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The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits of visual management (VM) systems in transportation construction projects in England.

Following a comprehensive literature review, the benefits of VM were investigated through action and case study research executed within two construction projects in England.

The main findings are: VM can contribute to increased self-management, better team coordination, better promises or an increasing plan percent complete, easier control for the management and improved workplace conditions in the transportation sector. It is important for the management to obtain the engagement of their workforce for VM through increased participation and show the actual benefits. However, managerial monitoring and control on the systems should not be underestimated.

The transportation sector in England has been systematically deploying Lean construction techniques in its operations for a while. One of those Lean techniques is a close-range visual communication strategy called VM. The literature on the VM implementation in construction is scarce and generally limited to the building construction context. This paper documents the benefits of VM systems for the transportation sector by using data captured through both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. The paper also identifies a set of recommendations for similar research efforts in the transportation context in the future.

The efficiency and effectiveness of hospital emergency rooms depend on the effectiveness of the information and communication system as well as on the physical facility itself. Describes the role of information technology in the design of contemporary ER systems. A computerized information board is one system that can enhance the operation of an ER facility. Describes the structure of this system, as well as its integration with other computerized systems. Also describes design features that may help to reduce ER delays/frustration. Because many types of professionals are involved in the daily operations of an ER facility, their input to the design is essential. For this reason, also describes a group decision‐making process.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of assortment size and attribute quantity on the depth and content of consumer information searches.

For a computer-aided experiment using an information display board, participants (n = 393) were placed in a simulated shopping situation that involved choosing a product among three sets of frequently purchased, low-involvement, FMCG alternatives.

The findings show that when the assortment size increases, consumers acquire information from more products and cues but sacrifice product attributes. In particular, this sacrifice comes at the expense of secondary product attributes (e.g. nutrition information, country of origin), whereas primary product attributes (e.g. brand name, price) remain constant. Attribute quantity does not have a significant effect on information search.

Provided that several strategies rely on providing more information to consumers with the aim of making more deliberate and better choices, the findings suggest that they may have a limited effect in product categories in which the assortment size is wide. The authors discuss the implications for category management and public policy.

Information searches are measured by means of three different variables (searched cues, searched products and searched attributes), which enable a more complex exploration of the consumer information search process.

OCLC is in the preliminary stages of developing CD‐ROM‐based resource sharing services and products. A likely scenario has the organization contracting with groups of libraries to extract records, perform bibliographic processing (merging, deduping, authority work), provide CD‐ROM data preparation (indexing and other premastering services), and deliver a finished CD‐ROM union catalog complete with retrieval software. An electronic interlibrary loan messaging system would be available as part of the package.

This paper aims to demonstrate how consumer clickstream data from a leading hotel search engine can be used to validate two hidden information processing stages – first eliminate alternatives, then choose – proposed by the revered information processing theory of consumer choice.

This study models the two hidden information processing stages as hidden states in a hidden Markov model, estimated on consumer search behavior, product attributes and diversity of alternatives in the consideration set.

First, the stage of information processing can be statistically characterized in terms of consumer search covariates, including trip characteristics, use of search tools and the diversity of the consideration set, operationalized in terms of: number of brands, dispersion of price and dispersion of quality. Second, users are more sensitive to price and quality in the first rather than the second stage, which is closer to purchase.

The results suggest practical implications for how search engine managers can target consumers with appropriate marketing-mix actions, based on which information processing stage consumers might be in.

Most previous studies on validating the information processing theory of consumer choice have used laboratory experiments, subjects and information display boards comprising hypothetical product alternatives and attributes. Only a few studies use observational data. In contrast, this study uniquely uses point-of-purchase clickstream data on actual visitors at a leading hotel search engine and tests the theory based on real products, attributes and diversity of the consideration set.

A new fleet of fuelling vehicles is going into service at Gatwick Airport. Here the first Thames articulated fueller for Shell Aviation Service makes a delivery to the British Caledonian 707 ‘County of Argyll’.

IT SEEMS natural that at the commencement of each New Year people look backward and forward. They assess their achievements during the year that is gone and try to make some sort of forecast of the future.

This paper aims to describe the library services available to rural dwellers and a summary of focus groups discussions (FGD) conducted in northern districts of Bangladesh.

This paper is divided into two sections. The first section describes rural library services in Bangladesh. The second section discusses the results of FGDs carried out separately in ten rural communities in northern areas of Bangladesh.

The results of FGDs highlight the general information needs of rural communities, their reading, listening and viewing habits and awareness of rural library activities. The findings suggest that the rural libraries largely meet the informational needs of the local community and play a crucial role in the educational advancement of local people.

This is the first time an effort has been made to assess the impact of rural library activities using FGDs in Bangladesh. This paper shows that FGDs could be an effective way to assess the impact of rural library activities.

This article stems from the work of the EISSWA Research Project, which has been using an action research approach to explore the information needs of social welfare practitioners. It is argued that the research carried out so far has revealed a significant area of information need on the part of this particular user group which is not being met by existing support services, and that the library‐based information services in particular have either failed to appreciate that this gap exists or, being aware of it, have not taken the initiative to respond to it. A possible explanation for this is put forward, special attention being paid to the cultural context in which information work of this kind takes place, and an alternative model is proposed by which library‐based information services could be adapted and developed to more effectively meet the information needs of their practitioner clients.