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Thirty years or more ago, a favoured question in examination papers for librarians was some variation on the theme ‘Compare the merits of a classified catalogue and an alphabetical subject catalogue’. This was a subject which it was possible to write on or to discuss at great length, advancing a number of theoretical arguments or opinions expressed by pundits, without ever stating a single demonstrable fact. When, in the early 1950's, various people, such as Taube and Mooers, proposed new techniques for indexing, the reaction from the traditionally‐minded was such that it appeared there was to be a repetition of all the old arguments. In an editorial in American Documentation in 1955, Perry expressed a viewpoint, shared by many others, when he wrote:

The paper begins with a brief history of the New Engineering Contract (NEC) and outlines the response by the NEC Panel to the proposals made in the Latham Report. The main principles adopted for the design of the contract are described and the main procedures which are used to implement the design principles are outlined. Emphasis is given to the way in which the procedures are intended to stimulate good management of contracts. The final section of the paper deals with risk allocation and management in NEC. The way in which the choice of contract strategy influences risk allocation is considered first and this is followed by a discussion of the principles used for the detailed allocation of risks in NEC. Risks which are carried by the employer are described and assessed through a novel procedure in NEC.

LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.

ON another page will be found preliminary notes with regard to the Annual Conference of the Library Association at Liverpool. We have before us at the time of writing only an outline of the programme, but we hope to foreshadow in the May Number further features of the June Meeting, and to publish articles on the Literary Associations and Libraries of Liverpool.

At the Royal Society of Health annual conference, no less a person than the editor of the B.M.A.'s “Family Doctor” publications, speaking of the failure of the anti‐smoking campaign, said we “had to accept that health education did not work”; viewing the difficulties in food hygiene, there are many enthusiasts in public health who must be thinking the same thing. Dr Trevor Weston said people read and believed what the health educationists propounded, but this did not make them change their behaviour. In the early days of its conception, too much was undoubtedly expected from health education. It was one of those plans and schemes, part of the bright, new world which emerged in the heady period which followed the carnage of the Great War; perhaps one form of expressing relief that at long last it was all over. It was a time for rebuilding—housing, nutritional and living standards; as the politicians of the day were saying, you cannot build democracy—hadn't the world just been made “safe for democracy?”—on an empty belly and life in a hovel. People knew little or nothing about health or how to safeguard it; health education seemed right and proper at this time. There were few such conceptions in France which had suffered appalling losses; the poilu who had survived wanted only to return to his fields and womenfolk, satisfied that Marianne would take revenge and exact massive retribution from the Boche!

The Fortieth Annual Report of the National Central Library once again records a year of great activity in the various departments of the Library and continued expansion of the resources available by the addition of new names to the list of ‘outlier libraries’ and by wider international contacts.

Purpose: To demonstrate how an online coaching intervention can support well-being management (mental health and mood) of medical students, by increasing psychological awareness, emotional management, and healthy/positive action repertoires.

Design/methodology/approach: A two-group randomized control trial design using a waitlist as a control was used with a sample of 176 medical students. Half were randomly assigned the 5P© coaching intervention and the remaining half assigned to the waitlist group, scheduled to receive the intervention after the initial treatment group completed the intervention. Participant baseline data on stress, anxiety, depression, positive and negative affect, and psychological capital were obtained prior to commencing the study, after completion of the first treatment group, and again postintervention of the waitlisted group, and then at the end of the year.

Findings: Coaching the students to reflect on their emotions and make solution-focused choices to manage known stresses of medical education was shown to decrease medical student stress, anxiety, and depression, thereby increasing the mental health profiles of medical students.

Research limitations/implications: The findings suggest that an online coaching tool that increases psychological awareness and positive action can have a positive effect on mental health and mood of medical students.

Practical implications: The framework developed and tested in this study is a useful tool for medical schools to assist medical students in managing their well-being, thereby decreasing the incidence and prevalence of mental illness in medical students. The implications of this research are significant in that positively affecting the psychological well-being of medical students could have a significant effect not only on each medical student but also on every patient that they treat, and society as a whole. Better mental health in medical students has the potential to decrease dropout rates, increase empathy and professionalism, and allow for better patient care.

Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature on online coaching for improved psychological well-being and emotional regulation, mental health, and medical students. It is one of the first studies using a coaching protocol to make a positive change to the known stress, anxiety, and depression experienced by medical students worldwide.

The enormous improvement in child health in this country—in infant mortality and morbidity, in physical growth and well‐being, are self‐evident. Not only do we see the physical improvement in our children, but it strikes visitors from overseas more forcibly, and there can be few other countries in the world which can boast such swarms of healthy, vigorous children. If this was preventive medicine's only success, it would be worth many times over the money spent on this branch of the National Health Service, which is little enough in all conscience: about £20 millions a year compared with over £400 millions for curative medicine. Can any of the undoubted great and dramatic advances of the latter match the far‐reaching effects of this one achievement of preventive medicine?