Entered as second class matter, November 13, 1917 at the Post Office at New York, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879.

Combined rate for Book Review Digest, Cumulative Book Index and Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature—$35 per page per month; two of these publications $30; one of these publications $25 per page per month. Smaller space and contract rates furnished upon request.

Many minds and hands have contributed to the success of the Book Review Digest in the year 1917. Descriptive notes have been written by Margaret Jackson, Corinne Bacon, Justina Leavitt Wilson and Mary Katharine Reely. Classification numbers have been assigned by Corinne Bacon. The editorship has been divided between Margaret Jackson and Mary Katharine Reely, Miss Jackson leaving at the end of October to assume new duties on the staff of the New York Public Library School. Thruout the year the tasks of assembling material, preparing copy, and meeting the exacting demands of proof and press work have been carried on by Pauline H. Rich and Alice Sterling, and, on the business side, the correspondence which keeps us in touch with advertisers, publishers and subscribers has been ably handled by Frances Sanville. Credit for the supplementary List of Documents published with each issue goes to Adelaide R. Hasse and Edna B. Gearhart of the New York Public Library. For the Quarterly List of New Technical Books, to the Applied Science Reference Department of Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn.

Who reads reviews? Much thought, scholarship and wit goes to their writing. Is a corresponding measure of appreciation given to the reading?

At first thought it might be assumed that it is the business of the Digest to discourage the reading of reviews, but we should vigorously deny any such accusation. The excerpts which we carefully cull and bring together for purposes of contrast and comparison are meant to serve as guide posts only; to serve as guides to the busy persons who make books their business. But we should be sorry to think that we were in any way detracting from the enjoyment of those to whom books should be a pleasure. We should be glad to feel that even the rushed, overworked librarian to whom our publication is a “tool” might occasionally find her curiosity so piqued by our judiciously selected quotation that she would turn back to the pages of the Nation or the Dial or the New Republic or the Spectator to read the review as a whole. It has pleased us to be told this year that in two of the larger libraries of the country the Digest is kept on file in the periodical room. From the testimony of these two libraries it appears that reviews are read and that demands for them come to the librarian. “Where can I find a review of ——,” and the Digest is referred to for answer. This public use of the Digest gives sanction to a new practice which we have somewhat tentatively adopted this year, that of starring (*) certain reviews. An asterisk so used means, generally speaking, Here is something worth reading. It may mean, if the book is a serious work of information, that the reviewer, also an expert on the subject of the book, throws further light on it; it may mean, in case of a work of literature, Here is an excellent piece of literary criticism, worth your reading for its own sake.

Signs of any kind are so seldom noticed that we call special attention to this one, and, even tho we know that prefaces are so seldom read, we trust that the notice will come to the attention of some one who will find this feature useful.

We should like to feel that the Digest itself, with its interesting assemblage of contrasting opinions, would be of value to the reading public if it were occasionally handed out over the desk to inquiring readers. Indeed one flattering friend has advised us to issue a special edition in larger type for sale on the news stands! But altho this course hardly seems practicable, we believe that in its present form, the Digest might be of some general interest and that if it were made more accessible it might act as an influence in the formation of critical taste. Even the inveterate reader of fiction might be helped by it, and to the more thoughtful it would serve as a guide to a course of reading in literary criticism.