many books about books, especially in certain departments of history,
technology, or art, but no one place to which a man may go, before he
begins to read his book, to find out whether he may believe what he reads
in it. This is a serious lack, especially as there is more than one point
of view. Books that are of high excellence as literature may not be at all
accurate. How shall the boy who hears enthusiastic praise of Prescott's
histories and who is spellbound when he reads them know that the results
of recent investigation prove that those histories give a totally
incorrect idea of Mexico and Peru? How is the future reader of Dr. Cook's
interesting account of the ascent of Mount McKinley to know that it has
been discredited? And how is he to know whether other interesting and
well-written histories and books of travel have not been similarly proved
inaccurate? At present, there is no way except to go to one who knows the
literature of the subject, or to read as many other books on the subject
as can be obtained, weighing one against the other and coming to one's own
conclusions. Possibly the public library may be able to help. Mr. Charles
F. Lummis of the Los Angeles library advocates labelling books with what
he calls "Poison Labels" to warn the reader when they are inaccurate or
untrustworthy. Most librarians have hesitated a little to take so radical
a step as this, not so much from unwillingness to assume the duty of
warning the public, as from a feeling that they were not competent to
undertake the critical evaluation of the whole of the literature of
special subjects. The librarian may know that this or that book is out of
date or not to be depended on, but there are others about which he is not
certain or regarding which he must rely on what others tell him. And he
knows that expert testimony is notoriously one-sided. It is this fear of
acting as an advocate instead of as a judge that has generally deterred
the librarian from labelling his books with notes of advice or warning.

There is, however, no reason why the librarian should take sides in the