Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Working of the Boston Public Library The Library then had less than ten thousand vol umes, mostly acquired by gift, and its entire expense for the first year was of which was for books. It has grown to its present condition where its annual expenses are mainly by taxes willingly paid by the people, and is therefore peculiarly a Library made and maintained by the people for the people. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.