Good clear links are provided to BIDS and to OCLC First Search, and there is information on the Library's CD-ROM provision. An innovation which caught my eye was its 'Reading Lists' service, which permits a keyword search of reading lists which link directly to the catalogue records of the items themselves, with the option to reserve the materials available. Students have access to Gateway from PCs within the library and from computer laboratories in departments. Training in network services for staff and research students is approached in a very structured way. The training programme is provided jointly by the Library and Computing Services, and is available to all levels of staff.
Training is provided across a range of skills levels, from beginners to advanced searching.
Unfortunately, undergradute students are not so lucky. Some of the students I spoke to in the Library knew nothing about the wider Internet access available to them and the resources which they could tap into. With 8,000 undergraduate students, it is easy to understand why training is difficult, but this is a challenge which needs to be addressed in Loughborough, as in many other universities. What the Loughborough University Gateway lacks in visual attraction it certainly makes up for in clarity of structure and in the range of resources available. The library resources on the Web portray a service which is actively looking towards the future of information services in university teaching and research, by helping its users to find the remote resources they need without sacrificing its commitment to the development of high quality local resources.