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A study of the published statements of Australian school administrators revealed that two distinctive configurations of power and service relationships are projected in their publically presented images of state school administration as it relates to government and the public. A previous Traditional Centralist‐Unity configuration is now being replaced by an Emergent Devolution‐Diversity conformation. Analysis was directed to (a) understanding the significance of the two images in terms of their function as public communications, and (b) accounting for the shift in the imagery in the light of pressures for change, the way administrators are interpreting change as turbulence, and the projection of counter images incorporating critiques of government school systems. To help organise analysis, it was assumed that images of system administration have the potential to communicate: 1. information, 2. explanation, 3. judgements and value positions, 4. statements designed to advance sectional interests, and 5. themes and persuasive symbols. It was also assumed that the shift in the public images of administrators may be studied in the way their images relate to three basic sources of administrative tension: tensions which arise from problems of meaning, problems of aspiration, and problems of practice.

Enterprising projects require a mixture of the imaginative and rational, not the rejection of one in favour of the other. Where a clear distinction is made, the imaginative and rational may support different doctrines on how knowledge and understanding should be acquired. Where attempts are made to draw on both as analytic and creative resources, e.g. as in the qualitative treatment of new social data, researchers may have the task of developing a complementary approach to social enquiry which combines objectivity with intuition and detachment with feelings of rapport. The data obtained often require an advocacy approach to argument, one where a persuasive line of argument is designed to establish the relative strength of a case in what may well be an adversarial context of claims and counter‐claims. Where research deals with various kinds of evidence, e.g. objective and subjective, research methods must be argued as compatible with a research problem and its context, and not dictated arbitrarily by research doctrine. An example is given of what is claimed to be a rational, linear approach to developing the internal logic of a research report; the claim is discussed that rationality and imagination may be complementary in speculative research; and an advocacy approach to presenting a research case is discussed.

IT is fitting that a new series of this magazine should be introduced by some reflections on the whole question of book selection, both for the general public and libraries.

“Democracy” can be defined in different ways, each of which offers a different way of looking at the relationship between democracy and governance. Mark Bevir’s (2010) Democratic Governance offers a genealogical account of the development of this relationship from the late 19th century, focusing on the role of particular theories of social science, and raising serious questions about the degree to which contemporary practices conflict with democratic ideals. Bevir suggests a more radical, participatory approach as a way of resolving this conflict. Here I extend his genealogical account to include two thinkers, Jeremy Bentham and William Thompson, who laid much of the groundwork for modern social science, but with very different ideas about democracy. Extending the genealogy to Bentham and Thompson opens the way for a consideration of some aspects of the relationship between democracy and governance not included in Bevir’s account, and raises questions as to whether the different models of democracy can be integrated in the way he suggests.

The unsatisfactory state of the law with regard to prosecutions for impoverished milk has been further exemplified in a series of prosecutions at Oldham. Three farmers were summoned for having sold milk “ not of the nature, substance and quality demanded by the purchaser,” and the evidence produced showed that the milk in each case was not only deficient as compared with the standard set by the Board of Agriculture, but even more deficient when compared with mixed samples taken at the farm. The Deputy Town Clerk, who conducted the prosecution, pointed out that the case of Wilkinson v. Clark clearly showed that the Inspectors were justified in going to the farm for a second sample, if the second was comparable with the first, and were entitled to rely on the Public Analyst's certificate for both samples. He argued that, in view of the enhanced price of milk, it was very necessary that the purchaser should be adequately protected and that he should obtain what he paid for — pure unadulterated milk. The defence in the first case was a denial of the milk having been tampered with, it being sold “ as it came from the cow.” Results of experiments at the Yorkshire College for Agricultural Education were quoted to show that wide variations in the quality of the milk might occur for which the farmer ought not to be held responsible. In the present case it was admitted that one of the cows was not milking satisfactorily, and had a “ hard udder.” The milk from this cow when examined closely, was stated in the defendant's evidence to be “ more like water.” This had only been found out on the morning when the first sample had gone into the churn for sale. The Bench, after consultation, expressed themselves satisfied that the milk had not been tampered with, and dismissed the summons.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

EVERY librarian in his inmost heart dislikes newspapers. He regards them as bad literature; attractors of undesirable readers; a drain upon the limited resources of the library; and a target against which the detractors of public libraries are constantly battering. From the standpoint of the librarian, newspapers are the most expensive and least productive articles stocked by a library, and their lavish provision is, perhaps, the most costly method of purchasing waste‐paper ever devised. Pressure of circumstances and local conditions combine, however, to muzzle the average librarian, and the consequence is that a perfectly honest and outspoken discussion of the newspaper question is very rarely seen. In these circumstances, an attempt to marshal the arguments for and against the newspaper, together with some account of a successful practical experiment at limitation, may prove interesting to readers of this magazine.

Those who were responsible for the establishment of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration (CCEA) in the early 1960s and 1970s were clearly leaders. All had vision, were entrepreneurial and tenacious, sensitive to situational and political pressures and highly ethical in their relationships with others. Yet each displayed a unique style of leader behaviour. Thus the three key elements in their behavioural setting were the traits they possessed, the sensitivity to the environment they demonstrated and the style they adopted. Ansoff has described contemporary society as being typified by paradox, ambiguity and risk. These characteristics continue to typify the business and government environments of advanced Western nations. Are the characteristics of leader behaviour demonstrated by CCEA′s founders adequate to meet the turbulence of future societal change? The answer is “yes”. When the extensive literature on leader behaviour is analysed and the politics of scholarship are taken into account, those three key elements remain. This is reflected in Zehnder′s recent address to the Australian Institute of Directors with its highlighting of leadership as a function of intuition, ethics, entrepreneurship and vision and in the recent emphasis by several writers on “transformative leadership”.

At a meeting of the Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington on June 5th Councillor A. J. RICE‐OXLEY, M.D., Chairman of the Public Health Committee, brought up a report as follows:—

The enormous growth in publishing in Victorian England is surveyed from its origins in the eighteenth century to the demise, or survival, of principal publishing houses in the twentieth century. The major publishers ‐ Longman, Murray, Smith Elder, Chapman and Hall, Colburn, Bentley, Heinemann, Methuen and Macmillan ‐ are discussed in relation to their authors and publishing successes and failures. The relation between the full‐length book and the major literary journals is discussed and the capitalist, risk taking nature of publishing as a commercial enterprise is emphasised.