Cataloguers, classifiers and indexers descended on Hereford, to a gathering which held out the promise of summer and an opportunity to reflect.

Monica Blake, author of Teleworking for Library and Information Professionals, has been a teleworker for 20 years, got us thinking about what teleworking is, and, perhaps, is it for use? An accepted definition of teleworking is "working at a distance from one’s employer or client, generally using IT resources". It has taken off with the improvements in new technology, and there are pros and cons for all concerned, professional and social isolation being a case in point, but freedom of choice wins hand down for the teleworker!

Saturday started bright and early with Moira Greenhalgh and Judith Hibbins giving us honest views on how teleworking works for them. All three explained what type of people they were and the characteristics they felt you needed to work at home as an editor, indexer and abstracter: they integrate employment with the rest of their lives. They stressed the importance of conferences, journals and professional organizations, closing with a warning on the freedom of choice issue: it could be freedom to work yourself to death.

Having reflected, we then embarked on the practitioner part. Mark Miller, a teacher of English and drama until five years ago, and now a generalist indexer, had us working at indexing exercises. Whether or not we have the characteristics of indexers, cataloguers and indexers are on the same side, aiming to "make it as simple and clear as possible for the reader to find what they want". Mark Miller also raised the issue of giving the name of the indexer at the top of the index. Do we really want to have our cataloguing attributed to us? Brian Hillyard, in a later session, was clear that he didn’t want his cataloguing scrutinized by researchers in years to come.

Sunday morning was intended to give an insight into thesauri and electronic records, by providing information on the National Electronic Library for Health, the government’s Information Asset Register, and cataloguing rare books in the age of the Internet.

Ben Toth, Information and Knowledge Specialist at the NHS Information Authority, and Maewyn Cumming, Information Manager at HMSO, both identified the problems we have and will continue to have with unknown, dynamic and mutating electronic or unpublished materials. Ben Toth was concerned with creating access to self- indexing XML [extensible mark-up language - Ed] full-text documents, whereas Maewyn Cumming’s project was expecting to create metadata records of what was available, rather than access to full-text documents (unless they happen to be on the Web already).

Metadata and XML popped up throughout their presentations: as a sector, we must ask whether these are a threat - "let’s not go out there to meet them" - or an opportunity - "let’s ask them in". The thought of being called a "Metadata Engineer" didn’t inspire all of us with enthusiasm.

Brian Hillyard, Head of Rare Books at the National Library of Scotland, used the last session of the conference to talk about the challenge of the Internet, the increasing demand for more information on using it, and its ability to spread incorrections and misinformation.