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The purpose of this paper is to present data and discussion on history researcher development and research capacities in Australia and New Zealand, as evidenced in analysis of history PhD theses' topics.

The paper is based on two independent studies of history PhD thesis topics, using a standard discipline coding system.

The paper shows some marked differences in the Australian and New Zealand volumes and distributions of history PhDs, especially for PhDs conducted on non‐local/national topics. These differences reflect national researcher development, research capacities and interests, in particular local, national and international histories, and have implications for the globalisation of scholarship.

Thesis topics are used as a proxy for the graduate's research capacity within that topic. However, as PhD examiners have attested to the significance and originality of the thesis, this is taken as robust. The longitudinal nature of the research suggests that subsequent years' data and analysis would provide rich information on changes to history research capacity. Other comparative (i.e. international) studies would provide interesting analyses of history research capacity.

There are practical implications for history departments in universities, history associations, and government (PhD policy, and history researcher development and research capacity in areas such as foreign affairs).

There are social implications for local and community history in the knowledge produced in the theses, and in the development of local research capacity.

The work in this paper is the first to collate and analyse such thesis data either in Australia or New Zealand. The comparative analyses of the two datasets are also original.

The historical study aims to trace moves towards professionalising university teaching in the era of post‐war expansion in higher education using the University of Auckland, New Zealand, as the specific case study.

The historical analysis draws from published papers and original documents chronicling the state of teaching abilities in New Zealand in the late 1950s and 1960s and also draws from the University of Auckland's own archives.

University teaching by the early 1970s was no longer a private matter. Facing greater accountability from the New Zealand government and university students over the quality of teaching, New Zealand universities responded by creating professional development units to enhance the teaching capabilities of their academic staff.

This case study adds to the emerging histories of higher education academic and staff development units in Australasia and the United Kingdom. It demonstrates the growing realisation amongst academics, students and policy makers in the 1960s that lecturers could not be entirely left to their own devices given the potential harm poor teaching could have on student performance.

In the Spring 1984 edition of Structural Survey (Vol 3, No 1), W. F. Hill's paper on façade Retention Projects covered the initial research, detailed surveys and preliminary design assessments which are necessary when arriving at the preferred method of construction to be adopted for new buildings behind retained façades. This paper follows on from this, covering in detail the structural design and specification aspects, tender invitations and appraisals of the demolition and construction monitoring necessary to ensure façade stability on one particular project. This project, known as 20 Finsbury Circus, involves the construction of 8,250 sq. m of new air‐conditioned office accommodation and retail units behind the existing Edwardian stone façade of the group of buildings previously known as 1–5 Broad Street Place, on the northern side of Finsbury Circus in London. The new eight‐storey structure will provide for retail units at ground floor, with offices, storage and major plant installations at basement level and offices between the first and sixth floor level and a roof garden.

EVERY method employed by librar ns to bring books to the notice of readers may be justified It is thus desirable to devote an occasional issue of THE LIBRARY WORLD to this attractive subject. Our writers take differing views, but there is always a single aim in their work: to bring right book and reader into acquaintance. We might have to meet the challenge, which indeed one of our writers implies, that such book display may deflect the Library from its original, rightful purpose. Until these terms are defined such a challenge is a begging of the question. Often we have mentioned the question, For what public is the public library working? Was it intended to serve as an auxiliary, and then an extension, of the official education system? It has always indeed been more and less than that. Our founders were able to argue that libraries would withdraw men from beer and ill‐company, but from the first they probably failed to do that, and made their appeal to the intelligent elements in the community. As they developed and public education waxed, there grew up an enormous literature, available in early years in small quantity, the aim of which was entertainment only, and there survived—there survives still—a notion which was based on an earlier conception of books, that to read was somehow educative and virtuous, whatever was read. Librarians hold this notion in some measure to‐day, although the recent success of twopenny libraries which are mainly devoted to the entertainment type of literature must have made them revise the view somewhat.