[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

May I, through your columns, set forth one of the difficulties that the College Library encounters, and ask general co-operation in enforcing a remedy?

The Library maintains a large reading-room for general use, in which some 25,000 volumes are placed on open shelves accessible to all. Of these, 5000 volumes are reference books of various kinds permanently shelved here, 5300 volumes are United States documents, the complete file of which is constantly needed by students in American history, and finally, over 11,000 volumes are "reserved" books taken from the stacks at the request of instructors and kept here, that they may be easily accessible and equally useful to all. This purpose is realized only if all who consult the room consent to use the books in a spirit of fairness and with due regard for the rights of others. It is defeated whenever individuals carry away books, even temporarily, for their own advantage, or when they conceal books which they have been reading by placing them where they can find them, but where it is hoped others will not find them. Either of these things a man may very easily do if he is willing to put himself in the position of doing by stealth what he knows he could not do openly without being excluded from the Library. Such cases are difficult to detect. They are doubtless oftener seen by other readers than by the officers of the Library.

Last year 73 volumes were missing from the reading-room shelves at the end of the year--such books as Story's "Commentaries," 2 volumes; Adams's "Life of John Adams"; Thayer's "Cases on Constitutional Law"; Drake's "Landmarks of Boston"; Dowden's "Studies in Literature"; Abbott's "Shakespearean Grammar"; F. C. Lowell's "Joan of Arc"; Gardiner's "Story of Florence"; Calkins's "Problems of Philosophy"; Spencer's "First Principles"; Maudsley's "Physiology of the Mind"; Flynt's "Tramping with Tramps"; and others. This number, of course, is in addition to those which have disappeared temporarily and came back again. This year the second volume of Curtis's "Constitutional History," the third volume of Von Holst, Ball's "History of Mathematics," Thorpe's "Chemistry," volume 2, and others were taken early in the term. Two volumes of the Oxford History of music, Chandler's "English Roguery," and the first volume of Lessing's Works were missing for a few days--the days when others, as well as the purloiners, most wanted them--and then appeared again on the shelves.

It is humiliating to have to confess that this sort of thing goes on constantly, though not, I am inclined to believe, as extensively as in some other libraries. The only force that can stop it is the force of public opinion and the determination on the part of the great body of students who are fair-minded gentlemen, that it shall not be winked at or even permitted among those whom they know.

A moderate number of the books most in demand at the moment, so far as the demand can be ascertained in advance, are kept behind the Superintendent's desk and are handed out on request and for a limited time. Unless the other books can be protected from depredation by the cultivation of an unmistakable and executive public opinion against a mean and selfish use of them, we may as well send the books all back to their places in the bookstack and confess that a reading room with open shelves is a failure.

The Library will do its part in excluding from the room men who abuse its privileges whenever such men are detected. Will the students do their part in making such abuse despised?  W. C. LANE