On the other hand, it must be said that the coat of arms fails to indicate individual taste or genius, and might better be supplanted by original and characteristic designs, especially such as relate to books, libraries, and learning. CHAPTER 5. THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS. We have seen in former chapters how the books of a library are acquired, how they are prepared for the shelves, or for use, and how they are or should be bound. Let us now consider the important questions which involve the care, the protection, and the preservation of the books. Every librarian or book owner should be something more than a custodian of the books in his collection. He should also exercise perpetual vigilance with regard to their safety and condition. The books of every library are beset by dangers and by enemies. Some of these are open and palpable; others are secret, illusive, little suspected, and liable to come unlooked for and without warning. Some of these enemies are impersonal and immaterial, but none the less deadly; others are personally human in form, but most inhuman in their careless and brutal treatment of books. How far and how fatally the books of many libraries have been injured by these ever active and persistent enemies can never be adequately told. But we may point out what the several dangers are which beset them, and how far the watchful care of the librarian and his assistants may fore-stall or prevent them. One of the foremost of the inanimate enemies of books is dust. In some libraries the atmosphere is dust-laden, to a degree which seems incredible until you witness its results in the deposits upon books, which soil your fingers, and contaminate the air you breathe, as you brush or blow it away. Peculiarly liable to dust are library rooms located in populous towns, or in business streets, and built close to the avenues of traffic. Here, the dust is driven in at the windows and doors by every breeze that blows. It is an omnipresent evil, that cannot be escaped or very largely remedied. As preventive measures, care should be taken not to build libraries too near the street, but to have ample front and side yards to isolate the books as far as may be consistent with convenient access. Where the library is already located immediately on the street, a subscription for sprinkling the thoroughfare with water, the year round, would be true economy.