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Provides an update on a project at the University of Wales Bangor, reported in an earlier issue, to ensure that books on reading lists are available in the library, that missing books are replaced, and that newer editions are purchased when available. New aspects of the project are described, improving staff co‐operation by interrelating this work with the selection of short‐loan material and improving student access to books by using a course code as an OPAC enquiry. Describes the problems encountered which are likely to be of relevance to other libraries. Compares the overall results with the earlier report showing substantially improved provision as a result of four years of the project.

Paul Outlet. International organisation and dissemination of knowledge: selected essays of Paul Otlet translated and edited with an introduction by W. Boyd Rayward. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1990. xi, 256 pp. $115.50/Dfl.225. 0 444 88678 8. (fid 684) Paul Otlet was born in Brussels in August 1868 and died there in December 1944. A lawyer who grew to be ‘bored with the law’ and became absorbed with books, libraries and information, he is probably principally remembered in connection with the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC).

The activities of the Jive U.K. library networks which are represented on the British Library's Co‐operative Automation Group (BLAISE/LOCAS, BLCMP, LASER, SCOLCAP and SWALCAP) are briefly described. The relevance of CAG and the networks to the Aslib membership is considered.

The budgeting process in university libraries is assessed. Following consideration of the political context, approaches to costing of staff activities are discussed and other expenditure which has to be given priority either in compiling estimates or in setting a budget are identified. The various approaches to the control of serials expenditure and the allocation of the book budget between departments are considered in some detail, particularly the reasons for using and the factors which can be used in creating a formula. The political problem of presenting the budget to a Committee is highlighted and ways of keeping within the budget through the year are described.

This monograph presents an outline of traditional management functions: strategic planning, human resource management, financial management, marketing, operations management, technological innovation management and the management of change. In separate chapters, each of these functions is first set out in general terms with emphasis on tested key issues, techniques, and the different aspects of the managerial role. Each chapter then analyses the function specifically in terms of the changing nature of librarianship and information services. It is suggested that librarians should be adopting a higher management profile and, with experience of IT coupled with traditional skills in selecting and organising information, that they are well placed for initiating as well as responding to change.

This paper presents an overview of past and present research projects associated with electronic document delivery. The paper briefly outlines the Follet Report and introduces the UK's Electronics Libraries Programme, including the recently funded Focused Investigation of Document Delivery (FIDDO) project at Loughborough University. Four research areas have been identified as follows: resource sharing projects; network communication projects; electronic scanning projects and electronic document delivery systems. Conclusions highlight the major impact that technological developments are currently having on this area, the need for librarians to reassess their role in the information chain, and the need for delivery systems capable of handling different formats and a wider coverage of material to satisfy requests.

Though Local Area Networks (LANs) have been much talked about over the past two or three years, their role in libraries has, with a few exceptions, been in the realms of speculation rather than active examples. The commonest way in which libraries encounter LANs is for the parent organisation to introduce the LAN and for the library to be included as part of that campus or organisational network: applications are, therefore, most often directed towards communicating with other departments and sharing common facilities such as electronic mail rather than towards the traditional automation activities of library housekeeping. This is not to say that LANs have no potential for housekeeping: Mel Collier in his introduction to LANs notes a number of ways in which LAN technology may be of direct benefit in a library environment; and the OKAPI online‐public access catalogue project at PCL (see pp 3–13)originated as an investigation into the potential of LANs for specific library‐housekeeping applications. What this preamble is leading up to is the news that Reading University Library has installed a LAN within the library with the intention of using it for library housekeeping operations. However, before going on to look at Reading's implementation in some detail, a little background on LANs may be useful.