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“Theprinted word is neither more nor less than the judgment of a specialist in printed form. Our files and our libraries are really vast collections of expert opinions in formal, recorded form.” These words of Dr. Ralph R. Shaw, the Librarian of the United States Department of Agriculture, illustrate effectively the work and aims of the public reference library which is, in fact, the living encyclopædia of its area. Its purpose is clearly the maintenance of whatever is available of the most up‐to‐date information on each subject.

Introduction THE Rapid Selector is the culmination of many years of development and experimentation, in part directly connected with it, in part in the fields of organization of knowledge, electronics, mechanics, and other fields.

AT the very outset of this paper it is necessary to make clear that it is not an attempt to compile an exhaustive bibliography of literature relating to special librarianship. Neither space nor time permit this. In fact, the references given can only claim to be a sample of the wealth of material on the subject and this paper is submitted in the hope that it will stimulate others to more scholarly efforts. Reference numbers throughout this paper refer to items in the ‘Select list of references to the literature of special librarianship’, section 2 onwards.

THE year 1954 opened more brightly, in some respects, than most previous years. Salaries are better than they used to be, staffs are larger, and hours are shorter. But there is even less room for complacency or even bare satisfaction than there was forty years ago. Then, however poor was the pay and however long the hours, there was every indication that librarianship was gradually becoming recognized as a profession which in time would rank with the great professions. Principles and objectives were clear and were never lost sight of, but librarians and assistants of that day realized that the great professions were dependant, not only on principles but upon absolute mastery of technique; that no lawyer could survive who merely talked grandiloquently about the principles and objectives of his calling; that the medical man endured—and in many instances enjoyed—a severe and lengthy training in technique and practice, and that even when he became a specialist his prime need and principal qualification was absolute mastery and up to date knowledge of technique and practice in his field of specialisation. In the light of that fad a detailed study of library technique became accepted as essential, and a mass of practical and technical literature was studied and mastered by more than one generation. For examination purposes, perhaps more than for any other reason, the present generation of assistants continues that study, but there has been a change of weight. Today we hear frequently that technique is relatively unimportant and that principles and objectives are the vital essentials.

Libraries—international DIK LEHMKUHL, ‘Harvesting books for the world’, Library Journal. 15 May 1946 (vol. 71, no. 10), pp. 728–30. [A report on the work of the Inter‐allied Book Centre, London.]

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked *, which may be consulted in the Library.

One result of being a ‘small’ librarian has been that, although hired to provide a current awareness service and write reviews for a research staff, I must spend a proportion of my time in arranging for the buying, cataloguing, lending, borrowing and binding of books and other material. However, I do not see these two sorts of activity as separate in any way, but as both containing elements of two fundamentally different approaches to human effort, which I shall call the professional and the clerical. If I was entirely on my own, my professional hat would be worn when deciding what book to buy, what words to use as indexing labels, what ideas in a paper were relevant, what advantages a newly available reproduction process would have over the system in use in my library. My clerical hat would get an airing when I passed on a request for a book purchase, typed and filed the index cards, or arranged for a record of a loan to be made.

For the last six months I have been part of a small section of D.S.I.R. which is planning the National Lending Library for Science and Technology. To begin with, the section had no name. Now we call ourselves the D.S.I.R. Lending Library Unit. Today I want to tell you a little of how we are going about the job.

The International Conference on Scientific Information which will be held in November 1958 in Washington is the first large‐scale sequel to the Royal Society Conference on Scientific Information of 1948. In the ten intervening years there has been such a multiplication of scientific publications, despite some efforts at rationalizing their production, that the problem which seemed vast enough ten years ago is now considered so great as to defy dealing with as a whole even in such a large‐scale international conference. The Royal Society Conference attempted to deal with every aspect of scientific publication; with the method of producing scientific papers, with the organization of journals where original work is published—abstracts, reports—and with the processes of filing and finding information. The Washington conference is definitely more limited in its scope. It is essentially concerned with the provision of effective storage and retrieval mechanisms rather than with the question of publication. In the words of its own announcement, ‘emphasis will be placed on the critical examination and appraisal of techniques, mechanisms, systems and organization for the storage and retrospective search of scientific information and particularly upon recent research studies in these aspects. Problems concerned with primary publication and dissemination will not be considered except incidentally. The practical point of view of the using scientist—whether he be an isolated individual depending on a small library or one who has access to a large information retrieval centre—will be kept foremost.’

Mr Maidment has been telling us about the use of a computer to control circulation routines in one public library system. Now I want to talk on a slightly more general level and discuss the progress that is being made in three British university libraries in using computers for routine housekeeping operations. I also want to tell you about an ICT users' group which is preparing a set of ‘package’ systems for libraries. But first I want to make a few comments on the place of a computer in a university today.