Comment

STARING AT all of us in the preamble of the Library Association's Royal Charter is the statement that one of the objects of the association is ‘to unite all persons engaged or interested in library work for the purpose of promoting the best administration of libraries’. Now, whatever else we may have achieved over the last hundred years, we have conspicuously failed in this particular objective. How many experienced librarians with long years of library service behind them are there up and down the country, in government departments, universities and industrial firms, who seem to take a perverse sort of pride in not being members of the association, instead of being safely tucked up with the rest of us? Their number must be legion, and that in itself is an indication of our failure. And how often do they admit, a little shamefacedly, that they really see no relevance in what the Library Association is doing, in relation to their own individual circumstances? And then comes their clincher: besides, they will tell you slightly aggressively, ‘if I joined it would cost me £x’.