Libraries are only next in importance to schools, colleges and universities as means of educating the public. A library is a store-house of books-books of all kinds and on all subjects under the sun.
A good modern library usually subscribes to practically all the important newspapers and periodicals. Books, newspapers and periodicals are the main features of a library and they represent the endeavours, achievements and glory of writers, statesmen, scientists, philosophers and saints.
For a person of average means it is difficult to purchase more than one or two daily newspapers, but it is the keen desire of educated people to know all possible shades of opinion as expressed in various newspapers. The obvious course for them is to visit a library during their leisure and glance through the relevant pages of many newspapers which they think are worth the trouble.
Generally a person does not subscribe to more than one or two magazines or periodicals and yet in these days of abundant supply of illustrated and pictorial journals most of us would like to have a look at the most attractive and interesting among them. This can be done only in a library which usually subscribes to most of the popular magazines.
The best feature of a library is that it either makes no charge upon the readers or collects a negligible membership fee for making available to them newspapers and journals. This fact is immensely helpful to the ill-paid and poor members of society who, notwithstanding their poverty, are interested in the political, social and religious developments reported by newspapers.
To those who are vociferous book readers, a library is all the more useful. Only a very rich man can afford to have a large private collection of books, while the desire to read books is now- a-days becoming more and more common. Besides, no private collection can be as big, up-to-date, and varied as the collection of books in a library; one can find books