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The demand for heavily used materials has led to Universities creating short loan collections and course readers — both have their problems, possibly soluble through digitisation. But the eLib On Demand/Electronic Reserve impact study made it clear that the economics of rights clearance and digitisation necessitated a cooperative approach. Addressing this the eLib project HERON, Higher Education Resources ON demand, is developing software and procedures to streamline rights clearance and digitisation and make it easier to check if texts have already been digitised. The operation of the software from pack building to copyright clearance, purchasing and fulfilment is described. HERON will be a self supporting commercial service by 2001.

This paper reports on research undertaken at University College London (UCL) for two projects funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE’s) Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF). This paper documents the production processes, costs and resources for both traditional (printed) and electronic study (course) packs. We concentrate on a comparison of in‐house and outsourced copyright clearance and digitisation services for electronic study packs. UCL’s use of the HERON service is evaluated. The paper concludes electronic study packs would provide a valuable addition to teaching support services, but there are implications for equipment and staff which are discussed. Although this paper is based on a case study from UCL, we hope that other academic libraries considering introducing an electronic course pack service or electronic reserve will find some useful evidence of the integration of electronic and traditional library activities.

An indicator of the ecological damage done by the Aral Sea disaster is the fate of species that made use of this lost ecosystem. In this paper, two water birds, the spoonbill (Platalea leucorogia L) and the black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) are discussed. Primary research by the author shows that both species adapted to changed conditions by extending into regions not previously within range and using human-formed rather than natural environments. The spoonbill has made extensive use of new ponds and lakes formed by rising water tables in the Bukhara region. The heron has taken advantage of urban and human occupied settings for expanded settlement. Both are thriving in new environments but their old range in the Aral region is no longer suitable for their survival.

The Scottish Collaborative On‐demand Publishing Enterprise (SCOPE) was a project funded from 1995 to 1998 as part of the UK’s Electronic Libraries (eLib) programme. SCOPE was involved with providing students with access to key course readings either via course packs or electronically via the Internet. The project achieved its aims of providing improved access, developing a model copyright permissions agreement, and developing a secure user‐authentication and delivery method. At the end of the SCOPE Project, eLib accepted a bid from the project team and other partners to provide a national on‐demand service, known as HERON (Higher Education Resources ON‐demand). This has similar aims to SCOPE, but on a UK‐wide scale with a view to start providing an active service in January 2000.

Following an overview of on‐demand and electronic reserve (OD/ER) services, the article describes related developments in the UK through the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib), and advances in copyright clearance. The HERON project (Higher Education Resources ON‐demand) is continuing the momentum of the original projects in the OD/ER strand. It is developing a one‐stop shop for copyright clearance and digitisation, and creating a resource bank of electronic texts which will eventually be available to all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK to support teaching and learning.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the benefits of an inclusive community singing group towards well-being.

This study used an exploratory qualitative study (EQS) approach. Semi-structured questions were devised and used to elicit participants’ experiences on the impact of an inclusive community singing group towards well-being. A thematic approach underpinned by the four phases of The Silences Framework was used to analyse the data.

This study found the following benefits of an inclusive community singing group towards well-being Connecting with others, Physical improvement, Learning new skills, Giving to others and Mindfulness.

This study concluded that inclusive community singing plays a pivotal role in enhancing the health and well-being of communities.

POSSIBLY the greatest tribute ever paid to the highly successful de Havilland Heron was embodied in the decision by Saunders Aircraft Ltd of Manitoba, Canada to build an enlarged and improved version of the old de Havilland model. The New Model, the Saunders ST‐28, has already flown as a pre‐production model and is expected to be available commercially towards the end of the year. Production is expected to rise to three aircraft per month by 1977.

Economic aspects of a national electronic reserve service (NERS) were explored using Ithink Analyst, a modelling software package. A model was developed and simulations were used to monitor the effect of variations in the values of key model elements. The model was based on developments within the UK HE community and primarily on Higher Education ON demand (HERON), a national service which is part‐funded by the UK HE funding councils. The two principal activities of HERON are rights clearance and digitisation but the service is also building a repository of digitised texts which are stored for future use to avoid duplication of effort. Model elements were manipulated to compare the cost per student of providing reserve materials using this service with the cost per student of a traditional print service. The level of overlap in materials required by different universities using the service was varied as was the copyright fee paid to rights holders for use of their texts. The results suggest that this service is extremely expensive for a library when compared with an equivalent print service. Furthermore, if the service operated within the library budget for reserve materials, the income generated for publishers would be a fraction of that generated from selling print copies to libraries at the current rate. The authors conclude that as a whole this service is inefficient. Specific elements of the service, e.g. the copyright clearance function, may be efficient in a different context.

Reports on the activities of the Renault Institute for Quality to train its employees in the principles of TQ. Asserts that to make progress, there must be a method and that the advisers must be people with authority. Describes the workings of the Institute, and the training programme. Concludes that eventually the Institute′s activities will diminish although three vital jobs will remain: to renew the message to train new recruits in the principles of quality, and to upgrade the training of any personnel who have been promoted.