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SINCE LEAVING NORWICH, where I had lived and worked for eight years, I have been interested to read Philip Hepworth's periodic bulletins in NLW, the latest being Defeat (NLW, January, pp 7–9). I have come to the conclusion that it must quickly have become a far wickeder and less hospitable place than I remember it. I don't recall the world of librarianship in that fine city being a battlefield, with winners and losers. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, PH was always quick to imply that county library services were very much second rate affairs, and am somewhat surprised that he subsequently became very keen to join one—not like him at all.

AFTER AN ABSENCE of some months I returned to the pages of NEW LIBRARY WORLD, half expecting to find a mixture of ‘How I did reorganisation good’ and ‘The penny has just dropped’, depending upon the luck and/or influence of contributors. I was not disappointed, but, in a class apart, it was sad to read Philip Hepworth's account of humiliation and unfair treatment. (‘Defeat’, January NLW). He was not alone. One's faith in the essential fairness of the local government appointment system, built up over many years, was shattered in weeks. It is to the eternal discredit of the Library Association that during the agonising months of 1973/74 the dubious practices of certain local authorities were not challenged.

THERE ARE something like 4,700 qualified librarians in the local government service in this country and for most of us April 1 1974 is a date seldom far from our thoughts.

OUR STACK ROOMS are fast filling with different folk's ideas of carving up England. The Local Government Boundary Commission, Maud, Senior, Labour White Paper, Conservative White Paper, and now the Bill. Each subsequent issue has attracted less and less public attention and the latest green and black map was hustled to the inside newspaper pages, quite unable to compete with 0z and the Stolken/Wolfson law court extravaganza. Some of us weary of this cartographic librarians' feast, having first seen this kind of map on page 157 of the McColvin report in 1942, with boundaries identical with the new map, as it happens, for my own area of Norfolk.

“A good repository for archives and manuscripts should … be open during all reasonable hours, including evenings and lunch hours”. “An old stick used by librarians to beat archivists”. Undoubtedly, however, it is a very distinct advantage to have the archives as part of a department that does not operate a five‐day, nine‐to‐five service. Even if the archives staff themselves work office hours, arrangements can be made for material previously got out to be available in the library's reference or other suitable department during a much longer period. This is always quite impossible in the county hall.

LOCAL history achieved academic respectability in 1947 with the establishment of the Department of Local History at the University of Leicester. No longer need the local historian feel ashamed of his craft or regard himself as a writer of footnotes to another's history.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the 22-month life of a three-officer specialized Traffic Enforcement Unit (TEU) within one mid-sized municipal police agency. The case study allowed for the examination of the impact of this structural change from a generalist to a specialist approach on the rate of traffic citations. Additionally, officer attitudes related to the change were considered.

The study used a mixed method approach, which included both an objective output (traffic citations) and the results of a management survey to consider officers’ attitudes.

Despite the fact that most officers reported the introduction of the TEU did not change their commitment to traffic enforcement, the findings indicate citations by non-TEU officers declined sharply over time. Likewise, citations by the three specialized officers also dropped, which, when combined with non-TEU officers, resulted in no real differences between the generalist and specialist approach on the number of citations issued.

Beyond the natural limitations of a single case study, the use of a management-issued survey concerning attitudes was not ideal.

The study provides some evidence that generalists approaches – at least as they apply to traffic enforcement – may be just as productive as specialist approaches.

While there has been a significant amount of rhetoric over the years, it seems scholars have largely ignored real differences between the generalist and specialist approaches on objective organizational outputs. This is an area that needs to be subjected to additional research.

PUBLIC LIBRARIANS outside London watch with attention/pleasure/alarm the results of governmental thinking on the re‐organisation of local government. Londoners will be more detached but, remembering 1965 and fingering their old scars, will have sympathy.

NLW is to be congratulated on its promptly‐secured interview with Harold Hookway in a sparkling March number which compares very favourably indeed with the January LAR that I happened to be reading at the same time. Generous though it was of NLW in an earlier issue to lament Edward Dudley's passing (temporary no doubt) from the LA Council, surely here was a massive vote of no‐confidence in an editorial job universally admitted to be badly done. How can the head of a great and successful library school find time to edit his profession's official journal? I have previously suggested that the LA should try to establish some business relationship with the only current English library publication for all staff levels in all types of library that comes close to what the membership wants. Let the LA stick to those publications that it does very well and that enhance its reputation—Library history, and the Journal of librarianship, and pass the buck for a newsy popular magazine elsewhere.

NOW THAT the British Library is in being, it is up to the library community to consider whether it is playing its full role in the library life of the country. After all, the powers vested in it by the British Library Act are considerable. It is up to every librarian to work out and put forward his own ideas; I wish here to make two suggestions.