The Library's Cultural Contacts

A public library service is part ot adult education, but it is not the whole of it. This perfectly simple fact is so often overlooked by the extreme protagonists of two schools of thought in modern librarianship. The one, in its enthusiasm, embracing in its library policy everything from providing a book service to organising lectures, discussion groups, plays, cinema shows, musical recitals, and even the inevitable and unfortunate “brains trusts”; the other rigorously excluding everything but an efficient book service. That the former often works its extension wonders with a woefully inadequate book stock, hoping, no doubt, to whip up interest and support locally; and that the other often consciously narrows its definition of book “service” to conserve resources for its primary function, we can readily appreciate. But, after allowing for local conditions, which have a strong influence on the formulation of any intelligent library policy, we often feel that on either side there is a surprising failure to appreciate clear, simple fundamentals.