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LIBRARIANSHIP is an established profession, international in scope, and currently passing through a period of acute shortage of trained personnel. The City of Liverpool, situated at the gate‐way of the New World, has given its School of Librarian‐ship some of the elements of its international character, while the current dearth of librarians has given it the opportunity to expand.

At the beginning of the century children were put to reading and writing rather earlier than they are now. So I remember that at the age of nine I was engaged with Stanley Weyman and listening to the swish of silks and clash of swords in A Gentleman of France and Under the Red Robe. I had already been immensely excited by the glint of diamonds in King Solomon's Mines. I can remember now the hour and the place in which I first encountered that piece of cake.

Richard Church in the Spring (1955) Number of LIBRARY REVIEW, wrote “It is safer and cheaper to publish large numbers of a few books rather than small impressions of a lot of titles.” That is increasingly true of almost all commerce to‐day. Salesmanship, to be economic, must be concentrated. British Railways, for example, clip their small services in out‐of‐the‐way localities in a desperate effort to avoid further losses. This may be most inconvenient to the small‐town folk. But who cares about small‐towners? Or, rather, who can care even if they would? The “little man” is only a valuable market when he is one of a large mass of “little men.” I do not accuse the British Railways Executive of callousness; it is driven by the trend of the time. The Mass, the Great Majority of consumers, dictate solvency: the few and the lonely must muck along as best they can.

“All things are in a constant state of change”, said Heraclitus of Ephesus. The waters if a river are for ever changing yet the river endures. Every particle of matter is in continual movement. All death is birth in a new form, all birth the death of the previous form. The seasons come and go. The myth of our own John Barleycorn, buried in the ground, yet resurrected in the Spring, has close parallels with the fertility rites of Greece and the Near East such as those of Hyacinthas, Hylas, Adonis and Dionysus, of Osiris the Egyptian deity, and Mondamin the Red Indian maize‐god. Indeed, the ritual and myth of Attis, born of a virgin, killed and resurrected on the third day, undoubtedly had a strong influence on Christianity.

While some libraries have done their best over the years to inform the public as to what they are doing and can do as regards helping readers, others seem to move along without making any special effort to publicise their facilities. In the old days modesty was a virtue, but now it is its own reward. Government departments, which used to shun the limelight, now employ public relations officers in large numbers, and professional bodies and big business houses constantly seek publicity. Times have changed, and the battle is to the strong; and it is unfortunately generally felt that the institution or service that does not speak for itself has little to speak about. It may frankly be said that if a service is in a position to enlarge its sphere of influence and esteem it should do so to the utmost of its endeavour. But it will be granted that if its publicity is not justified by performance, there will likely be an unhappy reaction.

THE idea of a central service and supplies organisation for libraries—a “Library Centre”— such as exist abroad and are described in Library Supply agencies in Europe, is like most ideas in librarianship, not a new one, even taking into account the establishment of Norway's Biblioteksentralen over 60 years ago in 1902, which at that time was called Folkeboksamlingenes Ekspedisjon. This idea, like so so much else, seems to have originated in the fertile brain of Melvil Dewey, taking its final and lasting form as the Library Bureau, established by Dewey himself in 1882.

GUEST editor of this South African issue of THE LIBRARY WORLD is Hendrik M. Robinson, Director of Library Services, Transvaal Provincial Administration, Pretoria.

LIBRARIES, in common with all other public institutions, must be faced with the uncertainty that arises from the inconclusive results of the recent General Election. We are not intimately concerned with parties and it is held that librarians should eschew them altogether as they have duties to, are the servants of, all. This consideration applies more to the public librarian than to the special one. Be that as it may, the change must postpone, we imagine, our chances of the new Public Libraries Act, because a new general election is probable in a very short time. Meanwhile, there is always uncertainty as to public expenditure and, although we do not expect anything drastic, it is hardly likely that our centenary year will see the beginnings of the library progress for which some had hoped. Most local rate‐budgets have, fortunately, been fixed by now.

The suggestion that technical college libraries should be strengthened in order to meet the increased demands of technological education has been increasingly under discussion. Now, with a view to helping to clarify opinion on the subject, we have arranged this symposium in which the proposal is discussed by a number of contributors, and from various angles. It will be agreed that the subject is one of considerable professional and technical importance. Librarians and other readers who have views to express are invited to contribute to the discussion which we hope to continue in our next number.

THE training model to be discussed is based on an integrated set of manual and mechanised indexing systems, all handling the same body of information from a limited subject field. By extending the scope of the model's operations to include prior and subsequent activities like the selection and abstracting of the documents to be indexed, and the preparation and dissemination of material through the use of the indexes, the model may be used for a wide range of documentation training, principally at three levels: demonstration by the lecturer to the students; use by the students in the retrieval and dissemination of information; and development by the students through the selection and abstracting of documents, the indexing and storage of information and ultimately the use of feedback from the dissemination stage to improve the systems.