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BLAISE‐LINE provides online access to all of the British Library's major catalogues. It provides access to other major bibliographies as well, notably those of the Library of Congress and Whitaker (British Books in Print). Altogether it boasts 21 files, all of a bibliographic nature, and some 15 million records. Nevertheless, it is a pigmy amongst the online giants. BLAISE‐LINE represents the very essence of the traditional library oriented online service, what with its MARC records, Dewey numbers and Library of Congress headings. This together with its raw command driven interface makes it very much the dinosaur of the online world. A survey was conducted to see what its users thought of it and whether it has much of a future in the bright, brash world of the Internet. The findings showed that its target audience — professional librarians — use it extensively for a whole range of routine library tasks and have few complaints to make about it. They used it quite differently to other online hosts. Efficiency and not user‐friendliness was uppermost in their minds — and BLAISE scored highly on the former.

The paper's aim is to explain historical methodology in a marketing context.

The paper draws on the author's personal experience, being trained in the history method and using the historical method.

An awareness of time contexts and complex change is essential, so too is an appreciation of primary sources (as defined by historians). Reading the present into the past (anachronism) is to be avoided, and the interpretation and explanation of events are essential to good history.

The paper represents the author's own personal experience.

During the last 20 years, there has been an explosion in the production and dissemination of a number of highly popular managerial concepts. These initiatives, such as TQM and BPR, highlight a number of themes. Refers to these new movements as “new managerialism”, supported by new institutional frameworks which all act as sources and bearers of management knowledge upon which, in part, professional managers draw for practical guidance. Uses Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical methods to argue that new managerialism is a discourse on a grand scale as well as emerging and dispersing locally, occurring in everyday talk and text, or “discourse”. According to Foucault, one of the effects of grand scale new managerialism is that it exerts a disciplinary gaze over managers who are immersed in its knowledges, and who seek to follow its guidelines to achieve “best practice”. As leaders, this best practice relies on the utilisation of “charisma”. Using interpretive repertoires, a method that is sympathetic to this approach, analyses the talk of two everyday managers who describe their roles as leaders, as well as a group of employees, or “followers”, and notes the importance of “charisma” in their accounts. Shows how the projection of a charismatic identity is central both accounts, and suggests that the individuals studied are subject to a charismatic gaze.

Discusses the role of middle management in the implementation of TQM, exploring the possibilities for both harm and good that they represent.

At the beginning of the Labour Government's current term of office, our country faced the problem of rising unemployment. Not for the first time — certainly not the last.

Corrosion technology in the years leading up to the Sixties developed at a relatively slow pace but the past ten years has seen a fast increasing rate of progress. There is today a new awareness amongst industry of the need to protect capital equipment and to maximise the life expectancy of costly industrial, petrochemical and maritime installations. Almost without exception, production companies now appreciate that corrosion prevention is cheaper than cure. Unprotected surfaces are an anachronism and no responsible engineer would allow erosion of effectiveness of productive plant for the want of the application of a specialised coating system. Anti‐corrosive protective coatings applied at construction stage can ensure that the full useful life cycle is achieved and the day of replacement postponed often far beyond the forecast date.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Heightened competition has become the norm for most organizations operating in the current business climate. Globalization is often cited as a key reason for this. The seemingly incessant emergence of new technologies is another. In the face of such developments, markets evolve accordingly. With firms facing increasingly tougher challenges, the spotlight on employees has intensified. The extent of technological advances means that work is no longer wholly defined by conventional boundaries of space and time. For many people, normal working hours have become something of an anachronism. The advent of the smartphone is especially significant in this respect. An increasing number of employees are now using these and other similar devices to routinely perform workplace duties in their own time.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

While our adversarial free (meaning minimal governmental interference) collective bargaining has been praised as a positive attribute of our labor‐management relations, it is hardly free and probably no longer even a positive attribute. This paper examines the process and explains how it has become limited to the point where the most crucial employment issues often no longer need to be bargained at all. Though the purpose of our labor laws was to resolve industrial strife through collective bargaining by balancing the power between employers and unions, our contemporary system can now often be characterized as limited, imbalanced, adversarial gamesmanship. Current research demonstrates the need for a more open and expanded bargaining agenda to meet the needs of both the changed workplace and the changed marketplace of today ‐ something the present process seems incapable of doing. Specific recommendations are offered to both management and labor which are derived from recent research.

When the big ball comes down in Times Square on January 1, 2001, a lot of seemingly far‐sighted company and product names such as 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Funds, and Gateway 2000 will become anachronisms.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the article in context.

The perception of learning has changed significantly in recent times. So much so that the concept of a classroom in which students sit in rows and take instruction from a teacher standing at the front is now something of an anachronism. The penny has dropped and educators realize that there are many different preferred learning styles. Informality is a buzzword and the focus has shifted to creating learning environments to meet this diversity of student needs.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that can have a broader social impact.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.