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Original message sent 21 Jan 1999. Resending it today. It seems that some of the text of the original message was gobbled up! Hope you all receive this one OK! Dear All The Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Furness General Hospital and Westmorland General Hospital have recently merged to form the Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust. Consequently the line management of the 3 site libraries is being restructured. The Trust has set up an Education and Training committee, chaired by the Trust chairman Professor Idris Williams. We have been asked to contribute our suggestions on how the libraries should be managed. One possibility the librarians have discussed is the appointment of a Trust librarian who is responsible either to an Education and Training Manager(this post is still at the drawing board stage!) or to the Trust board. Our concern is that libraries are unique within the Trust and that our voice should be heard at board level. We are keen to put forward the best possible option not just the most expedient. Have any of you recently undergone a recent management restructure either at Trust level or Library level? If any of you have any suggestions to make or experiences, positive or negative, to relate, I would be grateful for your input. In a recent newsletter the Northern Regional Librarian who is heading a Northern and Yorkshire REgional Library Advisory Service outlined a regional strategy for all LIS based upon the principles of the HSG(97)47 legislation. This strategy emphasised the importance of regional wide co-ordination with local input in the management of libraries. The Northern Regional Librarian John Hewlett, says "NHS LIS should be fully integrated into Trust and Health Authority structures, managed locally and co-ordinated regionally. It is important that local NHS management arrangements take full account of LIS staff, and that all LIS staff are in one management structure"(NEXUS: the newsletter of Health Libraries North, Number 48, Dec 1998, p.2) In view of the forthcoming appointment of our own Regional Librarian do any of you subscribe to this view or have any alternative suggestions to make? I would be interested to guage the opinions of fellow professio North West Region on the development of appropriate management structures for NHS libraries. Fiona Gorrell Westmorland General Hospital [log in to unmask] Tel: 01539 795234 Fax: 01539 795308 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%