Michael D. Naughton, Frances Hardiman and Emma Mansbridge
– The purpose of the current original research is to determine the effect that the current period of economic recession has had on maintenance practices in Ireland.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the current original research is to determine the effect that the current period of economic recession has had on maintenance practices in Ireland.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey, which was aimed exclusively at senior maintenance management level, was designed to assess the impact that this period of recession and subsequent austerity has had across three chosen indicators-technical, personal and economical-from a maintenance perspective.
Findings
It was determined that maintenance practices in Ireland, irrespective of the origin of the organisation, were not immune from budget reductions and reductions in the levels of maintenance personnel. The survey suggests that retrenchment was the option of choice for organisations with 19 per cent increasing maintenance intervals and 11 per cent reporting a decrease in machine availability as a result. An analysis was also undertaken to accept or reject the hypothesis that the maintenance practices of indigenous Irish organisations have been more adversely affected than those of their non-indigenous Irish-based counterparts. The hypothesis was accepted.
Research limitations/implications
Although the analysis is based upon simple descriptive statistics-it provides invaluable information to maintenance policy decision makers.
Originality/value
The work is entirely original. Any work from other authors is duly referenced.
Details
Keywords
Albert Weale, Katharina Kieslich, Peter Littlejohns, Aviva Tugendhaft, Emma Tumilty, Krisantha Weerasuriya and Jennifer A Whitty
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on improving equitable access to health care through increased public and patient involvement (PPI) in prioritization…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on improving equitable access to health care through increased public and patient involvement (PPI) in prioritization decisions by discussing the conceptualization, scope and rationales of PPI in priority setting that inform the special issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a mixed-methods approach in that it provides a literature review and a conceptual discussion of the common themes emerging in the field of PPI and health priority setting.
Findings
The special issue focuses on public participation that is collective in character, in the sense that the participation relates to a social, not personal, decision and is relevant to whole groups of people and not single individuals. It is aimed at influencing a decision on public policy or legal rules. The rationales for public participation can be found in democratic theory, especially as they relate to the social and political values of legitimacy and representation.
Originality/value
The paper builds on previous definitions of public participation by underlining its collective character. In doing so, it develops the work by Parry, Moyser and Day by arguing that, in light of the empirical evidence presented in this issue, public participatory activities such as protests and demonstrations should no longer be labelled unconventional, but should instead be labelled as “contestatory participation”. This is to better reflect a situation in which these modes of participation have become more conventional in many parts of the world.
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We are interested in the projected visit to be made by British librarians at Whitsuntide to the Brussels Institute of Bibliography. Unfortunately the tribulations of the past…
Abstract
We are interested in the projected visit to be made by British librarians at Whitsuntide to the Brussels Institute of Bibliography. Unfortunately the tribulations of the past seven years have rudely interrupted the pleasant relations British librarians were establishing with their Continental brethren. Visits were paid by the “Easter Schools,” as they were called, of the L.A.A. to Brussels, Paris, and Holland in 1911, 1912, and 1913, and in 1914 their foreign friends came to London. The feature of these “schools” was its list of visits to carefully‐selected libraries, but there was also a social side which occupied a great part of each day. We understand that the visit at present in view will have a similar character. If the spirit of former visits can be recaptured, all who go will have reason to congratulate themselves.
OUR correspondents have commented upon the meagreness of the newspaper attention to the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. The opportunities which the affair would seem to…
Abstract
OUR correspondents have commented upon the meagreness of the newspaper attention to the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. The opportunities which the affair would seem to afford for press comment are probably exaggerated by librarians, who quite naturally think their matters to be of importance. They are, but they have never been spectacular and are not likely to be so. What the modern pressman wants is a story ; he is not often interested in passive matters nowadays, and more than one editor has admitted that he is not concerned with what people say but with what they do. We may console ourselves to some extent by believing that our quiet work is more enduring than much that is greeted with fanfares. Snippets of facts about high issues of books, parsimony, or believed extravagance, are things that do find their way into the small paragraphs of daily papers. These may be good for our movement but there is no certainty that they are. The only sure advertisement of a library, publicly or otherwise maintained, is the quality of the service it can give.
DECEMBER sees the close of the presidency of Lionel R. McColvin. Few men in the record of the Library Association have more deserved the eminence the office affords and the…
Abstract
DECEMBER sees the close of the presidency of Lionel R. McColvin. Few men in the record of the Library Association have more deserved the eminence the office affords and the feeling is aroused that it is all too brief a tenure. None has used twelve months to more useful purpose. He presided over the Annual Conference with dignity and conducted the unfortunate Annual Business Meeting with a fairness that was scrupulous. He has given several public addresses, a notable one being that at the Manchester Public Library Centenary which may be read in The Manchester Review (Autumn, 1952); has served on at least one Government committee, has opened libraries, unveiled the L.C.C. tablet to William Ewart; has found time to address various branch and divisional meetings of librarians, to serve on the N.C.L. Executive Committee, to sign the Fellowship certificates of successful candidates and, of course, has presided over every meeting of the L.A. Council and, we understand, with such success that complete harmony ruled in that very miscellaneous body. He passes on his office with honour and with our gratitude.
A growing number of human rights NGOs have placed international volunteers in conflict zones from Guatemala and Colombia to Palestine and Iraq. This study samples from…
Abstract
A growing number of human rights NGOs have placed international volunteers in conflict zones from Guatemala and Colombia to Palestine and Iraq. This study samples from contemporary high-risk transnational activists and highlights the variation in biographical steps taken toward the shared outcome of participation in human rights work (HRW). Data was collected through 6 weeks of participant observation in Israel-Palestine, 21 in-depth interviews, and 28 shorter focused interviews with human rights workers (N=49). Oversampling from the International Solidarity Movement reveals how the unique constraints and opportunities presented by a particular conflict zone and NGO culture impacts self-selection into HRW. Grounded theory and Boolean methodology aided in identifying four main pathways (the nonviolent activist, peace church, anarchist, and solidarity pathways) to HRW as well as biographical patterns and complexities that have been underemphasized in the existing literature. These include the salience of transformative events and attitude changes in the process of constructing a cosmopolitan identity and committing to high-risk transnational activism.