Sweet harmonies for the apicultural researcher who has analysed, and accompanied, the sounds of bees
Professor Norman E Gary is the rare academic who plays clarinet while he is covered with live bees, and often in public.
An emeritus professor of apiculture at the University of California (Davis), Gary also plays Dixieland music in a human ensemble called the Beez Kneez Jazz Band. He generally goes solo for the bee-encrusted gigs.
Hollywood has used Gary's bee-wrangling talents, though seldom his clarinet, in more than a dozen movies. Among them: The X Files; Fried Green Tomatoes; Invasion of the Bee Girls; and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh.
Several of Gary's scientific activities involve vibration, a general physics phenomenon of which music is just a part. Gary has microwaved bees. He has also analysed one of the lesser-known (to most humans) sounds that bees produce. Details appear in a monograph published with colleague SS Schneider in 1984 in the Journal of Apicultural Research. They gave their article the title "Quacking": A Sound Produced By Worker Honeybees After Exposure To Carbon Dioxide.
Gary has published more than 100 academic papers, many of them about bees. In one of the earliest, called The Case of Utter vs Utter, he took a fond look back at a court case decided in 1901 in Goshen, New York, starring two brothers from the Utter family.
The brothers disagreed – Utterly, of course – about many things. The question here was: did the bees associated with one brother, a beekeeper, eat the peaches growing on trees owned by the other brother, a fruit grower? Perhaps the most enjoyable account appeared soon after the trial, in the Rocky Mountain bee journal. The anonymous writer says: "It was amusing to see the plaintiff try to mimic the bee, on the witness stand as he swayed his head from one side to the other, raised up on his legs and flopped his arms. His motions were so utterly ridiculous and so contrary to the real acts and achievements of the bees, that everyone in the courtroom, including the jury, laughed, and laughed heartily."
The court ruled against that Utter, and for the other. This established a legal precedent favorable to wandering bees. It also inspired, almost 60 years later, the young Gary as he began his more-than-60-year-long career of collaborating with and studying tiny, honey-making musicians.
Thanks to David Kessler for bringing this to my attention.
• Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
A new elearning module from the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance is to help update people dealing with intellectual property rights in universities, colleges, museums, libraries and other public bodies.
The module will help them understand the implications and roles of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and licensing – all crucial to their institution’s role as a provider, aggregator and/or publisher of digital content.
After completing the module, they will be better able to create, exploit and manage digital content with confidence, and most importantly, using a risk managed approach.
To help make these complex areas more understandable, the module is divided into six learning objects with a range of supporting case studies, video and animation:
1. Introduction to IPR and licensing
2. Creative Commons licences
3. Orphan works and risk management
4. Digital Economy Act
5. Accessing and using third party content
6. Protecting and managing rights
Naomi Korn, one of the authors of the resource, said: “The module has been developed to directly address those people in institutions who may be new to the issues around intellectual property rights and licensing or for those who want to learn more about specific issues. We anticipate that people will want to customise, reuse and share the information so it is has been developed in an open source platform and the content licensed under Creative Commons licences, making the resource as flexible as possible.”
The module supplements and forms part a range of products and tools to support the management of IPR created by the Alliance.
Sarah Fahmy, manager of the Strategic Content Alliance, said: “Whilst there is little current case law, the education sector risks reputational damage and loss of trust with publishers and other rights holders in the event that copyright and other IPRs are not handled appropriately.
“Universities and colleges need support to ensure that their own rights are adequately protected, contractual agreements with any funding bodies are upheld and the ramifications of using digital content for which rights holders are unknown or cannot be traced - so called 'orphan works' - are thoroughly considered.”
The module has been developed for the Strategic Content Alliance by IPR consultants Naomi Korn and Emma Beer, and by Robert Stillwell and Dr Neil Witt in the department for technology enhanced learning at Plymouth University.
Read more advice and guidance on IPR and related issues through the toolkit
Stay up to date with the work of the Strategic Content Alliance
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Chartership is CILIP's professional qualification. It's more than earning the right to have MCLIP after your name. Chartered Membership opens up new career opportunities and gives Members the skills and approach needed to develop their roles and make good job applications. By honing evaluative and professional skills through Chartering, Members also add value to their organizations and can advocate effectively on behalf of their services.
Read the Qualifications Blog and follow Qualifications on Twitter
You can contact the Qualifications and Professional Development team on 020 7255 0610 or quals@cilip.org.uk
"I signed up for Chartership to help me progress in my career"
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Feedback from succesfully Chartered Members of CILIP
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You can apply for Chartership whether you are a new professional or have been practising for years. Because it's a professional development qualification it's designed to fit your career
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JISC welcomes the ‘Heading for the open road: costs and benefits for transitions in scholarly communications report’, which adds to the growing knowledge into the different publishing models for UK research.
JISC co-funded the report with the Research Information Network, the Publishing Research Consortium, Research Libraries UK and the Wellcome Trust, to look at the UK scholarly communications system; particularly the five possible routes for academics and researchers to disseminate their work.
The report suggests that encouraging open access appears to be a good way forward for the UK’s scholarly communications community and in particular via gold or green routes. It is consistent with previous research in coming to this conclusion.
Neil Jacobs programme director digital infrastructure says: “This report looks at how gold open access (OA) is particularly viable for the UK in the longer term but only if average charges are under £2000 making journal prices more competitive. This can already be seen with Nature Scientific Reports, Sage Open and BMJ Open all being created the in last year to meet the demands of an ever growing knowledge economy looking to access information. In the meantime, and alongside these developments, the UK’s network of repositories offers clear value for money in maximising the impact of UK research.
“Through JISC’s work with the UK’s Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) we are building on this report, to look at the benefits of deeper open access for the private, public and third sectors as well as for an academic audience. For this report, 'access' has been defined as reading onscreen and being able to download and print information, whereas the OAIG is looking broader and focussing on how research can be reused, repurposed and managed with the appropriate IPR statements.”
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Help ensure libraries are on the agenda for upcoming English local elections
English local elections take place on 5 May. Find out if there is an election in your area where the council has responsibility for the public library service and get suggestions of questions to ask your local candidates.
Find out how you can get involved now
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"Public libraries make a huge contribution to society and are at the heart of many communities." Annie Mauger, Chief Executive, CILIP.
Local elections take place on 5 May.
Have your say in the English local elections
Public libraries are the responsibility of English local authorities. On Thursday 5 May, there will be local elections in the major towns and cities outside London. And in a number of unitary authorities in more rural areas. There are national elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Metropolitan Boroughs and Unitary authorities have elections. There are no council elections in London or for County Councils. The Shire Districts also have elections but they do not have responsibility for the public library service.
Some authorities may only be electing by thirds: a third of the Council is up for re-election rather than the whole Council.
List of local elections where the council has responsibility for the library service
The stakes are high as most authorities have announced major cuts to their service. A recent survey by the Local Government Association (LGA) showed that 83% of local authorities planned to cut libraries. 16% plan to cut them disproportionately.
You can find out what is happening in your authority by visiting the library closure map on Ian Anstice's Public Library News blog.
Short guide to contacting local media
You may have your own questions about local libraries. If not, here's some suggestions:
1. Will there be any library closures?
2. What are your plans for libraries in the future?
3. Will you maintain the quality of service and not get rid of specialists?
Specialists include children's librarians, local studies librarians, reader development staff and information specialists.
4. Will you at least maintain, if not extend, opening hours?
5. Will you ensure that the schools library service is kept?
If there isn't a schools library service you can ask what library support can be given to primary schools particularly. Check here to see if your authority provides a schools library service.
Our resources can help you when standing up for local libraries:
Vote local, vote libraries information sheet (includes suggested questions to ask candidates)
What makes a good library service?
Statement on public library service in England (issued on Save our Libraries Day, 5 February 2011)
One-minute messages about the importance of public library services and professional staff.
Library Cuts Wall of Shame: Voices for the Library are collecting information about which of the local councillors standing in the local elections have voted for library cuts and closures in their wards during the 2011 local budget and Comprehensive Spending Review processes.
Got a few minutes to spare?
See what you can do using our sliding scale of spare time.
The local elections process is fairly complex. Use the links below to find more information from external websites:
About my vote
What can I vote for and what kind of council do I have?
Find out here (using your postcode) if there is an election in your area (Shire Districts have elections but do not have responsibility for the public library service.)
Direct.gov: List of local councils
House of Commons Library briefing: Local elections 2011
Ordnance survey: Electoral maps of constituencies and wards
Elections take place on 5 May for the National Assembly for Wales, Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. There are no local elections in Wales and Scotland. There are elections to local councils in Northern Ireland (but local councils do not have responsibility for the public library service).
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A list of courses in London accredited by CILIP
Centre for Information Science, City University London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB
Postgraduate Diploma/MSc Information Science.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2013.
Postgraduate Diploma/MSc Information Management. Post-experience course.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2013.
Postgraduate Diploma/MA/MSc Library Science.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2013.
MA/MSc in Information Management in the Cultural Sector.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2013.
UCL Department of Information Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
Tel: 020 7679 7204 direct; Fax: 020 7383 0557
E-mail: k.michaels@ucl.ac.uk
Web: www.infostudies.ucl.ac.uk/
Postgraduate Diploma/MA Library & Information Studies.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2013.
Postgraduate Diploma/MSc Information Science. Post-experience.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2013.
Department of Applied Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University, Ladbroke House, 62-66 Highbury Grove, London N5 2AD
Tel: 020 7133 4200
Email: admissions.north@londonmet.ac.uk
Web: www.londonmet.ac.uk/depts/dass/subjectareas
/informationmanagement/
Postgraduate Diploma/MA in Information Management.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation July 2013.
Postgraduate Diploma/MSc Information and Knowledge Management.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation October 2015.
No longer recruiting. Successful graduates are eligible to proceed towards Chartership.
University of West London
St Mary's Road, Ealing, London W5 5RF
Tel: 020 8579 5000 Fax: 020 8566 1353
Email: learning.advice@uwl.ac.uk
Web: www.uwl.ac.uk
Postgraduate Diploma/MA Library and Information Management.
Full-time & part-time - Next accreditation April 2014
No longer recruiting. Successful graduates are eligible to proceed towards Chartership.
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Find out about our latest response to the government's Public Health White Paper
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Bursary scheme still entails a 60% cut in help for poorer students despite additional funding
The news that the education maintenance allowance was to be scrapped, announced in last year's spending review, left college principals feeling gloomy. The means-tested scheme, introduced in 2004, currently provides £10-£30 a week for 16- to 19-year-olds from low-income families to help them meet the costs of staying in education and training.
The replacement bursary scheme promised by the chancellor, George Osborne, offered little in the way of comfort; at just £78m it was a long way short of the £560m annual EMA fund. And without a guarantee of financial support, many in the sector feared young people would be discouraged from continuing their education.
So principals were surprised to learn that the government has suddenly managed to find some extra cash to support such students. In a partial u-turn, announced last week, the government said the replacement bursary fund would now be worth £180m annually, with the biggest amounts (£1,200 per person) given to young people with the greatest needs, such as those in care, leaving care, young parents and those with disabilities.
Under the new scheme, due to be launched in September, colleges will be able to use the remaining £165m to make discretionary payments to those from low-income families. Also promised is additional transitional funding of £194m, to ensure those already receiving EMA will still get help while they complete their course.
But while the additional funding is welcome, college principals point out that this is still a funding reduction of almost 60%, which means there will be substantially less to go round. As Stella Mbubaegbu, principal of Highbury College in Portsmouth, puts it: "While it is larger than expected, it is still considerably less than before, and essentially not enough to target all the disadvantaged young people who rely on its financial support to continue their education."
Many colleges are having to dig deep to subsidise students who would previously have qualified for EMA payments or, under the new funding arrangements, will be entitled to less.
Middlesbrough College
Around 67% of Middlesbrough College students are entitled to EMA, totalling about £2.2m annually. Although it is difficult to be precise until more detail about the bursary scheme is released (due after an eight-week consultation with young people, parents and learning providers, due to end in May), the principal, Mike Hopkins, estimates the college will now receive between £700,000 and £800,000.
Before the additional funding was announced last week, the college had pledged up to £400,000 of its own funds to buy students on low incomes a £10 discount card, which entitles them to half-price transport; to subsidise a free bus service across the Tees Valley; to provide free meals for those in need; and to offer cash rewards for good attendance, free gym membership and even free haircuts.
Hopkins is pleased colleges can now use their discretion to award the funding, but says he is concerned that he doesn't have access to the right data. "The EMA is currently handled by the outsourcing company Capita, which has access to data on benefits, the number of students entitled to free school meals, national insurance and other useful stuff. We're negotiating with the local authority to get access to data on students previously entitled to free school meals, but it is still a worry. We want to make sure our decisions are consistent, fair and transparent, but we can only do that if we have the right information to hand."
Central Sussex College
Prior to the announcement about the EMA replacement, the college was also planning measures to support its most disadvantaged learners, including travel subsidies and bursaries of up to £300 for students from families with a family income of below £21,000.
Now they will have to go back to the drawing board. But until some of the detail of the plans is fleshed out, it is difficult to predict how much will be left over to help fund their plans, says Adrian Dodwell, executive director for 14-19 and learner services at the college.
And the timing couldn't be worse, he says. "Students are now making decisions about whether to move on to the next year of their course or start a completely new one. Without reassurance that they will receive additional support, some may be put off applying at all."
He admits that finding extra cash in the budget will be tough, but says the college has no choice. "We can't afford not to. If we don't support students, we will not generate the level of income we need to stay afloat."
Warwickshire and Hinckley College
The college's principal, Marion Plant, is also worried about timing, pointing out that students entitled to help under the new scheme are unlikely to have their bursaries confirmed until September. This means they may be reluctant to commit themselves to courses. The college has already seen a drop in applications compared with this time last year, which Plant believes is due, at least in part, to the scrapping of the EMA.
But with little left in the college coffers to supplement the bursary scheme, Plant and her staff are having to think creatively to raise money. One idea is selling consultancy services in key areas of expertise within the college (human resources, site management, marketing and web design, for example).
The college is also trying to negotiate discounts with local bus companies, exploring the possibility of using transport services run by volunteers and thinking about offering a "pay by instalment" option for some courses.
"We want to be proactive, but we can't renege on any commitments to students, so at this point in time we have to be cautious," says Plant.
K College
The newly created K College (the product of a merger between West Kent and South Kent Colleges) is less than a year old and still finding its feet.
The principal, Bill Fearon, is currently exploring how the college might provide transport and meal subsidies and is considering reducing some courses down to a four-day week, which could reduce travel costs and give students more time to do part-time work to fund their studies.
But Fearon is worried about where the government has found the money to boost their bursary fund. "You can't help wondering if it's just robbing Peter to pay Paul and we'll end up having to weather cuts in some other area of our budget to fund this."
Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College
This college is setting up its own bursary scheme to help support students from low-income backgrounds. The West London Student Trust will raise money through the sale of land and other assets, and, it hopes, through philanthropic contributions and donations. While still in the early stages, it is hoped that the trust will be able to offer incentivised rewards for students that are linked to attendance and success.
But, despite their efforts, the vice-principal, Tim Hulme, fears there could still be difficult decisions to be made about which students receive support. "Do you support a few with a lot, or a lot of students with a little? It's a huge dilemma."
Headteachers around the country are facing serious budget cuts, despite 'new money' for schools
In Surrey, nine schools make job cuts to avoid plunging into the red. In Salford, three schools struggle with deficits of more than £1m. And at one comprehensive in Nottinghamshire, a headteacher breathes a huge sigh of relief as his school escapes closure by the skin of its teeth.
"It's always: 'Can we afford to do this?' Even stupid things, like how much paper we buy," says Tim Mitchell, head of Dayncourt comprehensive in Radcliffe-on-Trent. By the time the county council approved a business plan drawn up as a last-ditch attempt to avoid closure, the school's deficit had reached £1.16m.
So, what went wrong? Just a few months ago the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced to the House of Commons that amid swingeing cuts elsewhere, he had found new money for schools: "There will be a real increase in the money for schools … for each of the next four years," he told MPs as he revealed the results of his spending review last October.
Yet across the country, heads and governors are reporting a growing sense of anxiety as they wrestle with detailed budgets for the next year. Unions have warned that they expect widespread job losses, and heads say they are being forced to pare spending to the bone.
At Dayncourt, even on a sunny spring day, the problem is depressingly obvious. The school's timber-framed 1950s main block is, quite simply, rotting away, and its peeling paint, exposed pipework and general air of flat-roofed jerry-building shout of neglect and decline.
And, Mitchell admits, that has been the story of the school in recent years. When he came for an interview in March 2006, the situation looked manageable – there were 935 children on roll, not too far short of the full complement of 1,050, and a deficit of £140,000. When he came back in September that year to start work, both the rolls and the deficit had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. By 2008, the school's debts were heading for half a million, its pupil numbers had slumped to 750 and the local authority was moving in to close it down.
In an increasingly bleak financial climate, Mitchell says, there were few options left. The school has now entered a formal partnership with South Nottingham College, which since January has provided it with services such as computer support and building maintenance. It has lost 20 teaching and 15 non-teaching posts from a full complement of just over 100.
And from this September, the school will become an academy, with the college as its sponsor. The two institutions will review their estates – the school has a site of around 13 acres – to see if it may be possible to sell off land for development in order to fund the rebuilding programme that Dayncourt so desperately needs.
Mitchell says that while the process has been deeply painful, it may prove to be the way forward for many other cash-strapped schools. Even with pupil numbers projected to drop further to around 500, the school will survive.
"If schools are going to meet the challenges they now face, I think they are going to have to work more closely with other providers," he says. "But I don't think anybody should see it as a threat. While I or the staff or the governors might have been vehemently opposed to what the local authority was saying, one had to accept where they were – there wasn't a bottomless pit of money."
Dayncourt, he believes, is slightly ahead of an uncomfortable trend – where it has led, others are bound to follow. Despite the positive headlines that heralded last autumn's spending review, the government has now been forced to admit that schools' finances are far from rosy. In fact, budgets have been set at the same level as last year – but with inflation, a teachers' pay rise that was only part-funded and a cut in capital grants to take into account, most will be severely out of pocket, according to the Association of School and College Leaders.
"The vast majority of schools will be seeing a reduction in real terms of about 5%," its policy director, Malcolm Trobe, says. "It's going to mean larger classes, it's going to mean less curriculum choice, and it's going to mean less student support. That's the impact on young people."
The government's new pupil premium, which gives schools extra money based on the number of pupils taking free school meals, will help in some cases, he says. But even so, a large secondary school with a budget of about £6m is likely to find a hole of around £80,000 in its budget. With staffing accounting for 80% of a secondary school's costs, the only realistic course for many will be redundancies.
And, Trobe points out, the level of financial deficits in schools was running at a record high even before the latest blow – almost one in five secondaries and one in 10 primaries finished the 2009-10 financial year in the red, and figures for this year are likely to be much higher. The total deficit among those schools – the highest since records began a decade ago – was £161m. In secondaries, the average deficit was almost £200,000.
Earlier this year, the government quietly published figures showing the financial position of every school in the country – revealing that for some, the situation was already dire. Among them was Dayncourt – one of eight schools in the country with seven-figure deficits. All the signs are that many other schools will find themselves facing similar dilemmas – headteachers were advised last spring that if they ended the financial year with a deficit, they were likely to end up in trouble in the coming year.
Last week, the Audit Commission issued a series of briefing papers on how schools might save money. They might increase class sizes, cut back on classroom assistants or reduce the number of subjects on offer at GCSE, it suggested, or they might choose to cut non-teaching staff.
There are signs, too, that schools may be forced to step in to fill gaps left by cuts in local authority services such as libraries and transport.
In Hertfordshire, a row has broken out after the council suggested schools might use the pupil premium to pay the school bus fares of pupils from poorer families, prompting an angry response from the Liberal Democrats. Chris White, a St Albans councillor, said he had complained to Nick Clegg's parliamentary aide, Norman Lamb, about the move. "It's pure cynicism – to use something that was meant to be for improving teaching in this way is absolutely outrageous," he said.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, says the union is receiving reports from members around the country about staff cuts in schools.
"We've been facing issues coming from schools about restructuring taking place, and quite a lot of it is down to cost cutting," she says. She argues that schools with falling rolls should not be able to simply opt for academy status, as Dayncourt did: "We're seeing schools that have got themselves into difficulty with deficits and because they have falling rolls, going for academy status – the reason local authorities close these schools is because they're not financially viable."
The public sector union, Unison, which represents many non-teaching staff in schools, has been hearing bad news from its members, too. In Surrey, nine schools and three children's centres are cutting jobs, the union says, while in Rotherham school staff have been told they face a 5% cut in pay. Unison's general secretary, Dave Prentis, says 32,000 education workers have lost their jobs in the last year – among them a large number working in central council services such as special needs teams. And, he warns, there will be worse to come now the new financial year has started.
"Many of the cuts will now start to bite, and the toll will creep higher. This will be a disaster for schools, and for children's education," he says.
At Dayncourt, though, Mitchell is feeling positive about the future, despite the tough times ahead. "At this moment, our deficit is £60,000," he says. We will go into the black this year despite a reduction in funding, but that hasn't been without significant pain. I am acutely aware that we have lost colleagues – but at least the majority of jobs have been saved."
A Department for Education spokesman said the settlement was the best schools could possibly have hoped for: "Ministers are clear that the spending review saw the best possible settlement for schools considering the dire public finances. We've had to make tough decisions to reduce the unprecedented deficit, but the fact is we have protected the level of funding in the system so that, overall, it remains at the same cash level per pupil, with £2.5bn pupil premium by 2015 on top for those that need most support."
Over the coming months the Guardian will be tracking the full consequences of the government's spending cuts in schools, local authorities, universities and colleges – and we need your help. Please tell us about job cuts and cuts to services in your back yard by emailing us at cutswatch@guardian.co.uk. We hope to use the information to monitor and report how the cuts are affecting people across the country.
We are also seeking to establish a team of volunteer "cuts-watchers" who will collect information and keep us informed on a more regular basis. Ideally, cuts-watchers will be willing to do some research on the extent of the cuts in their area and send us updates.
If you're interested in getting involved please email us at cutswatch@guardian.co.uk In your mail please tell us if you have any area of expertise, which part of the country you are in, and how much time, on a monthly basis, you'd be willing to devote to helping us with this project. If you have written or blogged on any related subjects, please do send us links. We'll get back to you soon.
The outdated laws on royal marriages need changing, says a researcher – and William and Kate's wedding is the perfect time
Prince William's forthcoming marriage to Kate Middleton is unlikely to be beset by any legal confusion. But future Windsor weddings could easily be mired in controversy unless there are changes to the law, according to Professor Rebecca Probert from Warwick University, an expert on marriage law.
Probert argues that laws need to be unravelled which, for example, give the royals exemptions that don't apply to the rest of us, while others saddle the royal family with archaic restrictions that contravene their human rights.
The forthcoming royal wedding seemed a good impetus to convert 10 years of research into a book, The Rights and Wrongs of Royal Marriage: How the Law Has Led to Heartbreak, Farce and Confusion, and Why It Must Be Changed.
Probert points out that, as the law stands, any future heir could succeed to the throne if he or she married a Muslim or a Hindu, but not a Catholic. And in fact, marrying a scientologist or a Satanist would still put him or her in the clear. "There's nothing stopping them under current legislation," she says. "The Act of Settlement says only that you drop out of the succession if you marry a Catholic. Any other religion, it's fine. Of course, it's absurd by 21st century standards. But it's a consequence of 18th century law designed to secure a Protestant succession. It's ridiculous that it has never been repealed. "
It's even more ridiculous, perhaps, when heirs are allowed to cohabit with Catholics or enter into same-sex relationships with them without forfeiting their place in the succession. Also there is nothing to stop the wife or husband of a royal from converting to Catholicism after the wedding.
The issue of royal consent is just as baffling. Anyone who can trace his or her ancestry back to George II may require the Queen's consent before marrying. Otherwise the marriage could be declared technically void under UK law.
Extensive research in the National Archives has led Probert to conclude that while successive governments have been aware of the "absurdities" of royal marriage law, they have done nothing about it. "They don't want to be seen to be legislating during a crisis, such as Princess Margaret's plan to marry [the divorcee] Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955. And when there isn't a crisis, there are always more pressing problems."
The issue came to a head, she feels, 50 years on from Princess Margaret being pressed into breaking off her engagement. The build-up to Prince Charles's marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005 brought about judicial contortions from the Lord Chancellor of the day. Lord Falconer struggled to balance laws that were forged in the 18th century to bolster the hereditary monarchy with a Human Rights Act passed in 1998 making equality before the law a fundamental principle.
Result: farce. "The initial announcement that the civil marriage was to take place at Windsor Castle had to be hastily revised," Probert recalls. "It was shifted to Windsor Guildhall, which was registered for civil marriages." And why did it have to be a civil ceremony for the man who was first in line to the throne and head of the Church or England? Because he was a divorcee, and so was his bride. Attitudes had changed in 50 years, and the Queen felt able to give the consent to her son's marriage that she had been advised not to give to her sister's.
Crucial to the Queen's decision was Lord Falconer's judgment that the Human Rights Act meant that nobody, including the Prince of Wales, could be discriminated against on grounds of birth. "All we had was a statement in parliament and a decision by the registrar general to grant a certificate of marriage," says Probert. "The Lord Chancellor never went into detail about how the Act might apply to other members of the royal family. Can any of them now get married in a civil ceremony? And, if they choose to marry in church, do they have to go through the same formalities as everyone else?"
Royal privilege, it seems, has hitherto exempted them from certain requirements enshrined in the Marriage Act of 1753, including the need to get a licence and sign the appropriate parish or civil register. If Probert has her way, even the Archbishop of Canterbury could face a fine of £1,000 if he failed to ensure that this was done. Why? Because claiming rights on the basis of non-discrimination must inevitably mean forfeiting privileges enjoyed since the 18th century, she argues. "The time to legislate is now while there is a groundswell of enthusiasm for the forthcoming wedding." But surely the government has more pressing problems to deal with?
"Successive governments have been saying that since the 1950s and ducking the issue."
But why does it matter? "For the general population, it doesn't matter too much these days whether or not their parents are married. But unmarried royals can't pass on titles to their heirs. So as long as we have a royal family, we need to have clear laws that ensure that their marriages are free from challenge as to whether or not they're valid."
The Rights and Wrongs of Royal Marriage is published by Takeaway Press at £9.99
James Dyson fears for the future of design and technology as the national curriculum consultation draws to a close
The billionaire businessman and inventor Sir James Dyson is the first to admit that, as a subject, design and technology still has a bit of an image problem: "That's probably because it has its origins in the school wood workshop in the days when everyone had to make wooden matchbox holders", he muses, conjuring up images from the '50s of Bryl-creemed boys in baggy brown coats fashioning these curiously pointless items on old-fashioned woodwork benches.
But Dyson, one of the most high-profile entrepreneurs representing Britain's creative and manufacturing industries, warns that the future will be very bleak for the sector if the subject – with its now more up-to-date focus on high technology – is downgraded as a result of the review of the national curriculum recently launched by the coalition government.
The deadline for submissions to the review – launched in January by the education secretary, Michael Gove, is next Thursday (14 April) and the Department for Education is bracing itself for a flood of criticism that the government wants to concentrate on too narrow a range of core subjects such as English, maths and science. There are fears that design and technology may be one of the more marginal subjects removed from the list of those that, as part of the national curriculum, have to be studied by secondary school pupils.
Explaining the reasons for the launch of the review, Gove said: "We have sunk in international league tables and the national curriculum is substandard. Meanwhile, the pace of economic and technological change is accelerating and our children are being left behind."
But design and technology has many supporters – not least Ofsted, which hailed high standards of teaching and learning in a recent report. And while some teenagers currently learning design and technology may groan at the less exciting areas of study, such as "resistant materials", the subject has more take-up than many people realise. A breakdown of last summer's results for the GCSEs taken in 2010 revealed that, after maths, English and science, design and technology was the most popular subject.
Dyson, who was knighted in December 2006, revolutionised the domestic appliances market with the bagless Dyson Dual Cyclone, which became the best-selling vacuum cleaner in the UK within 18 months of its launch.
He has always shown a keen interest in design education and, after his ambitious plans to open a government-backed £25m design school in Bath foundered, his company pledged £5m to the Royal College of Art, where he himself studied, to support aspiring designers.
Dyson was asked by David Cameron to make recommendations on how Britain can become the leading high-tech exporter in Europe, and the new government has clearly listened to his recommendations. Two weeks ago, he was personally named in the budget by the Chancellor, George Osborne, as he announced plans to increase tax benefits for small companies for their research and design activities.
But after this boost for Britain's manufacturing industry in what Osborne dubbed a budget "for making things", Dyson fears that removing design and technology from the national curriculum would be a retrograde step. "It is a stem subject that uses maths, physics and chemistry and it absolutely deserves to remain as a compulsory subject on the secondary school curriculum," he says. "Without it, it will be even harder to inspire young people to go into the engineering professions and develop new technology. Modern design and technology should sit alongside science and maths. And it should have the academic rigour of engineering, attracting the brightest minds, and it should be logical, creative, and practical – inspiring young problem-solvers. If you drop DT as a core subject, it will no longer be seen as important."
He also believes it teaches important life skills to youngsters who may not pursue a career in design or technology. "We don't want to have a whole generation of techno-phobes."
Underlining these points, today he will launch the 2011 international James Dyson award, which aims to challenge young engineers and designers at the university stage of their education to develop problem-solving inventions. Previous winners have tackled problems from different angles: from a buoyancy aid inspired by a grenade launcher to a kitchen tap that can tackle a blaze in your home. The prize-winner receives £10,000 to develop an invention and £10,000 towards their university education.
Dyson says the awards recognise the talents of young people who "take frustrations and solve the problems that cause them. We're looking for the people who, rather than accept a problem and make do, design a simple and effective solution."
Banging the drum for design and technology in schools is last year's UK finalist David Graham, who admits he "caught the bug" for the subject at the Suffolk comprehensive school he attended – Sudbury Upper school.
Here, he benefited from the school's "well-equipped design and technology department", he says, with enthusiastic and enlightened staff. "I was not academically gifted. I made a nuisance of myself and got to learn how to use all the equipment. By the age of 15, I was competent to use all the machinery in the various workshops and that gave me more confidence, too."
After leaving school at 16, Graham had a chequered education and career – sadly punctuated by illness – before landing on his feet taking a double master's in industrial design at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. He was shortlisted for the Dyson award for his (now patented) design for ingenious sets of recyclable cardboard wheels and handles to help people move heavy objects around. "I watched all these people struggling around London with bags and boxes and, basically, carrying too much stuff. I thought, we can't change their habits, but we can help them." He is already taking orders for the ground-breaking product, which will be officially launched in September this year.
"The help and the PR exposure I have received through the Dyson award have helped me to get my product on the map," says Graham. "But I also owe Mr Fazackerly – the design and technology technician at my school –a huge debt of gratitude. Without his help and enthusiasm, I would never have got started."
Minister called in to negotiate peace between angry college staff and their professional body
There was hectic activity last week as the further education minister John Hayes tried to negotiate peace in a bitter row between lecturers and their professional body, the Institute for Learning (IfL).
The IfL, to which all further education teachers must belong, had triggered fury by ordering them to pay their own membership fees after the government announced it would no longer cover these. Rarely can the demand for an extra pound a week have touched so raw a nerve. To make matters worse, the fees suddenly went up from £30 to £68 annually.
The hike has exposed other festering sores. Lecturers on message boards write of IfL's "intrusive demands"; of members "gaining nothing for enforced membership". In a letter to IfL, lecturer Martin Ellison from Stamford, Lincs, says: "If members are forced to pay their fees, the organisation becomes an expensive, self-serving irrelevance. Straw polls from around the country suggest that 70-90% of members are not going to pay. It is time for everyone in governance within IfL to face up to the fact that it has failed."
One major bugbear is IfL's insistence on members having to prove that they've completed 30 hours of continuous professional development (CPD) each yearr.
Doncaster College lecturer and UCU activist Rod Challis says this "added insult to injury" for staff receiving a negligible pay increase. "We have the qualifications to do our job and we always used to log CPD in our record of achievement," he said. "But when some of us tried using IfL software to record and upload it, there was no sign of it online. There's a strong suspicion that nothing has happened to this information. Someone here even told IfL they'd done 1,500 hours of CPD and there was no challenge to that claim."
Meanwhile, the IfL admits that 18% of members had failed to complete their CPD in 2009-2010, yet it remains unclear what fate awaits them.
As Hayes sought to broker a peace deal, he held three separate meetings with unions representing lecturers and support staff, the Association of Colleges (AoC) and the IfL. This resulted in all parties agreeing to sit down and try to find a solution acceptable to everyone by early May.
"We're pleased and satisfied there's a commitment … a recognition that something's going to have to change," says Barry Lovejoy, UCU head of further education. "It's a big step forward."
But while UCU has withdrawn its payment boycott, big questions remain. The union has been adamant its members won't pay. Moreover, it wants IfL membership to be voluntary rather than compulsory. Yet for the IfL that would present a potential funding black hole as it relies on subscriptions from its 195,000 members.
The IfL was formed in 2002 to protect and enhance the status of FE lecturers, but things have gone badly wrong. UCU's anger is shared by the public sector union Unison, many of whose members, such as assessors, are classified as "associate teachers" and so are required to belong. Some earn just £13,000-£14,000 a year. "Many have told us it's not just about the money but what they get in return," a spokesman says.
There's further confusion about who actually has to join the IfL. In some colleges, assessors count as associate teachers; in others, they don't, depending on what is in their individual job description.
Clearly the IfL's relationship with members needs straightening out. Recently, the UCU's head of legal services and employment law, Michael Scott, wrote to the chief executive, Toni Fazaeli, telling her he could find no copy of the institute's conditions of membership on its website.
Scott also pointed out that anyone failing to adhere to the IfL code of conduct – such as by withholding subs – has the right to "a fair and public hearing in keeping with the rights conferred on individuals by the Human Rights Act … reflecting …that no person may have their livelihood taken away from them without observing due process". This conjured the chaotic prospect of hundreds of personal hearings for payment refuseniks.
Yet the IfL says its own survey shows that most members are satisfied with how it operates. With its financial future uncertain, IfL has recently cut staff from 52 to 38 "to make sure there is a sustainable long-term future for the professional body," says Fazaeli.
She casts doubt on 16,000 UCU signatories to the petition calling for a boycott. "We had member records for only one third of those," she says. "Quite a lot of signatures were duplicates. Some were working in universities; some just signed themselves with a first name."
As the alternative to a payments boycott, UCU had lobbied for employers to find the money. It's unclear how many takers there have been so far. Fazaeli says she knows of about 60 prepared to pay employees' subs direct to the IfL. "I expect only a tiny minority are colleges," she says.
She welcomes Hayes's intervention. "We're satisfied all parties are looking for a resolution and will not take action to escalate matters."
Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, says he has no mandate to steer colleges one way or another on paying IfL subs. "There are differences of opinion among our members. We're sympathetic to those who have made strong representations about the fee and the nature of membership," he says.
"But this is a complex sector; some lecturers only teach 14- to 16-year-olds, some teach all ages, some are industry professionals teaching vocational courses and others only teach on higher education courses within a college setting. There will be anomalies."
Of his meeting with Hayes, Doel says: "It was clear that the minister was trying to act as mediator and to reconcile the parties. If he can, that's a good thing."
Some numbers are essential to running a university, but others should be treated with caution, argues Peter Scott
Everyone remembers "lies, damned lies and statistics" attributed, perhaps wrongly, to Disraeli. Now perhaps we should expand it – "lies, damned lies, statistics and metrics". Modern higher education systems are increasingly driven by numbers – management information, liquidity ratios, key performance indicators, workload models, student (and staff) satisfaction scores, research assessment grades, citation indices, media league tables … Everything, it seems, can be reduced to a number.
But can it – or should it? First, these numbers are a mixture of the good, the bad and the mad. Second, there may be something deeply incongruous about universities that are designed to ask questions, to engage in critical inquiry and (however clichéd) push back the frontiers of knowledge reducing everything to uncomplicated digits.
Of course, some numbers are good – and essential. Universities need the best possible information on staff costs, income projections and cash positions. They need to know whether their students are progressing, completing their courses and finding jobs. They need to make sure their research is sustainable. Good management information is essential to ensure universities operate effectively – as business organisations.
But there is, or should be, always room for questions even in these operational matters. For example, squeezing down "completion" rates may be in the best interests of the institution, because it maximises its income and improves its league table position. But it may not be in the best interests of individual students weighed down by caring responsibilities or going through "bad patches" in their lives.
Or, to take another example, research offices and finance departments may insist that all research (or as much as possible) is fully funded – in other words, it covers its full economic costs. But to turn down projects of significant academic potential just because they are not fully funded is plain daft. Another saying comes to mind – "the operation was a complete success, but sadly the patient died". The point of research is not to cover its costs or make a profit; it is to improve our understanding of the world.
Some metrics have become a sad necessity. Student satisfaction must be tested – regardless of whether they pay high fees. The National Student Survey, a bit like democracy, is a bad way of doing it, but probably the best we've got. But its limitations need to be understood. For example, by far the major determinant of institutions' relative "performance" is their subject mix. The other big one, of course, is student mix – in terms of class, gender and ethnicity.
Research scores need to be treated with similar caution. The steep cliff-like "grades" of earlier research assessment exercises (RAE) were indefensibly crude. Last time, the substitution of "profiles", covering the very best to the very worst research, was a step in the right direction. The new research excellence framework (Ref) brings "impact" into the picture, which is right, although measuring "impact" through case studies will be a fraught (and inaccurate?) business. At least the Ref has resisted the lure of "metrics" – for the moment.
There are two problems with the proliferation of metrics. First, they inevitably get translated into "winners" and "losers". So they can be the enemies of diversity because they translate legitimate differences – in student mix, research priorities and the rest – into illegitimate hierarchies. My guess is that rankings – and the measurements that have fed them – have done far more to destroy diversity than, for example, the decision two decades ago to make polytechnics universities.
Second, they can encourage corruption. Institutions have to become adept at game-playing, often in the worst interests of their students – or of junior researchers. But a more serious form is the betrayal of what higher education is for. Higher education is not a competitive sport, like football. What I learned at university is not diminished because others have learned things, too (though my degree may have become a less valuable positional good in the labour market). My research is not diminished, nor improved, because others have carried out "better" or "worse" research.
We can all be winners, if we stick to "the good, the true and the beautiful" (as opposed to "lies, damned lies, statistics, metrics..."). But we will all be losers if we end up, according to another cliché, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education
Toby Young did not follow in his father's socialist footsteps, becoming instead a celebrity failure. Can his free school succeed where other ventures have not, asks Peter Wilby
Anybody who has seen the film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, based on Toby Young's autobiographical book of the same title, will know that Young is an imbecile, a prat and a pain in the hindquarters. On his own admission, he is a professional failure who has been sacked from every job he's had. He once wrote a regular Guardian column called "Toby Young on failure". "The moment I'm perceived to be even a tiny bit successful," he said in 2006, "my career will go down the pan."
He has been called Britain's "most socially inept man", and that's by his wife. Asked to avoid German jokes when he was giving the best man's speech at a wedding – because the bride's mother was German – he told German jokes from beginning to end. He has been intimately acquainted with several mind-altering substances and, for a period, was for all practical purposes an alcoholic. And not only was he a pornography user, he was interviewed on TV about it.
That doesn't sound like the right kind of person to run a school and, if this were the Daily Mail (where Young often writes), you'd probably have headlines of the "Would You Entrust Your Child to This Man?" variety. But Young's West London Free School was the first to sign a funding agreement with the education department at the beginning of March, and one of only two secondaries likely to be up and running by September.
It's also the only free school most people have heard of. There are 14 other members of the steering committee, including Young's wife, Caroline Bondy (whom he described in his book as having "Baywatch tits"), and John McIntosh, former head of the London Oratory (attended by two of Tony Blair's children), with which the school will have a formal partnership. But thanks to his addiction to self-publicity, you could be forgiven for thinking West London is all about Young, who promises an "Eton of the state sector".
Is this personality cult helpful, I ask Young over lunch. "From the start," he says, "I decided the benefits outweighed the costs. It helps in attracting teachers and applicants. And as the most visible free school group, it's harder for the government to ignore us. But from now on, the costs will outweigh the benefits. If anything bad happens, the media will leap on it. We're under a huge obligation to be successful." But he's a professional failure, isn't he? "I have retired that persona."
Young, now 47, does indeed seem to be a changed man, as perhaps you have to be when you have four children under eight, with a non-working wife (though she's a qualified solicitor) and an income from jobbing journalism.
He still gets up people's noses. He denigrates his local community school without ever visiting it; argues that local authorities have an inbuilt incentive "to preserve mediocrity"; describes the website of the London University Institute of Education as a satirical hoax; and generally carries a deal of rightwing baggage while accusing his opponents of working to a political agenda.
But, far from being the bumptious, wisecracking character you might expect, he talks seriously, even earnestly, weighing his words carefully as if he's a politician giving a tricky press conference, which, in a way, I suppose he is.
It's a mistake to assume that because Young has made a career out of sending himself up he's an idiot. A recent lecture at Middlesex University shows a sophisticated grasp of the relationship between social class and education. He has clearly read all the literature on the subject and he says he visits at least one school a week. Even his books aren't just collections of comic anecdotes. How to Lose Friends is a quite subtle exposé of New York society and how American claims to classlessness don't remotely accord with reality.
So when Young says the West London Free School will be "a comprehensive grammar", we should take him seriously, even if it does sound like an oxymoron. "There's no reason," he says, "why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake." That, he argues, was Harold Wilson's original vision when, under his leadership, Labour embraced comprehensives in the 1960s. Young is adamant the school won't be exclusively middle-class – "if we have an anomalous cohort in any way, our critics will say our success proves nothing" – and says the first two children given places come from council estates. It is hard to fault the admissions policy, which gives priority to local children, but uses a lottery to determine successful applicants from a wider area.
Anybody who attended grammar schools in their heyday will recognise both the curriculum and the organisation of pupils into competitive houses, with names such as Athenians and Spartans. All children will have to study at least six academic subjects – English language, English literature, maths, history, science and a foreign language – until exams at 16. Latin will be compulsory in years 7 to 9. Music will be a specialism, alongside lots of drama. There will also be interdisciplinary topics such as Ancient Greece and the Renaissance and lectures on politics and philosophy.
There's absolutely nothing technical – no computing, no design and technology, no domestic science – largely because, Young says, it will be a small school of just four-form entry. If any pupils "passionately want to do a subject like DT", they can go for "a period or two" at the Oratory. He accepts that the narrow focus "will be a shortcoming from some parents' point of view", but doesn't explain how this can avoid skewing the intake, in terms of ability and aptitude if not social class. He says, though, that if an academic curriculum is to be delivered, "we shall have to be flexible on pedagogy", and the prospectus has a section on "habits of mind", which will be "built into the curriculum". They include "Persisting. Managing impulsiveness... Striving for accuracy ... Finding humour."
What drove Young to start the school? "Both my wife and I went to comprehensives [he doesn't mention that Bondy did most of her schooling at Cheltenham Ladies' College] and we wanted our children to do so, too. But we didn't want them to be force-fed New Lab mumbo-jumbo." We briefly argue about whether this is an accurate description of what comprehensives do and, after agreeing that the state sector is infested with jargon and "pupils" shouldn't be called "students" ("I replaced every instance of it in our literature," he says proudly), I embarrass Young by pointing out that the prospectus uses "holistic" at least twice.
Then we get to the nub of the matter: his father. It is impossible to understand Toby Young without discussing the late Lord Young of Dartington (originally Michael Young), for years a pillar of the Labour party who, as his son recalls, sang "Balls to the Bourgeoisie" with Tony Crosland, Wilson's education secretary, on Christmas Eve. Young Sr wrote the 1945 Labour manifesto, virtually invented what is now called social entrepreneurship, set up the Consumers' Association, Which? magazine, the University of the Third Age and the National Extension College (prototype for the Open University), and wrote The Rise of the Meritocracy, a dystopian satire about the consequences of continuing with the 11-plus. He and his wife, as a family friend recalls, ran "a household of moral passion and seriousness" that was regularly seized by great causes and such compassion for the unfortunate that several homeless people usually came to Christmas lunch.
Young Jr adored his father and is touchingly proud of him. But, the family friend says, he was overshadowed in cleverness by his sister, and "he looked like somebody who couldn't cope in Michael's world". So he became something different: shallow, amoral, obsessed with glamour and celebrity, and aggressively rightwing. (Strangely, he announced in a Spectator column last year that he had become a Tory, though nobody ever thought him anything else.) At what he calls a "bog-standard" comprehensive in Devon, where "pretty much the only thing I learned was how to roll a joint", he got a C in O-level English lit, a grade one CSE in drama, and nothing else.
His mother agreed he wasn't academic and, as a lifelong socialist who respected all workers, she assented enthusiastically to a work experience programme. "I tried being a mechanic and I tried catering," recalls Young, "but I realised I had even less aptitude for semi-skilled labour than for academic work." After a spell on an Israeli kibbutz, he got three more Cs at O-level, thanks largely to his father's tuition, and then took A-levels at William Ellis in London in its last years as a grammar school.
He applied to Brasenose College, Oxford, which was then trying to recruit more state-school pupils. Young was told he needn't sit the entrance exam and could read philosophy, politics and economics if he got three Bs at A-level and acquired an O-level in a foreign language. He got two Bs and a C and didn't even attempt the O-level. He still got in, thanks to a curious episode in which, though he got a personal rejection letter, he first received a circular telling him when to arrive and where to collect his keys. His father rang the college, which agreed the circular created a moral obligation that should be honoured. From this unpromising beginning, Young got a first and, later, a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard and a place at Cambridge to do a PhD, which he never completed.
By then, he'd also done journalism, getting commended in the British Press Awards for a piece on youth culture in the Observer and winning a Times traineeship. Though he was sacked from the Times for hacking the computer system and circulating senior executives' salaries round the office, he decided that was the career for him. The journalist Julie Burchill, detecting a fellow contrarian ("he always carried a rolled-up copy of the Sun in his pocket," she has recalled), took him under her wing. With her, he started the Modern Review in 1990. Its slogan was "low culture for highbrows", so it got intellectual types to write about Madonna and the Simpsons. Though it was more talked about than read, Andrew Neil, Sunday Times editor in the 1990s, acknowledged it as the inspiration for his paper's Culture section. Eventually, after a row involving Young, Burchill and her protégé Charlotte Raven, the magazine was shut down.
That was followed by an attempt to become a celebrity journalist at Vanity Fair in New York, and then by an equally unsuccessful bid to become a Hollywood screenwriter, each of them chronicled in books. These made him far more famous than his father, a shy man who abhorred celebrity culture. But Young Jr seemed destined to become little more than a media tart, who wrote comic plays for metropolitan audiences (there was one on sex scandals at the Spectator), and appeared on TV shows such as Come Dine with Me.
Then came the free school, and at last he feels he's doing something Young Sr would approve of. "Because my father was able to set up all those institutions, I'm confident it's possible to take on a project of this size and succeed. Without such a role model in their lives, most people would think it's complete pie-in-the-sky."
He says he's still having arguments with his father in his head. "He may have wobbled a bit between Labour and the SDP, but he was a committed egalitarian and his belief in socialism never wavered. From quite an early age, I rejected his belief in hard equality – equality of outcome. With free schools, I know he would have worried about the impact on neighbouring schools. But he would definitely be in favour of groups of parents hiring their own staff and deciding their own curriculum. He was no believer in the big state and I think he would have had some sympathy with the 'big society'. It's not a million miles from the socialist Utopia he wanted. I got a nice letter from Crosland's former private secretary, supporting what I'm doing and saying if Tony were still alive, he would, too."
He continues: "I imagined the people who disapproved of me when I was a celebrity journalist would change their minds and think he's his father's son after all. But now they disapprove of me even more." He sounds surprised and exasperated, but it's difficult to believe he doesn't understand why.
If the free school concept has any intellectual coherence –as opposed to being just another government gimmick – it is largely thanks to him. Yet you're bound to wonder if it's just another ego trip that allows new subject-matter and a new persona for his journalism, the laddish type being so 1990s and, in any case, not quite right for a man nearing his sixth decade. Nor can you quite escape the suspicion that this will end in another spectacular failure and perhaps another book, called something like How to Alienate Teachers and Muck Up Your Children's Education.
"I don't think I've ever wanted anything in my life to succeed more than the West London Free School," Young says. But – and I know it's unkind – I'd lay odds that, once it's up and running, Young will be smartly pushed aside by his fellow founders and his own children will end up somewhere else. It's the least you would expect from a professional failure.
One of our five students has started visiting institutions, while another has a full house of offers
Year 12 student Sam Jacobs, one of five students Education Guardian is following on the path to university, is anticipating a busy summer full of university research and work experience as he dreams of studying medicine to qualify as a doctor. "This summer, I'm planning on attending one of the Sutton Trust summer schools" [the schemes designed to give bright students from non-privileged homes a sample of life at leading universities like Bristol, Nottingham and Cambridge], says Sam, who is 17 and a student at JFS, a mixed comprehensive in Harrow, London.
"I've also arranged a placement in the rehabilitation unit at Finchley Memorial hospital – I'm really keen to further my passion for medicine. Plus I'm attending weekly science lectures for sixth-formers at King's College London." Sam, who is studying chemistry, biology, English literature and geography ASs and is the first in his family to apply to university, is also turning to the internet to research his medicine course options.
"I have spent the last few weeks on the Ucas website, researching the various courses and universities on offer," he says. "For me, the most important attribute of a university is the teaching style, facilities and course content. Uni is a huge topic for me and my friends. We regularly talk about our future prospects and all the various options. "My biggest worry is not making the final cut. I fear university is getting harder to get into and more people are being turned away each year."
Away from cyberspace, Sam is checking out universities in the real world, too. "I've visited a few, including Birmingham and St George's, University of London," he says. "And last week, school took us to Oxford, where we had a fantastic insight into the college system and city life. Walking through the grounds and seeing the facilities for myself really gave me a taste of what university life is going to be like."
At the other end of the university application experience, Christopher Howarth, 17, is lamenting his lost opportunity to take a gap year.
"I would have loved to take a gap year before university, but with the raised tuition fees for 2012 entry, it sadly isn't a price worth paying," he says. "What teenager, regardless of background, wouldn't be phased by the £80,000 of debt some commentators have cited for what once cost students nothing?"
By forgoing a year out and starting university this September, Christopher, who is in year 13 studying English literature, Latin and chemistry A-levels at the private Haberdashers' Aske's boys' school in Hertfordshire, will be part of the last cohort to pay the current, lower tuition fees for university. His first choice, Cambridge, has already announced it will charge £9,000 a year under the new regime, the highest possible fees.
"That was predictable, given Cambridge's loss of funding, but it's undoubtedly going to change the student demographic," says Christopher. "We could very quickly create a two-tier system where you can have either a cheap, low-quality education or a fantastic one that breaks the bank. The education budget cuts and tuition fee increases are extremely unpopular – as witnessed by the various uni occupations and the plethora of Nick Clegg jokes on Facebook."
Overall, however, Christopher is currently feeling relieved: not just because he escapes higher fees, but also because he has just been offered a place to read classics at UCL. The London university was the last of his five preferences to respond, and he now has a full house of offers, having heard back from Durham, Bristol, St Andrews and Trinity College, Cambridge.
"It's great to know that everything's paid off, but the offers are fairly steep," says Christopher, who will follow in the footsteps of his parents, who work as a civil servant and school administrator, by heading to university. "Cambridge is asking for A*AA, plus compulsory attendance on a Greek summer school because I'll be starting it from scratch. So the pressure will be on." The sixth-former says the new A* grade means he'll have to work harder this year than otherwise. "A couple of years ago, it was the AS year that mattered since AS grades go on the Ucas form, but now it's important to work equally hard for the A2s – getting that 90% can be the difference between whether or not you make your offer."
While he says he's definitely going to put Cambridge as his first choice, Christopher hasn't yet decided on his insurance option. "I have until 5 May to make up my mind," he says. "I went to UCL's classics open day recently, and though I can't make Durham's, I'll be listening to the advice of others applying there for my subject." In his spare time, he has also started checking out student funding options. "The paper trail is slowly mounting," he admits.
"The student loan process seems straightforward enough, but the priority at the moment is deciding which offer to take as my insurance. If I choose St Andrews, a substantial part of my student loan would be spent travelling backwards and forwards. But if I choose to live in London, that will cost more than elsewhere in the country."
There will be more time to think about it when study leave begins next month. "Before then, there is the usual rush to get the syllabuses learned," he says. "And revision guides are starting to disappear from the library. University's been a preoccupation for almost two years now, with everyone desperate to get into the best institutions. Now it's time to ensure we meet our offers."
The demise of history, and closing the door to vulnerable students
After Jamie's Dream School we now have the musings of Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson (Reduced to odds and sods, 29 March). Ferguson might have mentioned primary schools, where just 4% of curriculum time is devoted to the subject. He quotes extensively from Ofsted: this is a bit like asking a serial killer to advise the homicide squad. Testing, league tables, the resultant narrowed curriculum, all of this enforced by the Ofsted inspectors. Ferguson's view of history is narrow and reductive, but despite that, some history, any history would be welcome.
Richard Knights
Liverpool
• To Niall Ferguson's four facts he might have added a fifth: that, according to a survey by The Historical Association, the schools where the subject is at greatest risk are the academies, those institutions so beloved of Michael Gove.
John Till
Voice, Derby
• I am pleased our report has generated such interest. But I must take issue with any interpretation that Ofsted is soft on the teaching of secondary school history. Despite finding a lot of good practice, we highlight that all is not well. We are particularly critical of the fact that whole-school curriculum changes have affected teaching for 11- to 14-year-olds, that children are stopping history too early, and that there is too much spoon-feeding of facts and set texts.
In primary schools, we found pupils knew about particular periods but found it difficult to understand them in relation to a long-term narrative.
We recommend that the national curriculum review should ensure that primary school pupils experience history as a coherent subject that develops their knowledge, thinking and understanding, especially chronological; and that all secondary students should benefit from a significant amount of history.
Richard Brooks
Director, strategy, Ofsted
Nick Linford (Great idea: let's put education out of reach of those who need it most, 29 March) highlights the catastrophic effect of the end to fee remission for vulnerable adult students not on "active benefits", but fails to mention a group who will almost certainly disappear from colleges: adults with learning disabilities.
At my college, we anticipate that no more than a handful of students will be able to pay the expected £1,000 costs for a part-time course next year. Despite students categorised as "LLDD" (learner with learning difficulties or disabilities) being entitled to education until 25, the Young People's Learning Agency has not extended fee remission, so these students, too, will be asked to pay. Even if some students do pay, the volume of work will be so small that it will be unviable for courses to run.
After 21 years of working with disabled students to develop their basic communication, practical life skills, decision-making and autonomy, I am heartbroken at the prospect of the end to these opportunities (and expect to have to change area or lose my job). These funding changes will force people with learning disabilities out of further education: surely they are the people who really need it?
Caroline Gray
Sparkbrook, Birmingham
Why do some sheep cling together, and others take off on their own?
To know why certain sheep cling to each other while others split off on their own, a person would need to know the size of the group, and also something about the personalities of the individual sheep. Scientists at the Macaulay Institute in Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, sought this very knowledge when they looked at the loiterings of sheep.
Pablo Michelena, Angela Sibbald, Hans Erhard, and James McLeod (the names of the scientists, not the sheep) wrote up their study, Effects of Group Size and Personality on Social Foraging: The Distribution of Sheep Across Patches. It appeared in 2009 in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
The four scientists observed the meanderings of 58 female Scottish Blackface sheep in fields, under tightly controlled conditions. First they gave each of them a personality test, noting which were bold enough to explore objects with novel smells (lavender, mint, thyme, marjoram, garlic, or coffee) and exotic shapes (a baby's rattle, a bottle brush, and various baby's teething rings).
Then they let the sheep loose, in groups of two, four, six, or eight, in grassy arenas that each had some patches of especially desirable (in the scientists' opinion) greenery. That extra-yummy fodder, sprung from extra-fertilised soil, was allowed to grow especially long so as to be extra-noticeable to the sheep.
In the scientists' view, the sheep faced a dilemma: "In our study, sheep faced a trade-off between maximising their access to a preferred, but limited, resource and staying together as a group."
More often than not, groups broke apart. And here personality came to the fore, say the scientists: "bold sheep ... tended to split into subgroups at smaller group sizes than shy sheep". That was the study's major finding. The scientists discovered that after a split, the n ew, little groups would often be of equal size.
The idea that each sheep might have a uniquely distinctive personality is quite modern, academically speaking. Until recently such individuality in non-human animals had never been documented by scientists.
Michelena, Sibbald, Erhard and McLeod write about the newness of the notion. They say: "Comparative psychologists and behavioral ecologists have recently documented consistent intraspecific differences between individuals in traits such as aggressiveness, activity, exploration, risk taking, fearfulness, and emotional reactivity."
When they say "recently" they mean 1998, when a treatise in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London persuaded many biologists that some pumpkinseed sunfish are shy, and others are bold.
Michelena, Sibbald, Erhard and McLeod note that earlier studies did point the way towards these personality insights. A prime example, they say, is the distractingly named The Relation Between Dominance and Exploratory Behavior is Context-Dependent in Wild Great Tits, which delighted ornithologists in 2004.
Marc Abrahams
Marc Abrahams is editor of the bimonthly Annals of Improbable Research and organiser of the Ig Nobel prize
The US higher education system is said to be the best in the world, so why is it not able to train the doctors the country needs, asks Jonathan Wolff
There is one thing we can all agree on, surely. The US system of higher education is the best in the world. Harvard, MIT, Princeton and the rest dominate the league tables. Of course Oxford and Cambridge poke their Hogarthian noses in too, but all surveys suggest that around 75% of the world's best universities are in the US.
But what do these universities do so well? Publishing attention-grabbing research, and raising money from alumni, obviously. What they don't seem so good at is supplying the needs of the US high-skill labour market. The US relies on soaking up talent educated elsewhere, as a book entitled Give Us Your Best and Brightest by Devesh Kapur and John McHale amply demonstrates. For example, of Indian-born residents of the US, about 40% have a graduate degree – many in science and technology – compared with about 10% of the "native-born" group.
And the picture is even clearer when it comes to medical education. A recent report in The Lancet shows that the US simply does not train enough doctors to meet its voracious appetite for medical attention. Each year many more doctors retire than graduate from its medical schools and so the US is compelled to raid the world to make up the difference.
For decades about 25% of doctors practising in the US received their training elsewhere. This now amounts to close to 200,000 doctors educated abroad. Around 5,000 were trained in sub-Saharan Africa; predominantly Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, but also elsewhere. In 2002, there were 47 Liberian-trained doctors working in the US, and just 72 working in Liberia. And even when a doctor is recruited from Canada, Canada then looks to South Africa, and South Africa to wherever it can. The poorest will always lose out.
In most countries, especially in the developing world, doctors are trained at public expense. If a doctor from Ghana is recruited to the US, not only does Ghana lose its doctor, it loses the money paid for the training. It may be that the doctor is likely to send a portion of earnings back home (known in the development business as "remittances"). But this is scant compensation. In sum, the US is receiving a massive subsidy from the developing world in training its medical staff.
But why am I picking on the US? Are we not even worse in the UK? Nigel Crisp, former head of the NHS, points out that, historically, we were, but the picture has largely changed now. Recently, we woke up to the damage we were doing and agreed a code of practice with other Commonwealth countries, and opened more medical schools.
Why the US doesn't supply its own needs may seem a bit of a mystery. After all, doctors in the US are not exactly badly paid. But training is long, arduous, and, of course, expensive. Apparently, a newly trained doctor graduates with about $200,000 of debt. This is a serious business, and, unlike lawyers and bankers, of which there are no American shortages, doctors lack the opportunities to earn immense salaries immediately and pay it all back.
Furthermore, unlike in the UK, there is no central planning of higher education. How could a decision to open up new medical schools be implemented? No doubt there are ways, but the political process would be tortuous. In the UK, it was decreed and it was done. Well, the medical profession, bless them, having first identified the problem, moaned a bit about the new proposals, but subsequently fell into line.
So while we look with envy at the wealth and achievements of the top American universities, we should bear in mind that not all is as well as it seems. In fact, it may be that the weakness of the US higher education system is contributing to the health and development crisis in some of the world's poorest regions.
Jonathan Wolff is professor of philosophy at University College London. His column appears monthly
Queen Mary's Mile End Group is bringing in political stars to enliven its teaching of history – and attract funding
On a shiversome winter evening a few weeks ago, a most unlikely gaggle packed out the People's Palace, Mile End, drawn by an even more unlikely crowd-puller. Young history students and (mostly) old power brokers – including David Owen, Nigel Lawson and David Miliband – rubbed shoulders and listened to the nonagenarian Denis Healey give his thoughts on the chancellorship. The man who helped the ancient statesman's star shine that night is Jon Davis, of Queen Mary, University of London.
Blunt, business-like and irrepressibly upbeat, Davis is the antithesis of the caricature historian, and worked in investment banks before the bubble and bust. But his passion was always "making sense of politics past", and he won his spurs amid the "dusty annals" of the national archive at Kew, completing a doctorate on prime ministers and Whitehall in the 1960s under the supervision of Professor (now Lord) Peter Hennessy, the British constitution's most celebrated scribe and a popular political author.
The Hennessy brand of contemporary history has always drawn heavily on gossip with those who were actually involved – one of his footnotes cites a chat with former prime minister Edward Heath "while peeing in adjacent pedestals at Glyndebourne" – and now Davis is steadily institutionalising the professor's formidable network, through a quirky ouftit known as the Mile End Group. The group draws big political names such as Healey, Sir John Major and Michael Heseltine to its decidedly informal history seminars – and it brings in some serious corporate money in the process.
History's thirst for funding has never been greater. The Browne review has effectively withdrawn the direct subsidy for teaching humanities at undergraduate level and, even before that, budding historians often found it impossibly difficult to fund their graduate work. In each of the last couple of years, only about 10 students in the whole country have secured public funding for a master's in political history via the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Even for those with a first-class degree, the odds are horrendous.
At Queen Mary, however, there are other options. The IT giant Hewlett Packard pays the fees for four MA students and makes a contribution towards their living expenses in return for their becoming assistants to the Mile End Group. Michelle Clement, 21, has landed the event organisation role, while researching the aftermath of the 2010 general election. She explains: "I'm one of six children from a half-Pakistani, half-Glaswegian family. Without the financial support, I simply could not have done the course. But much more than that, the group's events have opened doors, and enabled me to meet top mandarins, some of whom I'm hoping will provide invaluable insight for my dissertation on the coalition talks". Another assistant, 55-year-old Phil Horscroft, came to Queen Mary as a mature student after working as a financial adviser abroad. He agrees the "money and networks have made all the difference", and after completing a dissertation on the Falklands war, he hopes to go on to a PhD.
They are all emphatic that Hewlett Packard has no influence on their work, and for Davis corporate support is an unalloyed "cause for celebration". He has also pulled in a small amount of cash from the civilian and military engineers Babcock, and has his eyes on other major partners. Previously, Queen Mary persuaded the arms company BAE Systems to fund a group assistant through a PhD on the procurement of Polaris, which he is currently undertaking.
Some of these corporate names raise instinctive suspicion, and after Col Gaddafi's donations to the LSE landed it in hot water, the president of the Queen Mary's student union, Vratislav Vraj Domalip III, emphasises the need to be careful. "It's the duty of universities to check any company they are taking money from, to ensure it follows a sound ethical code. But at a time when budgets are being savaged, there's a real need to diversify income and tap new funding streams to ensure the quality of students' academic experience."
Characteristically, Davis's pragmatism is less qualified. "Of course we need to guarantee total academic freedom, none of us would have it any other way. HP well understands that, but can nonetheless see a real shared interest. They value the chance to mix with the great and good, who happen to be very interested in what we do. From our point of view, with their help in terms of hospitality and the rest, we can pull in bigger names."
With many public-sector clients, the networking is no doubt valuable to HP. Its director of strategy for government business, James Johns, says: "Of course it's valuable for us to forge relationships with top people, but as a business we are also serious about learning lessons from the past."
"For the students to meet the names in their textbooks," Davis says, "brings the whole subject to life, and for those on the lecturing side, the big beasts provide not merely insight for research, but a practical teaching resource." The latter is indisputable. Together with the Independent on Sunday's John Rentoul, Davis has developed an undergraduate course that teaches the "Blair years" as history – it is about to be promoted to a master's. He signed up star lecturers, including Blair's right-hand man, Alastair Campbell, as well as the former top defence mandarin Sir Kevin Tebbit, and the former GCHQ boss Sir David Omand. "Using our networks we can make the constitution, and particularly its most secretive corners, flare into life in the classroom", Davis says.
Looking ahead, Davis anticipates other shared interests, and not just with big corporates, but with Whitehall. "Thanks to faster job turnover, and outside recruitment, the British civil service is no longer the truly permanent government it used to be – the institutional memory is fading. That is where contemporary historians can help." Officials certainly seem to agree, and Sir Humphrey is well represented on the board of the Mile End Group. The Queen Mary historians' penchant for proper documentation may make them nostalgic for the lost ways of SW1 – the group has just bagged the official paper copy of the UK's historic Cabinet minutes, after the Public Records Office digitised them.
Looking ahead, Davis is eyeing the potential of putting his young historians to work on a consultancy basis. "There are no end of thinktanks, which roll forward, powered by partisan links. What we want to do is to offer a context unit, a non-partisan outfit that can use its expertise to guide policy-makers through the recent past." Advice on departmental re-structurings, which are so often botched, is only one area where the present public authorities would greatly benefit from an injection of expertise about the past.
Davis is also convinced that a historical training can pay dividends in the world of work. Most of the first few Mile End Group assistants have found jobs, many in public policy – one is working for the Labour party, for example, and another for the Whitehall and Industry Group. HP itself has just hired one former group assistant, Charlene Brennan, 23, on a consultancy basis, on account of her "research/summation/presentational skills", which were developed through studying history, but which HP believes will be equally applicable in context of the non-historical analysis that it requires.
It seems that companies like HP, who have close and sometimes controversial relations with government, are keenly aware of the value of understanding the past. Until such time as the government itself understands the same thing, it could fall to such corporations to foot the bill for making history.
It is now two years since the LIS Research Coalition was established and the Coalition has initiated a review of the Coalition’s value and impact.
To encourage a wide contribution to this review, an online questionnaire has just been launched- http://bit.ly/review_survey.
It will take no more than 15 minutes to complete and provide you with the opportunity to comment on your familiarity with the Coalition’s work, your assessment of its activities and achievements so far, its value to your own work, and your comments on plans for the next 12 months
The survey will remain open until 17.00 on Friday April 8th 2011.
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This week on the Guardian Teacher Network, a lesson to get pupils thinking about the monarchy
The average 11-year-old probably knows more about King Henry VIII than about today's royal family. But all that could change big time with the royal wedding – and even a day off school – coming up. What a golden opportunity to talk to children about what the monarchy is, how it is embedded into the running of our country – and to discuss with them whether we need a monarchy at all.
On the Guardian Teacher Network, our new resources site, you can now find a one-hour PowerPoint lesson ideal for classrooms or homes to get children thinking about the constitution of their country and whether it needs to be reformed. The lesson explains the current powers and prerogatives of the Queen. Inherited rule comes as a shock to many children and the lesson will explain how even "commoner" Kate Middleton can only become queen in name, without any constitutional power.
Although this is a citizenship rather than a history lesson, it was impossible to resist adding a link to Horrible Histories' hilarious song about the King Georges, Born 2 Rule ("Born to rule over you, Georges I, III, IV and II; people hated us and we hated them too..."), to help get the debate flowing
Children will be given the tools to discuss whether the royals are beyond class or whether their presence helps to keep the class system alive. The PowerPoint gives them the vocabulary, information and spark for their own ideas to ready them for the final challenge: should the monarchy be abolished?
Find the lesson plan at http://bit.ly/hrfKOg. Let the debate commence!
• Emily Drabble is editor of learnnewsdesk, the Guardian's news service for nine- to 14-year-olds. Her book, What's the Big Idea: the Monarchy, is published by Hodder. The Guardian Teacher Network offers free access to 70,000 pages of lesson plans and interactive materials. This content is being added to every day by teachers and specialists. 20,000 teachers have signed up already. To see (and share) for yourself, go to teachers.guardian.co.uk
Millions of historical records have become more accessible to the public today (4 April 2011). Connected Histories provides a single point of access to a wide range of distributed digital resources relating to early modern and nineteenth-century British history.
Connected Histories brings digital humanities research to a new level by providing integrated access to several key resources, moving beyond simple keyword searching to allow structured searching of millions of pages of text by names, places, and dates.
In the process, at the click of a mouse, researchers can find rich bodies of evidence for virtually any topic in British history; whether royal weddings, parliamentary reform movements, famous criminals, or the lives of plebeian Londoners.
The Connected Histories website is fully searchable and provides access to millions of pages of text, hundreds of thousands of words and tens of thousands maps and images. It incorporates the following digital sources:
• British History Online
• British Newspapers 1600-1900
• Charles Booth Online Archive
• Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835
• London Lives, 1690–1800
• Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674–1913
• Origins Network
• Parliamentary Papers
• Printed Ephemera from the Bodleian Library
• Strype’s Survey of London
The resource will grow substantially over time as new sources are added. The first update, due in September, will include 65,000 British Library books from the Historic Books Platform, 19th century pamphlets from JSTOR, and abstracts of wills from The National Archives.
Connected Histories was funded by JISC, and created by academics from the Universities of Hertfordshire, London, and Sheffield. Technical work was carried out at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield and the website was developed by the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
The project used natural language processing to identify names, places and dates in unstructured texts, and combined these with structured databases to create a single resource searchable by names, places and dates, as well as by keywords and phrases. Users can save results in their own workspace and document connections between sources.
Professor Robert Shoemaker, from the Department of History at the University of Sheffield and co-director of the project, said: “Connected Histories represents the next big step in digital humanities research. By enabling integrated searching of diverse electronic resources it will allow everyone conducting historical research to work more efficiently and productively.”
Co-director, Professor Tim Hitchcock, from the University of Hertfordshire, added: “Connected Histories creates a one-stop-shop for historical information. It will allow us to search newspapers and trial reports, parliamentary papers and images across fifteen different scholarly websites, at the click of a mouse. In the process it will change how we do research."
Dr Jane Winters, Head of Publications, Institute of Historical Research, said: “Connected Histories marks an enormous step forward for historians of Britain, and will transform the ways in which they engage with the wealth of digital material now available. It is also a model of cross-sectoral collaboration to further the UK research agenda.”
Alastair Dunning JISC programme manager, said: “Connected Histories provides a new type of tool for scholars, not just allowing them to find people, names and places from disparate digital resources, but create intelligent links between them. For JISC such projects are vital, permitting users to make sense of the rich and copious troves of primary sources available on the web.”
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Facet Publishing today announced that a selection of their titles are now available as e-book editions through the library vendors MyiLibrary and Dawsonera.
CILIP Chief Executive Annie Mauger said “This is an exciting move into the digital space that will allow libraries to offer Facet Publishing titles to their users as e-books”
Initially, twenty two titles will be available to libraries and institutions through the web-based portals of the two popular vendors. Facet will continue to add to the list of available e-book editions in the future and customers will be notified about new additions through the monthly Facet Publishing e-bulletin and other channels. The titles available as e-books are:
Access, Delivery, Performance edited by Jillian R Griffiths and Jenny Craven
Blended Learning by Barbara Allan
Building an Electronic Resource Collection by Stuart D Lee and Frances Boyle
Competing with Knowledge by Angela Abell and Nigel Oxbrow
E-books in Libraries edited by Kate Price and Virginia Havergal
Evaluating the Impact of Your Library by Sharon Markless and David Streatfield
Evidence-based Practice for Information Professionals edited by Andrew Booth and Anne Brice
How to Give Your Users the LIS Services they Want by Sheila Pantry and Peter Griffiths
Introducing Information Management edited by Elena Macevičiütè and T D Wilson
Libraries Without Walls 5 edited by Peter Brophy, Shelagh Fisher and Jenny Craven
Libraries Without Walls 6 edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven and Margaret Markland
Libraries Without Walls 7 edited by Peter Brophy, Jenny Craven and Margaret Markland
Managing Information Resources in Libraries by Peter Clayton and G E Gorman
Managing the Crowd by Steve Bailey
Planning and Implementing Electronic Records Management by Kelvin Smith
Qualitative Research for the Information Professional by G E Gorman and Peter Clayton
Setting up a Library and Information Service from Scratch by Sheila Pantry and Peter Griffiths
Supporting E-Learning edited by Maxine Melling
The Library in the Twenty-first Century by Peter Brophy
The Public Library by David McMenemy
Transformative Learning Support Models in Higher Education edited by Margaret Weaver
Web Accessibility edited by Jenny Craven
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Press contact:
James Williams, Marketing Manager, Facet Publishing
Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 0597
Email: james.williams@facetpublishing.co.uk
Notes to editors:
1. Facet Publishing e-books are available from www.myilibrary.com and www.dawsonera.com.
2. Customers can sign up to the monthly Facet Publishing e-bulletin at www.facetpublishing.co.uk to receive updates about the Facet e-book programme.
3. Print copies of Facet Publishing books are available from Bookpoint Ltd, Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk. Books are available in the US and Canada from Neal-Schuman Publishers www.neal-schuman.com
4. Facet Publishing, is the commercial publishing and bookselling arm of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, is the leading publisher of books for library and information professionals worldwide. At the forefront of library and information development, Facet Publishing has a comprehensive list covering all the major areas of professional activity.
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Latest survey shows where local government savings to be made
Public library services and services for young people are set to see the greatest budget cuts of all frontline services, according to the Local Government Association (LGA). The LGA Budgets, Spending and Saving Survey is based on responses from 131 local authorities in England.
16% of local authorities said they are looking to make proportionately larger savings in 2011/12 on Libraries, cultural services and community learning and 22% on Services for young people. Download the survey.
“I’m afraid this paints a pretty bleak picture,” said Annie Mauger, CILIP’s Chief Executive, “services for children and young people and libraries, in particular, look like they will see the greatest cuts. Public libraries are incredibly well used by children and young people. Nearly 80% of 5-10 year olds use libraries. Children’s book borrowing from libraries has risen year on year for the last six years. A huge number of children, young people, families and communities will be hit hard by these cuts. Ministers across Westminster need to sit up and take notice; we’re in danger of failing the next generation.”
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Press contact:
Mark Taylor, Head of Corporate Marketing and Media Relations, CILIP
Tel: 020 7255 0654
Mobile: 07792 635 305
Email: mark.taylor@cilip.org.uk
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