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Beecham Pharmaceuticals Research Division employs about 1,000 people engaged on pharmaceutical research and development. These are at present distributed over five major and several minor research sites. Each major site has an Information Unit and a Library: these work in co‐ordination and certain tasks are undertaken by one unit on behalf of all the others. Walton Oaks is responsible for disseminating information on forthcoming events. An account of the system used in this organization for selective dissemination of technical information by means of an information bulletin has been published. The system in use for the dissemination of details of forthcoming events such as conferences, lectures, exhibitions and courses of interest to the Research Division is somewhat similar. As little seems to have been published on such systems it seems worth while to describe the methods currently used here.

This chapter explores the interaction between different kinds of knowledge and representations in the making of the ‘fleshed’ female reproductive body in an Indian city. In particular, it analyzes how women perceive contraception and how the reproductive governance helped to produce the female sterilization as the most widely used contraceptive method in India. The study is based on the case of the city of Bhuj, in the state of Gujarat (India), where three anthropological fieldworks (15 months) were conducted. Modern contraceptive methods are based on a biomedical representation of the body, drawn from Western categories of knowledge and experience, whereas women live the ‘fleshed’ reproductive body through local categories of substance and fluids. How is this knowledge mobilized and affected in relation to reproductive technologies and the government of reproduction? This question is addressed through the analysis of women's embodied experiences of contraception. The narratives collected show a resistance to biomedicine, considered to be a model that alters the female body and its reproductive capacity. Nevertheless, even when sterilization was considered to be a deliberate act of tampering with the functioning of their bodies, women displayed a pragmatic agency in choosing this method. The experiences of respondents reflected complex negotiations between bodily suffering, socio-economic structures and the microphysics of power surrounding them, rather than a unilateral submission to medical authority and reproductive governance.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This paper primarily examines the potential of the Australian Education Index (AEI) as a tool to map and monitor educational research. The authors provide a range of analyses that identify the thrust of research publications in Australia between 1984 and 1997. Key findings pertain to differences in the thrust of theses compared to other publications and to the overall stability in the pattern of research at the global or macro level. The authors also identify the strengths and weaknesses of the AEI with respect to its immediate use in monitoring research trends.

In September 1985, eight sets of children's books from Australia began an odyssey that will take them into all fifty states and Canada by the end of 1988. The books— and the resource, reference and display materials that accompany them—were chosen specifically for their value in introducing non‐Australians to Australia and her children's literature. They also provide an ideal starting point for library collection development.

Few will complain that 1974 has not been an eventful year; in a number of significant respects, it has made history. Local Government and National Health Services reorganizations are such events. This is indeed the day of the extra‐large authority, massive monoliths for central administration, metropolitan conurbations for regional control, district councils corresponding to the large authorities of other days; and in a sense, it is not local government any more. As in other fields, the “big batallions” acquire greater collective power than the total sum of the smaller units, can wield it more effectively, even ruthlessly, but rarely appearing to take into account the masses of little people, the quiet people, who cannot make themselves heard. As expected, new names of authorities are replacing the old; new titles for departments and officers, ambitious and high‐sounding; a little grandiose for the tongues of ordinary folk. Another history‐making event of 1974, in the nature of a departmental transfer but highly significant for the course of future events as far as work in the field is concerned, was handing over of the personal health services—health of expectant mothers, babies, children, domiciliary midwifery, the school health services and their mainly medical and nursing personnel—from local health authorities to the newly created area health authorities. The public health departments over fifty years and more had created them, built them up into the highly efficient services they are. If anything can be learned from the past, new authorities are always more expensive than those they replace; they spend freely and are lavish with their accommodation and furnishings. In their first few months of existence, the new bodies have proved they are no exception. News of their meetings and activities in many areas is now scanty; even local newspapers which usually thrive on Council news—or quarrels—seem to have been caught on the wrong foot, especially in the small towns now merged into larger units. The public are relatively uninformed, but this doubtless will soon be rectified.

Elsewhere in this issue we review the First (Interim) Report of the Joint Survey of Pesticide Residues in Foodstuffs, published by the Association of Public Analysts (Editor: Mr. D. G. Forbes, B.Sc., F.R.I.C.). The Scheme, planned with meticulous care and executed with the best spirit of co‐operation, sets a pattern for this type of investigation; there are other problems which could be studied in the same manner. Such a response from the bodies representing the major local authorities of the country and their food and drugs administrations—inspectors, food sampling officers, public analysts—is evidence of the concern felt over this particular form of contamination of food. It constitutes a public health problem of world‐wide dimensions. The annual reports of public analysts show that many are examining foods outside the Survey lists now that gas/liquid chromatography, spectroscopy and other highly refined methods of analysis are available to them.

One of the arguments used against British entry to the EEC was the loss of sovereignty; that Parliament would not be able to fully control all the statutory measures which would be applied to the people. EEC regulations apply without implementation by national governments, but since member‐states, through their representatives on Council and Commission, have participated, it is considered that national governments have in effect enacted them. EEC Directives as the name implies requires national governments to apply the provisions of the EEC measure; transitional exemptions up to five years are usually included for individual provisions, where internal adjustment is required. MAFF food regulations, implementing EEC Directives, have been made after this pattern for a number of food additives. The statutory measures are unlikely to present any greater difficulties than usual, but in interpretation, courts in this country have to consider EEC law above that of English and Scottish courts. The Court at Luxemburg exists mainly for interpretation, but courts and litigants have been advised against reference owing to the lengthy delays and the high court or court of sessions should make is interpretation based on EEC law.

Corporate takeovers have become a prominent feature of global business. Merger and acquisition activity in the United States alone climbed from $32 billion in 1980 to $300 billion in 1988, an annual rate of increase of 32 percent. The individual size of these transactions has reached an all‐time high. Any company, whatever its size, may be vulnerable as a target.