bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Aspects of Research: Bricks and Mortar
Authors: WEIR JOHN L.
Published: March 2008

MATERIALS are frequently considered as divisible into two classes, primary sources and secondary sources. This view is useful, though not foolproof. In the first class are those sources which yield the very first information on any subject or event. They cannot be ignored. Secondary sources comprise the elaborations of primary sources, the theory and conjecture to which the original testimony gives rise. The value of original sources is obvious. Mr. Winston Churchill's account of Marlborough will, no doubt, be hailed in the future as “authoritative,” and, all things considered, justly so. But at best the author can only give his own interpretation of the Duke's letters and dispatches. That interpretation may be correct, or only very slightly in error; a fact which does not justify the conduct of the next student of Marlborough if he contents himself with accepting Mr. Churchill's conclusions on a few main events without bothering to look at such original testimony as may be extant. True, an examination of the primary sources may convince the student of the justness of Mr. Churchill's reading. On the other hand, a fresh mind may detect some small but significant point which has persistently escaped the other worker. Original sources may often be scrappy and unsatisfactory, apparently of small value, uninspiring even: but, in that they are unique, they cannot be disregarded. I can give no catalogue of what might be regarded as materials of this class, no list, at least, applicable for all topics to be investigated. If indeed that were possible we would be faced with the difficulty of deciding what were the primary sources of each separate investigation. For example, the Acts of Parliament would certainly be an original authority to the research worker who had the Revolution of 1688 as his subject. But would he regard in the same light the Diary of Narcissus Luttrel who lived through the stirring events of that time, and recorded them as they appeared to him?
Maecenas & Co.
Authors: BROGAN COLM
Published: March 2008

FEW people would deny that the most remarkable recent development in publishing is the Book Club. Not everybody would agree that the influence of such clubs on writing is potentially as great as their influence on the mechanics of selling, but that is the fact, and the clubs should be carefully watched by all who would like to see literature free. The clubs vary greatly in size and seriousness. Some are almost entirely comic. Others, like the Book Society, have an academic air and confer a quite important cachet, a kind of literary Monthly Medal. How is their standing justified ? The Left Book Club is actually a publishing concern, and the Right Book Club is run by a bookseller. Commerce and ideology are running in harness.
Our Commercialised Press
Authors: FYFE HAMILTON
Published: March 2008

COMMERCIALISM is easy to abuse, hard to define. It may be called “carrying commercial practice too far,” but the question then arises: “How far may one carry it?” Also the doubt suggests itself: “Can all articles sold and bought be lumped together as subjects for the application of purely commercial principles?”
Andrew Lang
Authors: NIVEN FREDERICK
Published: March 2008

I SAW him only once—and that was in Edinburgh, thirty‐seven years ago. He had just arrived (as I heard later from one who knew him, and to whom I announced with youthful joy my glimpse of him) from St. Andrews, had been examining the bookshops, book‐dips, in the neighbourhood of the University and, with an armful of volumes, was returning from the auld toon to the new one on his way to Mackay and Chisholm's in Princes Street to buy an opal ring.
The Mind in Chains
Authors: TOMLINSON H.M.
Published: March 2008

A FRIEND of mine, pulling out a book on the Spanish Inquisition from my shelves, remarked casually that, after all, our own age was by far the bloodiest in history. Why bother about the Holy Office? The wars of religion and the Inquisition made only local blots if compared with the general soaking of the earth by modern statesmen, not for God's sake, but in the holy name of Security, Honour, or some other conception. He continued to run a close eye over my books, and at length included the lot, it would be more accurate to say he dismissed the lot, with a wave of his spectacles, which he had unhooked from his face. He chuckled, as sometimes an old man cruelly does when sending to limbo what younger people still desire to cherish.
The Librarian as Author: Some Novelists
Authors: BERWICK SAYERS W.C.
Published: March 2008

THE summit of Parnassus is a narrow place where few find footing for long; but the sacred mountain has vast slopes with many ledges and crannies where there are places for numbers who cannot reach the top. Which preamble came into my mind when I recalled that I became a librarian primarily because I wanted to be an author. To go farther back, I loved books so immoderately that to write one of my very own seemed to me to be a greater achievement than to drive the Flying Scotsman—which I once believed, most unoriginally of course, to be the other highest possibility of life. From which it will be obvious that I began rather early. It is customary for librarians to declare, probably with good reason, that they are not authors and that my ambitions were most undesirable. Reason or not, they really don't believe it; any more than Hilaire Belloc believed his own assertion, at Margate, that writing is a detestable occupation. Would he so eagerly and spontaneously continue it if it were so, or is he—as I do not believe—a standard example of one who defies his own prejudices? I found, as all librarians do, how steep was the going and how many scramble about only on the lowest slopes, and the few who reach what seem to contemporary eyes quite dizzy heights, usually slide back again into insulting obscurity. To be a little less abstract, the librarian is more conscious than most men that literary reputation is generally won with much struggle, and may be terrifyingly transient. Most of the “immortals” of my youth are very dead. Yet, in the centuries, a few here and there slip through into what seems immortality, and everyone born with the author‐impulse hopes, is even sure, that he will be one of these. So it is no good to moralize.
Bubble Reputation
Authors: SNAITH STANLEY
Published: March 2008

THE other day my attention was arrested by a statement from one of our younger critics. “Mr. Auden,” he said, “makes Mr. Yeats's isolation guilty as a trance.” Not a particularly earth‐shaking statement, perhaps; but, when one thinks of it, a startling and significant one. I had not thought to live to see Mr. Yeats receiving the public sneer. Only a year or two ago Mr. Yeats was the doyen, the inerrable loadstar, of the young poets. Of all the older school of living poets, him alone they delighted to honour. They guffawed at Sir William Watson; spoke with amused irony of Laurence Binyon's epics; and the very mention of Alfred Noyes's name was enough to send them off into explosions of fierce anger. But Mr. Yeats was—Mr. Yeats. They found in him profundity, marvellous technical skill, flexibility of outlook, nobleness of aspiration. His reputation appeared to be solid and deep‐founded. And then came his anthology of modern verse, in which Mr. Yeats, with more enthusiasm than discretion, admitted a host of the young poets to the O.U.P.'s pantheon of fame. The book was a bad one—inexplicably bad for a man of Mr. Yeats's eminence. Even his reputation could not stand the strain of such a performance. “If,” argued the young, “Mr. Yeats's judgment is so ludicrously bad, how can it be that he is a good poet?” A strange dualism, they remarked: fine creativeness, weak critical sense. Then there were whispers. Was Mr. Yeats really so—? Could it be possible that—? The doubts grew. The young critics took courage from each other. The loadstar was dimming a little. And now Mr. Dylan Thomas has come into the open. Mr. Yeats's isolation is as guilty as a trance. The meaning is not very clear, but the implication is. “Isolation” is a bogey to the younger school. Once let Mr. Yeats be labelled with that dreadful word and he is as good as damned. Mr. Thomas will be listened to, for the intestinal raptures of his poetry are much admired. I foresee that in a year or so Mr. Yeats's prestige among the young will lose much of its impressiveness.
The Librarian as Author: Some Poets
Authors: BERWICK SAYERS W.C.
Published: March 2008

EVERYBODY seems to write verse at some time or other, because nothing is easier to write than technically correct metrical language. Without the fine poetic power, the art of song is short, not long, and those there be that easily have grasped it in an hour. That is one reason, I suppose, for the fugitive verses that adorn all periodicals and are occasionally collected into little volumes which are the ephemerae amongst books, issued with many vain hopes. Lancashire folk know that Samuel Laycock, whose collected writings appeared in 1900, was a true bard. His “Bonny Brid,” one of the Lancashire Lyrics, written during the cotton famine, 1861–65, is more than an echo of social history; it is a song which Burns would not have despised. And Laycock served for six years as librarian and hall‐keeper to the Stalybridge Mechanics' Institute, where he acted as host to the various clubs meeting there, making tea for them amongst other activities. That is by the way. It is a far cry to William Robert Credland, who was deputy librarian at Manchester when I began. He wrote, in his later years, an irregular sonnet on Edward Edwards which cannot now be found. I remember, however, that to a meeting of the L.A. Publications Committee in 1912 the late Herbert Jones read it in his mellifluous and sonorous voice, and only the opening remains thus in my mind—
The Countryman's Library
Authors: ALLAN J.R.
Published: March 2008

THERE have been times when we swore never to buy another book: a good resolution; and then we have broken it at the first opportunity.
The Professional Man Turns Author
Authors: ANDERSON IAIN F.
Published: March 2008

“YOUNG man, the aim of every profession is the betterment of humanity.” I shall never forget these words, spoken to me at the tender age of ten. For the betterment of humanity—cynically I am at times inclined to smile and recollect some other expression, as, “filling the pigskin purse.”
Gentle Journalism
Authors: BROGAN COLM
Published: March 2008

COMPETITION among national newspapers has led to some very peculiar developments in British journalism, but there has been nothing quite so startling and, indeed, so dangerous, as the new sentimental style. We are proud of our Press. Like our police force, it is the finest in the world, and nobody knows that better than the Press itself. We are frequently reminded that the Press of Italy, Germany and Russia is enslaved, and that the Press of France and the United States is free but licentious. Our Press is not enslaved, nor is it licentious, nor is it corrupt. These are weighty recommendations, but they are negative and they are not enough. We should begin to realise that our popular Press is becoming quite startlingly silly.
Librarian Essayists I Have Known
Authors: BERWICK SAYERS W.C.
Published: March 2008

IF I say that I knew Edmund Gosse, I mean merely that I once persuaded him to address the Library Assistants' Association. Later we exchanged a few letters on poetry. He came, a white‐haired, pink‐faced, portly man in the middle fifties, well‐groomed, and of that old‐world stately type which almost, but not quite, ascends to pomposity; sure of himself, as one who was accepted as the first of literary critics had a right to be. He appealed to us to work, light‐heartedly, under the aegis of that god most benign to literature and books, Mercury, and to forsake the gloomy influences which he thought pervaded our writings. That was after a rapid study of The Library Assistant of 1906.
American Librarian Essayists
Authors: BERWICK SAYERS W.C.
Published: March 2008

“A LOG of wood with a book at one end and a real librarian at the other is a library,” was repeated to me some thirty years ago by Miss Mary Eileen Ahern. This somewhat enigmatic aphorism did not seem to me to be adequate as a definition. It came, as I believe, from the great John Cotton Dana. The conversation at which it was repeated was my first with a live example of those American librarians of whom I had read as a youth, and whose lot was the envy of librarians everywhere. They seemed to have learned the art of “selling” libraries and librarianship to their public in a manner which over here appeared to belong to the region of dreams only. Partly, it might be hazarded, because, as one of them said, “When English librarians meet they talk library methods; when American librarians meet they discuss publicity.” How intensely alive Miss Ahern seemed, how full of ideas, ideals, enthusiasms, how enquiringly humorous! This was a fitting introduction, which still remains with me, though no doubt it faded long ago from her mind, to the librarian who, as she herself wrote, for “a glorious third of a century,” edited that lively periodical, Public Libraries,—Libraries as it afterwards became. It was fitting, too, because she was a woman and so something then new for us, but for America typical, of librarianship. Search has found me no collected volume of her essays, but in the ten years, 1921–31, I have noted fifteen papers from her pen, and these must be only a very few in comparison with her whole work. America has had many fine women to influence its libraries, but surely none finer than she.
Stories in Dialogue
Authors: BRUNEL ADRIAN
Published: March 2008

AS the state of the world grows more depressing, I find that my taste in literature becomes lighter. I have developed a nervous horror of being bored, as well as a feverish anxiety to be distracted, and so I now subject my fiction to a pre‐reading test. When I am about to choose a novel, I first turn over the pages to see if there is plenty of dialogue and not too many long paragraphs of descriptive matter; once this peculiar criterion of mine is satisfied, I begin reading and if the dialogue is not “literary talk” but is true to life, amusing and character revealing, I then decide to buy, borrow or hire the book.
The Curious in Books
Authors: SCOTT‐MONCRIEFF GEORGE
Published: March 2008

THE labours of research have one redemption apart altogether from their outcome. Years ago when I used to sit at the long radial desks in the Reading Room of the British Museum pursuing obscure facts between the covers of a multitude of books, the weariness of an unavailing afternoon would be lifted by the discovery of some information, or statement of opinion, irrelevant and fantastic. For example, I was once in search of some facts in connexion with the Great Exhibition of 1851, when, in the old Newspaper Room, my eye fell upon the following advertisement amongst the foxed pages of the Expositor.
Simple Directness
Authors: GIVIN SMITH D.
Published: March 2008

A FRIEND said to me the other day that he wished it was possible to go back two hundred years and scrap all advances made since then with the exception of plumbing and drainage. Most of us are assailed by similar desires because we consider life far too complex and it at times “gets us down.” In times of peace a walk in the country, or a talk with a good friend is usually sufficient to lift us out of this mood. In the midst of a war the position is vastly different.
Filming a Library
Authors: HARRISON K.C.
Published: March 2008

It was not an original idea, but the existence in the town of a very active and enthusiastic ciné society made it natural that a librarian should think of making a film about the public library. There have been films about books and libraries before, one of them being the National Book Council's film, but I wanted something much more local, and more definitely from the public library angle, to be shown in schools and to adult local audiences. My idea was to show a cross‐section of the work of the public library by tracing its influence on certain typical members of the community. I found it difficult to decide upon the exact approach. Should it be pure documentary, pure advertisement, or should the message be proclaimed under cover of a human story? At the cinema, nothing is more annoying than to see a film which, without warning, turns out to be an advertisement, and whenever that happens to me, I always make a mental note never to use the product advertised. So, for the proposed library film, the blatant advertisement approach was immediately ruled out.
A Neglected Problem
Authors: STANLEY JAST L.
Published: March 2008

PUBLIC libraries at the present time do not want readers: queues are almost as much in evidence there as at the counters which provide food of a more material nature. And in both kinds of institutions there is a pronounced shortage of the material needed, worse in the matter of books than in bodily food, for while Lord Woolton and his medical advisers acclaim that our meals, however skimpy and monotonous some of us may consider them, are more scientifically “balanced” than ever before, nobody can pretend that the same claim can be made for the nutriment supplied by the publisher for the reader. Porthos when he dined with the King, and delighted His Majesty by concentrating on the solid dishes, explaining his neglect of the fancies and trimmings by remarking that the latter took up too much valuable space which could be occupied to better purpose, would find the implementing of his excellent maxim impossible under the regime of King Woolton. At a butcher's the other day, I saw in the window a notice: “Our sausages are full of goodness.” Goodness perhaps, meat, no. Yet a fair allowance of meat is not out of place in a sausage “as is a sausage.” But the sausages purveyed by the libraries just now are certainly not full of goodness; most of them, in fact, are tripe, masquerading as sausages.
Environment and Opportunity
Authors: CRAIG ROBERT
Published: March 2008

While the more felicitous part of Dr. Erasmus Darwin's Eigh‐teenth Century peep into futurity may not be, at the moment, over‐absorbing, we must adjudge him a sound prophet. The motive power proposed in his Botanic Garden for flying‐chariots is steam, but such a trifling error in detail, when we ponder on the Origin of Nazis, is surely irrelevant.
The Librarian and the Art of Reading
Authors: BLACKBURN R.H.
Published: March 2008

Librarians are, on the whole, dangerously modest concerning the actual and potential influence their work exercises on society. I say “dangerously modest,” because in these days it is certainly not wise to ignore the great influence which libraries, as centres of learning, can have on a community. It is something which is likely to increase greatly during the next generation if the new educational plans are brought to full maturity. If these statements are accepted as facts, then it is necessary to try and assess the librarian's responsibilities in the scheme of things now and as it might be in the future, and perhaps also attempt to define his sphere of influence.
The Children's and Juniors' Reading Room of the Lenin Library in Moscow
Authors: SHAPOVALOVA ANTONINA
Published: March 2008

Such silence reigned in the children's reading room that when I asked one of the librarians, sotto voce, to direct me to the director's office, some of the young heads went up and I could read in their eyes a look of surprise as if to say, “What did she come for anyway?”
Gulliver in Libraria
Authors: MACKIE A.D.
Published: March 2008

IN the base of this edifice I came upon a den wherein were some few of the citizens poring over the public prints; I marvelled greatly to see both the stuff which was printed and the manner of men perusing it. For it appeared that among the several sheets there was the utmost confusion regarding what ought to appeal to the lieges as news; some giving all prominence to affairs of state and matters and occurrences which might fairly be deemed to concern all subjects of the king; others seeming to contend that their readers' proper study was the full legs and empty minds of actresses; or the weight at birth of some vulgar horn‐player's baby. On near scrutiny it arose that the major part of the public prints were of the latter sort; and that they were plentifully besmeared with the pictures of courtesans in scant apparel embracing great wet‐eyed dogs; or of beardless and nigh faceless youths, elegant race‐horses and freak potatoes. The matter of the newspapers was throughout unburdened with serious disputation, and was translated into language of the most childish simplicity; that I calculated these were intended for the reading of half‐wits and habitual truants from school. Considering the meagreness of vocabulary and the absence of weighty thought, I argued that there must have been some great earthquake, fire, or other national catastrophe, which had engulfed all dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and tomes of learning; and with them had been hurled into oblivion all persons who might be capable of transmitting knowledge to the benighted millions left behind.
Literature of Faction
Authors: BRIDIE JAMES
Published: March 2008

THE literary gift is not one that should be buried in a napkin and hidden in the back garden. It should be farmed out in some remunerative way.
England's Southern Ports in the War
Authors: MUNFORD W.A.
Published: March 2008

THE war hit southern England very hard. The ports on the South Coast, from Plymouth on the west to Ramsgate on the east, shared the blows. Their experience was also usually more varied, on occasion more intense and generally more prolonged and with less respite than that of any other part of the area, London not excluded. Most of them have been, at different times, both reception and evacuation areas, and their populations have fluctuated wildly. In some cases, particularly in the more closely threatened east, the record low population figures of 1940–41 were unprecedented. Ramsgate's population fell from 35,000 to 12,000, Dover's from 40,000 to 15,000 and Folkestone's (generally speaking a more readily mobile population) from 46,000 to 12,000.
Britain's Cultural Share‐Out
Authors: GREEN MURIEL M.
Published: March 2008

THE librarian is always alive to cultural affairs whether in the realm of books themselves, or of music, art, or other activities which make life worth living. He is ever anxious to link them up with books by arranging exhibitions, musical recitals, dramatic reproductions, knowing that the encouragement of intellectual activity even in fields apparently remote from books all have their effect on reading.
The National Book League and the Librarian
Authors: HADFIELD JOHN
Published: March 2008

BRITAIN'S attitude to books has undergone a spectacular change during the war. There has been an unprecedented increase in the demand for books. The annual turnover of the publishing trade has, despite paper rationing and labour restrictions, increased two‐fold since 1937. Books like Trevelyan's English Social History have not merely had fantastically large sales, but have at times been sought as eagerly as silk stockings or Scotch whisky. Public library figures vary much from district to district, but there must be few libraries that do not report a substantial increase in the issue of books.
Moscow's Libraries
Authors: LEVIN K.
Published: March 2008

IN Moscow, this summer, whenever the weather was fine, the benches in the parks and public gardens were occupied often by readers—youths and girls and a good many school children.
Libraries and Literary Pleasures
Authors: BERWICK SAYERS W.C.
Published: March 2008

WHAT a title this makes for the hypothetical ideal biography of a librarian! I adapt it from a note on Archbishop Temple:—“Few will forget his Presidential address, the subject of which was the rather neglected one, on such occasions, of books and literary pleasures.” Few will; but what was the implication of the tail of the assertion? What was it to convey to me—to you—its readers? For, after all, only you and I, my reader, at this moment are concerned with the interpretation. It is the essence of literature, this “between you and me” intimacy which we may share over an idea or argument. Why are literary pleasures rare conference subjects? For me the implication of the phrase was: the librarian is too absorbed in the routines of his bread‐and‐butter existence to recognise, and certainly to realise, the inner life of his books. And, lacking that realisation, he can have no real love of what is written.
Tashkent Public Library
Authors: USMANOV A.
Published: March 2008

Tashkent State Public Library of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. Founded in 1870, it is now an important centre of culture and science in the Soviet East. The years of the library's existence may be divided into two periods, each differing widely from the other. Until the revolution, the library was hardly ever used by the local population, but by officials of the Tsarist administration, and Russian officers.
The Art of Getting Away With It
Authors: BRIDIE JAMES
Published: March 2008

BY “it” I mean, of course, the swag. By the swag I do not mean what the late Lord Birkenhead (now, no doubt, with God) called glittering prizes. You remember the delightful characters in Jeremiah whose hearts were full of cunning and wickedness like a big cage full of birds and who waxed fat and shone. I have no means of studying such persons. I am a member of the lower middle section of the middle classes—that is to say, the so‐called professional classes. I have no access to the shining ones except by the area entrance. So I cannot tell you by what methods they accumulate the dough.
The Bad Old Days
Authors: GREEN EDWARD
Published: March 2008

THE younger generation of library worthies unacquainted with the earlier conditions of the service no doubt with justice feel rebellious at present pay and conditions. Although something has been done during the past fifty years to improve these conditions, there is still room for improvement.
A Charter for School Libraries
Authors: SPEIRS JAMES
Published: March 2008

THE Education Act (1944), if fully and sympathetically operated, should foster new reading habits, and encourage librarians everywhere. Thoughtful observers in Britain have been concerned for many years past over the comparatively small part played by books—in the schools no less than in the community at large,
The Bad Old Days
Authors: GREEN EDWARD
Published: March 2008

ALTHOUGH my articles are chiefly concerned with conditions appertaining to the early days of the public library, I cannot resist the temptation to step aside and reflect upon the administration of an old established proprietary library and the idiosyncrasies of its governing body.
The Children's Book Section
Authors: GREEN MURIEL M.
Published: March 2008

One hears sometimes of precocious children who can read before the average baby can talk, and this raises the interesting speculation as to when a child is old enough for books. Picture books and story‐telling undoubtedly make early appeal and educationists now consider book provision in nursery schools important in order to make the “under fives” book conscious before their schooling proper begins. More and more librarians now provide attractive A.B.C.'s such as Eileen Mayo's Nature's A.B.C. (Universal Text Books, Ltd., 6/‐) with its beautiful printing and illustrations; and gay picture books like Mary Shilla‐beer's We Visit the Zoo (Hutchinson, 4/6) in which there is just enough text to satisfy the young mind. Some librarians seem to have an objection to odd‐shaped books because of the shelving difficulty but the artist's requirements and the child's partiality for large‐size books should outweigh the slight inconvenience of arranging special shelving.
A Librarian Returns
Authors: AITKEN W.R.
Published: March 2008

IT is difficult now for me to realize that my first impression on joining the R.A.F. was that so many people read so little. All around one heard views and opinions on films, dance bands, race horses, and football pools; but books were rarely mentioned. It was somewhat alarming to find one had stumbled into a bookless world.
The Scottish Book Clubs
Authors: WEIR JOHN L.
Published: March 2008

THE history of the Scottish Book Clubs has still to be written. That no one has yet ventured upon it is partly due to the vastness of the subject, partly to the fact that in these degenerate times the student of history or literature is inclined to take his blessings for granted. Happily, the story is unfinished; for today the modern successors of the Bannatyne and Maitland go on from strength to strength. The Scottish History Society is now sixty years old, but as virile as in the days of its youth. The Scottish Text Society, which has given us monumental editions of Dunbar, Wyntoun, and Pitscottie, to name only a few of its triumphs, continues to maintain its high standards of editorship and production. In the North‐East, the Third Spalding Club proclaims to the world at large that Aberdeen has wealth still of scholars in the Joseph Robertson — Hill Burton tradition. In recent years one new name has been added to the roll of the printing fraternities. Some ten years ago, the Stair Society, established for the purpose of “encouraging the study, and advancing the knowledge of” Scots Law, began its labours. Though young, it has demonstrated beyond all doubt that it is worthy to rank with the great Clubs I have mentioned. True, its scope at first sight may appear limited: and those who have the layman's undefined distrust of legal affairs may pass with averted eye. The noble volumes of the Stair, however, bear eloquent witness to the close relationship of law and history, and afford illustrations of bygone life in Scotland which we would be sorry to lose. An extensive and distinguished membership, with regular publications of value, confirms that the work begun by men like David Laing and Cosmo Innes is still being carried on,—and right worthily too.
London's Public Libraries
Authors: HARROD L.M.
Published: March 2008

LONDON'S libraries are recovering from the upheaval of the war, but they are suffering from a longer period of disorganisation than the majority of libraries, for their upheaval began months before September, 1939, when library staffs were drawn upon for such extraneous duties as issuing gas masks instead of, or in addition to, books. They are taking a long time to settle down to normal. This is due to a number of factors among which are the continued occupation of buildings for non‐library purposes. For example, the reference library and lecture hall at the Mile End Library, Stepney, are at this time of writing not yet released, and Stoke Newington's large and attractive reference library (with the books in situ) was the local food office until a short time ago; in some buildings repairs have still to be carried out (one reference library is still roofed with tarpaulins), and there is a shortage of qualified senior and experienced junior staff; catalogues are incomplete due to arrears of work; and readers' demands are increasing. Last year in the metropolitan area nearly twenty million books were issued to adults and three and a quarter million to children. The figures for 1937–38 were sixteen and a half million and just over three and a quarter million respectively. The population of metropolitan London which decreased from just over four million in 1939 to two and a half million in 1945 is mounting up again, and although it has increased rapidly in past months, it is now just under three million.
Value for Money: an Examination of Public Library Expenditures
Authors: PATON WILLIAM B.
Published: March 2008

IT has been the aim of much professional endeavour to discover through collection and comparison of statistics the factors which are likely to produce a good library service. Such ambitious undertakings as the Library Association survey, the County Libraries statistical reports, the London and Home Counties' Branch quinquennial reports and the McColvin report are examples of attempts to formulate for the benefit of all, standards which by contrast of good and bad may lead to the general improvement of the library service everywhere.
Books That Might Have Been
Authors: KERSLEY HOLMES W.
Published: March 2008

ELIA once wrote of books that are not books at all—volumes like railway time‐tables, bound catalogues and so forth. In a different mood I am sure he might have written delightfully about the dreams and visions, even the stories and dramas, which such productions can inspire. Should not a railway time‐table be as evocative as a good map to the map‐lover? I know a husband and wife, enthusiasts for the wilder areas of their native land but by circumstance exiled for years in India, who spend hours over maps of Scotland, under the spell of reminiscence and of untrammelled anticipation. A railway time‐table might, to those with a knowledge of the geography and railway systems of the country, serve much the same purpose. The train shown as leaving Glasgow's Buchanan Street Station for Inverness at such and such a time can bear my dreams with it—even if my body must be in the office.
Women on Wheels
Authors: ROBERTSON JOAN B.
Published: March 2008

THE story of the B.A.O.R. Mobile Libraries starts in July, 1945, when the N.A.A.F.I. agreed to send a W.V.S. mobile library to Germany filled with what was then thought to be enough books for three months, and manned by one W.V.S. helper. Members of the Women's Voluntary Services had been in the B.A.O.R. for some time, working on services' welfare in the N.A.A.F.I. clubs and mobile canteens, but this was the first time that the thought of a mobile library had been entertained. The whole thing was to be an experiment and if it proved successful more libraries were to follow.
Approaching Research
Authors: HEPBURN ANTHONY G.
Published: March 2008

FOR most laymen the work of a librarian is summed up in the remark: “Oh! you just hand out books!” There would be little fun or interest in our work if we were limited to such a routine task. There are times, indeed, when your real librarian is unhappy unless he has some teaser of an enquiry to occupy his attention.
The Early History of Reference Service in the United States
Authors: KAPLAN LOUIS
Published: March 2008

Modern reference service is marked by four distinctive features: (1) the willingness and ability of librarians generally to give reference aid; (2) a staff devoted exclusively (or largely) to reference work; (3) reference collections stored on open shelves in rooms planned as reference quarters; and (4) ready guides to library resources (such as a dictionary catalogue and a precise scheme of classification).
Informal Education Through Books
Authors: MACALISTER BREW J.
Published: March 2008

NUMBERS of the public need education not only in the use of a library, but in the very facilities provided by the library service. Numbers of teachers up and down the country, with the co‐operation of the librarians, have done much to bring the library to the knowledge of school children, but there are still too many people who imagine that the facilities which the library provides end with their school‐days. There are still vast numbers of young and old who imagine that the library service after school‐days is not free, or else “not for the likes of us.” They do not understand the system of fines, the question of the renewal of books, and they certainly know nothing about the help they could receive from the librarian in selecting their books. Up to the present the method of helping people to read has been largely the method of borrowing books from the library, or else placing books in the buildings where people congregate. Librarians have been pestered by clubs and societies of all kinds, for loan boxes of books, and many a librarian foresees that if this system continues the library itself will be denuded of all books except those which few people in their senses would ever want to read. Moreover, pressure is being placed upon librarians to develop their work in separate compartments. They are being urged to develop a children's library, and very beautiful and imaginatively conducted children's libraries have been arranged in many areas. The success of these has encouraged many well‐meaning people to demand that libraries shall provide equally good facilities for youth libraries. However, though one does not doubt their ability to do this, and to do it no less imaginatively, one might well pause to consider where such departmentalism may lead us. Who is to say whether in a few years' time people may not demand old age pensioners' libraries, or housewives' libraries, or libraries for people over forty?
The Canadian Library Position
Authors: HOMER MORTON ELIZABETH
Published: March 2008

There is a growing awareness in Canada of the need for the precise knowledge found in reference and university libraries and of the importance of public libraries in all educational and recreational programmes. Our nation in the past, except for some notable examples of city library service and the work of its scholarly collections, has lagged behind other lands in the provision of universal library service. Now several Canadian provinces are considering library policies designed to ensure the most intelligent use of our country's human and material resources.
“Sum Liber…”
Authors: DOUGAN R.O.
Published: March 2008

How often, after an old piece of furniture or an old book has been examined, have we heard the exclamation: “What a story it could tell if it could speak!” Who was the first owner and where did he live? How long did he keep it? Did it descend in his family as an heirloom, or was it sold, and if so, what new circumstances attended its history? I wonder how much national as well as personal history would have to be rewritten if the inanimate objects of bygone ages which exist in our museums and libraries to‐day could tell us their life histories.
The Children's Book Section
Authors: GREEN MURIEL M.
Published: March 2008

Thousands of children, and many grown‐ups too, have at last had their patience rewarded by the appearance of another Arthur Ransome in the Swallows and Amazons series. There was general unhappiness last Christmas when there was no new tale, many children appearing to think that there must be something wrong and that Christmas would not, in fact, be Christmas without a Ransome. Much as authors dislike writing to order, Mr. Ransome would surely have been touched had he seen the disappointed faces. His readers now range from the under tens to the well‐over‐twenties, for the latter are still faithful to the favourite writer of their childhood. All ages will be delighted with Great Northern (Cape, 9/‐) in which the Walkers, Blacketts and Callums go sailing round the Hebrides with Captain Flint and have adventures appropriate to a Scottish setting. Dick's bird — watching activities start the children on the trail of the great northern diver in an effort to confirm an important scientific discovery. The figure of Mr. Jemmerling, the famous egg‐collector, looms dangerously near and he is not the only enemy to be avoided. In The Story of Migration (Harrap, 10/6) Mr. E. A. R. Ennion deals not only with birds but also with mammals, reptiles, fish and insects. The information is attractively presented and illustrated. A nature book for younger readers is J. M. Young's The Blue Bowl (Chambers, 7/6) which describes a country family, their pets (wild and tame) and the fascinating life of the countryside between Perth and Aberdeen. Another book for bright boys and girls is Roger Duvoisin's They put out to Sea (University of London Pr., 12/6) which tells how the world was discovered from the time of the earliest traders to the days of Magellan. This book is strikingly illustrated with line drawings on almost every page and double plates in bright colours; it includes sketch maps, a bibliography and an index. Boys interested in the sea can read of the everyday life of a cadet in the merchant navy in The First Tripper (O.U.P., 7/6) by Peter Dawlish. Interwoven among the adventures is much practical information for boys wanting to go to sea.
Reflections of a Fleet Street Reviewer
Authors: THOROGOOD HORACE
Published: March 2008

MOST journalists are the products of books, and chiefly of these books, I reflected as I stood in front of that section of the London Press Club's library devoted to the English language classics. Other shelves were filled with reference books, directories, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, topical histories, and commentaries — the daily fodder of the journalist, where (one might say) he parks his memory: but these were the books that set him on the way he has come. Here were the poets, and the big fellows of prose—Johnson, Scott, Dickens, Swift, Thackeray, Stevenson, Hardy—the whole illustrious troop.
Libraries Afloat
Authors: ARTHUR IAN
Published: March 2008

ABOVE the bar in the Merchant Navy Officers' Club in Gibraltar there is a card upon which are printed Dr. Johnson's words: “No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in jail with the chance of being drowned.” It is well for this country that, in spite of these words, there are men still beating west and south in search of cargoes in all seas and in all kinds of ships. For five years during the late war I was in their company in stress of weather and in moments of danger at the hands of the enemy. In place of my pre‐war ignorance and a slight contempt there is now a profound and sincere appreciation of their real qualities.
Handed Down
Authors: WILLIAMS A.R.
Published: March 2008

IT seems to be the fate of many old authors, some of them important, some of their works classics, to be handed down to younger generations, ending as reading matter for children after adults cease to read them. Often that is their main or only certainty of survival; otherwise they would be forgotten.
What the Public Wants
Authors: MOORE M.S.
Published: March 2008

ONE of the most hoary problems of librarianship is the question of the theory of book selection, with which is interwoven the theory of book service. The protagonists are grouped on half‐a‐dozen platforms between the two extremes of (a) giving the public what they ought to have, and (b) giving them what they want.
The Children's Book Section
Authors: GREEN MURIEL M.
Published: March 2008

GREAT writers only too often go unrewarded in their life‐time and, while no one could say this of Walter de la Mare, winner of the Library Association Carnegie medal for an outstanding children's book published in 1947, it is pleasing that his writing for children should be thus rewarded. The book selected (Collected Stories for Children, Faber 10/6), contains old favourites like “The Scarecrow,” and “The Dutch Cheese.” Mr. de la Mare is especially fortunate in having found, in Irene Hawkins, an illustrator who can interpret his work so perfectly, and this volume is enhanced by her charming illustrations. One of the best anthologies for children is Mr. de la Mare's Come Hither and it is one that badly needs to be reprinted. Copies in public libraries are too well thumbed—a sure sign of popularity—but librarians hesitate to discard irreplaceable volumes of this kind.
Prison Books
Authors: WYNDHAM HORACE
Published: March 2008

“Imprisonment,” remarked Isaac D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, “has not always disturbed the man of letters in the progress of his studies, but has unquestionably greatly promoted them.” Support of this contention is to hand in a number of world famous books which have been written behind bolts and bars. The list of their authors includes Sir Walter Raleigh, John Bunyan, George Fox, William Penn, Daniel Defoe, and Dr. Dodd, with, in more modern times, William Cobbett and Leigh Hunt.
Librarians—Our Fictional Selves
Authors: STOKES ROY
Published: March 2008

ON various occasions librarians have had cause to bemoan the representation of themselves in print. Instances have been quoted to show how low an estimate of our worth novelists have and we usually seize the opportunity to cry aloud, “And in any case, it is not true!” I can not claim that I manage to keep abreast of the tide of modern fiction, I have neither the time, the strength nor the inclination, but I have received one or two impressions as to our present adjudged value. I think that there are three headings under which we might consider the subject. Firstly, does it matter how we are portrayed in fiction? Secondly, are any of the strictures true? Thirdly, what, if anything, can be done to amend the present state of affairs?
Tribute to Lowndes
Authors: WEIR J.L.
Published: March 2008

THOSE of us who are in the habit of studying antiquarian booksellers' catalogues cannot fail to notice the amazing rise in prices of standard works over the past year or so. Once‐despised sets of historians, philosophers, or novelists now apparently command many times their pre‐war figures, and there seems to be no reason to doubt that there are willing purchasers even at the new high rates. It is possible, too, that old authors like Macaulay and Lord Lytton have received a new lease of life as a result of the war‐time dearth of new books and popular reprints, and that the second‐hand trade is experiencing something like a boom from that circumstance. The case of the Bibliographer's Manual of W. T. Lowndes is a good example of the “new look” in old books. For many years the common edition—Bonn's issue in eleven parts (1857–64, or the later reprint)—sold for a pound or thirty shillings, and even at that takers were few. Now my catalogues offer me a choice of sets, bound or in the original ugly yellow cloth, at prices ranging from five to ten guineas. Some booksellers, indeed, seem to think it worth while to list odd volumes and broken sets, and even for these the ransom is heavy. Yet the Manual is by no means a “rare” or “choice” item, and the notable advance in its value would seem difficult to explain.
Anglo‐American Bibliography
Authors: MACLEOD R.D.
Published: March 2008

Much concern has been expressed by librarians, booksellers and publishers at the recently‐proclaimed decision of the H. W. Wilson Company to limit in future the Cumulative Book Index to titles published in the United States and Canada. It may be suggested that those who have followed with interest and practical support the fortunes of this magnificent work, and the other splendid guides published by the Wilson Company, cannot but feel somewhat sardonic at the noisiness of the protest. The Cumulative Book Index has been before British librarians for many years, and the large majority have had the opportunity of handling it, and of subscribing to it; but notwithstanding its patent usefulness and uniqueness the number of libraries subscribing to it runs to a few dozen only. And yet this is a tool without which no reference library can be complete.