The Library commenced with 6,000 volumes, and an issue for the first year of 108,000. Now there are nearly 140,000 volumes available, with an issue of 844,000 per annum, and one of the most urgent pleas on behalf of and by the population now before the Town Council is for more Free Libraries.
So strong is the desire for the privileges these Libraries afford, that at Ward Elections the question has been asked of Councillors as a test of political fitness: “Will you vote for a Free Library and News Room for this Ward?”
This general willingness of the people to be taxed for the higher benefits of knowledge and culture for themselves and their children is sufficiently novel to be worthy of notice.
The success of the experiment at Constitution Hill induced the Free Libraries’ Committee to prepare plans on a scale commensurate with the demands of the Town, and it was resolved to commence the Central and Western Libraries consisting of Reference Department and Reading Room, Central Lending Library and News Room, and to provide Branch Libraries and News Rooms for the Eastern District at Gosta Green, and for the Southern District at Deritend.
This plan has since been extended to provide Libraries and News Rooms at Nechells, Small Heath, and Spring Hill, (these three have yet to be built). The small and incommodious Room at Constitution Hill or Northern District, the starting point in 1861 of the Libraries, was superseded by a large and handsome building in July 1883. The cost of these buildings was defrayed from loans borrowed on the system of an annual repayment of loan and interest in one hundred years.
The first Reference Library of 16,000 volumes, with the Central Lending Department and News Room, was opened in October, 1866, and an eloquent and original address by the late George Dawson, declared these Libraries open and free for ever, and started them on their course of usefulness. As regards the character of books read, it may be said that by far the largest demand in the Reference Library is for books of practical value in Science and Art, and that the taste for Scientific Works in the Lending Libraries is steadily growing, and the Committee are only too glad to meet the demand.
These Free Lending Libraries seem to reach all classes with their elevating and gladdening influence. There are not only books for the student and worker by which they may be helped in the business of life, but there are books for the weary, books of standard music, books for little children, and even books for the blind.
The History of the Libraries has been, with one exception, an unbroken record of success, and what a world of happiness and growth twenty-five years of successful Library work means it is very difficult to measure or estimate.
The exception was the calamitous fire which occurred on January 11, 1879. The Building was in process of enlargement, and had been to a considerable extent given up into the builders’ hands during its reconstruction. A strong wall had given place for the time being—to avoid the closing of the Reference Library and News Room during the alterations—to temporary arrangements of wood and similar material. The winter was severe, the gas was frozen, an energetic workman in attempting to produce a thaw ignited a flame which blazed up beyond his control, set fire to the temporary screen dividing the existing Library from the extension, and, spreading to the adjoining shelves, soon embraced the whole of the Library in one vast blaze. As this occurred at mid-day on a Saturday, the Rooms of the Library were crowded with Readers, but no one was injured. All sorts and conditions of men strove to save what could be saved of the precious books, but the fire was master, and the salvage was small. The pride the people had in their Free Library, and their grief at its destruction were shewn in a most pathetic manner, books being offered from their own collections, great and small, toward the restoration. Nor was this feeling confined to the town. Her Majesty sent a note through Lieutenant-General Ponsonby, in which she offered a valuable selection of books as follows:—