This is a revised version of a paper given by John Sibbald at Glasgow University Library on 19 august 2002 at the inaugural meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations' (IFLA) Law Libraries Discussion Group held in conjuction with the 68th IFLA General Conference 18–24 August. The Paper argues the case for Scotland, as a distinct jurisdiction within the UK, having its own seperate, identifiable, and official gateway to legal information.

Does the following scenario sound familiar? You have an enormous amount of data that needs putting into some sort of coherent order. Your external Web site and company intranet contain vast numbers of documents and offer links to yet more information sources, all containing yet more data.

Your role in this deluge of information often leaves you feeling as though you are running to stand still. There are thousands of users (company employees as well as external browsers) searching for thousands of different documents and you have the unenviable job of making all of this information available to them in an efficient manner. Too much data, too little data, or data which is inaccurate are all potential problems to a user.

‘You'll be bored’ they told me, when I left my post in a busy law firm library and took up the role of Information Manager at the Bristol Law Society, surrounded by leather-bound books and cherry-wood shelves. I think it was a problem of perception: what would I do with my time without having partners demanding their research by yesterday, if not sooner? Would people really want me to provide very old cases all day long? Just what exactly was the local law society library for?

The South African law library holds a similar function to that of its English counterpart. It provides a primary source to describe the law and how it has changed and grown over time. South African attorneys fulfil a similar role to solicitors and South African advocates can be equated with barristers. While attorneys have recently gained rights of audience in the High Court, most attorneys continue to brief advocates in complex matters due to their specialised knowledge and skills.

In a paper given at the 39th Annual BIALL Conference held in Dublin in June 2008, Samantha Steer covered key findings from the 2007 Sweet & Maxwell Survey Information Managers in the 21stCentury. The survey was prompted by changes in the legal market, including those that will follow from the Legal Services Act, and the wider availability of new technology, altering the delivery of legal information. The findings cover past changes to the information management role, and perceptions as to how the role will continue to change over the coming years.

The aim of this article, written by Martin Vorberg, is to portray the approach to information logistics at a private law school in Hamburg, Germany which is a largely self-sufficient, coordinated library system, with occasional use of local libraries and supra-regional delivery services. The article describes the management of a main library and more than twenty branch libraries in the context of some challenging times and in relation to hybrid collections and the uses of electronic media.

The purpose of this article, written by John Furlong, is to provide a comparative overview of the Irish legal system with that of the jurisdictions of the United Kingdom and will cover the range of free-to-use resources that are available in respect of Irish case law, legislation and commentaries. The content is aimed at librarians and legal information professionals who are required from time to time, to understand and source Irish law. The article is based on a paper presented at BIALL's 45th Annual Conference, which was held in Harrogate in 2014.

This is a further contribution to the Squire Law Library Eminent Scholars Archive by Lesley Dingle. It is based on interviews with Stephen Schwebel about his distinguished career as an international jurist in the United States and at the International Court of Justice.

In the 1970s London law firms realised just how useful law librarians could be and there was a huge growth in their number during the 1980s. The first co-operative venture began in the mid-70s when we produced a Union List of Holdings and from that grew the City Law Librarians Group. By 1986 there were at least 60 firms in London employing over 150 professional law librarians. Provincial law firms were generally smaller but by the same date firms in Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Norwich and Bristol were employing law librarians.

Keeping up-to-date with available resources in the legal information field is often a daunting task; patrons in all sectors continue to demand the most accurate and cost-effective information. Beyond the ever-increasing number of resources that librarians must keep track of in their own jurisdiction, there are an equal number of developments in other jurisdictions which add additional challenges. These new resources, in addition to the unique quirks encountered when researching the law in a different jurisdiction, can make for a challenging task, as Alison Shea explains.

Online legal resources are increasingly the sole official source. Authentication – the means to demonstrate that materials are what they purport to be – is inseparably interrelated with the official status of sources on the web. This article by Richard J. Matthews examines key features of the UK Statute Law Database, the US Government Printing Office future digital system (FDsys), and the Ohio Supreme Court database of judicial decisions that are relevant to assessing appropriate authentication procedures for those resources. Archival and computational authentication methods are reviewed. Overall findings of AALL's State-by-State Report on Authentication of Online Legal Resources and its recent national summit on authentic legal information on the web are analysed.

This is the second contribution by Lesley Dingle and Daniel Bates to an expanding audio and photographic archive, which focuses on the careers of prominent academics who have a long affiliation with the Faculty of Law at Cambridge University.

Many organisations, be they publishers or other information rich enterprises, are in possession of large volumes of data to which they are looking to add value in various ways. The motivation behind this might be purely commercial (a desire to publish revenue-generating material, for example) or, if the data is not intended for external consumption, an attempt to facilitate and improve the flow ofinformation within an organisation.

The Human Rights Act 1998 (the Act) incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention) into English domestic law for the first time since the Convention was signed in 1951. It does this by imposing a duty on public authorities to act in a manner which is consistent with Convention rights, unless legislation prohibits them for doing so.

Most of these sites contain very good sets of links, both to other Government sites and to other sources of legal information. It is by no means comprehensive, as a comprehensive list would require far more space than is available here, and would also become outdated far more quickly than this selective list. The important thing to remember is that the information is, usually, out there somewhere.

I came to Thailand 18 months ago. An amazing opportunity had arisen to work in Bangkok and as my ‘other half’ was also being transferred, off we set. The contract was to work in our Bangkok office for 2/3 years in a regional role supplying commercial information and research to the five Asian offices and, of course, experience the life of another country.

This was the decade of the IT office revolution which would have a profound impact on working practices within law firms, including the library. The first, and arguably biggest, change was the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. The first law firm website was set up in 1994, and by the end of the decade virtually all law firms were using this as the key way to present their offerings. The first text message was sent in 1992. In 1994 Amazon was founded, as a source for buying books! By 1996 we were able to organize our contacts and diaries on a PalmPilot. Google was founded in 1998.

Gerry Power was invited to go to the University of Jos in April 2006 to present workshops to the Law Faculty and other interested legal professionals on using the internet for legal research. He writes about his experiences in dealing with running online workshops whilst coping with electricity shortages and the incredible experience of Nigeria!

In this combined article, five authors provide a brief summary of the activities of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) and the developments in law librarianship over the past 50 years, each writing about a different decade. Barbara Tearle (writing about the 1970s), Christine Miskin (the 1980s), Michael Maher (1990s), Fiona Fogden (2000s) and Narinder Toor (2010s) each bring their own experiences and memories to their writing and complete a half century of reflections to coincide with BIALL's 50th anniversary in 2019.

The Principles of Legal Research (PLR) website of the University of Ottawa's Brian Dickson Law Library is a bilingual (English and French) online learning tool for all first year students in both Common Law and Civil Law.1 Law librarians use this e-learning website to facilitate teaching components such as student assignments and assessments. This user experience study aims to investigate law students’ real experience with the system. Their feedback will be used for future development planning as well as analysing user behaviour trends. The authors investigate the following aspects: accuracy of information, interface design, navigation system, Web 2.0, social media, and smartphone version.