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THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties. Anything that Mr. Jast has to say is said with originality even if the subject is not original; his quality has always been to give an independent and novel twist to almost everything he touches. We think our readers will find this to be so when he touches the important question of “The Library and Leisure.”

The following is a list of examination results obtained at the various courses run by the Institute during 1980. The grading are D = Distinction; C = Credit; P = Pass. The prize winner's name in each course is designated by an asterisk.

HARROGATE will be notable as the venue of the Conference in one or two ways that distinctive. The Association Year is now to begin on January 1st and not in September as heretofore; and, in consequence, there will be no election of president or of new council until the end of the year. The Association's annual election is to take place in November, and the advantages of this arrangement must be apparent to everyone who considers the matter. Until now the nominations have been sent out at a time when members have been scattered to all parts of the country on holiday, and committees of the Council have been elected often without the full consideration that could be given in the more suitable winter time. In the circumstances, at Harrogate the Chair will still be occupied by Sir Henry Miers, who has won from all librarians and those interested in libraries a fuller measure of admiration, if that were possible, than he possessed before he undertook the presidency. There will be no presidential address in the ordinary sense, although Sir Henry Miers will make a speech in the nature of an address from the Chair at one of the meetings. What is usually understood by the presidential address will be an inaugural address which it is hoped will be given by Lord Irwin. The new arrangement must bring about a new state of affairs in regard to the inaugural addresses. We take it that in future there will be what will be called a presidential address at the Annual Meeting nine months after the President takes office. He will certainly then be in the position to review the facts of his year with some knowledge of events; he may chronicle as well as prophesy.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.

THE PRESIDENT of the Library Association for 1929–30 will be Lord Balneil, the son of the Earl of Crawford, and it is difficult to think of a better choice. Lord Balneil has an admirable bibliographical ancestry—if we may so put it—seeing that his grandfather, the 26th Earl of Crawford, was President in 1898; and the Haigh Hall Library at the family seat is one of the noble private libraries of England. Lord Balneil is the Chairman of the Appeal Committee for the endowment of the School of Librarianship and so has already identified himself in a practical manner with the cause of libraries.

THE curtain has now been rung down on the Jubilee of the Library Association and all who witnessed or took part in the performance will agree that the show was good. The setting of the scene in so beautiful a city, the lavish and dignified hospitality, the fine and sympathetic chairmanship of the new President, the general good‐humoured seriousness of the discussions—all these things will remain to make the Edinburgh Conference the most memorable in our annals. The Conference was not only nation‐wide and empire‐wide—it was world‐wide; and several languages and many accents were heard. Librarians of great fame, who hitherto have been names only, became known friends within the week.

Before the appearance of our next issue, the Annual Meeting of the Library Association will have taken place. In many ways, as indicated last month, it will be an interesting meeting, largely because it is in the nature of an experiment. International conditions, the state of national and municipal finance, the absence of library workers with the colours, and the omission of social events, all tend to influence its character. It is possible, however, that these very circumstances may increase the interest in the actual conference business, especially as the programme bears largely upon the War. The programme itself is formidable, and it will be interesting to see how the section on the literature of the war, for example, will be treated. Probably the Publications' Committee have in mind the book symposia which are a feature of the meetings of various library associations in the United States. These consist of a few minutes' characterisation, by an opener, of a certain book or type of literature, and a discussion after it. The experiment was attempted in London last year at one of the monthly meetings, but owing to a misapprehension the speaker gave an excellent lecture on Francis Thompson of more than an hour's duration, when he had been expected to give a brief description of Francis Meynell's biography of that poet. If any gatherings for a similar purpose are arranged, we hope the speakers will be primed sufficiently to avoid that error. As for social events, their omission is less likely to be felt in London than anywhere else in the Kingdom. London is a perennial source of social amusement in itself, and the evenings can readily be filled there—“chacun à son goût”—really better than by attending pre‐arranged gatherings.

We feel that librarians may congratulate themselves upon the growing sureness of the position of the Library in the life of the community. One of the legacies of the Great War, or, at any rate, one of the conditions clearly discernible in post‐war days, is an increased intellectual inquisitiveness in the people. There have been those who prophesied that first the Cinema, and then Wireless, would tend to reduce the use of books, even to the vanishing point. No prophesy has been more false. Either the nation's mental appetite has absorbed these new things and like Oliver Twist wants “more,” or these things themselves have been incitements to further reading. The cause is obscure, but the facts are plain enough, and these prove that in every town where the library provision is reasonably adequate, the increase in the issue of books is little less than phenomenal.

We learn with interest and pleasure that, by the unanimous vote of the Council, the position of Executive Officer to the Library Association has been given to Mr. Guy Keeling, B.A. We understand that over one hundred applicants were considered for the post, and that it was felt that by education and experience Mr. Keeling was eminently qualified for the work which lies ahead of the Association. Mr. Keeling is a Cambridge man, Still on the sunny side of forty, whose pleasing personality is known to many librarians who have met him at conferences of “Aslib” or at meetings of the London and Home Counties Branch. As for his work as secretary of Aslib, it has proved him to be a man of most efficient organizing capacity. We offer him a welcome to the larger sphere of librarianship and we feel sure that all our readers will do the same, and, what is better, will support him in all his efforts in it.