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Several recent developments (notably, the breakdown of traditional distinctions between different types of financial activity, the globalisation of financial markets and increasing emphasis on systemic stability as a regulatory objective) have prompted policy‐makers to search for an ‘optimum’ regulatory structure that is adapted to the new market environment. Further impetus has been given to this debate by the radical overhaul of regulatory structures, along quite different lines in Australia, the UK and Japan, and the ongoing deliberations within the US Congress over structured financial reform. This paper examines alternative ways of organising the regulatory function in the context of the new financial market environment. The first section reviews the objectives, targets and techniques of regulation. The second section describes the new market environment and the restructuring of the financial services industry. The third section assesses the implications of this new environment for the structure of regulation. The fourth section addresses the international dimension. The final section provides a summary and conclusion. The paper is based on a presentation made at the World Bank Conference, El Salvador, June 1998.

Current news on environmental problems frequently emphasizes the totally unprecedented nature of the ecological crises that beset us in this nation and the Western world as a whole. We are told, for example, that the summer of 1988 constituted “the hottest summer on record” in North America. Similarly we hear mat Boston Harbor has never in its history been so polluted, and in European waters seal populations died of an epidemic in 1988 on a scale never before witnessed by man. By stressing this “never before” aspect of events, it is sometimes argued mat the experience of the past is largely irrelevant for policy planners. Since our circumstances are new, so the argument runs, past experience leaves us with little or no instruction for the formulation of a practical public policy for the environment.

Describes a number of experiments with electronic document delivery, and the copyright problems that are affecting its use. Considers the inadequacies of interlending for the user, the interlending in Eastern Europe and Australia. Outlines the impact of CD‐ROM on document supply and suggests that interlending can be a social, cultural and economic measure.

The sexual and erotic dimensions inherent in leadership’s physicality impact on power dynamics within organizations but have been rendered largely invisible by current scholarship. In organizational practice, leadership is a masculine activity ideally carried out by male bodies, such that women’s leadership is still perceived as problematic. This suggests that the field is fearful of allowing sexual bodies to pollute what should be a functional, cognitive and instrumental activity. This chapter therefore draws on Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection to explain how and why the sexual body is positioned as the unspoken other of leadership. To do this, I explore the representation of two very contrasting leaders, Jean Luc Picard and the Borg Queen, in the popular film Star Trek: First Contact. The film illuminates how leadership ideally resides in a virile, mastered and distant male body. The sexual female body is represented as disgusting, dangerous, and a source of contamination and so must be cast out and destroyed. Finally, I ask whether the representation of the Borg Queen is useful as a transgressive means to undermine the abjection of the female leader’s body. However, I conclude that to counter abjection, scholars of leadership need instead to build discursive and material practices that revalue the feminine and respect the alterity of self and others.

This paper seeks to map the employment of female professionals to create a collective biography of women in US public relations from 1940‐1970. It aims to suggest that women were active leaders in many areas of public relations, despite the exclusion of women from most historical accounts.

The author completed a content analysis of a women's professional directory published in 1970. This directory summarizes women's accomplishments during this critical time period in the development of the public relations profession. The sample of 520 entries was analyzed for demographics and career statistics in relation to social perceptions that prevailed during this timeframe.

The paper offers empirical insights into the work of female public relations practitioners. It quantifies employment in managerial and technical positions in a variety of industries, charts the trends in employment, and offers support for theoretical explanations for why women were essentially invisible in public relations publications and historical records.

The findings from this research are limited in that they are based on a directory full of self‐reported success stories. Therefore, additional research is needed before these results can be generalized to the population under study.

This paper creates a collective biography of women in public relations that complements the research that has been done on a few individual women. This research contributes to a more robust explanation of the development of US public relations.

ANYBODY whoses daily work involves the planning and spending of money must at all times be concerned by efforts to ensure that value is being obtained for the money spent. Those of us who, as librarians, are spending the money of fellow tax‐payers, are naturally doubly concerned about this problem. In addition, the very phrase “value for money” to a Yorkshireman is a continual challenge, and a point on which he instinctively feels, rightly or wrongly, that he has some secret inborn knowledge.

Deciding the best course of treatment for a drug or alcohol user can be a complex one. Continuing our look at harm reduction and abstinence, we ask what the best plans are for Nigella, a young woman with mental health problems who uses heroin to prevent recurring self‐harm. In a refreshing and challenging critique Lesley Don explores the decision‐making process towards that treatment. Should Nigella stop her heroin use? If she does, will she self‐harm? Which harm is more desirable? And why, as professionals, do we seek one solution over another?

The statements which have recently been made in various quarters to the effect that Danish butter is losing its hold on the English market, that its quality is deteriorating, and that the sale is falling off, are not a little astonishing in face of the very strong and direct evidence to the contrary furnished by the official records. As an example of the kind of assertions here alluded to may be instanced an opinion expressed by a correspondent of the British Food Journal, who, in a letter printed in the March number, stated that “My own opinion is that the Danes are steadily losing their good name for quality, owing to not using preservatives and to their new fad of pasteurising… .”