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In February 1986 the British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC) carried out a survey to monitor the speed of document delivery by the Post Office's airmail service and shortly afterwards, in an attempt to improve on the times recorded, started to use TNT's bulk‐mailing service, Multimail. Multimail's performance was monitored in July 1986 and found to be inferior to that of the Post Office. In the meantime the Post Office had introduced the bulk‐mailing service, Airstream, and in February—April 1987, as part of the constant search for a cost‐effective method of despatch, BLDSC monitored the two services simultaneously in order to assess their current levels of performance.

For most customers speed is an important factor when assessing the quality of service offered by a document supply centre. Three elements determine the total time taken for a user to receive a response to a request: time taken for the request to reach the centre from the user; processing time within the centre, and the time for the response (photocopy, loan or failure) to reach the customer. The British Library Document Supply Centre (DSC) is aware of the importance of speed and is constantly seeking ways of improving times for all these three elements in its service.

Examines issues raised during a project, carried out by Coopers and Lybrand Associates on behalf of the British Library Document Supply Centre, which looked at interlibrary lending (ILL) costs and compiled an economic model of the ILL process. Discusses the calculation of existing costs as well as costs after hypothetical changes in ILL. Presents a data collection methodology and computer based model which should enable librarians to collect and analyse data for their own use whilst adding to the main database.

Describes the use made of the interlending services in a country “with a high level of political conflict and national diversity”. Examines areas of science and politics in the former Yugoslavia, journal collections, automation and costs. Concludes that standardisation at the highest level is required and that library co‐operation in the former Yugoslavia can “rise above the problems caused by the hostilities in the political environment”.

Most women seeking abortion pay out-of-pocket for care, partly due to legal restrictions on insurance coverage. These costs can constitute a hardship for many women. Advocates have sought to ensure insurance coverage for abortion, but we do not know whether the intermediaries between policy and patient – abortion-providing facilities – are able and willing to accept insurance.

We interviewed 22 abortion facility administrators, representing 64 clinical sites in 21 states that varied in their legal allowance of public and private insurance coverage for abortion, about their facility’s insurance practices, and experiences.

Respondents described challenges in accepting public and/or private insurance that included, but were not limited to, legal regulations. When public insurance broadly covered abortion, its low reimbursement failed to cover the costs of care. Because of the predominance of low income patients in abortion care, this caused financial challenges for facilities, leading one in a state that allows broad coverage to nonetheless decline public insurance. Accepting private insurance carried its own risks, including nonpayment because costs fell within patients’ deductibles. Respondents described work-arounds to protect their facility from nonpayment and enable patients to use their private insurance.

The structure of insurance and the population of abortion patients mean that changes at the political level may not translate into changes in individual women’s experience of paying for abortion.

This research illustrates how legal regulations, insurer practices, and the socioeconomics of the patient population matter for abortion-providing facilities’ decision-making about accepting insurance.

For the millions of women living with endometriosis, significant disruption to normative life expectations and a considerable impact on everyday life are common. Whilst for many women concerns about and experiences of infertility may be a central feature of life with the condition, little work has considered the impact that chronic illness has on reproductive decision-making or on the ways in which a medical condition is managed in relation to plans for conception. This chapter considers how heterosexual women with endometriosis and their male partners experience the intersection of fertility desires with the use of reproductive technologies (contraceptive and conceptive) and how these experiences intersect with the medical and surgical management of endometriosis. Three themes drawn from interview data are presented: the first considers how the uncertain and indeterminate character of endometriosis shapes imaginaries about future fertility, conception and childbearing. The second focuses on how endometriosis mediates expectations about the success of fertility treatments and technologies; exploring in particular the manifestation of low expectations in relation to possible success. The third theme considers how endometriosis and fertility pathways intersect, creating specific disruptions whereby fertility treatment may be delayed by endometriosis care, and where endometriosis care may be interrupted or paused by fertility desires. Our data show how endometriosis shapes reproductive desires, decision-making and experiences and has important implications for understanding how for those living with a chronic illness, plans for having children are made within a context of biographical and biomedical contingency.

The aim of this paper is to describe an innovative practice that has implication for new product developers within and outside the pharmaceutical industry.

The case describes an approach to managing the risk inherent in marketing drugs. The organization's original name has been retained, although individual managers' names have been changed at its request. Interviews with former company employees and publicly available data were used to write the case study.

The paper provides information and action approaches to new product developers that may reduce the risk of losing products to regulatory action. The subject company devised a risk management response to its product development. Their results offer direct implications for new product development teams in the drug industry. By extension, the implications may aid traditional companies outside of the pharmaceutical industry.

As in all case studies, the specific conditions found in one organization may not be found more generally in others. Readers are cautioned that the conclusions drawn in the case may have limited applicability.

The case depicts an innovative application of the risk minimization to the new product development process. Other organizations may find the technique of value in their own efforts.

The case is the first to describe a successful application of risk management to the product development/product management process. It offers the potential of improving the lifetime of pharmaceutical products in the marketplace, allowing the company a longer time to reap profits.

This article explores recent developments in the production and delivery of scholarly journal articles in digital form. It identifies the key stakeholders as authors, publishers, librarians and end users. It explores their concerns with regard to the digital journal production and delivery chain. It also explores the interrelationships of different stakeholder groups and considers how their concerns accord or conflict. The paper goes on to review cost and pricing developments. There appears to be no relationship between production costs and subscription prices of scholarly journals. Journals are priced according to what the market will bear, but, at the same time, the market is inelastic. As a result, prices have consistently increased annually at a rate well above the general inflation rate for the last two decades. Digital publishing by publishers has done nothing to relieve this problem. The ‘serials crisis’ has been the impetus for a number of developments that aim to use digital technology to reduce costs for the HE sector. These include alternative models of journal production such as that proposed by Harnad, and initiatives that aim to influence the structure of the market for scholarly journals with a view to driving prices down such as SPARC and HighWire Press. These developments are reviewed.

This article continues to assess the role of private nuisance as a common law tool for environmental protection, independent of the wider regulatory controls. It evaluates the decision in Cambridge Water and asks the question whether it would stand as good law before the Supreme Court. It concludes with illustrating the enduring role of the injunction in environmental protection and its capacity to coerce restorative environmental justice. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper is predominately a classic doctrinal article as it is principally library-based analysing both primary sources (that both pre- and post-date the modern law reporting system) and secondary sources whilst engaging in leading academic commentary.

Nuisance developed to a point in the nineteenth-century where a simple form of the tort was visible. At that juncture, it had an “unchanged” essence that emanated from a strict liability reciprocal identity. Recent judicial activity has visibly adulterated that identity: this article casts doubts on juridical restrictions that assess the conduct of defendants to assess liability. It is suggested that it may not withstand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court if, and when, they are tested. In light of that analysis and considering the potency of injunctions, it is argued that nuisance law potentially has a positive future in environmental protection.

Owing to the elected research approach, the scope of the article has been necessarily concentrated on succinct areas of a broader subject and viewed in a manner that works alongside the regulatory regime.

This paper recognises that nuisance law has a positive future in environmental protection especially if the courts are willing to embrace the historical paradigm which has served the common law in this field broadly well for hundreds of years.

It is now common place for mental health services to operate using multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) where several health professionals simultaneously maintain their disciplinary distinctiveness and assume complementary professional roles. This requires awareness of other team members' disciplines and good team‐work skills. Yet in Australia, the preparation of health professionals continues to occur primarily in single‐discipline programs, where interaction with other disciplines often only occurs in an ad hoc, time‐limited way during clinical placement. This paper seeks to provide serious reflection on preparing students for the multidisciplinary practice within the mental health system.

The authors introduce a student placement preparation learning package that was developed and trialled with a range of health professional students at two Australian universities. Transformative learning principles underpinned the development of the education materials and related activities, which were designed to sensitise students to the potential problems that arise within MDTs and to equip them with communication strategies for use in their university placement experiences, as well as in their future professional practice.

The very large majority of student placement preparation workshop participants rated the workshop activities as extremely helpful. After participating in the activities, the very large majority of participants strongly endorsed the workshop learning objectives of understanding the different roles of MDTs members, skills required for working in MDTs, principles of collaborative team‐work and respectful, positive attitudes to MDTs members.

The transformative learning approaches to education of health professionals which are described in this paper help students to examine ways to think more critically and constructively about MDTs.