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Adoption literature now speaks with many voices. Federal and state agencies and local advocacy groups are enthusiastic supporters of adoptions, the basic belief being kids need homes. The bottleneck is the most conservative sector, the local agency. These are the agencies one deals with if planning to adopt a child. This brief essay attempts to give some perspective to the recent literature on adoption trends and practices. The numbers in parentheses refer to the entry numbers of titles in the bibliographic listing at the end of the article.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and research and computer skills related to retrieving and using information. The thirteenth annual such review in Reference Services Review, the article covers items in English published in 1986. A few items are without annotations because the compiler was unable to secure copies of them for this review.

Apparel brands are heavily reliant on emotional appeal and creation of imagery to achieve consumer recognition and interest. This study examines how US female consumers compare and form impressions of competing national apparel brands. More specifically, this study examines consumer perceptions of five brand personality traits for various apparel brands and the relationship between brand personality and brand preference. Findings from this study show that although personality expectations for apparel brands differ, brands with favourable brand attitude have favourable competent ratings. Also, for brands with similar personality patterns, similarities could be found for such characteristics as product lines offered, brand image, retailing format, etc.

One of my responsibilities as an OCLC secretary is creating, editing, and filing various types and styles of “paper” documents. This routinely involves handling the work of up to ten people. At OCLC, computers are used to create, edit, and file these documents. In time—sometimes just a few weeks, depending on the work load—just retrieving a single document after it has been filed can be a time‐consuming task. Even given the speed at which the computer works, finding files in an automated system can be as difficult as it ever was in the old‐fashioned metal filing cabinet—unless your files are as organized as they were in that cabinet. (They were, weren't they?)

Targets set in 2005 by the Department of Health in the form of a public service agreement (PSA, 2003‐2006) standard require the development of comprehensive CAMHS, which provide services for children and young people with learning disabilities (LD). This standard presents particular challenges to the existing national CAMHS workforce.This paper reports on a specific project to undertake a northwest regional audit regarding capacity and capability of staff working in CAMHS to care for children and young people with learning disabilities.

The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things in their way. But while it is important that better and more scientific attention should be generally given to the preparation of food for the table, it must be admitted to be at least equally important to insure that the food before it comes into the hands of the expert cook shall be free from adulteration, and as far as possible from impurity,—that it should be, in fact, of the quality expected. Protection up to a certain point and in certain directions is afforded to the consumer by penal enactments, and hitherto the general public have been disposed to believe that those enactments are in their nature and in their application such as to guarantee a fairly general supply of articles of tolerable quality. The adulteration laws, however, while absolutely necessary for the purpose of holding many forms of fraud in check, and particularly for keeping them within certain bounds, cannot afford any guarantees of superior, or even of good, quality. Except in rare instances, even those who control the supply of articles of food to large public and private establishments fail to take steps to assure themselves that the nature and quality of the goods supplied to them are what they are represented to be. The sophisticator and adulterator are always with us. The temptations to undersell and to misrepresent seem to be so strong that firms and individuals from whom far better things might reasonably be expected fall away from the right path with deplorable facility, and seek to save themselves, should they by chance be brought to book, by forms of quibbling and wriggling which are in themselves sufficient to show the moral rottenness which can be brought about by an insatiable lust for gain. There is, unfortunately, cheating to be met with at every turn, and it behoves at least those who control the purchase and the cooking of food on the large scale to do what they can to insure the supply to them of articles which have not been tampered with, and which are in all respects of proper quality, both by insisting on being furnished with sufficiently authoritative guarantees by the vendors, and by themselves causing the application of reasonably frequent scientific checks upon the quality of the goods.

The outright sale of government assets is probably the most common form of privatization in the United Kingdom.¹ Two primary pricing conventions have been used. Fixed-price stock offerings make single-priced shares available to the public. Tender stock offers, however, do not fix stock prices in advance; thus the price is determined by market forces.

It has been suggested that over the last decade interest in and delivery of psychological therapy for people with learning disabilities have increased (Beail et al, 2005). While the literature continues to highlight the need for further evidence of its effectiveness (Willner, 2005) there is a general ‘swell of opinion’ that psychological therapy for individuals with learning disabilities is helpful (Mason, 2007). A component of psychological therapy that is generally considered to be universally important is the quality of the relationship between therapist and client (Clarkson, 2003). However, in the relatively new field of psychological therapies for people with learning disabilities, there remains a poor empirical and theoretical understanding of the role and potential complexities of the therapeutic relationship. The paper explores some of the existing literature in this field. It highlights the limited empirical evidence before exploring some of the common themes outlined so far in the clinical literature. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future research in this area.

Purpose – To examine the potential for switching short trips in urban areas from cars to walking and cycling, and the possible contribution, this could make to a reduction in transport-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Methods – Case studies in four urban areas combining a questionnaire survey, interviews with households and during journeys and in-depth ethnographies of everyday travel.

Findings – The barriers to an increase in walking and cycling in British urban areas are emphasised. It demonstrates that motivations for walking and cycling are mostly personal (health and local environment) and that the complexities and contingencies of everyday travel for many households, combined with inadequate infrastructure, safety concerns and the fact that walking and cycling are seen by many as abnormal modes of travel, mean that increasing rates of walking and cycling will be hard. Given that the contribution of trips less than 2 miles to transport-related greenhouse gas emissions is relatively small, it is argued that any gains from increased walking and cycling would mostly accrue to personal health and the local environment rather than to the UK's carbon reduction target.

Social implications – Positive attitudes towards walking and cycling are motivated mainly by personal concerns rather than global environmental issues.

Originality – Use of detailed ethnographic material in policy-related transport research.

In his recent speech at the Bakers' and Confectioners' Exhibition at the Royal Agricultural Half Mr. Noel Buxton, the Minister of Agriculture, referred to the regulations for the application of the National Mark to all‐English flour, which will shortly come into force. For some years past competitions held in connection with the Exhibition have shown beyond question that bread and confectionery of the finest quality can be made of the flour produced from English wheat. The excellence of the home‐grown article has, in fact, been proved to the satisfaction of the best judges; and the Ministry of Agriculture consider that bakers and consumers, as well as the farmers who produce it, will stand to benefit by its more general use. It is, therefore, in the interests of all three parties that they propose to extend to English wheat the system of grading and standardization which has already been applied with marked success to other articles of diet, such as eggs, tomatoes, apples and pears, and cucumbers. So far as the farmers are concerned, everything that helps them to carry on the fight with their foreign competitors is advantageous to the nation as a whole, because it encourages them to produce more food, to maintain, and possibly to increase, the arable area of the country, and—a factor of real importance in dealing with the problem of unemployment—to keep more workers on the land. The more of his produce the farmer is able to sell, and—within limits—the better the prices he can obtain for it, the better will these ends be served. It is not, of course, to be expected that the public will invariably buy British in preference to foreign goods, simply because they are British. On the other hand, if they can be assured that they are of better quality than the same class of goods imported from abroad, then—as has been shown by the improved trade in British eggs since poultry farmers have been able, if they wish, to take advantage of the National Mark scheme—they are ready not only to make a practice of buying home‐grown rather than foreign produce, but also to pay higher prices for it. There are therefore good grounds for the expectation that the demand for English wheat flour will be improved by the definition of national standards of quality and the marketing of supplies of standard qualities under distinctive marks. The scheme for the voluntary grading and marking of this flour was introduced on October 1. A Trade Committee has been appointed to consider applications for permission to use the mark—a silhouette map of England and Wales—and all the flour bearing this mark will be sold under three standard grades and guaranteed as to type, flavour, and keeping quality. The designations of the three grades are All‐English (Plain), All‐English (Self‐Raising), and All‐English (Yeoman). All three are defined as being sound, free from taint or objectionable flavour, of good keeping quality, and unbleached by artificial means. The first and third are further guaranteed to be free from all added chemical substances, though the second may contain such ingredients, or mixture of ingredients, as may be required (under certain definite regulations) to make the flour self‐raising. The scheme is open to millers and other packers of English wheat flour, and every registered packer must allow his premises and all equipment and records to be inspected at any reasonable time by any officer of the Ministry of Agriculture authorized for that purpose, besides complying with other regulations the general effect of which is to make it impossible for any flour bearing the National Mark to fall below the certified standard of its particular grade. Mr. Buxton was able to say that the scheme is already receiving excellent support from the millers, and all that is needed to give it the success which it deserves is that the public should co‐operate by letting the bakers know that graded all‐English flour is what they want and expect them to use. It is in their power to create a demand which will provide them with a pure food of the highest quality, and will at the same time do the British farmers a much‐needed good turn.