Information Bureaux and Special Libraries

Date:
19 September - 22 September 1930
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/37/7
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Information Bureaux and Special Libraries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    74/122 page 70
    for discussion, to which the experience of the Survey may have some- thing to contribute. On some of them that experience leads to fairly definite views. For an adequate account of all the important aspects of life and labour at the present time official sources, while vastly better and fuller than they were forty years ago, are still by no means sufficient, and even these are not safely to be handled by the non-expert. Apart altogether from the question of expense the time and skill needed are still the chief obstacles to securing continuous compilations of such basic data for units smaller than the country as a whole, although yet another difficulty—the long period between some of the major statistical compilations such as the population census— is so obvious that it has not been repeatedly mentioned above. . Again, the compilers of the volume which is the subject of this paper would be among the first to emphasise that such compilations are no substitute for detailed survey proper—rather that their value is realised only when they function as links or background. If it is accepted that accurate knowledge is a first and very definite step in social progress, a great number will be found to agree that the ideal to Le aimed at in an eta of increasing industrialisation is a series of surveys for London and for other towns—at, say, intervals of fifteen or twenty years, linked by a continuous series of the more important indices of social and economic conditions. The volume which marks the completion of the first part of the work of the New Survey itself, demonstrates how far from this ideal we yet are, and what is the nature of its difficulties, but if it serves to stimulate the issue and organisation of information by local authorities—to encourage, for instance, the L.C.C. yet further to amplify the work in this direction in which it already takes a leading part, and, outside the “ official”? sphere, to lend support to the work of organisations such as this; it will also have done something to bring this ideal nearer. Contd. from page 76] measute progtess or otherwise; and (3) the comparative study of many such objects to establish standards of average quality or possible excellence. Informa- tion collected for one purpose was frequently valuable for others and when engaged in (1) contributions should be made also to (3) and perhaps (2), but the organisa- tion of the study should be based. on the purpose, and, for example, a mass of data should not be thrust upon the technical planner merely because they had some other value. Speaking of the presentation of information, Mr. Unwin remarked that for planning purposes there was mote value in graphic and approximate facts than in statistical and exact. PROFESSOR POLLARD said that since the desired information extended over such a vast field and required special preparation before it was of practical use to the surveyor, it would in his opinion be necessary to attack the problem in a carefully- considered manner. To deal with the matter efficiently, he suggested that the four following and outstanding activities at least were desirable : (1) A permanent committee to act as the executive and advisory body in the whole matter. (2) The determination of a systematic method of filing and finding the informa- tion collected. (3) A “Central Repertory” in which the information was filed in accordance with the systematic method adopted. (4) A “‘ Statistical Office” with access to the Repertory for preparation of the information for immediate use by the surveyor. Mr. Donxsr Duyvis, Mr. L. C. WHarton, Mr. G. H. F. Smirn, Mr. E. A. Martin, ALDERMAN SQuirE, and Sir FREDERIC NaTHAN also took part in the discussion.
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