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In Information: The Key to Effective Management published by MCB University Press (1989, ISBN 0 86176 443 9), Bob Norton and Malcolm Peel argue that the role of information within management is in the throes of dramatic transformation. It is vital that managers act on the implications of this change if they are to maintain their market position. While information technology continues to expand at an experiential rate, it is an extension of what has gone before and should be understood in this light. Managers need to learn to take advantage of the resources available to them in order to remain well placed — yet they suggest that the librarian is still well positioned within the overall situation.

The importance of customer service to organisations of all kinds, whether in the public or private sector, is now acknowledged. But the definition is frequently too narrow. Good service starts before a transaction takes place and goes on after its completion, including the market research pre‐ordering climate; the buying/ordering process; the period from order to delivery, packaging or presentation; transport and logistics; delivery, complaint handling; payment and debt collection and after sales support service. Poor service may be contributed to by organisational culture, social attitudes, monopolies and market dominance and management failings. Improvement depends on a comprehensive programme, tackling causes as well as symptoms, involving a customer service survey; organisation review; standard setting; improved communications; training; and a process for continuous monitoring.

The role of information within management is in a state of dramatic transformation. Managers must grasp and act on the implications of this change if they are to maintain their competitive position both corporately and as individuals. Information technology continues to develop at an exponential rate. But it is only an extension of what has gone before, and should be understood and used in this light. Vastly more information relevant to managers is now accessible than ever before, particularly through the use of electronic databases and networks. A selective listing of major business information databases is provided. Individual managers, whatever their function, must learn to take full advantage of the information resources available to them, and do so continuously as part of their management techniques. Organisations must develop an information strategy and corporate structure which ensures the fullest use of internal and external resources. The position of the librarian within this overall task remains well‐placed, although his relevance and role remain very much a question for his own initiative.

Managers, rather than trainers, have a key role in helping to develop their people′s careers – but that does not mean simply going through the motions of one‐off annual appraisals. Career development has serious implications for individuals and organizations.

If ‘partnership’ means anything, it must mean partnership with those who work for us; our staff.

The real nature of customer care is defined as being more than making customers smile. The five main requirements are: understanding the customers, methods of measuring service quality, involving employees at all levels, devolving decision taking on customer care and communication.

Contemporary standards-based reforms to teaching and teacher education are characterised by appeals to technical orientations to teacher professionalism. In addition, the standardisation agenda has targeted literacy education as a focus for interventions. This has highlighted an incongruence between standardised approaches to literacy and pedagogies and practices in subject English that have developed over time, and which represent disciplinary ways of knowing.

This paper uses the occasion of the author’s transition from classroom English teacher to teacher educator to inquire into the pedagogies and practices around teaching with texts that form part of her professional identity. The purpose of this study is to introduce cultural memory as an approach to interpreting narratives about educational experience and the development of English pedagogies over time.

The paper argues that standards-based reforms tell “official stories” (Malcolm and Zukas, 2009) about teacher professionalism that displace knowledge of past practices and the ethical and intellectual investments they represent. This is characterised by a marked “presentism” (Green and Cormack, 2015) in contemporary education policy. By contrast, critical autobiographical inquiry practised as cultural memory produces situated accounts of the role of professional memory in the on-going “project” (Green 2002/2014) of English teaching.

The paper presents new work in the area of teacher professional identity drawing on the interdisciplinary methods of cultural memory studies.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

The new authorities created by this Act, probably the most important local government measure of the century, will be voted into existence during 1973 and commence functioning on 1st April 1974. Their responsibilities and the problems facing them are in many ways quite different and of greater complexity than those with which existing councils have had to cope. In its passage through the Lords, a number of amendments were made to the Act, but in the main, it is a scheme of reorganization originally produced after years of discussion and long sessions in the Commons. Local government reorganization in Scotland takes place one year later and for Northern Ireland, we must continue to wait and pray for a return of sanity.

We have received a communication from Mr. A. H. Mitchell Muter, F.I.C., Public Analyst for Lambeth, with reference to the contamination of cheese as the result of it being wrapped in tinfoil.—Mr. Muter observes that the following facts are those upon which he based his remarks, re the potential danger to health arising from contamination by tin in cheese wrapped in this metal, contained in his report for the fourth quarter of 1929 to one of the Local Authorities for which he acts :—On 4th November, 1929, a Food Inspector to the Authority in question submitted an informal sample of wrapped cheese as the result of a complaint having been received from a ratepayer to the effect that he had been taken ill after partaking of it.—Mr. Muter's analysis showed it to contain 5·68 grains of tin per lb., and he therefore reported that he was of opinion that the ratepayer was fully justified in bringing the matter to the notice of the Inspector.—On 15th November a formal sample of wrapped cheese was submitted, which he found contained 6·89 grs. tin per lb., and he issued a report to this effect. As the result of this report he received on the 25th November five informal samples of various brands, all of which were found to contain tin varying from 0·28 to 6·34 grs. per lb., and a further three informal samples received on the 3rd December contained tin in quantities from 1·37 to 11·03 grs. per lb. On the 12th December a formal sample was submitted which contained as much as 14·8 grs. tin per lb.