=352. The Borrowing Right.=--There are several points in connexion with the borrowing rights of various classes of citizens which it is desirable to notice, especially as they have much bearing on the question of a library’s popularity and good management. In some towns the borrowing right is strictly confined to ratepayers or residents in the library district. Employees who live outside the district are excluded, but for what particular reason it is difficult to understand. An employee contributes directly to the material well-being of the district in which his work lies; he contributes indirectly but substantially towards the rates; he spends most of his waking and all his working hours in the district; and in other ways he is as much a citizen as the resident who works outside the district and only sleeps in it at night. It is impossible to discover any reason for the distinction made between employee and resident in some places, and it may be pointed out that plenty of large towns grant the borrowing right to employees without the slightest inconvenience, difficulty or injustice to anyone. A further wise liberality permits borrowing privileges to all non-resident scholars and students at schools or similar institutions in the town. Similar arguments apply in favour of such an arrangement, and these young folks are usually readers of a valuable type. =353.= Teachers and others engaged in educational work should be dealt with as generously as possible, and should be lent as many books as they need at a time for purposes of their work. From six to twelve works are frequently required by a teacher in preparing a subject, and he should be allowed to have them, the most liberal interpretation possible being given to this privilege. Obviously no teacher should be permitted to make his needs an excuse for borrowing batches of current and popular works to the detriment of other readers, but it is better to risk even this than to fail him in what may be an important matter. A teacher reaches farther than the average individual. =354.= Another regulation which tells against the interests of municipal libraries is that in which every intending borrower, ratepayer or otherwise, is required to obtain the signatures of one or two registered ratepayers as guarantors before a ticket will be issued. It is not necessary to imagine reasons for this very serious obstacle to intending borrowers. Since many large and small towns dispense with this precaution in the case of ratepayers, and allow non-ratepayers and compounding householders to have tickets on the guarantee or recommendation of one ratepayer or on leaving a small deposit, there is no reason why this elaborate double guarantee should not be abolished all round. The time will doubtless come when guarantees of all kinds will be abolished and suitable recommendations substituted.