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Traditionally, entrepreneurs and small businesses have faced difficulties when competing with entrenched firms for customers and expanding into global markets. The World Wide Web (WWW) is one approach to overcoming obstacles by giving organizations a direct connection to potential customers and suppliers on a global level. However, complex technology, security, and reliability present significant challenges to the entrepreneur or small business owner about to enter the e‐business arena. Difficulties are especially notable when the business operates in a non‐Web‐related field or when it has relatively few individuals with IT (information technology)/Web experience. Facing these challenges alone by hiring or developing an in‐house technology staff and building a support infrastructure is costly and may be risky. An alternative, contracting for Web‐based services from an application service provider (ASP), effectively reduces cost and risk while preserving the competitive advantage of the entrepreneurial firm. This paper describes the use of the ASP concept to allow an entrepreneurial firm to compete effectively in the global market.

The most significant event for the School has been the announcement of the creation of the National Centre for Management Research and Development. The Centre is due to open in 1986 and will provide research facilities for up to 20 major projects designed to improve the competitiveness of Canadian business practices.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

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.

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.

It is to be regretted that Local Authorities are the subject of some criticism regarding their attitude to Clean Food Weeks. Indeed, an eminent speaker in a recent B.B.C. discussion programme confessed to having never heard of the project. That, in some instances, this criticism is justified there can be no doubt. During the past twelve months approximately one hundred of these weeks have been held throughout the country. Their value cannot be underestimated. Propaganda and guidance are the weapons of this campaign, and these, where possible, are surely preferable to legal action. The local Press shows an admirable willingness to co‐operate in these projects, and this assistance can be of immeasurable value. Irrespective of what the Ministries of Food and Health do, or do not do, to promote food hygiene, it is the responsibility of every Local Authority to ensure that its traders and public realise the prime importance of a fuller understanding of the necessity for clean food. Since their conception, the Model Byelaws have been favourably received. Of the 1,444 Local Authorities in England and Wales, 1,200 have taken steps for their partial adoption, whilst in over 800 of these cases their full usage has been confirmed. Although the gaining of the co‐operation of the trader is the first step, the education of the general public can play a major part in the suppression of the sale of contaminated, and even in some cases adulterated, food. The public is sometimes termed “food conscious”—we are not quite sure what this expression means, but a public fully conscious of the dangers of unclean food can do a great deal to ease the work of the already overburdened Food and Drugs Officer. In a recent article in this Journal, Mr. R. A. Robinson mentions the “careless admission of foreign bodies in loaves and the rest”. Whether or not the purchaser of such an article should report the matter to the Local Health Department, or remonstrate with the retailer, is not our concern at the moment, but the increase in the number of these complaints is due to a greater alertness in the purchaser, and not, we trust, to an increasing carelessness on the part of the manufacturer. The aim of all Public Health Departments should be to encourage the public to insist upon a clean restaurant or café, where the food is hygienically prepared; once this is established, the undesirable premises will be forced either to improve their standards or to put up their shutters through lack of business. An excellently written booklet, eminently suitable for public distribution in connection with Clean Food Weeks, is reviewed elsewhere in this issue. An intensive drive now for a general education in the dangers of contaminated food will repay a full dividend in the not too far distant future.

Presents 35 abstracts from the 2001 Employment Research Unit Annual conference held at Cardiff Business School in September 2001. Attempts to explore the theme of changing politics of employment relations beyond and within the nation state, against a background of concern in the developed economies at the erosion of relatively advanced conditions of work and social welfare through increasing competition and international agitation for more effective global labour standards. Divides this concept into two areas, addressing the erosion of employment standards through processes of restructuring and examining attempts by governments, trade unions and agencies to re‐create effective systems of regulation. Gives case examples from areas such as India, Wales, London, Ireland, South Africa, Europe and Japan. Covers subjects such as the Disability Discrimination Act, minimum wage, training, contract workers and managing change.

The pattern of food prosecutions in more recent times has remained relatively unchanged. Most have been taken under Section 2, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, even for foods which have obviously been unfit for human consumption. The Section because of its wider application has distinct procedural advantages. A few local authorities routinely use Section 8 successfully; it probably depends upon a more liberal interpretation and understanding by local justices. The five‐year study of food prosecutions, (BFJ 1971, 73, 39), separated them into a number of well‐defined groups and showed that those for the presence of foreign material were the majority and remained fairly constant throughout the period; mouldy foods increased during the five years and then remained steady as the second largest single group. The foods most commonly affected and the foreign matter commonly present could be seen; neither changed much during the period of the survey.