LIBRARY REACHES NEW HIGH OF FOUR MILLION VOLUMES

The University Library during the past year passed the mark of 4,000,000 books and pamphlets, Keyes D. Metcalf, University Librarian, announced Saturday in his annual report.

Addition of 136,280 volumes brought the total of eighty libraries in the system to 4,079,541. The collection has doubled in the past 20 years, Metcalf announced, and this rate of increase has been fairly constant for a century.

Gifts From Many Sources

Among the gifts to the library were a collection of letters and manuscripts of Edwin Arlington Robinson, famous poet, from Louis V. Ledoux, of New York; one of the finest private chess libraries in the country from the late Silas W. Howland, of Rye, N. Y.; a large collection of material dealing with Japan, from Dr. Ernest G. Stillman '08, of New York; and more than 2,000 illustrated and finely printed books from Philip Hofer '21, curator of Printing and Graphic Arts at the Library.

Archibald MacLeish, former curator of the Nieman Collection and now Librarian of Congress, presented a manuscript copy of his volume, "The Hamlet of A. MacLeish," while Crown Prince Gustav Adolphus of Sweden as well as the Crown Prince and Princess of Norway presented books.

Loans Up 20 Per Cent

The number of volumes borrowed by students and faculty of the University last year was up 20 per cent over the year before, Metcalf reported. The increase, he said, is attributable to the appointment of three trained assistants in the library whose task it is to assist students in selecting and locating books.