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This article describes efforts to develop a joint health and social services strategy for rehabilitation in one local authority area in response to national policy. It notes the effects of competing policy initiatives, of the shift in hospital provision to providing only acute care, and of failure to agree joint responsibility for the future development of such services.

Presents results of a study on outshopping grocery patterns of rural shoppers. The researchers mailed a questionnaire to residents in a rural Vermont area, asking them to record their grocery expenditures for one week. The questionnaire solicited information about respondents’ store patronage, psychographic behaviour and socio‐economic status. The study had two objectives: first, to determine the proportion of outshopping for groceries, i.e. the per cent of total grocery expenditures in stores away from the major retail centre; and second, to identify store patronage and psychographic factors associated with rural grocery shoppers, and to determine if such factors correspond with the proportion of grocery expenditures outlaid elsewhere. Consumers were divided into the three groups by level of shopping activity: low, medium and high. Results indicated that each group had different store patronage practices, psychographic profiles, and income levels, suggesting that grocery retailers should work with communities to organize retail mixes that appeal to different shopping groups.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Current issues of Publishers' Weekly are reporting serious shortages of paper, binders board, cloth, and other essential book manufacturing materials. Let us assure you these shortages are very real and quite severe.

Binks Manufacturing Company Inc., Chicago, USA, has acquired all the interests of French electrostatic painting and powder application specialist, Sames SA, based in Grenoble, France.

Here is the long‐awaited fourth edition of Ralph De Sola's classic Abbreviations Dictionary. This updated edition of a work first published in 1958 is the largest, most complete compilation of its kind — a reference book far surpassing all others in the field. Mr. De Sola has expanded his work to include more than 130,000 definitions and entries — over 77,000 definitions, over 54,000 entries. The current edition offers abbreviations, acronyms, anonyms, contradictions, initials and nicknames, short forms and slang shortcuts, and signs and symbols covering disciplines which range from the arts to the advanced sciences and embrace all areas of human knowledge and activity.

SEPTEMBER sees most librarians again at the daily round, although some, including those of the universities and schools, are still scattered on mountains, golf‐courses, beaches and oceans for a short while yet. To older men there is a curious feeling aroused by the knowledge that there is no Library Association Conference this month. They may, in a measure, find compensation in attending the annual meeting of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Association, which will be at St. Albans, or that of A.S.L.I.B., which has Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as its venue. Both, by some lack of care which might have been avoided, occur on the same week‐end, September 24–26. Quite clearly the special problems of librarianship technique, such as processes, book‐selection and purchase, classification, catalogues, fines, publicity, salaries, hours, and so on almost infinitely, can no longer be discussed profitably at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association; smaller gatherings, such as these, are their fitting place. We make a suggestion to the L.A. Council, for what it is worth and without pretence to being original. It is that it should indicate to all its branches and sections the main questions to which they should devote attention, and that in due course they should produce their conclusions on them. These, being pooled, would form the basis of the L.A. Annual Meeting. This would make a purposeful programme for all, and the results of the Conference might then be considered definite and practical.