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The classics will circulate wrote a public librarian several years ago. She found that new, attractive, prominently displayed editions of literary classics would indeed find a substantial audience among public library patrons.

Previous revolutions, the Agrarian and Industrial, are examined and their features compared with the Information Revolution. Lessons are drawn from the comparison and a range of global issues identified. The nature of the Internet is considered and its pretensions argued to be inflated. The role of the state in developing an information society is discussed. A national information policy is identified as a feature and its application in and implications for Scotland are considered. Key features of an Internet culture are indicated and discussed, with lessons and conclusions for social development within the information society presented.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON would have delighted in the deep irony of his own idle words, penned in a letter to William Archer in October 1887. His early death in Samoa, itself a symbolic reflection of an incredibly romantic life, short but full of incident and perfectly constructed for journalistic highlighting, inspired a spate of fulsomely admiring biographical studies which at one time threatened to obscure his true talent. Essay upon essay, book after book, some merely appreciative, some approaching adulation, poured from the presses until literary criticism proper was engulfed in a myth of quite extraordinary dimensions.

TO WRITE that Robert Louis Stevenson in his books and essays draws deeply upon his own experiences to an unusual degree would be commonplace, but it is precisely because of this characteristic that we are able to catch a glimpse of the early beginnings of the library finally established at Vailima on the island of Upolu in the Samoas, where Stevenson's restless wanderings at last came to an end. Almost incredibly, some of his own childhood books, together with many inherited from his father and grandfather, were shipped half way across the world to Samoa. There they were varnished against the tropical humidity to form the nucleus of his library.

IN SAMOA seventy‐five years ago this December, Robert Louis Stevenson died far away from his ‘hills of home’. Samoa has chosen to commemorate this occasion with a special issue of postage stamps, each one carrying a head of Stevenson and scenes from some of his well known books. From Treasure Island, Long John Silver is shown hurrying up the beach with his parrot, Captain Flint, on his shoulder, while the schooner, Hispaniola, is lying at anchor in the background with sails furled, flying the Jolly Roger. From Kidnapped, Alan Breck is seen striding over the moors on a stormy evening with David Balfour in the distance. From Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mr Hyde is shown walking out into the foggy night while Dr Jekyll drinks the evil potion. From Weir of Hermiston, Archie Weir and Christina Elliott are seen meeting at the Weaver's Stone.

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!

UKOLN (the UK Office of Library and Information Networking) has created a Web resource based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel Treasure Island in order to explore how a children's library can integrate the Internet into its services. The site is at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/treasure. Visitors to the site can learn more about the book, contribute book reviews, design a pirate and wander around a virtual Treasure Island.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the hidden social worlds of competent clandestine users of drugs controlled within the confines of the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which now includes NPS substances. The authors explore how and in what way socially competent drug users differ from others who are visible to the authorities as criminals by criminal justice bureaucracies and known to treatment agencies as defined problem drug users.

This qualitative research utilises a bricoleur ethnographic methodology considered as a critical, multi-perspectival, multi-theoretical and multi-methodological approach to inquiry.

This paper challenges addiction discourses and, drawing upon empirical evidence, argues the user of controlled drugs should not be homogenised. Using several key strategies of identity management, drug takers employ a range of risk awareness and risk neutralisation techniques to protect self-esteem, avoid social affronts and in maintaining untainted identities. The authors present illicit drug use as one activity amongst other social activities that (some) people, conventionally, pursue. The findings from this study suggest that punitive drug policy, which links drug use with addiction, crime and antisocial behaviour, is inconsistent with the experience of the participants.

Due to the small sample size (n=24) employed, the possibility that findings can be generalised is rendered difficult. However, generalisation was never an objective of the research; the experiences of this hidden population are deeply subjective and generalising findings and applying them to other populations would be an unproductive endeavour. While the research attempted to recruit an equal number of males and females to this research, gendered analysis was not a primary objective of this research. However, it is acknowledged that future research would greatly benefit from such a gendered focus.

The insights from the study may be useful in helping to inform future policy discourse on issues of drug use. In particular, the insights suggest that a more nuanced perspective should be adopted. This perspective should recognise the non-deviant identities of many drug users in the contemporary era, and challenge the use of a universally stigmatising discourse and dominance of prohibition narratives.

It is envisaged that this paper will contribute to knowledge on how socially competent users of controlled drugs identify and manage the risks of moral, medical and legal censure.

The evidence in this paper indicates that drug use is an activity often associated with non-deviant, productive members of the population. However, the continuing dominance of stigmatising policy discourses often leads to drug users engaging in identity concealment within the context of a deeply capitalist Western landscape.