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This article is prompted by a concern for both quantity and quality of public library bookstocks. Twenty years ago, the Bourdillon report thought fit to focus concern for public librar) standards on urban areas of 30–40,000 population. Since then the shortcomings of crude numerical standards have been indicated, notably by P. H. Sewell, “The evaluation of library services in depth” (Unesco Bulletin for libraries, 32 Nov.‐Dec. 1968, pp 274–280) and to some extent recognised in the latest IFLA Standards for public libraries. But crude numeric data may have its uses in prompting deeper enquiry. In addition, concern that “comprehensive and efficient” service is a lost battle for readers in rural areas (who it would seem must accept disadvantage in the modern situation) results in a plea that the Bourdillon urban area—50,000 population is chosen for convenience—is where perhaps public librarians should seek a defence line.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the linkages between climate change, income dynamics and nutrition intake in rural China.

Using a system of simultaneous equations in a three-stage least squares model instrumented with carbohydrates, fats, proteins and farm income the authors found generally that the greatest impact on nutrition would be from changes in temperature.

The authors do not find that modest changes in precipitation affect nutrient intake, but extreme events such as drought do. Furthermore, the authors found a strong income effect and this income effect is opposite the heating effect. This may suggest that large swings in nutrient intake brought about by climate change may be countermanded by equivalent increases in income. The authors also found that in terms of general measures of elasticity that market effects, especially in the price of meats, can impact carbohydrate, fat and protein intake as much as global warming.

The authors believe that three aspects of this manuscript will make it interesting. First, in the short term, poorer households would be the most vulnerable and sensitive to climate change. However, in the long term, all households in rural China appear able to deal with changing climatic conditions through adaptation. Second, the authors do not find evidences to prove the existence of a poverty nutrition trap in rural China. Third, the results also indicate that, the nutrition intake of households in rural China is more prone to gradual changes, rather than extreme events.

‘IT MIGHT BE SUGGESTED’, wrote George Blake in 1956, introducing the BBC radio‐drama series Annals of Scotland, ‘that Robin Jenkins is potentially the most interesting of the younger Scottish novelists’. Nor has the potential gone unrealized: in October 1969 he received a Scottish Arts Council publication award of £300 for his most recent book, The Holy Tree. On that occasion the Scotsman critic remarked that Jenkins ‘should need less introduction than one feels he does’, and this summarizes the paradox which must for long enough now have been troubling his admirers. Jenkins, besides being a prolific and highly praised novelist, is a remarkably neglected one.

Firms facing significant income volatility can often suffer from downside risk such that return on assets is insufficient to meet fixed financial obligations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a prescriptive credit solution for small businesses facing exogenous income risk.

Formulas for risk‐contingent operating and collateralized loans are developed and simulated in the context of a specific business sector.

The paper demonstrates that a structured credit product with an imbedded option can reduce or eliminate financial risks by providing payouts that decrease the amount of principal and/or interest that firms must repay under low income states.

The overall objective of this paper is to provide a means to mitigate exogenous income risk faced by firms through the design and application of a risk‐contingent credit product that is tied to primary markets and simple to implement. In this context, risk contingency credit refers to a suite of financial products with payoff schedules (loan principal) that are linked to specific commodities or indices. The authors are in fact unaware of any commercial financial products of the type considered in this paper and thus their approach is a prescriptive solution to the identified problem.