THE hope we expressed in recent pages, that the Library Association might resume its normal methods of life and government, remains a hope. London, where only we suppose the…
Abstract
THE hope we expressed in recent pages, that the Library Association might resume its normal methods of life and government, remains a hope. London, where only we suppose the Council could do its work really well, has been of late no place for the meetings of people; and we dare to say that for the key people of any profession or movement to gather there at present would be unwise, even though imagination may increase the risk beyond the warrant of the facts. Nor do we know yet if the worst has been experienced. Meanwhile it is probable that the affairs of librarianship must be delegated to even fewer workers than now. Only the chronically ungracious part of our fraternity will be without gratitude to those who keep things going for us.
José Luis Usó Doménech, Josué Antonio Nescolarde-Selva, Miguel Lloret-Climent, Kristian Alonso and Hugh Gash
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate mathematically the impossibility of achieving a utopian society. Demonstrate that any attempt to correct deviations from a hypothetical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate mathematically the impossibility of achieving a utopian society. Demonstrate that any attempt to correct deviations from a hypothetical trajectory whose ultimate goal is the utopia, increasingly demands more work, including measures that lead to terror, which may even be absolute, leading to the horrible paradox that in seeking paradise hell is constructed.
Design/methodology/approach
Scientific tools that the authors have used are: the theory of the system linkage, alysidal algebra, kinematic theory and vector analysis.
Findings
Myths are the substrate of some complex systems of beliefs and utopia is its ultimate goal. The use of the combination of the theory of trajectories, belonging to the alysidal algebra, the theorem of unintended effects and kinematics theory provides an approximation to deviations suffering utopian ideological currents and their corrections.
Originality/value
This paper is a continuation of other previous papers developing the theory of complex societies.
Details
Keywords
THE fact that an English librarian was asked to describe the work of British municipal libraries, to audiences in Antwerp and Brussels, may be taken as a certain indication that a…
Abstract
THE fact that an English librarian was asked to describe the work of British municipal libraries, to audiences in Antwerp and Brussels, may be taken as a certain indication that a change is impending in the library world of Belgium. At the invitation of M. Frans Gittens, city librarian, Antwerp, acting on behalf of the Foundation for the Permanent Endowment of the Communal Library and Plantin‐Moretus Museum, and M. Paul Otlet, secretary‐general of the International Institute of Bibliography, Brussels, I had the honour and pleasure of lecturing on English library work and conditions to representative audiences greatly interested in the subject. This, it is understood, is the first time an English librarian has been invited to lecture on such a subject on any part of the Continent, and I certainly felt it a great honour and privilege to be thus selected for such a congenial task. The language difficulty was luckily no great bar, as most of my audiences, both Flemish and French, understood English quite well. In addition, the International Institute of Bibliography had printed a translation of the lecture, as No. 92 of its publications, and this was issued as a twenty‐two page pamphlet entitled Les Bibliothèques municipales en Angleterre, and distributed at Brussels. At Antwerp the programme also contained translations of the titles and remarks about the lantern slides, so that everything was made easy for one who has always deplored his inability to acquire the art of speaking foreign languages. As a further instance of the care and thoughtfulness exercised to provide for my comfort, I should acknowledge the kindness of M. Eugeen Everaerts, town librarian of Ostend, who, on representations from his colleague at Antwerp, met the steamer and passed me and my “projections” through the Custom House without trouble. There is no doubt that our Belgian friends have the knack of making strangers feel thoroughly at home. I am not likely to forget the kindness and hospitality of M. W. von Mallinckrodt, chairman of the Permanent Endowment Commission at Antwerp, who, with his charming wife, invited me to a lunch at which some of the chief residents were present, including Sir Cecil Hertslet, H.B.M. Consul‐General; Mr. Diedrich, the American Consul‐General; M. Henri Hymans, chief librarian of the Royal Library at Brussels; M. Max Rooses, of the Plantin Museum; M. Frans Gittens, with some members of his staff; and other gentlemen connected with the city and municipality of Antwerp. The same kindly hospitality was extended by M. Gittens, of Antwerp, and M. Otlet, at Brussels, and everything was done by all with whom I came in contact to make me feel at ease and nothing of a stranger. In fact it is impossible for anyone who has read Scott, Brontë and Conscience to feel like a stranger in Belgium. The lecture at Antwerp was given in the large and finely decorated hall of the Cercle Royal Artistique, Littéraire et Scientifique d'Anvers, a kind of general Arts Club combining the functions of places like the London Institution with those of an ordinary social club. The hall was capable of seating 1,000 persons, and was rather beyond my poor powers as an elocutionist. About 600 people attended, of whom a large number understood English, and my lecture, luckily for my audience, largely pictorial, was very well received. There was no preliminary introduction of any kind, and my “turn” came on after a concert had been about half heard. The following programme will give an idea of the kind of mixed entertainment which brought out 600 people on a snowy winter's afternoon:—
The very large number of books at present being issued relating to, or connected with the War, conclusively shows to what a great extent the intellectual as well as the material…
Abstract
The very large number of books at present being issued relating to, or connected with the War, conclusively shows to what a great extent the intellectual as well as the material strength of the nation is engrossed by the terrible struggle in which we are engaged. But without abating any of our own interest in the supreme events now taking place, we may well pause to remember that things will not always be thus, and consider carefully before we crowd our shelves with works that are in many cases of very ephemeral value.
‘The application of computers to teaching and learning is a logical development in the evolution of educational technology, although at present the ultimate benefits can be but…
Abstract
‘The application of computers to teaching and learning is a logical development in the evolution of educational technology, although at present the ultimate benefits can be but dimly foreseen. The realization of this potential will require concentrated research and development efforts which can only profitably flourish within the ambit of a national programme of work.’ So opens a recently published report of the National Council for Educational Technology addressed both to Ministers and to all engaged in the education industry. What lies behind this bald statement with its overtones of brash prophecy, veiled threat, and blatant jingoism? I would like to explore some of the reasons for thinking that a revolution in education, as far reaching as the Copernican revolution in astronomy, is now within the realm of possibility.
Subsonic jet transport has been with us now for about a quarter of a century. There are young people starting their careers today who have never known a sky without jet noise and…
Abstract
Subsonic jet transport has been with us now for about a quarter of a century. There are young people starting their careers today who have never known a sky without jet noise and the V‐wing silhouette of a passenger carrying aircraft. Indeed, it must seem to them as permanent a feature of our world as the steam train between the world wars to people such as myself; the big difference is, as I hope to show, that air transport has not yet reached a development plateau.
THE conclusion of another volume affords us an opportunity of surveying the past year as regards library progress and prospects. Briefly, it may be summed up as a year of building…
Abstract
THE conclusion of another volume affords us an opportunity of surveying the past year as regards library progress and prospects. Briefly, it may be summed up as a year of building and Carnegie gifts. A considerable amount of activity has been displayed all over the country in the erection and opening of new buildings provided by the munificence of Mr. Carnegie, and the time seems to have arrived for gathering up all this planning and organization work and recording it in a special handbook of English and American Carnegie libraries. Such a record would prove of immense value to library committees and architects, and would form no unworthy memento of one of the most extraordinary developments of educational work the world has ever witnessed.
‐ One of the consequences of the present long period of economic depression, which has been felt with particular severity by most Third World countries, has been a necessary…
Abstract
‐ One of the consequences of the present long period of economic depression, which has been felt with particular severity by most Third World countries, has been a necessary critical reassessement of many development strategies. Especially in Africa, the balance sheet between efforts and results has not been very encouraging. The massive industrialization programmes and the large projects of the last three decades have neither helped to achieve a more competitive production nor have introduced widespread prosperity, as hoped. Gradually the accent is now shifting toward new “soft options”, one of which is tourism. We remember that only 15–20 years ago many African governments or international development agencies were still considering tourism as a marginal economic activity, to be left to poor nations without much prospects for industrialization. Since then much has changed and ‐ especially in the present post‐industrial economies ‐ tourism and the whole gamut of other leisure industries have become one of the most dynamic fields of expansion, even in the developing world.
Lixi Zhou, Tijun Fan, Lihao Zhang and Luyu Chang
With the development of e-commerce and mobile payment, platform sales become unstoppable, and many manufacturers also encroach on online market by establishing direct selling…
Abstract
Purpose
With the development of e-commerce and mobile payment, platform sales become unstoppable, and many manufacturers also encroach on online market by establishing direct selling channels. Channel conflict intensifies in online market and quality differentiation and is widely used in business practice as an effective way to alleviate such a competition. The authors study a retail platform's sales strategy and interactions with an upstream manufacturer's encroachment strategy in this paper. Unlike most online marketplace and encroachment research, product quality selection is also engaged in the present research to capture the motivation above.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze a game-theoretical model that the platform as the first/second mover participates in strategic decision-making, and then jointly decides the product quality level with manufacturer.
Findings
The authors find that encroachment always profits the manufacturer and almost hurts the platform. Interestingly, the first-mover advantage can help the platform guide the manufacturer encroachment and promote a “win–win” situation when product quality level is relatively slight or obvious. Nevertheless, the second-mover advantage can help the platform alleviate the profit loss caused by encroachment when product quality level is moderate. Furthermore, suffered from encroachment loss, the platform can make a credible threat by sales termination to restrain manufacturer encroachment.
Originality/value
This paper innovatively explores the strategic interaction between manufacturer encroachment and quality differentiation in a platform supply chain, and further analyzes the first-mover advantage in this interaction, which fills the gaps of previous platform research and has great significances to enterprise production and operational decision in business practice.
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The substitution of an imitation of some kind for the article actually asked for or desired by the purchaser is a particularly mean form of deception which is practised nowadays…
Abstract
The substitution of an imitation of some kind for the article actually asked for or desired by the purchaser is a particularly mean form of deception which is practised nowadays to an almost incredible extent. It is astonishing and mournful that so many persons should be concerned in the deliberate initiation, fostering, and carrying on of so shameful a system, and that others are to be found who in speech and print seem willing to lend to it either their countenance or condonation. One must suppose that there exists a form of moral obliquity or distortion—at first accentuated and ultimately rendered incurable by the acquirement and contemplation of illegitimate gains—which makes the sufferer incapable of grasping the fact that the proceedings in question are utterly degrading and iniquitous. However this may be, the circumstances are such that a strong endeavour ought to be made to get the public to appreciate them, and to expose and, as far as may be possible, to punish those who are guilty, at any rate of the worst types of fraudulent dealing referred to. The Daily Mail and, in a lesser but important degree, the Daily News, have rendered excellent service by directing attention to the matter. The articles which have been published up to the present in these newspapers have been reprinted in pamphlet form under the title of “ The Fraud of the Label,” and a study of this brief but telling exposé may be strongly recommended to all and sundry. A most appropriate quotation from Sir WALTER SCOTT'S “Kenilworth ” appears on the title page: “ Some … plainly admitted they had never seen it; others denied that such a drug existed … and most of them attempted to satisfy their customer by producing some substitute … which, they maintained, possessed in a superior degree the self‐same qualities.”