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Ex‐service personnel face numerous and significant problems upon discharge from the forces. The purpose of this paper is to explore experiences of the transition from military to civilian life and to identify some of the barriers and facilitators to re‐employment.

In‐depth interviews were carried out with 11 ex‐servicemen who had previously served in the UK armed forces and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).

Participants described their experiences in terms of three broad themes: characteristics of a military life; loss as experienced upon return to civilian life; and the attempt to bridge the gap between these two lives. Transcending these themes was the notion of identity, illustrating that the transition from military to civilian life can be viewed as a shift in sense of self from soldier to civilian.

The current study only recruited male ex‐service personnel and therefore the findings may not accurately represent the experiences of female service leavers.

The military needs to ensure that not only is support provided for all service personnel, but that it goes beyond basic vocational advice. Although the needs of ex‐service personnel are defined by factors other than unemployment, such as trauma or the sudden loss of security, they do relate back to unemployment in some capacity. Methodological changes to the discharge process could help this population to achieve a more continuous trajectory rather than a fragmented one.

The present study has provided further insight into the identity experiences of ex‐service personnel along their journey from soldier to civilian. Breakwell's Identity Process Theory provided a valuable framework for understanding the experiences of ex‐service personnel.

This is the third and last article in Bill Beer's trilogy, the first two of which appeared in the April 1975 issue of Education & Training.

Many young people joining the Armed Forces find it difficult to pin‐point the precise reasons for their choice. Various specialist groups, such as officer recruits with an engineering degree or short‐service commission joiners, have positive reasons which are in some way connected with their career plans; but general entrants produce a variety of reasons for opting for this kind of employment. These vary from being crossed in love, or prompted by a death or some disruption in the family, to being depressed at poor local employment prospects. Frequently men and women have just drifted into an easy way out of a personal dilemma which they find difficult to resolve.

Ex‐servicemen and women of all ranks suffering from disabilities of a psychiatric nature are eligible for help. Three establishments which afford treatment are described.

One of the difficult problems facing a man on leaving the Services is whether to move house and then find the job, or to find the job first and then resettle the home. A career opportunity might well mean moving house with all the worries that it entails; to stick to the area where one lives might involve a lowly job with poor prospects. But whether a man is 30 years of age with the world at his feet, or 50 and feeling life is finished because he knows no other than the Services, there are two exercises to be carried out before making a decision about any future employment. These exercises comprise sef‐analysis and reconnaissance. Both are necessary to find a job having any career prospects, and both will help to avoid making a premature and possible unwise decision. These premature decisions are often founded on emotion rather than on reason, almost certainly on inadequate information, and possibly on misconceptions and ill‐founded prejudices about civilian life.

In the post‐war years 1945–50, university and other large research libraries were confronted both by new problems and new opportunities. First, university libraries had to provide for greatly increased student populations, swelled by returning ex‐servicemen and women; secondly, the supply of foreign books was uncertain, unreliable and subject to the bureaucratic delays of import controls; and thirdly, the atmosphere of post‐war reconstruction called for new and more structured approaches to the provision of scientific information. For their effective resolution, these challenges required group consideration and communal action. Amongst academic librarians, there was a widespread but ill‐focused feeling that if the problems of the day were to be successfully tackled and the opportunities seized, the Library Association was not the most suitable medium through which to address them. It was evident that public library affairs had achieved an overwhelming dominance in its collective attitudes and actions. The University and Research Section, the principal channel through which academic libraries input their views, cut little ice with the powerful Council of the Association. Indeed, the Section was at loggerheads with the Council over several matters and itself was far from united. Although it could still be said to represent the university library interest, in the fast‐growing post‐war educational scene its membership had become more diffuse and its purposes less distinct. A number of librarians had come to believe that there was a positive need for an authoritative body that could speak for large national and university libraries and represent their collective views to governmental and other organizations.

This study aims to interrogate the nature and characteristics of military entrepreneurship among veterans of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

Through the application of case study methodology, the study gathered data that reveal some distinguishing features of veteran entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

Veterans’ military background and military training appear to have both facilitating and inhibiting effects on veteran entrepreneurship in Nigeria. The study also reveals that veteran entrepreneurship though it may have some distinguishing features, but does not differ significantly to civilian entrepreneurship. Veterans’ entrepreneurs confront the same challenges as their civilian counterparts.

The result provides valuable knowledge for academics/researchers researching success and failure factors in the veteran entrepreneurship field.

After the discussion about technology and advanced systems in the warehousing and distribution business, Mr A.R. Ripley of the Boots Company enters the field with the human factor in mind. His paper, which was presented at the Centre for Physical Distribution Management National Conference, 1978, concerns itself with the need for management at all levels specialising in the warehousing and distribution field. He describes in detail the various sources of recruitment and training processes which Boots use for their warehousing and distribution management structure. Mr Ripley emphasises that there is no set recipe for success in introducing a system of training and development and that their own is constantly being reassessed.

This article presents a historical investigation into the foreign policy messages of the British Union of Fascists' (BUF) publicity and propaganda from its foundation in 1932 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, along with a discussion of the methods and institutional arrangements used to propagate its ideas of peace, empire and transnational co-operation.

The historical investigation is based upon scrutiny of original BUF documents relating to the period 1932–1939 from various archives. After cataloguing of the relevant publicity and propaganda materials in time sequence and thematically, analysis was organised using a historical institutionalism approach.

The article explains the different phases of the BUF's message development and how publications, meetings and media were used to project its ideas. It also discussed the impact of support from Viscount Rothermere's newspapers and financial support from Benito Mussolini. Consideration of publicity materials alongside files from BUF headquarters enabled identification and investigation into the communicative actors who did the publicity work, including Director of Publicity, John Beckett.

The article reflects upon how the British Union of Fascists' publicity and propaganda relates to modern manifestations of the communication of authoritarian and nationalistic political propositions and the historical continuities that endure therein.

The project makes an original contribution to the history of British political propaganda and public relations through an inquiry based upon scrutiny of historical documents in UK archives relating to BUF publicity related to foreign policy.

THE NOW DEFUNCT READING SOCIETIES of Leadhills and Wanlockhead made a valuable contribution to library history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the libraries they amassed and the buildings they erected still exist, and their recent history, present state and possible future demonstrate important aspects of the problems of preserving old libraries.