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Reviews the functions and work of SCONUL and how these have changed in the light of the creation of new universities in 1992. While acknowledging the importance of teaching universities within the new overall UK higher education sector, concentrates on SCONUL’s work with and for research libraries: the trainee scheme, statistics gathering and scholarly communication are discussed. In particular, SCONUL’s lobbying function with respect to UK and EU copyright is highlighted.

Provides an overview of the activities of SCONUL (Standing Conference of University Libraries) with regard to quality assurance in higher education since 1993. Outlines the contribution of a joint working group set up by SCONUL and the Funding Council quality agencies; setting out the working group’s terms of reference, weaknesses identified in the inspection process for library support services for academic subjects, and setting out a checklist of aspects which assessors should be looking for. Concludes that SCONUL has an important future role with regard to quality assurance procedures for libraries in higher education, and with regard to the place of libraries and other learning resources in such institutions.

The article summarizes the recent work of SCONUL’s Advisory Committee on Staffing. Emphasis has been on creating opportunities for active training and development of staff in Higher Education library and information services. A series of regular courses on matters of continuing concern is complemented by individual events about topical issues. Regular courses and meetings cover management skills for staff at various levels, including heads of service, deputies and staff new to management responsibilities. Annual meetings of training officers offer updates on practice and developments and serve as current awareness events. Modest financial support for staff development projects is available through the SCONUL Award, and occasional publications are produced to share best practice between institutions. The Committee monitors staffing policy and practice in the higher education sector, and liaises actively with other organizations concerned with questions of staff training and development.

Increased use and changes in the way e‐resources are delivered led some libraries to question the detail of some of the definitions used and particularly to suggest that statistics required by SCONUL did not always match the requirements or practice of the libraries themselves. The purpose of this paper is to explore a set of e‐measures.

A pilot project was set up to test a set of e‐measures, sufficiently robust to give confidence in their use in a national/international context and in benchmarking individual libraries. A total of 20 SCONUL members made quarterly returns during 2009‐10. During the year, categories and definitions were adjusted in the light of comments received. A workshop was held to exchange views and inform the decision on what went into the new return.

It was clear from the start that practice varied, and compromise would be required. Foremost among the changes are: inclusion of e‐resources held within databases in the count of titles; count of free titles or titles purchased in previous years; inclusion of database searches; separation of costs of different types of e‐resource.

The SCONUL statistics are a tool and servant of the members, helping libraries to run more effectively, and at the same time providing valuable evidence on UK academic libraries and their activities to the wider world. The new e‐measures questions will provide a reliable picture of the use of e‐resources across the sector and be useful to libraries individually or in benchmarking groups in assessing their own usage.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the first phase of the SCONUL Value and Impact Programme (VAMP), carried out in 2006.

This paper is a critical review of some of the major tools and methodologies available to measure the value and impact of, particularly academic, libraries, was supplemented by a survey of SCONUL members to ascertain the state of current practice in the UK.

The findings in the paper were synthesised by gap analysis, which found that, although there were some gaps in overall provision, a greater problem was a lack of knowledge and understanding of the tools available, and how they could be applied to demonstrate value and impact.

This paper is a brief description of follow‐up activity and the resulting SCONUL Performance Portal is given.

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from an investigation into the conceptions and characteristics of geo/spatial information (GI) to demonstrate how exploring academics and students' conceptions of GI facilitated illumination of information literacy (IL) in the Geographic Information Science/Systems (GIS) discipline.

Adopting an embedded exploratory case study, the data were gathered from semi‐structured interviews, an open‐ended questionnaire and students' reflection in an online distance learning (ODL) GIS programme. The data were analysed in light of the Grounded Theory approach. Drawing on the conceptions of GI which emerged from the study, this paper highlights several characteristics of GI and discusses their implications for IL. In particular, it compares the emergent IL competencies in the GIS discipline with those in the SCONUL model.

GI was identified as geo/spatial, temporal, geo/spatially contextualised, and geo/spatially technology‐mediated. According to these conceptions, GI is a constructive concept; it has multiple components which need various operations and user inputs to become geo/spatially meaningful and usable. These characteristics uncovered new aspects of IL in the GIS discipline which influence the depth and breadth of the SCONUL model.

Unlike exploratory studies of IL which focus on the IL and IL competencies to explore this phenomenon, the methodological approach taken in this study provides IL researchers with a new approach whose primary focus is on the concept of information as a key contextual element of IL. This helps one to gain a deeper insight into IL in disciplinary areas.

The emergent aspects to the SCONUL model can be taken into consideration when designing and delivering IL programmes in the GIS discipline. Likewise, the emergent picture of IL in this study can be used by GIS educators to develop information‐literate GIS learners.

This study is original in terms of both its methodological approach and its outcomes. These can be of value to IL researchers, educators and practitioners.

Purpose. Describes the work of the e‐measures project, which aims to produce a set of statistics for measuring electronic information services in UK higher education libraries, to be used nationally as part of the Annual Library Statistics produced by the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) and locally for library decision making and user support. Design/methodology/approach. A group of 25 higher education libraries are piloting a range of 21 e‐measures covering holdings, usage and costs of electronic services. Data collected over a four‐month period in phase 1 are currently being analysed and a review of issues raised will inform case studies planned for phase 2. Findings. Issues raised by phase 1 of the project are presented here. Reports from pilot libraries illustrate both the importance of the work being undertaken and its complexity. Research limitations/implications. The project has highlighted the issues involved in the collection of data for measuring use of electronic information services and drawn attention to the difficulties in getting reliable, consistent data. Practical implications. After testing by the pilot libraries, selected e‐measures will be incorporated into the SCONUL Annual Library Statistics, to be collected on a regular basis by all SCONUL libraries. Libraries will also have a greater understanding of their use of electronic resources through the guidance and support provided by the project. Originality/value. This paper, in describing the results of phase 1 of the e‐measures project, increases awareness of the project and the understanding of the issues involved in collecting data for e‐measures.

In the post‐war years 1945–50, university and other large research libraries were confronted both by new problems and new opportunities. First, university libraries had to provide for greatly increased student populations, swelled by returning ex‐servicemen and women; secondly, the supply of foreign books was uncertain, unreliable and subject to the bureaucratic delays of import controls; and thirdly, the atmosphere of post‐war reconstruction called for new and more structured approaches to the provision of scientific information. For their effective resolution, these challenges required group consideration and communal action. Amongst academic librarians, there was a widespread but ill‐focused feeling that if the problems of the day were to be successfully tackled and the opportunities seized, the Library Association was not the most suitable medium through which to address them. It was evident that public library affairs had achieved an overwhelming dominance in its collective attitudes and actions. The University and Research Section, the principal channel through which academic libraries input their views, cut little ice with the powerful Council of the Association. Indeed, the Section was at loggerheads with the Council over several matters and itself was far from united. Although it could still be said to represent the university library interest, in the fast‐growing post‐war educational scene its membership had become more diffuse and its purposes less distinct. A number of librarians had come to believe that there was a positive need for an authoritative body that could speak for large national and university libraries and represent their collective views to governmental and other organizations.

Stephen Town has been a thought leader and change agent in the academic library world for more than 20 years, who has produced a very large body of work in the areas of quality management and performance measurement that has been disseminated internationally. Town’s retirement from full-time employment at the University of York provides a timely opportunity to review his contribution to the field. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this issue.

The review outlines Town’s career path and professional interests and then appraises his published output, concentrating on his contributions to thinking and practice in the areas of benchmarking, information literacy, service quality, and measuring the value and impact of academic libraries and information services. The discussion is organized thematically to illustrate the evolution and development of his interests and ideas over the review period and also references-related work by other authors to set his work in context.

The study found many examples of innovative and creative work that had influenced thinking and practice in the library profession, including the development of models, frameworks, and tools with the potential to improve the effectiveness of service benchmarking, information literacy education, library advocacy, relationship management, staff evaluation, and impact measurement.

The volume of published work necessitated some selectivity in the material covered, but the review provides sufficiently comprehensive coverage of the areas specified to represent the work effectively.

Town has produced a substantial number of publications as a practitioner-researcher that have not previously been reviewed independently as a coherent body of work.

Glasgow University Library's participation in and contribution to the SCONUL student trainee scheme over the past two decades have increasingly been appreciated by library school lecturers. It is probable however that they have not been as widely known elsewhere as they deserve. The author played no part in the development of the training programme but was himself a student assistant in the library and has since rejoining the staff participated in the selection and training of the present generation of student trainees.