The Library World Volume 16 Issue 9

IN the death of Mr. JAMES DUFF BROWN, the library profession loses one of its most striking personalities and librarianship its most powerful influence for progress. Any attempt at present to estimate the extent of his influence upon the modern public library must necessarily be inadequate, because not only are some of the movements he started only beginning to gather force, but his retiring nature made him refrain from labelling many things as his own. With the possible reservation that he was unable to do himself justice on the platform, he was the ideal born public librarian. As an organiser and teacher of librarianship, as a keen and discerning student and critic of tendencies, methods and results, and as an expounder of professional knowledge through the medium of the written page, he was without an equal. Like all pioneers and men of strong opinions, he did not make only friends ; but he had world‐wide friendships, and he forced the attention and respect of all library workers. On another page of this issue an old friend and one‐time colleague of his gives a brief outline of his life and works, and we need not do the same again here. But as his successors in the editorship of THE LIBRARY WORLD, which he founded and edited until a year or two ago, we cannot refrain from adding our tribute to his memory. Representing the best type of efficiency and progress in librarianship, he was a real friend and teacher, and his death leaves a sad gap in our ranks.