A fundamental role of the university library has long been recognised as the provision of safe custody and the assurance of measured access to the wealth of published scholarship. Traditionally, the library has been synonymous with a collection of books, although an effective twenty-first century library service is more likely to be defined by the extent to which it enables access to information in non-print formats, particularly that which is accessible by electronic means. Yet, whilst the utility of the university library has extended conspicuously to the provision – and interpretation – of digital resources, including most recently the installation of repositories for the preservation and dissemination of research papers, its principal focus has remained upon items or objects that one may consider in some way to have been published, whether in printed or electronic form.