The Library serves 300 staff and students and deals with around 4,000 enquiries per year, some 3,000 of these being from staff. ER said that she logged everything, even finding a book. Key developments over the last five years have been the increasing role of technology within the library, in particular Sydneyplus and the Internet. User training has been necessary as a result. The change to agency status has had little impact.
Recent developments relate to changing pressures on government libraries.
JR talked about the capital generated at FBA and how she sees the service provided by the library as being an increasingly vital resource. JR commented that income generated did not benefit the library, but was passed on to the Treasury. National Marine Biological Library currently has 12,000 serial titles, between 10 and 16,000 books with complete runs of all marine journals. This was discussed in some depth around the table and some useful points were made. DM talked about an EU Directory project linking CCMS libraries at Plymouth, Bidston and Oban.