I would like to begin by taking a general look at the official publications of local authorities, not only at what they are, but also at who uses them and what they are actually…
Abstract
I would like to begin by taking a general look at the official publications of local authorities, not only at what they are, but also at who uses them and what they are actually used for. In addition, I would like to try to make a rough assessment of the recent attempts to increase access to them, particularly emphasising the positive improvements that have taken place over recent years — and also to try to identify the shortcomings that remain. In examining the changing patterns of the publication of information recently, we should not only look at developments such as the Access to Information Act and the abolition of the Metropolitan County Councils, but also take a wider view, examining, for instance, whether increasing emphasis on value for money techniques in individual local authorities and the aim for objective decision making has altered the information and documentary requirements of local government and the value placed on them. Finally, and most centrally, I would like to look at the existing role played by local government information services in this area, and perhaps speculate on what can be achieved in the future. I would like to approach this by making a number of key points and then, hopefully, we can discuss those you feel of most value. My contribution has the broad title ‘Local government information services’. David Mort of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies will take a look at the information services provided by outside organisations for local authorities. The distinction between our contributions is, I hope, fairly clear and I will attempt to restrict myself to discussing the information services provided by individual local authorities while David will look at the wider scene. There is, of course, a grey area of information services which do not fall exactly within the boundaries of this definition and I will very briefly mention a number of these later, but first it might be useful to begin by having a very brief word about our sponsors. This seminar is a joint venture by the Aslib Planning Environment and Transport Information Group (PETIG) and the Standing Committee on Official Publications (SCOOP). SCOOP was formally set up at the beginning of 1983 and is a direct descendant of the Library Association/HMSO Services Working Party which was established in 1971. It might be helpful if I briefly summarise a number of the formal arrangements under which SCOOP operates in order to set the context for my contribution. The Committee's principal aims relate to UK national and local government official publications and these are to improve access and availability to such documents, to identify and propose solutions to problems of access and to provide mechanisms for the exchange of views between members of the library community on matters of common interest concerning UK official publications.
In the spring this year, the new Registrar of Companies, Stephen Curtis (NLW, December 1985) wrote to all, or nearly all, the public libraries which subscribe to the CRO…
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In the spring this year, the new Registrar of Companies, Stephen Curtis (NLW, December 1985) wrote to all, or nearly all, the public libraries which subscribe to the CRO microfiche directory of companies registered in Great Britain, offering to supply order forms and pre‐paid envelopes to obtain company records by post. As I understand the offer, the pre‐paid envelopes would be included for carriage to and from Cardiff. The letter said, ‘Part of CRO's marketing strategy is to improve the service available to users of the directory of British companies…I envisage supplying you initially with 100–150 order forms plus pre‐paid envelopes as soon as possible’. I understand a number of libraries have already replied positively to the proposal. This is along the lines I suggested first in this column in February 1984.
I have just moved back into the local government information area after working for six years in business information at the University of Warwick, so I am no expert on local…
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I have just moved back into the local government information area after working for six years in business information at the University of Warwick, so I am no expert on local government information services, so I'm not going to go through a list of the services available — the new directory mentioned by Mary Robinson can do that much better than I can. What I am going to do is talk about a new information service for local authorities — the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), describe how this new initiative relates to some of the established services, and finally make some general observations on information services for local government.
For me the term ‘pyramid selling’ conjures up a picture of back street Cairo, with wily Arab entrepreneurs trying to con gullible tourists into buying a bit of the old…
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For me the term ‘pyramid selling’ conjures up a picture of back street Cairo, with wily Arab entrepreneurs trying to con gullible tourists into buying a bit of the old Tutankhamens. The image is not totally inappropriate, as Consumer Affairs Minister, Michael Howard, warned when launching a new leaflet on Pyramid selling issued by the Department of Trade and Industry: ‘…get‐rich‐quick schemes which do not depend on getting out and selling a good product can end in disappointment and disaster for many people’. The new leaflet answers the most common questions about pyramid selling and outlines the statutory provisions governing such schemes. Copies can be obtained free from your local Trading Standards Department or direct from DTI Headquarters Library, Ashdown House, 1–19 Victoria Street, London SW1H0ET.
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This is a very large subject area to discuss in forty minutes, therefore, I would like to begin by defining the aspects of the subject I intend to deal with. The statistics in the…
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This is a very large subject area to discuss in forty minutes, therefore, I would like to begin by defining the aspects of the subject I intend to deal with. The statistics in the title refer to business and economic statistics only, examples of which are published by central statistical departments, trade associations and commercial publishers etc. Desk research is used to describe the process of gathering information available in published form, rather than obtaining the data directly.
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White paper on Japanese sci‐tech. Compared to 50% in France, 46% in the US and 37% in the UK, did you know that the Japanese government funds only 19% of the R&D expenditures in…
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White paper on Japanese sci‐tech. Compared to 50% in France, 46% in the US and 37% in the UK, did you know that the Japanese government funds only 19% of the R&D expenditures in Japan? Are you aware that the US spent 107.7 billion yen on Japanese technology in the 1991 fiscal year, but Japan spent 102.2b yen more — a total of 209.5b yen — on US technology imports?
Clive Bingley, Allan Bunch and Edwin Fleming
STORIES circulating in July that copies of the Touche Ross report into the affairs of the Library Association—distribution of which was initially restricted to members of LA…
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STORIES circulating in July that copies of the Touche Ross report into the affairs of the Library Association—distribution of which was initially restricted to members of LA Council—were to be had in the Charing Cross Road at thirty quid a go proved unfounded when I spent a morning poking about the bookshops there. True, one LA councillor told me that for a fiver he would wave his copy briefly in front of my face so that I could claim to have ‘seen’ it, but I declined on the ground that an aesthetic visual experience would butter no parsnips in this column.
Pre-existing music has been used to underscore the moving image since the days of ‘silent’ film, and this practice is still commonplace today in Hollywood and beyond. Such music…
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Pre-existing music has been used to underscore the moving image since the days of ‘silent’ film, and this practice is still commonplace today in Hollywood and beyond. Such music may be ‘classical’ or ‘popular’ and can feature within the narrative of a movie diegetically, non-diegetically, or both. With regard to art music in film, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often the composer of choice, given the popularity and familiarity of many of his compositions. However, his music is employed cinematically in a range of different situations and for a variety of purposes.
In this chapter, I focus on ways in which compositions by Mozart are used to manifest the music and death nexus present in the narrative of three films that were released in different decades. ‘Là ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni (1787) features in the first film I analyse, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin, 1945), with the aria being linked to the symbolic death of the moral compass of the protagonist. I then consider the inclusion of music from one of Mozart's symphonies in the storyline of the film Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), the narrative of which includes the themes of deception and murder. The final film I examine is I am David (Paul Feig, 2003), in which one of the characters sacrifices his life to save that of his friend. Each example encapsulates death as embodied affect, with Mozart's music specifically impacting upon the emotions of the protagonists.