Page 87 - Training for Librarianship Library Work As a Career

CHAPTER V

Proprietary and Subscription Libraries

Proprietary and subscription libraries
differ from public libraries in that their
ownership as well as their use is restricted
to such who are shareholders in the stock of
the corporation maintaining the Ubrary, or
who pay a stated annual subscription fee for
the privilege of access to and use of the
library. Such libraries, it may be noted, ante-
dated and in many cases were the direct ante-
cedents of free public libraries. With the
advent of the free pubHc library most pro-
prietary libraries disappeared since they
could not compete with them. Many, how-
ever, such as the Boston Athenseum, the Bos-
ton Library Society, the Mercantile Library
in New York still exist and promise to
exist permanently.
Proprietary hbraries are both general and
special. Thus the Boston Athenaeum is a
general library, with a well-balanced collec-
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