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BRIAN COOPER, until recently in Zambia for the Ministry of Overseas Development, setting up library facilities in a new teacher‐training college, has been appointed as the first ever hospital librarian at Rampton special hospital. The appointment is made jointly by Nottinghamshire County Library (K A Stockham is County Librarian) and the Department of Health and Social Security, and is a consequence of the recent government white paper on Libraries in hospitals.

DR D J URQUHART is to be President of the Library Association for the year 1972, with Mr E V Corbett as Vice‐President and Mr E A Clough as Treasurer. In the annual election for London councillors, Miss L V Paulin topped the poll, with Mr K C Harrison and Miss M J Lewis as the other successful candidates. Country councillors will be Mr K A Stockham, Mr P Hepworth, Mr W A Taylor, Mr A Longworth and Mr J N Allen. Councillors for national and university, college and medical libraries are Mr J Thompson and Mr P W Plumb. Councillors for special libraries are Mr D Mason and Mr F A Graham.

UNTIL 1952 Queen's University was fortunate to have one main library building. With the establishment of the Institute of Clinical Science in the hospital area 1½ miles from the main university site, the formation of a separate medical library near the hospitals was considered essential.

MALTBY, ARTHUR. U.K. catalogue use survey. London: Library Association, 1973. 35 p. Library Association research publication, no. 12. £1.25 (£1 to members). This report on the use and non‐use of the catalogue by readers describes the findings of a project carried out largely by the various schools of librarianship in April/May 1971. Two previous pilot studies had been carried out to refine the questionnaire to make it applicable throughout the United Kingdom. Special libraries were reluctantly excluded, but all other types of library were included. The method chosen was that of briefed interviewers and a structured interview, largely because it seemed desirable to catch not only those who use the catalogue, but also those who do not. Of the total of 3,252 interviewed, 1914 (59 per cent) actually used the catalogue; of the 41 per cent who never used the catalogue, the vast majority stated that they could manage without it, while 281 preferred to ask the staff. Probably most of this group went straight to the shelves. From the break‐down by type of library, it would seem that municipal and county libraries hardly need a catalogue at all. There is also the point that if more people had been shown how to use the catalogue, more would use it.

IN THE UNITED KINGDOM the reorganization of local government has been the subject of public discussion and of central government consideration for the last thirty years. During the lifetime of the recent Conservative Government it became clear that new legislation would be enacted and overdue reforms at last take place. ‘It would be nice to be able to give three cheers for the Government which has carried through this local government reform,’ said K. C. Harrison in his Presidential address at the 1973 Isle of Man Public Libraries Conference, ‘but, looking at the effects of the reshaping on the public library scene, few of us would be disposed to give more than one and a half cheers. What most librarians will never be able to understand is how any Government could possibly countenance four different solutions to the place of public library organization under the reforms—one arrangement for England, another solution for Wales, a third answer for Northern Ireland, and yet a fourth alternative for Scotland.’ The English and Welsh acts came into operation in 1974, Scotland's changes will take place in 1975, but the ‘third answer for Northern Ireland’ has been functioning since October 1973. It is quite different from the other parts of the United Kingdom for, to express it in the simplest terms, public libraries in Northern Ireland are no longer a local government responsibility and the librarians and staffs have become virtually civil servants overnight. The rest of this article is a brief account of how this happened.

IT IS WITH EXTREME CAUTION that one dares to assert that something unique, original or even unusual has been achieved, but I do not know of any other British public library that has initiated three publication parties for local authors in the last two years. This has been achieved by Nottinghamshire County Library and this article is an acccount of these efforts in book promotion. Unfortunately, librarians are not often thought of as promoters of books, mainly because they have always been more concerned with their collection, preservation and lending.

COLLISON (R. L.) ed. Progress in Library Science. London, BUTTERWORTH, 1966. pp. xvii, 209. 45s.

THAT THIS YEAR sees the fiftieth anniversary of the Public Libraries Act of 1919 and the consequent birth of county libraries in England and Wales is a fact that has not gone unnoticed. At the Southport Public Libraries Conference the County Libraries Group of the Library Association invited Miss L. V. Paulin to deliver a paper entitled ‘County Libraries: Half a Century's Achievement’ and also arranged a jubilee dinner at which the principal guest and speaker was Miss A. S. Cooke, who was county librarian of Gloucestershire when the Act was passed. The Library World for May marked this event by the inclusion of a symposium of five relevant articles and in the Journal of Librarianship for July F. A. Keyse has written an excellent account of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust experiments of 1915 to 1919, which were to shape the administrative pattern of British county libraries.

“FORMAL classes on how to use a library would be an insult to the intelligence of the student.” This was an extreme reply mentioned in the Report of the Committee on Libraries, with reference to a questionnaire to academic staff about instruction in library use. This view of the teaching activities of librarians with students must be familiar to all librarians whether they are concerned with formal teaching activities or not. Nevertheless it is suggested that, in the current climate of change in the nature of sixth form studies, and the need for bibliographic training as part of a general education leading to informed library users in the academic and professional world, there is now a strong case for an examined course of study at “A” level G.C.E. incorporating the principles of bibliographical knowledge for users.

The ‘interview’ undergone by the young prince in W F Yeames' well known painting shown on our front cover this month, was more painful than most. But job interviews are more often than not rather harrowing—at least in prospect—and we have asked four authors, each representing a different part of the interviewing spectrum, to give us their views about the process, its importance, and how best to approach something which happens to most of us at least once in our professional careers.