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The purpose of this paper is to determine the overall currency of electronic books in the Safari database; to determine currency and release policies of the individual publishers who contribute books to the Safari database; to compare the usage patterns of Safari books to their print counterparts at Texas A&M University; and to discuss the impact of the Safari e‐book collection and chosen purchase model upon collection management at the university.

To determine currency of titles in Safari, the availability of the most recent edition of a title in the Safari database was checked against the availability of the print edition on the publisher's website. To determine the publishers' release policies, a questionnaire was developed and e‐mailed to them.

Of the titles in the Safari database 98.4 percent were the most current edition available. Release policies of the major Safari publishers (O'Reilly and Pearson) indicate that the electronic version of a title is released when the print version is sent to press. No Starch Press, a minor Safari publisher releases its books in Safari 90 days after the print goes on sale. Thomson would not make this information public and the remainder did not respond to the questionnaire.

Subscription to the Safari database (current file) makes available to multiple users the most current computer science and information technology books released by popular publishers. It eliminates the need to expend funds for multiple and replacement copies of this highly requested material.

The current file purchase model assumes that the most recent editions of these popular books are available in Safari. The study indicates that librarians and patrons can be assured that they are accessing the most current editions available.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of co‐browse in live chat, customers' question types, referral to subject experts, and patrons' usage patterns as experienced in the virtual reference (VR) chat reference services at Texas A&M University Libraries.

Chat transcripts from 2005 to 2007 were sampled and analyzed by peer reviewers. Statistical data in that period were also examined. A set of methods and a pilot study were created to define the measurement components such as question types, expert handling, and co‐browsing.

Co‐browsing is used in 38 percent of the sampled chat sessions. The Texas A&M University live chat service group considers co‐browsing a useful feature. Of questions received on VR, 84 percent are reference questions. Only 8.7 percent of the total questions or 10 percent of the reference questions need to be answered by subject experts. The use of VR increases dramatically in the past two years at the Texas A&M University. The findings also reveal users' logon patterns over weekdays and weekends.

The study contributes and advances understanding in the role VR plays in a large academic library and the role co‐browsing plays in VR services. The study also provides a comprehensive method for transcript and usage data analysis. It is believed that a similar methodology may be replicated elsewhere by other institutions engaging similar services or evaluation.

Two recent books will be of considerable value to company leaders and strategists seeking to deepen their understanding of the major trends driving this current wave of global transformation: “No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends” and “China’s Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent and Other Companies are Changing the Rules of Business.”

The author considers what dynamic capabilities that will be needed to compete in a world of “transient advantage,” like modern China, with its “complicated and quickly changing demand pattern,” hyper-competition, shifting industry boundaries, and “discontinuities in the regulatory context.” He believes that China is the business management laboratory within which these skills are already being honed.

By the turn of the millennium, the total revenue generated by private [Chinese] companies had already risen to parity with those of the state-enterprise sector, and since then it has grown more than six times faster.

The rise of China’s reform era entrepreneurs has come in three waves to date, each representing a significant progression in the collective capabilities and sophistication of the country’s ever-expanding entrepreneurial cadre.

Foreign multi-nationals would be wise to consider “what capabilities will have to be developed in China, for China,” learn from their Chinese rivals and ask where it might be possible to use these new “China’ capabilities ” to enhance performance globally.

This paper aims to present and discuss the findings from a qualitative study of victim-offender mediation meetings in two non-government organisations in Hong Kong between January 2015 and February 2016. It argues that mediators in Hong Kong have a unique interpretation of the criteria for someone to be considered a “macro-community member”. Confucian relational ethics emphasises that everyone lives in a personal nexus and wrongdoings will disturb this nexus. In this specific context, therefore, mediators feel that reconciliation and reparation should be dealt with by the people in the offender’s network while the involvement of unknown macro-community members is discouraged.

The semi-structured interview was adopted for use in this study, and an interview schedule with 12 open-ended questions was prepared as a guideline for conducting the interviews.

Mediators in Hong Kong have a unique interpretation of the criteria for someone to be considered a “macro-community member” Confucian relational ethics emphasises that everyone lives in a personal nexus and wrongdoings will disturb this nexus. Reconciliation and reparation should be dealt with by the people in the network, and the involvement of macro-community members will certainly disturb this network.

This study was conducted by the author between January 2015 and February 2016 for the purpose of obtaining a doctorate. The paper has neither been published previously nor is it under review for publication in any other journal at this time.