For a year now, the Municipal Public Library has been operating in its new premises at 8 Sądowa Street in Bolesławiec. It also has a branch at 6 Staroszkolna Street, in the Senior Citizens’ Day Centre. In 1994, 9,340 regular readers used the collection—over a thousand more than the previous year. The readership rate therefore rose from 18.5 to 21 people per 100 residents. Nearly 450 people are overdue in returning borrowed books (they had used the three lending libraries previously operating in our town). The library asks borrowers in arrears to return the materials by the end of March this year. Until then, statutory fines for books kept overdue for longer will not be charged.
Greater reading activity was also recorded, as indicated by the number of visits—over 110,000—and loans, amounting to as many as 234,650 volumes. Compared with 1993, the average reader borrowed 26 books—8 more. Last year, over 4,700 volumes were purchased in total, including nearly 4,000 books and 792 volumes of audiovisual materials. This cost over 240 million złoty.
The library has no photocopies, but it does have 4,500 volumes of sound recordings, including gramophone records, audio cassettes with music and literary recordings, so-called talking books, and video cassettes. These materials can be borrowed from the Sound Recordings Department, where a video-cassette lending service was launched in December 1994. Among its video cassettes, the library has recordings of school reading assignments, educational films, and films for the youngest viewers. Purchases of these materials will also continue this year to supplement and enrich the selection. The Sound Recordings Department, together with the Video-Cassette Lending Service, is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., except on Wednesdays and Saturdays.