ments by drawing upon the general collection of the Central 
Library. 
The newest branch library is the Business-District Branch, 
located on the first floor of the City-County Building at 
Grant and Diamond streets. This branch was opened in 
June 1924, for the convenience of business and industrial 
concerns, and for busy people downtown. Directories of 
orincipal cities, business digests, bond and statistical rating 
service, trade directories, and business reference books form 
the bulk of the book collection here, but a daily messenger 
to the Central Library makes the entire collection of over a 
half million books available upon a day’s notice. Over a 
aundred trade and technical magazines are received here 
regularly, and two important financial papers—the Wall 
Street Journal and the Journal of Commerce—are received 
dailv. 
In 1920, the Department of Work with Schools was 
officially organized. Hitherto, library work with the schools 
had been carried on by the Department for Children to which 
it is still closely allied. Up to that time, with one exception, 
all work was done with schools through the nearest branch 
library only. The first separate school library in Pittsburgh 
was started at Schenley High School in 1916. This was the 
first to come under the cooperative plan of the Board of Pub- 
lic Education and the library, whereby the library fulfilled 
certain obligations and the Board of Public Education fulfilled 
other obligations. The library room, its equipment, and the 
reference books which are on permanent deposit are furnished 
by the Board of Public Education; the supervision, catalogu- 
ing of all books, and the books in the circulating collection are 
‘urnished by the Library. 
Since the birth of the official Department of Work with 
Schools, twelve more high school libraries have been organ- 
ized. Allegheny High School Library had been started 
previous to the organization of this department. 
The platoon school library is an entirely new develop- 
ment. During six years’ time, forty-three platoon school 
libraries have been established. The particular advantages 
of a platoon school library may be briefly told as follows: