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The Fred Meyer Charitable Trust, Division of Library and Information Resources for the Northwest, has funded five research projects that will demonstrate the potential of various techniques and new technologies to facilitate communications and resource sharing in the Northwest. The experience and information derived from these projects will be of value to all libraries and information centers, not just those conducting the research. The techniques and technologies being evaluated include: simultaneous remote searching, which uses inexpensive terminals and modems; a mini‐computer‐based union list and resource sharing network (INFONET); networks using facsimile machines; networks that transmit documents that have been optically scanned into bit‐map image files; and use of optical character recognition equipment to capture ASCII machine‐readable information that can be broadcast by television stations to user‐sites. Contributors of reports are: Verl Anderson, Linda Brander, Millard F. Johnson, Jr., Bruce Morton, and Steve Smith. Summary observations are provided by Joseph R. Matthews.

The purpose of this paper is to address the most urgent challenges that libraries face in the mass digitization of historical printed text: the unsatisfactory result of the conversion of scanned images to full featured electronic text by means of automated optical character recognition (OCR); the historical language barrier around 1850, caused by inadequacy of most existing lexica for historical language for OCR or post‐correction and a lack of institutional knowledge and expertise in libraries, museums and archives.

In the EC‐funded project IMPACT (Improving Access to Text), seven libraries, six research institutes and two private sector companies across Europe work together to address the challenges by the development of OCR software and technologies which exceed the accurateness of current state‐of‐the‐art software significantly. The IMPACT solutions focus on the entire process of recognition after the document leaves the scanner: Image processing, OCR processing (including use of dictionaries), OCR correction and Document formatting. IMPACT will also build capacity in mass digitization by sharing best practice and expertise with the cultural heritage communities in Europe.

Technical results will include toolkits for image enhancement and segmentation, an adaptive OCR engine and several prototypes of experimental OCR engines, computational lexica and several post‐correction modules including a web based collaborative correction system and a parser for structural metadata. Strategic tools include several decision support tools, guidelines, a web site with demonstrator platform, a training programme and ultimately, a sustainable Centre of Competence for mass digitization in Europe.

The IMPACT solutions will allow for the first time to transform large amounts of digitized historical texts into electronic text with a minimum of manual interference and a significantly improved accessibility for the user.

British government approves data network After months of preparation by HM Treasury's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), the first phase of the Government Data Network (GDN) has now been accepted. Trials of GDN took place in January, and it has now been implemented for daily use in 178 Customs and Excise locations throughout Britain. GDN is operated by Racal Data Networks.

Any account of the exhibition at this year's Conference would be incomplete without some mention of the purpose for which these exhibitions are held, and their limitations.

The British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects has been awarded a grant of £3,500 from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, to help in the preservation of the Library's manuscripts and archives collection. The grant will be used to treat important 18th and 19th century papers, including the correspondence of eminent architects. The first item to receive treatment will be the fragile “Goodchild Album”, a valuable record of the work of the Cockerell practice compiled by his assistant, John Eastly Goodchild. The album was purchased by the British Architectural Library at a Christie's sale in 1983 with the aid of a grant from the National Art Collections Fund.

An account of two cases of alleged sale of adulterated butter was published in the Oldham Evening Chronicle of the 25th April last, and in the Oldham Standard of the 26th of the same month. The facts as reported call for comment, not because they are in any way extraordinary—they are indeed essentially common place—but the method of dealing with them by the Oldham Health Committee seems to us to be so.

April 28, 1972 Industrial Court — Collective bargaining — Commission on Industrial Relations — Reference to — Refusal by union members to handle products from other union — Whether irregular industrial action — Whether unfair industrial practice — Industrial Relations Act 1971 (c.72) ss.33(4), 54(4).

The purpose of this paper is to trace the entrepreneurial opportunity identification process of William Oscar Carpenter (WOC), a nineteenth century farmer, who went to California in 1850 to make his fortune in gold mining and ended up starting several new business ventures. The paper seeks to recount WOC's experiences and then apply them to similar issues faced by entrepreneurs in a modern‐day developing economy.

Using qualitative inquiry through archival research, the paper examines a compilation of WOC's letters to his future wife in New York. The letters provide a detailed account of the hardships and poor living conditions faced by gold seekers. The letters are examined and interpreted in the context of opportunity identification and the California Gold Rush, then applied to contemporary entrepreneurs.

WOC's letters elucidate the difficulties encountered making the trip from the East Coast to California, give later generations an historical viewpoint on a variety of social issues, and detail WOC's entrepreneurial activities in California. After a brief period as a successful miner, WOC's business career developed and branched out in different directions as he perceived entrepreneurial opportunities associated with the California Gold Rush. His story is an excellent example of opportunity recognition that has implications for current entrepreneurial activity.

WOC's awareness, anticipation, and timely action regarding business opportunity can be related, compared and contrasted with entrepreneurial activity today. The paper discusses these implications in light of opportunity recognition research and developing entrepreneurial economies.

There can be few who will regret the departure of 1966. As he makes his way towards that dim hall where the years are supposed to sit on their granite columns there will be few sighs at the parting. The year has been ‘a holy terror’ to almost everybody. Contraction has been its forte and uncertainty its foible. There have been severe restraints on enterprise, the crushing of many hopes and an air of apathy verging on despair. Future historians may well describe contemporary events as taking place ‘in the year of the Freeze’, much as it was once common to say ‘in the year of the French Revolution’.