190
of Mr. Bolton of the Atheneum of Boston, U.S.A.". This catalogue was dictionary in format and it included 2,125 catalogued items, grouped as follows:
General Works 324
Philosophy 278
Religion 54
Sociology 65
Philology 120
Natural Sciences 52
Useful Arts 133
Fine Arts 84
Literature 340
History 675
(13) on Chinese languages)20
The need for a new and larger building became a regular topic of discussion, and the Shanghai Municipal Council became a frequent, if unpredictable, supporter of its causes, including the funding of the renovation of its building in 1909.2
In a guidebook written about this time, the Rev. C. E. Darwent wrote:
The building in which the society is housed is situated in the Museum Road, just behind the British Post Office. There is a good library of books, on Oriental subjects mainly; a good supply of the proceedings of learned societies and learned magazines is kept. There is an exceedingly comfortable lecture hall; upstairs is a museum. The fathers of the settlement did well for it; their successors do nothing.2
By 1910 the library was open seven days a week, and no longer closed for tiffin as it had in earlier times. Donations were increasing, thanks largely to its new honorary librarian, Florence Wheelock Ayscough. A **suggestion book** was put out. A Chinese “assistant librarian” was engaged, first a "Mr. Woo" and later a "Mr. Wong", the latter described as “hard-working and attentive”. These people presumably did the routine checking out of materials, shelving, and record keeping. The library remained essentially an institution serving the foreign community although there was some Chinese membership in later years.
A bequest from Thomas Kingsmill, a long-time society member, enriched the library. Duplicate works were sold and the funds used to