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Explores the author's experience working in the digital library field during his first year as a professional. The fluidity of contracts and titles is discussed, and the needs for improved IT skills, the involvement of librarians in digital content creation and closer collaboration between professionals in all sectors are all noted.

This paper reports findings from the first annual cycle of a three‐year research project on the provision and use of electronic information systems (EIS) within higher education in the UK. The project, JISC User Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services (JUSTEIS), was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and undertaken at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UWA). Students, academics and library staff in 25 universities were surveyed using critical incident and critical success factors methodologies to ascertain the range and nature of EIS use. Provision of these systems by higher education institutions was also investigated via an analysis of their library websites. The findings reported in this paper focus on student use and the purposes for which EIS are employed, and reveal the limited array of EIS used and the ad hoc nature of search strategies adopted across undergraduate and postgraduate bodies within a range of disciplines. There appears to be little or no variation in the pattern of EIS use by the various student groups studied – the effect of the Internet on information seeking by students is hugely significant and the more formal resources, such as JISC‐negotiated resources are little used. There is little evidence of coherent search strategies used by students. Recommendations for both the JISC and higher education are offered.

Richard Cox responds to the attacks by Nicolson Baker against the library community. Deals with each of Baker’s main points: that a lie was foisted on the public about the care of newspapers, the insidious destruction of original newspapers, the resultant loss of trust by the public in libraries and archives and a set of wrong priorities leading to the misguided microfilming and destruction of newspapers.

ENVY, GREED and a desire for possession are not particularly attractive qualities to display in print but if they are recognised and acknowledged in what follows, then at least my argument may not suffer unduly.

NewsAgent for Libraries is one of the projects funded by the Electronic Libraries Programme in the UK. Following a brief historical account of the original ideas behind the project, the main stages in developing the project – which aims to create a userconfigurable electronic news and current‐awareness service for library and information professionals with a mixture of content streams, including metadata – are described. Users’ interests are specified by profiles which are then matched with incoming records so that users are alerted by e‐mail of items of potential interest. Examples of creating profiles and of some of the “input feeds” in the project are given as well as an example of the use of the Dublin Core metadata format for describing resources covered in NewsAgent.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of research in the Department of Information Studies at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and an introduction to the papers in the special issue.

A narrative review of the previous research activities and contemporary research environment of the Department of Information Studies.

There is more to be learnt about the future of the research assessment exercise, whether it is moving to a metrics‐based system, or whether the system will look more favourably on departments that attract a range of research funding.

Identifies how changes in the scope of research activities in a department reflect changes in research funding and structures for the information sector, as well as changes in staff interests.

An electronic alerting service which gathers both conventional and electronic documents and presents them to users still needs a vocabulary to match documents with profiles. Based on a project in the Electronic Libraries Programme known as NewsAgent; a personalised current awareness service for library and information staff, a design for a controlled vocabulary is described based on three levels of specificity: Channels, Topics and Keywords. The printed models for these vocabularies are identified, and examples given from the field of Library and Information Services. NewsAgent decided to adopt the Dublin Core metadata scheme in which to include this vocabulary, and details of both the simple and advanced use of this metadata by NewsAgent are discussed and illustrated, including the use of standard resource types which include an indication of quality. The publications which were used in the trial of NewsAgent are identified, and some future developments in electronic alerting outlined.

Building on the arguments of an earlier paper which argued that “empowerment” and repression may go hand‐in‐hand, argues that the study of empowerment at work has been ripped from its contextual setting. Argues that studies of empowerment, if they are to be meaningful theoretically and useful practically, must locate and embed “empowering” initiatives within the wider context of their creation and propagation. Analysing institutions of industrial and civil decision making, concludes by making suggestions for the (re)development of empowerment in Britain.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.