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Discusses the Leeds Library and Information Service ‐ its background and present “transitionary” state. Makes some predictions for the Service in the year 2000. Concludes with a discussion of vital aspects for libraries.

European public libraries frequently have to reconcile the continuance of a traditional scholarly role with the provision of modern public library services. In Britain the great city libraries share this dilemma. Official policy has not offered useful solutions to the problems of two decades of financial pressures, social change and the demands of information technology. The case study of Leeds Library and Information Services shows how one city library has begun to devise strategies that involve improving access to research stock, making hard decisions about the continuance of some research collections, and providing enhanced networked access to outside resources, as part of an overall policy based on the assessment of user needs and preferences.

Library of Congress update The Urgent Supplemental Appropriations Bill for FY 1986 signed into law in July by Ronald Reagan contained an appropriation of $867 000 for the Library of Congress. This means that the general reading room is able to restore evening and weekend hours. The ten “Books Not Bombs” people who first protested the closure spent several weeks in July in a courtroom trial, where testimony was given by the Librarian of Congress and other officials. Since the “freedom readers”; as they are called in a newspaper article, face jail and/or a fine, perhaps appreciative scholars and researchers should start a fund to help defray the costs of their protest.

This paper posits 32 concrete ways that organizational leaders can contribute to building a culture of care, noting that HR professionals can encourage, model and inform leaders of those ways most needed and/or appropriate.

The personal reflections presented are based on 45 years of observing scores of organizational leaders in action.

The means presented pertaining to the actions that leaders can take toward building a “culture of care” are briefly detailed and are clustered in six categories: helping others to become known; inquiring of life outside of work; celebration; providing assistance; taking the “high road”; and encouraging learning.

The actions and ideas described for building a “culture of care” are easily envisioned and immediately doable.

This paper presents a robust array of specific, real-world-based actions that contribute to the building of an organizational “culture of care.” As such, they are offered to HR professionals as ideas for their own groups as well as an inventory of ideas that HR professionals can offer to other leaders throughout their organizations