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THE first surprise when travelling by air from Fiji to Western Samoa is that one leaves Fiji on Saturday and arrives in Western Samoa on Friday. This is because of crossing the International Date Line en route and a story is told in Fiji of a man who owned a shop through which the date line ran. Sunday trading is frowned on in Fiji but our friend got round this by opening only half of his shop on Sunday—the half on the Saturday or Monday side of the date line. It is therefore not surprising that the Fiji Times describes itself as “the first newspaper in the world every day”.

More than five years have passed since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983 by then‐Secretary of Education Terrance Bell's National Commission on Excellence in Education. Those years have seen the publication of an enormous body of both primary material, composed of research reports, essays, and federal and state reform proposals and reports; and secondary material, composed of summaries and reviews of the original reform reports and reports about effective programs that are based on reform recommendations. This annotated bibliography seeks to identify, briefly describe, and organize in a useful manner those publications dealing with K‐12 education reform and improvement. The overall purposes of this article are to bring organization to that list, and also to trace relationships and influences from the federal initiatives to the states and professional associations, and from there to the school districts and individual schools.

It is known that the consumption of fruits and vegetables in children is declining despite wide-spread national and international policy attempts to increase consumption. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of children’s consumption of fruits and vegetables so as to facilitate better health education targeting.

In this qualitative descriptive exploratory study, peer group interviews were undertaken with 18 girls and 18 boys, aged 8-11, from schools in the Manawatu region of New Zealand.

The results show that children’s consumption of fruits and vegetables is dependent on balancing risk and reward. Children know and understand the importance of eating fruits and vegetables; however, the perceived risks are typically the prevailing determinant of consumption. These perceived risks often stem from children’s uncertainty about whether the fruits and vegetables will meet the child’s sensory preferences. To mitigate the risks perceived in eating fruits and vegetables, children employ a range of avoidance strategies.

This study’s results indicate that a model of “associated” risk is a valuable tool to explain children’s fruit and vegetable consumption and preference behaviour and to assist in the development of future health education intervention campaigns.

To provide an overview of innovative information literacy programs at San Jose State University King Library which may serve as models for future academic library information literacy programs.

New and innovative information literacy programs at the San Jose State University King Library are discussed and analyzed. These programs include freshman and transfer student literacy programs and a proposal for campus dormitory information literacy.

Analyzes innovative and multi‐faceted character of San Jose State King Library information literacy programs. Discusses successes, lessons learned, and ongoing challenges of the freshman information literacy program and presents goals and objectives of the transfer and campus dormitory information literacy programs.

This paper may serve as a guide for both academic and joint‐use academic and public libraries interested in assessing or expanding their information literacy programs.

This paper discusses innovative information literacy programs within the context of a merged or joint‐use academic and public library and will be of value to both future joint‐use libraries and academic libraries interested in expanding and evaluating their information literacy programs.

To report on the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Washington, DC in February 2005.

An overview of the seminars, symposia, workshops and presentations at the conference.

The theme of the meeting was The Nexus: Where Science Meets Society. The meeting was attended by 4,000 registrants, 105 exhibitors; and 900 members of the press. The meeting highlighted the academic role and infrastructure of technology in different science applications, including publishing, and national policy.

A report of interest to library and information management professionals.

MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.

The purpose of this systematic review is to assess if there is a relationship between literacy abilities and mental health outcomes as reported in global literature. Fourteen percent of the global population has little or no literacy. Literacy skills impact on daily functioning and have been shown to impact on social outcomes. Whilst there has been research examining the potential association between literacy and mental health outcomes in specific populations, there has been no systematic review of this literature to date.

A systematic review was carried out using Embase, PsycINFO and PubMed to identify relevant papers that measured both literacy and mental health. Data relating to the association between literacy and mental health were extracted. The papers included were assessed for quality using a bespoke quality rating tool. A narrative synthesis describes the findings.

Nineteen studies from across nine countries were included in the analysis. Seventeen studies showed a significant association between literacy and mental health, those with lower literacy had greater mental health difficulties. Some papers reported factors that interacted with this association, such as age, gender, poverty and years of education.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review to look at the global picture of literacy and mental health. It suggests there is a relationship between literacy abilities and mental health outcomes, highlighting the importance of healthcare professionals and services including identification of literacy needs within routine mental health practice.

“FORMAL classes on how to use a library would be an insult to the intelligence of the student.” This was an extreme reply mentioned in the Report of the Committee on Libraries, with reference to a questionnaire to academic staff about instruction in library use. This view of the teaching activities of librarians with students must be familiar to all librarians whether they are concerned with formal teaching activities or not. Nevertheless it is suggested that, in the current climate of change in the nature of sixth form studies, and the need for bibliographic training as part of a general education leading to informed library users in the academic and professional world, there is now a strong case for an examined course of study at “A” level G.C.E. incorporating the principles of bibliographical knowledge for users.