Search results

The present study reports on the use of electronic information services by staff at GCU. It is part of a wider study which reports on usage by both staff and students. It builds on previous work at Leeds Metropolitan University, and as the user population at GCU is well understood the outcomes contain useful baseline data for comparison. It reports on the views of 97 respondents out of an academic staff of about 700. The freely available Internet was the most widely used source, which some respondents viewed as a more appropriate source of vocationally orientated information than passworded databases. Less than a third used the catalogue to find EIS, which raises questions about the future of the catalogue as a free‐standing comprehensive resource. Non‐use of EIS was rarely due to difficulty of access or use. Staff were pessimistic about their student's skill levels in using EIS.

Max Weber called the maxim “Time is Money” the surest, simplest expression of the spirit of capitalism. Coined in 1748 by Benjamin Franklin, this modern proverb now has a life of its own. In this paper, I examine the worldwide diffusion and sociocultural history of this paradigmatic expression. The intent is to explore the ways in which ideas of time and money appear in sedimented form in popular sayings.

My approach is sociological in orientation and multidisciplinary in method. Drawing upon the works of Max Weber, Antonio Gramsci, Wolfgang Mieder, and Dean Wolfe Manders, I explore the global spread of Ben Franklin’s famed adage in three ways: (1) via evidence from the field of “paremiology” – that is, the study of proverbs; (2) via online searches for the phrase “Time is Money” in 30-plus languages; and (3) via evidence from sociological and historical research.

The conviction that “Time is Money” has won global assent on an ever-expanding basis for more than 250 years now. In recent years, this phrase has reverberated to the far corners of the world in literally dozens of languages – above all, in the languages of Eastern Europe and East Asia.

Methodologically, this study unites several different ways of exploring the globalization of the capitalist spirit. The main substantive implication is that, as capitalism goes global, so too does the capitalist spirit. Evidence from popular sayings gives us a new foothold for insight into questions of this kind.

Considered going to IFLA 89 in Paris, but as noted in leading article in August, the fee of 2,200 francs would pay for a first class run around the Hexagon with SNCF for nine days with all sorts of extras and still leave enough for five good dinners. Expostulating thus to NLW's Favourite Overseas Librarian, Frances Salinié of the British Council in Paris, led her to make enquiry. Transpired, as they say, that belatedly and all unannounced one‐day registration at 300 francs was allowed. This possibility, the fact that I hadn't been to Paris this year, the near certainty that one day of IFLA would be an “elegant sufficiency” and a curiosity to see if “they order this matter… better in France” led me to the Gare du Nord clutching my 300 dirty oncers. Warning: lengthy chunk of political bias coming up. Don't bother to take reading matter on the London Dover/Folkestone railway. The swaying, clattering, noisome line makes reading, conversation or walkman listening virtually impossible. This chunk of Network Southeast is not a worthy descendant of the South‐Eastern and Chatham railway on which long dead father once drove beautiful locomotives. A pride in railways is one of the Victorian values not preached from the Downing Street pulpit. The new line promised for the Tunnel may sometime let you read in comfort, but that seems a rather drastic and expensive remedy.

The Commission appointed jointly by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization continues to plod its weary way towards the establishment of Codex standards for all foods, which it is hoped will eventually be adopted by all countries, to end the increasing chaos of present national standards. We have to go back to 1953, when the Sixth World Health Assembly showed signs of a stirring of international conscience at trends in food industry; and particularly expressed “the view that the increasing use of various chemical substances had … , created a new public health problem”. Joint WHO/FAO Conferences which followed initiated inter alia international consultations and the setting up of the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission.