----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Shirley: As one who has seen your meta-database I would like to add my voice in broad support of your approach to the management and control of the rapidly expanding digital datasets and programs. Your problem appears the reverse of the more usual story of the *passive* map librarian/curator who's service could be deemed expendable when resources are stretched, or could be simply subsumed within a GIS function. Two practical solutions I might suggest are: 1) Monitor the use of your system. This need not be excessively bureaucratic, something along the lines of a 'tick box' for varying classes of user and data accessed, for example: Nature of enquiry: |Enquiry satisfied? |Comments? |Yes/No/Partially | ============================ |====================|============== Staff - personal | | - teaching | | - research | | Student - personal | | - assignment | | - final year project | | Non-dept staff | | External student reader | | General public | | Just a first thought! If you could incorporate such data into a wider monitoring for the whole library use then so much the better - this will help maintain a higher ratio of useful information content to bureaucratic activity. 2) Try and find one member of staff sympathetic to your approach and work with him/her to develop a demonstrably workable system. Just delete everybody else's files (only joking!). Best of luck - has anybody else used more sophisticated self-monitoring to justify their activities? Philip Guest Carto-bibliographic project University of Manchester