Search results

Nearly 300 people attended the 37th Annual Conference, held at the University of St Andrews. The Conference was formally opened by the Chairman of Council, Mr L. G. Patrick, Librarian of Aluminium Laboratories Ltd, who read the following letter from the President, Lord Shackleton:

Under this melodramatic title the B.B.C. devoted forty minutes of their programme time during the evening of December 28 to the subject of food additives. It was described as an enquiry, asking the questions “Are the chemicals we put in food dangerous to human beings?” Are the sytems of testing and control good enough? Should more money be spent on research now? There was a panel of experts—Professor E. Boyland (Chester Beatty Research Institute), Professor A. C. Fraser (University of Birmingham), Dr. L. Golberg (British Industrial Biological Research Association), Dr. H. G. Saunders (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food), Dr. Magnus Pyke (a food expert) and Lord Shackleton, who frequently speaks on the subject in the House of Lords.

I must confess to having something of a soft spot for abbreviations and for what I think are called acronyms. I suppose a good many years' familiarity with all those mellifluous military condensations like ‘tpt.’ for transport and ‘arty.’ for artillery rather tended to form a habit, but I find them useful and practical, in moderation. Nevertheless, when first confronted with your own acronymic title, I was a little puzzled. The immediate expectation conjured up by those five letters was of a pretty uninhibited, trendy outfit—perhaps some sort of a night club even—at any rate whose purpose was rather indefinite. This was encouraging but I had to admit I could think of no reason why such a liberated body should want me to be their President, except that it seemed to have its headquarters in the house where I was born, which perhaps was a good enough reason. And then of course the sight of Lord Shackleton's name at the bottom of the letter instantly removed all doubts about the Association's standing, although it was still some little while before I was able to understand precisely what Aslib meant.

July TUE.20. Visit to Port of London Authority.

Members will be pleased to know that Lord Shackleton has kindly consented to serve as President of Aslib for a second year. His interest in information matters and his activity on behalf of Aslib have been of inestimable value, and the Association has every reason to be grateful for the helpful and energetic way in which he has carried out the duties of his office.

The pleasant surroundings at Exeter University, which is set in a very beautiful park, were a factor in the success of this year's Conference. Sessions were held in the Washington Singer Laboratories, meals served in the spacious Devonshire House Refectory, whilst residential accommodation was at the new Duryard Halls of Residence, in three ‘houses’ but served by a Central Dining Hall. The main disadvantage was the distance between residence and sessions, which had to be overcome by coach transport, but which was in some measure offset by the warm sunny weather.

I have chosen for the title of this address ‘The social organization of information’. By this I mean organization by and on behalf of society or the community. This is, I fear, a somewhat ambiguous title, but unfortunately we are operating in a field where many of the words are for us going to have a special significance, while popularly retaining a more general meaning; even the word ‘information’ has come to have a specialized meaning to us. I rather think the time has come when we need a single word to describe all these matters in which we are dealing. Otherwise we shall need a sentence, indeed a definition covering such words as ‘information’, ‘documentation’, ‘storage’, ‘retrieval’, ‘dissemination’, ‘communication’. It is arguable we should perhaps have the definition before we have the word but this need not deter one from the game of word invention.

News has reached us of the death on 19th August of Hans Peter Luhn, President of the American Documentation Institute since October 1963. Born in Barmen, Germany, in 1896, Mr Luhn went to the United States in 1924. He joined IBM in 1941 and worked there until 1961, when he retired and became a consultant to industry. Although Mr Luhn was known by relatively few people in Britain, his contributions in the field of mechanization are widely known. During his time at IBM Mr Luhn was at the source of a steady stream of innovations in the field of information retrieval. Among the projects he initiated, or developed, are: Keyword‐In‐Context Indexes, automatic abstracting, statistical methods of automatic indexing and selective dissemination of information. He was a prolific writer and some of his publications are already classics. Mr Luhn will be remembered as one of the great pioneers in library automation.

Three events of significance to this country took place in 1899 – the British Food Journal was launched, Australia retained the Ashes, and the Boer War hostilities commenced. If challenged on the order of their importance, cricketers and Empire‐builders may be excused their preference. However, looking at it purely from the standpoint of pro bono publico, the dispassionate observer must surely opt for the birth of a certain publication as being ultimately the most beneficial of the three.

On Wednesday 8th November 1967 there will be a late evening meeting arranged jointly by Aslib and the British Standards Institution Standards Associates' Section, when Mr R. L. Collison, Librarian of the BBC, will speak on ‘Standards information—what you need and where to get it’. Further details will be available in a later issue of Aslib Proceedings together with application forms for attendance.