Widening participation initiatives have had a noticeable effect on universities: student support services, especially at the post 1992 universities, are at a level undreamed of in the past. This has opened up the benefits of a university education to students previously excluded by social class, disability or ethnic group. One aspect of key importance to the assimilation of these students, which can be overlooked in the hurry to provide them with other kinds of more obvious support, is the need to enhance their information literacy skills. Much of this is centred on the ability to make effective use of information sources, both electronic and print. While the human-computer interface is a factor of major importance, using books continues to be needed for all, and students in particular. For some students, recruited in widening participation initiatives, a lack of a "library tradition" in the home can lead to a feeling of alienation in a large library. If widening participation initiatives, such as targeting particular electoral wards with a tradition of under-recruitment, are successful, those recruited are likely to be not only new entrants to adult education but also non-users or under-users of libraries. The author stresses that with the increasing reliance on electronic support to do all the donkey work for people, practical, useful applications for maths in general and decimals in particular, are not always easy to come up with. (Contains 1 figure and 5 notes.)