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Anecdotally, many hospitals experience shortfalls in anaesthetic consultant staffing. This paper aims to investigate whether these subjective experiences are confirmed objectively.

The paper hypothesises that a simple model that estimated service delivery capability using consultant entitlements to annual and other types of leave would not (null hypothesis) accurately predict the magnitude of any shortfall that existed. It also hypothesises that excessive leave‐taking was an important cause of any shortfall. A comparison is made between the model predictions for total leave taken and service delivery with results from a real data set from a large university teaching hospital's department of anaesthetics.

The model prediction for leave (median total 45 days absence in a year per consultant, range (30‐59)) closely matched the reality (median 41 days (tenth‐ninetieth deciles 30‐69)). Consequently, both model predictions and the real data for annual elective service delivery agreed: median 228 sessions (193‐266) vs 232 (183‐266) per consultant respectively. Taking into account likely service delivery by trainees (2,304‐4,140 elective sessions in total annually) the predicted shortfall of 2,220 sessions was very close to the true elective service shortfall of 2,148 sessions for the department as a whole over the year.

Rejecting the null hypothesis, it is concluded that a simple model that estimates elective service delivery using leave entitlements as the main factor can accurately predict actual service capability for a department. There is no evidence that excessive leave‐taking occurs.

The paper computes an estimate that 2.2‐2.6 consultants per functional operating theatre are necessary to ensure that staffing matches the elective workload.

As libraries, museums, and research institutions continue to work on historical digital collections for their digital repositories, there is always a need to either hire or train digital librarians and they are expected to bring or learn a set of technical skills that can help these institutions keep up with the current trends of web technology. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current technical skills being sought for digital librarian positions, as well as provide a basic exploration of the list of technical courses offered by major library school programs in 2010.

A twofold data collection methodology was developed that compared the required and desired technical skills as expressed in 43 positions announcements from January to December 2010 and the technical courses offered in 2010 at selected library programs listed on the top schools, as identified by the 2009 US News and World Report ranking. A common set of categories was developed to account for variations in wording and specific implementations of a technology.

This study reveals that current students and practicing librarians need to seek out additional non‐curricular opportunities to build competency in the technical areas represented in the study. Fortunately, the areas where the greatest disparity exists are also areas where significant opportunities for independent learning are available.

This paper can be useful for library students or practicing librarians who are interested in acquiring new technical skills. The results can also help library administrators when hiring new librarians for digital and technical departments.

SEPTEMBER finds the summer irrevocably over, although there will still be one or two very beautiful months in the English autumn remaining. It is usually the time when the older librarian thinks of conferences, and today he realizes regretfully that these have receded into what already seems a remote past. This month as we write we have to repeat the expectation we have expressed every month since May that before these words appear in print the threatened lightning attack on the life of England will have been made by the Nazis. It is becoming so customary, however, that one can only suggest that so far as circumstances allow we proceed with our normal work. The circumstances may make this difficult but they should be faced. One thing stands out: that in public libraries, at anyrate, the demands made by readers have gradually returned to their usual level and in some places have risen above it. This does not always mean that the figures are as high as they were, because in many of the great cities and towns a part of the population, including a very large number of the children, have been evacuated. In spite of the pressure on the population as a whole, it would seem that head for head more books are being read now than at any previous time.

The achievement motivation construct has long presented a significant challenge to the study of presidential leadership. The purpose of this paper is to overcome the limitations of prior research by proposing that whether achievement motivation is related to effectiveness in the US presidency may not be a matter of if but how achievement motivation is manifested.

Drawing on the channeling hypothesis, it was proposed that presidents’ trait behaviors should be accounted for as they directly impact the way that presidents express achievement motivation. To test this thesis, this study relied on data generated from diverse sources that provide both direct and indirect information about US presidents’ personalities and effectiveness, including content analyses of inaugural addresses and presidential biographies and surveys completed by presidential biographers and scholars.

Results show that among achievement motivated presidents, display of motive-congruent, conscientious behaviors contributes to their effectiveness, whereas display of motive-incongruent, agreeable behaviors tends to detract from it.

The small sample size of US presidents and the limited amount of archival data available for some of these subjects prevented more fine-grained analyses. Thus, further research among senior leaders is needed to not only confirm the explanatory mechanism offered herein, but also explore the possibility that there are optimal levels beyond which the personality traits under study may cease to be a help or hindrance to achievement motivated chief executives.

This study represents the first effort to formally integrate motives and traits in the study of chief executives. The findings of this research also substantiate the need for researchers to consider the complex nature of motives in predicting important outcomes across different contexts.

As a result of the changes caused by the preparation of foods gradually passing out of the home into the hands of manufacturers, there has arisen an absolute need for a complete supervision of the public food supplies. A supervision which shall place some limit upon the substitution of cheaper and inferior methods and dangerous materials in place of the standard formerly used in our homes.

Purpose – As the role of technology in libraries has broadened and expanded, tech-savvy librarians and non-librarian technologists are increasingly working side by side in complex digital environments. Little research has explored the key differences between these roles and the implications for the future of the Master of Library Science (MLS) and its variant degrees, particularly as technologists from various backgrounds increasingly enter the information field. This chapter contrasts the technological responsibilities of the two groups to build an understanding of the necessity of the MLS in library-oriented technology work.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Qualitative coding and text mining techniques were used to analyze technology-oriented librarian and non-librarian job advertisements, technology curriculum changes, and surveyed technology interests of current information professionals.

Findings – Findings indicate a clear distinction between librarian and non-librarian technology responsibilities. Librarian positions emphasize web design, data and metadata, technology troubleshooting, and usage of library-oriented software. Non-librarian technologists require programming, database development, and systems administration, with deeper software and systems knowledge. Overlap was noted in the areas of user experience, linked data, and metadata. Several newer trends that information professionals expressed a desire to learn – such as makerspace technologies – were observed to be poorly covered in the technology curriculum, though the MLS curriculum generally covered the tech-savvy librarians’ responsibilities.

Originality/Value – This chapter builds understanding of the current necessity of the MLS in library-oriented technology work, as contrasted against the role of non-librarian technologists, through analysis of a triangulated set of data sources covering employment opportunities, technology curriculum, and librarians’ technology interests.

Contact centers (CCs) are one of the main touch points of customers in an organization. They form one of the inputs to customer relationship management (CRM) to enable an organization to efficiently resolve customer queries. CCs have an important impact on customer satisfaction and are a strategic asset for CRM systems. The purpose of this paper is to review the current literature on CCs and identify their shortcomings to be addressed in the current digital age.

The current literature on CCs can be classified into the analytical and the managerial aspects of CCs. In the former, data mining, text mining, and voice recognition techniques are discussed, and in the latter, staff training, CC performance, and outsourced CCs are discussed.

With the growth of information and communication technologies, the information that CCs must handle both in terms of type and volume, has changed. To deal with such changes, CCs need to evolve in terms of their operation and public relations. The authors present a state-of-the-art review of the challenges in identifying the gaps in order to have the next generation of CCs. Lack of an interactive CC and lack of data integrity for CCs are highlighted as important issues that need to be dealt with properly by CCs.

As far as the authors know, this is the first paper that reviews CCs’ literature by providing the comprehensive survey, critical evaluation, and future research.