Excerpt from City of Boston: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Public Library, 1868 Of the Report of the Superintendent of the Library [docu ment B], the Trustees do not purpose to Speak at length. It Should be read by every one desirous of knowing how many books the Library contains, how many have been added during the past year, how much and how often they are used, how large are the library's requirements for the public service, in cataloguing, printing and distribution, what are its receipts and expenditures, and how the public that we serve, can help us. The information which he has gathered with such scrupulous exactness, from the routine, not only of our own Library, but also from that of kindred institutions in England and this country, will Show a remarkable parallelism in the uses of books in widely separated communities, and a taste for works of imagination which has increased with the ability of authors and the press to supply them. A Public Library which does not furnish to its readers books which they want, may prove in the end only a reference library for scholars. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reports for 1863-90 include accession lists for the year. Beginning with 1893, the apprendixes consist of the various bulletins issued by the Library (Additions; Bibliography; History; Legislation; Library school; Public libraries)

Chronology of the library 1841-1901: 50th report, 1901/02.