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This research evaluated learning outcomes of a leadership development program at a large, southern land grant institution. The program is an interdisciplinary, semester-long class where experience and theory are juxtaposed to offer leadership training and development. Through an intensive research project, the program exposes students to four practical skills and four adaptive skills related to leadership development. The research outcomes of this study found that students did perceive to have gained the intended leadership skills as related to the four practical and four adaptive skills set forth by the program curriculum. As leadership programs continue to grow, these programs must be assessed and evaluated to continue to garner merit within the academic community.

Two studies of compulsory ballots in trades unions are discussed.

Political change in the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union during 1960‐80 is examined and the role of “parties” (legitimate and permanent groups) and “factions” (non‐legitimate and transient groups) in unions is discussed. Whether the presence of specifically “party competition” may be used to distinguish democratic unions from non‐democratic ones is questioned, demonstrating that factions may attain legitimacy, supposedly the key distinguishing attribute of parties. Secondly, it is argued that electoral outcomes and group fortunes may be crucially affected by autonomous shifts in membership goals rather than determined by the relative organising ability of elite group leaders (as is usually assumed). The spread of compulsory secret ballots may stimulate greater efforts to influence elections but also engender less stable groupings. Finally, no necessary connection is detected between the citizen as voter and the trade unionist as voter.

To evaluate whether “numerical flexibility” – specifically a form of temporary and precarious employment – hourly‐paid part‐time teaching in the UK higher education sector – adds strategic value and demonstrates good practice.

The study is based on new evidence drawn from five case study organisations in which a range of managers was interviewed in depth.

Analysis identifies a continuum of strategies from integration into the main workforce through to “deepened differentiation”. Although integration is somewhat problematic when applied to a diverse group, differentiation seems predicated on a defensive, risk management approach designed to further marginalise this activity. Also, differentiation fails to address the aspirations of many employees, creating tensions between institutional strategy and the needs of academic heads.

The number of case studies is limited. These case studies were selected because they had the most proactive strategies on this issue, which infers that the majority of employers in HE have not been rather less strategic or proactive.

The paper is of particular value to HR professionals considering the use of numerical flexibility approaches. It also contributes to the academic debate on the strategic value of such approaches.

The paper explores a neglected but important area of the workforce. The paper notes that some supposed benefits of numerical flexibility might be illusory, such as the deployment of allegedly “cheap and disposable” substitute workers which may be offset by unintentional consequences including rigidities in an organisation's human resource systems.

Financial service institutions design commercial lending mechanisms for small businesses with specific kinds of business owners in mind, that is, owners who already own or have access to both capital and productive resources. Given the conventional mechanisms devised by traditional lenders, individuals without productive capital appear to be costly, high risk borrowers. Today a new financial service institution called micro‐lending offers credit to just these high risk borrowers by constructing alternative lending mechanisms based on peer networks. These alternative mechanisms reduce the costs of lending to a higher risk population while providing access to business information and human capital skills, creating opportunities to build productive capabilities and other, less tangible resources, such as community networks. Using a case study of a neighborhood‐based inner‐city micro‐loan program in New England, I investigate how micro‐lending operates to reduce the costs of lending, as well as examine the group interaction that emerges among program participants.

THE London & Home Counties Branch of the Library Association is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, and fortuitously the jubilee falls on the same day of the week as the branch's foundation—Tuesday, May 1. The branch is holding a buffet reception at Buckingham Palace Road Library that evening, to which all present and former members are cordially invited and which will be attended by LA President K C Harrison, himself a former chairman of the branch.

In 1962, the American Association of Law Libraries published the first edition of the present work. It was reviewed in this Journal (vol. 19, no. 1, 1963, p. 27), and perhaps not everything that was then said in its praise, although fully applicable to the second edition, need be repeated. The work was deservedly very successful and soon went out of print. The Association decided to revise it and Miss Finley, a leading practitioner of the art or science of private law librarianship, became, on her retirement, available to carry out the revision. The second edition is a substantial book bound in hard covers, has nearly twice the number of pages of the first, and, unlike its predecessor, is equipped with an index.

Describes the foundation of the Common‐wealth Library Association in 1972 discussing the circumstances leading to the Association and surrounding its creation; the early years of the Association; its disappointments and achievements. Highlights the major figures involved in the Association and discusses the current need for a Commonwealth Library Association and its possible future role.

This is an attempt to outline a sociological, and in particular a theoretical response to the challenge of European integration and its associated socio‐spatial restructuring.