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It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

I should begin with a personal note. My interests have always been in connexion with chemistry and chemical industry. Consequently, any illustrations or references to the literature will have a bias towards chemistry, but I believe that any conclusions will be applicable, mutatis mutandis, to other industries.

The Newcastle upon Tyne conference on 7th December, 1948, was held under the auspices of the Northern Branch of Aslib, but was organized largely by a local committee under the chairmanship of Mr. E. Austin Hinton, City Librarian, Newcastle upon Tyne, and with the help of Mr. M. G. Cahill‐Byrne, of Messrs. Vickers‐Armstrongs, Ltd., who acted as Hon. Secretary. Chairman of the conference was Mr. R. Trevor Jenkins, Technical Manager of Messrs. Vickers‐Armstrongs, Ltd., and the opening ceremony was performed by the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Newcastle upon Tyne, Alderman T. McCutcheon, who subsequently entertained many of the delegates to luncheon at the Mansion House. Meetings were held in the lecture hall of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, and the Institute kindly provided tea in their library. Space was also given for a small exhibition of Aslib publications and of other reference literature likely to be of assistance to librarians in industrial concerns. The conference was on the general theme of the value of an organized information service to industry and was designed to interest non‐members of Aslib, the last three forming a Symposium on Information Service. The five papers presented at the conference are printed on pp. 51–80. At the close of the meeting Mr. R. Brightman, Chairman of the Northern Branch, spoke of its work, and Miss E. M. R. Ditmas, Director of Aslib, described the ways in which it could serve the industrial librarian.

We are met this afternoon to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the inauguration of the Northern Branch of Aslib, but our retrospect should go back further than 8th May, 1946. As I pointed out then, more than ten years earlier there had been in existence a Lancashire and Cheshire Branch, which had compiled a Union List of technical, scientific and commercial periodicals taken by nine libraries in the district, and had arranged a number of informal meetings of Aslib members. The Northern Branch inaugurated ten years ago thus owed much to the earlier work of Miss B. M. Dent and her colleagues of the period 1931–6.

The formation, in May, 1949, of the new Aslib, incorporating the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux and the British Society for International Bibliography, led to a change in the dating of Aslib's financial year, which will now run from January to December instead of from July to June. This report, therefore, extends over eighteen months and links the activities of the old organization with those of its successor.

A meeting of the Northern Branch was held in the Lecture Theatre of the Manchester Central Library on 28th January, 1949: the Branch Chairman, Mr. R. Brightman, presided.

A meeting of the Northern Branch of Aslib, held at Warrington on 12 February, at which Mr. R. Brightman, chairman of the Branch, presided, was addressed by Mr. E. J. Aslin, of Photostat, Ltd., on ‘Photostat Recording in Library Work’. Mr. Aslin said that it was not until the early part of the twentieth century that commercial and industrial interests first began to realize the value of using photographic methods for facsimile reproductions of important documentary matter. Although at that time there were very fine cameras in use, they were, nevertheless, unsuitable for this type of rapid document copying, owing to the somewhat peculiar conditions and arrangements found to be necessary for this work. There was quite obviously a demand for a specially designed camera to handle document copying on a big scale.

December 20, 1972 Industrial relations — Unfair dismissal — Employee semi skilled sheet metal worker — Refusal by employee to do pipe bending without additional payment — Employers' custom of negotiation with employees for bonus rates — Dismissal of employee without adequate negotiation — Whether unfair dismissal — Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (c.72), s. 24 (1), (2), (6).

December 16, 1971 Master and Servant — Redundancy — Continuous employment — Replanning of work programme during strike — Phased resumption of work after strike — No work for dismissed striker until fortnight after strike terminated — Whether “absent from work on account of temporary cessation of work” — Contracts of Employment Act 1963 (c.49) s.l(5), Sch. 1 paras. 5(1)(b) (3), 7(2) — Redundancy Payments Act 1965 (c.62) s.l(l), Sch. 1 para. 1(1).

July 27, 1972 Master and Servant — Redundancy — Dismissal — Wage agreement dispute — One day strike by employees — Company's refusal of work on old terms — Refusal of new terms — Dismissals — Whether lock‐out — Repudiation of employees' contracts — Whether redundancy self‐induced.