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LOUGHBOROUGH was the first of the post‐war schools to be established in 1946. This resulted from negotiations of representatives of the Library Association Council with technical and other colleges which followed their failure to secure facilities within the universities on the terms of the L.A. remaining the sole certificating body. The late Dr. Herbert Schofield accepted their terms and added a library school to already varied fields of training within his college.

With the Pompey doldrum in mind, many misgivings were expressed about the Rothesay conference as the delegated gravy trains raced north to Glasgow. (Incidentally Sir Brian Robertson will find comfort in our belief that rail travel is the most satisfying way to attend conference with corridor exchanges and dining car badinage shortening the long haul).

IT IS EASY to make glib generalisations about the student situation in this country, and its associated problems, but a recondite analysis of student mores is much more difficult. Commentators tend to be extreme, varying from those who declaim ‘All for youth and the world well lost’ to those crying ‘Stop their grants, make them do a day's work’, and more in similar vein. An understanding of student attitudes to work and society is one thing, the cause and effect of their attitudes is quite another. What is certain is that there has been a radical change, and the full effects of this change are yet to be felt. Behind each new generation rise those ever ready to decry the follies of youth, but today there is a widespread and differing view held that youth is king, and can do no wrong. Both of these points of view are extreme, and both, in totality, are unjustified.

Computer‐aided systems for all four of the conventional divisions of the field of library housekeeping are now operational in libraries. In Great Britain the only activity not yet operational is that of periodicals control, although two libraries have already used a computer to produce lists of periodicals holdings. The aim of this paper is to describe simply how computer‐aided housekeeping systems work, from the point of view of the librarian, and to mention briefly some typical applications of each type of system.

A handsome new headquarters for Huntingdon County Library was opened on September 24 by Lord Butler. The building comprises two main elements: a two storey circular block for the public services, and a single storey administrative wing with ancillary accommodation. A gramophone record library is installed for the first time in the service. Floor area: 16,000 square feet; total building cost £114,000, plus £9,000 for the site and £9,000 for furniture.

THERE is a danger in reviewing developments in the reprographic field that one will merely degenerate into giving a catalogue of the recent hardware. Yet the hardware is important. One is reminded of Verner W. Clapp's remark regarding the effectiveness of the American Council on Library Resources that at the end of 11 years, $10 million and 413 grants, contracts and projects, the work of the Council on Library Resources had brought about a great many improvements but that, on the whole, the state of the art was just about where it was when they started!.

FOR ME PERSONALLY, The library world has completed a circle in the last decade. From 1958 to 1962 I was concerned in its publication, first with Grafton & Co, and then with André Deutsch Ltd. When Sydney Hyde of WHS Advertising Ltd told me in December that the journal would not fit into their proposed re‐organisation, sentiment alone would probably have been sufficient to arouse my interest in acquiring it.

SO SUCCESSFUL in user terms have been the leaflets, brochures and informational posters prepared in recent years by Lambeth Public Libraries' design studio, that an exhibition of the graphic work of designers Adrian Hodgkins and Linda Grimes for the library service was mounted at the London College of Printing in Clerkenwell during May. The printed introduction to the exhibition remarks that ‘Lambeth and a number of other local authorities recognise the need for a high standard of graphic presentation for the publicity and dissemination of information of its activities’—a judgment which was amply confirmed by the work on display. Director Roy McColvin adds: ‘It is our view that a free, non‐institutionalised but appropriate design policy helps enormously, first to give information of the services, and secondly to publicise the activities’.

In retrospect, the process of merging the National Central Library with the National Lending Library for Science and Technology might appear to have moved with clockwork precision and with little dissent. Logic and far‐sighted planning might now seem to have been inexorable.

“WHAT PRICE educational technology now?” This was the pessimistic title of an article contributed by Geoffrey Hubbard, Director of the Council for Educational Technology, to the 3M magazine Tape teacher, last September. Hubbard outlined a bleak future for educational technology if expenditure cuts forced education authorities to cut back on what are often regarded as “audio visual frills”. The article argued that educational technology is concerned with not only the efficient utilisation of audio‐visual equipment, but with the best use of all resources in the effective implementation of the curriculum. Nevertheless, it is easier to argue for savings in expenditure by pruning capital‐intensive projects usually associated with resource‐based learning than to prove that educational technology can help teachers make the best use of scarce resources. Current popular attitudes, favouring a return to “traditional” education, make it even more likely that the former argument will prevail. Librarians not working in the educational sector may also find themselves under pressure to decrease spending on non‐book materials in favour of books.