The public library is cooperative in its very essence. Its business is to help others. Were there no public for it to serve, its very necessity for existence would go. In the older days it merely sat with folded hands, ready to serve. Of later years it has become a compelling force, reaching out into the community by a thousand tendrils and attaching them to whatever individual, or body of individuals, seems to be in need--often without knowing it--of library service. The public library’s relations with the schools, with the business man, with the industries, with the military service--you will find these all discust over and over again, not only in the technical magazines devoted to library work, but in the public press. And yet we look in vain for a discussion of the public library’s relations with the Church. Why is this? The Church itself is in the cooperative class with the library. It exists to help mankind. Without a humanity to help, and a humanity weak and fallible enough to need help, its mission would be over. In studying this question I find an unaccountable timidity on both sides. On the one hand, librarians and libraries seem to be shy of religion. They rarely purchase religious books in any systematic way. They are afraid of denominational literature, both books and periodicals, apparently on the ground that those presenting the view of one religious body might be objected to by other bodies. Some libraries refuse to subscribe for any denominational papers, but will accept them as gifts. Many libraries refuse to allow the holding of religious meetings in their buildings, probably for a similar reason. On the other hand, the churches, as churches, seem often to ignore the existence of the public library, even when their members use it constantly. They maintain libraries of their own in their Sunday-schools, for their young people, and these libraries, I am sorry to say, are often far below standard! They rarely show interest in the public library’s collection of books, not seeming to care whether the library does or does not contain their own denominational literature.