The University of London Research Library for Comparative Education in the Institute of Education
The Comparative Education Library of the London Institute of Education came into being sometime after 1945. As is often the way in these matters it grew out of the personal initiative of one person-in this case Professor Lauwerys who holds the Chair in Comparative Education in the Institute. He acquired books and pamphlets on his travels and made personal contacts so that more followed in his wake. The quickly accumulating amount of material in numerous languages meant that a room, separate from the main Institute Library, had to be set aside for this and someone-at that time Miss Kathleen Usher-Smith -undertook to deal with it as part of her duties concerned with post-graduate overseas students. The important point was that it was from the very beginning looked upon as a comparative collection of reference material and accordingly was arranged by country in the first instance. If all this material had been added to the main Institute Library and had been arranged primarily by subject like the other books, the whole value of this collection would have been lost from the comparative point of view. This meant that when the writer took over the care of this Comparative Library Collection in 1954 there existed a real com-