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This paper aims to review the challenges of urban foresight via an analytical method: apply this to the city demonstrations on the UK Foresight Future of Cities: and explore the implications for ways forward.

The methodology is based on the principles of co-evolutionary complex systems, a newly developed toolkit of “synergistic mapping and design”, and its application in a “synergy foresight” method.

The UK Foresight Future of Cities is work in progress, but some early lessons are emerging – the need for transparency in foresight method – and the wider context of strategic policy intelligence.

The paper has practical recommendations, and a set of propositions, (under active discussion in 2015), which are based on the analysis.

The paper aims to demonstrate an application of “synergy foresight” with wide benefits for cities and the communities within them.

The literature on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) shows them to be major innovators; this is confirmed with recent data, which the authors use to examine the various types of innovation that KIBS undertake. The implications for employment and work in highly innovative industries are important topics for analysis, not least because we are in a period where dramatic claims are being made as to the implications of new technologies for professional occupations. Thus, this paper aims to address major debates and conclusions concerning innovation patterns in KIBS and the evolving structures of professional and other work in these industries.

This essay combines literature review with presentation and discussion of statistics that throw light on the patterns of innovation that characterise KIBS. The authors also consider data that concern trends in the organisation of work in these industries; while the focus is mainly on KIBS firms, they also pay some attention to KIBS-like work in other sectors. Even though KIBS are distinctive industries in modern economies, these analyses can be related to more general studies of, and forecasts about, changes in work organisation.

The authors show that innovation patterns and employment structures vary substantially across different types of KIBS, with the distinction between technological, professional and creative KIBS proving to be useful for capturing these differences. The authors are also able to demonstrate important long- and medium-term trends in the structure and activities of the KIBS industries. In particular, data clearly demonstrate the increasing share of professional as against associate and clerical workers in most KIBS. Evidence also suggests that polarisation trends across the economy are mirrored, and in some cases amplified, in KIBS. The future prospects for employment in KIBS, and for professional work in particular, are seen to involve multiple factors, which together may bring about substantial change.

The study involves literature review and industry-level statistical analysis. Future work would benefit from firm-level analysis and validation and explication of results via consultation with practitioners and users of KIBS. Some puzzling variations across countries and sectors will need to be explored with national and sectoral experts.

Research into KIBS activities, and their future, should make more use of the extensive statistics on employment and other structural features of the industries that have become available in recent years. KIBS firms and practitioners will need to take account of the forces for change that are liable to restructure their activities.

The literature on KIBS has been concentrated on a rather narrow range of issues, while analysis of the current contributions and future development of the industries requires attention to a wider range of topics. This paper suggests how these topics may be investigated and their implications explored and presents results of enquiries along these lines.

The substantial growth in literature on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBSs) has thrown light on their contributions to innovation and innovation systems. This paper is the first of a set that examines major debates and conclusions to have emerged from this growing body of evidence.

This is a review essay, which also presents relevant statistics. It addresses definitional issues and controversies, and sets out basic trends and characteristics of the KIBS industries. The focus is mainly on KIBS firms, though the production of similar services in other types of organisation is also considered.

Many of the conclusions of an earlier (2005) review in this journal remain valid, though difficulties in capturing these activities in official statistics mean that there are many issues that demand closer inspection. Understanding the role and future prospects of KIBS will also require looking beyond the literature that focuses just on KIBS industries.

This study involves literature review and statistical analysis. Future work would benefit from involvement of practitioners and users of KIBS.

More explicit consideration of KIBS in statistical frameworks is still required, and novel approaches to data conceptualisation and production should be explored.

The growing literature on KIBS, and its implications for understanding the roles and future development of the firms and their relationships to innovation systems, requires systematic analysis. Available statistics have been brought together, and this paper also reflects critically on the trajectories of research on these topics.

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms focus on applying their expert knowledge to help solve the business problems of their clients: these clients confronted major new problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic and policy measures such as social distancing and travel restrictions, designed to reduce the rapid spread of the illness. Many KIBS were reliant upon extensive contact with clients, and within teams working on projects; they found their practices disrupted. This study aims to examine how KIBS are evolving to cope with both the sets of changes: those in their own operations, and those involving the emerging business problems of clients.

The main data sources are material contained in websites of a sample of leading firms in a range of KIBS sectors, and in media reports and other documentation of efforts to confront the pandemic.

The results indicate considerable efforts in KIBS to address emerging client problems, as well as to adapt their own practices. Their substantial role in confronting the pandemic and associated business difficulties has implications for future crises. KIBS are likely to be important players in shaping responses not only to future pandemics but also to the looming climate crisis.

The study demonstrates the growing role of KIBS and their “second knowledge infrastructure” in modern economies, exemplified by their role in the context of an emerging crisis.

Examines literature surrounding several issues concerning interlibrary lending (ILL). Reviews the value given to statistical analysis in ILL. Discusses the importance of acquiring documents speedily and reliably. Looks at the increasing demand for old and precious materials through ILL and whether special privileges given to researchers are justified. Finally, outlines the role of ILL for school libraries.

In an exclusive interview, the Rhodesian Premier talks to Industrial Management deputy editor Chris Phillips. Hopes for a settlement have never been better and here, with reports direct from Salisbury, the prospects for British industry if sanctions are lifted, and how the country has weathered the embargoes, are outlined.

Use of the monograph collection at Swinburne Library is reported for a six year period during which a relegation programme has been in operation. The programme has involved relocating books to stack and discarding. Loan history was the major criterion for relegation. Although 56,000 volumes have been removed from the open access collection of constant size (113,000 volumes) over the period, the number of loans from the open access collection has remained reasonably constant. There are no signs of unduly high demand for titles in the residual open access collection. There are about six calls per year for each 100 titles removed to stack. The same loan history criteria were applied to all parts of the collection in selecting titles for relocation to stack and there are few signs that inconvenience to library users has been greater in some subject areas than others. An attempt is made to estimate the effect of the stack location in itself on inhibiting borrowing. By good fortune titles have been recruited to the category of titles meeting the relegation criteria at a regular rate. The dynamics of this situation are not understood because it has not been possible to demonstrate a regular decline in borrowing with age for books in the Swinburne Library.

In England and Wales, the construction industry produces 53.5 Mt of construction and demolition waste (C&D waste) annually, of which 51 percent goes to landfill, 40 percent is used for land reclamation and only 9 percent is crushed for future use or directly recovered. C&D waste may be contaminated, either through spillage from industrial processes or contact with contaminated land. There are no guidelines on how to classify C&D waste as contaminated or on risk management for contaminated C&D waste. Research at the UK Building Research Establishment and the University of Manchester has shown that new taxes are making disposal of C&D waste to landfill uneconomic, that low grade “land‐modelling” recycling is increasing, and that disposal on‐site is preferred. Sampling spatially of structures before demolition and temporally of processed C&D waste emerging from crushers is enabling sources of contamination and exceedance of guideline values to be compared with natural background levels. Improved sampling procedures and recommendations for risk assessment for the re‐use of C&D waste are being prepared.

To judge from the published literature, recent conference topics, or any listserv where academic reference issues are discussed, reference service reforms are in the air. A steady increase in the sheer number of users seeking reference help, driven largely by the proliferation of new information technologies, has led to a questioning of the traditional structure and mission of the library reference desk. Brandeis University Libraries' approach, which has been described by Virginia Massey‐Burzio, is one example of such a reform. The essential change that the Brandeis model entailed was this: Brandeis' Main Library had included a reference desk at which one librarian at a time was assisted by one graduate student helper. Under the new model, reference services are divided in two: the graduate assistants staff an information desk, which is responsible for concerns like directional questions and quick look‐ups, while the librarians staff a research consultation office where more substantive questions are dealt with at greater length. The primary goal of this tiered approach, which we call the “research consultation model,” was to improve services to the classes of patrons who most need professional reference assistance, while also increasing professional job satisfaction in the face of the ongoing information explosion. (A more complete description of the model is given below under the heading: “Some characteristics of a research consultation model.”)