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The Newcastle upon Tyne conference on 7th December, 1948, was held under the auspices of the Northern Branch of Aslib, but was organized largely by a local committee under the chairmanship of Mr. E. Austin Hinton, City Librarian, Newcastle upon Tyne, and with the help of Mr. M. G. Cahill‐Byrne, of Messrs. Vickers‐Armstrongs, Ltd., who acted as Hon. Secretary. Chairman of the conference was Mr. R. Trevor Jenkins, Technical Manager of Messrs. Vickers‐Armstrongs, Ltd., and the opening ceremony was performed by the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne, Alderman T. McCutcheon, who subsequently entertained many of the delegates to luncheon at the Mansion House. Meetings were held in the lecture hall of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, and the Institute kindly provided tea in their library. Space was also given for a small exhibition of Aslib publications and of other reference literature likely to be of assistance to librarians in industrial concerns. The conference was on the general theme of the value of an organized information service to industry and was designed to interest non‐members of Aslib, the last three forming a Symposium on Information Service. The five papers presented at the conference are printed on pp. 51–80. At the close of the meeting Mr. R. Brightman, Chairman of the Northern Branch, spoke of its work, and Miss E. M. R. Ditmas, Director of Aslib, described the ways in which it could serve the industrial librarian.

The theme of this conference is the provision of necessary information for the industrialist, the technologist, and for the business man generally. Of the importance, the vital importance, of this subject there will be no question to‐day. In the halcyon conditions of the pre‐war world our supposedly characteristic British methods in industry and commerce were perhaps sufficient. Some conscious pride in the superior quality and finish of our products, and the comfortable wealth forthcoming from our overseas investments, permitted a relatively careless enjoyment by a creditor nation of a seller's market. In the very different circumstances in which, as a nation, we find ourselves to‐day, our erstwhile light‐hearted inattention to research, methods, and markets can only lead to disaster, to our complete financial, political, and social ruin. To say this is, of course, to state what is generally known and agreed; however much the unpalatable truth of it may be evaded by ostrich‐like and fact‐cushioning gratulations upon targets achieved or quotas exceeded. Government admonitions, the directives issued by production boards and working parties, the publications of manufacturing and trade associations—these all stress the importance of factual information and emphasize the absolute necessity of studying the possibilities of new methods, and their application in improving the quality and the design of our industrial products, reducing their costs, and generally increasing their attractiveness to potential customers.

AT intervals the rules and regulations of libraries should be scrutinized. They are not in themselves sacrosanct as is the constitution of the Realm, but many exist which no longer have serviceable qualities. Nevertheless, so long as a rule remains in force it should be operative and its application be general and impartial amongst readers; otherwise, favouritism and other ills will be charged against the library that makes variations. This being so, it is imperative that now and then revision should take place. There is to‐day a great dislike of discipline, which leads to attacks on all rules, but a few rules are necessary in order that books may be made to give the fullest service, be preserved as far as that is compatible with real use, and that equality of opportunity shall be given to all readers. What is wanted is not “no rules at all,” but good ones so constructed that they adapt themselves to the needs of readers. Anachronisms such as: the rule that in lending libraries forbids the exchange of a book on the day it is borrowed; the illegal charge for vouchers; insistence that readers shall return books for renewal; the rigid limiting of the number of readers' tickets; or a procrustean period of loan for books irrespective of their character—here are some which have gone in many places and should go in all. Our point, however, is that rules should be altered by the authority, not that the application of rules should be altered by staffs. The latter is sometimes done, and trouble usually ensues.

SEPTEMBER, as always, sees us contemplating our activities for the winter months. Exigencies of publishing compel us to write these notes a short time before that month begins, and our contemplation of things this year is coloured by the now rather remote possibility that September may bring the invasion that has been the shadow ahead for a year or more. To plan in a twilight time, as it were, is more than ordinarily difficult, and yet it is a commonsense and correct course to go on, not as if nothing could happen, but to the full extent of our means as they exist. Otherwise general paralysis would occur every time our statesmen warned us of possible attacks. There is no fear of such premature paralysis, however, as our people only want to be up and doing “with a heart for any date.”

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

THERE are no motions of ultimate importance to be submitted to the Library Association Annual General Meeting this year. That which, if passed, is to provide that the President shall be installed in office at the opening of the Annual Conference in itself is merely a domestic or internal Association matter. As we have argued in THE LIBRARY WORLD such an arrangement would give a more dramatic and dignified opening to the President's year; he would be installed by the outgoing President in the presence of the largest assembly that the members can make in body; indeed on the only occasion in a normal year in which he sees and is seen by a full meeting; instead as now rising to take charge of us and to make his most important address as unobtrusively as an ordinary member at a time when his term is almost over. It is a better entry for him and for us, as a spectacle and demonstration, than a small January induction on a cold and usually wet evening at Chaucer House attended at best by not more than a hundred members.

The formation, in May, 1949, of the new Aslib, incorporating the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux and the British Society for International Bibliography, led to a change in the dating of Aslib's financial year, which will now run from January to December instead of from July to June. This report, therefore, extends over eighteen months and links the activities of the old organization with those of its successor.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

A CORRESPONDENT complains that he has undertaken a course for his final examination, after spending six years from Dunkirk to the Elbe far removed from library opportunities—only to find that librarians and libraries are building up their staffs now. The Times Literary Supplement, he says, carries column after column of advertisements of desirable posts for which he, as he thinks, is a desirable and legitimate aspirant, but he is barred by his academic obligations. This appears to be a genuine grievance and we place it first in these notes in the hope that authorities, and especially librarians, may be induced to consider it. It may be answered that there is a present urgent need to tune up libraries of every kind to meet the great public need and that many of them have already waited some years. It is perhaps a pity that they did not wait a little longer so that the men who deserve most of the country could have been brought into the competition.

THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties. Anything that Mr. Jast has to say is said with originality even if the subject is not original; his quality has always been to give an independent and novel twist to almost everything he touches. We think our readers will find this to be so when he touches the important question of “The Library and Leisure.”