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NOT for a long time have books and libraries featured in the correspondence columns of The Times and other newspapers as regularly as they have in 1960. Earlier in the year Sir Alan Herbert's lending rights' scheme had a good run, and we have clearly not yet heard the last of it. Indeed, a Private Member's bill on the subject is to have its second reading in Parliament on December 9th. More recently, the Herbert proposals have had a by‐product in the shape of bound paperbacks, and a correspondence ensued which culminated in Sir Allen Lane's fifth‐of‐November firework banning hard‐covered Penguins for library use.

The gathered evidence concerning the place of the UDC scheme in American library schools is insufficient or lacking for the earlier periods of curricular history, but 30 years ago one investigator suggested that UDC was a significant ingredient of the typical cataloguing and classification course although not necessarily taught by every school. It is possible today to examine the position of the scheme over the past 20 years because of the detailed findings of three surveys and it will be shown that UDC has held a place in the theoretical teaching of half the schools but that very few courses have provided for practice work on the schedules.

The introduction of post‐coordinate indexing within the mandatory education in subject headings, classification and cataloguing at ALA‐accredited library schools was slow to follow the adoption of the technique in the library and information field. Surveys conducted in 1956, 1961 and 1966 produced no positive evidence of the teaching of the method. A recent study has found that rather less than half the schools were teaching coordinate indexing and most of these granted it only slight attention. Those schools that covered coordinate indexing were far more likely than the average school to include UDC in the classification part of the curriculum. Schools which featured modern integrated courses of wide scope nearly all taught coordinate indexing. There are strong vocational and academic arguments to warrant the incorporation of the model in all required instruction in concept and term analysis and special librarians can work towards this end through curricular consultation with the schools.

THE CIVIL CODES of most European countries have, for several decades, required official publication of company details in government gazettes. Thus librarians in each EEC country have enjoyed the availability of an official bulletin, published daily or bi‐weekly: in France, for example, it is called Bulletin officiel des annonces commerciales, a daily document of 70–80 double column pages containing full details of registrations, changes and cessations of all forms of business enterprises, (not only limited companies), together with an index to all personal and business names mentioned. The publication started in 1926 and now costs 50 centimes per issue or Frs 60 in France (c £5) per year. Similar documents at comparable prices are published by the other EEC governments and Denmark too.

OUR ISSUES DO NOT PROVE ANYTHING? “READING is finished” is the portentious quotation from Richard Hoggart's address to the School Libraries Association which we find in small type at the foot of a column of the American L.A. Bulletin. A year or two ago, with apprehension and gravity, an American writer asserted that one of the darker signs of life in the U.S.A. was that a generation had arrived that had lost not only the art but the willing power to read, or perhaps never had them to lose. The first American report we have opened this year is The Brooklyn Public Library Salutes its Readers, its 61st annual one. Mr. Francis R. St. John, the chief librarian, says in his first paragraph “this has been a record year” and continues, “This year readers were responsible for the greatest circulation in our history”. Yes, 9½ millions of it. The question occurs: if no one reads and books are finished, how can these statements and figures be reconciled?

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked, which may be consulted in the Library. Books and Pamphlets

JOAN BUTLER, Organiser of Library Work with Young People at Hertfordshire County Library, spent a fortnight in April on a British Council‐sponsored visit to Jordan, lecturing and advising on the development of school libraries and the training of teacher librarians.

The inadequacy of conventional methods for communication in the face of the ever‐increasing amount of information to be dealt with is obvious. An international system of communication based on knowledge of the way in which the human brain stores and uses information is required. Unfortunately such knowledge is not yet available, but there is no doubt that the richness of association linkages in the brain is in marked contrast to the irregular and unreliable association process in external communication systems. Vast improvements would be necessary, involving increases in depth of cataloguing, indexing, cross‐referencing, and abstracting. The flexibility of the association processes would be such that constant awareness of current developments would become possible. Automatic processes under the supervision of experienced scientists would form an indispensable part of the system. The cost of all this would be justified by the rapid advances of knowledge which would result. At present the principal obstacle in the way of solving the information problem is probably public unawareness. If this could be overcome a system on the above lines might begin to come into being.