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A session at the recent National Online Meeting in New York, chaired by Laurence Lannon of DynCorp ATS, looked at the subject of electronic publishing and electronic delivery. The speakers were Bill Thornburg of Dataware Technologies Inc., Carol Tenopir and Donald King of the University of Tennessee, Thomas R. Kochtanek of the University of Missouri, and Mounir A. Khalil of the City College, City University of New York.

While the Internet promises to radically change businesses in all industries, European companies have not yet embraced electronic trading with the enthusiasm of their North American counterparts. Only a few pioneers have successfully established Web services that are fully integrated into the enterprise’s business processes and hence create business value. One of these pioneers is transtec, a German medium‐sized manufacturer and direct distributor of computer systems, storage solutions and computer accessories. The transtec case is an example of a successful Web‐portfolio based electronic commerce application. It illustrates how essential it is to create transparency by integrating the entire system architecture with internal and external communication and business processes. Having started with a general corporate information system and a comprehensive electronic product catalogue, transtec’s Web presence evolved to become one of the best performing online order‐systems in Germany.

Critically examines claims for the use of information and communication technologies for the easy availability of information and so for the improvement of citizen participation in democratic processes. Examines the quality as opposed to the quantity of information available and discusses the nature of the information infrastructure as envisioned in the New Library: The People’s Network report against the historical reality of the failure of established systems to fulfill their potential and the characteristics of the present information environment. Considers attacks on the established public library system and discusses the nature of official information as embodied in official statistics. Examines the commercialisation of broadcasting, the decline of public service broadcasting and the failure of radio and television to develop in private hands into vehicles for mass education, concluding that where quality of content is paramount for information purposes over techniques of presentation, the claims for technological solutions for the information age are overstated.

The economic aspects of new information delivery technologies have been overshadowed by the selection and implementation concerns associated with their introduction to library patrons, staff and systems. This oversight is unfortunate, because these technology changes can offer unprecedented opportunities for cost savings, while at the same time producing significant improvements in staff and patron productivity. Some costs and benefits are readily apparent, while others need more rigorous analysis. The economic consequences of the introduction of digital library products certainly merits increased attention from library managers.

Effective Management of information is essential to delivery of high‐quality services, particularly in inter‐agency working. Many social services departments are suspicious of information systems, partly because of past experience of inappropriate solutions. The paper suggests an approach to help departments to build on existing systems so they can move towards better management and practitioner support.

Discusses management education and development – and in particular the role of business schools. Outlines some personal views on how and why business schools have evolved, and how they will do so in the future. Offers a simple, general model to describe evolution to date and to set the scene for the future. Examines certain aspects of future business school development in more detail in order to try to identify a distinctive and valuable role for such institutions in a changed world.

Uganda is one of many African countries struggling to develop adequate healthcare, particularly in regard to local treatment and access to drugs. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how reducing supply‐chain complexity can improve health in developing countries.

This study and evaluation included 50 interviews and 27 site visits of the public healthcare system in Karamoja, northeast Uganda. A mapping of drug‐supply chains was undertaken to identify causes of stock shortages and possible solutions. A model for logistics process redesign was used for the analysis. Results were quantified with use of a simple tool developed for this specific purpose.

The main conclusion is that less supply‐chain complexity can produce higher customer service in terms of less stock shortages, while keeping costs down. By reducing lead times and uncertainty, increasing order frequencies, and moving order points and safety stocks, there may be better integration between information and goods flows and bottlenecks in the supply chain may be reduced.

While the empirical study is extensive, there are uncertainties in the data that must be taken into account. The effects of the suggested solutions remain to be analyzed and documented upon implementation.

The study was rooted in a practical problem and provides practical solutions for developing countries and agencies providing aid.

Stock shortages of life‐saving drugs are a general problem in countries with lack of financial and technical infrastructure. Improvements will impact the lives of many people.

The paper provides an understanding of the applicability of traditional logistics principles in a new context. It provides the academic community with a much‐needed in‐depth understanding of humanitarian logistics. The approach can be used in other studies.

The Internet has revolutionised information exchange. Its rapid connection of users and materials locally and globally make it an ideal health promotion medium, for both the public and professionals. However, the mechanisms through which it might contribute to health improvement are unclear. This paper provides an overview of Internet developments and presents findings from research carried out on behalf of the Health Education Board for Scotland, illustrating some of the assumptions implicit in using the Internet for health promotion. In the absence good evidence on the effects of delivering health promotion online, this paper argues that good practice requires greater responsiveness to user needs and circumstances at the planning stage, better quality assurance, more clearly defined indicators of “success” and the pathways to it, and more comprehensive evaluation of short‐ and long‐term impacts and outcomes.

This paper aims to review the literature on mobile information services. It considers only peer-reviewed papers published in English between 2004 and 2014.

The method of systematic review was adopted to collect and analyse the relevant literature. The searches were conducted during the last week of July 2014 on different databases, and in total, 76 papers were considered after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Seven themes emerged: “introducing mobile libraries”, “reporting on current trends”, “exploring users’ perceptions of libraries’ mobile services”, “presenting libraries’ mobile services”, “presenting mobile technology use in libraries”, “reporting case studies” and “reporting on evaluation of libraries’ mobile services”. It is evident that research on mobile libraries is very recent and focuses mainly on raising the Library and Information Science profession’s awareness of providing mobile information services.

This literature review focused only on peer-reviewed papers published between 2004 and 2014 in English.

This paper summarises and critically presents the relevant literature on libraries offering mobile information services. It informs libraries and librarians’ understanding of recent developments in mobile technology for the successful provision of information services.

This paper seeks to probe key issues concerning library instruction and the problem‐based learning (PBL) curriculum. This is important because the curriculum has particular non‐traditional characteristics, and library instruction may be able to play a greater role, giving students more support in both their study and information‐seeking behaviour.

The paper systemically surveyed and reviewed literatures related to library instruction, library user education and medical curriculum design.

To sustainably integrate library instructional materials and activities into the PBL curriculum, it is important to help medical libraries to become learning organizations that can respond to changing external environments.

The paper presents a hybrid template of the instruction for different year medical students. The template can be an example for those who plan library instructional activities in medical schools.

The paper also provides five strategies for the library to manage the previous task more smoothly and effectively. The strategies are: small group education; problems of the curriculum; librarians' re‐education and retraining; information literacy; and the faculty‐librarian partnerships.