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It is not unfair to say that the arts in association with public libraries have been hampered in Britain (1) by financial restrictions (2) by legal restrictions and (3) by the deliberate choice of librarians and library authorities.

This paper seeks to address the important modern management issue of vision management. In particular, it attempts to provide examples of, and to differentiate between three different types of visionary who have been the focal points for the theorists working in this area. It presents a profile of the ‘ideal visionary’ as portrayed by theory and provides a checklist of generic visionary qualities to help those readers who need to assess a would‐be visionary, and predict the likelihood of his/her achieving success at the top of an organisation. Finally, the paper notes that the strengths of the visionary are often the sources of his/her eventual failure. These strengths‐come‐weaknesses have been identified along with more externally generated organisational performance reducers.

IN 1972 I wrote a piece ‘in the cool of an August midday’ concerning the dog‐days of my boyhood. It was mostly about blazing heatwaves and eggs being fried on the pavement. I also mentioned a freebooting trawler skipper, Dod Orsborne, who instead of following the prescribed course for the Icelandic fishing grounds, did an about‐turn and headed for the sunshine and, ultimately, eighteen months in gaol.

Our symposium published in the Winter number has raised much interest among readers at home and in Canada and the United States. Now we have pleasure in publishing comments by James Brindle, County Librarian of Fife; Daniel Hay, Librarian, Public Library, Whitehaven; J. G. O'Leary, Borough Librarian, Dagenham; and Paul Sykes, City Librarian, Peterborough. There is also a contribution from an ex‐teacher reader who has used libraries much in his own career.

BY NOW, many readers of NLW will have made a pilgrimage to Birmingham to see the new central library, and many others will have resolved to do so at the earliest opportunity.

DURING THE twelve days of Christmas, between the King's speech and Twelfth Night, after the chocolate smoking set had been consumed, though not in flames and smoke, and before the Christmas decorations had sagged to waist level, I used to read my annuals.

HOW WORTHWHILE is research in librarianship in the uk at present? Is it making a contribution to the solution of our current problems? If it is making a contribution, is this contribution sufficiently significant in relation to the amount of effort and money expended?

SCHEMES FOR the national library services of developing countries make the British library world seem positively victorian by comparison. Two factors, however, are likely to be agents of change in the next few years. At the apex of the pyramid, the proposals for the British Library will rationalise the British Museum, the National Central Library, the National Lending Library for Science and Technology and the British National Bibliography complex. At more local levels, the re‐organisation of local government in England will ensure more effective provision of public library services under unitary control.

OUR STACK ROOMS are fast filling with different folk's ideas of carving up England. The Local Government Boundary Commission, Maud, Senior, Labour White Paper, Conservative White Paper, and now the Bill. Each subsequent issue has attracted less and less public attention and the latest green and black map was hustled to the inside newspaper pages, quite unable to compete with 0z and the Stolken/Wolfson law court extravaganza. Some of us weary of this cartographic librarians' feast, having first seen this kind of map on page 157 of the McColvin report in 1942, with boundaries identical with the new map, as it happens, for my own area of Norfolk.

To anyone unfamiliar with the English local government system the current controversy over the financial provisions of the Local Government Bill will have given the impression that education is the sole function of local authorities. The effect of the Bill on education has figured largely in recent conferences, speeches and writings, and while opponents of the proposed block grant system prophesy a reduction in expenditure on education, those in favour of the new grant arrangements have confined their defence, in the main, to the same service. But whether or not one agrees with Lord Hailsham that “the gentlemen in Warwick and Welshpool, Wigan and Wiltshire, Westmorland and Woking” are as capable of administering the education service as the “gentlemen in Whitehall,” the future, so far as public libraries are concerned, is hardly in doubt. Already in a vulnerable position owing to their reliance on rate revenue,—coupled with a ready misunderstanding, especially at estimate time, of their value and true functions,—public libraries will be in danger of being driven even further below the poverty line when the block grant system begins to operate.