=65. General.=--The success or failure of a library depends almost entirely upon the ability and energy of the staff. Opinion upon this question has been almost revolutionized in the past twenty years, and only very occasionally now do we find some misguided library authority placing so special an institution in the keeping of stickit ministers, unlucky schoolmasters, retired soldiers, minor journalists, unsuccessful booksellers, and similar remnants of the failures or superannuated in other walks of life. No untrained person is likely to attain more than the poorest or most commonplace results and will undoubtedly prevent the library from serving the community to anything like its potential capacity. Indeed, the work of the librarian is a professional occupation demanding for its successful accomplishment a training as complete and special at least as that required of the teacher. A committee fails signally in its public duty if it does not recognize this fact in the choice of its librarian; and the public has a right to demand that the man appointed to occupy any technical public office shall have had both training and experience. =66.= The appointment of a chief librarian should be the first step taken by a committee. Numberless blunders, often resulting in great subsequent expense, have been made in the past through the mistaken economy of proceeding with buildings, methods and book-selection before such appointment. These matters are essentially the work of the librarian and _not_ of the committee; and any little amount that may be saved from the salary of the librarian is invariably lost because of the adoption of faulty apparatus or plans; amateur experiments are usually expensive. If, at the beginning of its career, a library committee is unable to engage a qualified librarian, application should be made to the Library Association for the nomination of a professional adviser, who for a reasonable fee would give invaluable assistance at the time when such assistance is really vital.