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IN HIS OBITUARY APPRECIATION of R. W. Lynn, for some years city librarian of Southampton, Eric Clough said that Lynn had ‘none of the patriarchal aura that so many of his contemporaries carried’. Some of Mr Clough's readers knew only too well what he meant by ‘patriarchal aura’. One of the hallmarks of a patriarchal chief was that he never let it be forgotten that it was he who was in command. From time to time he might be amiable, sympathetic and even complimentary, but he looked upon the library he ruled as his library and was inclined to regard any dereliction of duty as a personal affront.

Aims by means of a survey carried out in North East England, to measure the relevant attitudes to lamb and establish criteria for changing both these attitudes and actual buying behaviour. Examines the promotional strategies which could be used by marketing managers to check declining sales. Suggests that the most successful strategies for advertising and promoting lamb in the North East of England would be based on low price and income elasticities.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

IF no completely novel contribution to librarianship came out of the Eastbourne Conference, it could be justified as having to some extent integrated libraries and literature; for, in the choice of a scholar to address it in Dr. R. W. Moore on the underlying connexion of books and therefore libraries with life; and of our own ex‐President, Dr. Esdaile, to recreate the poetry of the first years of the century, no mistake was made. The technical and administrative matters always seem Ezekiel's valley of dry bones in such a setting, but there were really good papers, practical ones like the very controversial contribution of Mr. Corbett, the excellent hospital library paper by Miss Southerden and Mr. Lamb's experienced treatment of Commercial and Technical Libraries. Most members there, too, were old enough to appreciate the chronicle of 1919–49 offered by Mr. Stewart, and all received stimulation from Mr. L. R. McColvin's forecast of our future. There were too many papers for any one librarian to absorb, but the Library Association serves many interests today. Some impressions have been given in other pages from the writer of Letters on Our Affairs.

THOSE who were present at the induction of the President of the Library Association on January 26th must have left that pleasant, but very limited, assembly with two thoughts ; that the speeches were adequate and deserved a much wider audience than the relatively small Council Chamber at Chaucer House can accommodate, and that our affairs are in good hands for 1949. Mr. McColvin made the speech of thanks to Mr. Nowell, as a man straightforward, sane, loyal, simple, broadminded and fundamentally sound. We echo these and could add other praises but, fortunately, Mr. Nowell has many years of active service ahead, and we hope for many opportunities yet to acknowledge it. Sir Ronald Adams showed that modesty and charm which we were assured from his record he possesses. Our readers have found these speeches in the L.A. Record for February, and our only purpose in alluding to them is to say our own word of thanks for past service and our good wishes to both outgoing and incoming Presidents. And again to repeat our view that the Association loses a great ceremonial opportunity by holding the inauguration in a small room in London in the winter, rather than at the great annual assembly of the Conference as was at one time the practice. It was the central occasion of the year.

OUR New Year number continues the article on Library Planning so well begun by Mr. J. P. Lamb in our last issue. The excellent views and plans included will do something to show a really individual mind at work on our common problem, and the articles to follow will show that librarians are feeling about carefully, and in some cases experimenting boldly, in the direction of libraries which are to combine the qualities of what may be called the standard public library with those of the community centre. There is much in this that must interest all librarians. The old club ventures, fostered by churches, political groups and similar agencies, are disappearing to an extent, but the community needs a substitute: an intellectual centre and meeting place. This the modern library is attempting to supply.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

HARROGATE will be notable as the venue of the Conference in one or two ways that distinctive. The Association Year is now to begin on January 1st and not in September as heretofore; and, in consequence, there will be no election of president or of new council until the end of the year. The Association's annual election is to take place in November, and the advantages of this arrangement must be apparent to everyone who considers the matter. Until now the nominations have been sent out at a time when members have been scattered to all parts of the country on holiday, and committees of the Council have been elected often without the full consideration that could be given in the more suitable winter time. In the circumstances, at Harrogate the Chair will still be occupied by Sir Henry Miers, who has won from all librarians and those interested in libraries a fuller measure of admiration, if that were possible, than he possessed before he undertook the presidency. There will be no presidential address in the ordinary sense, although Sir Henry Miers will make a speech in the nature of an address from the Chair at one of the meetings. What is usually understood by the presidential address will be an inaugural address which it is hoped will be given by Lord Irwin. The new arrangement must bring about a new state of affairs in regard to the inaugural addresses. We take it that in future there will be what will be called a presidential address at the Annual Meeting nine months after the President takes office. He will certainly then be in the position to review the facts of his year with some knowledge of events; he may chronicle as well as prophesy.

F. G. B. Hutchings came almost a generation after the early “organisation”men — R. J. Gordon, J. P. Lamb, and their contemporaries. He was in many ways more seminal and more cultured. He had a range as a librarian that put him apart. I worked for him at Leeds from 1946 to 1950, and learned much. But it was only when I became librarian at Rugby, where Fred had served from 1932 to 1938, that I fully realised what a dynamo the early F. G. B. Hutchings must have been. He was the first qualified librarian there, the first breath from outside. The Urban District had just become a Borough, its population increasing from 19,000 to 32,000.