Editorial

Here is the summer 2021 issue of Legal Information Management.

LIBRARY DESIGN AND REFURBISHMENT

This issue begins with three papers relating to library design and refurbishment, the first two of which are written by academic library colleagues at law libraries in Oxford and London. Firstly, Helen Garner reviews three different building projects that have taken place at the Bodleian Law Library (BLL), Oxford, between 2010 and 2020. She describes the impact of the work and the lessons that have been learnt. David Gee looks at the ‘IALS Transformation Project’ that has been taking place at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), a part of which has been concerned with the IALS library. The work has involved re-designing and refurbishing space and facilities across the Institute. He describes how a continuity of service was managed and achieved during the project, and references feedback from readers demonstrating a high level of satisfaction among users of both the building and the library. The third article in this section is written by Amanda Saville who recently retired from the post of Librarian at The Queen's College, Oxford. Amanda's article is a summary of her experiences as the client for three major new library buildings and she offers invaluable insights and practical suggestions for a library client to consider when managing a building project.

FOCUS ON LEGAL PUBLISHERS AND SUPPLIERS

In this regular section, the focus is on Westlaw Edge UK and an article by Samantha Steer of Thomson Reuters who looks at how the service is designed to help with ‘three traits that make for an unrivalled lawyer’, or to put it another way, three qualities identified as essential to lawyers, namely – accuracy, efficiency and confidence.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

In this section, we welcome an article by Isabelle Brenneur-Garel, President of Juriconnexion and its working group, ‘Journée’. Isabelle describes Juriconnexion's annual conference which was held on 21 January 2021 by videoconference. The choice of topic was motivated by the recent Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges for, and changes in, the legal information world during the crisis. I am grateful to Renae Satterley of Middle Temple library who attended the conference, representing BIALL, and subsequently contacted Isabelle about writing for LIM.

AI, ALGORITHMS AND THE LEGAL INFORMATION WORLD

There are two articles in this section that relate to the topical subject of artificial intelligence (AI). The first article is a little longer than most of the articles that we publish in LIM but it provides an in-depth view in relation to the situation with AI in legal practice and also in relation to the legal information profession. In the article, Dominique Garingan and Alison Jane Pickard explore the concept of algorithmic literacy, a technological literacy which facilitates metacognitive practices surrounding the use of artificially intelligent systems and the principles that shape ethical and responsible user experiences. The article references many articles and works in relation to this complex subject and explores the ‘need for an algorithmic literacy framework to ground algorithmic literacy initiatives within the legal information profession.’

The second article is in large part a book review of the book, The Ethical Algorithm: the Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design written by Professors Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth, but also makes some observations that may be relevant to legal information professionals. The piece is written by Channarong Intahchomphoo and Christian Tschirhart.