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Cooperative storage is essentially the sharing of a space within a facility, while collaborative storage implies a shared approach to the collection in terms of growth, shape, management and access. Collaborative storage provides a more efficient use of resources. This study is an investigation of the physical options, rather than of digital storage. However, the study does reflect on the prospective relationship between these two responses. The tension is an emerging issue and one which is not yet placed in the policy context of a local, regional or national perspective.

Leicester Polytechnic Library uses two types of local area network (LAN). The library is connected to the polytechnic campus Cambridge Ring network which allows data communications within the library, throughout the polytechnic sites and with the wide area network. The library provides various services including an OPAC on this polytechnic network. A second LAN, a 3COM Ethernet, is used for a research project investigating the development of a decision support system on networked microcomputers. This article gives the background to these developments, provides a brief summary of local area networking and describes the network configurations implemented.

Though Local Area Networks (LANs) have been much talked about over the past two or three years, their role in libraries has, with a few exceptions, been in the realms of speculation rather than active examples. The commonest way in which libraries encounter LANs is for the parent organisation to introduce the LAN and for the library to be included as part of that campus or organisational network: applications are, therefore, most often directed towards communicating with other departments and sharing common facilities such as electronic mail rather than towards the traditional automation activities of library housekeeping. This is not to say that LANs have no potential for housekeeping: Mel Collier in his introduction to LANs notes a number of ways in which LAN technology may be of direct benefit in a library environment; and the OKAPI online‐public access catalogue project at PCL (see pp 3–13)originated as an investigation into the potential of LANs for specific library‐housekeeping applications. What this preamble is leading up to is the news that Reading University Library has installed a LAN within the library with the intention of using it for library housekeeping operations. However, before going on to look at Reading's implementation in some detail, a little background on LANs may be useful.

This paper analyses the current state of Arabisation of automated library systems. Problems of Arabic language handling and limitations of Romanisation are described. The areas of character encoding, standards for coding and bibliographic records, character recognition and lexical analysis are synthesised. The current state of Arabisation in commercial library systems is reviewed and areas for further research identified.

The European Library (TEL) project aims to give digital access to the combined resources of the national libraries of Europe, operating under the auspices of the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL). A preparatory project, part funded by the European Union, ran from January 2001 until January 2004. Because of the diverse nature and missions of the participating libraries, developing a coherent business plan was a significant challenge. It appears that business planning for digital libraries, with some exceptions, is not hitherto well documented. This paper describes the research process carried out, the harmonisation of business objectives leading to the final business plan and some observations on the process.

The Polytechnic of Central London has developed and installed a wide area network connecting libraries on six sites. The network is linked to SWALCAP for circulation control, and cataloguing services will be added in 1984. Two local area network (LAN) projects are planned. An analysis of the telecommunications options considered is presented, with costs for the system adopted for the wide area network.

This paper sets out to review how the business of libraries in higher education has changed with the impact of the digital library during the latest decade of Program, in which the content of the journal swung decisively from being primarily about library management systems to primarily being about digital library issues.

An article is taken which typifies the changing emphasis of Program and then the systemic changes underway in libraries are looked at more broadly, placing the digital library in its context of scholarly publishing, higher education policy and user behaviour.

The business of libraries is changing, primarily as a result of change in the scholarly publishing industry.

This is a review article based on a literature review and operational observations.

The observations build on the author's original work on business planning for digital libraries, and are based on experience of library and information services management in The Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain.

The last fifteen years have seen vast developments in the computerization of library services and with these developments have come a number of organizational changes. A predominating feature of this period has been a tendency to centralize both human and technical activity. It is still widely assumed that in common with other areas of library services cost effectiveness will dictate a continuation of this trend. However the cost of systems is decreasing and their power increasing so rapidly that it is possible for quite small library budgets to sustain computer activity of some sort. More importantly, local area networks are becoming available commercially which combine the advantages of distributed processing with centralized activities where appropriate. Library managers now face yet another challenge in how they run their computer services and the following paper explores some of the issues involved.

In November 1990 Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University) won a contract to provide higher education in the new city of Milton Keynes, against strong competition from a number of other higher education institutions in the region. In January 1991 the Polytechnic took possession of a green field site for the new campus from the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. Eight months later in September 1991 the first buildings had been erected, staff appointed, services organized, students recruited and the first courses commenced. This must surely claim to be the quickest ever inception of a new higher education institution.

It is the purpose of this paper to pick out some of the general trends in development of information technology indicated by Professor Paker and identify their relevance to library and information work in polytechnics, although many of my remarks will apply to other institutions of higher and further education. However, before considering the technology in some detail, it is worth reviewing why after many years of developments in computerised library services we find ourselves at present discussing information technology and library applications within the frame‐work of IT82.