sion of Massachusetts, I
wish to say that the commission likes to come into close contact with
the libraries of the state, and that the smaller libraries may from time
to time find it helpful to put questions to its chairman at the state
house in Boston, in person, through a representative, or by letter,
about library administration.

People are breaking away from their leaders to-day. There is an
immense amount of crude thought and imperfect information in every
community. I verily believe that not least among the instrumentalities
by which thought may be matured and knowledge completed are public
libraries when administered as bureaus of information by accomplished
and earnest librarians, who will act as sympathetic friends and advisers
to inquirers and help them to look at all sides of questions and form
well-grounded judgments.

THE LIBRARY FRIEND

Not all the information required of the Public Library is
asked by those engaged in laboratory research or by experts
in commerce and industry. Much of it is homely stuff,
greatly desired and more or less easy to find. Much of it
can be given offhand by the capable reference assistant, who
thereby becomes what the writer of this article calls a
"library friend" to her neighborhood.

Miss Winifred Louise Taylor was born in Freeport, Ill., Feb.
24, 1846. In 1874 she organized the first circulating
library in Freeport and acted as librarian for twelve years.
It was eventually incorporated in the Freeport Public
Library. In 1900-01, Miss Taylor was in charge of the
information desk at the Pratt Institute Free Library,
Brooklyn. For many years she gave much of her time to work
in the prisons, and in 1914 she published "The Man Behind
the Bars," describing some of this work.

"The library friend" is the term that seems best to apply to that
member of the modern library's staff whose work is a development of the
service ordinarily rendered through the "information desk."
Information-desk service as usually conceived, it is not; for the
library friend deals with the tendencies, tastes, and aspirations of
readers as much as if not more than with the definite question and
answer respecting facts. The office indeed may be regarded as finding
its first expression in the circulating libraries maintained by
subscription in many of the smaller cities twenty-five years and more
ago, when the free public libra