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Studies the reasons why people have changed career in order to become members of the library profession. Focuses on the career change decision process. This includes discussion of drift versus active choice, previous career experiences, context of life as a whole, nature of library work and the influence of other people. Measures the amount and nature of satisfaction to be derived from having made the career change. Offers suggestions for the library profession as a whole in marketing itself in order to recruit and properly remunerate skilled and enthusiastic people.

This article is based on a research project, code named “FACE”, carried out in the Library at the University of the West of England during 1998 and 1999. It raises issues regarding accessibility of learning and teaching resources, advice and support for disabled students and staff. Development of the Library’s resources in response to student surveys and reference to other literature in the field is recounted. Whilst the project focussed on a selection of technologies to aid “accessibility” it is noted that the most important feature in provision of accessible learning materials and support is strong institutional commitment and a good human infrastructure. The article concludes with a series of recommendations which can be more broadly applied in other organisations.

A survey carried out during 1998 investigated the use of the World Wide Web for user education in 68 UK university libraries. Almost three‐quarters of the libraries surveyed make use of the Web for this purpose. The Web is used as a supplement to existing user education, in order to support independent, student centred learning and to reach parttime and distance learners. Just ten percent of user education is delivered solely via the Web, but libraries indicated that use will grow in the future. It was found that greater use is made of the Web for information skills training than for library induction. The authors suggest a number of reasons why more use is not being made of the Web for user education and propose future developments in this area. Web‐based instruction is unlikely to completely replace traditional methods, but it can be used to supplement and extend existing provision.

The purpose of this paper is to disseminate information about the development of a work‐based learning (WBL) honours degree top‐up in Library and Information Sciences (LIS), focusing on the motivation for this development.

The context for the work is explained. The characteristics of work‐based learning (WBL) are explored in terms of the relevance to LIS learning and teaching. The rationale for the development of the WBL top‐up is proposed and considerations that need to be borne in mind in the implementation are offered.

A synergy between the ethos of the existing approach to the education and development of LIS students at the University of the West of England and that of WBL was discovered.

There are implications for the training and development of teaching staff to engage fully and excel in a WBL approach, and for the institution to support this approach. There are also implications for advising employers and potential learners as to the benefits of WBL, and to ensure that it fits appropriately into the professional framework.

The value of the paper is in the sharing of an approach to developing a positive new way of working, how this fits with different government, local and professional agendas and the implications it has for all concerned.

This paper outlines the aims, activities and outcomes of a project to pilot a reciprocal borrowing scheme between public and academic libraries using existing cards, i.e. public library cards in the academic library and university ID cards in the public libraries.

This is a case study providing practical information about the establishment and promotion of the service, and recounting the feedback from surveys of participants, prospective users and library staff.

The project outcomes indicate that the reciprocal use of existing library cards between institutions and public libraries in a geographical area: was relatively simple once set up; was appreciated by all those who participated; had few teething problems; had had no appreciable impact on the availability of academic stock to University of the West of England (UWE) students; increased public library and academic library usage by target groups, e.g. school students 16 years and over, enabled the public library service to provide a significantly better offer of resources to its community, especially those who needed access to specialised stock, not normally available in a general public library service.

The partnership between LibrariesWest (led by South Gloucestershire Libraries) and UWE Bristol Library Services is not unusual. However, the approach taken, i.e. to allow borrowers to use their own libraries’ cards without any data sharing between the respective systems, is fairly unique. The processes involved and the evaluation of the scheme are of value to other prospective partnerships where organisations are geographically aligned.