go on thus for an indefinite number of years. Any new apartment, complete in itself, must involve waste, for some parts of it must necessarily fill up faster than others; but in the sliding-press is a beautiful elasticity; it can be introduced wherever it is seen to be wanted, and nowhere else. Finally, and for the Museum this is most important, the additional space gained is in the close vicinity of the Reading Room. A new building must have been at a distance, involving either great inconvenience in the supply of books to readers, or an additional Reading Room, catalogue, reference library, and staff.
I think enough has been said to convince librarians of the expediency of taking the sliding-press, or some analogous contrivance, into account, in plans for the enlargement of old libraries, or the construction of new ones. Some libraries will not require it, either because they are on too small a scale; or because, like branch libraries in great towns, they admit of being kept within limits; or because, like Archbishop Marsh's Library at Dublin, they are restricted to special collections. But all experience shows that it is impossible to provide for the wants of a great and growing library on too generous a scale, or to exhibit too much forethought in preparing for distant, it may be, but ultimately inevitable contingencies. York Cathedral Library might have seemed safe, but see the burden which Mr. Hailstone's recent benefaction has laid upon it. To the librarian it may be said of Space what the poet said of Love:—
"Whoe'er thou art, thy master see,
He was, or is, or is to be."
