Preface.
As Chairman of the Public Libraries Committee when the printing of this catalogue was begin, my colleagues have honoured me by asking me to write a preface on its completion. Present circumstances make it impossible for me to write more than a brief note, but this is unimportant in view of the excellent historical introduction by my friend and colleague. Mr. Howard S. Pearson, which follows.
It is obvious that in every district there is produced a certain amount of literature which will pass out of existence entirely if not preserved in a well-organized public library. Much of it is of purely local interest, but it is nevertheless invaluable to the historian of the future.
There is no reason to doubt that the Public Libraries now recognise their obligations in this direction, and that in the most important districts, the public have access to the principal local material.
In the formation of such collections, many debatable points must arise. How far, for instance, is it wise to select or discriminate, as opposed to the policy of collecting all local literature? What are the boundary limits to prevent adjoining districts from overlapping, and what are the best methods of classifying, cataloguing and preserving the material collected?
A general settlement of these and many other points should lead to even better results than the present, and if provision were made for local collections for all districts, the net result would be, in effect, the establishment of a huge national local collection, located in different parts of the country. The catalogues of such collections, produced on a uniform plan, would constitute an invaluable record of local material.
Of our own collection the Committee are, I think, legitimately proud. There are still gaps to be filled, as is inevitable in a collection of such recent growth, but they are neither serious nor numerous. That the collection contains so much that is rare and valuable, is largely owing to the genius of the late Mr. Sam Timmins, whose invaluable collections were acquired for the library in its early days.
The catalogue now issued cannot claim to be a Bibliography of Birmingham, but it is the nearest approach to such a work that has ever been issued, and I am sure the Committee will not rest satisfied until future supplements make it possible to claim the work as a Bibliography of Birmingham literature.
