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IT IS very agreeable to have the opportunity to write a quarterly commentary on the American library scene for New library world. At the same time, the task of covering one so diverse and far‐flung seems rather overwhelming. My perspective as a public library trustee, as editor of a topical journal in library science published by the Drexel University library school, and as a consultant in information services for education will doubtless influence my idea of what is important. Generally I hope to offer NLW readers a potpourri of news and commentary on topics that seem to be timely. Suggestions of topics that NLW readers would like to know more about will be gratefully received and considered.

MOST LIBRARIANS pass the library photocopier without a second glance, or a thought of how this relatively new machine has changed, and will increasingly change, the library scene. Only fifteen years ago these machines were relatively rare in libraries, and only just beginning to displace photostat copiers which relied upon the use of sensitised photographic paper that could be employed without films or plates. Photostat machines were cumbersome, laborously slow and frequently necessitated filling tanks with large bottles of chemicals. Some had to be operated in a dark room, and as a young librarian I remember a sort of rabbit hutch with red windows behind the service counter of the technical library where I worked. These copiers produced a negative‐like white on black print which, unlike a proper photographic negative, was not a reversed mirror image. However, it provided a perfectly legible copy for reading. Positives were made from negatives if a conventional black on white print image was required. If the prints were not fixed in hypo and washed in water they went brown after a few months, and they certainly had a distinctive smell. These machines are now part of library archaeology; they have passed away and we are far down an evolutionary road which is leading to micro‐processors, laser and optical fibre technologies. Eventually the intelligent copier will distribute information and documents over telecommunication links.

LIBRARY NETWORKS are a very hot topic on the US library scene these days. Nearly every library periodical one picks up seems to contain news about changes in OCLC, RLG/RLIN, and WLN and the growing competition among them. This report will review what has been happening during the past year and consider what may develop in the future.

I WAS shopping in a strange town when my eyes caught the sign SECOND‐HAND BOOKS—SALE TODAY IN THE BASEMENT. An iron filing can no more resist a magnet than I can resist the probable pleasures of a second‐hand bookshop. I passed through the door and hurried below. The basement turned out to be a cellar, but it was clean except for the air, which was bookishly musty. I turned my attention to the tables where the books were displayed and knew, at a glance, that my errand would be fruitless. I was looking at a consignment of ex‐public library books.

IF I sometimes seem to be obsessed with: library legislation issues, no doubt this is the result of my having become a public library trustee and having been forced to deal with municipal officials for funds and to lobby with state and federal legislators for increased public library funding. I was, therefore, interested to hear Joseph Dagnese, President of Special Libraries Association, say at a recent colloquium at Drexel University, that SLA, once the least political of professional associations, has in recent years become increasingly involved in lobbying for the legislation it supports. The problem is that, as dealing with legislators and bureaucrats for funds and the authorization for new programmes becomes even more necessary, the US library community is recognizing that it is not terribly effective at doing so. Libraries and librarians have simply not been winning many of their battles lately.

US librarians and library supporters have very little to lift their spirits these days. Reading the library press is a very depressing pastime. The news is wide‐scale cuts in library funding at all levels of government as fiscal conservatives hold the power in the congress and in state governments.

THE INTRODUCTION of the pre‐recorded tape cassette in the 1970's made many predict that within ten years there would be no gramophone records or gramophones being marketed, and that the cassette would be the supreme means of distributing recorded sound. Just how wrong that prediction was can be seen in any audio shop in the country, where huge displays of the latest record albums are to be found next to racks of similar cassettes. Far from sounding the knell for records, cassettes have probably been instrumental in furthering their popularity, by way of the spin‐off in technical advances, marketing, and the ease of distribution.

THE MIDLAND county borough of Dudley has produced two post‐war chief librarians who have gone on to become national librarians. Alex Wilson told me this with some pride, when we met at the beginning of February to discuss his new appointment, which takes effect this month, as Director‐General of the British Library Reference Division. A couple of decades ago, Alex took over at Dudley, at one remove, from George Chandler, who has just retired as Australia's National Librarian.

ALTHOUGH IT was in November that council held its last meeting of the year there were no fireworks. Indeed, your representatives settled down with meek devotion to a four‐and‐a‐half hour session of solid business: here a query, there an amendment, now and then a reference‐back as the work of committees was polished to a final condition which, if not always shining, was good enough to pass muster.

ONE OF the most fallacious arguments in local history librarianship is the suggestion that ‘To start a local collection costs nothing’. It costs staff time, energy, thought, equipment, training, and the materials—book and non‐book—which comprise the collection. Even if items are donated or collected free of charge there is a cost in storing and housing, and it would be naive to think otherwise. And worse, the public—ever ready to make a quick buck—have been saturated with propaganda about ‘antique’ values, and every day that passes makes ‘free’ donations unlikely; it is not enough to appeal to local patriotism any more, and palms have to be crossed with silver (more likely notes—strictly cash!). Beware rapacious postcard salesmen. However, after that bout of cynical—but accurate—perception that everything in librarianship has to be bought and paid for in ratepayers' cash, it is possible to say that most local ephemera can be had for nothing, as distinct from staff, processing and storage costs.