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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

REPORTS that reach us do not bear out the assertion we have heard rather frequently of late that the issues from libraries are declining. There is no evidence that this is so with non‐municipal libraries and the circulation from county public libraries grows, it would seem, almost phenomenally; it is even doubtful if they are as yet anywhere near their full possibilities. The centenary announcements brought correspondence in at least one London Sunday newspaper deploring the lack of library facilities in at least three districts, all of them we understand in a county's area. Where, as here appears to be the case, there are such deficiencies, it might be considered if the Library Association could make direct representations of the need to the authorities concerned and not wait until a new Libraries Act has produced the inspection and direction that seem to be wanted. Our charter gives us definite duties—or such are implied—to promote better service. We do not think they have been followed in the way of “direct approach.” In spite of our propaganda, there are still many places where what is good library service is not known or not understood, where those with power might do something if they did know and understand. A candid picture of their shortcomings in comparison with towns or counties, definitely indicated to them, might induce them to overcome them; for the one thing a council member does not like is to learn that his own services are poor compared with those of similar places.

THIS issue opens the new volume of THE LIBRARY WORLD and it is natural that we should pause to glance at the long road we have travelled. For over forty years our pages have been open to the most progressive and practical facts, theories and methods of librarianship; our contributors have included almost every librarian who has held an important office; and we have always welcomed the work of younger, untried men who seemed to have promise— many of whom have indeed fulfilled it. In the strain and stress of the First World War we maintained interest and forwarded the revisions in library methods which adapted them to the after‐war order. Today we have similar, even severer, problems before us, and we hope to repeat the service we were then able to give. In this we trust that librarians, who have always regarded THE LIBRARY WORLD with affection, will continue to support us and be not tempted because of temporary stringency, to make a victim of a journal which has given so long and so independent a service.

ROYAL Alderman T. A. Abbott of Manchester, dealt with somewhat severely by Dr. Savage in his A Librarian's Memories, had at least enthusiasm for libraries. He was mightily honoured when he became President at our Manchester Conference in 1921. “We are the Royal Library Association”, he declared and should call ourselves that; haven't we a Royal Charter? Our recognition comes direct from the Sovereign”. No doubt a vain wish, although the Library Association seemed to come near it in 1950 when George VI graciously became its Patron and the Duke of Edinburgh its President. Since that date the engineers have become “royal”, but we have slipped back. When Her Majesty came to the Throne, the patronage her father had bestowed was refused, no doubt on the direct counsel of her advisers who would not want so young a Sovereign to assume too many offices. On that view librarians could not murmur. There is a future, however, and in it there will be a new Library Association House next to, almost conjoined with, a new National Central Library. King George V with Queen Mary opened the second, as is well remembered especially by the King's speech, one of the best, most useful, in library history, in which he described the N.C.L. as “a university that all might join and none need ever leave”—words that we hope may somewhere be displayed in, or on, the new N.C.L. building. Royalty and its interest in libraries has been again manifested in the opening last month (July 13th to be precise) by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, of the new Central Public Library at Kensington. The Royal Family has close relations with Kensington of course. It is recalled, too, that the Manchester Central and that at Birkenhead were opened also by King George V and Queen Mary; and Queen Elizabeth II quite recently opened the Central Library of the re‐created city of Plymouth, the largest new town library since the Second World War. Kensington has now opened the first major London library since 1939. It is not modern in spirit externally and, as is known, is the work of the architect of the Manchester Reference Library, Mr. Vincent Harris, and there is no doubt about its dignity. Its interior methods are, however, quite modern; a few of them were broadcast to us for a few moments by the B.B.C. announcer, to the effect that there were 100,000 books, that returned books in the lending library were not discharged at the counter but slid down a chute to a room below where that was done, etc., with the remark that books not available in the public apartment could be requisitioned from other libraries but, with the large stocks on show and in the building, that did not seem to be very necessary. We sometimes wish that broadcasters, however well intentioned that may have been, knew something about libraries. Happening at about the same time was the removal of the Holborn Central Library stock to its new home in Theobald's Road, a complex process which Mr. Swift and his staff carried out in July without interrupting the public service. We hope that Mr. Swift will be able soon to tell us how he carried out this scheme. Thus has begun what we hope will be a process of replacing many other London libraries with modern buildings more worthy of the excellent work now being done in them.

OUR various accounts of the Portsmouth Conference, and the official record of it which is now in the hands of readers shows that it may be regarded as a successful one. It was specially notable for the absence of those bickerings and differences which must inevitably come to the surface at times. There may be something in the suggestion of one of our writers that the weather was a main factor. However that may be, there was uniform good temper, and we came away with the belief that a good week's work for librarianship had been done.

THIS is the month when the public librarian again faces his annual estimates. Things are rarely exactly easy for him. This year may be no exception, as there will be in some places an effort to lop off the non‐essential works of local authorities. It is at this time that some librarians wish the service ceased to be local, because town councillors as a whole believe so much in the local character of government and do not realize that if they reduce on such things as libraries they are placing their own people at a disadvantage in relation to other towns. That is the soundest reason, and one that cannot too often be stressed, for some sort of imposed standard of service, which cannot be varied too greatly because of some temporary condition of local or national finance. We do not anticipate crippling reductions anywhere, but the signs for advance are not more propitious than in the bad old days. We shall be interested to hear of special cases this year, but hope that they will be few. We know that salaries cannot, at present, be greatly affected, but even librarians do not live for pay‐cheques alone; they want books, light, heat and many more things to revive, if not to improve, their service.

IF the two definitions which were enunciated at various intervals by the Library Association are ever to be translated into complete practice, they will carry libraries far beyond any of their present achievements. It is the necessary preliminary that the leaders should make some Statement of the problem, and it is the business of every librarian, but particularly the young ones, to show how they want libraries to work in their time. At Marylebone only one young librarian spoke, and he wanted first the return to their normal duties of those librarians who are food‐controlling and otherwise doing war work, to the detriment, he supposed, of the library service. There is something in this argument, although, if these men had refused to accept their temporary tasks, it is probable that their libraries would Still have been taken for food and other offices, and they would have been marked as non‐co‐operators. We have to remember that great as is the part we sustain in this war in the maintenance of morale, in information service, in education and in the providing of anodynes and escapes from the awful actualities of the day, we rest our all on the book, and in the war‐mind that is a luxury rather than a necessity.

THE beginning of a new volume is necessarily a time for reflection. Our journal is now forty‐four years old and has appeared without intermission, always with the purpose, enunciated by its founder, James Duff Brown—to furnish librarians of all kinds and ages with a thought‐exchange and a medium of expression independent of any other control than the editor's conviction that what was published was sincere in intention and likely to be of use to the profession. This does not mean, as our pages to‐day witness, that matters of controversy or even of severe criticism of those who lead the profession officially are excluded. On the contrary, we believe that the best spur to advance is a critical vigilance. Thus it has occurred occasionally that our writers have been at variance with some current policy of the Library Association, some phases of its examinations or its conference policy. Occasionally, too, there have been criticisms of library authorities which an official journal might hesitate to make because those authorities may be in membership of the Library Association. Such criticism was never more necessary than now. The library movement has to be kept alive under the greatest strain in history; indeed, it should progress.

THIS month will see, we understand, the publication of the results of months of regular work of the Library Association Post War Policy Committee, which we believe has been working with exemplary industry. We hear that the Council has endorsed the scheme and that it will deal with such points as the central control of libraries, the sort of area that can support a library service efficiently, the ideals of an efficient system, the training of librarians and many other matters. These topics could be envisaged as obvious ones for any such report to pronounce upon. We shall deal in some detail with them when the report is released but, even now, we can express our gratification that a programme and a policy have been enunciated well before the end of the war is in sight. This does not mean that the report is in any way sacrosanct; it can have no character of a legal document; it can and will be criticised and, no doubt, amended.

Most librarians appreciate the necessity for the preparation of reading lists, and even the compilation of exhaustive bibliographies for the use of their readers, yet few of us find adequate time to prepare all the lists and bibliographies that we feel would be of value and would enhance the status of our services. Routine work and shortage of staff compel one to dream of the vague future in which one hopes to have time available for the intensive work necessitated by the preparation of even an abbreviated list in certain subjects. It is believed that co‐operation in this field would result in benefits as great as those enjoyed by other co‐operative methods among librarians.