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For quite a number of years Librarians and Library Authorities have been urging the establishment of a magazine which will reflect accurately and systematically the various phases of modern Library work and progress. A demand has also arisen for a magazine of a more independent nature than anything hitherto issued, or, at least, one which is not hampered in any way by official connection with a society or other public body.

WE have received a number of communications for the most part cordially welcoming The Library World and promising support. Among these are several appeals in favour of maintaining, in a crisp, brief manner, the practical side of the magazine to the exclusion of long papers on professional subjects written by cranks or conceited persons. We value this advice the more that it jumps with our own intentions, and also because experience has proved the folly of making a general journal of this kind a vehicle for the propagation of the tenets of any one school of librarianship. At the same time our columns will be open for the fair discussion of any Library problem, provided it has the ordinary qualities of interest and practicalness. It is only by the frank, frequent, and impersonal discussion of important questions that perfection can ever be attained. We do not agree with the opinion, so often heard, that every point, in Library administration has been discussed ad nauseam. If certain subjects crop up with much frequency, it will generally be found that a new aspect is presented at each repetition. Many experienced Librarians and other observers are of opinion that librarianship is at present in its infancy, and that great developments are looming in the near future. The air has been so greatly cleared in recent years that additional means may be looked for at any time as an act of governmental policy. With increased means will come enormous advances in Library policy and administration, and it shall be our endeavour to help towards this result by gathering and spreading information of a practical nature which will make for improvement. We shall neither ignore cranks nor the strictly orthodox Librarian, but give equal justice to both. So many useful and valuable ideas have come from the so‐called “cranks,” since history first commenced to chronicle their doings, that we shall be chary of rejecting any novelty because it may seem a “cranky” departure from established practice.

The following report was brought up by Dr. P. Brouardel, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, President of the Commission, and was submitted for the approval of the Congress:

The Table which is printed along with this article gives a view of the progress of our Public Libraries as shown by the adoptions of the Acts, year by year, since 1848. In heavier type are set out the various Acts of Parliament or other influences which have had a determining effect in popularizing and spreading the Public Library. We have also added as an item of additional interest, the name of the first librarian of each town, so far as we have been able to ascertain it. But this is not guaranteed to be absolutely correct, and we shall be pleased to have notifications of errors and omissions.

That the introduction of the Control system should have given rise to a considerable amount of criticism, both appreciative and adverse, was naturally to be expected. The appreciative remarks which have appeared in the press, and those also which have been privately communicated to the directors, indicate that the subject has been intelligently considered, and in some cases carefully investigated and studied. The opinions given are worth having on account of the position and influence of hose who have given them, and on account of the obvious freedom from bias which has characterised them. This is so far satisfactory, and goes to show that the success which has attended the working of the Control system abroad may well be expected to attend it in this country as soon as it is sufficiently well known to be appreciated by the manufacturers and vendors of good and genuine products, and by the general public, whose best interests it cannot but serve.

The method of dealing with the proposed additions varies in different libraries. In the Battersea Library, the librarian makes an author‐entry on a cataloguing slip for each book he proposes, with name of publisher, price, and, if necessary, a note as to the review of the work, and its suitability for addition to the library. Before each committee meeting these are arranged in alphabetical order, and at the committee the librarian calls them over and marks on each the decision arrived at. Afterwards the slips can be sorted into “rejected,” “postponed,” and “ordered,” and dealt with accordingly. The “ordered” slips can again be sorted into two lots, one for books to be purchased new, and the other for those whose purchase is deferred until they can be met with second‐hand. When the books are received from the vendors, the number of copies, and the branch libraries to which they are allocated, are marked upon the slips. By this means a rough record is kept of the additions to the library, which is of great use to the librarian.

The Food and Drugs Bill introduced by the Government affords an excellent illustration of the fact that repressive legislative enactments in regard to adulteration must always be of such a nature that, while they give a certain degree and a certain kind of protection to the public, they can never be expected to supply a sufficiently real and effective insurance against adulteration and against the palming off of inferior goods, nor an adequate and satisfactory protection to the producer and vendor of superior articles. In this country, at any rate, legislation on the adulteration question has always been, and probably will always be of a somewhat weak and patchy character, with the defects inevitably resulting from more or less futile attempts to conciliate a variety of conflicting interests. The Bill as it stands, for instance, fails to deal in any way satisfactorily with the subject of preservatives, and, if passed in its present form, will give the force of law to the standards of Somerset House—standards which must of necessity be low and the general acceptance of which must tend to reduce the quality of foods and drugs to the same dead‐level of extreme inferiority. The ludicrous laissez faire report of the Beer Materials Committee—whose authors see no reason to interfere with the unrestricted sale of the products of the “ free mash tun,” or, more properly speaking, of the free adulteration tun—affords a further instance of what is to be expected at present and for many years to come as the result of governmental travail and official meditations. Public feeling is developing in reference to these matters. There is a growing demand for some system of effective insurance, official or non‐official, based on common‐sense and common honesty ; and it is on account of the plain necessity that the quibbles and futilities attaching to repressive legislation shall by some means be brushed aside that we have come to believe in the power and the value of the system of Control, and that we advocate its general acceptance. The attitude and the policy of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON ADULTERATION, of the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, and of the BRITISH ANALYTICAL CONTROL, are in all respects identical with regard to adulteration questions; and in answer to the observations and suggestions which have been put forward since the introduction of the Control System in England, it may be well once more to state that nothing will meet with the approbation or support of the Control which is not pure, genuine, and good in the strictest sense of these terms. Those applicants and critics whom it may concern may with advantage take notice of the fact that under no circumstances will approval be given to such articles as substitute beers, separated milks, coppered vegetables, dyed sugars, foods treated with chemical preservatives, or, in fact, to any food or drug which cannot be regarded as in every respect free from any adulterant, and free from any suspicion of sophistication or inferiority. The supply of such articles as those referred to, which is left more or less unfettered by the cumbrous machinery of the law, as well as the sale of those adulterated goods with which the law can more easily deal, can only be adequately held in check by the application of a strong system of Control to justify approbation, providing, as this does, the only effective form of insurance which up to the present has been devised.

“A Candidate, canvassing his district, met a Nurse wheeling a Baby in a carriage, and, stooping, imprinted a kiss upon the Baby's clammy muzzle. Rising, he saw a Man, who laughed.

The Food Bill has emerged from the Grand Committee on Trade, and will shortly be submitted, as amended, to the House of Commons. Whatever further amendments may be introduced, the Bill, when passed into law, will but afford one more example of the impotence of repressive legislation in regard to the production and distribution of adulterated and inferior products. We do not say that the making of such laws and their enforcement are not of the highest importance in the interests of the community; their administration—feeble and inadequate as it must necessarily be—produces a valuable deterrent effect, and tends to educate public opinion and to improve commercial morality. But we say that by the very nature of those laws their working can result only in the exposure of a small portion of that which is bad without affording any indications as to that which is good, and that it is by the Control System alone that the problem can be solved. This fact has been recognised abroad, and is rapidly being recognised here. The system of Permanent Analytical Control was under discussion at the International Congress of Applied Chemistry, held at Brussels in 1894, and at the International Congress of Hygiene at Budapest in 1895, and the facts and explanations put forward have resulted in the introduction of the system into various countries. The establishment of this system in any country must be regarded as the most practical and effective method of ensuring the supply of good and genuine articles, and affords the only means through which public confidence can be ensured.

The completion of our first volume affords us an opportunity of thanking our readers and subscribers for their substantial support, which has made possible the continuance of a library magazine on purely technical lines. The amount of sympathy and response received has demonstrated in an unmistakable manner that the practical side of librarianship is considered sufficiently interesting to require a special journal for its exposition.