Minerva's owl . . .

Glasgow University has just unveiled a new Pounds 500,000 library computer system that will increasingly allow direct electronic access to reference sources and research reports rather than citations which simply say where the material is to be found.

With a touch of lyricism, university librarian Henry Heaney says the new service will be called Merlin, "which has pleasing Arthurian as well as ornithological connotations. It conveys, we hope, a sense of magic and of purposeful flight in pursuit of prey."

And, for those who like contrived acronyms, it stands for Managing Effective Research on the Library Information Network.