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During this month the average librarian is given furiously to think over the estimates, and in this year, perhaps more than any other, will that adverb be applicable. The matter is so important that we do not apologise for dealing with it once more. In March in nearly every town there will be a determined effort by men who call themselves “economists” to reduce the appropriation for public libraries. The war is the most handsome excuse that the opponents of public culture have ever had for their attacks upon the library movement. It is obvious that these attacks will take the direction of an endeavour to reduce the penny rate, where this has not been done already. In the year that has passed retrenchment has been the watchword of all municipal work, and many librarians have either ceased to buy new books or have bought only those of vital importance. This has meant that a certain amount of money usually devoted to books has accumulated. Seeing that legally money which has been raised for library purposes cannot be expended in any other direction, the only way in which the “economists” can work is to propose a reduction of next year's rate by an amount corresponding to the balance. It is an extraordinary thing that after decades of demonstration the average local public man cannot or will not see that money taken from the funds of a public library cannot be restored to it later. The limitation of the penny rate is nearly always forgotten or ignored, and the common phrase of such men: “You must economise now and we will give you more money after the war,” has been heard by most librarians. An endeavour should be made to drive home the fact that retrenchment in books, or in other matters in connexion with libraries, now means so much actual irreparable loss to the libraries. We have dealt several times in these pages with the vexed question of balances. Practice differs so much in different localities that it seems impossible to get any universal ruling in connexion with this matter. Many libraries have been able to invest their balances in some form of war loan ; in others the librarian has been told emphatically that such investment is illegal. We can speak of towns within five miles of each other in one of which money has been invested, and in the other investment is banned in this way. Unfortunately librarians have been rather silent upon this point, and it is difficult to obtain any reliable information as to how many towns have investments. It would strengthen the hands of many librarians if they knew that in so many other municipalities the library funds were so invested.

In the last‐issued volume of his monumental History of the Novel, Dr. E. A. Baker remarks that librarians do not expect to be thanked for their services and then, characteristically, proceeds to thank some dozen or so. Whatever our expectations are, we are none the less appreciative when a writer does express his debt; it helps us, it justifies our work. Few tributes of late have been more graceful than this paid by Mr. J. D. Griffith Davies in his useful and attractive Honest George Monk, which has lately come from Mr. John Lane: “What I should do without the kindly help of my friend, R. J. Gordon, Librarian of the Leeds Public Libraries, I really don't know. Like some fairy godmother he produces for my use the rarest books; and his keen personal interest in all forms of research, and the unfailing courtesy of his colleagues, makes the Reference Library at Leeds one of the homeliest places for work.” It is worth while to compare the expression here with the words Mr. Berwick Sayers has written at the end of his preface to the 1937 edition of Brown's Manual.

In a world where commerce and culture are still somewhat estranged, the purpose of this paper is to show that high culture’s supreme exponents were commercially minded masters of marketing.

Historically situated, the paper adopts a biographical approach to the making of modernism’s literary masterworks. It focuses on Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, who were responsible for the modernist classics, Ulysses and The Waste Land.

The analysis identifies five fundamental marketing principles that appear paradoxical from a traditional, customer-centric standpoint, yet are in accord with latter-day, post-Kotlerite conceptualisations. The marketing of modernism did not rely on “modern” marketing.

If, at the height of the anti-bourgeois modernist movement, the “great divide” between elite and popular culture was bridged by marketing, there is no reason why contemporary culture and commerce cannot collaborate, co-operate, co-exist, coalesce.

The paper complements prior studies of “painterpreneurs”, by drawing attention to the marketing of literary masterworks.

The purpose of this paper is to examine youth literacy and writing practices in select, contemporary young adult literature (YAL), especially how and why literate activity is sponsored, negotiated or occluded by teachers and schools.

The authors position young adult fiction as case studies of youth composing in and out of school. Drawing on Stake's (1995) features of case study research in education, the authors present readings of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero and The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer that highlight particular problems and insights about youth literacy practices that are worth extended examination and reflection.

Both novels feature youth engaging in powerful literacy and writing practices across a range of modes to critically read and write their worlds. These particular texts – and other YAL featuring youth composing – offer teacher educators and pre-service teachers opportunities for critical reflection on their evolving stances on literacy instruction; identities as writing and literacy educators; and pedagogies that enable robust literate activity.

In the US educational context, teacher education programs are required to provide pre-service teachers numerous opportunities to observe and participate as teachers in public school classrooms. YAL offers a unique setting of experience that can be productively paired with more traditional field placements to complement pre-service writing teacher education. Reading YAL featuring youth composing can serve as a useful occasion of reflection on pedagogies that limit and/or make possible students’ meaningful engagement with words and the world.

THE traditional division of information services into science and technology on the one hand and the humanities on the other, does nothing to improve the provision of information in a multi‐disciplinary subject such as planning. The proposal to make separate provision, within the national framework, for the social sciences, which was put forward by J. E. Pemberton in the November issue of this journal, would only serve to further fragment the sources of information in planning.

Near the end of his life, the eminent literary critic Edmund Wilson was editing his notebooks from the Twenties for publication. At one point he added a long passage on Elinor Wylie, a close friend and successful writer whose work he admired: