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To investigate the factors associated with the use of screening mammography for breast cancer and cervical smear tests for cervical cancer, a theoretical framework was used comprising elements from the Health Belief Model, the Theory of Reasoned Action, and illness representations from the self‐regulatory model. Items reflecting older women’s illness representations about cancer and cancer screening were derived from an earlier qualitative study. Using a highly structured interview schedule, telephone interviews were conducted with 1,200 women aged 50‐70 years. There were considerable similarities between the factors associated with both mammography and cervical smear test behaviours. The factors associated with screening mammography behaviour were: perceived barriers, perceived benefits, social influence, the illness representations, and marital status. The factors associated with cervical smear test behaviour were: perceived barriers, perceived benefits, emotions as a cause of cancer, feeling frightened of cancer, the illness representations, having a usual general practitioner, and being younger.

Women’s understanding of familial aspects of breast cancer was examined using both focus groups and interviews. The studies covered issues related to perceptions of breast cancer risk factors, perceived breast cancer risk, understanding of risk information, and family history of breast cancer as a risk factor. Study 1 consisted of four focus group discussions with women from the general community. Study 2 comprised ten face‐to‐face interviews with women who had a family history of breast cancer. The results in combination indicate a fairly high level of awareness of family history as a risk factor for breast cancer. However, the definition of a familial history of breast cancer differed between the groups, with those without a family history being more inclusive than those with such a history. The paper concludes with suggestions for use by those developing resources materials for those with a familial history of breast cancer.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) programme centers on developing students' international mindedness. Central to this effort is the programme's “Learner Profile,” which details ten attributes that teachers seek to cultivate through classroom instruction. This article reports on the ways that middle grades and high school social studies and English teachers in Chicago Public Schools' (CPS) IB programmes are attempting to implement the Learner Profile as part of their classroom practice to support students' international mindedness.

The project was carried out as a two phase, sequential mixed-methods design. Phase I entailed a survey of IB teachers and programme coordinators across CPS to assess the incorporation of the Learner Profile into instruction. Phase II consisted of mixed-methods case studies of CPS IB programmes selected partially on Phase I data analysis.

We find that while teachers express high levels of familiarity with the Learner Profile attributes and confidence in incorporating them into practice, we find wide variation in the actual implementation. Taken as a whole, we find CPS programmes take divergent approaches to incorporating the Learner Profile based on differences in understanding of the attributes and its purposes as well as key organizational facets related to implementation.

Ultimately, we argue that the wide variation and lack of explicit incorporation of the Learner Profile into classrooms is related in large part to the broad, indistinct nature of “international mindedness” as a concept. The programme would benefit from creating more space for teacher and students to critique the concept, especially those working from non-Western traditions.

A LETTER from the President of the Library Association (Mr. Berwick Sayers) has been received which we have pleasure in giving prominently.

IN their schemes of after‐the‐war library work those who prepare them would do well to confine themselves to a few cardinal principles. A London scheme that we have seen appears to concern itself with areas to be covered, actually picking out certain cross‐roads as centres to which traffic runs as suitable centres from which area activity might radiate. All this, as the scheme‐makers themselves rather suggest, seems to be premature and much of it, ingenious as it is, is extremely debatable local topography. We would not discourage such scheme‐making so long as its speculative character is recognized. Yet it might be better if the factors of an adequate library service were first determined. They may not be new; they may indeed be mere affirmations of approved good practice. These considerations, we are sure, have not been overlooked by those who plan, nor by Mr. McColvin in drafting his report on our needs.

This paper examines the accounts of three women, taken from the general population, who will not seek help for their alcohol problems. The narrative construction of their drinking forms a bricolage from the babble of discourses around alcohol that they encounter in their everyday lives. Much of the literature on alcohol & alcohol problems is written from the point of view of subjective experience mapped onto an objective definition which may show that they are not offering a true account of themselves, that they are in denial, or that they are displacing their (real) problem with alcohol onto something else. In this scenario, a cure can only be effected by first making the women understand, & then admit, what their real problem is. It is suggested that the reason these women, & possibly others, do not seek help is precisely because they fear that their own stories will be denied as untrue & that in this process, their own identities & personal accounts will be lost. In the confusion & difficulty they experience in defining the problem, they need an open space where they can explore their drinking & increase their knowledge from the many knowledges available, but free from the constraints & risks that they feel access to these knowledges would inevitably involve.

THE wheels of the warring world continue to turn with as yet no obviously decisive result. In no place, however, does normal life prevail, however much it may appear to do so. We hear of unoccupied men and women, but rarely meet them; most able‐bodied folk have their national employment, as well as their vocation, today, and the whole race is better for it. Savage and critical as the scene is our people have kept physical and mental health in an unprecedented measure. So far as libraries are concerned, we live in times really remarkable, because the reading of books has been proved to be necessary to the well‐being of the community in the most strenuous days. A glance at the average library report will give evidence enough, and we are receiving more reports of late than in the first and second year of war. One such report, from Worthing, is a typewritten document showing that 55 per cent. of the population are actually enrolled, and that this town of less than sixty thousand people borrowed in 1941–2 little less than 800,000 volumes, a turnover of over twelve per head. We do not know that this is unique, but it must be regarded as the tale of a service which reaches everybody, because most books taken out of a library are read by several members of the household into which they go. While this is the tale of a seaside “neutral” area, from which, however, visitors are barred during “the invasion season,” in the more dangerous areas with their greatly reduced populations issues are returning to pre‐war levels. Even where this is not so, it is found that head for head more books are given out by public librarians than ever before. When we add to their work that of the subscription libraries, a great activity of which we have no figures, the claim that the English are becoming a literate nation seems to have some substance. Anyway, it reads words in enormous quantity.

The Library Association Conference has once more been held, and in spite of the smaller attendance and the omission of most of the usual social and local functions, there was a spirit of camaraderie and interest displayed that has made the meeting a decided success. It met at a time of such national strain that we may surely hope will never recur during the experience of the present generation, a time when all professions, occupations and business enterprises seem of small interest in comparison to the great national effort being made to defend the positions of ourselves and our Allies, against the overbearing aggression of a military despotism, so organised and trained, so powerful and unscrupulous as to call for the highest self‐devotion and sacrifice of all and every member of our immense Empire. It is therefore not a matter of surprise that although the number of members present was somewhat smaller than usual the tone of the Conference was kept at a high level, and attention was mainly focussed upon business matters.

THE new President of the Library Association, a handsome portrait of whom appears in the December Library Association Record, brings to the office the influences of a career of fine public service. We, in common with every journal that speaks to and for librarians, assure him of loyalty and congratulate ourselves on this addition to the roll of distinguished men who have served librarianship. The Record is wise in reminding us that we are more than a librarians' association and the regular election of men of affairs as presidents is a policy that used to be followed and should now be continued. The policy need not exclude in normal circumstances an alternate librarian president.

This paper reviews evidence about the relationships between NHS services and nursing and residential homes in England and Wales. Since the transfer in 1993 of responsibility for funding nursing and residential home care for less affluent older people to local authority social services departments, nursing and residential care has been widely assumed to constitute part of ‘social care’ services. This obscures the fact that residents of nursing and residential care homes frequently have substantial and complex healthcare needs. While some of these healthcare needs may be met through the care provided within homes themselves, most will require substantial contributions from NHS medical, nursing, pharmaceutical and other services. The National Service Framework for Older People (Department of Health, 2001) prioritises reinvestment in intermediate care services, building on the expectation in The NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000a) that residential and nursing homes will play a major role in the development of these services. This expectation has been further reinforced by the Concordat with the private and voluntary healthcare provider sector (Department of Health, 2000b). However there is little evidence about the NHS services which are currently provided to nursing and residential homes, nor about the capacity of mainstream NHS services to meet the projected development of intermediate care services within the independent institutional sector. This paper reviews the evidence which is available and highlights some of the priorities which primary care groups in England (local health groups in Wales) will need to consider if they are to develop integrated and good quality services for frail older people.