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There has been a logistics transformation in British grocery retailing during the last 30 years. Initially, the transformation was revolutionary as retailers gained control over the supply chain, but more recently change was evolutionary as efficiency improvements were enacted. Another step change in managing the retail supply chain is envisaged as established networks are being modified to accommodate e‐commerce initiatives and environmental factors such as recycling and traffic congestion. This paper reports on a survey of 342 senior executives representing grocery retailers, manufacturers and logistics service providers to assess the factors which will impact upon the grocery supply chain within the next few years.

I AM EARLY on parade this month, dear readers, because during the first week in March, when I should have constructed this column, I had a series of important meetings in a village called Alpbach to execute business contracts with ski‐instructors and hoteliers and the like. You people who work in the public domain don't realise the heavy pressures we businessmen have to face.

THERE were (at the beginning of 1964) 138 daily and Sunday newspapers in the United Kingdom. Some of these, perhaps 20, are nationals with mass circulations ranging from the Financial Times (140,000) to the News of the World (six million). The rest, together with a large number of weeklies, constitutes the provincial press which at its best is one of the main strengths of British journalism.

In a short survey of children’s literature from the eighteenth century onwards, major themes and areas for research are identified. The nature of children’s literature between 1900 and 1920 and the 1920s to the 1950s is then discussed in greater detail with reference to the children’s books of many types published during the periods. Again, themes are identified and many avenues for research in different fields of study are indicated.

EVERYONE interested in the British library movement will learn with sorrow and regret that one of its greatest friends and strongest champions has passed away, in the person of Thomas Greenwood, the kind‐hearted and generous advocate of libraries, who won the respect and regard of every English libiarian. From one of his own periodicals the following particulars are abstracted:—

DR. S. C. ROBERT'S Presidential Address which is printed in the L.A. Record for May and reprinted in the usual separate Proceedings, will be read by all manner of librarians not only for its individual charm but also for a suggestion here and there which may have lasting effects. His major conclusion is that “the spiritual harmony and the intellectual Stability of mankind will Still be largely determined by the reading and writing of books,” whatever may be the triumphs of cinema, wireless and television. This was well worth repeating at a time when we are occupied by visual methods, quite justly, indeed ; if only again to Stress that these must not become an obsession which prevents our seeing that our real purpose is the book. So, too, we may ponder his gentle caveat: “in our laudable efforts towards a perfection of order and classification, there is inevitably a tendency to mistake means for ends, to make our systems our masters rather than our servants.” We know that there is a growing revolt against the intricate simplicities that are being introduced in cataloguing and classification; so intricate, indeed, that except to those who have done careful preparatory reading, writers upon them are completely unreadable. Not the least interesting part of Dr. Roberts's address was his account of early encounters with a library indicator and its attendant difficulties. These may be read as a warning, seeing that most of us have never seen an indicator, and some, because of the losses open access involves, would like to return to what is stupidly called “closed‐access,” a term as sensible as hot ice or dry wet.

So far as the London activities of librarianship are concerned, the Winter opened propitiously when Mr. J. D. Stewart and Mr. J. Wilks addressed a goodly audience at Chaucer House, Mr. Stewart on American, and Mr. Wilks on German libraries. There was a live air about the meeting which augured well for the session. The chief librarians of London were well represented, and we hope that they will continue the good work. It was the last meeting over which Mr. George R. Bolton presided as Chairman of the London and Home Counties Branch, and he is succeeded by Mr. Wilks. Mr. Bolton has carried his office with thorough and forceful competence, and London library workers have every reason to be grateful. The election to chairmanship of the librarian of University College, London, gives the Branch for the first time a non‐municipal librarian to preside. The change has not been premature, and, apart from that question, Mr. Wilks is cultured, modest and eloquent and will do honour to his position.

Universities are social and economic instruments for investment in man and thereby for the development of human resources at the highest level. This is truer in the case of developing countries where science and technology have not yet extended their beneficial aspects to whole spheres of social life. While preserving culture and heritage, universities are the most powerful institutions for social change and innovation. At the same time, universities and colleges themselves are subject to changes and need to adapt to these.

THE completion of the sixth volume of the Library World may not be a very important or remarkable occurrence in the annals of journalism, but when one considers the meagre and spasmodic support which is generally accorded to professional magazines, it may be allowable for us to indulge in a little self‐congratulation on having lived so long, on little more than the minimum encouragement usually bestowed on literary ventures connected with librarianship. For some reason, which it is very difficult to understand, librarians will not buy their own professional literature, whether offered as books or magazines. An author may reckon on a possible circle of purchasers ranging between 200 and 300 in England, and perhaps thirty in the United States, for any library book which is not more than 5/‐ or 10/‐ in price; and an editor may be certain of a constituency, perhaps, double those numbers, if his journal is not too dull and overpowering. But this is practically the limit of encouragement which anyone can expect for non‐official library publications. The Colonies, the United States, and all the European countries are collectively hardly worth counting in any estimate of possible supporters of an English literary venture in librarianship, and what is even more discouraging, only a few British libraries, and hardly any library assistants or committee‐men, ever buy professional books of any kind. In these circumstances we may be allowed a little pardonable jubilation at having survived at all under such adverse circumstances.

ALL the auguries for the Bournemouth Conference appear to be good. Our local secretary, Mr. Charles Riddle, seems to have spared neither energy nor ability to render our second visit to the town, whose libraries he initiated and has controlled for thirty‐seven years, useful and enjoyable. There will not be quite so many social events as usual, but that is appropriate in the national circumstances. There will be enough of all sorts of meetings to supply what the President of the A.L.A. describes as “the calling which collects and organizes books and other printed matter for the use and benefit of mankind and which brings together the reader and the printed word in a vital relationship.” We hope the discussions will be thorough, but without those long auto‐biographical speeches which are meant for home newspapers, that readers will make time for seeing the exhibitions, and that Bournemouth will be a source of health and pleasure to all our readers who can be there.