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RUMMAGING recently among some old possessions, I found in a cigar‐case a grimy double sheet of note‐paper with the heading: “date 3 Jan. 1909. All this Poetry was by Mr. R. Craig I think it Will do Just now. I am a good Drawer as People think. I remain.” The poems are on “Christmas,” “New Year,” “The Ocean,” and “Love Marriage and Etiquette.” While these verses proclaim the triumph of inspiration over orthography, their poetic content is poor, and it is unsettling for a bachelor to discover that when eight years old he was gaily capable of writing about his Wife and Boys.

The purpose of this research paper is to explore the decline of subsistence entrepreneurship in a “Scottish Fishing Community”, namely the village of Gourdon in Kincardineshire, Scotland over a 60‐year period.

Presents the material in a historical perspective, as remembered by two persons who lived through the experience. Using two ethnographic accounts the paper reconstructs a vivid picture of a thriving form of subsistence type entrepreneurship, in a bygone era, when enterprise was more closely bonded to community activities, the work ethic and pride.

This paper narrates a dramatic story relating to the economic decline visited upon a living community by the forces of market change affecting multiple income streams. In this tale, there are no heroes or villains, as is normal in narrative accounts, merely victims of changing circumstances and changing patterns of social action.

The results of this research paper have obvious limitations, because of the methodology employed, and because of the limited number of respondents interviewed. However, socio‐historical studies such as this have their place in developing an understanding of entrepreneurship as enacted in individual communities.

This paper tackles an under‐researched area of rural entrepreneurship using narrative methods which bring the subject to life.

While the more felicitous part of Dr. Erasmus Darwin's Eigh‐teenth Century peep into futurity may not be, at the moment, over‐absorbing, we must adjudge him a sound prophet. The motive power proposed in his Botanic Garden for flying‐chariots is steam, but such a trifling error in detail, when we ponder on the Origin of Nazis, is surely irrelevant.

IN 1975 an observer visited the multi‐media centre at Kennoway in Fife. There he was shown by an enthusiastic Head Teacher, classes of children being taught “information skills” They were given carefully prepared assignments which necessitated the use of various types of media and instruction on how to use the resources of an excellent multi‐media library. They went about their work with an assurance and, so it seemed, an enjoyment rare in secondary school pupils.

ACCORDING to the best‐informed, there is coming a time when we will all quite literally outsoar the shadow of our night, to descend, each of us, as a spent rocket—Out, out, brief candle!—in an adjacent parish. Yet the human spirit is tough enough to plan its own perfections, even in face of the swifter preparations for the air‐raid. While aviators pay Daedalus a fitting veneration, hopeful humanity need not forget the fate of Icarus.

DURING a recent stay in one of London's vast new dormitory towns I had desire to purchase a weekly known among people of literary interests for its high standard and tone. My excursion to buy it developed into a search, and in the search I failed.

The term “medical” will be interpreted broadly to include both basic and clinical sciences, related health fields, and some “medical” elements of biology and chemistry. A reference book is here defined as any book that is likely to be consulted for factual information more frequently than it will be picked up and read through in sequential order. Medical reference books have a place in public, school, college, and other non‐medical libraries as well as in the wide variety of medical libraries. All of these libraries will be considered in this column. A basic starting collection of medical material for a public library is outlined and described in an article by William and Virginia Beatty that appeared in the May, 1974, issue of American Libraries.