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The purpose of this paper is to describe the state of development of Polish digital libraries.

The paper describes the establishment of the first digital library in Poland, the creation of the Wielkopolska Digital Library and other regional digital libraries. The organisational and technological solutions used by these libraries are described.

The concept of a single central library and several dozen regional libraries has made possible the creation of more than 40 digital libraries and the establishment of wide co‐operation among digital librarians. However, the passage to mass digitisation is still proving impossible at present.

The situation in Poland indicates a clear necessity for the introduction of appropriate legal regulations to place digitisation among the charter objectives of large libraries. The awarding of small grants does not change the situation, and sometimes even makes it worse. Digital libraries have come into being in large numbers over the last few years; because some of them have been functioning for a number of years, much experience has been acquired. Now it is necessary to move on to the next stage – mass digitisation. Polish libraries are quite unprepared for this. Digitisation continues to be treated by libraries as an experimental rather than a fundamental activity.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate the role played by digital libraries in Polish society, particularly in relation to users who are not in education or professionally engaged in academic work.

Results are presented from a survey of non-academic users, identified as one of the key groups of digital library users in an exploratory survey in 2008-2009. The targeted survey was carried out by sending e-mails to persons who had supplied their addresses in the first survey or had set up accounts with the Digital Library of Wielkopolska. Analysis was also made of e-mail correspondence between digital library users and librarians, and data from digital library server logs, during 2008-2013.

The research provided three interesting results. The first is that the creation of digital libraries in Poland has caused a significant number of people to pursue an interest in genealogical or local historical research. The second result is that the evaluations of digital libraries made by non-academics do not differ significantly from those made by students and academics. The third is the fact that at present, approximately 50 per cent of digital library users in the non-academic category are over 50 years of age.

This is the first comprehensive study on the use of digital libraries in Poland by non-academic users. It shows what role digital libraries play, and to what extent, in the stimulation of cultural activity in Polish society.

The Society of the White Cross of Geneva appears to have been founded with the object of organising on an international basis the attempts that are being made at the present time in civilised countries to bring under control, and if possible to stamp out, certain abuses, frauds, and other injurious factors more or less existent in modern civilised life. Among the subjects to be dealt with are mentioned “les empoisonnements alimentaires,” and adulteration generally, and the principal part of the business of the International Congress which met at Geneva last year and whose second sitting has just ended in Paris, appears to have related to food questions. The objects aimed at by the society are, no doubt, excellent, but they are hardly likely to be attained if the procedure followed in certain respects at the Geneva and Paris Congresses is adopted in the future. Many of the questions brought before these Congresses were of a highly technical nature, and, for this reason, it was not only very desirable, but absolutely necessary that the matters under discussion should have been dealt with, so far as time allowed, by a thoroughly representative international body composed exclusively of scientific and legal experts of recognised position in their respective countries—that is to say, if the conclusions arrived at were to be taken as representing a serious expression of authoritative opinion. It does not appear that the conclusions and resolutions of these Congresses were arrived at by meetings constituted on these lines, and it is probably for this reason that very little, if any, impression has been produced by the gatherings referred to. The initial mistake appears to have been the admission of a number of people who were obviously only interested in the commercial aspects of the subjects dealt with, and who were sufficiently numerous and persistent to influence the meetings in directions favourable to what were declared to be the “requirements” of trade.

Criminal proceedings can only follow the commission of an offence, made so by statute. If an act is not unlawful, it matters little with what motives a person commits it or the consequences; he is outside the law, i.e. criminal law; civil law might have a remedy, but criminal law does not. Even when a criminal offence is committed, it may contain ingredients without which, what would otherwise be a punishable act, becomes guiltless. Most qualifications to guilt are of longstanding, used by parliamentary draftsmen in a wide range of statutes and have acquired reasonably precise judicial meaning. Most relate to intention—wilfully, intentionally, knowingly—and in a few, judicial extension of the popular meaning and usage of the term has occurred to prevent an innocent stance being simulated by a guilty party. “Knowledge” is such an example. The term has been deliberately widened to cover persons who “shut their eyes” to an offence; where a person deliberately refrains from making enquiries, the results of which he would not care to know, this amounts to having such knowledge— constructive knowledge.

The New Year will see Britain a member of the largest multi‐national free trade area in the world and there must be few who see it as anything less than the beginning of a new era, in trade, its trends, customs and usages and especially in the field of labour, relations, mobility, practices. Much can be foreseen but to some extent it is all very unpredictable. Optimists see it as a vast market of 250 millions, with a lot of money in their pockets, waiting for British exports; others, not quite so sure, fear the movement of trade may well be in reverse and if the increasing number of great articulated motor trucks, heavily laden with food and other goods, now spilling from the Channel ports into the roads of Kent are an indication, the last could well be true. They come from faraway places, not all in the European Economic Community; from Yugoslavia and Budapest, cities of the Rhineland, from Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Mulhouse and Milano. Kent has had its invasions before, with the Legions of Claudius and in 1940 when the battle roared through the Kentish skies. Hitherto quiet villagers are now in revolt against the pre‐juggernaut invasion; they, too, fear more will come with the enlarged EEC, thundering through their one‐street communities.

Food—national dietary standards—is a sensitive index of socio‐economic conditions generally; there are others, reflecting different aspects, but none more sensitive. A country that eats well has healthy, robust people; the housewife who cooks hearty, nourishing meals has a lusty, virile family. It is not surprising, therefore, that all governments of the world have a food policy, ranking high in its priorities and are usually prepared to sacrifice other national policies to preserve it. Before the last war, when food was much less of an instrument of government policy than now—there were not the shortages or the price vagaries—in France, any government, whatever its colour, which could not keep down the price of food so that the poor man ate his fill, never survived long; it was—to make use of the call sign of those untidy, shambling columns from our streets which seem to monopolize the television news screens—“out!” Lovers of the Old France would say that the country had been without stable government since 1870, but the explanation for the many changes in power in France in those pre‐war days could be expressed in one word—food!

Long before calories and joules were used to indicate energy values in relation to food, popular belief had it that some foods could increase man's output of labour, his physical strength and endurance, even his fertility. The nature of the foods varied over the years. From earliest times, flesh foods have inspired men to “gird their loins” and “put on armour”, but too long at the feasting tables produced sloth of body and spirit. Hunger sharpens the wit, which makes one wonder if that oft‐quoted statement of poverty and hunger before the Great War—“children too hungry learn”—was quite true; it is now so long ago for most of us to remember. Thetruism “An army marches on its stomach” related to food in general and relating feats of strength to individual foods is something more difficult to prove. The brawny Scot owes little to his porridge; the toiling Irish labourer moves mountains of earth, not from the beef steaks he claims to consume, but for the size of the pay‐packet at the end of the week!

BEC Group Limited is replacing a mixture of existing manufacturing systems at aircraft manufacturer Avro International with an integrated 400‐user system, based on BEC's manufacturing total management system (MTMS) package. Avro, a subsidiary of British Aerospace Regional Aircraft Limited, estimates that the deal, which is valued at £475,000, will cut the annual cost of manufacturing computer systems by 80 per cent and achieve a payback in 28 months.

Purpose: This chapter investigates the moderating impact of personality and demographic factors on the association between work–life balance (WLB) and the well-being (WB) of Ayurveda doctors in Sri Lanka.

Need for the Study: WB is necessary for everyone’s life. Individuals must meet proper WLB between their private and career life scenarios. On the other hand, employee WB and WLB are considered under the sustainable development goals. Hence, it is required to investigate the effect of WLB on WB.

Methodology: This quantitative, cross-sectional study was conducted with minimal researcher interference. The primary data were collected using structured questionnaires from Ayurvedic Doctors in Sri Lanka. The correlation, regression, and hierarchical regression analyses with multivariate assumptions were conducted using SPSS.

Findings: The findings reveal a robust positive association between the WLB and WB, indicating the same association between the WLB and personality. Moreover, there is a strong positive association between personality and WB. The results of the moderator analysis presented that there is a marginal moderator impact from the personality towards the association between WLB and WB.

Practical Implications: Ayurveda Practitioners and policymakers can use the generated knowledge in decision-making. The results of this study can be used as a reference by all industrial practitioners to improve their business practices. They can do this by raising employee WLB to enhance WB, which will help them keep the best employees within the company.

DURING the past six years, a considerable amount of progress has been made, in certain directions, towards improving methods of library work. The improvements introduced have mostly come from the younger generation of English librarians, and it must also be added that this enthusiasm for betterment has been confined to a very small circle of young librarians. The majority of British librarians have apparently remained untouched by the movement towards more perfect methods compassed by their fellows, and it is doubtful if, in spite of the remarkably good work accomplished by a few “earnest men in various parts of the country, there is not, on the whole, a great preponderance of professional apathy in regard to burning questions of librarianship. The proof of this is only too obvious. Anyone who has watched the dwindling attendances at monthly Library Association meetings must have been struck by the fact as indicative of weakness or defectiveness somewhere. No professional association, with professional interests at stake, is going to languish, and practically sputter out, unless the members are bored, or indifferent, or in some way apathetic. For nearly four years, the interest in the Library Association meetings has been declining, and although the annual gatherings have been more or less successful, thanks to the energy of the provincial members, it must be remembered that the monthly meetings have been very badly attended, although their interest has been as great as heretofore—which, however, is not saying much. Recently, this lack of interest has assumed the form of a kind of epidemic rot, which has attacked other associations as well as the parent one. We hear of one kindred society having entirely suspended its meetings for months, while we read of another which can hardly get an attendance large enough to carry a vote of thanks to the speaker. When we hear it stated that the interest in the Library Association meetings is so languid that even the readers of papers do not trouble to appear, and that about half‐a‐dozen members is all that can be mustered on some occasions, it must be obvious to all that there is something radically wrong. We have heard it suggested that the Library Association meetings take place on an impossible day, and that the notice sent out is insufficient because only published in the Record, which nobody reads ! There may be an element of truth in these suggestions, but hardly enough to account for the all‐round apathy which undoubtedly exists. The stimulus derived from the Leeds meeting has apparently evaporated already, and beyond a decidedly more healthy response to the examination scheme of the Association, it is hard to understand in which direction activity of any kind exists. Comparing the professional work on this side of the Atlantic with that of the United States, it must be confessed that the comparison is very unfavourable to the British case. In America there are dozens of flourishing associations, counting their membership in thousands, while here, there are some half‐dozen associations, including the Library Association itself, which can only muster among them a little more than five hundred members. This is a poor record when one considers the possibilities, and if librarianship is to become a more powerful factor in the educational development of the future, it is evident that a strong effort must be made all round to double the membership of all the existing associations to begin with, and then to interest and retain the members who join by means of live meetings, publications, and other enterprizes. It will not suffice to rest on present achievements if librarianship is to be recognized as a greater power in the State than hitherto, and for this reason it behoves those librarians who have any “go” left in them, to try and pull up the existing machinery to a higher state of efficiency.