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PLR now has a long history. If our ‘Prologue’ were to recall A P Herbert, John Brophy and the Scandinavian pioneers, then in ‘Act 1’ PLR became a policy with all party support. Through the 1970s PLR was repeatedly on the parliamentary agenda: lobbying was persistent—and the interests of writers, publishers, librarians and literature were frequently in discord. Finally, PLR became a legal right of intellectual property; most inportantly—to the man in the street the idea of PLR came to seem fair and natural.

The next time you find yourself in a strange town, take the time to examine the shelf stock of the local branch library. Chances are, a pattern of book provision and non‐provision will soon reveal itself: a pattern that, with some notable exceptions, seems to be curiously consistent throughout the country.

ONE OF the most valuable but neglected aspects of local history librarianship is the study of thesis literature. The dictionary definition of thesis in unenlightening: ‘A dissertation to maintain and prove a thesis …’ (Shorter Oxford). Usually this type of literature is produced as part of a course in higher education, and has become prevalent outside strictly university circles because of the educational concept of project‐produced research. Personal examination, assessment and compilation of material has become a permanent part of contemporary study. The local history librarian is interested in the final end‐product and its place in the library. Most of the producers—and with a very few exceptions we must exclude child ‘projects’—are academic students of college or university age, but an increasing number of titles are produced by Open University students, WEA classes, and individuals working for their own interest. The key element to remember is that most of this material is unpublished in its final form, but by‐products in the form of lectures, papers, articles and much‐reduced book forms are common. This is simply because theses—often in excess of 100,000 words—are too verbose, convoluted and detailed for instant transmutation into print.

I SPEAK of the crucial, central role of what public libraries can be about in society, and most especially in working class life and in our service's abilities to make an impact, however slight, on disadvantage in British society.

MUMMY AND DADDY won a gold house point the other day for junior Reid, aged seven. Helping with homework must be as old as organised education, but aiding and abetting projects is quite a new phenomenon. Being a parent, and a librarian, inevitably brings a double burden; not only do you get the dratted things thrust upon you at work, but after a weary day servicing genealogists et al one is met with ‘Dad, dad (shades of Al Read for those old enough to remember), Miss … has set us a PROJECT!!!’ Most librarians, and all local history librarians, have seen the following type of demand, which on a local scale is on a par with the totality of source material required for a full set of the Oxford history of England, the Victoria history of the counties of England, the New Cambridge modern and Toynbee's Study of history:

WITHIN ACADEMIC libraries there is always the divide between postgraduates and undergraduates and it is inevitable that their needs differ, although one must remember that to become a postgraduate one will have been an undergraduate, at least in most normal circumstances. Many of the ideas and ideals put forward in this article can equally well apply to both categories in other subjects than law. However, it is true to say that law undergraduates usually have to deal with a subject which is a totally new concept which they have not usually studied at Advanced Level, so that special attention needs to be given to the basic concepts of law. Undergraduates' thoughts lead immediately to the next set of exams and how they can get hold of all the material required to pass these exams, especially in law which is heavily based on examinations. It is especially difficult to persuade undergraduates that they could perhaps find the cases they need in other sources than those on their tutorial sheets. They also believe that material should be there when they want it; they forget that there could be more than a hundred other people wanting the same volume.

British public librarians welcomed the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 with relief: for the first time a government department was made responsible for public libraries and (it was hoped and assumed) norms were going to be established. Communities, Clause 7(i) said, were entitled to “a comprehensive and efficient service” and, innocent as we were, we thought we had gained an advantage over academic and special libraries, which had no such legal warrant for minimum standards. Few would claim that anything of the kind has been achieved.

FOR MOST of us, public library history usually amounts to scarcely more than rapidly dimming recollections of a handful of acts and commissions; dry facts memorised during library school lectures and retained just long enough to put the exams behind us. Of course, we remember the great names— Carnegie, Dewey, McColvin, and perhaps a few others—but apart from retiring old‐timers' regular assurances that it was all so much better and worse back then, we tend to know little of the day‐to‐day routines of our predecessors.

THE INTRODUCTION of the pre‐recorded tape cassette in the 1970's made many predict that within ten years there would be no gramophone records or gramophones being marketed, and that the cassette would be the supreme means of distributing recorded sound. Just how wrong that prediction was can be seen in any audio shop in the country, where huge displays of the latest record albums are to be found next to racks of similar cassettes. Far from sounding the knell for records, cassettes have probably been instrumental in furthering their popularity, by way of the spin‐off in technical advances, marketing, and the ease of distribution.

THE SIX YEARS since the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland have seen a massive development of services in the public library field, with progress on almost all fronts simultaneously. Five Education and Library Boards were created under legislation which gave certain advantages to the library service, not least of which was the close link with education, and including a statutory library committee and a designated post of chief librarian. Another helpful feature is the close similarity of population, which ranges from 230,000 in the Western Board to 360,000 in Belfast.