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The Open University Library's remit expanded in 1995 to include services to students. These services primarily involve providing access and guidance on the use of a range of electronic information resources. Electronic journals are important, as the Library does not currently offer a document delivery service to students. This article discusses a number of the issues relating to licensing and access arrangements that affect students' access to electronic journals.

This paper reports a comparison of the retrieval effectiveness of the Alta Vista, Excite and Lycos Web search engines. A method is described for comparing the recall of the three sets of searches, despite the fact that they are carried out on non‐identical sets of Web pages. It is thus possible, unlike previous comparative studies of Web search engines, to consider both recall and precision when evaluating the effectiveness of search engines.

The purpose of this study is to determine user suggestions for digital libraries' functionality and features.

A survey was conducted as part of this study, in which users' suggestions for digital libraries were solicited, as well as their ranking opinions on a range of suggested digital library features.

The study revealed that, regardless of users' information technology (IT) backgrounds, their expectations of digital libraries' functionality are the same. However, based on users' previous experiences with digital libraries, their requirements with respect to specific features may change.

Involving users in digital library design should be an integral step in the process of building a digital library – in addition to the classic roles of evaluation and testing.

In previous digital library user studies, users were involved implicitly (e.g. observed) or explicitly (e.g. diary notes). However, they were never asked to suggest digital library features or functionalities, as this was left to usability and domain experts. This study approached digital library design from a new perspective, giving users an opportunity to express their suggestions on future functionality and features of digital libraries. Moreover, in contrast to previous work, this study has explicitly taken into account the IT abilities of those interacting with a digital library.

Young people can often “fall through the gaps” between Child and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS) and Adult Mental Health services (AMHS). This discursive viewpoint study aims to reflect a conversation among the authors on how CAMHS and AMHS psychiatry came together to develop and embed a UK community “Youth Mental Health Service”.

This reflective viewpoint study explores the perspectives of three of the lead CAMHS and AMHS psychiatrists from the implementation phase of a community youth mental health service. It explores, in a discursive way, these individuals’ views on some of the key facilitators and barriers in the development of the service that aimed to “bridge the gap” for young people.

These clinicians’ reflections recognise the importance of strong clinical leadership in enabling a youth/young adult model of mental health to be implemented. They also recognise how culture internal and external to a service has a key role to play in the success and sustainment of implementing an innovative model. This study describes a merging of CAMHS and AMHS psychiatry to meet the needs of young people in the most developmentally appropriate way.

This reflective study highlights the need for services and systems to think creatively about how they can allow flexibility for CAMHS and AMHS psychiatrists to learn and plan together, as well as gain experiences across the age ranges, to facilitate collaborative working that is developmentally appropriate and meets the needs of young people in a way that is accessible to them.

In 2014, the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland published its Safeguarding National Policy and Procedures (HSE, 2014). Under this policy, all agencies providing services through the social care directorate must ensure a robust culture of safeguarding is in place. Concurrent to this has been a move in social policy, practice and research to include the voice of the service user, both in terms of planning and reviewing services. (e.g. HIQA, 2012; Flanagan, 2020) This article examines whether service users with intellectual disabilities want to be involved in safeguarding plans and, if so, how that can be supported. Using focus groups service users demonstrated their knowledge of safeguarding as a concept, how they felt about the issues raised, and, crucially what they felt they would like to see happen next in addressing a safeguarding incident or concern. The focus groups took place in a large organisation providing residential services, day services, independent living supports and clinical supports. Engaging service users in planning and responding to safeguarding concerns is a fundamental principle of human rights legislation, both nationally and internationally. This study aims to highlight that it is both possible and desirable to engage fully with service users using a range of simple communication tools. For this to be implemented as routine practice in services providing support for people with intellectual disabilities, authentic leadership is required. Services will need to devote time, human resources and will need champions to get on board with the necessary culture shift.

Qualitative research examined peoples’ “lived experiences” and knowledge of safeguarding. Focus groups were used with thematic analysis highlighting common themes throughout, as guided by Braun and Clarke (2006). There were two objectives: Objective 1: measuring participant’s understanding of the safeguarding process. Objective 2: compare the potential differences between safeguarding plans devised by the participants in the focus groups, versus plans devised by trained designated officers responsible for safeguarding within the service.

Four principal themes emerged – 1. participants understanding of safeguarding; 2. restorative justice; 3. consent; and 4. high levels of emotional intelligence and compassion. Participants demonstrated that they could and did want to be involved in safeguarding planning and showed little variation in the plans compared to those completed by trained staff.

The study was completed with a small sample size in a single service in one area. It may not represent the lived experiences and knowledge of safeguarding in other services and indeed other countries. The video may have led to some priming; for instance, the Gardai in the footage being called may have resulted in the participants stating that contacting Gardai should be part of the plan. After the video was shown, there was a heightened awareness of safeguarding. This may indicate that participants are aware of safeguarding but unsure of the terminology or how to discuss it out of context.

For this to be implemented as routine practice in services providing support for people with intellectual disabilities, authentic leadership is required. Services will need to devote time and human resources and will need champions in the safeguarding arena to get on board with the shift in culture required.

While there did not appear to be many barriers to listening to participants, to progress this as a standard practice a very real shift in culture will be needed. It is important for practitioners to ask: Is the vulnerable person aware that this concern has been raised? What is known of the vulnerable person’s wishes in relation to the concern? To truly engage with service users in safeguarding plans these questions need to be more than a “tick box” exercise. This process needs to be fully embedded into a culture that promotes a person-centred, rights-based, inclusive approach as a standard rather than a one-off project. Some structural changes will be needed regarding the time given to designated officers, and what resources they can access (such as speech and language therapy). However, the real difference will be made by services operating authentic leadership that champions engagement on this scale, to fully answer the question posed by the researchers at the beginning of this report, “Whose safeguarding is it anyway?”

There appears to be little evidence of service user engagement in terms of planning and processing safeguarding responses, either in research or anecdotally.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what motivates members of the public to volunteer within the Special Constabulary and seek to understand their experiences when engaging in this role. There is little qualitative research examining the experiences of volunteers and yet such literature is pivotal in supporting positive future engagement of a valuable resource.

Six currently serving Special Constables (SC) were interviewed about their role. The semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analysed qualitatively through thematic analysis.

Thematic analysis identified four main themes: “Proud to be a Special”: active demonstration of pro-social behaviour; “Lines of Division”: recognition of distinction between SC and Regular Police Officers; “Levels of Training”: adverse consequences of inadequate training; and “Mind the Gap”: impact of financial austerity. The SC recognised their role as a utilitarian resource with both positive and negative impacts on all Police Officers.

The findings highlighted the need for a careful balance between having enough SC to maintain appropriate policing and yet ensuring opportunity for sufficient experience to develop and implement their skills, successful demonstration of which would support more positive working relationships with Regular Police Officers.

This paper offers readers a review of the literature on alcohol and illicit drug misuse in people with learning disabilities, focusing on six key areas. First, clarity is provided on the definition of ‘misuse’. Second, prevalence rates are examined along with the methodological difficulties involved in such studies, the authors arguing that prevalence rates are higher than current estimates. Third, the authors explore the relationship between the intra‐ and inter‐personal risk factors. Fourth, the nature of the substance misuse is explored, with a focus on offending behaviour. Fifth, a range of treatment modalities are described with a series of recommendations for more robust evidence‐based interventions. Last, the authors explore the gaps in policy that lead to a dearth in service provision as well the barriers which people with learning disabilities face on entering treatment services. The paper cites four innovative projects that address this population's needs in England, and illustrates how Northern Ireland has positioned the needs of this hidden population within the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland).

This study aims to report on the experience of using a strengths-based, solution-focused methodology for co-producing a gender-informed drug treatment service using an appreciative inquiry (AI) model (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987).

An AI model was used to facilitate a series of six workshops. Participants had a mixture of lived experience (n = 4, experience of accessing drug and alcohol services) and learned experience (n = 3, practitioners from a local drug service), with co-facilitators from Fulfilling Lives Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham (n = 2). The aim of the workshops was to understand barriers, identify solutions and co-create a service design offer. Data for this paper was collected using a series of focus groups, reflection logs and surveys, which sought to understand participants’ perceptions of using this model and the impact it had on them. Data was analysed manually using coded thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006).

Participants successfully co-created a women’s access to drug and alcohol service design and recommendations. Participants found the process of using the model a very positive experience with benefits, including increased self-esteem, group cohesion and balanced power. This study provides evidence of the AI model as an effective, practical tool for co-production work.

This case study considers a shift in approach to co-producing services with both lived and learned experience, which moves away from problem-focused consultations, towards solution-focused co-design. Consequently, providing evidence to support such a change.