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Highlights the improvement in the safety record of Birse Civils (NW) that resulted, at least in part, from a training program that won a regional training award in the most recent UK National Training Awards.

Gives the inside story of what gave rise to the training “need”, how the training was developed, the numbers and grades of employee trained, and the outcomes of the training.

Demonstrates that the four training programs described – site‐safety management, Construction Skills Certification Scheme, first‐aid training and “appointed person” training for lifting operations – have helped to bring about an almost unprecedented zero accident rate for the company.

Demonstrates how the training helped to improve flexibility, company reputation and employee morale at Birse Civils (NW).

Contains much to interest employers in high‐risk sectors such as construction.

IT is very appropriate that this number of THE LIBRARY WORLD should be devoted to the subject of cataloguing. This has become current in a special degree owing to the activity of the A.L.A. and the L.A. committees on both sides of the Atlantic, who are engaged in reviewing the Anglo‐American Code of Cataloguing Rules. Cataloguing is a subject that figures more in the minds of candidates for examinations than it does in the average conversations of librarians, but there is no more important subject in the librarian's life and no more significant activity. Our readers may not accept the implications of the somewhat vigorous “Letters on Our Affairs” which appear in this number, but it could be urged that there are many things to consider in cataloguing which have immediate importance. The matter was a simple one in former days. Forty years ago every library in this country of any size found it possible to issue a printed catalogue of some sort or other. The objections to these printed catalogues are commonplace to‐day; they were expensive, their cost was not recovered by sales, and they were incomplete from the beginning. The point is that libraries somehow managed to publish them, and those libraries were, as our correspondent suggests, of as good service to literature in its best sense as are present libraries.

AFTER‐CONFERENCE time is the period of reflection, and this year one involving several interests. There was uttered on the platform a warning that the question of the government control of public libraries was in the air; and Mr. Jast rigidly deprecated the discussion of the matter as a bye‐product of another subject then being debated. Library authorities and librarians, however, are asking for a lead from the Library Association, the only body competent or authorized to give it, and no doubt this will form the cardinal “policy” question of the winter.

LIBRARY activity has been very great since the year opened. On all sides librarians report issues which are greatly in excess of any previously reached. This has been interpreted by ourselves and by others as a reflex of the general unemployment. It is also due no doubt to the lack of pence on the part of many people for amusements, who find that reading is a cheap form of diversion. There can be no cause for anything but satisfaction in the fact that in such unhappy times our people turn to books. It is a hopeful sign, for the nation that reads gathers a resilience and buoyancy which can be got from few other activities.

WE are happy to publish a very interesting and practical little article on a simplified system of borrowers' registration. Such a question may seem to have been settled long ago and not to deserve further discussion, but Miss Wileman makes it quite clear that there is still a little more to be said. Not all librarians will agree with her on one point, although recently it seems to be accepted by some librarians that the numbering of borrowers' tickets is unnecessary, and especially the decimal numbering of them. This matter has been discussed at various meetings of librarians who use these numbers, and they arc, we understand, unanimous in their desire to retain them. They are not intended for a single library such as is at present in operation at Hendon, from which our contributor writes. They are for a system of many branch libraries with a central registration department, and where there is telephone charge and discharge of books. The number is simply intended to give an accurate and rapid definition of an actual person. This we have said several times before, we think, and to dismiss a method which has been found successful with the statement that it is surely unnecessary rather implies that the writer has not fully understood the question. That, however, does not reduce the value of our article.

SEPTEMBER this year will be unique in the history of the librarian in England in that for the first time in nearly sixty years the annual conference of the Library Association has already become a memory only. There are those who profess to believe that the conference should be restored to the autumn months. It may be suggested on the other hand that the attendance at Margate lent no assistance to that point of view; indeed, the Margate conference was one of the most pleasant, one of the most successful, of which we have record. Nevertheless, if it can be proved that any large body of librarians was unable to be present owing to the change of month, it appears to us that the matter should be considered sympathetically. Although no one holds any longer the view that one week's attendance at a conference will teach more than many months' study in hermit‐like seclusion—the words and sentiments are those of James Duff Brown—because to‐day there is much more intimate communication between librarians than there was when that sentiment was expressed, there is enormous value, and the adjective is not an exaggeration, in one large meeting of librarians in body in the year. It is an event to which every young librarian looks forward as the privilege to be his when he reaches a high enough position in the service; attendance is a privilege that no librarian anywhere would forego. And this, in spite of the fact that there is usually a grumble because the day is so full of meetings that there is very little chance of such recreation as a seaside, or indeed any other, place visited, usually provides for the delegates.

Mental health courts (MHCs) may enable better support for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) within the criminal justice system (CJS) but little evaluative empirical evidence is available regarding their operation. The purpose of this paper is to explore professional perceptions of the challenges of including people with ID in a targeted services court (TSC) designed for people with mental health issues and ID.

Information was gathered, via interviews and focus groups, from 46 professionals working with people with mental health issues and ID within the TSC. Data were analysed by using thematic network analysis.

Findings highlight the neglect and lack of inclusion of people with ID within the TSC processes, with challenges in identifying people with ID, stakeholder awareness, inconsistent adapting of practices for people with ID and information transfer underpinned by the involvement of numerous organisations with differing agendas.

Although valued, development of a TSC, including people with ID, was a challenging endeavour and may reflect societal and institutional neglect of people with ID, recommendations are provided.

This study adds to the few investigations that have considered the process of including people with ID in a TSC from the perspective of those working in the CJS.