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It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective biography, ideational versus ideological reading, internal versus external analysis, etc. The chapter outlines key elements about Perroux’s trajectory showing the entanglements and boundaries of science and politics in the transition from democratic to authoritarian rule and vice versa. A particular emphasis on uncertainties and adjustments shows, against the tendency to a teleological explanation induced by a linear interpretation of his career, that different paths were considered by Perroux, but that his choices were nevertheless constrained by the forces of both the scientific and political fields.

In the real estate industry, as well as in other mature markets, producers seek to improve their comparative advantage by correctly addressing the needs and expectations of future users; when projects involve public financial investment (e.g. public/private partnerships), such participation may help to legitimate resource allocation. In this respect few quantitative approaches, affiliated to the study of demand, are able to evaluate the trade‐off that is given between the preferences of individuals when they are faced to choose a single alternative, as is usual in real estate and urban projects. The purpose of this paper is to report the initial results of a research study with the objective of investigating the extent to which techniques used in the design of goods and services could be used to consider future users' preferences on the design processes of real estate developments, such as those promoted by public‐private partnerships in which the inclusion of people's opinion become central for commercial and political reasons.

This article seeks to evaluate the extent to which conjoint analysis, a technique affiliated with designing goods and services through future user/consumer participation, may be used as a support tool in making real estate decisions. This method, born out of the field of marketing analysis, is based on choice experiments and the results are analyzed with conventional multinomial regression models, and can be rooted in “characteristics theory of value” and “behaviorism”.

The results suggest that although this method is helpful in finding the relative relevance of each of the attributes in the projects evaluated, it is not sufficiently clear to: determine the attributes to evaluate; understand the deep reasons motivating preferences; or anticipate future needs that go unnoticed by potential users/buyers in their everyday perceptions. Therefore, this technique is far superior to typical evaluation surveys on independent attributes. However, it is insufficient in the context of intrinsically complex processes.

Although intensively used in the design of short‐life consumption services and products, conjoint analysis has been scarcely used on long‐life goods such as urban premises; in this article this technique is used for first time in the framework of a type of public/private brownfield redevelopment project in Catalonia.

Avatars, which are used as a technology and marketing tactic, can embody consumer-facing employees and mimic their real-life roles on companies' websites, thereby playing a key role in enhancing the relationships between consumers and brands in the online environment. Academics and practitioners have increasingly acknowledged the significance of the consumer-brand relationship in both traditional and online contexts. However, the impersonal nature of the online environment is considered to be a hindrance to the development of these relationships. Despite the importance of this technology, little attention has been paid to the investigation of the avatar concept from a marketing perspective. This paper explores the nature of the avatar concept, including its main characteristics, dimensions, and conditions as well as the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of avatar users.

Adopting the qualitative design, a taxonomy was developed from interviews. In total, 42 interviews were conducted with current university students. 30 participants participated in the exploratory interviews. A total of 12 interviews were conducted during the in-depth stage based on findings in the preceding research.

Based on the qualitative data analysis, a taxonomy was developed. The idea of the taxonomy is summarized in that different dimensions of the avatar are considered the main base (first phase) of the taxonomy. There are consequential three parts: the attitudinal consequences related to the website; the attitudinal consequences related to the brand; the behaviours towards the brand. These behaviours represent the final phase of the taxonomy.

By developing a taxonomy of using avatars on brands' websites, the authors advance the understanding consumer-brands relationships. Using avatars' verbal interactions helps in shaping consumers' cognitive, affective, attitudinal and behavioural responses and add vital empirical evidence to the increasing body of research and practices involving avatar usage in the interactive marketing area.