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This column inaugurates a new facet of the coverage of reference materials contained in RSR: the inclusion of sections devoted to reviews of useful reference books published around the world. Inasmuch as RSR's emphasis is on American reference sources and American libraries, the titles selected for evaluation were chosen on the basis of their appeal and relevance to libraries both in the U.S. and in other countries.

THE FIRST MEETING of the LA Council in each year confirms the nomination of the new president by arranging his investiture with the badge of office by the outgoing incumbent. Last year Sir Fred Dainton had to buckle at the knees to allow Douglas Foskett to slip the blue ribbon over his head; this time he had to stretch up a little to negotiate Godfrey Thompson's ginger curls. The new president might have been only too willing to do the buckling but he was carrying the effects of a seasonal bug and once started on his way down, might never have stopped.

In future, the Secretary of the Library Association will be known as the Secretary‐General, it was decided at the Council meeting on November 2. Professor Keith Harris said that if his secretary rang someone with the title of secretary, she would expect that person to take shorthand notes, and Godfrey Thompson said that a secretary was a clerical officer of fairly low standing. LAR 81 (11) November 1979.

This concluding chapter attempts to capture and extend the lessons rendered in the previous chapters in this book. In overview we may observe that over the past three decades, criticisms about government performance have surfaced across the world from all points of the political spectrum. Critics have alleged that governments are inefficient, ineffective, too large, too costly, overly bureaucratic, overburdened by unnecessary rules, unresponsive to public wants and needs, secretive, undemocratic, invasive into the private rights of citizens, self-serving, and failing in the provision of either the quantity or quality of services deserved by the taxpaying public (see, for example, Barzelay & Armajani, 1992; Jones & Thompson, 1999; Osborne & Gaebler, 1993). Fiscal stress has also plagued many governments and has increased the cry for less costly or less expansive government, for greater efficiency, and for increased responsiveness. High profile members of the business community, financial institutions, the media, management consultants, academic scholars and the general public all have pressured politicians and public managers to reform. So, too have many supranational organizations, including OECD, the World Bank, the European Commission. Accompanying the demand and many of the recommendations for change has been support for the application of market-based logic and private sector management methods to government (see, for example, Harr & Godfrey, 1991; Jones & Thompson, 1999; Milgrom & Roberts, 1992; Moe, 1984; Olson et al., 1998). Application of market-driven solutions and business techniques to the public sector has undoubtedly been encouraged by the growing ranks of public sector managers and analysts educated in business schools and public management programs (Pusey, 1991).

THE NEWS will doubtless appear in the May issue of the Record, and several days after that they will send me a press release just in case the Record's prose style has defeated me, announcing that the LA's president‐elect for 1978 is to be Godfrey Thompson, Guildhall Librarian (City of London) and currently Treasurer of the la, as well as a member of our editorial board since its inception. (I had therefore better make it clear that it wasn't Godfrey who told me, or indeed anyone else on the board.)

FRANK COLE, Director of Libraries & Arts, Camden, writes: In April 1976 you allowed me to comment on the March editorial which had expressed romantic views on fines in public libraries. I wrote that within eighteen months of the suspension of fines in Camden, the number of Overdue books and recordings had risen by 120% and that, as a consequence, the penalties were to be re‐imposed. I am now able to write that, in a five month period since the re‐introduction of fines, the increase in overdues has fallen dramatically to 14% above the level of October 1973‐February 1974, when fines were last charged.

APPROVAL of a plan for a new Birmingham Central Library was given by the City Council on July 26 1938. One world war and heaven knows how many financial stringencies later, on June 5 1970, the foundation stone of the building was laid. The new library stands adjacent to the present building and is part of the re‐development scheme for the centre of Birmingham.

OUR STACK ROOMS are fast filling with different folk's ideas of carving up England. The Local Government Boundary Commission, Maud, Senior, Labour White Paper, Conservative White Paper, and now the Bill. Each subsequent issue has attracted less and less public attention and the latest green and black map was hustled to the inside newspaper pages, quite unable to compete with 0z and the Stolken/Wolfson law court extravaganza. Some of us weary of this cartographic librarians' feast, having first seen this kind of map on page 157 of the McColvin report in 1942, with boundaries identical with the new map, as it happens, for my own area of Norfolk.

ONE CAN BE forgiven for worrying about the ‘Peter principle’ when taking up a post on the practising side of the profession after nine years teaching librarianship.

PUBLIC LIBRARIANS outside London watch with attention/pleasure/alarm the results of governmental thinking on the re‐organisation of local government. Londoners will be more detached but, remembering 1965 and fingering their old scars, will have sympathy.