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WE HEARD the other day of a large metropolitan public library system in the UK which takes one copy of NLW and circulates photocopies of its articles to senior staff on a kind of SDI basis. Doubtless we are not the only victim, nor this particular system the only offender.

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:

THE National Reference Library of Science and Invention may be said to be devoted to three R's— reference, research and referral. The purpose of this article is to illustrate this theme, with a picture of the services and activi‐ties of the Library, and to indicate when it can be of help to other libraries. However, it is necessary first to outline briefly the origins and present stage of development of the Library, for despite the amount of publicity it has had, the NRLSI remains relatively little known or little understood compared with the other library departments of the British Museum.

AFTER BEING INDEPENDENT for 30 years, the International Patent Institute (IIB) is to become part of the European Patent Office which becomes operational next year. It is therefore appropriate to consider the institute's history and to examine its vital role under the new regime. The IIB was founded at The Hague under a diplomatic agreement of June 6 1947 originally signed by four countries—Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands—and at later dates by the governments of Monaco, Switzerland and Turkey. The agreement was signed by the United Kingdom on August 2 1965.

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.

Current issues of Publishers' Weekly are reporting serious shortages of paper, binders board, cloth, and other essential book manufacturing materials. Let us assure you these shortages are very real and quite severe.

Legal databases can be classified into four groups:

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.

PROBLEMS CREATE challenges because solutions to them must be found, so hard times may well be ripe times for taking courageous steps forward.

THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION'S worsening financial position is a matter of general concern, and any constructive suggestions will no doubt be helpful to the Honorary Treasurer and others who plan our finances. The present Library Association structure is workable in practice, but it is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain, and a little thought begins to show the possibilities of economy, without any loss of effectiveness. The most important associated factor at the present time is the possibility of drastic local government reorganisation in 1974, only one year after the earliest date when Library Association subscriptions can be increased. The effect of this reorganisation, as at present proposed, on Library Association structure, needs to be borne in mind.