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It is never too early to start practising continuous improvement. An American primary school teacher has taken this to heart and, with help from Dr. Deming, is encouraging her students to employ these principles at an early age — at the tender age of seven to be exact!

The purpose of this paper is to export the idea of “Core Competency Based Valuation”. Wireless network operations services companies have exploded in importance and face unprecedented challenges in valuing them. This article considers how one firm's managers are enhancing their value through better performance and decision making to input long‐term value, along with the industry growth and highly favorable customer response to their quality products and services.

This fairly extensive, yet focused paper, was based on accepted financial valuation procedures, due diligence from visit with managers and relevant market data. This paper also reflects other critical valuation quantitative information concerning their considerable business activity and excellent future prospects in the “sales deals pipeline” such as Nokia, a key customer development, that should be reflected in any detailed report regarding valuation.

Effective management requires that the emphasis return to fundamentals, even if it makes analysts unhappy in the short‐term. For managers, DCF tools will continue to be important. However, history also shows that on occasion market valuations can and do deviate. They can benefit that way only if they understand the real underlying values. Managers need to keep their focus on discounted cash flow and all those factors in the company and marketplace that reflect the firm's capabilities and opportunities.

What makes wireless firms, and especially new wireless firms, different? First, they usually have not been in existence for more than a year or two, leading to a very limited history. Second, their current financial statements reveal very little about the component of their assets – expected growth – that contributes the most to their value. Third, these firms often represent the first of their kind of business. In many cases, there are no competitors or a peer group against which they can be measured.

Logging‐in over 32 years in the aviation business, Ted Lawrence has joined the Western Aircraft Incorporated team and will be handling the Falcon aircraft and maintenance sales. During his distinguished career, Lawrence has specialized in the Falcon programme with expertise in avionics, maintenance and sales. At this time Western Aircraft is in the final stages of becoming the Northwest's only Falcon Service Center, strengthening their already diverse capabilities in the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to report an academic library's efforts to introduce course-integrated assessment into its library instruction program. Applying a leadership change model to the process allows for a step-by-step examination of both organizational change and the creation of cultures of assessment.

Over a period of three years, course-integrated assessment was introduced into an academic library's instruction program. Rather than implementing rapid, superficial change, the process focused on transforming librarians' thoughts and feelings about their teaching and student learning. Dr John P. Kotter's eight-step process for leading organizational change is applied to explain the methodology.

Kotter's leadership change model provides a suitable framework for organizing and implementing organizational change within an academic library. However, the use of his method to create and sustain cultures of assessment proves questionable. This may not be fault of his method, but a combination of a less than perfect application of his process and unrealistic expectations of how cultures of assessment develop and function.

The paper focuses on one unit within an academic library, rather than an academic library as a whole.

Changing organizational culture, creating cultures of assessment, and/or implementing course-integrated assessment exemplify some of the challenging tasks academic libraries face in their mission to prove value. This case study provides a candid discussion of both successes and obstacles encountered in using a change leadership model to address each of these. It may also inspire other possible uses of such a model within academic libraries.

According to Meredith Farkas, investigations into the application of leadership change models to build and sustain cultures of assessment within academic libraries do not exist in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to share a practical approach to formative, authentic assessment of Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) outcomes within individual sessions of course‐integrated information literacy. This method does not require extra class time and assists librarians in modifying their teaching techniques to improve student learning.

By implementing authentic assessment of worksheets already integrated into library instruction sessions, librarians measure student learning of ACRL outcome 2.2.b “identify keywords, synonyms, and related terms for the information needed.”

Librarians consider this initial foray into authentic assessment a success, with the methodology only requiring a few adjustments. Results of student learning revealed an overall understanding by students of how to identify keywords and synonyms, but uncovered a weakness in topic development.

This study is based on a three‐class sequence of information literacy for freshman composition students. Because of this, librarians can limit the number of outcomes per class, not always an option in one‐shot sessions.

This technique provides a realistic means of assessing student learning of outcomes. Due to the popularity of active learning, many librarians should already have in‐class activities they could easily convert into assessments.

Much research exists on the value and results of authentic assessment. Fewer studies focus on formative, authentic assessment of a specific ACRL outcome, particularly at the individual session‐level.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue of Reference Services Review entitled “LOEX‐of‐the‐West 2012: creative landscapes in southern California”.

Over 160 librarians from across the USA and Canada attended the biennial LOEX‐of‐the‐West (LOTW) conference on the campus of Woodbury University in Burbank, California from June 6‐8, 2012. LOTW strives for an atmosphere in which speakers can share innovative ideas and open a dialog with other librarians.

Traditionally, after each LOEX‐of‐the‐West (LOTW) conference a number of papers based on session presentations are submitted to Reference Services Review (RSR) for publication. Building on their work at the 2012 preconference, Editors of RSR, Ms Eleanor Mitchell and Ms Sarah Barbara Watstein, have worked closely with presenters to transform their talks to published papers. After going through a double blind peer review process, seven papers have been selected for publication in this issue.

The authors/Guest Editors are excited to share these papers in this special LOEX‐of‐the‐West issue of Reference Services Review. It is indeed just as the conference theme stated “Information Literacy for all Terrains”.

In the concluding part of a three‐part series on Japanese success, reports it has been suggested that it is a combination of long‐term strategies and a united approach. Outlines Japanese history and thinking patterns. Discusses how post war Japan was ready to assimilate the “quality” ideas of Dr. Deming. Asserts that the key to Japanese success lies not in the systems, but in the people who run the system, managers and managed, and how they relate to each other. Discusses the seniority system and the importance of life‐time employment. Notes that knowledge is spread and shared, and that concern for the common good is said to be the prime motivation of a Japanese company. Discusses long‐term planning as another possible key to Japanese success as well as their commitment to quality. Concludes that Japanese success is not a myth but the result of a well‐thought‐out long‐term strategy.

The parenting styles, or perhaps lack thereof, of Ambridge families is a much-talked about topic among The Archers listeners. This has been brought into keen focus recently with the parental role in, and reaction to, Ed and Emma Grundy's separation, and the intra- and inter-family dynamics of the Archers clans brought about by Peggy Woolley's Ambridge Conservation Trust. This chapter presents an Archers Assembly, based on the Citizens’ Assembly model, to pass judgement on the parenting styles of the matriarchs and family heads of key Ambridge clans. The Archers Assembly crowdsourced (through the Academic Archers Facebook group) considerations on: The Matriarchs, Peggy and Gill Archer; David and Ruth Archer; Pat and Tony Archer; Susan and Neil Carter; Jenny and Brian Aldridge; and Clarrie and Eddy Grundy. The chapter offers the evidence on each set, with a list of ‘for’ and ‘against’ cases, and quotes, from respondents.