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The purpose of this paper is to describe how public libraries can gain social networking services for the first time with DS Arena.

The paper provides a description of DS Arena and outlines its potential uses.

DS Arena is built on modern foundations which is critical in service delivery in the rapidly evolving Web 2.0 landscape. It uses a framework of web services to provide content and interactive services; these web services can be extended and revised in an incremental manner over time.

DS Arena provides a real opportunity for library and information services to deliver services and thereby redefine and extend their service offering to the citizen.

The development of networked access to academic library catalogue records has been conspicuously slow compared with that of campus‐wide information systems in general. In cooperation with its systems suppliers BLCMP, the Pilkington Library in Loughborough is seeking to remedy this situation by developing an interface that allows users to access its OPAC via the Web. The benefits of such a facility are reflected in BLCMP's decision to incorporate a revised version in the forthcoming release of the commercial Talis system; but problems relating to the ‘statelessness’ of HTTP and to the inadequacy of traditional catalogue records as access points for electronic information resources are still cause for consideration.

Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs) in an increasing number of libraries are now available using the Joint Academic Network (JANET). Until the present time, this access has been obstructed for the casual user by the lengthy JANET addressing codes and varying log‐on procedures required by each library system.

MINSTREL stands for ‘Management Information Software Tool — Research in Libraries’. The aim of the Project is to develop software which will enable librarians at all levels of management to obtain relevant and reliable management information from automated and non‐automated data sources. The Project is developing an environment which will provide managers with a range of functions and tools to access and manipulate information. The software is being designed to be independent of any particular library system or decision support system, and no special technical knowledge will be required to access it. This article gives some background to the Project and then goes on to discuss the proposed architecture for the system, which it is hoped may provide a better framework for management information provision than has been available to date.

The ability to manipulate efficiently data for management information is becoming increasingly important. Minstrel, a European Union funded project is creating a software tool designed to assist with the acquisition and handling of data on library use. The activity has been developed from a study of decision support and performance measures in European libraries carried out in 1994. The first phase of Minstrel has included consultation with potential users, a specification of functions and investigation of methods for interfacing with potential data sources and decision support tools.

When it came to networking Ind Coope′s Burton‐on‐Trent Brewery, Allen‐Bradley′s Communications Division provided an integrated broadband cable solution which has enabled the brewery to produce its vast array of beer and lager products to specific batching demands and with a greater control of process and quality monitoring.

The 1980s and 1990s at Stanford University were a uniquely productive era for research on organizations and labor markets. I describe three important, interconnected themes that characterize the research on organizations and labor markets that emerged from Stanford during this era: the central role of the firm in a multi-level system that determines labor market outcomes, the role of institutions in both creating and constraining labor market outcomes, and the dynamic, often unexpected, consequences of labor market outcomes. I describe the genesis and development of each theme and conclude by discussing what lessons can be learned from this era about creating an innovative and productive research culture.