Jonathan Sims looks at the way the British Library has been redefining its role in light of the changing environment of society's information revolution. An overview of challenges from the information society and the institutional complex is followed by descriptions of how the Library is responding through content strategy and programmes for digitisation, digital preservation and web archiving. A brief look is also taken at the new social science strategy and a new content specialist role for law and socio-legal studies.

Ruth Bird considers how the facilities and services at the Bodleian Law Library will evolve in the 21st Century given its status as a member library of the Copyright Deposit Scheme, which means that whilst other libraries are shrinking their paper collections, it is still expanding them.

This article by Alvin M. Podboy of Baker Hostetler in Cleveland, Ohio, examines the future of 21st Century law librarianship from an American perspective. It reviews developing legal information trends as they affect our profession. The article melds our historical and philosophic law library foundation to our continuing professional evolution.

Peter Lake is the Managing Director of Sweet & Maxwell, a Thomson company. As part of our feature on law librarianship and legal information in the 21st Century, we arranged to interview him to ascertain his views both on the future of legal publishing and on how Sweet & Maxwell are faring in the early part of the century.

Outsourcing is now a reality for the legal profession. Sarah Fahy from Allen & Overy LLP asks how we decide its relevance for know how. Key to deciding is an objective review of our current internal practices and an appreciation of the relationships and skills necessary for compiling successful know how. Establishing a productive partnership with an outsourcing company takes commitment and investment. Success is forged through a shared vision of success from an agreed starting point.

This article by Loyita Worley examines the potential effects of outsourcing knowledge management processes in law firms and discusses the impact it may have on the firm, its information resources and the clients involved.

Jack Diggle from Prince OMC provides an overview of the world of outsourcing legal services. He explains the various methods of outsourcing and provides a glossary of the terms involved. He tells us what is happening in the UK in terms of outsourcing legal information work and explains how the concept of outsourcing began.

This article by Sally Creissen offers a thorough guide to the processes involved in selecting a library management system, from the initial consideration of whether it is really necessary to the post-implementation stages.

Victoria Jannetta explores the reasons why library and information centres need to measure performance; what activities you can measure; how to report performance to management, including looking at the Balanced Scorecard. She discusses a number of measurement tools.

The British Medical Association Library (BMA) has been through some significant changes over the past two years. As part of an organisation-wide refurbishment, Jacky Berry, now its permanent Librarian, has project managed one of these changes, the relocation of the BMA library within the existing building. Her article covers many aspects of a library move, including the design phase and working with architects and internal estates teams; the budgeting phase including negotiating finance; planning for the move and motivating staff through the change period.

Mark Stanley and Tamara Eisenschitz examine the relationship between professional support lawyers and information professionals in law firms of varying sizes. The results broadly support the hypothesis that tensions in larger firms between the two groups are less apparent. More importantly tensions are reduced where each group is doing clearly delineated work, irrespective of the firm's size. Tensions between the two groups are no longer the issue they once were, but these could reignite, especially if information professionals with legal qualifications and PSLs without fee earning experience vye for similar work. This paper recommends that to avoid frictions it is essential for law firm managers to get to grips with the nature and capabilities of these two groups and utilise them appropriately.

The purpose of this article by Peter Clinch and Ruth Bird is to outline the latest findings from the recent review of foreign law holdings in the United Kingdom, and, in Part 4, to raise key questions relating to the future of these potentially endangered resources. The authors invite the legal research community to consider the many issues of concern raised by the results of this latest FLAG survey.

Ivo Vogel brings us news of the latest areas of interest in German legal information, with a report from a recent conference entitled Legal Information in Change, held at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, including information literacy, the Virtual Law Library, copyright and catalogue enrichment.