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THE year 1954 opened more brightly, in some respects, than most previous years. Salaries are better than they used to be, staffs are larger, and hours are shorter. But there is even less room for complacency or even bare satisfaction than there was forty years ago. Then, however poor was the pay and however long the hours, there was every indication that librarianship was gradually becoming recognized as a profession which in time would rank with the great professions. Principles and objectives were clear and were never lost sight of, but librarians and assistants of that day realized that the great professions were dependant, not only on principles but upon absolute mastery of technique; that no lawyer could survive who merely talked grandiloquently about the principles and objectives of his calling; that the medical man endured—and in many instances enjoyed—a severe and lengthy training in technique and practice, and that even when he became a specialist his prime need and principal qualification was absolute mastery and up to date knowledge of technique and practice in his field of specialisation. In the light of that fad a detailed study of library technique became accepted as essential, and a mass of practical and technical literature was studied and mastered by more than one generation. For examination purposes, perhaps more than for any other reason, the present generation of assistants continues that study, but there has been a change of weight. Today we hear frequently that technique is relatively unimportant and that principles and objectives are the vital essentials.

OCCASIONALLY some writer is inspired to make the declaration that reference work as understood in America does not exist in Great Britain, or, even more definitely, is not known there. We rejoice at any advance our American friends make, but our enthusiasts for American methods must not undervalue the homeland. In the pages that follow some aspects of reference work receive attention, and the inference to be drawn may be that, if we have not specialized this department of work to the extent that transatlantic libraries have done, if in some smaller places it hardly exists “as the community's study, archive department and bureau of information,” yet in our larger cities and in many lesser places much work is done.

It is customary these days to denounce our society for its unconscionable neglect of the elderly, while we look back romantically to some indeterminate past when the elderly were respected and well cared for. Contrary to this popular view, old people historically have enjoyed neither respect nor security. As Simone de Beauvoir so effectively demonstrates in The Coming of Age (New York: Putnam, 1972), the elderly have been almost universally ill‐treated by societies throughout the world. Even the Hebrew patriarchs admonished their children to remember them as they grew older: “Cast me not off in time of old age; when my strength fails, forsake me not” (Psalms 71:1). Primitive agrarian cultures, whose very existence depended upon the knowledge gleaned from experience, valued their elders, but even they were often moved by the harsh conditions of subsistence living to eliminate by ritual killing those who were no longer productive members of society. There was a softening of societal attitudes toward the elderly during the period of nineteenth century industrial capitalism, which again valued experience and entrepreneurial skills. Modern technocratic society, however, discredits the idea that knowledge accumulates with age and prefers to think that it grows out‐of‐date. “The vast majority of mankind,” writes de Beauvoir, “look upon the coming of old age with sorrow and rebellion. It fills them with more aversion than death itself.” That the United States in the twentieth century is not alone in its poor treatment of the aged does not excuse or explain this neglect. Rather, the pervasiveness of prejudice against the old makes it even more imperative that we now develop programs to end age discrimination and its vicious effects.

Legislation designed to promote and maintain high food standards and the hygienic handling and manufacture of food must recognise the existence of two problems. First, how to prevent deliberate adulteration, and, second, how to persuade the people concerned in its handling and manufacture that ignorance and carelessness, or a combination of both, can and do result in the contamination of the product, rendering it as dangerous for human consumption as any substance on the poisons register. In bygone days the adulteration of food proved a remunerative pastime. Millers and bakers were particularly unscrupulous, adding alum and other matter to their flour. Grocers, not to be outdone, mixed lime with sugar and starch with cocoa. A commission set up by the editor of the Lancet in 1851 revealed that tea had been treated with blacklead, indigo and mica, while every sample of milk was diluted with water and every loaf sophisticated with alum! Fortunately, measures taken to prevent this knavery and to protect the consumer in other ways, such as the Food and Drugs Adulteration Act of 1928 (now replaced by the Food and Drugs Act, 1938) have proved largely successful; but the problem of how to ensure clean and uncontaminated supplies of food still remains, and, in recent years, has engaged the attention of the experts to an ever increasing degree. Recent widespread cases of food poisoning in various forms, some of them fatal, have rightly caused general public concern, but the real danger seldom lay in the food itself. The evidence in these cases seems to indicate that in the first place the food was perfectly wholesome but that infection had been transmitted to it by human contact. In June, 1948, over ninety people suffered agonies from food poisoning attributed to eating cream buns at a party in Lambeth. It was found that the substance used for filling these buns had been infected by a person who had prepared them, a “carrier” of the germ which caused the poisoning. In another case, 171 people were taken ill after four separate wedding parties catered for by the same restaurant proprietor. Their illness was traced to one of the girls who prepared the trifle for each party. There have, of course, been a few cases in which the outbreak has been due to the activities of unscrupulous traders who have used ingredients unfit for human consumption in the manufacture of cooked meats, meat pies, etc. Nevertheless, in any attempt to eliminate the dangers of food poisoning, emphasis must be laid on personal hygiene and the cleanliness of the premises and utensils rather than on the condition of the food itself.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.