possible on out-of-the-way books, and omit them as " not procurable."
The supply of "periodicals," "journals," and newspapers from abroad is a matter of peculiar difficulty. If these are obtained through dealers, they cannot be received immediately on the publication of the respective numbers, when their value is greatest, but must be sent over in batches. If the librarian saves dealers' commission he will have to pay postage, and put up with loss and damage in the post, both of which are unfortunately considerable. The purchase of sets of newspapers is, however, a duty that must not be shirked, for private individuals will not keep sets of such unwieldy productions. Their lives, however, will be short in many cases, owing to the execrable paper on which they are printed. The late Mr. Justin Winsor, we believe, once tried to induce the chief newspaper proprietors of Boston to print copies on special paper for the public libraries there, but without effect.
Another question that must perplex the librarian, however large his budget, is the selection of books and periodicals in the less-known languages. The number of readers able to tackle, say, Finnish or Hungarian, will always be quite small in any library outside Finland or Hungary, except, perhaps, in the United States, where particular towns have large nuclei of immigrants of these nationalities. Yet the students of Finnish in London (such specialists we can assure the reader there are) ought to be able to get Finnish works of genius
