Search results

An Innocent Merriment – A Medieval Song about the Plague also sheds light on the COVID-19 epidemic period as an epidemic song. Companies are not in solidarity; they are trying to replace artificial intelligence with labour. Short work, more rest, more time for children, strong immune system, happy families are easier with artificial intelligence. Using artificial intelligence against labour condemns us to collective stupidity. The slogan of capitalism has been discussed in the prime centres of globalisation. For the financial centre, globalisation is the unimpeded circulation of money across borders, the transfer of its earnings whenever it wants, and not encountering national barriers. Now it is said that there should be customs for goods and a mobility barrier for people. People will not accept this without injuring their conscience. The Wat Tyler rebellion, which erupted after the Black Death following the Great Famine, was the birth pain of the bourgeoisie. The war against the mystical, irrational world of the Middle Ages strengthened the bourgeoisie. The irrational ideas of the bourgeoisie, which today emulate the aristocracy with admiration, open the way for despots; the bourgeoisie is almost preparing its own end. The bourgeoisie led the great transformations by preaching respect for labour in the footsteps of thinkers such as Wat Tyler, A. Smith, J. Locke. However, the leadership cannot be sustained with the feudal capitalist mood: ‘Liberty, equality, fraternity’ is still alive, except for the leader! The understanding of ‘the better always can be in a shorter time’ in the economy made humanity unhappy and filled its time. Based on the household economy, the environmentally friendly core economy can be a solution by opening the door to street workers and disadvantaged groups, as the flood of solidarity in every corner of our planet adds strength and morale to our resilience.

ANYBODY whoses daily work involves the planning and spending of money must at all times be concerned by efforts to ensure that value is being obtained for the money spent. Those of us who, as librarians, are spending the money of fellow tax‐payers, are naturally doubly concerned about this problem. In addition, the very phrase “value for money” to a Yorkshireman is a continual challenge, and a point on which he instinctively feels, rightly or wrongly, that he has some secret inborn knowledge.

Explores how an employee‐volunteer program (EVP), as one aspect of responsible corporate citizenship, can influence the relationships between a firm, its employees and its community.

Analyzes the experiences of 12 first‐time volunteering employees at the Ford Motor Company of Canada, who described in interviews the motivations and outcomes associated with their participation in the company's EVP.

Promotes understanding of how an EVP can benefit the firm, its employees and the community, and make a company's mission of responsible citizenship a reality.

Encourages firms to include in the creation and roll‐out of their EVPs a reflection process that could also be connected to training programs and career development.

Illustrates various ways in which EVPs site a company firmly within its community.

Presents a novel approach to assessing the motivations for, and possible outcomes of, an EVP.

The circumstances of the foundation of the Marx Memorial Library are recounted, and the history of the building which houses it described. The library’s contents and significance are discussed and a full range of extension activities, including a history of education classes, is examined. The present activities and use of the library are noted.

Rioting and looting can take several forms and can be enacted at different levels of society and be subjected to a range of criteria; war is a form of looting and rioting, but is blessed with, and condoned by, every institution of the State. Commercial looting and rioting — although devoid of flame and physical violence — has much in common with its other sisters and also tends to gather impetus at specific times; further, it can manifest itself in areas lacking sophistication. As we write, the country is in partial recession and a new technical epoch is dawning; the Government (quite rightly) is persisting with its crusade against inflation and we live at a period in which we are actually encouraged to flaunt our impediments (commercial and personal) for money. Contemplating this hotch‐potch of phenomena the commercial entrepreneur, his more staid institutional brethren and the imperative technical arms in support of them both, must harness all their joint talent if they are to remain solvent. But for what purpose? The paint revenue cake — perhaps a little stale at this point — is still here for those eager to slice it.

IT is now just forty‐eight years since, on the first page of The Library World, James Duff Brown wrote: “for quite a number of years Librarians and Library Authorities have been urging the establishment of a magazine which will reflect accurately and systematically the various phases of modern library work and progress. A demand has also arisen for a magazine of a more independent nature than anything hitherto issued, or, at least, one which is not hampered in any way by official connexion with a Society or other public body.” As then, we open the first page of the Forty‐Ninth Volume we are glad to assert that through the two generations of our existence the policy, enunciated in our first Editorial has been sustained. It cannot be greatly improved upon for our future, although library policy may and will change rapidly if all present prognostications have any substance in them. We intend, so far as we can, to promote progress, to endeavour to allow expression to younger writers, to support all the good efforts of the Library Association and any other body which energizes libraries, but never to be subservient to them or fear to ask questions.

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.