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In the 1980s, as the United States encountered international economic and technological challenges, the very ability of the American educational system to produce a competitive labor force, able to learn and solve problems, was questioned. During this past decade, renewed concern about educational quality in the United States motivated over one hundred reports analyzing the shortcomings in our system of education and endorsing reform. All of the principal curriculum areas have been reviewed in this process; moreover, science education has been deemed particularly deficient. Major reports sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recommend both content revision of science courses and methodological changes in the way science is presented throughout the elementary and secondary grades.

The value of allowing children to experience frequently the sheer pleasure of good children's literature has long been acknowledged. For at least the past twenty‐five years, educational researchers and faculty members in schools of education and library science have advocated the use of children's literature in the elementary school curriculum.

This index accompanies the index that appeared in Reference Services Review 16:4 (1988). As noted in the introduction to that index, the articles in RSR that deal with specific reference titles can be grouped into two categories: those that review specific titles (to a maximum of three) and those that review titles pertinent to a specific subject or discipline. The index in RSR 16:4 covered the first category; it indexed, by title, all titles that had been reviewed in the “Reference Serials” and the “Landmarks of Reference” columns, as well as selected titles from the “Indexes and Indexers,” “Government Publications,” and “Special Feature” columns of the journal.

Librarians find themselves today in a lively period of the evolution of user interfaces to online information. The average college or university library user is confronted with a variety of interfaces in one trip to the reference room: from the straight text, terminal‐based interface of the online catalog to a variety of flashy interfaces to CD‐ROM databases. Most of the newer interfaces incorporate graphics, color, and mouse‐supported searching to make initiation for the novice user easier and searching more productive. As a result of exposure to these new interfaces, users come to expect this degree of ease of use and attractiveness. In their minds, there is no conceptual difference—and perhaps there should not be—between the CD‐ROM version of PsycLit and the online catalog. OPACs that provide less functionality are not living up to either the potential of the available technology or the expectations of their users.

Discusses the practices of the family‐owned Nordstrum company, an American firm which maintains the philosophy of customer service through its sales associates, offering the best service, selection, quality and value. Outlines the company history and structure and details its policy towards employees.

Contrary to popular myth, the department store industry is not dead, dying, or comatose. While return on investment in the aggregate among all department stores in North America is near the bottom of the retailing spectrum, at about 12 percent, there is also a high variance in performance across organizations. Companies such as Nordstrom on the west coast, Parisien in Alabama, and the Hecht Division of the May Company are realizing highly satisfactory rates of return on investment. The industry is rapidly becoming rationalized through mergers (Campeau/Allied and May/Associated Dry Goods, for example) and closures (Gimbels). Our own recent fashion study in Chicago indicated that the two leading department stores — Marshall Fields and Carson Pirie Scott— show gains in market share since the last such study in 1979–1980 while other chains such as Sears and the mass merchandisers have suffered serious declines in market position.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the unique competitive positioning characteristics of off-price retailers and how they compare to other types of retailers. The authors compare off-price and upscale off-price retailers with four major formats of retailers: first, discount department store/warehouse club retailers; second, moderate department store retailers; third, department store retailers; and finally, specialty department store retailers.

The paper employs a representative sample that was randomly drawn from four primary metropolitan cities in the USA. The data were collected using telephone interviews by a prominent, marketing research firm. A series of discriminant analyses were conducted to examine the data.

The findings of the paper indicate that the off-price formats were consistently positioned at extreme points along the price/value continuum, signifying the strongest value-orientation among the other retail formats. The authors also found that while the upscale off-price format followed the specialty department stores in terms of fashion. The results point to an important disadvantage of the off-price format – although strong on price/value, they often fall short on fashion and many other store attributes that may be important to luxury-oriented customers.

The paper employed a sample from several cities collected using a telephone interview methodology within the US. Due to these limitations, the findings of this paper may be hampered by this methodology and not generalize to regions outside of the US. Future research should examine how the demise of most of the upscale off-price retailers and growth of flash web sites have changed the competitive structure of retailing.

The results demonstrate that the positioning of the off-price retail format is unique from other formats. The retail formats occupy distinct positions. The off-price retail format is strongly associated with the price/value position but only moderately fashionable to customers, especially when compared with the department and specialty department store formats. In contrast, the upscale off-price format, while also strongly positioned along the price/value continuum, is considered much more fashionable than the off-price retail format. In fact, the upscale off-price retail format only trails the specialty department store format in terms of fashion.

The unique characteristics of the off-price retail format and growing interest from upscale department stores underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the motives of the off-price shopper. This paper provides retailers with a more complete understanding of the store attributes that differentiate the off-price retail format from other major retail store formats. The overall objective of this study is to offer a comprehensive view of the positioning of off-price retailers compared with many alternative retail formats.

Little empirical attention has been given to adult protective services (APS) investigations and the clients involved in those investigations. The purpose of this study was to explore aspects of the APS investigation of and response to reported elder maltreatment, the perceptions of elderly victims and their refusal of services, and to compare findings by the type of maltreatment involved (financial exploitation, physical abuse, neglect, and hybrid financial exploitation).

Data were collected from two sources over a two‐year period: in‐depth interviews with 71 APS caseworkers and 55 of the corresponding elderly victims who experienced substantiated elder maltreatment; and a statewide database that contained 2,142 substantiated cases of elder abuse.

Many aspects of the APS investigation and response differed by the type of maltreatment involved. While elderly victims were generally cooperative and satisfied with the APS intervention, 38 percent would have preferred APS not to investigate their case. Elderly clients responded differentially to offers of assistance, depending on the type of abuse involved, with victims of physical abuse most likely to refuse services.

Future research will want to understand why elderly victims refuse services in order to develop appropriate interventions.

New approaches may be required for intervening in physical abuse cases, including collaborations between APS and domestic violence advocates and the inclusion of services for perpetrators.

This is the first large‐scale study to examine elderly victims' refusal of services, further enhanced by the analysis of refusal of services by type of abuse, thereby revealing a group of victims for which changes in intervention strategies may be necessary.

The experience is reported of a recent study tour of US companies which are known for their outstanding levels of customer service. A number of themes for success are highlighted which relate to human resource issues, operational considerations and marketing, together with some of the performance indicators which are central to the provision of excellent service.

The coast at Berakas in the Brunei-Muara district of Brunei Darussalam suffers from erosion caused by a combination of fluvial and marine processes. This paper investigates the rate and pattern of erosion along a 1.8-km stretch of coast to compare the difference between the unprotected and protected sections. We used (i) image and spatial analysis and (ii) field geomorphology. The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) in ArcGIS was used to compare the study area using two Google Earth images. The study found that the unprotected section had receded by 4.6 m between 2009 and 2019, while the protected section had advanced by 8.0 m over the same period; intense gullying and slumping of cliff continued at both sections. The detached headland breakwaters in the protected section were effective in stabilizing the coast. A concrete drain installed parallel to the cliff edge appears to be capable of intercepting storm runoff, but its effectiveness was undermined by lack of maintenance. We conclude that terrestrial-fluvial processes continue to erode coastal land and cause slumping of the cliff face at Berakas. However, coastal protection structures that curb the marine process could stabilize the coastline, even where sediment transport is active.