THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
The Annual Report of the Bibliographical Society announces that the Society's Transactions will henceforth be published in quarterly parts, and that with a view to lessening the cost it is proposed to allow copies to be purchased by non-members and to accept advertisements. It is hoped also that The Library, founded by Sir John MacAlister in 1888 and edited during recent years by Mr. A. W. Pollard, the Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum, and the Honorary Secretary of the Bibliographical Society, may be brought into the scheme, and that the quarterly numbers may be gradually worked up into a full bibliographical magazine.
At the December meeting of the Society a point of great bibliographical interest was raised by a paper read by Mr. F. W. Bourdillon on "Some French Romances." He showed how many of the woodcuts used in illustration were reproduced by one printer after another with a marked fall in quality by a method of transfer on to wood-blocks called by the technical name of pocher, which, he submitted, may be an ancestor of the modern English verb "to poach." Mr. Bourdillon urged the importance of the comparative study of such woodcuts, and suggested that a Society should be formed for reproducing early book illustrations in facsimile.
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DISCOVERY
A Conference was called last January by the joint invitation of the President of the Royal Society, the President of the British Academy, and a large number of others, interested both in the production and distribution of knowledge, to frame, if possible, a scheme for a journal which should present in popular form the most recent results of research in all the chief subjects of knowledge. This Conference appointed a committee to frame a scheme, and their report was presented and adopted at the adjourned meeting of the Conference held recently in the rooms of the Royal Society, Burlington House. Professor R. S. Conway, of Manchester, has acted throughout as Secretary of the movement. The meeting approved the name Discovery for the new journal, and established a trust for its maintenance, the first trustees being Sir Joseph J. Thomson, O.M., P.R.S., Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, D.Litt., K.C.B., P.B.A., Professor A. C. Seward, Sc.D., F.R.S., Professor R. S. Conway, Litt.D., P.B.A.
The meeting further approved of the agreement made provisionally by the Executive Committee, with Mr. John Murray as Publisher, and of his and the committee's joint recommendation of Captain A. S. Russell, M.C., D.Sc., recently of the R.G.A., now of the University, Sheffield, and Reader-elect in Chemistry at Christ Church, Oxford, as Editor. The first number will be issued on January 15th, 1920, at the price of sixpence.
The Conference further considered in detail and adopted the committee's scheme for the management of the journal, of which the chief principles may be mentioned. The control of the trustees is final, but they undertake to exercise it through a managing committee, which they will appoint on the nomination of a large number of bodies, the chief of whom are the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies, who will nominate five members, the Classical, Historical, English, and Geographical, each of whom will nominate one member, and the Modern Language Association, if, as is hoped, that also adheres to the scheme. Further the British Psychological Society and the Royal Society of Economics will appoint one member.
This, however, is only one side of the committee's constitution. It will comprise also representatives of the great Associations which represent different bodies of students and teachers, and the public libraries. Those that have already pledged themselves to take part are the National Union of Teachers, which is to nominate two representatives; the Co-operative Union; the Associations of Headmasters and Headmistresses, who will appoint one member. Similar co-operation is hoped for from the Royal Society of Literature, the Library Association, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Workers' Educational Association, the Associations of Assistant Masters and Assistant Mistresses, and the Association of Education Committees, all of which have expressed sympathy with the movement.