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My contribution to this conference will be an attempt to outline the part which local government—and that means principally, the public library—can play in a national information plan. This implies a need to look at the effectiveness of such services, their relationship with others, and indications for the future, bearing in mind the economic climate which is likely to prevail for several years yet.

‘I'M MINERVA. ASK ME. Out goes the image of the bespectacled, disapproving librarian, the woman who makes you feel frivolous for taking out nothing more weighty than philosophy. In comes the newstyle library hostess, smart, alluring, shaped for confidences.

The present survey attempts to investigate the viability of a single library education programme for the education of teacher‐librarians in developing countries. Questionnaires were sent to 55 professional librarians in 29 different countries, of which 35 replies were received. Data were analysed and the result was compared with the outcome of a similar survey done for the education of teacher‐librarians in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The overall view is that a single library programme for developing countries is possible.

From the Board Schools of the 1870s to the Polys of the 1960s, the structure of formal education in Britain has grown ever more elaborate. Now at every level it is under the greatest financial pressure. Yet never has so high a proportion of adults needed to learn — in many cases to learn quickly — in face of technological obsolescence, bureaucratic encroachment or complex environmental dilemmas. People learn when they have to, Boyle argues: and he examines areas where broadcasting and libraries would appear to be operating side by side.

K C HARRISON, City Librarian of Westminster, past‐President of the LA and present Chairman of the association's General Purposes Committee, has been invested a Knight (First Class) of the Order of the Lion of Finland for services to Finnish public libraries.

This work was originally commissioned during 1982, the year that was designated Information Technology Year; the year that the personal computer replaced the space invader machine as a focus for teenage obsession; the year of the library symbol, the Hunt Report on cable TV; the year the US Post Office issued two stamps celebrating American libraries, and the British Post Office issued a stamp for IT year suggesting that libraries were a thing of the past. The work was intended to look at “the background to the IT revolution, the benefits of applying technology to library services and the reasons for its relatively slow progress”. It was envisaged at the time that what would have been effectively a state‐of‐the‐art report on the technology available to libraries, and who was doing what with it, would be a useful tool for library managers introducing or extending library technical services. It might usefully have complemented the LA publication, The impact of new technology on libraries and information centres (LA, 1982). However, for a variety of reasons it was not possible to produce the publication in 1983 as intended; the person commissioned to write it was unable to do so; and eventually, in 1984, it was realised that the speed of development and availability of technology was such that any such work would be useless as a practical guide within months of publication. The growth, during the period, of journals on the subject of library applications of IT of all kinds; the appearance of regular updates in the generalist professional press; the formation of, for example, the Library Association IT Group: all these developments clearly offered better opportunities of current awareness to the library manager than could be achieved by a single monograph.

For a number of years problems of research in reading have been given some priority in the work of the IFLA Section on Library Theory and Research. As it is one of the Section's objectives as formulated in IFLA's Medium Term Programme to promote communication and co‐operation among researchers in library and information science as well as to improve the contacts between researchers and practitioners, the organisation of international seminars on research subjects has been one primary task of the Section.

British librianship was well represented at the International Federation of Library Association and Institutions (IFLA) 58th General Conference held in New Delhi, 30 August to 5 September 1992. With 1,500 delegates from 72 nations, ranging from Namibia and Estonia to the USA and Russia, it was truly a cosmopolitan jamboree held in the glittering, ultramodern Taj Palace International Hotel and Conference Centre.