Will the Classics Perish The librarian of a publio library at Home gave recently some interesting information as to the demand for books in the lending departuient, The majority of women readers ask for light, modern love tales. The favourite novelists are Gertrude Page, Ethel Dell, Mills Young, Richard Deban, Charles Garvice, Oppenheim; and Rider Haggard it still being asked for. Wells and Arnold Bennett are read largely by women who require more serious and realistic novels. Humorous books are not read so uch by the female ticket holders. Such authors as Leacock, Jacobs, and Jerome are read by younger men and women and business men, but seldom by elderly or middle-aged women.
oth men and women are partial to the novels of Stacpoole, Marsh, Lo Queux, Oppenheim, and Rider Haggard. There hag recen.ly been a larger demand for these thrill-lung books, The Victorian novelists, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Thackeray, Scott, and Eliot are now chiefly read by girls just leaving school, and it is astonishing how! quickly they read through these masterpieces. Approximately 60 per cent., of the borrowers from' public libraries are middle-aged women, 20 per cent., are young men, while the remaining 20 per cent. are elderly people and young girl students.
Here are statistics taken from the librarian's books for one Saturday (it will be seen that the demand for classical literature is surprisingly small): Novels, 1,004; science and art, 110; travel and history, 97; classical (poetry, ete.), 60; music, 36; religion, 27; social science, 20; i sports and recreations, 18,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.