Contents -- Editor's Preface -- Introduction -- The Essays -- Germantown Quakers Check the Spread of Novel Reading -- A Librarian's Work -- Boston Medical Library Dedicatory Address -- Brief item in The Nation on copyright in Germany -- The Father of the American Libraries -- Women in Libraries: How They are Handicapped -- Columbia Library School -- Proceedings of the Fourteenth American Library Association Conference, Lakewood: The Woman's Meeting -- Librarianship as a Profession for Women -- Improper Books -- Hear the Other Side-1896 ALA President's Address -- The Telegraph in the Library -- Library Cooperation -- On George Iles' plea for a headquarters for ALA -- Wild Flower Show at the Free Library -- The Library: Its Past and Future -- The Library as Social Centre -- Phones Installed in Free Library -- Letter to the Editor of The Nation on "The librarian who reads is dead" -- The Heyday of Librarians -- Note on 1913 ALA Annual Conference in The Dial -- The Region of the Unromantic -- First Aid to the Enquiring Reader -- Some Old- Time Old- World Librarians -- The People's Share in the Public Library -- Women Assistants and the War -- How Far Should the Library Aid the Peace Movement and Similar Propaganda? -- The Libary's Primary Duty -- Some Tendencies of American Thought -- Librarianship: A Profession -- The Larger Publicity of the Library -- "Human Interest" in the Public Library -- Great Reasons to Go to the New SF Main Library -- Libraries Should Provide for the Reader Who Smokes -- Ankles of Library Girls Seized as They Stack Books -- Copyright and the Publishers: A Review of Thirty Years ( and Reply) -- Copyright/Reply to M. L. Raney -- Index.