(We think we can extend the word “pictorial” to cover maps.) The presence of painted records may be questioned, but their value as records is undoubted, seeing that they give colour, atmosphere, and have other interpretative values which are absent from the more meticulously accurate photograph. Local prints and photographs should be collected without special regard to their artistic value; record is always the motto of the collector, not beauty, however much we may desire it personally. Care should be taken to secure photographs in a permanent process, but it is better to have them in the more evanescent processes, and to take special care of them, than not to have them at all. All gas-light photographic prints (with a distinct preference for platinotype, bromide and velox papers in this descending order) are practically permanent; but the finest photographic paper extant will not endure direct sunlight everlastingly. The question of the treatment of prints and photographs generally, however, deserves separate treatment, and here we are concerned only with what should be collected. The pictures, then, must represent distinctive things, interpretative of the life of the district. Pictures of individual flowers, which grow anywhere, trees which are not peculiar to the place, “pretty bits” which might be matched in any place in the kingdom, are of little or no value. Omitting these inessential things, practically everything else from the portrait of the Member of Parliament to that of the local amœba comes within the scope of the collection. The cheapest print from the cheapest periodical need not be despised. It may serve its turn.

430.

430. Special endeavour should be made to secure a complete set of the maps of the region covered. In spite of the conventionality and inaccuracy of many early maps they are our original source of information on many points vital to the collection. For some counties the maps have been scheduled with exemplary thoroughness, and by basing his collection on one of these schedules the collector will be helped greatly, seeing that the old cartographers usually worked on several counties, and the map bibliography of Yorkshire, for example, may be expected to furnish useful clues to the maps of Kent. Old gazetteers, topographies, histories, encyclopædias and periodicals of general scope often contain maps, and the least prepossessing of such works should be consulted in order to obtain them.

431.

431. Engraved records are fewer than any previously mentioned. They include local seals, crests, coins and tokens, and similar articles. Tokens, it may not be generally known, were coins, usually having the values of a farthing, a halfpenny, and a penny, which local traders were permitted to issue to supply the scarcity of a small coinage from the national treasury. These were issued mainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and generally had a local exchange value only, although a number were accepted in many counties. Clearly these tokens, which often carry the trade marks, signs, etc., of the trader issuing them, are a valuable and interesting part of local material. The Coventry Public Libraries possess what we believe to be an unique collection of tokens relating to that city. Various local medals should also be sought.

432. Sources of Supply.

432. Sources of Supply.—There is something trite and unoriginal in the discussion of the methods of obtaining books for the local collection, but perhaps something useful may emerge from a recapitulation of the principal ones. So far as the municipal library is concerned, the common method must be by purchase, although much will be secured from private generosity when the collection has become known. It is important, in our opinion, not to leave the collection unmentioned in the annual estimates; a definite appropriation should be made for it, the amount of which will of course depend upon the resources of the library and upon the area covered. We have found at Croydon, where the collection covers extra-metropolitan Surrey, that much may be done on an appropriation of £35 a year. This need not be spent entirely upon the collection, nor should the collecting be limited to the purchasing power of this sum, but it seems to be very desirable to have money so ear-marked in order that attention may be focussed upon the collection as an important part of the activities of the library.

It is also essential, if the collection is to be successful, that the librarian should have discretionary power in the spending of the appropriation. Local literature disappears with a rapidity that is sometimes astonishing, and keen collectors on making discoveries in the catalogues of booksellers and dealers, usually secure the coveted books by telephone or telegram. The library would be a greatly handicapped competitor if the sanction of the libraries committee had to be awaited before purchases could be made. In some towns the discretionary power is vested in the chairman, and where he is immediately accessible to the librarian there are distinct advantages in this method, especially if he is sympathetic. It is a good axiom for the librarian to avoid responsibilities which can judiciously be distributed!

A certain amount of judicious advertisement of the needs of the library is desirable in this matter. Care should be taken that a note to the effect that local material is purchased should appear in Clegg’s Directory of Booksellers, and in other similar publications. On the notepaper of the library some such note as the following might be given in small type: “The librarian will be glad to hear of written or printed material relating to Selsey, either as a gift or for purchase.” This is especially useful, as the notepaper circulates mostly in the district itself, where much literature may be hidden, unvalued and neglected, which its owners would willingly add to the collection. With the directory entry before him the bookseller will generally report individual items, but in any case he will send his catalogues, and these must be perused diligently. As a rule the bookseller is sufficiently master of his business to enter likely material, under county and town headings, but not infrequently books which have a local appeal appear in other parts of the catalogue. In this work the librarian will naturally and wisely make use of his whole staff, and every inducement should be held out to assistants to help in the discovering of local material and to make suggestions for the extension of the collection. Generally, however, little inducement will be needed, as library workers as a whole are both keenly interested in and proud of the local collection.