Let us, as librarians, take up this civic task for a few moments. And first, let us not hastily conclude that we are necessarily well employed simply because we are librarians. A library may do harm; I have personally known of harm done by libraries. A group can be no better than its constituents; a collection of harmful books is assuredly itself harmful. More, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link; a fleet is no faster than its slowest ship; and we may almost say that a library is no better than its worst book. And we must not forget that a book may be bad in three ways: it may give incorrect information, teach what is morally wrong, or use language that is unfitting. It may be necessary that a library should contain any or all of these, but if they give it its atmosphere and control its influence as an educational institution, even unwittingly, it is anti-social and those who administer it are mal-employed. I have in mind a pseudo-scientific book for children that abounds in misstatements combined with beautiful illustrations; a book of travel full of ludicrous misinformation; a work intended to teach Italians English, whose English is screamingly funny. The library assistant who hands one of these to a reader is mal-employed. I can make a list (and so can you) of books that teach, directly or by implication, that what is universally acknowledged to be wrong is right--at least under certain circumstances; that theft is smart and that swindling is unobjectionable. The library assistant who circulates these is mal-employed. All of us can easily also place our hands on books whose only fault is that their language is objectionable--incorrect, silly or vulgar. They may be otherwise unobjectionable, yet I venture to say that the distribution of these books is also mal-employment. How about the librarian who administers such a library, and the staff who assist him? They are all mal-employed. No matter how well and how conscientiously the cataloguer may perform her task, no matter how clean the janitor may keep the front steps, they are only aiding to keep up an institution that disseminates falsehood, teaches unrighteousness, encourages vulgarity; and they are all mal-employed. This is what I mean when I say that a library may be no better than its worst book. If its output is bad, all exertion to accomplish that output is also bad. And as for the output itself, it may be that the good done by a thousand good books may not outweigh the ill done by a few bad ones.