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The purpose of this paper is to examine Nick Moore’s information policy matrix and how it has been used by Moore and others.

This study involved secondary search and a bibliographic study of the impact Moore’s work has had on other authors.

It is clear that there have been two quite separate trains of research in information policy, one in the USA and one in Europe, and that it appears from the literature that there is limited awareness of each other’s work. Focusing on the UK and European research, the papers the authors inspected that report information policy analyses make no mention of Moore’s work. It could be argued that Moore’s matrix is too simplistic for such a complex topic as information policy, but it may also be the case that there is a lack of awareness of how the matrix can be used in policy analysis as Moore’s published papers were general descriptions of the matrix, reported the findings of his analyses or suggested policy goals. Moore did not publish theoretical or methodological papers to explain how to go about policy analysis using his matrix.

This study is based on secondary research and bibliographic analysis. Furthermore, primary research could have revealed deeper insights into use and impact of Moore’s framework by analysts and policy makers.

The paper highlights potential opportunities for international collaboration on information policy research, to explore more deeply theoretical models that could be used to underpin policy analysis as well as the potential value of Moore’s matrix.

With digital technology libraries can archive considerable resources of detailed information about their users. This data is generally regarded as confidential between the library and the individual, but it has potential interest for commercial organisations, law enforcement and security agencies, and libraries themselves, to assist in marketing their services. The Privacy in the Digital Library Environment project at Loughborough University, 2000‐2002, investigated the issues this raises. Findings suggested that users had low levels of anxiety about privacy when using libraries, but this was because they expected that libraries would not pass on personal data to other bodies. Librarians, whilst respecting privacy as a professional value in principle, did not give it a high rating against other values. Additionally, a significant minority of libraries was not well prepared for data protection. To assist the professional community, guidelines for privacy policy were drawn up on the basis of suggestions made by survey respondents.

The popularity of CDROM is due to a number of factors: they are versatile; large amounts of data can be held in a variety of formats; access to information is fast and a variety of user‐friendly search options is offered; and end‐users can use a CDROM with little or no instruction. From the point of view of the library or information service, they can save costs compared to online services both for bills and the need to provide intermediary assistance when online services are used. They are, of course, also space‐saving when compared with their print‐based alternatives. Gunn & Moore (1990) and Oppenheim (1993) provide helpful background on the benefits of CDROM to libraries, and issues that the new medium raises.

This paper reports the results of a survey of UK electronic information vendors regarding the importance of marketing to them, and reports the results of an examination of the readability, structure and information content of a sample of marketing materials produced by electronic information vendors. This analysis was of advertisements from professional journals and direct mail literature comprising leaflets, folders and brochures. The results demonstrated that the ‘average’ adult ought to have no problem in reading and understanding the marketing literature. Additionally, this study demonstrated that the marketing literature is feature‐oriented. Benefits are of much lesser significance. The UK‐based electronic information industry regards marketing as of crucial importance and believes that the marketplace is becoming more competitive. The favoured promotional techniques of the industry are identified.

This paper describes the principles behind some of the search method possibilities for online chemical databases. In a subsequent paper, the actual methods available will be described.

Addresses the proposals regarding payment by users for electronic access to published material, put forward in the opinion paper titled “Paying for scholarly communication: the future as a guide to the past”. Warns that this paper argues against the continuing tenability, in an electronic environment, of the current legal exceptions to copyright, namely “fair dealing” and the so‐called library exemptions, suggesting instead that, in return for explicit rights from publishers, the existing rights of individuals and libraries conferred by these two exceptions should be lost. Rejects as unacceptable any such change to existing UK copyright law.

Having gently (I hope) reprimanded Charles Oppenheim (everyone knows Charles) about his cavalier attitude to Information Theory (Cawkell 1990), I received a letter from him saying “I watch television but have no understanding of how it works. What's more I do not need to have such knowledge in order to make better use of it”.

A study was carried out to assess the correlation between scores achieved by academic departments in the UK in the 1992 Research Assessment Exercise, and the number of citations received by academics in those departments for articles published in the period 1988±1992, using the Institute for Scientific Information’s citation databases. Only those papers first authored by academics identified from the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook were examined. Three subject areas: Anatomy, Genetics and Archaeology were chosen to complement Library and Information Management that had already been the subject of such a study. It was found that in all three cases, there is a statistically significant correlation between the total number of citations received, or the average number of citations per member of staff, and the Research Assessment Exercise score. Surprisingly, the strongest correlation was found in Archaeology, a subject noted for its heavy emphasis on monographic literature and with relatively low citation counts. The results make it clear that citation counting provides a robust and reliable indicator of the research performance of UK academic departments in a variety of disciplines, and the paper argues that for future Research Assessment Exercises, citation counting should be the primary, but not the only, means of calculating Research Assessment Exercise scores.

Begins by reviewing relevant literature to identify some of the features that are said to appear exclusively in e‐mails. Also highlights the main issues in the debate between those who embrace the new style of writing generated by e‐mail, and those who feel it is detrimental to communication. A total of 300 examples of e‐mails were obtained from a wide range of donors. Features counted included emoticons, acronyms and creative spelling. The lengths of texts and of sentences within them were amongst other calculations made. The data was grouped according to purpose: social, business personal and business impersonal. Users of e‐mail appear to be generally unconcerned with formalities. Although the sample of e‐mail texts was lucid, writers often dispense with traditions when opening their e‐mail, and their closings are informal. Social e‐mails involved the most creative sort of communication. Argues that the increased informality and lack of consistency of e‐mail texts is because e‐mail is a new medium where no clear guidelines exist. A standard for e‐mail communication might usefully be established, but such a standard should remain flexible.

Describes the task of the National Library of Economics and the Serial Database, a union list of serials in Germany providing an online document ordering module. Types of user, subject requests and date and country of publications are presented and discussed. Concludes that the overall performance of the service is favourable.