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THE thoughts of all librarians, chief librarians in particular, are now turned upon the annual conference of the Library Association at Manchester. We understand that all the projects of the conference, which we have commented upon in earlier issues, are proceeding satisfactorily. By this time most of our readers who intend to go will have obtained their accommodation in the city. But we advise those who have not done so to delay no longer.

The principle of tariffs dispersion, or differential tariffs depending on country of origin, is well known. For instance, Canada adapted a double column of tariffs after 1846, Spain in 1877, and Switzerland in the 1880–1890s. But there has never before been a comprehensive measure for any national economy, to our knowledge. This contribution proposes an original and exhaustive measure of customs tariffs dispersion depending on the origin of imported products for France between 1850 and 1913. Part of this dispersion arises indirectly as the result of compiling the nomenclature – or the schedule of categories – for France’s general trade chart. Our study nevertheless reveals the existence of direct discriminatory practices applied to certain countries for certain products. The creation of this measure yields important insights. First, tariff dispersion’s evolution completes the analysis of the chronology of trade policy. Second, it is possible to link tariff discrimination, imports in particular sectors, and national production. In our opinion, the paper should pave the way to work that reintroduces a country-specific dimension into the study of late 19th century commercial policy.

It's been three years since my previous survey in RSR. Superb reference books in pop music have been appearing so frequently that I've been having trouble keeping up. Let's hope “next year's” survey will only be 12 months in the making and not 36.

Connect is an intelligent terminal package developed specifically for use with online information retrieval and electronic mail services. It allows complete flexibility in both uploading and downloading information, including logon procedures and prepared search profiles. Capture of data is simple and all host products can be emulated, including Flow Control. Ten user definable keys, independent of hardware, are available for storing information such as logon procedures. An unlimited number of Host Profiles can be used to store the values of User Keys, protocols, baud rate, etc. All communications parameters are controlled by Connect with no need to use separate utilities such as Setup, Configure, etc., and can be stored in each Host Profile. A unique feature of Connect is a usage Log, which enables details and ownership of search sessions to be stored on disk in a format compatible with many applications packages, such as Dbasell and Infostar, for the production of itemised activity reports and analyses. Connect can also be used to transfer files, including programmes, from micro to micro, and is available for most common machines.