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The purpose of this paper is to describe the historical development of library and information science (LIS) teaching and research in the University of Sheffield's Information School since its founding in 1963.

The history is based on published materials, unpublished school records, and semi-structured interviews with 19 current or ex-members of staff.

The School has grown steadily over its first half-century, extending the range of its teaching from conventional programmes in librarianship and information science to include cognate programmes in areas such as health informatics, information systems and multi-lingual information management.

There are very few published accounts of the history of LIS departments.

It may seem faintly ridiculous to speak of the history of a teaching institution that has yet to receive its first students, but over the last forty years the idea of a second Postgraduate School of Librarianship has been a gleam in many a professional eye—a gleam that at times flickered and almost died, but which revived and glowed brightly with the suggestion in 1960 that the University of Sheffield should be asked if it would consider establishing such a school.

THE Newcastle school, like most others, was established after the second world war to provide full‐time education in librarianship as an alternative to the part‐time system which until 1946 was the only one available to the majority of librarians. At first most of the students were returning servicemen whose library careers had been interrupted by the war and they were followed by students direct from libraries, universities and schools. From a handful of students and one full‐time member of staff in the first year the school has grown steadily until there were 53 students and five staff during the session 1962–3 which was the last course held for the Registration Examination.

The purpose of this paper is to provide some of the institutional and operational context of the University College Dublin (UCD) School of Information and Library Studies (SILS) prior to 2000.

The history of the School, its predecessor, and the context in which it operated after 1977 is briefly outlined, using contemporary published and in‐house archival evidence, from the 1960s to the late 1990s.

Areas of convergence with UK library information science (LIS) education are identified, but also some key differences regarding LIS workforce recruitment, and third level educational provision in Ireland. Factors which influenced the curricular development of the school are cited, in particular the role of the UK Institute of Information Scientists, founded in 1958.

The study is based on contemporary published sources, and a preliminary examination of SILS archival evidence which has survived from the decades in question. Valuable records concerning the education and training role of the Library Association of Ireland, founded in 1928, have been recently analysed by Ellis‐King. A proposal for research funding to enable further exploration has been submitted.

Owing to its focus on Ireland (ROI) the paper expands recent coverage of UK professional education for librarianship prior to 2000.

This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of the hybrid information specialist in the academic library setting. It does this in relation to curriculum development for preparatory and continuing professional education for librarianship and makes particular reference to the contemporary iSchools movement.

The paper reviews trends and developments in academic information services and the information science academy in the context of continuing technological advances and educational change. It presents a case study of curriculum development and portfolio renewal, using the specialist roles of digital library manager and information literacy educator to show how the principles of interactive planning can be applied in articulating an academic strategy to meet the changing demands of educational institutions, professional bodies and employers.

There are significant parallels between professional education and professional practice in the shifting boundaries, expanded portfolios and challenged identities evident in the current information marketplace. A combination of continuous incremental development with periodic fundamental review enables professional educators to meet the changing mandates of different stakeholder groups. When combined with a strong professional focus, the breadth and depth of multidisciplinary expertise found in a research‐led iSchool facilitates the design of specialised pathways and programmes for practitioners moving into blended roles.

Practitioners intent on careers in academic libraries should consider the opportunities and demands of hybrid blended roles when choosing educational programmes and pathways.

The paper provides a conceptual framework to illustrate the nature of emergent professional roles and current challenges facing professional educators. Ackoff's interactive planning theory is used to illuminate the problem of academic planning in complex pluralist contexts.

A study has been made of the effect of controlled variations in indexing vocabulary size on retrieval performance using the Cranfield 200 and 1400 test collections. The vocabularies considered are sets of variable‐length character strings chosen from the fronts of document and query terms so as to occur with approximate equifrequency. Sets containing between 120 and 720 members were tested both using an application of the Cluster Hypothesis and in a series of linear associative retrieval experiments. The effectiveness of the smaller sets is low but the larger ones exhibit retrieval characteristics comparable to those of words.

ALTHOUGH the first Public Libraries (Scotland) Act was placed on the Statute Book in 1853, it was not until 1899 that the Corporation of the City of Glasgow was empowered to establish and maintain public libraries throughout the city. Between 1876 and 1897 four attempts were made to secure public approval for the adoption of the Public Libraries (Scotland) Acts, but when all these efforts proved unsuccessful, the Corporation decided in June, 1888 to include in a Local Bill for submission to Parliament, certain clauses conferring upon themselves the power to become a library authority. Promoted in 1899, the Bill became known as the Glasgow Corporation (Tramways, Libraries, etc.) Act 1899, and the library clauses passed through Parliament without opposition and received Royal Assent on 1st August, 1899. The powers conferred by this Local Act empowered the Corporation:

The developments in education in librarianship and information science in the last five years have been remarkable. They stem partly from the general development of higher education, and partly from the growing realization of the importance of library and information work in our present and future society. The introduction of the 1964 syllabus of the Library Association, and subsequently the postgraduate syllabus, was a landmark. Whatever criticisms may be made of these syllabuses, they placed education for librarianship firmly on a full‐time basis for the first time, and led to the rapid expansion and improvement of the library schools. My own experience as an examiner for the Library Association convinces me of the marked raising of standards that has resulted. A measure of internal examining has been introduced, and this is likely to be extended, thereby providing for a much greater flexibility in teaching and course work.

The author reviews developments since 1964 in the following fields: the education of information scientists, library schools in universities, CNAA courses, the Library Association examinations, the Library Assistant's Certificate, provision of training for staff in organizations without information departments or libraries, and Aslib courses. Suggestions are made for development in the following fields: part‐time study, re‐training, advanced courses in library management, integration of education for librarianship and information work with related subjects, attracting science graduates into the profession, and finding and training teachers.

The use of variety generation techniques in the production of fixed‐length degenerate representations for search terms is compared with methods based on division‐hashing. For files of words taken from INSPEC data, the latter perform better, almost certainly because of dependence between assignments of symbol sets. Attempts to overcome the problem produced no real improvement, possibly because the decrease in dependence was accompanied by an increased skewness in the distribution of symbols.