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There are a number of portal products and solutions in the library marketplace, many of which have been developed by library management system (LMS) suppliers. The main system features and some of the more significant examples of commercial library portal products are described in this article. These are sophisticated complex systems which can unlock the wealth of digital resources held in libraries. Most require a certain amount of customisation by the individual library and information services. However, for those libraries which can afford the base cost of one of these products, the return on investment is justified by maximised usage of key quality electronic library resources.

The electronic library is emerging as the library of the foreseeable future but its user aspect, particularly the usability, requires more research. This article describes the ELINOR (Electronic Library and Information Online Retrieval) developments at De Montfort University from the user's perspective. It firstly shows the main features of the ELINOR user interface which illustrates how a user can find a document in the Electronic Library and subsequently read the retrieved document on the screen. This is then followed by a discussion of the methodology and findings of a user study based on a random sample of eight ELINOR users conducted in the Autumn term of 1993. The user study included searching/reading/browsing tasks and a questionnaire. The former is a controlled experiment designed to gauge objectively the usability of ELINOR by comparing the use of the electronic books with that of printed books. The questionnaire shows the user's subjective reaction to ELINOR. Future work on the user study will expand the sample to include all the first‐ and second‐year students doing the Business Information Systems Course at the University's Milton Keynes campus.

The Information Centre at De Montfort University Milton Keynes is carrying out a three year research project known as the ELINOR Electronic Library project, which will work towards the creation of a large, indexed collection of electronic texts and images accessible to the students and staff via desktop workstations. The pilot phase will build on the existing information network and use the latest document image processing (DIP) and text retrieval technologies to set up a central and secure location for the data. At this stage of the project, the recommended course texts are not available in electronic formats, so the priority was to assess the suitability of a DIP system for converting printed works into machine‐readable text and image files. Each electronic document will contain a searchable table of contents, abstract, back‐of‐the‐book index data, and, appended to this information will be a folder of image pages. This paper outlines the investigative stages in evaluating and selecting a DIP system, and finally, covers the shortcomings of using a commercial DIP system for electronic libraries.

Communications software on microcomputers enhances the management of communications and online searching by automating the repetitive tasks of logging on to various database services and improving the efficiency of the connection by minimising the time spent online. Five packages which provide a full spectrum of facilities to be found in the range of communications software on the market are reviewed here. The packages are ACT's Communique, Learned Information's Connect, Datasoft's Datatalk, Head Computers' Headline, and Userlink's Information Transfer. This small sample covers the needs of certain categories of users: the business sector; users of specific services; the library and information community; and finally, the unskilled online searcher, or end user, who requires an intelligent front end to the variety of search command systems on the hosts. The basic and useful software features of all five packages are described, with a checklist for comparison, followed by a detailed description of each package.

A case study is described of how the Open University Library is developing a pilot departmental Intranet with the open source package, Zope and the Content Management Framework toolkit. The approach is to manage and share content held in a variety of formats, develop workflow for creating and approving new content before it is published to the site, separate content from presentation in order to support easy maintenance and consistency, and locate information through metadata and full text retrieval. Designing the Intranet involved content mapping and identifying library staff’s working needs before developing the structure and site framework. The Zope CMF has proved to be a highly flexible set of tools for creating a knowledge sharing Intranet, but the drawbacks are lack of documentation and training in the UK.

The options for library and information managers to apply IT in their libraries/information services are now wide ranging and particularly so with the arrival of the new generation of 16‐bit multi‐user micro‐computers and fully integrated library systems for small libraries. Three years ago the market for library software was comparatively small; now there are far more products and it's very competitive. Other well established options may include setting up a bibliographic database or online catalogue, using a stand alone system for handling, for example, serials control, or using a microcomputer as an online terminal. But where to begin? And, that is where the Library Technology Centre (LTC) might be a good starting point. Here, it is possible to explore the potential that microcomputers have to offer; decision‐making can be enhanced by taking advantage of demonstration facilities, to have “hand‐on” experience; and the visitor may tap the expertise and information resources of three information officers with complementary skills in the library and information fields.

In November 1990 Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) won a contract to provide higher education in the new city of Milton Keynes, against strong competition from a number of other higher education institutions in the region. In January 1991 the Polytechnic took possession of a green field site for the new campus from the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. Eight months later in September 1991 the first buildings had been erected, staff appointed, services organized, students recruited and the first courses commenced. This must surely claim to be the quickest ever inception of a new higher education institution.

There is a wide diversity of microcomputer software on the market, and in the last two to three years in particular, there has been an enormous growth in software to meet the needs of both the small special library and the information unit.

The ELINOR electronic library system is a well integrated, fully functioning system implemented at De Montfort University in 1993. The system currently contains the full contents of some 35 000‐page course materials assisting the teaching and learning of one undergraduate course. The core software for the system is PixTex/EFS, a free text retrieval system with well integrated imaging functions. A usage statistics collection and management subsystem and a printing control subsystem were developed in‐house later for copyright management and other management purposes. This paper presents the various aspects of the ELINOR electronic library system including its database, browsing, searching, printing, document capturing, managing, architecture, the user aspect, and the pros and cons of the system.

Contends that networking and licensing texts for electronic libraries give rise to a number of significant issues, notably copyright and how to set a price which will give the publisher a reasonable return on investment and will be regarded by libraries as a fair and realistic scheme. Describes the experience of one university which has been carrying out extensive electronic library work over the last three years and draws conclusions which could have relevance at the national level.