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This article aims to detail the incorporation of student assistants into a newly implemented chat service. It details the approaches used for training students and developing the chat repertoire.

This article reviews the existing literature on the topics of student assistants participating in library reference services and peer-to-peer engagement. It then details the first step of the transition process used for moving primary chat monitoring responsibility to library student assistants and away from staff and librarians as it existed previously.

Incorporating student assistants into the chat rotation was beneficial to the libraries and to the students participating in the chat service. While librarians and staff enjoyed help in covering the hours, student assistants learned research skills on the job that would potentially assist them in completing their course assignments.

Utilizing student assistants in library chat services is becoming increasingly popular with budget cuts and the scheduling demands that continue to grow for librarians and library staff. This article provides context for incorporating students and shows the value that the students receive via their participation in a chat service.

DONCASTER'S new Central Library was formally opened on 29th December 1969 on precisely the 100th anniversary of the opening of the first public library in Doncaster. Conforming to tradition, the Library was opened by the Mayor of Doncaster, Councillor Marcus Outwin. The President of the Library Association, Mr. Wilfred Ashworth, addressed the assembled guests, his last official appointment before relinquishing the office.

The purpose of this paper is to explore reactions to the introduction by the UK Government of the National Living Wage (NLW) in the UK hospitality sector and consider implications for the status of employee relations.

In-depth interviews were conducted with senior industry representatives of the hospitality sector in the UK.

Concerns surrounding an increase in the wage bill, in maintaining pay differentials and in shifting employment to youth were confirmed. Managers expressed ambiguity in face of the legislation, offering agreement at a personal level with the rationale underpinning the NLW, but also expressing concern about impacts on their businesses.

This exploratory study offers the basis for further research in understanding the foundation of employee relations in hospitality.

A reconsideration of the nature of the employment relationship is key at a time of growing concerns about the business-society relationship.

Uses reactions to the UK Government’s stipulation of a NLW to explore the basis of employee relations in the hospitality sector. This is timely where work to date in hospitality has largely focussed on symptoms but not causes of poor working conditions.

THE subject of penalties for undue detention of books may be regarded from various points of view. The librarian, it must be admitted, is prone to consider the receipts from this source as a welcome addition to the library's income. It assists him to eke out the expenditure of the restricted rate, and few library authorities are able to do without this additional income, even if they desire to do so. Where other penalties are inflicted it will usually be found that the rate limit of those libraries has been removed; however, it has been whispered that even in some of the libraries where the experiment has been tried the authorities are considering the policy of reverting to the old system.

Planning the development of ports and harbours involves many complex, technical tasks. Various facility designs must be outlined and analysed. Facility locations must be evaluated and sites selected. Environmental issues must be recognised and the impact of port facilities on the environment must be estimated. Traffic and trade levels must be forecast. Port operating procedures must be evaluated to insure proper facility design. Men, material and capital resources must be inventoried to support the budgeting and economic analysis required. Finally, an economic evaluation must be made of the costs and benefits of the development project. Port planners must often develop plans under economic, social and political pressures. These pressures may not allow the time necessary to evaluate fully all the possible facility designs which could be included in the development plan. The computer model and planning methodology outlined briefly in this paper are designed to facilitate the development process by providing an automated planning framework for the rapid, accurate and thorough analysis of alternative port development plans. This port planning model is centred around a dynamic, stochastic digital computer simulation program. It is dynamic in that port operations may be simulated for any desired length of time; thereby providing in minutes estimates of the results of port operations simulated for years. The model is stochastic in that processes which vary randomly in actual port operations are represented to vary in the same way during the simulation. This added realism in the model increases the accuracy of its results. By properly specifying input data planners may evaluate the effect of alternative development plans on the port's operation; however, its use is not limited to development planning only.

The 58th Annual Conference of the Sanitary Inspectors Association was held at Margate from September 10th to 14th. Mr. F. Willey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, addressed delegates on September 12th, when discussions were devoted exclusively to clean food. He spoke of the valuable work being done by local authorities, and regarded education as more than half the battle. Referring to the Food and Drugs Acts he said it was now being considered whether wider powers were necessary in order to keep abreast of current trends in the food manufacturing and distributive industries, with advances in sanitary sciences and practice, and with enlightened public opinion.

SO much controversy has raged around the subject of newsrooms in the past two years, that librarians are, as a rule, utterly tired of it, and the appearance of still another article upon the subject is not calculated to tone down the general spirit of vexation. It requires no little courage to appear in the arena in this year of Grace, openly championing those departments of our institutions which were originally intended to convey the news of the day in the broadest manner.

RETROSPECT is natural at the beginning of a new library year. All over the world of libraries of all kinds the shadow of the general depression has fallen; more heavily perhaps in the United States than here. It is a testing time which has made the enemies of libraries vocal and has also fortunately roused their advocates. On balance, optimism may prevail; and in that faith we wish our readers a happy new year.

BOOKS and Libraries for the Blind form the subject of a paper by Dr. Robert C. Moon in the May Library Journal. The writer is the son of William Moon, the inventor of the system of embossed writing bearing his name. He describes the systems of writing for the blind in use, and the various agencies for circulating literature. After examining the existing departments for the blind in Public Libraries, he comes to the conclusion that “all the libraries need more books, and if they are to reach and teach the adult blind they must have a fair proportion of them in the Moon type. All Public Libraries should possess a few works printed in the various types, care being taken to have a good supply of those embossed in the special type which is taught in the schools for the blind of the immediate locality, in order that the pupils in vacation time, and the graduates of the schools may be provided with reading matter, but the infirm and aged blind will be found in almost all communities, and for them books printed in the Moon type are indispensable. Alice S. Tyler describes the League of Library Commissions. “The success of the experiment in co‐operation which was inaugurated in 1901 by the library commissions of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, whereby printed matter of common interest and equal necessity and value to these commissions was issued jointly, led to the suggestion that a national organization might more economically carry forward these and other lines of co‐operative work, leaving to the overcrowded state commission workers more time and money for the peculiar problems of each state.” This suggestion was brought up at the St. Louis conference, and resulted in an organization being formed under the title of the League of Library Commissions, consisting of one representative from each of the commissions included. The particular directions in which the League will promote co‐operative work are: carefully prepared lists of books for first purchase for small libraries; lists of new books which, upon examination, had been found desirable ; handbook of suggestions and direction as to the organization and management of small libraries; printed statement regarding the aims and methods of state library commissions, with comparison of their laws; definite help and suggestions on the subject of library buildings, especially floor‐plans arranged for economic administration, growing out of the experience of the library commissions in connection with the erection of Carnegie and other library buildings within the last few years; united effort to bring to the attention of book publishers the urgent need of good, durable binding, adequate indexing, &c.