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This paper considers factors central to the design, specification and implementation of a private bibliographic database for internally generated techno‐commercial report documentation: emphasis is placed on pragmatic solutions resulting from experiences at PA Technology in developing a system based on custom‐designed menu‐driven software for an existing Wang VS computer installation. A systematic survey of potential users highlighted the Company's needs and requirements, identified the desirability of a distributed search capability and consequently the paramount importance of user‐friendliness. Subject access to documents emerged as an overriding need which led to the development of a retrieval language based on a controlled vocabulary structured hierarchically. Existing thesauri were assessed for use in indexing and searching the documentation and rapidly developing areas of technology were felt to be inadequately represented; hence a dynamic vocabulary was developed in‐house. Further additional searchable fields conveyed a high degree of flexibility and satisfied the Company's perceived needs. The majority of the desirable features were incorporated when the database was first released within a relatively short timescale, eighteen man‐months after project initiation. The modular approach adopted permits further enhancement with minimal resources.

AT THE instigation of Peter Labdon, who is County Librarian of Suffolk as well as a member of the executive committee of the National Book League (when his awesome editorial responsibilities at NLW allow him the time), the NBL is starting an exciting new development designed to create, it is hoped, a set of regional branches throughout the UK.

Planning is a critical step in the process toward quality instruction and should also include consideration for what technology is appropriate for the lesson. Teacher educators must assist preservice teachers in learning this critical planning step of the instructional cycle. The purpose of this article is to present a step‐by‐step procedure to be used by preservice teachers when determining the appropriate use of technology in instruction.

Various strategies have been used by teacher educators to facilitate preservice teachers’ learning how to integrate technology. Some of these strategies are the modeling of technology integration by university instructors, the exposure to the use of technology in the classrooms during field experience, and including technology into the curriculum. In spite of these efforts, there is evidence that some teacher educators feel that preservice teachers are still not convinced of the value of integrating technology in their lessons. This article suggests that perhaps preservice teachers are still reluctant about the benefit of integrating technology because they have not been given a process for deciding which form(s) of technology should be used for what kind of instruction.

Included are charts with detailed descriptions, providing a step‐by‐step process for integrating technology into instruction. These charts demonstrate that the decision about what technology to use in a lesson is first based upon the needs of the learners and the material being taught.

This process demonstrates that technology is transparent: curriculum and the needs of learners drive the choice of technology, instead of technology being used just for technology sake.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This paper aims to explore the policy background, educational rationale, developmental stages, and the introduction and piloting of a foundation degree (FD).

The approach is a description and discussion. The paper draws together, for the first time, the main policy documents and reviews and relates these to the pilot programme.

This new qualification is an attempt to reduce the academic and vocational divide, improve intermediate skill levels, develop the qualifications progression ladder and effectively widen participation to higher education (HE) for non‐traditional groups. Despite criticisms and hesitant take up FDs represent a significant development in British Higher Education producing some innovative and successful programmes such as the FD in Health and Social Care at Bradford University.

Of value to those interested in developments in HE. A number of conclusions are drawn and questions are raised regarding the extent to which FDs might achieve their objectives.

THE new library building has been open for six months now. It is pleasantly situated in an area of new buildings, and occupies a prominent island site just on the edge of the shopping centre. The old library was in the middle of a shopping area, and it has been interesting to note that our removal from that site has had a more considerable effect on the traffic pattern than one would have thought.

FORTY YEARS have elapsed since the idea was first mooted; now it looks like happening. The Booksellers Association is to establish a UK Book Trade Promotion House.

With this number the Library Review enters on its ninth year, and we send greetings to readers at home and abroad. Though the magazine was started just about the time when the depression struck the world, its success was immediate, and we are glad to say that its circulation has increased steadily every year. This is an eminently satisfactory claim to be able to make considering the times through which we have passed.

THERE was a rather remarkable statement made at the Royal Institute of British Architects by Mr. Berwick Sayers last month. He affirmed that so far as the recorded issues of the reference libraries in the municipal libraries of London were concerned, only 8,880 books were consulted daily. This, as the statistical account of twenty‐nine public libraries, shows an average of a fraction over 302 books daily. To some this may seem not an inadequate issue, if all the books recorded are books which the student and the searcher for information have used. The point of the meeting at which the remark was made was that the reference libraries of London should do more in co‐operation with industry, and it was argued by the representatives of ASLIB who took part in the conference that our London reference libraries should be strengthened in the science and technology departments, even at the expense of the lending libraries. The experience of the public librarian seemed to be that few people lived in London near their work; and that they had command of the special libraries in London in a way that provincial industrialists had not, and therefore they did not make any use that mattered of London reference libraries. The Chambers of Commerce in the various boroughs of London consist of small traders as a rule whose main purpose is “to keep down the rates,” and who have very little connection with industry on the scale in the minds of the ASLIB representatives. In short, the chief function of the London public libraries is mainly that of home reading. Ultimately the solution of the reference problem may be the establishment of one or two great regional reference libraries supported by the co‐operation of the boroughs. Co‐operation, however, is in its initial stages yet, and it will probably be some time before such an ideal, if it be an ideal, is achieved.

THE note of the Conference at Harrogate was the question of unemployment in relation to libraries. The arguments advanced were intended for the wider public rather than for librarians, and reproduced a now fairly familiar argument that the issues of books from libraries have increased by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the depression. It is quite clear that many men who normally would not read quite so much have turned to books for consolation and guidance. The fact that branch libraries were closed at Glasgow as an economy measure, and were afterwards re‐opened under the force of public opinion, would emphasize the opinion generally held that in times of economic stress it may be an even greater economy to increase expenditure upon libraries than to curtail it. This argument is, of course, in a region which the average material mind of our governors cannot always reach. It is nevertheless true, and the Conference provided ample evidence of its truth.