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The paper aims to investigate current library instruction programs to help business students make better use of library resources and improve their information. However, students’ information acquisition ability, library usage and their perception toward library user education are inevitably changing along with the rapidly evolving information landscape as well as the socio-cultural environment driven by information technologies.

For this study, 90 business students from three different majors at the Faculty of Business and Economics, the University of Hong Kong were invited to participate in the online survey for comparison.

The findings of this study suggest that the subjects, in general, recognized the importance of library user instruction. However, when the subjects encountered difficulties in information searching, they preferred to use search engines (such as Google) and seek help from their classmates.

The results of this study show that there were distinctive differences in library usage and views toward library instruction among students of three different majors. This study sheds light on the feasible actions of academic libraries to enhance library user instruction services and improve the IL skills among business students.

Although there is much research about the library instruction of academic libraries, scant research focuses on library usage and views toward library instruction of business students, especially on the comparison among different business majors.

This paper aims to study the information needs and online information-seeking behaviors on mobile platforms of performing arts students at a college level.

Survey instruments were used to collect data from performing arts students at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (HKAPA), a metropolitan’s major performing arts tertiary institution. Data collected were analyzed through descriptive statistics and other statistical methods, and the music-related students were compared with the production-related students.

The result reveals that performing arts students all owned their mobile devices and often used mobile apps for non-academic purposes, but they did not often use mobile library services or read online academic contents with their mobile devices. The participants considered inadequate signal coverage, slow loading time, difficulty in reading on a mobile device and the lack of specialized mobile apps as more significant barriers affecting their usage. There are some significant differences between the music-related and production-related student groups in that music-related students watched lectures on the library websites and used electronic music scores more often than the production-related students.

This study contributes to the input for enhancements and policies to future mobile services and facilities of performing art libraries.

There have been scant studies on the mobile learning needs of performing arts students, especially in Asia.

For retail management as for management generally, it is essential to keep well informed of present and future economic trends. One might expect that with sophisticated computerised techniques, economic forecasting would be a great deal more accurate than it was, say, twenty years ago. But is this necessarily so? Stuart Eliot looks at some of the reasons why forecasts go wrong, and how useful they are anyway.

The equator principles constitute an international voluntary code developed by banks to encourage consideration of environmental and social issues in project financing. Such codes can flexibly bridge the gap between individual companies' sustainability initiatives and mandatory, legal regulation. However, concerns continue to be expressed that the equator principles reporting of banks is not fully satisfactory, so the aim of this paper is to investigate both the nature of the success and the shortcomings of equator principles reporting.

The paper is based on academic literature on motivations for corporate social responsibility and various publications by non‐government organisations and professional accounting and legal organisations, together with analysis of the disclosures made by Barclays and HSBC. In addition, access was gained for semi‐structured interviews with some senior executives/consultants.

While the voluntary equator principles initiative has been remarkably successful in matching banks' strategic motivation, the environmental benefit may primarily be a by‐product of the risk management processes of banks, consistent with enlightened shareholder theory. This does not mean the environmental benefits may not be real but, without more detailed project‐level disclosure and a standardised performance evaluation system, it is difficult to measure the extent to which the equator principles have had a positive effect on the environment.

Further research is needed to gauge how the equator principles impact front‐line decision making. There could usefully be further standardisation of equator principles reporting formats, with more detail about project‐level implementation. With respect to reports of external assurers, it remains an open question as to whether these should be made compulsory, subject to further specification of the independence and competence standards.

The study helps to illuminate the effectiveness of a voluntary code such as the equator principles in the social construction of how enlightened shareholder theory is to be interpreted and implemented. It makes an initial response to recent calls by Bebbington et al. and Adams for further empirical corporate social responsibility research and more direct engagement with organisations.

Describes the changing role and function of libraries caused by cuts, new technology, etc. Discusses future directions and challenges, especially with regard to IT. Examines new initiatives for libraries, including training shopkeepers as librarians and having in‐store libraries. Uses the case of Brent Libraries as an example.