At the annual conference of the Library Association, at Cardiff, the chief feature was an address by Dr. A. E. Cowley, librarian of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
It would be generally agreed, said Dr. Cowley, that the function of the ublic library was educational.
heir aim was rightly to provide for every class of reader the haks he might reasonably expect to find in order to get a general knowledge of his subjects, as well as the books of reference necessary for general information. In short, the public library should aim at a general educational standard and not at promoting any specified studies. Stpecial libraries, if linked up with the central library, would result in gain to a city. They should be in constant communication with the central library. enoyclopedi Dr. Cowley said Speaking of out-of-date books and their room was more desired than their company, for they must make way for new-comers. But probably no book ever became wholly worthless or entirely without interest; to some persons, ideally, therefore, it should be preserved. But ideals were dangerous things unless sternly controlled. A library must be a living thing. At the Bodleian they got rid of nothing. Whatever they received was deposited there for all time, and, indeed, it would be dangerous, even if they had ths power, to discard or to refuse to receive anything, "For instance," he said, when the First folio of Shakespeare was sent to us as a matter of course in 1623 we had a newer edition and, it was therefore thought, a better edition and so the First Folio was sold, probably for a very few shill lings. All trace of it was lost for 240 years until, in 1905, it unexpectedly emerged from a country house library and was identified with complete certainly by my senior assistant, Mr. Gibson. It was then bought back by the Library for £3,000." (Laughter).
He would not have them think that the Bodleian was merely a store of old books. On the contrary, they prided themselves on making all new books accessible as soon as possible, at the same time preserve ing the old. To many people a book appeared to be valuable in ged" When' they disarded old reportion og it was worn or rag-
books he suggested that they should send them to one of the libraries of There was another side which might profitably be developed in any public library. They al] appreciated patriotism of country, but patriotism of city, town, or village was worthy of encouragement, and public library could do much to promote that by carefully collecting records of local events, past and present, books on local history, reports of public bodies, engravings and photographs. To the idealist he would say, "Whatever the human mind has produced. that call not thou rubbish."
Dr. Cowley said he looked for-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.