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reports; and even the reports of such associations as the Red Cross and the Paper Hunt Club of Shanghai. There were printed catalogues of pertinent collections in such foreign libraries as the Newberry and John Crerar Libraries of Chicago, the Morrison Library of Hong Kong, the Bibliothek zu Berlin, the universities of Leiden and Upsala, and the Raffles Museum of Singapore. In spite of all this bibliographic wealth, the librarian maintained the Society's tradition of complaining about what was not there:
It still suffers from forgetfulness,
―
not the willing neglect
of authors. Refusals to requests for books are rare, but unfortunately unsolicited presentations are not as numerous as might be wished.2
Use statistics were seldom mentioned in early annual reports, but they became a regular feature in the 1920's. In 1926, for example, 3,124 people used the reading room, and 543 volumes were checked out to members.29
By 1928 a campaign was mounted to raise Tls 100,000 for a new building, and two years later the British government donated the land it had formerly leased to the society, thus enabling the society to borrow funds against it. The British Tobacco Company, Sassoon and Company, and other enterprises made significant contributions. An official of His Majesty's Foreign Office called the society "the one bright spot in Shanghai*." In 1931 the library collection was crated and stored while the old building was torn down and a new one constructed in its place. It reopened in 1934 with the library occupying the second floor. It included a “private office for the librarian and a well-lighted Reading Room. The storage space for books is amply designed to provide for future expansion".3
Yet another recataloguing of the collection took place in 1936 in preparation for the sixth edition of the catalogue. The count was 11,350 titles. That year also saw the beginning of the keeping of an accession book,32
As the political situation in China became more unstable, the library became more heavily used. This was in part owing to the destruction