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The aim of the original and recent research in this study is to determine why, in these rapidly developing economies, management systems such as TQM, ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 fail to realize continuing improvement and remediation methodologies capable of improving technical performance and enhancing economic profit.

The research uses cultural frameworks to analyze the mechanisms which are preventing a greater realization of opportunities in the improvement of management systems, going on to suggest interventions. Within this approach there were three modes of data collection, an administered Likert questionnaire (developed from prior research in Poland, and pre‐tested in Lithuania, Greece and the UK) comprising every manager in the management levels of 12 heavy industrial factories in China and Poland, interviews with the senior managers, and the determination of the empirical (true) reality for environmental performance in each factory. Analysis of these data sets supported an evaluation of the alignment between perceived and actual environmental performance, and a comparison within and between countries.

The interactions between management levels were influenced by socio‐cultural factors, which in turn determined the means of communicating knowledge between these levels. This might have affected the perceptions and mind‐sets of employees in the management chain, and hence the practical effects of any decisions based on concomitant mind‐sets “on the ground”. New management systems might not be properly understood owing to these factors.

While the specific environmental impacts of culture were particular to each factory and cannot be generalized, the socio‐cultural phenomena on which they were based can be used for comparative purposes. There was a practical constraint, despite promises of confidentiality, on how questions were answered owing to a prevailing fear and punishment practice; in a process of remediation the constraint will be the reluctance of managers to step outside of this practice.

The practical outcomes of the study lie mainly in the re‐alignment of management perceptions subject to hierarchical constraints and cultures of dubious value.

The methodology, which included an assessment of the actual and potential risk to the environment for each factory (empirical reality), matched against cultural indicators is quite new. The paper has three areas of potential value: to researchers who wish to use a combination of soft and hard interpretations for environmental and quality performance; to management practitioners who can better interpret how the nature of communication between management interfaces affects the ability to take remedial action; and to academic researchers in a better understanding of socio‐cultural group dynamics.

The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things in their way. But while it is important that better and more scientific attention should be generally given to the preparation of food for the table, it must be admitted to be at least equally important to insure that the food before it comes into the hands of the expert cook shall be free from adulteration, and as far as possible from impurity,—that it should be, in fact, of the quality expected. Protection up to a certain point and in certain directions is afforded to the consumer by penal enactments, and hitherto the general public have been disposed to believe that those enactments are in their nature and in their application such as to guarantee a fairly general supply of articles of tolerable quality. The adulteration laws, however, while absolutely necessary for the purpose of holding many forms of fraud in check, and particularly for keeping them within certain bounds, cannot afford any guarantees of superior, or even of good, quality. Except in rare instances, even those who control the supply of articles of food to large public and private establishments fail to take steps to assure themselves that the nature and quality of the goods supplied to them are what they are represented to be. The sophisticator and adulterator are always with us. The temptations to undersell and to misrepresent seem to be so strong that firms and individuals from whom far better things might reasonably be expected fall away from the right path with deplorable facility, and seek to save themselves, should they by chance be brought to book, by forms of quibbling and wriggling which are in themselves sufficient to show the moral rottenness which can be brought about by an insatiable lust for gain. There is, unfortunately, cheating to be met with at every turn, and it behoves at least those who control the purchase and the cooking of food on the large scale to do what they can to insure the supply to them of articles which have not been tampered with, and which are in all respects of proper quality, both by insisting on being furnished with sufficiently authoritative guarantees by the vendors, and by themselves causing the application of reasonably frequent scientific checks upon the quality of the goods.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The Corporation of the City of London are about to appoint a Public Analyst, and by advertisement have invited applications for the post. It is obviously desirable that the person appointed to this office should not only possess the usual professional qualifications, but that he should be a scientific man of high standing and of good repute, whose name would afford a guarantee of thoroughness and reliability in regard to the work entrusted to him, and whose opinion would carry weight and command respect. Far from being of a nature to attract a man of this stamp, the terms and conditions attaching to the office as set forth in the advertisement above referred to are such that no self‐respecting member of the analytical profession, and most certainly no leading member of it, could possibly accept them. It is simply pitiable that the Corporation of the City of London should offer terms, and make conditions in connection with them, which no scientific analyst could agree to without disgracing himself and degrading his profession. The offer of such terms, in fact, amounts to a gross insult to the whole body of members of that profession, and is excusable only—if excusable at all—on the score of utter ignorance as to the character of the work required to be done, and as to the nature of the qualifications and attainments of the scientific experts who are called upon to do it. In the analytical profession, as in every other profession, there are men who, under the pressure of necessity, are compelled to accept almost any remuneration that they can get, and several of these poorer, and therefore weaker, brethren will, of course, become candidates for the City appointment.

This paper aims to review developments in dark tourism research over a 20-year period from its inception in 1996. This paper also considers the reasons why people visit dark tourism sites and the different perspectives of site operators, tourists and academics.

This paper uses a round table discussion with three participants – all researchers who played a significant role in developing the early concept of dark tourism. The paper also explores a number of questions about past, current and future research interests and developments.

It was observed that dark tourism site operators and visitors tend to view the act of remembrance as a significant reason for visiting a site associated with past atrocities. This perspective is rather different from the original concept of dark tourism – viewed by many as a form of pilgrimage tourism.

The review reveals a gap between aspects of the literature on dark tourism and the reasons why these sites remain popular with tourists. Site operators and visitors say that motives for visiting are more commonly associated with an act of remembrance and a sense of pilgrimage than a desire to view a site associated with pain and death.

This viewpoint provides a 20-year perspective on research in dark tourism based on a conversation between three of the most eminent researchers in the field.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The Librarians of Glasgow University since 1641 are identified, and their periods of office summarised and assessed as far as information allows. The terms of appointment in early years and pattern of town and university alternating nominations are outlined, and the gradual development of the post into that of a professional librarian in the twentieth century is illustrated.

With the beginning of the twentieth century, preventive medicine is entering upon a new era. We are now confronted by a set of problems which are different in many respects from the problems so successfully attacked by the great masters of preventive medicine of the last century, and which call for the application of different preventive measures. The objects which Edwin Chadwick, John Simon, and our other great forerunners of the last century, sought to attain, and which to a large extent they did attain, may, I think, not unfairly be described by the phrase “ civic cleanliness.” They sought to provide pure water supplies ; to remove refuse and filth from the vicinity of human beings by establishing improved systems of drainage and sewerage, and better methods of dust collection ; to provide open spaces and wider streets; to pave streets, yards, etc.; to raise the sanitary standard of building construction; to provide proper burial grounds ; to regulate offensive trades ; and to abate the smoke nuisance and the pollution of rivers. Of course we all know that they did very much more than this. Their work was too great and its effect too far‐reaching to be described by any single phrase. Still, I think it not unfair to say that, broadly speaking, we may regard the attainment of civic cleanliness as the great object of cur public health administration in the nineteenth century. It cannot be said that this object has been wholly attained. In a country whose capital is still supplied with something like filtered sewage as drinking water, it is obvious that there is much yet to be done to secure civic cleanliness. But the point is that any further progress in this direction must, or should, take place on the lines already laid down by our predecessors. Their methods of civic sanitation have stood the test of experience, and all that is wanted is a further development on existing lines. It is otherwise with the new problems that now press for solution. These are problems of a different nature, and demand new methods of treatment, although the principles underlying the methods will be found, probably, to be the same. Preventive medicine in the nineteenth century was chiefly occupied with problems of civic cleanliness ; in the twentieth century we are confronted with the problems of personal hygiene, and the three problems of this kind which appear to me to call most urgently for solution at the present time are: (1) The problem of infantile mortality; (2) The problem of school hygiene; (3) The problem of the milk supply.