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When a natural disaster occurs, the media directs the public’s attention to the key elements of disaster management and provides accounts of how effective the government is in responding to it. This study analyzed 80 reports contained in 21 stories published in three international newspapers and 35 editorial statements from 21 editorials obtained from two national papers regarding the Japanese government’s responses to the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. Issue clusters for different levels of government responding to the crisis were identified. The lack of systematic reactions to the crisis provoked the most media scrutiny. The legitimacy of the government’s behaviors in this area were perceived more negatively by the media than were the inappropriate behavior of elected officials or the lack of care expressed towards the victims by local officials.

While there is considerable evidence supporting the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment, the relationship between the antecedents of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and career commitment are not clearly understood. This study seeks to clarify whether these antecedents have an effect independent of job satisfaction on career commitment or whether these antecedents are mediated by job satisfaction.

In total, 2,799 questionnaires were mailed out to members of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). The responses received were 643 (22.9 percent) and after eliminating retirees or students, a sample of 456 respondents currently employed in the health care industry was obtained. Path analysis was conducted to test the hypothetical relationships between work situation, career experiences and career commitment.

It was found that job satisfaction mediated the influences of job tenure and career pattern on career commitment. Job satisfaction partially mediated the influences of perceived job security and one's satisfaction with career on career commitment. Both of these measures had a direct influence on career commitment. Career experience such as sector change was also positively associated with career commitment.

While the research offers some insights into the factors affecting the career commitment of health care executives, the sample was limited to respondents who were members of the American College of Healthcare Executives, and thus may not represent the views of all managers in the health care sector.

To retain high‐valued health care workers it is important that an organization has a work environment that enhances their commitment to their occupation as well as their careers.

This study clarifies the influence of job satisfaction on the career commitment of health care managers during a very dynamic period.

THE scientist and philosopher will tell us that the mind of man cannot in a lifetime fully grasp and understand any one subject. Consequently it is unreasonable to expect that the librarian—who, in spite of popular belief, is but man—can have a complete understanding of every department of knowledge relative to his work. He must, in common with his fellows in other callings, content himself with a more or less general professional knowledge, and may specialize, if he be so disposed, in certain branches of that knowledge. The more restricted this particular knowledge is, the greater will be its value from a specialistic point of view.

The winter 1991 issue of Reference Services Review featured an annotated bibliography of literature on Christopher Columbus from 1970 to 1989. That literature covered such topics as Columbus' ancestry, heraldry, and the locations of both his American landfall and burial site. This annotated checklist focuses mainly on Columbus' legacy, on works that offer a dissenting point of view from most previous writings about Columbus (and on works that react to the dissenters), on material written by Native American and other non‐European authors, and on materials published by small and noncommercial presses.

A pæan of joy and triumph which speaks for itself, and which is a very true indication of how the question of poisonous adulteration is viewed by certain sections of “the trade,” and by certain of the smaller and irresponsible trade organs, has appeared in print. It would seem that the thanks of “the trade” are due to the defendants in the case heard at the Liverpool Police Court for having obtained an official acknowledgment that the use of salicylic acid and of other preservatives, even in large amounts, in wines and suchlike articles, is not only allowable, but is really necessary for the proper keeping of the product. It must have been a charming change in the general proceedings at the Liverpool Court to listen to a “preservatives” case conducted before a magistrate who evidently realises that manufacturers, in these days, in order to make a “decent” profit, have to use the cheapest materials they can buy, and cannot afford to pick and choose; and that they have therefore “been compelled” to put preservatives into their articles so as to prevent their going bad. He was evidently not to be misled by the usual statement that such substances should not be used because they are injurious to health— as though that could be thought to have anything to do with the much more important fact that the public “really want” to have an article supplied to them which is cheap, and yet keeps well. Besides, many doctors and professors were brought forward to prove that they had never known a case of fatal poisoning due to the use of salicylic acid as a preservative. Unfortunately, it is only the big firms that can manage to bring forward such admirable and learned witnesses, and the smaller firms have to suffer persecution by faddists and others who attempt to obtain the public notice by pretending to be solicitous about the public health. Altogether the prosecution did not have a pleasant time, for the magistrate showed his appreciation of the evidence of one of the witnesses by humorously rallying him about his experiments with kittens, as though any‐one could presume to judge from experiments on brute beasts what would be the effect on human beings—the “lords of creation.” Everyone reading the evidence will be struck by the fact that the defendant stated that he had once tried to brew without preservatives, but with the only result that the entire lot “went bad.” All manufacturers of his own type will sympathise with him, since, of course, there is no practicable way of getting over this trouble except by the use of preservatives; although the above‐mentioned faddists are so unkind as to state that if everything is clean the article will keep. But this must surely be sheer theory, for it cannot be supposed that there can be any manufacturer of this class of article who would be foolish enough to think he could run his business at a profit, and yet go to all the expense of having the returned empties washed out before refilling, and of paying the heavy price asked for the best crude materials, when he has to compete with rival firms, who can use practically anything, and yet turn out an article equal in every way from a selling point of view, and one that will keep sufficiently, by the simple (and cheap) expedient of throwing theory on one side, and by pinning their faith to a preservative which has now received the approval of a magistrate. Manufacturers who use preservatives, whether they are makers of wines or are dairymen, and all similar tradesmen, should join together to protect their interests, for, as they must all admit, “the welfare of the trade” is the chief thing they have to consider, and any other interest must come second, if it is to come in at all. Now is the time for action, for the Commission appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives in foods has not yet given its decision, and there is still time for a properly‐conducted campaign, backed up by those “influential members of the trade” of whom we hear so much, and aided by such far‐reaching and brilliant magisterial decisions, to force these opinions prominently forward, in spite of the prejudice of the public; and to insure to the trades interested the unfettered use of preservatives,—which save “the trade” hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, by enabling the manufacturers to dispense with heavily‐priced apparatus, with extra workmen and with the use of expensive materials,—and which are urgently asked for by the public,—since we all prefer to have our foods drugged than to have them pure.

THE thoughts of all librarians, chief librarians in particular, are now turned upon the annual conference of the Library Association at Manchester. We understand that all the projects of the conference, which we have commented upon in earlier issues, are proceeding satisfactorily. By this time most of our readers who intend to go will have obtained their accommodation in the city. But we advise those who have not done so to delay no longer.

WITH eloquence which we cannot imitate, or repeat, the national loss has been sufficiently expressed by others. It is true, Kipling and William Watson being dead, and Alfred Noyes silent, the poets have not risen to the height of a great occasion, but that is by the way. Our own tribute to the late King must be based on his work for libraries, since any other tribute is general to a whole Empire. Kings can have few hours in which to read and yet some of the stories, true or apocryphal, of King George V. touch upon his reading. He showed, however, a closer interest of late years in libraries than any other of our monarchs has done, and at the opening ceremonies of the National Central Library and the Manchester Public Library he uttered words which are the best slogans that libraries have received. Even if he did not write them—a matter which we have no right to affirm or deny—his utterance of them gave them the royal superscription. We repeat them, as they cannot be too often repeated:—

This annotated listing of 125 United States Government bibliographies is the first annual supplement to BIBLIOGRAPHY OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIES 1968–1973 (Pierian Press). Most publications included bear a 1974 imprint, though there are some with earlier imprints which are not included in the 1968–1973 BIBLIOGRAPHY.