98

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR

CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT.

NEW BUILDINGS.

Six years and a half have passed since the execution of the contract with the city relative to the gift of Mr. Carnegie, and during that time the city has acquired twenty-three sites in the borough of Manhattan, five sites in The Bronx, and four sites in Richmond, making a total of thirty-two sites.

Table V hereto appended shows the present condition of the work, details of acquisition, etc. In addition the city has approved of five general localities in which additional sites are to be procured, three of which are in Manhattan, one in The Bronx and one in Richmond.

At this date building operations are under way on the seven following buildings:

Plans are being prepared for the building to be erected on Site No. 24, 192-194 East Broadway.

Floor plans and front elevations of the following new buildings accompany this report:

No. 12.

No. 25.

Stuyvesant and Hyatt Streets (ST. GEORGE).
121-127 East 58TH STREET.

No. 35.

503 West 145th Street (HAMILTON GRange).

The map on page 99 shows the sites in Manhattan and The Bronx now occupied or soon to be occupied by circulation branches, also the relative position of the present reference branches, ASTOR and LENOX, and the new central building at 42d Street and Fifth Avenue.

Of the sites here shown Nos. 4, 26, 33, 34 indicate new sites for branches to be established; No. 2 a site for a new building for the branch now located in the Educational Alliance Building, 12 a new site for our present 34TH STREET branch, 16 a new site for our present SACRED HEART branch, and 27 for our present HARLEM LIBRARY branch.

The Department now includes thirty-seven branch libraries, of which

10 23d Street, 228 East.

(JACKSON

(EPIPHANY.)

II 23d Street, 209 West. (MUHLENBERG.
Department Headquarters.)

12 36th Street, 303 East. (ST. GABRIEL'S
PARK.)

13 40th Street, 501 West. (ST. RAPHAEL'S.) 14 42d Street, 226 West. (GEORGE BRUCE.) 15 50th Street, 123 East. (CATHEDRAL.) 16 51st Street. 463 West. (SACRED HEART.) 17 58th STREET, 121 East.

18 67th STREET, 328 East.

19 69th Street, 190 Amsterdam Avenue. (RIVERSIDE. TRAVELLING LIBRARIES.)

20 78th Street. 1465 Avenue A. (WEB.

thirty are in the Borough of Manhattan, three in The Bronx, and four in the Borough of Richmond.

Of these thirty-one occupy their own buildings (twenty-four erected from the Carnegie fund, including all those in the boroughs of The Bronx and Richmond), three are in rented quarters, two of the former Cathedral branches have quarters rent-free, and one, the Library for the Blind, occupies temporarily part of the St. Agnes Branch.

Six Carnegie buildings have been opened, four in Manhattan and two in Richmond.

All those in the former borough are occupied by previously existing branches, namely, the WEBSTER, FIFTY-EIGHTH (formerly FIFTY-NINTH) STREET, HAMILTON GRANGE (formerly AMSTERDAM AVENUE) and EPIPHANY Branches. The HAMILTON GRANGE Branch was removed to an entirely different locality (from 86th to 145th Street) on account of the proximity of the new ST. AGNES building, near 82d Street. The ST. GEORGE and STAPLETON branches, in Staten Island, are newly organized. In these two cases the usual preliminary work was begun several months earlier than the opening of the library to the public, the staffs being partially organized for the purpose. The stock of books for the EPIPHANY Branch was largely new, and its preparation also was begun several months before the opening, the work in the old quarters being discontinued. The ST. GEORGE and STAPLETON Branches were each opened for the registration of borrowers one week earlier than the opening for circulation.

Formal opening exercises were held in all cases, consisting of the delivery of the building to the city by a representative of the Trustees, its acceptance by an official appointed for the purpose by the Mayor, and its re-delivery to the Library for administration. These representatives were as follows:

In addition addresses were made by residents of the neighborhood and others specially interested, and by the Director or the Chief of the Department, and music was furnished through the courtesy of local organizations or other friends of the library, among whom should be mentioned Mr. J. J. Kovarik, Miss Blanche Jurka, and Mr. John Mokrejs (WEBSTER), the Glee Club of Public School 186, the pupils of Our Lady of Lourdes High School

and Miss Clara Smith (HAMILTON GRANGE), the Pallay string quartette and Mrs. Speke-Seeley (FIFTY-EIGHTH STREET), the pupils of Public School 14 (STAPLETON), those of Public School 16 (ST. GEORGE), and the Choir of Epiphany Church (EPIPHANY). At the WEBSTER Branch, which includes a considerable collection of books in Bohemian, the exercises were held partly in that language, under the auspices of a Bohemian Advisory Committee.

CIRCULATION.

The circulation for the eighteen months covered by this report is 7,791,174, of which 5,490,244 belongs to the calendar year 1907. This is an increase of 517,166 over the calendar year 1906. Of this, 67,982 is the circulation at two libraries that were established during 1907 and the remainder, 449,184, is the net increase of annual circulation at thirty-four branches. Of this, 259,926, or 58 per cent., was due to the Travelling Libraries.

From the percentage-analysis it appears that the proportion of fiction circulated is still small. The class percentages are practically uniform with those reported last year-an interesting fact. The only change is the decrease of Literature from 7 to 6 per cent. and the increase of Periodicals from 4 to 5 per cent. The largest amount of non-fiction read is, as usual, on the lower East Side, the smallest fiction percentage-47-being at RIVINGTON STREET. Four East Side branches (CHATHAM SQUARE, EAST BROADWAY, RIVINGTON STREET and TOMPKINS SQUARE) show together a fiction percentage of 50, whereas that of the whole system is 58. The travelling libraries circulate only 43 per cent of fiction. The highest amount, 77 per cent., is among the German readers at Ottendorfer, whereas the English readers at the same branch use only 46 per cent. The largest percentage of history, 9 per cent., is read at EAST BROADWAY; of literature, 10 per cent., at CHATHAM SQUARE, BOND STREET, and TOMPKINS SQUARE; of sciences, 8 per cent., at HUDSON PARK and BOND STREET. All these branches are in the lower part of the city and all, except HUDSON PARK, are on the East Side.

Tables VI-VIII appended give a detailed statement of the circulation for each branch for each class and for each month since July 1, 1906.

SUNDAY AND EVENING OPENING.

Experimental opening of branch reading-rooms on Sundays from 2 to 6 P. M. and in the evenings from 9 to 10 has continued with the result that on December 31, 1907, only those of the OTTENDORFER, RIVINGTON STREET, TOMPKINS SQUARE, FIFTY-EIGHTH STREET, MUHLENBERG, and RIVERSIDE branches were open on Sunday and only that of the RIVINGTON STREET

Branch until 10 P. M., the others having been closed for lack of sufficient attendance.

The following tables show the results at all the branches where the experiment was tried:

Sunday Reading Room Attendance, 2-6 P. M.
July 1, 1906, to December 31, 1907.

The staff of the Department now (December 31, 1907) includes 416 persons (counting 9 vacant positions) an increase of 54 over July 1, 1906, classified as follows: