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Highlights the increasing importance of university library staff in an age of continuous (mainly) technological change. Explains that their interpersonal skills will be crucial in providing the added value in support of students using library technology. Suggests a greater involvement of staff in the change process including the use of management‐related skills by all staff (rather than exclusively by managers), wider participation in decision‐making and a greater degree of strategic awareness.

Reviews current trends in academic, mainly university, libraries. Issues selected for discussion as demonstrating most significant and longer lasting change include lifelong learning, frontline services and their quality, electronic libraries, and coping with continuous change.

Assertive outreach is based on extensive international research and has been promoted in the UK in 1999 as a key area of the National Service Framework for Mental Health. Its primary aim is to provide a specialist service for people disengaged from traditional approaches of mental health services, but very little attention has been paid to how such services can be developed. Practice Based Evidence, a practice development consultancy, has engaged seven assertive outreach teams to focus on development first, and follow‐up evaluation of the impact of reflective practice on team functioning. This has prompted a number of strengths‐based recommendations for changing the way we think about developing services before we engage in research and evaluation.

Gary Parr, deputy chairman of Lazard Freres & Co. and Kellogg class of 1980, could not believe his ears. “You can't mean that,” he said, reacting to the lowered bid given by Doug Braunstein, JP Morgan head of investment banking, for Parr's client, legendary investment bank Bear Stearns. Less than eighteen months after trading at an all-time high of $172.61 a share, Bear now had little choice but to accept Morgan's humiliating $2-per-share, Federal Reserve-sanctioned bailout offer. “I'll have to get back to you.” Hanging up the phone, Parr leaned back and gave an exhausted sigh. Rumors had swirled around Bear ever since two of its hedge funds imploded as a result of the subprime housing crisis, but time and again, the scrappy Bear appeared to have weathered the storm. Parr's efforts to find a capital infusion for the bank had resulted in lengthy discussions and marathon due diligence sessions, but one after another, potential investors had backed away, scared off in part by Bear's sizable mortgage holdings at a time when every bank on Wall Street was reducing its positions and taking massive write-downs in the asset class. In the past week, those rumors had reached a fever pitch, with financial analysts openly questioning Bear's ability to continue operations and its clients running for the exits. Now Sunday afternoon, it had already been a long weekend, and it would almost certainly be a long night, as the Fed-backed bailout of Bear would require onerous negotiations before Monday's market open. By morning, the eighty-five-year-old investment bank, which had survived the Great Depression, the savings and loan crisis, and the dot-com implosion, would cease to exist as an independent firm. Pausing briefly before calling CEO Alan Schwartz and the rest of Bear's board, Parr allowed himself a moment of reflection. How had it all happened?

An analysis of the fall of Bear Stearns facilitates an understanding of the difficulties affecting the entire investment banking industry: high leverage, overreliance on short-term financing, excessive risk taking on proprietary trading and asset management desks, and myopic senior management all contributed to the massive losses and loss of confidence. The impact on the global economy was of epic proportions.

Library orientation in Bristol Polytechnic was reappraised and the decision taken to develop a workbook as a potential alternative to the library induction tour and evaluate its effectiveness. Describes the project and the workbook. Outlines its implementation and evaluation and analyses the educational benefits of the workbook approach.

Suggests that although much was written during the 1980s on performance assessment in the public services sector, very little was published about the performance assesment actually taking place in higher education libraries with regard to reader services. Reports on research which aims therefore, to ascertain the commitment of institutions and their libraries to performance assesment, the nature and extent of assessment of three library reader services – document delivery, enquiry services and education – and the dissemination of results and ability to gauge satisfaction levels of library managers with current assessment procedures. A postal survey was carried out during the summer 1992. Results indicated that of those surveyed around one in three libraries, 15 per cent of libraries carried out no assessment of their reader services and last only one‐third of library managers felt satisfied with their performance assessment procedures.

For health and social care services to become truly person-centred requires a fundamentally positive mindset from professionals and care workers, and a willingness to take some risks. The purpose of this paper is to explore how this will apply to delivering dementia services, where almost all of the initial impressions are of deficits, disability and disadvantage.

The co-authors combine their knowledge and experience of supporting and developing staff working in dementia services. The concept of positive risk-taking is explored within the legislative framework of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Safeguarding and the Care Act 2014.

Practitioners face a range of challenges when it comes to supporting people living with dementia to take risks through exercising personal choices and making their own decisions. However, the concept of positive risk-taking applies equally to people living with dementia who have or who lack mental capacity in relation to their decision making.

This paper places positive risk-taking within a context of strengths-based, values-based and relationship-based working. Practical tips are offered for putting positive risk-taking into practice.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.