Season's greetings and welcome to the last issue of Legal Information Management (LIM) for 2018.
SELECTION OF PAPERS FROM THE 49TH ANNUAL BIALL CONFERENCE 2018
As usual, at this time of year, we reflect on a successful annual conference earlier in the year. This time BIALL's Annual Study Conference and Exhibition took place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole between Thursday 7th and Saturday 9th June and the theme of the conference was Designing our future: debate, develop, deliver.
With that theme in mind the first two papers represented here in LIM concern library design matters. The keynote speech was delivered by Gemma John, founder and director of Human City, a spatial strategy consultancy, based in London. She explores the transformation of offices and libraries as workspaces, and the place of offices in the library and of libraries in the office. Her presentation, and therefore her article that has followed, focuses on how both offices and libraries are being designed for productivity as the boundary between work and home begins to blur in the UK. There follows an article by Karen Latimer, of Queen's University Belfast, which examines the changing typology and current trends in library building design that help planners to envisage the future library and make informed decisions about design. Both these articles stretch far beyond the law library world but they remain relevant to the development of all library and information services within the design environments in which they sit. Following on from these articles, Timonie Green and Diane Miller write from the commercial sector on The Library in an Agile World: Case Studies from Gowling WLG and Withers LLP. They look at the ideas behind agile and activity based on two case studies.
Barry Vickery, previously of InfoTrack, writes, in the first of two articles for this LIM, about the changing role of technology in a range of different markets, and shows how different management styles, attitudes and strategies have created very different outcomes for those respective companies. From the academic world, three law librarians from the United States, Brian Detweiler, Kimberly Mattioli, and Mike Martinez, Jr., discuss their successes and failures in reaching out to the student populations in their different institutions, creating and evaluating various student-centred instructional programmes and establishing a strategic plan to meet the needs of millennial law students. Ann Hemming and James Wilkinson having written an article entitled The Legal Career (R)Evolution and Mentoring Through Technology. They consider lawyers’ training and BIALL members’ role in the landscape being reshaped by legal technology. Claire Fox's article, called (Business) Planning for the Future shares tools and techniques to help with business planning. It focuses on sharing real life knowledge and experience, with practical tips for developing a business plan.
FOCUS ON LEGAL PUBLISHERS AND SUPPLIERS
In the section, ‘Focus on legal publishers and suppliers’, Barry Vickery offers a second article for this issue and writes in relation to InfoTrack: the rise and rise of disruption. Barry discusses the world of technology and how, by understanding the blend of law firms’ needs, customer insight and technology, InfoTrack are disrupting the legal market.
CURRENT INTERESTS
The final article in this issue is written by Liz Murray, Information Resources Manager at IALS, who interviews Claudia Holland, the new Head of the Library of the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Law. The interview discusses the strengths of this major international, comparative private law library and considers the balance between providing electronic access to law resources while still maintaining an excellent legal print collection.
BOOK REVIEW AND CURRENT AWARENESS
A book review is also contained in this issue written by Mandy Webster of Browne Jacobson LLP and, as is customary, this issue of LIM concludes with the current awareness section compiled by Katherine Read and Laura Griffiths.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank all of our contributors for their submissions to the autumn issue of LIM. Continuing thanks go to our colleagues at Cambridge University Press, our publisher, and to the members of the LIM Editorial Board, in particular the chair of the committee, Loyita Worley, and the team of proof-readers for their continuing support and dedication.
