island of Foula, where the grown-up people cannot leave their crofts in the scanty summer, the school-children are enlisted as carriers. A schoolmaster describes how in the winter he carried the books himself until he fell in with the sheep-dogs sent out to bring them to the distant croft. On this island a population of 175 borrows 1,300 books a year. Guiberwick, with a population of 200, calls for 700 every six months. Minute records are kept at Dunfermline of the kind of reading that appeals to various kinds of readers. “For the fiction,” says the librarian, Miss Thomson, “taken on a whole, they read very good novels. The general works are of a varied nature, but I have noticed that books dealing with the literature, fauna, flora, and topography of each island are much in favour. We also supply books in Gaelic, which are widely read both by adults and juveniles.” Anyone who has wandered in the lonelier parts of the Highlands will know what are the difficulties of a service to the remote glens and the foresters’ stations in the deer-forests, and what a priceless gift a handful of books always is. It must be evident from this short account that the rural problem has been tackled on the cheapest lines. The maximum cost of any county scheme has in no instance exceeded the yield of a halfpenny rate; and until there are centres throughout a shire, or until supplementary means are employed, such as the establishment of stationary libraries at accessible points in certain areas, it is not likely to increase appreciably. The following typical examples of county expenditure are given by the Trustees in their report on the year 1920:-- Total School pop. pop. Cost Age of of area of area Total Rate per No. of County. Scheme. served. served. Cost. equiv. head. Centres. Staffordshire 4th yr. 246,000 35,000 £525 ¹⁄₁₈d. ¹⁄₂d. 206 Gloucestershire 2nd “ 212,000 30,000 500 ¹⁄₈d. ¹⁄₂d. 303 Cardiganshire 3rd “ 60,000 6,500 440 ¹⁄₄d. 1³⁄₄d. 45 Wiltshire 1st “ 181,000 34,000 435 ¹⁄₁₂d. ¹⁄₂d. 90 Notts 2nd “ 100,000 13,421 580 ¹⁄₆d. 1¹⁄₂d. 164 Somerset 2nd “ 335,000 52,000 450 ¹⁄₁₈d. ¹⁄₃d. 223