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Underpinning growth of the higher education sector is an efficient, modern library service. If the academic library profession is to avoid becoming sidelined by Google‐type search engines and commercial database services, then they must offer a Web presence that delivers relevant, quality approved and personalised access to resources and library services – irrespective of format and location. Many institutions are investigating information portals to secure the library’s technological future. Why? Because information portals can integrate library‐quality resources in any format – physical or digital – and allow them to be searched, located and delivered speedily and efficiently. Information portals can also offer a seamless channel to a choice of content delivery options including OpenURL citation linking, electronic and physical document delivery.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/03074809710159358. When citing the article, please cite: Robin Murray, Ian Pettman, (1997), “The UNIverse project”, New Library World, Vol. 98 Iss: 2, pp. 53 - 59.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/03074809910273250. When citing the article, please cite: Robin Murray, Neil Smith, Ian Pettman, (1999), “The UNIverse Project: a review of progress up to the demonstration phase”, New Library World, Vol. 100 Iss: 4, pp. 153 - 163.

Recommendations for increased resource sharing between libraries have been emerging from a range of sources in recent years. However, the majority of local library management systems currently in use do not inter‐operate, so resources are fragmented and there is no unified access. The situation is complicated by organisational and business issues. This was the basis for the fifth MODELS (Moving to Distributed Environment for Library Services) workshop, which explored more effective management of access and resource sharing, and the development of a supporting systems framework. The focus was on public library developments and cross‐sectoral cooperation. The paper develops some of the key issues, together with discussion of the emerging MODELS Information Architecture.

Genetic and environmental factors are associated with psychosis risk, but the latter present more tangible markers for prevention. We conducted a theoretical exercise to estimate the proportion of psychotic illnesses that could be prevented if we could identify and remove all factors that lead to increased incidence associated with ethnic minority status and urbanicity. Measures of impact by population density and ethnicity were estimated from incidence rate ratios [IRR] obtained from two methodologically‐similar first episode psychosis studies in four UK centres. Multilevel Poisson regression was used to estimate IRR, controlling for confounders. Population attributable risk fractions [PAR] were estimated for our study population and the population of England. We considered three outcomes; all clinically relevant ICD‐10 psychotic illnesses [F10‐39], non‐affective psychoses [F20‐29] and affective psychoses [F30‐39]. One thousand and twenty‐nine subjects, aged 18‐64, were identified over 2.4 million person‐years. Up to 22% of all psychoses in England (46.9% within our study areas) could be prevented if exposures associated with increased incidence in ethnic minority populations could be removed; this is equivalent to 66.9% within ethnic minority groups themselves. For non‐affective psychoses only, PAR for population density was large and significant (27.5%); joint PAR with ethnicity was 61.7%. Effect sizes for common socio‐environmental risk indicators for psychosis are large; inequalities were marked. This analysis demonstrates potential importance in another light: we need to move beyond current epidemiological approaches to elucidate exact socio‐environmental factors that underpin urbanicity and ethnic minority status as markers of increased risk by incorporating gene‐environment interactions that adopt a multi disciplinary perspective.

Direct payments in mental health services have come a long way in the last few years, but are personal budgets and the increasing prominence of social care in policy terms having detrimental effects on their success? While most people agree that direct payments are a good idea, in reality less than five per cent of those eligible to use community care services actually use them. Realising the government's intention of ‘prevention, early intervention, enablement, and high quality personally tailored services’ still has a way to go.

The management of autonomous, heterogeneous network resources and services provides new challenges which libraries are now addressing. This paper outlines an approach based on the construction of broker services which mediate access to resources. It outlines a framework – the MODELS Information Architecture – for thinking about the components of broker services and their logical arrangement. It describes several development projects and services which show how brokers are developing. It uses examples drawn from the serials environment to describe some of the issues. Technologists understand that they must build more stable and unobtrusive media. They must establish more coherent contexts into which the technology may disappear.

The function of the World‐Wide Web, like that of Z39.50, is to offer access to networked information; and the client/server architectures of the two systems might appear similar. So why should libraries need both? The answer lies in the WWW's lack of support for the advanced search, retrieval and management facilities that are expected of modern OPACs — and that are also offered by Z39.50. Much current research, therefore, is involved in developing hybrid WWW/Z39.50 services.