This publication is a summary of the first week of the training workshops, containing the amended versions of the lecture notes prepared by two resource persons from the British Library's Environmental Information Service, namely John N. Sweeney together with Nigel Lees in 1993 and with Dr. Paula Owen in 1995. Although most of the examples mentioned in the chapters concentrate on environmental information matters as encountered in Africa, Asia or the Pacific today, they are also applicable in other world regions.