I like to think that what we librarians are doing is in some measure akin to the work of the artists of pen or brush, though perhaps in a secondary way. The writer interprets reality; we interpret the writers themselves. Here is a case where we cannot have too many middlemen, for each, instead of piling up cost to the consumer, piles up the value of the product. How many men could sit in a country churchyard at evening and see unaided what Gray saw? Gray in his Elegy records that churchyard and himself as well. But how many men does Gray fail to reach? How many, whom he would rejoice or comfort, never heard him? And to Gray, in this query, let us add the names of all the good and great in literature. Here is where the librarian steps in. He presents Gray and Gray’s fellow artists in words, to his public. Years ago the library was merely a storehouse and the librarian the custodian thereof. Today the library is a magazine of dynamic force and the librarian is the man who exerts and directs it--who persuades the community that it needs books and then satisfies that need, instead of waiting for the self-realization which too often will never come. Does not the librarian in some fashion interpret life and nature to his public, through books in general, even as the writer interprets them through one particular book? This may seem fantastic, but I like to think that it is true. The October air in these autumn days is full of megaphonic voices, each insisting on its right to be heard above all the others. We are urged to enlist in the British army, to buy Liberty bonds, to build huts for the Y.M.C.A. and the Knights of Columbus, to work for the Red Cross, to buy tobacco for the soldiers, and at the same time to support all our local charities and pay our club dues as usual, not neglecting to respond to the calls of the tax collector. We librarians have ourselves used the megaphone to some purpose, having as you know, raised a million dollars to establish and maintain camp libraries, giving our soldiers the same public library facilities that they enjoy at home. But in the midst of all this distracting chorus let us not forget that our normal lives must function as usual, despite the abnormalities that surround and interpenetrate them. The opening of this noble library building and the character of this assembly are proofs that we intend to live as usual, even amid so much that is unusual.