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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb045059. When citing the article, please cite: Peter Stone, (1991), “JANET: an overview for libraries”, The Electronic Library, Vol. 9 Iss: 3, pp. 174 - 175.

EARL (Electronic Access to Resources in Libraries) is a collaborative approach to establishing a national networked information and resource sharing service for public libraries in the UK. This paper provides information on the early stages of EARL during 1994 and 1995 which resulted in a pilot demonstration service being developed as a result of a scoping study. The achievements to date are then outlined and these include membership of EARL by 120 library authorities who use it to provide e‐mail facilities, creation of web pages, access to databases and the development of EARLweb which provides a gateway to a number of Internet resources likely to be of use in public libraries. The current work is described including the British Library funded project, Readiness, the work of the Task Groups and collaboration with European partners. In conclusion the challenges presented to EARL members in the future are included.

University libraries and their use of JANET (the Joint Academc Network) were the subject of a survey in March by Elizabeth Rodger, Librarian of the University of Sussex', for SCONUL's Advisory Committee on Automation Policy. Respondents were asked if and how they used the network both to access other OPACs and to send email. Those who provide OPACs on JANET were asked for details of access, service hours, catalogue coverage, and indexes provided. Replies were received from all universities in Great Britain bar six.

The Internet may well come to provide many members of the public with their best chance of access to public information. This article serves to update readers on two different approaches to assist public libraries to connect to the Internet; the Library Association Millennium Bid and Project EARL (Electronic Access to Resources in Libraries). In the first section of the article, the LA/EARL/UKOLN Public Libraries Networking Adviser reviews the exploratory Library Association Millennium Bid, the response by the Millennium Commission and the subsequent development of the new joint Library Association and Library and Information Commission bid. In the second section, she reviews the accelerating momentum of Project EARL, a consortium of 40% of UK public library authorities, and the establishment of Development/Special Interest Groups. The Millennium Bid and Project EARL seek to provide public access to the resources of the Internet, and to create new resources and services, through the UK public libraries community. Both projects have the potential to impact on public libraries into the next century and to deliver public information into the heart of every UK community.

JANET, the United Kingdom Joint Academic Network, was established in 1984 by the Computer Board for Universities and Research Councils, and is now funded by its successor, the Information Systems Committee (ISC) of the Universities Funding Council. JANET links users to the facilities of over 2000 registered computers on more than 150 sites within the UK. All universities, polytechnics, and the institutes funded by the research councils are connected, as are many other educational institutions. There is also a growing number of industrial and commercial organisations connected, all working in collaboration with members of the academic community. Of specific interest to libraries, the British Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, SLS, Blackwells and OCLC are all directly linked, and many more suppliers and utilities can be reached through gateways to other networks worldwide.

JANET(the Joint Academic Network) is a wide‐area network linking together computers and users in British universities, polytechnics, establishments of the research councils, and the British Library. It provides for interactive working, file transfer, electronic mail and job transfer. Online access is possible to many catalogues of university and polytechnic libraries, the British Library's BLAISE‐LINE and ARTel services, and various bibliographic and numeric databases held on university computers. Users registered for electronic mail can use Janet to send this kind of mail to other sites in Britain, or overseas through the EARN, BITNET, and NORTHNET combined network. There are two‐way gateways between Janet and British Telecom network PDN, allowing access to commercial online hosts in Great Britain or overseas. These gateways can provide a faster and cheaper alternative to dial‐up use of PDN.

JANET links its users to the facilities of over 250 institutions in the UK, and far more worldwide. All universities and many other higher education establishments are connected, as are many organisations associated with academic work and research.

The purpose of this conceptual chapter is to analyze the current state of the astructural bias in symbolic interactionism as it relates to three inter-related processes over time: (1) the formalization of critiques of symbolic interactionism as ahistorical, astructural, and acritical perspectives; (2) an ahistorical understanding of early expressions of the disjuncture between symbolic interactionism and more widely accepted forms of sociological theorizing; and (3) persistent and widespread inattentiveness to past and present evidence-based arguments that address the argument regarding symbolic interactionism as an astructural, ahistorical, and acritical sociological perspective. The argument frames the historical development of the astructural bias concept in an historically and socially conditioned way, from its emergence through its rejection and ultimately including conclusions about contemporary state of the astructural bias as evidenced in the symbolic interactionist literatures of the last couple of decades. The analysis and argument concludes that the contemporary result of these intertwined historical and social conditioning processes is that the astructural bias myth has been made real in practice, and that the reification of the myth of an astructural bias has had the ruinous effect of virtually eradicating a vital tradition in the interactionist perspective which extends back to the earliest formulations of the perspective. As a result, a handful of suggestions that serve to aid in reclaiming the unorthodox structuralism of symbolic interactionism and the related interactionist study of social organization are provided in the conclusion.

In January 2021, the state government of NSW, Australia, announced that all year 9 and 10 elective courses developed by schools will be phased out. This paper offers a brief historical account of school-developed board-endorsed courses (SDBECs) in NSW and a close analysis of the policy to phase them out.

I give an historical account of the meaning and place of SDBECs within the NSW school system, before situating the policy decision to phase them out within the broader historical and political context of curriculum reform in NSW. Finally, I offer an analysis of the discourses and framing of the policy both across curriculum review reports and in the government and public rhetoric, by examining policy documents, government media releases, news and blog articles at the time of the policy change.

This policy change and surrounding discourses are contextualised and analysed to show how the curriculum came to be blamed for a host of educational problems, and how the government arrived at their irrational yet politically expedient policy response by distorting the meaning of one metaphor: the crowded curriculum. I conclude with a reading of the policy as indicative of centralisation and de-legitimisation of teachers’ curriculum development work.

The convergence of state and federal discourse about curriculum as a site of cleaning up, reforming or re-organising should concern educators in Australia especially as authority over education is increasingly centralised and made vulnerable to political whim. Close studies of such minor policy decisions provide a window into how larger processes of centralisation are justified and enacted at the local level.