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I want to start by thanking the Committee for giving me the honour of presenting the first paper to the newly formed Aslib Social Sciences Group. This coincides with the uneasy lull between publication of the Report of the National Libraries Committee and the Queen's Speech to Parliament. We do not know yet if the Government intend to legislate for the new national library structure which the Dainton Committee say we should have. What we do know is that a Dainton‐based Bill might well turn out to be a lost opportunity for the social sciences.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the structures of collegial governance in Australian universities between 1945 and the “Dawkins reforms” of the late 1980s. It describes the historical contours of collegial governance in practice, the changes it underwent, and the structural limits within which it was able to operate.

The analysis is based upon the writings of academics and university administrators from the period, with more fine-grained exemplification provided by archival and other evidence from Faculties of Arts and their equivalents in newer universities.

Elements of hierarchy and lateral organisation coexisted in the pre-Dawkins university in ways not generally made explicit in the existing literature. This mixture was sustained by ideals about academic freedom.

By historicising “collegiality” the research problematises polemical uses of the term, either for or against. It also seeks to clarify the distinctiveness of contemporary structures—especially for those with no first-hand experience of the pre-Dawkins university—by demonstrating historical difference without resort to nostalgia.

“Collegiality” is a common concept in education and organisation studies, as well as in critiques of the contemporary corporate university. However, the concept has received little sustained historical investigation. A clearer history of collegial governance is valuable both in its own right and as a conceptually clarifying resource for contemporary analyses of collegiality and managerialism.

The pattern of prosecutions forfood offences has changed very little in the past decade. Compositional offences have rarely exceeded 5 per cent and, since the 1967 batch of regulations for meat products, are mostly in respect of deficient meat content. Food hygiene offences have also remained steady, with no improvement to show for all the effort to change the monotony of repulsive detail. The two major causes of all legal proceedings, constituting about 90 per cent of all cases—the presence of foreign matter and sale of mouldy food—continue unchanged; and at about the same levels, viz. an average of 55 per cent of the total for foreign matter and 35 per cent for mouldy food. What is highly significant about this changed concept of food and drugs administration is that almost all prosecutions now arise from consumer complaint. The number for adulteration as revealed by official sampling and analysis and from direct inspectorial action is small in relation to the whole. A few mouldy food offences are included in prosecutions for infringements of the food hygiene regulations, but for most of the years for which statistics have been gathered by the BFJ and published annually, all prosecutions for the presence of foreign matter have come from consumer complaint. The extent to which food law administration is dependent upon this source is shown by the fact that 97 per cent of all prosecutions in 1971 for foreign bodies and mouldy food—579 and 340 respectively—resulted from complaints; and in 1972, 98 per cent of prosecutions resulted from the same source in respect of 597 for foreign matter and 341 for mouldy food. Dirty milk bottle cases in both years all arose from consumer complaint; 41 and 37 respectively.

WE publish this issue on the eve of the Brighton Conference and our hope is that this number of The Library World will assist the objects of that meeting. Everything connected with the Conference appears to have been well thought out. It is an excellent thing that an attempt has been made to get readers of papers to write them early in order that they might be printed beforehand. Their authors will speak to the subject of these papers and not read them. Only a highly‐trained speaker can “get over” a written paper—witness some of the fiascos we hear from the microphone, for which all papers that are broadcast have to be written. But an indifferent reader, when he is really master of his subject, can make likeable and intelligible remarks extemporarily about it. As we write somewhat before the Conference papers are out we do not know if the plan to preprint the papers has succeeded. We are sure that it ought to have done so. It is the only way in which adequate time for discussion can be secured.

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.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The Daily Dispatch publishes a letter from “ One of the Guard” at a war camp, who writes as follows:—

MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.