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The authors discuss the lifeworld as a research concept for the field of information behaviour, which serves to problematise the concept of unit of analysis. In so doing, the authors demonstrate how the lifeworld can be adopted as a unit of analysis in information behaviour research, that is, how research can be based in the lifeworld rather than merely looking at the lifeworld. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors first situate our discussion in the current of information behaviour scholarship. The authors then introduce the concepts of lifeworld and unit of analysis and consider how they intersect. Next, to show the importance of the lifeworld, the authors present two recent studies in which the lifeworld emerged. Finally, the authors discuss how lifeworld-based research can be conducted more conscientiously.

Though many research approaches deal with lived experience in one way or another, they tend not to fully grasp these experiences. As opposed to units of analysis such as individual, social group, person-in-situation, etc., using lifeworld as a unit of analysis allows phenomena to be researched holistically and without reductionism.

The authors limit the discussion to the concept of the lifeworld as developed by Husserl, the concept’s originator. The lifeworld has been discussed and extended by other authors since, but this work is not considered here. The viewpoint is offered as a supplementary perspective, meant to be enriching to our field of study, rather than divisive.

This is the first time the concept of the lifeworld has been fully explicated in information science. As the authors discuss, two recent information behaviour studies that “discovered” the lifeworld through their analysis. Future studies that attend to the lifeworld from the start have the capacity to build on this work and extend the horizons of information science.

In the spring of 1982, I published an article in Reference Services Review on marketing libraries and information services. The article covered available literature on that topic from 1970 through part of 1981, the time period immediately following Kotler and Levy's significant and frequently cited article in the January 1969 issue of the Journal of Marketing, which was first to suggest the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The article published here is intended to update the earlier work in RSR and will cover the literature of marketing public, academic, special, and school libraries from 1982 to the present.

The purpose of this study is to describe the causes, nature, extent and effect of the influence of the American Library Association (ALA) on the development of modern Chinese librarianship from 1924 to 1949. This study was based primarily on documents located in the ALA archives, which houses the documents of the International Relations Committee of ALA. It was found that library development changed in China during the period by borrowing from American librarianship as conveyed by the ALA, largely as a consequence of the following: American library advisors or educators, such as Arthur E. Bostwick, Charles H. Brown and Charles B. Shaw, conducting surveys of libraries in China; an American library and/or a library school in China; projects for the encouragement of public libraries; fellowships granted to Chinese librarians for study in the USA; the establishment and operation of the CLA; and the Book Program to strengthen library collections during the time of the China‐Japan War.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the great contributions made by the American library expert, Mary Elizabeth Wood, to Chinese library development.

As a pioneer of the modern library movement Mary Elizabeth Wood devoted herself to a Chinese library career. It was structured according to the following theme: setting up the Boone Library and introducing the modern American public library into China; establishing Boone Library School and initiating Chinese library science education; raising money and appealing for China's library development; helping forward the foundation of the Library Association of China; as well as promoting Chinese library intercommunion and cooperation with the West.

With the background of underdeveloped Chinese librarianship, Mary Elizabeth Wood introduced modern American public library spirit into China, opened the gate of Chinese library science, and promoted Chinese library science.

The paper discusses the library history of China and the role of an American librarian in Chinese library history; thus, it should be of wide interest to researchers involved in library history.

Mary Elizabeth Wood devoted herself to a Chinese library career, and promoted Chinese library science greatly, but research on her is limited. This paper considers her contribution to Chinese library science.

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.

For years, stalking the elusive private company was at least as hard as stalking the wild asparagus. Not constrained by the Securities and Exchange Commission or by state “blue sky laws” to disclose information about themselves, few private companies have volunteered the information. Given the cost of analyzing and disseminating data, together with the possibility that any information given out might help the competition, it would hardly have been in their best interest to do so. Librarians have long known of unpublished sources of information — the internal document a company employee can lay hands on, the annual report one's rich, old, stockholding aunt might share, or the inside dope that a customer or supplier might be willing to divulge. The trouble is, no one privy to such information comes asking a librarian for help. The rest of us, no matter how prettily we ask, are not likely to be granted access to it.

During the past three‐and‐a‐half years, over 150 faculty members, researchers, and support staff at the University of Southern California (USC) Health Sciences Campus have attended a three‐hour workshop, developed and written by myself, on reprint file management. The workshop is offered bimonthly as part of a teaching program in bibliographic management and computer literacy that has been developed by the library. The program as a whole includes:

Americans are increasingly aware that international business affects their lives. Consider the furor over foreign automobile imports or the concern about foreigners buying up U.S. farmland. Remember how excited U.S. soft drink manufacturers got about diplomatic recognition of China's teeming millions of thirsty citizens? Overseas sales by U.S. firms have been growing in both developed and underdeveloped countries. On the other hand, involvement of foreign businesses in the U.S. economy has been increasing at a “significant pace” recently. Given that knowledge has been equated with money and with power, the need for information on international or multinational business should be apparent. But what is the best source or sources of such information? Two directories of international business, Kelly's Manufacturers and Merchants Directory and the Who Owns Whom (WOW) directories, are in their ninety‐third and twenty‐first editions respectively. In addition there is Bottin International: International Business Register, less well‐known to Americans but equally venerable, now in its 182nd edition. Dun and Bradstreet's Principal International Businesses (PIB), in its seventh edition, is the relative newcomer to the field. This review will compare and contrast the above‐named directories, pointing out areas where they overlap and suggesting to what segment of library users each might appeal.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and research and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the sixteenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1989. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

The development of library science is discussed within four main phases: US influence before 1949; Soviet Union influence 1949‐1965; diplomatic segregation from the West 1966‐1976; and the influence of the developed countries 1977‐1991. The effects of the Cold War on Chinese politics and so on librarianship are indicated and discussed and the influence of the Cultural Revolution, and recovery after it, analysed.