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Considers a variety of pressures, both internal and external to the National Health Service, which in recent years have ostensibly increased the importance of sound workforce planning initiatives. These include, among others: skill shortage; the drive towards cost‐efficiency and effectiveness; an altered philosophy of care through new technology; the development of competence‐based training initiatives; nationwide demographic changes; and the need to develop identifiable skill shortages. Presents reprofiling (skills alignment with organizational needs) and skill mix and distribution as useful approaches to workforce planning and concludes with a brief consideration of implications for planners of professional boundaries and changed educational priorities for health service personnel.

The paper aims to explore the social origins of Scottish chartered accountants and the accounting stereotype as portrayed in popular fiction.

The detective novels of the Scottish chartered accountant Alexander Clark Smith are used as a lens through which to explore the social origins of accountants and the changing popular representations of the accountant.

The novels contribute to our understanding of the construction of accounting stereotypes and of the social origins of Scottish accountants. They suggest that, while working class access to the profession was a reality, so was class division within it. In addition, Smith was ahead of contemporary professional discourse in creating a protagonist who combines the positive aspects of the traditional stereotype with qualities of a private‐eye action‐hero, and who uses accounting skills to uncover corruption and address (social) wrongs. However, this unconventional portrayal may have been incongruent with the image the profession wished to portray. The public image (or stereotype) portrayed by its members would have been as important in signalling and maintaining the profession's collective status as the recruitment of its leadership from social elites.

Smith's portrayal of accountants in personal and societal settings at a time of profound social change, as well as his background in the Scottish profession, provide a rich source for the study of social origins of Scottish chartered accountancy during the first half of the twentieth century. Further, Smith's novels are of a popular genre, and innovative in the construction of their hero and of accounting itself; as such they merit attention because of their potential to influence the construction of the accounting stereotype(s) within the popular imagination.

THERE have been many theories of book selection. I do not intend to venture into the field of selection by algebraic formulae. I have no practical experience of this method, and I believe it to be an arid approach to an exciting process. I want to look at some of the practical problems of public library book selection, to suggest some solutions and to examine some of “the old wives tales” which surround this evergreen subject.

Explores the strategy of managing workforce diversity as a possible response to skills shortages within the UK National Health Service. Stresses that, if health care organizations truly wish to harness the diversity of their workforce, ways must be found of understanding personal motivations and creating employment opportunities which, as far as it is reasonable, meet these needs and expectations. Emphasizes that failure to adopt such an approach could alienate, possibly permanently, sectors of the potential workforce.

Discusses the concept of reprofiling. After providing a working definition, a discussion of the theory that underpins the “participative” approach shows how it is linked to established change management ideas. Outlines how the approach is used in practice.

APART FROM FRANCE, Great Britain is one of the most centralised states of the Western European democracies; all roads lead to Whitehall and Westminster, and the pattern is repeated in town halls at the lower tier of local government. However, as a contrast, and perhaps as compensation for this centralism, British society has completely contradictory and counter‐vailing tendencies. At the grass roots Britain is a nation of associations, clubs, fellowships, societies and local organisaitions of various kinds. For the purposes of this article I will call them all societies. We are all familiar with national societies through G P Henderson and S P A Henderson's book, Directory of British associations (edition 6, cbd Research Ltd, Beckenham, Kent, 1980), but almost nothing is heard of their local equivalents. It is this phenomenon, and its implication for libraries, that I want to discuss.

IT'S A BAD start if you can't get into your hotel room at ten to two in the afternoon because it's not yet ready sir; then you read in the brochure (presumably provided by the management to improve such unshining hours) that you've booked into the oldest‐established hospice in town and they've had over three hundred years to prepare things. And it doesn't improve your temper to see the rate per night is what you paid in full six weeks ago through the agents, appointed by the Library Association, who promised ‘up to twenty per cent reduction’. Still, I don't know how I would have found my way all those twenty‐five miles to Brighton without the little paper pack marked ‘Precision Tours—Your Travel Documents’.

I RECEIVED a most unusual publication through the post the other day which may not strictly come within the scope of this column, since it won't answer any particular problem except that of where to go for your holidays. It's called The North: a feminist local history and holiday guide by Susan Evasdaughter and is one of a series of similar booklets that includes London, Home Counties, West Country, Wales, and Central England. The books are not intended to be comprehensive holiday guides listing the best places to stay, the most interesting walks etc, but rather set out by area some of the most important things of specific interest to women. Information ranges from ‘pre‐historic matriarchal times’ to present day feminist activities. There is information on women castle builders, famous lesbians, local women heroes, artists, queens and witches, suffragettes, politicians, discoverers etc. Where possible information is given about places for women to stay although there aren't many specifically for women. The quality of printing is fairly basic; I expect the booklets were produced on a shoestring, so don't expect tourist board glossies. However, a lot of work has obviously gone into them, each has a name index, and they would be useful additions not only for local studies collections but also for any libraries who have a community information section on women's studies. The booklets cost £1.00 from 47 Ladysmith Avenue, Newbury Park, Ilford, Essex.

THE FIRST MEETING of the LA Council in each year confirms the nomination of the new president by arranging his investiture with the badge of office by the outgoing incumbent. Last year Sir Fred Dainton had to buckle at the knees to allow Douglas Foskett to slip the blue ribbon over his head; this time he had to stretch up a little to negotiate Godfrey Thompson's ginger curls. The new president might have been only too willing to do the buckling but he was carrying the effects of a seasonal bug and once started on his way down, might never have stopped.