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WITH A PICKET LINE on the front door of Islington Town Hall where the meeting of June 12 was being held, Council might have been denuded of its NALGO members, but there did not seem any numerical difference made to the attendance and the President assured everyone present that they were not really blacklegs!

The recent LISC discussion paper Basic professional education for library and information work spoke of the need to recruit ‘a number of potential innovators and high fliers … managers of new enterprises’, particularly those in the it field. Small LISC misery twinges, then, at the publication of Graduate supply and availability to 1986 by the Institute of Manpower Studies. Apparently there's a shortage of high flying graduates, characters with substantial personal drive and matching intellectual skills. What's worse is that the problem is sharpest among it graduates where a drop of 10% is expected in the next two years. So dreary old trad librarians may have a short reprieve from being flown over and innovated at.

FULL CIRCLE? The Danish public library service is one of the most developed systems in the world. From unlimited borrowings of books, loans of records and artworks, to concerts, filmshows and public meetings, the average Danish public library is genuinely a community centre. Danish authors receive a lending right payment for the use of their books in public libraries.

I RECEIVED a most unusual publication through the post the other day which may not strictly come within the scope of this column, since it won't answer any particular problem except that of where to go for your holidays. It's called The North: a feminist local history and holiday guide by Susan Evasdaughter and is one of a series of similar booklets that includes London, Home Counties, West Country, Wales, and Central England. The books are not intended to be comprehensive holiday guides listing the best places to stay, the most interesting walks etc, but rather set out by area some of the most important things of specific interest to women. Information ranges from ‘pre‐historic matriarchal times’ to present day feminist activities. There is information on women castle builders, famous lesbians, local women heroes, artists, queens and witches, suffragettes, politicians, discoverers etc. Where possible information is given about places for women to stay although there aren't many specifically for women. The quality of printing is fairly basic; I expect the booklets were produced on a shoestring, so don't expect tourist board glossies. However, a lot of work has obviously gone into them, each has a name index, and they would be useful additions not only for local studies collections but also for any libraries who have a community information section on women's studies. The booklets cost £1.00 from 47 Ladysmith Avenue, Newbury Park, Ilford, Essex.

To look at the pseudonymous writings of Maurice Line.

Appropriately humorous.

Professional humour in the UK is rare and deserves to be better bibliographed. Better bibliographing is one object of this short exploration of the other side of Line, this unveiling of pseudonyms and will provide, perhaps, a wider access to a rare resource.

Better bibliographing of pseudonyms.

Highlights issues of pseudonymity by a librarian well known himself for his humorous writing.

Metropolitan miseries ‐ 1 City of Westminster. We received in November a short sharp letter signed by most of the library staff protesting about cuts in the service. These were attributed to ‘one man's report’, a citation vague enough to account for a mild grumble from Barnes (M). ‘Trouble is’, he said in some sorrow, ‘they think it was my report.’ It wasn't. It was the doing of a councillior now elevated to chair the committee to run (down) the library service. Further misery: Harrison (K C) is reported to have bewailed the disappearance of the title ‘City Librarian’, for when Barnes (M) goes the library service gets submerged in a leisure directorate. Barnes (M) is now (at the time of reading) Guildhall Librarian, City of London. They have their own miseries there, but they are well gilded and guilded by centuries of mediaeval floohflah under a heavy top dressing of well‐established City ways with money and the making thereof. And in case you haven't noticed, the City of London is listed with all those naughty places like Hackney and Sheffield and the glc as an over‐spending local authority. It's enough to make City Common Councilmen stand guard at Temple Bar and turn back ministers and royal persons.

A NOTABLE FEATURE of the changes which have occurred in librarianship in recent years is a reassertion of the importance of the individual. Within the organisational context, classical management theories, MbO and the like, which have been overly preoccupied with systems and processes, have given way to the Human Relations School, theories of social interaction and group dynamics, and participative styles of management. Similarly the trend towards subject specialisation, user education and information officers has made the individual user a growing focus of attention. These changes are reflected in the literature by an increasing number of articles advocating that training for librarianship should step beyond the subjects traditionally associated with professional education and embrace a wider range of interdisciplinary subjects more appropriate for the study of communications. Communication is, after all, the central concern of the library. The interaction between readers, information and librarians represents a social system where the behaviour, perceptions and values of the people involved are of crucial importance in many areas of library research. It would seem that librarians are beginning to realise that knowledge about libraries is fundamentally social.

This year the Library Association Record is 100 years old. The author, who has been a regular recipient of the journal for two‐thirds of that time, and who has contributed articles, book reviews, obituaries and letters to it, surveys its progress over the period. He comments on the different approaches of its editors, from Henry Guppy in the 1890s, through such outstanding figures as Esdaile and Walford, to the present day. The journal has survived many difficulties such as financial constraints, shortages of paper in two world wars, accusations of dullness and changes of editorial approach. In this historical sketch the author also mentions alterations in its design, and praises the way the editorial board and its staff have coped with producing a journal for 600 members in the 1890s to one for over 26,000 in the 1990s.

LAST MONTH we wrote in anticipation of the Annual General Meeting at the National Conference in Nottingham. This month we are able to comment on the event itself, which was duly held on September 12th.

THE NAME OF Peter Labdon was first printed as Editor of NLW in the issue for July 1977. In this present issue it appears thus for the last time. In January 1983 Peter takes on the honorary and taxing role of Treasurer of the Library Association, which he sees as conflicting with continuation as NLW's Editor, and I will eschew mischief and concede him the point.