The Library World Volume 43 Issue 6

WE begin a New Year in circumstances far removed from those in which any former year began. We were at war last January, it is true, but the actuality of it had not advanced over our own threshold as it has since done. The history of 1940 from our library viewpoint must await the assessment of more tranquil times, but in the cardinal tests to which libraries have been subjected we are convinced that they have been proven good. Fortunes have varied from the total destruction—except for 20,000 salvaged reference books—of the Gulson Library at Coventry to the loss of some glass or ceilings in other towns, but everywhere there has been remarkable resilience and an attempt, nearly always successful to restart the library service with little or no interruption. And the public has been most appreciative as letters we have seen prove: Richmond even received a congratulatory telegram from a reader. The contrast in this war between the desire for libraries and the continuous spurious economy “council” and “press” attacks upon them in the last one has been a significant social phenomenon.