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“There is no hope for a more efficient library system for London”, wrote Frank Pacy, City Librarian of Westminster in the mid‐1920s, “under the present divided management by twenty‐eight separate entities”. Root‐and‐branch language of this order, implying that the speaker's professional career has been spent largely contending with the impossible, is not often used by a senior public servant within sight of retirement. Yet Pacy was no radical. Such judgments had in any case been current some twenty years earlier, after experience over half a decade of the then new Metropolitan Boroughs. The delivery of a paper by John McKillop to the Library Association annual meeting of 1906 at Bradford and its subsequent publication in the Library Association record — remarkably, without the author's name, as if representing a corporate viewpoint — provide substantiating documentation.

THERE was a rather remarkable statement made at the Royal Institute of British Architects by Mr. Berwick Sayers last month. He affirmed that so far as the recorded issues of the reference libraries in the municipal libraries of London were concerned, only 8,880 books were consulted daily. This, as the statistical account of twenty‐nine public libraries, shows an average of a fraction over 302 books daily. To some this may seem not an inadequate issue, if all the books recorded are books which the student and the searcher for information have used. The point of the meeting at which the remark was made was that the reference libraries of London should do more in co‐operation with industry, and it was argued by the representatives of ASLIB who took part in the conference that our London reference libraries should be strengthened in the science and technology departments, even at the expense of the lending libraries. The experience of the public librarian seemed to be that few people lived in London near their work; and that they had command of the special libraries in London in a way that provincial industrialists had not, and therefore they did not make any use that mattered of London reference libraries. The Chambers of Commerce in the various boroughs of London consist of small traders as a rule whose main purpose is “to keep down the rates,” and who have very little connection with industry on the scale in the minds of the ASLIB representatives. In short, the chief function of the London public libraries is mainly that of home reading. Ultimately the solution of the reference problem may be the establishment of one or two great regional reference libraries supported by the co‐operation of the boroughs. Co‐operation, however, is in its initial stages yet, and it will probably be some time before such an ideal, if it be an ideal, is achieved.

The result of our enquiries (see April issue Library World) as to the present storage of local documents in Public Libraries or Museums, and the existing arrangements therein for their preservation is somewhat disappointing. Some librarians have not replied, and some give scanty information.

ONE of the most significant institutions of our day is the Central Library for Students. This truism—which we have frequently stressed—was emphasised by the Report of the Library which was presented at the Annual Meeting held at University College, London, on May 16th. The number of books issued, which was 52,711, does not seem large in comparison with the figures that an average‐sized municipal or county library can present; but the difference lies in the purposefulness which those figures represent. Nearly every book here recorded was one required for special work; few, if any, were for idle reading or for the occupation of undirected leisure. We note with pleasure that the outlier libraries lent 1,606 books out of 1,814 for which call was made. It seems a fair proportion. We were not clear if the balance unsupplied by them was supplied from the funds of the Central Library itself. We appreciate these outlier libraries, who are able to be such owing to grants from the Carnegie Trust, but we look more earnestly to a greater growth of the voluntary co‐operation which has found its adherents in the public libraries. There are now seven urban and two county libraries who place their stocks at the disposal of the Central Library for Students. Why not all of them? As we have said on an earlier occasion, if all adhered, the demands on any one would be small and the advantages without limit.

THE somewhat limited attendance at the Annual Meeting of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Library Association at Twickenham gave some colour to the contention of one of our writers that London is rather moribund to‐day. Fortunately it cannot be said that the younger members of the profession are losing their interest, because the bulk of the attendance was of assistants, and as the A.L.A. section has its own monthly meetings, it will be seen that assistants are doing their share. The chief librarians of London, and in this we include librarians of other than public libraries, make at present a most: disappointing showing. A few years, or even months, ago this could be attributed to the fact that they were all senior men whose vitality, if not their interest, had been reduced by age. To‐day, however, every library in London is in the hands of a young man. There is something significant in the fact that they do not come together in any numbers. When we read from the Annual Report of the Branch that the membership is nearly 700, we are somewhat surprised to learn that the attendance at Twickenham was less than one‐forteenth of that number.

In beginning its work at the end of the 1950s, the Aslib Research and Development Department inevitably faced the task of identifying the most significant problems for investigation, at the same time having the need to establish appropriate experimental techniques. Most of the projects undertaken since that time have dealt with current problems, and to an extent the advent of new technologies and techniques to the information world (mechanization in the 'sixties, management studies in the early 'seventies, on‐line working and publication problems in more recent years) is reflected in the work reported below. What follows is a complete bibliography of publications by members of the Department from its formation up to the end of 1977.

THE scientist and philosopher will tell us that the mind of man cannot in a lifetime fully grasp and understand any one subject. Consequently it is unreasonable to expect that the librarian—who, in spite of popular belief, is but man—can have a complete understanding of every department of knowledge relative to his work. He must, in common with his fellows in other callings, content himself with a more or less general professional knowledge, and may specialize, if he be so disposed, in certain branches of that knowledge. The more restricted this particular knowledge is, the greater will be its value from a specialistic point of view.

The original 1842 Constitution and regulations of the London Library are examined. How they reflect the government of the Library is discussed, emphasising the pre‐eminent role of the Committee over that of the Librarian. Aspects such as rights and obligations of members and borrowing privileges are also considered.

LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.