The keynote speaker at this year’s ARLIS/UK & Ireland conference in Manchester struck a sobering note and used language and concepts depressingly familiar to those of us working in higher education (HE). Jan Wilkinson, the University Librarian at the University of Manchester and director of the world-famous John Rylands Library, made two confessions to conference delegates. The first was that the majority of subjects at her university no longer had specialist librarians and the second was that she did not feel a great attachment to the profession. From a marketing background, Jan was perfectly attuned to the idea of HE as a business. Whilst she made valid points about the need for librarians to be more strategic in their approach and for university libraries to be seen as an essential component of the competitive edge of the university, I am sure I was not alone in feeling depressed at the lack of value attached to specialist knowledge and collections.