Now circulation through a delivery station is nothing but long-distance closed-shelf issue--circulation in which the distance between charging-desk and stack has been greatly multiplied. And a legitimate reason for closed-shelf issue of this kind is that it is carried on under conditions where open-shelf issue is impossible--about the only excuse for the closed shelf in any case. Now no matter how many books may be in branches or in deposit stations, it is obviously impossible for the whole central stock to be at any one of them, still less to be at all of them at the same time. And there are cases where it is impracticable to use any deposit at all, while delivery from the central library is feasible and reasonably satisfactory. There will always continue to be, therefore, some circulation from a distant reservoir of books that cannot be seen and handled by the reader for purposes of selection. Under these circumstances it is interesting to inquire whether this type of service has any good points to offset its obvious disadvantages; and it is consoling to find that there are such--not enough to cause us to select an unsupported delivery station deliberately where a deposit or a branch would be possible, but enough to satisfy us that a delivery station is worth while if we can use nothing better and to induce us to lay stress, if we can, on the particular features that make it satisfactory. For myself, after three years in a library with a large station system, following an experience in institutions where there was nothing of the kind, I may say that it has gratified and surprised me to find that personal contact between librarian and reader is possible in such a system, to almost the same extent as in an open-shelf library, although the contact is of quite a different quality. The quality of the contact is related to that possible with the open-shelf precisely as mental contact by letter writing is always related to that by conversation. It is superior, if anything, to that usually obtained in short-distance closed-shelf circulation, although possibly not to that obtainable under ideal conditions.