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This paper looks at recent developments in the book trade in China, particularly since 1992 when China acceded to international copyright conventions. It offers details of the operation of the book trade, including such issues as book and journal distribution, book prices, markets for imports, the printing industry. Copyright and piracy of books and journals are discussed at length, including treatment of such topics as joint ventures, rights and the place of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the publishing economy.

Some of the first‐year programmes of Trade Union Studies, shown last year, left many tutors — and trade unionists — unconvinced of the value of the series. But many tutors revised their view after reading the tutors' notes for year 1, and the Research Report on how trade unionists benefited from the year 1 series and book. A detailed study of tutors' problems and successes with year 1 has helped the course team provide a much more integrated second year package, and much more practically useful tutors' notes. These, together with the new trade union studies book 2, must be essential reading for all tutors handling economic issues in industry.

ELSEWHERE in this number we list libraries which have Esent us copies of their annual reports which we are glad to have. Now and again we are able to elaborate on these, but in the present issue that has not been possible. We would say, however, that these reports are deserving of the attention of librarians generally, and of students at the library schools. They are records of work in progress, and they do suggest the development of library policy. The best of them are of textbook value.

This study provides a gender analysis of National Council for the Social Studies Notable Trade picture book selections suitable for the primary grades from the years 2006-2008. The study examines the number of male and female characters and the presence, or absence of, gender stereotypes relative to characters’ personali-ties, occupations, and behaviors. Results indicate a significant difference in the number of male and female characters, with many more male characters represented. Both males and females frequently performed stereotypical jobs or roles, with no books depicting males in lower status jobs than females. In books with only female main characters, some women were able to cross traditional gender lines and demonstrate strong personalities. Of the 17 predetermined behaviors in which characters engaged throughout these books, seven of them showed significant differences between males and females. Males were more likely to participate in sports, fight in battles or demonstrate aggressive behaviors, pursue worthy causes such as heroism, use television/computer/radio, and earn a living. Females were more likely to perform domestic chores and demonstrate affection or emotion.

This paper aims to investigate the electronic short books phenomenon from the USA and the UK which has spilled over to South Africa. By looking at the benefits these short books have for readers and authors, and the possible reasons for their success, the aim is to determine whether or not these books can be as successful a venture in South Africa as it has been elsewhere.

Information about electronic short books, or e-singles, is gathered from various sources, including press releases and sales results. Information is gathered to determine the receptiveness to electronic short books of the South African trade book reading market, the way South African publishers are presenting e-singles to the market and what the future for e-singles may be.

The findings of this paper make it clear that e-singles have found a gap in the market, providing various benefits to authors and readers, which may have contributed to their success. In South Africa, the success of e-singles faces unique obstacles, like a weaker reading culture and a poor awareness of e-books. Publishers need to make a bigger effort to become visible in the eyes of their readers and need to think about better distribution strategies.

With comparisons, accuracy is dependent on information provided by organizations (on their Web sites).

This paper offers information about a new publishing trend – only a few months in South Africa. It offers a look into the state of the trade book industry in South Africa, how e-singles may function in it and what publishers of e-singles may do to ensure more success. It predicts the future of e-singles in South Africa based on its unique situation, pointing out what obstacles there may be to their uptake.

The predicted effects of the collapse of the Net Book Agreement are compared with what has actually happened in the book trade, including: numbers of booksellers; stockholding in bookshops; discounting; book output. The situation in America is addressed. Changes in the trade as a whole are discussed. Changes in library supply in higher education are examined, particularly the price war between suppliers, and the continuing provision of services together with larger discounts. The move to consortium buying is considered. The development of electronic delivery of materials is discussed.

In his review of 30 years of research in Prospect Theory, Barberis (2013) notes that support for Prospect Theory had come mainly from the laboratory. In this paper, I write about a recurring phenomenon in real life that is consistent with Prospect Theory predictions in decision-making loss domain. The 60 cases noted in this paper are associated with specific risk seekers that had cost more than $140 billion (an average of $2.33 billion per case). Given space consider– ations, I provide synopses for 14 cases. A few of these cases have been discussed in the extant literature in connection with internal control, but were not considered from the perspective of Prospect Theory. It is striking that these cases are costly, all participants are young men, and almost all had followed the gambler’s martingale strategy – i.e., double down. While these cases are informative about risk-seeking behavior, they are not sufficiently systematic to be subjected to stylized archival research methods.

Forthcoming requirements in MiFID and RegNMS mean that buy‐side and sell‐side firms need to find ways of showing regulators that they are sifting through their trading volumes in a justifiable, methodical manner looking for anomalous trades and investigating them, in order to prove “best execution”. The objective was to see if a SVM/DAPR approach could help identify equity trade anomalies for compliance investigation.

A major stock exchange, a computer systems supplier, four brokers and a statistical firm undertook a cooperative research project to determine whether automated statistical processing of trade and order information could provide a tighter focus on the most likely trades for best execution compliance investigation.

The support vector machine approach worked on UK equities and has significant potential for other markets such as foreign exchange, fixed income and commodities.

The research has implications for risk professionals as a generic approach to trading anomaly detection. The prototype compliance workstation can be trialed.

Automated anomaly detection could transform the role of compliance and risk in financial institutions.

A chronological outline of library and bibliographic development prefaces this case‐study. It is not exhaustive and is meant to be only indicative of the evolution of library and bibliographic services and does not in itself replace a detailed history of the subject area.