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The purpose of this paper is to gain deeper insight into the meanings that structure and impel consumer choice by overlaying findings from a metaphor elicitation study onto the results of a traditional means‐end laddering study.

First, laddering interviews were conducted to elicit the reasons that structure the college choice decision of students. A second study using metaphor elicitation techniques surfaced additional meanings that constitute and connect students' thoughts and feelings about their experiences at the college. Together, the two modes of interviewing yield deeper insight into personal relevance and consumer choice than offered by either alone.

Combining two modes of interviewing provides views at various levels of detail. Whereas laddering interviews use direct questioning to identify consumers' choice criteria, projective techniques rely on indirect questioning to surface the enduring and ephemeral feelings that charge consumer beliefs. Panning and zooming from the general structural overview provided by means‐end research to the nuance and detail surfaced by metaphor elicitation provides uncommon insight into the drivers of consumer choice.

The time, effort, skill, and expense required for data collection, analysis, and interpretation are non‐trivial and may limit adoption of the two study approach.

The superimposition of metaphoric meanings onto consumer decision maps provides tremendous added value to managers aiming to enhance the creativity, relevance, and effectiveness of their marketing initiatives.

Melding two interview methods adds depth to means‐end research and lends structure to projective associations. The deeper insights into personal relevance and choice benefit academics and practitioners alike.

Focusing on the relatively unstudied status of women in classical political economy, this important collection of essays will inform, delight, and even surprise the reader. The essays provide testimony both to the intellectual richness of the period, as well as the extraordinary social and political events of the time. The most striking unifying theme of the work is how social and political contexts served to generate the economic ideas of and about women.

THE old trouble caused by local authorities levying rates on Public Libraries has been coming to the fore in several places lately. There is usually a great deal of discussion, but little is done to clear the ground. It has been decided that Public Libraries are liable to be assessed for local rates, and no amount of talking will alter that position at present. But something can be done to try to induce the local authorities to abandon their present endeavour to “bring everything into line” (as some of them have it) by making Public Libraries pay full rates. While it is perfectly legal to make Public Libraries pay these rates, yet it does not seem to be understood clearly that the local assessment committees have full discretion in the application of this legal power. They have the power to assess fully, nominally, or not at all. We put this emphatically because some of the statements we have seen indicate that there is a belief in certain districts that the rates must be levied. Now the payment of full or any large proportion of local rates is a serious item in the limited expenditure of a Public Library; and at the same time it is a negligible addition to the general income of a locality. In other words, this sum of money is a mere drop in the bucket to the locality as a whole, while it may mean all the difference between efficiency and stagnation to the Public Library. From a purely business point of view it seems somewhat futile to levy a certain limited amount of money for the maintenance of a Public Library, and then to cripple that institution by diverting a portion of that money in the direction of sewers, roads, or any of the other departments of municipal activity, none of which is similarly limited in its expenditure. What has to be done therefore, is to emphasize the permissive nature of powers of the local assessment committees, and to try and obtain either exemption from rates, or at most a nominal assessment.

THE best description of this Indicator is published on a large folio four‐page statement written by Mr. John Maclauchlan, Chief Librarian of the Dundee Free Library, and issued on September 22nd, 1879. This sheet is headed, “ Description and Method of using Kennedy's Indicator, invented for the Dundee Free Library in January, 1875, and constantly used therein since July of that year” and contains illustrations of the counter and details of the construction of the Indicator. The following description is abstracted from it:—“This contrivance consists of a series of upright glazed frames so placed as to be easily inspected by the public at the front, or glazed side, and by the library attendants at the back. … Each frame is divided into twenty vertical columns by slips of mahogany, and each of these slips is again sub‐divided into 100 sloping slits by pieces of stiff millboard [now zinc], tightly held in saw cuts made in the sides of the mahogany slips … As the lower edge of each piece of millboard is a little above that of the next one below it, sufficient space is visible of their lower ends in front, and of their upper ends at the back of the Indicator, to receive the catalogue number of each book in the library, printed in bold figures and pasted at the end of the millboard [zinc] strips with strong paste.” Each borrower is provided with a ticket measuring 5⅜ inches by 1 inch, ruled as follows :—

This chapter examines how residents of vulnerable communities frame environmental change. Specifically, this study reveals how residents from Louisiana's coastal communities understand coastal land loss. Respondents convey the meanings they give to land loss through constructing a narrative of place. We use a phenomenological approach that focuses on how stories are told and the subjective interpretations of societal members. We suggest that the slow onset disaster of coastal land loss leaves residents feeling vulnerable, forcing a constant and heightened awareness of place attachment. Prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in late summer 2005, residents expressed a sense of separation and alienation from the restoration process. As major restoration plans are considered, residents’ place attachment can shed light on the role the communities can play in policy and restoration projects.

Indigenous governance systems in Africa provide a nuanced approach to the various philosophies that underpin governance structures through a spiritual perspective. In this chapter we debunk colonial narratives of Africa's dependence on colonial constructs of governance. We begin by highlighting the decentralized and centralized Indigenous governance frameworks practiced by different African communities. Communities with decentralized systems such as the Acholi, Luo, Keiyo, amongst others, were well organized at the local level, with the Council of Elders, Chief Priests, and Moral Elders and Chiefs carrying out various functions that ensured the community remained stable and prosperous. In centralized communities, the king had authority over their boundaries. The key aspects that stood out and ensured stability within the centralized systems included community representation, participation in governance, and checks and balances that provided proper societal growth as exemplified by the Bunyoro-Kitara and the Ashanti kingdoms. Even though the governance systems were quite different, the governance mechanisms had similar pillars, features, and principles anchored by humanism, communism, and the spiritual nature of governance amongst the African peoples. We concur that the Indigenous governance system allowed citizens, empires, and kingdoms to flourish. We conclude that African people can further develop the capacity to manage their ideas, resources, and opportunities for sustainable development, through Indigenous governance mechanisms and knowledge systems. We argue that African societies need to legally integrate the Indigenous governance systems in the current prevalent western governance model, create canters for researching Indigenous knowledge at the institutions of higher learning, and that civil society should play a role in ensuring accountability in governance systems.

Seven authors contributed to this well-edited volume that explores the publications, lectures, public comments, and correspondence of several well- and lesser-known classical thinkers regarding women's role in society, politics, and the economy. The dual goals of the work as stated by the editors are to “show that the classical economists did concern themselves with gender analysis” and to illustrate that the classical school developed a “sophisticated response to the question, why is it that in all human societies women have suffered a lower status than that enjoyed by men?” (p. 2). This response includes three elements: the inalienable rights of all human beings, the unchanging biological differences between men and women, and the varying historical contexts in which men and women find themselves. The intersection of these three factors affects how and why women's status changes across space and over time. The goals of the volume are met to a great extent, and anyone interested in gender scholarship and/or economic thought will find the collection interesting and long overdue.