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Dear Editor, Although about nine months have elapsed since Peter Brophy's 1990 article about workstations was published, re‐reading it has prompted this comment.

Considers the history of practice‐based research in the UK library and information science sector, and demonstrates that the emphasis in the recent eLib programme on practitioner involvement and leadership has its roots in research carried out 30 or more years ago. It is suggested that practice‐based research has an important role to play in stimulating significant, far‐reaching developments and in training new generations of professional leaders.

THE COMMENT by Don Revill in the August issue of NEW LIBRARY WORLD raises a number of interesting points. The allocation of library book funds between departments or between site libraries has always proved a sticky problem, and, as Revill points out, a variety of solutions have been advocated. Of course, the actual division of the funds presents no real problem (everyone is willing to spend the money!) once the bases on which this division is to be made have been decided. Thus the real decisions boil down to judgements of the relative value (to the university? to the state? to the librarian?) of such factors as:

This is a most important study of an essentially modern situation. The first part, “Getting in Print”, introduces the way short‐run publications can be produced without sacrificing quality or being priced out of the market. There has been considerable polarisation in the publishing trade as huge multinational combines have continued to take over smaller units and now dominate the publishing, marketing and distribution of English language titles worldwide. This could well have made it difficult indeed for authors of low‐volume, less profitably saleable works to find a publisher. Paradoxically, however, helped by computer technology it has opened up the field for enterprising new small‐scale publishers, with an eye for scholarly specialist subjects and new authors, to issue short‐run editions and even to achieve a better return on capital and higher profit ratios than do the major publishers. The total number of titles produced has actually grown, causing bibliographical problems for librarians who need to keep track of publication, and greatly increasing the number of works going out of print before they can be acquired. The reprint trade is similarly in confusion because the economics of reprinting have become more chancy for some works and potentially easier for others.

Seeks to introduce the special issue devoted to JISC's Learning and Teaching and Infrastructure Programme, sometimes known as 5/99.

Explains that 54 projects were funded between 2000 and 2003 which developed the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) concept.

Reveals that part of the purpose of the programme was to develop the infrastructure to support seamless access to quality assured resources. Another focus was resources for learning and teaching. A third strand was evaluation.

Presents a useful introduction to the JISC Learning and Teaching and Infrastructure Programme.