| LIBERTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. | |||
| I beg to make the following suggestion (if a book or periodical,please give publisher and price):— | |||
| Name | |||
| Address | |||
| Date | |||
| Please fold across and leave in “Suggestions” Box. | |||
Fig. 3.—Suggestion Slip.
A small locked box to contain these, and lettered on side “Suggestions,” should be provided. If one of these boxes is placed in each important department of the library, readers will be encouraged to air their views. Even if nothing more valuable should be received than a complaint about a draught or the manner of the librarian, it is better than the dull indifference and apathy which are met with in libraries where readers are discouraged from taking any part in the administration. Occasionally some brilliant, if impossible, suggestions on management are received by means of these slips and boxes, and suggestions of desirable books can always be depended upon. Every means of interesting readers in the work of the library should be adopted, and this will be found a very effective method.
49. Accounts.
49. Accounts.—By the principal English Act, Section 20 (1), it is ordained that “separate accounts shall be kept of the receipts and expenditure under this Act of every library authority and its officers, and those accounts shall be audited in like manner and with the like incidents and consequences, in the case of a library authority being an urban authority, and of its officers, as the accounts of the receipts and expenditure of that authority and its officers under the Public Health Acts.” In Ireland the same provisions apply, that is, library accounts are to be kept and audited like those of the local authority, and copies of the accounts are to be sent within one month after auditing to the Lord Lieutenant. In Scotland the accounts are to be kept separately in special books, and are to be audited by “one or more competent auditors.” In all cases the books are to be open to public inspection, and in Scotland abstracts of the accounts are to be inserted in one or more newspapers published or circulated in the district.
No special system of library book-keeping has been laid down, the nearest approach to a form being that prescribed by an order of the Local Government Board, dated 26th November 1892, for parishes whose library accounts are audited in like manner to those of Poor Law Guardians. In Greenwood’s Public Libraries, fourth edition, 1894, pages 343-345, some details are given of this system, and the first edition of this Manual also gives specimens of forms, etc.
50. Financial Statement.
50. Financial Statement.—The form of financial statement for public libraries in parishes, prescribed by the Local Government Board, alluded to in [Section 49], is the best for all purposes. As shown in the section on [Annual Estimates], it provides for every kind of receipt and expenditure. Printed blanks giving the whole of the items copied from the L.G.B. Order of 1892 have been published. In addition to a blank tabular form for showing particulars of loans, etc., the statement includes spaces for the undernoted items, all duly set out to form a balance sheet:
FINANCIAL STATEMENT.