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IDEAL methods of Library service; this, in simple translation is the purpose before the Library Association Conference at Manchester this year. The first thing that strikes any observer is the great variety of current library work. There was a day, so recent that fairly young men can remember it, when a Library Association Conference could focus its attention upon such matters as public library charging systems, open access versus the indicator, the annotated versus the title‐a‐line catalogue, the imposition of fines and penalties; in short, on those details of working which are now settled in the main and do not admit of general discussion. All of them, too, it will be observed, are problems of the public library. When those of other libraries came into view in those days they were seen only on the horizon. It was believed that there was no nexus of interest in libraries other than the municipal variety. Each of the others was a law unto itself, and its problems concerned no one else. The provision of books for villages, it is true, was always before the public librarian; he knew the problem. In this journal James Duff Brown wrote frequently concerning it; before the Library Assistants' Association, Mr. Harry Farr, then Deputy Librarian of Cardiff, wrote an admirable plea for its development. Wyndham Hulme once addressed an annual dinner suggesting it as the problem for the younger librarians. Carnegie money made the scheme possible. But contemporaneously with the development of the Rural Library system, which now calls itself the County Library system as an earnest of its ultimate intentions, there has been a coming together of the librarians of research and similar libraries. We have a section for them in the Library Association.

LIBRARIES are not a first priority in the building programme of the nation. It would be difficult to make them so. The Library Association Council, we are assured, have this matter under consideration continually and will lose no opportunity to urge the need for extensions of old buildings and for new ones. The demand for libraries grows, in the face of other needs, at a pace which is both a pleasure and an embarassment to librarians. Some authorities have made provision for new libraries this year in budgets which come under consideration this month, and we hope the Ministry concerned will allow some of these projects to be realized.

The people of this country are frequently described, more or less correctly, as “long suffering,” and there is possibly no question in regard to which they have suffered so much and so long as that of the national food supply. Now and again some more thoughtful member of the Legislature addresses a question on the subject to some responsible Minister of the Crown, possibly on the sufficiency, or sometimes even on the purity of some article of food, and receives an answer which, as a general rule, is a mere feeble evasion of the particular point on which information is desired.

IN wishing our readers the compliments of the New Year, we can congratulate them and ourselves upon the manner in which libraries of all kinds have survived one of the mo difficult economic times in memory. It is true that the Great War furnished many library authorities with a pretext, perhaps to some extent justified, to reduce their library activity. But of late they have had the authority of a Government demand for retrenchment in actual money, which was likely to have had a severe influence upon libraries. Fortunately, as Lord Irwin pointed out at the opening of Chaucer House, public libraries escaped the universal axe which was applied to other departments—at any rate in a measure; although, indeed, there were places, like Sheffield, where the cut was not reasonable. Nevertheless, on the whole it may be said that public libraries came out of the difficult situation with happier results than most institutions. It is not accurate to say that the crisis is over, but it is quite true that its worst time has passed, and that there is a definite opening out of financial possibilities throughout Great Britain. “We see not yet the full day here, but we behold the waning night,” is a quotation which we may apply to the present situation.

WINTER set in almost with Autumn this year, and the results have been felt in libraries. Added to the season has been the monetary position of the world and the election in our own country in particular. It was to be expected that the election would slow up the use of libraries, but such reports as reach us are to the opposite effect. There have been definite increases in work done. This is important in face of the budgetting difficulties of libraries that are prophesied. The enforced leisure of unemployment has fallen on many men of the distinctly employable and therefore of the reading class, and these are finding encouragement and at least a temporary escape from their plight in books and in reading rooms. They may even find some new occupational interest there; and all good librarians will exploit the opportunities which this time of stress affords to the utmost. It is most important to keep level‐headed over difficulties, which we hope may be temporary for libraries, and not to acquiesce in panic retrench‐ments while ceding what is necessary to the general welfare. We cannot cede much; we have never had a superfluity.

THE library year ends in no spectacular way. If posterity has any cause to remember 1932 it will probably be as of a year when the doctrine of economy was raised to the rank of a divine dogma by a world of debtors and creditors all crazed with fear over international debts. A year of hurried committees producing reports for the reduction of expenditures, beneficient or otherwise; especially, in this last month, a report which if implemented would cripple almost every local activity, and set back the clock of social effort at least thirty years. The intention of such reports is no doubt good; their effects are yet to be seen. So far, the increased parsimony in national and local affairs seems only to have intensified unemployment without bettering the general situation. A reaction against all this is beginning, not a moment too soon, and all who care for the finer things in our civilisation will be compelled to stand against the more unsocial recommendations of these reports.

The background and origins of Cybernetics are viewed from a philosophical standpoint, with special emphasis on semantics. Artificial Intelligence is regarded as a central aspect of Cybernetics and both Artificial Intelligence and Cybernetics as part of Information Science. The principal concentration is with Cybernetics itself.

It has been argued that Gödel's theorem proves the case against the possibility of artificially intelligent machines, capable of achieving the same level of intelligence as human beings. The argument is that if a human being were a logistic system L, how is possible that it can see certain theorems to be provable when Gödel shows that such a system cannot demonstrate whether such theorems are provable or not. The fallacy is that the theorems of L that the human can see to be provable are a subset L′ of L, and that for some theorems of L′ and not L the human is subject to the same limitation as the machine.

Cybernetics and artificial intelligence are viewed primarily as being a major part of information science which is considered as we would any other scientific discipline. It is suggested that such a science must be capable of formalization. Language is considered as a major feature of science, where mathematics is a specialized part of language. The analysis of language in the form of semantics and pragmatics is regarded as essential to the understanding of any linguistic usage, particularly when some degree of precision is entailed. Discusses information science and its foundations in philosophy, logic and especially in semantics and pragmatics.