bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Personal column
Authors: Bingley Clive
Published: March 2008

WHITHER OSTI? I ruminate, as this year ends and 1977 dawns. When the British Library was formed, and the incorporation of the then Office for Scientific & Technical Information into the BL's Research and Development Division was mooted, doubts were expressed whether the bl maw would foreclose on osti's independence of grant‐action, and, to still them, the secretary‐of‐state at the time gave an undertaking safeguarding that independence.
The terminal librarian
Authors: McCarthy Cavan
Published: March 2008

DURING 1974–5 I was in the wilds of Northern Nigeria, where electronic technology was scarcely a smudge on the horizon, like a dust storm coming down from the nearby Sahara. During that time I spoke on the telephone once, watched television once and saw the ‘Educational Technology Centre’ get its first cassette tape recorders. Then last year I went to the States and suddenly found myself surrounded by on‐line, interactive computer systems, able to type a message onto a big typewriter attached to a computer and get an immediate, personal reply.
Comment
Authors: Smith John , Ashworth Wilfred , Radmore David F , Olden Anthony , Garratt Morris , Labdon Peter , Murison WJ , Cawthorne David , Revill Don
Published: March 2008

‘To MEET the threat, and to realize the potential, we do not need a doctrine of salvation. We have the weapons we need, our minds. Reasoned analysis, imaginative designing and an experimental approach to action form a rational, or at any rate reasonable, triptych which has always served men well. This is the method of liberty; its substance is defined by the new conditions in which we live today. The new liberty means that we have to change our attitudes in order to pass through the turbulence ahead in a manner which enhances human life‐chances. This is what I mean when I say that the subject of history is changing; and the change in approach is reflected in the words which we use—new words; improvement instead of expansion, good husbandry instead of affluence, human activity instead of work, and of course one word which is quite old, liberty.’—Ralf Dahrendorf (‘The new liberty’, 1975 Reith Lectures)
Comment
Authors: Tomlinson Norman , Wimbush Henry , Haylock JR , Sewell Philip , Parry Dave , Windrush Frank , Labdon Peter
Published: March 2008

MY RECENT articles on ‘Our professional frustrations’ (NLW, January) and ‘Opportunities for librarians in public relations’ (NLW, March), were intended to show that mid‐senior librarians, and particularly the ‘old ALAS’, do not have to remain in jobs where prospects and satisfaction have declined, due partly to local government reorganisation drastically reducing promotional opportunities. Two reactions immediately following publication of the March article: one from a senior librarian, very comfortably placed financially, who described my views as ‘a policy of despair’; the other from a younger librarian closer to the type for whom the article was written, who was clearly interested in my views. As they say, it all depends …
Comment
Authors: Jackaman Peter , Cook Paul , Hartley Colston , Smith John , Duckworth Alan , Salt Susan , Parker JS
Published: March 2008

THE RELATIONSHIP of a library with those it serves and the writers and other communicators who form its sources is both interesting and complex; and one in which many facets remain to be explored. One aspect of this, the importance of which is not always adequately appreciated, is the role of the library as agent for different sectors of society.
All things to all nuts
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

ANYONE WHO HAS worked in public libraries for a number of years knows that every library has its quota of persistent, perverse, time‐wasting members. We also know that these awkward twits form a much higher proportion of the membership than is justified by the total number of awkward twits at large.
Not my cup of chai
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

SOMEWHERE BEFORE the end of this two‐part article I shall mention one library and at least one book. That should justify reminiscences of a brief holiday in the Soviet Union appearing in a library journal. The July and August issues have been chosen in order to achieve a gripping contrast between British high summer and deep Russian winter and hence, to gain maximum sympathy for the conditions we endured.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Moss Helen , Martin Clive
Published: March 2008

THE EDITORIAL in New society for June 23 last was headed ‘The attack on libraries’—and a robust piece of pleading it was, as well as heartening support for a public library system under pressure.
The diary of Digby Slingsby, author
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

MONDAY: I think our postmen are wonderful. Another rugful of rubbish came plopping through the slit this morning—all reminders, threats or offers. The letter from my so‐called agent, Fiona, is a combination of all three: she reminds me that the paperback edition of my Macao meeting is to be discussed on a telly book programme this week; threatens, if I dare to miss it after all her sweat to get it included, to cut off my forelock; and offers me lunch on Wednesday. (Jonathan, a young drip she's been stalking for months for his few thousand inherited quid, will be there too; still, it's a free meal.)
Comment
Authors: Barnett Graham , Hendry Joseph D , Duckworth Alan , Smith Gerry M , Jackaman Peter
Published: March 2008

BEFORE THE French Revolution a number of libraries were open to the public, often the result of public‐spirited donations on the part of local men of letters or wealthy bourgeois. Books were generally scholarly and of little interest to the majority of the population, who for the most part were in any case illiterate.
An interview with Eric Moon
Authors: Atkinson Frank
Published: March 2008

ERIC MOON is this year's President of the American Library Association, having been an ala Councillor from 1965 to 1972.
A national information system?
Authors: Moss Helen
Published: March 2008

THE 51ST annual conference of Aslib was held this year from September 20th to 23rd at the University of Lancaster. The modern campus, in its attractive setting some two miles outside Lancaster, made an excellent venue, with its compact facilities and good catering, an important contributory factor to any successful conference. It proved to be easily accessible to a number of interesting places for the visits which were arranged one afternoon as part of the conference: a railway museum, paper mills, bird reserve, Cartmel Priory, UKAEA laboratories, the University itself, and the local brewery, which in the event disappointed its visitors by not providing a drop of liquid,refreshment. For those with independent transport, nearby Morecambe proved a popular destination.
For what we deserve
Authors: Tomlinson Norman
Published: March 2008

I CONCLUDED the article on ‘Not a trade union’ in the July NLW, with the suggestion that there must be a complete change from ‘the ill‐considered LA policies and actions of the 1950s onwards, particularly to ensure the association's withdrawal from all activity which is the province of trade unions’. It was the extraordinarily ill‐advised LA activity directed incessantly against the local authorities, who are the employers of a very large proportion of librarians, which led to our getting what we deserved and deserving what we got in salary and which also contributed to the continual decline in our status. Unless there is sensible, practical leadership in these matters, aimed at establishing worthwhile career prospects for us all, then the rest of the LA's activity is of little account. Bread and butter must always come first.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Moss Helen
Published: March 2008

SOMEWHAT ENERVATED, this day, to receive in the same post letters addressed to ‘Clive Bongley Ltd’, ‘Clair Bingley Ltd’, and a tearsheet advertisement circulated by our Australian agents of ten years' standing describing us as ‘Charles Bingley Ltd’.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Moss Helen , Martin Clive
Published: March 2008

WITH, several days later, some residue yet of disbelief, allow me to tell you that at the end of October L actually went dancing. After an interval of 15 years since I last electrified my system in similar fashion, I may further tell you that dancing is no longer what it was.
Comment
Authors: Humphries Monica , Chapman Liz , Bowes Barry , Aguolu CC , Wright Anita , Radmore David
Published: March 2008

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS subject headings are relatively unusual in this country and they do provide for some relatively unusual headings. ‘Ground effect machines’ and ‘one‐leg resting positions’ are just two examples. ‘Ground effect machines’ refers to such things as hovercraft. ‘One‐leg resting position’ however could cover books on anthropology or art. ‘Negative income‐tax’ sounds like something we would all like to receive but it's not exactly the first term which springs to mind to describe income benefit schemes. However, despite these oddities, our subject catalogue seems to be fairy well used and our new guide cards make it even easier to use.
Comment
Authors: Labdon Peter
Published: March 2008

THE FIRST MEETING of the LA Council in each year confirms the nomination of the new president by arranging his investiture with the badge of office by the outgoing incumbent. Last year Sir Fred Dainton had to buckle at the knees to allow Douglas Foskett to slip the blue ribbon over his head; this time he had to stretch up a little to negotiate Godfrey Thompson's ginger curls. The new president might have been only too willing to do the buckling but he was carrying the effects of a seasonal bug and once started on his way down, might never have stopped.
British university libraries today
Authors: Teague SJ
Published: March 2008

IN RECENT YEARS, expenditure on university libraries has taken up a slowly increasing percentage of total recurrent grant of United Kingdom universities, although the trend is now temporarily reversed. The final table of the Department of Education and Science Statistics of education (Volume 6) indicates:
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

IT IS A number of years now since BBC television put out a ‘documentary’ about the spaghetti harvest in southern Italy. In the context of the heavy current affairs programme Panorama, presented by solid and solemn Richard Dimbleby, it was very convincing. Some viewers, seeing the peasants picking and bundling the smooth, long sticks, wondered if their supermarket pasta was some flour and water substitute for the real thing.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Moss Helen , Bunch Allan
Published: March 2008

OF THE desultory correspondence in the Times provoked by the announcement in March of the go‐ahead for the new British Library building next to St. Pancras railway station—a gentle lap‐dog to lie down along‐side a portly crinolined Victorian lady—the most interesting to my mind was a letter pointing out that because of the impending electrification of an ancillary line, that particular railway station would in due course be surplus to British Rail's requirements. Why not, asked the correspondent, build a bridge from the new library across Midland Road to the old station, and convert the train shed into a magnificent reading‐room?
An occupation for gentlemen
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

About this script, Felicity. I'm not at all happy with it as it stands. Who's the author?
Airs that kill
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

THE SIXTH and last instalment of a most brilliant and inventive piece of television drama was shown last week. This was Dennis Potter's Pennies from heaven. Thanks to my collection of the old 78 rpm records of popular music of the nineteen twenties and thirties (sneered at in this column and elsewhere by John Fines and others) I had the additional pleasure, not only of recognising songs, singers, bands and particular recordings, but also of being confirmed in my opinion that a wind‐up gramophone and steel needles are essential equipment for authentic reproduction.
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

IN REPLY to Clive Bingley's oblique enquiry (NLW May 1978) I can tell him that I am not Ken Hornsby, the author of a forthcoming Robert Hale ‘pot‐boiler’ entitled Is that the library speaking? Clive's well‐known aversion to the Post Office and his determination to deny it, except in extreme circumstances, the sale of a stamp or two minutes local telephone time, must be hardening with the years. However, inter‐columnar correspondence, though a little slower, is surer—and it does help to fill a few inches.
Comment
Authors: Munford WA , Houghton Bernard , Barnett Graham , Howes BR
Published: March 2008

I SUPPOSE that members of most library staffs are generously prepared to regard their chief librarians as eccentric. In these days of corporate management, group responsibility and participation we must expect, of course, to find the eccentricity more evenly spread. But be they few or be they many, eccentric librarians are not necessarily inefficient; they may be both competent and conscientious. If, however, they seem interested to excess in some small aspect of their responsibilities or if, alternatively, they have unusual habits which may modify or interfere with their performance, then they may be regarded as eccentric. I remember the public librarian who seemed to spend many of his working hours making and repairing the library furniture in a well‐equipped workshop in the basement. I remember the university librarian of whom a member of his staff once said to me ‘That man turns the loss of a char‐woman's duster into Greek tragedy!’ I remember another university librarian who took absurdly exaggerated personal interest in the quality of the packing used by other libraries when returning to him books which had been borrowed through a regional scheme. Then there was the classic case of Richard Porson at the London Institution. But his drinking problem made him inefficient as well as eccentric.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Moss Helen , Martin Clive
Published: March 2008

YOU WILL HAVE seen, no doubt, recent announcements that my wife and I have sold our book‐publishing business of Clive Bingley Ltd to the Munich‐based firm of international reference publishers, Verlag Dokumentation.
Comment
Authors: Ayres Fred , Duckworth Alan , Lindsay Margot , Pearce Mike , Lawson Sarah
Published: March 2008

THE PROPHETESSES of Ancient Greece, who were said to provide the Delphic oracles, claimed to have gained their inspiration by breathing a mysterious vapour that rose from a cleft in the floor. This then gave them convulsions and put them in a fit state for Apollo to make use of them to deliver his messages to mankind. The whole operation was highly suspect, since the output was in the form of mutterings, and a sort of ancient information officer in the guise of a priest was needed to interpret them to the enquirer. The end product was often sound advice, although the answer to an awkward question was given in such a way that whatever happened it could be claimed to have come true.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Moss Helen , Martin Clive , Bunch Allan
Published: March 2008

I AM NOW IN my annual condition of physical incapacitation as a result of my persistently misguided belief that I am not too fat and elderly to play cricket.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin , Bunch Allan
Published: March 2008

THE GENTLEMAN who tipped me off about the Ridgmount Street Arrest, on which I commented in August (p151), tells me he cannot find out further how the matter progresses or when it may come to trial. Not being on the staff there, he is not, of course, in close touch; I mention this because the LA frequently reveals an indiscreet interest in my private gossip‐lines to the profession, which do—they may learn with surprise—stretch to both of the principal genders, and include many not on the association's payroll.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

OF THREE senior staff who retired this summer from Strathclyde University's Department of Librarianship in Glasgow, one is going to Italy, one to Wales and one to work. The latter is Dr W R Aitken, who admittedly is confining his ‘work’ to an external examinership at the Aberdeen school of librarianship and membership of the Library Cooperation Committee of the National Library of Scotland, but it is a pleasure to know that this most charming and scholarly librarian will continue to involve himself directly in professional affairs.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin , Lawson Sarah
Published: March 2008

IT IS BY direction of NLW'S Subscription Department—to whom I have the good fortune to have been married for nigh on 16 years—that I open my first column of the new year with a lot of gubbins about subscriptions and their administration. Do please read it and, if appropriate, take action, or I'll never hear the end of it.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin , Bunch Allan
Published: March 2008

CLEARLY, I should have kept my trap shut last December, instead of expressing a hope for some snow over the Christmas holidays—in the month since then there has been little else descend from the skies, and my dear wife is already querying why we should spend vast sums of money on travelling to Austria in February for conditions readily available, as I write, on Hampstead Heath.
Carry on scribbling, librarian
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

COME ON then, hands up all you public librarians who have ever toyed with the idea of doing for librarianship what Richard Gordon did for medicine and what James Herriot is doing for vets—to say nothing of the considerable good they have both done for themselves out of it.
The glorious Public Lending Right victory
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

‘Twas way back in the Festival Year of nineteen fifty‐one
Comment
Authors: Lindsay Margot , Fawson Mary , Bate John , Englefield Dermot , Lawson Sarah
Published: March 2008

WHEN I went to visit a friend who was spending a few days as a patient in Northwick Park Hospital, it seemed natural, as I was in ‘foreign’ territory, to investigate the local library facilities. To anyone who passed their SRN finals in a non‐teaching hospital in the mid‐60's, and then discontinued nursing practice, the likelihood of finding a special library service for nurses would seem as remote as disposable syringes and the removal of rubber draw sheets from hospital beds.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin , Bunch Allan
Published: March 2008

I WAS perturbed by a ‘kite’ flown in a national newspaper recently that in its search for economies in public expenditure, the new Conservative government might wield its axe on the British Library's proposed erection in the Euston Road. The current cost of the new building is informally judged to have climbed to a total of £300m, but as this expenditure is to be deployed over a decade and more, abandonment is hardly likely to make serious inroads into government expenditure curently running at more than £50,000m annually.
Librarian at large
Authors: Cheshire David
Published: March 2008

THERE IS yet another film on general release with a librarian as the central figure. ‘Yet another’ as Foul play is only the most recent of a surprisingly large number of films featuring librarians not only as light relief, but also as hero or (more frequently) heroine.
Ephemera and local studies
Authors: Reid David
Published: March 2008

ONE OF the most fallacious arguments in local history librarianship is the suggestion that ‘To start a local collection costs nothing’. It costs staff time, energy, thought, equipment, training, and the materials—book and non‐book—which comprise the collection. Even if items are donated or collected free of charge there is a cost in storing and housing, and it would be naive to think otherwise. And worse, the public—ever ready to make a quick buck—have been saturated with propaganda about ‘antique’ values, and every day that passes makes ‘free’ donations unlikely; it is not enough to appeal to local patriotism any more, and palms have to be crossed with silver (more likely notes—strictly cash!). Beware rapacious postcard salesmen. However, after that bout of cynical—but accurate—perception that everything in librarianship has to be bought and paid for in ratepayers' cash, it is possible to say that most local ephemera can be had for nothing, as distinct from staff, processing and storage costs.
Commercial and technical
Authors: Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

THE ON‐GOING of Liverpool City Libraries and Companies House has now arrived at a final satisfactory conclusion it is hoped. Since last month's comments in this column, the new (or by now not so new) minister, Reginald Eyre, has given his approval to the restoration of the postal sales service with Liverpool. It is expected that at the Liverpool end the charge per company will be 50p. As during the six months of the original pilot scheme in 1978, Liverpool City Libraries will be willing to do business on behalf of any who contact the Commercial Library. For further details contact by telephone 051–207 2147 or by telex 629500.
Comment
Authors: Francis Jim , Iwaschkin Roman , Radmore David , Payne Roy , Moss Raymond , Smith Peter
Published: March 2008

THE SIX YEARS since the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland have seen a massive development of services in the public library field, with progress on almost all fronts simultaneously. Five Education and Library Boards were created under legislation which gave certain advantages to the library service, not least of which was the close link with education, and including a statutory library committee and a designated post of chief librarian. Another helpful feature is the close similarity of population, which ranges from 230,000 in the Western Board to 360,000 in Belfast.
Council report
Authors: Ashworth Wilfred
Published: March 2008

ALTHOUGH IT was in November that council held its last meeting of the year there were no fireworks. Indeed, your representatives settled down with meek devotion to a four‐and‐a‐half hour session of solid business: here a query, there an amendment, now and then a reference‐back as the work of committees was polished to a final condition which, if not always shining, was good enough to pass muster.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

AS THE NEW YEAR begins—and good wishes for it from all of us at NLW—with scant evidence of any general realisation that economies mean you, not just the bloke next door, let me offer you some reported remarks from a speech made in Northampton last November.
Comment
Authors: Bampton Barbara , Key Malcolm , Jones Ken , Reid David
Published: March 2008

INFORMED CONCERN for the pre‐school child was the motive which brought together five research assistants from varying backgrounds in 1977, to set up an Early Childhood Information Centre at the Froebel Institute (Roehampton Institute of Higher Education) in south London. It is a matter for profound regret that all work on the centre ceased in March 1978, but it is also an experience familiar to anyone who has worked on a Job Creation Project.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin , Lawson Sarah
Published: March 2008

I WAS lunching recently with a friend who reckons he has about ten more years to go in libraries before retirement, and he raised an interesting question. Given the realisation that one will not, at his age, now be likely to make chief, what can a senior and experienced librarian do by way of interesting alternative to just serving out time?
User satisfaction
Authors: McMurdo George
Published: March 2008

USER STUDIES proliferate in the literature of librarianship and information science. As early as 1967 one bibliography of library use studies contained 547 references. The popularity of the user study is probably a function of the service‐orientation of contemporary library philosophy. Librarians have become increasingly sensitive to user requirements and the user study offers a means of defining a library's clientele, establishing levels of demand for various services, and tailoring those services to meet the interests of that clientele. While some user studies have restricted themselves to gathering data about patterns of library use, many aim at evaluating users' attitudes to the library, and assessing the degree of satisfaction being achieved.
Comment
Authors: Smith David A , Llwyd Rheinallt , Radmore David , Gratton Peter , Ashworth Wilfred
Published: March 2008

ONCE UPON a time there was no need to question the purpose of a good library; it was there as a ‘repository of human knowledge’ and both users and librarians were satisfied with this description and used it to evaluate libraries accordingly.
Comment
Authors: Palmer Casini Barbara , Rowbotham Graham , Edmonds Helen , Herring James
Published: March 2008

IF I sometimes seem to be obsessed with: library legislation issues, no doubt this is the result of my having become a public library trustee and having been forced to deal with municipal officials for funds and to lobby with state and federal legislators for increased public library funding. I was, therefore, interested to hear Joseph Dagnese, President of Special Libraries Association, say at a recent colloquium at Drexel University, that SLA, once the least political of professional associations, has in recent years become increasingly involved in lobbying for the legislation it supports. The problem is that, as dealing with legislators and bureaucrats for funds and the authorization for new programmes becomes even more necessary, the US library community is recognizing that it is not terribly effective at doing so. Libraries and librarians have simply not been winning many of their battles lately.
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

‘ARE WE all here? Good — well, I've no need to ask why your customary sorrowful countenances are so sickeningly smug this wet and windy a.m. You and your cosy libraries are not, after all, to be subjected to the rough and tumble of profit and loss. You've been spared a fate worse than work, haven't you?
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

I HAVE known for some time that various individuals and groups are not happy about children's books that show clean little girls playing with dolls and grubby boys sawing wood. Such books are condemned as ‘sexist’, a very IN word—and not to be sloppily pronounced so as to be confused with ‘sexy’, which is not only OUT but inflammatory.
Comment
Authors: Ollé James G , Munford WA , Palmer Casini Barbara , McCoubrey Bill , McDonald Vincent , Ashworth Wilfred
Published: March 2008

I WAS shopping in a strange town when my eyes caught the sign SECOND‐HAND BOOKS—SALE TODAY IN THE BASEMENT. An iron filing can no more resist a magnet than I can resist the probable pleasures of a second‐hand bookshop. I passed through the door and hurried below. The basement turned out to be a cellar, but it was clean except for the air, which was bookishly musty. I turned my attention to the tables where the books were displayed and knew, at a glance, that my errand would be fruitless. I was looking at a consignment of ex‐public library books.
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

WHEN WE crib a good thing for this column from somewhere else we don't present it as original thought. This new service which we are considering introducing for our readers, ‘Guide for buyers’, will be somewhat similar to—and, to be quite truthful, more or less derived from—the Library journal feature ‘Buyers' guide’. But we will, as usual on the rare occasions when we do steal an idea, try to improve on it.
Comment
Authors: McMurdo George , Ashworth Wilfred , Buchanan John , Munford WA , Smith Frank
Published: March 2008

The passer‐by had already flipped a couple of smooth‐edged coins into the upturned flat cap when his eye was caught by the placard captioning the slightly shabby personage seated on the pavement beside it. The placard read: ‘Help a poor information scientist with three hungry kids and a football team to support.’ The passer‐by paused suspiciously and enquired, ‘What's an information scientist then? You're not one of these new religions are you?’
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Fleming Edwin , Bunch Allan
Published: March 2008

THE WELCOME NEWS, late in November, that the government has finally given the go‐ahead to the first phase of building the new British Library headquarters at Somers Town next to St Pancras railway station has reawakened the campaign by Professor Hugh Thomas and others to retain the Reading Room at the British Museum as the BL'S centre‐point. Professor Thomas wants the new building to be merely a warehouse for the book collections, and to have books ferried down to readers at Great Russell Street on demand.
My guest today is…
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

I USED to get letters frequently from colleagues suggesting topics to write about in this column, but I never did anything more than to say thank you for them and, not surprisingly, few people now write to pass on their ideas to me. Recently, however, I received c/o NEW LIBRARY WORLD the first letter of that kind for a long time—and the first one ever from someone outside the world of books and libraries.
Comment
Authors: Reid David , Shrigley Roger , Grant Deborah , Englefield Dermot , Palmer Casini Barbara
Published: March 2008

MOST LIBRARIANS pass the library photocopier without a second glance, or a thought of how this relatively new machine has changed, and will increasingly change, the library scene. Only fifteen years ago these machines were relatively rare in libraries, and only just beginning to displace photostat copiers which relied upon the use of sensitised photographic paper that could be employed without films or plates. Photostat machines were cumbersome, laborously slow and frequently necessitated filling tanks with large bottles of chemicals. Some had to be operated in a dark room, and as a young librarian I remember a sort of rabbit hutch with red windows behind the service counter of the technical library where I worked. These copiers produced a negative‐like white on black print which, unlike a proper photographic negative, was not a reversed mirror image. However, it provided a perfectly legible copy for reading. Positives were made from negatives if a conventional black on white print image was required. If the prints were not fixed in hypo and washed in water they went brown after a few months, and they certainly had a distinctive smell. These machines are now part of library archaeology; they have passed away and we are far down an evolutionary road which is leading to micro‐processors, laser and optical fibre technologies. Eventually the intelligent copier will distribute information and documents over telecommunication links.
A few uffish thoughts
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

I DON'T feel the lack of it, but it is a fact that I have not got a life‐style. There's not a lot wrong with the way I live; it's a busy—but passive— sort of existence. Although there is a bit too much of the fisherman's socks and woolly dressing gown about it for the taste of natty dressers and outgoing types like my friend John Fines, it suits me well enough. But it could never be elevated to a life‐style and, certainly, I would never describe it so.
Rookery nook
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

SOON after the turn of the century, a sixteen year‐old boy left Charterhouse school ‘by mutual consent’. He went to Dresden to learn German, spent most of his time in the theatres and, on returning, told his parents that he wanted to be an actor. But the year was 1904, when parents could still say no, and he was sent to the City.
Comment
Authors: Reid David , Iwaschkin Roman , Staffordshire Robert
Published: March 2008

MUMMY AND DADDY won a gold house point the other day for junior Reid, aged seven. Helping with homework must be as old as organised education, but aiding and abetting projects is quite a new phenomenon. Being a parent, and a librarian, inevitably brings a double burden; not only do you get the dratted things thrust upon you at work, but after a weary day servicing genealogists et al one is met with ‘Dad, dad (shades of Al Read for those old enough to remember), Miss … has set us a PROJECT!!!’ Most librarians, and all local history librarians, have seen the following type of demand, which on a local scale is on a par with the totality of source material required for a full set of the Oxford history of England, the Victoria history of the counties of England, the New Cambridge modern and Toynbee's Study of history:
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

I WENT to a party, late in March, to celebrate the ‘launch’ of the 50‐volume Catalogue of printed music in the British Library to 1980 by KG Saur Ltd, three volumes of which have already appeared. The party was held in the magnificent boardroom of the BL'S new administrative offices in Novello House, Wardour Street, where two musical equivalents of Gilbert & George tinkled away at a piano with selections taken from the first volume of the catalogue, while a large number of dignitaries tanked up on something called ‘Bulgarian claret’ (which was quite passable, I must allow). I was addressed in respectful tones by many famous gentlemen, and not a few nubile ladies, all of which was good for my morale, though you can't do much about it at eleven o'clock in the morning (or probably in the BL boardroom at any time)!
Folly set in great dignity
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

MANY a dramatic dilemma has been resolved by reference to the Good Book. This is no longer a fashionable play‐ or script‐writing ploy, but is still occasionally used, particularly in American nostalgic sagas of the pioneering days.
Comment
Authors: Palmer Casini Barbara , Oldfield Phyllis , Greenwood Terry , Day Alan
Published: March 2008

US librarians and library supporters have very little to lift their spirits these days. Reading the library press is a very depressing pastime. The news is wide‐scale cuts in library funding at all levels of government as fiscal conservatives hold the power in the congress and in state governments.
Comment
Authors: Sykes Paul , Johnson Gordon , Samways Alan , Belsey Valerie , Duckworth Alan , McMurdo George
Published: March 2008

AT FIRST glance the leading article in NLW for June, entitled ‘Reform again’, suggested a stirring of the loins of that dormant beast local government reorganisation and not—as it turned out—the structure of the Library Association. Of the former some might exclaim, ‘Not that again!’ in the belief that the 1974 upheaval is too fresh and painful in the memory for objective consideration. But, for a number of reasons, a re‐appraisal of the situation is timely. First, although the polemics of victors may fashion a version of history for a few years, unsound principles do not remain dominant forever. Secondly, a number of district councils are renewing their efforts to reclaim some services, including libraries, lost to the English counties in 1974. And, even if they fail, it is probable that when there is a new government in a year or so (of whatever hue) the botched job emanating from the 1972 Local Government Act will be tidied up. Then, at the very least, the politicians will see to it that there is a major revision of boundaries, if only to recognise the existence of modern communications and living styles, both of which have a marked effect on that which politicians hold most dear— voting patterns. Therefore, in the profound hope that local government lunacy cannot continously triumph over commonsense, it can be assumed that at the next re‐organisation the nature of local government functions and their distribution will not be regarded as favours to be horse traded in the same way that some senior posts were allocated in 1974. (‘Our borough engineer for your librarian and public health inspector’…remember?)
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

I MUST SAY, the Assistant librarian is becoming much more entertaining to read, now that it has acquired an editor who appears to be nuts.
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

IN THE days of aerodromes, when flying was mostly done by heroes in goggles—and Amy Johnson—travellers in foreign parts used many railway systems and, on returning to England, wrote to the Times and the Telegraph saying how superior they all were to the London & North Eastern, the LMS, the Southern and the Great Western railways.
Comment
Authors: Griffin Brian , Hills Kate , Andrew Geoff , Drodge Stephen , Huse Roy , Reid David
Published: March 2008

I REMEMBER one elderly librarian who insisted on keeping the works of obscure authors like Lermontov on the shelves, even when faced with the plain fact that no dates were ever stamped on the labels of the books in question. Whatever happened, the books stayed, year‐in, year‐out. Here, then, was a librarian of the old school, a guardian of culture, keeping to his post while the inner‐city housewives ran for the Mills and Boons on the returned‐books trolley like piranhas hot on the scent of human flesh. He didn't care: sitting at his desk, making careful notations on the backs of book‐cards, he could ignore the crowd and think about Lermontov.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

AT THE instigation of Peter Labdon, who is County Librarian of Suffolk as well as a member of the executive committee of the National Book League (when his awesome editorial responsibilities at NLW allow him the time), the NBL is starting an exciting new development designed to create, it is hoped, a set of regional branches throughout the UK.
Comment
Authors: Saunders John , Ardern LL , Onadiran GT , Preston Tony , Ashworth Wilfred
Published: March 2008

A MAIN purpose behind adopting a policy of bookstock categorisation is to reduce the problem of bookstock supply (which equals customer choice), to understandable terms. If it is possible to determine a working ratio of shelf titles per topic/category to a given community of users a number of possibilities become available. A primary advantage is the determination of the minimum number of titles sufficient to meet a community of users' demand in each interest area. Increasing the range of titles can be seen as improving quality. A cost and quantity factor can be determined for an economic provision of bookstock and a cost factor placed on a stepped improvement in quality. By amalgamating these factors for a number of libraries a minimum economic provision can be determined for a county. The process of finding the minimum required bookstock will automatically, since the community of users is identified, identify both the timescale and the chance of finding a title by the user in which s/he is interested, has not already been read and is on the shelves, and will also identify the level of stock input and extraction that is required to maintain the quality of choice in any one library.
Comment
Authors: Day Alan , Moses BL , Englefield Dermot
Published: March 2008

YOU MAY recall that the December 1974 issue of NLW contained a Christmas Quiz. Readers were asked to identify various libraries described in passages extracted from a motley and heterogeneous selection of books the compiler had chanced upon in half‐a‐lifetime's casual reading. In all honesty the response to the quiz was a little less than heartening and never reached even modest expectations. Not to put too fine a point on it, there was not one single entry. Clearly the books from which the passages were quoted lacked any discernible theme and the odds against anyone duplicating the compiler's miscellaneous reading habits were so outrageous that this caused no surprise.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

TRY THIS for starters in 1982: ‘The concept of the electronic journal is one which involves using a computer to aid the normal procedures whereby an article is written, refereed, accepted and published. With the help of suitable software an author may enter a text into a system, and the editor, referees, and ultimately the users, as well as himself, can have access to the text at their computer terminals.’
Comment
Authors: Snape Wilfrid , Thompson Ruth , Duckworth Alan , Reid David , Ashworth Wilfred
Published: March 2008

IN LESS than sixteen years time—on June 30 1997 to be precise—the lease on Kowloon beyond Boundary Street, and on the New Territories, will, according to British Law, expire. Naturally Hong Kong is concerned as the Peking Lease nears its end. Writing in the Daily telegraph on September 28 1981 Graham Earnshaw commented that China ‘obviously wants to keep Hong Kong as it is for at least the immediate future because of its immense economic value, and that is the main thread of hope that Hong Kong people keep returning to when discussing the future’. Kevin Rafferty concluded a lead article ‘The first city in Asia’ in the Financial times special supplement on Hong Kong (June 15 1981)—‘China and Hong Kong are two different worlds and it will take a lot of effort and patience to bring them together’. David Bonavia writing in the Times on October 3 1981 sees in China's recent ‘seemingly generous offer to Taiwan of easy terms for a political reunion’, ‘the true way to a possible solution for the eventual re‐absorption of Hong Kong into the People's Republic’.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

EAST SUSSEX County Library's newsletter for January 26 reports that in the first six months of 1981/2 loans dropped by nearly 200,000 to 4.35m, compared with the corresponding period of the previous year, and that the reduction was fairly even throughout the county. Fiction issues and children's loans both fell significantly.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

I AM INCLINED to the opinion that the latest serving‐up, in the February issue of the LA Record, of the rebarbative, re‐heated hash which appears each month under the fatuous title ‘the periplus papers’ was having a go at this venerable organ.
Comment
Authors: Willars Glenys , Chapman Liz , McKenna PR , Sants Barbara
Published: March 2008

FOR SOME years now Leicestershire Libraries and Information Service has organised a programme of children's summer activities—very varied activities such as storytelling in parks, special events in libraries and a ‘Magic Bus’. The aim of all these has been to encourage library use, to introduce specific titles to whet children's appetite for books and reading by means of a carefully structured programme of storytelling sessions and reading aloud, fun and games, craft sessions, drama, and competitions. Most libraries do something like this but does it actively lead to more reading—reading for enjoyment, stimulation and emotional satisfaction rather than for information related to school work and increased functional literacy? Comments received from teachers, parents and librarians showed that through the Reading Tree, children did read more for pleasure.
Comment
Authors: Vinten Gerald , Whittaker Kenneth , Samuels Mary , Morley Alan
Published: March 2008

THE extraordinary general meeting of January 6 1982 called upon the LA Council to commission an independent management audit into the association's finances. This was to go much further than a mere accounting check. Since the LA already employs a firm of auditors, the same firm for sixty years, at a cost of £4590 in the year ended December 31 1980, many might have questioned the need for an additional audit.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

I THOUGHT, shall I write a vigorously reproving letter to John Saunders, County Librarian of Surrey, or shall I fulminate in public instead? As you would expect, I chose the latter.
Comment
Authors: Day Alan , Bibble Quentin , Herring James , Wills Tony , Cronin Blaise
Published: March 2008

BROWSING in a new edition of Sequels remains a stable and unceasing pleasure in an unstable world. Nevertheless there is cause for disquiet at the way it is evolving, there is a distinct change of emphasis, a clear difference in direction, and this is not just a nostalgic regret that things are not what they used to be.
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

IT IS Wimbledon time now, my LA subscription is paid, yet I am still carrying two diaries around—one for 1982 and the other for 1981. Early in every new year I transfer the vital details from the first page of the previous year's diary to the new one: who I am, where I live, my telephone number and the name of the same old dear to be contacted in case I collapse through overwork or excitement.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

HOW DREAR the month of August seemed, bereft as it was of any issue of that influential and deservedly world‐famous organ, the Library Association record. For its masters have now decreed that July and August should be combined into a single issue, which they call ‘Numbers 7 & 8’ (which is cheating—suppose I gave two numbers to each issue of NLW, and then proudly claimed to publish 24 issues per year!).
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

IT IS a long‐established British tradition to launch nationwide appeals for funds to preserve our great national monuments, to maintain venerable institutions, or to extend worthwhile public facilities.
Comment
Authors: Reid David , Green Muriel M , Hicks Harry , Rella Tina , Wills Tony
Published: March 2008

APART FROM FRANCE, Great Britain is one of the most centralised states of the Western European democracies; all roads lead to Whitehall and Westminster, and the pattern is repeated in town halls at the lower tier of local government. However, as a contrast, and perhaps as compensation for this centralism, British society has completely contradictory and counter‐vailing tendencies. At the grass roots Britain is a nation of associations, clubs, fellowships, societies and local organisaitions of various kinds. For the purposes of this article I will call them all societies. We are all familiar with national societies through G P Henderson and S P A Henderson's book, Directory of British associations (edition 6, cbd Research Ltd, Beckenham, Kent, 1980), but almost nothing is heard of their local equivalents. It is this phenomenon, and its implication for libraries, that I want to discuss.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Bunch Allan , Fleming Edwin
Published: March 2008

I SUPPOSE THERE is a degree of risibility about the suggestion—mine own—that 1983 should be the year of Touche Ross.
The Shallow end
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

ONE of our dog's self‐imposed tasks is to collect the mail from the front door and then dump it at the first pair of feet he encounters on his way back. He gets a sweet biscuit for that. If no‐one is around, he files the delivery in his basket and forgets to mention it.
Testing, testing
Authors: Place Hillary
Published: March 2008

—Polytechnic of South East Yorkshire BSc Information Studies (3rd year) Exam papers—