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I would like first of all to thank the Aslib Social Sciences Group for inviting me to address this conference and I welcome the opportunity of discussing the library and information problems that I experience in political science, not only with fellow social scientists, but particularly with members of the library profession. Because of the nature of political science, as I see it, I want first to say something about the relationship between the various social sciences, then to define politics more specifically (since I regard this as essential in considering the topic), and finally to discuss the sources and the problems they present. In company with Professor Swann, I regard myself as an amateur on the topic on which I am speaking. This being so, I will not try to provide a comprehensive or exhaustive list of primary sources in politics, but endeavour to outline the types of sources and illustrate these from my own experience.

FOR ME PERSONALLY, The library world has completed a circle in the last decade. From 1958 to 1962 I was concerned in its publication, first with Grafton & Co, and then with André Deutsch Ltd. When Sydney Hyde of WHS Advertising Ltd told me in December that the journal would not fit into their proposed re‐organisation, sentiment alone would probably have been sufficient to arouse my interest in acquiring it.

This paper sets a case study of missing children in the Republic of Ireland against a review of international research to explore broader understandings and responses to the problem.

The study begins by reviewing the literature on pioneering American initiatives dating back to the 1970s and more recent literature from Great Britain where a series of high-profile scandals involving sexual exploitation of teenage girls provoked a number of controversial inquiries into the police and social work professions. The present study was prompted by an evaluation of the 116 000 Missing Children Hotline which was introduced to Ireland in 2012 under the auspices of the European Union (EU) Daphne III Programme by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC).

The central conclusion emerging from analysis of the evidence is that Missing Children Hotlines remain rooted in representations of ‘stranger danger’ and disconnected from repeat runaway children who feature prominently in police reports from formal care settings or family homes and who are actively targeted by sexual predators and criminal gangs. The implications are that systemic change requires grounding in research strategies which combine police data with anthropological studies to give legitimacy to the voices of runway and sexually exploited children.

The study offers original international perspectives on missing children to epistemological research communities in the fields of social work, criminology and policing with recommendations that Missing Children and Runaway Safe-lines are targeted systemically at keeping runaway children, homeless children and at-risk-youth safe and off the streets.

‘Information transfer’ may be considered at different levels of sophistication. The subject goes much wider and deeper than, for example, the physical movement of library materials from one location to another. It is wise for us to remember, however, that behind all our discussions at this Conference, and behind the massive apparatus of the Congressional Research Service in Washington and of the National Diet Library in Tokyo, lies one simply expressed requirement: that of providing the right person or organization with the right information in the right manner at the right time. The most carefully organized information retrieval systems are sometimes defeated by elementary slips or misunderstandings on the part of those who operate them. From this introduction you will have deduced that I am a firm believer in the overriding human values of common sense, intelligence and attentiveness to the matter in hand—whatever the question and whatever the circumstances.

US foundations make up such a large part of the economy that they form a distinct economic sector. In the UK this is commonly referred to as the third sector. The first and second sectors are private business and the government itself. In the United States, the third sector controls over $3 trillion and enjoys exceptional liquidity. This article aims to provide a blueprint for a highly productive engagement of foundations and banks to harness these assets for the benefit of not‐for‐profit organizations, the depositing foundations, and the banks themselves

The paper explains how these third sector enterprises., intent on being helpful, are so befuddled structurally that they have failed to do what any person would do with similar liquid assets, It then supplies an organizational and marketing methodology for harnessing some of those assets to the benefit of the respective missions of foundations, not‐for‐profit organizations, and for‐profit banking companies.

A modest reorganization of existing bank and philanthropic structures will open the door to harmonious engagements between foundations and banks for their mutual benefit and for the benefit of their clients and beneficiaries.

The findings herein are a novel utility which comes into being through the innovative engagement of foundations, not‐for‐profit organizations, and banking companies that want to enjoy low risk, high reward expansion of both deposits and assets.