Hot topic - Bangor wake-up call. As universities increasingly rely on the internet to provide information, some are considering cutting back on subject librarians to save money. asks if this is all a false economy?

Subject librarians at University Wales Bangor (UWB) face redundancy, as the institution looks to reduce staff costs. Proposals have been justified on the grounds that web-based content negates the need for so many subject librarians, but that point of view is far from widely shared, as IWR discovered.

UWB hopes to save [pounds sterling]300,000 from its wage bill by reducing the number of its librarians from 12 to just four. "Services must more closely match the increasingly diverse working practices of their users. We must harness the potential of new technologies," the executive board states in its consultation paper, "Proposed Restructuring of Library Provision".

UWB has been accused of relying on the internet to provide students and academics with information. But there is a wider trend.

"Subject librarians are not an expanding workforce, it has already happened elsewhere," said Toby Bainton, secretary of the Society of College, National and University Libraries (Sconul).

Bob McKee, chief executive of Cilip, describes the events at UWB as "indicative of the mis-interpretation of the role of a university librarian." Eileen Tilley, president of the Bangor AUT union branch and one of the librarians under threat, agrees. "I think there is confusion about what the library is about. We would argue that the library is not a support role."

Tilley said UWB treats the library as an administration department rather than academic, and that this perception is wrong. But this is a trend McKee has seen elsewhere, and the Bangor events appear to reinforce this view. UWB argues in its restructuring proposal that: "periodical publication is moving rapidly and inexorably towards online provision. These developments need a different kind of support."

But IWR found that most information professionals and societies believe online resources pose as many, if not more, challenges to an academic library and require specialists. "It has nothing to do with whether there is information on the net," said Alan Foster, director of information services at Keele University. "Subject librarians are important for working with staff to develop new programmes and making sure there are provisions for them, electronically or in print."