The marketing audit: a new perspective on library services and products

A marketing audit enables a library to look at audiences, services, and products with a structured approach. The audit can be used to assess operations and to provide a framework for ongoing decision making, evaluation, and long-range planning. An approach to the audit process is presented and its application is demonstrated in a case study featuring the American Hospital Association Resource Center.     

Protocol to investigate child abuse in foster care

Hennepin County Community Services, a large urban agency in the midwestern United States, developed specific procedures for investigating complaints of abuse and neglect of children in foster care in 1980. During the period from May 1980 through November 1981, approximately 125 complaints of abuse and neglect in foster homes were investigated. This article discusses the Protocol, including the institutional abuse meeting, investigation by an independent third party, and statements of finding. Factors that appear to be significant in abusing foster parents are marital status, if the foster parents had children of their own, length of time licensed, and presence of previous complaints. Victims were slightly more likely to be male, aged 4-12. Many victims appeared to have adjusted well to the foster homes. Information is presented on how the abuse was reported. Recommendations include: investigations conducted by an objective third person, commitment of the administration, and enlistment of legal personnel and foster parents during implementation. Also included are prevention of abuse through comprehensive screening and then training of foster parents, social workers' close contact with foster parents and foster children, avoiding high risk placement, forbidding corporal punishment, and sensitizing social workers to abuse-neglect of children in foster care.