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COL. Luxmoore Newcombe has been kind enough to comment on my remarks as to the policy, in at least one county library, of buying cheap books, leaving the supply of more expensive books to the Central Library for Students. When I began to contribute these notes at the invitation of my friend the Editor, I hardly thought any essay of mine would raise a question of high policy. But that has happened! On thinking over the matter it seems to me that the policy is of considerable domestic interest, and so I boldly proffer again my own local point of view and look for such support as I think I should get.

THE article “Student Books at the Local Centre” by A Country Teacher in the Autumn number of the Library Review is most encouraging to those of us who are trying to provide a source for the supply of those books which might otherwise be unobtainable. I am especially grateful for the statement that “there are sometimes delays, but I have learned to expect to get the book sooner or later,” because it recognises the fact that the Central Library for Students never says “No” to any reasonable request until it has exhausted all possible sources of supply.

“My local librarian tells me that he has not a copy of the book I want and that he cannot buy me a copy. How am I to obtain one, and what business has the local library— for which I pay rates—to fail me?”

IN this number, as is our custom at this time of the year, we turn our attention to the coming Annual Meeting of the Library Association. The choice of Leeds as a venue for the Conference, coming as it does after Glasgow and Birmingham, is a proof to those who need it of the earnestness which actuates the Council, and the members, of the Library Association. We note that our colleagues the accountants, surveyors and others, have a weakness for Torquay, Southport and Scarborough for their serious annual deliberations; and such a choice has one advantage: it encourages members of committees to join their officers at the meetings. There are compensations, however, as any wise man will recognise. The library movement succeeds, in so far as it is able to convince the great centres of population of its value. Meeting in them has, therefore, a primary political value, if we may use that term in this connection ; and it has a secondary professional one in that in such great towns a really complete and active application of library work can be seen.

WE give space this month to practical library binders to describe their work as they see it. Such an arrangement will commend itself to our readers, we hope, as there is no more present question with the librarian, and especially the public librarian. Since the war the quality of book‐papers has been such that binding has become the most formidable item in his annual budget except salaries and new book purchase. The cases in which publishers issue their books used to give about 60 issues before re‐binding was necessary; now they rarely give half that number. Binders have shown considerable ingenuity in discovering new methods of sewing, lining and strengthening, to meet the perishable qualities of the paper. Whether they have succeeded or not librarians may judge. The ideal binding for a reference book is an imperishable one; for a lending library book one that lasts in pleasant complexion just as long as the paper holds together. Anything less or more appears to be uneconomical.

AT the very outset of this paper it is necessary to make clear that it is not an attempt to compile an exhaustive bibliography of literature relating to special librarianship. Neither space nor time permit this. In fact, the references given can only claim to be a sample of the wealth of material on the subject and this paper is submitted in the hope that it will stimulate others to more scholarly efforts. Reference numbers throughout this paper refer to items in the ‘Select list of references to the literature of special librarianship’, section 2 onwards.

OUR next number will contain our impressions and those of others of the Blackpool conference. Any anticipations made now will be obsolete by the middle of June. All that need be said here is that we hope no drastic change will have been suggested in the examination syllabus; all other matters are, in our view, legitimate matters for debate in general meetings, but where the syllabus is concerned only Fellows have the necessary qualifications to vote upon it. This we have expressed sufficiently perhaps in the past; there is, however, no harm in repeating it.

CIRCUMSTANCES have delayed us this month long enough for us to have read the page on the new President of the Library Association Professor Raymond Irwin. It is a tribute that all will endorse cordially. Since he went to University College he has identified himself even more intensely than he was able to do with every movement that concerns the betterment of libraries as well as his main occupation which was to maintain and extend the work of library training. He has done so, insomuch that students even from America, where good schools abound, have come to take the session at University College. We, as speaking for Grafton and Co., have been privileged to publish the three works by which he is best known, and we hope that they may still be available to readers, especially his Librarianship which is concise, profound and unpedantic a study of library “what's what” or “what should be” as any we know. Those who have not read it would advantage themselves by repairing the omission. His Bird Index, a reflection of the labours of his scanty and strenuous leisure of many years, is we suppose in the library of every reader of this journal. That he will do honour to the Presidency there is no possible doubt. His election was as wise as any that we have had; and the Brighton Conference in 1958 should be amongst our brightest and best.

For me the earliest number of The Library Assistant still has upon it the silver glow which in middle age belongs to remembered dreams. To our Bournemouth Library in 1898 the modest bantling came, its pale blue cover crowded with advertisements, on the front of binder and bookseller; of the Cotgreave indicator and magazine racks on the back. A simply‐printed affair of twelve pages, as unpretentious as a country‐town bulletin, but a veritable window into life for many, however, and, in my sober judgment, a chief influence in the making of the library spirit of to‐day.

FOR me the earliest number of The Library Assistant still has upon it the silver glow which in middle age belongs to remembered dreams. To our Bournemouth Library in 1898 the modest bantling came, its pale blue cover crowded with advertisements, on the front of binder and bookseller; of the Cotgreave indicator and magazine racks on the back. A simply‐printed affair of twelve pages, as unpretentious as a country‐town bulletin, but a veritable window into life for many, however; and, in my sober judgment, a chief influence in the making of the library spirit of to‐day.