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Voluntary sector information, presents particular challenges to information providers, in terms of networking across a diverse body of organisations. Opportunities offered by WWW community networks include information sharing through online databases, more efficiently updated than printed sources, and electronic networking, potentially easing communication between organisations and between sectors. This paper presents the results of both quantitative and qualitative surveys of the local voluntary sector in the Borough of Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire. The IT capabilities and information needs were measured and examined. The opinions of local practitioners in voluntary sector information were also sought. A range of different levels of IT skills and facilities was found amongst local voluntary sector organisations, and a reticence amongst some organisations to get involved in recent IT developments was also detected. Facilitation, in the form of training, IT support and facilities, was therefore identified as important to effective voluntary sector information provision. It was recommended that research should be carried out with regard to local information needs, and that an editorial board be established.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

To provide insights into the role of formal and informal accounts in preventing the liquidation of a professional football club and in post-crisis rebuilding.

This case study, framed as a conflict arena, covers an eight-year period of a high-profile struggle over the future of a professional football club. It uses a mixed methods design, including direct engagement with key actors involved in administration proceedings and transformation to a hybrid supporter-owned organisation.

Our findings suggest that within the arena:• formal accounting and governance were of limited use in managing the complex network of relationships and preventing the abuse of power or existential crises. • informal accounting helped mobilise critical resources and maintain supporters’ emotional investment during periods of conflict. • informal accounts enabled both resistance and coalition-building in response to perceived abuse of power. • informal accounts were used by the Club as part of its legitimation activities.

This study provides theoretical and empirical insights into an unfolding crisis with evidence gathered directly from actors involved in the process. The conceptual framework developed in this paper creates new visibilities and possibilities for developing more effective accounting practices in settings that enable continuing emotional investment from supporters.

When James Conant visited Australia in 1951 he unwittingly entered an existing, lengthy debate about the value of university‐based knowledge in Australia. The Second World War, with its significant reliance on academic expertise, had suggested that if knowledge could win wars, the labour of academic staff could be considered to normally have social and economic value to the nation. In 1951 Conant had no way of foreseeing that steps made, in this light, at Federal level during and after the war, would culminate in the 1957 Review of Universities in Australia, chaired by Sir Keith Murray, and the injection of a large amount of funding into the university system. Conant’s confidential report to the Carnegie Corporation does show that he saw the system in desperate need of funding, which wasa reality that everyone agreed upon.1 The long debate included options for university funding and the potential change to the character of universities if the community, rather than the cloister, was to determine the purpose and character of knowledge. Conant’s report reflects this debate, centring (as many other participants did as well) on the value universities would gain if they were more obviously useful and relevant to industry and if their reputation was less stained by elitism and arrogance. Conant could not gather sufficient data in his visit to identify the nuances of this long discussion nor could he see the depth and spread of its influence over the decade or so preceding his visit. As a result, his particular agenda seems to obscure the perception of the threat that change provoked to some of the traditional values associated with academic work. To consider the debate and the character of academic work in the university scene that Conant fleetingly visited, we need to look back just a few years to another, but very different, visitor to the Australian system.