WIDENER HAS UP-TO-DATE GOVERNMENT LIBRARY

For the use of students of Municipal Government, a Research in Municipal Government is maintained on the top floor of the Widener Library. This municipal library, established through the generosity of F. G. Thomson '97 and Clarke Thomson '98, consists of about 7000 books and pamphlets, including city charters, city ordinances, the annual reports of all the largest. American cities, and special reports and surveys covering every field of municipal government. Besides this, this collection contains a complete set of text books and monographs relating to city affairs, as well as a selection of data on the government of European cities.

Although this library on Municipal Government is not the largest of its kind, it is undoubtedly the most valuable as a working collection since it contains no obsolete material of any sort. As soon as any of the publications on its shelves become a few years old, they are sent down to the "stacks" and added to the general collections of the College Library.

This Municipal Government Library has been frequently used in connection with investigations conducted for various public authorities. A considerable portion of the work of complaining data for the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention a Couple of years ago was done in this library. At the present time it is being used for the assembling of material required by the City of Boston in regard to new sources of municipal revenue.

The chief purpose of this Municipal Library, however, is not the enlightenment of public authorities, but rather to afford proper facilities for the training of Harvard students. The members of the Department of Government realize that a student cannot obtain an adequate knowledge of Political Science by merely reading somebody's text-book; the only efficient way is to afford him opportunity for work in the live material of present day administration. This is what the various courses in the Department are now encouraging the undergraduate to do.