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In addition to providing a review of the literature recently published in the librarianship of non‐book materials this survey aims to draw attention to the characteristics, problems and achievements particular to the documentation and handling of non‐book materials (NBM) in many types of libraries. The materials are briefly described and considerations of selection, acquisition, organization, storage and in particular bibliographic control are dealt with in some detail. Other areas of concern to the librarian dealing with media resources, including the organization and training of staff, planning, equipment, exploitation and copyright, are also discussed. The past decade has seen the widespread introduction of NBM into libraries as additional or alternative sources of information. Librarians have been given an opportunity to rethink many basic principles and adapt existing practice to encompass the new materials. The survey reflects the achievements and some of the failures or problems remaining to be solved in this rapidly expanding area of library work.

An account of the present ‘state of the art’ of the librarianship of non‐book materials must begin with a note on terminology. ‘Audiovisual materials’, ‘non‐print items’, and more imaginatively, ‘metabooks’, are some attempts at a collective description of film materials, sound recordings, and pictures of all kinds. The National Council for Educational Technology (NCET) favour ‘non‐book materials’, abbreviated to NBM. ‘One day, perhaps, the word “document” will be commonly accepted as connoting simply an embodiment of evidence, whether it be in print or pictures or whatever, and we shall take for granted that arrangements for the handling of documents should make provision as a matter of course for all media. In the meantime, the case must not be overlooked, and as an expression “non‐book material” is probably no more offensive and no less apt than its several rivals. “Non‐print document” is perhaps more accurate but is not yet in common use.’ I have adopted NBM.

MRS Radha Nadarajah, Head of the School of Library Science at the Mara Institute of Technology in Kuala Lumpur and Vice‐President of the Malaysia Library Association was in Britain during June and July, visiting library schools to discuss staff exchanges and recruitment for her school.

The speaker at the Aslib evening meeting, to be held on Wednesday, 15 th March, 1972, will be Mr Charles Gibbs‐Smith, Keeper Emeritus, Victoria and Albert Museum, who will take a provocative look at recent trends in typography.

In last month's issue of the Journal we published an abstract of the Annual Report of the Public Analyst for the City of Salford, Mr. H. H. Bagnall, B.Sc., F.I.C., and we gave particular prominence to that portion of his report which related to the analyses of seven samples of toffee. The instances of gross exaggeration and falsehood in advertisements to which Mr. Bagnall calls attention are really very much akin to the misdescription of an article upon the label, and such procedure should undoubtedly be a punishable offence. It is an unfortunate fact that exaggeration or misrepresentation are not uncommon features of the claims made in advertisements of the present day, but if public attention is called to blatant examples of this kind, much may be done towards educating the purchaser to realise that laudatory statements made by a manufacturer in regard to his own goods are at best biassed and in many cases false and misleading. Unimpeachable and independent testimony is the only thing which can carry conviction to the purchaser.

The major problem confronting the independent chemist over the past ten years has been the incursion into the OTC market — and in particular toiletries — of the multiple grocer, especially the supermarket. To counteract this, independent chemists formed the voluntary group Numark, which recently held its annual conference in Paris. Currently with annual sales of £300m, Numark is establishing itself in terms of profitable marketiang and an intelligent application of data processing techniques to its retailer and wholesaler members.

Accident emergency hospital (AEH) services require cohesive, collective, uninterrupted streamlined medical diagnostic and satisfactory patient care. Medical service efficiency in AEHs is difficult to quantify due to the clinical complexity involved in treatment involving various units, patient conditions, changes in contemporary medical practices and technological developments. This paper aims to show how to measure efficiency by eliminating waste in AEH system, identify service failure points, identify benchmark medical services, identify patient throughput time and measure treatment time when AEH services are nonstandard. The applications shown in this paper are distinct in particular; we the authors use nontraditional and systems engineering approach to collect data as the traditional data collection is difficult in real-time AEHs.

The authors show in this study how to measure overall patient treatment time from admission to discharge. Project evaluation and review technique (PERT) captures the inconsistencies involved in measuring treatment time, including measures of variability. The irregular treatment time and complexity involved in the emergency health-care services are usual. The research methodology illustrates how the time function map and service blueprint can improve value-added time in AEHs and benchmark services between similar AEHs.

The inconsistency in treatment time between AEH in public and private hospital is found to be in ratio of 1:20. The private hospital suggests variety of treatments and long stays for recovery. The PERT computations show that the average time a patient remains in a government AEH is about 10 days. The standard deviation of the AEH treatment time is about 0.043 per cent of the expected patient care time. The inconsistency is not significant as compared to the expected value. In 89.64 per cent of the cases, a patient may be discharged in less than 10 days’ time. The patient on average is discharged in 13 days in a private hospital.

The patient treatment time of an AEH is evaluated with PERT project management approach to account for inconsistencies in treatment time. This research makes new contributions in benchmarking AEH throughput time, identify medical service failure points with service blueprint, measure the efficiency with time function map and collect patient data with nontraditional methods. The inherent inconsistencies in a clinical process are identified by PERT analysis with the variance as a characteristic of the treatment time. Improvement of variability implies cost reduction in AEH system.

The “patient journey” technique is one that has been used by health care providers to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of their service delivery. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experience of adapting this approach for use in an atypical context – the comparison of two systems for managing health care complaints and notifications. It highlights a number of relevant considerations and provides suggestions for similar studies.

The design and methods of the study are described, with commentary on the success of key aspects and challenges encountered. To enable comparison between the two systems, this study had a “paired” design, in which examples were selected from each system so that they matched on basic, prescribed, criteria. Data about each matter’s journey were then collected from administrative records.

While, overall, the technique provided rich data on the processes of the systems under investigation, the type of data collected (related to administrative/communicative events) and the study’s comparative purpose required consideration and management of a number of issues. These included the implications of using administrative records and the impact of differences between the systems on the paired design.

This paper describes an attempt to apply the “journey” approach in a context that is uncommon in two ways: first, in its focus on regulatory processes (complaint/notification handling), rather than care provision to an individual patient; and second, in its objective of comparing two different systems. It is hoped this account will assist in further development of this technique.

Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council, Reports and Technical Memoranda of the United States National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued.

In Canada, community engagement and accountability are a political imperative, resulting in an omnipresent program with varied opportunities for public participation. The purpose of this paper is to promote leadership and commitment for health system transformation that truly benefits communities.

This paper is based on the author’s experience with many engagement and accountability activities, applied in varied settings, for purposes such as evaluation, planning, policy making and system transformation. The specific context is generalized with international experiences and references.

The “lessons learned” are based on practical considerations with relevance for both novice and experienced practitioners: clarifying principles, processes and purposes at the outset; using effective leadership to achieve the desired impact; using a variety of methods to engage communities; clarifying engagement and accountability roles precisely; measuring things that are meaningful; and consulting with internal as well as external communities. Also, community leaders should recognize effort as well as results.

Commitment to engagement and accountability is commendable – but is it enough? The paper concludes by looking beyond health system impacts to propose a broader systems perspective. If clinical governors want to use engagement and accountability to achieve “total value” for their communities, they will need to demonstrate as leaders that they are committed to long-term thinking and broad social goals.

Too much focus on the process of care may mask accountability for reporting outcomes or systemic impact. The sustainable development goals highlight the need for systems thinking and public expectations include corporate social responsibility. As shown in the examples cited, a deeper commitment to engagement and accountability requires looking beyond care delivery to social determinants and to systemic impacts of the health care industry itself.