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RELIEF, which came to Europe in the early morning of September 30th, will be felt no more keenly anywhere than in libraries. Since Richard de Bury implored peace because war was the worst enemy of the book, we have had reason to know for ages what war may mean for our collections. Already, indeed, library staffs had been drawn upon for service in the Forces, in Air Raid Precautions and other urgent war work and some have not returned to their usual places yet. In the last war the proceedings began for libraries with drastic retrenchments and these were restored only when it was found that even at such a time the book was a necessity and not a superfluity.

Criticisms of the Library Association have no value which do not take account of all the circumstances. We are told that for some years past nothing constructive for librarianship or for its technique has been done. Our correspondent Callimachus makes this assertion by implication on another page. It must be remembered, however, that until quite recently the Library Association was a very small body which exercised an influence out of all proportion to its size and income. It has grown by direct membership and by affiliation in an extraordinary manner in the past year, a result which is due to goodwill on the part of librarians, but more immediately to the wise direction of Messrs. Jast and Savage and the untiring patience and tacful activity of Mr. Guy Keeling. Our readers know that Mr. Keeling has actually had to rest owing to the effects of overwork. This being so, it is quite clear that the demand for more must be tempered by a willingness to work on the part of the critics. The Association is only an embodiment of the membership; what the members want of the Association they must give to it.

THE problem that Dr. E.A. Savage introduced in our last issue may well be one of the crucial debates of this winter. When it is remembered that there was a time, as our writer in Letters on Our Affairs asserts, when it was thought inadvisable for a public librarian to be Hon. Secretary of the Library Association, we can see that times have changed. There is no doubt that the Brighton Conference showed the impossibility of adequate discussion of purely professional matters when authority members are present. The manner of achieving what many desire, and yet to retain the goodwill' of intelligent authority members, is what has to be determined.

SEPTEMBER sees the irrevocable passing of summer and the inevitable looking forward to autumnal plans. Such plans must be made, even in the shadows of this world situation, which as we write are as menacing as they have been since war began, and before these words appear another fourteen of the sixty days which Mr. Lyttleton warned us would be the gravest in our history will have elapsed. That leaves a formidable margin for possibilities. Librarians, as deeply involved as any people in the conflict, must nevertheless act as if the work of life will go on, even if not as in peace. Our difficulties do not lessen; more and more of our lads and girls, and some rather beyond the age these words cover, are being removed from libraries; the book situation worsens; and the demands for books increase, especially in what until recently were evacuation areas, to which many of our exiles have now returned.

In our Spring number we published an article by Dr. E. A. Savage under the above title. The following comments are to hand from Mr. White of Wallasey and Mr. Kemp of Princeton Street College. Dr. Savage's reply is appended to the correspondence.

Liverpool Conference was amongst the largest, as it was amongst the most successful, of recent years. In all but the weather it excelled, and there were fine intervals even in that. We publish the “Letters on our Affairs” by our well known correspondent, Callimachus, so far as it covers the first three days; the conclusion will follow next month, with what futcher comments seem to be necessary. The Annual Business Meeting was a little less rowdy than that at Scarborough, but one thing emerged from it and that was the determination of the A.A.L. to survive independently. There is more in this than meets the eye, and discussion on it may be postponed until a calmer mood prevails on all sides.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

A classification scheme by its notation does not do more than locate the subject; therefore, after the books are classified according to the scheme adopted, a secondary arrangement must be provided for the shelves, whereby books in a given class may be arranged in some order to accelerate finding and to differentiate one book from another. There are several methods in vogue of so arranging books in a given class, but one's choice will be, to some extent, determined by the System of issue in use. The usual methods are by:—

LIBRARY ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE affairs occupy our foreground this month of course. The Llandudno meeting will, we understand, be the last to be held in the spring. Various considerations, weighty enough, have made the early meeting undesirable. Municipal and county library authority members are occupied with elections and university and college librarians are pressed with imminent examinations. September, therefore, will hereafter be conference month, which, for those who so regard conferences, makes them a welcome extension of summer holidays. It also intrudes them into the holiday season and increases their cost and the difficulty of accommodating so large an assembly in halls and hotels.