At this conference there will be given the report of the "Uniform Type Committee" appointed at the Overbrook conference in 1911. The two agents of that committee, who made an extended tour of this country from May, 1912, until February, 1913, visited many schools and other institutions for the blind and tested over 900 readers in one or more of the three systems—New York point, American Braille and British Braille. Scientific tests to determine the best size of type, spacing, etc., have been made to establish a standard or uniform system of writing and printing. The recommendations of the committee have been reserved until the meeting of the American Association of Workers for the Blind at Jacksonville; they are awaited with interest by all.
EMMA R. N. DELFINO,
Chairman.
The PRESIDENT: As you will see from your printed programs we are privileged this morning to receive an accredited delegate from the Library Association of the United Kingdom, and it is our especial pleasure to greet as this accredited delegate an old friend of American librarians. He was with us at the Conference of 1904, and we have since that time watched with a great deal of interest the strong, splendid work which is manifest in the library over which he presides. I have the honor of introducing to you this morning the Honorary Secretary of the Library Association of the United Kingdom and the accredited delegate from that organization, Mr. L. STANLEY JAST, chief librarian of the Croydon Public Libraries.
Mr. BOWKER: And, Mr. President, I move that we receive our welcome guest from the L. A. U. K. by a rising vote of welcome.
Mr. Jast spoke as follows:
PRESENT CONDITIONS AND TENDENCIES OF LIBRARY WORK IN GREAT BRITAIN
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen: I should like first of all to express the peculiar personal pleasure I feel at being privileged for the second time to attend a conference of the American Library Association. As you have said, sir, it was my pleasure in 1904 to attend a meeting of your body, then as now the accredited delegate of my Association, but that meeting of 1904 was, as you know, an international meeting, and an international meeting anywhere is apt to take on general rather than special characteristics, and I have long wished to be present at an ordinary meeting of the American Library Association, so that I might see for myself how you conduct your work and hear you discussing your own problems in your own way. So that I trust, Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen, that you will kindly forget that
"A chiel's amang ye takin' notes."
I am authorized by the Council of the Library Association to extend to you, sir, and the members present their very heartiest greetings and to express on their behalf their high appreciation not only of the special invitation which you sent to them to send a delegate but for the extremely generous offer of hospitality which was attached thereto. My Council felt that to such an invitation only one response is possible and that was to accept.