When the New York Public Library took in a considerable number of small independent libraries as branches I had the opportunity, a year or so after the event, of ascertaining from the librarians, what difference to them and to their readers the change of status had made. They were unanimous in saying that although they, as librarians, felt less independent, the service to readers was vastly improved, owing to the fact that the library now formed part of a large system. This is always the result of any kind of union of effort, whether by consolidation or co-operation. The individual is somewhat hampered but the community is benefited. This, of course, is something of a departure from our subject. Sometimes the chief difference between two localities is in the character and temper of the readers. The whole scheme of relations between library and public needs often to be altered in moving from one place to another. This is perhaps most noticeable in a city where there is a system of branch libraries. The assistant who has been transferred from a Jewish to a Scandinavian district and then to one occupied by well-to-do Americans will understand what I mean without further explanation. But this difference in readers is of course much wider than mere racial difference. It may be a difference in social status. We Americans are too apt to pretend that this sort of thing does not affect a public educational institution, but it decidedly does. Some librarians make the mistake of thinking that these differences are racial also. It is a matter of common knowledge among city librarians that in a “slum” library the problem of discipline is simplicity itself compared with a library where the readers are nearly all well-to-do. This is often asserted to depend merely on the racial difference between the newly arrived immigrant--Russian Jew, Italian or Pole--and the native American. But we find that when the immigrant has learned the customs of the country and has made enough money to raise him in the social scale and enable him to move from his slum surroundings, he quickly takes his place with the well-to-do library patrons. He is more exacting and his children are harder to manage. The difference is really a social one. The immigrant is accustomed to being looked down on in his native country, to living on little and having few principles. He is humble and thankful for small favors. What he gets at the library fills him with amazement and gratitude. Mary Antin has told us all about it. But the well-to-do citizen, whether by birth or recent acquirement, realizes that the library is being supported by his taxes. He realizes it, in fact, so keenly, that he gives it somewhat undue prominence in his mind and sometimes shows this in his treatment of the library staff. Knowing that the library belongs in part to him, he may often forget that it belongs in equal degree to others. He is impatient or even resentful of rules intended to maintain equality of service.