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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.

The idea of a Library Advisory Council does not loom up suddenly within the orbit of librarians' thought from nowhere. Its emergence as a practical and desirable modus operandi for the solution of present difficulties and the shaping of future library ends, is the result of much heartsearching and mature reflection, represents the fruits of bitter experience. It is at one and the same time an admission of past failure and an augury for future success. The failure being the inability of public library services to meet fully the actual requirements of modern society within the restrictive bounds of their present financial and administrative framework; the augury for future success being the acceptance by the central government of the thesis that the undeveloped potential of libraries as educative factors is worthy of consideration and that a real necessity arises to constitute an advisory body for the encouragement and extension of such services.

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.

I take it for granted that the noble institution of Lifemanship is familiar to all librarians. So competitive a profession, where all must Gambit and Ploy to keep in the race, is natural soil for the doctrines of the new evangelism. In truth, the sagest among us were practising the creed before it had a local habitation or a name. But what may not be generally known is that a Sub‐Group of the parent institution has recently been formed to study the problems of our profession. In particular, the Group aims to encourage, advise and guide young recruits; to make the rough places smooth and shorten their pilgrimage to Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre— in other words, the Chief's Chair.