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I HAVE been divorced from the main body of my books for four years now. Poverty and a wandering life made it regrettably necessary for me to put them into storage, packed in tea chests, in a London warehouse. But now that I am the tenant of a cottage in the south of Scotland, and now that my life wears a more settled aspect, the day approaches when I shall be reunited with seven hundred volumes, the cream of the library of my grandfather, of that of my uncle, and of my own acquisitions.

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.

LAST week I received a bookseller's catalogue. Working my way slowly and pleasantly to G, I found two names in interesting juxtaposition. The first of these was that of GALSWORTHY. A first edition of In Chancery (“Nice, but upper cover a little spotted”) is offered for 12s 6d: the highest price asked is for a copy of Soames and the Flag—first, limited, de luxe, signed by author, edition, at 16s 6d. Ten years ago when I was, in a small way, buying and selling books, there was a Galsworthy “first” that fetched seventy pounds, if my memory serves me right. There were certainly many at ten to twenty pounds. And what were these books but indifferent modern productions, neither good nor bad to look at, nor for the most part could they be called rare: they had not been long printed, and they had often been issued in impressions of several thousands. Those were crazy days, in which book values were extraordinarily ill‐founded. No doubt Galsworthy's large sales and widespread popularity made it seem as though he were an aspirant to supreme fame to a public less judicious than that of Shaw and other writers whose prices were never so considerable. Stevenson, of course, had brought high prices: he was perhaps the first of the moderns to become largely collected: but for this there was rather more reason. Barrie had realised some ridiculous prices. I remember a bookseller telling me of a Barrie “first” that had been put into a safe on the day on which it was bought, and kept there twenty years, then sold, “in mint state,” for two hundred pounds: surely a record interest on a safe deposit!

As our correspondent on another page suggests, the economic crisis may have reactions upon libraries. The most obvious one he mentions is the increased difficulty we shall experience in obtaining American books. Not all libraries, public or private, make any special collection of books published in the United States, although there has been an increasing tendency to buy more as the relations of the two countries have grown closer through their common struggle; in fact, we know libraries which have spent many hundreds of pounds in the course of the past year or two on the select lists of books which have been made for us by American librarians. It is most unfortunate that the manipulation of dollar currency should have brought about a situation in which even the exchange of ideas between the countries becomes more difficult. One suggestion might be made and that is that our American colleagues should continue to sift the literature of this time of famine for us, so that further select lists may be available in better days.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE is notoriously afflicted by a high infant mortality rate. Literary magazines in particular seem to exhibit all the survival instincts of a claustrophobic lemming. It is therefore a special pleasure to see an avowedly ‘bookish’ magazine—and a Scottish one at that—celebrate its fiftieth birthday. Fifty years of a Scottish literary periodical! It is rather like running up a cricket score at football. Even more extraordinary is the fact that these fifty years have been achieved under only two editors. R. D. Macleod, the founding editor, ran the magazine for 37 years, while his successor, W. R. Aitken, has been in charge for, as he puts it, ‘a mere 13’.

The Editor of Library Review has invited me to write an article on my literary beginnings. It is a task at one and the same time happy and—well, if not sad it does make one aware of how “the sunrise blooms and withers on the hill.” I might best begin with the return of my people from South America to Glasgow (beloved by them) where, I recall, I was long homesick for the land of my birth. Charles Darwin, visiting my native country, Chile, was impressed chiefly by its sunshine, the visibility there, the keen clarity of its atmosphere. Though in time I learned to love Glasgow it seemed, in comparison, smoky.

THE Children's Department proved to be a neat and cosy little room, somewhat sparingly furnished with books (“Overstocking was the bane of the old children's libraries,” said my companion) but with pictures (“Kindly donated by the L.N.E.R.”), cardboard models, and flowers much in evidence. In the centre of the room a tall sallow individual in a baggy suit, which might have been designed by Omar the Tentmaker, was wearing himself to the bone to amuse the young. A rabbit and the historic ruins of a top‐hat appeared to be the leading motifs of this entertainment. The former disappeared and reappeared four or five times while I watched, and I reflected that its views on serialism would have been of great value to Professor Dunne. I asked the meaning of this phenomenon.

THE spirit of American librarianship is the admiration of the world. To some extent also the wonder, because the pioneers there were of the same substance in general as those who founded Australia and New Zealand. Yet in the United States the “library idea” developed, slowly at first indeed as everywhere else, but in the nineties and the first decade of this century with a verve and liberality which outpaced us all; while, in our Dominions, it grew relatively much more slowly and always braked by the European idea that a lending library ought not to be free. A divided philosophy it seems. In America the axiom has been accepted that reading is culture and in it is included the culture of the imagination through works of all kinds, even fiction; and that this is to be dispensed, as education is, freely and at public cost. In continental Europe, and through it conveyed in some way to the Dominions, our axiom has been that reading may indeed be culture, but its relation to education is vague and unproven, and at the best the desire to create readers should stop short at offering them books for use in their homes entirely out of public funds.

THE assistant said, “Step this way, please.” A lift bore us with soundless urgency into the upper regions and decanted us into a corridor, and a moment later I was ushered into the Librarian's office.

HIS holidays over, before the individual and strenuous winter work of his library begins, the wise librarian concentrates for a few weeks on the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. This year the event is of unusual character and of great interest. Fifty years of public service on the part of devoted workers are to be commemorated, and there could be no more fitting place for the commemoration than Edinburgh. It is a special meeting, too, in that for the first time for many years the Library Association gathering will take a really international complexion. If some too exacting critics are forward to say that we have invited a very large number of foreign guests to come to hear themselves talk, we may reply that we want to hear them. There is a higher significance in the occasion than may appear on the surface—for an effort is to be made in the direction of international co‐operation. In spite of the excellent work of the various international schools, we are still insular. Now that the seas are open and a trip to America costs little more than one to (say) Italy, we hope that the way grows clearer to an almost universal co‐working amongst libraries. It is overdue. May our overseas guests find a real atmosphere of welcome, hospitality and friendship amongst us this memorable September!