The focus group discussion with the interview team of 18 post-graduate LIS students revealed important insights into staff development issues. Staff want training at the moment of need. Staff want training which is specific to their information needs. They do not want generic training or to learn network skills for IT sake. Staff who do not have office Internet access claim they need this before training.
Staff prefer to be self-taught and to have easy guides for reference.
Staff want a colleague 'down the hall' who will be there for a question if they have a problem. Staff should be represented on teams developing training models. TAPin librarians were asked what training they needed. They indicated a need in Internet skills including search engines, discussion lists, document delivery and electronic journals. Because the librarians needed this training before they could be expected to develop support models, the first year of TAPin included a librarians' training programme.