Search results

Computer‐based information services covering major disciplines of science have been developed recently from certain traditional abstracting and indexing services. A wide range of secondary information services is provided to satisfy the various information requirements generated by the present complexity of scientific and technological work. This development has caused radical changes in the administration structure, pricing policies and funding of the organizations providing information services.

Chemical Group, Annual General Meeting. After lunch Dr G. A. Somerfield of OSTI delivered a paper entitled ‘The next 100 weeks in chemical information’, a shortened version of which we hope to publish in Aslib Proceedings.

Chemistry is an extremely wide subject, which is difficult to cover completely in a short talk. I intend, therefore, to describe some of the projects that OSTI is supporting to illustrate their likely effect on chemical information in general.

Discusses similarities and differences in the various definitions of the word network. It has come to have two meanings in the library and information science field. Firstly there are bibliographic or logical networks and secondly there are computer or physical networks. All definitions comply to it being a series of points interconnected by communications chAnnels. In the past, libraries have used postal, telephone, van and telex services to communicate with other libraries. Increasingly they will need to receive and transmit digital information—information going to and from computer systems. Describes and illustrates the equipment needed to transmit such information on‐line: terminals; modems and acoustic couplers; and telecommunications chAnnels—their speed, mode of sending information, and types. In the context of physical networks, explains and assesses packet‐switching, and discusses: the protocol X25, to be used in EURONET; possible shapes of computer networks; physical networks of use to libraries. Mentions a number of logical networks, and refers to published literature.

The need was seen some time ago for the formation of a complete catalogue for the stock of Dorset County Library.

All items listed may be borrowed from the Aslib Library, except those marked, which may be consulted in the Library.

Miss Aimée Chilton, Senior Lecturer‐in‐Charge of Data processing Facilities at Birmingham College of Commerce, will lecture on the computer, beginning at 3 o'clock on Thursday 21st March, at the Royal Aeronautical Society, 4 Hamilton Place, London W1 (nearest tube station is Hyde Park Corner; buses: Piccadilly, Knightsbridge or Park Lane).

February WED.1. Engineering Group Conference at Aslib, 10.30 a.m.

Computer typesetting is—or should by now be regarded as—an everyday technique which links the electronic digital computer and tape‐driven composing machines into a system which, on the one hand, can overcome the traditional limitations of the computer line printer and, on the other hand, may offer a more effective alternative to the manual compilation and composition of large‐scale publications.

Five years ago, Budgens plc, Britain’s tenth largest grocery retailer, established an alliance with REWE of Germany to develop a discount format in the south of England ‐ Budgens’ heartland ‐ to exploit what was perceived as a growth area in the UK as the other multiples had tended to vacate this sector of the market. Budgens had no experience of discounting and thus an alliance with REWE, a large German discount operator, was an attractive proposition. The article explains why and how the alliance developed and, importantly, assesses why the experiment was relatively short‐lived. Essentially, it illuminates the problems of attempting to pursue both differentiation and cost/price leadership strategies.