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I ATTENDED the Famous Extra‐ordinary General Meeting of the la on January 6 as an ‘observer’ (which is all they would allow, shoving me in the back row next to Charles Ellis, to whom I made indecorous remarks as the proceedings unfolded). Few of the speeches bore much relationship to the motions and amendments under debate, the prize for irrelevance going to a smarmy young woman who droned on interminably about the unfairness of not doubling staff pay‐packets every five weeks or so; but this didn't much matter, as the audience had clearly arrived with the intention of passing the motion calling for more information about the financial crisis, and chucking out the ones aimed at personalities.

Research productivity is often counted as a major factor in evaluations and promotion. Librarians have had to find a way to pursue research along with performing job duties and professional service. Collaborative research can provide an effective solution for busy librarians who need to show a record of research. Additionally, it can be a cost‐effective means for library administrators to promote library faculty output in the face of reduced travel and research budgets. This paper seeks to address these issues.

In developing their research group, the authors began with a small, informal collaboration on an article describing new staffing models for library outreach. As the writing of the article proceeded, the group developed a more formal structure. As that article reached completion, the purpose of the group expanded to that of fostering creativity and following creative leads to a publishable (or presentable) conclusion.

In the two years during which the writing group has been working together, it has produced four articles and nine presentations, with several in‐progress efforts. In addition, the writing group has encouraged members to develop individual projects for presentation and publication outside of the group's scope.

The authors offer recommendations to other professionals interested in forming collaborative writing groups and to library administrators interested in encouraging their staffs to develop productive working relationships.

Few articles have been written about collaboration among librarians to promote their own research and publication. The authors describe in this paper an informal, yet highly effective means to foster faculty research productivity.

IMMEDIATELY after the EGM in January the editor invited me to write something about publishing since, as he put it, ‘people don't seem to know much about it.’ He suggested 1500 words: I have a straight, unvarnished tale to tell and will therefore resist commentary, though the temptation to irony is not absent!

The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategies and dynamics of the fledging accounting professional project in the context of boom, bust and reform in colonial Victoria. In doing so, the study provides evidence of the association of members of the Incorporated Institute of Accountants, Victoria (IIAV) (1886) and other auditors with banks that failed during the early 1890s Australian banking crisis, and addresses the implications for the professionalisation trajectory.

The study uses primary sources, including the surviving audited financial statements of a selection of 14 Melbourne-based failed banks, reports of relevant company meetings and other press reports and commentaries, along with relevant secondary sources, and applies theoretical analysis informed by the literature on the sociology of the professions.

IIAV members as bank auditors are shown to have been associated with most of the bank failures examined in this study, thereby not being immune from key problems in bank auditing and accounting of the period. The study shows how the IIAV, while part of the problem, ultimately became part of a solution that was regarded within the association’s leadership as less than optimal, essentially by means of 1896 legislative reforms in Victoria, and also addresses the associated implications.

The study reveals how a deeper understanding of economic and social problems in any context may be obtainable by examining surviving financial statements and related records sourced from archives of surviving business records.

The study elucidates accounting’s professionalisation trajectory in a colonial setting during respective periods of boom, bust and reform from the 1880s until around 1896 and provides insights into the development of financial auditing practices, which is still an important topic.

First Australian Online Information Conference. ‘Information Online 86’, the First Australian Online Information Conference and Exhibition, to be held at the Hilton International Sydney from 20–22 January 1986, will present the professional and business market with two opportunities. The first, an Exhibition, will comprise a display of publiclyavailable databases from around the world providing financial, business, educational, news, management, marketing, legal and medical information online. The second, a full Conference programme, including product reviews, will run concurrently with the Exhibition. This will enable the business or professional person to find out how online information improves business productivity, and how to select the appropriate online information systems to suit their particular needs.

This article aims to explore the impact of the Great War on the Sheffield armaments industry through the use of four company case studies in Thomas Firth, John Brown, Cammell Laird and Hadfields. It charts the evolving situation the armaments companies found themselves in after the end of the conflict and the uncertain external environment they had to engage with. The article also examines the stagnant nature of armaments companies’ boards of directors in the 1920s and the ultimate rationalisation of the industry at the close of the decade.

The research design is based around a close examination of the surviving manuscript records of each of the companies included, the records of the speeches recorded by chairpersons at annual meetings and some governmental records.

The article concludes by outlining how the end of the Great War continued to affect the industry for the following decade and the complex evolving situation with a changing external environment and continuity of management internally ultimately leading to mergers in the industry.

This article uses a number of underused manuscript records to examine the Sheffield armaments industry and explores the effect of a global mega event in the Great War on one of the most technologically advanced industries of the period.

Teacher research (inquiry) has been characterized as practice improvement, professional development and action research, among numerous names and descriptions. The purpose of this paper is to support the case that teacher research is also a form of quality improvement known as continuous process improvement (CPI).

The paper outlines the underlying characteristics, processes and sub‐processes employed by teacher researchers. Next, the same approach is applied to the underlying characteristics, processes and sub‐processes of CPI. Lastly, an analysis is performed to identify parallels between teacher research methodology and the methodology employed in CPI to support the case that teacher research is a form of CPI.

It is believed that a defensible analytical case has been built that where teacher research is conducted, the teacher's practice and the education of the students is undergoing CPI.

Schools and school administrators searching for techniques to improve the learning that takes place in their school should strongly consider and support teacher research as an effective means of quality improvement.

The paper presents a different perspective and view of teacher research in the context of CPI, which was once considered the domain of businesses and corporations.

As higher education becomes an increasingly global commodity, the rush is on to embrace best practice in the delivery of online courses. This author advocates that the delivery of such courses be treated as management of a Virtual team community of practice (VTCoP) and as such, delivering academics should embrace relevant theory and tools in this area.

Based on extensive work on European projects, the author advocates a timeline of relevant theory and tool application that can be applied to the lifecycle of an online course. Theory overviewed includes Use and Gratification theory, Social Exchange theory, Bond theory and Identity theory as well as IT-based models such as Information Systems Success Model (ISSM).

A theoretical model is presented.

The theoretical model has still to be tested.

The paper argues that by creating the conditions commensurate with a successful VTCoP throughout the engagement lifecycle, students are more likely to be engaged and committed to completing an online course.

The paper uses existing theory to potentially improve completion rates on online courses.

The paper is original in that it combines existing socio-technical theory from the informations systems domain with that of educational pedagogy to inform good practice.