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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The Branch held a week‐end conference at Hertford College, Oxford, from 17th to 19th April, on the theme ‘Educating the user’. Mr Gordon H.Wright, County Technical Librarian of Hertfordshire, in a paper on ‘Educating tomorrow's potential information user’, discussed critical thinking and the art of communication. Mr J.E.Terry, Information Officer, AERE Harwell, described the course on information sources and library services which is run for scientific officers at AERE. Mrs Irene Veasey of Blackwell's urged that Aslib appoint advisory officers to discuss with representatives of organizations the practical aspects of information dissemination within their own concerns. Mr Jack Bird, Education Officer, Aslib, and the three speakers were on a panel to discuss points arising from the papers, and open discussion then followed.

When the Library Association Sub‐Section for Colleges of Technology and Further Education was established in 1951 there were 27 qualified librarians employed by these colleges. Today, membership has reached 217 which seems to indicate that libraries are received more seriously in technical education than they were ten years ago. However, the number of staff, the number of books and the number of daily issues are no criteria for measuring the value of a college library service.

Librarians and teachers have essentially the same function—providing information. However, they cannot claim with Dr Johnson: ‘Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.’ Both librarian and teacher should present knowledge in such a way that the inquirer is able to comprehend it. One way is to guide the inquirer into working out ideas for himself. Such guidance involves presenting the information in a coherent sequence of easily assimilated steps, after each of which a question is posed to check that that step has been understood. This is what a good tutor does. This, too, is what Programmed Instruction does.

Since the last war the extent of scientific and technological advancement has bedevilled the age‐old problem of communication. Communicating ideas generated in a research unit so that a small firm can apply them is not solely dependent upon clarity of expression, but equally upon the receptivity of mind of the individual to whom the idea is addressed.

When the Hertfordshire Technical Library Service was inaugurated three years ago the County Council followed their normal practice of appointing an Advisory Committee with members drawn from industry to assist in the development of the scheme. At an early stage in the deliberations of the committee it was apparent that the provision of extensive scientific and technical resources both for education and industry in the county would create difficulties both in cost and storage space. It was agreed that microrecording, mechanical retrieval systems and document copying would need to be seriously studied if the service was to be efficient and economical.

In an essay on the education of engineers Hardy Cross wrote:

A discussion of the communication of research results has to begin with clarification of the terms and with a limiting of the boundaries of a subject too wide for a single talk. Though scientific knowledge acquired for its own sake is eventually applied and though communication in pure science also has its problems, Aslib is primarily interested in science applied to technology; and so I shall limit my discussion to problems of communication in applied science. But even the term ‘applied science’ embraces a wide spectrum of problem‐solving activities: the problems at one extreme are to find technological applications of new scientific theories and, at the other, to find optimum solutions of technological problems for a given set of economic and practical conditions. It is convenient to retain the term ‘applied science’ for research work which springs from science and looks towards its application; work which springs from a technological problem and looks towards science is best called ‘technological development’ or simply ‘development’. In most industrial laboratories both applied science and technological development are undertaken side by side, and rightly so since each stimulates the other, but the distinction between them is needed here because, as we shall see, their communication processes are different.

My first visit to Czechoslovakia in May last year coincided with the evolvement of their ideas for a more nationally orientated communist state with more freedom to criticize its administration on policy decisions. It was a stimulating visit, and one which I shall always remember as a glimpse of the courage, endurance, patience and intelligence of a civilized, cultural populace groping back towards the control of their own destiny. My visit earlier this year saddened me.

The Chairman said that he was present that afternoon like a god out of a machine, but not claiming divinity. He had spent the morning at an engineering firm and, because of economic matters, he regretted he had been unable to hear the words of wisdom and disagreement that had been expressed at the morning session. Somehow, he had to sum them up at a quarter past four, but he would be guided for the next hour and a half or so by the questions and answers flying to and fro like sparks amongst the stubble. To steer both the questions and the repartee there could be no better person than Miss Barbara Kyle, who was to be the Panel Master or Question Master. He proposed to hand over to her now, and she would carry on until he himself took over again at the end.