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ALREADY the reports that reach us show in many places that a general staking out of claims is in progress. The whole of municipal and other official life and almost every town seethes with the fervour of reconstruction. Most of the rumours concern projects which are of a rather nebulous kind but, so far as local government departments are concerned, the development of council work has become so extensive that new buildings or extensions of old ones are in prospect or are proposed, almost everywhere. Unfortunately in many instances we can discern the influence of those departments which are nearest to the routine council administration and only occasionally is the laudable plan adopted of giving consideration as a whole and as a unity to all the council services. In the clamour that follows libraries have a very low priority, even where education is recognized. Librarians would do well to be vigilant this winter. Even if they contemplate no immediate extension of their work, let them consider what ten or even twenty years may bring. After the first flush of victory—which, however appears to be a little further away than it seemed a month ago—there will follow a long lean era for all but the matters which are forced upon authorities. It is well then to have a considered plan ready.

A survey of the views of members of a forensic mental health team on the post of forensic nurse consultant was carried out by means of a questionnaire. All respondents were supportive of the development of the post and hoped that the consultant would be the ‘voice’ of nursing, a strong individual with the confidence and competence to challenge traditional interprofessional boundaries and to raise the profile of mental health nurses within the clinical team. Concerns, however, were expressed that the post might have too many facets and that the consultant could become a victim of elevated expectations, unable to meet all the demands. Respondents advised that in order to avoid consultant burnout, the role needs to be clearly defined, to retain a clinical focus and to provide time for continuing professional development. For postholders to be effective, it is essential that they are supported at all levels of the organisations in which they work.

Megachurches represent an interesting empirical and conceptual phenomenon. Empirically, megachurches (Protestant churches with average weekly attendance of greater than 2,000 members) are growing at a time when overall church participation in the United States is steady or declining. Conceptually, megachurch pastors can be viewed as institutional leaders who attempt to reconcile new technologies and large congregations within a highly institutionalized setting. While many of these megachurches have a denominational affiliation, some do not. In this essay, we describe the literature on megachurches and offer observations about the megachurch as an institution. Drawing from preliminary analysis of a sample of over 1,400 megachurches (identified from the Hartford Institute for Religious Research), we also draw tentative conclusions about the characteristics of the pastors of megachurches, and one growing institutional maintenance practice: writing texts. We propose that examining megachurches can help extend the current research on institutional leadership, institutional work, and institutional support mechanisms.

IN the early part of 1926, tests were carried out in the N. P. L. wind tunnels upon models of high‐speed seaplanes for the Schneider Trophy‐Competition in America. Owing to lack of time it was decided not to enter British machines for that contest, but the wind tunnel work was continued, as the Air Ministry wished to further the development of high‐speed craft. After the 1926 contest the Air Ministry decided to allow R.A.F. seaplanes to be entered by the Royal Aero Club, and to assist the Club in the competition in the following year. The high‐speed seaplane work was, therefore, again applied to machines for the Schneider Trophy Contest.

In terms of the role of myth in decision making, this paper focuses on the way myth obfuscates critical issues related to shared governance in higher education. The result of that obfuscation is a minimization of the realities that work against shared governance by favoring an untenable view based on an idealistic and unattainable vision of shared governance. First, however, a critique of myth is in order to demonstrate not only that myth is no more than ordinary interpretation but also that it is insufficiently based on rationality and can become a dangerous instrument in the hands of policy makers.

Technical solutions can be important when key communicators take on the task of making sense of social media flows during crises. However, to provide situation awareness during high-stress assignments, usability problems must be identified and corrected. In usability studies, where researchers investigate the user-friendliness of a product, several types of data gathering methods can be combined. Methods may include subjective (surveys and observations) and psychophysiological (e.g. skin conductance and eye tracking) data collection. This chapter mainly focuses on how the latter type can provide detailed clues about user-friendliness. Results from two studies are summarised. The tool tested is intended to help communicators and journalists with monitoring and handling social media content during times of crises.

THIS is the month when librarians and library workers everywhere, their holidays over, turn to their winter plans. There are, however, some interesting events to take place before the darker and more active months come. The first is the meeting at Oxford on September 21st and subsequent days of the Federation International de Documentation. This will be followed by and merge into the ASLIB Conference, and there is in prospect an attendance of over three hundred. Our readers know that this organization produces and advocates the International Decimal Classification. It is not primarily a “library” society but rather one of abstractors and indexers of material, but it is closely akin, and we hope that English librarianship will be well represented. Then there is a quite important joint‐conference at Lincoln of the Northern Branches of the Library Association on September 30th— October 3rd, which we see is to be opened by the President of the Library Association. Finally the London and Home Counties Branch are to confer at Folkestone from October 14th to 16th, and here, the programme includes Messrs. Jast, Savage, McColvin, Wilks, Carter, and the President will also attend. There are other meetings, and if the question is asked: do not librarians have too many meetings ? we suppose the answer to be that the Association is now so large that local conferences become desirable. One suggestion, that has frequently been made, we repeat. The Library Association should delegate a certain definite problem to each of its branches, asking for a report. These reports should form the basis of the Annual Conference. It is worthy of more consideration.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of complete versus partial observations of service failure and recovery. This study also aims at investigating the effect of observing customers’ need for cognitive closure and types of compensation that a service provider offers.

Two experiments are conducted to test the research hypotheses. The authors use scenarios describing failure and recovery encounters that occur to a target customer at restaurant settings, and through manipulation of complete versus partial observations, they investigate observers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions.

The results suggest that customers with a partial observation are less forgiving than those with a complete observation. In particular, the former sympathized more with a target customer, blamed a service provider more and a target customer less and had lower repurchase intentions than the latter. The authors find that the need for cognitive closure heightens this tendency following a partial observation of service failure. They also find that following a complete (versus partial) observation, observers reacted more favorably to service recovery when it included (versus did not include) monetary compensation.

This research studies the effect of locus of causality following a partial versus complete observation. Future research could further examine the effect of stability and controllability. Also, the authors examined the effect of the need for cognitive closure on evaluations of service failure following a partial versus complete observation. Future research could examine the effect of some other individual difference variables.

The results offer some measures to be taken by practitioners. In particular, practitioners are advised to not offer monetary compensation when majority of observers have had a partial observation. Moreover, they are advised to offer some explanation in a timely and effective manner to ensure observers who are under the negative impact of a partial observation have some information so that they revisit their service evaluations.

The literature assumes that in failure and recovery incidents, all observing customers would know the entire story. This research challenges this assumption and highlights the key role of observation type (partial versus complete observation). Further, this research examines the effect of the need for cognitive closure on service evaluations following a partial versus complete observation. The current research finds that supposedly favorable measures by a firm (i.e. monetary compensation) may in fact backfire when a partial observation is at play.