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While downsizing was the rage in the first part of this decade, it is becoming increasingly clear that in the 21st century companies won't be able to cut their way to profitability. Cost cutting alone only saves money; it doesn't build a business. Unless cost savings are reinvested in the business, there can be no real, sustainable growth. Operations and capabilities pared to the bone rarely can respond to market opportunities, and so are vulnerable to competitors who can. In addition, costs must be reduced in a systematic and strategic way, with the focus on designing or redesigning processes for cost management.

In the military, a war room is the central collection point for intelligence information about the enemy that needs to be analyzed. Then, after senior officers review analyses of the information and formulate battle plans, they send orders out from the war room to all relevant battle groups. Those orders go to a small group of commanders, who in turn deploy those under their command in a way consistent with the orders from above. As the orders cascade down through lower levels of the organization, they become more detailed operationally, and the measures of success become more concrete.

FINANCIAL fears are only less cruel than those of war, and lead men into extravagances which they would repudiate indignantly in their cooler moments. If the doings of the Economy Committee at Manchester in relation to children's libraries, as described in the article by Mr. Lamb in our last issue, are true, we have in them an example of a kind of retrenchment at the expense of the young which we hope is without parallel and will have no imitators. Some reduc‐tion of estimates we hear of from this or that place, but in few has the stupid policy which urges that if we spend nothing we shall all become rich been carried into full effect. Libraries always have suffered in times of crisis, whatever they are; we accept that, though doubtfully; but we do know that the people need libraries.

We publish below two papers given on 21 July 1987 at a seminar “Joint Enterprise: Roles and Relationships of the Public and Private Sectors in the Provision of Library and Information Services.” The seminar was organised by LISC and BL in conjunction with William Dawson and Sons Ltd.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

In a previous article we have called attention to the danger of eating tinned and bottled vegetables which have been coloured by the addition of salts of copper and we have urged upon the public that no such preparations should be purchased without an adequate guarantee that they are free from copper compounds. Copper poisoning, however, is not the only danger to which consumers of preserved foods are liable. Judging from the reports of cases of irritant poisoning which appear with somewhat alarming frequency in the daily press, and from the information which we have been at pains to obtain, there can be no question that the occurrence of a large number of these cases is to be attributed to the ingestion of tinned foods which has been improperly prepared or kept. It is not to be supposed that the numerous cases of illness which have been ascribed to the use of tinned foods were all cases of metallic poisoning brought about by the action of the contents of the tins upon the metal and solder of the latter. The evidence available does not show that a majority of the cases could be put down to this cause alone; but it must be admitted that the evidence is in most instances of an unsatisfactory and inconclusive character. It has become a somewhat too common custom to put forward the view that so‐called “ptomaine” poisoning is the cause of the mischief; and this upon very insufficient evidence. While there is no doubt that the presence in tinned goods of some poisonous products of decomposition or organic change very frequently gives rise to dangerous illness, so little is known of the chemical nature and of the physiological effects of “ptomaines” that to obtain conclusive evidence is in all cases most difficult, and in many, if not in most, quite impossible. A study of the subject leads to the conclusion that both ptomaine poisoning and metallic poisoning—also of an obscure kind—have, either separately or in conjunction, produced the effects from time to time reported. In view of the many outbreaks of illness, and especially, of course, of the deaths which have been attributed to the eating of bad tinned foods it is of the utmost importance that some more stringent control than that which can be said to exist at present should be exercised over the preparation and sale of tinned goods. In Holland some two or three years ago, in consequence partly of the fact that, after eating tinned food, about seventy soldiers were attacked by severe illness at the Dutch manœuvres, the attention of the Government was drawn to the matter by Drs. VAN HAMEL ROOS and HARMENS, who advocated the use of enamel for coating tins. It appears that an enamel of special manufacture is now extensively used in Holland by the manfacturers of the better qualities of tinned food, and that the use of such enamelled tins is insisted upon for naval and military stores. This is a course which might with great advantage be followed in this country. While absolute safety may not be attainable, adequate steps should be taken to prevent the use of damaged, inferior or improper materials, to enforce cleanliness, and to ensure the adoption of some better system of canning.

The earlier version of this Bill which had already passed through the House of Lords and reached the Committee stage in the Commons had to be withdrawn because of lack of time to proceed with it this session. The new (No. 2) version of the Bill, however, contains the several amendments which were made to the old Bill and this will be revived by the Queen's Speech in the new session of Parliament. In stating this, the President of the Board of Trade also said that the full discussion in the Lords and by the public had not been wasted and the publication of the No. 2 Bill would keep the subject alive. It could still be profitably discussed by trade interests and local authorities before its re‐introduction next session.

“All things are in a constant state of change”, said Heraclitus of Ephesus. The waters if a river are for ever changing yet the river endures. Every particle of matter is in continual movement. All death is birth in a new form, all birth the death of the previous form. The seasons come and go. The myth of our own John Barleycorn, buried in the ground, yet resurrected in the Spring, has close parallels with the fertility rites of Greece and the Near East such as those of Hyacinthas, Hylas, Adonis and Dionysus, of Osiris the Egyptian deity, and Mondamin the Red Indian maize‐god. Indeed, the ritual and myth of Attis, born of a virgin, killed and resurrected on the third day, undoubtedly had a strong influence on Christianity.

In these days of jargon and slang, to the purist it must seem that little is described by its real name, that is, during conversation. Most people refer to the city as “the smoke” and the city‐dweller's pseudonym for the country is “out in the sticks”, which, of course, could mean that “the sticks” are kindling to a fire that has not been lit, with the city “smoke” as the end‐product of the fire that is burning up those who rush hither and thither in its bedlamite streets and ugly office blocks. The cottage, the church and inn no longer completely fill the lives of the villagers; they now have piped water supplies, electricity and telephones; deep freezers, colour television and cars; they have moved closer to the city standards of comfort and convenience without losing any of the enduring qualities which make them different. And the countryman is very different to the town‐dweller—in outlook, habit and countenance. Even the villager who works in the town and city, and nowadays there are many of them, would not change his home in the country for a flat or terrace house in a mean street, despite the long journeying to and fro. At one time, it had to be a special type of girl who chose a home in these rural settings, with few or perhaps no neighbours and no corner‐shop, but now more and more are realizing that life in a village is easier on the whole family.