Search results

WHEN I began hospital library work, just over a year ago, I was one of the first British public library‐trained librarians to take up full‐time hospital library work, and I started with the feeling that sick people read much the same kinds of books as healthy people. I felt it was important that their minds should not be cut off from their normal exercises or diversions just because their bodies were diseased. It has to be remembered, of course, that very ill patients do not usually read at all, while they are very ill, and that when they are at the convalescent stage they are able and anxious to resume their normal interests and occupations.

To one coming direct from a municipal library the first and strongest impression of the hospital library was its smallness. The number of books was not so small, being between nine and ten thousand, but the building which housed this stock was merely a book repository.

THE story of the B.A.O.R. Mobile Libraries starts in July, 1945, when the N.A.A.F.I. agreed to send a W.V.S. mobile library to Germany filled with what was then thought to be enough books for three months, and manned by one W.V.S. helper. Members of the Women's Voluntary Services had been in the B.A.O.R. for some time, working on services' welfare in the N.A.A.F.I. clubs and mobile canteens, but this was the first time that the thought of a mobile library had been entertained. The whole thing was to be an experiment and if it proved successful more libraries were to follow.

William Ewart was born in Liverpool on May 1, 1798. His father was the son of the Rev. John Ewart, minister of Troqueer, another of whose sons was Joseph Ewart who became a notable diplomat and envoy‐extraordinary and minister‐plenipotentiary to Frederick William II, King of Prussia. William was the grandson of Andrew Ewart, minister of Kells, and the great‐great‐grandson of John Ewart of Mulloch, member of King William's first Parliament and who, till 1697, represented the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. The family as provosts and bailies of Kirkcudbright can be traced back to 1583. Thus, but for the infusion of the Yorkshire strain from his mother, William Ewart was a Galloway man of long and notable descent.

NATURAL aptitude, training, experience: these are the three factors necessary for competence in any vocation. But having stated the ideal, what is the reality? Recruitment to libraries is quite as haphazard as it is to any other job. It is best when unemployment is rife. It is poorest when full employment is achieved. The assistant arrives more by accident than design. He is usually an amenable, adaptable creature, ready enough to learn and make the most of the estate to which he has been called. Thus it is that training becomes paramount, and education in librarianship the prime duty of the Library Association.

NUMBERS of the public need education not only in the use of a library, but in the very facilities provided by the library service. Numbers of teachers up and down the country, with the co‐operation of the librarians, have done much to bring the library to the knowledge of school children, but there are still too many people who imagine that the facilities which the library provides end with their school‐days. There are still vast numbers of young and old who imagine that the library service after school‐days is not free, or else “not for the likes of us.” They do not understand the system of fines, the question of the renewal of books, and they certainly know nothing about the help they could receive from the librarian in selecting their books. Up to the present the method of helping people to read has been largely the method of borrowing books from the library, or else placing books in the buildings where people congregate. Librarians have been pestered by clubs and societies of all kinds, for loan boxes of books, and many a librarian foresees that if this system continues the library itself will be denuded of all books except those which few people in their senses would ever want to read. Moreover, pressure is being placed upon librarians to develop their work in separate compartments. They are being urged to develop a children's library, and very beautiful and imaginatively conducted children's libraries have been arranged in many areas. The success of these has encouraged many well‐meaning people to demand that libraries shall provide equally good facilities for youth libraries. However, though one does not doubt their ability to do this, and to do it no less imaginatively, one might well pause to consider where such departmentalism may lead us. Who is to say whether in a few years' time people may not demand old age pensioners' libraries, or housewives' libraries, or libraries for people over forty?

The purpose of this paper is to consider the national and international political-economic environment in which Australian university research grew. It considers the implications of the growing significance of knowledge to the government and capital, looking past institutional developments to also historicise the systems that fed and were fed by the universities.

The paper is based on the extensive archival research in the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial on the formation and funding of a wide range of research programmes in the immediate post-war period after the Second World War. These include the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, the NHMRC, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the Australian Pacific Territories Research Council, the Commonwealth Office of Education, the Universities Commission and the Murray review. This research was conducted under the Margaret George Award for emerging scholars for a project entitled “Knowledge, Nation and Democracy in Post-War Australia”.

After the Second World War, the Australian Government invested heavily in research: funding that continued to expand in subsequent decades. In the USA, similar government expenditure affected the trajectory of capitalist democracy for the remainder of the twentieth century, leading to a “military-industrial complex”. The outcome in Australia looked quite different, though still connected to the structure and character of Australian political economics.

The discussion of the spectacular growth of universities after the Second World War ordinarily rests on the growth in enrolments. This paper draws on a very large literature review as well as primary research to offer new insights into the connections between research and post-war political and economic development, which also explain university growth.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

The concept of light-handed regulation, including light-handed approaches to the regulation of airport services, is discussed. The rationale for the economic regulation of airport services and the traditional approaches used for economic regulation of airport charges are summarized. The evolution of international practice of light-handed regulation is outlined, including the experience with minimal regulation across monopoly industries in New Zealand and the acceptance of “negotiated settlements” in utility industries in North America. General reasons for moving to light-handed regulation of airports include the disadvantages of the price cap approach in practice and the benefits of facilitating greater negotiation between airports and users. Comparisons are made between alternative approaches to light-handed regulation of airport services, including price and quality of service monitoring, information disclosure regulation and negotiate-arbitrate regulation, approaches that have been applied to airport services in Australia and New Zealand. The role and nature of the incentives under each approach are discussed. The chapter concludes that whether light-handed regulation provides a suitable alternative approach to direct regulation depends on the market circumstances and the design characteristics of the light-handed approach.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).