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This article presents the findings of a small-scale study undertaken at a UK university. The purpose of the research was to investigate the perceived impact and value of the Academic Library Liaison service at the university. This was considered to be a critical issue of concern, in the light of drivers threatening the UK higher education library sector to de-professionalize-or worse, remove such services. A mixed methods approach was adopted, combining an online questionnaire disseminated to academic staff, resulting in 29 responses from three academic departments and in-depth interviews with eight members of academic staff. The results indicate that although academic staff do value the service provided by Academic Liaison Librarians (ALLs), there is scope to increase awareness of the range of services on offer. The study also demonstrates that academic staff prioritize the contribution that ALLs can make through the possession of in-depth subject knowledge, IT skills and well-developed communication skills, and the provision of advice on copyright matters and assistance with institutional repositories. This holds implications for curriculum design on the part of LIS educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a day in the life of Phil Adams, Senior Assistant Librarian at De Montfort University in Great Britain. He comments on choosing a discovery tool and integrating it into the larger library infrastructure and mentions looking into different digital preservation avenues that would provide library users with access to digital content. He talks about curating the electronic newsletter The Digitalpreservation Daily at http://paper.li which presents news on digital preservation.