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MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Internet‐based services, used by those individuals or organisations seeking to launder monies derived from illegal sources, will pose a greater risk to financial institutions than more traditional financial services. The use of the financial services sector by criminals seeking to ‘launder’ money has become a business risk that financial institutions cannot ignore, with governments and regulators increasing the legislation and regulation designed to prevent money laundering. Financial institutions have both a moral and a legal obligation to assist in preventing criminals from obtaining benefits from their activities. Simultaneously, the development of Internet‐based financial services continues at a rapid pace, with new technologies such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)‐enabled telephones and interactive televisions empowering customers, allowing them the flexibility to carry out transactions without the direct involvement of the institution.

This paper examines what the financial services industry expects from the Insurance Ombudsman Bureau. It measures the IOB's success in meeting these expectations against the yardsticks of public confidence and cost‐effectiveness. In the light of Lord Ackner's recently accepted recommendation that the IOB be replaced by a new Ombudsman scheme, this paper concludes that the IOB has failed' the industry by asserting the functions for which it was originally created.

William Blackwood, the founder of the firm of the name, saw service in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London before opening in 1804 as a bookseller at 64 South Bridge, Edinburgh. Blackwood continued in his bookselling capacity for a number of years, and his shop became a haunt of the literati, rivalling Constable's in reputation and in popularity. His first success as a publisher was in 1811, when he brought out Kerr's Voyages, an ambitious item, and followed shortly after by The Life of Knox by McCrie. About this time he became agent in Edinburgh for John Murray, and the two firms did some useful collaborating. Blackwood was responsible for suggesting alterations in The Black Dwarf, which drew from Scott that vigorous letter addressed to James Ballantyne which reads: “Dear James,—I have received Blackwood's impudent letter. G ‐ d ‐ his soul, tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the Black Hussars of Literature, who neither give nor receive criticism. I'll be cursed but this is the most impudent proposal that was ever made”. Regarding this story Messrs. Blackwood say: “This gives a slightly wrong impression. Scott was still incognito. William Blackwood was within his rights. He was always most loyal to Scott.” There has been some controversy as to the exact style of this letter, and it has been alleged that Lockhart did not print it in the same terms as Sir Walter wrote it. Blackwood came into the limelight as a publisher when he started the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in 1817, which was to be a sort of Tory counterblast to the Whiggish Edinburgh Review. He appointed as editors James Cleghorn and Thomas Pringle, who later said that they realised very soon that Blackwood was much too overbearing a man to serve in harness, and after a time they retired to edit Constable's Scots Magazine, which came out under the new name of The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany. [Messrs. Blackwood report as follows: “No. They were sacked—for incompetence and general dulness. (See the Chaldee Manuscript.) They were in office for six months only.”] Blackwood changed the name of The Edinburgh Magazine to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, and became his own editor, with able henchmen in John Wilson, Christopher North, John Gibson Lockhart, and James Hogg as contributors. It was a swashbuckling magazine, sometimes foul in attack, as when it told John Keats to get “back to the shop, back to plaster, pills, and ointment boxes”. Lockhart had a vigour of invective such as was quite in keeping with the age of Leigh Hunt, an age of hard‐hitting. The history of Blackwood in those days is largely the history of the magazine, though Blackwood was at the same time doing useful publishing work. He lost the Murray connexion, however, owing to the scandalous nature of some of the contributions published in Maga; these but expressed the spirit of the times. John Murray was scared of Blackwood's Scottish independence! Among the book publications of Blackwood at the period we find Schlegel's History of Literature, and his firm, as we know, became publisher for John Galt, George Eliot, D. M. Moir, Lockhart, Aytoun, Christopher North, Pollok, Hogg, De Quincey, Michael Scott, Alison, Bulwer Lytton, Andrew Lang, Charles Lever, Saintsbury, Charles Whibley, John Buchan, Joseph Conrad, Neil Munro—a distinguished gallery. In 1942 the firm presented to the National Library of Scotland all the letters that had been addressed to the firm from its foundation from 1804 to the end of 1900, and these have now been indexed and arranged, and have been on display at the National Library where they have served to indicate the considerable service the firm has given to authorship. The collection is valuable and wide‐ranging.

Though the county of Bute has a long and honourable literary history, its associations with song and story are not all likely to be familiar to the man in the street. If his street is located in a town in the industrial West of Scotland, this mythical arbiter may indeed be able to produce from a kind of race memory the rollicking strains of “The Day we went to Rothesay—O”, or, if he inclines to the sentimental, the plaintiff Victorian ballad “Sweet Rothesay Bay”. He may also know about the minister in Millport who prayed for “the Great and Little Cumbraes and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland.”

THE London and Home Counties Branch is fortunate in having close at hand watering places which can house its Autumn or other Conferences conveniently. Hove in fair weather in October is a place of considerable charm; it has many varieties of hotel, from the very expensive to the modest; it is used to conferences and the hospitality of the Town Hall is widely known. This year's conference was focused in the main on problems of book‐selection which, as one writer truly says, is the main purpose of the librarian because all his possibilities hang upon it. The papers read are valuable because they appear to be quite unvarnished accounts of the individual practice of their writers. Of its kind that of Mr. Frank M. Gardner is a model and a careful study of it by the library worker who is in actual contact with the public might be useful. For his methods the paper must be read; they are a clever up‐to‐minute expansion of those laid down in Brown's Manual with several local checks and variations. Their defects are explained most usefully; there is no examination of actual books before purchase and bookshops are not visited, both of which defects are due to the absence in Luton of well‐stocked bookshops; a defect which many sizeable towns share. We find this remark significant: “The librarian of Luton in 1911 had a book‐fund of £280 a year for 30,000 people. I have nearly £9,000 for 110,000. But the Librarian in 1911 was a better book‐selector than we are. He had to be, to give a library service at all. Every possible purchase had to be looked at, every doubt eliminated.” We deprecate the word “better”; in 1911 book‐selection was not always well done, but Brown's methods could be carried out if it was thought expedient to do the work as well as it could be done. The modern librarian and his employers seem to have determined that the whole of the people shall be served by the library; that books shall be made available hot from the press, with as few exclusions as possible. No librarian willingly buys rubbish; but only in the largest libraries can a completely comprehensive selection practice be maintained. Few librarians can be quite satisfied to acquire their books from lists made by other people although they may use them for suggestions. How difficult is the problem Mr. Gardner demonstrates in connexion with books on Bridge; a shelf of apparently authoritative books might possibly contain not one that actually met the conditions of today. If this could be so in one very small subject, what might be the condition of a collection covering, or intended to cover, all subjects? Librarians have to be realists; orthodox methods do not always avail to deal with the cataract of modern books; but gradually, by cooperative methods, mechanical aids and an ever‐increasing staff devoted to this, the principal library job, much more may be done than is now possible.

EDINBURGH'S prestige as a literary centre steadily declined after the death of Scott, and for a succeeding generation was lost in undistinguished shallows. Even Peveril became enmeshed in the nets of London, and Stevenson, his might and native impulse notwithstanding, could not escape them any more than Hugh Walpole and Rebecca West in our generation. Edinburgh has, indeed, come to be more of a nursery for authors, editors and publishers than the nucleus of literary activity she was formerly but there are not wanting signs that she may presently reassume a measure of her vanished importance in the world of letters. A new and active generation is arising which is alive to the possibilities of cultivating its own vineyard, and to the occlusions and heartbreaking disappointments which so frequently accompany migration southward, and probably only adequate leadership is required to bring about a renascence of literary production of a much higher level than that now apparent.

THE young man who loves books and has literary aspirations generally tries for a post on a newspaper staff. He is duly warned by the veterans:—“Daily journalism is no more the road to literature than a county attorneyship is the road to the English Woolsack. You will dissipate in small change the talents you require for writing books. This is not a sculptor's studio, but a machine bakery. The art you lavish on the daily cakes will vanish when they are eaten. Why not stay in a steady routine job that does not compromise your imagination, and write in your spare time the things you want to write?”

THE Scot, I have noticed in international gatherings, is peculiarly liable to be chaffed about his country. One reason is the association of Scotland with whisky and the kilt. Another reason is the Scot's self‐consciousness about Scotland. When he hears it derided, he gives a wry smile, or enters on a flustered defence. Praise of Scotland specially annoys him, because it is generally praise of the wrong things,—and he is not quite sure what are the right things.