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THIS IS A polemical statement, not intended to inform, but to argue a case and try to get some sense of reality into the mass of recent writing on the purpose of the public library service. It is taken for granted that the reader is already familiar with a good deal of the general background.

WHEN ZAMBIA became independent, in 1963, neither education nor libraries impinged on the lives of the large majority of people; there were a few municipal libraries, and rural areas were served by Zambia Library Service, then only two years old. Since then the service has expanded enormously, so that there are now almost 600 library centres. Some of these are operated by rural councils or ‘bomas’ (comparable to town halls), but many are operated on a voluntary basis, by school teachers or even by private individuals. Some serve only the establishment which runs them, whether they be cooperative training centres or prisons; many, however, extend facilities to the nearby villages, where the proportion of literate people is rarely very high. There is, however, a great demand for books among those who can read, because, despite the great expansion in secondary schools since independence, education is still inadequate, with less than a tenth of those who leave primary school finding a place in secondary school. Many of these try to further their education (mainly to improve their employment opportunities) by private study or correspondence courses. Such is the demand that one prison librarian wrote asking for more books because too many outsiders were coming in to borrow those they had; (to do this they had to pass two or three guarded gates and sign the visitor's book stating their reason for entering the prison).

Insights into the roots of social enterprise from before the term was adopted are provided by examining histories of charitable service and comparing current understandings of social enterprise. Social enterprise models of welfare provision are evidenced from the seventeenth century onwards. Persistent themes are identified that provide insights for current practice and understanding.

This historiography examines interpretations from 1905 to the present day of examples of welfare provision between two watershed points: 1600, just prior to the Poor Laws and 1908, when the Old Age Pensions Act shifted emphasis in public sector provision.

Activities that would nowadays be termed social enterprise are evidenced in histories of charitable philanthropy covering each century since 1600. Prevailing attitudes uncritically demarcated deserving and undeserving poor. Histories contributed to a heroic narrative of social entrepreneurs, describing activities dependent on well-networked, politically active individuals that rarely continued beyond their involvement. The political environment was recognised to influence the types of organisations, governance and resourcing.

The historiography takes examples from three centuries between 1600 and1908 but is not comprehensive. Recurrent themes are identified for further research.

Social enterprise is a twenty-first-century label but not a new phenomenon. Identification of prevailing themes provides insights for the understanding of social enterprises in the twenty-first century.

This paper responds to a range of theory and industry reporting, to provide an informed narrative which explores the current state of accessibility at UK festivals for people who are Deaf or disabled and the potential implications of developments in ICT for enhancing design, marketing, operations and performances across all phases of festival delivery, in order to improve inclusivity and accessibility. To this end, the paper addresses the following question: What do representatives of the UK live music industry perceive as barriers to accessibility and exemplars of current best practice for music festival attendees who are Deaf or disabled? What do representatives of the UK live music industry consider as the role of ICT to increase accessibility for music festival attendees who are Deaf or disabled?

Primary research focused on supply-side considerations with a sample group of 10 UK live music industry professionals. The scope of the research was limited geographically to England and by artform to open-air music festivals, venues which host some music festival provision and a Sector Support Organisation. Open questions elucidated qualitative information around; awareness of accessibility and inclusivity initiatives; potential for co-creation; non-digital improvements; current technological influences; and potential digital futures for accessible “live” experiences. A conceptual framework was constructed and semi-structured face-to-face interviews were carried out with six respondents, and four respondents completed a structured, self-administered e-mail questionnaire.

Findings include: ICT can facilitate enhanced dialogue with existing and potential audience members who are Deaf or disabled to both; reduce existing social exclusion (Duffy et al., 2019) and improve the visitor experience for all attendees. All respondents agreed that physical enhancements are important and some mentioned communications and customer care. Respondents reported increasingly ambitious usages of ICT at music festivals, which may support suggestions of a virtual experience trend (Robertson et al., 2015). Online ticketing systems have potential to grant equal functionality to people who are Deaf or disabled, as recommended by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (2015). Respondents broadly welcomed the potential for positive impacts of ICT on increasingly accessible live experiences at music festivals which retained a sense of authenticity and “liveness”. Challenges around “as live” ICT-derived experiences were identified including risks of creating second-class experiences for Deaf and disabled attendees.

The limitations of this case study include the small sample size and limited scope.

Promoters should: consider further developing the co-creation of accessibility initiatives, utilising ICT to both deliver improvements and engage with potential audience members who are Deaf or disabled. Seek to pro-actively recruit staff members who are Deaf or disabled and significantly increase their programming of performers who are Deaf or disabled. Consider reviewing their ticketing processes for music festivals, to identify accessibility challenges for audience members and implement appropriate ICT-based solutions. Consider maximising accessibility benefits for audience members who are Deaf or disabled from existing ICT provision on site and explore additional bespoke ICT solutions at music festivals.

Adopting the best practices described across the festival sector may improve inclusivity for disabled people at music festivals and other events. Event management educators should consider reviewing provision to ensure that best practice is embedded around accessibility for audience members who are Deaf or disabled. Additional public funding should be provided to drive ICT-derived improvements to accessibility for audience members who are Deaf or disabled at smaller-scale music festivals. Further research should be considered around inclusive approaches to digital experiences within a music festival environment for audience members who are Deaf or disabled and tensions between accessibility and notions of “liveness”.

The “snapshot” of digital aspects of accessibility at UK festivals within this research is of particular value due to paucity of other research in this area, and it's narrative from varied industry professionals. The paper makes recommendations to promoters, academics and public funders, to attempt to advance inclusion (or at least to mitigate current exclusion) and identify directions for future research into accessible digital experiences at music festivals for people who are Deaf or disabled.

IF THE Guinness book of records is still watching these columns, I can now tell them that, after all, Mrs Carole Bignell's hope (NLW February p30) that she had established a record by registering her daughter as a library member at the tender age of two weeks must be dashed. Ken Bowden, District Librarian at Bacup, Lanes (where he gets his copy of NLW a little late), writes that not only did one of his neighbours enrol his daughter when she was five days old some years ago, but that Ken's own son entered the world in February 1977 and was enrolled at Bacup on his third day. Any advance on three days?

Charitable Choice Policy, the heart of President Bush’s Faith‐Based Initiative, is the direct government funding of religious organizations for the purpose of carrying out government programs. The Bush presidential administration has called for the application of Charitable Choice Policy to all kinds of social services. Advocates for child‐abuse victims contend that the Bush Charitable Choice Policy would further dismantle essential social services provided to abused children. Others have argued Charitable Choice Policy is unconstitutional because it crosses the boundary separating church and state. Rather than drastically altering the US social‐policy landscape, this paper demonstrates that the Bush Charitable Choice Policy already is in place for childabuse services across many of the fifty states. One reason this phenomenon is ignored is due to the reliance on the public‐private dichotomy for studying social policies and services. This paper contends that relying on the public‐private dichotomy leads researchers to overlook important configurations of actors and institutions that provide services to abused children. It offers an alternate framework to the public‐private dichotomy useful for the analysis of social policy in general and, in particular, Charitable Choice Policy affecting services to abused children. Employing a new methodological approach, fuzzy‐sets analysis, demonstrates the degree to which social services for abused children match ideal types. It suggests relationships between religious organizations and governments are essential to the provision of services to abused children in the United States. Given the direction in which the Bush Charitable Choice Policy will push social‐policy programs, scholars should ask whether abused children will be placed in circumstances that other social groups will not and why.

In the United States the chances of visiting a large industrial or federal library which does not make use of computer terminal capabilities grow increasingly slight. On talking to American librarians it is clear that on‐line computing facilities are regarded, not with feelings of dubiety but as accepted working tools. Their applications include housekeeping activities such as the monitoring of journal acquisition, accession and checking procedures, and the transfer of bibliographic records, in addition to user profile development for current awareness and retrospective searching.

‘Professors complained bitterly when [Hood, the then Vice-Chancellor-designate of the University of Oxford] declared that anyone who criticised the intellectual fitness of his colleagues for government funding would be “summarily fired”. Unrepentant, Hood responded that his “unequivocal support” for academic freedom didn’t apply to those “who choose arbitrarily and gratuitously to disparage their colleagues”. That message couldn’t be tolerated at Oxford, where disparagement is served alongside the sherry’.¹

The purpose of this paper is to examine marketing tactics used in the clinic websites of cross-border reproductive care (CBRC) providers and analyse what ethical implications exist when targeting the vulnerable consumer group of infertility sufferers.

The sampling design was to collect clinic websites from regions known to be popular destinations for CBRC, and who were marketing directly to US-based consumers through their online websites. There were three stages of data collection: organic Google search that displayed Google AdWords of clinics who advertised; organic Google search results; and searching via the WhatClinic.com database for additional private clinics with websites. The websites were then audited for their marketing tactics according to the best practice guidelines from the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).

Through this analysis, it was confirmed that these clinics are attempting to establish their credibility and attract foreign consumers through their promised rates of success, years of experience and use of testimonials. In total, 32 of the 35 sites contained at least one factor considered misleading by ASRM guidelines, such as the publishing of inaccurate or non-transparent success rates, the use of sales promotions and guarantees often used in consumer products, or the use of misleading language. Out of the 24 sites that posted success rates, 17 of those rates would be considered deceptive by not clarifying the source of the numbers or by being so far from the global averages of 30 per cent.

Marketing practitioners have a specific responsibility to recognise vulnerable market segments; therefore this initial study seeks to add to the understanding of consumer vulnerability through an intersectional view of global reproductive service consumption.

A global standard of marketing guidelines specific to CBRC clinics needs to be implemented across all regional/countries in order to communicate ethically, improve credibility, reputation and trust among consumer and international bodies. Counselling services need to be integrated within all assisted reproductive technology services. Service-country to home-country continued care protocols should be created for patients travelling home in order to collect data on CRBC experiences.

This study contributes to the CBRC literature in providing new insights into current clinic marketing trends and highlights ethical implications to industry stakeholders.