Search results

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

OF old the public library was wont to take its reputation from the character of the newsroom. That room, as everyone knows, attracts every element in the community and it may be it attracts especially the poorer elements;—even at times undesirable ones. These people in some towns, but perhaps not so often now‐a‐days, have been unwashen and often not very attractive in appearance. It was natural, things being as they are, that the room should give a certain tone to the institution, and indeed on occasion cause it to be avoided by those who thought themselves to be superior. The whole level of living has altered, and we think has been raised, since the War. There is poverty and depression in parts of the country, it is true; but there are relief measures now which did not exist before the War. Only those who remember the grinding poverty of the unemployed in the days, especially the winter days, before the War can realise what poverty really means at its worst. This democratic levelling up applies, of course, to the public library as much as to any institution. At present it may be said that the part of the library which is most apparent to the public and by which it is usually judged, is the lending or home‐reading department. It therefore needs no apology if from time to time we give special attention to this department. Even in the great cities, which have always concentrated their chief attention upon their reference library, to‐day there is an attempt to supply a lending library service of adequate character. We recall, for example, that the Leeds Public Library of old was first and foremost a reference library, with a lending library attached; to‐day the lending library is one of the busiest in the kingdom. A similar judgment can be passed upon Sheffield, where quite deliberately the city librarian would restrict the reference library to works that are of real reference character, and would develop more fully the lending library. In Manchester, too, the new “Reference Library”—properly the new Central Library—has a lending library which issues about 1,500 volumes daily. There must be all over the country many libraries issuing up to a thousand volumes each a day from their central lending departments. This being the case the department comes in for very careful scrutiny.

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

The literature on defense-welfare tradeoffs has not been characterized by an emphasis on theory development. Indeed, most work has concentrated on using increasingly sophisticated statistical techniques to isolate empirical relationships in spending data on various countries. Unfortunately, however, this empirical enterprise has proven inconclusive, with some studies finding trade-offs and others not. In this paper, we suggest that a greater focus on theory development may help to resolve some of the empirical conflicts in this literature. In particular, we argue that there are at least two substantial bodies of theoretical work available that, while relevant to guns-butter questions, have remained to a large extent unexploited. One conclusion that we draw from this exercise is that the discussion of tradeoffs should probably move away form its current focus on primarily direct exchanges between spending on guns and butter, and instead begin to explore more indirect links which are acting through the economy.

DURING much of the Second World War, the affairs of the Library Association were conducted for the Council by an Emergency Committee. The record of its meeting on 10th June 1941, includes the following: “A resolution having been received suggesting that a committee be formed to consider post‐war reconstruction, it was resolved that by means of a notice in the LIBRARY ASSOCIATION RECORD, Branches and Sections should be invited to formulate suggestions for the consideration of the committee. A draft questionnaire for the purpose of an enquiry into the effects of the war on the public library service was approved”. In July, the Committee reported “further arrangements … for carrying out an exhaustive survey designed to give the necessary data for full and detailed consideration and ultimate recommendation as to the future of public libraries, their administration and their place in the social services”. The promised notice appeared as an editorial in September.

Greater fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake has been linked to more positive mood. Here, the purpose of this paper is to examine if this relationship is mediated by expectancies about their benefit to health/mental health.

Participants completed a new questionnaire to assess expectancies related to F&V intake. This was administered alongside a validated food-frequency measure of F&V intake, an assessment of positive and negative mood state and other measures.

Participants held strongly positive expectations about the physical and mental health benefits of consuming F&V. The authors observed a significant relationship between self-reported F&V intake and positive mood (d = 0.52). Importantly, this effect was largely (but not completely) independent of expectancies. The authors also observed that expectancies about F&V intake were independently predictive of positive mood (d = 0.47).

This is the first study to explore expectancy effects in the mental health benefits of F&V intake. These data suggest that positive expectancies about F&V intake, and F&V intake itself, are both predictive of positive mood. The former finding is probably a placebo effect, whereby people believe they are consuming sufficient F&V (even if they are not) and so experience mood-related benefits due to their positive expectations. The latter finding is consistent with F&V exerting a biologically beneficial effect on the brain.

MID‐OCTOBER sees the activities of the library world in full swing. Meetings, committee discussions, schools at work, students busy with December and May examinations in view, and a host of occupations for the library worker. This year—for in a sense the library year begins in October—will be a busy one. For the Library Association Council there will be the onerous business of preparing a report on State Control; for libraries there will be the effort to retain readers in a land of increasing employment and reduced leisure; and for the students, as we have remarked in earlier issues, preparations for the new syllabus of examinations which becomes operative in 1938. It is a good month, too, to consider some phases of library work with children, “which,” to quote the L.A. Resolutions of 1917, “ought to be the basis of all other library work.”

Leadership is one of the most complex and multifaceted phenomena to which organisational and psychological research has been applied. An evolutionary developmental perspective is used to create an evolutionary tree of leadership theory and reveal the path along which it has evolved. Nine evolutionary eras are identified, and requirements for a tenth era of leadership theory are discussed. These eras provide a broad framework for researchers and practising managers to categorise existing, and evaluate future, theories.

OUR issue devotes special attention this month to the subject of the library for children. There is a common inclination to regard this subject as the most over‐written in all branches of library literature. It certainly is the part of our work which leads to much sentimental verbiage. These are dangers against which we are on our guard; they may be inevitable, but we do not think they are. As a matter of fact there has been a great deal of talk about this matter by people who have ideas and ideals, but who have had no real experience in applying them. The paper by Mr. Berwick Savers, written for the Library Association Conference, points out very cogently what has been wanting in library work in this country. This question of the children's librarian has not been faced anywhere in what may be called the ultimate manner; that is, as a distinct, specialist branch of library work, requiring high qualifications and deserving good payment. There will be no really successful library work of the kind in Great Britain until this is done.