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Cloud computing is a relatively new phenomena. It has rarely been examined in the context of the small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the drivers and barriers to cloud computing adoption by SMEs in Ireland.

This study adopted an exploratory approach. A quantitative approach was adopted in the data collection phase. An online self-completion questionnaire was distributed by e-mail to 1,500 SMEs in Ireland. A response rate of 6 per cent was achieved generating 95 usable responses.

Findings from this study indicate that Irish SMEs are adopting cloud technology. The key driver identified is the resultant cost benefits for the firm. However, concern over continuous availability of the service is identified by the SME as a key challenge and is hindering widespread adoption of cloud technology.

This study whilst exploratory in nature, has laid the foundation for further research in the area of cloud computing adoption. This research should enable further studies to replicate this process with the possibility of extending the study to include other countries, on a larger scale and with a particular focus on the knowledge intensive business services sector. This study would benefit from adding a qualitative perspective to the research topic to add depth and enhance the “richness” of the data collected during the process.

This study concludes that policy makers and cloud providers need to provide assurances to SMEs over issues of continuous availability of the cloud service through increased and on-going investment in a high-speed, broadband infrastructure and through ensuring issues pertaining to standardization and compliance are resolved.

This exploratory research has illuminated this area through examining the drivers and barriers to cloud adoption by SMEs. In the Irish context, the benefits of engaging in such activity can reap many benefits. Of particular importance to a peripheral economy such as Ireland is the value of adopting cloud computing which is central to offering competitive advantage and controlling costs.

There is a growing academic literature exploring the fair trade movement but, to date, there has been little explicit discussion of accountability within the movement. This paper aims to cast the development of the fair trade movement within a shift from trust‐based relationships to standards‐based systems. The authors particularly aim to focus on the dominance of an external accountability approach being used for Fair Trade Labelling Organization International (FLO) certified products versus an internal accountability approach being adopted through organizational self‐assessment of World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) members.

While this is predominantly a conceptual paper, the authors draw on primary research with northern and southern fair trade organizations (FTOs). Five southern FTOs were interviewed along with three northern FTOs.

The paper illustrates the conflict that Power expressed about trust increasingly being placed in formalized “rituals” of auditing rather than in organizations. Standards‐based certification has played a crucial role in mainstreaming fair trade food which reduces the trust relationship to a label and relies on market‐based mechanisms of “ethical consumerism” to signal (dis)content with the operations of the certification system. By contrast, organizational self‐assessment under development by WFTO, which has proven popular amongst southern FTOs, fitting their organisational culture(s) and contributing to organisational learning and democracy, creates greater accountability to internal stakeholders such as producers.

This paper draws direct comparisons between the FLO system of certification of products and the WFTO process of self‐assessment of organizations. It demonstrates that the WFTO system builds on the movement's tradition of democracy and trust. Producers, southern FTOs, and northern FTOs must demonstrate their democratic principles throughout the supply chain up to consumers. Conversely the FLO system governs the products themselves and largely leaves the participants, other than producer groups, free of demands for corporate social responsibility and organizational learning.

This paper seeks to pinpoint the role played by social enterprises in the growth and mainstreaming of fair trade.

The review encompasses seminal papers on the growth and mainstreaming of fair trade.

A crucial role is played by social enterprises in establishing fair trade in the mainstream. However this mainstreaming is contested and is argued by some to also lead to potential mission drift.

This review primarily investigates the Northern aspects of fair trade, in particular the role of social enterprise in the market growth of fair trade and its mainstreaming. However more research is required to unpack the producer perspectives of mainstreaming fair trade.

The article investigates one of the pioneering fields of social enterprise to see what lessons can be drawn for other social enterprise sectors that have mainstream ambitions.

This contribution provides a novel review to demonstrate the role played by social enterprise in the growth of fair trade. It argues that the dual mission of fair trade is out of balance and is in danger of becoming reduced to a certification scheme based on minimum compliance. However a rebalancing of social and commercial objectives and acknowledging the innovative approach of fair trade social enterprises would strengthen this pioneering social movement.

The SMART Group Aims to Promote the Advancement of the Electronics Manufacturing Industry through the Education, Training and Notification of its Members in Surface Mount and Related Assembly Technologies, and by the Promotion of a Community of Electronics Manufacturing Professionals.

The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerable healthcare consumers foster social support through visual storytelling in social media in navigating healthcare consumption experiences.

This study employs a dual qualitative approach of visual and textual analysis of 180 Instagram posts from female breast cancer patients and survivors who use the platform to narrate their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study demonstrates how visual storytelling on social media normalises hidden aspects of healthcare consumption experiences through healthcare disclosures (procedural, corporeal, recovery), normalising practices (providing learning resources, cohering the illness experience, problematising mainstream recovery narratives) and enabling digital affordances, which in turn facilitates social support among vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This study highlights the potential for visual storytelling on social media to address shortcomings in the healthcare service system and contribute to societal well-being through co-creative efforts that offer real-time and customised support for vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This research highlights that visual storytelling on image-based social media offers transformative possibilities for vulnerable healthcare consumers seeking social support in negotiating the challenges of their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study presents a framework of visual storytelling for vulnerable healthcare consumers on image-based social media. Our paper offers three key contributions: that visual storytelling fosters informational and companionship social support for vulnerable healthcare consumers; recognising this occurs through normalising hidden healthcare consumption experiences; and identifying healthcare disclosures, normalising practices and enabling digital affordances as fundamental to this process.

National Engineers' Week takes place annually during the week of George Washington's birthday. Washington, best known as a soldier and stateman, was also a surveyor and road builder. The National Society of Professional Engineers began this tradition in 1950 with a two‐page article in The American Engineer. The society promoted Engineers Week on a national level beginning in 1951. February and March issues of The American Engineer in 1951 discussed the early celebrations of this week. The society's history (Robbins) also gives insights about the creation of this special week. Although the National Society of Professional Engineers initiated this week, other engineering organizations became involved later. At the present time, many organizations participate in the celebration. Each year, the National Society of Professional Engineers plans a particular theme for the week.

HERALDED by a leading article in The Times which appeared on the morning of its publication, the Report on the Public Libraries System of Great Britain by Mr. Lionel R. McColvin is now available. It will, without doubt, be the most carefully read current work in its own field, and its suggestions will be subjected to the closest scrutiny. Our correspondent in “Letters on Our Affairs” makes the first step in our pages in this direction, although, as he indicates, his views are merely preliminary. Last month we suggested that if such a report were issued by the Library Association, it should be made quite clear that it is the pronouncement of an individual and not an official document in the strict sense. Already, of course, as The Times leader seems to suggest, the distinction between Mr. McColvin's work and the views of the Library Association have been confused in the public mind. That was inevitable. But we understand that the Association at a later time will issue its own considered statement of what it thinks to be necessary and practicable in the re‐construction of the library service—if, indeed, it is reconstructed—to meet after‐war needs. On the whole, the book is quite readable and betrays very little of the hurry in which it must have been written: its facts seem to be sound and marshalled with considerable skill; its general outlook is generous. With much of it there will not only be agreement; there will be enthusiastic agreement. In so far as it is a proposed system for post‐war organization, it follows the lines already suggested by the Regional Systems created for Civil Defence, involving larger library areas administered from what Mr. McColvin believes to be the central town or other focus of each area. The counties as such disappear, the smaller towns and villages merge into the central town, and so we get in one way or another a cohesive, self‐sufficient and mutually supporting set of libraries in each area. It is around the choice of area and all its implications that discussion will rage and upon which it will be most difficult to obtain general consent. These units, however, while essential to Mr. McColvin's scheme, cannot be regarded other than as proposals to be discussed. Librarians will be quick to see that many of them will become branch librarians if the scheme matures, but in every one of the many schemes we have seen for post‐war re‐construction, larger units than the present ones are invariably implied, and this of necessity means the disappearance as chief officers of many now holding office. This is only one item in a whole series of discussable proposals. We hope that every one or our readers will study the Report and will bring to the common discussions that must be forthcoming a complete and, we hope, impartial understanding of what is involved.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper identifies and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material, in the area of library instruction and information literacy.

The paper provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.