Library Review

1965 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012433

On another page we print an observer's view of the conference with this title recently called by the Library Association. Why, one may ask, this present preoccupation of our profession with Access to Information It is true, of course, that the informational aspects of the library service and the various questions involved in bibliographical organization and control have been a concern of librarians and others in the United Kingdom since, at least, the establishment of the Central Library for Students and the Regional Bureaux and the formation of Aslib. Yet it is also true that the librarian's traditional role is to be a keeper, in the terminology of the learned libraries, rather than a disseminator of information, to adopt a phrase from the Library Association's current syllabus.

Tail, James A.

1965 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012434

THE APPEARANCE OF A NEW EDITION of the Decimal Classification is always an event of some importance in the library world. It is perhaps viewed with apprehension by the library administrator who foresees the consequent alterations of numbers on books and records resulting from relocations as an added burden to be borne, while it is hopefully viewed by the classifier as possibly a more adequate instrument for dealing with the literature that comes to his desk. Both may get some satisfaction from DC 17, the administrator in the fact that there are only 746 relocations as compared with the 1,603 in edition 16, while the classifier will be partially satisfied by some of the new features. In other words DC 17 presents the familiar compromise between Keeping pace with knowledge and Integrity of numbers.

Brill, Barbara

1965 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012435

IT IS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO on November 12th since Elizabeth Gaskell died suddenly at the age of fiftyfive. She had not begun to write seriously until she was nearly forty, but during those fifteen years wrote seven major novels, a biography and many short stories. Her premature death was a deprivation to English literature and innumerable characters with whom her mind teemed were never brought to life to add to the host of friends that readers of her books find in her pages.

Merson, Jessie G.M.

1965 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012436

I AM GOING TO BE TALKING about the library of Niddrie Marischal School in Edinburgh, because I feel very strongly that a school library has to fit its school, has to fit the needs of its pupils. What is a good school library for one school may not be only inadequate but calamitous for another school. The school librarianwhether a teacher or a trained librarianthe staff, the pupillibrarians, and succeeding classes of pupils have to work together over many years to build up a library and a traditionfor a library is more than books. Moreover, there must always be room for improvement. The librarian must always be open to new ideas.

Douglas, Alison

1965 Library Review

doi: 10.1108/eb012437

THE MAJOR CONTRIBUTION, though not the only one, has been made by Scottish authors, both by the wellknown ones, such as R. L. Stevenson and J. M. Barrie, in whose work their Scottish origin has played its part, and by others, like Norman Macleod and Ian Maclaren, whose reputation scarcely extended outside their native country or has been since forgotten.