The Library World Volume 22 Issue 2

Our readers are now preparing for the Southport Conference, which, offers an opportunity for reviewing the present curious position of the library profession. We have had crises in the past, but none perhaps quite so acute as the present, because no one knows where we are drifting. We understand that Mr. Fisher has invited the Library Association to submit our views on the proposed legislative (or other) changes, and possibly the Association will now express itself. Our past experience of educationists leads us to think that it will be unwise to oppose close co‐operation, or even coalescence, with education authorities—that, in short, they “will absorb us whether we like it or not—at least in some way. If we can preserve a certain independence of action and of status we shall perhaps not suffer to much as will be the case if we are placed entirely under the local education committees, and if the library committees become merely sub‐committees of the larger bodies.