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An investigation of the attitudinal differences between employees performing part‐time and full‐time work is reported. The study was designed specifically to control for the influence of extraneous factors such as job type. In contrast with earlier research the part‐time employees studied had positive feelings about their jobs – this may relate to the nature of the work involved in this case.

How do you judge whether a letter of reference is credible? Probably on the basis of the specific information it contains. Human resource professionals require letters containing specific information for making placement decisions, but they may be influenced by the way the letters are written as well as the factors wchich appear to influence how credible the readers judge a letter of reference to be. The provision of specific examples raises credibility, but so does using a “better” writing style. Some recommendations are made to practitioners for accurately assesing the credibilty of letters of reference.

Evidence exists which suggests that organisations may have misinterpreted the intent and letter of the current US law in personnel selection. The flawed response that many organisations have taken as a result of this misinterpretation is described. While “unfair discrimination” is reprehensible, data and logic are presented which suggest that adverse impact in selection can be both acceptable and necessary in a responsible organisation.

This paper examines the accuracy of a widely‐held belief (or myth) that union stewards have particularly negative attitudes toward their employing organization. A large sample of rank and file employees and elected union officials served as participants in the present investigation. Data were collected via questionnaires that measured several relevant company‐related attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment) and union‐related attitudes (loyalty to the union, and responsibility to the union). Results indicated that union officials scored significantly higher than the general membership with respect to the union‐related variables. There were, however, no differences with respect to the company‐related variables. Union officials and the general membership were equally committed to their employing organization and equally satisfied with their jobs. This study provides evidence that the myth about union officials is just that, a myth, and is not empirically grounded.

RETROSPECT is natural at the beginning of a new library year. All over the world of libraries of all kinds the shadow of the general depression has fallen; more heavily perhaps in the United States than here. It is a testing time which has made the enemies of libraries vocal and has also fortunately roused their advocates. On balance, optimism may prevail; and in that faith we wish our readers a happy new year.

This chapter proposes a conceptual synthesis able to think media and mediation through affect theory. Its objective is to expand our traditional conceptual frame with a new concept: immediation. Through its capacity to render the power of affect’s sociality, immediation enables us to better grasp the social life of affectivities underlying every media experience. William James defines “pure experience” as the “primal stuff of material in the world, a stuff of which everything is composed” (2003, p. 2). This is “relation,” understood as a passage where affective lines of creation come together as one “concrescence” (Whitehead, 1978). How does the binding of these affective variations occur, giving pure experience the power to express itself as an esthetic feeling? Alfred North Whitehead’s answer to this question revolves around his notion of “society” (1978). It points to a virtual society composed of affective forces. Considering that “pure experience” is a process, it would be reasonable to conceive of it as passing a threshold in its becoming. Clearly, this threshold is not fixed, but rather a “mobile differentiation” (Massumi, 2002, p. 34) – emerging from the internal cohesion of the event of experiencing an esthetic quality. It should thus be understood as a process of emergence (or an actualization of virtuality). Affective passages, events, processes of emergence, and intensities are pulsations of radical novelty. They consist in what qualitatively happens in experience: what emerges as an event. Consequently, what happens to the concepts of media and mediation if we think them through this conceptual lens?

A pæan of joy and triumph which speaks for itself, and which is a very true indication of how the question of poisonous adulteration is viewed by certain sections of “the trade,” and by certain of the smaller and irresponsible trade organs, has appeared in print. It would seem that the thanks of “the trade” are due to the defendants in the case heard at the Liverpool Police Court for having obtained an official acknowledgment that the use of salicylic acid and of other preservatives, even in large amounts, in wines and suchlike articles, is not only allowable, but is really necessary for the proper keeping of the product. It must have been a charming change in the general proceedings at the Liverpool Court to listen to a “preservatives” case conducted before a magistrate who evidently realises that manufacturers, in these days, in order to make a “decent” profit, have to use the cheapest materials they can buy, and cannot afford to pick and choose; and that they have therefore “been compelled” to put preservatives into their articles so as to prevent their going bad. He was evidently not to be misled by the usual statement that such substances should not be used because they are injurious to health— as though that could be thought to have anything to do with the much more important fact that the public “really want” to have an article supplied to them which is cheap, and yet keeps well. Besides, many doctors and professors were brought forward to prove that they had never known a case of fatal poisoning due to the use of salicylic acid as a preservative. Unfortunately, it is only the big firms that can manage to bring forward such admirable and learned witnesses, and the smaller firms have to suffer persecution by faddists and others who attempt to obtain the public notice by pretending to be solicitous about the public health. Altogether the prosecution did not have a pleasant time, for the magistrate showed his appreciation of the evidence of one of the witnesses by humorously rallying him about his experiments with kittens, as though any‐one could presume to judge from experiments on brute beasts what would be the effect on human beings—the “lords of creation.” Everyone reading the evidence will be struck by the fact that the defendant stated that he had once tried to brew without preservatives, but with the only result that the entire lot “went bad.” All manufacturers of his own type will sympathise with him, since, of course, there is no practicable way of getting over this trouble except by the use of preservatives; although the above‐mentioned faddists are so unkind as to state that if everything is clean the article will keep. But this must surely be sheer theory, for it cannot be supposed that there can be any manufacturer of this class of article who would be foolish enough to think he could run his business at a profit, and yet go to all the expense of having the returned empties washed out before refilling, and of paying the heavy price asked for the best crude materials, when he has to compete with rival firms, who can use practically anything, and yet turn out an article equal in every way from a selling point of view, and one that will keep sufficiently, by the simple (and cheap) expedient of throwing theory on one side, and by pinning their faith to a preservative which has now received the approval of a magistrate. Manufacturers who use preservatives, whether they are makers of wines or are dairymen, and all similar tradesmen, should join together to protect their interests, for, as they must all admit, “the welfare of the trade” is the chief thing they have to consider, and any other interest must come second, if it is to come in at all. Now is the time for action, for the Commission appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives in foods has not yet given its decision, and there is still time for a properly‐conducted campaign, backed up by those “influential members of the trade” of whom we hear so much, and aided by such far‐reaching and brilliant magisterial decisions, to force these opinions prominently forward, in spite of the prejudice of the public; and to insure to the trades interested the unfettered use of preservatives,—which save “the trade” hundreds of thousands of pounds every year, by enabling the manufacturers to dispense with heavily‐priced apparatus, with extra workmen and with the use of expensive materials,—and which are urgently asked for by the public,—since we all prefer to have our foods drugged than to have them pure.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.