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The purpose of this paper is to report on an ongoing project investigating library and information science students' perceptions of the library and information profession and their motivations for undertaking a degree in this field. The analysis presented here focuses on students' reasons for becoming involved in information work, and their motivations for embarking on a professional qualification.

The research was focused on students enrolling on Information and Library Studies programmes in the Department of Information Studies, Aberystwyth University. Students from both undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses are represented over the period 2005‐2010, undertaking campus‐based and distance learning (DL) programmes. A qualitative approach, using focus groups, was taken towards data collection and analysis.

Many students followed a circuitous path into the library and information field, indicating that caution needs to be exercised when making assumptions regarding “typical” library and information workers. Similarly, motivations for attaining a qualification are a complexity of both personal and professional aspirations. Although motivations remain consistent, in line with previous studies, it is argued that “either/or” attitudes to traditional and modern aspects of information work are being replaced by a flexible understanding of the modern profession.

The paper builds on and adds new perspectives to literature on student motivations and career aspirations. The groups studied are eclectic, including PG and UG, full‐time and DL cohorts across a range of age groups.

There is a need for theory development within the field of humanitarian logistics to understand logistics needs in different stages of a crisis and how to meet these. This paper aims to discuss three dimensions identified in logistics and organization theories and how they relate to three different cases of humanitarian logistics operations – the regional concept of the International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies, the development and working of the United Nations Joint Logistics Centre and coordination challenges of military logistics in UN mandated peacekeeping operations. The purpose is to build a framework to be used in further studies.

A framework for the study of humanitarian logistics along three dimensions is developed, followed by a discussion of the chosen cases in relation to these dimensions. The framework will be used as basis for the case studies to be undertaken for the purpose of understanding and identification of new questions and needs for other or revised concepts from theory.

The paper shows the relevance of a wide literature to the issues pertinent to humanitarian logistics. There is considerable promise in extant literature on logistics, SCM and coordination, but this needs to be confronted with the particular issues seen in the humanitarian logistics setting to achieve further theory development.

The major contribution of the paper lies in its breadth of theoretical perspectives presented and combined in a preliminary theoretical framework. This is applied more specifically in the three case studies described in the paper.

Labour came to power in 1997 and immediately transferred many features of its party political news management style into government, overseeing the departure of most of the civil service communications leadership within two years, and developing the media management role of politically appointed special advisers. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the changes in custom and practice that operated behind the scenes in government communications between 1997 and 2015, asking to what extent such changes challenge public trust in government in a liberal democracy.

This study takes a longitudinal, qualitative approach through in-depth interviews with former civil servants, journalists and special advisers, together with documentary and archival evidence. The data were analysed thematically through the text-processing software, NVivo.

The paper finds that although the controversy over the 2002 dossier on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction was an extraordinary episode, the creative approach to news management that characterised this case still operates within UK Government communications: the bypassing of civil servants, a partial approach to the facts, selective briefing of favoured journalists, a lack of due process in the management of information and a disregard for the letter and spirit of propriety codes. This has implications for public trust and confidence in the workings of liberal democracy.

The study adopts a mediatisation approach to the study of public relations, using the concept of the “cross field” to demonstrate how PR professionals share media management responsibilities with a number of different promotional actors. PR professionals in government must therefore navigate between the hidden, competitive and demanding worlds of politics, the media and bureaucracy, working with journalists, politicians and political operatives to craft the narratives that seek to drive public opinion.