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AFTER the trenchant paper by Mr. A. O. Jennings, read at the Brighton meeting of the Library Association, and the very embarrassing resolution which was carried as a result, one can only approach the subject of the commonplace in fiction with fear and diffidence. It is generally considered a bold and dangerous thing to fly in the face of corporate opinion as expressed in solemn public resolutions, and when the weighty minds of librarianship have declared that novels must only be chosen on account of their literary, educational or moral qualities, one is almost reduced to a state of mental imbecility in trying to fathom the meaning and limits of such an astounding injunction. To begin with, every novel or tale, even if but a shilling Sunday‐school story of the Candle lighted by the Lord type is educational, inasmuch as something, however little, may be learnt from it. If, therefore, the word “educational” is taken to mean teaching, it will be found impossible to exclude any kind of fiction, because even the meanest novel can teach readers something they never knew before. The novels of Emma Jane Worboise and Mrs. Henry Wood would no doubt be banned as unliterary and uneducational by those apostles of the higher culture who would fain compel the British washerwoman to read Meredith instead of Rosa Carey, but to thousands of readers such books are both informing and recreative. A Scots or Irish reader unacquainted with life in English cathedral cities and the general religious life of England would find a mine of suggestive information in the novels of Worboise, Wood, Oliphant and many others. In similar fashion the stories of Annie Swan, the Findlaters, Miss Keddie, Miss Heddle, etc., are educational in every sense for the information they convey to English or American readers about Scots country, college, church and humble life. Yet these useful tales, because lacking in the elusive and mysterious quality of being highly “literary,” would not be allowed in a Public Library managed by a committee which had adopted the Brighton resolution, and felt able to “smell out” a high‐class literary, educational and moral novel on the spot. The “moral” novel is difficult to define, but one may assume it will be one which ends with a marriage or a death rather than with a birth ! There have been so many obstetrical novels published recently, in which doubtful parentage plays a chief part, that sexual morality has come to be recognized as the only kind of “moral” factor to be regarded by the modern fiction censor. Objection does not seem to be directed against novels which describe, and indirectly teach, financial immorality, or which libel public institutions—like municipal libraries, for example. There is nothing immoral, apparently, about spreading untruths about religious organizations or political and social ideals, but a novel which in any way suggests the employment of a midwife before certain ceremonial formalities have been executed at once becomes immoral in the eyes of every self‐elected censor. And it is extraordinary how opinion differs in regard to what constitutes an immoral or improper novel. From my own experience I quote two examples. One reader objected to Morrison's Tales of Mean Streets on the ground that the frequent use of the word “bloody” made it immoral and unfit for circulation. Another reader, of somewhat narrow views, who had not read a great deal, was absolutely horrified that such a painfully indecent book as Adam Bede should be provided out of the public rates for the destruction of the morals of youths and maidens!

THE conclusion of another volume affords us an opportunity of surveying the past year as regards library progress and prospects. Briefly, it may be summed up as a year of building and Carnegie gifts. A considerable amount of activity has been displayed all over the country in the erection and opening of new buildings provided by the munificence of Mr. Carnegie, and the time seems to have arrived for gathering up all this planning and organization work and recording it in a special handbook of English and American Carnegie libraries. Such a record would prove of immense value to library committees and architects, and would form no unworthy memento of one of the most extraordinary developments of educational work the world has ever witnessed.

We wonder if, in the history of the world, any conference devoted to the intellectual interests of mankind has ever been held in such circumstances as made memorable the Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Library Association. For the whole week before those in and near London had been submitted to an ordeal well calculated to try the strongest nerves; an ordeal borne, it is true, with remarkable stoicism, but, nevertheless, one not likely to induce that calm, judicial frame of mind in which library topics should be discussed. Fortunately, however, the night before the opening meeting was the last of that particular series of air attacks, and the whole meeting passed in peace, so far as London was concerned. Raids and rumours of them may have reduced the attendance somewhat; it is fair to suppose that they did; yet the attendance, when all things are considered, was creditable to the Association.

IN the meridian of the year the librarian, like other people, turns his back upon his work, and with gleeful heart hies him away to sea or mountain side, there to forget for a brief season book and pen and general public, and all the worries which vex the soul of the servant of these three mighty taskmasters. A little before the happy time of freedom a sudden and deep disgust for his work and everything connected with it will seize upon his soul. He feels the need of a wider horizon than that of five by three—the catalogue card. The neatness and order of his classified shelves in which he was wont to take such delight and pride appear to him now but a vanity and a vexation of the spirit. Oh, for something unclassified, like nature, where rock and tree and water and air and sky are not parcelled out and separated one from another, in the trivial sortage of the laboratory or shop, but all are piled together in grand and sharp confusion, or subtly blended in exquisite harmonies which defy the namer and confound the analyst. Then do the days drag slowly along until the curtain of the roll‐top desk is finally shut down, and the wearied labourer goes forth—free.

In the second edition of Greenwood's “Public Libraries,” 1887, p. 137, there is a description of the Dent Indicator, from which it may be gathered that such an indicator was actually constructed. The inventor, however, is of opinion that his idea never got so far as realization in material form, though there can be hardly any doubt that Mr. Dent's indicator is the first to combine indicating with charging, and that it suggested several succeeding devices. His account of it is interesting, as it mentions the existence of an early form of card indicator which has since been reinvented in various styles. “A certain Mr. Christie, Librarian of the Constitution Hill Branch Library (Birmingham), about 1868, constructed a small rack with cards bearing the titles of a selection of the books in history, science, &c, open to the public, and the presence of one of these tickets in the rack indicated that the book was ‘in.’ If anyone wished to take one of the books thus shown, he lifted the ticket out of the rack (there was no glass in front) and handed it to the attendant who put it in a box till the book came back, and then replaced it almost anywhere in the rack. This gave me an idea that the cumberous system of day‐book, posting‐book, and constant piles of books to be marked off as returned might be done away with, if tickets in a rack representing every number in the library were substituted for book‐entry, &c.” Mr. Dent's improvement upon this idea consisted in the provision of a series of numbered shelves in columns, with spaces between to take the borrowers' cards when the books were out. The back of the borrower's card was to be ruled to allow of numbers and dates being pencilled thereon, and, of course, the presence of a borrower's card under a number indicated a book “ out.”

In recent years, guides to hiking trails and wilderness areas have enjoyed an increase in popularity. Here, Douglas J. Ernest and Lewis B. Herman evaluate more than 100 such books.

Library services to meet the needs of ethnic minority groups are described, along with the guidelines within which librarians operate in the development of multicultural library services. The needs of ethnic minority groups are identified and the ways in which these needs can be met by the public library are demonstrated.

This article examines the national and international connections made by women graduates of the School of Home Science in their efforts to develop the scholarly expertise and professional capacity that would enable them to pursue academic careers and to improve the position of women in universities. It argues that despite the obstacles, many women were able to pursue academic pathways and to establish their own authority. By undertaking a transnational analysis, this article examines webs of influence that linked women scholars in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States as well as those in the so called “centre” (Europe and the United Kingdom). It explores the networks formed by a select number of middle class women ‐ scholars such as Ann Gilchrist Strong, Elizabeth Gregory and Neige Todhunter ‐ as they attempted to expand the range of their scholarly work beyond national borders. It considers the influence of appointments of women academics from the United States and the United Kingdom on; the significance of post graduate study opportunities for home science graduates; and the role of scholarships and awards that enabled two way travel between the southern and northern hemispheres. A number of tensions are evident in the way women scholars located their work in new and emerging fields of academic knowledge within the university. This article explores interrelationships between women academics and graduates from the School of Home Science at the University of Otago and academic women in the United Kingdom and the United States. The final section of the paper examines the academic and scholarly life of Catherine Landreth who exemplifies the experience of a select group of women who gained personally, culturally and professionally from their international opportunities, experiences and networks. It considers Landreth’s transnational travels in search of scholarly expertise, the influence of her personal and professional networks, the significance of her pioneering work in the emerging field of early childhood education and the constraints experienced in a highly gendered academic enclave. To begin however it gives a brief overview of the introduction of Home Science at the University of New Zealand and the influence of initial international appointments on the expansion of women’s academic work at the University of Otago.

Our Dublin correspondent telegraphed last night: