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Fire safety management on offshore platforms has been a matter of major concern since the publication of the Cullen report into the Piper Alpha fire. In order to be able to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of fire risk it is desirable to consider the system as a “dynamic whole”. The intention in this research has been to construct a fire safety management system which is both efficacious and resilient. To this end a systemic approach to fire safety for an offshore platform has been pursued, employing the Viable System Model and the Failure Paradigm Method.

THERE were three of us—Cranmer, Bannerman and I— the local field strength of the diminutive PANJANDRUM OIL COMPANY; a miniature Dad's Army, a thin red line protecting the Company's flanks from the attacks of the insidious majors in a continuing David and Goliath confrontation, and occasionally fixing bayonets for a charge into the enemy positions. “They don't like it up 'em, you know!” is Bannerman's standard wry comment on such a sortie. Today we were jostling among the noon‐day drinkers in Willoughby's, like drought‐maddened cattle at some dusty African water‐hole, bespeaking a moist luncheon and getting our suits pressed in situ, as it were, into the bargain. Passing a drink from that bar to the rear ranks was about as easy as working a ball out of a tight scrum. Performing astonishing feats of dexterity Cranmer nevertheless presently emerged through the legs of the thronging patrons, thrusting upon me not only the expected foaming pinta, but also an unexpected whisky chaser; a devious act of generosity patently intended to compromise me into some corresponding response not yet specified. I took the benison with some misgiving and drank thoughtfully. “You do owe me a favour, you know, Antrobus!” he declared, a shade reprovingly, taking a long draught and watching my changed expression closely—and it was, of course, true. If that amazon of a matron with the faintly drawn Mexican moustache and parturient beard had discovered me in the nurses' quarters after the party … my future would not have been worth an old five gallon drum.

“Consumerism”, for want of a better description, is given to the mass of statutory control (which shows no sign of declining) of standards, trading justice to the consumer, means of redress to those who have been misled and defrauded, advice to those in doubt; and to the widespread movement, mostly in the Western world, to achieve these ends.

If there is one thing more than another which epitomises the spirit of goodwill and friendly co‐operation between those who produce and those who consume oil it is the friendly co‐operation and goodwill which exists between those who consume oil and those who produce it.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

SEPTEMBER is the month when, Summer being irrevocably over, our minds turn to library activities for the winter. At the time of writing the international situation is however so uncertain that few have the power to concentrate on schemes or on any work other than that of the moment. There is an immediate placidity which may be deceptive, and this is superficial even so far as libraries are concerned. In almost every town members of library staffs are pledged to the hilt to various forms of national service—A.R.P. being the main occupation of senior men and Territorial and other military services occupying the younger. We know of librarians who have been ear‐marked as food‐controllers, fuel controllers, zone controllers of communication centres and one, grimly enough, is to be registrar of civilian deaths. Then every town is doing something to preserve its library treasures, we hope. In this connexion the valuable little ninepenny pamphlet issued by the British Museum on libraries and museums in war should be studied. In most libraries the destruction of the stock would not be disastrous in any extreme way. We do not deny that it would be rather costly in labour and time to build it up again. There would, however, be great loss if all the Local Collections were to disappear and if the accession books and catalogues were destroyed.

Reviewing the Food Standards Report on Misdescriptions contained in this issue—the terms, names, phrases widespread in the field of agriculture and food—one cannot fail to notice the impressive role that words generally play in everyday use of language, especially in those areas where widespread common usage imports regional differences. The modern tendency is to give to words new meanings and nowhere is this so apparent as in the food industry; the Food Standards Committee considered a number of these. The FSC see the pictorial device as making a deeper impression than mere words in relation to consumer preference, which is undoubtedly true. Even Memory can be compartmentalized and especially with the increasing years, the memory tends to become photographic, retaining visual impressions more strongly than the written word. Auditory impressions depend largely on their accompaniments; if words are spoken with the showing of a picture or sung to a catchy tune, these will be more strongly retained than mere words on a printed label. At best, pictorial devices give rise to transient impressions, depending on the needs and interests of the viewer. Many look but do not see, and as for spoken words, these may “go in one ear and out of the other!”.

IT is known that the Library Association Council has devoted watchful care to the position of libraries in the event of war. As we write, the international situation is as dark as it has been at any time since 1919, and many have that calm, cold feeling that there is nothing to do but to tighten our belts and stand againt the onslaught. Even if that is still avoided, as all who listened to Lord Halifax trust it may be, there should be active protection of the library service which is one of those things which might so easily go under in a time of stress. The Library Association has done well in submitting to Government that experience in the last war proved the value of libraries for information and as a factor in the morale of the people; that their services should, so far as possible, be maintained even during hostilities; that there would be need of library provision for people, and especially for children, “evacuated” to areas where the existing library provision might often be inadequate; and that library buildings should not be used for purposes for which they are unsuitable, seeing that there will be many halls, schools and other buildings that would be better for food‐control, recruiting and so on.

IN the Coventry tragedy, the central (Gulson) library was destroyed. Although not a library of the largest size, it was a considerable one, built up with the greatest skill, foresight and devotion by at least four of the best librarians of modern times, backed by a good committee for a generation. Three of these librarians have since commanded the largest municipal libraries of Great Britain.

AT the Conference at Folkestone of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Library Association, Mr. Jast gave one more example of his old fire and vigour in a paper which he entitled Publishers and Librarians. No doubt in other pages than ours the text will be given in full. Here, in summary, we may say that he dealt with some of the needs of librarians and readers for well‐produced editions of good books which for some reason were obtainable only in double‐columned small type or otherwise almost unreadable or at any rate unattractive form. He instanced Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. He urged that if a sufficient number of public and other librarians represented this want to publishers, promising that the libraries would support such an edition, it was unlikely that the request would be ignored. A further suggestion arose from the established fact that in the welter of editions of certain books many were ill‐produced and unworthy to be placed in the hands of unsuspecting bookbuyers. Robinson Crusoe was a case in point, and as many parents desired their sons to read this they were often persuaded to buy editions which were unsuitable. Here he made a suggestion which is entirely practicable: that the Library Association should examine all of the common classics for form and for textual accuracy—a feature in which he alleged that some were deficient—and fix on suitable editions, allowing the publisher to add to their title‐pages “approved by the Library Association.” We seize upon this point first because there is nothing Utopian about it. It is a work that ought to be done.