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IN YOUR rather emotional outburst on PLR (NLW 865) you made some serious errors of fact. PLR is not directed solely against public libraries. Section 5.12 of the Working Party Report states:

Discusses the basic concepts of intellectual property, particularly as applied to patents; explains the monopoly granted to inventors in return for disclosing details of their inventions in applications for patent specifications. Expands on the problems such a system presents to the inventor, with comments on decisions the inventor must take on whether to patent his invention, and if so, where, and how the procedures should be approached. Presents a brief history of patents, with an explanation of what can and what cannot be patented under the Patents Act 1977. Notes arrangements for protection outside the UK ‐ through the European Patent Office, and other countries of the world. Discusses the main factors which affect the information value of patents, and comments on the major patent information tools ‐ printed, CD‐ROM and databases. Concludes with a brief discussion on the growing impact of the Internet and the World Wide Web, suggesting that such developments might increase the use of the valuable information contained in patent documentation.

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.

Discusses recent developments in the Internet and World Wide Web, with details of current users and their use of the Web. Summarises the problems of searching the Web, giving general advice on the search process, with examples of the facilities available and use of the major search directories, guides and search engines.

DR DONALD URQUHART, Director‐General of the British Library Lending Division, is to receive an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Sheffield on July 20. In a sense, a bar to the medal, since Urquhart already has one doctorate from the same university.

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).

In over 40 years of professional writing, first as a playwright, then as a historian, broadcaster, and more recently for his now world‐famous sagas of English country life, Ronnie Delderfield has built up a prodigious and faithful reading public.

Multiple challenges remain in achieving sustainability of digital health innovations, with many failing to realise their potential due to barriers to research, development and implementation. Finding an approach that overcomes these challenges is important if society is to derive benefit from these new approaches to healthcare. Having been commissioned by local authorities, NHS Trusts, prisons, charities, and third sector providers across the UK, Breaking Free Group, who in 2010 launched Breaking Free Online (BFO), a computer-assisted therapy programme for substance misuse, have overcome many of these challenges. This has been possible through close collaborative working with partner organisations, to overcome barriers to implementation and sustainability. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper synthesises findings from a series of qualitative studies conducted by Breaking Free Group in collaboration with health and social care charity, Change, Grow, Live (CGL), which explore barriers and facilitators of implementation and sustainability of BFO at CGL. Data are analysed using thematic analyses with findings conceptualised using behavioural science theory.

This partnership has resulted in UK wide implementation of BFO at CGL, enhanced focus on digital technologies in substance misuse recovery, and a growing body of published collaborative research.

Valuable lessons have been learnt through the partnership between Breaking Free Group and CGL, which will be of interest to the wider digital health community. This paper outlines those lessons, in the hope that they will provide guidance to other digital health developers and their partners, to contribute to the continued evolution of a sustainable digital health sector.