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The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 included depositor preference legislation intended to reduce Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) resolution costs. However, depositor preference might induce an offsetting reaction by general creditors and may affect resolution type.

We examine the empirical impact of state-level depositor preference laws on resolution type and costs with call-report data and FDIC data for all operating FDIC-BIF insured commercial banks that were closed or required FDIC financial assistance from January 1986 through December 1992. Our major findings are that depositor preference has: (1) tended to increase resolution costs; and (2) induced the FDIC to choose assisted mergers over liquidations.

MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.

MUCH has already been said and written upon the subject of the indicator: but in view of the general trend of advanced Public Library administration a little space may with advantage be devoted again to the consideration of its value as a modern library appliance. Passing over (a) the decision of that curiously constituted committee formed in 1879 to consider and report on indicators, and (b) the support which it received in 1880 from the Library Association, it may be said that for the next fourteen or fifteen years the indicator system was the popular, almost the universal, system in vogue throughout the country. Of late years professional opinion as to its value has undergone a remarkable change. The reaction which has set in was brought about chiefly by the introduction of Open Access in 1894, with the many reforms that accompanied it, though much, doubtless, was due to the prevalence of a more exact and systematic knowledge of librarianship, and to the natural evolution of ideas. It is not, however, intended in this paper to compare the indicator with the open access system, but with others suitable to the requirements of a closed library.

OF all the efforts which have been made within recent years to popularize Public Libraries or to improve the reading standard of the public, none has been so popular, or so generally adopted as the plan of organizing courses of lectures. This in spite of the fact that lectures are becoming less and less necessary as a means of spreading knowledge and ideas. It may be that lectures with experiments, lectures to arouse interest, to amuse, to produce an emotional or æsthetic effect may still have some value, but lectures to call forth intellectual effort and to spread ideas are practically superseded by books. If this be granted it follows that the lecture courses generally given under the auspices of library authorities have this result—they do not stimulate the intellect nor do they create any desire to use books as a means of improving the intellectual standard of the individual. The cause of this is to be found in the miscellaneous character of the lectures. It is no unusual thing to find that a course of library lectures includes such diverse subjects as “The Ice Age,” “Six months in the Tropics,” “Beetles,” “Hygiene,” “The Moon,” “Shakespeare,” &c. The effect of such courses upon anyone who may attend them all is similar to that produced upon the mind of the person who reads the “tit‐bits” pages in one of the popular magazines. Custom has much to do with this state of affairs, and lectures like those above outlined have long been recognized as suitable for a library, mainly perhaps because they can be procured cheaply and with little trouble.

THE Thirty‐third Library Association Conference was distinguished by several features, of which special mention may be made of the social side, the President's address, and the Trans‐Atlantic representatives. On the whole the business side was dull, and to a majority of those present, unproductive. None of the papers possessed novelty or special inspiration, and the discussions were just about the usual level. The attempt to make the meeting important in the public eye was only partially successful, if one may judge by the newspaper comments which accompanied and followed the Conference. Only Dr. Kenyon's vigorous defence of municipal libraries appears to have created interest; and for the time being, at anyrate, he seems to have laid the fiction bogey. His figures showing the work of the municipal libraries seem to have greatly impressed the journalistic community, and for once they realised that the value of these public institutions can only be ascertained by taking into account the whole of their work instead of the operations of a single department. The public meeting held on September 6th, at 8 p.m., was fairly well attended by the citizens of Exeter, and they were entertained by a series' of good addresses by Dr. Jennings of Brighton and others. The Glasgow lay delegate made up for the past reticence of Scottish members by the length and eloquence of his speech. The loss of the American slides rendered a lantern lecture impossible, but Miss Ahern's talk on American library work and ideals made up for what otherwise would have been a great disappointment. Dr. Locke, chief librarian of Toronto, spoke well, and several American librarians also addressed the meeting. Like many of the British members of the L.A., some of them possess the knack of speaking well without saying very much. This apparent paradox will bear thinking over. A paper on “Books and village children” elicited a long discussion but none of the other papers were of great interest. The annual business meeting was a mere torrent of talk, conducted by the same small ring of individuals who inflict their views on every occasion with unfailing regularity. They possess in perfection the art of effective blether which begirls and ends in mere words. To listen in a hot room to these men talking about nothing is an act of heroism for which every auditor deserves the medal of the Royal Humane Society or the Victoria Cross. The delegate to the Brussels Congress was more effective with what he concealed than with what he reported. As remarked above, the knack of saying a lot about a little is not possessed by Americans alone to the exclusion of other nations!

Systemic banking crises can have devastating effects on the economies of developing or industrialized countries. This paper reviews the factors that weaken banking systems and make them more susceptible to crises. It is the first of two papers examining root causes of banking crises and time-consistent policies for resolving them.

Literature at nurse is a handsome, compact little volume containing a wealth of material on a landmark in English literary history. The reprint of George Moore's pamphlet occupies a third of the book, the other two thirds consisting firstly of Professor Coustillas's lucid context‐setting commentary, secondly of Moore's original diatribe against the circulating libraries published in December 1884 in The Pall Mall gazette, and the consequent correspondence in that paper. In Literature at nurse, published in 1885 by Henry Vizetelly, Moore elaborated his points into a readable and entertaining argument.