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The focus of this chapter is upon workplace coaching, one of the deepest forms of communication where true understanding is formed between two people in rich dialogue.

Two domains of personal learning are presented: the inner theatre, which includes multi-source feedback, and the outer theatre, which includes action-learning projects (Callan & Latemore, 2008).

Two transformative learning strategies are considered in detail: the therapeutic metaphor (Atkinson, 1995) and the intensive journal (Progoff, 1992). Four case studies are then examined where clients engage in transformative change.

The chapter concludes with cautions for the professional coach and insists that coaching needs to be deeply respectful. Authentic coaches facilitate change with their clients, not to do things to them.

The term “medical” will be interpreted broadly to include both basic and clinical sciences, related health fields, and some “medical” elements of biology and chemistry. A reference book is here defined as any book that is likely to be consulted for factual information more frequently than it will be picked up and read through in sequential order. Medical reference books have a place in public, school, college, and other non‐medical libraries as well as in the wide variety of medical libraries. All of these libraries will be considered in this column. A basic starting collection of medical material for a public library is outlined and described in an article by William and Virginia Beatty that appeared in the May, 1974, issue of American Libraries.

IN my hobbledehoy stage I devoured many books of a kind with which, I have since been often enough informed, a normal British youth should have nothing to do. But I was not a normal British youth, and didn't want to be. I was a secretly rebellious young Scot, nursing my dreams in a Glasgow tenement. My own life was comfortable and happy, but much of what I saw in Glasgow to me was misery and would not let me rest. I resented the smug narrowness and callous make‐believe of churchy folk, our imprisonment from the life and tradition of the Scots countryside, and the stuffily complacent British insularity which Scotland, once so cosmopolitan in her interests, had adopted from Public‐School England. I did not “glory in the name of Briton.” I was a Scot and a European.

I AM glad to give what support I can to the movement for improving and extending Scotland's library services. It is disappointing that Scotland should lag behind England and some other countries in a matter so important to a nation so dependent on the mental calibre and equipment of her sons and daughters. The lag is the more curious when one recalls that Carlyle (who declared that the best university is a collection of books) took the initiative in the founding of the London Library, and that Andrew Carnegie was the first millionaire to devote a large part of his fortune to the founding of public libraries.

I doubt if any book‐lover likes to read out‐of‐doors, unless, in snatches, at a book‐stall. The glare is painful, there are the quivering shadows of leaves, you either fry or shiver, and “things that creep or fly” explore your book and your person. There are people, mostly women, who can devour books anywhere. But they are not book‐lovers. They are fiction‐addicts.

JOHNSON was in his middle fifties when Boswell was introduced to him “in Mr. Davies's back‐parlour,” and much the greater part of the Life deals with him in his sixties and seventies. The Johnson Boswell knew was the “Great Cham of literature,” a State pensioner, “on velvet.” “Slow rises worth, by poverty oppressed,” he had written. Of the struggle from which he himself had emerged we have a few glimpses, mainly from letters and the statements of contemporaries. But Johnson was not disposed to dwell on the subject, and Boswell's genteel remoteness from it is illustrated by his comments on Johnson's friendship with Savage.

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.

THIS is the month when the public librarian again faces his annual estimates. Things are rarely exactly easy for him. This year may be no exception, as there will be in some places an effort to lop off the non‐essential works of local authorities. It is at this time that some librarians wish the service ceased to be local, because town councillors as a whole believe so much in the local character of government and do not realize that if they reduce on such things as libraries they are placing their own people at a disadvantage in relation to other towns. That is the soundest reason, and one that cannot too often be stressed, for some sort of imposed standard of service, which cannot be varied too greatly because of some temporary condition of local or national finance. We do not anticipate crippling reductions anywhere, but the signs for advance are not more propitious than in the bad old days. We shall be interested to hear of special cases this year, but hope that they will be few. We know that salaries cannot, at present, be greatly affected, but even librarians do not live for pay‐cheques alone; they want books, light, heat and many more things to revive, if not to improve, their service.

The East India Company can lay claim to being the world’s first company whose operations involved systematic organization of multiple countries. It was a pioneer and innovator: it was one of the first companies to offer limited liability to its shareholders; it laid the foundations of the British empire; it spawned Company Man; it developed its own ‘university’. It was a trader, merchant, mercenary, military force and civil administrator; a pioneer bureaucracy as well as being a lean operation. Using an analytic lens drawn from contemporary discussion on MNCs the article reviews the role of the East India Company over its life and draws parallels with contemporary MNCs.

IN recognition of his services to the library movement in India, H. H. the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda, G.C.S.I., was the guest of honour at a dinner given at Claridge's, London, on 30th May, by the transitive circle called THE LIBRARY REVIEW AND FRIENDS. Those present included Mr. E. Salter Davies, C.B.E., President of the Library Association, Mr. L. R. McColvin, F.L.A., Hon. Secretary of the Library Association, Mr. P. S. J. Welsford, F.I.S.A., Secretary of the Library Association, Mr. W. C. Berwick Sayers, F.L.A., Chief Librarian, Croydon Public Libraries, Mr. J. H. Roberts of the New Statesman and Nation, Dr. Modak, the A.D.C. to H. H. the Maharaja Gaekwar, Mr. Newton M. Dutt, F.L.A., formerly Reader to His Highness and State Librarian of Baroda, and Mr. R. D. Macleod, F.L.A. (who presided). Apologies for absence were received from Colonel J. M. Mitchell, C.B.E., Professor C. N. Seddon, sometime Dewan of Baroda, Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe, Mr. M. H. Spielmann, F.S.A., Mr. William Will, Captain L. Cranmer‐Byng, and one on behalf of Mr. Arundell Esdaile, Secretary to the British Museum, who was at Madrid.