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The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative way of using focus groups in research – a role‐play‐enhanced focus group method – in which participants are presented with the challenge of dealing with a specific task while playing a familiar but nevertheless fictive role.

The research is performed through an experimental approach in which a focus group of small business owner‐managers are assembled and presented with a prepared case exercise. The design is a role‐play‐like setting in which the participants are to act as the board of a company.

Carefully designed, well‐prepared role‐play‐like activities can add substantially to focus‐groups.

Adding an experimental dimension to focus groups offers the possibility of addressing topics indirectly and thus increases their usefulness.

In this quarterly review of government publications, the judgments expressed are those of the reviewer, Dr. Frederic O'Hara, professor of library science, Graduate Library School, Long Island University, Greenvale, New York 11548. Unless otherwise indicated, all items are depository items and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Dr. O'Hara does not handle the distribution of any documents.

In this quarterly review of government publications, the judgments expressed are those of the reviewer, Dr. Frederic J. O'Hara, professor of library science, Graduate Library School, Long Island University, Greenvale, New York 11548. Unless otherwise indicated, all items are depository items and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Dr. O'Hara does not handle the distribution of any documents.

All seventeen had graciously agreed to my proposal to gather for a small conference to seek consensus. A generous grant from the Pierian Press Foundation would cover all of our expenses for a long weekend at a resort hotel; the only condition of the grant was that we offer our results to Reference Services Review for first publication. Over the past five years each of the seventeen had in turn accepted my challenge to answer the following question:

The Food and Drugs Bill introduced by the Government affords an excellent illustration of the fact that repressive legislative enactments in regard to adulteration must always be of such a nature that, while they give a certain degree and a certain kind of protection to the public, they can never be expected to supply a sufficiently real and effective insurance against adulteration and against the palming off of inferior goods, nor an adequate and satisfactory protection to the producer and vendor of superior articles. In this country, at any rate, legislation on the adulteration question has always been, and probably will always be of a somewhat weak and patchy character, with the defects inevitably resulting from more or less futile attempts to conciliate a variety of conflicting interests. The Bill as it stands, for instance, fails to deal in any way satisfactorily with the subject of preservatives, and, if passed in its present form, will give the force of law to the standards of Somerset House—standards which must of necessity be low and the general acceptance of which must tend to reduce the quality of foods and drugs to the same dead‐level of extreme inferiority. The ludicrous laissez faire report of the Beer Materials Committee—whose authors see no reason to interfere with the unrestricted sale of the products of the “ free mash tun,” or, more properly speaking, of the free adulteration tun—affords a further instance of what is to be expected at present and for many years to come as the result of governmental travail and official meditations. Public feeling is developing in reference to these matters. There is a growing demand for some system of effective insurance, official or non‐official, based on common‐sense and common honesty ; and it is on account of the plain necessity that the quibbles and futilities attaching to repressive legislation shall by some means be brushed aside that we have come to believe in the power and the value of the system of Control, and that we advocate its general acceptance. The attitude and the policy of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON ADULTERATION, of the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, and of the BRITISH ANALYTICAL CONTROL, are in all respects identical with regard to adulteration questions; and in answer to the observations and suggestions which have been put forward since the introduction of the Control System in England, it may be well once more to state that nothing will meet with the approbation or support of the Control which is not pure, genuine, and good in the strictest sense of these terms. Those applicants and critics whom it may concern may with advantage take notice of the fact that under no circumstances will approval be given to such articles as substitute beers, separated milks, coppered vegetables, dyed sugars, foods treated with chemical preservatives, or, in fact, to any food or drug which cannot be regarded as in every respect free from any adulterant, and free from any suspicion of sophistication or inferiority. The supply of such articles as those referred to, which is left more or less unfettered by the cumbrous machinery of the law, as well as the sale of those adulterated goods with which the law can more easily deal, can only be adequately held in check by the application of a strong system of Control to justify approbation, providing, as this does, the only effective form of insurance which up to the present has been devised.

Multicultural nation-states face an added layer of challenge to social cohesion when countries already face various degrees of political, socio-economic and religious divide. Communalism has been a dividing threat, and some societies have encountered civil wars. Reconstructing social fabric in post-war countries is a challenge, and there is a need for a catalyst that can reinforce social cohesion. Although post-war countries use tourism, tourism is also perceived as a hegemonic activity, which still needs to be verified. This paper aims to analyze the relevance of tourism as a catalyst for social cohesion of post-war societies. This study discusses the notion of social cohesion and debates the prospect of tourism to act as a catalyst. The paper provides new insights on how tourism can be used to reflect on the society and social cohesion. This study contributes to theory and practice by developing a framework for assessing social cohesion via tourism, using a qualitative approach. The methodology uses a review of literature and policies in tourism and social cohesion. Findings support the validity of tourism as a catalyst, and this study proposes a framework for assessing social cohesion via tourism.

In this study, the notion of social cohesion is discussed and the prospects of tourism to act as a catalyst are debated upon. A review of literature and policies in tourism and social cohesion are used.

Findings support the validity of tourism as a catalyst, and a framework for assessing social cohesion via tourism is proposed.

This study proposes a framework for assessing social cohesion via tourism.

This paper aims to describe written and visual data sources useful for researching the history of advertising and marketing that are held in the collections of the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

Knowledge of the McCracken collections has been acquired over several years of online searches and subsequent data analyses, communications with Library staff and from a personal visit to Cody in September 2021.

Several digital collections are surveyed. The Roy Marcot Firearms Advertisement Collection visually documents industry practices and also speaks to larger issues in American gun culture. The Winchester Publications provide insights via company magazines into product and management strategies, hardware retailing and visual merchandising tactics during the 1920s. The Schuyler, Hartley and Graham archive of business correspondence illustrate business-to-business marketing from the nineteenth through the early 20th century. The Buffalo Bill Collection reveals how the culturally important Wild West shows were promoted and experienced.

This paper familiarizes advertising and marketing historians with the primary sources in the McCracken Research Library and suggests some potential areas for study.

It has been a decade, as the collaboration between the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) and the Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) to extend information and communication technology (ICT) and library services to rural deprived, unserved and underserved communities in Ghana dubbed the library connectivity project. This paper aims to evaluate this initiative from the perspective of relevant key stakeholders and through the lens of the digital inclusion model.

The study adopted a qualitative approach to evaluate the library connectivity project offered to deprived communities in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Interviews were conducted with the head librarians, ICT teachers and school librarians. Focus group discussions were held with pupils from four beneficiary schools of the project. The researchers also witnessed four of the outreach programmes and training sessions and observed the mode of instruction.

The study brought to fore the enormous benefits of the library connectivity project as it aided school pupils to acquire practical ICT skills, which were found to be useful towards their final exam. Despite the enormous benefit of the project, it was bereft with a lot of challenges such as inadequate logistics and personnel thereby restricting the project to very few schools. Low staff motivation and unmotorable roads were also found to be a challenge, which could all be as a result of lack of funds.

The paper underscores the importance of computer and information literacy and reveals how the GhLA is using innovative mobile library services to bridge the digital divide through the library connectivity project.

This paper makes a further contribution to the paucity of literature on the role of mobile libraries in the promotion of computer and information literacy.