At Leeds, the commercial library is combined with the technical library--an unusual arrangement, but one for which there is a good deal to be said as well as against. Technical libraries exist for the supply of information, and also to subserve technical education: a commercial library is for information simply. There are inconveniences attached to the combination; it is not a mere question of logical differentiation. Commercial libraries are open during business hours, and closed in the evenings and on Saturday afternoons, the very time when the technical student would use the library most. The one, again, is arranged and furnished to facilitate rapid consultation, not as a place for prolonged study. Logically, of course, it seems absurd to separate the literature on making a thing from the literature on selling it, the production department from the sales department. Big libraries may some day divide naturally into a modern side and a humanist side, and this might prove as convenient a dichotomy as it is suited to the logic of modern life. At any rate, the experiment at Leeds is worth watching, and public expedience must settle the point. These commercial departments have enlarged the ordinary province of the public library, and have developed into something like the intelligence bureau of a large industrial firm. The staff is prepared to supply, not only the means of information, but also information itself. Many years ago, in the Cardiff and some other public libraries, a new institution called the information desk came into vogue, where a trained assistant sat at the receipt of questions, oral, postal, or telephonic, which he answered forthwith, or after search in directories, dictionaries, and other compendiums of information, including the file of inquiries already handled. In a commercial town, this departure from old-fashioned practice was welcomed as extremely useful. Public libraries suddenly became popular with a class who had hitherto scarcely noticed their existence. The new commercial libraries perform the same function much more effectively, because they have far larger masses of information tabulated and mobilized, and are ready to lead up their reserves at any moment.