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The department store is a universal phenomenon of the developed world, and although it has been under threat in recent years, it has found ways of surviving. This paper looks at the history of the department store, its successes and failures, and speculates upon future developments.

Given the high costs of creating and sustaining brands it is not surprising that organisations wish to capitalise as far as possible on these assets. Designers and their financial backers are also active in this process; many of their customers or would‐be customers aspire to the label but not at the market level initially catered for. Extending brands has, as the literature attests, implications for the designer, manufacturer, retailer and customer. The purpose of this small‐scale study was to examine the phenomenon at least as it relates to menswear, from the perspective of the independent retailer, who still has a major role to play in this market.

Dentists, whilst recognizing, in the main, the need to be more marketing oriented still have some way to go to improve the perception of themselves and their services in the eyes of the public. Research indicates various barriers to attendance, some of which could be minimized by elementary marketing considerations, e.g. accessibility to potential patients. Reviews the literature to determine what these barriers are together with indications of how these issues could be addressed. A survey of the UK dental schools indicates a lack of a marketing input until the postgraduate vocational training year. Given changes in the way in which dentists are being remunerated and the well‐documented problems which they face in encouraging people to use their services, suggests that perhaps an earlier and more systematic application of marketing principles is needed. The research indicates that major barriers are fear and cost. Discusses possible ways in which basic marketing principles could be used to mitigate their effects.

This paper argues that a coordinated network of independent producers is crucial in creating an immersive metaverse. A digital asset layer that is beyond the control of any single counterparty, along with reliable definition and exchange of fungible and non-fungible digital objects, is important for individual digital creative expression to flourish. Non-fungible digital objects are essential in creating an asset layer for a metaverse that approximates the full range of independent human creative expression. The development of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) alongside cryptocurrencies, governed by distributed and transparent control, can create an intermediation layer that is separate from the control of a platform intermediary.

Drawing on the functional structural systems theory of Niklas Luhmann and the theory of colonisation of the social lifeworld advanced by Jurgen Habermas, it is argued that the Big Society project in the UK is about the creation of an alternative non-state welfare infrastructure by the linking of wealthy donors with opportunities to engage in venture philanthropy in the third sector. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper outlines key features of Luhmann's theory relating to autopoiesis and structural coupling to illustrate its conceptual strength in making the colonisation process visible.

The paper illustrates the ways in which system imperatives underpinning the colonisation process absorb and subordinate public activism to narrow market principles forcing the third sector to communicate in the language of the market rather than caritas.

The real implication of these developments for the character of the voluntary sector requires further critical examination not only because the state's enduring commitment to welfare may be in question but also for the growing significance of entrepreneurial philanthropy in shaping the character of volunteering and charitable activities and welfare relationships.

The paper applies Luhmann's theory relating to autopoiesis and structural coupling to make key features of government colonisation of the third sector visible.

Drawing on his personal experience as a police officer and a range of literature, the author applies Caulkins' and Reuter's paper in this edition to the UK experience. In particular he draws on the work of Goldstein, which places drug‐related crime into three categories: psychopharmacological, economic‐compulsive and systemic.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.