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In this chapter, I discuss two unfamiliar actors of the process of information production in the newspaper: typographers and subeditors. I focus on a particular aspect of the continuum of information production: the prepress. Subeditors and typographers made the newspaper together and in their own respective ways. Traces of these collaborations can be found in the newspaper object – and that is what I am going to try to demonstrate here.

THE CREATIVE side of advertising is perhaps more maligned, more misunderstood and more misused than any other facet of the business. Its professional practitioners — and professional indeed they are (they have to be to survive in a very competitive world) — have a tendency to adopt curious titles and even more curious clothes, but remember when you next meet one, that perhaps, unlike yourself, they are not paid for what they look like but for what they produce. Copywriters and art directors, typographers and artists, photographers and studio managers are collectively the lifeblood, the raison d'etre, of the advertising agency. Without them no agency would have a saleable product of its own, without them many companies wouldn't have either the sales graph or reputation that they do.

The growth of organized labor during the latter part of the nineteenth century triggered an organizational impulse on the part of employers across the country. Although some employers’ associations began as “negotiatory” bodies engaged in collective bargaining, the vast majority of them shifted toward a more “belligerent” approach. Academic scholarship has generally focused on the belligerents at the national level. Recently, some scholars have begun to study organized employers at the community level, but they continue to feature the more typical staunchly anti-union associations. This study of Columbus, Ohio's master printers’ association reveals a different pattern of local labor relations during the years between 1887 and 1960 – an association that had generally smooth bargaining relationships with craft unions. Columbus’ conservative and sheltered economy enabled the longstanding cooperative shared printing craft culture to thrive. But changes in Columbus’ economy, shifts in larger patterns of industrial relations, the hard-line influence of the national employers’ association, and technological changes altered the context of local labor relations. The result was that, by 1960, the Columbus association sought the upper hand in labor relations by becoming a more traditional and belligerent employers’ association. This story of “latecomers” adds to our understanding of organized employer behavior under different historical periods and circumstances.

The paper seeks to serve a dual process, first, to raise awareness of the epistemological weaknesses inherent in the ways that visual communications designers address their own practice, and, second, to suggest that cybernetics has some of the answers to these weaknesses.

These objectives of this paper have been addressed through an examination of the cybernetics, critical theory and visual design theory. A comparison of the points of convergence (often of aims) and those points of divergence (often in its ontological reading of the world) is illuminating, especially when post‐structuralist semiotics – as a system of knowledge exterior to both design and cybernetics, yet capable of commenting on both – is used as a point of triangulation.

The literature analysis carried for this paper indicates that in both visual communications design and cybernetics there are areas of overlapping interest (concerns with the cyclic nature of coding and decoding information) and areas that might at first seem divergent but are in fact often complementary (the role of the observer as controller and participant in a system). The paper proposes that cybernetics uncovers principles at the heart of communication that in turn inform visual communication practices, which in a circular fashion informs cybernetics.

The paper suggests that new areas for cyberneticians to use in their study of second‐order cybernetics may be found in the product of visual communications design. It also suggests areas where designers may begin to search for tools that may be useful in evaluating their working practices.

The paper notes that an external investigation of visual communications artefacts presents cybernetics with a potential test‐bed on which to test its theories, in practice, on a global scale. Cybernetics has the potential to define and offer constructive guidance to visual communications design in examining its own practice.

DURING the past decade we have witnessed a remarkable improvement in the typography of books, although in large part this has been confined to the design of typefaces rather than to the design of the books themselves. “Cold type” has undoubtedly become far more legible and far more aesthetic than it had been for many years. Correct use of type by the printer is, however, as important as its manufacture; hence the benefits we should derive from the improvement vary from book to book according to the degree of craftsmanship of the printers.

Hazel Kyrk’s contribution is the most advanced formulation of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon, an approach to the analysis of consumption that, originated from Veblen’s theory, was developed in the US in the early 20th century. This approach was part of a wider stream of empirical analyses of consumption expenditure that had begun more than a century earlier.

Along with elements that can be traced back to the neoclassical tradition, in Keynes’ analysis of consumption, we find original elements. The dependence of consumption expenditure on the level of income, which is essential for asserting the principle of effective demand, can also be found in a long tradition of empirical studies. In qualifying this relationship, Keynes uses theoretical elements echoing key insights of the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon. There is no documentary evidence that Kyrk or the economics of the social relevance of consumption came to Keynes’ attention. It is possible, however, to develop reasonable speculative considerations to argue a link between Keynes’ elaboration and both the empirical literature on the determinants of consumption and the economics of consumption as a social phenomenon.

This paper aims to explains how the Dutch unions evolved in the post war period and the reasons why they committed such significant resources to developing strong links and assisting the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe complete the “Transition Process”.

The author draws on his first‐hand experience as the president of the Dutch graphical union, and for many years president and vice president of the sector's international trade union federations – to give an insight as to the rationale behind international trade union cooperation and solidarity.

The paper suggests that the help and assistance provided by the West European workers organisations, although costly has brought added value to the enlarged European Trade Union movement in so much as it has ensured that the Central and Eastern European trade unions have been able to complete the transition period.

The paper provides a first hand account of the difficulties that trade unions in the former soviet block countries had to deal with during the transition period, and how trade unions in the West had to overcome ideological and historical prejudices in order to provide help and assistance to their sister unions in Central and Eastern Europe.

According to a prevalent thesis, women's employment will be affected by the introduction of new technology because lowly qualified, repetitive “women's jobs” are becoming automatized. Others argue that — at least during a long transition period — there will be a need for a large number of data‐input jobs compensating for places of employment lost to women during automatization. Such arguments reveal a number of biases regarding women's work: work carried out by women is per definition less qualified than that done by men, women being best qualified for repetitive work, etc. The paper challenges these assumptions and outlines some of the more subtle social processes influencing the quantity and quality of work available to women: forms of “natural wast‐age”, union policies, views of women as being provided for. New technology is frequently used to strengthen previous tendencies towards segmented labour markets, intensified work, and abstract relationships to reality. Technical determinism can become a self‐fulfilling prophecy unless the development of new technology is informed by emphasis on qualifications necessary for our reproduction as human beings.

This paper discusses the reasons for using desktop publishing in libraries before giving brief background details and an explanation of two software packages that operate on the Apple Macintosh. These approach the subject from different directions; MacAuthor is an advanced wordprocessor with a substantial number of desktop publishing features, whereas Pagemaker is a leading page make‐up package. The use of additional hardware is considered in outline. Some examples of present and potential uses of the technology in libraries are given and the paper concludes with a look at the future before giving a number of warnings to be considered before you make your purchase.