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The brief given for this paper is that it should be a personal view about what is good or bad in my experience in information service provision, the quality and value of various services. I have taken these to be secondary services as they are normally understood. This has left me with a two‐fold problem. Firstly I have little constructive to say about such services, good or bad, which has not already been said far better elsewhere and secondly, though technically the customer for these services, I am not the end user of the information provided.

We have conducted a study of academic faculty use of databases for research, their need for evaluative guides to databases, and the appropriateness of currently‐available guides. Although the response rate was low (19%), the follow‐up survey suggested only a minimal non‐response bias. Our findings suggest that academic faculty are typically unaware of the range of databases available and few recognize the need for databases in research. Of those faculty who do use databases, most delegate the searching to a librarian or an assistant, rather than performing the searches themselves. We identified thirty‐nine database guides; these tend to be descriptive rather than evaluative.

The following is an annotated bibliography of materials published in 1978 on orienting users to the library and on instructing them in the use of reference and other resources. A few entries have a 1977 publication date and are included because information about them was not available in time for the 1977 review. Also some entries are not annotated because the compiler was unable to secure a copy of the information.

The chapter introduces digital food hubs as disruptive business models in the agri-food system shifting away from the unsustainable industrialized and conventional food sector and moving toward a re-localized food and farming pattern. They are new digital business models developed to support small and mid-size farms with a value focus, forming new ways to leverage the technology as a facilitator for coopetitive organizational forms. Indeed, they respond to a competitive strategy constituted by a “value strategy” oriented to the production and distribution of “shared value.” Second, they are based on an “organizational strategy” that shifts from individual competition to “coopetition” through the development of local “strategic networks” among small size producers. Central to the development of these business models is the digital disruption that has offered the space for the creation of unconventional exchange and transaction mechanisms distinguishing them from the already existing traditional ways of work. The agri-food markets exhibit structural holes that impede small farms from connecting with local consumers. This is due to a lack of material infrastructures and organizational forms on behalf of small farms that cannot reach the consumers, as well as the concentration of power in the hands of a restricted numbers of distributors, which causes the unequal redistribution of the economic value and impedes small farms accessing the food market. The advent of the digital technology is reshaping the market relationship by allowing out centralized intermediaries and creating new bridges between producers and consumers.

For a field approaching a critical period of reappraisal and rethinking of methods, user education is well served by secondary material. A definitive history of training in the use of the library by Bonn in 1960 has been followed by a steady flow of review articles on the subject. Tidmarsh in 1968 concentrated on instruction in the use of academic libraries. After briefly tracing the historical background in Britain and America she went on to describe developments in Britain in theory and practice following the proposals of the Library Association University and Research Section in 1949 for a three‐stage user education programme. She concluded her review with a discussion of the three main problems that were then, and to a certain extent still are, hampering the spread of user education—inadequate finance, lack of timetabled time, and indifference of academic staff. Mews reviewing developments in teaching the use of books and libraries, again with reference to British academic libraries for the period 1966–70, examined courses reported during that period paying particular attention to instruction for new students and undergraduates. Trends she noted included a move to the use of audio‐visual aids and to the appointment of information officers, bringing new opportunities for person‐to‐person enquiries. Surveying current practice in 1970 Pugh noted many difficulties faced by library instruction programmes at the time. These problems were taken up by Scrivener in a significant article describing instruction in library use as a persisting problem. ‘The welter of writing shows clearly the extent of interest in the subject and equally clearly that it is a problem (or complex of problems) to which no generally accepted solutions have been found.’ In America the approaches to teaching library skills to college students have been studied by Dudley, a study which included descriptions of two accredited courses at the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses of the University of California. More recently Givens after discussing the history of the role of the library in user education studied the educational developments of the ‘sixties and the libraries’ response. He discussed the componsnets of a user education programme and the rethinking and reorganization that would be required to achieve that programme.

HIS holidays over, before the individual and strenuous winter work of his library begins, the wise librarian concentrates for a few weeks on the Annual Meeting of the Library Association. This year the event is of unusual character and of great interest. Fifty years of public service on the part of devoted workers are to be commemorated, and there could be no more fitting place for the commemoration than Edinburgh. It is a special meeting, too, in that for the first time for many years the Library Association gathering will take a really international complexion. If some too exacting critics are forward to say that we have invited a very large number of foreign guests to come to hear themselves talk, we may reply that we want to hear them. There is a higher significance in the occasion than may appear on the surface—for an effort is to be made in the direction of international co‐operation. In spite of the excellent work of the various international schools, we are still insular. Now that the seas are open and a trip to America costs little more than one to (say) Italy, we hope that the way grows clearer to an almost universal co‐working amongst libraries. It is overdue. May our overseas guests find a real atmosphere of welcome, hospitality and friendship amongst us this memorable September!

Patient process recognition and re‐engineering (PPR) has become a major concern of recent health care development and management. This paper discusses the position of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK; where it is at present and where it aims to be. It suggests that the work of the current government in developing community care is central to the work of both the Leicester Royal Infirmary and the Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust, when building relationships between primary (community) and secondary (hospital) health care provision. This paper aims to examine whether and how PPR can improve patient processes in the NHS. It does this through a case study of PPR in Peterborough Hospital.

THIS month usually sees the estimates adopted that must govern public library spending for the year to come. It is likely to be a testing time for many librarians and we look forward with much interest to their experiences this year. The international rearmament programme, which authority has told us will not radically change our economic position, must have its repercussions on all municipal activities; expansion, so badly needed and so often deferred, is not likely to come immediately. However, as we remarked last month, dismal prophecies have so often been confounded by the subsequent facts that we hope 1951 will not be an exception. The defence programme may have some Staff effects, especially if the Z reserves are called again to the Colours. There is much that we may hope and much we should plan for in the months immediately ahead.

My aim in this paper is to try to engage you in a critical evaluation of some present practice in ‘library user education’. The discussion is in three parts:

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.