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The purpose of this paper is to make a systematic review of the library metadata development history listing out the most significant landmarks and influencing events from Thomas Bodley's rules to the latest BIBFRAME architecture, compare their significance and suitability in the modern-day Web environment.

Four time divisions were identified, namely pre-1900 era, 1900–1950, post-1950 to pre-Web era and post-Web era based on pre-set information available to the authors regarding catalogue rules. Under these four divisions, relevant information sources regarding the purpose of the study were identified; various metadata standards released at different times were consulted.

Library catalogue standards have undergone transitive changes from one form to another primarily influenced by the changing work environment and different forms of resource availability in libraries. Modern-day metadata standards are influenced by the opportunities provided by the World Wide Web towards libraries and work as a suitable base for data organisation at par with Semantic Web standards.

Information organisation processes have gone towards a more data-centric approach than earlier document-centric nature in current Semantic Web environment. Libraries had to make a move in this process, and modern-day guidelines in this regard bring the possibility of large-scale discovery services through curated information resources.

The study discovers relationships between key events in the course of development of metadata standards and provides suggestions and predictions regarding it's future developments.

When in‐plant and college‐based courses are run for supervisors and managers, it is conventional to use a U‐shaped seating arrangement in the training room to promote participation and discussion. However, at each class session, people will tend to sit with the same companions habitually, which may be more comfortable, but less productive than if they sat with different people each time.

Cranfield Institute of Technology has strengthened its senior management by appointing Professor Philip Norman to head up the Cranfield campus. Cranfield's recent growth has been dramatic, with the scope of the Institute widening, whilst its strong committment to advanced teaching and applied research in Engineering, Technology, Management and Public Policy has been maintained. The Institute now operates on three campuses, with an embryonic presence at Milton Keynes. It is this increase in the range and complexity of the work of the Institute that has led to Professor Norman's appointment.

PUBLIC LIBRARIANS outside London watch with attention/pleasure/alarm the results of governmental thinking on the re‐organisation of local government. Londoners will be more detached but, remembering 1965 and fingering their old scars, will have sympathy.

NLW is to be congratulated on its promptly‐secured interview with Harold Hookway in a sparkling March number which compares very favourably indeed with the January LAR that I happened to be reading at the same time. Generous though it was of NLW in an earlier issue to lament Edward Dudley's passing (temporary no doubt) from the LA Council, surely here was a massive vote of no‐confidence in an editorial job universally admitted to be badly done. How can the head of a great and successful library school find time to edit his profession's official journal? I have previously suggested that the LA should try to establish some business relationship with the only current English library publication for all staff levels in all types of library that comes close to what the membership wants. Let the LA stick to those publications that it does very well and that enhance its reputation—Library history, and the Journal of librarianship, and pass the buck for a newsy popular magazine elsewhere.

Leave is an important part of life for both patients and clinicians in secure mental health and learning disability settings. Patients breaching leave conditions (i.e. absconding or failing to return) represent a small percentage of leave episodes; however when incidents occur there can be far reaching negative outcomes for potential victims, the patient and the service. The purpose of this paper is to devise a risk assessment specifically for leave decision making based on the literature available.

Using the approach followed in the violence risk assessment field, a literature review was carried out of papers relating to absconding. The results were used to develop the leave/abscond risk assessment (LARA).

There are a number of problems with the available literature: there is a dearth of research, definitions for absconding are varied (often including escape) making comparisons difficult and much of the literature focuses on psychiatric acute wards making it difficult to translate into secure environments. Characteristics of absconders vary and are not idiosyncratic enough from which to develop a risk assessment. Socio‐environmental factors are perhaps more important and so the LARA was devised around assessment of these.

The limitations of this paper are clear: a risk assessment tool is proposed that has not been evaluated or validated in any way. The authors feel that the process warrants publication and invite readers to use the tool for clinical and/or research purposes.

The LARA is proposed as a specific leave‐decision‐making risk assessment tool for teams working in secure environments.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 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.

It is unlikely that many public meetings of library workers will be held during the coming winter. In London, at any rate, the preoccupations of the time have increased in intensity rather than otherwise; the darkness of the streets is more or less opaque; the train difficulties are very real; and those who might receive librarians at their libraries are loth to keep their buildings open to later hours than are absolutely necessary. The Library Association shows no disposition to hold meetings and the President, whose hospitality made some pleasant gatherings possible last year, finds it impossible to extend that hospitality this winter. The suggestion that an occasional afternoon meeting might be held does not seem to have been made, but we hope it will be considered. At such a time as this we cannot afford to lose any opportunity for an exchange of ideas upon our work.

An overview is presented of some basic psychoanalytic insights into organisations that collectively reinforce the reasons why management studies should concern itself with psychoanalysis. The paper highlights the different psychoanalytically informed approaches that have been adopted thus far in the organisation literature and then raises some issues related to those who seek to use psychoanalytically informed insight to make interventions and manage organisation dynamics.

OF all the delightful recreations classed, for divers professional reasons, under the general designation of work, which cause the librarian's existence to be regarded with envious eyes as one of the most joyous and irresponsible on earth, the most delectable is surely that of cataloguing ; and the moments when the cataloguer feels himself fullest of enthusiasm, when he knows it would be impossible to exchange his lot with any human being, are those spent in the absorbing occupation of correcting proofs, for then to the more sensuous delights of the game are added the zest and ardour of combat. Some day I may, with the editor's sanction, make a few observations on the pleasures of cataloguing in general: for the present I am going to consider only this final phase. A curious feature of the pastime or “work,” to adopt the conventional phraseology, is that some people are unable to see the fun of it and innocently suppose the term “work” to be meant seriously. Still, when one reflects that every sport is looked upon by outsiders either as a deadly form of depravity, or as idiotically tedious and laborious, it is clear that this feature is neither wonderful nor exceptional. Golf, angling, football, punting, mountaineering, even book‐collecting, are each looked upon as “work” by those who love other kinds of recreation, which may yet be in reality not a whit less arduous.