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Those were the final words of Leslie Wilson's retirement address to the Aslib Annual Conference in Edinburgh four years ago almost to the day.

In 1986 Aslib's development plan was implemented and by the end of the year the benefits were being clearly seen. We invested heavily in developing and launching new products and services in our three primary areas: membership services, professional development and publications. Additionally, we have maintained the impetus in raising Aslib's profile and have made considerable progress in developing our corporate image.

My last formal report to the Annual Conference was at Norwich in 1985, but I did offer both broad and detailed comments and opinions on the ‘state of the nation’ at the Multipartite Conference in Bournemouth in September 1985.

HOW DREAR the month of August seemed, bereft as it was of any issue of that influential and deservedly world‐famous organ, the Library Association record. For its masters have now decreed that July and August should be combined into a single issue, which they call ‘Numbers 7 & 8’ (which is cheating—suppose I gave two numbers to each issue of NLW, and then proudly claimed to publish 24 issues per year!).

John Saunders wrote ‘Why are we campaigning against cuts?’ (NLW July 1985). Cuts columnist Terry Hanstock criticised the article in September NLW and referred to a meeting in Rotherham addressed by John Saunders.

I will attempt (albeit briefly) to give an overview of the profession's formal involvement in data protection. My objectives will be threefold. Firstly, to sketch some of the background of the library and information profession's concern with data protection. Secondly, to indicate what is happening currently (and there is a great deal happening), and thirdly to outline how and where I see matters developing in the future. This particular gathering may well provide a useful input into this last area because it is really up to the individual members of the profession to indicate where the effort and development on this subject should be concentrated. Those close to the issue (too close it feels at times) have their own specialised view of things, but there is a danger that the general interests of the profession are not sufficiently regarded and pursued unless frequent soundings are taken.

Ninety per cent of information handled within libraries, information units and offices is printed on paper. This comes in the form of books, journals, newsprint and miscellaneous documents including letters. At the same time information originating within organisations is increasingly generated on computers and is displayed and read via electronic screens. Libraries, information units and offices are becoming a mix of the automated and the unautomated. In the past, integrating printed material with computer stored material was impractical. The electronic storage of documents as images rather than computer coded text required storage capacity beyond the scope of many computer systems.

Examines the library at Smith Kline & French Research, which has been using an automated interlibrary loans system based on BASIS text retrieval software since 1986. Describes various approaches to automation. Shows how the new system allows R&D staff to enter requests for journal articles or issues, books and patents at their own terminal or computer, and to search the database for items already requested. Concludes that the system has been very well received in its first years of operation.

Library of Congress update The Urgent Supplemental Appropriations Bill for FY 1986 signed into law in July by Ronald Reagan contained an appropriation of $867 000 for the Library of Congress. This means that the general reading room is able to restore evening and weekend hours. The ten “Books Not Bombs” people who first protested the closure spent several weeks in July in a courtroom trial, where testimony was given by the Librarian of Congress and other officials. Since the “freedom readers”; as they are called in a newspaper article, face jail and/or a fine, perhaps appreciative scholars and researchers should start a fund to help defray the costs of their protest.

The new Management Team which is to take the new‐style Aslib into the 80's and beyond, is taking shape.