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There is a traditional tendency to think of managers and the managed as two quite separate classes of individual and I should like to make it clear therefore that when I refer to ways in which a manager can improve his effectiveness I am talking about anyone of you who, at a particular moment in time, is achieving his objectives through the agency of at least one other person. I would suggest that by this definition we are all managers, for even those few who in their jobs do not work through a subordinate must, in order to approach their objectives most effectively, manage either their peers or their seniors.

Job evaluation in a Library and Information (L&I) environment is not the easiest of subjects to write about. It is not well documented; it is a subject which does not interest most people per se but only (like the Budget speech) if its application leads to a change in material conditions; and there are very real constraints on trying to go it alone—the unit will normally have to keep broadly in step with the parent organization. Nevertheless, an understanding of the principles can help considerably in ensuring adequate treatment for L&I jobs, and an internal job evaluation study can serve other useful purposes that I will come to later.

Previous speakers have covered developments in online and in the associated field of CD—ROM and several referred to the end‐user. The purpose of this paper is to outline thinking with regard to the role of the end‐user in the use of these facilities.

This is an account of recent thinking and development work relating to the impact of information technology on one sector of ICI and is not intended as a general overview of the field; the views expressed are my own and not necessarily those of ICI plc.

THE attention which has lately been given to the subject of registration may well be taken as indicative of a growing desire for it, and no one who has closely followed the growing importance of libraries in the educational life of the country, and the consequent impetus given to the craft of librarianship, can have doubted that ere many years had passed it would be necessary to establish a professional register as other professional and trade bodies have done.

THE question of the advisability of exercising a censorship over literature has been much before the public of late, and probably many librarians have realised how closely the disputed question affects their own profession.

The users of information services should be enabled to fully exploit current awareness services (CAS) on the Internet to their own benefit and also that of the larger organisation. Services available via the Internet have added to the importance of current awareness, the meaning of the concept of CAS and the purposes served by CAS. Empowerment requires commitment by both parties (information services and their users), a supportive environment, a clear idea of the outcomes to be achieved, and a new attitude to the training methods and opportunities to employ. The planning of CAS empowerment programmes within the familiar constraints on information services is considered. Aspects users should know about Internet CAS are identified, the role of the information specialist is considered and a few suggestions are made about the implementation of empowerment programmes. This article is based on a paper read at the Fifth Southern African Online Meeting, held on 9 June 1999, in Midrand, South Africa.

Every library or information service is at bottom wholly dependent on sources of information external to it. It must acquire from outside all the documentary information that it transmits to users. But at this conference we are thinking more particularly of external agencies that provide material or services that might and could legitimately be provided internally.

I have applied a fairly liberal interpretation to the title given to me by the Conference Committee. Much of what I am going to say comes under the heading ‘recent developments’, for much of the valuable empirical work that has been done recently would hardly qualify in intellectual integrity for the title ‘research’. One of the themes I wish to explore is the extent to which advances in mechanization are predicating a move towards rationalization and standardization in many areas of library and information work, and conversely how trends in these directions require us to examine problems whose existence has largely been unrecognized or ignored.

S0‐called external information services are not new but in recent years they have taken on new dimensions. Because no industrial information service can be self sufficient, it has always been necessary to draw on outside sources to obtain references, documents, data, information and advice that will augment what can be supplied using internal resources.