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Against a background of an ageing population, rising emergency admissions and a policy direction moving towards providing care in the least intensive setting, this paper presents the dramatic results achieved in a 22‐week pilot of undivided health and social care replicating the Castlefields study and using Unique Care principles. In the context of practice‐based commissioning, where GP practices develop and commission services that represent the best model of care and use of resources for their patients, the potential for creating savings from this approach are discussed.

This paper aims to describe the design and evaluation of a pilot leadership development programme for infection prevention and control (IPAC) professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme’s aim was to improve IPAC knowledge and capacity in the health-care system by developing the leadership skills and capacities of novice and advanced Infection Control Professionals (ICPs), to respond flexibly, and competently, in their expanding and ever-changing roles.

The leadership programme was piloted with seven nurses, who were part of a clinical nursing team in New South Wales, Australia, over a 12-month period between 2021 and 2022. The programme was designed using a leadership development framework underpinned by transformational leadership theory, practice development approaches and collaborative and experiential learning. These principles were applied during programme design, with components adapted to learners’ interests and regular opportunities provided for collaboration in active learning and critical reflection on workplace experiences.

The authors’ evaluation suggests that the programme was feasible, acceptable and considered to be effective by this cohort. Moreover, participants valued the opportunities to engage in active and experience-based learning with peers, and with the support of senior and experienced ICPs. The action learning sets were well-received and allowed participants to critically reflect on and learn from one another’s experiences. The mentoring programme allowed them to apply their developing leadership skills to real workplace challenges that they face.

Despite a small sample size, the authors’ results provide empirical evidence about the effectiveness of using a practice development approach for strengthening ICP leadership capacity. The success of this pilot study has paved the way for a bigger second cohort of participants in the programme, for which further evaluation will be conducted.

The success of this leadership programme reflects both the need for leadership development in the IPAC professions and the applicability of this approach, with appropriate facilitation, for other professions and organizations.

ICP leadership programmes have not been previously reported in the literature. This pilot study builds on the growing interest in IPAC leadership to foster health system responsiveness and change.

This chapter aims to discuss the issues associated with social indexing as a solution to the challenges of current information organization systems by investigating the quality and efficacy of social indexing.

The chapter focuses on the study which compared indexing similarity between two professional groups and also compared social tagging and professional indexing. The study employed the method of the modified vector-based Indexing Consistency Density (ICD) with three different similarity measures: cosine similarity, dot product similarity, and Euclidean distance metric.

The investigation of social indexing in comparison of professional indexing demonstrates that social tags are more accurate descriptions of resources and reflection of more current terminology than controlled vocabulary. Through the characteristics of social tagging discussed in this chapter, we have a clearer understanding of the extent to which social indexing can be used to replace and improve upon professional indexing.

As investment in professionally developed web directories diminishes, it becomes even more critical to understand the characteristics of social tagging and to obtain benefit from it. In future research, the examination of subjective tags needs to be conducted. A survey or user study on tagging behavior also would help to extend understanding of social indexing practices.

EEVL, the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library, is a gateway to engineering information on the Internet. After a brief outline of the need for such a gateway and the background to the EEVL project, this article looks at certain similarities and differences in the development of EEVL and various other subject based information gateways (SBIGs) such as ADAM, SOSIG, and OMNI, and similar services such as BUBL. EEVL’s present situation and future prospects are outlined.

Today, VTLS is a comprehensive, integrated solution to the automation requirements of academic, public, and special libraries around the world. No two libraries are alike; no two regions are alike. VTLS recognizes these differences and offers libraries the flexibility of numerous options to configure the system that best meets their functional and financial needs.

Aims to present a background to the use of electronic resources, especially e‐books, in public libraries, which appears to threaten some basic activities that define a reading culture dependent on the print book.

There are initiatives afoot which are working to integrate e‐books into the culture and process of resource‐sharing. This paper reviews some of the issues with e‐books, and specifically how the Co‐East partnership proposes to contribute to the initiatives concerned with improving accessibility.

It is important that public libraries do take that first step in implementing an e‐books service and take care in its promotion. Their traditional role, after all, is providing the bridge between rights holders and the public and, with the advent of “disruptive technology”, this role is more crucial than ever.

An important precedent for this project has been the findings from the Essex e‐books project, and especially user feedback. Although no one was asking about e‐books, users from all age groups were curious enough to participate in the project, and forthcoming in offering their opinion, much of it positive, about the reading experience and the mobile technology.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether TAMS Analyzer and Viewshare are viable free and open source software data sharing and creation tools for those with limited funding and technological skills.

The participant observer method was used to collect experiential evidence while applying the tools to a collection of text-, image-, and video-based digital cultural records.

TAMS Analyzer was found to be a low barrier to entry tool for those with coding and qualitative data analysis experience. Those with general experience will be able to create datasets with the support of manuals and tutorials, while those with limited experience may find it difficult to use. Viewshare was found to be a low barrier to entry tool for sharing data online, and accessible for all skill levels.

TAMS Analyzer supports Mac and Linux platforms only, so a low-cost software recommendation was made for those in Windows environments.

Librarians can use these tools to address data access gaps while promoting library digital collections.

With a greater understanding of data tools, librarians can be advisors, collaborators, agents for data culture, and relevant participants in digital humanities scholarship.

The research evaluates both the capabilities of the tools and the barriers to using or accessing them, which are often neglected. The paper addresses a need in the literature for greater scrutiny of tools that are a critical component of the data ecology, and will further assist librarians when connecting scholars to tools of inquiry in an environment with limited funding and technical support.

To report the highlights of the annual Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Top Technology Trends program at 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

Provides a brief review of the conference program on technology issues in libraries.

This summary of LITA section Top Technology Trends program with presentations and information. The presentations focus is on new technologies and their applications in a variety of library environments. The program offered a wide variety of timely presentations that were on new and emerging technologies and the application to the library environment.

Provides descriptions of opinions on technological trends in library and information services from industry professionals.