T TOPIC PROPOSED for discussion is both important and interesting. It faces issues of more concern to our profession, I venture to say, than automation, for example, the subject of a discussion over which I presided here several years ago. For leadership clearly deals with people, and people must be the prime concern in any enterprise of moment. This era in Western civilization may be inclined to forget this principle from time to time, but our profession is certainly one with a special responsibility to insist upon humanistic values, for ourselves and for others. You will permit me then, I trust, to speak in quite personal terms, to try to respond to our question in terms of my own experience. In order to start the discussion, you will permit me, I hope, a neat bit of circular argument: to ask who the leaders are, what the duties of their positions are, what preparation is desirable for the performance of those duties, and finally where this preparation may be obtained. This formulation of the question begs any number of questions, such as, Are the leaders really leading?, but it at least gets us moving. Perhaps we can break out of the circle later. Let us assume that leadership rests with those assigned the responsibility of leading in our academic libraries, large and small: the chief librarians and their immediate staff associates. One hopes that original thinking and new ideas emerge from all staff levels* but since the implementation of these ideas tends to rest with the titular heads of these staffs, we should probably limit our definition to the senior staff members. It is my impression that better decisions result when they are made collectively Dr. Dix is Librarian, Princeton University. This paper was given at the Eastern College Librarians' Conference, Columbia University, November 28, 1959.