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The last taboo — still taboo Spring has come to South London and a strange sound fills the air. Not the thwack of leather on willow, nor the whirr of lawnmower blade on long winter grass. It is the deafening silence of thousands of New Library World readers on the book selection/censorship debate. In my last column (Mar 86) I called the subject “the last taboo”, and it seems that for most library workers the subject is still taboo; too difficult and threatening to be discussed; capable of arousing strong feelings and painful emotions, anathema to many librarians.

AT last Mr. Baker's long announced “Descriptive Guide to the Best Fiction” is in our hands, and proves to be a bulky volume of over 600 pages, which must have cost its author many hours of arduous labour. Descriptive guides to literature of any sort are unfortunately too rare on this side of the world not to ensure for any decent attempt to compare with what the Americans are doing in this direction, the support of all librarians and bibliographers—at least we hope so—and Mr. Baker's book is a great advance on anything that has hitherto been attempted, here or elsewhere, to provide an annotated handbook to fiction. When the series of guides to literature, science, the arts, &c., announced by Messrs. Scott, Greenwood & Co., are published—which it is to be hoped will be soon—England will not be so desperately and humiliatingly “out of it,” as is the case at present, in the great task of selecting from and annotating the literature of the world.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the rhetorical framings that can be discerned by applying discourse analysis to a publicly available transcript of a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry in the UK.

In particular, the authors examine the discursive tactics used during the 2013 investigation by the House of Commons PAC, “Tax Avoidance: The Role of Large Accountancy Firms”.

Two opposing rhetorical framings of “tax avoidance” are analysed which the authors see developing incrementally and directly opposing each other. Metaphors are used by the PAC to exemplify the dark side of professions, including potentially transgressing the boundaries of what constitutes “tax avoidance”. This is counteracted by the Big Four portraying an alternative market-oriented/neo-liberal view of professions pursuing a societal good through dedication to promoting market competition.

Whilst one rhetorical framing is predicated on being able to draw a clear distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance, the alternative rhetorical framing contests this distinction and contributes to an existing cultural account that paints the dark side of some of the professions. Extending the work of Creed et al. (2002) and Alexander (2011), the authors demonstrate the bridging between micro-level discursive acts and broader cultural accounts, at the macro level. As such the authors discuss the pertinence of this multi-level discursive contest, within post-inquiry sensemaking, for understanding the “dark side” of professions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent service delivery in the Canadian federal government actually improved after a decade of reform efforts, and how employee empowerment accounted for any improvements that arose.

Five focus group interviews were conducted in 2002 with federal government employees involved in service delivery. Interview transcripts were content analyzed. The employee empowerment and service quality literatures, including critical perspectives, provide the theoretical underpinnings of the study.

Productivity and service enhancement did materialize, but little empowerment occurred. Work intensification was revealed. The shortcomings of applying private sector‐style definitions of productivity to the public sector were identified.

Study findings have limited generalizability due to small sample size. Findings must be verified through additional research. Comparative findings from countries that introduced service reforms more comprehensively than did Canada would be of interest.

Public sector efforts to improve service delivery should address possible material barriers affecting service delivery and pay more attention to employee needs. The efficacy of quantitative performance targets should be re‐examined.

The outcomes of a public service reform initiative intended to improve service quality by allegedly empowering front‐line workers are presented from an employee perspective. As there is limited empirical research done on this topic from that perspective it should be of general interest to researchers in the fields of public policy and human resources management.

John Saunders wrote ‘Why are we campaigning against cuts?’ (NLW July 1985). Cuts columnist Terry Hanstock criticised the article in September NLW and referred to a meeting in Rotherham addressed by John Saunders.

Continuing education for library and information management Ealing College of Higher Education is using a grant from BLR&DD to examine two main areas: para‐professional education and the coordination of external course provision. The present project, which runs from October 1985 to March 1986, is building on past work at Ealing. Ealing has developed a substantial database of short courses in librarianship and information science with details of cost, duration, location and subject. The work on para‐professional education will assess staff needs and will note experience in other countries, including the United States. The study of coordination will involve surveying course providers to see how they decide what courses to arrange, and how to price and market them. Further details are available from Dr Stephen Roberts, Ealing College of Higher Education, School of Library and Information Studies, St Mary's Road, Ealing, London W5 5RF (Tel: 01–579 4111 ext.3337).

During 1982–84, BLR&DD supported a study of medical information and its use by practitioners. The problem of low usage of information services was investigated by looking at the characteristics of information itself and the consequences of not knowing — the penalties for ignorance. Experts were invited to contribute papers on information and communication problems in specialist areas, such as addiction, drugs, alcoholism and exotic diseases. In June 1984, a conference was organised to enable a larger group to discuss the issues raised and consider implications for information transfer. A recently‐published volume now brings together the ten specialist contributions, an overview of the project and a report of the conference. Consensus and penalties for ignorance in the medical sciences, edited by J Michael Brittain (BL R&D Report 5842) is published by Taylor Graham, at £15 (isbn 0—947568 03 4).

The purpose of this article is to examine a little some of the ways in which the principles of librarianship may be producing beneficial effect in other fields, owing to the mobility of trained librarians caused partly by those dark aspects of the body economic, job stagnation and redundancy, and partly by growing opportunities.

This chapter examines the conditions under which social movements demobilize. Political process theorists have long argued that hostility in the external environment often leads to movement decline, while others have suggested that some degree of hostility will mobilize constituents. Data drawn from the periodicals of two first-wave feminist organizations, the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party, are used to document the changes in the two organizations’ levels of collectivism between 1910 and 1930. Analyses show that whether and to what extent movement organizations respond to favorable or hostile external environments depends on internal organizational dynamics. Specifically, single-issue organizations respond more quickly and acutely to changes in the external environment than their multi-issue counterparts. Thus, despite past research that has touted the benefits of organizing around a single issue, this chapter documents a potential downside: the difficulty of sustaining long-term collective mobilization.

If my reappearance in these columns so soon after my universally lamented withdrawal causes you some surprise, then that makes two of us! The reason is technical.