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Online education. Dialog. named the Eagle‐Union Community School Corp's project INSITE the First Place winner of its annual Excellence in Online Education Awards. The award was presented at the Databases in Schools conference held in conjunction with Online/CD‐ROM '91 in San Francisco. The recipients received a plaque and $2000 worth of online connect time for use in the Dialog Classroom Instruction Program of their choice.

British information specialists and librarians in business information are recession‐proof, according to a new survey from TFPL. From a field of 600 professionals queried, TFPL found that 78% had had pay rises over the past year. Salaries and fringe benefits rose a whopping 18% on average over the eighteen months between April 1989 to October 1991. The majority had increases between 5–9% — however, a lucky few (17.5%) enjoyed rises of 10–25%. Given the economic climate, the proportion of survey participants who had recently received salary increases (78%) and the generosity of these increases seems to indicate that organisations are valuing their information specialists now more than ever, says TFPL.

It is now a year since this column was launched and a number of arrows have been shot in the air … aimed at hitting the target labelled the year 2000. In the first column (vol. 17 no. 1) Charles Oppenheim (University of Strathclyde) commented that Target 2000 would be one way of learning how good information professionals are at predicting the future. So far, the Oppenheim award goes to Charles Citroen (TNO Policy Research, The Netherlands) whose prediction at this time one year ago was that ‘online hosts like the present ones will probably disappear.’ Within a few months of this prediction, Dialog and Data‐Star had announced their merger.

The Commission of the European Communities is one of the four components of the institutional framework set up to initiate and implement policy relating to the three European Communities, the European Economic Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community.

…but it is hoped that the arrows fired in Target 2000 will fall somewhere near the target for this new column — the turn of the century, the year 2000. Contributors are invited to focus on a specific topic that falls within the current scope of the journal and speculate on the concerns, changes or challenges that will be experienced over the coming seven year period. However, Target 2000 will also be a ‘floating Delphi’, as contributors may be asked to revise their predictions during the seven years and they will certainly be asked to reexamine them as the new century arrives.

Welcome to the second issue of The new‐look Electronic Library! In view of its ever‐increasing popularity, the publisher has decided that it is worth putting some additional resources into the journal and making if more magaziney — things of which I am all in favour!

The Finnish Council for Scientific Information and Research Libraries funded a Delphi study to predict the extent of use of information technology in the years 1996 and 2010. A panel of Finnish experts was interviewed in two consecutive sessions. As a comparison group eleven international experts were also interviewed. The paper includes a tabular summary of the predictions and estimations given by both groups of experts.

Several online host services in both the USA and Europe offer companies the opportunity of being able to load and access private files of information. The benefits associated with private file services are outlined, and some of the factors which need to be considered when contemplating the use of such a service are discussed, including file design, charges and security. The use of videotex for private files is also discussed.