Search results

WE deeply regret to record the passing of Mr. L. Stanley Jast, which occurred on Christmas Day at his home in Twickenham Park, Middlesex. Mr. Jast had been living in retirement since demitting office as Chief Librarian of the Manchester Public Libraries in 1931. He had resigned his post in Manchester while he yet had time to go. He retired gracefully and in good health which continued with him for some years, but latterly he suffered the ailments of old age.

WHEN I changed the then beautiful town of Bournemouth for the undoubtedly attractive one of Croydon, having almost unaccountably become sub‐librarian there in 1904, I found myself among a set of what proved to be rather remarkable people. “A smart young fellow,” had been my first chief's description of my new one, Louis Stanley Jast, and in the economy of words he was wont to use, this meant much. Of course, before I went for the interview, I tried to gather something of L. S. J. He was versatile, I was told, and volatile, a poet, orator, traveller, one who could not suffer fools with proverbial gladness, who expected you to look him straight in the eyes, where he certainly looked you. This, in itself, was quite enough. However, I came out of the ordeal most pleasantly, after the Chairman, Alderman H. Keatley Moore, one of the best advocates public libraries have had, remarked “If you please Mr. Jast, I am sure you will be very happy with him,” and Alderman Frederick Foss (father of Hubert Foss, the musical composer and critic) had added, “Jast! Fancy anyone being happy with you—Good God!” I believe it is possible to get on with any chief if one is loyal to his purposes, but although I was as raw as a provincial could be, I found that I had reached a place where encouragement and appreciation almost anticipated every effort.

OPTIMISM as to the outlook is shown by the report from Sheffield of a book‐moving day, or perhaps returning‐day would be a better phrase, which involved the return from safe storage to the Central Library of 10,000 books, 5,000 manuscripts and plans, and 10 tons of newspaper files. This probably is the first record of a homeward pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of volumes of books as well as artistic and other treasures from bomb‐proof concealment. It is, however, yet too early for the districts in southern England to undertake the risk involved in such return. The newspapers are wisely silent about the areas in which there is still risk, but they are quite inarticulate as to the nature of the risk and it is clear that it covers a large area. The recent mobilization of air defences at Edinburgh suggests too that the particular type of attack to which Great Britain is still subject may not be confined to the south of England—from the nature of the weapon there appears to be no reason why it should be. Nevertheless, the risk that we think Sheffield takes is a legitimate one. People have returned in large numbers to their own homes; they need libraries and within reasonable limits they should have them. Our best work cannot be done when the valuable part of our stock is in inaccessible places. This return of books will create in many towns a serious storage problem: we can point to libraries which distributed their stock and which through accessions, gifts from evacuated people and other sources of accession, have filled most of the space occupied by their ordinary stock. Most of us need new buildings and our priority for them must be low. The ingenuity of librarians will be severely taxed in this as in many other matters.

THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties. Anything that Mr. Jast has to say is said with originality even if the subject is not original; his quality has always been to give an independent and novel twist to almost everything he touches. We think our readers will find this to be so when he touches the important question of “The Library and Leisure.”

Prominence is given in this issue to the interesting Diamond Jubilee celebration held last month in connection with the Norwich Public Library. It was a courageous but entirely proper thing to hold this celebration in war time, because although it was calculated to raise opposition from short‐sighted people, at the same time it was good policy to affirm that the Public Library is an essential part of national economy even in the greatest of wars. Excellent arguments on behalf of this last proposition were advanced at that meeting in the happy speech made by Mr. L. Stanley Jast, which we hope to see published in even fuller form sooner or later, and equally in the letter from Sir Frederic Kenyon. This gains greatly in force from the fact that Sir Frederic is not only an officer in the Army, but is, we believe, at this moment serving in France. If any of our readers have had doubts about the present seasonableness of their work, and there may conceivably be such, they may wisely ponder the letter and again take heart of grace. As for the celebration as a whole, it was, as we have said, opportune; it was also skilfully engineered and advertised, and was an undoubted success upon which the Norwich Library Committee and Mr. G. A. Stephen have every reason to congratulate themselves.

Far too much weight seems to have been given to the Local Government Board circular which mentioned public libraries as institutions whose expenditure should be examined with a view to effecting economies. This, to the ordinary person, would seem to call on library committees to exercise special care to prevent unnecessary expenditure, and more particularly to see that capital expenditure on new buildings and extensions is not made. The first of these requirements has been common for years; had there been wasteful expenditure, and if librarians had not carefully financed their resources, half the libraries in England would have been bankrupt long ago. The second requirement is just, and would be accepted even by the most unbridled library enthusiast. But local bodies have not been content so to read the circular. They have frequently interpreted it to mean that “libraries must mark time,” are “of small value in peace and less in war,” and the war is being made an excuse by old‐standing opponents of public culture to do as much damage as possible to the library movement.

OUR theme in general this month is the personality of the librarian. One may say that librarians have a habit of discussing the recruitment of the profession, its pay and other factors in the personnel. And it is natural that they should have, because after all it is their life. The librarian as a man rarely figures at any length or in any detail in the books or magazines that we usually read. Lately, it is true, Mr. L. Stanley Jast has been contributing to a contemporary, The Library Review, some admirable all‐too‐brief articles on his memories of personalities and doings mainly in connection with the Library Association thirty or more years since. It is a pity that Mr. Jast cannot be persuaded to give these reminiscences at much greater length, and although it is possible that their main appeal is to the born librarian, yet for those who read as they run, they possess many things of quite living interest. In short, the librarian is bound to be interested in the librarian himself; that is human nature.

ONE of the subjects which will probably come up for discussion at the Brighton meeting of the Library Association is that of instituting a Register of qualified librarians. This has already been talked about in various connections, and has now become an inevitable topic for discussion at meetings of branch associations owing to Messrs. Jast and Sayers having imitated the peripatetic method adopted by Mr. G. T. Shaw for securing a larger hearing for his scheme of improvement. A brief examination of the whole situation may not come amiss at this particular juncture, as most librarians have only a hazy idea of what is meant by the registration of Messrs. Jast and Sayers, and that proposed by the promoters of the Institute of Librarians; and wherein both proposals differ from the legal and effective registration secured to other professional bodies by statute or otherwise.

THE centenary celebration is that of the apparently prosaic public library acts ; it is not the centenary of libraries which are as old as civilization. That is a circumstance which some may have overlooked in their pride and enthusiasm for the public library. But no real librarian of any type will fail to rejoice in the progress to which the celebration is witness. For that has been immense. We are to have a centenary history of the Public Library Movement—that is not its title—from the Library Association. We do not know if it will be available in London this month; we fear it will not. We do know its author, Mr. W. A. Munford, has spent many months in research for it and that he is a writer with a lucid and individual Style. We contemplate his task with a certain nervousness. Could anyone less than a Carlyle impart into the dry bones of municipal library history that Strew these hundred years, the bones by the wayside that mark out the way, the breath of the spirit that will make them live ? For even Edward Edwards, whose name should be much in the minds and perhaps on the lips of library lovers this month, could scarcely have foreseen the contemporary position ; nor perhaps could Carlyle who asked before our genesis why there should not be in every county town a county library as well as a county gaol. How remote the days when such a question was cogent seem to be now! It behoves us, indeed it honours us, to recall the work of Edwards, of Ewart, Brotherton, Thomas Greenwood, Nicholson, Peter Cowell, Crestadoro, Francis Barrett, Thomas Lyster, J. Y. M. MacAlister, James Duff Brown and, in a later day without mentioning the living, John Ballinger, Ernest A. Baker, L. Stanley Jast, and Potter Briscoe—the list is long. All served the movement we celebrate and all faced a community which had to be convinced. It still has, of course, but our people do now allow libraries a place, more or less respected, in the life of the people. Librarians no longer face the corpse‐cold incredulity of the so‐called educated classes, the indifference of the masses and the actively vicious hostility of local legislators. Except the illuminated few that existed. These were the men who had the faith that an informed people was a happier, more efficient one and that books in widest commonalty spread were the best means of producing such a people. These, with a succession of believing, enduring librarians, persisted in their Struggle with cynic and opponent and brought about the system and the technique we use, modified of course and extended to meet a changing world, but essentially the same. Three names we may especially honour this September, Edward Edwards, who was the sower of the seed; MacAlister, who gained us our Royal Charter ; and John Ballinger, who was the person who most influenced the introduction of the liberating Libraries Act of 1919.

PERHAPS the outstanding current event in the library world is the appointment by the President of the Board of Education of a Departmental Committee “To inquire into the adequacy of library provision already made under the Public Libraries Acts, and the means of extending and completing such provision throughout England and Wales, regard being had to the relation of the libraries conducted under those Acts to other public libraries and to the general system of national education.” In looking over the names of the gentlemen constituting this committee it is apparent that official educationists dominate the committee and that the library side is inadequately (in point of number) represented. Only two names representing public libraries, out of 14, are to be found. This is manifestly inadequate, notwithstanding the fact that there is still one additional member to appoint which may, or may not, be a public librarian. Is the Library Association alive in the matter, and may we suggest the name of Mr. L. Stanley Jast, whose outstanding work and knowledge of library affairs should be drawn upon in an enquiry of this nature?