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The recent literature advising higher education leaders is deficient in its discussion of the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies. This article seek to describe one such technology, the blog, and suggest ways for approaching its use.

A case at Alfred State College is outlined, in which an employee started an anonymous blog as a vehicle for criticism of the administration. This incident is then used as a device for examining issues of communication and trust‐building in electronic venues.

The challenges and opportunities presented by openly critical academic blogs are in many cases unique to academia. The mistakes an administration may make include conceptual mistakes that academic leaders can make about the academic environment, technical mistakes that amateurs can make when attempting to manipulate a technical medium and, most importantly, process mistakes that leaders can make which deeply affect the trust levels in an organization. Although the blog medium is often portrayed as a “problem” for administrators, it is the philosophical orientation and communication principles of leaders that determine whether blogs truly present a problem for an administration.

There are a number of new technologies appearing in higher education and, although a great deal of attention is paid to how these new technologies are used to educate, little attention is paid to the leadership opportunities these technologies create. In contrast to the way they are presented in the educational media, blogs are an enabling technology that actually serve as magnifiers of communication, increasing the speed, distance, and intensity of the information transmitted.

The President has informed the Council of the Library Association that Mr. G. F. Barwick has accepted the office of joint honorary secretary of the Association with Mr. Pacy We welcome the news, because it is evident that if the Library Association is to assume its just position as the organization of librarianship, all the staffs of all the national libraries in the Empire must be prominently identified with it. Hitherto we have had Keepers of the Printed Books as presidents, and in that high office they have exercised wholesome influence, but everyone knows that the most significant position in such a society as ours is the secretaryship, and it is well that a man who is near the head of the profession should be willing to serve in that office. Mr. Barwick has won our respect and esteem by his unassuming and genial qualities, his readiness to help, and his unvarying friendliness. We wish him a pleasant time of office, and we feel sure that Mr. Pacy will find in him the sort of colleague he would desire to have. On the public side we believe the influence of Mr. Barwick's name and position will lend additional weight to the office; a matter of no mean consequence in our time.

THE occasional moving of stock in open‐shelf libraries creates a sense of novelty in the reader. We experienced this recently in entering a library familiar to us where we found the Literature section had been moved and reduced in order to make space for the increase in the Applied Arts class. Further the librarian declared that there was no excessive demand for much of modern poetry, but although the library has the poems of T. S. Eliot in several copies, none was on the shelves or at the moment available. One wonders if poetry that is “modern” has been read by the majority in the past half‐century; it is an art form, often lacking substance and therefore caviare to the ordinary reader. The poets of today with such exceptions as Walter de la Mare and Alfred Noyes, neither of whom is young, have not increased their chances by their deliberate or unconscious obscurity. Even the said‐to‐be most influential of the modern, T. S. Eliot, in such a work as Ash Wednesday, topical this month of course, is completely unintelligible, in spite of the almost divine music of some of its lines, to many quite intelligent and habitual readers. Our librarian declared that readers remain for Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Browning and even for Longfellow, in short for the real classics. This conclusion is borne out by the examination of a day's borrowings a year ago at Manchester. “Modern poetry,” its Report tells us, “seems to be departing from the range of the general reader into some esoteric mystery of its own,” and while the older classics, Browning, Chaucer, Donne and Tennyson were borrowed to the extent of four copies each, other poets were less in demand. Altogether 21 works of individual poets and 16 anthologies went out that day. A small array but, if continued through the year, it meant 11,100 works which are not a negligible number.

Performance management involves using behavior modification techniques to improve organizational performance. The application of performance management to the area of occupational safety is especially well matched, since most workplace injuries can be attributed to behavioral problems (i.e., unsafe acts). This investigation further extends the growing body of literature on safety performance management to yet another industry—offshore oilfield diving. It further bridges the gap between behavior modification theory and practice by heavily incorporating in‐house personnel to implement the performance management interventions.

Discusses organisation, automation and performance measurement aspects of interlibrary loan department management, and developments in charging for and the preservation of ILL items. Highlights the problems of ILL in developing countries, and changes and developments in the rest of the world. Considers electronic document delivery systems, the effect of technological advances on libraries and the “Burgundy effect”.

In recent years much attention has been paid to proposals reform the law on manufacturers' liability for defective oducts. In particular, the so‐called ‘Brussels Directive’, r the approximation of the laws of the member states of e European Economic Community relating to product bility, has excited great controversy. As early as 1976 e first formal proposals were made for a new strict bility regime and revised proposals were submitted to e Council of Ministers on 1st October 1979. The net sult so far has been nil, as member states have disagreed er certain key proposals in the Directive, and the ommunity Consumer Protection policy has floundered the general lack of political impetus generated by ccessive budgetary and agricultural crisis. Yet almost rreptitiously on the domestic front there have been portant developments which may well have the effect of rendering some parts of the E.E.C. proposals obsolete before they reach the statute book.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

Not many weeks back, according to newspaper reports, three members of the library staff of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London were dismissed. All had refused to carry out issue desk duty. All, according to the newspaper account, were members of ASTMS. None, according to the Library Association yearbook, was a member of the appropriate professional organisation for librarians in Great Britain.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

AT the very outset of this paper it is necessary to make clear that it is not an attempt to compile an exhaustive bibliography of literature relating to special librarianship. Neither space nor time permit this. In fact, the references given can only claim to be a sample of the wealth of material on the subject and this paper is submitted in the hope that it will stimulate others to more scholarly efforts. Reference numbers throughout this paper refer to items in the ‘Select list of references to the literature of special librarianship’, section 2 onwards.