ABSTRACT
In an organizational setting, outsourcing has long been used to enable the organization to concentrate on its core business, for example by using a catering company, a printer, a PR firm or a consultant. In the legal world, even non-core legal work is now under scrutiny as law firms assess whether any of the more process-driven activities can actually be better and more cost-effectively undertaken by a specialist in the field, a Legal Process Outsourcing provider. Within law firms, the Legal Services Act opened up the legal market to competition from the business world, with alternative business models and the influx of ‘non-lawyer’ senior managers. Public libraries have long faced many of the pressures that are now facing commercial legal libraries, cost, effective services, fluctuating demand for services and ever more innovative library provision.
