honesty as applied to book reviews is not so simple a thing as appears in Mr Browne's paper. Honesty is a thing of such varied shades and degrees, involving so many questions of repression as well as expression that one never knows just how positive and aggressive a factor it is in even the best reviews. At any rate Mr Browne's defense does not help us much in solving our problem as to the value of new books. Whether the reviews are honest or not, they do not tell us the full truth about books, the measure of truth we ought to know before placing books on the shelves of our libraries. Within a week there has appeared in one of the oldest and best of our weeklies, a large illustration and a half colorless, half commendatory review of a book, leading one to think it might at least be acceptable, while that same book has been pronounced by librarians to be so indecent as to call for the exclusion from libraries of the periodical in which it first appeared! Even more difficult is it to find secure guidance in regard to the importance or literary value of new books. Compare our present estimate of the books published five or ten years ago with the reviews of those books which appeared at that time in the best periodicals! How forced, extravagant and misleading do we now find them to have been! Books with some cheap trick of popularity, which were given columns of space and were treated as literary productions of the first importance, now lie dead and unknown on our shelves. How much of the deadwood that encumbers our libraries is there because it was accepted and commended by the reviewers as live and important literature! The fault may not be with the reviews or reviewers; it is their business, of course, to deal with contemporary productions, and such productions most naturally assume an importance out of all proportion to their real value. Then too the proper appraisal of any contemporary work or event is a task too difficult for even the best minds. But these obvious defects should at least serve as a constant warning to librarians not to take even the better class of reviews too seriously. Dependence should never be placed on any one journal, no matter how respectable, and even when several agree, the element of doubt is by no means removed. For librarians who do not have an apportunity of studying and testing the fitness of books for

their shelves before purchasing, the only safe rule is to wait until some competent and disinterested library authority, such as the A. L. A. Booklist or the Best Books lists of the State Library, has given its judgment and approval.

Membership in the American Library Association. We take pleasure in indorsing and commending to the consideration of our readers the following report and appeal, presented by the secretary of the American Library Association at the Pasadena confer

ence.

The association needs more members, institutional and individual, and I believe just as firmly that the individuals and the libraries need the association.

Every library that has an income of at least $5000 a year ought to belong to the A. L. A. both for its own good and for the help it can render the association by its membership fee, and every librarian and library assistant whose salary is not less than $60 a month would find it a personal asset and an advantage to be allied with the national association. Many a library board who have decided they could not afford to have their institution placed on the membership roll would unhesitatingly vote five dollars a year for periodicals which are of far less service than the A. L. A. Bulletin and Booklist, which are secured free through membership, to say nothing of the other very substantial benefits derived.

In addition to our desire to enrol a large number of libraries as institutional members, and entirely in addition to the pecuniary profit which membership brings to the work of the executive office, we would like to welcome to the association a host of library workers, in order that they may have the feeling of being a part of a great organized professional movement, of being one in a vast fraternity working for the uplift of their respective communities. We earnestly request librarians to recommend membership in the association to their staff members. This, we are confident, can be tactfully done in a way to prelude any suspicion of duress on the part of the chief and to impress the assistants that it is solely for their good and advantage that the suggestion is made. A number of trustees are already members of the association, several having recently joined. We recommend to librarians that they extend a cordial invitation to join the A. L. A. to members of their boards, explaining to them the advantages accruing, and the opportunity. on their part, by a very small outlay, of aiding in library development beyond the confines of their own community. The library horizon of the average trustee would be con

be of much practical service, sometimes with the cryptic but expressive formula "n. g." a formula hardly to be commended as a model of literary criticism, but having at least the advantage of definiteness and brevity.

In any event, not even the most catholicminded and impartial of librarians can succeed in satisfying all classes of readers. Any general approval of his selections he need hardly hope for; expressions of disapproval are much more likely to be heard. The reader of fiction who is impatient for the latest if not the most sensational novel is scornful at seeing good library money spent for "poky old books" on religion and philosophy; while the reader of "solid literature" is pained to see the concessions made to the perverted tastes of readers of "silly novels." All these classes have their rights in the library, and a right to the expression of their opinions. The librarian is a servant of the people, who are really his employers. He is a literary caterer, whose business it is to find out what the public - his public want, and to supply this want, within reasonable limits, to the best of his ability and resources. His business in buying books is to buy the best of those that are offered; not merely those that are best in themselves, or best for him, but those that are best for his library and his public-those that will give the most satisfaction and the most profit to the community that supports the library and him. This does not mean that he is not to direct readers and raise the standards of taste whenever he can; he should try to lead and guide in the right direction - but he should not be too keen to officiate as guide, nor keep so far ahead as to be out of sight of the procession.

The printed aids available to the librarian in his task of book selection are so varied and numerous that their very abundance may be an obstacle to their usefulness. They begin to appear before a book is born; they proclaim its advent, they accompany its birth, they attend the various processes of its introduction to the public and of finding its proper place and rank in the literary world. Sometimes they continue after it is dead.

The multiplicity and variety of these printed aids to book selection, with the difficulty that must be found in trying to keep track of them, suggests the need of some simple and practical scheme for keeping this material

in convenient order for use. A feasible plan for accomplishing this would be for the librarian to take a lot of convenient holders or envelops, indorse each with the title of a new book as soon as it is announced, and from the very first, file together all announcements, notices and reviews as they appear. Begin with the advance announcement lists given in the leading literary journals preceding the regular spring and fall publishing seasons, and by continuous additions, make the envelop a compact depository of all available information about that book. It might also contain private pencil jottings, such as “Mrs Jones asks for this,” “Dr Pundit praises this author," "Miss Squeams thinks this is horrid," and similar illuminating intimations for the librarian's quiet hour. The result would be a collection of what might be called foundation knowledge about new books, in which each book could be considered by itself, without the confusion of impressions resulting from attempts to use the same material unassorted and in the mass. The librarian and assistants would at least know that a certain book was coming, and in a general way what sort of book it was to be; and the sometimes mortifying effect of the too ingenuous answer to an inquiring reader, "Never heard of it," would largely disappear. New information could be added at any time, and inquiries quickly answered by turning to these easy reference envelops, which might appropriately be indorsed "Inquire within for whatever is now known" about the particular book referred to. After a book was bought the envelops, permanently preserved, would show at a glance why the purchase was made, should it be found a questionable one.

The most important part of all, and the most difficult to consider within due limits of time and space, is the matter embraced under the general term of "Opinions," including "book reviewing" or "noticing," "book booming" or "puffing," and other minor categories. Into the great field of literary criticism in general it is not intended here to go. What most concerns the librarian as book-buyer is the practical appraisal of books something which will aid him most in grappling with the problem of the "Eternal OR" with which this paper was begun. In this appraisal, as practised in literary journalism, comes first what is known

as the "review," and next what is usually called the "notice." The terms are rather loosely used; indeed, the one is often only a briefer form of the other. The "review" is more extended, and goes more deliberately into a description of the book, with a more careful consideration of its merits and defects; the "notice" is usually confined to description mainly - though in cases where approval or condemnation may be safely and unqualifiedly expressed, this is often done tersely and emphatically; and the value of the opinion, unsupported by the citations or evidence that would be expected in a long review, will depend on the character of the journal or of the writer. Librarians of experience and insight learn how to judge literary critics and literary journals, and what weight to give their opinions. The ideal appraisal of a book, for the purposes of a librarian, would be somewhat like the analysis of a chemist, formulated in the verdict, "Here is what you gave me; here is what I find it to contain,” signed “Helmholtz, Chemist," or "Hazlitt, Literary Appraiser." But such short-cut processes as are possible for insensate matter can hardly be applied to that living thing, that some thing next to the human soul, a Book. Its qualities are too subtle and refined, its substance too ethereal, to be weighed in any chemist's scales; a higher alchemy and a clearer vision are needed to discern spiritual facts and forces and expound their meaning and effect.

In one respect, it is true, the really authoritative book review should resemble a chemical analysis; it should be the product of an expert, and bear the warrant of his name the reputable historical scholar for the new book in the field of history, the biologist for new researches into the origin and mystery of life, the geologist for geology, and so on down the list. Of course this method of treating books in the domain of exact knowledge, of science properly socalled, will not apply to books of a very different class - to poetry and fiction and some other categories whose appeal is to the taste and judgment and experience of readers, rather than to exact knowledge or established principles of science. In these cases, so long as taste is something not to be disputed about, opinions must continually differ. The most we can reasonably ask is that criticism in these fields shall represent a taste that is cul

tivated, and that rests upon such canons of literary art as may fairly be called established. It may also properly be required of all reviews in serious literary journals that they be intelligent and impartial, without predisposition either to praise or blame, but only to be just; they should be instructive and informing to the reader; they should be interesting, or as interesting as the subject may reasonably allow; they should be appreciative and sympathetic rather than destructive and severe, not savage for the sake of appearing smart. They should above all be honest -as free from the suspicion of dishonesty as a librarian must be above the suspicion of stealing the books entrusted to his care. Indeed, the literary editor or reviewer who would praise books dishonestly, for personal gain, is worse than the librarian who would steal them; the latter may cause his library the loss of a single book, while the former may cause a hundred libraries to be loaded with a worthless one. This matter of honesty is not only one of conscienceit is essential to the very existence of a literary journal on any high and worthy plane. The whole success of such a journal is based on its reputation for honesty and fairness; its obligation is always to its readers, and its chief value is given by the hold it has on their esteem. A journal with influence and standing in the literary world could find no shorter road to suicide than by forfeiting the confidence of its readers by sordid methods and unworthy aims. It is sometimes fancied that advertisers - publishers of books - exert a pressure upon literary journals adverse to their literary independence. This would mean that the publishers, who are usually intelligent men, would try to destroy the one thing that gives a journal influence with its readers and its chief value for their advertisements; and publishers worthy of the name have not only too much self-respect and decency, but too much shrewdness for such a course. The hold a journal has on its readers is the very cause of their advertising in its columns; otherwise they would do their advertising in papers of a different class but of far greater circulation.

Some interesting comments have lately been made by a competent observer (Miss Helen E. Haines) on the decline of bookreviewing in this country. If by this term

is meant the old-fashioned literary essay with some notable book serving as a text the method used so cleverly by Macaulay and Jeffrey in England, and by Ripley and Whipple and Lowell here- the statement is doubtless true. One explanation may probably be found in the decline of the literary essay; another in the immense increase in book-production, and in the demand of the book-reading public, not so much for elaborate essays on a few books as for information and appraisals on a large number of them. It is obviously impossible for any literary journal to give extended reviews of all the books that might be thought deserving of such treatment; their number is far too great. In spite of the comparatively small number of extended critical reviews now published, there probably never was a time when so much attention was given to books by the newspapers as now. Twenty years ago, the "literary department" or "supplement" was a feature of but a few of the larger dailies; now most dailies in the larger cities make at least a pretense to a "literary supplement" which, while often having no great literary importance, at least attests the increasing volume of new books and the growth of interest in them. Authoritative critical opinions are not usually looked for from such sources; but they may perform a certain service in the diffusion of literary news to the general public.

Mention of the literary features of the daily press brings us back to the librarian's needs in the appraisal of books, and to the scheme of easy reference envelops" suggested for his assistance. We left him at the point where he had accumulated classified items of information about new or forthcoming books; and in some cases his order lists would now contain entries made up from these details, of books approved for purchase. But the most important part of his printed aids is yet to reach him- the printed opinions whose character and varieties have led to a somewhat wandering survey of their quality and modes. The

items and quotations sent by publishers would now begin to come in, with the short notices and references by the daily press; the clippings would increase rapidly, to be sorted and placed in their appropriate envelops, ready to receive them. Then would come the more extended and searching reviews, and the longer and better notices. When these were too bulky to go into the envelops, or the journals containing them could not be cut into, short extracts could be copied on slips of paper giving the gist of opinions from the more authoritative sources. Some important aids would come later such as the practical if necessarily belated "A. L. A. Lists," the "Book Review Digest," and others whose handy use is known to all librarians.

The objections to such a plan as has been outlined are obvious: the hard-working librarian and his staff might well complain of this additional burden; they already have more work than they can keep up with, and have little time or strength for new and untried things while they are well-nigh submerged with the old ones.

Like children bathing on the shore,
Buried a wave beneath,

The second wave succeeds before They have had time to breathe." But, still, "their fate is the common fate of all"; in an age of stress and hurry, librarians, like other busy people, must feel the strain. Many things must be neglected · short-cuts are inevitable. Whether what has been suggested, or something that might be worked out from the first rude outline, might prove a short-cut and an aid in an important branch of library work, may possibly be worth considering. Next to solving problems, perhaps the most useful thing we can do is to state or restate them. There is no ready solution of all the problems of books, or of other problems; and to the librarian, as to other mortals, life will doubtless continue to present itself largely in terms of an "Eternal OR."