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In 1988 Battelle was asked to work with a U.S.‐based information technology (IT) company to apply the BASICS scenario method to a forecast of its changing European market.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Historically, Panama has always been “a place of transit.” While technically the isthmus formed part of Colombia in the nineteenth century, it was linked geopolitically to the United States soon after the California gold rush, beginning in the late 1840s. The first attempt at building a canal ended in failure in 1893 when disease and poor management forced Ferdinand de Lesseps to abandon the project. The U.S. undertaking to build the canal could only begin after Panama declared itself free and broke away from Colombia in 1903, with the support of the United States.

In an address to the East India Association Sir John Woodhead drew upon his experience as chairman of the Famine Inquiry Commission to review in authoritative fashion what Lord Scarborough described from the chair as one of the most important requirements of to‐day, that of increasing the food supplies and improving the diet of the people of India. Of the present population of about 400,000,000, it has been estimated that fully one‐third are under‐nourished, while a still larger proportion are ill‐nourished for lack of a balanced diet. The staple articles of diet are rice, wheat and millet, and even when these are consumed in adequate quantities their deficiencies in proteins, fats, vitamins, and mineral salts must be made good by protective foods. The technological possibilities of increasing food production are very great. It is known that the yield of rice can be increased by anything up to one‐half by manuring and by the use of improved strains; and that potential increases in millet and wheat are of the order of 30 per cent. The Famine Inquiry Commission concluded that self‐sufficiency in cereals was practicable as well as desirable as a policy for the future, and that a large increase in protective and supplementary foods, such as pulses, vegetables, fruit and fish was entirely feasible. Nor is there any mystery as to how the increase is to be achieved. The methods which must be followed, such as the provision of an assured water supply, the utilisation of every source of fertilising material, the cultivation of improved strains of plants and beasts, the protection of husbandry from pests and of the husbandman from ill‐health—all these are familiar in plans for the improvement of the rural economy of India. What is novel, however, is the increasing recognition that only a concerted effort, on a national scale, employing the resources of the people and of the Government in close partnership, can avail to raise the Indian masses from ramshackle medievalism to ordered, progressive modernity. Improvement of diet is among the most important elements in that improvement of the standard of living which is the principal object of all Indian planning to‐day. At present, lack of purchasing power is the root of malnutrition as of many other evils; increased agricultural production and a better diet arc bound up with the process of increasing the national wealth through simultaneous industrial development. Urbanisation and higher living standards may in turn exert their influence upon the growth of population; for Sir John Wood‐head's commission found that among the upper and professional classes the birth‐rate is falling steadily. Throughout the whole population, indeed, the birth‐rate fell from 34 a thousand in 1940 to 26 a thousand in 1943; but this decline may be due to transient causes only. There seemed good grounds for hoping that the future pressure of population need present no immovable obstacle to the success of a really national movement for better livelihood.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on investigating labour productivity in the agricultural sector of Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) countries between the periods of 2010 and 2017.

The study adopted descriptive design. The sample size for this research includes 43 SSA nations. Measuring SSA nation’s agricultural productivity in this study was based on input and output factors relating to the labour resource utilisation between the periods of 2010 and 2017. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and panel regression analysis were carried out to examine labour productivity within the set periods.

The findings from the study suggest that labour productivity in the agricultural sector of SSA countries can be improved from its presently low state of productivity. The statistical analysis showed that between the periods of 2010 and 2013, only about 34.9 per cent of countries in the region were technically efficient in the utilisation of labour resources for productive use. More disturbing was that, from 2014 to 2017, labour productivity drooped to 11.6 per cent. Meanwhile, employment of labour in the agricultural sector revealed as low as 1.58 percentage to crop production index in the region. Notably, there is the potential of labour employment to derive as high as 80 per cent yield to the gross domestic product of economies in the SSA region.

Considering the strategic role of labour to the agricultural sector of SSA countries, there must be a stakeholders approach to stimulating the interest of the populace of these countries and getting them actively involved in the agricultural sector. This imply that government, investors, support agencies from developed economies and populace of the SSA nations must support the drive towards agricultural productivity of the SSA nations.

This study established a research agenda that involved a paradigm shift from the more rampant literature on foreign investments, agricultural research, rural livelihood and well-being, among others to focusing on issues that pertain to labour productivity for sustainable agricultural yields in SSA countries. Also, the methodology adopted in the study, such as application of DEA and regression analysis to panel data, shows a departure from single units of analysis adopted by existing studies.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

TECHNICAL Education, after looming before the British public for half a century, is now with us a recognised factor in our national life. The passing of the Technical Instruction Acts of and 1891, and the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of gave an impetus to the movement, and has produced results of a most gratifying character. Technical schools, or institutions bearing other names in which technical instruction is given, are now considerably more numerous than Public Libraries. According to a return of the National Society for promotion of Technical Education in England (excluding London), 319 technical schools, under municipal and public bodies, have been erected at a cost of £3,186,102—an average of £10,000 per school in round numbers—and of this sum, one quarter of a million has been involved since 1901. In order to obtain an adequate idea of the extent to which technical instruction is given, it is necessary to take into account the higher grade schools and other institutions which are used for this purpose. But if technical schools be numerically stronger than Public Libraries, the former institution is incomplete without the latter. In such isolation, its relative position to the student, is like a conservatory without a garden to the botanist. A Public Library, with carefully selected books of reference, bearing on the subjects taught in the technical school as well as on all the industries carried on in the neighbourhood, is an indispensable condition to the success of the technical school, and I hope County Councils will, in the near future, use their influence to promote the establishment of Public Libraries in every locality where a technical school is considered essential.

With this number the Library Review enters on its ninth year, and we send greetings to readers at home and abroad. Though the magazine was started just about the time when the depression struck the world, its success was immediate, and we are glad to say that its circulation has increased steadily every year. This is an eminently satisfactory claim to be able to make considering the times through which we have passed.