[28] There are great irregularities in the distribution of these libraries; for instance, the ratepayer in Holborn has to walk on the average 540 yards to get to a library; in Camberwell he would have to go 1,030 yards; in Wandsworth 1,400; while in the huge borough of Woolwich, if it were all built up, he would have to travel about 2,400 yards. The majority of the boroughs, however, only expect their readers to walk between 500 and 1,000 yards. If we consider the provision of libraries in proportion to the population, we find that the extreme variations are that Hampstead supplies a library for every 14,000 inhabitants, while 75,000 inhabitants in Stepney share one between them. But the demand for library facilities is not the same in all the boroughs, for we find that while in Hampstead 125 out of every 1,000 of its inhabitants are registered as using the library, in Shoreditch only 29 per 1,000 avail themselves of the facilities which exist in that borough. The effect of this is that the number of _readers_ per library varies considerably, for while Poplar and Hammersmith share a library or branch between 1,200 readers, Stoke Newington and Chelsea are satisfied with one establishment for 4,600 readers. (John McKillop: “The Present Position of London Municipal Libraries with suggestions for Increasing their Efficiency,” in _Library Association Record_, Dec. 1906.) [29] Rye, R. A., _The Libraries of London_ (1910)--“Preliminary Survey.” [30] In a lecture at the School of Librarianship, University College, London, on May 23rd, 1921. [31] “Sometimes a discovery of vital moment lies concealed for many years in a little known periodical; the most striking recent case is that of Mendel’s experiments, now the inspiration of the most productive school of modern biology, described in 1865 in the periodical of a natural history society in Brünn but buried until 1900, when a happy chance revealed them.” _Times_, June 29, 1921--“Indexing of Technical Literature.” [32] “A union catalogue of the current periodicals preserved in the German libraries, published in 1914, comprised some 17,000 entries. A similar list for the periodicals filed in the libraries of the United Kingdom, prepared in 1914-15 by some English State and copyright librarians, was submitted for publication to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, but the proposal met with no encouragement. Yet the compilation of such a list is an essential preliminary to the proper national organization of knowledge. For a union list indicates the relative strength and weakness of our national libraries in respect of their periodical collections: it enables the librarian to correct the latter without unduly increasing the expenditure of the library in that department of literature.” _Nature_, June 9, 1921--“Co-operative Indexing of Periodical Literature.” [33] _Edward Edwards_, by Thomas Greenwood, p. 137. [34] Ibid. [35] Bostwick: _The American Public Library_, p. 28.