A Book-wise, the Pocket Pal is pretty good I think. Easy to dip in and out of and pretty comprehensive for such a diminutive tome. It's published by International Paper and I see from their website that it's now reached its 20th edition and has a snazzy new cover – I have the millennium edition in front of me on my desk, and that was the 18th, so it's good to see that it's still being updated. You can contact IP customer services on +1 800 242 2148 or find information on ordering the book on their website. Here's a short link to the relevant page: www.bit.ly/dx4wb4. Also, you might consider a source somewhat closer to home, that being the books produced by Andrew Wilson at Unity Print & Publishing. He has two: The Print Production Handbook, and The Print Manager's Handbook. There's also a range of free technical guides that would potentially be useful for your newbie. Contact: 020 8487 2199, www.unity-publishing.co.uk. As an aside, I have a 20-year-old copy of The Way Things Work by David Macaulay on my desk, its brief section on printing, papermaking and book binding provides more illumination in a handful of mammoth-enhanced page spreads than many more learned tomes manage in an entire book. It was reprinted in 2004 and is still available via Amazon.

Upmarket style on SME budgets #2
Two useful responses have come in following the request a couple of weeks ago for suppliers able to handle short-run labels for an SME company. Hippoprint (www.hippoprint.co.uk) has offered its short-run next-day print service, which includes a range of products including printed crack-back labels in three sizes. While this might not be quite what my questioner needs for their cosmetics range, it's useful to know about the Hippoprint service in general. Gary Lovell from Labels First in Ascot (01344 636387, www.labelsfirst.com) has also been in touch. His company specialises in dealing with SMEs and Gary reckons it has also developed the first truly web-to-print interface for digital labels in the UK. I'm hoping to get a demo on this as it all sounds very interesting. Many thanks to both for getting in touch.