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Research at the University of Lancaster in 1967–69 led to the introduction of a variable loan policy which differentiates between those books in heavy and those in less frequent demand. At Lancaster these are designated popular or ‘pop’ loan and long loan. The actual periods of loan are seven days (or the whole of a vacation) for popular loan and a term for long loan. There is, in addition, the short loan collection from which books are lent for very much shorter periods. This situation, though pioneered at Lancaster, is now commonly used in many British academic libraries.

Starting from a basis laid by Burrell, this paper develops a stochastic model of library borrowing using the Negative Binomial distribution. This shows an improvement over previous characterizations for academic libraries and accords well with new data obtained at Huddersfield Public Library. Evidence concerning the process of issue decay is presented and employed to obtain an optimum stock turnover rate for any collection in its ‘steady state’. A method is then given by which simple relegation tests can be constructed to maintain such as optimum turnover. Although not the ‘final word’ in circulation modelling, the negative binomial distribution extends the range of model applicability into the area of high volume, rapid movement collections with some success.

The Sussex Geac system went live in June 1981, taking over from (and absorbing features of) the various batch systems which had been developed in‐house during the previous ten years. Geac Computers Ltd's circulation module has been extensively modified and extended by the Library's own systems staff: beside real‐time circulation, it now incorporates most acquisitions and cataloguing functions and some of the functions associated with serials. Forty‐six library system terminals are online to the Geac 8000 computer. The system operates from a single database and is thus highly integrated: a description of the acquisition and cataloguing process illustrates this. An online public access catalogue (eighteen terminals) was inaugurated in 1983: through it, library patrons are offered a unified picture of stock locations and availability, including real‐time loan status of copies. A locally developed report generator is used to produce various listings (including COM microfiche back‐up catalogues) from the online database. Book usage data is accumulated and processed by the system, and the results are fed back into stock management and basic acquisitions policies. The Geac hardware has proved to be highly reliable — the availability of the system has averaged 98.3 per cent over four years. The system has enabled substantial and direct improvements to be made in the Library's service to its users.

The third term has been expressed as but in wind tunnel work it is often more convenient to measure were the omission of the dash signifies that the moment is now measured about a wind axis. The two quantities are very closely related and the measurement of one tells us almost as much as if the two were known. The latter, however, tells us either directly or indirectly what effect the addition of fin and rudder will have on the autorotation properties of the wings alone. The damping of fin and rudder being due essentially to the air flow meeting them at an angle on account of the rotation it should theoretically be possible to deduce this dynamic quantity from a simple static test of moment due to yaw angle. An experiment to test this was carried out several years ago but the static test did not give any approximation to the truth. This was ascribed at the time to the shielding of fin and rudder by the tail plane in the rotative experiment and subsequent work has amply confirmed this view. It is now known that shielding by the tail plane is by far the most important factor in determining the efficiency of the vertical surfaces at high angles of attack.

This paper provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date (1997–2016) review of the archival empirical risk-reporting literature. The reviewed papers are classified into two principal themes: the incentives for and/or informativeness of risk reporting. Our review demonstrates areas of significant divergence in the literature specifically: mandatory versus voluntary risk reporting, manual versus automated content analysis, within-country versus cross-country variations in risk reporting, and risk reporting in financial versus non-financial firms. Our paper identifies a number of issues which require further research. In particular we draw attention to two: first, a lack of clarity and consistency around the conceptualization of risk; and second, the potential costs and benefits of standard-setters’ involvement.

There is an increasing realisation that managerial and professional staff play a crucial role in determining the success of the organisations which employ them, whether in the private or the public sector. Hence there is a growing concern with the quality and development of such staff. A detailed study of these important occupational groups, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC reference F/00/23/00 98) was recently conducted by the authors. Although focused on Britain, the research is linked with parallel studies being undertaken in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and several other European countries. The broader international study will be published within the next year as Roomkin, M. (Ed.), The Changing Character of Managerial Employment: A Comparative View Oxford, University Press, New York and Oxford. The demographic and educational trends which relate to managerial and professional employees, their careers and other aspects of the management of such human resources are discussed. The remuneration of managerial and professional staff, their unionisation and their role in the wider society are then considered.

Purpose – Ascertaining the extent to which the generalized decline in union density, as well as the erosion in centralized bargaining structures and developments in other labor institutions, have contributed to rising within-country inequality.

Methodology – Econometric analysis of a newly developed dataset combining information on industrial relations and labor law, various dimensions of globalization, and controls for demand and supply of skilled labor for 51 Advanced, Central and Eastern European, Latin American, and Asian countries from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, followed by an analysis of 16 advanced countries over a longer time frame (from the late 1970s to the early 2000s).

Findings – In contrast to previous research, which finds labor institutions to be important determinants of more egalitarian wage or income distributions, the chapter finds that trade unionism and collective bargaining are no longer significantly associated with within-country inequality, except in the Central and Eastern European countries. These findings are interpreted as the result of trade unionism operating under more stringent structural constraints than in the past, partly as a result of globalization trends. In addition, despite much talk about welfare state crisis, welfare states, historically the result of labor's power and mobilization capacity, still play an important redistributive role, at least in advanced countries.

Practical implications – Union attempts at equalizing incomes by compressing market earnings seem ineffective and impractical in the current day and age. Unions should seek to increase the workers’ skill levels and promote an egalitarian transformation of the workplace. This type of “supply-side” egalitarianism is not a new strategy for unions, but is very much embedded in the unions’ DNA.

Using market-risk disclosures as an empirical context, and drawing on the diffusion of innovations (DOIs) model, this paper contributes new sociological perspectives to a theorization of compliance. We propose that stakeholder behaviors during accounting standard-setting discussion and adoption phases are motivated by social, political, and economic factors. These phases interrelate, and consequently, any analysis of managerial disclosure decisions benefit from considering them together, rather than in isolation, as is typical.

The authors use a mixed-methods design, including detailed analysis of semi-structured interviews (n = 26), constituents’ comment letters (n = 106), annual report disclosures (FTSE 350: firm-year observations n = 1,131), technical meetings, and standard-setting documents.

Results suggest that constituents initially supported introduction of a set of mandatory market-risk disclosures, but implied costs of the proposed and subsequently approved requirements outweighed perceived benefits and efficiencies. This study elaborates on these issues, exploring how and why a financial reporting innovation that stakeholders deemed technically inefficient was diffused. Although the authors were told that compulsion (i.e., forced-selection) dominates disclosure decisions, some freedom of choice remains, as evidenced by greater than 40% non-compliance during the first year of adoption. Respondents indicate that theoretically, market-risk disclosure adoption decisions rest on assessment of the costs of disclosure (e.g., preparation and competition) versus non-disclosure (e.g., litigation and reputation). Second-phase adoption is more straightforward because the costs of disclosure decrease over time.

Although mixed-methods research offers several advantages, self-selection bias, issues with coding reliability, and interviewer/interviewee bias are possible. It is impossible to achieve a truly holistic understanding of standard-setting, and therefore the authors acknowledge that findings are not generalizable, though the risks were minimized.

Recognizing that disclosure choices are not made in political and social vacuums, this study suggests that sociological perspectives such as innovation-diffusion inform a theory of compliance.