The UK's legal deposit libraries play a crucial role in ensuring the country's intellectual and literary output is systematically captured for the use and enjoyment of readers, listeners, and researchers, now and in the future. This article, by Kieran Lee Marshall and Kate Faulkner, summarily examines the legislation that underpins that scheme – the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 and Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations 2013. Over three parts, it explores the historical development of legal deposit in the UK; its operation in the context of the modern deposit library – using a university library as its primary paradigm; and considers ways in which the current law and policy may be developed to better support deposit libraries, the information professionals that run them, and the library and archive users who greatly depend upon barrier-free access to deposited resources. It concludes by outlining three areas on which prospective reform may focus.

In this article Aileen Johnson, Head of Knowledge at Charles Russell Speechlys, describes the process of creating a knowledge strategy for a law firm. Simon Heatley, a Knowledge Development Lawyer in Charles Russell Speechlys' Disputes team, comments on this at a practice area level. Although drafted from a law firm perspective, this process could be adapted and replicated in other organisations.

Adoption of legal technology within law firms has seen a significant increase in recent years with the current necessity for seemingly indefinite remote working only adding to the need for technology solutions to keep legal workflows running. In light of this, legal technology purchases will undoubtedly see a further increase and a well conducted proof of value is crucial to making the right investment decision. This article is based on a talk given by Eleanor White at the BIALL Knowledge Management SIG in November 2018. It establishes the difference between a proof of concept and proof of value and elaborates on some key principles to consider during each phase of the latter. From the preparation and planning through to the running of the evaluation and the resulting decision-making process, this article addresses how to get the most out of the proof of value opportunity.

In recent years there has been an explosion of new ‘legal tech’ solutions on the market claiming to solve almost every problem or improve the efficiency of almost any process in a law firm. Alongside these new legal tech vendors are the traditional legal vendors offering enterprise solutions, and it can be challenging to identify, select and implement the right mix of solutions to solve your law firm's knowledge management (KM) needs. If you are thinking about or have been asked to introduce a new KM solution, it can be difficult to know where to get started, especially if you are in this position for the first time. This article, by Richard Tomlinson, explores some techniques and methodologies picked up over several years working in legal technology in big-law, to help you select and implement the best technology solutions for your firm.

Developing an enquiries tracking database can provide library services managers with data about how their services are being used and by whom. The software should to be configured to the requirements of the individual team in order to provide actionable data to help predict future needs and connect users with the right services. This article, written by Jas Breslin, follows one firm's journey to identify and roll-out a new research tracking system, Quest, under tight time constraints.

In this article Michael Maher writes about the declining print needs for law libraries within UK law firms in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The article begins by looking at the initial financial impact Covid-19 had across UK law firms. The second part of the article covers how home-working patterns have become the preferable option to working in the office. Finally, the author takes a change management approach, addressing what information professionals need to do to best manage and embed the change so as to continue to play a key part of the future, post-pandemic, law firm business.

This article by the LexisNexis Segment Marketing team explains the approach, methodology and findings of the LexisNexis Gross Legal Product (GLP) report, first presented at the BIALL's Virtual Conference in June 2020. The GLP is a quantitative measure of underlying demand for legal services in the UK, comprised of 250 individual metrics which serve as proxies for legal activity. The article outlines the methodology and sources used to build the GLP; headline findings for Q2 2020 YTD; and provides suggestions for how firm leaders and knowledge professionals could use the information in their work. The GLP Q2 model found that demand for legal activity has declined by 7% since the start of 2020.

The Squire Law Library has designed and run a series of popular escape room-style events, aimed at masters and undergraduate law students. Intended to prompt students to explore the full range of legal resources available to them, the games typically challenge participants to open a locked safe: relying on legal databases, the library catalogue and print materials to decipher a six-digit combination. This article, based on Lizz Edwards-Waller's presentation at the BIALL (virtual) conference 2020, reflects on the practicalities of running and promoting code-breaking events within the library and considers the benefits of this style of event in addition to, or instead of, more traditional law library orientation tours.

The following article began life as a ten-minute presentation titled ‘Building student engagement brick by brick; using Lego® Serious Play® to explore subject engagement in HE’, presented at BIALL's 2020 virtual conference on 12 June 2020. Since 2016 I have been incorporating Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) within my practice as an academic librarian at Middlesex University. This article will explore how I have embedded LSP into workshops with students and staff, the tactics employed to gain acceptance for using LSP within academic settings and offering some tentative predictions on whether playful approaches will be successful in the current Higher Education (HE) landscape, dominated as we currently are by virtual learning and screen technologies.

In this article Peter Kargbo describes the impact of the first national lockdown, due to Covid-19, on students using the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton. He describes some of the ways that library services responded and looks at some aspects concerning collection development. He begins his article by taking a brief look at life in the library for students prior to the arrival of the pandemic before describing the period that followed up to the end of the academic year in summer 2020.