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WE are happy to publish a very interesting and practical little article on a simplified system of borrowers' registration. Such a question may seem to have been settled long ago and not to deserve further discussion, but Miss Wileman makes it quite clear that there is still a little more to be said. Not all librarians will agree with her on one point, although recently it seems to be accepted by some librarians that the numbering of borrowers' tickets is unnecessary, and especially the decimal numbering of them. This matter has been discussed at various meetings of librarians who use these numbers, and they arc, we understand, unanimous in their desire to retain them. They are not intended for a single library such as is at present in operation at Hendon, from which our contributor writes. They are for a system of many branch libraries with a central registration department, and where there is telephone charge and discharge of books. The number is simply intended to give an accurate and rapid definition of an actual person. This we have said several times before, we think, and to dismiss a method which has been found successful with the statement that it is surely unnecessary rather implies that the writer has not fully understood the question. That, however, does not reduce the value of our article.

A model for impact ionisation allowing for the spatial transient is described. Ionisation rates and phonon scattering rates are adjusted to fit experimental data. To reduce some of the uncertainty, the calculated ionisation rates due to Kane are used.

Decision system analysis is a conceptually simple technique that maps the process of group decisions over time. The data is gathered in a variety of ways, but most often some form of protocol analysis is the foremost tool. The data is then condensed and depicted as a flowchart for a specific decision. If several such flowcharts can be assembled within an industry, they can be melded together to form a generic guide that is very useful to practitioners and very interesting to theorists. Here, a brief history of the development of the technique leads to a description of the process. This is followed by a comparison to cognitive mapping (a similar technique applied to mapping thought processes rather than physical processes), and an illustrative longitudinal example of DSA.

THE importance of the book as an educational agency has so long been recognized, that it will be unnecessary for me to dwell upon that side of the question. Yet it is impossible to ignore it altogether, for it is in the educational power of the book that we find the main reason for the existence of the school library. The elementary schools carry education up to a certain point, and the technical schools and universities take it up and carry it still further, but it is the library—or at any rate the book—which co‐ordinates the whole ; many people, indeed, have no education beyond the elementary school, except what they obtain from books. From this, the part played by the school library becomes obvious. Not only is it a powerful educator in itself, but it prepares the individual for the use of the Public Library and of books in general in the period following school life. Also, I need hardly point out that, although the use of the text‐book is dis pensed with as far as possible, the whole modern system of teaching is founded on the use of books.

New developments in any activity are best seen in the context of what went before; it is also useful to find the reasons leading to innovation since these may also point the way to future developments. The present state of canning technology may be looked at in this way. Why do we eat canned foods? There must be important reasons, since the average person in the United Kingdom (man, woman, child) consumes the contents of over 100 cans each year. The simplest of course is that our increasingly urbanised population has no option but to eat preserved foods to keep alive and canning is one of the most efficient methods of food preservation. But it is obviously not merely the provision of nutritious, safe preserved foods that has caused the tremendous growth in the canning industry — although without these features it could not have happened. The main reasons lie in the variety and convenience provided by canned foods. Not only has the industry made our own fruits and vegetables available evenly throughout the year, without reference to their season, but foods harvested in distant lands are made equally accessible. Apart from the variety added to the diet in this way, the convenience of having food prepared ready to eat becomes steadily more important as housewives have, or are prepared to spend, less time in the kitchen and while caterers find labour hard to get. Increasingly we look to the food manufacturer to invest the time and labour of preparing and cooking and to employ skilled chefs for blending ingredients so that our twin objectives of variety and convenience are met by the foods we buy, soups, patés and ready meals, for example. In addition, canned foods are offered at a price which is competitive with fresh and other preserved foods. If we look more closely at what has been said it is evident that quality, convenience and price should be the spurs to developing technology. They should also be the yardsticks against which we measure its success.

Individuals who have autism spectrum disorders (ASD) commonly experience anxiety about social interaction and social situations. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a recommended treatment for social anxiety (SA) in the non-ASD population. Therapy typically comprises cognitive interventions, imagery-based work and for some individuals, behavioural interventions. Whether these are useful for the ASD population is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to undertake a systematic review to summarise research about CBT for SA in ASD.

Using a priori criteria, the authors searched for English-language peer-reviewed empirical studies in five databases. The search yielded 1,364 results. Titles, abstracts, and relevant publications were independently screened by two reviewers.

Four single case studies met the review inclusion criteria; data were synthesised narratively. Participants (three adults and one child) were diagnosed with ASD and SA. There were commonalities in interventions and techniques used: participants were encouraged to identify and challenge negative thoughts, enter anxiety-provoking social situations, and develop new ways of coping. Unlike CBT for SA in non-ASD individuals, treatment also included social skills interventions. Outcomes were assessed using self- or informant-reports. Improvements in SA, depressive symptoms, social skills, and activity levels were noted. Generalisability of results is hampered, however, by the small number of studies and participants and lack of randomised controlled trial conditions employed.

Future studies should investigate how beliefs and behaviours indicative of SA can be ameliorated in individuals with ASD.

This is the first review to synthesise empirical data about CBT for SA in ASD.

SOME years ago a saying was current that when two English librarians met they talked classification, but when two American librarians met they talked publicity. Perhaps the long‐held opinion that Americans are necessarily good business men has been somewhat discounted by the state of their country financially at the present moment. But on the whole they are probably the best business people still inhabiting this planet. It was natural, therefore, that what was apparently the main interest of the American librarian should in time become a very substantial interest of his English brother. It is a good thing at intervals to review the manner and methods of our publicity, to see if they are in keeping with the needs and with the spirit of the time. There is the publicity which is good, which is necessary; there is also the publicity which is ostentatious, vulgar and in the end misses its aim. There is also a very definite danger of overdoing publicity. Those libraries which are one mass of posters, advertisements, admonitions, and other notices, suffer from the public neglect of them all. What the librarian who uses publicity methods has to do is to study the current psychology of his readers, and to adapt his posters and publications—indeed all his methods—to harmonise with that psychology.