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Banks are the major suppliers of external funds for companies in China. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Chinese banks exercise effective monitoring over borrowers in two lending decisions, including loan interest rates and loan renewals.

Using a sample of Chinese public industrial firms from 2000 to 2005, the authors perform multivariate regression analysis to investigate whether banks adjust their loan interest rates and consider loan renewal decisions in response to borrowers financial performance. The authors also examine these bank lending decisions before and after 2003, when the major banking reforms started to take place in China.

A negative relation was found between the loan interest rate spread and the financial performance of borrowers. However, a negative relation was found between loan renewals and the financial performance of borrowers, consistent with firms in financial difficulties being in need of more funding and hence more likely to get its bank loans renewed. Additionally, it was found that the factors banks consider when making loan decisions vary before and after 2003.

The authors' findings suggest that Chinese banks play a limited role in monitoring and disciplining borrowers through adjustments of loan interest rates, and that their loan renewal decisions for firms with poor financial performance highlight banks' financing, instead of monitoring role in this transition economy. These findings provide empirical evidence on bank governance in a transition economy dominated by state‐owned enterprises. The paper contributes to the literature by constructing an alternative loan renewal measure using financial statement information.

An IBM 029 card punch is used daily to prepare transaction cards, based on master cards for books and borrowers, which form the computer input to update and process the library loans files on disk once each fortnight. The system handles over 100 new loans and renewals each day, giving an annual total of some 25,000 transactions. Output from the computer includes addressed overdue book reminders and various lists. Overall running costs average £120 per month with the cost of a single loan transaction 6p. The same system also controls reports loans. A computer‐based loans control system has been operating at Aldermaston since 1965 when a punched card system, designed for use with an IBM 1460 computer was introduced to replace a four‐part continuous stationary system which had become ineffective through overloading and staff shortage. This, the first computer‐based loans control system to become operational in the United Kingdom, was adapted from one used at the General Electric Company's nuclear establishment at Hanford. The system continued to operate on our next computer, an IBM 360/40 using the ‘1460 emulation mode’, but with the loss of this feature in 1969 when an IBM 360/50 computer was installed it was necessary to reprogram. The time available in which to reprogram was limited by the computer changeover date to only a few weeks. In view of this, and our ultimate aim of fully integrated loans and catalogue records with on‐line access which will require a completely new system, it was decided to make only essential changes and modifications to the existing system. The resulting system (Fig. 1) while basically similar to its predecessor in outline is more sophisticated in detail. The library serves a potential 2,000 customers and has two distinct and separate service points: the Reading Room with a collection of over 26,000 books and pamphlets, of which approximately 7,000 are on loan at any one time, and the Reports Library which has over 230,000 microfiches and microcards and a further 46,000 paper copy reports. The loans control requirements for both departments are similar but not identical. Reports are on closed access, are less used individually than books, have complex serial number references and some are security classified with inherent receipting requirements. One set of program routines processes the loans records of both sections,but on alternate weeks, giving a fortnightly update to each department. A brief tabular outline of the system has already been published in Program. In this paper the description concentrates on the book loans procedures with only a summary of the reports procedures where the differences are substantial.

BBC Libraries and Archives have been using the Lancaster ILL System for four years. This article describes BBC interloans practices and how the automated system has been implemented. The main body of the text highlights features which have been particularly valuable for BBC requirements. Several perceived disadvantages are indicated and some expected (or perhaps hoped for) developments are listed.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by the Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription for 1981 for VINE is £20 for UK subscribers and £23 for overseas subscribers — subscription year runs from January to December.

MultiLIS is an integrated library software product that can be purchased on a modular basis or as a turnkey system encompassing both hardware and software. Acquisitions, cataloging, online public access, circulation, book exchange, local policy management, management and statistical report modules, and a report generator are currently available. An enhanced serials management module will be released in 1989. The software is written in PASCAL and C languages, and is available in either VMS or EUNIX V operating system versions. The VMS version is designed to run on Digital VAX computers, while UNIX V will run on a wider range of machines, including NCR Tower machines. MultiLIS features a strong network option, as well as a low cost annual software support agreement, providing users with telephone support services and all software updates.

The aim of this paper is to examine the question of the specialness of banks by addressing concerns raised in the recent studies and deriving policy implications for the future of banking. The specialness of banks has been well documented in the finance literature. More recent research, however, calls into question the special nature of banks.

We use event study methodology to study 423 bank loan announcements from 1988 to 1996 and examine the returns relative to proxies for the bank ' s monitoring incentives and skill using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions.

Our results indicate borrower abnormal announcement returns are positively related to proxies for the bank ' s monitoring incentives and skill as measured by: the ratio of uninsured deposits to total loans; a risk-adjusted measure of recovered charge-offs; and the relative bank-to-borrower capital ratio.

The results reveal how the fragile nature of the bank ' s structure improves the bank ' s incentives to monitor borrowers.

Our results can inform the current debates in the Fed and in Congress surrounding reapplying the Glass-Steagall Act and limiting the size of banks. We show that banks were special before the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and when fewer banks belonged to the too-big-to-fail category. This suggests that reregulating banks to re-establish their fragile nature will re-establish them as information-generating intermediaries instead of just transactional institutions.

Our findings have not previously been documented but are broadly consistent with models developed by Calomiris and Kahn (1991) and especially Diamond and Rajan (2001).

The Virginia Tech Library System is an integrated library system supporting cataloging, authority control, serials control, circulation, reserve room, acquisitions, document delivery, online public‐access catalog, keyword searching with Boolean operators, and statistics reporting. It runs on the Hewlett‐Packard HP/3000 line of computers. Initially installed in 1975, there are currently 104 users. Sidebars discuss: The Vanilla Network; LINNEA—the library information network for Finnish academic libraries; and the statewide information and referral service at Cabell County Public Library (West Virginia).

The aim of this research is to model and implement a software system for library circulation, so that all requirements of city and special libraries for electronic business with the library users can be fulfilled.

Object‐oriented methodology is used for modelling of information systems. Modelling is carried out in the CASE tool that supports the Unified Modelling Language (UML 2.0). The software architecture of the system is based on the software components and web services.

The result is a software system for library circulation. The application of the system supports the work with the local database (intranet), as well as with the remote database (internet). Also the application supports the work with different library formats (UNIMARC, MARC21 et al.).

The system is integrated into the BISIS system so that communication with the system for cataloguing is carried out via the text server of the BISIS system. For this reason integration into the other library software systems requires an additional programming. This limitation can be solved through implementation of the software package for communication with the system for cataloguing. In this case, the integration into another library system should require only the implementation of the method of the corresponding interface for work with bibliographic records.

The contribution of the paper is in the system architecture that can be configured for work in the local intranet, as well as on the internet, and that is independent of the library record format. Also, the architecture enables integration of the application in different library systems.

A new Windows based system from Dynix, first installed in the US in 1991, is due to be officially launched in Europe this summer. Featuring client‐server architecture the system has been developed principally with the academic and special library sectors in mind. The article describes the design and functionality of the system.

This paper aims to highlight the characteristics of the bibliographic discovery and delivery processes that can either facilitate or impede attempts to borrow materials from overseas libraries. The experiences described represent the perspective of a typical Interlibrary Loan (ILL) practitioner in the USA.

The author draws on his own personal experience with interlibrary borrowing at a major private university research library in the USA.

From a US perspective, the ideal means of obtaining materials from overseas libraries is to locate a potential supplier in Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) WorldCat and use the same system to manage the entire ILL request process. Large union catalogs such as the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalogue are suitable alternatives, as are services specializing in publications from certain countries or regions such as the East Asian Gateway Service or the Global ILL Framework (GIF). The least desirable option is to search and request materials directly through an individual library’s Web site, although the experience can be greatly enhanced through the use of well-designed English language interfaces, easy payment options such as International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) vouchers or credit cards and electronic delivery whenever possible.

This article would be of value for any ILL practitioners in the USA who are involved in borrowing or would like to borrow materials from overseas libraries.