Question: Library Direct Services (LDS) is an organisation providing data to central and local government personnel. It maintains a database of: all laws, both statute and case law; reports of proceedings in central government; comparative data on the services provided by local government in each region of the country; and some comparative data on services provided in different countries. LDS allows access to this database 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. LDS is contractually obliged to provide this information within 30 minutes of receiving a request. All requests are received by telephone or e-mail. The existing database is accessed primarily via command line input at DOS, which the database administrators can use quickly and efficiently. Any perceived or actual decrease in the usefulness of the database will mean that the administrators are unlikely to accept the system. Over the years, a number of small but significant modifications have been made to the original ‘off-the-shelf ' database software. It is essential to retain these if the database is to be used, although the programmer who made these changes has left the company and has not been replaced. Program changes are not fully documented.