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Presents an outline of the organization, SPARC – Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – which represents a worldwide alliance of libraries and library organizations. Describes how SPARC is developing publishing options to traditional research and scholarly communication while maintaining quality but at more reasonable prices.

What could be a major advance in laser imaging has been developed at Sandia Laboratories in the USA.

The theme of integrating technology and the higher‐education mission is explored in the context of the evolving Electronic Library and UW‐Madison‘s priorities for the next century. Links between historical and contemporary strategic visions for the University and its libraries are considered. The idea of institutional process as local culture (compared to specific technical outcomes at UW‐Madison) is emphasized and the planning and daily efforts of the Library Technology Group are acknowledged.

World‐wide calls for improvements in access to journal literature are being answered by a plethora of projects and services. Consortial purchasing, national licences and “big deals” dominate changes in collection development. Moves to set up affordable easy‐to‐use electronic document delivery services offer an alternative model based on single‐article purchase. More radical barrier‐free access models are moving the economic emphasis away from purchasing to input‐payments. Are all these projects and services making a difference or will access to journal literature be no better in years to come than it is now? It is arguable that only those initiatives which are developing new models through collaboration between the stakeholders will succeed in making a major breakthrough in access.

This interview covers research published in three major books by Bill George. The first was in response to a massive governance crisis as high-flyers like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco crashed. George’s first book, offered an alternative to self-serving leadership, was “Authentic Leadership” in 2003. Having been a highly successful CEO, he watched with grave concern as the stock market and media mistakenly venerated CEOs like Bob Nardelli at Home Depot and Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina for their charisma, style and image rather than their character and substance.

In 2005-2006 he created a research team at Harvard Business School to determine how to develop authentic leaders. This project still stands as the largest, in-depth research of leaders ever undertaken. The result was his second book, True North, published in 2007.

A third book, Discover Your True North, the result of a second Harvard study displays the dramatic changes for the better in leadership in the past decade.

The best of today’s corporate leaders are less hierarchical and bureaucratic than their predecessors. They focus primarily on gaining alignment around their organization’s mission and values, and empowering their employees to step up and lead rather than merely following rules and processes. They operate less in their self-interest, and more in service to others and pursuit of greater societal good on a global scale. The new leaders are authentic and open, rather than focused on leadership style and charisma.

Bill George’s research has defined an effective alternative to self-serving leadership, one that can be a model for 21st Century leaders facing the demands of a rapid change, continuous innovation global marketplace. Authentic leaders make good strategists.

Over the last two decades Bill George has been researching the basic ingredients of authentic leadership through one of the most extensive empirical studies of leadership ever undertaken. He and his team have extended their research to include both international and rising generation leaders and parlayed their findings into a development process aimed at helping current and aspiring leaders to become both more authentic and effective. His latest book, True North: Leading Authentically in Today’s Workplace (Emerging Leader Edition), is co-authored with Zach Clayton.

Interview with authors Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, and Zach Clayton, CEO of Three Ships, conducted by Brian Leavy, Emeritus Professor of Strategy at Dublin City University Business School, a Strategy &Leadership contributing editor and author of the S&L masterclass, “ Effective leadership today – character, not just competence.

Authentic leaders engender trust and develop genuine connections, which enables them to motivate people to achieve high levels of performance.

“I believe the hardest person you will ever have to lead is yourself.” -- Bill George

“The authors interviewed hundreds of CEOs and found that the self-awareness that they develop in the process of self-discovery is the most essential determinant of their effectiveness as a leader.”

Libraries and professional publishers have long had a complicated relationship. This chapter seeks to explore some elements of this relationship in order to suggest new ways of regarding each of the parties and to generate an active dialog with the aim of improving collaboration and cooperation between them.

Reports on selected presentations at the WiLSWorld conference, held in July 2004 at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison.