The Scottish Report on Libraries: a Symposium

The Scottish Education Department have issued Libraries, Museums and Art Galleries: A Report of the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland, published by H.M.S.O. at 3/6d. This Report has been awaited with much interest, and the policy indicated in it is said to have English as well as Scottish considerations behind it. We feel, therefore, that librarians everywhere in Britain will be interested in the following Symposium. In our Editorial we have observed that the Advisory Council by‐passed The Library Association, and no doubt more will be heard of this regrettable lapse of etiquette. It will be clear from the Symposium that the proposals tend to re‐open old administrative wounds. It is conceded that many of the defects of the Report are due to there having been no librarian representatives on the Council; had there been such, the Council would doubtless have been advised that some of the most important decisions go counter to recommendations in Cmd. 321, Cmd. 2868, and to the McColvin Report of 1942. In the present Symposium the contributors have been allowed free expression of opinion.