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THE Librarian faces one of the turning times in library history. The flow of progress has not yet begun, the shortages and consequent imperious demands for food, housing and clothing stand in the way of the beginning, except on paper. How long the interregnum will last none can say. The authorities, which are a reflection in some ways of the Parliamentary party in power, are well‐disposed towards libraries; the official handbook of the Labour Party proves that; but the clamour of the needs we have mentioned deafens everybody to library needs—except in certain instances. For example, the rebuilding and enlarging of the staff at Holborn is an encouraging sign. Of more potential significance is the working out of the so‐called National Charter. It has involved many towns in the task of creating an establishment for each public department. Thus, in one library system we hear that each branch or department may claim a librarian and a deputy both on the A.P.T. scale, but all the assistants are either general or clerical. Some assistants we hear have applied to be of clerical grade as the maximum salary is greater than in the general. This we suggest is putting cash before status because it is accepted as an axiom that a clerk has only clerical qualifications and potentialities, while a general assistant may aspire, when there is a vacancy and if he have certificates, to the professional status. The grading in the particular library mentioned has rather a petrifying effect in that no assistant can get into the professional grade unless his librarian or deputy departs. Possibly this sort of thing may alter, but the fact remains for good or ill—it is not all ill by any means—that no library is able to attract men from another except to a definitely higher post.

IN all cases, the estimation of airscrew‐engine performance must start with a clear specification of the primary condition for which the airscrew is to be designed. In the majority of cases up to date this primary design condition has been that the airscrew is to absorb the maximum b.h.p. of the engine at maximum permissible r.p.m. at maximum boost height and maximum aircraft speed. (The aircraft speed is obviously an estimate only, but we may assume for the time being that it is reliable.) Under these conditions the airscrew efficiency is required to be the maximum possible.

We lay the flattering unction to our soul that our recent remark with regard to the possibilities of awakening public interest in the public library movement by means of wireless broadcasting has not fallen entirely upon deaf ears. It has just been arranged that the Honorary Secretary of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Library Association is to broadcast a lecture on Public Libraries at a date to be announced later. This will mark an important epoch in our march forward and we await the result with considerable interest.

ROYAL Alderman T. A. Abbott of Manchester, dealt with somewhat severely by Dr. Savage in his A Librarian's Memories, had at least enthusiasm for libraries. He was mightily honoured when he became President at our Manchester Conference in 1921. “We are the Royal Library Association”, he declared and should call ourselves that; haven't we a Royal Charter? Our recognition comes direct from the Sovereign”. No doubt a vain wish, although the Library Association seemed to come near it in 1950 when George VI graciously became its Patron and the Duke of Edinburgh its President. Since that date the engineers have become “royal”, but we have slipped back. When Her Majesty came to the Throne, the patronage her father had bestowed was refused, no doubt on the direct counsel of her advisers who would not want so young a Sovereign to assume too many offices. On that view librarians could not murmur. There is a future, however, and in it there will be a new Library Association House next to, almost conjoined with, a new National Central Library. King George V with Queen Mary opened the second, as is well remembered especially by the King's speech, one of the best, most useful, in library history, in which he described the N.C.L. as “a university that all might join and none need ever leave”—words that we hope may somewhere be displayed in, or on, the new N.C.L. building. Royalty and its interest in libraries has been again manifested in the opening last month (July 13th to be precise) by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, of the new Central Public Library at Kensington. The Royal Family has close relations with Kensington of course. It is recalled, too, that the Manchester Central and that at Birkenhead were opened also by King George V and Queen Mary; and Queen Elizabeth II quite recently opened the Central Library of the re‐created city of Plymouth, the largest new town library since the Second World War. Kensington has now opened the first major London library since 1939. It is not modern in spirit externally and, as is known, is the work of the architect of the Manchester Reference Library, Mr. Vincent Harris, and there is no doubt about its dignity. Its interior methods are, however, quite modern; a few of them were broadcast to us for a few moments by the B.B.C. announcer, to the effect that there were 100,000 books, that returned books in the lending library were not discharged at the counter but slid down a chute to a room below where that was done, etc., with the remark that books not available in the public apartment could be requisitioned from other libraries but, with the large stocks on show and in the building, that did not seem to be very necessary. We sometimes wish that broadcasters, however well intentioned that may have been, knew something about libraries. Happening at about the same time was the removal of the Holborn Central Library stock to its new home in Theobald's Road, a complex process which Mr. Swift and his staff carried out in July without interrupting the public service. We hope that Mr. Swift will be able soon to tell us how he carried out this scheme. Thus has begun what we hope will be a process of replacing many other London libraries with modern buildings more worthy of the excellent work now being done in them.

THE construction of aircraft by that essentially British method which employ structural members formed from thin high‐tensile steel strip rolled or drawn to corrugated sections is now admitted practically universally to be‐from the purely technical point of view—a marked advance on any alternative method of construction as a method of utilising the available materials to the best possible advantage.

THE use of the C.G. as the datum to which all moments involved in the trim relations are referred is doubtless the result of a convention widely used in mechanics generally and having one advantage, i.e., that the moment due to gravity is zero. In general mechanical problems where the position of the C.G. is normally a fixed characteristic of the body whose motions are under consideration, the C.G. has a good claim to be a convenient datum. In the case of the aeroplane, where the C.G. of a particular aeroplane is rarely found to be in the position estimated for it—even under carefully defined conditions of loading—it is subject to considerable movement with variation in loading; and, in different aeroplanes, may occupy the most various positions relative to the organs which produce the moments involved—the use of the C.G. as a reference point for trim estimates has very serious disadvantages.

WHAT a title this makes for the hypothetical ideal biography of a librarian! I adapt it from a note on Archbishop Temple:—“Few will forget his Presidential address, the subject of which was the rather neglected one, on such occasions, of books and literary pleasures.” Few will; but what was the implication of the tail of the assertion? What was it to convey to me—to you—its readers? For, after all, only you and I, my reader, at this moment are concerned with the interpretation. It is the essence of literature, this “between you and me” intimacy which we may share over an idea or argument. Why are literary pleasures rare conference subjects? For me the implication of the phrase was: the librarian is too absorbed in the routines of his bread‐and‐butter existence to recognise, and certainly to realise, the inner life of his books. And, lacking that realisation, he can have no real love of what is written.

THE basic theory of stability has undergone no important modification since the publication of Professor G. H. Bryan's book on Stability in Aviation in 1911. The stability equations derived therein serve to‐day with the difference that axes and symbols have now been standardised and with the additional refinement of a non‐dimensional form of the stability equation introduced by H. Glauert. Due to the vastly increased knowledge of aerodrynamic characteristics, however, the stability derivatives are more readily assessable in any particular design case. This applies more particularly to longitudinal stability calculations which may, and indeed often arc, carried through with no wind tunnel tests available apart from a lift and drag curve for the aerofoil section used. There has also been some extension of the use of stability charts for deriving an approximate knowledge of the behaviour of the aeroplane when it receives a disturbance. These charts are exceedingly useful for obtaining periodic time and damping factor, but the assumptions on which they are based should be clearly realized.

IN the earliest stages of the development of the aeroplane the speed range obtainable was small, flight occurred only at fairly high lift coefficients, and induced drag was the predominant component of total resistance, hence successful flight depended on the achievement rather of minimum weight, minimum wing loading and maximum engine power than on the achievement of minimum possible parasite resistance.

AT the end of the summer flying season last year, in the issue of AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING for October, 1935, we raised in a leading article the matter of the suffering caused to those on the ground through the noise of the passage overhead of aeroplanes flying at low altitudes.