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It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

Thisissue of Aslib Proceedings is mainly devoted to papers presented at the 24th Annual Conference, held at Ashorne Hill, near Learnington Spa, Warwickshire, from 9 to 11 September, 1949. In addition, we have pleasure in printing the annual report and accounts of the British Union Catalogue of Periodicals.

This issue of Aslib Proceedings is mainly devoted to papers presented at the 24th Annual Conference, held at Ashorne Hill, near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, from 9 to 11 September, 1949. In addition, we have pleasure in printing the annual report and accounts of the British Union Catalogue of Periodicals.

The purpose of this paper is to advance product appeal and website appeal as focal psychological mechanisms that can be invoked by business-to-consumer e-commerce sites to mitigate problems of information asymmetry via signaling to bolster consumers’ purchase intention under the influence of trust.

Survey approach was employed to validate the research model.

Website appeal partially mediates the positive effect of product appeal on consumers’ purchase intention. Trust in e-commerce sites not only increases purchase intention directly, but it also reinforces the positive relationship between website appeal and purchase intention while attenuating the positive relationship between product appeal and purchase intention. Service content quality, search delivery quality, and enjoyment are confirmed as positive antecedents of website appeal whereas diagnosticity and justifiability are established as positive antecedents of product appeal.

This study not only delineates product and website appeal as complementary drivers of consumer purchase on e-commerce sites, but it also derives five signals that aid in bolstering both product and website appeal. Trust is revealed to exert a moderating influence on the impact of product and website appeal on purchase intention.

Practitioners should prioritize their resource allocation to enhance qualities most pertinent to product and website appeal. E-commerce sites should offer product-oriented functionalities to facilitate product diagnosticity and reassure consumers of their purchase decisions.

This study distinguishes between product and website appeal as well as between their respective antecedents. It also uncovers how trust can alter the effects of both website and product appeal on consumers’ purchase intention.

Members of this Conference are so used to hearing long dissertations from me on subjects they know much more about than I do, that they will perhaps welcome a talk on something about which I, for once, probably know a good deal more than they. For about 15 years I have been one of the Directors of a professional repertory theatre, the Playhouse, at Sheffield, and am also the Chairman of its Executive Committee. Some of you may have heard a broadcast from our theatre within the last few months. A number of my colleagues and myself were elected some 15 years ago to help in putting the theatre back on its feet after it had been been compelled to close down. One of them, a member of the Aslib Council today, was Mr. J. P. Lamb, City Librarian of Sheffield, who for a long period was Chairman of our Board and ably directed the company's policy. The company is now financially sound, makes a good annual profit, and does so without lowering its standards of production or choice of plays. All the profit has, I hasten to add, to go back into the theatre, and we Directors receive no remuneration whatsoever for our services. Our work is purely voluntary.

Let me say at once that I do not like the term ‘information officer’. We are so snobbish today that we cannot bear to be ‘rankers’, and this means that, whatever our jobs, we must put the word ‘officer’ after them, as though that took us out of the common horde of ordinary people, paid to work for their living. Some thirty‐odd years ago, when I first took up publicity, we were all called advertising managers; then that did not seem big enough for us, so we christened ourselves publicity managers. Now, I understand, we are public relations officers, and before I die I expect to sign myself Lord High Director of Information for the Public.

I must confess that the word ‘documentation’ has always terrified me, and as a lover of the English language I wish a less formidable word could be found for this valuable, indeed vital, activity. Documentation, to a novice like myself, spells fust and must; dreary, bewhiskered old fossils; men whose souls are made of the parchment they handle. That this is not true I know from my contacts with members of Aslib, but I am quite sure the word frightens off many people who have not had that advantage.

Why ever the subject on which I have been asked to speak was chosen for after‐dinner I do not understand. After‐dinner speakers are by tradition required to be jocular, brief and interesting. But house journals are a serious subject, and not to be laughed at. So I shall not be jocular, I shall not be brief and I hope my remarks will not be laughed at.

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

Every man has his King Charles's head, and the writing of English is mine. Some people imagine that you cannot write, or write about, good English unless you have a long list of impressive letters after your name. I have none at all, and for that very reason I am something of an authority on the subject. You see, I have never been able to assume that, having passed examinations in it, I've got rid of English once and for all and need no longer take an interest in it or give it my attention. When I read some of the slovenly English written to‐day, and observe the academic qualifications of the folk who write it, I feel glad I have no degree in the subject. My qualification for talking about English is the simple one that for nearly forty years I have earned my living and a little literary distinction by writing it, and have never stopped studying its complexities.