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Considers how non‐Thais can negotiate successfully withe business and government executives in Thailand. Gives an overview of Thailand’s geography, climate, population, religion and business practice. Discusses important aspects of the social‐cultural environment that have a significant effect on the way Thai’s negotiate. Includes further tips regarding body language, entertainment protocol, how to dress, and favourite negotiating tactics by buyers and sellers. Provides conclusions and directions for further research.

The competition for the consumer's mind involves broadening the scope tools used to reach that consumer. Conventional marketing wisdom is that marketing strategy planning consists of two stages: 1. Determining the target market(s) and, 2. Determining the marketing mix to reach these target markets. Although the classic marketing mix of the right product, at the right place, at the right price, and with the right promotion is well known, it is target marketing that is the subject of this article. Through the use of three sophisticated concepts, the marketing manager can compete successfully for the consumer's mind. These three P's of marketing, which can be added to the well‐known four P's of the marketing mix—Product, Price, Place, and Promotion—can enable the marketingmanager to have an easy‐to‐remember mnemonic devicefor the business marketing plan. These three P's are 1. Personality, which became noticeable in the early 1980s; 2. Psychographics, which first attracted attention in the middle to late 1960s; and, 3. Positioning, which has been around since the early 1970s. These three P's lend themselves to presenting products to your customers in a language that speaks directly to their minds.

Enumerates the origins and early development of outdoor advertising in the USA, stating that in early times (pre‐newspapers) most signs or symbols over shops, or handbills, were copied from the UK. Goes on to identify the areas and years that newspapers began to appear and make an impression, and gives breakdowns of how and where they started and grew to become formidable forces in the media‐starved years back then. Furthers the point that outdoor advertising in the USA evolved at a similar, but much slower, pace than in the UK. Posits that large circuses had an impact with regard to outdoor advertising and in particular Phineas Taylor Barnum, who was the first to use large illustrated posters for effect, and this soon caught on.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) is a critical technology used in supply chain management systems involving logistics functions. This study explores the construct of “level of EDI implementation” in order to establish its relationship with system success and the criticality of selected implementation factors. Using the survey method that employed a pair of questionnaires for a customer‐supplier dyad engaged in EDI, the final data set consists of 128 firms constituting 64 dyads. Level of EDI implementation is positively related to one out of four EDI system success measures and is associated with the criticality of the following implementation factors: use of cross‐functional EDI teams, the conduct of pilot projects, the inclusion of security and auditing controls, the conduct of training for end users, maintenance of trading partner relationships, use of value‐added network services, and guidelines for digital signatures.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

OWING to the comparatively early date in the year of the Library Association Conference, this number of THE LIBRARY WORLD is published so that it may be in the hands of our readers before it begins. The official programme is not in the hands of members at the time we write, but the circumstances are such this year that delay has been inevitable. We have dwelt already on the good fortune we enjoy in going to the beautiful West‐Country Spa. At this time of year it is at its best, and, if the weather is more genial than this weather‐chequered year gives us reason to expect, the Conference should be memorable on that account alone. The Conference has always been the focus of library friendships, and this idea, now that the Association is so large, should be developed. To be a member is to be one of a freemasonry of librarians, pledged to help and forward the work of one another. It is not in the conference rooms alone, where we listen, not always completely awake, to papers not always eloquent or cleverly read, that we gain most, although no one would discount these; it is in the hotels and boarding houses and restaurants, over dinner tables and in the easy chairs of the lounges, that we draw out really useful business information. In short, shop is the subject‐matter of conference conversation, and only misanthropic curmudgeons think otherwise.

WE are happy to publish a very interesting and practical little article on a simplified system of borrowers' registration. Such a question may seem to have been settled long ago and not to deserve further discussion, but Miss Wileman makes it quite clear that there is still a little more to be said. Not all librarians will agree with her on one point, although recently it seems to be accepted by some librarians that the numbering of borrowers' tickets is unnecessary, and especially the decimal numbering of them. This matter has been discussed at various meetings of librarians who use these numbers, and they arc, we understand, unanimous in their desire to retain them. They are not intended for a single library such as is at present in operation at Hendon, from which our contributor writes. They are for a system of many branch libraries with a central registration department, and where there is telephone charge and discharge of books. The number is simply intended to give an accurate and rapid definition of an actual person. This we have said several times before, we think, and to dismiss a method which has been found successful with the statement that it is surely unnecessary rather implies that the writer has not fully understood the question. That, however, does not reduce the value of our article.

HARROGATE will be notable as the venue of the Conference in one or two ways that distinctive. The Association Year is now to begin on January 1st and not in September as heretofore; and, in consequence, there will be no election of president or of new council until the end of the year. The Association's annual election is to take place in November, and the advantages of this arrangement must be apparent to everyone who considers the matter. Until now the nominations have been sent out at a time when members have been scattered to all parts of the country on holiday, and committees of the Council have been elected often without the full consideration that could be given in the more suitable winter time. In the circumstances, at Harrogate the Chair will still be occupied by Sir Henry Miers, who has won from all librarians and those interested in libraries a fuller measure of admiration, if that were possible, than he possessed before he undertook the presidency. There will be no presidential address in the ordinary sense, although Sir Henry Miers will make a speech in the nature of an address from the Chair at one of the meetings. What is usually understood by the presidential address will be an inaugural address which it is hoped will be given by Lord Irwin. The new arrangement must bring about a new state of affairs in regard to the inaugural addresses. We take it that in future there will be what will be called a presidential address at the Annual Meeting nine months after the President takes office. He will certainly then be in the position to review the facts of his year with some knowledge of events; he may chronicle as well as prophesy.

AFTER‐CONFERENCE time is the period of reflection, and this year one involving several interests. There was uttered on the platform a warning that the question of the government control of public libraries was in the air; and Mr. Jast rigidly deprecated the discussion of the matter as a bye‐product of another subject then being debated. Library authorities and librarians, however, are asking for a lead from the Library Association, the only body competent or authorized to give it, and no doubt this will form the cardinal “policy” question of the winter.

THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties. Anything that Mr. Jast has to say is said with originality even if the subject is not original; his quality has always been to give an independent and novel twist to almost everything he touches. We think our readers will find this to be so when he touches the important question of “The Library and Leisure.”