The article presents the opinion of the author regarding the selection of time by the School Library Journal. The editor of a magazine that does not review books asked me how long it takes us at School Library Journal to produce our annual Best Books article. I started to say, "About five weeks," because that's how long a stretch our meetings and the writing takes. I said, "Book selection for a purpose takes librarians their whole careers, so I think it's only fair to say that the Book Review editors of SLJ put that much time into these annual exercises in walking out on a limb before our readers." Well, this editor, an engineer, replied, "I know just exactly what you mean. But nobody here today wants to hear that." This exchange occurred at a meeting of magazine editors, and its objective, held before us by a very expensive cost analysis serving as facilitator, was to try to arrive at some consensus on measures of editorial staff time management that are cost effectilve in magazine publishing. Public library directors and the administrators to whom school librarians report attend such meetings, too. This explains, but cannot excuse, the assertion by many school administrators that no more than 10 percent of a school library media center specialist's time should be given to a selection. At even greater risk is the selection time afforded for public librarians serving children. When the purpose of library book collections for children comes into question, particularly when questions are raised about scheduled selection time, I think that the growing numbers of new books and other materials should be mentioned as addenda to your mission statements.