The Library World Volume 53 Issue 17

WE endorse with much pleasure the welcome that has greeted the election of the new President of the Library Association. When the Association, in what seems now a somewhat remote past, determined to place the executive side of its business in the hands of a permanent Secretary, the question of the continuance of an Honorary Secretary was given careful consideration. It was resolved that he should continue and that his main function would be to represent the President at all times when the latter was not available. He had other duties, even if they were not clearly expressed, including a general overall initiative in committee and Council matters. The successive holders of the office since, Stanley Jast, Dr. E. A. Savage and Lionel R. McColvin proved so clearly the wisdom of that decision that the Association made each of them President; they have been heads of the profession in a real sense, inspiring and actively creative. The last of them, Mr. McColvin, is known everywhere librarians meet, here and overseas, and only the newest library recruits are unfamiliar with his reports, essays and many books, or have not heard of his home and other county surveys and his fearless, suggestive appraisals of what he has seen and thought. In a rather difficult time the Library Association is fortunate to have so statesmanlike a librarian to lead it.