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Discusses perceptions of building maintenance and care. Contrasts the “received wisdom” of planned preventive maintenance with the concept of “Just‐ in‐time maintenance”. Identifies possible locations of “intelligence” in people and buildings. Also examines the relationship between technology and users, particularly regarding user‐satisfaction. Considers the penetration of the maintenance/care market by non‐traditional players and describes features of “Call‐centred maintenance”. Identifies the opportunity within the Private Finance Initiative for total building care services.

Alternative approaches to maintenance are facilitating a fresh look at design and operation of buildings. For some time, planned preventive maintenance has been the predominant paradigm, based on periodic condition surveys, predictions of future performance, and production of programmes of work. Advances in technology and management techniques have enabled more rapid responses and a focus on meeting user needs. Also there has been a growth of interest in sustainability and “saving the planet”. This paper examines the concepts presented by the author at the Brisbane conference of CIB W70. Suggests that designing and providing for today’s needs is difficult enough without trying to anticipate unknown futures. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” (Matthew 6:34). Work stress could be reduced for facilities and maintenance managers by providing the “right” building – right design; right time; right place; nothing to worry about.

Looks into sexual harassment complaints at Mitsubishi Motors in Illinois, USA, which could become the largest sexual harassment case in US history with nearly 500 female plaintiffs eligible to receive a total amount of US$150 million in compensation and damages. Mentions other foreign companies operating in the USA, which have been charged with violation of employee rights. Mentions Employment Practices Liability insurance, which protects companies against the costs of workers winning damages in cases of discrimination or wrongful discharge. Attributes some of these employee abuse problems to the lack of flow of information within a company’s communication network. Points out that most companies have got downward communication from top management to employees sorted out, but that other forms of communication are lacking. Suggests that this might be due to control, incompetence, lack of understanding and unfairness when dealing with various societal groups – all of which can cost organizations a load of money, particularly in the litigious USA.

The whole kingdom from north to south at the time of writing is enveloped in freezing Arctic weather, reminiscent of the North Russian campaign of long ago. The normal winter is relatively mild, mainly a Westerly pattern, occasionally wild and windy, wet with a rare cold “snap”. There are variations in the pattern, damp and warm in the south‐west, few frosts and rarely any snow; in the north of the country, Scotland, much colder, with the south‐east partaking of the weather pattern of the land mass of the Continent. The variations appear more of the mild weather in the South and colder, appreciably, in the North; recalling service personnel stationed at Gosport who did not need an overcoat all winter, whereas in the North, many found it necessary to wear a light overcoat tor most of the year, the south‐east corner of England, obtaining no help from the warming Gulf Stream, often gets the worst of the weather, which it has done to a very considerable extent in this winter.

Building maintenance is not sexy – yet it is big business, arguably more than new‐build. It is under‐researched. Received wisdom from the 1960s and 1970s is that reactive maintenance is undesirable; planned preventive maintenance (PPM) is “the answer”. That paradigm fails to put people at the centre. Times have moved on. The thinking here challenges the public‐sector “think big’ command economy based approach, and aims to examine new ways ahead. The purpose of this paper is to summarise a range of new approaches and identify common threads. People are an organisation's greatest asset; the maintenance and enhancement of their working and living environments and their wellbeing deserve serious attention.

The research is based on semi‐structured interviews with maintenance and facility managers in organisations noted for their tendencies to innovate in their core business. The paper aims to assist maintenance and facility managers to review their building maintenance priorities in relation to user wants and needs.

While the study is insufficient at this stage to support wholesale change in practice to any one new approach, a professional approach to the expenditure of considerable sums on building maintenance suggests that appropriate time should be spent in developing and evaluating alternative approaches.

Calls for a complete re‐think on the approach taken to maintenance.

To investigate the contribution that existing buildings make to sustainability and thereby to develop a research agenda.

Reviews literature related to existing buildings in the urban context, positing that there is more “value” in buildings than their “bricks and mortar” and investigates contributory factors.

No building is an island. Buildings relate one to another and to the infrastructure, which links and serves them and their users. There are, for instance, cultural, heritage and physical links to be built upon and added to by new buildings and improvements to existing buildings. The concept of “embodied energy” is relevant.

Much of the building stock of the twenty‐second century already exists. To make a serious impact on improving sustainability, existing building stock should be more fully considered, so that fewer resources may be consumed by building new. Further research is needed to develop and test an evaluation model that will make a fuller assessment of the “investment” in existing buildings.

The paper prompts a re‐evaluation of existing buildings and their contribution to sustainability.

A case which because of its far‐reaching implications attracted considerable interest (see report on p. 91) was recently heard at Highgate. It was alleged that ice lollies were “unfit for human consumption” because of the temperature at which they were sold. Because the lollies were too cold, one stuck to a boy's lips and chin and another to a boy's tongue, peeling off skin when they were removed. The prosecution's case was that on the evidence, the vendors should be convicted of selling food unfit for human consumption, but the magistrates did not accept this contention and dismissed the case. The mishap was an unfortunate one, and Counsel's submissions for the defence notwith‐standing, it is difficult to see how the case could have been decided otherwise. There was never any suggestion of inferior ingredients being used in the manufacture of the lollies.

The purpose of this paper is to valuate existing building stock with respect to its contribution to a changing and uncertain future, especially in relation to energy performance.

The authors review literature related to existing buildings, climate change and future environmental needs; present energy performance data from ten case studies; and identify inadequacies and scope for improvements with reference to typical housing stock.

Current policies and programmes are inadequate to the scope and scale of the task; a step‐change in thought and practice is needed.

A massive programme is warranted if the substantial stock of existing buildings is to be adapted to meet identified environmental standards to “save the planet”; a radical re‐conceptualisation of building adaptation is required.

The paper prompts a review of the role of the surveyor in achieving sustainability through adaptation of existing buildings.

Over 100 years ago, Emil Kraepelin revolutionised the classification of psychosis by identifying what he argued were two natural disease entities: manic depressive psychosis (bipolar disorder) and dementia praecox (schizophrenia). Kraepelin's discoveries have since become the “twin pillars” of mainstream psychiatric thinking, practice, and research. Today, however, a growing number of researchers, clinicians, and mental health service users have rejected this model and call for a symptom‐led approach to prioritise subjective experience over diagnostic category. The purpose of this paper is to ask: how can the published first‐person accounts of experts by experience contribute to these debates?

This paper analyses the representation of psychiatric diagnosis in two prominent autobiographies: Kurt Snyder's Me, Myself, and Them: A Firsthand Account of One Young Person's Experience with Schizophrenia (2007) and Elyn Saks' The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (2007).

As well as providing a prognosis and a plan for treatment, the psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia gives shape and meaning to the illness experience and ultimately becomes the pivot or platform from which identity and memoir unfold.

The paper introduces two popular autobiographical accounts of schizophrenia which may be useful resources for mental health service users and clinicians.

The paper highlights the complex ways in which people interpret and make meaning from their psychiatric diagnosis.

The paper demonstrates that first‐person accounts make an important, if frequently overlooked, contribution to debates about psychiatric diagnosis.

ALL the auguries for the Bournemouth Conference appear to be good. Our local secretary, Mr. Charles Riddle, seems to have spared neither energy nor ability to render our second visit to the town, whose libraries he initiated and has controlled for thirty‐seven years, useful and enjoyable. There will not be quite so many social events as usual, but that is appropriate in the national circumstances. There will be enough of all sorts of meetings to supply what the President of the A.L.A. describes as “the calling which collects and organizes books and other printed matter for the use and benefit of mankind and which brings together the reader and the printed word in a vital relationship.” We hope the discussions will be thorough, but without those long auto‐biographical speeches which are meant for home newspapers, that readers will make time for seeing the exhibitions, and that Bournemouth will be a source of health and pleasure to all our readers who can be there.