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The purpose of this paper is to offer a meditation on what is especial, and especially difficult, about poetry in its guise as inspiration for, or expression of, efforts and accomplishments in other human and social disciplines such as teaching or research or leadership. At the time of writing, the author – an educational researcher, policy adviser and poet – has been invited to act as poet‐in‐residence at a conference on interprofessional learning and practice in spring 2006; she is taking the opportunity of this paper to think out loud about the possible responsibilities and rewards of such a role; about what kinds of relationship between poetry and these other modes of being‐in‐the‐world are feasible; and about what kinds of integrity, intrinsic to poetry, need to be made room for in such relationships. Responding to some persuasive ideas of Abbs (academic and poet) and Heaney (poet and literary critic) about the tasks of the poet and the value of poetry respectively, the author argues that poetry is characterised above all by its “gratuitousness” – a notion which is expounded in the paper – and that therefore the straightforward application of poetry to non‐poetic contexts and purposes, as a sort of superior didactic instrument, is worth questioning.

The paper makes some recommendations for relating the practice of poetry to the practice of professionalism in whatever sphere without detriment to the essential tasks of poetry.

The paper concludes that the especial gift of poetry, as “something made in language”, is to enlarge our imaginations; that a poet's paradoxical responsibility is therefore to do the ungovernable work of the imagination; and that it is the quality of silences (as well as of words) in poetry which give such work its force and meaning.

Whilst acknowledging that poetry may often be used as an expression of efforts and accomplishments in other human and social disciplines, the paper takes poetry seriously as an aesthetic and ethical practice in its own right.

Deciding the best course of treatment for a drug or alcohol user can be a complex one. Continuing our look at harm reduction and abstinence, we ask what the best plans are for Nigella, a young woman with mental health problems who uses heroin to prevent recurring self‐harm. In a refreshing and challenging critique Lesley Don explores the decision‐making process towards that treatment. Should Nigella stop her heroin use? If she does, will she self‐harm? Which harm is more desirable? And why, as professionals, do we seek one solution over another?

Our paper is centred on exploring the experiences of opening up closed doors to strangers in the context of home exchange.

This paper is based on a year-long research project which has drawn on multiple qualitative methods of data collection. A bricolage approach was adopted to enable the authors to gather data which is sensitive to multivocality and conscious of difference within the consumer experience.

Our findings demonstrate that home exchangers treat their home as an asset to be capitalised, to allow them to travel to places and communities otherwise unreachable. Home exchangers simultaneously engage in the symbolic creation of home in a temporary environment and utilise the kinship and community networks of their home exchange partner.

Our paper adds depth and an insight to the increasing media coverage of the home exchange phenomenon.

As a consumption practice that is witnessing widespread appeal, home exchange uncovers evidence of trust amongst strangers. While it is common practice to open the home in order to build friendship, it is less common for this invitation to be extended to strangers.

We extend the extensive theorisation of the home as a symbolic environment and reveal that the home can also be used in an enterprising fashion.

Many higher education institutions now offer virtual delivery of academic programs via the Internet and the World Wide Web, and cater to the needs of growing numbers of distance education students. Before an academic library can adequately address the needs, preferences, and expectations of its remote patrons, however, it needs to understand the peculiarities and challenges of serving patrons at a distance. Penn State University’s World Campus (a virtual campus) is one of the leading distance education institutions in the USA, and its libraries are among those actively engaged in ascertaining the needs of remote library users and developing services and resources to meet these needs. A portrait of library resources and services available to World Campus students is presented, and results of a survey conducted to assess Penn State World Campus students’ perceptions, expectations and use of Web‐based library resources are reported. A key finding is that students are pleased with the quality and availability of library services, but not fully partaking of the vast array of services and collections.

Developments in information technology have led to changes in the mode of delivery of library services, and in the perceptions of the role of librarians in the information‐seeking context. In particular, the proliferation of electronic resources has led to the emergence of new service paradigms and new roles for librarians. The Gateway Library at Penn State University (PSU) is an electronic library in transition, with new technology‐based services evolving to address the ever growing and changing needs of the academic community. It facilitates access to and navigation of electronic resources in an integrated technology environment.

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.

An analysis of community health, its history, successes and failures, depends on an understanding of its scope, but there is little consensus as to precisely what the discipline entails. Some view it as a strict scientific discipline, others see it as a social movement, and still others conceive of it as a conglomerate of various disciplines. It is useful initially to identify the medical components of community health, and then to approach its interdisciplinary aspects. Community health, strictly defined, includes such fields as disease control, environmental sanitation, maternal and child care, dental health, nutrition, school health, geriatrics, occupational health, and the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse. This limited definition, though accurate, does not differentiate the field from the much older area of public health. Within community health, the disease focus of traditional public health epidemiology, the total health focus of community medicine, and the outcome focus of health services research are interconnected. Community health combines the public health concern for health issues of defined populations with the preventive therapeutic approach of clinical medicine. An emphasis on personal health care is the result of this combination. Robert Kane describes the field accurately and succinctly: “We envision community medicine as a general organizational framework which draws upon a number of disciplines for its tools. In this sense, it is an applied discipline which adopts the knowledge and skills of other areas in its effort to solve community health problems. The tools described here include community diagnosis (which draws upon such diverse fields as sociology, political science, economics, biostatistics, and epidemiology), epidemiology itself, and health services research (the application of epidemiologic techniques on analyzing the effects of medical care on health).”