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The past year has ended on a disturbing note. On 2nd December the engineering unions called a 24‐hour strike which benefited nobody and did great harm to the country's industrial output. This affair was followed some days later by the graver threat of a national railway strike which, for the moment at least, has been averted.

An aircraft sustaining rotor blade having a main longitudinal structural member 10 of oval‐tubular cross‐section, the major axis of which is disposed substantially in the direction of the blade chord, a superstructure including former ribs mounted on the member 10 and a blade covering 27 supported on the superstructure and spaced thereby from the member 10. As shown, the minimum radius r of the member 10 is not less than one‐third of the minor axis 6. Clips 11 are mounted on the member 10 and carry a forward spruce part 16 to which is glued a nose fairing 28 and a rear part 17 grooved to receive a cord which secures the fabric cover. A trailing‐edge fairing 22 is secured to the part 17. The centre c of the member 10 lies in the forward quarter of the blade chord.

MY reaction to being appointed Director of Library Services would be one of frank amazement, rather as if I had been a commercial traveller in a rather dubious line of trade, such as ladies' underwear, who had suddenly been offered a bishopric. The recovery from this amazement would take about ten seconds flat and I would doubtless find myself in the thick of finding an office, a desk, a rubber plant and a regulation‐size piece of carpet appropriate to my grade. My first real task would be to bring some order to the seven sections of the D.E.S. now dealing with library matters and to initiate among librarians generally some radical thinking on the problems that face us all.

WHEN THE LIBRARY WORLD asked me for a letter from Finland, I was very glad, for I like writing letters. To me it is a pleasure to write letters. Of course it is equally pleasant to receive letters, and I hope that we can soon receive a letter from Great Britain as a reply for our journal Kirjastolehti.

I'VE said it before, and I'll say it again: Eastbourne is an excellent place for a conference, and I set out for it after five years' absence with the hope that its handsome and genial presence would produce something better than the mixture of ordinary, obvious and sometimes inaudible papers that have been a constituent of more than one intervening conference. That towns can affect such occasions is no doubt a farfetched conceit, but they certainly affect me; as soon as I arrived the environmental magic worked, and old friends and new faces were seen in the golden light of perfect autumn weather.

This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and interpreting them as biodiversity accounts produced by an interested party. The authors aim to contribute to the accounting history literature by extending the form of accounting studied to include nature diaries as well as by exploring historical ecological accounts, as well as contributing to the burgeoning literature on accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting.

The authors’ method involves analysing the content of Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals by producing an 18th-century biodiversity account of species of flora and fauna and then interpretively drawing out themes from the Journals. The authors then provide a Whitean extinction account by comparing current species' status with White's biodiversity account from 250 years ago.

This paper uses Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals as a basis for comparing biodiversity and natural capital 250 years ago with current species' status according to extinction threat and conservation status. Further the paper shows how early nature diary recording represents early (and probably the only) forms of accounting for biodiversity and extinction. The authors also highlight themes within White's accounts including social emancipation, problematisation, aesthetic elements and an example of an early audit of biodiversity accounting.

There are limitations to analysing Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals given that the only available source is an edited version. The authors therefore interpret their data as accounts which are indicative of biodiversity and species abundance rather than an exactly accurate account.

From the authors’ analysis and reflections, the authors suggest that contemporary biodiversity accounting needs to incorporate a combination of narrative, data accounting and pictorial/aesthetic representation if it is to provide a rich and accurate report of biodiversity and nature. The authors also suggest that extinction accounting should draw on historical data in order to demonstrate change in natural capital over time.

Social implications include the understanding gleaned from the authors’ analysis of the role of Gilbert White as a nature diarist in society and the contribution made over time by his Journals and other writings to the development of nature accounting and recording, as well as to one’s understanding and knowledge of species of flora and fauna.

To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to analyse and interpret nature diaries as accounts of biodiversity and extinction.