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THIS month is that in which librarians of public libraries are concerned with budgets. In spite of occasional croakings, it is fair to say that the worst of the crisis is over, and, if prosperity is not here, it is at least on the way. It will be interesting to learn if the cuts which some libraries had to make in their appropriations will be continued this year. Libraries have demonstrated beyond disproof that they have played a part in the depression in raising some of the gloom from the minds of the people, and can make reasonable claim to have financial consideration of the fact. Fortunately, in our worst times, the grotesque cutting which public libraries in the United States were called to endure was not suffered here.

A Crown Court hearing of a charge of applying a false A description under S.2, Trade Descriptions Act, 1968, is given in some detail under Legal Proceedings in this issue of BFJ. It concerns using the word “ham”, ie., the natural leg of a single pig, to various pieces from several pigs, deboned, defatted, “tumbled, massaged and cooked” in a mould shaped to a leg of ham, from which the average purchaser would find it impossible to distinguish. As the defence rightly claimed, this process has been used for at least a couple of decades, and the product forms a sizeable section of the bacon trade. Evidence by prosecution witnesses, experienced shop managers, believed the product to be the genuine “ham”. There is nothing detrimental about the meat, save that it tends to contain an excess of added water, but this applies to many meat products today; or that the manufacturers are setting out to cheat the consumer. What offends is the description given to the product. Manufacture was described in detail—a county trading standards officer inspected the process at the defendant company's Wiltshire factory, witness to the extent of their co‐operation—and was questioned at great length by defending counsel. Specimens of the product were exhibited and the jury were treated to a tasting test—presumably designed to refute prosecution's claim that the meat was of “poor value”. The trial judge said the jury had no doubt been enlightened as to the methods of manufacturing ham. The marketing of the product was also a subject of examination.

The Library Association of Ireland issued last month the first number of An Leabharlann, their new official journal. The title, for those of us who do not speak the language of Erin, means The Library. It is an extremely interesting venture which will be followed by librarians on the mainland with sympathetic curiosity. In particular our readers would be interested in the first of a series of articles by Father Stephen J. Brown, S.J., on Book Selection. The worthy Father lectures on this subject at University College, Dublin, in the Library School. It is mainly concerned with what should not be selected, and deals in vigorous fashion with the menace of much of current published stuff. No doubt Father Brown will follow with something more constructive. Mr. T. E. Gay, Chairman of the Association, discusses the need for a survey of Irish libraries and their resources. We agree that it is necessary. The Net Books Agreement, the Council, Notes from the Provinces, and an article in Erse—which we honestly believe that most of our Irish friends can read—and an excellent broadcast talk on the Library and the Student by Miss Christina Keogh, the accomplished Librarian of the Irish Central Library, make up a quite attractive first number. A list of broadcast talks given by members of the Association is included.

THE Programme of the Library Association Conference which reached us on April 22nd is one of much interest. Every year increases the difficulty of providing matter which has such appeal that members can say at the close that the time has been spent profitably. The pre‐print of the papers—a rather incomplete affair—raises the thought that Conference time could be better used than in discussions on such “Research Committee” matters as library vans and temporary buildings, excellent as we admit the enquiries and results of them to be. Yet this reflection is accompanied by the certainty that there have been few conferences which have not contributed something of material use to every participator and we still hold the view that more is learned in “a week at one than in months of hermit‐like seclusion.” That last quotation was written in the first edition of Brown's Manual and is valid to this day. Our representatives will write impressions after the event, not by way of detailed report, but as endeavouring to sum up what, if anything, material has been achieved. The report published by the Association usually gives the papers in extenso, but we wish its issue could be delayed long enough to provide more informative records of the discussions. As the best contributions occasionally come from the floor, the bare‐bones notes of the names of speakers and almost telegram‐like utterances they are supposed to have made, which have been the customary report, could be greatly improved.

THE year 1954 opened more brightly, in some respects, than most previous years. Salaries are better than they used to be, staffs are larger, and hours are shorter. But there is even less room for complacency or even bare satisfaction than there was forty years ago. Then, however poor was the pay and however long the hours, there was every indication that librarianship was gradually becoming recognized as a profession which in time would rank with the great professions. Principles and objectives were clear and were never lost sight of, but librarians and assistants of that day realized that the great professions were dependant, not only on principles but upon absolute mastery of technique; that no lawyer could survive who merely talked grandiloquently about the principles and objectives of his calling; that the medical man endured—and in many instances enjoyed—a severe and lengthy training in technique and practice, and that even when he became a specialist his prime need and principal qualification was absolute mastery and up to date knowledge of technique and practice in his field of specialisation. In the light of that fad a detailed study of library technique became accepted as essential, and a mass of practical and technical literature was studied and mastered by more than one generation. For examination purposes, perhaps more than for any other reason, the present generation of assistants continues that study, but there has been a change of weight. Today we hear frequently that technique is relatively unimportant and that principles and objectives are the vital essentials.

WE offer our readers again our best wishes for the joy that appropriately belongs to Christmas. The happy festival comes at the close of one of the most fruitful and useful years in library history: a year which has seen wide developments—not, indeed, in the establishment of new libraries, though these have not been wanting (the last month of the year, for example, has seen Lord Elgin open the new library at Hendon), but in a drawing together of existing organizations, the creation of a really new Library Association, and a degree of co‐operation which thirty years ago would have seemed difficult.