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Nurse navigators (NNs) coordinate patient care, improve care quality and potentially reduce healthcare resource use. The purpose of this paper is to undertake an evaluation of hospitalisation outcomes in a new NN programme in Queensland, Australia.

A matched case-control study was performed. Patients under the care of the NNs were randomly selected (n=100) and were matched to historical (n=300) and concurrent (n=300) comparison groups. The key outcomes of interest were the number and types of hospitalisations, length of hospital stay and number of intensive care unit days. Generalised linear and two-part models were used to determine significant differences in resources across groups.

The control and NN groups were well matched on socio-economic characteristics, however, groups differed by major disease type and number/type of comorbidities. NN patients had high healthcare needs with 53 per cent having two comorbidities. In adjusted analyses, compared with the control groups, NN patients showed higher proportions of preventable hospitalisations over 12 months, similar days in intensive care and a smaller proportion had overnight stays in hospital. However, the NN patients had significantly more hospitalisations (mean: 6.0 for NN cases, 3.4 for historical group and 3.2 for concurrent group); and emergency visits.

As many factors will affect hospitalisation rates beyond whether patients receive NN care, further research and longer follow-up is required.

A matched case-control study provides a reasonable but insufficient design to compare the NN and non-NN exposed patient outcomes.

THE topics of the Library Association Conference and the election of the Council of the Association naturally absorb a great deal of attention this month. To deal with the second first: there were few novelties in the nominations, and most of the suggested new Councillors are good people; so that a fairly good Council should result. The unique thing, as we imagine, about the Library Association is the number of vice‐presidents, all of whom have Council privileges. These are not elected by the members but by the Council, and by the retiring Council; they occupy a position analagous to aldermen in town councils, and are not amenable to the choice or desires of the members at large. There are enough of them, too, if they care to be active, to dominate the Council. Fortunately, good men are usually elected, but recently there has been a tendency to elect comparatively young men to what are virtually perpetual seats on the Council, simply, if one may judge from the names, because these men occupy certain library positions. It, therefore; is all the more necessary that the electors see that men who really represent the profession get the seats that remain.

THE London and Home Counties Branch is fortunate in having close at hand watering places which can house its Autumn or other Conferences conveniently. Hove in fair weather in October is a place of considerable charm; it has many varieties of hotel, from the very expensive to the modest; it is used to conferences and the hospitality of the Town Hall is widely known. This year's conference was focused in the main on problems of book‐selection which, as one writer truly says, is the main purpose of the librarian because all his possibilities hang upon it. The papers read are valuable because they appear to be quite unvarnished accounts of the individual practice of their writers. Of its kind that of Mr. Frank M. Gardner is a model and a careful study of it by the library worker who is in actual contact with the public might be useful. For his methods the paper must be read; they are a clever up‐to‐minute expansion of those laid down in Brown's Manual with several local checks and variations. Their defects are explained most usefully; there is no examination of actual books before purchase and bookshops are not visited, both of which defects are due to the absence in Luton of well‐stocked bookshops; a defect which many sizeable towns share. We find this remark significant: “The librarian of Luton in 1911 had a book‐fund of £280 a year for 30,000 people. I have nearly £9,000 for 110,000. But the Librarian in 1911 was a better book‐selector than we are. He had to be, to give a library service at all. Every possible purchase had to be looked at, every doubt eliminated.” We deprecate the word “better”; in 1911 book‐selection was not always well done, but Brown's methods could be carried out if it was thought expedient to do the work as well as it could be done. The modern librarian and his employers seem to have determined that the whole of the people shall be served by the library; that books shall be made available hot from the press, with as few exclusions as possible. No librarian willingly buys rubbish; but only in the largest libraries can a completely comprehensive selection practice be maintained. Few librarians can be quite satisfied to acquire their books from lists made by other people although they may use them for suggestions. How difficult is the problem Mr. Gardner demonstrates in connexion with books on Bridge; a shelf of apparently authoritative books might possibly contain not one that actually met the conditions of today. If this could be so in one very small subject, what might be the condition of a collection covering, or intended to cover, all subjects? Librarians have to be realists; orthodox methods do not always avail to deal with the cataract of modern books; but gradually, by cooperative methods, mechanical aids and an ever‐increasing staff devoted to this, the principal library job, much more may be done than is now possible.

The purpose of this research is to explore UK teachers' use of research‐based information, with a particular focus on issues relating to access to information in schools, information literacy, and the role of the school librarian and school library services.

The study adopts a mixed methodology. In‐depth qualitative data gathered through vignette interviews (n=28), group exercises (four groups of between three and five teachers) and a discussion forum were supplemented by quantitative data gathered through surveys of teachers (n=312), head teachers (n=78), school librarians (n=78) and school library services (n=26).

Teachers' professional use of research information reflects a preference for predigested information and informal sources. Although professional bodies and government departments promote the use of research by teachers and provide a range of customised web sites for information, lack of ready local access to information and lack of time were cited as major barriers to the use of research information. Teachers also revealed uncertainties and lack of confidence in their own ability to find and evaluate such information. The findings suggest scope for more targeted provision by school librarians of both information and skills to support the professional development of teachers. However, this raises issues of priorities and resources, and needs to be seen in the context of a wider change in ethos supported by senior management. The study also raises questions about teachers' own experiences and approaches to the use of information in professional learning, and how this might impact on the provision of support for their pupils and the potential for collaborative working between librarians and teachers.

The qualitative aspects of the study provided a rich source of data from teachers with varying levels of experience and involvement with the use of research information. However, a low response to the teacher questionnaire survey (10.9 per cent, overall, 312 teachers) resulted in a bias towards more research‐oriented teachers in that particular data set. While the data from research‐oriented teachers do appear to triangulate, it is difficult to generalise to other teachers. Therefore teacher survey data have been treated with some caution and drawn on only to aid further understanding of the issues raised in interviews and group exercises.

In focusing attention on teachers' information behaviour and information literacy, this paper provides a new perspective on the issues affecting the lack of uptake of research evidence within the teaching profession, contributes to the literature on information behaviour and information literacy in professional contexts, and contributes to the understanding of factors which may have a bearing on the development of student information literacy in schools.

In 2006 the Brooklands' Adapted Sex Offender Treatment Programme (ASOTP) was adopted by Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. To date, two groups of men (n = 10) have completed the programme and one group (n = 6) is currently in progress. This treatment model uses a cognitive behavioural framework and is a nurse‐led initiative, utilising trained ward staff. This paper discusses experiences of initiating and delivering the ASOTP programme. Several issues were encountered, including staff retention, clients discontinuing the group, the length of the group, the length of wait for clients to commence their treatment and high levels of administration. As a result of these, and developments to the Brooklands' model, several changes were made before the commencement of the second wave in 2008.The paper discusses how the ASOTP were able to overcome some, but not all, of the initial difficulties and highlights potential pitfalls for future groups.

THE question of the advisability of exercising a censorship over literature has been much before the public of late, and probably many librarians have realised how closely the disputed question affects their own profession.

IN THE PERIOD 1925 to 1927, at the request of Viscountess Wolseley, the Corporation of Hove erected and equipped at Hove Central Library at a cost of £1100 a room known as Viscountess Wolseley's Room. This room, established and endowed by Viscountess Wolseley, was dedicated to the study of agriculture and horticulture. It was built on the site of a former roof garden; semicircular in design, it was intended to be the repository of books, prints, documents and other objects which would form sources of local history. The official opening was on 31 July 1928, and to mark the opening Viscountess Wolseley arranged a series of exhibitions to display aspects of social life in Sussex in bygone days.

Liverpool Conference was amongst the largest, as it was amongst the most successful, of recent years. In all but the weather it excelled, and there were fine intervals even in that. We publish the “Letters on our Affairs” by our well known correspondent, Callimachus, so far as it covers the first three days; the conclusion will follow next month, with what futcher comments seem to be necessary. The Annual Business Meeting was a little less rowdy than that at Scarborough, but one thing emerged from it and that was the determination of the A.A.L. to survive independently. There is more in this than meets the eye, and discussion on it may be postponed until a calmer mood prevails on all sides.

It has been held not infrequently that of the influences which together mould the individual and determine his or her value as a social unit those of heredity are so prepotent as to leave little room for those of the environment. By others this view has seemed to involve unjustifiable pessimism. You will, I think, admit that in the past when there was little objective knowledge to bear on such questions, current views were largely decided by that ingrained difference in social outlook which has divided and still divides human opinion on so many other fundamental questions. Those who are naturally inclined to justify privilege, and who have felt instinctively that class distinctions are a social necessity founded on nature, have been tempted perhaps to emphasise too exclusively the unmistakable influence of heredity; those to whom a different outlook is natural have wished to believe, not, of course, that all are born equal as the eighteenth century philosophers declaimed, but that in favourable environments individuals tend to display greater equality of capacity.