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This article considers the use of the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act in order to explore the history of British intelligence. While the intelligence and security agencies are themselves exempt from the Act, releasing only such archival material into the public domain as they see fit, the article will argue that this does not mean that FOI cannot be used productively in this area. Rather, by adopting a wider definition of ‘intelligence’, as advocated by Wesley K. Wark in this journal in 1992, FOI can be used as part of a broader research strategy to secure the release of information that allows the archival study of intelligence to move beyond the material released by the agencies themselves. The article will illustrate this point by drawing on relevant examples of successful FOI requests, while also highlighting some of the related practical challenges and limitations that its use has revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Business intelligence, broadly conceived, has always been an ingredient of economic life. However, the planned and systematic collection, organization, and dissemination of information for commercial purposes did not appear until the abrupt escalation of trade and the massive extension of imperial reach in the nineteenth century. In Britain, investment in sources and systems of commercial information was made by the Board of Trade in the form of a departmental library placed at the disposal of government officials, from 1834; and a publicly accessible Commercial Intelligence Branch, established in 1899, which employed the new modes of information work emerging around this time in private companies. With the outbreak of war in 1914, the Commercial Intelligence Branch experienced a considerable increase in demand for its services, confirming the perceived importance of commercial information to national survival and post-war recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Britain's House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries have a lengthy history beginning with small collections of books and papers in the eighteenth century and evolving into today's large organizations offering a sophisticated range of services. The central theme of this article is the conservatism of these institutions over most of their history, with the creation of modern library facilities only beginning in 1945 for the Commons Library (a process that did not accelerate until some three decades later) and in 1976 for the Lords. By way of comparison I will discuss: the U.S. Library of Congress (founded in 1800); Japan's National Diet Library (created in the postwar reconstruction in 1948); and, to offer an example of a smaller country, Ireland's Oireachtas Library. In summarizing the history of the British parliamentary libraries, I have also tried to indicate some ways in which we might draw upon this historical experience to identify fruitful new future directions for libraries supporting legislatures throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the official motivation behind the authorization in 1960 of research into the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War by M. R. D. Foot, leading to the publication of SOE in France in 1966. The work has traditionally been viewed as the official response to critical investigative works on SOE published during the 1950s, combined with the vocal campaign of Dame Irene Ward, who made several calls in the House of Commons for an official account of SOE to be published. Material now available at the Public Record Office reveals that these were not the sole considerations in official minds, nor the most significant, concerning the possibility of publishing such a work. The foreign office was particularly concerned that Britain's contribution to wartime resistance in Europe, exemplified by SOE, was being overshadowed by both soviet propoganda, emphasizing the communist contribution to resistance, and the publicity being given to SOE's American counterpart, the Office of Strategic Sewices (OSS). The 'campaign' of Dame Irene Ward, supported by the negative slant given to SOE in the books of Jean Overton Fuller and Elizabeth Nicholas, unknowingly gave support to a frame of mind that was already in existence in favour of an unofficial account of SOE activity, albeit for different reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines efforts by the British Special Operations Executive in 1944 in gaining support from anti-Soviet Cossacks and Russian prisoners of war (POW) by offering repatriation to Russia. Aim of subverting the Russians who were fighting for the Germans in Western Europe; Events that led to the Russians being made POW by the Germans; Interaction between Russian and British officers concerning the POW.

Cauda equina syndrome (CES) can have devastating neurological sequelae if surgical treatment is delayed. However, out-of-hours surgery (weekdays from 6:00 pm to 8:00 am and all weekend operations) can potentially result in higher rates of intraoperative complications, resulting in worse outcomes. In the present study, we have described our outcomes for patients with CES during an 8-year period (December 2011 to October 2019) with the aim of assessing the risk of out-of-hours surgery. We performed a retrospective analysis of inpatient events and outcomes at 6 months of follow-up. Patient demographics, symptoms, and management data were extracted, and a risk factor analysis was performed using logistic regression. The outcome measures were the incidence of complications and symptom changes at follow-up. Symptom outcome changes between 2 time points were analyzed using repeated measures. A total of 278 patients were included in the present study. Surgery out-of-hours (P = 0.018) and prolonged operations (P = 0.018) were significant risk factors for intraoperative complications. Improved outcomes at 6 months of follow-up were found for lower back pain, sciatica, altered saddle sensation, and urinary sphincter disturbance, with no significant changes for the remaining symptoms. Out-of-hours surgeries did not significantly affect individual symptom outcomes. Our analysis has suggested that emergency decompressive surgery for patients with CES does not result in worsening of outcomes with out-of-hours surgery compared with in-hours. However, our findings also showed that no clear benefit exists to expediting surgery for those with severe presentations. Thus, decompressive surgery should be undertaken at the earliest possible time to safely do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]