=A News Room= of large size and importance was built in 1825, in Waterloo Street, corner of Bennett’s Hill, where the old County Court stood, and where the Inland Revenue Office now stands. As this contained all the leading London Periodicals and Foreign Newspapers, Shipping, Commercial and Law Intelligence, files of important Papers, London Gazette, Times and local Journals, it may almost be included among our Libraries. As a contrast with this, the only News Room of that time, there are now _Nine_, in addition to the Reference Reading Room, viz.:--_Three Subscription_, the Old Library, the Midland Institute, and the Exchange respectively, and six _free News Rooms_, viz., the Central News Room, and five Branches in different parts of the town. =The Free Libraries of Birmingham.=--These were originated, and are sustained, by the municipality, at the cost of the ratepayers, by the levying of a rate of a little over one penny in the pound on the rents or rateable value of the Borough. This rate produces £9,500 a year and maintains the principal or Central Libraries, which include Reference Department of 80,000 volumes, Central Lending Library of 25,000 volumes, and a News Room used regularly by about 5,000 readers a day. It also maintains three Branch Libraries of 10,000 volumes each, with capacious and well supplied News Rooms, and two others of smaller dimensions opened only at night. Altogether these various departments issue more than 2,000 volumes, and accommodate in the Reading and News Rooms more than 11,000 readers _daily_. These Free Libraries were commenced tentatively and modestly in a leased house and shopping in Constitution Hill (or Northern part) in 1861, some doubts apparently existing then whether such institutions were really needed or would be appreciated here. The Library commenced with 6,000 volumes, and an issue for the first year of 108,000. _Now_ there are nearly 140,000 volumes available, with an issue of 844,000 per annum, and one of the most urgent pleas on behalf of and _by_ the population now before the Town Council is for _more_ Free Libraries. So strong is the desire for the privileges these Libraries afford, that at Ward Elections the question has been asked of Councillors as a test of political fitness: “Will you vote for a Free Library and News Room for this Ward?” This general willingness of the people to be taxed for the higher benefits of knowledge and culture for themselves and their children is sufficiently novel to be worthy of notice. The success of the experiment at Constitution Hill induced the Free Libraries’ Committee to prepare plans on a scale commensurate with the demands of the Town, and it was resolved to commence the Central and Western Libraries consisting of Reference Department and Reading Room, Central Lending Library and News Room, and to provide Branch Libraries and News Rooms for the Eastern District at Gosta Green, and for the Southern District at Deritend.