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The paper examines young adults’ perspectives on and experiences of job insecurity, including both objective insecurity and perceived uncertainty, as they emerged in a series of focus groups and interviews. It discusses young adults’ changing notions of security and career, effects of insecurity and uncertainty on planning future work and non work lives for people with different levels of occupational skills and qualifications, the gendered effects of insecurity and the impact of insecure employment on attitudes to employers. The impact of perceptions and experiences of job insecurity on young men and women’s expectations of work are considered in terms of a changing psychological contract.

The key roles of national libraries in terms of acquisition, retention, preservation and providing access to materials are considered, first of all in terms of printed materials and then in terms of electronic materials. The current situation regarding the legal deposit of electronic materials in selected countries, including the UK, is discussed. The automation history of the National Library of Scotland, founded in 1925 but with a history dating back to the 1680s, is outlined and current initiatives, internal as well as external, towards the development of a hybrid library are described. The importance of collaboration in meeting the challenges is emphasised.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

LAZY LIBRARIANS London's Underground, and particularly the central section, has long provided me with a raggle taggle selection of provincial and London suburban newspapers. Now its litter bins and train seats provide shoe‐string NLW with the equivalent of a news cutting service from which are gleaned all sorts of local library curiosa.

Draws on a large group of research projects on the management use of information systems in the British National Health Service. Argues that information systems are just one part of the system of information by which the manager knows what is going on, and within which he or she constructs problems. Compares the advantages and disadvantages of four ways in which a manager may know about what is going on: information systems, gossip, walking about, and experience and imagination. Considers the effectiveness of these four for problem construction. Suggests that setting information systems in the context of other parts of the manager′s system of information may enable both the designers and the users of such systems to consider more carefully when and how their systems can be of use to senior managers in problem construction ‐ for it is more important for senior managers to be able to construct problems than to solve them.

A new form of “museum” has emerged which takes advantage of the Internet′s seemingly limitless format options for electronic presentation and ability to tailor in‐depth presentations to niche audiences. Constraints of ownership and geographic location are lessened as Internet‐based museums point to sources across the globe. Collections which are physically impossible to construct are being mounted electronically. Offers a sampler of museums and galleries around the world which are making use of WorldWide Web or Gopher servers.