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The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and impact of a Queensland Research Support Network (RSN) in emergency medicine (EM).

This paper presents a descriptive summary of EM networks, network evaluations and the structure and development of the Emergency Medicine Foundation’s (EMF) RSN in Queensland, including an observational pre- and post-study of research metrics.

In two years, the RSN supported 33 Queensland emergency departments (EDs), of which 14 developed research strategies. There was an increase in research active clinicians, from 23 in 2015 to 181 in 2017. Collaborator engagement increased from 9 in 2015 to 276 in 2017 as did the number of research presentations, from 6 in 2015 to 61 in 2017. EMF experienced a growth in new researchers, with new investigators submitting approximately 60 per cent of grant applications in 2016 and 2017. EMF also received new applications from a further three HHS (taking EMF-funded research activity from 8 to 11 HHS).

This paper describes changes in KPIs and research metrics, which the authors attribute to the establishment of the RSN. However, it is possible that attribution bias plays a role in the KPI improvements.

This network has actively boosted and expanded EM research capacity and capability in Queensland. It provides services, in the form of on-the-ground managers, to develop novice clinician-researchers, new projects and engage entire EDs. This model may be replicated nationwide but requires funding commitment.

The RSN improves front-line clinician research capacity and capability and increases research activity and collaborations with clear community outcomes. Collaborations were extended to community, primary health networks, non-government organisations, national and international researchers and academic institutions. Evaluating and measuring a network’s benefits are difficult, but it is likely that evaluations will help networks obtain funding.

This review looks firstly at a set of recent articles that examine basic concepts of interlending in particular and resource sharing in general. Some authors are supportive of resource sharing and interlending, while others question its validity, demanding better examination of its benefits or better local provision. A very forthright paper concentrates on access, whilst another foresees greater user involvement in interlending. New technological developments are reported in a review of several articles on the successes and failures of telefacsimile transmission, ending with a brief mention of a new development — CD—hypenROMs. The European Communities' Docolsys proposal is reported, and a series of contrasting articles on interlending and union catalogues in the USSR is discussed. Recent developments in Canada are briefly reported, and the review ends with a consideration of a paper on humanities interlending requests surveyed by a Spanish research institute.

Using risk-related data often require a significant amount of upfront work to collect, extract and transform data. In addition, the lack of a consistent data structure hinders the development of tools that can be used with more than one set of data. The purpose of this paper is to report on an effort to solve these problems through the development of extensible, internally consistent schemas for risk-related data.

The consortia coordinated their efforts so the hazard, exposure and vulnerability schemas are compatible. Hazard data can be provided as either event footprints or stochastic catalogs. Exposure classes include buildings, infrastructure, agriculture, livestock, forestry and socio-economic data. The vulnerability component includes fragility and vulnerability functions and indicators for physical and social vulnerability. The schemas also provide the ability to define uncertainties and allow the scoring of vulnerability data for relevance and quality.

As a proof of concept, the schemas were populated with data for Tanzania and with exposure data for several other countries.

The data schema and data exploration tool are open source and, if widely accepted, could become widely used by practitioners.

A single set of hazard, exposure and vulnerability schemas will not fit all purposes. Tools will be needed to transform the data into other formats.

This paper describes extensible, internally consistent, multi-hazard, exposure and vulnerability schemas that can be used to store disaster risk-related data and a data exploration tool that promotes data discovery and use.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

“Public librarians are not interested in collection development issues.”

The popular misconception which exists respecting the duties of a Public Analyst is well illustrated by the remarks attributed recently to a borough coroner.

The purchasing function is growing in importance in today's industrial economy. In many purchasing situations there are a number of conflicting considerations that influence the final purchasing decision. The professional purchasing person must make profitable buying decisions under these circumstances. The single item purchase lot sizing literature in the past has served as the foundation for developing and studying the requirements planning based models and techniques. The purchasing manager's methods for making quantity (lot size) decisions are examined. Significant literature on the subject is classified and a taxonomy provided. Variations within the purchase lot sizing literature are discussed. Purchase lot sizing literature has important limitations by focusing exclusively on lot sizing as the relevant criterion for making economic order size decisions. A logical extension would be to include, the economic performance of alternative lot size procedures in a capacitated Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) environment. Another extension should consider the economics of jointly ordering from one vendor.