Excerpt from The Libraries of London: A Guide for Students One of the duties laid upon the University of London by the Statutes of 1900 is that of organising, improving and extending higher education within the appointed radius of thirty miles from the University Building. Among the instruments essential to higher education few, if any, are more important than libraries; it is therefore appropriate that the University Librarian should have under taken the first attempt to bring together into one work information concerning the various libraries of the Metro polis. Not only is this information of great use to general readers who have no personal knowledge of the literary storehouses of London, as well as to those who find them selves bewildered by the number of these libraries and are unable to compare easily the different opportunities which they offer; but it will also be of great service to librarians and to the governing bodies of libraries if they desire to make their great resources more useful to students by some scheme of co-operation. In the foundation and development of London libraries too little attention has been paid in the past to the resources which already existed. There is no doubt that a great deal of overlapping has taken place, and that money which has been spent on unnecessary duplication might have been better devoted to filling certain lacunae which should never have been allowed to exist; especially in these days when improved means of communication render it easy for readers to visit any library in the Metro polis. The first step towards better organisation is to survey the present situation. 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.