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I HAVE sometimes been asked whether I am conscious, as the present editor of THE LIBRARY WORLD, of the spirit and influence of its founder, James Duff Brown, and of his editorial successors, who included J. D. Stewart and W. C. Berwick Sayers. The answer is that of course I am—how could it be otherwise?

OUR various accounts of the Portsmouth Conference, and the official record of it which is now in the hands of readers shows that it may be regarded as a successful one. It was specially notable for the absence of those bickerings and differences which must inevitably come to the surface at times. There may be something in the suggestion of one of our writers that the weather was a main factor. However that may be, there was uniform good temper, and we came away with the belief that a good week's work for librarianship had been done.

THERE are now so many meetings of the Library Association and its branches and sections that the good custom of recording meetings and the discussions at them has fallen into desuetude. In a way it is a gain, for when the discussion was commonplace the account of a meeting became a mere list of those who attended and spoke, bones without flesh; but in the days when The Library Association Record really was a record, its reports were a part of the educational and informational material of every librarian. Something should be done about this, because 1938 opened with a series of meetings which all deserved the fullest report. The principal one was the investiture meeting of the President of the Library Association on January 17th. The attendance was greater than that at any meeting of librarians in recent years, of course other than the Annual Conference. Chaucer House was beautifully arranged, decorated and lighted for the occasion, an atmosphere of cheerfulness and camaraderie pervaded the affair. The speeches were limited to a few preliminary words by the retiring President, the Archbishop of York, before placing the badge on his successor's neck; a brief, but deserved panegyric of Dr. Temple's services by Mr. Berwick Sayers; and then a delightful acknowledgment from His Grace. The serious point the Archbishop made was his surprise at learning the wide extent of the library movement and his conviction that it must be of great value to the community. His lighter touch was exquisite; especially his story of the ceremonial key, which broke in the lock and jammed it when he was opening a library in state, and of his pause to settle mentally the ethical point as to whether he could conscientiously declare he had “opened” a place when he had made it impossible for anyone to get in until a carpenter had been fetched. Altogether a memorable evening, which proved, too, as a guest rightly said, that one cannot easily entertain librarians, but, if you get them together in comfortable conditions, they entertain themselves right well.

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.

THIS is the month when librarians and library workers everywhere, their holidays over, turn to their winter plans. There are, however, some interesting events to take place before the darker and more active months come. The first is the meeting at Oxford on September 21st and subsequent days of the Federation International de Documentation. This will be followed by and merge into the ASLIB Conference, and there is in prospect an attendance of over three hundred. Our readers know that this organization produces and advocates the International Decimal Classification. It is not primarily a “library” society but rather one of abstractors and indexers of material, but it is closely akin, and we hope that English librarianship will be well represented. Then there is a quite important joint‐conference at Lincoln of the Northern Branches of the Library Association on September 30th— October 3rd, which we see is to be opened by the President of the Library Association. Finally the London and Home Counties Branch are to confer at Folkestone from October 14th to 16th, and here, the programme includes Messrs. Jast, Savage, McColvin, Wilks, Carter, and the President will also attend. There are other meetings, and if the question is asked: do not librarians have too many meetings ? we suppose the answer to be that the Association is now so large that local conferences become desirable. One suggestion, that has frequently been made, we repeat. The Library Association should delegate a certain definite problem to each of its branches, asking for a report. These reports should form the basis of the Annual Conference. It is worthy of more consideration.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb011994. When citing the article, please cite: W.C. BERWICK SAYERS, (1935), “When I Began”, Library Review, Vol. 5 Iss: 3, pp. 112 - 117.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb012001. When citing the article, please cite: W.C. BERWICK SAYERS, (1935), “Some Early Friends”, Library Review, Vol. 5 Iss: 4, pp. 176 - 181.

IN recognition of his services to the library movement in India, H. H. the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda, G.C.S.I., was the guest of honour at a dinner given at Claridge's, London, on 30th May, by the transitive circle called THE LIBRARY REVIEW AND FRIENDS. Those present included Mr. E. Salter Davies, C.B.E., President of the Library Association, Mr. L. R. McColvin, F.L.A., Hon. Secretary of the Library Association, Mr. P. S. J. Welsford, F.I.S.A., Secretary of the Library Association, Mr. W. C. Berwick Sayers, F.L.A., Chief Librarian, Croydon Public Libraries, Mr. J. H. Roberts of the New Statesman and Nation, Dr. Modak, the A.D.C. to H. H. the Maharaja Gaekwar, Mr. Newton M. Dutt, F.L.A., formerly Reader to His Highness and State Librarian of Baroda, and Mr. R. D. Macleod, F.L.A. (who presided). Apologies for absence were received from Colonel J. M. Mitchell, C.B.E., Professor C. N. Seddon, sometime Dewan of Baroda, Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe, Mr. M. H. Spielmann, F.S.A., Mr. William Will, Captain L. Cranmer‐Byng, and one on behalf of Mr. Arundell Esdaile, Secretary to the British Museum, who was at Madrid.

I became editor of The library world at a funeral. It was October 1960 and W C Berwick Sayers, former chief librarian of Croydon, had died, aged 80 or thereabouts. I joined a large congregation at a Croydon church to pay my last respects to one I had known and admired. Impossible to get a seat, so I stood at the back, finding myself cheek‐by‐jowl with Clive Bingley, then a friend of two years’ standing.

ALL journals move with the times if they are vital. We have always held that The Library World has been in touch with the currents of thought and practice and, as this is our jubilee number, we would stress these facts again. Fifty years ago, the pioneer public librarians of the closing nineteenth century found that they needed a means of expression and communication, and indeed of criticism, untrammelled by the necessary reticences of the official associations. That is not to say that they were not, as now, supporters of the Library Association; indeed, they were its most active members; but they realized that The Library Association Record is the property of the members. It is bound to refrain from undue praise or blame of any activity of any of those members. At least, that was the view then prevalent and we still think it is a fair one. Thence came THE LIBRARY WORLD with its open secret that the honorary Editor was James Duff Brown. It drew on a wide range of contributors, and was the voice of those who were fighting for open access, subject‐indexes, close‐classification, and the card catalogue, as well as the general liberation of libraries from indicators with all the restrictions those contraptions sustained. That echo of a dead controversy of long ago rings naturally in our jubilee hour. It was an influence from the start, and in its unbroken career almost every librarian of importance has written something for it; indeed, many young writers first saw themselves in print in it. That was and is a characteristic of our editorial effort—to furnish a forum for librarians of any age, in the belief that age needs the criticism and suggestions of youth as much as youth needs those of age. If, occasionally, an article has appeared which has betrayed the prentice hand, we have made no apology for it; there has always been something in it that repaid the publication. Generally, however, the methods which now prevail in public and other libraries, but perhaps especially in public libraries, were first expounded in our pages. Then we have writers who have written for nearly forty years in that remarkable correspondence, Letters on Our Affairs, which even today is probably the most‐read of all library writings. At least a dozen faithful correspondents have been involved in them.