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WHEN oil refiners have refined about as far as they can, they are left with a residue — bitumen. Its properties and character vary with the crude oil being refined. The bitumen producer blends and treats different raw bitumens to produce three main types for use in industry. In addition, oil company subsidiaries and independents process the bitumens to produce bitumen emulsions, bituminous mastics, and bituminous solutions and in latter years homogeneous blends of bitumen with resins and other materials. Such processed materials can be used as adhesives, sealants, waterproofing materials, flooring and road surfacing binders, insulation accessories, and general waterproofing and building protection coatings, quite apart from their widespread use in industrial processes.

FOR MOST of us, public library history usually amounts to scarcely more than rapidly dimming recollections of a handful of acts and commissions; dry facts memorised during library school lectures and retained just long enough to put the exams behind us. Of course, we remember the great names— Carnegie, Dewey, McColvin, and perhaps a few others—but apart from retiring old‐timers' regular assurances that it was all so much better and worse back then, we tend to know little of the day‐to‐day routines of our predecessors.

Those who contemplate attending the Annual Conference of the Library Association at Portsmouth would be well advised to secure their accommodation immediately if they have not done so already. The demands upon hotel space have been very much greater than even sanguine members anticipated, and already we hear of people being refused rooms because they are no longer available. Portsmouth, of course, is the naval centre of the Empire, and that common‐place piece of knowledge is magnetic, nevertheless. There are other attractions in Portsmouth. Its situation, practically adjacent to the Isle of Wight, with all its charms, on one side, and its nearness to the New Forest and the belt of Hampshire towns on the west, and on the east with such places as Chichester, Selsey, Bognor, Worthing, and Brighton make it, from the location point of view, of special interest. There is the further call of the literary associations of Portsmouth. Every book on the Navy has something about it, as those of us who read W. H. G. Kingston, Captain Marryatt and many another sea‐author can testify. Perhaps the most important author who came out of Portsmouth was not a sea‐writer but the son of a naval outfitter—George Meredith. Pernaps to a post‐War generation he seems old‐fashioned, involved, unnecessarily intricate, precious, and possesses other faults. This is a superficial point of view, and certainly in his poems he rises to heights and reaches depths that are denied to most writers of to‐day. In any case, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel and Beauchamp's Career, to say nothing of The Egoist, are among the great novels of the English language.

WE endorse with much pleasure the welcome that has greeted the election of the new President of the Library Association. When the Association, in what seems now a somewhat remote past, determined to place the executive side of its business in the hands of a permanent Secretary, the question of the continuance of an Honorary Secretary was given careful consideration. It was resolved that he should continue and that his main function would be to represent the President at all times when the latter was not available. He had other duties, even if they were not clearly expressed, including a general overall initiative in committee and Council matters. The successive holders of the office since, Stanley Jast, Dr. E. A. Savage and Lionel R. McColvin proved so clearly the wisdom of that decision that the Association made each of them President; they have been heads of the profession in a real sense, inspiring and actively creative. The last of them, Mr. McColvin, is known everywhere librarians meet, here and overseas, and only the newest library recruits are unfamiliar with his reports, essays and many books, or have not heard of his home and other county surveys and his fearless, suggestive appraisals of what he has seen and thought. In a rather difficult time the Library Association is fortunate to have so statesmanlike a librarian to lead it.

This exploration of management history focuses on mass entertainment media to determine the history of the efficiency expert in popular culture. It reviews the history of the image of the efficiency expert in film and on American‐produced television programs. The review shows that this profession is a universal and pervasive one, permanently embedded in our culture and catholic in background, occupation and workplace. It is generally a man’s job. The most significant historical trend is a sharp change from the efficiency expert as an amusing and relatively harmless character to a malevolent one who is to be feared. Although television has only existed for about half as long as motion pictures, the depiction of the efficiency expert on TV is similar to his movie image. This widely recognized profession needs no introduction to the viewer. He is a negative figure, often laughed at but never admired.

This paper aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of community archives, offering a critique of the community archives discourse through a historical case study focused on the origins of the Gerber/Hart LGBTQ library and archives in Chicago.

This study explores the archival collections of the founders of the Gerber/Hart library and archives and the librarians that have worked there as a means for understanding the origins of the archival impulse, the rationale for building the collections and the practices that shaped the collections during the first decade of the organization’s history.

The historical analysis of the Gerber/Hart library and archives situates community archives and LGBTQ collections within the broader historical context that lead to the founding of the organization and reveals deep connections to the information professions not previously considered by those studying community archives.

The paper offers a reconceptualization of community archives as archival projects initiated, controlled and maintained by the members of a self-defined community. The authors emphasize the role of the archival impulse or the historical origins of the collection and the necessity for full-community control, setting clear boundaries between community archives and other participatory archival models that engage the community.