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An opinion survey of mentally disordered prisoners was undertaken to ascertain their views on the responsiveness of mental health and criminal justice services to their perceived needs while in the community.The findings reveal that their illness and offending behaviour were not deemed serious enough to warrant intervention by forensic psychiatric services but their needs were too complex for mainstream community care services. They felt vilified and marginalised by many professional workers and were unlikely to seek help themselves. Psychiatric intervention was therefore usually precipitated by a crisis. Hospital and prison aftercare was not always pursued, leading to deterioration in mental health and/or offending behaviour, followed by further detention.The authors argue the need to broaden the referral criteria of community agencies to avoid excluding MDOs. They make a number of recommendations to ensure this vulnerable group receives adequate ongoing care and support following release.

UKOLN (the UK Office of Library and Information Networking) has created a Web resource based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel Treasure Island in order to explore how a children's library can integrate the Internet into its services. The site is at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/treasure. Visitors to the site can learn more about the book, contribute book reviews, design a pirate and wander around a virtual Treasure Island.

Perceived compatibility between requirements of managerial work and attributes of women is believed important to the advancement and success of women, and research demonstrates continued ambivalence about women executives. The question of how images of women executives are disseminated, reproducing or contesting negative characterizations, has received little attention. The research reported here focuses on US business press as a cultural carrier disseminating images of women executives. Critical discourse analysis examined 27 front page Wall Street Journal accounts of 22 women executives in the year following Carly Fiorina’s appointment to head Hewlett‐Packard; 20 front page accounts of 24 men executives were used as comparison. Prominently featured articles on women executives provide fractured images of women as executives: while some accounts are positive, other portrayals reinforce negative perceptions of women’s competence and likeability as executives and concerns about the social order. Similar issues are not raised in coverage of male executives. Author gender does not seem to affect the portrayal.

Current public education, overwhelmed by piece‐meal reform efforts, is in need of systemic renewal. An investigation of key literature – systems methods, instructional design, and group process models – yields the conditions necessary for systemic change and a suitable base model. Namely, a successful systemic educational change effort is ideal‐based, holistic, continuing, participatory, user‐friendly, easy to adjust/improve, and emancipatory. A suitable base model is discovered in the learning systems of Alcoholics Anonymous and then built on for a new model: the Roundtable (RT) for secular learning. Briefly, the RT session is designed so that leadership and learning opportunities are distributed among all participants, who have equal time to present their ideas. Pilot studies in professional scientific organizations allowed refinement of the model. This study investigated sought the seven conditions in four RT applications in 4th‐grade classrooms in California. Participants at each site were the teacher and their 30±1 students. Each teacher held ten RT sessions, with students leading two to three of the last four sessions. Evidence was sought in the RT texts, session recordings, and users’ views. The criteria were met in the following ways. The RT applications were: ideal‐based in the RT texts; user‐friendly as they were user‐ready and engaging; easy to adjust/improve in the simple revision session tasks, and emancipatory as users learned in important, positive and unanticipated ways. The RT applications were holistic: found suitable for all classroom levels at both schools, and for all school groups at one school. They were continuing after the study in 2 or 3 of the four classrooms. They were very participatory in the roles of listener, reader, and speaker; somewhat participatory in the leader and co‐planner roles. Contributions to organizational /educational change theory and future projects are promising.

HIS holidays over, before the individual and strenuous winter work of his library begins, the wise librarian concentrates for a few weeks on the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. This year the event is of unusual character and of great interest. Fifty years of public service on the part of devoted workers are to be commemorated, and there could be no more fitting place for the commemoration than Edinburgh. It is a special meeting, too, in that for the first time for many years the Library Association gathering will take a really international complexion. If some too exacting critics are forward to say that we have invited a very large number of foreign guests to come to hear themselves talk, we may reply that we want to hear them. There is a higher significance in the occasion than may appear on the surface—for an effort is to be made in the direction of international co‐operation. In spite of the excellent work of the various international schools, we are still insular. Now that the seas are open and a trip to America costs little more than one to (say) Italy, we hope that the way grows clearer to an almost universal co‐working amongst libraries. It is overdue. May our overseas guests find a real atmosphere of welcome, hospitality and friendship amongst us this memorable September!

This paper is concerned with what should happen after design-led events have been held to promote co-decision-making, between professionals and local stakeholders, in collaborative planning of the built environment. Rather than being standalone, such events form one single step in a multi-stage collaborative planning process. What comes before and after them has to be acknowledged as important to their effective contribution to collaborative planning. This paper aims to make a case for giving more attention to the post-event stages of collaborative planning, to ensure that the involvement of the public produces real and tangible benefits.

Content analysis of both academic and grey literatures was undertaken to examine emerging advice on how to conduct decision-making, the implementation of outputs and the delivery of desired outcomes, after design-led events. A critical review of the post-event decision-making and delivery activities is offered, which aims to add to the current academic literature on the deployment of design-led events. An attempt is made to sketch out the characteristics of post-event stages, drawn from the literature and collated specific examples of collaborative planning investigated in Scotland.

Three key factors are identified as affecting the successful implementation of decisions reached at design-led events: (1) a shared follow-on plan, (2) an agreed action programme for delivering this and (3) a properly constituted and resourced delivery vehicle that can monitor and evaluate progress. A research agenda to address questions raised but left unanswered is suggested dealing with how the decision-making and delivery activities following design-led events in collaborative planning might be improved.

A research agenda to address questions raised but left unanswered is suggested dealing with how the decision-making and delivery activities following design-led events in collaborative planning might be improved.

Book review by James W. Bronson. Rob van der Horst, Sandra King-Kauanui, and Susan Duffy, ed., Keystones of Entrepreneurship Knowledge, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. ISBN 9781405139212

Government attention to women’s entrepreneurship has increased in the past two decades; however, there are few cross-cultural studies to inform policy development. This paper aims to draw on gender and institutional theory to report on the status of female-focused small and medium-sized enterprises/entrepreneurship policies and to ask how – and to what extent – do women’s entrepreneurship policies differ among countries?

A common methodological approach is used to identify gaps in the policy-practice nexus.

The study highlights countries where policy is weak but practice is strong, and vice versa.

The study’s data were restricted to policy documents and observations of practices and initiatives on the ground.

The findings have implications for policy makers in respect of support for women’s entrepreneurship. Recommendations for future research are advanced.

The paper contributes to extant knowledge and understanding about entrepreneurship policy, specifically in relation to women’s entrepreneurship. It is also one of the few studies to use a common methodological approach to explore and compare women’s entrepreneurship policies in 13 countries.

Due to recent Affordable Care Act reforms, prevention of readmissions is a salient issue for hospitals that participate in Medicare, as they are now held accountable for patients who receive post-acute care in facilities over which hospitals have little influence to monitor care. Using resource dependence and transaction cost economics to describe the theoretical advantages of hospital ownership of post-acute care facilities (PACs), we empirically test whether hospitals that own PACs experience reduced readmissions. Our findings indicate partial support for the predicted relationship between PAC ownership and readmission rates. We found that hospital ownership of a skilled-nursing facility (SNF) was related to a lower readmissions rate for some patients, while ownership of other types of PACs did not result in significant findings. Our results offer support for the theoretical advantages of ownership, however, the savings realized by ownership may not merit the ownership investment.