since the restructuring of the reader services department (now the academic services department) of ials library in 2000 and the subsequent investment in additional staff capacity, ials library has consciously sought to develop and improve both the public training programmes delivered to researchers and the in-house training programmes provided for library staff. this article seeks to explain the key changes that took place and to describe the resulting expansion in both types of training programmes. the department was fortunate in being able to appoint gillian sands as llm services librarian in january 2001 in a move from the library's book acquisitions section and gillian quickly became an integral part of the reader services team. happily gillian's invaluable years at ials coincided with an exciting and rewarding period of expansion and innovation in the library. as in so many other areas of her work, she bought sensible practical ideas, much bubbly enthusiasm, and a great deal of hard work to help the team make these improvements to services a success.