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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the disconnect between policy intent and policy implementation in relation to regional/local (sub-national) TV deliverables in South Africa between 1990 and 2011, and evaluate the impact of this disconnect in pursuit of public interest objectives. Design/methodology/approach – The article is based on a research case study in which data extracted from policy documents and interviews were qualitatively analysed via the Kingdon “policy streams” framework and the Feintuck and Varney public interest media regulation framework. Findings – It was found that ruptures in deliberative policymaking, and policy implementation missteps, undermined sub-national TV delivery and, in turn, undermined pursuit of the public interest. Originality/value – By combining a political science conceptual framework with a media policy conceptual framework, the article provides unique insights into South African TV policymaking in the early democratic era.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the findings from the qualitative strand of the National e‐Book Observatory (2007‐2009) project, relating to the promotion of e‐textbooks in UK universities by the library, academics and publishers. A complementary paper on the ways in which students and academics locate e‐books provided by their library will appear in a future issue.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the provision by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK of collections of e‐textbooks, the project used deep log analysis, benchmark surveys and focus groups to develop a rich picture of library e‐collection management and use by students and academics. Focus groups were undertaken with library staff, academics and students; the dialogues were transcribed and analysed using NVivo7 software.FindingsThe qualitative studies found that libraries were using a range of promotional tools, although these were not always finding their targets. Often libraries had no formal promotion strategy for e‐resources. Although little in evidence, the value of academic commitment and promotion was emphasised. Promotion by publishers and aggregators is both to libraries and directly to academic staff. Students felt that they were largely unaware of promotion beyond the presence of e‐books in the catalogue, and in some cases stated explicitly that they thought more should be done to promote library e‐resources to them.Practical implicationsThe paper offers pragmatic guidance on promotional methodologies.Originality/valueThe project describes the first major, national usage study of e‐books in higher education. The paper contributes significantly to the literature in discussing the importance of promoting e‐books to students and staff.

Nurses and other professional caregivers are increasingly recognising the issue of moral distress and the deleterious effect it may have on professional work life, staff recruitment and staff retention. Although the nursing literature has begun to address the issue of moral distress and how to respond to it, much of this literature has typically focused on high acuity areas, such as intensive care nursing. However, with an ageing population and increasing demand for resources and services to meet the needs of older people, it is likely that nurses in long‐term care are going to be increasingly affected by moral distress in their work. This paper briefly reviews the literature pertaining to the concept of moral distress, explores the causes and effects of moral distress within the nursing profession and argues that many nurses and other healthcare professionals working with older persons may need to become increasingly proactive to safeguard against the possibility of moral distress.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to report on the findings of the CrossEd‐2 study which investigated the role of the university library in delivering information literacy skills relating to the use of e‐resources to secondary schools in the UK.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative survey of all university libraries in the UK was undertaken using an e‐mail questionnaire to identify the incidence of current collaboration. A return rate of 36 per cent was achieved, and the data provided information on the types of collaboration taking place in a total of 20 universities. These were categorized and used to select a survey population of six university libraries for the qualitative study. Data collection for the case studies was by means of face‐to‐face and telephone interviews with university librarians, using semi‐structured interview schedules.Findings – Six forms of collaboration were identified with a range of levels of information literacy skills evident. Collaboration is characteristicall...

The aim of the JUSTEIS project over the first three cycles (1999‐2002) was to examine the uptake and use of electronic information services in higher education in the UK, so that planning of services could be informed by trends in usage and evidence of specific needs. The objectives were to: examine which services were used by students and academic staff; how senior library staff planned services to purchase content and support its use; and examine how library and information services promoted services through their Web pages. Results over the three years explained the growing popularity of electronic journal services, the acceptance of the search engine model for information retrieval and the important role academic staff play in the promotion of electronic information services for student learning. Conclusions and recommendations concern the need for library and information staff to make their approach to integration of information skills into the curriculum appropriate for the discipline, the type of institution, and its strategy for implementation of any virtual or managed learning environment software.

The objective of the research reported here was to provide an opportunity to raise issues relevant to the ongoing debate on informal care of older people by exploring the attitudes of both men and women towards the care of dependent older people. The sample (n = 174) was drawn from age cohorts 20‐39 years (n = 90) and 40‐59 years (n = 84). The men and women who participated in the study were members of the general public. The self‐administered survey questionnaire was designed to examine attitudes towards the informal care of older people and to determine if men and women differ not only in attitude but also in their willingness to undertake certain aspects of care, and whether the age of the respondent was likely to be a defining factor. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS. The results established that an overwhelming majority of women demonstrated a greater willingness to provide care to a dependent older relative.

This article presents the results from a recent survey into the provision of electronic books within academic libraries in the UK. Where relevant the results are supplemented by data from two other surveys concerned with e‐book provision and electronic information services undertaken by the authors. Incidence of provision of e‐books from individual publishers and through aggregators is reported. Reasons for non‐provision and attitudes towards the medium are discussed, and issues concerned with bibliographical access are explored. The article concludes with a discussion of the role and influence of the E‐book Working Group set up by the UK body responsible for networking and electronic resources in higher and further education: the Joint Information Services Committee (JISC).

This paper, based on three recent research projects, addresses some of the issues that are central to the acceptance and integration of electronic scholarly monographs and textbooks (henceforth, referred to as e‐monographs) into the academic library. The findings suggest that the almost casual use of terms like “digital library” and “hybrid library” belies the reality of a slow acceptance of nearly all digital textual resources other than journals, and a demonstrable lack of user take up of most kinds of electronic library‐information resources.

This paper reports findings from the first annual cycle of a three‐year research project on the provision and use of electronic information systems (EIS) within higher education in the UK. The project, JISC User Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services (JUSTEIS), was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and undertaken at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UWA). Students, academics and library staff in 25 universities were surveyed using critical incident and critical success factors methodologies to ascertain the range and nature of EIS use. Provision of these systems by higher education institutions was also investigated via an analysis of their library websites. The findings reported in this paper focus on student use and the purposes for which EIS are employed, and reveal the limited array of EIS used and the ad hoc nature of search strategies adopted across undergraduate and postgraduate bodies within a range of disciplines. There appears to be little or no variation in the pattern of EIS use by the various student groups studied – the effect of the Internet on information seeking by students is hugely significant and the more formal resources, such as JISC‐negotiated resources are little used. There is little evidence of coherent search strategies used by students. Recommendations for both the JISC and higher education are offered.

The literature on electronic publishing reveals that scant attention has been paid to the area of scholarly monographs. This paper reports on a study into the nature and provision of electronic scholarly monographs and textbooks in the UK. Following a brief description of the methodology, publishing structures are reviewed; the physical characteristics of electronic scholarly monographs are analysed, and issues associated with access are discussed. The final section sets out areas for future work. The study reported on here was a supporting study for the UK Electronic Libraries (eLib) Programme.

Looks at the implications of electronic scholarly monograph publishing for authors, publishers and readers. It stems from original research undertaken by the authors in 1998 as part of the JISC Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib). Since the formal completion of the work both authors have remained active in the area and have monitored new developments. The project included a comprehensive literature search and review; a survey of UK and international publishers of electronic monographs by means of an interrogation of their Web sites, and case studies conducted with selected UK publishers. A separate investigation of the publishers of national bibliographical sources and services was also undertaken, and UK university libraries were surveyed by means of an e‐mail questionnaire. Offers a description of the structure of electronic monograph publishing, including the roles of the various parties involved in the publishing process, and addresses such issues as provision, costing, authoring and editorial responsibilities and challenges. An analysis of the issues associated with the characteristics of Web monographs is provided, together with a delineation of the nature of narrative content, added value components, subject orientations and quality control. Concludes with a brief consideration of some of the challenges that confront the user of electronic scholarly monographs, including issues of access.

A recent Ariadne article on review service resource evaluation by Anagnostelis et al. (1997) ended with a reference to the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) and added that while PICS controls neither the publication nor the distribution of information, it offers ‘individuals and organisations the option of filtering out or filtering in selected views of networked information.’ There then followed a reference to the Centre for Information Quality Management (CIQM) and its proposal to use PICS filtering in order to allow users to set constraints on the minimum quality of resources retrieved (Armstrong 1997). This article seeks to amplify this basic idea.

Following a brief introduction to the history of online and online training, this article surveys current training from the point of view of the trainers, the trainees and the media. The final section deals in depth with computer‐assisted instruction for online searching with examples drawn from a number of available packages. Some of the techniques, such as self‐testing and search simulations, as well as the advantages of this method of instruction are discussed.

By the end of 1992 the countries of Europe will work as one market; this means that whatever barriers to trading exist now — legal, fiscal, linguistic or economic — should then be removed. By 1992 too, the European Commission DG X111 will establish a European internal information services market. The effects of this unification are not easily perceived, perhaps chiefly because it is difficult to view the current European information industry as a whole, spread as it is between large numbers of information vendors and information providers in a range of countries. The same databases are available from different vendors and comparison is made difficult by the various pricing structures and the variety of access routes, software facilities and contractual limitations which different hosts affect.