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The question before us is the programme of the American Library Association and I shall try to stick to that. I must ask permission, however, to widen the base slightly and now and then to mention similar related activities in other fields even if not carried out exclusively by the Association.

At the very outbreak of the war official permission was sought to import books and periodicals from war areas. This article seeks to look at the problems that arose for libraries trying to succeed in getting books from abroad and their own books overseas in wartime conditions.

A campaign was launched by the Conference of College and University Librarians of Southern California. Its members were responsible for the collecting and storing of books given in their locality.

With the help of libraries and associations world‐wide, adults and children alike were able to carry on reading.

The article has historical value.

Part of the “JDoc at 60” series, this paper aims to discuss, evaluate and compare writings on the state of libraries in Continental Europe in the 1940s and the 1990s.

Four papers published in Journal of Documentation, three from 1945 and one from 1994, are analysed and compared, and their significance discussed.

Finds that there are similarities and differences between the situation facing European libraries at the end of the 1939‐1945 war, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Both historical and current policy perspectives are included.

OUR readers will, we trust, appreciate our double souvenir number issued in connection with the Library Association Conference at Glasgow. Special features are the articles on the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, 1874–1924, by a member of the staff, Mr. J. Dunlop, and one on the Burns Country, by Mr. J. M. Leighton, of Greenock Public Library. We printed the provisional programme in our July issue and as we go to press have little to add to the particulars there given, except to compliment the Library Association and the Local Reception Committee on the excellent programme arranged for the occasion, from both the professional and social point of view.

THE recruitment, training and payment of librarians are matters of import, not only to the youngest entrant into this work, but also to established librarians and to the public. Although training was initiated forty years ago by the then chief librarians of libraries, it has in recent years become a very intimate concern of library assistants and of parents and others in charge of young folk who are considering librarianship as their possible career. After thirty years of experiment, with minor changes, the Library Association syllabus has now been completely remodelled. We have also reached a stage when we can consider to some extent, although not adequately, the effect upon the profession of our whole‐time library school of university rank. The various phases of the work must therefore be of great interest to every reader of The Library World; and this is sufficient justification for the special attention which the subject receives in this number. The first question must always be the economic and human one. Is the profession sufficiently large, and of enough importance, to justify parents in allowing lads or girls, who have gone through a secondary or even university training, to devote themselves to the somewhat protracted study which is prescribed for the work? Then, again, is the training now placed before the would‐be aspirant to library work a wise training? Is it too special, too technical, too scholarly; indeed, is the library authority, whoever and wherever it may be, asking too much for what most people regard as the very simple work of managing and distributing and exploiting books?

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked, which may be consulted in the Library.

THE relinquishing of the Presidency of the Library Association by Dr. Arundell Esdaile must of course receive the attention it deserves. This will probably be when the new President, Mr. Cashmore, is inducted into the office at Birmingham—an event which we understand will take place early in February.