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THE CIVIL CODES of most European countries have, for several decades, required official publication of company details in government gazettes. Thus librarians in each EEC country have enjoyed the availability of an official bulletin, published daily or bi‐weekly: in France, for example, it is called Bulletin officiel des annonces commerciales, a daily document of 70–80 double column pages containing full details of registrations, changes and cessations of all forms of business enterprises, (not only limited companies), together with an index to all personal and business names mentioned. The publication started in 1926 and now costs 50 centimes per issue or Frs 60 in France (c £5) per year. Similar documents at comparable prices are published by the other EEC governments and Denmark too.

A YEAR AGO, in his introductory column, Robert Shallow put forward a reasonable and occasionally persuasive defence of anonymity in a professional journal, with the key point that there are from time to time things which need to be said, and the saying of which may benefit the profession, while bouncing back upon the head, if identified, of him who says them.

ENVY, GREED and a desire for possession are not particularly attractive qualities to display in print but if they are recognised and acknowledged in what follows, then at least my argument may not suffer unduly.

I SUPPOSE some of us who, professionally, have been subject to the whims of authority, have wished that, for once, we could have changed places with our lords and masters; that, instead of attending a committee or council meeting, merely as an officer, we could have sat as a Member.

OUR EDITORIAL in the January NLW dealt with the terminology for resource centres and their content. Since then we have dipped into Advances in librarianship, vol 1 1970, read Chase Dane's article on ‘The changing school library’, and do not like the term ‘instructional media center’, either. Nor do we like the insistence in the article that the purpose of an imc is different from that of a conventional library. ‘The new facilities it demands’, says Dane, ‘reflect a new approach with emphasis on individualized instruction, and a fresh way of helping students learn’. ‘Always before’, we read, ‘the value of the school library has been limited to students who could read or who liked books or who were able to use them effectively. The imc has changed all this. It appeals to the non‐reader as well as to the reader. A student doesn't have to be a good reader to get help from the library. Even if he is a poor reader, there is now a way, through audio‐visual materials, for him to acquire the knowledge he wants’.

WHAT I WILL SUGGEST in the following paragraphs is a new look at library values. I suppose, however, we must first define values and what we mean by values.

IF YOU WERE to ask why ‘the treatment’ for (the London Borough of) Sutton's new central library, there are two reason's. First, Sutton's Chief, Roy Smith, was on like a flash to my sloppy discourtesy in neither acknowledging his invitation to the official opening in December nor turning up for it, and gave half a day of his time last month instead to take me round; second, in Mr Smith's own words, ‘This is one of the most interesting new libraries to come out of public librarianship for a long time’, and I am disposed to agree with him.