“We all feel greatly indebted to the Carnegie Trustees, it is impossible to over-estimate the boon that the Library is in these country districts. If the Trustees could see for themselves the excitement and pleasure when the books arrive, and the rush to see them and choose, I am sure they would realize afresh how well-spent their funds are. Our only difficulty is that there are never enough books for all who want them, but that, without doubt, is a difficulty common to all Carnegie rural librarians.” The Carnegie Trustees calculated their grants on the understanding that purchases by the rural libraries should be restricted to the cheaper books in general demand (averaging 3s. 6d. new or second-hand), and that when other or more expensive books were required they should be obtained on loan from the Central Library for Students. To this library, which forms a central store of technical, scientific, and other high-class works, for supplying both the rural systems and those urban libraries that pay a small subscription, the Trustees are now making a subsidy of £1,000 a year. It may eventually develop into an invaluable auxiliary to all the public libraries in the kingdom, and money spent on increasing its stock is a thoroughly economic expenditure, since it saves an incredible amount of overlapping among the different units of the nation’s library service. Different counties have employed different modes of distribution. Rail and carrier are the usual medium where the centres are not far from the railways, and some counties have secured half rates for conveyance of books by passenger train. Experiments have however been made with hired motor transport, with a saving on costs and a much more important saving in time and trouble, since more than a score of boxes can be delivered and the time-expired boxes collected in a single day’s trip. The Perthshire authority have acquired a motor-van of their own to be used for conveying books and also for the librarian’s tours of inspection. This will no doubt be the plan adopted elsewhere when the systems reach a further stage of development. More miscellaneous and more picturesque methods have had to be followed in the North of Scotland service, which feeds the Islands, including St. Kilda, with much-needed books. After many abortive attempts to reach St. Kilda, it was found that a trawler was going there from Fleetwood, and in this roundabout way the first box of books from Dunfermline arrived there last year. In the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Hebrides, crofters, fishermen, and cobblers, we are told, look eagerly for books on natural history, science, and philosophy, from the Central Library for Students. How many people passing the drab house in Tavistock Square have the remotest idea that from this centre, unmarked by anything more grandiose than a small brass plate, mental and spiritual light is being steadily radiated to the inhabitants of utmost Thule. In the