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To give an overview of recent advances in thinking on disability issues in libraries, with a particular emphasis on Scottish initiatives.

A summary of recent professional trends.

That service provision in this regard has improved significantly in recent years, but that there is still capacity for further advance.

A descriptive account of past and present trends which only points to theoretical and research implications to be developed elsewhere.

This opinion piece gives some clear and practical concepts which can illuminate the background to disability provision in modern libraries.

This editorial briefly sketches the legislative underpinning to advances in the area of library disability service provision, but points out the role of the customer service values inherent in the library profession which should not be underestimated as a contributing factor to this story of improvement. And in particular, this editorial emphasises the need to focus on the human rather than the technological side of this subject.

Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities received funding from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council to investigate the collaborative provision of library services between the two institiutions. The investigation was, initially, in the area of engineering. The GAELS Project (Glasgow Allied Electronically with Strathclyde) ran between June 1999 and June 2001. An audit of existing information services which demonstrated that perceived information needs of researchers in both engineering faculties did not match the actual needs. Engineering researchers had low use of traditional library services and preferred electronic services. An overlap study of periodicals holdings between the two institutions found duplication in periodicals holdings of around £70,000 per annum. A series of document delivery trials was initiated, including local document delivery between the two sites, a commerical document delivery service for one research group, and a wholly electronic service to the desktop for bioengineers at Strathclyde University. The trials’ findings are presented along with outcomes, both actual and projected, for future collaboration.

Evaluates the evidence for and against the effectiveness of electronically delivered information literacy programmes in comparison with personal contact teaching. Shows that computer‐aided learning approaches to user education have great strengths but also undeniable weaknesses. The way to promote higher levels of information literacy in the electronic library environment is to increase the levels of computer‐led delivery, as long as this is done in such a way as to maximise the strengths of the format. This is best done in the context of an integrated virtual learning environment (VLE). Such an environment would promote information literacy synergistically as one of a suite of multiple electronic literacies that can be learnt alongside each other. Exploiting a VLE in this way would also facilitate the integration of information literacy into the broader curriculum. Computer‐based user education to date could be viewed as having been constrained by a need to imitate well‐established, tutor‐delivered user education methods. Without an ambitious programme of integration into larger scale e‐learning models, this pattern of constraint will continue.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the question of whether modern digital information technologies damage their users' cognitive capacities in some way, and to speculate on how librarians should adapt their services as a consequence of the controversy surrounding this question.

The paper reviews some recent literature on this subject, combined with an examination of the role played by technology, librarians and government in determining the nature of our society's response to problematic aspects of the use of digital, internet‐based applications in education.

The paper finds that highly differentiated and highly polemical attitudes to this subject mean that librarians have to acknowledge the existence of important challenges to the apparent consensus about the way information technologies should be used in education in Western societies. This has important consequences for the approach to collection building (the balance between digital versus print provision), for library building design, and for the value which should be placed on systematic information literacy teaching. The existence of such an important debate should also embolden information professionals to make their own insights into these issues more widely known.

Some of the findings in this paper are amenable to further development through practitioner‐oriented research; however, the bulk of the content used for this paper is derived from the literature on this topic, so there is no original research data presented to back up the assertions made by the author. It is simply an account of a debate which has to be acknowledged by librarians.

The implications of the issues under discussion in the paper are presented in clear practical terms, and the consequences for library management made explicit.

The clash between two different theories of learning and information provision is debated and the links with issues of government policy are explored. The social connections between education and wealth generation are brought into this debate.

The paper provides a useful, up‐to‐date briefing on recent controversial issues in education, information management and socio‐economic policy making.

The purpose of this paper is to give a working librarian's view of the role of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and make some suggestions about how effective it is from the perspective of practice with a view to justifying its role in terms of recent policies introduced by national government in the UK.

The author sketches some of the broader government initiatives that affect this area and combines this sketch with commentary from the arena of information practice, in order to sum up the case for and against the value of JISC.

In balance, this paper finds the evidence for the beneficial impact of JISC's work to be quite compelling, but also argues that there is a lack of awareness of how strong this case is at practitioner level. At a time when all public services are under strong financially led scrutiny, this lack of appreciation at practitioner level is of some concern.

This is a brief and selective account of one particular sphere of JISC's workings. In order to make the case more effectively, a broader investigation could be carried out, but with the requirement that the findings should be focussed on practical outcomes and benefits that are well understood by information professionals working in everyday library and information environments.

This account tries to make clear in straightforward and practical terms what the larger specific benefits of introducing federated access into the UK university community have been.

This paper gives a double viewpoint on its topic, combining a high‐level view of national information management issues from the government perspective, with a practice‐led view of the same issues.

The purpose of this paper is to form one of a series which will give an overview of so‐called “transformational” areas of digital library technology. The aim will be to assess how much real transformation these applications are bringing about, in terms of creating genuine user benefit and also changing everyday library practice.

An overview of the present state of development of the electronic book (e‐book), looking at perceptions in the popular press, statistical data from reputable sources, recent findings from the publicly funded quango Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), consultants funded by JISC, individual comment from well‐informed writers and observations from contemporary library practice.

The paper finds that the e‐book has not proven itself as a transformational technology in the context of library services, nor as a consumer product to be sold directly to end users. It does have the potential to be so, if certain problems related to usability, business models and library finding tools are addressed.

This paper does not engage in a research level investigation of the subject, but does acknowledge and support JISC's recommendations for future research, while putting these into the context of everyday library practice.

This paper outlines some of the practical challenges faced by librarians in the implementation of e‐book services. These are not always sufficiently acknowledged by publicly funded research that takes place away from the arena of everyday practice.

The approach in this investigation is to present the broader possibilities of e‐book services in a way that is both familiar to library practitioners, and which favourably contrasts the insights and perspectives of the working library profession with those of the higher profile popular press or generously funded research community.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which library and information science (LIS) issues have been handled in the formulation of recent UK Higher Education policy concerned with research quality evaluation.

A chronological review of decision making about digital rights arrangements for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), and of recent announcements about the new shape of metrics‐based assessment in the Research Excellence Framework, which supersedes the RAE. Against this chronological framework, the likely nature of LIS practitioner reactions to the flow of decision making is suggested.

It was found that a weak grasp of LIS issues by decision makers undermines the process whereby effective research evaluation models are created. LIS professional opinion should be sampled before key decisions are made.

This paper makes no sophisticated comments on the complex research issues underlying advanced bibliometric research evaluation models. It does point out that sophisticated and expensive bibliometric consultancies arrive at many conclusions about metrics‐based research assessment that are common knowledge amongst LIS practitioners.

Practical difficulties arise when one announces a decision to move to a new and specific type of research evaluation indicator before one has worked out anything very specific about that indicator.

In this paper, the importance of information management issues to the mainstream issues of government and public administration is underlined. The most valuable conclusion of this paper is that, because LIS issues are now at the heart of democratic decision making, LIS practitioners and professionals should be given some sort of role in advising on such matters.

This paper is the final one in a series which has tried to give an overview of so‐called transformational areas of digital library technology. The aim has been to assess how much real transformation these applications can bring about, in terms of creating genuine user benefit and also changing everyday library practice.

The paper provides a summary of some of the legal and ethical issues associated with web 2.0 applications in libraries, associated with a brief retrospective view of some relevant literature.

Although web 2.0 innovations have had a massive impact on the larger World Wide Web, the practical impact on library service delivery has been limited to date. What probably can be termed transformational in the effect of web 2.0 developments on library and information work is their effect on some underlying principles of professional practice.

The legal and ethical challenges of incorporating web 2.0 platforms into mainstream institutional service delivery need to be subject to further research, so that the risks associated with these innovations are better understood at the strategic and policy‐making level.

This paper makes some recommendations about new principles of library and information practice which will help practitioners make better sense of these innovations in their overall information environment.

The paper puts in context some of the more problematic social impacts of web 2.0 innovations, without denying the undeniable positive contribution of social networking to the sphere of human interactivity.

This paper raises some cautionary points about web 2.0 applications without adopting a precautionary approach of total prohibition. However, none of the suggestions or analysis in this piece should be considered to constitute legal advice. If such advice is required, the reader should consult appropriate legal professionals.

Recent areas of digital library innovation, such as digital rights management, have led librarians to apply risk management (RM) principles to certain circumscribed areas of library management. This paper will attempt to argue that RM principles can in fact be applied much more generally in modern library administration.

A conceptual paper based on abstract principles of RM.

That different approaches to RM apply in digital librarianship, as opposed to traditional, print‐based library work. Also, that different models of “RM” can be used at the level of the employee in contrast to the global perspective of the organisation as a whole.

Because this is a conceptual piece, there is ample room for further experimental testing of these hypotheses.

This paper rejects some of the principles of RM that are less relevant to the “people management” problems of hybrid (print‐electronic) library administration. It offers an abstract statement of RM principles that should be of genuine practical usefulness to middle managers helping staff cope with the problems of “mixed media”, hybrid library environments.

This paper relates ideas from general business RM to practitioner librarianship in ways that have not been attempted previously.