GENERAL NOTICES.
“Public Libraries and their uses certainly need to be forced on the attention of the public a great deal more than they are, and these very practical chapters on methods of advertisement by the Nottingham City Librarian ought to be of great service. Posters, articles, leaflets, pamphlets, announcements thrown on the Cinema screen, and other methods are discussed with many facsimile examples and designs, specimen paragraphs and articles, etc.”—Times Literary Supplement.
“‘Publicity is the best policy,’ says Mr. Walter A. Briscoe in his book entitled ‘Library Advertising,’ a work designed to advance the Library Movement by every means possible. Sections deal with Publicity methods for Public Libraries, Rural library schemes, Library work with children, the Cinema and Library, etc., and the author discusses the problem of bringing home to the public the need for an efficient Library Service from an entirely new standpoint.”—The Publishers’ Circular.
“I am inclined to think that Mr. Walter A. Briscoe is right in holding that the best and fullest use is not made of such institutions, because ‘the people have not yet acquired the idea of thinking big about libraries—and until the populace get the Library idea progress cannot be spelt with a capital P.’ Mr. Briscoe suggests the remedy for this in ‘Library Advertising’: ‘We must proclaim our libraries from the hills, so to speak,’ he writes, ‘from the advertisement hoardings, if necessary. These may be new ideas not acceptable to the conservative mind. Obscurantist methods are out of date, however.’ And so he offers specimens of posters, hints for ‘publicity’ campaigns, etc. Hitherto, I am afraid, Mr. Carnegie and Sir Henry Tate have become better known and appreciated than the libraries they founded, but Mr. Briscoe’s plans would certainly do something to alter this....”—The Westminster Gazette.