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Argues that the Victorian scholar, J.M. Robertson, through the approaches he took to analysis of Shakespeare’s literary style and mannerisms, contributed to the techniques of modern information science. In particular, Robertson had great skill in information retrieval, and a commitment to lifelong learning.

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.

MALTBY, ARTHUR. U.K. catalogue use survey. London: Library Association, 1973. 35 p. Library Association research publication, no. 12. £1.25 (£1 to members). This report on the use and non‐use of the catalogue by readers describes the findings of a project carried out largely by the various schools of librarianship in April/May 1971. Two previous pilot studies had been carried out to refine the questionnaire to make it applicable throughout the United Kingdom. Special libraries were reluctantly excluded, but all other types of library were included. The method chosen was that of briefed interviewers and a structured interview, largely because it seemed desirable to catch not only those who use the catalogue, but also those who do not. Of the total of 3,252 interviewed, 1914 (59 per cent) actually used the catalogue; of the 41 per cent who never used the catalogue, the vast majority stated that they could manage without it, while 281 preferred to ask the staff. Probably most of this group went straight to the shelves. From the break‐down by type of library, it would seem that municipal and county libraries hardly need a catalogue at all. There is also the point that if more people had been shown how to use the catalogue, more would use it.

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.

ONE OF MY oldest friends in the profession of librarianship retires next month from the post he has held for the last 19 years —that of City Librarian of Westminster.

AFTER AN ABSENCE of some months I returned to the pages of NEW LIBRARY WORLD, half expecting to find a mixture of ‘How I did reorganisation good’ and ‘The penny has just dropped’, depending upon the luck and/or influence of contributors. I was not disappointed, but, in a class apart, it was sad to read Philip Hepworth's account of humiliation and unfair treatment. (‘Defeat’, January NLW). He was not alone. One's faith in the essential fairness of the local government appointment system, built up over many years, was shattered in weeks. It is to the eternal discredit of the Library Association that during the agonising months of 1973/74 the dubious practices of certain local authorities were not challenged.

I AM BECOMING used to the modern convention which graces any hotchpotch of arrangements with the term ‘system’. Nevertheless I was surprised to find (NLW p53) Abraham Silence wondering how ‘the old system might have operated had it received an injection of the millions of pounds which have been spent at Boston Spa’.

THE first surprise when travelling by air from Fiji to Western Samoa is that one leaves Fiji on Saturday and arrives in Western Samoa on Friday. This is because of crossing the International Date Line en route and a story is told in Fiji of a man who owned a shop through which the date line ran. Sunday trading is frowned on in Fiji but our friend got round this by opening only half of his shop on Sunday—the half on the Saturday or Monday side of the date line. It is therefore not surprising that the Fiji Times describes itself as “the first newspaper in the world every day”.

THE Newcastle school, like most others, was established after the second world war to provide full‐time education in librarianship as an alternative to the part‐time system which until 1946 was the only one available to the majority of librarians. At first most of the students were returning servicemen whose library careers had been interrupted by the war and they were followed by students direct from libraries, universities and schools. From a handful of students and one full‐time member of staff in the first year the school has grown steadily until there were 53 students and five staff during the session 1962–3 which was the last course held for the Registration Examination.

IN 1946 there was in the British Isles a clear image of librarianship in most librarians' minds. The image depended on a librarian's professional environment which was of the widest possible range, not less in variation than the organisations, institutes or types of community which required library services. Generalisations are like cocoanuts but they provide for the quickest precipitation of variant definitions, after the stones have been thrown at them. A generalisation might claim that, in 1946, public librarians had in mind an image of a librarian as organiser plus technical specialist or literary critic or book selector; that university and institute librarians projected themselves as scholars of any subject with a special environmental responsibility; that librarians in industry regarded themselves as something less than but as supplementing the capacity of a subject specialist (normally a scientist). Other minor separable categories existed with as many shades of meaning between the three generalised definitions, while librarians of national libraries were too few to be subject to easy generalisation.