Temporal and Georaphical Variations in Grass Pollen Seasons in Areas of Western Europe: an Analysis of Season dates at Sites of the European Pollen Information System.

Geographical and temporal variations in the start dates of grass pollen seasons are described for selected sites of the European Pollen Information Service. Daily average grass pollen counts are derived from Network sites in Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, United Kingdom, Austria, Italy and Spain, giving a broad longitudinal transect over Western Europe. The study is part of a larger project that also examines annual and regional variations in the severity, timing of the peak and duration of the grass pollen seasons. For several sites, data are available for over twenty years enabling long term trends to be discerned. The analyses show notable contrasts in the progression of the seasons annually with differing lag times occurring between southern and northern sites in various years depending on the weather conditions. The patterns identified provide some insight into geographical differences and temporal trends in the incidence of pollinosis. The paper discusses the main difficulties involved in this type of analysis and notes possibilities for using data from the European Pollen Information service to construct pan European predictive models for pollen seasons.

ILS and RTP: Support to Researchers Provided by Information and Learning Services as Part of the Research Training Programme at the University of Worcester, Past, Present and Future.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the involvement of Information and Learning Services staff in the delivery of the Research Training Programme at the University of Worcester, UK with a focus on researcher receptivity. I believe that by constantly reflecting on the development of that part of the programme delivered by ILS and by examining feedback from the sessions, it is possible to improve and increase the level of researcher receptivity. It is hoped that such examination and reflection will be of value and relevance to the IL community since by reflecting on success and failure in a local context and by mapping this reflection to existing research enables librarians to improve the support provided to researchers within their institutions. This article outlines the support given to research students at the University of Worcester in the past, examines the changes leading to present programme delivery and reflects on considerations for future support. The article is underpinned by reference to current research undertaken in international (albeit Western-centric) contexts. I note that the rationale behind changes is embedded in current adult learning and teaching theory. In an increasingly competitive research environment where funding is dependent on a statistically monitored research output, the aim of such support is to integrate any IL contribution into the wider research training programme. Thus resource discovery becomes part of the reflexive research cycle. Implicit in this investigative reflection is the desire of the IL community to constantly strive towards the positive reception of IL into research support programmes which are perceived by researchers as highly valuable to the process and progress of their work.