N-1-2-020.20.3 Library Science by Michael Breaks*, The UK library community has recently established the UK Office for Library Networking (UKOLN), funded by a grant from the British Library. The aim of the Office is to develop a common networking strategy for the library community through a series of Workshops and conferences. Work is going on in the area of standards and in early April a Workshop organised by the UKOLN is being held to discuss the SR and Z39.50 standards with library system suppliers and is being attended by a number of US librarians. Close links are being established with the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) and at the same time, the European Community is encouraging the spread to networking technology and expertise into all twelve countries of the EC through the European Libraries Plan. This is a programme which has a number of Action Lines, one of which is the development of networked library services and systems throughout Europe. The higher education community are about to celebrate the first anniversary of the BIDS Service. This is a project which allows all sites paying the annual subscription of UK Stg 6000, to access the ISI citation databases which are mounted at Bath University. They are available to all staff and students from the 60 subscribing institutions over the JANET network from any networked terminal. This has been an extremely successful development and has had the effect of encouraging many newcomers to networks to explore further the range of networked information resources available over JANET and the Internet. The BIDS service is to be the model for further databases that will be available over the network and fits into the UK model of a centrally funded and managed network available to the academic and research community. This community, of which the library community is an integral and central part, is beginning to develop projects for the SuperJANET gigabit network, the first phase of the funding has been approved by the Government at the end of 1991. The first phase is likely to be installed early in 1993 and funding has been provided to develop pilot projects in the area of library and information services. The RFIs for the SuperJANET network have been issued to over 15 companies in the UK, following the abolition of the telecommunications duopoly (British Telecomm and Mercury) and the freeing of the market. The Joint Network Team who manage the UK's JANET network have recently provided an IP service running over the UK's X.25 network, so allowing the community with direct access to the networked information resources available in the States and the easy participation of the UK in the global network. * Librarian, Heriot-Watt University Library, Edinburgh, Scotland