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Publication date: 1 August 1932

B.N. LANGDON‐DAVIES

IT is always useful in considering any institution to start by asking ourselves the question—essential, according to the Mock Turtle, on all occasions—“With what porpoise?” Why…

27

Abstract

IT is always useful in considering any institution to start by asking ourselves the question—essential, according to the Mock Turtle, on all occasions—“With what porpoise?” Why are books written, published, reviewed and read? By considering these problems separately we may be able to discover the causes and even hint at the cures for some of the maladies widely believed to afflict the world of books to‐day.

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Library Review, vol. 3 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0024-2535

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Publication date: 1 January 1951

THE London and Home Counties Branch is fortunate in having close at hand watering places which can house its Autumn or other Conferences conveniently. Hove in fair weather in…

48

Abstract

THE London and Home Counties Branch is fortunate in having close at hand watering places which can house its Autumn or other Conferences conveniently. Hove in fair weather in October is a place of considerable charm; it has many varieties of hotel, from the very expensive to the modest; it is used to conferences and the hospitality of the Town Hall is widely known. This year's conference was focused in the main on problems of book‐selection which, as one writer truly says, is the main purpose of the librarian because all his possibilities hang upon it. The papers read are valuable because they appear to be quite unvarnished accounts of the individual practice of their writers. Of its kind that of Mr. Frank M. Gardner is a model and a careful study of it by the library worker who is in actual contact with the public might be useful. For his methods the paper must be read; they are a clever up‐to‐minute expansion of those laid down in Brown's Manual with several local checks and variations. Their defects are explained most usefully; there is no examination of actual books before purchase and bookshops are not visited, both of which defects are due to the absence in Luton of well‐stocked bookshops; a defect which many sizeable towns share. We find this remark significant: “The librarian of Luton in 1911 had a book‐fund of £280 a year for 30,000 people. I have nearly £9,000 for 110,000. But the Librarian in 1911 was a better book‐selector than we are. He had to be, to give a library service at all. Every possible purchase had to be looked at, every doubt eliminated.” We deprecate the word “better”; in 1911 book‐selection was not always well done, but Brown's methods could be carried out if it was thought expedient to do the work as well as it could be done. The modern librarian and his employers seem to have determined that the whole of the people shall be served by the library; that books shall be made available hot from the press, with as few exclusions as possible. No librarian willingly buys rubbish; but only in the largest libraries can a completely comprehensive selection practice be maintained. Few librarians can be quite satisfied to acquire their books from lists made by other people although they may use them for suggestions. How difficult is the problem Mr. Gardner demonstrates in connexion with books on Bridge; a shelf of apparently authoritative books might possibly contain not one that actually met the conditions of today. If this could be so in one very small subject, what might be the condition of a collection covering, or intended to cover, all subjects? Librarians have to be realists; orthodox methods do not always avail to deal with the cataract of modern books; but gradually, by cooperative methods, mechanical aids and an ever‐increasing staff devoted to this, the principal library job, much more may be done than is now possible.

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New Library World, vol. 53 no. 15
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Publication date: 1 March 1926

IT has now been definitely arranged that the Conference of the Library Association will take place in the week beginning September 6th. Leeds has an old‐time reputation for…

19

Abstract

IT has now been definitely arranged that the Conference of the Library Association will take place in the week beginning September 6th. Leeds has an old‐time reputation for hospitality and civic pride, and there is every reason to believe that from the library point of view also the Conference will be one of the most interesting and productive of recent years. It will appeal strongly to the whole of this generation of librarians from the fact that the President‐elect is Dr. Henry Guppy, the veteran Librarian of the John Rylands Library, who in the old days, when he was editor of The Library Association Record, gave perhaps greater stimulus than any man of his day to the young library worker to educate and equip himself for finer library service. It may be that under its present able editor the Library Association Record is approaching the quality which it possessed under Dr. Guppy. We doubt whether it has surpassed or can surpass that quality. It is hoped, we understand, that the main subjects for discussion will be those which arose out of Principal Grant Robertson's Inaugural Address at Birmingham last year. Libraries and citizenship is a subject with many phases and possibilities. We hope that the Council will give us the opportunity to explore many of its avenues.

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New Library World, vol. 28 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Publication date: 1 June 1932

GILBERT HIGHET

THIS essay has two origins—a habit and a request. It was an Italian friend of mine who asked me to choose for him twenty novels which contained the spirit of Britain to‐day: and…

32

Abstract

THIS essay has two origins—a habit and a request. It was an Italian friend of mine who asked me to choose for him twenty novels which contained the spirit of Britain to‐day: and it was a very English friend who enquired “Why do you read only American magazines, and so many of those?”

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Library Review, vol. 3 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0024-2535

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Publication date: 1 August 1932

FREDERICK NIVEN

THE name is arresting, like the personality for which it stands. Cunninghame Graham: Lavery's equestrian portrait of him conveys the essential man as revealed in his writings…

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Abstract

THE name is arresting, like the personality for which it stands. Cunninghame Graham: Lavery's equestrian portrait of him conveys the essential man as revealed in his writings, though the other one (somewhat reminiscent of Raeburn's Sir John Sinclair), which presents him to us afoot, lacks nothing save a horse for company. He has a passion for horses and has written many an essay in which they are leading characters and one book devoted to them—The Horses of the Conquest. William Rothenstein has recorded him in lithograph and in oils and in Men and Memories includes a reproduction of a painting of him in fencer's garb. Belcher did a charcoal drawing of him—it appeared in Punch—with a lightly indicated background of Hyde Park Corner and a horse or two, in a dexterous mere line or two, clipping past. There is a word‐picture of him in the epilogue to Bernard Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion and another in George Moore's Conversations in Ebury Street. Writer, Scots laird, Spanish hidalgo, South American ranch‐owner, he has ridden and bivouaced in Texas and Patagonia and may be found this month in Morocco, next month in London, or in Venezuela, or enjoying a braw day (or a snell day for that matter) in Perthshire.

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Library Review, vol. 3 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0024-2535

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 1941

SEPTEMBER was free from large‐scale visits of bombers, and the arrangements the Associations made for meetings were realized. The Library Association, challenging the criticism…

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Abstract

SEPTEMBER was free from large‐scale visits of bombers, and the arrangements the Associations made for meetings were realized. The Library Association, challenging the criticism that it was making no programme for the peace, requested its branches to produce ideas. Thus, those who made the criticism were asked to define their terms, as it were. The first outcome was a joint meeting of the London and Home Counties Branch and the A.A.L. which was held at the delightful new St. Marylebone Library on September 24th. Another joint meeting in London was that at the Institution of Electrical Engineers on September 26th, when the British Society of International Bibliography and A.S.L.I.B. actually met in quite substantial numbers to discuss the indexing and listing of periodicals. These activities are expressions of confidence in the future by librarians and those concerned with libraries. If the immediate results are not dramatic they keep us in good heart, and we hope will lead to other meetings.

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New Library World, vol. 44 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Publication date: 1 August 1945

SEPTEMBER, by a traditional impulse, has always represented to some minds the beginning of the most active period in the library year. This year the month that sees the close of…

39

Abstract

SEPTEMBER, by a traditional impulse, has always represented to some minds the beginning of the most active period in the library year. This year the month that sees the close of the holiday season, the shortening day and lengthening evening, holds fairer promises and greater difficulties than any in the past six years or perhaps in the past twenty‐five. It sees large programmes in prospect but many fences to be surmounted and, if the physicists are right, the beginning of a new era. It is doubtful if, in so short a space of time as that which has elapsed since we last wrote, so many important events have occurred. The entirely new political alignment may have its effects on our post‐war policy. We hope the library will never again be the protege of a political party because that means that it becomes thereby the target of the opposition—as was the case when in London a change of party in local government brought about the wreck for a generation of at least one library service which had the misfortune to have been initiated by the other party. We have however, no immediate apprehensions about public libraries in present circumstances.

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New Library World, vol. 48 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Publication date: 1 July 1945

THE beginning of a new volume is always a matter of concern both to its Editor and to its Readers. It is usual to be able to forecast some programme of work or at least policy…

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Abstract

THE beginning of a new volume is always a matter of concern both to its Editor and to its Readers. It is usual to be able to forecast some programme of work or at least policy, for the year then opening. At the moment what is usual is not here; we have the cessation of actual battle in Europe, it is true; but we are as involved in Asia as we have ever been and, in spite of the optimists, the end is not in view. It would be well, too, for us always to realize that while there is no battle here, there is conflict with disease, want, misery and homelessness on a scale never approached before. It is certain only that men of goodwill, amongst whom librarians hope they are numbered, are awake to the situation and anxious to help. Thus, in our pages we shall endeavour to keep open minds and ideas adapted to our changing world before our readers.

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New Library World, vol. 48 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Publication date: 1 November 1938

Out of the nine chapters in this book, three (Chapters I, III and VI) contain a good deal of interesting information, well worthy of its distinguished writer. Unfortunately…

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Abstract

Out of the nine chapters in this book, three (Chapters I, III and VI) contain a good deal of interesting information, well worthy of its distinguished writer. Unfortunately, practically the whole of the rest is compounded of sneers and gibes at those who hold different political views from the author and is quite unworthy of a Fellow of the Royal Society. If the chapters we have enumerated were lifted out and republished in the form of a pamphlet, selling at sixpence or a shilling, this would richly deserve the wide circulation it would undoubtedly receive. In its present form we are afraid it is impossible to recommend the expenditure of seven shillings and sixpence on political diatribe. Professor Haldane is highly critical of the Home Office and its A.R.P. advice, but in fact during the recent crisis the hasty measures taken for the immediate protection of the public were almost exactly on the lines he suggests. The more elaborate forms of shelter he describes as having been found effective in Spain would no doubt have followed.

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Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 10 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0002-2667

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Publication date: 1 May 1979

At every period of time marked by years, the seasons by turns and twists in history, among country folk especially, the years of great storms and hard winters; in law enforcement…

167

Abstract

At every period of time marked by years, the seasons by turns and twists in history, among country folk especially, the years of great storms and hard winters; in law enforcement, the passing of some far‐reaching, profound statutory measure, there is this almost universal tendency to look back—over your shoulder‐assessing changes, progressive or otherwise, discerning trends and assaying prospects. We are about to emerge from the seventies—battered but unbowed!—into the new decade of the eighties, perhaps with a feeling that things can only get better.

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British Food Journal, vol. 81 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

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