Jas Breslin gives a brief overview of how email discussion forums can be used by information professionals and information providers to enrich and enhance relationships.

The Committee on Relations with Information Vendors (CRIV) is one of thirty-seven committees organized under the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). The purpose of CRIV is to facilitate communications between information vendors and the members of the Association by monitoring complaints and providing constructive suggestions to vendors of legal information. The Committee also serves to educate AALL member librarians on helpful ways to communicate with information vendors. This article by Rob Myers provides a brief history of CRIV, outlines the Committee's organisation and structure, discusses its activities in pursuit of its charge, and outlines its goals for the immediate future.

This article by Shaunna Mireau contains a brief update on the activities of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Vendor Liaison Committee and shares the unique features of the relationships between Canadian law librarians and the vendor community.

Because the focus of most of the themed articles in this issue of LIM is vendor relations from the point of view of the customer, it seemed sensible to allow the legal publishers to present their own views of relations with their customers to the readership, via a short survey carried out by BIALL's Legal Information Group.

David Percik, Chair of the BIALL Legal Information Group traces the history of this award, which was presented for the first time to Wildy's at the BIALL Conference in June 2010.

In June 2010 the first BIALL Supplier of the Year award was made to Wildy & Sons Ltd, following a survey of BIALL members. The chair of the Awards and Bursaries Committee at the time of the award was Susan Scorey. Some time after the event she talked to John Sinkins, Managing Director of Wildy's, about the award and customer relations more generally.

Julie Kitchen is a law librarian with many years experience of working for law firms large and small. In this article she provides an account of her personal experiences with vendors over the years and offers some suggestions for helping to improve the relationship.