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The purpose of this paper is to explore the detection and prevention of elder financial abuse through the lens of a “professional bystander intervention model”. The authors were interested in the decision cues that raise suspicions of financial abuse, how such abuse comes to the attention of professionals who do not have a statutory responsibility for safeguarding older adults, and the barriers to intervention.

In‐depth interviews were conducted using the critical incident technique. Thematic analysis was carried out on transcribed interviews. In total, 20 banking and 20 health professionals were recruited. Participants were asked to discuss real cases which they had dealt with personally.

The cases described indicated that a variety of cues were used in coming to a decision that financial abuse was very likely taking place. Common to these cases was a discrepancy between what is normal and expected and what is abnormal or unexpected. There was a marked difference in the type of abuse noticed by banking and health professionals, drawing attention to the ways in which context influences the likelihood that financial abuse will be detected. The study revealed that even if professionals suspect abuse, there are barriers which prevent them acting.

The originality of this study lies in its use of the bystander intervention model to study the decision‐making processes of professionals who are not explicitly charged with adult safeguarding. The study was also unique because real cases were under consideration. Hence, what the professionals actually do, rather than what they might do, was under investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2006.

This article provides reviews of selected titles from the 2006 Poets House Showcase.

This review represents a wide‐ranging selection of contemporary poetry collections and anthologies.

This list documents the tremendous range of poetry publishing from commercial, independent and university presses, as well as letterpress chapbooks, art books and CDs.

IN a system like that of the Public Library, which is yet in the evolutionary stage, it is but natural—as it is also a sign of vitality —that there should be conflicting opinions on many questions of administration. On one general principle, however, librarians are unanimous. It is that the Public Library should be conducted upon sound business methods. Yet, strange to say, although it is generally conceded that sound business principles are essential to success in librarianship, that a lack of business acumen is fatal to efficiency, one of the cardinal points of modern business has been almost altogether overlooked. Systematic advertising, the key‐note of modern business, which forms the chief difference between the new methods and the old, is the point to which we refer. That advertisement, the real secret of success, has been overlooked, is not wholly the result of accident, but is rather due to the fact that many librarians are haunted by a fear of degrading their profession by employing this means of reaching the public. They fear that, if they advertise, they may be classed with the vendors of Black's Pills or Green's Ointment; but, after all, the Public Library is a business institution—it may not be a commercial institution, but it is certainly a business one. It is here—if we may be allowed a short digression to illustrate our point—that British and American libraries differ so radically. The successful American librarian is not a librarian as we know one. He is a business man. Granted that it is a part of his business to know the ins and outs of technical librarianship; yet, unlike his British contemporary, he does not consider it his whole business. He has a trained staff to whom he can leave the technical detail, while he devotes himself to running the library on the most approved business lines. The result has been that, instead of the American librarian being degraded, he has risen very highly in the estimation of the public. And if the status of the American librarian can thus be raised, why not that of the British? It is not necessary to use startling handbills or aggressive posters to achieve the desired end. It is absolutely true that in many towns possessing excellent and old‐established libraries, there is a large percentage of the population to which the library is a dead letter, or is altogether unknown. On examining the figures in the Annotated Syllabus, which have been compiled from the returns of most British libraries, we find that the percentage of possible readers is fifty, while the percentage of actual readers is twenty. This leaves the large percentage of thirty, representing people who must be reached through advertising.