Regarding rules for the loan of
these books, the Committee provisionally adopted those of the Sheffield
Free Library. By July of the same year all the books were available for
borrowing, and the circulation "reached 500 volumes, always on loan,
every volume being returned or renewed within a week." When the first
report was published in August, 1858, there were 3,354 volumes in the
Library, of which 2,468 volumes were presented, arranged in ten classes:
A, General Literature, 586 vols.; B, Geography, Voyages and Travels, 560
vols.; C, Dramatists, Poets, and Novelists, 454 vols.; D, History and
Biography, 383 vols.; E, Bohn's Libraries, 318 vols.; F, Bonn's Libraries
and Cabinet Cyclopaedia, 315 vols.; G, Natural History and Sciences, 244
vols.; H, Metaphysics, Logic and Religion, 306 vols.; I, Dictionaries,
Cyclopaedias, Reviews, 88 vols.; [J] Magazines, 100 vols. All the books
were apparently available either for reading at the library or for
home-reading. In 1858 a record of issues was kept which showed that
during the first half year 5,225 volumes were circulated "to nearly 700
persons," and the total issue of books "for perusal" in the reading room
was 10,066 "issued to a large number of citizens.
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