Page 88 - Training for librarianship; library work as a career

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANSHIP :;

tion covering many fields ; on the other hand,
the Social Law Library in Boston is devoted
exclusively to law and legal topics, while the
Boston Medical Library is confined strictly
to medicine. The distinction between pro-
prietary, subscription and other libraries is
mainly that of limitation of access to share-
holders or subscribers or to those introduced
by them.
In the past the proprietary library has
dra^vn its support mainly from three groups
(a) those with means who, in spite of the
prevalence of and opportunity of access to
public libraries, have preferred the privacy
and other advantages of a library under cor-
porate management; (b) those unable or
unwilhng to maintain a private hbrary,
who have joined with others in estab-
lishing at their own expense a library giving
them all the advantages of a private library
and (c) those who, living in sparsely settled
districts, have joined with others in forming a
library open only to those sharing in the ex-
pense of maintenance. During the last cen-
tury the last-named group was to be found
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