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To provide some insight into the phenomenon of e‐books and their potential application in general, and to describe how the ETH‐Bibliothek, an academic library, has integrated web‐based e‐books into its collection.

The concept of e‐books was examined and the success (or failure) of their integration into library collections evaluated. How web‐based e‐books have been integrated into the ETH‐Bibliothek's collection was evaluated, as there were different formats and pricing models for e‐books. Other important issues relevant to e‐books were considered, such as usage statistics, how to discover new e‐books for integration into a collection, and whether web‐based e‐books are likely to be applied successfully in academic libraries.

The implementation of e‐books at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) in Zurich is described, and information is provided on publishers or aggregators through which the ETH has subscribed to e‐books, different formats and pricing models for e‐books and usage statistics. How the number of e‐books to which an institution subscribes can be increased, is described, together with the benefits of e‐books in the academic environment, which will in all likelihood ensure the ongoing future of web‐based e‐books.

The paper provides introductory information on e‐books in general and on their suitability to an academic library in particular.

Over the past few decades, the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has become one of the most controversial and politicized divisions of the Department of Labor. Republic and Democratic Administrations have adopted starkly different practices concerning both the allocation of resources and the focus of regulatory activities at the division. These differences have been brought into sharp focus during the Bush II and Obama Administrations. Under the Bush Administration, funding for OLMS increased significantly, and the DOL revised union financial reporting requirements, imposing a more onerous burden on unions in the name of promoting transparency and accountability. Section 1 of this paper provides a summary and analysis of the most significant changes and innovations at the OLMS under the Obama Administration. Section 2 of the paper provides a detailed summary of the Bush era reforms and their fate under the Obama OLMS, and an analysis of the impact of these reforms in the area of increasing union transparency and accountability. It argues that the Bush reforms did little or nothing to achieve greater accountability and may instead have been motivated largely by a desire to impose a more onerous administrative burden on reporting unions.