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Brings together the management maxims of Maurice Line, which offer words of wisdom for managers.

The term ‘obsolescence’ occurs frequently in the literature of librarianship and information science. In numerous papers we are told how most published literature becomes obsolete within a measurable time, and that an item receives half the uses it will ever receive (‘half‐life’) in a few years. ‘Obsolescence’ is however very rarely defined, and its validity, interest, and practical value are often assumed rather than explained. Before reviewing studies on ‘obsolescence’, therefore, it is necessary to look at the concept and to identify the reasons why it should be of interest.

The following collection of papers begins with a statement of ideas and principles by Maurice Line and Sidney Smith, who between them have first‐hand knowledge of the library systems of several developing countries and have carried out intensive studies of document supply in a few. The statement represents their own views, which inevitably reflect their own background and experience in a highly centralised document service (the British Library Lending Division) in a country (the United Kingdom) that has reached a high level of library development. As a result, the authors may well have taken for granted some things that constitute real barriers in other countries — and possibly also over‐estimated some other aspects.

Any system of making scientific and technical articles available must meet a reasonable number of the requirements of the main players in the system: authors, publishers, libraries and consumers. Among the requirements are high visibility (authors), profit (publishers) and affordable costs (libraries). Consumers need inter alia exposure, ready access and ease and flexibility of use. They have most requirements but least power. Needs differ for current and older journals. Of the various single modes of publication none performs very well for all parties. Combinations of modes are more effective but payment has to be made twice. Much depends on authors' willingness to accept less visible forms of publication, but the ultimate deciding factor is publishers' assessment of the economics.

Several members of this journal’s editorial advisory board give brief views on how they see the future of interlending and document supply. The article concludes with an overview of these contributions, together with additional comments by an editorial board member

In a paper published in 1973 Oromaner included an analysis of citations to articles in three sociological journals in 1960 by subsequent volumes of those journals 1961–70. This study was unusual in that it was one of very few that followed citations to a given set of articles through in time (diachronous study), as opposed to analysing by date a set of references to articles made by journals or articles of a given date (synchronous study) — a far more common procedure.

Looks at how bosses seek approval. Suggests that this is done through staff, or self approval. Concludes that bosses have to accept life without expectation of external approval, and above all not seek it or delude themselves that they have it.

As document supply grows in volume and importance it becomes more necessary to measure its performance. Nearly all measures are relative — over time, across countries, and between systems; they should therefore be consistent and comparable. The main measures are: fill rate (broken down by subject, form and date); speed (broken down into the various processes involved in document supply); user satisfaction (because users' needs may not be articulated); and costs. There may be trade‐offs between different measures (eg speed and costs). Any measurement system must be practical. Most data will be collected by sampling, but well designed automated systems in future should enable better measures to be calculated with less effort.