BUSINESS RESEARCH BUREAU ESTABLISHED IN NEW ROOMS

M. T. Copeland '07 who succeeded Dr. S. O. Martin '04 as director of the Bureau of Business Research last June, is carrying on the work of the bureau on the same lines as his predecessor. The summer's work consisted in collecting statistics from retail grocers in various parts of the country by two field, agents, J. M. Hager in California and C. H. Moore '13 in Pennsylvania, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

The Bureau has received operating figures form over 1,000 retail shoe firms and over 1,076 retail grocery firms. In addition to the work in the retail trade, a uniform accounting system of shoe wholesalers was published in July as a result of an investigation of this branch of the trade. There is at present in press a similar accounting system for wholesale grocers which will appear in about a month. Finally, a Harvard system of stock keeping for shoe retailers, on which the Bureau had been working for a couple of years, has recently been completed.

It is part of the general plan of the Bureau to publish the results of its study of trade practice in order to make available for business men and students in the Business School the conclusions dawn from them toward the best practice known. The Bureau endeavors to find the best and most efficient methods of doing business and to impart the results obtained to the business world. The stock keeping system evolved by the Bureau is considered suited to all retailers, big and small, and embodies the best known practice.

The investigation in the wholesale business is a new departure for the Bureau and in this work it has received the active assistance of the national shoe Wholesalers Association and the National Wholesale Grocers' Association, both of which organizations have shown much interest in the new accounting system and have endorsed the plan of operating figures.

The Bureau is installed in its new offices in Lawrence Hall, which were erected after the fire which destroyed that wing of the building last winter.