bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
PLC: The Missing Link between Physical Distribution and Marketing Planning
Authors: Kaminski Peter F. , Rink David R.
Published: March 2008

Physical distribution (PD) management has often been viewed only as the administration of storage and transportation activities. However, increasing demands on customer service, added product complexity, increased transportation costs and intensifying competition have significantly broadened the scope of PD management. A modern PD manager must do more planning, command greater decision‐making authority and become more active in formulating and implementing marketing strategies (e.g. price setting, packaging design, etc). In order to assume these new responsibilities, PD managers will require a reconceptualisation of their jobs and function as an integral part of the firm. Most important is the need for a set of carefully conceived PD strategies and tactics that are sequenced according to some workable framework. The authors maintain that the product life cycle (PLC) concept represents such a guideline. They discuss how the PLC concept can be used to gauge changing market conditions as well as the subsequent impact this has on the formulation and implementation of timely PD strategies and tactics.
BITUMINOUS‐BASED PROTECTIVE COATINGS
Authors: Murray W.
Published: March 2008

It is on record that asphalt in one form or another was used by the Sumerians about 3800 B.C. and there are numerous references in technical literature crosslinking the terms asphalt and bitumen. The increasing use and success of bituminous substances through the ages as protective coatings or as jointing and fixing compounds are vividly described in Abraham’s fascinating work “Asphalt and Allied Substances” Perhaps the best recommendation which can be given for the efficiency of bitumen as a protective medium is the excellent state of preservation of specimens treated with bitumen still being unearthed by archaeologists.
Robert Fergusson's Scots Poetry
Authors: Mackay Hugh K.
Published: March 2008

THAT DR T. C. SMOUT in his highly praised A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (1969) felt able to dismiss Robert Fergusson (‘the dissipated son of an Edinburgh clerk’) with the verdict ‘nothing more serious than the celebration of food and drink was ever his business’ indicates yet again the continuing depreciation that, with honourable exceptions, has been Fergusson's critical fate since his bourgeoning fame disappeared in the furore excited by the appearance of Burns.
History in the Library of Salisbury Cathedral
Authors: Udal John
Published: March 2008

ON MONDAY the fifteenth of June 1215 the profligate King John came down from Windsor Castle to Runnymede to keep an important appointment with the Barons of the Realm encamped at Staines. Tall, glowering, with a paunch from licentious living he listened to the ‘Articles of the Barons’ before reluctantly affixing his Great Seal. These articles drafted in the form of a royal charter promised a return of ‘ancient and accustomed liberties’ putting an end to the arbitrary and unjust rule that the King exercised over his subjects. Thus the most famous possession of the Salisbury Cathedral Library came into existence, the ‘Magna Carta’ or Great Charter upon which our political and legal history is founded.
Seagoing Libraries
Authors: Cecil Hampshire A.
Published: March 2008

SAILORS ARE GREAT READERS, and every year the Ministry of Defence (R.N.) spends some £30,000 on the purchase of books for the officers and men of the Royal Navy. These are not haphazard collections thrown together from those available. Nearly 30 per cent of the money goes on general fiction, and 25 per cent on adventure stories, detective yarns and thrillers. Nine per cent is spent on science fiction, some 7 per cent each on sea stories, factual and fictional history books, and spy and war stories. Biographies and autobiographies account for 6 per cent, and the rest is made up of humorous stories and Westerns.
The Magician's Library
Authors: Werkley Caroline E.
Published: March 2008

THERE IS SIGNIFICANCE, perhaps, in the fact that in 1876, the year the first library in Moberly, Missouri, probably disappeared, a Wizard came to town. Professor Macallister, the Prince of Magic Performers, gave ‘great entertainments’ for three days, April 3rd, 4th and 5th, at Morgan's Opera House. ‘Without a peer in his line of business’, and ‘a gentleman whom it is a pleasure to know’, wrote the editor of the Moberly Enterprise‐Monitor (the first daily published in Moberly, its first issue dated 3 April 1873). ‘Do not be misled by classing the great East Indian magician with inferior traveling concerns, styling themselves Fakirs, etc. They not only injure reputations of first class magicians, but they give their patrons snide jewelry and sham watches for presents.’ Not so Professor Mac‐allister, who, in addition to his first‐class performance, distributed one hundred costly and valuable presents each evening: china tea sets, chamber sets, tête‐à‐têtes, chairs, marble‐topped tables, bureaus, American watches. Wisely, too, these articles were not brought out of the Wizard's hat but were purchased by his canny manager, Mr Harry Weston, from the business houses in the town. Any resident—or visiting drummer—for 25 cents (50 cents reserved seat) could see a true Wizard perform and also have a chance of winning atête‐à‐tête or a chamber set.
On the Road to Katmandu
Authors: Donaldson Alec
Published: March 2008

IT WAS KNOWN as the Legation Bungalow. It was single storeyed, white, and buitt to a Colonial style. It had shady verandas, it was set in pleasant grounds, and, in the circumstances, it was very agreeable.
A Glisk o' Douglas Young throu a Wheen o' his Poems
Authors: Marshall Margaret
Published: March 2008

DOUGLAS YOUNG, poet, scholar, Scottish Nationalist and internationalist, is described by the poet William Soutar after their first meeting as ‘an exceedingly tall fellow with a shovel‐beard—his leanness, longness and fringiness gave one the initial impression of a B.B.C. announcer who had partially metamorphosed into an aerial’, and adds: ‘didn't just get his wave‐length.’
The Glow and Gusto of H. L. Mencken's So and So's
Authors: Bauer Harry C.
Published: March 2008

THE HUM AND DRUM OF WORD SOUNDS is irresistible and infectious. Words team up naturally and magnificently when they are linked in tandem by the coordinate conjunction and. This may be the primary reason why and is among the ten most frequently used words in the English language. Whenever I read the essays of Henry L. Mencken, I sense that and is the most frequently seen word in his canon. Now, this is all well and good. Unstinting and even extravagant use of and is no sin: witness the Authorized Version of The Bible or The Book of Common Prayer.
A Painter's Books: Constable's Library
Authors: Fussell G.E.
Published: March 2008

IT WOULD BE an impertinence to Constable for anyone not specifically devoted to art to criticize his paintings. Anyhow this has recently been done with a good deal of réclame. His taste in reading is quite another matter, and even an historian may venture to discuss it.
Library work with children in a large city
Authors: TAYLOR W.A.
Published: March 2008

BIRMINGHAM is the largest city in Great Britain, after London, and it is often called “The Second City”. It lies in the very centre of England, in Shakespeare's county of Warwickshire, 114 miles from London, 90 from Bristol, and less than 100 from Liverpool and Manchester.
The Librarians's library
Authors: CORBETT E.V. , STOCKHAM K.A. , MUNFORD W.A.
Published: March 2008

COLLISON (R. L.) ed. Progress in Library Science. London, BUTTERWORTH, 1966. pp. xvii, 209. 45s.
Comment
Authors: THOMPSON GODFREY , DOVE JACK , LAYZELL WARD P , DAVINSON DONALD , SMITH HAROLD , HEPWORTH PHILIP , TOMLINSON NORMAN , ATKINSON FRANK , RÖTZSCH HELMUT , USHERWOOD BOB
Published: March 2008

PUBLIC LIBRARIANS outside London watch with attention/pleasure/alarm the results of governmental thinking on the re‐organisation of local government. Londoners will be more detached but, remembering 1965 and fingering their old scars, will have sympathy.
Written any good books lately?
Authors: PEARCE MICHAEL
Published: March 2008

It had happened again! There I was emerging from a class vowing that I would think of some way of making things easier for myself next year, instead of creating the usual annual shambles at this point in the course. Well, you try demonstrating, and drawing on the blackboard, 24mo half‐sheet imposition. It wears you out.
The work of the Biodeterioration Information Centre
Authors: GARRETT SJ , WILLSHER MJD , EGGINS HOW
Published: March 2008

THE Biodeterioration Information Centre (BIC) was set up at the University of Aston in Birmingham in May 1965, aided by a grant from the Office for Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), to collect, process and disseminate information in the field of biodeterioration. Practical research is also carried out at the centre and a close association exists between the research and information work.
Dear readers
Authors: ATKINSON FRANK
Published: March 2008

I MEAN the self‐styled ‘British Authoress’ with the smell of death about her; George Schneider and his oranges; the Drunken Pilot; Fez; the Retired Parson and Trotsky; the Man in Black (homburg, overcoat and boots) who was in and out saying a hundred good mornings and good afternoons and insisting on a polite response every time; the Clock Lady; Mr Clayton and a number of others.
The video revolution
Authors: REVILL DH
Published: March 2008

RECENTLY INTRODUCED or announced video systems have complicated an already complex field. Magnetic tape (sound and vision) video taperecorder systems are being marketed by Sony, Matsushita and others from Japan, Ampex and AVCO from the USA, and by Philips and AEG Telefunken in Europe.
Travels with a Kombi
Authors: BROWN ELIZABETH M
Published: March 2008

WHEN ZAMBIA became independent, in 1963, neither education nor libraries impinged on the lives of the large majority of people; there were a few municipal libraries, and rural areas were served by Zambia Library Service, then only two years old. Since then the service has expanded enormously, so that there are now almost 600 library centres. Some of these are operated by rural councils or ‘bomas’ (comparable to town halls), but many are operated on a voluntary basis, by school teachers or even by private individuals. Some serve only the establishment which runs them, whether they be cooperative training centres or prisons; many, however, extend facilities to the nearby villages, where the proportion of literate people is rarely very high. There is, however, a great demand for books among those who can read, because, despite the great expansion in secondary schools since independence, education is still inadequate, with less than a tenth of those who leave primary school finding a place in secondary school. Many of these try to further their education (mainly to improve their employment opportunities) by private study or correspondence courses. Such is the demand that one prison librarian wrote asking for more books because too many outsiders were coming in to borrow those they had; (to do this they had to pass two or three guarded gates and sign the visitor's book stating their reason for entering the prison).
The gentle art of interview
Authors: STOCKHAM KA , RUSSELL JOHN , WHATELEY SUSAN , JONES NORAGH
Published: March 2008

The ‘interview’ undergone by the young prince in W F Yeames' well known painting shown on our front cover this month, was more painful than most. But job interviews are more often than not rather harrowing—at least in prospect—and we have asked four authors, each representing a different part of the interviewing spectrum, to give us their views about the process, its importance, and how best to approach something which happens to most of us at least once in our professional careers.
A housebound reader service
Authors: ELLIOTT JON
Published: March 2008

CHARTERED LIBRARIANSHIP DIFFERS from many professions in that it has rarely been stirred to positive action against those from outside who have asserted that they could do the work as efficiently and be regarded as librarians in the process.
The shallow end
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

IT WAS, so he says, the BBC Computer Test Match that prompted my excolleague Thrasher to write to me again recently. He went over the Cotswolds some years ago for an extra thirty pounds per annum and is now the deputy borough librarian of what he calls Bugsville. (He once described it as midway between Coronation Street and Till Death Us Do Part and not worth a series of its own.)
Description and annotation in catalogues: reader requirements
Authors: MALTBY A , DUXBURY A
Published: March 2008

THIS IS AN account of an exploratory study into a particular aspect of catalogue use which formed part of a large and broader based enquiry. There have been many signs, in recent years, of growing enthusiasm among British librarians to investigate the use made of catalogues, the significance of various parts of what has come to be accepted as a typical full entry, and the kind of information which readers bring to a catalogue when commencing a search. In 1969, the Library Association Cataloguing and Indexing Group initiated a programme for a planned national catalogue use study to be organised on a co‐operative basis by the schools of librarianship. This began with a pilot survey and eventually led to the fuller study of Spring 1971—the larger and broader based enquiry mentioned above. At the time of writing, the statistics from this are still being analysed and correlated by computer, although a description of the background, methodology and problems has appeared. The comments made in both this enquiry and its pilot survey have, however, been analysed and they suggested that certain further studies devoted to particular aspects of the catalogue might prove rewarding, although it was realised that these might produce ‘impressionistic’ rather than strictly scientific results As a result, the Manchester and Belfast schools combined to carry out a short study on the value of various items of description and of notes or annotation in catalogues.
Original or facsimile
Authors: FAIRCLOUGH RH
Published: March 2008

THE PASSION FOR collecting is an irresistible human trait and surprise is no longer aroused when one sees on television the range of objects people amass, ranging from fine tapestries and old playing cards to milk bottles and biscuit tins. This particular assortment of times may not at first glance appear relevant to an article on cartography, but they have all at one time or another been used to depict maps. More usually though maps are printed on single sheets of paper, and it is in this format, or bound together as an atlas, that most of us are accustomed to handling them.
Comment
Authors: FRANCIS SIMON , BRADLEY P , VERNON KENNETH , HOUGHTON TERRY , FEATHERSTONE TOM , WINKLEY SUE , REVILL DON , DAVINSON DONALD , HOYLE JOHN , CAREY RJP
Published: March 2008

THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE of the British Library was set up in June 1971 following the acceptance in April 1970 by the government of the recommendations of the Dainton Report on the national libraries and the consequent White Paper (Cmnd 4572) in January 1971. The committee is to plan the organisation of the library and develop and co‐ordinate its policy, and is clearly of the greatest importance, not only to the national libraries but to all libraries through the bibliographic and research services the British Library will undertake. What do we know of the work of this committee, which has now been in existence for a year?
Comment
Authors: BLOOMFIELD BC , LAYZELL WARD PAT , CORBETT EV , ELLIOTT JON , SMITH JOHN , LEWIS PETER , NICHOLS HAROLD , McCARTHY CAVAN
Published: March 2008

RECENTLY I picked up a copy of NEW LIBRARY WORLD and browsed through it, detecting, or so I thought, a certain bias in its editorial approach towards the public librarian, and mentally discounted most of what I read until, emerging through the advertisements, I came to ‘The Shallow End’. Recognising yet another example of Parkinson's law (journalism expands to fill the space available) and style, I nevertheless, as they graphically say, ‘read on’. It was quickly borne in on me that the feelings expressed by the noxious Thrasher in the March and June issues were, with some modification and emendation, precisely what I uneasily felt in regard to the rôle of modern public library in this country. Both articles raise some very serious points and I thought I might expose some of my jaundiced qualms to the judicious discussion of others more nearly concerned.
A systems approach to exploitation
Authors: CAREY RJP
Published: March 2008

‘Systems’ and ‘programming’ are to‐day somewhat hard worked terms, so that it may be helpful to define what is meant by a systems approach to the exploitation of library resources. In a college or university library, resources include not only the usual documents and services but also the library staff's experience and special knowledge, and, an indefinite facility which comes from the goodwill and co‐operation of the teaching staff. It is perhaps of interest, too, that the original meaning of exploit was to ‘unfold’, an apt one for our purpose.
Death of a craftsman
Authors: McKENZIE JR
Published: March 2008

In over 40 years of professional writing, first as a playwright, then as a historian, broadcaster, and more recently for his now world‐famous sagas of English country life, Ronnie Delderfield has built up a prodigious and faithful reading public.
Comment
Authors: ALLEN JOHN , HEPWORTH PHILIP , LI PLUMRIDGE K , MILLER KD , DYER CHRISTOPHER , HOUGHTON TERRY , MALTBY ARTHUR , BURDEN JS , BERRIMAN GEORGE , MANAKA SETH
Published: March 2008

THERE ARE something like 4,700 qualified librarians in the local government service in this country and for most of us April 1 1974 is a date seldom far from our thoughts.
Comment
Authors: WHEATLEY GERRY , SYKES PAUL , POCKLINGTON PETER , NORTHWOOD OWEN , MALTBY ARTHUR , HUNTER ERIC , TOMLINSON NORMAN , REVILL DON , BESWICK NORMAN , ELLIOTT JON , REVILL DON
Published: March 2008

SCHEMES FOR the national library services of developing countries make the British library world seem positively victorian by comparison. Two factors, however, are likely to be agents of change in the next few years. At the apex of the pyramid, the proposals for the British Library will rationalise the British Museum, the National Central Library, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology and the British National Bibliography complex. At more local levels, the re‐organisation of local government in England will ensure more effective provision of public library services under unitary control.
The high cost of people
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

DURING THE 1960's when technical decision making dominated corporate policies, the company library, often technical by constitution, operated in the wake of innovative success and economies of scale in manufacturing.
Comment
Authors: DAY ALAN , HOUGHTON TERRY , WINDRUSH FRANK , FRANCIS JPE , REVILL DON , HUNNISETT BASIL , BULLOCK PETER
Published: March 2008

CALL IT what you will, serendipity, accident, fortuitous chance, but add it to coincidence and together they will take some beating. This was brought home to me recently when browsing through fifty year old files of The Nation and The Athenaeum. In a vague search for something entirely different my eye was attracted by the heading, ‘The woman librarian’, a somewhat inelegant title to a longish letter to the editor sent by Dr Ernest A Baker on the occasion of a discussion at University College London conducted by Miss Marian Frost. Librarian at Worthing, who was at that time one of the sixteen women chief librarians in the country. And then, the very next day, there appeared in the November issue of NLW a note about the potential qualities of women librarians first published in 1889.
Comment
Authors: HUNT ECG , WRIGHT DONALD , ELLIOTT JON , HALLWORTH FREDERICK , NADARAJAH RADHA , WATERMAN JJ , THOMPSON GODFREY
Published: March 2008

APPROVAL of a plan for a new Birmingham Central Library was given by the City Council on July 26 1938. One world war and heaven knows how many financial stringencies later, on June 5 1970, the foundation stone of the building was laid. The new library stands adjacent to the present building and is part of the re‐development scheme for the centre of Birmingham.
Comment
Authors: PLIMSOLL PETER , ALLRED JOHN , THOMAS ALAN R , JANNOCK FRANK , ATKINSON FRANK , OFFOR COLIN , DALEY IMOGEN , CAMPBELL MALCOLM , BINGLEY CLIVE
Published: March 2008

THE CIVIL CODES of most European countries have, for several decades, required official publication of company details in government gazettes. Thus librarians in each EEC country have enjoyed the availability of an official bulletin, published daily or bi‐weekly: in France, for example, it is called Bulletin officiel des annonces commerciales, a daily document of 70–80 double column pages containing full details of registrations, changes and cessations of all forms of business enterprises, (not only limited companies), together with an index to all personal and business names mentioned. The publication started in 1926 and now costs 50 centimes per issue or Frs 60 in France (c £5) per year. Similar documents at comparable prices are published by the other EEC governments and Denmark too.
Poor Thrasher, Poor Us!
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

MY EX‐COLLEAGUE Thrasher is not everybody's cup of tea. He's not his chief's, for instance, (but then, what deputy is?) and he's certainly not Miss Haha's. He's not even my cup of tea, although he writes to me as if our minds were as one.
Information services in social welfare
Authors: LINE MAURICE B
Published: March 2008

THE SOCIAL SERVICES have seen big developments in recent years. In particular, reorganisation of local authority social service departments, and the concept of corporate planning as outlined in the Bains report, are creating a situation with quite new organisational problems. With growth and with organisational change, information problems need to be looked at afresh.
In‐service training in the polytechnic library
Authors: LEWIS DAVID
Published: March 2008

IT IS OFTEN maintained by the staffs of library schools that their function is essentially to ‘educate’ would‐be entrants into the profession, rather than concern themselves with training in the narrower sense of the term. Having accepted that the tendency in library education is towards graduate and postgraduate qualifications, it is difficult to conceive of on‐the‐job training in any real sense being possible. Even if such courses were to incorporate large sandwich elements, there would still remain the need for induction and other forms of in‐service training in all types of libraries.
Who's who two
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

IT WAS pointed out in this column last month that there is no entry in Who's who for God. There's no entry for Bernard Levin either. A number of other notables are missing too.
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

IN AUGUST 1971 the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act became law. One of its intentions was to protect companies against the activities of inertia‐selling bogus‐directory firms. What is happening? The law is being flouted and these firms have resurged in the last few months on a scale much larger than before. British companies are again being flooded with invoices for entries they never asked for in trade and telex directories which are never published.
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

WE ARE saturated with conferences, courses and seminars to the point at which over‐absorption has led to rejection. When one cannot see the wood for the trees the line of least resistance is not to attend anything.
Comment
Authors: HAVARD‐WILLIAMS P , PRYTHERCH RJ , STEVENS ERIC , GOODLIFFE TED , PALMER DORIS , HUMPHRIES MONICA , DAVIS RL
Published: March 2008

THE MIXED reaction to the proposal for a diploma of higher education appears to be based not on the qualities or defects of the curriculum for the diploma—for no‐one yet really knows what it is going to be—but on attitudes which relate not to educational problems, but to social or political assumptions. The great British public has never wanted to spend more than it must on education. Expenditure on universities was never questioned when it was a fraction of the budget: since it has been a significant figure, the government of the day, whatever its complexion, has sought to economise. The polytechnics were supposed to be cheaper than universities; four term years cheaper than three term years. Now it is two‐year diplomas that are cheaper than three or four year degrees. No‐one with experience of the various changes in educational policy made by successive governments can, it seems to me, be other than cynical about the educational motives of politicians in making changes in the educational system. The case for the introduction of a two‐year course for a diploma in higher education is that many students would prefer to undertake a shorter course, with the possibility of topping it up later to degree standard if they wish to do so. This is presumably one example of the current fashionable phrase ‘continuous education’. Bodies such as the AUT and some members of professional associations fear that the introduction of the diploma will lead to a reduction in standards in the education students receive. The AUT also thinks it will affect the salaries of teaching staff.
The shallow end
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

I HAVE IT on good authority that publishers think librarians are an odd lot. The general opinion among librarians is that publishers are a mysterious crowd, so I am saying straightaway that some of my best friends are publishers. Superficially, they have moved into the 1970's with their management courses, telex, computers and standard book numbers, but their hearts are in an earlier era.
Mad in pursuit …
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

FEW LIBRARIANS, one imagines, will be feeling as sorry for President Nixon as Bernard Levin is. (Though no‐one would wish the President to be ill at this time.) It is always saddening when Levin, nurtured on Leigh Hunt, Lamb, Hazlitt and Coleridge, turns his talents from marvellously funny pieces on rabbits and rhubarb, the law, motor cars and Wagner, to arrogant, arrant political nonsense pieces—not to mention Public Lending Right. Having supported the President through the perils of Vietnam and two election campaigns, he could hardly turn back at a mere Watergate.
Libraries and leisure—part 2
Authors: GERARD DAVID
Published: March 2008

It would be tedious to summarise the papers in turn, for somehow life escapes that way. Instead of an editor's reduction, it seemed best to quote passages in the original words of the speaker, and to choose those passages which best illustrate fundamental thinking about function, and issues of practical policy, both equally relevant to this vexed theme. We are all perfectly familiar with the practical implications of a cultural programme, however modest, and it was important to give it full attention in the seminar, yet without a profound basis for conviction, the house is built on sand.
‘A pint, a gin‐and tonic, and the Statesman's Year Book, please’
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

SMALL COUNTRY TOWNS are still, in spite of recent changes, one of the pleasures of holidaying in Britain. Much of their individuality is now hidden behind a uniformity of signs to car park and toilets, and one‐way systems which avoid the corn exchange, the church and everything else of interest. The antique shops have acquired the sameness of Woolworths. Most of them seem to have run out of antiques and offer a range of newlyminted horse‐brasses (tractor badges, if they exist, are taking a long time to catch on), hunting horns (intended for a non‐hunting type of unspeakable), Hong Kong coloured‐glass oil lamps, and a genuine cracked jug and washbasin.
The EEC Parliament: its documentation and library
Authors: ENGLEFIELD DJ
Published: March 2008

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT is one of the four main institutions which the United Kingdom joined on January 1 1973 when we became full members of the European Communities. The other institutions are the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the Court of Justice. The European Parliament and the Court of Justice are situated in Luxembourg and the Commission in Brussels. The Council of Ministers normally meets in Brussels.
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

BECAUSE national governments will not assist finance company research outside their own borders, the only machinery for R & D between firms in the EEC lies with the multinationals. Now EUROPMI, the federation of medium and small firms is trying to foster more R & D co‐operation within the community. When British small firms participate, it would be satisfying to think that they had the backing of their local library co‐operative, to support them with ready provision of research documentation. EUROPMI are at 66a rue Joseph II, 1040 Brussels.
Beating the interview: some hints
Authors: HOWARD BRIDGET
Published: March 2008

IN THE MODERN library profession, advancement and promotion often depend on selection interviews. It is argued that these favour candidates gifted with verbal facility and militate against those without the ‘gift of the gab’. In defence of the system, however, it must be remembered that today's librarians are communicators—ranging from the junior explaining why a book cannot be renewed, to the chief arguing with the library committee for increased resources. A librarian is no longer a book‐loving recluse. Successful performance in his job calls for communication, whether he is acting as readers adviser, staff manager, or library school lecturer. It is therefore perhaps not entirely unreasonable that the final stage in most staff selection processes should be a demonstration of the candidate's ability to think on his feet.
Only disconnect
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

THE INSTINCTIVE British reaction to a crisis is to form a queue. Telling ourselves that lesser breeds would tear around in all directions, crying mother mine in their strange lingos, we quietly line up in twos and wait for things.
Comment
Authors: HOUSE DAVID , DOVE JACK , SMETHURST T , ELLIOTT JON , OLLE JAMES G , LUKE ER , WILKES IAN , TEAGUE SJ
Published: March 2008

SINCE LEAVING NORWICH, where I had lived and worked for eight years, I have been interested to read Philip Hepworth's periodic bulletins in NLW, the latest being Defeat (NLW, January, pp 7–9). I have come to the conclusion that it must quickly have become a far wickeder and less hospitable place than I remember it. I don't recall the world of librarianship in that fine city being a battlefield, with winners and losers. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, PH was always quick to imply that county library services were very much second rate affairs, and am somewhat surprised that he subsequently became very keen to join one—not like him at all.
Books, brothels and Basil Brush
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

ON THE British Broadcasting Corporation's desert island, the culture‐ration ratio is eight records to one book— apart from the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare, without which, of course, no likely castaway ever leaves home.
Comment
Authors: WINDRUSH FRANK , STOKER DAVID , DAY ALAN , BRYON JFW , REVILL DON , HARRISON KC , LEWIS DAVID T , JANNOCK FRANK
Published: March 2008

ENVY, GREED and a desire for possession are not particularly attractive qualities to display in print but if they are recognised and acknowledged in what follows, then at least my argument may not suffer unduly.
The impact of European patent development
Authors: HOUGHTON BERNARD
Published: March 2008

NOT MANY LIBRARIANS will be familiar with the British patent system, and even fewer with the rapidly evolving European system. This is unfortunate: the grant of letters patent, the agreement between the state and the individual, is a valuable form of negotiable industrial property, and the specification which describes the invention for which the grant was made, is a basic source of technical information.
Comment
Authors: DAVINSON DONALD , REVILL DON , PROSSER CAROLYN , NWAMEFOR RALPH , BRIMELOW T , WILLIAMS GW , WOOD AJ
Published: March 2008

THE ANNUAL ORGY of reference‐writing for departing students is on the wane now. The well‐worn platitudes are about to go into dock for their 10,000‐word service, to be ready to leap out fresh again next year.
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

As no one has sent me any industrial library news this month, I am substituting this, the first of two articles on information transfer. In this article, the author examines the role of the librarian in conveying published information. In the second, Yvonne MacLoughlin will write on the role of the press and broadcasting in conveying information.
Comment
Authors: BROPHY PETER , JACKAMAN PETER , BELL FT , PEARCE MIKE , EASTCOTT CN , WHITE BRENDA
Published: March 2008

THE COMMENT by Don Revill in the August issue of NEW LIBRARY WORLD raises a number of interesting points. The allocation of library book funds between departments or between site libraries has always proved a sticky problem, and, as Revill points out, a variety of solutions have been advocated. Of course, the actual division of the funds presents no real problem (everyone is willing to spend the money!) once the bases on which this division is to be made have been decided. Thus the real decisions boil down to judgements of the relative value (to the university? to the state? to the librarian?) of such factors as:
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

Aslib celebrates its 50th birthday this autumn. Its director Leslie Wilson very kindly agreed to answer Alan Armstrong's questions about the Association and its future.
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

‘MASSIVE, impressive but human, interesting and worthwhile’. This is the description of the Special Libraries of America annual conference this summer, given by Johan van Halm, Manager of Documentary Information Services, of Verenigde Machinefabrieken NV of Amsterdam. He had been asked to lecture in Toronto on ‘special libraries in the international scene’.
Comment
Authors: DALBY AK , TOMLINSON NORMAN , CONHAM WILL , GANN PETER , DAVINSON DONALD , DAY ALAN , BELL FT , SILENCE ABRAHAM , GRIFFIN BRIAN , WHITE DAVID
Published: March 2008

THE ORGANISATION OF a survey at Manchester Polytechnic, following closely upon prolonged correspondence in a semi‐professional journal, testifies to the fear of some colleagues that the public takes a poor view of its librarians. ‘The catalogue does not mention it and the librarians here are useless,’ said Livy in the Apollo Library in Rome. But need we imagine that many modern readers would echo his verdict?
The World and the Record
Authors: OLLE JAMES G
Published: March 2008

I PAST IMPERFECT At first there were rumours, inevitably. Then came an official announcement: as from January 1975 the Library Association record would appear in a new guise. (For various reasons, the transformation has been postponed for a year, until 1976).
Comment
Authors: CAMPBELL MALCOLM J , FRANCIS SIMON , JOSEPH TONY
Published: March 2008

‘The public library is the research library for small firms in the locality. It is the place where administrative and technical workers can go to keep up with their subject and where the answer to many inquiries can be found…. Specialists using the library service can expect to be served by people familiar with their subjects to a fairly high level and knowledgeable in the relevant literature and terminology.’
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

The antipathy of booksellers and librarians towards loose‐leaf books has been jolted by the success of publishers moving outside the traditional arena of law and into company information VAT and insurance, with many handbooks which appeal primarily to the executive user. The growth of direct sales between publisher and executive is causing this antipathy to be re‐examined.
The game of the name
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

We had a bottle of port for dinner, and drank dear Willie's health. He said, ‘Oh, by the by, did I tell you I've cut my first name William, and taken the second name Lupin? In fact, I'm only known at Oldham as Lupin Pooler. If you were to ‘Willie’ me there, they wouldn't know what you meant.’
Industrial library news
Authors: ARMSTRONG ALAN
Published: March 2008

THE Institution of Chemical Engineers library has taken a bold step and is now marketing itself to non‐members as ‘The Information Centre for Chemical Technology’. The cost of a subscription is a modest £30 per year. This allows the corporate or personal subscriber 12 hours' use of the service. A record of all enquiries is kept, with answers given and time taken, so that a check can be made of use—and of the time remaining. For time used over and above the subscription period a charge of £3 per hour is made. These rates do not by any means represent the full cost of the service, since the institution is not a profit making organisation. The income will help develop and expand the library service to meet the proven need for technical information. Much credit is due to the librarian, in taking this commercial initiative inside an academic body. I hope the income derived will buy lots of books and even perhaps one day more staff. The centre is offering its first publication for sale, a thesaurus of 650 chemical engineering keywords with an associated 2,000 lead‐in words. Price £10. In preparation is a list of chemical engineering consultants. Details from 15 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PT. A booklet on the service is available.
Comment
Authors: REVILL DON , THOMPSON GODFREY , DAY ALAN , DUCKWORTH ALAN , GRIFFIN BRIAN , JORDAN PETER , TEAGUE JOHN
Published: March 2008

ONE CAN BE forgiven for worrying about the ‘Peter principle’ when taking up a post on the practising side of the profession after nine years teaching librarianship.
This, that and the other
Authors: SHALLOW ROBERT
Published: March 2008

WITH ALL DUE respect and reverence to the Bard, it's not a tide in the affairs of men which may lead to fortune, but rather a confluence of currents. Spotting these flows and anticipating the point of their coming together is the key to success; watching flotsam in the streams, not straws in the wind, is the thing. This is most evident in the commercial world.
Commonplaces
Authors: BINGLEY CLIVE , KEMPSON ELAINE
Published: March 2008

IN AMERICA the book world is bemoaning the fact that us internal postal rates were hiked up yet again in July for the special ‘library rate’ and the ‘fourth‐class book rate’—the former to 10 cents for a 2‐lb package, and the latter to 28 cents for the same. They might be interested to know that the cost of sending a 2‐lb parcel of books by post internally in the UK is now the equivalent of $1.00.
Comment
Authors: Messenger Michael , Jones Roger , Usherwood Bob , Windrush Frank , Whittaker Kenneth , Sykes Paul , Duckworth Alan , Day Alan
Published: March 2008

WHAT is this thing called… accountability?
Comment
Authors: Griffin Brian , Alam Fazlul , Duckworth Alan , Revill Don , Palmer Bernard I
Published: March 2008

FOR GOOD and ill, most of my first adventures with books—the events that really started me off on the Great Paper Chase—happened thanks to some local library or other. Things really started happening during my twelfth year, when a friend of mine at the Grammar School (I was a ‘Technical Hitch’ myself at the time) lent me a book he had borrowed from the school library: a collection of stories by H G Wells. I've never really been the same since reading that book: for one thing, I've never been able wholly to believe in the Two Cultures controversy. But Wells was my first ‘god’. Searching for my own copy of the stories—shyly, hesitatingly—was like searching for the milk of Paradise.
The Prison Service Library
Authors: Turbet Richard
Published: March 2008

J D HENDRY, Renfrew's Chief Librarian, writes:
End of the Old Imprudent Year
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

THE PECULIAR calendar of publication of this and other monthly journals makes anything approaching actualité impossible. To appear seasonable in the December issue, we have to go all Christmas Crackers early in October when saner men are in their gardens trying to burn wet leaves.
Comment
Authors: Rothwell Catherine , Wimbush Henry , Elliott Jon , Day Alan , Prytherch Ray , Anderson Claire
Published: March 2008

IT WAS THE first moment I had had to myself since Christmas Eve. All passion spent, sherry drunk, holly brittle, the tree dropping vindictive needles in a damnable fashion, the cards aflop, with listless gaze and the year not two days old, I took up NEW LIBRARY WORLD.
Long day's journey into night
Authors: Jones Noragh
Published: March 2008

WHILE RECOGNISING that the British public library system is one of the best in the world, and has at various times and in various localities acted as a vital support system to education, science and technology, business and industry, as well as to that mysterious personage known as the ‘general reader’, or the ‘average layman’, I would like to take a brief trip through the Underbookwood of public library purpose, to try and work out why public libraries do all these good things, rather than other equally good things which are done by libraries in other countries, or by other information agencies in this country.
Kids and things
Authors: Taylor David
Published: March 2008

CURRENTLY on show at Bedford Central Library is the National Book League travelling exhibition, ‘Children's books of the year 1974’. Allied with this is a large and diverse exhibition of children's art, organised jointly by Bedfordshire Education service and Bedfordshire County Library. The whole library has been given over to staging this immensely colourful and exciting exhibition, which forms part of an extensive campaign by the library to extend the range of activities available for children in Bedford and the North Beds district.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Kempson Elaine , Buchanan John
Published: March 2008

COMPARISON of the amount and the variation between 1975/76 and 1976/77 of public library bookfunds is made possible by the Libtrad summary which was published in the Bookseller in mid‐April. It is encouraging to see that although there is a fair number of falls and no‐changes, many chiefs have been successful in extracting higher book‐funds from their authorities—no mean achievement in a year which has seen a pretty general standstill in rate demands. Essex is up by no less than 30%, and the percentage increases are in double figures in not a few cases. My own home borough is up by exactly one‐third, though it still only reaches the miserly total of £115,000 for a population of 200,000—well down the per capita league for London boroughs.
Books and the death watch beetle
Authors: Baumfield Brian
Published: March 2008

This is an abridged version of a paper given by the author at the Public Libraries Group weekend school at Lancaster University in April. It is the Group's intention to publish the paper in full at a later date in a volume of conference proceedings.
Comment
Authors: Smith JS , Pearce Mike , Lester DF , Turner Angela
Published: March 2008

WHAT I WILL SUGGEST in the following paragraphs is a new look at library values. I suppose, however, we must first define values and what we mean by values.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Kempson Elaine , Buchanan John
Published: March 2008

IT IS A sobering thought that the Canadian Library Association's 31st annual conference last month attracted about 1000 librarian‐delegates to discuss the library needs of ethnic groups; this from a total Canadian population just 40% of the UK's. This year's LA conference in Scarborough in September is the first of the new‐style ‘national’ gatherings, and it must be hoped that the unlimited range will draw a record attendance; but it is not likely to be anywhere near commensurate with the CLA. I realise the problems, but effort must surely start to be given towards drawing much wider representation of all professional sectors and tiers at the British annual conference in future years. The goodwill is there on the association's part. It is the employers, 1 fancy, who have got to be pressed into releasing and funding staff, allied also to a withholding of suspicion by those librarians who still view the LA as an association of public librarians.
Recreance on the A635
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

I WOULD HAVE thought my ex‐colleague Thrasher the last person to break away from public libraries. He was not tempted in the least by information officer posts in the 1950's, nor by college resource centre empires in the sixties and he even refused a number of offers of licensed clownships at various library schools during the puff‐ball growth years.
Comment
Authors: Houghton Bernard , Revill Don , Grayson Lesley , Ahmad Nazir
Published: March 2008

THE COMPUTER was first applied to the processing of bibliographical information in 1961 when the Chemical abstracts service (CAS) produced Chemical titles (CT), a machine‐generated alphabetical subject index to the 600 most significant journals covered by the parent journal Chemical abstracts. The key‐word‐in‐context (KWIC) format devised for CT was quickly adopted by other secondary bibliographical services to alleviate the problems imposed by the phenomenal growth of the scientific and technical literature.
Sibthorp was right
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

WELL, THAT'S what Thrasher said in his last letter to me: Colonel Sibthorp, the honourable and gallant member of parliament for Lincoln, was right in opposing the 1850 Public Libraries Act. His reasons for saying this—which he gives at some length and which I shall do my best to precis faithfully below— add up to a belief that it would have been better if rates‐supported libraries had never been instituted.
Commonplaces
Authors: Bingley Clive , Kempson Elaine
Published: March 2008

FORTY YEARS have elapsed since the idea was first mooted; now it looks like happening. The Booksellers Association is to establish a UK Book Trade Promotion House.
Home truths
Authors: Shallow Robert
Published: March 2008

ONE SUNDAY afternoon, some thirty or so years ago, I was standing in Trafalgar Square with a few politically conscious friends and several thousand other people. We were attending a rally (demonstration, demo, you know) demanding Freedom—for Greece, I think. Yes, I'm fairly sure it was. Hands off Guatemala came later, but although that slogan still survives on some London walls, I can now only guess whose were the hands in question and I've quite forgotten if they kept off or were taken off, or not. I know I should be ashamed of myself (and will be when I have the time), but I rarely get around to wondering nowadays how are things in Guatemala.
Authors in the news
Authors: Griffin Brian
Published: March 2008

JOHN SMITH'S assertion that librarianship is ‘getting the right book to the right reader at the right time’ (NLW, July), and Maurice Line's declaration that ‘the sole aim of librarianship is to serve users’ (NLW, September) are, like many truisms, well worth pondering over.
Lost illusions
Authors: Duckworth Alan
Published: March 2008

‘'E'S ASLEEP,’ said Jock and nodded towards the enquiry desk. Ciderman looked up from the evening paper, which he now knew by heart, having already that day memorised the Daily mirror, Sun, Daily mail and Daily express. He had some of the Guardian, Times and Daily telegraph off pat too, and even though his politics denied him such intimacy with the Morning star, he was pretty hot on current affairs. His dreams, when he was sleeping the ‘Strongbow’ off in the hostel were as much like Henry Kissinger's as anybody's, though perhaps it was as well for the world that he wasn't in the same position to realise them when he woke up. He looked at the enquiry desk and saw the librarian's grey head cradled on his arms.