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The number of messaging methods and media available – print, telephone, e‐mail, text messaging, fax, etc. – can result in key members of an organisation spending significant parts of their working day simply managing their messages and the resulting responses. Because they arrive in different ways at different times, such management is difficult. Unified messaging attempts to make all messages – however they originate – available via a single interface, allowing priority and importance to be more easily discerned. This raises individual productivity and removes some of the stresses of “keeping up to date and in touch”. This paper explains the technology and suggests that a range of factors has come together finally to make unified messaging a realistic, feasible and effective solution.

The behaviour of managers oriented to learning from action is reviewed, and analysed in relation to the work of Kolb, Honey and Mumford. It is proposed that there is a difference between action and experience. The steps necessary to convert action into experience are defined, following an examination of blockages and defensive routines.

The pattern of food prosecutions in more recent times has remained relatively unchanged. Most have been taken under Section 2, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, even for foods which have obviously been unfit for human consumption. The Section because of its wider application has distinct procedural advantages. A few local authorities routinely use Section 8 successfully; it probably depends upon a more liberal interpretation and understanding by local justices. The five‐year study of food prosecutions, (BFJ 1971, 73, 39), separated them into a number of well‐defined groups and showed that those for the presence of foreign material were the majority and remained fairly constant throughout the period; mouldy foods increased during the five years and then remained steady as the second largest single group. The foods most commonly affected and the foreign matter commonly present could be seen; neither changed much during the period of the survey.

Earliest localism was sited on a tree or hill or ford, crossroads or whenceways, where people assembled to talk, (Sax. witan), or trade, (Sax. staple), in eggs, fowl, fish or faggots. From such primitive beginnings many a great city has grown. Settlements and society brought changes; appointed headmen and officials, a cloak of legality, uplifted hands holding “men to witness”. Institutions tend to decay and many of these early forms passed away, but not the principle vital to the system. The parish an ecclesiastical institution, had no place until Saxons, originally heathens, became Christians and time came when Church, cottage and inn filled the lives of men, a state of localism in affairs which endured for centuries. The feudal system decayed and the vestry became the seat of local government. The novels of Thomas Hardy—and English literature boasts of no finer descriptions of life as it once was—depict this authority and the awe in which his smocked countrymen stood of “the vicar in his vestry”. The plague freed serfs and bondsmen, but events, such as the Poor Law of 1601, if anything, revived the parish as the organ of local government, but gradually secular and ecclesiastical aspects were divided and the great population explosion of the eighteenth century created necessity for subdivision of areas, which continued to serve the principle of localism however. The ballot box completed the eclipse of Church; it changed concepts of localism but not its importance in government.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting the financial sustainability of the Indian Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) post-Andhra Pradesh (AP) crisis

Regression analysis is used to test the significance of the independent variables on the variable of interest, i.e. the operational self-sustainability. Three-stage regression analysis, i.e. Partial F-test, residual analysis and Box–Cox-type transformations is applied to see the impact of the variables on financial sustainability of the Indian MFIs. The study is based on the data of the Indian MFIs during three fiscal years from 2010-2011 to 2012-2012 reported in the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX).

The authors’ results indicate that in 2010-2011, the linear regression model seems to be good fit to the data, whereas in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, the appropriateness of the linear regression models seems questionable (the error distribution seems to be skewed). It is observed that square root of the dependent variable exhibits adequate fit for 2011 and 2012. Therefore, a substantial change in the model for estimating sustainability of Indian MFIs is observed in the post-AP crisis era. It is observed that portfolio quality and capital management are important determinants for the financial sustainability of the MFIs.

This study identifies the factors affecting the sustainability of the Indian MFIs, especially after the reforms following the AP crisis in India. The study suggests that from 2012-2013, the factors such as write-off ratio, capital-to-asset ratio, ratio of financial revenue to assets and provision for loan impairment-to-asset ratio are the main factors which have significant impact on the operational self-sufficiency (OSS) of Indian MFIs. This indicates that the quality of portfolio must be improved to reduce the vulnerability of the Indian MFIs.

After the AP crisis, the performance of Indian MFIs is stabilized to a greater extent. The various performance indicators are improving.

The paper provides a detailed comparative analysis of the factors effecting financial sustainability of the Indian MFIs, before and after the regulatory reforms in 2011. A substantial change is observed after 2011-2012. Such a study on the Indian microfinance sector seems to be new (to the best of the authors’ knowledge).

In The Great Derangement, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh examines the present inability to understand and represent the scale and violence of the environmental crisis. The book is a passionate awakening call for collective action to drive change, with Ghosh clearly identifying the limits of the present framework of values, which inhibits politicians, industrialists and economists from moving towards a truly sustainable civilization. In the Anthropocene, non-human and post-human factors are raising questions about the concept of a silent Nature that can be domesticated for human advantage and the perspective of continuous progress – both of which have dominated the modern age. Nevertheless, the detailed scientific analysis of the violation of the planet’s limited capacities continues to be refuted, triggering irrational, short-term utilitarian behaviours which are preventing the fundamental changes required for the transition to sustainable development. Artists, philosophers and writers can play an invaluable role in reframing our ways of thinking, filling the gap between scientific knowledge and emotional perception. Pioneering artistic experiments are appearing all over the world, from both well-established and emerging artists, and through collective processes, and this cultural movement is setting the scene for a new wave of eco-entrepreneurs driven by the altruistic mission of saving the planet. As has happened in many previous crises, it is again in the hands of artists to redefine how we perceive ourselves and so to support the emergence of new ideas, new learning, and finally to shape society and the economy around a renewed sense of the future for humankind on Earth.

THIS issue of The Library World marks the commencement of a new volume, and we take the opportunity of thanking our many readers for their continued good feeling and support. It is a pleasure to us to record the fact that we are able to enlarge this initial number of the volume and that we feel the time has come when we shall make such enlargement a permanency, without any corresponding increase in the subscription price.

Earlier in the year, during the national steel industry strike, the House of Lords overturned a judgment of Lord Denning, MR, that sections of the industry unaffected by the trade dispute could be regarded as outside the Act and its amendments and that unions could be restrained in their application of immune activities to those firms. The decision apart, their Lordships in delivering judgment reaffirmed that only Parliament had power to make the Law; it was not the function of Judges to do this, their's to interpret and apply the Law. In strict legal terms and applying to statutes and statutory instruments, this is true; but in the widest sense, judges have been making law for centuries. Otherwise, from whence cometh the Common Law, one of the wonders of the world, if not from the mouths of H.M. Judges. Much of it is now enshrined in statute form, especially Criminal Law, but initially it was all judge‐made. In most systems of human control and function, complete separation is rarely possible and when attempted the results have not been conspicuously successful.

Some libraries and information services are quite definitely user‐centred; some think they are but are not always; some seem to be designed for librarians rather than users. The purpose of this monograph is to encourage the development of libraries to meet the perceived needs of users — I hope it will be found useful by librarians and information workers as well as by students.

The study drew on capacity framework around the individual, organisational, health system and wider context to explore gaps in health supply chain (HSC) workers capacity and competency to perform supply chain (SC) functions and the lessons for workforce development.

A mixed-method study was conducted across the Northern Region of Ghana. Qualitative data were collected from in-depth interviews with 34 key SC managers at the regional, district and facility levels. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered through the RedCap mobile app to 233 core HSC workers and non-core workers (clinicians with additional responsibilities in SC). Data were managed and analysed inductively and deductively for themes.

Weak knowledge and competency in SC functions attributed to poor training exposure and organisational support for capacity building, undermined the capacity to perform basic SC functions, especially by the non-core category. The policy and regulatory environment of the HSC marketplace were described as fluid and with complexity of demands. Both worker categories, therefore, requested functional, technical, managerial and customer care competencies to anticipate and manage complexities. Structural characteristics of the health system giving narrow decision space to HSC workers cascaded the capacity for innovation and initiative and promoted frustrations among mid-level managers. Infrastructural deficits and shortfalls in operational resources scaled back the capacity to efficiently manage inventory and ensure that commodities reach clients in good quality.

Finding suggest that capacity building of HSC workers, strengthening of health institutions structural and resource capacity, and leveraging on technology will enable optimal performance of HSC functions.