UNION LIBRARY CONTAINS WELL OVER 12,900 BOOKS

According to the latest report of the Union Library, there are now over 12,900 books stored on the shelves and accessions are being made daily. The average daily attendance has steadily and rapidly risen from 38 at the beginning of the year to 81.4 at the present time. It is the purpose of the library committee to make the three attractively furnished and decorated rooms which comprise the library a comfortable and agreeable place for members of the Union to spend some of their spare time reading and browsing through an extensive collection of ancient and modern classics, and an especially complete case of up-to-the-minute works of fact and fiction.

When the last inventory of the library was made in December, the total number of volumes was 12,670. During the 19 years between inventories 1034 volumes, of 8.1 per cent. of the total are reported as missing, but this loss is probably due in a large measure to the fact that during the war, when the library was supposedly closed, with the rest of the building, books were accessible, and no attendant was at hand.

Contains Shelves of Recent Books.

One of the most valuable features of the library is the shelves of recent books, which, through direct purchasing in the market, are acquired and set up for use several months in advance of all other University libraries. Through a system of suggestion books, in which members write the titles of volumes they wish purchased, the books bought are always those in demand, and sure to be well used. An especially popular corner is where the latest works of poetry are kept.

One of the members of the library committee is going abroad this summer to travel and study in France, and by arrangement with the Union he is to select and purchase a number of editions of modern French writers. At the present rates of exchange a very unusual opportunity is offered, and by the beginning of the academic year in the fall, it is expected that there will be available for Union members a collection of recent French publications almost unique in this country.

Among the additions made in the near past are a finely bound set of the Harvard Classics, a gift of the publishers, and an edition of Furness's Variorum Shakespeare, presented by the famous annotator's descendants.

A fact not know to many of the members of the Union is that smoking is permitted in the library, a privilege not granted anywhere else in the University libraries, not even in the Farnsworth Room. Comfortable chairs are provided, and the whole atmosphere is restful and inviting.