icials, 8 government employees not in libraries, and 24 wives
and relatives of other members, while in the case of 132 persons no
qualification is stated in the list. We have or have had as our
associates, settlement workers, lawyers, lecturers, indexers, binders, and
so on almost indefinitely. Our membership is thus freely open to
librarians, interpreting this word very broadly, and to any others that we
may desire to have with us, which means, practically, any who have
sufficient interest in library work to come to the meetings. We must,
therefore, be classed with what may be called the "open" as opposed to the
"closed" professional or technical associations. The difference may be
emphasized by a reference to two well-known New York clubs, the Players
and the Authors. These organizations would appear by their names to be
composed respectively of actors and writers. The former, however, admits
also to membership persons interested in the drama, which may mean little
or much, while the Authors Club, despite repeated efforts to broaden it
out in the same way, has insisted on admitting none but _bona fide_
authors. In advocacy of the first plan it may be said that by adopting it
the Players has secured larger membership, embracing many men of means.
Its financial standing is better and it is enabled to own a fine club
house. On the other hand, the Authors has a small membership, and owns
practically no property, but makes up in _esprit de corps_ what it lacks
in these other respects. It is another phase of the question of
specialization that we have already considered. The larger and broader
body has certain advantages, the smaller and more compact, certain others.
We have, doubtless been right in deciding, or rather in accepting what
circumstances seem to have decided for us, that our own association shall
be of the larger and less closely knit type, following the analogy of the
National Educational Association and the various associations for the
advancement of science, American, British and French, rather than that of
the Society of Civil Engineers, for instance, or the various learned
academies. Our body has thus greater general but less special influence,
just as on a question of general scientific policy a petition from the
American association might carry greater weight, whereas on a question of
engineering it would be incomparably inferior to an opinion of the civil
engineers. There is in this country, it is true, a