THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

"The opening of the new library building at the University of Michigan on the 12th of December," says a writer in one of the New York dailies, "was an event of more than local interest. The friends of the large number of students at the university will be glad to learn that the rooms in the law building, which for twenty years have afforded shelter and meagre accommodations for the general library, have at length been surrendered to the exclusive use of that department of the institution for which the building was originally designed. A little more than two years ago the Legislature appropriated $100,000 for a new and incombustible library building. The needs of the university were somewhat peculiar, inasmuch as the number of students using the library is very large in proportion to the number of volumes in the collection. It has thus far been deemed impracticable to allow the books to be taken away from the building, and consequently a large reading room was indispensable. Mr. Van Brunt, of Boston, who had the advantage of experience in remodeling the Harvard library building, was employed as the architect, and the result is probably in many respects the most interesting university library building in the country. The predominant feature of it is the semi-circular reading-room. This room is admirably lighted by a continuous row of twenty-two windows near the ceiling. The reading desks are ranged in semi-circular lines and afford accommodations for 212 readers. The reading-room is separated from the book-room by the main corridor and delivery desk, while on either side are the rooms for cataloguing and administration. The book-room is constructed on what is know as the Harvard plan, and, besides ample provisions for enlargement, affords present accommodations for 108,000 volumes. In the second story are fitted up four rooms for the use of professors and students pursuing special branches of study. These connect directly with the upper story of the book-room, and thus the books likely to be most needed by specialists are made easily accessible. In two of the rooms will be carried on the work of the Seminaries of English Literature and Classical Philology, while the other two are devoted especially to the uses of the School of Political Science. The Shakespeare Library, consisting of 2,500 volumes, recently presented by Mr. McMillan, is shelved in one of the rooms, and the new acquisitions on the subject of history and political science, of somewhat more than 2,000 volumes, are accessible in two of the others. In the story above the reading room, the special students' room, and the book-room, is the Gallery of Fine Arts, where is already to be seen a very interesting collection of marbles, bronzes, and casts, as well as of engravings and photographs."