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When this address was first delivered to the National Conference of the Federation of Wholesale and Industrial Distributors in July, Lady Margaret Hall took it upon herself to act as a catalyst. The tone of the article therefore is fairly rousing. In fact, it is an attempt to rouse the wholesale sector of British industry — a sector about which comparatively little is heard. She acknowledges the enormous contribution wholesalers make to the economy, but states that they need a louder voice, a more powerful means of making their needs and their importance felt. Her paper also emphasises the role wholesalers could play in bringing about an integrated distribution system; and she asks them to pick up the challenge now, before it is foreced on them by the energy crisis or successive governments.

MID‐SEPTEMBER, with the summer gone irrevocably, allows the librarian a fortnight of reflection time before the strenuous interests of autumn and winter become active. That is, if he returns stimulated in body and mind from a reasonable holiday and does not become immersed immediately in the almost compelling series of meetings of librarians arranged for the last fortnight of September and for October. For the student members the Birmingham Summer School remains in session until the 20th; for their elders ASLIB will confer at Swanwick from the 19th to 21st, and, in the same week‐end at Buxton, there will be the conference on library work for children; and, a week later, 26th to 29th, the University and Research Section will occupy Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford. The arrangements for October are set out in the L. A. Record. Their profusion embarasses many librarians. It is only natural that, as librarianship extends, every organized part of it becomes keenly aware of its individuality and, as the profession today grows more and more conference‐minded, few can keep step, save in a general way, with more than a fraction of the meetings arranged. Some effort is made by the L.A. and by librarians to preserve and strengthen the basic unity of all librarianship, but otherwise the diversity is great.

Edith Margaret Robertson Ditmas — ‘E.D.’ to her staff and many colleagues, ‘Edith’ to her family and friends — was appointed General Secretary of Aslib in May 1933 in succession to Mr S. S. Bullock, and was redesignated Director in 1946. She retired from that post on 28 February 1950, being succeeded by Leslie Wilson. In June 1947 she took over the editorship of the Journal of Documentation with effect from the beginning of volume three, following the appointment of the founder editor, Theodore Besterman, as Counsellor, Bibliographical and Library Centre, Unesco. She continued this work until 1962. A note by Geoffrey Woledge in the June 1962 issue of the Journal informed readers that Miss Ditmas was being succeeded as Managing Editor by Miss Barbara Kyle ‘who has contributed to the Journal in the past and is now taking up a full‐time post on the Aslib staff’. It reminded readers that Aslib's establishment of the Editorial Board in 1947 had only been intended as a temporary measure (its membership in 1947 comprised F. C. Francis, D.J. Urquhart and G. Woledge) and with reference to Miss Ditmas continued:

These are personal reminiscences only and my connection with Aslib did not begin until May 1933. Nevertheless, to understand the situation as I found it, it is necessary to sketch very briefly an outline of the previous nine years of Aslib's existence.

WINTER set in almost with Autumn this year, and the results have been felt in libraries. Added to the season has been the monetary position of the world and the election in our own country in particular. It was to be expected that the election would slow up the use of libraries, but such reports as reach us are to the opposite effect. There have been definite increases in work done. This is important in face of the budgetting difficulties of libraries that are prophesied. The enforced leisure of unemployment has fallen on many men of the distinctly employable and therefore of the reading class, and these are finding encouragement and at least a temporary escape from their plight in books and in reading rooms. They may even find some new occupational interest there; and all good librarians will exploit the opportunities which this time of stress affords to the utmost. It is most important to keep level‐headed over difficulties, which we hope may be temporary for libraries, and not to acquiesce in panic retrench‐ments while ceding what is necessary to the general welfare. We cannot cede much; we have never had a superfluity.

In pre‐industrial times women managed, not only the household, but aspects of agricultural work such as the dairy, milking, butter and cheese‐making, often disposing of any surplus through trade or commerce. In the nineteenth century women could be found running businesses such as lodging houses and shops. By 1911 women constituted 19 per cent of employers and proprietors and 20 per cent of managers and administrators and higher professionals. Many of today's women managers are “organization” women, part of the professional managerial class which emerged, in the UK, in the immediate post‐war period and it is on these women that the literature concentrates, in an effort to explain why, despite almost 30 years of equality legislation, women remain under represented in management, tend to be occupationally segregated and are paid less than male managers. This paper explores the experiences of today's women managers and compares them with those of their foremothers.

THIS is the month when librarians and library workers everywhere, their holidays over, turn to their winter plans. There are, however, some interesting events to take place before the darker and more active months come. The first is the meeting at Oxford on September 21st and subsequent days of the Federation International de Documentation. This will be followed by and merge into the ASLIB Conference, and there is in prospect an attendance of over three hundred. Our readers know that this organization produces and advocates the International Decimal Classification. It is not primarily a “library” society but rather one of abstractors and indexers of material, but it is closely akin, and we hope that English librarianship will be well represented. Then there is a quite important joint‐conference at Lincoln of the Northern Branches of the Library Association on September 30th— October 3rd, which we see is to be opened by the President of the Library Association. Finally the London and Home Counties Branch are to confer at Folkestone from October 14th to 16th, and here, the programme includes Messrs. Jast, Savage, McColvin, Wilks, Carter, and the President will also attend. There are other meetings, and if the question is asked: do not librarians have too many meetings ? we suppose the answer to be that the Association is now so large that local conferences become desirable. One suggestion, that has frequently been made, we repeat. The Library Association should delegate a certain definite problem to each of its branches, asking for a report. These reports should form the basis of the Annual Conference. It is worthy of more consideration.