Search results

The LA Council Meeting of November 17 began with discussion of a paper presented by the Honorary Treasurer, Peter Labdon, on the future financing policy of the association. It was primarily concerned with membership and emphasised that the most important issue facing the association now is how to attract and keep in membership sufficient of the shrinking number of those educated and/or working in the field of information to ensure the future of the Association. It was a frank examination of the subscription profile, methods of collection of subscriptions, the costs of registration, and, above all, the benefits of membership as perceived by the members themselves.

IT IS NOW clear to me that you are a Machiavellian old cod of a higher order than even I gave you credit for and you must have been laughing yourself wet since Thursday January 15.

DURING the latter part of 1980 I read a number of articles dealing with the subject of obituaries. The first, in time and in professional interest, was by Edward Dudley in the Library Association record — which he edited for nine years. It is good to see that he now has time to take a critical look at some sections of that journal, starting (LAR September 1980 p423) with the obituaries.

MR RONALD BENGE, distinguished penseur, tutor in philosophy both classical and homespun, self‐confessed ‘lapsed librarian’ and ‘detached insider’ has written a book about himself—a point which it is desirable to state because not all autobiographies are in truth about their subjects—and since more or less everyone within his peripatetic physical and spiritual ambits has heard rumours for some years that this oeuvre was in progress, there will be general relief that it has now appeared in published form (Confessions of a lapsed librarian, Scarecrow Press 1984, $16; UK, Bailey Bros), so that we can all look up our own names in the index and, perhaps, elsewhere. (I may say at once that the index itself is a predictable short masterpiece of oblique priorities. I have an entry all to myself, as does Rudyard Kipling, but luminaries such as Edward Dudley, Frank Hogg and Philip Sewell appear only under the entry ‘Colleagues’, while others like Sergeant Bruce Copp aren't indexed at all, which is frightfully irritating because one would love to try to learn more about Ronald's near half‐century friendship with that delightful man other than by wading—in vain—through every word of the text with such an end in view.)

The smiling person on the cover has now left NLW — and was immediately signed up by Jane Jenkins for the Record. I am now Caretaking Editor, for this issue and for March (it seems I am doomed to be Managing Editor or some other euphemism).

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.

1989 was designated Museums Year to commemorate the centenary of the Museums Association, and unlike many of these PR exercises this one resulted in museums (especially national museums based in London) receiving an unusual amount of coverage in the qualities. Whether stories of protests and problems would have the desired positive effect on actual attendances has not yet been calculated. The unusually sunny weather cannot have helped much either. But the Museums Association itself produced a series of 11 regional guides which if read on the beach or in the pool would have enabled the readers almost to think that they had actually visited the collections described in considerable detail. Too many to note here but a list of all the titles is available from the MA or the Museums and Galleries Commission. Simon Olding's Exploring Museums: London (ISBN 0 11 2904653) and Arnold Wilson's Exploring Museums: The South West (ISBN 0 11 2904696) tackle their areas entertainingly, but their step‐by‐step guides to some of their subjects may soon be outdated as many existing museums are currently undergoing major rearrangements or refurbishments.

ROUSED out of pre‐breakfast tea‐gulping torpor recently by hearing on Radio London the confident assertion, ‘Oh yes, there's a great shortage of librarians throughout the country…’ No Rip Van Winkle beard, wasn't April 1 and no echo of the Last Trump. It was all about a book called Work after work by Judy Kirby and REACH—Retired Executives Action Clearing House, which seeks to relieve the withdrawal symptoms of the retired by finding outlets for their skills in work for voluntary organisations. These withdrawal symptoms in librarians are easily recognised and include immediate and compulsive reading of everything in the Record, a tendency to beam for the first time at young people at conferences, and a not always suppressed urge to write rude letters to the professional press or to the LA. Editing the professional press is not recommended as nostrum for those old retirement blues.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a passion to develop the study of information for several reasons:

1. The Managing Director of Diners Club International has sent a ‘personal invitation to join and to enjoy all the privileges of membership for six months, without obligation and save the £15 enrolment fee’ to: