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Philips is now able to offer a total solution for the manufacture of PCBs. Already several large users, including Ford, are taking advantage of this turnkey service, as Peter Mullins found out.

Wartsila of Finland has teamed up with Rosenlew Automation and Kemppi Oy in a robot welding venture

In an age where effective leaders are at a premium and where continuous change appears to be the order of the day, this article argues that organisations need to align organisational change and management development strategically and operationally in order to maintain and increase their competitiveness. Illustrated by the experience of two organisations that sought to implement major organisational changes, the article highlights the benefits of seeing managerial development and organisational change as parallel and linked activities and the pitfalls of not doing so.

Discusses the upgrading of a Hampshire IBM plant to CIM operation to take advantage of the UK information technology market. Considers the CIM programme from the cell level, the goals for the plant, and the results of upgrading to CIM. Concludes that CIM has improved output and quality while reducing inventory with a constant workforce and offers the potential for simultaneous engineering.

AT the time this appears about ten per cent of the librarians of this country will be studying how best to profit by the Hastings conference at the end of the month. The town itself is interesting, the old and new being combined in a quite graciously intriguing manner, and the library service there is worthy of attention. We say that pointedly because the pressure of these meetings is so great that the library of the place, the local example of all librarians stand for, is, by the majority, not even visited. In our October issue we hope to give an impression, at any rate a preliminary one, of the proceedings. From the advance notices, which are all that are as yet available, they are to revolve somewhat loosely round staff, stock, and standards, which can be made to cover the whole of librarianship, so that we need not descant upon its importance or pretend that it presents any original subject. Its treatment we hope will be so, as the most ordinary library topic is an old one, but fresh light upon it is always possible. The speakers appear to be all librarians of relatively small libraries and, as these comprise 75% at least of public libraries, there can be no quarrel with that. The new chairman of the L.A. Education Committee, Mr. W. B. Paton, is to look again at the pressing question of staff recruitment and training; we know he will look with clear eyes at a real problem. The Annual Lecture will be by Sir Ben Bowen Thomas, who is Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Department of the Ministry of Education. There will be the usual section meetings, annual dinner, and exhibition. We may be sure that the Presidential Address will be characteristic of Mr. C. B. Oldman, which means that it will be a scholarly reflection of many or some of his wide range of library interests; and also that, under his guidance, the whole conference will be managed well.

THESE notes are written at a critical time even in the history of this war, and at a time when the Government has resolved to mobilize the whole resources of the nation in order to save it. We have yet to discover how this may affect libraries, but there is no doubt that when the first preoccupation with the movements of the antagonists has come into some sort of perspective the book will play a quite definite part in the days of all. At present we all go on with our normal tasks as best we may, not being rattled when news is not uniformly good, or is even bad, and always in the faith that the free minds of free men, for which our work has always stood, will in the end survive in a free world.

Some months ago a national organisation established to keep a watchful eye on the Nation's diet expressed concern over the eating trends of people in what to them appeared to be developing inbalances of necessary nutrient factors and the inadeuacy not so much of calories and energy values but in the nature and quality of main food factors. It was recommended that the national diet should be improved, but the authorities pointed to the National Food Survey results to show that the diet was not deficient; that the average daily intake of protein, vitamins, minerals and overall energy requirements were satisfied; all of which is true for the not‐too‐generous levels set. Even the pensioner households included in the Survey sample appear well‐fed. What causes concern is the year‐by‐year decrease in staple foods consumed—milk, red meat, bread, fresh vegetables—and the heavy reliance on refined, processed foods. In its annual reports on NFS reviews, the BFJ has almost monotonously referred to this downward trend. Individual NFS Reports do not reveal any serious deficiencies, as yet, but in the trend over the years—and herein lies the real value of the Survey and its data—few if any of the changes have been for the better; movements in food groups have tended to be downwards. If these trends continue, the time must surely come when there will be real deficiencies; that substitution within a food group cannot make good essential foods severely rationed by high prices.