Perhaps the most urgently desirable forward step in respect to copyright is the adhesion of the United States to the Berne convention, thus securing the inclusion in the International Copyright Union of our country, the leading one of the three great states not yet members of this admirable association of nations. Were the United States a member of the Berne Union a compliance with the statutory provisions of our own laws alone would secure copyright protection not only within the limits of the United States, but practically throughout the whole book-reading world--Great Britain, all Europe (except temporarily Russia, Austria, and Scandinavia), Canada and Australia, India, Japan and South Africa--thus increasing the possible reading public of American authors many fold. It would seem that considerations of justice to our large and constantly increasing national contingent of literary and artistic producers requires this advance of such great practical importance. It is the easier of accomplishment because it involves the adoption of no new principle, but only the extension of the principle embodied in the Act of March 3, 1891, namely, reciprocal international exchange of copyright privileges, and in return for the advantages which would accrue to our own citizens, only obligates the extension of copyright in the United States to the subjects of such countries as are members of the Union. Of the members of the International Copyright Union, all the great nations already enjoy copyright in the United States, and it would only remain to extend this privilege to the citizen authors of the six minor states that are members of the Union, namely, Hayti, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway and Tunis. THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS. BY W. MILLARD PALMER, _Grand Rapids, Mich._ In accepting the president's suggestion to give "expression of the _business_ side of the subject rather than the theoretical or sentimental," I wish at the outset to recall certain functions performed by publishers, booksellers and librarians, and to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. J. W. Nichols, secretary of the American Booksellers' Association, for material along this line.