University and Research Section of the Library Association

Abstract

THE University and Research Section of the Library Association held its twelfth week-end conference during September 10–13 at the University of Birmingham. It was attended by ninety members, with Dr. Arundell Esdaile in the chair, and colleagues from Australia, Denmark, India, Sweden and Venezuela were present. The conference was welcomed to Birmingham by Dr. Wilfred Bonser, University librarian, who outlined the plans for the new University Library to be erected at Edgbaston. The chief speaker at the conference was Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, president of the Indian Library Association and formerly librarian of the University of Madras. Taking as his theme "The Challenge of the Field of Knowledge", Dr. Ranganathan pointed to the declaration made at the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference that in future librarians must be regarded as equal in standing to fellow men of science employed in research, industry and administration, and that they should receive comparable training facilities, rank and emoluments, as marking a definite advance. He showed how difficult it is for the librarian to satisfy the many needs of scholars—and especially of scientific workers—as the various fields of knowledge continually expand and overlap, particularly as seen from the point of view of library classification schemes. He demonstrated the principle and practice of the scheme known as Colon Classification, of which he is author. During the week-end, visits were paid to the various sections of the University and other libraries at Birmingham, and the information departments of the Austin Motor Works and of Imperial Chemical Industries (Metals Division). The formal business of the annual general meeting of the Section on September 12 was followed by an account by Mr. C. C. Barnard, librarian of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, of a visit to Hanover in May of this year as a representative of the Section at a conference of German librarians. The Medical Sub-Section held a meeting devoted to a symposium on cataloguing problems in medical publications, and also visited the Birmingham Medical Institute.