The reference library is "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined" in the old Town Hall of the city, and has long outgrown the accommodation there provided.
It is strange that the town which was the first in Britain to obtain parliamentary powers to establish a public library should be content with a makeshift building as a home for its splendid collection of books. It has now in its reference library over 100,000 volumes, and by common consent the quality of the collection is second to none. Liverpool, as we have seen, has housed its central library in buildings worthy of the city, but Manchester in this respect has lagged behind, and has yet to erect a suitable home for its literary treasures.
In Fig. 79 are given plans of the ground and first floors of the central reference library. Study of these will show the many disadvantages under which the library suffers. The large reading-room is shelved around its walls to a height of about 20 feet for the books most in demand, and the remainder of the stock is scattered over different rooms in other parts of the building. On the ground floor is a lower reading-room—a wellfitting name, for its ceiling is low, and the last time the writer visited it he wondered how any one could exist in it for many hours without asphyxiation.
The branch libraries at Manchester, however, are worthy of the city. They are now fifteen in number, and most of them have, in addition to the ordinary accommodation of lending library and reading-room, a special room for boys. This is a feature of great usefulness, and other libraries
