1984 has turned out to be a very interesting and instructive year. I was given a special assignment, the essence of which was that I should do things to consolidate and extend Aslib's capability in the field of information management, following its change of name.

This paper was written in response to an invitation to give a talk on how to make information services cost‐effective. Its basic message is ‘use the systems approach’, but my aim will be to express this in practical rather than abstract terms. It will be based to a large extent on...