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THE WEST RIDING COUNTY LIBRARY celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1971. Its history has already been written, and adds considerably to our understanding of the development of library services during the present century. The present study seeks to add some local detail to the story of that great library system, by following the development of one of its branches.

Introduction Recent changes in subscriptions to the Northern Regional Library System, together with certain alterations in the constitution, have led academic libraries to consider alternatives. We investigated two main factors: the cost of borrowing through the region as opposed to directly from the British Library, and the quality of service of each. No attempt has been made to estimate possible rises in postal or BLLD form charges. No administrative costs have been guessed for such things as notifying the NRLB of acquisitions and withdrawals. We have not forecast how Boston Spa would cope with extra business. Our efforts have been directed to a relatively unsophisticated comparison.

Faced with the obvious impossibility of remaining totally self‐sufficient whilst trying to maintain collections and services in difficult economic times, many librarians have turned to resource sharing as the answer to their problems. This article aims to review the ever growing field of literature on resource sharing in order to try to discover what resource sharing is, what need there is for it, what it is intended or hoped to achieve, what sort of resource sharing plans and schemes have been implemented, and in particular to try to find any evidence in the literature on the real benefits and actual costs involved in resource sharing which could be used as justification for such schemes in comparison with other methods of maximizing access to resources.

The Centre for Research on User Studies is in its simplest terms a group of people charged with the responsibility of becoming the UK national centre of expertise on user studies, a centre with the four principal and interconnected roles of research, education, advice, consultancy and information. What these imply will be made clearer in due course. First I will try to give the background to the creation of the Centre which will I hope simultaneously answer the query: ‘Why set up a user studies centre?’

A FEW YEARS AGO that small but many‐paged volume of facts called Whitaker's Almanack, published annually by J. Whitaker & Sons, celebrated its centenary. In 1974 the firm celebrated the longevity of another of its publications, British Books in Print, first published in 1874 as the Reference Catalogue of Current Literature. While many people know of the Almanack, it is mostly publishers, booksellers, and librarians who are aware of the other publications this firm has produced in the field of book‐trade bibliography in the last 116 years, publications of sufficient scope and quality to delay until quite recently the provision of a British national bibliography.

The history of interlending since 1945 is inseparable from changes taking place in the infrastructure of library and information services and from progressive innovation in communications technology. Three phases of development can be discerned. In the first interlending based on linking individual library services through the NCL/RB system and supplemented by co‐operative acquisition schemes is paralleled by the rise of a national centralized lending service to science and technology. Expansion of library services in the academic and public sectors in the second phase gives rise to co‐operative schemes including interlending to meet specific needs. The successful and progressive development of the NLLST influences traditional interlending modes and the period closes with a rationalization of the national library structure and of the public library system for the next phase of development. This takes place against growing economic restraints and is one of integration and extension of the centralized lending services of the British Library Lending Division and a reassessment of regional connections. The innovative force of computerization is taken up at regional level by LASER and nationally by the British Library Lending Division. Such developments are intrinsic to the considerations of the LISC report Working together. This will form the basis of an evolutionary approach to national co‐ordination and co‐operation in which interlending is fundamental to an access strategy of library and information services.

The BIBDEL: Libraries Without Walls Research Project is described. Details are given of two experiments carried out by researchers at Dublin City University Library as part of this project, to investigate the delivery of library services to distance education students. Each experiment examined a different scenario: delivery of library services directly to the home, and delivery via local study centres or libraries. In addition, scanning and file transfer were tested as methods of document delivery. Findings include that the delivery of library services to remote students is feasible using the current industry standard hardware and software. Scanning is also a viable technical option for document delivery, copyright restrictions being the only bar to its use.

Resource sharing is an important element in the national planning of library and information services to meet the needs of information, education and culture of the whole community at all levels. An overview of resource sharing practices is presented, with particular reference to the British scene. It is also argued that, with the approach of the Single Market in 1992, resource sharing should now be considered on a European scale. In conclusion, some problems associated with the practice of resource sharing are considered.

This paper seeks to organize the extensive field and to compile the complete list of information limits.

A thorough analysis of literature from the field beginning with the 1960s up to the present has been performed.

A universal typology of information limits has been proposed. A list of barriers mentioned in the literature of the subject has been compiled.

The term “information limits” is not commonly used.

The complete list of information limits with bibliographical hints (helpful for future research) is presented.

Thirty‐seven years as a member of the Editorial Board of a learned journal is a remarkable record in any circumstances. To have served in that capacity in a field which has undergone such rapid and spectacular development as library and information management, and to have exerted upon it a consistently constructive influence for so long, is cause for celebration beyond the normal. It is fitting, therefore, that his colleagues should offer this Festschrift issue of the Journal of Documentation to Geoffrey Woledge as a tribute not only to his part in maintaining the high academic standards which Aslib has always prescribed for its premier journal, but also to his distinguished career in librarianship which has had a lasting effect upon many aspects of our professional scene. Having worked harmoniously with him as my principal guide and mentor for some fifteen of the twenty‐eight years of my directorship of Aslib, I am delighted to be associated with this acknowledgement of his work.