This paper seeks to record a collaborative project in the management of legacy collections.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to record a collaborative project in the management of legacy collections.
Design/methodology/approach
The eight New Zealand university libraries have a history of collaboration and sought a shared storage solution. It was agreed that a single copy of low‐use print serials would, in most cases, be sufficient for the country's research communities. The libraries have chosen to outsource storage to a commercial provider with facilities throughout the country.
Findings
The paper describes the background to the New Zealand situation, the process of reaching this decision and the challenges of implementation across a group of libraries, including the rationalisation of the eight collections to retain a single shared copy.
Originality/value
The case is relevant to library consortia undertaking collection management projects.
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Violence and aggression against mental health professionals is a global concern with well-documented consequences. In the UK, mental health care is increasingly delivered in the…
Abstract
Purpose
Violence and aggression against mental health professionals is a global concern with well-documented consequences. In the UK, mental health care is increasingly delivered in the community, yet little research has explored practitioner experiences of workplace violence (WPV) outside of inpatient settings. This study aimed to explore how mental health professionals in a UK community mental health team (CMHT) perceive, experience and cope with WPV.
Design/methodology/approach
Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten multidisciplinary professionals based in a CMHT in a UK city. Data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Findings
Three interconnected themes emerged. WPV was accepted as inevitable: participants carried on working despite its impact, and feeling unheard by management they gave up on change, perpetuating the perceived inevitability of WPV. Peer support and organisational resources like debriefing, counselling and occupational health improved coping. Stigma and ideas of professional responsibility were barriers to access.
Originality/value
To mitigate against the negative consequences of WPV, CMHTs could offer peer support initiatives, improve communication and availability of organisational resources and involve staff in post-incident decision-making. Recommendations are made to shift the attitude of acceptance of WPV and encourage help-seeking.
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The sealing of samples purchased under the provisions of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts has recently been on more than one occasion the subject of articles or letters in this…
Abstract
The sealing of samples purchased under the provisions of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts has recently been on more than one occasion the subject of articles or letters in this journal. In November last, at a meeting of “The Society of Public Analysts and Other Analytical Chemists,” Mr. H. Droop Richmond opened a formal discussion on the matter, but it cannot be said that the proceedings contributed much to our knowledge of what has taken place in the past, revealed any satisfactory remedy likely to be applicable in the future, or even definitely settled whether any change in our present practice was really required.
Lindsay Tulloch, Helen Walker and Robin Ion
Incidents of violence and aggression are a regular occurrence within adult forensic mental health inpatient settings and often lead to the use of restrictive practices such as…
Abstract
Purpose
Incidents of violence and aggression are a regular occurrence within adult forensic mental health inpatient settings and often lead to the use of restrictive practices such as seclusion. Such events are frequently attributed to the complexity of the patients. Research commonly focuses on patient’s characteristics and their association with seclusion use. Less attention has been centred on forensic mental health nurses’ attitudes to seclusion and the association of nursing staff characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey was undertaken using a standardised questionnaire, “Survey of Nurses’ Attitudes to Seclusion”. Responses were received from n = 147 nurses at a high secure forensic mental health hospital in the UK.
Findings
Key findings indicate that most participants believed seclusion should remain part of clinical practice. A correlation was identified between forensic mental health nurses’ attitudes to seclusion use and their characteristics: gender, age range, educational level and experience.
Practical implications
This paper presents novel information on seclusion reduction opportunities through modifiable workforce factors such as gender-sensitive rostering and staff training and development. Furthermore, recruitment and retention strategies should be prioritised so forensic mental health is perceived as an attractive career and a safe workplace.
Originality/value
The paucity of research in this area has prompted calls for further research to explore nursing staff characteristics and seclusion use. This is particularly important now due to the current global difficulty in the recruitment and retention of mental health nurses.
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Helen Walker, Jennifer Young, David Langton and Lindsay Thomson
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the organisational impact of the New to Forensic Mental Health education programme, developed for use across all forensic services in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the organisational impact of the New to Forensic Mental Health education programme, developed for use across all forensic services in Scotland. To date, 267 have been trained as a trainer or mentor; 502 have completed the programme and 375 are yet to complete. The programme is designed to promote self‐directed learning and is multi‐disciplinary and multi‐agency in approach. It includes case studies and problem‐based learning relating to patients in a variety of settings, from the community to high secure care.
Design/methodology/approach
As part of a larger longitudinal study to assess the value of this New to Forensic Mental Health education programme, organisational impact was assessed using semi‐structured interviews with (n=13) senior staff working in forensic services. Participants were purposively selected for interview.
Findings
Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis, which revealed three themes: “Acquiring knowledge: what you learn and how you learn”, “Developing skills” and “Shift in attitudes and behaviour”. The results demonstrate the positive impact the programme has had at an organisational level and what changes can occur when staff become more knowledgeable, skilful and confident. The implications for practice, along with the limitations of the study, are discussed. One of the weaknesses of this type of analysis is that it is always dependent on the analyst's interpretation, and is thus the product of that person's bias, filters or prejudices.
Originality/value
This evaluation is one of the limited few that explore organisational impact of an education programme.
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These are the days of falling standards and sagging morale, nowhere more apparent than in the one‐time efficient public service. The division between management and workers in the…
Abstract
These are the days of falling standards and sagging morale, nowhere more apparent than in the one‐time efficient public service. The division between management and workers in the field in the large public enterprises has grown wider and wider and we tend to blame the lower strata of the structure for most of the ills which beset us, mainly because its failures are more obvious; here, the falling standards of work and care speak for themselves. The massive reorganization of the National Health Service and local authorities has made evident, especially in the first, that the upper strata of the colossi which dominate our everyday lives have their ills too. Local authorities have been told “The party is over!” and the National Health Service has been told of the urgent need for the strictest economy in administration; that the taking over of personal health services from local authorities was wrongly attributed to “managerial growth” instead of a mere “transfer of functions”, but, nonetheless, new authorities were created, each with fast‐growing administrative organs operating services—doctors, nurses and patients—which had remained unchanged. Very large local authorities, with many functions lost to others, one would have expected to have resulted in economy of administration, has all‐too‐often been the opposite. Hardly surprising that those who pay for it all, distinct from those who receive of its largesse, are being stirred to rebellion, when they have been overtaxed, ill‐used and what is more important, ignored for so long.
HAVING outlined the scheme for monotyped catalogues, it only remains to consider it in its financial aspects. At Hampstead tenders were obtained for the same catalogue by…
Abstract
HAVING outlined the scheme for monotyped catalogues, it only remains to consider it in its financial aspects. At Hampstead tenders were obtained for the same catalogue by monotype, linotype, and by ordinary setting up. It may be mentioned that the catalogue is of royal‐octavo size, in double columns, each being fifteen ems wide and fifty deep. Main entries are in bourgeois; subject‐headings are set (by hand) in clarendon, and the entries under such headings are put in brevier. Notes and contents were specified for either minion or nonpareil, and many lines break into part‐italics. The monotype machine provided all these founts except the two already mentioned—italic numerals and clarendon. We had to do without the former type, but the latter not being numerous are easily carried in as wanted from an ordinary case. Naturally, I cannot give the exact figures of the accepted tender, but it may be stated that in our particular case the cheapest quotation was for linotype work, although there was not much difference between that and monotyping; whilst for both these methods worked out at appreciably less than the quotations for ordinary hand‐work.
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of the “knowledge front” alongside ideas of “home” and “war” front as a way of understanding the expertise of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the idea of the “knowledge front” alongside ideas of “home” and “war” front as a way of understanding the expertise of university-educated women in an examination of the First World War and its aftermath. The paper explores the professional lives of two women, the medical researcher, Elsie Dalyell, and the teacher, feminist and unionist, Lucy Woodcock. The paper examines their professional lives and acquisition and use of university expertise both on the war and home fronts, and shows how women’s intellectual and scientific activity established during the war continued long after as a way to repair what many believed to be a society damaged by war. It argues that the idea of “knowledge front” reveals a continuity of intellectual and scientific activity from war to peace, and offers “space” to examine the professional lives of university-educated women in this period.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is structured as an analytical narrative interweaving the professional lives of two women, medical researcher Elsie Dalyell and teacher/unionist Lucy Woodcock to illuminate the contributions of university-educated women’s expertise from 1914 to the outbreak of the Second World War.
Findings
The emergence of university-educated women in the First World War and the interwar years participated in the civic structure of Australian society in innovative and important ways that challenged the “soldier citizen” ethos of this era. The paper offers a way to examine university-educated women’s professional lives as they unfolded during the course of war and peace that focuses on what they did with their expertise. Thus, the “knowledge front” provides more ways to examine these lives than the more narrowly articulated ideas of “home” and “war” front.
Research limitations/implications
The idea of the “knowledge front” applied to women in this paper also has implications for how to analyse the meaning of the First World War-focused university expertise more generally both during war and peace.
Practical implications
The usual view of women’s participation in war is as nurses in field hospitals. This paper broadens the notion of war to see war as having many interconnected fronts including the battle front and home front (Beaumont, 2013). By doing so, not only can we see a much larger involvement of women in the war, but we also see the involvement of university-educated women.
Social implications
The paper shows that while the guns may have ceased on 11 November 1918, women’s lives continued as they grappled with their war experience and aimed to reassert their professional lives in Australian society in the 1920s and 1930s.
Originality/value
The paper contains original biographical research of the lives of two women. It also conceptualises the idea of “knowledge front” in terms of war/home front to examine how the expertise of university-educated career women contributed to the social fabric of a nation recovering from war.
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Liverpool Conference was amongst the largest, as it was amongst the most successful, of recent years. In all but the weather it excelled, and there were fine intervals even in…
Abstract
Liverpool Conference was amongst the largest, as it was amongst the most successful, of recent years. In all but the weather it excelled, and there were fine intervals even in that. We publish the “Letters on our Affairs” by our well known correspondent, Callimachus, so far as it covers the first three days; the conclusion will follow next month, with what futcher comments seem to be necessary. The Annual Business Meeting was a little less rowdy than that at Scarborough, but one thing emerged from it and that was the determination of the A.A.L. to survive independently. There is more in this than meets the eye, and discussion on it may be postponed until a calmer mood prevails on all sides.
Calem De Burca, Helen Louise Miles and Eduardo Antonio Vasquez
Substance use contributes to the development of criminogenic behaviour and mental health problems. However, the extent and severity of substance use and the relationship to…
Abstract
Purpose
Substance use contributes to the development of criminogenic behaviour and mental health problems. However, the extent and severity of substance use and the relationship to offending in mentally disordered offenders (MDOs) admitted to regional medium secure units has received relatively limited research attention.
Design/methodology/approach
Case note reviews (n=57) and semi-structured interviews (n=21) of past substance use levels, substance use problems and forensic history were conducted at a medium secure unit in South East England.
Findings
Results highlighted the high prevalence of substance use among MDOs, especially when determined by self-report. At least one-third (case note review) or almost half (self-report) used alcohol at the time of their index offence, although many failed to recognise use as problematic. Significant correlations were found between heavy past use of alcohol and use of alcohol at time of offending. Past heavy use of alcohol significantly predicted whether or not the individual was convicted of a violent offence.
Research limitations/implications
The small sample from one area limits the generalisability of findings as substance use demographics vary. Methodological shortcomings were noted when comparing data from self-report and case note information. Retrospective recall bias may influence past perceptions of substance use.
Practical implications
These preliminary findings indicate the importance of assessing substance use in MDOs and considering its relationship to offending behaviour in treatment and risk management.
Originality/value
Although anecdotally substance use is known to be high and likely to be related to offending behaviour amongst MDOs, there is little previous research highlighting this.