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

The thirty‐fifth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the National Central Library for the year ending 28th February, 1951, is of particular interest this year, in that it devotes some space to a history of the benefactions of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust from the foundation of the library. Since 1948–9 the Trust had been gradually withdrawing its financial support, on the grounds that the library is now a national institution, and that its achievements justify support from national and local public funds. The year under review marks the final grant from the Trust. Apart from the gift of the Malet Place headquarters building, which cost £50,000 in 1933, the Trust has, since 1916, made direct grants to the library of £112,861. If all the benefactions of the Trust, including grants to the regional library systems and to outlier libraries, are taken into account, a total sum of £293,784 has been provided. The committee acknowledges ‘the far‐seeing, vital contribution the Trustees have made’.

Thisissue of Aslib Proceedings is mainly devoted to papers presented at the 24th Annual Conference, held at Ashorne Hill, near Learnington Spa, Warwickshire, from 9 to 11 September, 1949. In addition, we have pleasure in printing the annual report and accounts of the British Union Catalogue of Periodicals.

This issue of Aslib Proceedings is mainly devoted to papers presented at the 24th Annual Conference, held at Ashorne Hill, near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, from 9 to 11 September, 1949. In addition, we have pleasure in printing the annual report and accounts of the British Union Catalogue of Periodicals.

Great care has gone into the compilation of this directory, containing details of some 850 current titles of scientific, technical and professional journals, published in the developing countries of the Commonwealth. The compilers have included only those titles where a current issue of the periodical has been seen. For this purpose they have visited such libraries as the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library and the India Office Library, as well as the National Libraries. The tendency has been to exclude publications about which there is any doubt of current existence; also Annual Reports and irregularly published Transactions.

My Lord, in this case, if you brush away—as I invite you to brush away—all the irrelevancies introduced by my friend, Mr. Hume‐Williams, I submit to you with confidence that this case is reasonably clear; but the elaborate argument he has delivered requires me, I am afraid, to repeat what I said in opening, that the only way to approach a case of this kind is to look at the Section of the Statute, and to see what the Section of the Statute was intended to prohibit. I am not going to trouble you with the earlier cases decided under the Food and Drugs Act. I know there have been decisions by the Divisional Court, but they cannot be looked to because the Act under which these proceedings were taken was avowedly intended to meet the difficulties that had arisen in the administration of the earlier Acts. The purpose of the Act is absolutely clear, especially in regard to Section 3, but let me remind you again that this Act contains several different offences, provided with appropriate defences, and guarded by certain specific conditions.

The subject of food and drug legislation is again before Parliament. It is proposed, under MR. JOHN BURNS' Food and Drugs Bill (see this Journal, August, 1913), to empower the Local Government Board to make Regulations which shall define an article of food or a drug with regard to its nature, substance, and quality. The Board will only issue Regulations of this kind after making such enquiry as in its opinion may be necessary.

With reference to the report of the Annual General Meeting of the Pure Food and Health Society of Great Britain, which was published in the February issue of THE BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, and to the speech delivered by MR. GOSLIN upon the proper handling and purveying of meat, an article which has subsequently appeared in The Standard is of considerable interest. It is pointed out that no one who gives the matter serious consideration can approve of the present methods. “Many years ago Oxford made its protest against carcasses or joints being exposed in open‐fronted shops. It is just possible that when the powers that were objected to and forbade this proceeding they thought more of the æsthetics than the science of it, but they most certainly did a good thing when they took flesh foods away from the contamination of street dust and the variations of temperature that are dependent on every gust of wind or every moment of sunlight or shadow.”

The following is the text of Mr. JOHN BURNS' Bill for securing the purity of articles of food and preventing the misdescription thereof, which was introduced in the House of Commons on August 6:—

FINANCIAL fears are only less cruel than those of war, and lead men into extravagances which they would repudiate indignantly in their cooler moments. If the doings of the Economy Committee at Manchester in relation to children's libraries, as described in the article by Mr. Lamb in our last issue, are true, we have in them an example of a kind of retrenchment at the expense of the young which we hope is without parallel and will have no imitators. Some reduc‐tion of estimates we hear of from this or that place, but in few has the stupid policy which urges that if we spend nothing we shall all become rich been carried into full effect. Libraries always have suffered in times of crisis, whatever they are; we accept that, though doubtfully; but we do know that the people need libraries.