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Marine benthic algae, or seaweeds, form a conspicuous element on most Australian coasts and are of considerable ecological importance, providing habitat, food and substratum stabilisation. Along with the seagrasses, the only angiosperms that have truly recolonised marine habitats, the seaweeds are the benthic primary producers that sustain most shallow coastal ecosystems. Australia is well known as a centre of biodiversity for seaweeds, with numerous species recorded and a particularly high percentage of endemic taxa, especially along the temperate southern coast (Phillips 2001; Kerswell 2006; Hommersand 2007). This chapter will review the biogeography of Australian seaweeds, including historical studies that have aimed to place the Australian ora in local and global scenarios, examine current thinking about the Australian biogeographic provinces and conclude with some of the exciting developments that will enhance seaweed taxonomic and biogeographic studies but at the same time introduce an entirely new suite of problems.

The taxonomic position of Pyxidicula compressa, currently the nomenclatural basionym of two unrelated taxa (a diatom and a dinoflagellate), is clarified. Evidence is presented that the protologue of the species clearly represents a diatom, which is then correctly known as Tryblionella compressa. In the absence of original specimens, the species is lectotypified with illustrations from the protologue. It is proposed that the name Prorocentrum bidens be adopted for the dinoflagellate presently known as Prorocentrum compressum.

The public face of an organisation and its strategic goals are supported by the production of reports, brochures, posters, flyers, booklets. This material is known as ephemera or grey literature. In the private sector this material is treated in any number of ways, from being ignored after use to being considered a permanent record. Within the realm of government, all of this published material is scheduled in the relevant disposal authority or government directive as being part of legal deposit or equivalent and or being sentenced as archives. This paper examines the role of legal deposit in the collection of ephemera or grey literature. Using the results of a preliminary study of the deposit of the publications under the statutory requirements produced by the National Archives of Australia, the State Records Authority of New South Wales and the State Records Office of Western Australia, this paper compares the collection of government publications, at the federal and state level as: • Prescribed by legislative instruments such as legal deposit, government directives, government policy; • Required by the relevant disposal authorities; and • Produced by government bodies by the relevant legal deposit libraries as revealed by the library catalogues. Finally, the paper reflects on the use of ephemera as an historical tool.

Government records management/recordkeeping has a very long history. An international record management standard is available and many government recordkeeping programs are based on the standard. There are two theories common to modern records management—life cycle and continuum. The theories differ in the purview of how records are regarded in the life of an entity to which they have some value.

In 2007 an online questionnaire circulated to the listservs of the recordkeeping profession via the Australian Society of Archivists (ASA), the Records Management Association of Australasia (RMAA) and Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ) identified the TOP TEN professional journals read by recordkeeping practitioners (archivists and records managers) in Australasia. Respondents to the survey answered general demographic questions and questions regarding their qualifications and preferences about the content of an informative professional journal. The main focus of the survey was on professional reading and 39 recordkeeping journals were presented for analysis by respondents. Of these, fourteen Australasian and international journals were identified as ‘archival’ rather than records management in content. This paper focuses on the descriptive methods of ranking journals to indicate quality of content. The Australian Society of Archives journal, Archives and Manuscripts, is used as an example.

It is customary within the University sector that, over the duration of a research project, records will be created and kept by many different stakeholders, both within internal and external administration centres and by researchers on a project. Usually, only research administration records are carefully kept and maintained formally within Universities. Raw data and other project records created by researchers are also valuable University assets, but only as long as the context of the information is maintained. Research project records held by researchers, however, are often managed in isolation and left behind after a project is completed without any identifying contextual information or links to the corresponding records held in administration. In order to have a complete and accurate record of a research project, the data and the context in which the data were produced should also be kept. Throughout the Western World there are a number of very large digital repositories for research data. This paper argues that data without the associated contextual records, such as how or why data were gathered; how or why data were interpreted; and how or why final conclusions were reached, means that these repositories are not keeping complete and accurate records of the research. This paper proposes the minimum metadata required to ensure contextual information about research records is maintained over time and linked to the research records, ensuring that the ongoing value of the information is preserved for future researchers and the community.

The management guru, Peter Drucker, believed that “Every task of a developed society requires management”. This is especially true of recordkeeping. The dictionary definition of management is “the act, manner, or practice of managing, handling, supervision, or control”. The basic premise of records management in ISO 15489 infers exactly this; it is all about the control, handling, supervision, and organisation of records. Today we can reformat, remix and ‘mashup’ information, and create composite information objects containing numerous different formats, such as video clips, text, and static images. These may result in the creation of a complex record. At the same time organisations are still producing relatively simple records. How many of these records, regardless of complexity, are managed effectively to meet the needs of the specific organisation in a specific industry sector? How many of these organisational records become lost in the information fog? Is this something records and information managers should be concerned about? Information growth is exponential. A simple Internet search provides much information about the rate and scale of this growth. For example, studies into information growth carried out by the University of California, estimate that information increases at a rate of more than 30% a year. How does this impact the average organisation, its information, its records and its recordkeepers? Are records in danger of being lost and are recordkeepers in danger of becoming marginalised, as Thibodeau suggested, because of the computing power that now exists and the sheer amount of information that flows through even the smallest organisation? Should we be questioning whether the ISO standard and indeed the concept of a ‘record’, is relevant in the Web 2.0 (soon to be Web 3.0) world? Are those characteristics which define ‘recordness’ still relevant in this environment? The medium might be somewhat changeable but what of the message? This paper highl

Recordkeeping in Australasia has changed considerably over the past 20 years. It was often perceived by many, even some practitioners, to be a low level administrative task requiring little, if any, specialised knowledge or skill, and indeed, many today still work at a base level. Some practitioners, on the other hand, develop the knowledge and skills required to cope with the ongoing changes to the recordkeeping profession. These highly skilled and experienced professionals are in great demand across Australasia. This paper briefly discusses some of the changes that have impacted recordkeeping and argues that all these changes can be traced back to the need to change practice to cope successfully with the primarily digital nature of modern recordkeeping. In contrast to the fairly robust media of the past, recordkeeping professionals now have to manage records which can only be described as fleetingly fragile and extremely vulnerable. Unlike clay tablets or paper, digital records simply will not survive long-term unless purposefully managed on a continuing basis. The digital black hole beckons.

In his keynote address to the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australia Professor Ian Frazer, Australian of the Year 2006, described succinctly the nexus between researchers and practitioners. He deplored a situation where, in his world of medical research, clinicians and teachers were becoming decoupled from medical researchers by externally imposed funding models. He acknowledged the fact that, without a team consisting of practitioners, researchers and administrators, the now-patented cervical cancer therapy would have remained a fantastic dream, never a reality. What has this to do with the readers of Informaa Quarterly? Many of you are practitioners and users of research outcomes but, more importantly, you are the hotbed of new ideas and directions for professional research. Why is it important that you understand how the Australian research funding model works? There are two main reasons. The first is that you are all taxpayers and funding research is how some of your tax dollars are spent. The second is that knowledge of how the system works enables the profession to support the research it wishes to see promoted.

Two bibliographies of works of H. Igor Ansoff have appeared in print (Ansoff 1992; Hussey 1999). The latter bibliography attempted to provide additional information to some entries from the former and did not include other entries, without explanation of their omission. The items below may not represent a complete reconstruction of the literature published by Igor Ansoff since much of his work appears to have been in the form of reports and working papers. Henry Mintzberg is reported as having described Ansoff as the 'father of strategic management' (Williams 2002) and stated that 'Igor's real contribution to the literature . . . is not prescriptive but descriptive, in the concepts he provided to us' (Mintzberg 1991: 464). For these reasons it is important to record Ansoff's published works accurately.

The items covered here do not represent a complete reconstruction of the literature on Herbert Simon but provide some starting points for the researcher. The topic headings in the first section deal, firstly, with Simon and his research, and then his publications in the fields of public administration, management, economics, human decision making, computer science and mathematics, philosophy of science, philosophy of social science and other fields; secondly, items which reflect how his work influenced public administration, management, organization and business, the analysis of human behaviour and computers as artificial humans; thirdly, the influence of his work on the wider fields of linguistics, education, economics, political science, science, social science and other areas. A full list of references, in alphabetical order by author, comprises the second major section.

This review concentrates on the systematic study of Australian algae by Europeans and their descendents. Although algae were certainly important for Aboriginal peoples, particularly for some coastal groups, little seems to have been recorded. In the Anindilyakwa language of Groot Eylandt, Northern Territory, the word amarda embraces all non-woody plants, including seaweeds. Waddy (1988) recorded indigenous names for 22 species of algae in 15 genera, although in general several species were known by the same term. The only species with a unique word was mamaburulkwa, for Cystoseira trinodis (Forssk.) C. Agardh.

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Along with an increase in the number of mentally ill people, research into all aspects of mental health has increased in recent years. In all disciplines information is the key to success but major problems adversely affect the efficiency and effectiveness that available mental health information is used. These relate to the lack of existing infrastructure to support effective access and information retrieval, and lack of tools to analyze the available information and derive useful knowledge from it. In this paper we explain how the ontology, multi-agent system and data mining technologies can be implemented within the mental health domain to effectively address these issues. The synergy of these frontier technologies may result in an intelligent information infrastructure that provides effective and efficient use of all available information.

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Book Description: W. Edwards Deming's name is synonymous with Total Quality Management. His ideas were at first enthusiastically adopted by Japanese businesses. Deming is recognized as putting Japan on the road to leadership in international business and industry and was awarded the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese Emperor. It was not until the 1970s, however, that Deming started to make an impact in the West. Heads of leading businesses began to consult with him, and an NBC television documentary entitled 'If Japan Can, Why Can't We?' broadened his audience still further. Throughout the 1980s various books were written by others to document and explain his work. His own book Out of the Crisis was published in 1986 and he was awarded the National Medal of Technology in America the following year. In 1987, the British Deming Association was formed to spread awareness of the Deming philosophy.

Australia makes a substantial investment in the production of higher degrees by thesis. Completed theses form an important body of original research data, and underpin the career of many of the nation's leading researchers. There is evidence, however, that there is inadequate bibliographic control of this material, and that as a consequence important research data may be difficult to locate. This article traces attempts to provide access to bibliographic records of Australian theses, highlights the problems with regard to both accessibility and quality of those records, and suggests that these problems might be addressed by an expanded role for the Australian Digital Theses program

Book Description: Alfred P. Sloan is credited with the invention of the modern corporation. At the helm of General Motors from 1923 to 1946, he had a profound influence on management thinking in America and much of the Western world through his unique, ahead-of-its-time, management style. Sloan's leadership and the sheer success of General Motors led to an enormous amount of study and writings on his contribution to management theory and practice.

Book Description: This collection includes evaluations of and responses to the contributions made by Henry Ford and the ways in which his influence helped shape the understanding of management practices. Henry Ford was an eccentric, and occasionally enlightened, thinker and remains a controversial figure today. He developed F.W. Taylor's ideas of scientific management (the subject of another four volume collection in this series), turning them into a whole 'system of production'. Ford's system was characterized by highly efficient, high volume and vertically integrated production, with high wages and low prices. His methods helped make the motor car the defining product of the twentieth century and also ensured his own iconic status.