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Discusses the papers presented at the Fifth World Conference on Continuing Professional Development for the Library and Information Professions organised by the Round Table on Continuing Professional Development of IFLA held August 2002. They included theoretical discussions, research reports, descriptions of best practice, case studies, project evaluations and state‐of‐the‐art reviews presented by library and information professionals.

This article is based on a paper presented at the 2005 IFLA World Library and Information Congress. It brings together the findings to date of the author's research project on research quality, to address issues related to research quality as a basis for the use of research evidence in evidence‐based practice.

The methods used include a literature review, a review of existing models for evaluating research evidence, and a pilot project based on a qualitative, naturalistic research design that employed content analysis and statistical techniques.

While a number of strategies have been developed for the evaluation of published research, all have their limitations. The same is true for the models that have been proposed for assisting practitioners to evaluate research evidence as a basis for evidence‐based practice. The literature review identified four different approaches to the assessment of quality in research reporting. The pilot study identified three different “value perceptions” held by experienced research evaluators that affected their research evaluations.

Although practitioners need to be able to evaluate research reports as a basis for evidence‐based practice, there is currently no one strategy that can be recommended as a fail‐safe tool to support this activity.

The article highlights the variety and limitations of existing strategies or models for evaluating research quality and suggests possible steps forward.

Examines changes in experience and confidence among students taking their first Internet course at university between 1994 and 2000 in a country with high Internet use. Time series show that the number of participants who had used the Internet before commencing university has increased so it is now rare to encounter a student with no prior experience. While almost all new students are experienced and confident users of e‐mail and the WWW, not all have used search engines, and exposure to new and advanced tools is limited. Very few have built a Web page. The first Internet course at universities in countries with high Internet penetration should develop students’ understanding of the Internet as it is used in everyday life by developing knowledge of the Internet’s history and development, advanced skills in Internet use, and the knowledge required to evaluate the potential of new Internet technologies and applications.

Examines social influences on Internet use and training based primarily on the results of longitudinal research with adult Internet trainees in Iceland. The authors briefly discuss the theoretical context before outlining the research and its findings. Social influences included the effect of family and friends, employers, professional colleagues, the media, and a general sense that, increasingly, “everybody” is expected to be able to use the Internet. In this context, librarians and the managers of libraries and information services are experts who are best placed to exert their influence on attitudes to the Internet by providing recommendations, demonstrations, and training about the Internet as a source of information and knowledge.

Many libraries are using the Internet's World Wide Web to provide information/or library clients and others. The article begins with a brief discussion of the situation in one country, Iceland, based on a November 1995 questionnaire survey. Among other things, this Icelandic survey looked at library use of the Internet and the ways in which libraries are using the World Wide Web to provide information via a homepage. A larger Nordic study, of which this Icelandic study was part, sets the Icelandic findings in a broader context. To take this further into an international setting content analyses were carried out of the home pages of public libraries and school libraries in 13 different countries. After a short description of the methodology, the results of these analyses are presented Based on this, there is a discussion of the purposes for which a library might create a home page on the World Wide Web and of the information that might be provided through the homepage, depending on the purpose or aim. The final section of the paper deals with issues and problems associated with the creation and maintenance of a library home page.

Many libraries are creating Web sites, to serve a wide range of purposes. The author is Webmaster of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL); using her own Web site as an example, she discusses a number of issues and tasks associated with creating and maintaining a professional Web site, within the context of a strategic planning approach to Web site development. Beginning with “Should we have a Web site?”, the stages of the process are outlined, including identification of aims and objectives, analysis of user needs, selection of content and services to be included, writing or developing the content, developing the information architecture, navigational aids, visual design of the site, HTML coding or use of page development software, metadata, mounting the completed pages on a Web server, testing and modifications, listing with search engines and directories, publicity and promotion, ongoing site maintenance, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the Web site. The strategic planning process provides a useful framework through which to view the many tasks associated with Web site development and maintenance and to conceptualise their relationship to one another.

Do librarians feel that it is important to keep up to date with new developments in technology? What means do they use to find out about these new developments, and how effective are those means? These and related issues are considered in this article, in which the authors report on a small‐scale survey of librarians in Western Australia, carried out in 1989. The results suggest that, while the librarians have a strong belief that it is important to keep up to date with information on new technology, they generally adopt the common strategy of simply using readily‐available sources of information.