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A PLEASING personal and professional acknowledgement is contained in the award of the OBE in the mid‐June Birthday Honours to W J (‘Jock’) Murison, Chief Librarian of the former West Riding County. We have remarked before that the profession is under‐represented in the honours lists, but here is an award which Jock will doubtless have accepted on behalf of all his former West Riding colleagues.

THE BOUNDARIES have been set now and re‐organisation has come upon the public library world at its set date, approaching, occurring and passing on, like a lunar eclipse.

THE August issue of NLW excelled itself, perhaps because it seemed to highlight what is the root cause of the malaise in library service and probably the reason in public libraries for our miserable public image, viz, our continuing failure to recognise that the most important elements in our service are people, the contacts we have with the community and the working relationships among the staff, both posing problems of communication.

‘WITH HIS hundred up, CB lifted his cap for a moment and turned again quickly to get on with his task.’ Do any of you, Dear Readers, remember C B Fry's 144 against the Australians at the Oval in 1905? It does not matter really because it is Clive Bingley's 100 for NLW which is my concern here. To score a hundred runs at cricket is success indeed, but to buy a professional periodical in declining economic conditions and still to breathe more life into it again is quite phenomenal. And that is no criticism of previous editors, Roy McColvin and Ken Harrison, without whom LW would probably have collapsed altogether!

WHAT WITH the new LA Record apparently determined at least to set off down the runway—layouts and plans are due to be unveiled at SPEX 75, the day after this issue of NLW appears—we thought we'd better stir ourselves from summer somnolence and do a little gentle tinkering with NLW to reawaken your interest, and to show the LA that we, too, can move with the times, ha‐ha, even if not very far.

This column headed ‘off the cuff’ is an occasional feature for the NLW editorial board from time to time to air its own views on matters deserving comment but not warranting a full‐length editorial article. This, therefore, is where you will read our opinions. It is worth adding that we on the editorial board are not responsible for the opinions expressed in the ‘illuminations’ column written by JUPITER. His or her identity and sources of information are unknown to any of us.

AS FAIRLY WARNED to you earlier this year would transpire, what you are now reading is the 100th issue of NEW LIBRARY WORLD, a span of issues which has encompassed some 8½ years, several million words, a sizeable copse of trees to produce the paper on which those issues have been printed.

I DON'T KNOW whether you are yet straight in your minds about the present location of the various parts of my erstwhile, present and embryonic business empires, but it will certainly clear my mind of confusion if I try to set it down here once and for all—and you are welcome to photocopy it (without comeback) for the edification of your colleagues!

In any generation there is always a pool of ideas and working tools which acquire a speedy and fashionable currency. Not only do they stamp and colour the thinking of individuals, but they give an age an atmosphere and ethos. Often they are vague and imprecise, but quite distinctive. One of these ideas which has seeped into the working consciousness of librarians—especially to the generation who emerged after the local government reorganisation of 1974—is the concept of community information. Another concept is that of videotext and data bases.

VAST NUMBERS of courses and conferences coming up just now—or so it seems; summer must be coming!