East and Central Europe was separated from the West by the Iron Curtain, but its opening has not immediately remedied the feeling of separation, but rather induced a feeling of cultural foreignness and inferiority, amplified by relative poverty. But the world's future lies in indigence and the East can teach the West how to be somewhat poorer without losing the joy of living. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The World Wide Web (WWW) has been expanding exponentially since it was launched. It provides a unifying way to navigate and present information around the world in seconds using the Internet computer network. Many types of organization have been caught up in the revolution and are struggling to cope with the effects and keep pace with the development of the technology. One such community is that of museums. This paper presents the way museums are currently using the Web internationally, and how their use could develop in the future. Included is a description of the Virtual Library museums pages (VLmp), a leading directory of online museums, recently adopted by the International Council of Museums. Some of the ‘virtual’ visitor statistics are also presented and discussed.

This paper gives an anthropological comment on what has been called the ‘audit explosion’, the proliferation of procedures for evaluating performance. In higher education the subject of audit (in this sense) is not so much the education of the students as the institutional provision for their education. British universities, as institutions, are increasingly subject to national scrutiny for teaching, research and administrative competence. In the wake of this scrutiny comes a new cultural apparatus of expectations and technologies. While the metaphor of financial auditing points to the important values of accountability, audit does more than monitor—it has a life of its own that jeopardizes the life it audits. The runaway character of assessment practices is analysed in terms of cultural practice. Higher education is intimately bound up with the origins of such practices, and is not just the latter day target of them. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Intellectual property rights have long been regarded as a matter for specialists of a branch of law, their impact on competitiveness was referred to in the mass circulation press only in the past ten years, in particular in relation to international negotiations like the GATT agreement. After a brief description of the nature of intellectual property rights as they appear in support of scientific research, the deficiencies of the presently fragmented systems of national patents of the European as well as Community patents are presented with their consequences in terms of cost, reliability, and predictability. The difficulties related to their enforcement and to the differences of interpretation on patentability criteria in a world of global competition are also emphasized. The role of intellectual property rights in the evaluation and reward of researchers, their importance in the process of the creation of new enterprises, and the necessity to develop information and awareness in the population of researchers wherever they are, constitute the main factors which contribute to placing intellectual property rights on the management agenda priority list in the context of the increasing impact of immaterial investment in the creation of wealth. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The European economic space has evolved from several previous arrangements and has now expanded to include social, cultural and political dimensions. This is a service to the people of Europe and engenders international stability, but do the people want it? © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.