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An increasing body of work explores the effects of computer software on cognition but little focuses on people with intellectual disabilities (learning disabilities). To test whether interactive software may reduce choice reaction time (CRT), 16 people with severe intellectual disabilities were randomly allocated to either an intervention or a control group. The intervention group spent eight sessions playing a switch‐controlled computer game that required a timed response while the control group spent the same amount of time playing a computer‐based matching game that did not require a timed response. Both groups completed a test of CRT before and after the intervention. The intervention group showed a significant reduction in their CRT from baseline while the control group did not.

An outline is given of the various conventional legal information sources both primary and secondary. Examples are given of the use made of judgments and rulings. The format, content and application of such sources are explained, and the need for computer‐based systems discussed. The LEXIS system, launched by Mead Data Control in the USA in 1973 and in the UK in 1980 is introduced. Details are given of the LEXIS libraries (law relating to particular jurisdictions) and file structures. The search logic is demonstrated with examples of search profiles and strategy. There are three sample printouts. No refs.

THE enterprise of two London newspapers, the Tribune (for the second time) and the Daily Chronicle, in organizing exhibitions of books affords a convenient excuse for once again bringing forward proposals for a more permanent exhibition. On many occasions during the past twenty years the writer has made suggestions for the establishment of a central book bazaar, to which every kind of book‐buyer could resort in order to see and handle the latest literature on every subject. An experiment on wrong lines was made by the Library Bureau about fifteen years ago, but here, as in the exhibitions above mentioned, the arrangement was radically bad. Visiting the Daily Chronicle show in company with other librarians, and taking careful note of the planning, one was struck by the inutility of having the books arranged by publishers and not by subjects. Not one visitor in a hundred cares twopence whether books on electricity, biography, history, travel, or even fairy tales, are issued by Longmans, Heinemann, Macmillan, Dent or any other firm. What everyone wants to see is all the recent and latest books on definite subjects collected together in one place. The arrangements at the Chronicle and Tribune shows are just a jumble of old and new books placed in show‐cases by publishers' names, similar to the abortive exhibition held years ago in Bloomsbury Street. What the book‐buyer wants is not a miscellaneous assemblage of books of all periods, from 1877 to date, arranged in an artistic show‐case and placed in charge of a polite youth who only knows his own books—and not too much about them—but a properly classified and arranged collection of the newest books only, which could be expounded by a few experts versed in literature and bibliography. What is the use of salesmen in an exhibition where books are not sold outright? If these exhibitions were strictly limited to the newest books only, there would be much less need for salesmen to be retained as amateur detectives. Another decided blemish on such an exhibition is the absence of a general catalogue. Imagine any exhibition on business lines in which visitors are expected to cart away a load of catalogues issued separately by the various exhibitors and all on entirely different plans of arrangement! The British publisher in nearly everything he does is one of the most hopeless Conservatives in existence. He will not try anything which has not been done by his grandfather or someone even more remote, so that publishing methods remain crystallized almost on eighteenth century lines. The proposal about to be made is perhaps far too revolutionary for the careful consideration of present‐day publishers, but it is made in the sincere hope that it may one day be realized. It has been made before without any definite details, but its general lines have been discussed among librarians for years past.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

In 1899 the medical practitioners of Dublin were confronted with an outbreak of a peculiar and obscure illness, characterised by symptoms which were very unusual. For want of a better explanation, the disorder, which seemed to be epidemic, was explained by the simple expedient of finding a name for it. It was labelled as “beri‐beri,” a tropical disease with very much the same clinical and pathological features as those observed at Dublin. Papers were read before certain societies, and then as the cases gradually diminished in number, the subject lost interest and was dropped.

OF all the efforts which have been made within recent years to popularize Public Libraries or to improve the reading standard of the public, none has been so popular, or so generally adopted as the plan of organizing courses of lectures. This in spite of the fact that lectures are becoming less and less necessary as a means of spreading knowledge and ideas. It may be that lectures with experiments, lectures to arouse interest, to amuse, to produce an emotional or æsthetic effect may still have some value, but lectures to call forth intellectual effort and to spread ideas are practically superseded by books. If this be granted it follows that the lecture courses generally given under the auspices of library authorities have this result—they do not stimulate the intellect nor do they create any desire to use books as a means of improving the intellectual standard of the individual. The cause of this is to be found in the miscellaneous character of the lectures. It is no unusual thing to find that a course of library lectures includes such diverse subjects as “The Ice Age,” “Six months in the Tropics,” “Beetles,” “Hygiene,” “The Moon,” “Shakespeare,” &c. The effect of such courses upon anyone who may attend them all is similar to that produced upon the mind of the person who reads the “tit‐bits” pages in one of the popular magazines. Custom has much to do with this state of affairs, and lectures like those above outlined have long been recognized as suitable for a library, mainly perhaps because they can be procured cheaply and with little trouble.

Case studies were conducted with two small apparel businesses in Mexico to determine the physical and human resources critically influencing full‐package apparel manufacturing and export. Data analysis deductively focused on the use of local resources, the role of technology, understanding of the export market and the ability to develop a product suitable for that market, business skills needed for production and delivery, and availability of capital. Based on the results, a study guide was developed for use by individuals, small business owners, cooperatives, and communities as they promote development and job creation in Mexico through apparel production and export under NAFTA.