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Although I am honoured to have been asked to present this paper I feel somewhat diffident about my topic. Even in the United States documentalists refer to thesauri in disparaging terms and I sometimes get the impression that British documentalists are sure that their American counterparts are suffering from an epidemic of thesaurosis. Interestingly enough, there really is such a disease, and the twentieth edition of Stedman's Medical dictionary defines the condition as follows: ‘Abnormal or excessive storage in the body of phosphatides, fat, iron or other material’.

ARIES, PHILIPPE. Un lexique par phrases descriptives. Bulletin de l'A.I.D., vol. 5, no. 4, 1966, p. 99–101.

When I was asked to give this paper, I was unaware that the title of the Conference was ‘Words and Meaning’. While I warmly welcome this theme, I must admit that it gave me rather abruptly a feeling of nervous awareness of the problem of associating words with meaning. I began to read things twice and look for alternative interpretations; and when I received the registration form for this conference I experienced a feeling of near panic when I was asked to answer the question ‘Will you be eating lunch on Wednesday the 12th of April?’ How difficult it is to verbalize concepts, especially in subject areas such as ours which contain so many abstract notions that one is sometimes guilty of trying to avoid being too precise. I am reminded of the professor, who when asked the question ‘What is electricity?’ replied ‘It all depends what you mean by “is”.’

At the February evening meeting Dr T. C. Barker of the Department of Economic History, London School of Economics, will be talking on ‘Business records for the future’. Mr Geoffrey Woledge, Librarian of the British Library of Political and Economic Science, will take the chair. Dr Barker will discuss the impossibility of preserving all business records, and the need to foresee what type of document is likely to be called for in the future, either by members of the particular business concerned or by historians who are called in to write the history of a firm. Broadly speaking, it is the policy documents that need to be kept and the day‐to‐day records that can often be disposed of; but there are exceptions to this general rule.

The senior introductory course to special library and information work held from 4th to 8th May was so popular that it was not possible to accept all the applicants. The course is consequently to be repeated from Monday 22nd to Friday 26 June, and it will be possible to take a few students in addition to those who could not be accepted for the previous course. Students should be graduates, in their first year of information or library work, or more mature persons put into responsible positions in libraries or information departments without previous training or experience. Details of the programme and entry forms can be obtained from the Education Officer, Aslib. The fee for the course is £10.