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Objectives. State environmental and health protection agencies have traditionally relied on a facility-by-facility inspection-enforcement paradigm to achieve compliance with government regulations. We evaluated the effectiveness of a new approach that uses a self-certification random sampling design. Methods. Comprehensive environmental and occupational health data from a 3-year statewide industry self-certification initiative were collected from representative automotive refinishing facilities located in Rhode Island. Statistical comparisons between baseline and postintervention data facilitated a quantitative evaluation of statewide performance. Results. The analysis of field data collected from 82 randomly selected automotive refinishing facilities showed statistically significant improvements (P Conclusions. Our findings suggest that the new self-certification approach to environmental and worker protection is effective and can be used as an adjunct to further enhance state and federal enforcement programs.

Relationships are key to the success of any library project, and relations with the vendor's staff are too often overlooked or viewed as adversarial. Focusing on automated system and online electronic resource vendors, different functional departments of the vendor's staff are examined with an eye toward the benefits that a good relationship can bring to support the project. The evolving database marketplace is reviewed, particularly in light of the multiple buying cooperatives many public libraries find available to them. KEYWORDS. Public libraries, library automation, vendor relations, consortia, electronic resources, databases, innovative interfaces, EBSCO, NOBLE