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Economics laboratories have become the primary locations of experimental economics research by the 1990s. They were a result of a decade long development from ad hoc opportune places to dedicated, purpose designed spaces. The distinctive feature of the economics laboratory and its key instrument became networked computers running custom-built software. However, the history of the economics laboratory is not just a history of evolving technology. I argue in this article that it is mainly a history of learning how to build an experimental economics community. Only a functioning community was able to change a physical place to a laboratory space. The distinction between place and space originates in the work of Michael de Certeau and I use it to analyze the evolution of economics laboratories. To this end, I analyze the case of Austin Hoggatt’s Management Science Laboratory at Berkeley in the 1960s as it illustrates the indispensability of creating a community centered on the laboratory. In contrast, the laboratories in Arizona and at Caltech since the 1980s, and in Amsterdam since the 1990s have become successful spaces, because, unlike Hoggatt, they focused equally on community building as on infrastructure and technology. This gave rise to social infrastructure and division of labor in the laboratory space.

Aslib is interested in developing modular simulation models of aspects of library systems in order to investigate the use of such models as aids to systems design and operation. The conceptual model of library procedures, developed during the OSTI‐supportcd project on the use of bibliographic records in libraries, offered a suitable basis for a pilot study. The pilot study was aimed at investigating the practicality of developing and using simulation models of library operations, and gaining experience in the application of simulation techniques to problems in the library and information field. The simulation language used was GPSS, in accordance with the 1968 edition of the IBM GPSS/360 User's Manual, H20–0326–2.

The purpose of this paper is to review the perceptions of risk from the viewpoint of the psychiatrist, in the context of the expectations of patients, staff and society.

The paper is a reflection on clinical practice and narrative review of the literature.

There are significant problems in the prediction of risk, to do with the difficulty in attempting to predict any low prevalence outcome. Additional complications relate to societal expectations and the legal frameworks within which mental health is practiced. The evidence related to poor outcomes, such as suicide is very complex, occasionally appears contradictory, and caution is required in application. The paradigm of recovery provides a way forward in the assessment and management of risk that moves away from any pretence of future prediction and aims to engage with service users and their families in a supportive and complimentary way.

Use of a recovery framework, with a focus on need, as opposed to risk, would appear to benefit patients, carers and those delivering service.

This viewpoint enables a broader gestalt of the literature in the context of day-to-day clinical practice. This prevents the limitation of only examining the (largely) epidemiological literature, or just commenting on one clinician’s practice. It provides for a conceptualization of a way to move forward in the consideration of risk.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.