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A progress report on the present state of the art in rapid reading Of all the personal skills that a manager needs to bring to his work, the one which is most widely neglected and yet which is capable of the most ready and the most dramatic improvement is the skill of rapid and efficient reading. Assuming that a manager can already read with a reasonable degree of fluency—say, that he can read an article such as this at a speed of 250 words per minute or thereabouts with good comprehension—evidence accumulated over the last ninety‐five years would indicate that a short course of training should enable him to increase his speed of reading, without loss of comprehension, by an average of 80 per cent. This percentage improvement will apply whatever the material or the purpose for which it is read, provided like is compared with like (see figure 1). Individual improvements on a course can range from 25 per cent to 250 per cent and more.

ITA and a number of other experiments currently being carried out in primary schools are evidence of the widespread concern with discovering more effective methods of teaching children how to read. The same concern does not, however, appear to be felt with regard to the problems of enabling young people and adults to increase their efficiency in reading. We appear to assume that once children can read, then the work in English lessons in the secondary schools is sufficient to make them fast, accurate and critical readers by the time they leave at the age of 15 or 16. Relatively little work has been done in this country on developing effective reading efficiency courses for college students and adults.

AUSTRALIA, waste deserts where emus and kangaroos still have first claim on the land; desolation; drought; ingenious methods of irrigation; lone eucalyptus trees like grey‐green balls, thinly spread over the yellow, dry grass‐land; arid savannas; magic scenery; fertile plains where beef cattle and sheep graze; golden glittering citrus orchards; blue plastic‐covered bunches heavily creaking in the banana patches on sun‐drenched eastern slopes; twittering creeks at which soft‐haired Jersey calves sip the water; thick impenetrable, subtropical rain‐forest with a wild beauty; ravines; trees which seem to grow into the sky; flowers, flowers, flowers; and birds in sparkling colours. Yes, those are some memory images.

A Brief Review of the Advantages of Being Able to Read More Quickly, Some Proposals for Improving Reading Efficiency and the Results of Some Reading Efficiency Courses held at Hull College of Technology. Many engineers and executives in the aerospace industry have more reading to do than they can cope with efficiently in the time available to them. There are a number of reasons for slow rate of reading but it does seem to be possible for most readers to double their reading speed, with training and practice, without loss of comprehension. In fact comprehension may well improve in the process. Some methods of acquiring the skills of efficient reading are suggested.

One of the major problems in teaching FE students is that very few of them seem to have any idea of how to study. There are two possible solutions to the problem. One, which unfortunately is practised in many colleges, is to make the process of learning as easy as possible by providing the student with all he needs in the way of notes and model answers to examination questions. The other is to provide systematic training in the principles and techniques of effective study.

NO document issued by the National Board for Prices and Incomes is of more importance to people engaged in work study than Report 83 on Job Evaluation. It lists nine definitions by various authorities but contents itself with a fairly simple one; the comparison of jobs by the use of formal and systematic procedures, set down on paper and adhered to as distinct from rule of thumb methods, with subsequent analysis determining the relative positions of jobs in a wage structure.

IT IS PERHAPS NOT TOO MUCH OF AN EXAGGERATION to say that most people now use a library as a source of information rather than as a source of entertainment or of cultural enlightenment. Other media have largely taken over the entertainment function and there was never more than a small number of readers who were interested in what we might loosely term cultural enlightenment. There is evidence to suggest that this new primary function of libraries as sources of information is already well established and that the influence of media such as television will make it even more pronounced in the future. (Increases in borrowings have, in the last ten years, been more noticeable in informative and ‘practical’ books than in other kinds.)

Many engineers and executives in the aerospace industry experience difficulty when it comes to the writing of reports. The reasons for this are discussed and it is suggested that a methodical approach to the problem provides a solution. The PAPER Report Writing Method is described.

Life is time. The meaning of life is to enrich the lives of others. The way you manage your time is the way in which you manage your life. In fact, time cannot be managed. However, you can manage the activities in your life. The actions you take determine your results.

The Library Committee is often mentioned but rarely discussed in the literature, yet it often plays an important role in the operation of a library or information service. Discusses the nature and role of the Library Committee and the factors which should be considered in organizing, reviewing or participating in one. It is intended to provide, not a universal model, but some general guidelines which may be useful in dealing with the circumstances of particular organizations.