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Points out that the success or failure of a business can depend on the quality of the interpersonal relationships within it, and that three‐quarters of a manager′s time may be spent on such interactions. Details a new approach to improving interpersonal skills, based on drama as a learning medium. Suggests that such a technique has many advantages over role‐play and video, and outlines a workshop session, using this technique, and its rationale.

Is social contact with the customer either necessary or profitable to a service industry? Does the salesgirl sell? Or, is she just a packaging‐and‐money‐taking component in a selling organisation? We have had the self‐service restaurant with us for several years, why not the self‐service pub? And in transportation, the Victoria Line is almost fully automated. Need an airline provide more than comfortable seats and a convenient schedule of flights? Just how important is it to have a pleasing social relationship with the customer? Obviously, the answers to these questions depend on a variety of factors in any given situation; and, inevitably a prime factor is the economic one. The situation for the airlines is an unusual one: market competition is constrained by the international regulation of fares and schedules and even of the type of meal service on particular routes. As a result the airlines compete in such narrow areas as the ambience of the passengers' surroundings and the social skills of their customer contact staffs.

Reports on the CERLIM‐organized conference “Libraries Without Walls 7”, Lesvos, Greece, 14‐18 September 2007.

Reports from the viewpoint of a conference participant and presenter of a paper and gives an overview of the whole conference with more detail on some of the presented papers.

The conference was worthwhile and enlightening, revealing the diversity of current developments in library service delivery worldwide.

Of interest as a review of the conference.

With an increasing demand on car dealerships to meet sales objectives and to fulfil customer expectations, the UK arms of Peugeot and Lexus have introduced new approaches to developing their dealer managers. The Peugeot Business Institute is focussing on continuous personal development, tailor made for each individual, and has launched a new technical‐training program for dealers. Meanwhile Lexus, the luxury‐car arm of the giant Toyota, has teamed up with the Nottingham Trent University, in the East Midlands region of England, to open a purpose‐built dealer‐training center offering management, operational and technical training.

Sainsbury have impressed yet again, with a profit advance in the latest reported year of 20 per cent. The group became the biggest UK retailer in terms of turnover, even outstripping Marks & Spencer. Our commentator takes the view that brand strength will continue to power Sainsbury ahead, together with its store expansion programme.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept and the content of courses on ‘social ethics’. It will present a dilemma that arises in the design of such courses. On the one hand, they may present versions of ‘applied ethics’; that is, courses in which moral theories are applied to moral and social problems. On the other hand, they may present generalised forms of ‘occupational ethics’, usually professional ethics, with some business ethics added to expand the range of the course. Is there, then, not some middle ground that is distinctively designated by the term ‘social ethics’? The article will argue that there is such a ground. It will describe that ground as the ethics of ‘social practices’. It will then illustrate how this approach to the teaching of ethics may be carried out in five domains of social practice: professional ethics, commercial ethics, corporate ethics, governmental ethics, and ethics in the voluntary sector. The aim is to show that ‘social ethics’ courses can have a clear rationale and systematic content.

The school timetable is a powerful administrative tool. Ideally it should operationalise the aims and objectives of the school by providing an appropriate structural dimension to the curriculum. Stark reality may prevent this ideal relationship from being achieved. Another function served by the school timetable is its allocative role. It performs the important task of allocating a large proportion of the school's resources. The resources of teacher‐time, pupil‐time and room‐space have their use controlled directly by the timetable. The material resources of equipment and supplies, which are largely related to subjects taught, are indirectly controlled. Timetable analysis can therefore serve two purposes. It can reveal the reality of a school's curriculum organization. This reality may be intentional or unintentional. Secondly, it can show where a school allocates its resources, in particular the important ones of teacher‐time and room‐space. Information in these areas should enable school administrators to make better decisions on the school's educational programme and on resource allocation practices to achieve desired aims and objectives. This paper reports part of a study which used timetable analysis for these purposes. It shows the type of information which can be obtained by such analysis and argues that the quantitative and qualitative data provided can provide a more informed basis for decision making.

Photographs have been used in ethnography for some time now; Pink (2001, p. 49) has argued that the camera has become a ‘mandatory element’ of the ‘ethnographer's toolkit’. Photographs were primarily used in ethnographic studies as mere illustrations or to add authenticity to the written text (Davies, 1999). But as time has progressed, the photograph has moved from the ‘sidelines’ of ethnography to claim a more central position. One of the first studies to use the visual as a central method in the ethnographic process was the study ‘Balinese Character’ completed by Bateson and Mead (1942). Davies (1999) reports that their use of the visual was central to the research process; it was as much a part of the collection of data as it was the analysis and the final written report. Pink (2001) suggests that due to these advances in visual research it is now possible to speak of a ‘visual ethnography’.