=1. Board of Trustees.=—The main function of the board of trustees is to look after the financial interests of the library, to see that the buildings and equipment are properly cared for, and to decide broad questions of policy. Trustees should be (but are not always) elected from the elite of the community. It is expected that in them will be found a genuine culture, an appreciation of things pertaining to the arts and sciences, combined with the advantages of education, travel and sufficient leisure to look after public interests. “Cultivated men,” says Edward Edwards, “familiar with books from childhood, have usually a very inadequate perception of the toil and thought which have to be given to the good arrangement, the accurate cataloging, and the ready service of a library. What, then, is to be expected if a dominant share in the management of a library be placed in the hands of men with just enough of elementary education to bring into broad daylight the intensest ignorance, in union with the most stolid self-conceit?” “A little bookishness in a committeeman,” said Justin Winsor, “may be as dangerous as a sip from the poet’s Pierian spring, particularly if there is no deeper learning in any of his associates. He knows just enough of books not to know that he knows nothing of libraries.” =2. The Librarian.=—“A librarian,” said Henry Bradshaw, “is one who earns his living by attending to the wants of those for whose use the library under his charge exists, his prime duty being, in the widest possible sense of the phrase, to save the time of those who seek his services.” The librarian has been variously compared to the commissariat in the republic of letters, whose business is not to fight himself but to put others in fighting trim,—or to the host at the banquet of knowledge who is assiduous in securing the comfort of the guests and in placing before each one just the kind of food he likes and requires. He knows that what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Enthusiasm for the work is a prime requisite in the librarian. Even a good staff cannot overcome the deadening influence of daily contact with a chief lacking in enthusiasm. To the librarian should be left the details of administration. The librarian is the executive officer of the board of trustees and the latter, if wise, will look to the librarian for getting the results desired and will allow that officer as free a hand as possible. If the librarian is not capable of administering the library, or worthy of the fullest confidence, the sooner one is secured who measures up to this standard the better.