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NLW is to be congratulated on its promptly‐secured interview with Harold Hookway in a sparkling March number which compares very favourably indeed with the January LAR that I happened to be reading at the same time. Generous though it was of NLW in an earlier issue to lament Edward Dudley's passing (temporary no doubt) from the LA Council, surely here was a massive vote of no‐confidence in an editorial job universally admitted to be badly done. How can the head of a great and successful library school find time to edit his profession's official journal? I have previously suggested that the LA should try to establish some business relationship with the only current English library publication for all staff levels in all types of library that comes close to what the membership wants. Let the LA stick to those publications that it does very well and that enhance its reputation—Library history, and the Journal of librarianship, and pass the buck for a newsy popular magazine elsewhere.

PORN IS IN THE NEWS AGAIN. The Bishop of Coventry has suggested that good citizens form vigilante groups (literary lynch mobs?) to fight ‘the rising tide of filth’, while Lord Longford has announced the names of the people to serve on his very own enquiry into the subject of pornography. One would suggest that the membership of the committee would invalidate any conclusion that it might reach. A sanctified pop singer, an ageing tv guru and assorted clergymen cannot be said to be a representative selection of the community. Not one member of the unofficial commission appears to have an open mind on the topic.