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Presents an empirical stuA co‐branded card is a partnership between a bank or financial institution and a commercial organization. New kinds of organizations are becoming involved and new, high‐value packages are being offered to the consumer. Co‐branded cards, like GM, Ford and AT&T, have made a huge impact on the US market and GM and Ford are doing very well in the UK. Argues that although the European banks have been resisting their incursion, they will not be able to stop this inevitable trend. Discusses the raison d’être of co‐branded cards, what inroads have already been made in Europe and which market sectors are likely to follow.

If the retailer was previously looking to credit to stretch the pockets of the consumer in these hard times, then he chose the wrong government under which to practice these tactics. Enforcement of the stern tenet of getting people to ‘live within their means’ is going to bite hard into the free‐spending habits of all credit card holders. In the mean time, what hopes does the retailer have for in‐house credit and what are the real possibilities it offers in the coming decades?

Late last year, the NRMA, with Payment Systems Inc and Touche Ross, organised a three‐day conference devoted to the future of consumer credit in Europe. This paper by Michael Bliss featured in the proceedings, and takes up the topic of credit in relation to Debenhams' activities. Debenhams have used their credit card facility to its full potential. Employing all the forces of marketing, advertising and in‐store selling, they have pushed on to a time when they can look forward, not only to consumer loyalty, but to profits as well, when in the past credit has been a subsidised service to the selling operation. Now read on.

What is it about academia anyway? We profess to hate it, spend endless amounts of time complaining about it, and yet we in academia will do practically anything to stay. The pay may be low, job security elusive, and in the end, it's not the glamorous work we envisioned it would be. Yet, it still holds fascination and interest for us. This is an article about American academic fiction. By academic fiction, I mean novels whosemain characters are professors, college students, and those individuals associated with academia. These works reveal many truths about the higher education experience not readily available elsewhere. We learn about ourselves and the university community in which we work.

Credit cards are in the news again. In 1986 there was a rise of 14% in the amount of outstanding consumer credit, more than three times the rise in prices and double the rise in earning. Credit advanced in March 1987 was at a record level of £3.2bn. And retailer credit cards are doing excellent business. This feature looks at the background to the credit card explosion and then examines, in detail, the latest recruit to the fold, the Co‐op VISA card. We also take a look at the Connect card story, and conclude with a summary of the RMDP survey on retailers' attitudes to EFTPoS.

For centuries, death has proved itself a well-spring of inspiration for artists and musicians. In particular, an artist's own experiences with death and bereavement often overflow into their creative process, giving birth to artworks which channel grief and embodied experience. Morning Heroes by the British composer Sir Arthur Bliss (1891–1975) is a paradigm of such praxis.

Morning Heroes (1930) was written in memory of Bliss's brother, Kennard, who was killed in action during the First World War. Using an anthology of texts, the work aims to enshrine a universal experience of war for both soldier and civilian and maintains its connection with the British War Requiem through its use of musico-funerary rhetoric. Bliss, who converted to Catholicism during the war, wrote several times in his later life about the spiritual nature of music, specifically its ability to heal and bring peace. It is significant, therefore, that Morning Heroes was to act as a catharsis for Bliss, sublimating his recurring nightmares of the war.

Adopting Douglas Davies' (2017) ‘words against death’ idea, this chapter considers Sir Arthur Bliss's Morning Heroes as ‘music against death’ through an examination of Bliss's use of text and music to craft a requiem in sound. It explores Bliss's use of death rhetoric and embodied experience to create a vehicle for grief and situates this process within the context of his own spiritual philosophies.

The purpose of this article is to outline the approach taken to the reclassification of the library collection within a small multi‐site college of higher education – whereby 160,000 volumes were converted from the BLISS system to the Dewey Decimal Classification system, over a period of 11 weeks during Summer 2004.

An automated approach was taken whereby the Library Systems Supplier – Talis was commissioned to convert catalogue records using a batch process. Risk analysis and critical path analysis were used as tools to keep the project on schedule and provide quality control.

An automated approach allowed the project to be completed on time, within budget and with minimal disruption to services. Project planning was crucial to the success of the project. This included mapping BLISS to Dewey numbers, recruitment of a student team, management of work packages and ensuring continuity of the Library Service during the project.

Institutional support for the project was secured because of its relevance to the College's corporate agenda and the promise of a wider impact that the project would have in terms of modernisation of the library service.

Despite the apparent lack of current articles on re‐classification, many libraries are still grappling with ongoing retrospective cataloguing projects. This case study demonstrates how one institution approached the problem and demonstrates that an automated approach can yield benefits. It will be of use to other libraries thinking of, or involved with, similar conversions. The partnership role of the Library Management System Supplier is also highlighted.

The second edition of the Bibliographic Classification of H. E. Bliss (BC2), being prepared under the editorship of Jack Mills, Vanda Broughton and others, is a rich source of structure and terminology for thesauri covering different subject fields. The new edition employs facet analysis and is thesaurus‐compatible. A number of facet‐based thesauri have drawn upon Bliss for terms and relationships. In two of these thesauri the Bliss Classification was the source of both systematic and alphabetical displays. The DHSS‐DATA thesaurus, published by the United Kingdom Department of Health and Social Security, provides controlled terms and Bliss class numbers for indexing and searching the DHSS‐DATA database. The ECOT thesaurus (Educational courses and occupations thesaurus) prepared for the Department of Education and Science, uses the software designed for the British Standards Institution ROOT thesaurus to generate an alphabetical display from the systematic display derived from the Bliss schedules. Problems, benefits, and future prospects of Bliss‐based thesaurus construction are discussed.

Father Patrick Primeaux has written an intriguing and ambitious book. Furthermore, unlike many other new books of this genre, which often do little more than re-visit the past expositions of other theorists, his book strives to make both a new and unique contribution to the study of business ethics. In reviewing such a book, it is therefore worth noting Jung's observation that ‘no book that makes an essentially new contribution to knowledge enjoys the privilege of being thoroughly understood’ (Jung, 1989, p. xiv). Having thus at the outset, rendered some excuse for whatever shortcomings of mine might follow, I will proceed.

The inconsistency between the appearance of incoherence and chaos in the US policymaking process bringing about a historic record of legislative achievements in the 1960s and 1970s, on the one hand, and the emergence of hierarchical order bringing about a prolonged period of legislative impotence in the early 2000s, on the other hand, has led legislative scholars to revisit strongly held prior beliefs about legislative organization. Similar reevaluations of the garbage can model that emphasize the potential for conflict-ridden and chaotic organizations to be adaptively rational are ongoing in organizational theory. This paper adapts recent research on organizational design to explore the conditions under which decentralized, chaotic decision making facilitates more desirable legislative outcomes than centralized decision making controlled by a benevolent dictator. The author demonstrates that normative claims about legislative organization – much like normative claims about organizational design – should vary depending on the task environment faced by the legislature. In the face of rugged uncertainty in the mapping from policies to outcomes, decentralized decision making among modestly polarized legislators with fluid participation in decisions facilitates a functional mix of exploitative and exploratory search.