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WE seem to be immediately facing a drive for much more technical education and for many more technical colleges and schools to produce it. In the condition of the world today this is an inevitable, an indispensable, process. The reasons are loudly proclaimed and patent to every librarian, and the library must come strongly, as it always has, into the picture but perhaps now more universally and with greater intensity. Dr. Chandler, who is proceeding at a rare pace to specialize his departments, has created a new local council to unify the information work that has already been done at Liverpool. Every technical book costing over five shillings is bought, and the usual collections of periodicals and other material of technical and industrial interest are being increased and a bulletin of additions is being issued soon after the end of each month. The Technical library is one that combines lending and reference activities, telephone and postal services; in fact all the orthodox activities that have been standard in the larger towns since Glasgow began them in 1916, and possibly new and extended ones. The William Brown Library which was destroyed in Air Raids is being reconstructed and the enlarged Technical Library will be developed in it. This is one city only; every large city reports some increase in the services rendered, for example the Telex service is now available at Manchester. It is essential that public libraries everywhere realize the part they may play; if they do not, the suggestion made recently that the lending of technical books should become an activity of the Technical Colleges may become a reality.

Within D.S.I.R., by a technical information service we do not mean a library or an abstracting service or a translating service. A technical information service may contain all or none of these. The essential thing about it is that it should be actively concerned with getting information in a suitable form to the user. Within this definition I should like to stress the word ‘actively’. We regard a service such as a library service which is only concerned with dealing with customers who approach it, as a passive service. To see if this has always been the view held in the Department I began to study the earlier papers relating to the Department. That, of course, is an appropriate activity because this year on 1st December the Department is forty years young.

In this first number of 1961 we wish all our readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year. With so many important projects on the stocks, there is no doubt that this will be a year of decision and progress for library affairs in Britain. The Library Association itself may well reorganise and resolve itself into a purely professional body during 1961. Its new syllabus may probably be finalised and geared for action within the next three years. Further progress will no doubt be made on the new building in Store Street which is to house the National Central Library and the headquarters of the Library Association. Other continuing items will doubtless be the discussion of authors' lending rights and the library binding of paper‐backed books, while many librarians in the Greater London area will be closely watching the events which will certainly follow the Royal Commission's Report on Local Government in Greater London. One thing, regrettably, seems certain. There will be no new Public Libraries Act in 1961, for Sir David Eccles' pronouncement that this will be delayed until the boundary review is completed has effectively put the Roberts Committee Report into cold storage for some considerable time.

The subject of public technical library services is one which has been dealt with in several previous papers. It is not proposed, therefore, to itemize the long list of services which the public library can normally offer to its users, but instead to emphasize certain points which have not previously been given much attention, and to outline two developments which would seem to present a new approach to this branch of library activity.

We published last month a letter from Mr. E. A. Savage, who is acting as Secretary to the new Library Association Committee on Technical Libraries, which gave us great gratification, since it showed us that the inactivity of the Association is being broken in a useful direction. To the Committee in question is referred the subject of how to strengthen technical libraries in industrial centres, but now we understand that the reference has been widened, with wisdom we think, to include scientific libraries. How it will proceed is not yet apparent, but several things suggest themselves. First, the Committee will collect information as to what resources exist, and to what extent they are accessible to, and used by, the public, with, we hope, the means that are taken to advertise them. Secondly, it is to be hoped that the Committee will invite co‐operation in discussing and propagating means of improving such collections. Thirdly, it is devoutly to be expected that the Association, fortified by the researches of the Committee, will approach the various Government commissions and committees now considering technical and other education, with a plea to be heard upon these things. Mr. Savage told us that a questionnaire to elicit information was being prepared, and invited suggestions, and we hope that his letter has received the attention it merited. Delay is the one thing to be guarded against, as it is all too probable that while we are gathering information, the Government bodies referred to may have concluded their investigations and have made their reports, which in that case it is almost certain will contain few if any references to public libraries. We hope, therefore, that the circular of questions has been drawn up. At the time of writing there are no signs of its appearance, which is not a satisfactory matter, seeing that the Committee was appointed more than two months ago. If the Committee is to occupy a whole year in reaching its conclusions the value of the work will be negligible—days rather than weeks or months are important at present. Then, we appeal to librarians to furnish information directly it is requested; dilatoriness in such a case would be unpardonable, and all who have had to do with circularising the profession know how prone librarians are to the postponement of answers. It is desirable that information should be definite: not only the extent of collections, as shown by statistics of volumes, but also their quality should be elicited. The usual lists of libraries, year‐books and similar works, mention the various special collections owned by the libraries listed; but the “special collections” of music, art, &c, which figure there are often too limited to deserve such mention except with qualifications.

An account is given of a survey carried out by OSTI in May‐June 1966 on the use made of thirty‐three public reference libraries in England, Scotland, and Wales, covering both personal visitors and telephone, Telex, and postal inquiries. The results include the more important factual information collected and show the large extent to which public reference libraries are used as a source of technical and commercial information by a wide range of users, especially in local industry, commerce, and public services.

I suppose it is generally true that for most of the established professions, those who are outside any particular ‘magic circle’ regard the business which is carried on inside it as a complete mystery; full of pitfalls for the unwary; needing an enormous amount of hard work and training to get to the ‘top of the tree’; closely protected by an association or society, or even by the law!—and so on.

“BY WHAT CRITERIA”, a modern Socrates might ask his pupils, “are we to know that a good woman is good ?” And the pupils, after pondering for many months, might reply “We have sought out many good women and they tell us that their measurements are 36‐23‐36; know therefore that any woman who conforms to these measurements is a good woman, but any woman who fails to so conform is not a good woman”. But Socrates would know that a woman might conform to these measurements yet still be ugly in appearance and shrewish by temperament; cold and unloving, while conversely many women could be paragons of womanliness and be nowhere near these measurements.

CAMBRIDGE did not disappoint the expectations of the more than one thousand persons who attended the conference. The organization worked without a creak in its machinery, thanks to the work of Mr. W. A. Fenton, the Honorary Local Secretary, and his distinguished committee; the hospitality was liberal; the excursions well chosen and successful. As for the papers and addresses, which, after all, are the official reason for conferences, even if there was little that was epoch‐making, they were interesting, sometimes provocative, and almost invariably stimulating. Most of us returned to our libraries inspired and encouraged with the undoubted vitality of the library movement as manifested at Cambridge.

The theme of this conference is the provision of necessary information for the industrialist, the technologist, and for the business man generally. Of the importance, the vital importance, of this subject there will be no question to‐day. In the halcyon conditions of the pre‐war world our supposedly characteristic British methods in industry and commerce were perhaps sufficient. Some conscious pride in the superior quality and finish of our products, and the comfortable wealth forthcoming from our overseas investments, permitted a relatively careless enjoyment by a creditor nation of a seller's market. In the very different circumstances in which, as a nation, we find ourselves to‐day, our erstwhile light‐hearted inattention to research, methods, and markets can only lead to disaster, to our complete financial, political, and social ruin. To say this is, of course, to state what is generally known and agreed; however much the unpalatable truth of it may be evaded by ostrich‐like and fact‐cushioning gratulations upon targets achieved or quotas exceeded. Government admonitions, the directives issued by production boards and working parties, the publications of manufacturing and trade associations—these all stress the importance of factual information and emphasize the absolute necessity of studying the possibilities of new methods, and their application in improving the quality and the design of our industrial products, reducing their costs, and generally increasing their attractiveness to potential customers.