Clive Bingley, Edwin Fleming and Sarah Lawson
CONCLUDING THAT much of the ennui which afflicted me during 1980 must have been due to my forfeiture of the mid‐winter skiing holiday to which I have become accustomed in recent…
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CONCLUDING THAT much of the ennui which afflicted me during 1980 must have been due to my forfeiture of the mid‐winter skiing holiday to which I have become accustomed in recent years, I have arranged to be back among the mountains of Austria at the time when this issue of NLW is committed to the mercies of the postal services. (Postage rates having just gone up, do let me know if your copy reaches you earlier than usual — that would be called ‘productivity’!).
The role of the library in any field is changing and developing. The impetus for change must come from the librarian rather than the employer, whose view of change may be rather…
Abstract
The role of the library in any field is changing and developing. The impetus for change must come from the librarian rather than the employer, whose view of change may be rather narrow. Increasingly the industrial library's role will be close involvement in the organisation's business activities, identifying information needs and giving advice to meet those needs. This will include exploitation of external resources, acquisition of special collections and an active role in the development of the “corporate memory” and integrated information systems. The role of the library within its own organisation is reviewed, and its place within the information network. Its influence on the integration of “internal” and “external” information is discussed.
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Vivienne Winterman, Christine Smith and Angela Abell
This study is a snapshot of the information inputs into decisions considered by a small sample of “decision makers” at the beginning of 1996. Each respondent was asked to focus on…
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This study is a snapshot of the information inputs into decisions considered by a small sample of “decision makers” at the beginning of 1996. Each respondent was asked to focus on one decision only and there were no follow‐up interviews to investigate why particular routes to obtain information were taken. Within these limitations the study did highlight the fundamental role of information within the government departments studied, and the diversity of information‐seeking behaviour in a sector where decision making is a consultative process, where the decisions themselves can be extremely complex and take account of many influences, and where the decision makers tend to be experienced information users.
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Christine Smith, Vivienne Winterman and Angela Abell
The insurance sector is currently in a state of some uncertainty and companies are increasingly conscious of the need to maintain a competitive edge over their commercial rivals…
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The insurance sector is currently in a state of some uncertainty and companies are increasingly conscious of the need to maintain a competitive edge over their commercial rivals while at the same time getting maximum benefits from in‐house resources. As part of this review of resources, the information and library function within many insurance companies is under scrutiny. Reports on a study undertaken to determine the impact of information on corporate decision making within the insurance industry; to explore the value that decision makers placed on the information and services provided by both the in‐house facility and external sources in maintaining a competitive edge in the market place; and to examine the effectiveness and applicability in the insurance sector of the methodology used by Joanne Marshall in her studies of the impact of information in Canadian banks. This involved taking a “snapshot” of the information inputs into decisions made by a sample of decision makers during a six‐month period with each respondent being asked to focus on one decision only.
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This article is an impressionist sketch of the legal landscape rather than a detailed route map. If it can indicate some of the more dangerous quagmires and quicksands to be…
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This article is an impressionist sketch of the legal landscape rather than a detailed route map. If it can indicate some of the more dangerous quagmires and quicksands to be avoided and suggest some possible bridges over them, then it will have fulfilled its purpose. A reader who needs detailed and specific advice about particular legal problems would be well advised to go to a currently practising lawyer.