58. Where it is thought necessary to keep records of the occupations of readers, a blank line for the name of the occupation is included on the application voucher (see [Section 368]) from which the records are made.
59.
59. It is not usual to keep formal statistics of the number of visitors to newspaper and periodical rooms; the attendances are either not recorded or are estimated. In some cases, however, a daily count is made at monthly or other intervals and the yearly attendance is gauged from this. It is obvious that such figures have no great value. A series of visits to the rooms will assure any librarian or member of committee of the amount of use that is made of them equally well.
60.
60. Brief paragraphs, presenting the record of work weekly or monthly, and the number of borrowers, are sometimes sent to the local newspapers. This is a good plan, and the matter is more acceptable if presented in literary rather than in merely tabular form. At each meeting of the library committee a fairly complete statistical record of the work since the last meeting is presented, in which the factors we have discussed, together with the percentage of fiction issued, and comparisons with the corresponding weeks or months of the previous year, are made. The committee is thus kept closely acquainted with the results of its work.
61. The Annual Report.
61. The Annual Report.—The annual report of the library committee is the summary and crown of its labours, and is often the most direct means of contact between the committee and the community. Such reports deserve more attention than is commonly given to them by librarians, and in this matter the American librarian—who is essentially a business man and does not often produce useless documents—may give hints to his British brethren. A report should be a complete history of the operations of the library in all its departments; and if improvement is necessary it is in the direction of reducing the mere statistical and in increasing the literary matter to be included. Elaborate tables of issue, stock, etc., of central and branch libraries have a use for the librarian and may be kept at the libraries, but their publication is of interest to few other people, and they are better given in summary. Plain and clear reports, in which comparisons with other libraries by name should be avoided, and which present the salient statistics without the use of confusingly elaborate tables, give the best results. Illustrations and an occasional diagram rendering in graphic form the statistical results of work are not necessarily superfluous, and may brighten the report considerably. The report will not be a less authoritative document if it is attractive. The information which a library report ought to convey may be indicated briefly as follows:
Title-page.
List of members of committee and library staff.
Narrative report.