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Reports the results of a study aimed to assess the influence of cost calculation and budgeting training on the financial skills of medical professionals in European intensive care units (ICUs). Focuses on a test devised to measure cost calculation and budgeting skills of the medical directors and head nurses in 13 European countries. The test comprises two equivalent measurements. The training consists of an introduction to the main principles of cost calculation and budgeting. Emphasizes similarities with the profit sector. A set of guidelines on cost calculation and budgeting has been composed and tailored to the needs of ICU management. The results show that a rather introductory training of medical doctors and head nurses of ICUs dramatically improves their costing and budgeting skills. Therefore such a training should be a component in a comprehensive strategy to improve cost‐awareness in ICUs, eventually resulting in a more efficient use of ICU resources.

I suppose that most noticeable of all the changes in our profession since I came into it has been the multiplicity of the methods by which one can become a librarian. A. E. Standley says in a recent article in the L.A.R., in 1970: “The term librarian includes the Library Association chartered librarian, the graduate with a degree in librarianship, the scholar librarian, the information and intelligence officer, the translator, the abstracter, the non‐library‐qualified subject expert”.

EVERY presidential address to the Library Association has had its own quality, just as our Presidents have each brought their own personal contribution to Association history. Some will recall from Dr. Bronowski's quite charming address the small foreign child, the possessor of only a few words of English, who, asking the Librarian of Whitechapel, a tall, thin, moustached man, for some book that would help him to fuller English, was given Midshipman Easy. It was “the perfect choice”, he was able to say some forty years after. That is characteristic of the President's method ; a generous recounting of his experiences in his own cultural development, with many all‐too‐brief side reflections on the relations of science to the humanities, the ultimate indispensability of reading in education and therefore of libraries as its providers. An assessment of Panizzi as our greatest and of Conrad as a novelist comes in, both like himself men born to another language and yet of extraordinary attainment in the adopted tongue which they had to learn in adult life. A repeated tribute to public libraries, to which he himself owed much and a plea that they should be careful to provide books which would enable not only the scientist to qualify in more general cultural reading but would enable the layman to know the language of science which to so many is indeed foreign. He instanced “the concept of relativity, the concept of quantum junips, the principle of uncertainty, the statistical principle,—ways of thinking which rank among the imaginative achievements of the human mind. But because they are evolved in science, they are formulated in language which few people understand”. His main plea, the one that the press chose to record, was for a standard edition of the classics of science, such as Newton's Opticks, Darwin's Origin of Species, the essays of William Kingdom Clifford, and of Charles Pearce, which can speak the language of science to this generation, as can the later ones of Sherrington, Eddington and Schrodinger, and for the availability of these in all public libraries as, indeed, in others. Librarians, he thought, could do much to bring about such an edition and its distribution.

At the time of its demise in 2001, the Enron Corporation could boast of its comprehensive, state-of-the-art management control and governance systems. Yet these controls were rendered ineffective in the company's last few years. This article identifies the radical change in Enron's corporate culture that took place from the Lay-Kinder era (1986–1996) to the Lay-Skilling era (1997–2001). It argues that this was a major cause of neutralizing these controls, which in turn proved to be a major factor in Enron's fall into bankruptcy. The article draws on Schein's (1993, Legitimating clinical research in the study of organizational culture, Journal of Counselling and Development, 71, 703–708; 1996, 2004) framework of cultural practice to develop our analysis. Thus, it supports Simon's (1990, 1995) urging to more meaningfully include corporate culture in management control research studies. The article contributes to the literature by drawing attention to the rich but untold story of Enron's governance and control and also extends the research linking corporate culture and control systems.

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.

Support sought for changes to copyright law EIIA members have been asked to support a change in the copyright laws to permit some ‘fair use’ copying of software. A proposal is likely to go to the European Commission this month. Meanwhile, Memoranda of Mutal Understanding have been signed with the United States' HA and Japan's JICOA, to co‐operate in activities such as supporting the free flow of information.

The Commercial Invoice is the first EDI message to gain worldwide acceptance, and it has been registered as a standard by the United Nations. The action was hailed by the Commission of European Communities (CEC) as a significant step towards the international agreement on technical standards needed in order for electronic communications to gradually replace paperwork in world trade.