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Aims to provide a review of the seminar which concentrated on the developments in e‐books within higher education and the lead taken by this sector in the development of e‐book practice.

The article is based on the proceedings of the seminar.

Concludes that the future challenges for e‐books include the need to find ways of getting users to choose library resources before the web; the need for libraries to improve awareness of new e‐resources; and the need to work closely with academics to embed e‐books in VLEs.

Provides some useful insights into the development of e‐books within the higher education community.

This paper aims to highlight some of the ways in which UK academic libraries are responding to the increasing space pressures in both their library buildings and their external stores.

A survey of academic libraries looks at current practice, with examples taken from the University of Leeds and a number of other UK universities.

The paper finds that relegation of stock has become a fact of life, and withdrawal is becoming more common. It is clear that the shortage of physical space cannot be solved by institutions in isolation, and that a collective strategy is essential in order to guarantee long‐term sustainable storage of low‐usage material.

It is hoped that the examples discussed can help inform stock management decisions in other institutions that are starting to face storage problems.

The paper aims to describe the development of an alternative to the Big Deals that was deployed successfully in negotiations with Elsevier and Wiley for the 2012 settlement.

This is a descriptive account of the alternative plan.

There is a credible alternative to the Big Deals offered by most commercial academic publishers. Even if not implemented, the model provides a very useful tool to understanding the relationship between cost per use and document supply.

The paper provides an account of the first time that a practical alternative to the Big Deals has been developed, leading to a successful negotiating conclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine service level agreements (SLAs) in the retail industry and uses empirical data to draw conclusions on the relationships between SLA parameters and retailer financial performance.

Based on prior SLA theories, hypotheses about the impacts of SLA confidentiality, choice of chargeback mechanisms and chargeback penalty on retailer inventory turnover are tested.

Retailer inventory turnover could vary by the level of SLA confidentiality, and the variation of retailer inventory turnovers could be explained by chargeback penalty.

The research findings may not be readily applicable to SLAs outside of the retail industry. Also, most conclusions were drawn from publicly available SLAs.

The significant relationships between SLA parameters and retailer inventory turnover imply that a retailer could improve its financial performance by leveraging its SLA design.

Not only does this study contribute to the understanding of retail SLA design in practice, but it also extends prior theories by investigating the implications of SLA design on the retailer inventory turnover.

Drawing on the relational demography literature and a social identity perspective, several research propositions in which the authors postulate that demographic characteristics (e.g. gender and race) of senior leaders will influence the implementation and effectiveness of diversity management practices were presented. Specifically, the authors focus on the Chief Executive Officer/Chief Diversity Officer (CEO/CDO) dyad and explore independent and joint effects of CEO and CDO majority–minority group status on workplace diversity outcomes, outlining key identity-based and relational moderators (e.g. value threat, relational identity and leader–member exchange) of these relationships.

The literature on relational demography and leader–member exchange to develop propositions for future research was integrated.

This is a conceptual paper. There is no empirical data reported testing the propositions.

The authors extended theory and research on relational demography by focusing on senior leaders in the organization and proposing that the influence of CEO and CDO demographic characteristics on the enactment of diversity practices may be contingent on key identity-based and relational processes.

The authors are not aware of any studies investigating how personal characteristics and relational processes relating to the CEO and CDO may influence the implementation and effectiveness of workplace diversity management practices. In a similar vein, the authors contribute to the research literatures on relational demography and social identity by extending the application of these theories to senior leaders in organizations and in relation to the work of CEOs and CDOs.

This paper aims to review the literature dealing with e‐books to identify trends.

The review is based on the literature published during January to December 2010. For this purpose, literature on e‐books was searched and retrieved from LISA, LISTA, Emerald, Science Direct and J‐store. E‐books, electronic books, digital books, e‐book reader, were the keywords used for searching the literature in these databases. The literature is analyzed and reviewed under various broad categories. Most of the literature reviewed is in English. Non‐English literature reported in the LISA is also considered.

In spite of the unconcluded debate of print versus electronic, popularity of e‐books is increasing and thereby the e‐book market is growing at a very fast pace. User friendliness, cost, portability are some of the reasons for the increased use of e‐books. Varieties of e‐book readers are produced with different features. Copyright and DRM are the challenging issues. New e‐book pricing models are evolving with their own merits and demerits. Libraries are carrying out e‐book usage studies and are adopting innovative practices to promote e‐books.

The paper is useful for LIS researchers, practitioners, e‐book publishers and aggregators for understanding current trends and for framing prospective policies.

The paper identifies trends based on published literature.

New actors have emerged in the food supply chain in response to the increased awareness of food waste and the need to distribute surplus food. The purpose of this study is to analyse the different supply chain structures that have emerged to make surplus food available to consumers.

This study adopts a qualitative multiple-case study of three new surplus food actors: a surplus food platform, an online retailer and a surplus food terminal. Data sources included interviews, documentary evidence and participatory observations.

Three different types of actor constellations in surplus food distribution have been identified: a triad, a tetrad and a chain. Both centralised (for ambient products) and decentralised supply chain structures (for chilled products) have emerged. The analysis identified weak links amongst new actors and surplus food suppliers. The new actors have adopted the roles of connector, service provider and logistics service provider and the sub-roles of mediator, auditor and consultant.

This paper contributes to research on closed-loop or circular supply chains for the reuse of products in the context of surplus food distribution.