Search results

Considers the thousands of organisations in the voluntary sector and explains how such a diverse group of organisations can overcome the hurdles that might stand in the way of improvement. Mentions somepressures, arising from the recent recession, for these organisations to improve quality. Assesses the capability of some quality models to fit voluntary organisations. Advances some strategic options for the whole sector.

Some libraries and information services are quite definitely user‐centred; some think they are but are not always; some seem to be designed for librarians rather than users. The purpose of this monograph is to encourage the development of libraries to meet the perceived needs of users — I hope it will be found useful by librarians and information workers as well as by students.

LIBRARIANSHIP is an established profession, international in scope, and currently passing through a period of acute shortage of trained personnel. The City of Liverpool, situated at the gate‐way of the New World, has given its School of Librarian‐ship some of the elements of its international character, while the current dearth of librarians has given it the opportunity to expand.

The speaker at the Aslib evening meeting, to be held on Wednesday, 15 th March, 1972, will be Mr Charles Gibbs‐Smith, Keeper Emeritus, Victoria and Albert Museum, who will take a provocative look at recent trends in typography.

THERE were (at the beginning of 1964) 138 daily and Sunday newspapers in the United Kingdom. Some of these, perhaps 20, are nationals with mass circulations ranging from the Financial Times (140,000) to the News of the World (six million). The rest, together with a large number of weeklies, constitutes the provincial press which at its best is one of the main strengths of British journalism.

Examines the relationship between the library service and the local community in Northern Ireland, using Portadown as a case study. A review of the literature explores complex links between the concepts of social disadvantage and political division and violence, as the library service must function within a community where deep divisions exist. Librarians and local groups from both communities were interviewed individually, and in focus groups, to explore their perceptions of the current role and function of the library service in such a deeply divided town. Amongst the findings was the perception by local people that social and political barriers existed, preventing optimum use of the public library service by all sectors of the community. Furthermore, the emphasis on traditional aspects of library service meant that local groups were circumventing the library service and setting up their own community information provision. Thus, unless the library service could become more fully integrated into the whole community, it would become increasingly marginalised within such a community.

I suppose most librarians carry around something to read in case they have a spare moment, for example on a train journey or while waiting for the One Really Interesting Bit on the usual dull agenda paper. It is not always assumed that librarians read, of course. Was once stopped walking home in what we used to call the wee small hours by the motorised Law who wanted to know what I was carrying in that large army pack — an enquiry with the heavy and well‐seasoned implication that “we're not taking at face value anything you say, so you might as well show us”. On seeing the load of books they asked, “What are you, then, a student?” Revealing myself as a librarian was obviously insufficient evidence and I was further quizzed as to what I was doing with the books.

These substances, resulting from the constant building‐up and breaking‐down of living tissues, have most friendly relations with their host, although antagonists—antimetabolites—appear now and then and disrupt their functions. In some of the inborn errors of metabolism, the antagonism is permanent and unless replacement therapy occurs at a very early stage, it interferes with physical and/or mental development. That metabolites from other sources introduced into a host could be extremely toxic was amply illustrated when a metabolite of certain strains of Aspergillus flavus, a fungus commonly found in peanuts and other vegetable seeds, caused severe losses to turkey breeders a few years ago. In 1960, it was discovered that the toxic principle was aflatoxin, which had a number of components and that all farm and laboratory animals, with the exception of sheep, were sensitive to it. Now, it has been confirmed that pure aflatoxin added to a normal laboratory diet is carcinogenic. (J. H. Butler and J. M. Barnes, 1963, Brit. J. Cancer, 17, 699.) Cows fed on highly toxic meal secreted a milk factor which proved to be toxic to ducklings. (H. de Iongh, R. O. Vles, and J. G. van Pelt, 1964, Nature, 202, 466.)