Search results

THIS issue opens the new volume of THE LIBRARY WORLD and it is natural that we should pause to glance at the long road we have travelled. For over forty years our pages have been open to the most progressive and practical facts, theories and methods of librarianship; our contributors have included almost every librarian who has held an important office; and we have always welcomed the work of younger, untried men who seemed to have promise— many of whom have indeed fulfilled it. In the strain and stress of the First World War we maintained interest and forwarded the revisions in library methods which adapted them to the after‐war order. Today we have similar, even severer, problems before us, and we hope to repeat the service we were then able to give. In this we trust that librarians, who have always regarded THE LIBRARY WORLD with affection, will continue to support us and be not tempted because of temporary stringency, to make a victim of a journal which has given so long and so independent a service.

DESPITE the critics who arise to condemn the onward march of the Public Library movement there can be little doubt that after the settling process has been gone through it will be more seriously reckoned with as a factor within our social evolution than at present; and meantime it were well to remember that fine definition of Dickens in regard to the Public Libraries of fifty years ago, and to see whether it was a prophecy or a realisation when he said, “It is grand to know that … the immortal mechanism of God's own hand, the mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, but is lodged and tended in a palace of its own.” Let us extend the meaning and see how the Public Library movement has grafted itself upon the mind of the great public by whom it is supported, and how it stands in regard to the authorities by whom it is controlled, and then, taking this position, let us ask the two questions: “How does it express itself popularly, and do people look at it in the light which Dickens did?”

We hope that our Conference Report Number of The Library World will give our readers as much pleasure as the many communications we have received assure us our last issue did. The record of the proceedings at Norwich appears on other pages; here we need only say that the conference will be remembered as one of the most delightful and stimulating in a long list of delightful and stimulating conferences. Everything went smoothly from beginning to end with that absence of obvious effort which is a certain sign that immense effort has gone to the organisation. We expected much from Norwich, and we received it. The tributes paid to the Local Committee and the special references to the enthusiasm and devotion of Mr. Stephen and his able deputy, Mr. Charles Nowell, were blessed to give and we hope were blessed to receive. They were thoroughly deserved.

In the speech in which he introduced the new Education Bill, Mr. H. A. L. Fisher remarked that it did not deal with a number of special questions, “which must be the matter of another measure.” One of these questions was “libraries,” and we are now definitely face to face with the fact that the Board of Education are of opinion that libraries are within their purview. The report of the speech as it appears in The Times is not conclusive upon the point. “Libiaries,” as an auxiliary of education, may connote in the Minister's mind the mere provision of libraries in schools and teaching institutions generally. If that is so there is no particular reason for alarm, so long as the authorities recognize that even the management of school libraries is a matter for librarians rather than for teachers.

The fundamental change in accounting rules for equity-based compensation (EBC) instituted by SFAS 123, SFAS 123r, and IFRS 2 has allowed for new insights related to a variety of research questions. This paper discusses the empirical evidence generated in the wake of the new regulation and categorizes it into two broad streams. The first stream encompasses research on the changed use of EBC and the incentives provided. The second stream addresses how firms account for EBC, including the underreporting phenomenon and how it was affected by the mandatory recognition of EBC expenses. I discuss where research delivers unanimous findings versus contradictory results. Using these insights, I make recommendations for further research opportunities in the area of EBC.

Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W., 9th February, 1917. PUBLIC HEALTH (REGULATIONS AS TO FOOD) ACT, 1907. Amending Regulations with respect to Cream. SIR, I am directed by the President of the Local Government Board to transmit to you the enclosed copies of an Order which has been made amending the Public Health (Milk and Cream) Regulations, 1912.

OUR new volume opens in a grave moment in national history and it remains almost a marvel that libraries are Still not only able to persist, but even to expand their book‐work. Is it because of the truth in some admirable words of Charles Rupert Sanderson, in the Toronto Public Libraries Annual Report for 1941: “Whoever believes in democracy must believe in public libraries”? He goes on to say: “Unless any formal education period is to amount to little more than writing on the sand, it must be continued by a lifelong use of books—engendered in childhood, fostered in youth, and built into an adult habit.” Amongst the young people the need for books was never greater, and the difficulty of getting new books for them was never more marked. It is a time when older books should come into their own again. Another feature has been the desire for small collections of “lending books” in munition works, training centres, canteens, clubs and the innumerable other meeting places of men and women. The problem of the day is “time and again time.” There is none of it for travelling, even to libraries, although in the said centres men and women have often to Stand by for hours when they could, and would, read. Librarians have used the opportunity and may be called upon for more of these “dispersal” activities. Otherwise, with all our problems, of which as the writer on Letters on Our Affairs suggests, the greatest is books, although the staff problem is acute, our work flourishes so far as book‐use is concerned. Librarians have faith that a culture so based on books will outlast present cataclysms. People who can read can endure and people who endure can fight, both directly and indirectly, and keep on doing it.

We confess that we get a little tired of the claims of originality put forward by librarians or their admirers, often for things that have been in use for a quarter of a century. The public events diary, exhibitions of holiday literature, this or that form of reading list, library lessons, and what not, all of which have been familiar to us since the beginning of the century, have all been claimed recently by some library or other which is “showing the way.” Originality, alas, is very rare; and the claim might be avoided we think. At the same time, we much prefer the librarian who faces a problem himself, and shouts with delight at his solution, to one who faces nothing.

The news that the Ministry of Education has set up two Working Parties in connection with the proposed new Public Libraries Bill is welcome and gives further hope that such a Bill will appear in the not too distant future. From the constitutions of these Working Parties, which seem to us to be fairly representative of all interests, it would appear that the first is going to concern itself with the main aspects of the Roberts Report recommendations, while the second will be given the task of studying the problems of library co‐operation. On the first party, county libraries are represented by Miss Paulin and Mr. Budge, while Wales is represented by Mr. A. Edwards, librarian of the Cardiganshire and Aberystwyth Joint Library. Mr. D. I. Colley, the city librarian of Manchester, will be keeping a watching brief on behalf of the large libraries, but it should not be forgotten that he is also a member of the Libraries Committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations. Mr. Gardner is rightly there, perhaps not only as librarian of Luton but also as chairman of the Library Association's Executive Committee. The Smaller Libraries Group can surely have no complaints, for out of the ten members of Working Party No. I there are three librarians from smaller libraries, these being Mr. Helliwell of Winchester, Mr. Christopher of Penge and Mr. Parker of Ilkley. This Working Party is completed by two legal representatives in Mr. W. B. Murgatroyd, who is Town Clerk of Hornsey, and Mr. J. H. Oldham, who is Assistant County Solicitor for Kent.

Numerous dewatering fluids have been developed and marketed as ‘Jack‐of‐all‐trades’ products. In general terms these products are variations on the tried and tested lanolin in white spirit formulation. A new dewatering, anti‐corrosion product has now been successfully developed and marketed which gives much improved properties over the traditional types. In order to improve the performance of the fluid, especially as regards water displacement, the new fluid contains a blend of anti‐corrosion, film‐forming, dewatering and emulsifying agents in a low carbonising base fluid. The resultant fluid meets the requirements laid down in DEF. STAN. 68–10/2, PX‐24, NATO C‐634 for a ‘corrosion preventive compound, water‐displacing’.