The Adult Education Committee criticize this transformation of part of the library into an intelligence bureau. There seems to be a fear that it may compete with the commercial intelligence department of the Government or with the chambers of commerce. Admitting that the boundary between the province of these organizations and that of the commercial library is not easy to define, they protest “that the function of the commercial department of a local library is primarily to provide books concerned with the theory and practice of commerce and cognate subjects, rather than detailed information on matters of trade.” Here the mind of the theorist, the stern logician, is again at work, making havoc of expediency, and also of common sense. If the commercial library is doing the work so well, and doing it cheaply into the bargain, then if you are going to shut up anything, shut up the Government department: the trade association will be only too glad to be saved doing the job over again. Give the library its proper equipment in money and privilege, give it room and opportunity to develop into an institute of commerce, and the taxpayer and many other people’s pockets will be spared.[11] These outside organizations, whether run by the Government or by the traders, are in fact working under disadvantages so long as they are not lodged in a first-class commercial library and carried on by a staff trained in library methods, the results are less satisfactory and more costly to produce. Every library, in one of its aspects, is an information bureau. Pedantic classification may draw a sharp line between one sort of information and another; experience and expediency point to the library as the right place for the retail of intelligence, whether practical or theoretic. [Illustration: _Photo Pictorial Agency._ LIBRARY OF THE INSTITUTE OF ACTUARIES, STAPLE INN HALL.] The commercial library or the technical library provided by the municipality will not lead to the extinction of the library belonging to the private firm; rather may it be expected to tend to the multiplication and development of these, just as access to books in public libraries has led to more book-buying by readers, who have learned the value of books, and feel the need to have certain works always by them on their own shelves. The great immediate benefit is to the smaller firms and the individual worker; but even they will no doubt acquire eventually far more books for themselves, and a much better selection of books, as a direct result of access to a public business library, familiarity with its contents, and realization of the enormous advantage of being in constant touch with the latest sources of information. In the United States, which are incomparably better off than this country in all sorts of commercial, technical, and other special libraries provided by public funds, there are now about 2,500 business libraries established by progressive firms.[12] BOOKS FOR THE BLIND.