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The purpose of this paper is to develop government and community-level critical thinking, planning, and action for improving community disaster resilience by reporting a study that sought to evaluate the possibility of using the Torrens Resilience Institute Australian Community Disaster Resilience (CDR) Scorecard in the Malaysian context.

A participatory action research approach (done in 2015) encouraged key people involved in managing the 2014 Kelantan floods in Malaysia’s north-east to participate in discussions about, and self-testing of, the CDR Scorecard to measure and improve their communities’ disaster resilience.

The CDR Scorecard can be useful in the Malaysian community context, with some modifications. Self-testing revealed that participating communities need to strengthen their disaster resilience through better communication, cross-community cooperation, maximizing opportunities to compare their plans, actions and reactions with those reported in research publications, and aligning their community disaster management with reported best practice internationally while acknowledging the need to adapt such practice to local contexts.

There is a need for a Malaysia-wide, simple-to-use, standardized disaster resilience scorecard to improve communities’ quality, self-efficacy, and capability to facilitate improved disaster resilience.

The adaptation of Australian CDR Scorecard for used in the country.

Awareness of CDR level will enhance community and government preparedness, mitigation, and responses to flood disaster.

This project is the first of its kind in Malaysia. It provides an example of the possibilities of using the CDR Scorecard globally in the form of a context-specific toolkit. The engagement of key people in the community in self-testing the Scorecard provides genuine, on-the-ground, real life data, giving others an understanding of local assessment of each community’s resilience level.

The last two years have witnessed what may justly be described as a revolutionary change in the packaging and marketing of goods, of which pre‐packed food constitutes a substantial part, but as far as public reaction goes, it has largely been a silent witness. There has been none of the outcry such as accompanied metrication, sufficient to call a halt to the process, and especially to the introduction of the decimal currency, of which most shoppers are convinced they were misled, “conned”. Every effort to make the changeover as smooth as possible was made; included was the setting up within the Department of Trade of a National Metrological Co‐ordinating Unit charged with co‐ordinating the work of 91 local weights and measures authorities in Great Britain in enforcing the new law, the Weights and Measures Act, 1979. This Act replaced the net or minimum system of the old law, the traditional system, re‐enacted in the Weights and Measures Act, 1963 with the average system, implementing EEC Directives and bringing weights and measures into line with Member‐states of the European Community.

THE method of conducting some of the Library Association professional examinations at provincial centres this year has given rise to a certain degree of adverse comment. We have received a letter from the National Union of Clerks, signed Mr. Herbert H. Elvin, the General Secretary, in which it is stated that “If it is intended that the Library Association examination should take a place amongst the recognised professional examinations some enquiry should be made as to the methods adopted in the various local centres for the supervision of the candidates.” After giving some particulars, the letter proceeds: “If examinations are to be held, would it not be better to abolish local centres altogether, and hold the examination in London, where all candidates might be sure of receiving the same treatment?” At the Annual Meeting of the Library Assistants' Association at Nottingham the other day, numerous complaints of a similar nature were made, of which particulars are given in the current Library Assistant. No doubt special local circumstances affected the administration of the examinations to a considerable extent, but even making allowances for this, there seems to be plenty of room for reform and improvement.

The purpose of this article is to report a study of the strategies members of principal selection panels use to select the best candidate for a principal position.

The study draws on both qualitative and quantitative data. The quantitative analysis drawn on data collected from school supervisors and school principals confirmed a four‐factor structure and qualitative interview data was used to supplement findings.

In order of importance the strategies employed by selection panels were: panel professionalism, the interview, making the cut and pre‐interview.

Findings indicate that the selection component of principal recruitment remains at best an uncertain science. Tensions endure between beliefs and perceptions of panel members from different backgrounds. These include beliefs about competence and level of involvement in important activities such as short‐listing. Relational ties, religious affiliation and values congruence are important to members of selection panels, but we are unsure of the influence these have on the quality of successful applications. It seems that at a minimum they may reduce the pool of “real” applicants.

The study provides useful information on the strategies members of principal selection panels use to select the best candidate for a principal position.