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IT has been the aim of much professional endeavour to discover through collection and comparison of statistics the factors which are likely to produce a good library service. Such ambitious undertakings as the Library Association survey, the County Libraries statistical reports, the London and Home Counties' Branch quinquennial reports and the McColvin report are examples of attempts to formulate for the benefit of all, standards which by contrast of good and bad may lead to the general improvement of the library service everywhere.

ON no subject of professional concern to librarians has more ink been spilled in recent months than on the vexed question of the examination system of the Library Association. Writers have displayed diverse views on the matter, but everyone is agreed on one thing:—the present situation is unsatisfactory. Although the writer of this article has in the past figured in the role of destructive critic, it is his aim now fairly to assess the merits and demerits of the system, to give unbiassed consideration to the opinions which have been ventilated in the library press, and to suggest, where necessary, remedial measures. The following questions are worth asking:—

The passing of the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act, 1955, is an important event, comprising as it does the first step forward in library legislation in the United Kingdom for more than thirty years. True, it is a modest measure which in the main does little more than bring Scotland into line with England and Wales and Northern Ireland in the extent of the statutory library powers of local authorities, and still leaves unsolved several problems for the future. Its first clause removes the statutory rate limitation on expenditure and on borrowing powers of Scottish library authorities, thus bringing to a belated end the eras of penny and threepenny rates. This was a move urgently required, especially in the smaller burghs, though it should be realised that probably more than half the population of Scotland had already been freed from the crippling effect of rate restriction through the passing of local acts, and that no statutory restriction has ever operated on library expenditure in the county libraries of Scotland. The effect of the repeal of the 3d. rate limit will, therefore, be much less marked in the country as a whole than might at first be supposed.

In the midst of the heat and turmoil of the first world war emerged the proposals for the progress in library provision which took place following the end of hostilities. Once more we are at war, and again the field of public library service is being surveyed and plans for post‐war development prepared. There are those who urge that all our energies should meantime be bent on winning the war, and that all other activities should be suspended for the duration. The war might thus be over more quickly, but in the process the worth‐while fruits of victory would be retarded. In the welter and flux of post‐war conditions opportunities for rapid progress will appear for the grasping, but unless we are prepared to seize them at the right moment, they may vanish for a generation or more. Collectively, therefore, librarians should have a clear idea of the changes they wish to effect, and should work out now the steps required to bring them about.

IN MANY RESPECTS 1961 has been a disappointing year in the British library field. In January we remarked upon our hopes for the year: a new examination syllabus, a new look for the Library Association, progress on the new building in Store Street for the National Central Library and the Library Association, a new Public Libraries Act—these were some of the advances envisaged at the outset of this year.

LIBRARIANSHIP is an established profession, international in scope, and currently passing through a period of acute shortage of trained personnel. The City of Liverpool, situated at the gate‐way of the New World, has given its School of Librarian‐ship some of the elements of its international character, while the current dearth of librarians has given it the opportunity to expand.

SINCE we wrote last the African victories have changed the atmosphere in a remarkable way. Lately pessimism had been absent and a calm confidence existed but now there is a sense of expectation. But we have been warned that the really tough conflict is still before us. However that may be, there is scarcely a library where the externals of the conflict are not reflected in the eyes and words of our readers, even affecting to an extent their reading. It must, of course, be so because it is a commonplace that books are good or bad in our estimation in accord with the mood in which we read.

We give more space than usual to the Conference of the Library Association, but, even so, our correspondent has attempted impressions rather than factual accounts of the papers read. Good as those papers were, the main effect of our conferences is to provide for every type of librarian a sense of community and of unity with librarianship in general. This was achieved in a large measure at Edinburgh. Moreover, as our correspondent suggests, there was interest in problems that do not affect, at least at present, many who participated. Nearly every session, general or special, was so well attended, that we can infer that the vitality of interest in library matters is as great as it ever has been; indeed, it is possibly greater.

The Fortieth Annual Report of the National Central Library once again records a year of great activity in the various departments of the Library and continued expansion of the resources available by the addition of new names to the list of ‘outlier libraries’ and by wider international contacts.

NATURAL aptitude, training, experience: these are the three factors necessary for competence in any vocation. But having stated the ideal, what is the reality? Recruitment to libraries is quite as haphazard as it is to any other job. It is best when unemployment is rife. It is poorest when full employment is achieved. The assistant arrives more by accident than design. He is usually an amenable, adaptable creature, ready enough to learn and make the most of the estate to which he has been called. Thus it is that training becomes paramount, and education in librarianship the prime duty of the Library Association.