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FINANCIAL fears are only less cruel than those of war, and lead men into extravagances which they would repudiate indignantly in their cooler moments. If the doings of the Economy Committee at Manchester in relation to children's libraries, as described in the article by Mr. Lamb in our last issue, are true, we have in them an example of a kind of retrenchment at the expense of the young which we hope is without parallel and will have no imitators. Some reduc‐tion of estimates we hear of from this or that place, but in few has the stupid policy which urges that if we spend nothing we shall all become rich been carried into full effect. Libraries always have suffered in times of crisis, whatever they are; we accept that, though doubtfully; but we do know that the people need libraries.

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.

THE Fifty‐First Conference of the Library Association takes place in the most modern type of British town. Blackpool is a typical growth of the past fifty years or so, rising from the greater value placed upon the recreations of the people in recent decades. It has the name of the pleasure city of the north, a huge caravansary into which the large industrial cities empty themselves at the holiday seasons. But Blackpool is more than that; it is a town with a vibrating local life of its own; it has its intellectual side even if the casual visitor does not always see it as readily as he does the attractions of the front. A week can be spent profitably there even by the mere intellectualist.

In this chapter, an air cargo shipment planning problem is considered by including individual risk factors of any sub-contracted agents. Due to competitive market conditions, air cargo forwarders are advised to remain flexible in operations. A mixed integer linear programming formulation including the potential for divisible activities is developed to model the shipment planning problem. To solve this complicated problem, we employ an ant colony optimization (ACO) methodology. Numerical examples are generated using data from both the extant literature and from a global air cargo company, allowing investigation of the viability of the novel methodology. We find that the algorithm/methodology provides effective solutions for small problem sizes.

A NEW YEAR is a season of Stocktaking in normal times; this year it is especially so. The library journals of the world all fill their pages with discussions on libraries in a time of economic depression and financial stringency; and in America this note is even more Stressed than in any country, and we trust that some good may come of it seeing that America has proved more helpless in the face of world depression than any nation had thought possible. That, however, is by the way. The immediate problem of the New Year is how to ensure that in the general reductions of expenditure that are being made the expenditure on libraries is reduced as little as possible.

UP to the present the war strain has not had a great effect upon the libraries of this country. Issues have naturally fallen in some departments—particularly in districts where there is a large floating population of aliens—but this has been counterbalanced by increased use in other directions. Many libraries have already been made the local headquarters of relief committees, special constabulary, the National Reserve, boy scouts' associations, etc., and as recruiting stations, and where there is sufficient accommodation, it is proper that the familiar library building should be so used for these emergency national affairs.

WHEN David Laing, sometime the learned librarian of the Library of the W.S., wrote that a very good social record of most countries possessing a romance literature of any fair extent could be written from their popular songs and ballads and historical tales, he made no very debatable postulate. He merely showed a greater appreciation of the value of romance literature than most people—even librarians—would on first thought consider it deserving of. But his opinion of its value as historical material was shared by no less eminent a literary scholar than Sir Walter Scott, who drew from the springs of romance when compiling his Tales of a Grandfather, and that this work did not suffer through Scott's utilization of romance literature in its compilation is proved by the fact that it is, despite its eighty years of existence, the most popular, as well as “the soundest thing” (to quote Saintsbury) that exists on the matter of Scottish history.

IT is now just forty‐eight years since, on the first page of The Library World, James Duff Brown wrote: “for quite a number of years Librarians and Library Authorities have been urging the establishment of a magazine which will reflect accurately and systematically the various phases of modern library work and progress. A demand has also arisen for a magazine of a more independent nature than anything hitherto issued, or, at least, one which is not hampered in any way by official connexion with a Society or other public body.” As then, we open the first page of the Forty‐Ninth Volume we are glad to assert that through the two generations of our existence the policy, enunciated in our first Editorial has been sustained. It cannot be greatly improved upon for our future, although library policy may and will change rapidly if all present prognostications have any substance in them. We intend, so far as we can, to promote progress, to endeavour to allow expression to younger writers, to support all the good efforts of the Library Association and any other body which energizes libraries, but never to be subservient to them or fear to ask questions.

IN the meridian of the year the librarian, like other people, turns his back upon his work, and with gleeful heart hies him away to sea or mountain side, there to forget for a brief season book and pen and general public, and all the worries which vex the soul of the servant of these three mighty taskmasters. A little before the happy time of freedom a sudden and deep disgust for his work and everything connected with it will seize upon his soul. He feels the need of a wider horizon than that of five by three—the catalogue card. The neatness and order of his classified shelves in which he was wont to take such delight and pride appear to him now but a vanity and a vexation of the spirit. Oh, for something unclassified, like nature, where rock and tree and water and air and sky are not parcelled out and separated one from another, in the trivial sortage of the laboratory or shop, but all are piled together in grand and sharp confusion, or subtly blended in exquisite harmonies which defy the namer and confound the analyst. Then do the days drag slowly along until the curtain of the roll‐top desk is finally shut down, and the wearied labourer goes forth—free.

THE enterprise of two London newspapers, the Tribune (for the second time) and the Daily Chronicle, in organizing exhibitions of books affords a convenient excuse for once again bringing forward proposals for a more permanent exhibition. On many occasions during the past twenty years the writer has made suggestions for the establishment of a central book bazaar, to which every kind of book‐buyer could resort in order to see and handle the latest literature on every subject. An experiment on wrong lines was made by the Library Bureau about fifteen years ago, but here, as in the exhibitions above mentioned, the arrangement was radically bad. Visiting the Daily Chronicle show in company with other librarians, and taking careful note of the planning, one was struck by the inutility of having the books arranged by publishers and not by subjects. Not one visitor in a hundred cares twopence whether books on electricity, biography, history, travel, or even fairy tales, are issued by Longmans, Heinemann, Macmillan, Dent or any other firm. What everyone wants to see is all the recent and latest books on definite subjects collected together in one place. The arrangements at the Chronicle and Tribune shows are just a jumble of old and new books placed in show‐cases by publishers' names, similar to the abortive exhibition held years ago in Bloomsbury Street. What the book‐buyer wants is not a miscellaneous assemblage of books of all periods, from 1877 to date, arranged in an artistic show‐case and placed in charge of a polite youth who only knows his own books—and not too much about them—but a properly classified and arranged collection of the newest books only, which could be expounded by a few experts versed in literature and bibliography. What is the use of salesmen in an exhibition where books are not sold outright? If these exhibitions were strictly limited to the newest books only, there would be much less need for salesmen to be retained as amateur detectives. Another decided blemish on such an exhibition is the absence of a general catalogue. Imagine any exhibition on business lines in which visitors are expected to cart away a load of catalogues issued separately by the various exhibitors and all on entirely different plans of arrangement! The British publisher in nearly everything he does is one of the most hopeless Conservatives in existence. He will not try anything which has not been done by his grandfather or someone even more remote, so that publishing methods remain crystallized almost on eighteenth century lines. The proposal about to be made is perhaps far too revolutionary for the careful consideration of present‐day publishers, but it is made in the sincere hope that it may one day be realized. It has been made before without any definite details, but its general lines have been discussed among librarians for years past.