Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Library Association / Held at Ottawa, Canada, June 26-July 2, 1912

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 78 E. WASHINGTON STREET CHICAGO, ILL. 1912
Note: The minutes of the National association of state libraries have not been received in time to be included in this volume. They will be separately printed by that association.

JUNE 26-JULY 2, 1912
PRELIMINARY SESSION
(Wednesday evening, June 26, 1912, Russell Theatre)
The association convened in a preliminary session on Wednesday evening, June 26, with Dr. James W. Robertson, C. M. G., chairman of the Canadian royal commission on industrial training and technical education, presiding as acting chairman of the Ottawa local committee.
Hon. George H. Perley, acting prime minister of Canada, was introduced and welcomed the association to Canada on behalf of the Dominion government. The speaker called attention to the hundred years of peace between the two countries and the plans being formulated for celebrating it, and said that international conferences such as this were the best guarantees of peace; that the more we know of each other the less liable we were to get into trouble.
In Canada schools and libraries are growing apace, particularly in the new regions of the far west, very much the same as in the United States. Exchange of ideas as in this convention is the very best kind of reciprocity and will help both nations in their aims and aspirations for the good of civilization.
Comptroller E. H. Hinchey, the acting mayor of Ottawa, spoke the city's welcome, calling attention to Ottawa as a convention city and its growing claims for being considered the Washington of the North.
The association was graciously welcomed in behalf of the Women's Canadian Club of Ottawa by the president, Mrs. Adam Shortt, who also voiced the welcome from the Women's National Council of Canada. She said the preachers, the teachers, the writers and the librarians are four great standing armies, standing to protect us and to dispel the hydra-headed enemy Ignorance, but that she thought of librarians as captains of individual garrisons scattered here and there through towns and cities, who are sending out emissaries among the people and moulding and forming the mental and moral fibre of each community.