MIDIRS have launched a new initiative on their website. 'MIDIRS forum' is a knowledge sharing facility which aims to encourage and develop the dissemination of midwifery information. The forum has two main areas. First, the forum can be used as a 'bulletin board.' For example, if you are investigating or researching a particular area and wish to hear from anyone with a similar interest, you can post a query or request at the forum, along with your contact details, so that other interested parties may get in touch. Alternatively, you may simply wish to contact past colleagues, in which case, you can post your contact details along with your query. The second way the forum may be used is as an evidence-based guidelines facility, which enables you to share any guidelines developed within your own place of work with your international colleagues. So often when developing guidelines, we could benefit from reviewing work already done on a particular subject at a different maternity unit. We could avoid some of the unnecessary duplication of 'basic groundwork' when we are faced with the task of developing evidence-based guidelines and concentrate instead on adapting and assimilating shared evidence. Why re-invent the wheel when time is so scarce? If you have evidence -based guidelines that you are willing to share, then visit the MIDIRS website at www.midirs.org and consider posting them at the MIDIRS forum. Alternatively, you may prefer not to publish your guidelines in full, but you can instead post an overview of the subjects covered, along with contact details for one-to-one discussion with any interested parties. Please make use of this facility. The more it is used, the better a resource it will be. Best wishes, Julie Frohlich, MIDIRS Midwifery Digest Professor Jane Sandall Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery King's College, London 57 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8WA Tel: 020 7848 3605 Fax: 020 7848 3506 e-mail:[log in to unmask] http://www.kcl.ac.uk home email:[log in to unmask]