of the city through branch libraries and book wagon service.

Estimating the proportionate influence of the Library in our community, there must be taken into account the insistent appeal of competing interests under the conditions of modern life, which naturally cut down time for reading. For example: the time that is consumed in traversing city distances under conditions of congested traffic; the time to make a living, to attend school, church and club, with all the train of their manifold activities, to say nothing of the appeal of the continuously operating movie theatres, of which there are nearly thirty in this city, each one open many more hours a week than are our libraries. Then there are in the same field the news stands with the cheaper periodicals and the circulating libraries with the more popular fiction. In spite of all this, however, our Library, as shown by its records, has succeeded in capturing the attention of a fair proportion of the population and within the fiscal year just past has issued over half a million volumes for home and library use; has answered over 82,000 reference questions through the Main and Branch libraries and shows a substantial increase in current circulation and reference work over last year.

CONCLUSION

These facts properly interpreted demonstrate that the citizens of Dayton need and require the services of the Public Library and that their dependence upon it links up with the more serious purposes of their lives.

But there are yet too many important demands upon the cultural resources of the Library as well as for information service that our Library is unable to meet for lack of books, of personnel and of reading and study-room facilities. Not to heed such appeals, not to search for the means to meet these needs, at this stage of the City's development, will be to set back effectually, perhaps even finally, the service of one of the most important of the now recognized educational and social agencies in any community, namely, the free library; and in that proportion to check the City's pros