bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Children's Book Section
Authors: GREEN MURIEL M.
Published: March 2008

THE value of encouraging reading and a love of books at an early age is now receiving more recognition among librarians. At a meeting of Children's Librarians held at the Annual Conference of the Library Association this summer it was the general opinion that librarians should provide a section of picture and easy reading books for the under‐nines. Too many librarians still refuse to recognise the needs of children under nine, and even fewer provide for the under‐sevens, though books for small children are more plentiful than those for older ones, and many are most artistically produced. Librarians and teachers should stop and consider the lot of children who come from bookless homes. In many cases their bookishness developed from their early introduction to books at home, and some are inclined to overlook the fact that not all children are so fortunate as to possess a family library. Of those who do, some mothers look upon books as untidy objects to be pushed away in cupboards, and regard reading as a waste of time, thus only the older and more determined children will develop an interest in reading under such adverse circumstances. They are encouraged by their school and public libraries and, if they are catered for, younger brothers and sisters will also become keen readers and have the foundations laid for a love of the best books which will make them discriminating readers in the future.
The Children's Book Section
Authors: GREEN MURIEL M.
Published: March 2008

IN the less‐than‐a‐century in which children's literature has developed, many types of books have emerged, and perhaps one class—the moral story—has disappeared (or if not entirely so, at least it is cold‐shouldered by modern young people). But the new literature has not displaced the fairy tale, one of the oldest forms, and still a favourite of children with imagination. A volume which should be added to the home bookshelf alongside Andersen, Grimm and Perrault, is Christina Hole's recently reprinted collection of tales from many lands entitled Folk Tales of Many Nations (H. Joseph, 10/6). They are related in a pleasant, straightforward style which presents no difficulties, and they are just long enough to hold the attention of young readers. In Norwegian Fairy Tales (Muller, 5/−) G. Strindberg has chosen old traditional folk legends about trolls, hulders, and other fairy people, and she has illustrated them herself. The Golden Treasury of Fairy Tales (Gulliver, 6/−) contains abridged and retold versions of childhood favourites by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Andersen, Frances Browne, and others. On the production side, the printing is rather lifeless and badly spaced. An interesting collection of tales handed down from father to son in the remote parts of the Irish countryside has been made by Gerard Murphy in Tales from Ireland (Browne and Nolan, 7/6). The volume is attractively produced and illustrated and will appeal to rather older boys and girls. Tom Scarlett's The Gnome and the Fairy and other Stories (Muller, 6/−) is in the modern vein and recounts the adventures of everyday people with fairies, wizards, birds and animals. Hettie Roe's simple line drawings are almost too tempting for children with a box of crayons.
County Library Staff Guilds: A Commentary
Authors: ELLIS C.R.
Published: March 2008

A well‐known librarian said recently that a good staff was a happy staff. Presumably in such a case the administration and staff organisation would be running smoothly, and everybody concerned would naturally find happiness in that. But there is more to it than organisation and administration. If the personal element is considered, as it should be, the relationship on a social level would also naturally make for pleasant conditions. How can the general ideal be reached? It seems obvious that there is a social side to it, but there's no doubt that one senior of ill‐conditioned temperament can spoil things for everybody. It is suggested that every effort should be made by librarians to cement happy relationships in every way possible. Successful library service does not depend merely on the circulation; there is also the aspect of happy fellowship in the service. These notes are intended to be suggestive to that end.
Libraries: An Historical Note
Authors: KENYON FREDERIC G.
Published: March 2008

Editor's Note:—We are much obliged to Mr. Geoffrey Cumberlege and The Clarendon Press for permission to reprint this article from The Oxford Classical Dictionary, noticed elsewhere in this issue. Readers will agree that the article is a masterpiece of compression and research.
“Edited by Oscar Wilde”
Authors: WYNDHAM HORACE
Published: March 2008

IN the summer of 1887 there were two happenings which attracted a considerable amount of public attention. The first (and much the more important one) was the celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee; and the second was the launching of a new monthly magazine with Oscar Wilde as editor. Oscar himself was inclined to say that the importance of the two happenings was placed in the wrong order.
Marsh's Library, Dublin
Authors: DEEDY JACK
Published: March 2008

INCONSPICUOUSLY tucked away near the head of the Coombe, one of the poorer sections of poor Dublin, is a treasure of the Western world—a centuries‐old library that was once the haunt of Dean Swift and others of a bygone Anglo‐Irish literary set; a library that was the proud boast of two nations but that today knows only a few tourists and even fewer scholars. This is St. Sepulchre—known more popularly as Marsh's Library. Within its red brick walls, quietly collecting dust in surroundings unchanged from the days of good Queen Anne, are the priceless literary gems of another era; manuscripts that take on an added glory in the purest 18th century interior to be found in all Ireland. The oaken benches and stained reading desks; the wide‐planked flooring and arched ceiling; the carved and lettered gables, all topped by hand painted mitres—all these have been spared the hand of the restorer and modernizer. They stand as a challenge to time, and in a remarkable state of preservation.
Library Education on Trial
Authors: SAVAGE ERNEST A.
Published: March 2008

A NEW L.A. exam syllabus is now in force. Some faults of the old head‐screw remain. Notably that bag o' bones which has rattled dryly down the wind ever since our exams began: Eng. Lit. from Beowulf to the Sitwells in one three‐hour paper with ne'er a scrape of marrow. Chartered “liberians” with no more Literature than a Hottentot—to celebrate our centenary! Another fault is the division into unequal periods of Literature for the Final. But perhaps Chaucer House would lack character without a grinning hoodoo to bedevil Literature. On the whole the syllabus has more strength and accommodation. Signs are that sense does penetrate: for examples, examining classification and cataloguing together, the study of named reference books, and encouragement to more varied librarianship.
A University Library in Action
Authors: BUSHNELL GEORGE H.
Published: March 2008

DURING the past thirty years or so most of our university libraries have developed systems of administration and organisation closely resembling those of large industries. Even in the older foundations today, while that atmosphere of calm which is essential to the contemplative mind is still evident, behind the scenes there pulsates a most efficient organisation, as busily active as any in the most up‐to‐date factory. That this is not apparent to the average reader—who, as we all know, believes that books select, order, purchase, bind, accession, catalogue, classify and shelve themselves—is a tribute to the self‐effacing modesty of our business efficiency which advertises not itself, makes no display of its driving‐force, nor does it use the presumptive jargon of the traveller in useless commodities. On the contrary, our efficiency must create and maintain a most accessible Tower of Périgord in which the receptive minds of the Montaignes of our day, no less than those of the Marconis, may follow their bent with only unobtrusive help and guidance. That this is so competently achieved in our university libraries is the finest testimonial to the present staffs of those libraries. It was one thing to administer a university library two hundred years ago, when books and readers alike were comparatively few and when the demarcation of the whole field of university education was clear: it is quite another matter today, when elimination of circumscribed education is the order. And so, with a limitless field to cover, a vast and ever‐growing organisation to control, university librarians have wisely taken over, modified, and improved systems of organisation originally planned by economists for other ends.
Young Readers like to Stretch
Authors: MCCOLVIN LIONEL R.
Published: March 2008

ELSEWHERE I have said in effect that we have, at some centres, so “developed” our work with children that we have created a vested interest which is, maybe with the best intentions in the world, often keeping children from real books rather than encouraging them to use them; and further, I would add that I have often wondered whether in our children's libraries we do not strive to inculcate in the young people precisely those reading habits that we deplore when they grow up. These two ideas require elaboration.
Subject Branches
Authors: SAVAGE ERNEST A.
Published: March 2008

Once upon a time an evil spirit made a librarian invent an indicator, blue in, red out. No artist in statistic hyperbole could chart the mischief that jig‐saw did, and only a politician crafty in knotted rigmarole would try to explain it away. In my youth most home‐reading dens and many public library boxes were built round that fetish of primitive librarianship; the staff played run‐rabbit‐run between skyscraper stacks, a tin curtain, and a wash‐and‐brush‐up hole. An old story? … but the bad results are with us yet. We developed den and box mentality. When stock outgrew indicator, many books got out of the printed catalogue into reference or cellar, much the same fate then—and now. The process thinned stock for the few and fattened that for the many; the holy issue was kept from falling, and more of the uneducated were miseducated. Old red‐blue presided over the burial of the founders' ideals, and long after it was thrown to scrap they remained interred. A few have been exhumed lately, just when our bitter war heritage stays their realization or makes it impossible. Den and box are still with us, to astonish the sun. Not many centrals, like those at Manchester and Sheffield, were so bad that even between the wars they had to be replaced. Elsewhere centrals not quite so inimical to good work‐had to be put up with; never worthy of the people's deserts, they should now pass to the housebreakers.
Much Ado About Records
Authors: DARLINGTON IDA
Published: March 2008

The boatmen on the pleasure boats which ply between Westminster Pier, the Tower and Greenwich have of recent years taken to drawing attention, by megaphone, to the historic places the boats pass on the trip. One of the sights they point out is a warehouse on the south bank near Southwark Bridge which bears a large notice stating that it is the site of the Globe Playhouse. The notice, which is incorrect, is one of the survivals of the controversy which raged in the 1920's as to the position of the “Glory of the Bank”, the Globe Playhouse, where Shakespeare trod the boards and for which some of the world's greatest dramas were written.
Conversation in a Library: Some Thoughts on Re‐reading
Authors: MILNE COLIN
Published: March 2008

The young man in the library folded up his list, turned away with a disgruntled look, and muttered something about there not being a single thing to read. I am not given to speaking to strangers, but his muttered remark was so obviously wrong that I could not let it pass. “Well”, he said, “perhaps it is an exaggeration, but there's nothing available in my line. None of the books I want ever seems to be in”.
The Modern Writer's Problem
Authors: HANLEY JAMES
Published: March 2008

There was a time when the writer delivered a work to his publisher and confidently assumed that within a given time, usually six to nine months, he would see his work in published form. That ideal condition no longer exists. And the time factor can often be an important thing with a writer.
A Discussion of Recent Trends
Authors: FREEMAN C.B.
Published: March 2008

In the various comments which have appeared in your own and other professional periodicals on the appearance of the British National Bibliography, no one seems to have expressed any misgivings about the prospect of its indiscriminate use for purposes of cataloguing and classification.
Social Significance of the Public Library Service
Authors: MURISON WILLIAM J.
Published: March 2008

The social significance of the public library is fundamentally its influence on all the individuals comprising the community and on the relationships of these people, one with another. The importance of public libraries can be measured, then, by the efficiency of their organisation and the degree to which they are fulfilling their purpose.
Letters to Philobiblon
Authors: MCLAURIN CONNELL SUZANNE
Published: March 2008

(1) Now that Sunday is here, and the Hospital Library closed, I have time to write to you without being disturbed by eager readers.
What Porridge had John Keats?
Authors: BRIDIE JAMES
Published: March 2008

We all seem to be a good deal worried about what to do with our poets. How are they to earn a living? Is poetry a whole‐time job? And, on an all together higher level, what ought to be their environment and what influences should be allowed to play upon them?
The Upper Room
Authors: LOWNDES WILLIAM
Published: March 2008

The Public Library was a grim, unattractive‐looking building. Smoke‐blackened and austere, it stood at the junction of two busy thoroughfares, with no outward manifestation of its identity apart from the almost obscured and somehow distasteful words “Free Library”, carved in stone over its portals. It was a repulsive structure, and for a moment or two I was conscious of the forbidding atmosphere which it seemed to radiate. But the town, which I was visiting for business reasons, offered few other attractions. I had dealt half‐heartedly with an un‐imaginative meal, and had a little time to spare. A post‐prandial browse among books seemed to be the only consolation available. Shaking off a feeling of repugnance, I stepped through the swing doors into the dim fastnesses of the interior.
The Perennial Problem of Mr. Cox and Mrs. Box
Authors: SNAITH CLIFFORD
Published: March 2008

“I don't claim to know anything about art,” said Mr. Cox, putting his tankard down with some asperity and gazing askance at his outspread Lilliput; “but I think these are a bit off.” This crushing judgement referred to two nudes—reproductions of works by celebrated artists. “A bit off” was, of course, a delicate euphemism for “a bit 'ot.” Our art critics are apt to be finicky in their terminology.
Librarian in Edinburgh
Authors: SAVAGE ERNEST A.
Published: March 2008

Edinburgh has been so “well spoken of” by travellers that her citizens, lulled by the homage, have not always cared to enrich Nature's endowment of her, or even to follow her eighteenth century town planners adventurously, in their stride. Despite bungaltowns and tenement blocks of sullen demeanour, she still is a city of much beauty, with more character than charm. Indeed her charm is fitful and fleeting. On a day of sunny and breezy sparkle her grim grey and black stones are lighted with retiring pastel colours; and how often, early on winter evenings, in wind or before rain, have I paused under the Black Watch Highlander on the Mound to gaze on a jewelled city of long files and festoons of light. Then her beauty is plain to the dullest observer.
Bookmen of the British Museum
Authors: ESDAILE ARUNDELL
Published: March 2008

When, eleven years ago, I retired from the service of the Trustees of the British Museum, I was honoured by two or three invitations to write my memoirs. I declined, on two grounds: that I had been born in neither of the purples, the princely or the proletariate; and (for at that time young people in their early twenties were publishing their autobiographies) that I did not think I was young enough.
Looking Backwards: a Fantasy
Authors: GARDNER FRANK M.
Published: March 2008

We have just celebrated the bicentenary of the public library movement in this country. In preparing these notes on our achievement of the last hundred years, as a guide to the historical side of your studies for the next year, I naturally turned to the accounts of the first centenary as a starting point. It is always interesting to see how our ancestors viewed history, and how far wide of the mark were their predictions of the future.
When Poetry Paid
Authors: POWER WILLIAM
Published: March 2008

When I was young, which was before the first world war, poetry was still the fashion. Even people not specially literary quoted “ballad songs and snatches”, and lines from the more popular of the great poets, while seriously intellectual readers discussed Wordsworth, Browning and Dante. Nowadays, so far as I can gather, the vast majority of readers give little attention to poetry; many of them, indeed, positively dislike it and see no reason for its existence. Even if they have been through a course of literary history at a university, they find it hard to realise that, until well down in the Victorian era, literature, except in France, meant chiefly poetry, a fact evident enough in the corpus of criticism.
The Libraries of the Commonwealth in London
Authors: THOROGOOD HORACE
Published: March 2008

Visiting the libraries of the British Commonwealth offices in London, as I have been doing—going from Australia to Canada, then to South Africa and India—is an impressive reminder of the magnitude of what used to be known as the British Empire, and of the power which it still exerts over the mind and spirit of mankind. Four continents are represented, and the libraries show how each has been impregnated with the ideals emanating from this small island in the fifth. Asia, Africa, Australia, America—the progress of civilisation in all has been directed or guided in large measure by British influence. The British Empire as a political fact has ceased to be, but Britain still reigns over an ideological empire, worldwide and imperishable.
An Editor on Juvenile Books
Authors: KERSLEY HOLMES W.
Published: March 2008

My working days for a good many years past have been spent in the interesting task of handling, editorially, books that are known to the “trade” as “Rewards”. That quaint term now tends to give place to “Juvenile Novels”. It is a job with its special perplexities, though it does not involve the contest between business instincts and moral scruples which must surely harass the publisher of adult fiction. Librarians must know what I mean. Some of them may share my possibly narrow views about the novel, and regret that not a few of our best‐reviewed writers have a moral influence definitely bad.
A Manchester Junior Looks Back
Authors: LINFOOT‐HYDE F.I.
Published: March 2008

Lord Samuel, after opening the 1950 exhibition in London commemorating the centenary of public libraries, approached the assistants at the bookshelves and asked them to tell him when the great library at Alexandria was burnt down. With a fine array of the latest books to hand they were soon able to inform his lordship, who had been kind enough to bowl an easy lob that should have been confidently smacked without any appeal to the umpire. However, a further dip into their reference books might have told them who it was that said if he didn't know a thing, at least he knew where to find knowledge of it.
The Leaves of Memory
Authors: NOWELL CHARLES
Published: March 2008

For a man to have spent forty years and more in public library work suggests to the Editor that there must be some reminiscences which ought to be made available to succeeding generations. My way has been of little moment compared with some whose unwritten autobiographies must be full of pioneer efforts, abounding enthusiasms, desperate disappointments and great achievements. Edward Edwards left lots of letters and memoranda, and much—too much perhaps—in print. Yet we know so little of the man that we do not even possess a photograph. There are librarians still living who knew men of great ability, round the turn of the century, about whom we should like to know more: to restrict myself to public librarians, for example: James Duff Brown, whom I never met; Frank Pacy, whose kindness to me personally on all occasions is a happy memory; Stanley Jast, another to whom I owe much, who was not only a great librarian, but whose nursery—Croydon—was the best known British library service for many years, and his progressive ideas there were put into practice elsewhere by the dozens of librarians whom he trained. There are librarians still living who knew these men in their prime and I still hope that Savage and Sayers, for example, will record their memories before it is too late.
The British Museum in My Time: More Memories
Authors: ESDAILE ARUNDELL
Published: March 2008

The fly on the wheel said, “Lord, what a dust do I raise!” As Secretary of the B.M. I was the fly on the wheel, and conscious that the dust was none of my raising. Dust there was in plenty. A place of such national—and international—standing is constantly straining not only its own resources but also those of its friends to make vital and correspondingly costly acquisitions. Such was the purchase, with the generous help of John Pierpont Morgan, junior, who would have liked them for the Morgan Library, of the Bedford Hours and the Luttrell Psalter; the latter being one of the chief sources of our knowledge of English farm life in the Middle Ages. But during my fourteen years in the Office the Museum was faced with four great opportunities, quite out of the ordinary; and in all four it was successful.
Conference in Chicago
Authors: COLLISON R.L.W.
Published: March 2008

As our plane roared away from Los Angeles, circled over the Pacific and turned inland over the mountains, I began to wonder in what respects the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association might differ from our British conferences. It was a bright sunny day at the end of January this year and the desert stretched endlessly beneath us. My speculations were eventually interrupted by the sight of the Grand Canyon with its immense candelabra of pink and grey rock rising out of the great rift in the earth's surface and I thought of other things as we went on over the vast agricultural plains of the Mid‐West. It was dark before we reached Chicago, and as we stepped from the plane the bitter cold made our ears tingle and made me regret the hat I had forgotten to bring.
British Librarian in Helsinki
Authors: PICKFORD JOAN
Published: March 2008

High on the roof of the world, with its crest above the Arctic Circle, and nearly 800 miles of Russian frontier flanking it on the east, lies little Finland, land of 65,000 lakes and over 100,000 square miles of forest. Half its population is still employed in agriculture, but industrialisation has been recent and rapid, and with it has come the spread of education, transforming a peasant people into a completely literate one. So stiff now are the high school final examinations that those who pass them are automatically eligible for admission to the universities; and the University of Helsinki, with its enrolment of 10,000 students, is the greatest in Northern Europe.
Books as Medicine
Authors: GUNSTON DAVID
Published: March 2008

Whilst the therapeutic value of suitable reading during certain illnesses is fairly widely recognised, surprisingly little has been written on the subject. Practical advice on what to read, and when, is hard to come by, but a number of literary men have noted down their views and experience from time to time.
The Library of London Press Club
Authors: STEWART ANDREW
Published: March 2008

From a passage off historic Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, where literary and fashionable celebrities lived in the past, one reaches the London Press Club by a staircase unique in the treatment of the walls, On the first flight you are met and escorted by a Vanity Fair procession of leading figures in Victorian journalism including the Club's first President, the famous George Augustus Sala.
A Wreath for Roget
Authors: MAYCOCK JOHN
Published: March 2008

At one time, the only articles indispensable to the young man embarking upon a literary career, apart from a rich wife or a private income, were a sheaf of paper, a pen, a bottle of ink and a large waste‐paper basket. Talent and an infinite amount of patience were also useful. Your modern writer, however, is entirely lost without a complete library of books written with the sole aim of teaching him how to write. Here by his side is a philanthropist who provides him with plots for stories, there a literary Autolycus with a fund of apposite quotations on every subject; in between them text‐books dealing with every possible aspect of writing and—what is more important—of marketing the fruits of his genius.
Library “Fines” and “Charges”
Authors: HEWITT A.R.
Published: March 2008

References in the national and local press in recent weeks to fines and charges imposed by public libraries in various parts of the United Kingdom would seem to indicate that a review of the legal aspect of the subject is opportune. The word “charge” is freely used in connection with fees for the registration of new readers and the reservation of books and the word “fine” as a penalty in cases where books are retained beyond a certain period.
Library Education on Trial
Authors: WHITE L.
Published: March 2008

Some time ago L.R. published an article and correspondence on the subject of “Library Education on Trial” discussing the effect of the new L.A. syllabus on the attraction and retention of suitable staff to the service. Is any librarian succeeding in this task?
“Bring Me No More Reports” (Macbeth)
Authors: SNAITH STANLEY
Published: March 2008

There has come into my hands a copy of Annual Reports for Public Libraries, one of a series of Occasional Papers issued by the University of Illinois Library School. It is the work of Madeline S. Riffey, and runs to 23 pages of typescript. I commend it to the serious attention of librarians. The theory and technique of annual reports is a subject which has been rather neglected in our professional literature. So far as I know, no substantial contribution to the subject has appeared in this country. Which is odd. It cannot be that such an undertaking would be supererogatory. For it is too much to assume that the singular collocation of talents necessary to produce a good report is innate in librarians. Or is it? I am open to correction. It is possible that, by some librarians, an annual report can be thrown off with the creative abandon of a Rilke, who produced 29 of his Sonnets to Orpheus in three days. To this sort of person, the task is no doubt a routine matter. He arrives at the office at 9 a.m., or whatever time librarians do arrive, puts hat and umbrella into storage, walks round carpet to get acclimatised, glances at memo pad, remarks in surprise “Ah Yes! Annual Report. Must knock it off today,” presses buzzer (if he is Mr. Hunt he presses six), and waits with the grey matter seething like the exygemes in yeast.
London Club Libraries
Authors: THOROGOOD HORACE
Published: March 2008

In an earlier article contributed to the issue of Winter, 1951, the libraries described were all in men's clubs. In the Forum, I came to a different atmosphere. Here, women ruled and grace abounded. Since the Lyceum Club closed in 1919, the Forum has been London's premier ladies' club. Princess Marie Louise is its President, and its list of officers bristles with Dames and letters of distinction.
A Bodleian Century
Authors: ESDAILE ARUNDELL
Published: March 2008

This is the most readable and rewarding book that has yet been written on library history. The second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth have seen almost the whole development of libraries from what may be called the age of the primitives to the present day, which will doubtless in its turn come to be regarded as near‐primitive. And nowhere, not even perhaps in the British Museum, has the contrast between 1845 and 1945 been more striking than in the Bodleian.
The Education of the Good Librarian
Authors: CARTER G.A.
Published: March 2008

Stanley Jast once said that “The perfect librarian does not exist, never has existed, and assuredly never will exist”, but he went on to add that “good librarians do, and better librarians may”. I am quite sure that every good librarian hopes that he will one day be succeeded by another who is at least his equal, and that thought must frequently act as a spur to all those competent teachers who earnestly strive in the classrooms of library schools and colleges to ensure that an adequate supply of qualified men and women is provided.
The Mortmain of the Libraries
Authors: READY W.B.
Published: March 2008

T. S. Eliot in London, Louis Gottschalk in Chicago, both re‐cently have voiced in public meet‐ings their concern at the decay of the private and the personal libraries—mortmain is setting in—the dead hand that libraries are placing upon the free flow of books. Libraries are often more concerned with the acquiring of books than they are with the books themselves. Too many libraries have too many books.
Private Enthusiasms
Authors: FREEMAN C.B.
Published: March 2008

As an undergraduate I thought that I knew something about Shakespeare, and no doubt I saw myself a partner in that licensed company of scholars and schoolmasters who had acquired the monopoly to purvey him retail to the nation. My education took a new turn, however, when I met a manual worker who could quote copiously from all the plays, including those I had never read. While I was poring over footnotes, he had taken Shakespeare into the fields with him during long spells of unemployment, until now he knew whole plays almost by heart.
Simplifying the Complex
Authors: HOWARTH REGINALD
Published: March 2008

Librarianship abounds in theor‐ies. Financial stringency has held back many a would‐be progressive practitioner and turned him into a somewhat wistful thinker. It is so gratifying to offset a mundane achievement by contemplating what might have been under betterconditions. Occasionally a few pro‐gressive practitioners, able or fortun‐ate enough to loosen the bonds a little and avoid repressions, emerge as lucid thinkers, and a Jast or a Savage or a McColvin shakes the library world. The lucidity of an able mind, which sees where it wants to go and why, often brings unexpected and undesirable reper‐cussions. The easy exposition of a difficult theory is disarming, and the lesser mind, lethargic after a ‐losing battle against conditions, lulled into a pleasant day‐dream around once fondly imagined ideals now lost in the battle for survival, sees in the more imaginative ap‐proach of the greater mind a heaven‐sent solution to its problems.
How the Newspaper Library does it
Authors: WHATMORE GEOFFREY
Published: March 2008

How often, I wonder, does the reader look up from his favourite newspaper to consider how it is done? Those ingenious comparisons, the revealing statistics, the background to the news, published at high speed and, on the whole, accurately, how are they arrived at?
Sir Hans Sloane and the Early British Museum
Authors: ESDAILE ARUNDELL
Published: March 2008

As all readers of library review must know, last year, so notable otherwise, was the bicentenary of the foundation of the British Museum. The foundation, not the opening, which followed nearly six years later.
Some Thoughts on Staff Training
Authors: MCCOLVIN LIONEL R.
Published: March 2008

A lad or a girl joins the staff of a library. By so doing he—or she— takes upon himself certain responsibilities towards those he has to serve and towards himself. He has taken unto himself a function and he has given himself a means of expression; he has chosen both how he will be useful to others and how he will get whatever satisfaction he may from his own working life.
The Publishers Regretted…..
Authors: GUNSTON DAVID
Published: March 2008

Aspiring writers are always advised to be persistent in their work, to keep sending rejected manuscripts the rounds of publishers and editors until they are accepted and published. This is easy advice to give if not to follow, but the fact that it is well worth taking in all cases is borne out by the experience of a great many famous writers. The number of well‐known books which were originally refused by the publishers is as surprising as it is interesting. It might be said, in fact, that almost all authors have to endure seeing their books rejected before they achieve print and subsequent success.
Bogy Threats to Reading
Authors: SAVAGE ERNEST A.
Published: March 2008

Time was when we librarians were howling at “twopenny” libraries. Not having the enterprise to display what should be our better and more enduring books in street windows, to give our libraries the impact of a good bookshop, we grew pale before the garish shows of tuck publications in cheap‐jacks' twopenny corner booths. Our dumps then, the slur on librarianship, infuriated me. I protested. The shivering stopped. Soon we saw, we now see, these no‐longer twopenny booths as dingy shops hinting at furtive merchandise. We did not understand, we do not yet understand, that whoever grovels to the mob, will die by the mob; a fact librarians, as well as cheap‐jacks, should remember, for no library has ever won credit or got thanks for its tuck.
Library Philosophy
Authors: HARLEY J.
Published: March 2008

“If all the nonsense which has been talked on all other subjects were thrown into one scale, and all that has been talked on the subject of education alone were thrown into the other, I think the latter would preponderate”, said Peacock's Dr. Opimian—and no doubt he still says it. In any case I have good reason to know that he was perfectly right—I am responsible for an educational library.
Home on the Range
Authors: LOWNDES WILLIAM
Published: March 2008

The hoary old problem of fiction standards is still with us, it seems, and the question of whether or not to provide what is alternatively called “the ephemeral” and “the meretricious” continues to be mooted extensively at professional meetings. Meanwhile, most of us willingly supply at least a quota of romances, thrillers and westerns for those hordes of voracious readers who are so fiercely addicted to them. We adopt a policy of appeasement, and, within certain limitations, all is well. Romances, we may tell ourselves, are not all elongated versions of stories in pulp magazines. Thrillers have a high‐brow pedigree: even people with the intellectual attainments of Bertrand Russell revel in them. And westerns—
The Duplication of Office Material: Duplicating Processes
Authors: VERRY H.R.
Published: March 2008

Hectography. There are two types of this process available, one producing a copy from gelatine or clay substance by the aid of violet dye or the method commonly known as the spirit process. Using rotary machines, hand or electric, the master is typed, drawn or impressed by the use of a hectographic carbon and a strongly sized highly glazed paper. The copy paper fed into the machine is slightly moistened by a special fluid which, in effect, softens a thin layer of the carbon deposit and transfers it from the master to the paper. The number of copies available by this method is limited by the thickness of the carbon deposit on the master but special masters are available allowing runs up to 500 copies. When the carbon deposit has not been completely exhausted the master may be re‐run up to the limit of its capacity. The unique feature of this process is that it allows multi‐coloured runs to be made simultaneously. This is made possible by the use of carbons of different colours. A wide range of machines is available for this process some of which are designed for systems work and are able to print part or whole of the master sheet. A minor disadvantage of the process is that the print is fugitive to direct sunlight and the carbon deposit may stain if not handled carefully. Specially coated masters and carbon ribbon in roll form are available and with the new methods of erasing errors do much to minimise this disadvantage.
The Change in Literary Conditions
Authors: CHURCH RICHARD
Published: March 2008

To many readers the title of this article may pre‐suppose that there has been a time when literary condictions were economically good. That would be an incorrect supposition. The grim truth is, that literature, like all other concerns of the spirit and the mind, has always had to take a second, perhaps even a tenth place, behind the material interests of mankind. This is not a cynical statement by a tired and angry writer, and I am not blaming anybody. The battle of life, as I know from our common human experience, tends to drive us all to that prime anxiety, the desire for physical safety; the sufficient food, the sound roof, the money in reserve, the assurance of creature comforts and even luxuries. After those capital provisions, we begin to think about our souls, and the sustenance thereof, amongst which is literature.
Some Sources of Contemporary Biography
Authors: WHATMORE GEOFFREY
Published: March 2008

The paths of research into historical biography are well‐trodden and familiar, but the jungle of documentation leading to similar information about our contemporaries is by comparison almost unmapped territory. For there are gaps in the coverage of reference books relating to contemporary biography and unco‐ordinated chapters sometimes lie in unexpected places. To make available anything like comprehensive data on the personalities of our time, therefore, demands acquaintance with a variety of material, not all of which is within the purview of normal library stock. The scope of the present inquiry relates to some of these factual and critical sources where they are accessible in printed form. It is not concerned with letters, family papers or other documents which are more the province of the biographer than the librarian.
From Parnassus to Parsnips
Authors: MACMURCHADHA FEARGUS
Published: March 2008

We started off here with a staff of one, a share in a County Council back office, a handful of catalogues and very grandiose ideas. From the idyllic heights of Parnassus whose treacherous slopes so often lead, in one swift horrid rush or by imperceptible degrees of declension, to Avernus, (though, God aiding, I somehow avoided that dark destination by some miles and a fraction) I was in due course compelled to descend to less lofty hills and dales whose clime and atmosphere were more closely attuned to the realities of the work‐a‐day world.
The Challenge of the New School Library
Authors: HOWARTH REGINALD
Published: March 2008

It is good that librarians are most critical of their better work. Complacency is insidious. But it is always necessary to approach closely to efficiency to become really aware of deficiency. Probably in no other activity has the average public library reached so acceptable a standard as in the provision of books for children, yet in the eyes of the honest librarian, that standard is, on the whole, no more than one of comparative mediocrity. Even so, we tend too much to underestimate the good influence of our children's libraries over the last half century, for no other agency has accomplished anything like so much in encouraging reading habits in the formative years. In spite of modern developments in education, which so often appear to forget the individual in the building of an impressive administrative structure, no other agency, even today, has quite the same potentiality. The alert librarian, however, has noticed that the changing pattern of elementary education is beginning to call for some modification of traditional library policy, and he is not a little disturbed by some of the implications.
Johnson's Dictionary
Authors: ESDAILE ARUNDELL
Published: March 2008

Just two hundred years ago, on April 15th, 1755, there was published, in two large folio volumes, one of the greatest of English books, A Dictionary of the English Language, by Samuel Johnson, A.M., issued, after the manner of the time, by a group of shareholding book‐sellers, or, as we should call them, publishers, the Knaptons, the Longmans, Hitch and Hawes, Millar, and the Dodsleys. Such a single‐handed work can hardly ever have been seen. The French forty Immortals of the Academy had taken forty years over their dictionary of the French language; Johnson proposed to take three (he actually took about seven) over his, a comparison which provided him with material for a sportive equation of an Englishman to a Frenchman being as three is to forty multiplied by forty, i.e., 1,600.
Reference Libraries I have used
Authors: SAVAGE E.A.
Published: March 2008

Other than libraries I have held office in. Why draw on memories of libraries used (with one exception) long ago? To recall methods of service then found perfect; which, to me, would be perfect today. Any library giving the required knowledge quickly is modern, of this very day that is, even were it founded centuries ago. A library's power is in its stock, the modernity of that: “something evermore about to be”: and in its exposition and handling of that stock. I have known quite new libraries decrepit with age.
Clarity and the Versifiers
Authors: DUNSANY LORD
Published: March 2008

When the editor kindly consulted me about an answer to my article on modern so‐called verse, I urged him to allow it in common fairness. Now, with both points of view stated, I had thought there was no need of more. But, on the editor suggesting a reply from me, I feel bound to follow his suggestion, since he was kind enough to follow mine.
Wanted—A New Technique
Authors: HARLEY JOHN
Published: March 2008

I am going to begin rashly. I am going to assume that my views on the purposes of a public library are correct, I hold that it is a place of education: not the formal education of a school, nor yet of the haphazard education that the world provides, but something in between. I believe this notion of the use of a public collection of books to have been in the minds of the founders of public libraries.
The Lion Sires a Mouse
Authors: MACMURCHADHA FEARGUS
Published: March 2008

On 4th December, 1947, Dail Eireann rushed through the Public Libraries Bill, 1947, in a week to ten days, on the eve of a General Election. The promised final consultation with the Library Association of Ireland on the question of the bill's provisions did not take place, and Irish public librarians were rudely awakened to the fact that the measure on which they pinned their hopes had been disposed of with indecent haste.
“Admass” Attack
Authors: BROWN IVOR
Published: March 2008

Richard Church in the Spring (1955) Number of LIBRARY REVIEW, wrote “It is safer and cheaper to publish large numbers of a few books rather than small impressions of a lot of titles.” That is increasingly true of almost all commerce to‐day. Salesmanship, to be economic, must be concentrated. British Railways, for example, clip their small services in out‐of‐the‐way localities in a desperate effort to avoid further losses. This may be most inconvenient to the small‐town folk. But who cares about small‐towners? Or, rather, who can care even if they would? The “little man” is only a valuable market when he is one of a large mass of “little men.” I do not accuse the British Railways Executive of callousness; it is driven by the trend of the time. The Mass, the Great Majority of consumers, dictate solvency: the few and the lonely must muck along as best they can.
A London Bookman Looks Back
Authors: NAIRNE CAMPBELL
Published: March 2008

The office of the literary paper that gave me my first job in London was hidden away in a Victorian building near Covent Garden market. You mounted a flight of Dickensian stairs and off a dark little landing were three or four small rooms. I occupied a corner of one of them, close to a black fireplace from which smoke eddied on stormy days. The single window faced east, and the sun never came through its dusty panes, even at the height of summer. In my recollections of that room the season is always winter, and the time most often late afternoon, with a fire glowing in the ugly barred grate. Such offices still exist no doubt, but there cannot be many of them left. Literary journalists to‐day are likely to work in centrally heated rooms with walls that are all window. They do not climb stairs; they use “elevators.” Progress, progress; yet I sometimes wonder if they write any better than we did in the thirties, which now seem to belong to a vanished epoch. Certainly they fill far fewer columns.
After Co‐operation—What Next?
Authors: MCCOLVIN L.R.
Published: March 2008

This article is not intended so much as a criticism of the present position of inter‐library co‐operation and loans as a tentative forecast of the future. Let me also make it clear that, though I have been for a long time a member of the Executive Committee of the National Central Library and also one of the committee responsible for a “regional bureau” system, the views expressed are entirely personal.
The Education of a Librarian
Authors: IRWIN RAYMOND
Published: March 2008

Everyone admits that the man or woman taking up librarianship as a career needs some sort of professional training. There are two main methods by which such training can be given.
Bucop
Authors: STEWART J.D.
Published: March 2008

The publication of the first volume of the British Union‐Catalogue of Periodicals has stimulated a lively interest in that great bibliographical undertaking, and I am assured that a brief glimpse behind the scenes may not come amiss.
A Tutor Reflects
Authors: DAIN NEVILLE
Published: March 2008

It is not a new idea that the evolution of a librarian depends on more than learning professional facts and studying the day to day work of a library. To some extent librarians, like creative artists, may be persons with inherited propensities, but like artists they are improved beyond comparison by organised education. Better education for librarianship is a primary necessity for professional progress both in the services offered to readers and in the estimate of a librarian's worth by those readers. It is difficult to find evidence, however, that many librarians give sufficient thought to the nature of librarianship, as distinct from library services and technical practices, to be troubled with the subject of improving professional education, or even to wonder if it has any importance except as a preliminary to the passing of professional examinations and the payment of professional scales of salaries.
Reading and Remembering
Authors: GUNSTON DAVID
Published: March 2008

The ability to write books is only rarely accompanied by exceptional powers of remembering the written word, either one's own or that of other authors, nor is it always linked with the gift of swift yet thorough reading of books and printed matter generally. But it is hardly surprising that the great memorisers and the phenomenal readers have nearly all been connected with the world of letters.
Public Library Charges
Authors: WHITEMAN PHILIP M.
Published: March 2008

In LIBRARY REVIEW, Autumn, 1952, Mr. A. R. Hewitt considered the illegality of fines for overdue books. The present writer examines recent trends in respect of fines and other charges, with emphasis mainly on questions of principle rather than of law.