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Service user involvement is a growing and important trend in the whole of health and social care and yet when asked, it is difficult to define. Simply inviting service users and carers along to meetings can lead to tokenism and a tick box mentality towards user and carer involvement. This article argues that perhaps the term service user should change to something that reflects a greater understanding of the process. It is argued that people should not only be involved but also valued for their unique contribution, on a more equal footing with professionals.

It is generally agreed that carers in mental health care play a vital role in helping people to maintain their place in the community and reducing the time clients spend in hospital or residential settings. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual approach to involving carers in higher education by acknowledging their contribution to improving practice and identify the impact upon student learning in mental health and social care professions.

A brief review of the policy and literature on involving carers in mental health services and education explored the historical and current influences upon practice. This was then applied to the experience of the authors when teaching nursing and social work students in a higher educational setting and evaluated as developing outcomes in carer involvement practice.

Relationships between carers and students in health and social care may be created in higher education settings that can develop supportive, informative and recovery‐focused care in practice. Creating such relationships in the higher educational setting helps students to prepare for developing relationships with carers in practice.

Involving carers in education may improve outcomes in recovery for the client and carer experience and the development of professional and self awareness skills in students. Developing involvement practices in higher education begins the process early in the experience of health and social care students, providing a safe environment in which to master such skills.

WE understand that the retiring President of the Library Association made a charming farewell speech to the Council in January and hope that it will duly appear in the L.A. Record; and that also applies to the initial address by Mr. Sydney. However it is probably desirable that the major utterance of a president shall always be made at the Annual Conference. That, however, is over eight months distant and therefore given at a time when most of the president's work for his year has been accomplished. There is much to be said for the old custom of the Association which was to instal a new president at the Annual Conferences with a whole presidential year ahead of him, but, no doubt, the Association had good reasons for making the term co‐extensive with the calendar year although we do not know now what they were. The key to Mr. Sydney's remarks was that his election recognized the work for more than half a century of the medium and smaller library which had been the backbone of the public library movement and it dwelt upon the loneliness of their librarians and the fight they had made against local obscurantism and obstacles. He wanted to get nearer in his year to librarians in all parts of the country by personal visits. We can only say that for such a task Mr. Sydney is fully equipped.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

In Australia as elsewhere, kindergarten or pre-school teachers’ work has almost escaped historians’ attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lives and work of approximately 60 women who graduated from the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College (KTC) between 1908 and 1917, which is during the leadership of its foundation principal, Lillian de Lissa.

The paper is a feminist analysis and uses conventional archival sources.

The KTC was a site of higher education that offered middle class women an intellectual as well as practical education, focusing on liberal arts, progressive pedagogies and social reform. More than half of the graduates initially worked as teachers, their destinations reflecting the fragmented field of early childhood education. Whether married or single, many remained connected with progressive education and social reform, exercising their pedagogical and administrative skills in their workplaces, homes and civic activities. In so doing, they were not only leaders of children but also makers of society.

The paper highlights the links between the kindergarten movement and reforms in girls’ secondary and higher education, and repositions the KTC as site of intellectual education for women. In turn, KTC graduates committed to progressive education and social reform in the interwar years.

Identifying new business opportunities can be a difficult and trying experience for executives. Unlike most business problems, it requires working with something new—a new product or service, a new market, a new customer.