A Librarian Looks at Books Available to Purchase

For more than forty years I have looked at books. I have regarded them as tools of our trade and as the “sweet sound that breathes o'er a bed of violets”. I have shelved them, carried them and pushed them about on trucks that move crabwise across a polished floor. For more than thirty years now I have moved them out of winter quarters into permanent habitations and often have I looked upon them with undying hatred. It doesn't last. It is like a tiff with one well loved, it is forgotten in five minutes, and we are back to where we started.